Aisha licked her lips as she thought about how smooth and agile Patrick had been playing that dance game

He hadn’t lied at all. He certainly had moves. She wondered what other kind of moves he had, and she licked her lips again.

This time without any warning or announcement, Patrick swooped down and covered her lips with his. And this wasn’t one of those soft, fleeting brushes he’d been priming her up with. No, this was a long, savoring, enveloping kiss.

She opened to his demanding mouth and let her tongue taste what it really wanted to taste. Him. He pulled her off the sofa and onto his lap, continuing to devour her with his scalding-hot mouth. She had started something that he was clearly going to finish.

Aisha felt overwhelmed. She had never had a man be so attentive to her needs. She started to glimpse the gentle soul that was hiding behind the domineering persona and began to fear that she was already losing her heart to him. When Patrick kissed her again, she knew for sure that it was already gone.

GWYNETH BOLTON

was born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey. She currently lives in central New York with her husband, Cedric. When she was twelve years old she became an avid reader of romance by sneaking into her mother’s stash of Harlequin and Silhouette novels. In the ’90s she was introduced to African-American and multicultural romance novels and her life hasn’t been the same since.

Bolton has a BA and an MA in English/creative writing and a PhD in English/composition and rhetoric. She teaches classes in writing and women’s studies at the college level. She has won several awards for her romance novels, including five Emma Awards and a Romance in Color Reviewer’s Choice award for new author of the year. When she is not teaching or working on her own romance novels, she is curled up with a cup of herbal tea, a warm quilt and a good book. She can be reached via e-mail at gwynethbolton@prodigy.net, and readers can also visit her Web site, www.gwynethbolton.com.

Sizzling Seduction
Gwyneth Bolton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the readers…

Thanks for writing me and telling me that you enjoyed the Hightowers. And thanks for helping to spread the word about the series. I appreciate you all very much. I am because you are. Thank you!

Dear Reader,

Thank you so much for your support of the Hightower Honors series. There are really no words to properly express how much your e-mails and notes have meant to me. I’m happy that so many of you have fallen in love with this family as much as I have. And for those readers who read the earlier novels and decided that Patrick Hightower was the one for them, here he is!

We all know Patrick was the president of the he-man woman-haters club. He is the oldest Hightower brother and the most resistant to love. So you know once love caught up to him, Cupid had to knock him off his feet hard and fast. Too bad he ends up falling for a woman just as resistant to falling in love as he had been!

Aisha Miller is the perfect woman for Patrick, but the divorced mother and kindergarten teacher refuses to acknowledge it. It’s up to Patrick to pull out all the stops and seduce the woman of his dreams right into his arms.

Sizzling Seduction is a slow-burning love story that steadily rises to an uncontrollable, passionate heat. It is a story about trust and learning to love again.

I hope you enjoy Patrick and Aisha’s story!

Gwyneth

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I want to thank God for the many blessings in my life.

I’d also like to thank the following people because they were so instrumental in my getting the Hightower firemen right: Kristi Johnson, Wayne Rochette and Lieutenant Kent Young. All three of these people are part of that special team who help to protect and serve. Kristi, a volunteer EMT, and her partner Wayne Rochette, a volunteer firefighter, helped me to flesh out Joel Hightower’s motivation back when I wrote Make It Hot. My editor wanted me to dig deeper and really get into Joel’s head about why he loved being a firefighter. Kristi and Wayne provided the perfect insight! Kristi was then kind enough to bug Wayne one more time and they put me in contact with Lieutenant Kent Young of Fire Station Five in Syracuse. Lieutenant Young took time out of his busy schedule to talk to me about the job and give me a tour of the station. He also gave me the coolest coloring book they give to schoolchildren who visit the station. Syracuse Fire Department Presents Fire Safety with Helpful Hector the Smoke Detector and Buddy the Battery gave me the perfect inspiration for the initial meeting scene between Patrick and Aisha when she visits the fire station with her kindergarteners. Lieutenant Young’s comments and tour helped me to really flesh out what Patrick’s day might be like. Any mistakes or misrepresentations of the firefighting life are mine and mine alone.

Finally, I’d like to thank my family: my mother, Donna, my sisters Jennifer, Cassandra, Michelle and Tashina, my nieces Ashlee and Zaria, and my husband, Cedric.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Chapter 1

“Rise and shine, Dillon. Time to get up and get dressed for school. Regular oatmeal or cream of wheat?” Aisha Miller stood in the doorway of her ten-year-old son’s Spider-Man-decorated room and started their morning ritual. She knew that she would probably have to make at least one more trip back there before he dragged himself from bed.

He made an indistinguishable groaning sound, but he didn’t move.

“Dillon, don’t make me have to come in there. Get up. We don’t want to be late. I’m going to start the oatmeal. By the time it’s done and I come back here again, you better be washed up and getting dressed. Your clothes are on the chair.”

He made another groaning sound. But this time he moved and sat up, pulling the Spider-Man sheets from over his head. “Cap’n Crunch,” he uttered before flopping back down.

Instead of the bargaining-for-more-time-to-sleep battle he was starting with the bargaining-for-sweets-to-eat battle. Aisha grinned. Her son certainly kept her on her toes.

“Cream of wheat,” she countered.

He got up from bed and did a slow-dragging walk to the bathroom. “Corn Pops.”

“Umm…no…Oatmeal or cream of wheat?

He gave a resigned sigh. “Cream of wheat.”

“Okay, get washed up and dressed. We need to be out the door before seven-thirty. I’m taking my morning class on a trip to the fire station today and I need to get to school a little early in order to handle some paperwork. Paperwork that needs to be turned in to Principal Gibson today. So stop dragging those little feet and let’s get rolling.”

He groaned again and half dragged on down the hall. She couldn’t help but chuckle. He reminded her so much of herself when she was a kid. She’d never liked getting up in the morning for school and always tried to negotiate with her mother for an extra five minutes. In fact, if she didn’t have to get both herself and Dillon ready, she would have hit the snooze button a few times and would just be crawling out of bed herself.

When she got the cream of wheat going she took a trip back down the hall and saw that Dillon had made it to the living room and was watching morning cartoons while he put on his clothing. Really, he was staring at the screen and punctuating the long stretches of viewing by placing one item of clothing on his body at a time. At the rate he was going, he’d be dressed by the time the afternoon talk shows came on.

She walked over and turned off the television. “This is why you don’t have a television in your bedroom, Dillon. And what did I tell you about coming in here and turning on the television before you get dressed? If you got up on time and got dressed quickly, you’d have a couple of minutes to catch some cartoons before it was time to go.”

“Aw-ww…Mo-m…”

“Don’t aww mom me. Hurry up before your breakfast gets cold.”

Dillon moved considerably faster without the distraction of the television and soon he was fed and they were out the door, in the car and on their way.

“I have the coolest idea, Mom.” Dillon literally bounced with excitement in the passenger seat.

“Really, I can’t wait to hear it. What’s your cool idea?”

“You can write my teacher a note and take me to the fire station with your class today. That would be so cool. I’ve never been to a real fire station. I wonder if they’d let me slide down the pole?”

“I can tell you the answer to that. They wouldn’t because you won’t be going to the fire station. You can’t miss class to go on someone else’s trip. And you wouldn’t want to hang out with my little darling kindergartners.”

Dillon got a pensive expression on his face as if he was considering the merits of getting out of school versus spending the morning with kindergartners. He frowned. “Well, it seemed like it might have been a cool idea. But now that I think about it…”

“Mmm-hmm…” She pulled into the parking lot. Before getting out she leaned over and offered her cheek to her son. He had reached the age where any public displays of affection from Mom would embarrass him to no end. So she always made sure to get her sugar before they got out of the car.

Dillon offered only one “Awww, Mom” before giving her a quick peck on the cheek and dashing out of the car to the school building.

She got out, grabbed her bags and supplies and followed closely behind. “And you stop that running once you get in the building. You don’t want Principal Gibson to give you detention.”

“Okay, Mom.” Dillon slowed his pace when he reached the big blue doors of Public School #21. He pulled the door open and held it for her as she walked in.

“Thank you, sweetie.”

“M-ooo-m. No ‘sweetie’ in school—somebody might hear you.”

She laughed. “Keep it up and I’m going to give to give you a big hug in front of all your friends.”

She watched her son walk up to the second floor of the building for his before-school math tutoring. Ms. McCloud was kind enough to see him before school to help him with his math.

The building was still somewhat quiet. But soon it would be bustling with the sounds of children learning and playing. PS #21 was a kindergarten through eighth grade elementary school in the heart of Paterson, New Jersey, on Tenth Avenue. She’d been lucky to get a job teaching in the same school district in which she lived, at the school closest to her home and the one her son attended. Dillon probably didn’t think so, but it worked for her.

Once she’d finished her paperwork and returned from the principal’s office, her teacher’s assistant, Toni, had arrived.

Aisha smiled. “Well, well, look who’s on time today.”

Toni grinned and waved her off. “Girl, please, of course I’m on time today. I can’t wait to take these little rug rats to the fire station. My future husband might be waiting for me as we speak. I can’t keep my hunky fireman husband-to-be waiting. How do I look?” Toni did a little spin and showed off her latest trendy outfit. The bold splash of orange and purple in the blouse refused to be outdone by the orange skirt, dark plum tights and purple patent-leather boots. But with Toni’s wild personality the outfit worked.

Aisha knew she could never pull off something like that—not that she would have any desire to. Just give her a pair of neutral slacks and a nice sweater twinset any day. Maybe some gold jewelry.

“You look…nice…” Aisha started. Toni really did look nice—not Aisha’s personal taste, but nice nonetheless.

Toni cut her eyes. “You don’t like the outfit. I can tell. But my future fireman husband is going to be all on it. You watch and see. Plus, everyone can’t pull off prissy-priss-chic like you. Some of us need flair.”

“Prissy-priss?” Aisha feigned indignation. “That’s Ms. Priss, thank you very much. I can’t help it if I’m a little more reserved….”

“Ummm…Reserved isn’t going to snag you one of those hot firemen. You’ll see. Watch me work it, girl.” Toni did a little spin and shook her head so that the blunt edges of her stylish haircut moved with sassy precision.

Aisha just laughed. She wasn’t looking for a hot, sexy fireman as a future husband, boyfriend or anything else. The only man she had time for in her life was ten years old and upstairs being tutored in math. Being Dillon’s mom and being the best kindergarten teacher she could be was more than enough for her.

One by one the students started showing up, and soon she had an entire classroom full of kiddies. After a brief morning lesson, they’d take the six-block walk to Fire Station No. 5 and get a tour and a lesson in fire safety.

Aisha grinned in anticipation. She liked taking class trips almost as much as the kids did. She couldn’t wait.

Patrick Hightower eyed his squad as they lined up in the apparatus room for roll call. Of the five men on duty on any given shift, his position as fire captain never changed.

He was the officer in charge.

He took note of his men. All of them were present and accounted for, uniformed and ready to roll at the sound of an alarm. Reggie Smith, the rookie, was there and Patrick had a special assignment for him today. They had a group of kindergartners coming through later, and the rookie could give them a tour.

“Jones, you’re the driver today.” Patrick went down his list. “Carter, you’re position three. Stone, you’re position four. And Smith, you’re position five, waterman and general helper.”

“No big surprise there,” Reggie grumbled.

“Awww…the rookie’s getting tired of playing his position.” Lennie Stone playfully ribbed Reggie.

The other men laughed, and Patrick was tempted to join them. But he had one more surprise for the rookie. Holding back his own grin, he added, “And we have a tour today. So you can show us what you know, rookie, by leading the tour and giving a presentation to the group of kindergarteners we have coming in.”

“Kindergartners?” A look of horror crossed Reggie’s face. “Couldn’t my first time leading a tour be with some older kids? The small ones scare me.” Reggie offered a fake shiver.

“Hey, if you can face a fire you can face some five-year-olds,” Patrick said.

“I don’t know. I think I’d take my chances with the fire anytime.” Bryan Carter winked, shaking his head in mock sympathy.

Patrick went over the rest of the schedule for the day, knowing that one call would set his entire carefully planned schedule off for the day. Once he set out the schedule, the men went about checking the fire engine and equipment to make sure that everything was fully operational.

There were two other firefighters who were also certified first-responder and emergency medical technicians on this shift besides himself, and Patrick knew that the men would also check the medical equipment and verify that all medications were there.

Patrick went back to his office/bedroom to log personnel and equipment on to the computer and wrap up a few other administrative ends.

The room that he spent more time in than he spent in his own bedroom at home housed a desk, a twin bed, a couple of chairs, a computer and printer. The décor probably left a lot to be desired for most folks. The beige-and-brown comforter on the bed and the cream plaid chairs didn’t exactly scream high-end. But it was sufficient for the work he needed to get done.

His cell phone started ringing and he glanced at the caller ID before answering.

“Yes, Aunt Sophie?”

“How’s my favorite nephew this morning?” Her voice was way too pleasant for the time of morning and for her demeanor in general.

Something was up. She was that pleasant only when she was trying to hook him up with some woman she thought would be perfect for him.

Been there, done that and got the divorce papers to prove it.

There was no way he was going to allow her to reel him in and hook him up. Plus, if he weren’t at work it would be too early for his aunt to be calling him anyway. She must be trying to catch him when he was sleepy and groggy and liable to agree to anything.

“I’m fine, Aunt Sophie. But I’m at work and I can’t talk now. I need to run the guys through a drill and we have to handle chores at the station before a group of kids come through for a tour in a few.” He almost felt guilty rushing her off the phone. Almost. “So how about I give you a call later this week? In fact, I’ll try and make time to take my favorite aunt out to lunch. Okay? I really have to go now.”

“Well…okay…I guess I can run some things by you over lunch. I just think you’ve been single too long and it’s time for you to just—”

“Yeah, this is definitely a lunchtime conversation.” Not. “I’ll give you a call later this week and we can set up a time. Love you, Aunt Sophie. I’ll talk with you later. Bye-bye.”

“Well…fine…bye, Patrick. We will talk later—I have some ideas. I’m concerned about your happiness. I don’t think you’ve ever gotten over Courtney. And—”

“Sorry, gotta run, Aunt Sophie. I’ll call you. Bye.”

Yeah, he had to cut her off before she went there. Bringing up the ex-wife was a good enough reason for the dial tone. Sophie was lucky he had respect for his elders. He hung up the phone. The last thing he needed this early in the morning was a reminder of the biggest mistake of his life.

Shaking his head, he got up and started the drill exercise for the morning. They had just enough time to run through it before the kiddies came through.

People had these outrageous images of firemen just sitting around the firehouse playing cards and dominoes and waiting for the alarm to ring. Those images went out with Ward and Beaver. Today’s firemen were constantly learning and growing on the job, with multiple drills performed daily, as well as video training and lectures. They also had to clean the firehouse, cook and perform community outreach by going to schools and offering tours to students. The job was multifaceted and he loved that part of it, almost as much as he loved running into a blaze and saving lives.

He put the team through a drill of working the hose while on the ladder. And soon the little ones were coming through the door. He fully intended to greet them and then get the heck out of Dodge.

“Welcome to Fire Station No. 5, girls and boys. My name is Fire Captain Patrick Hightower.” He paused and gave them a chance to settle down a little. They were clearly hyped from the walk over, and some of them seemed literally ready to bounce off the walls. He scanned the crowd of munchkins, then sought out their teacher.

Good, he thought; there are two of them. They should be able to keep the kids corralled. His eyes skimmed right over the young woman with the weird boots, even though she did look familiar. Did she go to his church? She seemed to be striking a pose as if she was waiting to be noticed or something.

The other teacher was bent over, consoling a little girl who had apparently tripped coming into the building. He zeroed in on her behind and chastised himself even as he checked her out. A backside like that deserved more than a passing glance, but he knew it wasn’t the time or the place.

She was good with the little kid, though. She seemed to have the right amount of patience and kindness needed to deal with kids at such a tender age. The little girl seemed more embarrassed than actually hurt. But the teacher treated the child as if she were the center of the universe. And soon the little girl was cracking a snaggle-toothed grin.

The teacher stood up. “Sorry about that, Captain….” Her voice trailed off as she caught his gaze. The most beautiful brown eyes he’d ever seen caught his eyes and held them.

He opened his mouth and closed it several times. The little ones had long since settled down, and they were looking at him expectantly.

She was stunning.

He stared. He couldn’t help it. And apparently neither could she, because she just kept looking at him as if she couldn’t pull her gaze away.

He cleared his throat, still keeping his focus on her. “As I said, welcome to Fire Station No. 5. I’m Captain Patrick Hightower and I’m going to leave you in the very capable hands of Firefighter Reggie Smith. He’ll be guiding your tour today and answering all of your questions. Enjoy yourselves.”

He should have left and gone back to his office then. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

Chapter 2

As many times as Patrick had given the welcoming spiel, as many times as he had handed over the reins of the student visits to the firehouse to some poor rookie who had the pleasure of leading the schoolchildren on their tour, Patrick couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t move his legs. And what in the hell was wrong with his tongue?

He looked her up and down. She came to about his shoulder and had a curvy body, skin that was a rich shade of brown with reddish undertones, and wore her long, brown hair away from her face with a dark blue headband. Her eyes looked as if someone had taken canes of light and dark brown sugar and spun them together. Yes, she was sugar and spice and everything nice…

Staring at the woman, who made navy blue slacks, a powder-blue sweater twinset, pearl earrings and a necklace look like one of Victoria’s deepest, most scintillating secrets, he realized the kindergarten teacher had something to do with his sudden speechlessness. Patrick had always been good at warding off any chance of having his heart stolen again.

He just didn’t know how it managed to happen, and how he never had a chance to stop it. But if the erratic thumping in his chest and the sudden clamminess in his hands were any indication, he was smitten with the sexy schoolteacher.

Oh, he didn’t have a problem with the opposite sex, per se. He just has a problem with being so taken by a woman he couldn’t move or speak. Short, hot, steamy affairs he could do and do again. But this…

This was new. This was dangerous. This was worse than running headfirst into a five-alarm blaze with no gear and no clue. And this…

This was inevitable.

At the age of forty, after thinking he would dodge this ever happening to him again, Patrick Hightower had just met a woman he actually wanted to get to know better.

Some men just take up all the space and air in the room. And given that fact, Aisha Miller sized him up.

Tall, dark and handsome had nothing on this towering wall of muscles or the way he filled out that navy blue-and-white uniform. She didn’t think she had a thing for men in uniform. Thick, muscular thighs, strong pipes for arms, official and authoritative clothing…her heart raced.

She tried to focus on other things in the firehouse. The truck? Look at it—all red and shiny and pretty. The engine…

Just listen to the words. Focus on the words. Focus on my students. Ignore this man.

As if she could…

“Stay away from hot things that can hurt!” Her kindergarten students yelled the words at the top of their little lungs as they repeated after the young fireman who had just given them a tour of the fire station.

Their guide was in his early twenties and seemed to be having just as much fun as the kids. He didn’t look bad in his uniform, either. Maybe she could try to focus on him.

Nope, even the cute little tender-roni fireman guide couldn’t distract her.

She glanced at Toni in her outrageous purple-and-orange getup trying to catch the young firefighter’s eye by flirtingly repeating after him with the children. Surely Toni’s antics should have wrestled her attention from the sexy fire captain. Toni batted her eyes, and Aisha’s eyes went right back to the fire captain.

Dang!

Aisha couldn’t help it. She stared at the sexy, very hot fire captain who was standing there watching them all. Captain Hightower. He’d said his name was Captain Patrick Hightower. She wondered why he was still in the room. He wasn’t giving them the tour. Last year when she’d brought her students for a tour, the highest-ranking officer on duty had introduced himself, given them a welcome and hightailed it out of there, leaving it up to the young rookie to do the grunt work.

Tall. Rock-hard. Solid muscle and masculinity. Devil-may-care smile. Oh, yeah. He was a hot thing that could hurt all right.

“Tell a grown-up when you find matches or lighters,” the students yelled.

“Stop, drop and roll if your clothes catch on fire.” They dropped on the ground and rolled around.

“Cool a burn!” Their little voices piped through the huge hall.

“That’s right. If you happen to burn yourselves, you should immediately cover the spot with cold water.” The rookie firefighter whose name she still could not remember—as if she could remember another name with the name Patrick Hightower taking over every nook and crevice of her mind—coached the children with gems of fire safety.

Cold water would have been good at that moment. It might have helped with the sudden heat she was feeling. She could drink a glass and cool her dry-as-the-desert mouth and throat. She could splash it all over herself to calm down the overwhelming body heat she felt when she looked at Patrick Hightower. The heat and the sweat popping out all over her was unbearable.

Early menopause? It could happen as early as thirty-five. She was thirty-five. But something told her it wasn’t early menopause causing the steam to roll up her neck and making her hand want to fan, fan and fan away.

“Crawl low under smoke!” her little darlings repeated.

“Know the sound of the smoke alarm,” they added.

The ringing of the alarm jolted her and she blinked.

Sound effects? Hmm…She certainly needed a warning if Captain Hightower’s heated stare meant what she thought it meant.

“Practice an escape plan,” the kindergarteners said with the same tone of authority that the young rookie had used.

You haven’t said anything but a word!

She needed an escape plan. She took a slow, calming and deep breath and tried to appear natural about letting it out. No matter what, she wasn’t going to give the man the time of day. That was for sure. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. So there was really no need to get all nervous and hot and bothered.

“Recognize the firefighter as a helper,” the children chanted after the rookie.

Yeah.

Right.

She glanced up at the fire captain again. He smiled, a sexy, sizzling, seductive smile. His eyes seemed to say, “How may I help you?” And his body language—the cool, confident, assured stance—offered a multitude of possibilities.

She continued to observe him, cautiously, and he continued to hold her gaze. Fire Captain Hightower didn’t appear to know the meaning of the words back down.

Too bad.

Aisha shook her head with all the rejection she could muster lacing her stare and posture. She even put on her best don’t-even-try-it-or-think-about-it-brother glare and placed her hand on her hip, blocking his sensual assault with everything she could. It might have helped if she didn’t find herself so incredibly attracted to him.

And what did the man have the nerve to do in the face of her rejection? He saw her shaking head and smiled as he nodded! He even mouthed the word yes before winking at her and leaving the room.

The air seemed to return to the room with a gush. The kids were being taught what to do. She gasped as she wondered who in hell was going to save her?

He couldn’t just let her leave without asking her out. Could he? It wasn’t every day that he met a woman who piqued his interest enough to even bother with the effort it took for any kind of approach. And she already had his adrenaline going at high speed.

She didn’t seem particularly approachable or even open to his advances. That could be a problem. But he was never one to back away from a challenge. And something screamed in his head that she would be his biggest challenge yet. He just wanted to get to know her after all. What could be the harm in that?

“Excuse me, Ms. Miller.” He caught up to her just as she and her teaching assistant led the students out of the building. “Can I speak with you for a moment? I promise not to take too much of your time. I know you have to get the little ones back to school.”

He cleared his throat. He sounded like a sucker to his own ears. That wasn’t good. He straightened his stance and put on a mental cloak of confidence. No matter how ill-fitting it felt at the moment, he needed something if he was going to get this sexy woman to give him the time of day and he was woefully out of practice.

She let out a breath and nodded at her assistant before walking over to him.

“Look, Captain Hightower—”

“Would you like to go out on a date sometime?” They had started talking at the same time, but only he continued and actually finished his sentence.

She stood there looking at him. She swallowed before opening her mouth and then she paused.

He took her pause as an opening for him to make his case. “Look, I don’t do this kind of thing all the time, if that’s what you’re thinking. But I know for a fact that we’d both regret it if we don’t go out on at least one date. So how about you give me your number and we square out the logistics later?”

Smooth.

Her head reared back and her hands found her hips. Again, he wondered how she made a straight-leg pair of navy blue slacks so sexy. His eyes followed each movement and remained fixed on her hips for a second too long. He shook his head and found her giving him the Aunt Esther “You-fish-eyed-fool” slanted-eye glare. She glanced at her students and then seemed to think better of telling off the fire captain.

“Thanks, but no thanks.” She folded her arms across her chest, her entire posture daring him to say another word.

“But…” He wanted to say they’d be good together. That he could feel it after only knowing her for a few minutes.

Was he coming on too strong?

Probably.

Did he have a choice?

Probably not, especially if watching the first woman who had managed to work her way past his shield and make him want more than a brief affair without even trying was any indication.

She rolled her eyes at him before plastering on an overly bright smile and turning to her students. “Say thank-you to Fire Captain Hightower for opening up the firehouse for our tour, boys and girls.”

“Thank you, Fire Captain Hightower!” The boys and girls hollered. And with that they took off down the street and back to school.

He couldn’t help but smile. He fully intended to take the cute and sassy kindergarten teacher out on a date.

“He shoots. He fumbles. He’s outta here!” The rookie, Reggie Smith, had the nerve to be standing there grinning at Patrick as he chanted his little taunt. Then he added a little mock sympathy to boot. “Aww, better luck next time, Captain Hightower. Maybe if you got more practice, you’d have better game.”

“Get back to work, rookie. I think the coffee is running low.”

In addition to handling the student tours and anything else the more seasoned firefighters didn’t want to do, it was the rookie’s job to make sure there was always fresh coffee. It was not the rookie’s job to tease his superiors. But Patrick had other things to think about that were far more pressing. Things like: Why did she say no? And how could he get her to say yes? Those ranked high on his list….

“My, my, my, somebody has a big ol’ fine sexy admirer. A big ol’ fine sexy Hightower admirer! The single women at Mount Zion Baptist are going to mourn up a storm when the word hits that the last Hightower has bitten the dust.” Toni started running off at the mouth as they led the children back into the classroom.

Aisha shook her head. She should have known her nosy little teaching assistant wasn’t going to let the incident at the firehouse slide.

Toni was one of those long and lean sisters who wore style and fashion like it was her birthright. She had one of those chopped and blunt hairstyles that made her look like a rocker girl instead of a teaching assistant and part-time college student. She was in her late twenties and life was still an open book for her. And she apparently knew the fire captain, so getting her to give it a rest would be darn near impossible.

Impossible or not, Aisha knew she was going to try her best to ignore the girl.

“Nap time.” She readied her little munchkins for their naps. When they awakened, it would be exercise time, math time, then time for them to go home.

Watching them resting on their cots with their little blankets and pillows made her heart full. All of a sudden she felt so glad that she had finally followed her heart and become a teacher. It had been a long and circuitous journey but she’d made it, and her life was on the right track. No way was she going to let some sexy fire captain turn her head.

“Have you thought about the book club? We’re meeting this Saturday at my cousin Jenny’s house. Everyone is bringing at least one other person. So I’m hoping you’ll be my person. Be my person, ple-ase.” Toni grinned and it was all Aisha could do not to laugh.

Aisha straightened one of the lopsided construction paper turkeys that her students had made by tracing their hands. It was only mid-October, but they started making holiday decorations earlier and earlier. Soon they’d be making paper Santas and stockings with their names on them. She then turned her attention back to Toni.

“You know I only like to read romance novels. If I join a book club, then I’m going to have to read sad and depressing books and Lord knows what else.” She had seen enough sad and depressing in life and didn’t need to read about it in her free time.

She had given the book club some thought, though. While she would love to make a few new friends in the area finally and have some adult company, as a single mom, she didn’t have a lot of free time to read and what free time she did have she saved for her romance novels. A. C. Arthur, Ann Christopher, Brenda Jackson, Deatri King-Bey, Victoria Wells, Beverly Jenkins and LaConnie Taylor-Jones had first billing whenever she had a moment to spare.

“Plus, you know I don’t like to leave Dillon with a babysitter, especially on the weekend. My ex finds every conceivable way to skip his visitations. And I’m not mad about that because I don’t want my son around him anyway. But that means no weekends off for me.”

“First of all, it would do us all some good to expand our horizons and read outside our comfort zones. I’m doing it because I want to read something besides all the boring stuff I’m reading in school.” Toni shook her head and the razor-sharp asymmetrical cut moved with precision and then fell right back into place.

“And it will only be one book a month,” Toni added. “You might like it. And for all those romance novels you’re reading, you would think you would be more open to going out on a date with that fine Captain Patrick Hightower. Yummy…I can’t believe you turned him down!”

“Oh, would you look at the time…” Aisha glanced down at her watch. “It’s almost time to get these little ones up so they can get ready to go home for the day.”

“Uh-uh, don’t even try it. We’ve got five minutes. But I promise I’ll leave it alone if you agree to go with me to the book club meeting. Just come to this first open meeting and see if you like it. Maybe we could even read a couple of those romance novels you like so much…”

“What about Dillon? It’s too late for me to look for a sitter—”

“You don’t need one. You can bring him along. My cousin Jenny has two kids of her own, a little boy and a little diva-in-training, and they’ll more than likely be playing in another room. So you can totally bring Dillon with you. He’ll have fun and you’ll both make new friends.”

“Well…I have wanted to meet new people. We’ve been in Paterson a few years, but I still haven’t made a lot of friends outside of work. And Bill got all our Montclair friends with the divorce…I suppose I could go and check it out. But I’m telling you they need to read at least two romance novels.”

“Great!” Toni bounced up and started putting away books and construction paper and anything else the children might have left out in the common areas.

Aisha smiled. At least she had gotten Toni to stop ragging her about Patrick. She had narrowly escaped that situation still on course. It would have been so easy to say yes to him. To give him her number and take a chance, even when he was everything she needed to avoid in a man.

The only place a larger-than-life alpha male like that could exist and not be a danger to those around him was in a romance novel. And the only way for her to change the cycle of abuse that plagued the women in her family was not to date and never be vulnerable again. As long as she kept her focus and stayed away from men like Patrick Hightower, she should be okay.

That should be a snap. She could totally do that. No problem.

Patrick who?

Patrick freaking Hightower, that’s who! Of all the YMCAs in all the world, or at least in the north Jersey area, he had to walk into hers. Granted, she wouldn’t have been there this evening if Dillon’s usual karate class hadn’t been rescheduled, forcing her to attend the Zuumba class instead of her normal Pilates. She tried to grab an exercise class while Dillon took his karate lessons and art classes at the Y. The family membership was in her budget, and the fact that she didn’t have to spring for a sitter while she exercised and Dillon actually got to learn new things made the price more than worth it.

She had never seen Patrick Hightower at the Y before. It had been two days since she’d met him at the fire station, two days of her wondering what if she had said yes to his request for a date. It was bad enough he had invaded her mental space. Did he have to invade her gym, as well?

And here she was fresh out of class, sweaty, looking a mess with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she had to run into him. He looked great, perfect, with strong muscular thighs and arms in full view. God bless the person who’d turned those particular pieces of cotton into a T-shirt and shorts. He had a basketball in his hands and he looked as if he was about to shoot some hoops.

She was just about to pray that he wouldn’t notice her when he looked right at her and walked—no, strutted—his fine self right over.

“Well, hello there, Ms. Miller. I didn’t know you belonged to this Y. Why haven’t I run into you here before?” Patrick offered that smile of his, that half-tilt, sparkly-eye thing he did apparently just to make her skin run hot.

“I’m not usually here during this time of day. My schedule got turned around.” And you can best believe it won’t happen again now that I know I could possibly run into temptation on legs. Strong, long, take-me-now legs…

“Listen, I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot the other day and I—”

Another voice interjected, “Aisha, I’m so glad I didn’t miss you. This schedule change has my day all screwed up. You said you would help me figure out these forms the next time the boys had karate. And I left them home and had to go back for them. Can you take a look at them now?”

Aisha turned and saw Mrs. Oliver walking over, waving a bunch of papers, and for a minute her brain had a disconnect. She shook her head to clear it and remembered that the widowed grandmother, who was raising her drug-addicted youngest daughter’s children, had asked her for some help last week filling out the oldest child’s financial aid forms.

When Mrs. Oliver reached them, her eyes sort of squinted and her lips curved. “Oh, I can see you’re busy. I can try and—”

“No, Mrs. Oliver, I’m not busy at all. We have a half hour before the boys are done with karate. Let’s go over here and I’ll try to help you as best I can. It’s been a little while since I last had to fill out financial aid forms. They can be frustrating, but we’ll get them done.” Aisha turned to Patrick. “It was nice running into you again, Captain Hightower. Enjoy your game of basketball.”

She then took off with her new savior, Mrs. Oliver, and found a quiet spot to help her with the forms.

Sure, she would now wonder what would have happened if Mrs. Oliver hadn’t shown up. And seeing him in those shorts wouldn’t do a thing to chip away his muscular image from her mind. But at this point running was the safest thing for her to do.

Patrick stared after Aisha and he couldn’t help the smile that took over his mouth. It still felt foreign and he swore he’d never get used to grinning this much. But ever since he’d met her the other day, he’d found himself smiling more, especially when he thought of her. And he’d thought about her often during the past two days.

Even though it seemed as if she couldn’t wait to get away from him, he sensed a spark there. And even though she was sweat-soaked from her workout, with her hair pulled back, she looked amazing. He glanced over to where she sat helping the older woman with the financial aid forms and he couldn’t help but remember how she had calmly, patiently and lovingly consoled the little girl the other day. She clearly had a gift for helping others. He liked that. Her kind and generous spirit was refreshing and intriguing, and seeing her again worked only to make him all the more determined to get to know her better.

The rest of Patrick’s rotation went by in a blur. He was pretty sure he knew what was happening to him. He had an inkling of a feeling as to why he couldn’t get a prim, proper and prissy kindergarten teacher out of his head. But there was no way to know for sure. He had never felt these oddly fluttery…

What kind of man feels fluttery, anyway?

Just picturing her face made him want to burst out into a wide grin. He was laughing at the corniest jokes and in a damn good mood to boot.

He was hardly ever in a good mood. He typically avoided good moods like the plague. Good moods left people wide-open with their guard down, no defenses. Gruff suited him better. Gruff should have been his middle name. But something was going on with him that was making him, dare he even think it…happy. And fluttery.

Picking up his cell phone, he made three calls to the three men who would best be able to fill him in on the these weird feelings. His younger, married and in love brothers had all made the plunge into matrimony within the past three years.

Once he had two of the three of them at his house, he was beginning to think it wasn’t a good idea after all. His brothers, Lawrence and Joel, both seemed as if they would rather have been anywhere but there. All the Hightower men took after their father in looks, and his father, James Hightower, was almost an exact body double for Richard Roundtree, the original Shaft. They were all tall, in shape and handsome, with mahogany complexions and killer smiles.

Patrick’s younger brother, the second oldest after him, Lawrence, lounged in Patrick’s favorite black leather recliner with his typical nonchalant stare. Lawrence was a narcotics detective with the Paterson Police Department and very little seemed to faze him.

Patrick had only seen Lawrence’s cool, calm demeanor crack once. That was when Lawrence had met the woman who was now his wife. Lawrence had darn near turned himself into the woman’s personal shadow and walked around like he couldn’t figure out right from left for at least three months. And when he finally realized that it was love that had taken him out, he almost blew that.

Patrick frowned. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea talking about any of this with his brothers after all. They probably wouldn’t have useful advice, since they had each struggled in their situations. But they all had their women now and they were all happy….

“Are you going to sit there all night twisting up your face, grunting and mumbling to yourself, or are you going to fill us in on why we had to pull ourselves away from our very beautiful wives? I knew you’d turn into a grumpy old man one day, big bro, but the grumbling and mumbling is a bit much even for you.” Joel, the family prankster, always had a joke or wisecrack ready to go.

There was always one jokester in every family. And, unfortunately for the Hightowers, their one had gone and found the other pea to his pod. Between Joel and his spitfire wife, Samantha, no one was safe. If one didn’t have a joke or a wisecrack, the other one was more than willing to comply.

Joel sat on the black leather sofa, constantly checking his watch, with a wiseguy smirk on his face. He had finally gotten over his bad feelings about his career-ending injury and was content working at Hightower Security and no longer being a firefighter.

“I’m waiting for your baby brother to get here. I need all of you clowns here so I can do this once and only once.” Patrick wondered what was keeping the youngest Hightower.

Even though Patrick had been the first to get married out of the bunch and the first and only one to get divorced, Jason Hightower had been the first to fall in love. He lost his heart to his wife, Penny, when he was barely ten years old. The childhood friends and teenage lovers had broken apart for fifteen years, but they were back together now, married and the parents of the cutest two-year-old girl and the most handsome seven-month-old little boy Patrick had ever seen, with the exception of Joel and Samantha’s little ten-month old son.

Patrick was very biased when it came to his niece and nephews. He was becoming the world’s largest Mr. Softie and those three blessings were the main reasons why. Being an uncle brought him a happiness he couldn’t describe. It also brought a deep longing for a family of his own.

“You know Jason can never pull himself away from his family whenever he has time off. Little Cee Cee has him wrapped around her pudgy two-year-old finger. And he dotes on Jason Jr. so much, we’re gonna have to take the little boy out every now and then when he gets older to toughen him up. Jason is almost as bad with his kids as Joel and Samantha are with Joel Jr.” Lawrence shook his head in mock disgust.

“Like you’re gonna be much better when Minerva has your baby. She’s barely showing and you already can’t stand to be away from her.” Joel let out a hooting laugh.

“No, Joel. He could barely stay away from her from the first moment he set eyes on her. My brother the police officer officially became a stalker. I was worried about you, bro. I’m glad Minerva made an honest man out of you and gave you a legal reason to hang around her all the time.” Patrick joined in Joel’s laughter.

“Now both of y’all got jokes, huh? I’ll tell you what. How about you get to whatever—” Lawrence’s ringing cell phone stopped him midsentence.

“Hey, baby…” Lawrence’s normally tough-guy tone went down a few octaves and Patrick immediately knew who was on the other end of the line. If the loving tone of voice didn’t give it away, then the ear-to-ear grin certainly did. It had to be Minerva. And whatever she said had to be bad because his brother’s grin fell into a deep frown and he cut Patrick a glaring look.

“That’s cool, baby. You have fun with the girls. I’ll see you when we both get home. I can just pick up something quick from the diner.” Lawrence gave Patrick another angry scowl.

Food! How did Patrick know Lawrence’s sour mood had something to do with food? Because Lawrence’s mood could always change when it came down to him getting a good home-cooked meal.

Lawrence hung up his cell. “You owe me big-time, man. What do you have to eat in this dump? Apparently, Mom and Dad decided they wanted to spend some quality time with all their grandchildren and this freed Samantha and Penny to kidnap my wife and take her shopping for all the ‘cute little maternity clothes she’s going to need.”’ Lawrence mimicked the high-pitched, gleeful sound his sisters-in-law made when they talked about clothes and shoe shopping. “So the wonderful home-cooked meal that my wife was going to make for me is no more and you have to feed me.”

The doorbell rang and Patrick shook his head as he went to answer it. “Joel, order a pizza and some wings for your always hungry brother while I let baby bro in.”

The pizza and wings came and they sat in the living room with a basketball game on the flat screen as white noise.

They didn’t get a chance to hang out nearly as much as they used to before his younger brothers all got hitched. Patrick missed that sometimes, but what he got in return—with wonderful sister-in-laws, a niece, two nephews and a new baby on the way—more than made up for the male bonding time he was missing with his brothers. Still it was moments like these when they did hang out that made him happy to have them.

“So.” Lawrence leaned back, rubbing his now full stomach, content for the moment, with a hint of a smile even. “What was so important that we all had to get over here tonight?”

“I think I know what it is.” Jason shook his head. “Aw…man…did you find out that Courtney was moving back to Paterson?”

His ex-wife? Moving back to Paterson? Say what?

“What you talking ’bout, Jason?” Joel laughed at his own impression of Gary Coleman and everyone else just stared at him before turning back to Jason.

Patrick rubbed his chin as he waited for the anger and hurt to surface. It had been ten years since he had found Courtney in bed with another man. Patrick had come down with a severe case of the flu and he’d had to be relieved from his shift at the fire station. He had come home expecting his stay-at-home wife to pamper him and make him feel better.

Instead, flu or no flu, he had ended up opening up a can of whup-ass on the no good lawyer and church deacon he had found in bed with his wife. She begged forgiveness and wanted them to try counseling, but there was just no coming back from that as far as he was concerned. They had only been married for four years. He had hung up his player status at twenty-six to marry a woman he thought was true. And for many years he wondered if she had been cheating the entire time.

When the bad feelings didn’t surface, he shrugged. “I hadn’t heard she was moving back permanently and it really doesn’t matter. It is ironic that she would pick now to move back, though.”

“It wasn’t like she had moved far away anyway. The chick was only in Trenton and she was in town often hanging out with her sorority sisters and having her monthly lunch with Aunt Sophie. She should have moved a whole lot farther away and she should have had the good taste to stay gone,” Joel said.

Patrick sighed. He had figured out intricate ways to avoid running into his ex-wife through the years, stealth-spy ways. And he needed them because from the time the ink dried on the divorce papers, his Aunt Sophie had been trying to get him to take Courtney back.

He hadn’t seen Courtney in at least six months, and that had only been in passing. Even his best avoidance skills were no match for two schemers on a mission. So he figured out a way to deal with seeing her and as the years went by, it bothered him less and less.

“Anyway, none of that is important. And it has nothing to do with why I asked to see you three knuckleheads. I need to pick your brains about the moment you knew that your wives were the one.”

Jason tilted his head and put on his police detective inquisitive stare.

Joel’s mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. He started laughing almost immediately.

Lawrence rubbed his chin and his signature know-it-all smirk graced his face.

Too late to turn back now…

“I mean, I know that Jason was pretty much a goner for Penny from the time he was a kid. Poor sap didn’t stand a chance. And Joel, you walked around with that silly grin on your face all the time. We didn’t think we would ever see you smile again after your accident and then one meeting with your physical therapist, Samantha, and you were sprung. And Lawrence, you took one look at Minerva and you turned into a stalker—”

“I wasn’t a stalker!” Lawrence interrupted in a huff.

“Dude, you were damn close to it. I was worried I would have to arrest my own brother.” Jason chuckled and Lawrence glared at him.

“Anyway, I wanted to find out from you guys—how did it feel? I realized that none of you had a clue you had just met the love of your life. You were too slow to see what the rest of us could tell just from looking at you. But—”

“Wait a damn minute! For somebody who obviously wants our help, you are being a little too free with the put-downs. I know that’s how you are all the time. But if you want my help, you’re going to have to be nicer.” Joel folded his arms across his chest. “And for the record, I did not walk around with a silly grin on my face. And I realized that Samantha was the love of my life fairly quickly and put her on notice, as well. I was much quicker than the stalker cop over there.”

“I was not stalking her! I was doing my job,” Lawrence snapped.

“Anyway.” Jason shook his head at Lawrence. “I’m with Joel. Big bro needs to be a little nicer if he wants our help. And he’s going to have to come clean about why he wants our help. I don’t know about y’all, but I need some more details.”

“I need some more details, too,” Joel said.

“Oh, I definitely need some more details,” Lawrence offered gruffly.

Patrick eyed each of his brothers cautiously. He should have known these three jokers wouldn’t have made this easy. He probably should have toned down his comments, since they had apparently gotten them all riled up.

He leaned forward. “I met a woman—”

“Oh, snap!” Joel stared at him with glee and mirth as he interrupted. “Samantha said that when the love bug bit your surly, grumpy behind it was going to take you down hard and fast. But this is ridiculous. You met her today and she’s already got you calling for council from your younger, smarter, better-looking—”

“All right, can I finish? And tell my sister-in-law to stop talking about me. Anyway, I met a woman today, a kindergarten teacher who brought her class to visit the firehouse—”

“I used to love giving tours to the little kiddies. That was a fun part of the job. The kids really looked up to—” Joel cut him off again.

“Anyway…can I finish?” He glared at his brother.

“Oops. My bad. Go ahead, man.” A sheepish expression crossed Joel’s face.

“So, from the moment I set eyes on her when I welcomed the class to the firehouse, I felt weird. I wanted to keep looking at her. So I hung around for a little while as the rookie gave the tour and I even went out afterward and asked her on a date.”

“Playa, playa…” Jason offered with a smirk. “So when are you taking her out? Is that what you need advice on, where to take her and how to impress her? It’s been a minute since I’ve been in the game, but in my day, you know—”

“I’m not taking her out. Yet. She said she doesn’t date.”

“She doesn’t date? What?” Perplexed, Lawrence frowned. “Wait…Was this a Catholic school? Did you hit on a nun? You know they don’t always wear those habits and stuff anymore—” Lawrence started.

“It was a public school, and she wasn’t a nun! And I’m not asking for advice on how to woo her once I get her to agree to a date.” Disgusted at the thought that his younger brothers would even deign to think that they had more skills that he, Patrick grimaced. “I’m the reason you scrubs had any game to start with, and the last thing I need is advice about that from y’all. Advice? Please! When I taught y’all everything you know?”

“So what do you want?” Jason asked.

“I want to know if this urge to break out into a smile every time I picture her face, if the serious and steady thump in my chest every time I think about her, and this urge I have to find a way, any way, to see her short of stalking…” He shot Lawrence a glance. “I need to know if that’s what it feels like when you meet her…when you’ve met the one. I think that’s why I’m feeling this way and I don’t want to be slow on the uptake like you three clow—I mean, you guys. So—”

“Yes. He’s got it bad,” Jason said with a chuckle.

“And it appears the last Hightower brother has been bitten by the love bug.” Lawrence grinned.

“I don’t know if she’s the one. But it seems like you are recognizing her as the one. That’s for sure. That’s what it feels like. At least that’s what it felt like to me,” Joel offered.

“Me, too,” Jason said.

“Yep. Me, too,” Lawrence added.

“Didn’t you feel like that with Courtney?” Joel asked.

Patrick thought about it for a full minute. He couldn’t recall ever feeling like that from the first moment he had met his ex-wife. He remembered his aunt always pushing them together and he remembered slowly coming to enjoy her company and coming to love her. But he never felt anything like he felt now back then with Courtney.

“No. I didn’t feel like this with Courtney.”

Then, for the first time since his divorce, he started to think that maybe the failure of his marriage wasn’t all Courtney’s fault after all.

Chapter 3

“Did you finish your homework?” Aisha folded her arms across her chest and smiled at her son as he plopped down on the sofa and flipped on the television.

“I didn’t have that much homework,” Dillon offered after the short pause that had always been his tell sign.

Her ten-year-old son was a joy on most days. But morning cartoons made it difficult to get him dressed and out the door for school. And afternoon cartoons distracted him from his homework.

The copper-brown-complexioned child looked like a little male version of her, with the exception of the black curly hair he’d gotten from his dad. Her own hair reached the middle of her back and was chemically straightened. She seldom did more to it than curl the ends and pull it back with one of her many-colored and many-styled headbands. When she was feeling really adventurous, she pulled it back in a ponytail with a scrunchie. One day she would work up enough nerve to cut it all off into one of those funky hairstyles her teaching assistant, Toni, wore. But for now, she had a ten-year-old trying to get out of doing homework to deal with.

“You didn’t answer the question, Dillon.” She added extra inflection in her voice, walked over to the television and stood in front of it.

Sulking, Dillon turned it off and got up. “My favorite show will be off by the time I’m finished.”

“Then maybe you should have started earlier and then you would have been done, huh? You were messing around back there doing everything but your homework. So get to it so that you can be done by dinner.”

A spark of hope gleamed in his big brown eyes. “I could skip dinner and do my homework during dinner and watch my show now. Today we find out if the super ninja spider will—”

She had to cut him off. “Are you trying to say you’d rather watch those silly ninja spiders than eat one of my wonderful creations?”

Aisha knew she wasn’t the greatest cook in the world—nowhere close. She experimented often with recipes that she saw being prepared on TV. But she also tried to make sure she put together simple healthy meals for her child and the little cartoon addict was going to eat his dinner.

“Well, Mom…” Dillon gave her one of his sly, playful grins. “You could stand to watch a little less Food Network.” He backed away as he spoke and his lanky body took off running when she picked up a pillow and tossed it at him.

“Just for that I’m not going to try the new recipe I found for a cool dessert.”

“Yay! No test recipe this week!” her darling child yelled from his back bedroom.

“Oh, do your homework, you little prankster!” She laughed as she plopped down on the sofa and turned on the Food Network. One of these days she was going to get one of those recipes to turn out the way they did on TV.

Watching the cooking shows always soothed her mind and gave her something else to think about. She had never been a great cook and barely made the basics. It hadn’t been a problem when she was married to William “Bill” Miller. He had always been fond of telling her he hadn’t married her for her cooking or her brains.

The moment her verbally abusive former husband decided to up the ante and actually put his hands on her, her life took a detour. She only followed her desire to really learn to cook once she had gotten the courage to leave her husband, go back to school, finish her elementary education degree and got a job with the Paterson public school system.

Life was good now. She just had to make sure she resisted temptation and didn’t let any man try to seduce her into giving up her new path. No matter how sexy and smoking hot he was…

Now that looks good. I bet I can totally make that.

She let her mind think of safer things as she watched the Barefoot Contessa whip together the mocha buttercream frosting. How hard could that possibly be? It looked easy enough. She grabbed the notepad she kept by the sofa and started jotting down the ingredients and directions. She might have missed some, but she was sure she could wing it. She would try the dessert soon. At least she could clear her mind of thoughts about the sexy fireman.

Then, despite her best efforts, she suddenly envisioned herself feeding the fireman delectable morsels of her own mocha buttercream-frosted chocolate cake. The vision looked too good to vanquish from her head right away. So she let it linger. And then she had the nerve to start daydreaming about mocha buttercream frosting and that muscular frame of his. That’s when she knew she had to stop. Too bad she couldn’t….

Chapter 4

Aisha sat in the Public School Number 21 faculty lunchroom, enjoying her turkey, avocado and tomato sandwich on whole wheat. During her hour-long break between her morning class being picked up and her afternoon class being dropped off, the building fire alarm went off. It wasn’t a scheduled drill, so she hurried out of the building, helping other teachers control their students as she exited.

Standing outside in the brisk fall air, she only hoped that whatever fire team responded it wasn’t one led by the sexy fire captain Patrick Hightower. The last thing she needed was a reminder of how she had totally blown off the finest man to ever make a move on her, ever.

She didn’t regret turning him down. Not really…But she certainly didn’t need to see him again. His confident, bordering on cocky, approach let her know that he was probably a man just like her father, just like her ex-husband.

He was not a man she wanted or needed. She repeated those words like a holy mantra in her head and hoped that they would sink in.

When the fire truck and fire engine pulled up and she got a glimpse of him jumping off the truck like a doggone super action hero coming to save the day, looking fine in his full fire-repellant uniform, she cursed the mantra. Her mouth went dryer than the Sudan and she could have sworn her breath was starting to make soft little pants. He looked dead at her; at least she thought he zoomed right in on her before he went into the building.

The other firemen with him hardly seemed to matter. She barely registered their presence. It was something about the way his eyes seemed to take all of her in with one glance that left her blind, deaf and dumb.

She must have been imagining things. There was no way he had found her out of all the other teachers and the many students standing outside the building. She shook her head trying to clear the daze.

Not for me. Not for me. Not for me.

Maybe if she changed her mantra she’d stand a better chance. The image of Patrick’s slow, seductive smile and simmering eyes came into her mind and she realized that all the mantras in the world wouldn’t help her. She’d just have to be sure to stay away from him.

Since there was no smoke and the only heat she could sense was the sizzling sparks she felt whenever she thought of the fire captain, she figured that fate must have conspired with some little kid who was thinking it was a good idea to pull a prank by pulling the fire alarm.

She hoped the little rat was caught and suspended for an entire month—heck, the rest of the school year wouldn’t be enough punishment for him bringing temptation in the form of the sexy fire captain into her world yet again.

Sure enough, there was no fire in the building. The school administrators were now looking for the child who had wasted the time of the fire department.

While they did that and the other teachers took their students back to class, Aisha watched the firemen get back in the truck. She told herself it was because she had to stand outside and wait for her afternoon kindergartners anyway. But deep inside she knew it was because she wanted to get just one more peek at Patrick.

Just because she couldn’t have him didn’t mean she couldn’t look. Did it? What possible harm could be done by looking?

She regretted the thought as soon as she caught his dead-on stare once again. If she had any doubts about who he had been looking at the first time he zeroed in on her, they were all gone now. The rest of the teachers and students had gone back to their classrooms.

She watched as his sumptuous lips slowly curved, showing a hint of perfect white teeth and then the full bright grin hit her and sparked a powerful keening, needful emotion deep down in her gut.

What the heck was it? Lust? Desire? Wantonness? It had to be one of those. Whatever it was, she certainly wasn’t giving in to it. No matter how much it was starting to ache just looking at him.

She let out a sigh when the truck started to pull off. Patrick kept looking at her, though. She could have sworn he kept looking at her until the truck reached the corner. And then he pointed from himself to her and she found herself smiling as she shook her head. He pointed between them again as he nodded and the truck turned the corner.

“Mmm-hmm. I see that, missy. You can’t fool me. You want that fine Hightower man in a bad way, don’t you?”

Rats! When had Toni crept up on her?

Her teaching assistant had had an emergency dental appointment because one of her fillings fell out, and had missed the morning class. Even though the little ones could be more than a handful, Aisha almost wished Toni had stayed out the entire day.

“Looks like I missed the fire drill and the fire, too, the way you two were heating things up out here. Dang, if he wasn’t all the way up there in that truck fully clothed in that sexy fireman’s uniform, I would have had to tell you two to go get a room.”

“Stop playing. How’s your tooth?”

“Uh-uh. Don’t try to change the subject. What did I miss?”

“You missed a false fire alarm. I think it was one of those little roughneck-in-training eighth graders.”

“Okay. Be like that, Aisha. But you wait until I have a sexy fireman giving me the ooo-baby-I-want-you-bad look. Don’t think I’m going to give you the dish. Because I won’t.”

“Girl, you wouldn’t be able to help yourself. You’d tell me everything as soon as the dude cracked the first smile at you.”

Toni burst out laughing. “You know me so well!”

“Hello, Michaela. Stand in line as we wait for the rest of your classmates.” Aisha shot Toni a quick glance to let her know the subject of Patrick Hightower was done as soon as the first parent walked up and dropped off her child.

“Oh, don’t worry, missy, we’re going to finish this conversation at book club tomorrow.” Toni grinned. “Hey, Michaela! Are you ready for a fun afternoon?”

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