Hero By Night (Independence Falls 3)

“A little more?” he asked.

“Oh, yes.”

His arms wrapped around her again, and he slowly traced her lips with his tongue. It slid into her mouth. He tasted like the peppermints Noel Pizza kept in a jar on the front counter. They explored each other for a while as quietly as possible, but maybe not quietly enough.

“Holly, honey,” her grandma called out from the family room. Holly was absolutely going to have a conversation with Grandma when Derrick was out of earshot, and she stifled a groan. All they were doing was a little kissing. He rested one big hand on her butt, which she enjoyed. “Would you please bring me some salad?”

Derrick let out a snort. “I’ll get it for you, Miss Ruth,” he said loudly enough for her grandma to hear.

“She’s onto us,” Holly said softly.

“Damn right.” He grinned at her. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” His voice dropped. “We’re definitely kissing on the second date.”

“I’ll look forward to that.” She tried to pull in a breath. Her head was spinning. She couldn’t have stopped smiling if her life depended on it. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay in my room instead? You need a good night’s sleep. Don’t you have to go to practice?”

“I’m sure your room is very comfortable, but I’ll be fine out here. Sweet dreams,” he said.

She felt him kiss the top of her head as he held her. She took a deep breath of his scent: clean skin, a whiff of expensive cologne, and freshly pressed clothes. “You, too,” she whispered. She reached up to kiss his cheek. “Good night.”

An Excerpt from

IT’S A WONDERFUL FIREMAN

A Bachelor Firemen Novella

by Jennifer Bernard

Hard-­edged fireman Dean Mulligan has never been a big fan of Christmas. Twinkly lights and sparkly tinsel can’t brighten the memories of too many years spent in ramshackle foster homes. When he’s trapped in the burning wreckage of a holiday store, a Christmas angel arrives to open his eyes. But is it too late? This Christmas, it’ll take an angel, a determined woman in love, and the entire Bachelor Firemen crew to make him believe . . . it is indeed a wonderful life.

HE’D FALLEN. MEMORY returned like water seeping into a basement. He’d been on the roof, and then he’d fallen through, and now he was . . . here. His PASS device was sounding in a high-­decibel shriek, and its strobe light flashed, giving him quick, garish glimpses of his surroundings.

Mulligan looked around cautiously. The collapse must have put out much of the fire, because he saw only a few remnants of flames flickering listlessly on the far end of the space. Every surface was blackened and charred except for one corner, in which he spotted blurry flashes of gold and red and green.

He squinted and blinked his stinging eyes, trying to get them to focus. Finally the glimpse of gold formed itself into a display of dangling ball-­shaped ornaments. He gawked at them. What were those things made from? How had they managed to survive the fire? He sought out the red and squinted at it through his face mask. A Santa suit, that’s what it was, with great, blackened holes in the sleeves. It was propped on a rocking chair, which looked quite scorched. Mulligan wondered if a mannequin or something had been wearing the suit. If so, it was long gone. Next to the chair stood half of a plastic Christmas tree. One side had melted into black goo, while the other side looked pretty good.

Where am I? He formed the words with his mouth, though no sound came out. And it came back to him. Under the Mistletoe. He’d been about to die inside a Christmas store. But he hadn’t. So far.

He tried to sit up, but something was pinning him down. Taking careful inventory, he realized that he lay on his left side, his tank pressing uncomfortably against his back, his left arm immobilized beneath him. What was on top of him? He craned his neck, feeling his face mask press against his chest. A tree. A freaking Christmas tree. Fully decorated and only slightly charred. It was enormous, at least ten feet high, its trunk a good foot in diameter. At its tip, an angel in a gold pleated skirt dangled precariously, as if she wanted to leap to the floor but couldn’t summon the nerve. Steel brackets hung from the tree’s trunk; it must have been mounted somewhere, maybe on a balcony or something. A few twisted ironwork bars confirmed that theory.

How the hell had a Christmas tree survived the inferno in here? It was wood! Granted, it was still a live tree, and its trunk and needles held plenty of sap. And fires were always unpredictable. The one thing you could be sure of was that they’d surprise you. Maybe the balcony had been protected somehow.

He moved his body, trying to shift the tree, but it was extremely heavy and he was pinned so flat he had no leverage. He spotted his radio a few feet away. It must have been knocked out of his pouch. Underneath the horrible, insistent whine of his PASS device, he heard the murmuring chatter of communication on the radio. If he could get a finger on it, he could hit his emergency trigger and switch to Channel 6, the May Day channel. His left arm was useless, but he could try with his right. But when he moved it, pain ripped through his shoulder.

Hell. Well, he could at least shut off the freaking PASS device. If a rapid intervention team made it in here, he’d yell for them. But no

way could he stand listening to that sound for the next whatever-­amount-­of-­time it took. Gritting his teeth against the agony, he reached for the device at the front of his turnout, then hit the button. The strobe light stopped and sudden silence descended, though his ears still rang. While he was at it, he checked the gauge that indicated how much air he had left in his tank. Ten minutes. He must have been in here for some time, sucking up air, since it was a thirty-­minute tank.

A croak issued from his throat. “I’m in hell. No surprise.”

Water. He needed water.

“I can’t give you any water,” a bright female voice said. For some reason, he had the impression that the angel on the tip of the Christmas tree had spoken. So he answered her back.

“Of course you can’t. Because I’m in hell. They don’t exactly hand out water bottles in hell.”

“Who said you’re in hell?”

Even though he watched the angel’s lips closely, he didn’t see them move. So it must not be her speaking. Besides, the voice seemed to be coming from behind him. “I figured it out all by myself.”