With Valor And Devotion. Charlotte Maclay

it’d be better for the kid,” he muttered, knowing full well that wasn’t the case for a boy as young as Randy. Unless someone turned up, he’d become just another cog in the system, and a pretty damn helpless one at that. But Ms. McCoy—social worker—being on the other end of the stick, couldn’t fully understand that. “Maybe he’s already in the system. Maybe that was a foster family he was living with and he’d just as soon not go back.”

      “Our foster families aren’t usually squatting in an empty house,” she said defensively. “They’re checked out better than that.”

      “Usually.”

      “Could he be a runaway?”

      “Pretty young for that. And I think there was too much stuff in there for him to have carried it on his own—an old cot he slept on, a mattress in the master bedroom and some basic equipment in the kitchen.”

      “Then it’s a mystery, isn’t it?” She glanced around as the double doors opened to the ambulance entrance and an elderly man was brought in on a gurney.

      Addy swept past them with a clipboard and a tray of supplies for the new arrival.

      “Hey, don’t wear out your dancing shoes, Addy,” Mike warned with a grin.

      “Sugar, if you’re askin’, I’m dancing.” She laughed as she vanished into the examining room with the patient.

      Mike smiled after her. He’d dated Addy a couple of times, his limit with most women. She was fun, full of laughter and a helluva good dancer. But he’d found if he saw a woman more than once or twice they got the wrong idea. A few laughs, a bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers were all any woman could expect from him. A man who’d been raised in a dozen different foster homes in the same number of years didn’t know anything about commitment.

      When he turned back to Kristin, she’d set her jaw in a stubborn line. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to call the police and ask them to check with the neighbors first thing in the morning. Maybe they can learn something of value.”

      “Maybe,” he said noncommittally, wondering why she’d gone all torque-jawed on him. He didn’t usually have that effect on a pretty woman.

      “Meanwhile, I’m sure you have other things to do. I’ll look in on Randy later to see that he’s settled comfortably in his room.”

      With that, she turned on her heel and marched out of the emergency room. Mike watched the red semaphore wagging its danger signal. Definitely an intriguing woman. Too damn bad she was a social worker.

      “Good lookin’, isn’t she?” Addy dropped a patient chart on the counter and unhooked her stethoscope from around her neck.

      “You could say that. But I get the feeling she doesn’t like me very much.”

      “What? A woman capable of resisting your charms? Bet that doesn’t happen often.”

      “Nope, it doesn’t.” And Mike couldn’t quite help but think he’d enjoy the challenge of changing Kristin’s mind, no matter what her job was.

      Chapter Two

      Mike spent his day off on the boat he kept in the marina at Morro Bay. Something always needed to be done—the motor overhauled, the decks wiped clean, the scuba gear checked. Not that he objected. On a sunny day, it was a helluva nice way to spend some time—with the added bonus of frequent female companionship as women dropped by to say hello.

      Funny how this time he’d compared them all to a green-eyed redhead he’d met only briefly in the emergency room. And they’d all come up short.

      Now, as he parked his pickup behind Station Six the next morning, he was ready to get back to work on his twenty-four-hour eight-to-eight shift. He wasn’t an adrenaline junky, but he needed some serious work to keep his mind off a libido that had a will of its own. He was kind of hoping they’d be training on the tower today. A few trips up and down that sucker hauling a mile of hose over his shoulder and he’d sleep just fine tonight. No fantastic dreams featuring a redhead to interrupt his Zs.

      Dressed in his uniform, duffle bag over his shoulder, he went inside, taking the stairs to the third-floor living quarters two at a time.

      “Hail, our hero!” Virtually all of the members of C-shift were waiting for him in the dining hall along with every guy on B-shift, about to go off duty.

      Mike halted in his tracks. “What’s going on?”

      Logan Strong, a C-shift member of the ladder truck company, produced a huge picture pasted on a three-by-four-foot poster board, a blowup of a newspaper photo. Mike squinted, trying to make out the grainy reproduction.

      “The fair city of Paseo del Real—or at least the press thereof—has declared you a hero,” Logan announced, grinning broadly. “Congratulations.”

      Oh, shoot! The picture was of Mike carrying Randy to the ambulance, the kid wearing his helmet. The headline read, Hero Rescues Child from Fiery Inferno.

      “Ah, come on, guys. I didn’t do anything—”

      “You got that damn straight,” Jay Tolliver said. “I could have been the hero if you hadn’t pushed your way inside before me. Think how many points I would have made with Kim if you’d let me go first.”

      Mike lowered his duffle to the floor. “You don’t need any points with your new bride, Tolliver. She’s already nuts over you, though we’ve gotta question her judgment in that regard.”

      Jay laughed, and so did the rest of the crew.

      With a shake of her head that set her dangling earrings in motion, Emma Jean Witkowsky, the dispatcher, said, “I knew the minute I saw that picture in yesterday’s paper something good would happen. They’re setting up a trust fund for that sweet little boy so he can go to college.”

      “We can always count on your psychic ability to tell us what’s going to happen—right after it happens,” Mike teased.

      Lifting her chin, she set her jewelry in motion again. “It’s my Gypsy blood.”

      Given her dark eyes and nearly black hair, it was entirely possible Emma Jean was a Gypsy, but Mike didn’t believe the psychic business for a minute. She was more often wrong than right, not that she’d admit it.

      Crossing the room, Logan presented Mike with the photo. “I bet you made a deal with the photographer so you’d get the really big bucks at the bachelor auction this week.”

      “Some of us hero-types don’t need any extra help. The ladies are crazy about me.”

      “Yeah, and the feeling is mutual.”

      Everyone in the room hooted and hollered, but Mike couldn’t deny that was true. He liked women, liked to see their eyes light up when he flirted with them—old ones, young ones, it didn’t matter. But he made it a point not to let any relationship go too far. The last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt a woman by leading her to expect more than he could give.

      Ray Gainer, a fireplug of a man, arrived, duffle slung over his shoulder.

      “Hey, you’re late,” Logan pointed out.

      Gainer shrugged and gave everyone a sheepish grin. “Long ride back from Vegas.”

      “Hot dog! That means Gainer’s buying the ice cream today,” someone shouted.

      “No way! I lost my shirt this trip, and my wife’s gonna skin my hide if she finds out about it.”

      The friendly bantering back and forth continued for a few more minutes, then the guys from B-shift headed home and Mike took the photo and his duffle into his room, stowing them both in his locker. Arnie Switzer, who slept in the room during B-shift, had left the place spotless as usual. Firefighters were good about that, neat and tidy, at least at the station house.

      Firefighters