Rachel Brimble - Saved By The Firefighter

“He’s Richard Crawley’s agent.”

Izzy frowned. “Who?”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Richard Crawley. The hottest game show host right now. Better than that, Templeton is his hometown. I called his office and they directed me to his agent. They want to meet you.”

“Why? What do I want with a game show host? What do you want with a game show host?”

“Richard Crawley is good-looking, smiley and happy. I’ve spent the last fortnight looking for a front man or woman for the calendar. If I could get someone in the media to back our campaign...”

“All the better for Maya.”

“Exactly. Richard Crawley was my breakthrough. He wants to meet you before he agrees to help out, but he’s the biggest name I’ve managed to nail down. If we get him on the cover with Templeton’s finest firefighters, it’s a done deal. Maya will be on her way across the pond for her treatment.” She winked. “Of course, it would be even better if you could convince him to lose his shirt midshoot.”

Izzy laughed. “Right. Now I see where we’re going.”

“So you’ll call his agent and set something up?”

“Sure.” Izzy shifted forward and slid the card into the back pocket of her jeans. “Anything for Maya. You know that.”

Kate released a breath. “Good. So...back to Trent. Are you going to make me completely happy and call him too?”

Izzy groaned and snatched up her wine. “It’s a bad idea.”

“But one you need to act on anyway.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You have to. You and Trent are meant to be. I know it.”

Izzy frowned, the determination in her friend’s eyes making her uneasy. “No one knows that, including you. I’m not calling him.”

Kate dropped her shoulders. “Fine. Then will you at least start focusing on the future? Stop looking back. Robbie’s gone and Lord only knows when your mum and dad will decide they’re too old to be touring the world on a cruise ship. Can’t you just start accepting what an amazing woman, friend and photographer you are? You have the potential to be a huge name. Please, just focus on that.”

Izzy exhaled. Try as she might, she had a hard time believing anything Kate so vehemently believed of her. “I’m trying, okay?”

“Good. Then try harder.”

CHAPTER FOUR

TRENT BURST THROUGH the Coast Inn doors ahead of his firefighting colleagues. He strode tall and proud through the bar, having earlier saved a family of four from a burning building. Satisfaction heated his blood, and need gathered strength for an ice-cold beer, a few games of pool and some great tunes coming from the TV rigged above the table.

Despite a shower, change of clothes and a passing hour, the lingering smell of smoke still coated the inside of his nostrils and parched his throat. He strode toward the bar and Dave, the Coast’s landlord and owner, came toward him, only to be intercepted by his wife, Vanessa. “I’ve got the boys covered, my darling,” she said. “Why don’t you go and see what the family of four at table eight would like to eat?”

Trent tried and failed to hide his smile as Dave rolled his eyes behind Vanessa’s back but obeyed her order anyway.

Trent met Vanessa’s sparkling gaze and laughed. “Not sure Dave appreciated you serving us rather than him.”

She shrugged. “Too bad. What woman in her right mind would choose a visiting family of four over three strapping and, I must say, extremely gorgeous firefighters? I might be the wrong side of forty, but that doesn’t mean a lady can’t enjoy the view. Now, what can I get you?”

Sam and Will came to the bar on either side of him and Trent looked at his friends. “Beer, lads?”

They nodded.

“Then we’ll have a pitcher of your finest lager, please, Vanessa.”

“Coming right up. Where will I find you?”

Trent nodded toward the pool table in the far corner. “It looks like our usual spot is free so we’ll be there for the duration.”

“I’ll bring it straight over.”

Laughing at her blatant appraisal of him, Will and Sam before she busied herself at the pump, Trent turned. “Pool, gentlemen?”

Sam Paterson and Will Kent led the way toward the table. Pumped and ready for a good night with the men he relied on to have his back both in and out of work, Trent fought back as Izzy slid into his mind. Not tonight. He would not think about her after such a successful day.

Thinking about Izzy—wanting her—only served to ruin his good mood whenever he had occasion to enjoy one. She’d made it painfully clear she would never consider dating him as long as he continued to fight fires.

The fact that she’d dismissed his motivation for becoming a firefighter cut him deeper than her refusal to see he might live for years. His sister had died. Didn’t she see he understood her pain? Her anger? Her fear that things would never be the same again?

He refused to believe there wasn’t a deep want inside her waiting to break free and live a little. He understood her fear and need for control. She’d found it hard to talk to anyone when Robbie died, pushing away her parents until they’d sailed away from their daughter’s anger. Then it was Trent she pushed away, then Kate and so many others.

His pain over losing his kid sister, Aimee, when she’d been in his care wasn’t so far away from Izzy’s pain of losing Robbie. Her carefully guarded control wasn’t so different than his either. He stared blindly toward the TV. Nothing was guaranteed in this world, and when you suffered losing a sibling, the lack of guarantee struck far too close to home.

He should make time this week to go home and check on his parents in Kingsley. It had been a month or so since he showed his face, and they’d be as worried about him as he was about them. His family’s need to look out for one another, to be there for one another was what Trent waited for Izzy to understand. Death could bring people closer. It didn’t have to separate them.

Guilt pressed down on him. Time and again, he went home when things got tough knowing his parents would be there with wise words and reassurance to bolster him.

Izzy didn’t have a family in the traditional sense...but she did have people who cared for her. Deeply.

“And there he goes.”

Will’s voice from across the pool table snapped Trent’s focus to his friends. “You talking to me?”

Will shook his head. “What’s with you, man? I’ve been trying to get your attention for the last couple of minutes. Thought I was going to have to resort to dancing the fandango on the pool table.”

“Now, there’s something I don’t want to see.” Trent smiled. “Ever.”

Vanessa broke the conversation by placing a pitcher of lager and three glasses on the low table beside Will. She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”

Will grinned. “You do know Dave’s over there giving me the evil eye right now? I’d rather keep my manhood intact, so I’ll have to pass.”

Vanessa threw a hasty glance over her shoulder toward the bar. “You know Dave, he wants me happy above everything else.”

Trent laughed. “Sure he does, but there’s happy and there’s happy.”

Vanessa smiled and tapped Trent’s chin. “And Dave keeps me plenty happy as you know. Nothing wrong with ruffling his feathers now and then.” Her gaze turned sober. “In fact, there would be nothing wrong if a woman gave your feathers a proper ruffle one of these days. When am I going to see you and Izzy Cooper in this bar together, huh? It’s about time you patched things up and got on with that special something you two had.”

Trent’s good mood ebbed into obscurity. “If Izzy’s got anything to do with it, that ship has sailed. Permanently.”