Beth Andrews - Charming the Firefighter

Relief made her knees weak. Her head light. He wasn’t sick. The leukemia hadn’t come back.

Thank God.

But he had been hurt. Could have been injured even worse. What if he’d been hit in the head and gotten a concussion?

“No school district should be allowing a game like that to be played in gym class,” she said, her fury and indignation growing. “First thing in the morning I’m going to call the school—”

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you! I knew you’d freak out about it and it’s nothing. It doesn’t even hurt. And the last thing I need is you making it into some big deal.” He yanked open a drawer, grabbed a pair of socks and underwear, then shoved it closed hard enough to shake the dresser. “It’s a bruise. Not the end of the world. Not cancer. So don’t even think about calling and bitching out the gym teacher, because I’m the one who’ll have to take a bunch of shit if you do!”

He stormed out of the room, across the hall and into the bathroom. Slammed the door shut as if to punctuate his little tantrum.

She hunched her shoulders. Bit her lower lip. A moment later, the shower started.

He didn’t understand that she was simply doing her job as his mother. He resented everything she did for him. The healthy food she prepared, the doctor appointments she dragged him to, the tests and blood work. Even a simple question about how he was feeling set him off.

She worked so hard to keep him safe. Healthy.

And all it did was make him mad. But she was the one who suffered. She had to live with him, had to deal with him, day in and day out. His choices, actions and rotten, disrespectful, ungrateful attitude were her problems.

She just prayed they weren’t her fault.

CHAPTER TWO

“YOU GOING TO lie there all day?” James Montesano asked, tossing the basketball from one hand to the other.

Rolling onto his back, Leo Montesano squinted at the people peering down at him, their heads shifting as if they’d been detached from their bodies. Huh. Floating heads. That would make a great name for a rock-and-roll band.

James kept up with the ball tossing. Back and forth. Back and forth.

It drove Leo nuts.

He wanted to tell his brother to knock it the hell off, but the breath had left his lungs when he’d done his face-plant, and he couldn’t speak.

Next to James, their brother, Eddie, wiped his forehead with the hem of his T-shirt, dislodging the frayed brim of his black Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap. On Leo’s other side, their younger sister, Maddie, smirked.

All three had dark hair, heavy eyebrows and deep, end-of-summer tans—traits Leo shared. About the only resemblances between him and his family. Because if the situation had been reversed and one of them were flat on their back, he’d be offering a helping hand.

They just waited for him to get his own ass up off the ground.

You’d think there would be a time or two when the odds were even among the Montesano siblings, but more often than not it was three against one.

Them against him, usually.

That was what he got for following his own path, being his own person. Freedom, yes. But also a lot of grief.

“Well?” James asked, as if Leo’s being bruised and sporting a possible head injury was ruining his entire day.

Leo squeezed his eyes shut, but as soon as he did, flashes of memory from last night’s accident scene bombarded him and he opened them again. At least when he did, everyone’s heads stayed put. And the images disappeared.

He shot James the middle finger.

“Guess he’ll live,” Eddie said before walking away.

James gave the ball extra spin as it moved from hand to hand, his dark eyes hidden behind a pair of aviators. “Too bad. I was hoping we could find a sub for you.”

“Your concern is touching,” Leo muttered as he shifted into a sitting position, the blacktop burning the palms of his hands, the bright sun warming his bare shoulders. He and James were both shirtless—no big deal when it came to playing a game of shirts versus skins, but not so great if you were pushed to the freaking pavement. His knees and palms—which had taken the brunt of his weight when he’d gone down—were scraped and stinging. He rubbed his hands against the sides of his shorts and glared at his brother. “Really. Warms a man’s heart to know his family cares so deeply for his well-being.”

“You want concern? Stop trying to turn a fun pickup game among family and friends into a grudge match.”

“Hey, don’t blame me. I’m the innocent victim here.” He jabbed a thumb in Maddie’s direction. “She’s the one who tripped me.”

“I’m not sure what you’re accusing me of,” Maddie said with a sniff and a lift of her chin, all affronted and lying through her teeth. “I was merely setting a screen.”

Eyes narrowing, Leo got to his feet. “You’re not supposed to move when you set a screen. Or stick your foot out.”

She lifted a shoulder and sent him a small, evil grin. “Oops.”

“You could at least try to pretend it was an accident and not a blatant act of aggression.”

James’s eyebrows rose above his sunglasses. “ Blatant act of aggression? What have we told you about watching CNN? It’s only for grown-ups.”

Leo snatched the ball from James, and considered—briefly and with much relish—shoving it down his brother’s throat. Instead, he took three steps and heaved it over the ball hoop into the yard.

“I’ll get it!” called Max, Eddie’s eight-year-old son, scrambling after it.

Leo lifted a hand but couldn’t risk having his attention diverted. Not when Maddie, wearing a pair of cutoffs and a red Montesano Construction T-shirt, was sauntering closer and closer to him, her stride aggressive, her long dark ponytail swinging in agitation.

She was moody, unpredictable and capable of turning on a man at a moment’s notice.

“An accident?” she repeated, her tone cold, her shoulders rigid. “Like you ‘accidentally’—” she made air quotes, her brown eyes flashing “—rammed your elbow into Neil’s stomach when he went in for that layup?”

Now it was Leo’s turn to grin, although he was pretty sure his was way more charming and, yeah, even more smug than hers had been. “Incidental contact.”

“That is such bull.”

“I was guarding my man. A little jostling for position is part of the game.”

He didn’t know what she was bitching about. Her boyfriend—or whatever title she preferred to give Neil Pettit—played in the NHL. He got pushed, rammed into and hit for a living. Now he couldn’t handle someone playing tough defense on him in a friendly game of three-on-three?

Was it any wonder Leo couldn’t stand the arrogant bastard?

“How about we save this discussion for another time?” James asked in his calm, big-brother-to-the-rescue way. “Let’s finish the game before it’s called on account of darkness.”

Leo broadened his smile, knowing it would irritate the hell out of his baby sister. “Truce?”

He held out his hand. She looked as if she’d rather bite it off at the wrist and slap him with it a few times than shake it. “Do you really think I’m dumb enough to buy that?”

“That hurts.” He slung his arm around her shoulders. “I’m nothing if not sincere—”

“A sincere, and sweaty, pain in the ass,” she said, shoving his arm off.

He put it right back on her shoulders. Squeezed her to his side.

“And,” he continued, having learned early on it was best to ignore much of what his sister said, “I have nothing but the highest regard for you and your intelligence. You’re one of the brightest people I know.”

All true. But her taste in men sucked.

This time she ducked out from under his arm and stepped back. “Save it. I’m not one of your brainless bimbos—”