Carole Buck - Three-Alarm Love

“Nothing Wrong With Independence In A Woman, Sugar...Up To A Point.” “Nothing Wrong With Independence In A Woman, Sugar...Up To A Point.” “And exactly what point might that be, Mr. Randall?” Keezia inquired, her voice like molten honey and her eyes shimmering with a uniquely feminine form of provocation. “Well...” Fridge’s body thrummed with anticipation. “If you were to independently put your arms around my neck—” “Like this?” “Uh-huh.” “And what if I were to move a little closer...? Are we beyond the point yet?” “We’re nowhere close,” Fridge finally managed. “So there wouldn’t be anything wrong with me sort of easing your head down....” Their mouths met. Mated in an evocative dance that soon became blatantly sexual. “I want to say that you are one fine kisser, Mr. Randall.” “I can do much better, sugar.” Letter to Reader Dear Reader, February, month of valentines, celebrates lovers—which is what Silhouette Desire does every month of the year. So this month, we have an extraspecial lineup of sensual and emotional page-turners. But how do you choose which exciting book to read first when all six stones are asking Be Mine? Bestselling author Barbara Boswell delivers February’s MAN OF THE MONTH, a gorgeous doctor who insists on being a full-time father to his newly discovered child, in The Brennan Baby. Bride of the Bad Boy is the wonderful first book in Elizabeth Bevarly’s brand-new BLAME IT ON BOB trilogy. Don’t miss this fun story about a marriage of inconvenience! Cupid slings an arrow at neighboring ranchers in Her Torrid Temporary Marriage by Sara Orwig. Next, a woman’s thirtieth-birthday wish brings her a supersexy cowboy—and an unexpected pregnancy—in The Texan, by Catherine Lanigan. Carole Buck brings red-hot chemistry to the pages of Three-Alarm Love. And Barbara McCauley’s Courtship in Granite Ridge reunites a single mother with the man she’d always loved. Have a romantic holiday this month—and every month—with Silhouette Desire Enjoy! Melissa Senate Senior Editor Please address questions and book requests to: Silhouette Reader Service U.S 3010 Walden Ave., PO. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269 Canadian P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3 Title Page Three-Alarm Love Carole Buck www.millsandboon.co.uk CAROLE BUCK CAROLE BUCK is a television news writer and movie reviewer who lives in Atlanta. She is single and her hobbies include cake decorating, ballet and traveling. She collects frogs, but does not kiss them. Carole says she’s in love with life; she hopes the books she writes reflect this. Carole loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her at P.O. Box 78845 Atlanta, GA 30357-2845. Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Copyright

“Nothing Wrong With Independence In A Woman, Sugar...Up To A Point.”

“And exactly what point might that be, Mr. Randall?” Keezia inquired, her voice like molten honey and her eyes shimmering with a uniquely feminine form of provocation.

“Well...” Fridge’s body thrummed with anticipation. “If you were to independently put your arms around my neck—”

“Like this?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And what if I were to move a little closer...? Are we beyond the point yet?”

“We’re nowhere close,” Fridge finally managed.

“So there wouldn’t be anything wrong with me sort of easing your head down....”

Their mouths met. Mated in an evocative dance that soon became blatantly sexual.

“I want to say that you are one fine kisser, Mr. Randall.”

“I can do much better, sugar.”

Dear Reader,

February, month of valentines, celebrates lovers—which is what Silhouette Desire does every month of the year. So this month, we have an extraspecial lineup of sensual and emotional page-turners. But how do you choose which exciting book to read first when all six stones are asking Be Mine?

Bestselling author Barbara Boswell delivers February’s MAN OF THE MONTH, a gorgeous doctor who insists on being a full-time father to his newly discovered child, in The Brennan Baby. Bride of the Bad Boy is the wonderful first book in Elizabeth Bevarly’s brand-new BLAME IT ON BOB trilogy. Don’t miss this fun story about a marriage of inconvenience!

Cupid slings an arrow at neighboring ranchers in Her Torrid Temporary Marriage by Sara Orwig. Next, a woman’s thirtieth-birthday wish brings her a supersexy cowboy—and an unexpected pregnancy—in The Texan, by Catherine Lanigan. Carole Buck brings red-hot chemistry to the pages of Three-Alarm Love. And Barbara McCauley’s Courtship in Granite Ridge reunites a single mother with the man she’d always loved.

Have a romantic holiday this month—and every month—with Silhouette Desire Enjoy!

Melissa Senate

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S 3010 Walden Ave., PO. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Three-Alarm Love

Carole Buck

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAROLE BUCK

is a television news writer and movie reviewer who lives in Atlanta. She is single and her hobbies include cake decorating, ballet and traveling. She collects frogs, but does not kiss them. Carole says she’s in love with life; she hopes the books she writes reflect this. Carole loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her at P.O. Box 78845 Atlanta, GA 30357-2845.

Prologue

Ralph “Fridge” Randall was a man who accepted the existence of Heaven as a matter of faith. Hell—at least an earthly version of it—he was acquainted with, firsthand.

Fridge was a firefighter. A veteran of fourteen years of dedicated, frequently dangerous service with the Atlanta Fire Department And while he’d readily concede that the vast majority of the blazes he’d battled during this period could be attributed to either accident or arson, there’d been a few that he privately suspected of being, well, essentially diabolical in origin.

This was not to say that the only child of Helen Rose and the late Willie Leroy Randall believed the devil was going around striking sparks and igniting multiple-alarm infernos in Georgia’s Fulton County. He didn’t. Given his awareness that human carelessness, callousness and cruelty often had incendiary consequences, he didn’t figure the devil had much need to step in and personally play pyromaniac.

Still. Nearly a decade and a half on the department’s front line had taught Fridge that there were fires that seemed to be more malignant—more deliberate in their destructiveness—than others. Bizarre as it might sound to folks who’d never gone after a fully involved blaze wielding a ventilating ax or a charged-up hose, there were some fires that just plain exuded evil.

It was such fires that made Helen Rose Randall’s son think back to an illustration he’d happened upon in a Sunday-school reader many years before. He couldn’t recall the text of the caption, although he was pretty certain that it had had something to do with sin, brimstone and eternal damnation. But the picture...

That he remembered in full-color detail!

The picture had scared the living daylights out of him. He’d taken one look at it and persuaded himself that the flames it so vividly portrayed were intent on his personal incineration. “Intent” as in consciously determined, with malice aforethought.

There’d been no doubt m his young mind about the implications of what he’d seen Those flames had been out to get him—Ralph Booker Randall—no ifs, ands, buts or possibilities of divine salvation about it.

Fridge had been about six when he’d come across that Sunday-school illustration. He’d spoken about it to only two people in the nearly thirty years that had followed.