Tori Carrington - The Woman For Dusty Conrad

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Bestselling authors Lori and Tony Karayianni are the husband-and-wife team behind the pen name Tori Carrington, and are the winners of an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award for Series Fiction. Their August 2009 Harlequin Blaze novel, Unbridled, marked their forty-fifth published title…and they have no plans to slow down anytime soon. For more info on the couple and their titles, and to enter their monthly online drawings, visit them at www.toricarrington.net.

In loving memory of Kostoula Karayianni, who dedicated more than twenty-five years to the Athens Fire Department, and her entire life to her family. You are deeply missed.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Dusty Conrad’s mission was simple. Go into the firehouse. Seek out Jolie. Get her to sign the divorce papers she’d had for two months. Move on with his life. Let Jolie get on with hers.

Simple. Right. Then why was he driving around the narrow, tree-lined streets of Old Orchard, going everywhere but the fire station?

Dusty tightened his hands on the steering wheel of the shiny red pickup and visually inhaled his surroundings. He took in the hay bundles decorated with pumpkins, the witch and black-cat decals clinging to the windows of the older homes that lined Main Street, the colorful mums dotting nearly every free space. Funny. Only six months had passed since he’d left. Somehow it seemed just like yesterday. Except that now the town had on its Halloween best, ready to partake in the spooky festivities unquestionably scheduled for the weekend. Six months ago budding tree branches had borne pastel eggs and windows had sported cute caricatures of rabbits and baskets.

Bustling was one word he’d never use to describe the Rockwellesque streets of Old Orchard, Ohio. No. Rather the word sluggish came to mind as he left the residential section of Main and slowly drove into the quaint downtown area. As he veered to the right to navigate around Lucas Circle, he watched young Dana Malone as she tried to teach her son Josh how to look both ways before crossing the street. The toddler, however, seemed to have other ideas, like trying to climb into the gargantuan water fountain that had been designed some hundred and twenty years ago. The entire town had been built around Lucas Circle. It was where all town functions began and ended, the town meeting spot for union support rallies and carnivals alike. Just like the old, hulking cement structure of Old Jake’s, a general store where everyone still shopped, despite the spreading cancer of strip malls a mere five-minute drive away.

He supposed the word town no longer fit the growing city now estimated at forty-five thousand. But while the modern semi-new hospital on the opposite end of Main Street and several towering office buildings had altered the skyline a bit, the heart of downtown looked pretty much as it had a century earlier. Three-and four-story brick buildings crouched side by side for blocks on either side of Main Street and Old Orchard Avenue, storefronts holding advertisements for seven dollar haircuts, sporting neon beer signs and announcing daily specials. With the majestic trees, the old stone library and the turn-of-the-century church, the small-town flavor remained. An essence carefully and lovingly tended to by Old Orchard’s citizens, the majority of whom still chose to walk instead of drive, frequented the smaller shops rather than heading out to the cheaper strip malls and large chain stores nearby, and were never too busy to say hello and stop for a brief chat, or help out a neighbor in need. It was a place where if you didn’t directly know a person, you knew someone who did. Some might find conversations dotted with “you know, Jim Olsen’s cousin’s husband’s aunt” difficult to follow, but here such connections were the norm.

Dusty finished negotiating Lucas Circle and absently rubbed at a spot just below his rib cage, at the needling ache there. Old Orchard was where he’d been born. Where he’d passed every major milestone, from first step, to first sexual experience. He knew just where to look for items in Old Jake’s General Store on the corner, be it his favorite candy bar or condoms. Knew that the unseasonable warmth of the late October day would glide into a crisp autumn night. Could remember that if you hit the curb just right with the front tire of your bicycle, you could either pop an awesome wheelie…or lose your front teeth. He could practically hear the old church bell missing a ring as it chimed off the time, and the sound of the kids being let out of school on the outskirts of town and the hum of lawnmowers as homeowners saw to the last of the garden chores before winter set in.

He could also practically hear the echo of his younger brother Erick’s mischievous laughter riding on the gentle breeze and smell Jolie’s subtle perfume entwined with the scent of autumn leaves.

Once outside Lucas Circle he continued down Main and reluctantly picked up speed, reaching his destination quicker than he intended. He slowly pulled to a stop outside Fire Station 2, then glanced at the building. The renovated old schoolhouse looked exactly the same. The tower clock was stuck at the same time—nine-fifteen, the same moment it stopped back on June 6, 1982, when a fire had claimed the lives of two firefighters at the automobile-parts manufacturing plant five miles outside town—and the white trim contrasted neatly against the warm red brick. Then again, he hadn’t expected it to change any. He was the one who had changed. So much he barely recognized the man who had spent nearly as much time running to the station than from it, perpetually late. Even now he fought the urge to glance at his watch to see that he was on time, though no one would be clocking him in.

Two of the three bays were open to the midmorning sun, revealing that one of the hulking red engines—the hose truck—was missing, while the pumper stood gleaming like a chrome-toothed animal.

“I’ll be damned. Is that Dusty Conrad?” a familiar voice echoed from within the depths of the station.

Dusty watched his old friend John Sparks step out from the side of the remaining engine, wiping his hands on a soft leather cloth, a mile-wide grin on his too-handsome face. He wore his gray-and-black sheriff’s uniform, telling Dusty that his penchant for hanging around the fire station hadn’t changed any. And seeing as Sparks had started out at the fire station, no one complained about his being there. Especially since he enjoyed helping out.

Dusty began to step toward the open bay when another man stepped from the shadows behind John. The pinprick in his chest turned into a tangible pain as he realized he’d half expected to see his brother, Erick, stepping out after John. But no matter how similar in build and coloring the unfamiliar man—more kid—with Sparks was, he could never be Erick. His brother was gone. And Dusty was the one to blame.

Realization seemed to spread across Sparks’s face. He looked down, then hooked a thumb in the kid’s direction. “This is Scott Wahl. You remember him, don’t you? Think a foot or two shorter—”

“Scooter.” Dusty nodded, finally recognizing the blond-haired teen. Whenever the station team conducted school classes and drills, or demonstrations at the county fair, Scott, aka Scooter, had always been the one to dog them every step of the way. He must have graduated to actually hanging out at the station.