Bear The Blaze (Firebear Brides 3) by Anya Nowlan Page A

the toes of his work boots anyway.
    “Fire. Trouble. Hurry,” Redmond said with a grin, grabbing Abigail by the ankles and yanking her down, catching her easily and setting her on the ground like she didn’t weigh a thing.
    He quoted what their old firefighting instructor used to say when they just started. The old grouch seemed to have exactly three words in his vocabulary, but Redmond had better control of them.
    “Yeah? Well, I think she’ll hold,” Abigail said, patting Old Bell with the palm of her hand. “But don’t break her. I’ll get pissed,” she chided, watching Ragnar climb into the truck while pulling on his turnout coat.
    She couldn’t keep her eyes off of him, no matter what she did. It was a curse and it was sort of getting on her nerves.
    “Ragnar will make sure I don’t trash it, won’t you bro?” Redmond hollered, getting a noncommittal humph in return.
    “Better yet, I’ll drive and we’ll get there alive and the truck will be fine. How’s that,” Royce said, beating Redmond to the driver’s side and pulling himself into the cabin with seasoned ease.
    Was there anything better than watching firebears work? God, they were like art in motion. It was beautiful and if Abigail hadn’t been so damn sullen about Ragnar, she might have actually enjoyed it.
    “Yeah, don’t let Redmond near that thing. He can’t drive a freight train without taking it off the tracks,” Abigail scoffed, stepping aside with her plate still held in her hand as the engine came to life with a satisfying purr.
    Old Bell sounded good. For a wretched old beast, she’d serve them well.
    “By the way, do you think you could check out my Ford while we’re away? She’s sounding awfully finicky to me and I think you’re better at this than I am,” Redmond said, dropping his keys into Abigail’s palm as Old Bell pulled out of the high-ceilinged workshop.
    “Anything for you, obviously,” Abigail said with mockery in her voice, batting her lashes.
    Both Redmond and she grinned and the truck took off with a rattling roar, Redmond’s triumphant holler echoing after it. Abigail laughed, watching Old Bell tear up the dirt road. A fire was never a laughing matter, but Redmond sure was. The difference between him and Ragnar was made all the more stark now that Abigail knew their past. Though the trauma was mostly shared, with the loss of their father obviously hitting each of the Hamilton boys hard, it was surprising how they could come out on the other side as such thoroughly different people.
    Shaking her head, Abigail tried to push Ragnar out of her head as she skulked through the yard and found Redmond’s truck. It seemed that she’d been left all alone, as Royce’s truck was gone and that usually signaled that both Tiana and Rose were out of the house, running errands or attempting to get both of their new businesses up and running in Shifter Grove.
    Abigail admired that—the get-up-and-go attitude those women had. They’d seen something that they didn’t love about their lives and made the conscious decision to change it, bettering both themselves and the people around them. It made her wonder what her damn problem was—boy troubles were usually not too hard to figure out, after all.
    I didn’t even ask them if it was a bad fire, she thought to herself, surprised.
    That was the sort of thing she never missed. Working at a fire station, where losing a friend or a co-worker was a constant danger, she’d learned to keep herself up-to-date on anything and everything that was going on in the field. But Shifter Grove didn’t quite operate like that yet, and the fact that she was distracted was showing in glaring colors. Ragnar had done a number on the curvy Latina and she wasn’t sure she appreciated it.
    Sighing, she clambered into the truck and drove it into the workshop, taking an opportunity to pull a quick donut on the open field of weeds while she was hidden from the view of the big house by the sheds.