Slow Burn

3. Maisie

Chapter Three

Maisie

I wiped off the kitchen counter and hung the towel over the oven handle before glancing around. Gram’s kitchen was bright and airy and flowed into a living room with a breathtaking view of Swan Lake and Denali in the distance. Denali was the centerpiece of Alaska and the tallest mountain peak in North America. Gram had this home built to take full advantage of the natural beauty surrounding it. The kitchen and living room area faced the view of the lake and mountains with floor to ceiling windows stretching up to the second floor. A balcony sat against the back wall with a short hallway that contained doorways to two bedrooms and a bathroom. Even in the short days of winter, the windows let in every bit of sun available.

The kitchen had a curved island separating it from the living room with a sage green granite countertop and updated stainless steel appliances. The light birch flooring provided additional brightness to the space with splashes of color in the multicolored rugs scattered about the living room. Everything here was Gram’s. She’d updated this home only a few years before she passed away, so it felt modern and new. The outside was cedar siding with a deck that wrapped around three sides of the house. I could sit outside and look at the lake in front, stare out over the field to one side of the house with its flowers, or look into the evergreen forest on the other side.

This was the nicest place I had ever lived. By far. I had nothing but good memories of coming here to visit when I was growing up. My mom had passed away after a heart attack when I was only three years old. She’d had an undiagnosed congenital defect in one of her valves. My dad was a happenstance kind of dad. It so happened he was a dad, but that was about it. I don’t know why he hadn’t just turned me over to Gram, but he never did. He lugged me around like an afterthought instead. We never lived anywhere more than a year. By the time I hit high school, I stopped trying too hard to make friends because it wasn’t worth it.

Fast forward to now. Gram had died and left me everything she owned two years ago. Since my mom had been her only daughter, I was her sole living relative. Even though I’d only gotten to see Gram every few years, she’d been the touchstone in my life. When I’d heard she was sick, I’d scrabbled together every penny I had to catch a flight from California to Alaska. I’d had a few weeks with her while she received hospice care before she passed away. I’d come here solely to see Gram. I had no plan and no money left when she died.

I’d been shocked to learn she’d left me everything. Everything consisted of this home and the ten acres surrounding it, a truck, a car, all the equipment in the garage and everything in the house. I also inherited another fifty acres that were in a protected preserve and to remain undeveloped forever as far as I understood. I’d been advised by Gram’s estate attorney that she’d also set up a trust fund for me, but I couldn’t access anything in it until I was thirty-five. I could’ve cared less about that mysterious trust fund.

The afternoon I’d learned all of this had been jaw-dropping. I’d gone into that attorney’s office, dragged by the police chief, Rex Masters, and Janet James, both friends of Gram. I’d been broke and with nowhere to go because I didn’t have enough money to fly back to California. I’d left within an hour with more than I’d ever imagined. To top it all off, Chief Masters had offered me Gram’s old job at the Fire & Rescue station. To this day, I was pretty sure Gram had asked him to, but I didn’t mind. I’d needed a job. Badly.

By some miracle, I’d kept my grades up in school and had snagged a scholarship to a local college. Before coming here, I’d managed to graduate with a degree in biology and had been working my butt off at a local coffee shop while I took one class per semester to work toward becoming an EMT. Coffee shop pay wasn’t much. I didn’t make a ton as a dispatch operator, but it was a steady schedule and I had benefits. This job had turned out to be the perfect fit for me. My life now was more stable than it had ever been.

I looked around Gram’s home and wondered how Beck would see it. Just thinking about Beck made me hot all over. I’d thought I might actually die of embarrassment when he straight out asked why I was showering at the station. I’d been hoping we could pretend he’d never seen me bare a*s n***d. Then he’d gone and offered to come help with the hot water heater.

I hadn’t quite figured out how to be here in Willow Brook. I was used to being the odd one out and relying solely on myself. Always minding my own business, never around long enough for anyone to care too much. Here, everyone knew Gram. Even though they barely knew me, they acted like I was their long-lost relative. It was sort of weird for me. I knew they meant to be nice, but I wasn’t used to it and didn’t feel like I’d earned it.

My eyes landed on the clock, a whimsical clock with a bold, black raven as a backdrop and a raven’s call when the clock struck the hour. Oh s**t. Beck would be here any minute.

Calm down, girl. He’s just here to fix your hot water heater.

Uh yeah, but he saw me n***d. Totally n***d.

And OMG, he’s hot.

I hadn’t forgotten the sight of his bare chest. Hell, I’d been fantasizing about his chest ever since I’d seen it yesterday. I could seriously go for a chance to have every hard inch of him plastered to me. Heat pooled in my belly just thinking about it. Oh s**t. I needed to get it together. Beck would never go for me. He was way out of my league. My God, he was hot guy calendar material. I was just me, a normal looking girl.

I needed to stop getting all hot and bothered over him. He was nice and all, but he was a flirt. I knew his reputation. He loved summer because he could date a new woman every week with the tourists flocking here. As far as I could tell, he did.

I mentally shook myself. Thinking about Beck in any way other than just as a guy I worked with was a bad idea. Technically, he was one of my bosses. Chief Masters and the three crew superintendents were the ones who ran the show at Willow Brook Fire & Rescue. The only reason he was here was to help me with the hot water heater. That was it. I really wanted my hot water back. Though I had everything I needed, I didn’t have much money saved up, so I’d been worrying about what to do.

A sharp knock nudged me out of my thoughts. I spun around and hurried to the kitchen door. Opening it, my breath caught the second I saw Beck. His rumpled black curls glinted in the bright, late afternoon sun. His green eyes crinkled at the corners with his perpetually flirtatious grin. He bandied that grin about quite liberally, so I never assumed it was meant for me. Beck would probably flirt with a rock if given the chance.

“Hey Maze,” he said as he stepped past me.

He was the only person who used that nickname with me. I simultaneously hated it and loved it.

My eyes landed on his motorcycle, the sun glinting off the handlebars. His bike suited his personality—simple and black, it had clearly seen a lot of action. No vanity bike for him.

Beck wore a faded navy t-shirt paired with black jeans and battered leather boots. His hardened muscles were easily visible. He was the kind of guy who had a body to die for, yet it wasn’t the result of vanity. It was because that’s who he was and how he lived. Hotshot firefighters were the toughest of the tough. The job demanded they stay in peak physical condition at all times. It was a matter of life or death when they were out in the backcountry, reliant on themselves and their crew to handle grueling conditions and physically brutal work for days on end.

He rested his hip against the counter, a canvas tool bag held loosely in his hand. He glanced around, his grin fading. “Damn, haven’t been here since Carol was alive. It looks exactly the same,” he murmured, his eyes making their way back to me.

I swallowed and tried not to flush. God, it was ridiculous how easily he affected me. My belly executed a slow flip when his eyes caught mine. Somehow, the fact he’d seen me completely n***d made everything feel too close for comfort. I wasn’t a prude, but it irked me to no end it had happened to be Beck who caught me in the showers. Any of the other guys, I might’ve been embarrassed, but I’d have gotten past it quickly. It was only Beck who got under my skin like this.

I managed a nod when he kept looking at me. “Yeah, I haven’t really changed anything. No reason to.”

He was quiet for a beat and then shrugged one shoulder. “Suppose not. You miss her?”

His question took me off guard, but I was nodding before I thought about it. “Yeah, yeah. I do.”

He stayed quiet, his gaze somber. I tried to think if I’d ever seen Beck not teasing. I didn’t think I had.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “Sucks to lose someone who means a lot. Carol was pretty much a grandmother to all of us at the station. I know I miss her.”

I’d heard many variations of this comment from a lot of the guys at the station. It made me proud and sad at once—proud to know she’d made such an impact on so many lives and sad I hadn’t been able to spend more time with her. It was a plain fact that everyone who’d been in her circle in Willow Brook had seen far more of her than I ever had.

The vagaries of chance had landed my mother in the path of my footloose and fancy free father. I could only imagine how she must’ve been drawn to him. She’d only been eighteen years old—young and looking to spread her wings beyond the small world of Willow Brook. I’d never seen him as anything other than an irresponsible, rather childish, man. Yet, I’d watched so many women spin through his life—all of them easily seduced by his charm and way of casting this spell as if though his life was somehow glamorous. In short, my mom fell in l**t or love and then died far away from Willow Brook. That left me with my dad. I’d have sold my soul for more time with Gram, but at least I’d had a few weeks with her before she died. I doubted she could ever have guessed what a gift it had been to leave me her house. If only because I’d never had a place to anchor me somewhere and now I did. She’d always been the person I considered my touchstone and now her place was my place.

I didn’t realize I was just standing there, thoughts about Gram tumbling through my mind. Beck cleared his throat. I whipped my eyes back to his, momentarily startled at the understanding contained in his gaze. I had to nudge myself to recall what he’d last said.

“Yeah, I bet. A lot of the guys at the station say that. I don’t quite have the grandmotherly air.”

He flashed a wry grin. “Nah, but it would be kinda weird if you did. We like you just how you are. You keep us on our toes, and you do make some mean brownies. If Carol were still here, I’d have to tell her yours are better.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Somehow, he’d managed to perfectly lighten the moment. He couldn’t know that missing Gram wasn’t as simple as just missing her for me. I couldn’t think about her without all the rest of my baggage getting chucked right to the front of my mind.

“Okay, let me take a look at that hot water heater,” Beck said, pushing his hip off the counter and strolling to the center of the kitchen.

“Okay, it’s back here,” I said, walking past him to the door at the back of the kitchen.

A half-bath and the laundry were in here, along with the currently useless hot water heater. He stepped past me and promptly started fiddling with things on the hot water heater. The bathroom was on the small side, if only because the washer and dryer, along with the hot water heater, took up what little extra space there was. Though it felt crowded and I was acutely aware of Beck’s presence with my pulse humming along and flutters dancing about in my belly, I wanted to watch and see what he did. If he managed to fix it, then I’d know how to fix it myself if this happened again.

After a few minutes, he glanced over his shoulder, flashing me a grin. Dear God. He needed not to grin. It made my body go crazy. Case in point, inside of a millisecond, I was hot all over and knew my cheeks were pink. For about the thousandth time ever since I’d met Beck, I wished I didn’t blush so easy.

“Easy fix,” he announced before leaning back on his heels and reaching for the tool bag.

Even though my body was doing the same crazy dance it always did when I was near Beck, I was determined to know what was wrong. “What is it?” I asked, kneeling down beside him and watching what he was doing.

“Heating element burned out. Brought one with me,” he said as he grabbed something out of his bag.

He moved quickly. If I wanted to see, I’d have to look over his shoulder, which meant getting way too close for comfort. I straightened and leaned against the wall—annoyed with myself for being so ridiculous whenever I was around him.

“You seem worried, Maisie,” Beck commented conversationally as he did whatever he was doing. “What’re you worrying about? You’ll have hot water within the hour.”

“I was trying to see what you were doing, so I could fix it myself if it happened again,” I said, surprising myself by stating the simple truth. I didn’t like to cop to how hard I worked to rely solely on myself.

He finished whatever he was doing and closed the side panel on the hot water heater. As he stood, he tucked his tools in his bag and tossed the packaging from whatever ‘element’ he’d mentioned into the trash by the sink. He looked to me. The bathroom went from feeling small to crowded. His presence was so, well, large. He was all man, emanating it through his pores practically.

His deep green eyes scanned my face. “If your hot water heater breaks again, I’ll fix it again,” he said simply.

Why, oh why, did my pulse gallop ever faster at that comment? I tried so hard never to need anyone because, well, life had taught me that wasn’t generally a good plan. There was this part of me, one I’d never known existed until just now, that thrilled to the idea Beck would be there for me if I needed him. Even if it was only for a hot water heater. It said something about the man that such a small thing turned me on. Big time.