The Complete Hotshots

Chapter 2

2

Luke Rawlings looked at the team superintendent. Couldn’t help himself, ‘cause damn she was a treat to look at. Her white-blond hair was short and sassy, her body was seriously fit, but curved like a sweet-Candy dream girl. Her no-nonsense attitude just cracked him up; he could hear that natural state of command that you only learned the hard way, by doing it. Not something he’d ever expected to find in a hot civilian babe.

When he’d mustered out, SEAL Lieutenant Commander Altman had suggested he try firefighting. Altman was a smart dude, so Luke had followed his suggestion. He’d kicked around with a big city fire department doing ride-alongs for a while. Chicago Fire were all super guys and they kept trying to sign him aboard, but tramping pavement and cement, doing fire inspections for date tags on commercial fire extinguishers…he’d rather be back in the African jungle. If his nerves would let him, which he so wasn’t going to think about now.

He still wasn’t sure how he’d heard about the hotshot crews, but walking into a wildfire—he just liked the way it sounded.

And looking at “Not Candy” Cantrell, he was damn glad he’d followed his whim and ridden his Harley west. “Not Candy.” What did that make her? Cake, or main course?

She moved to the head of the dirt forest road where it left the pavement. The old hands had already moved onto the track, but they waited once there. So, hotshot teams moved as a unit. Good. That was familiar.

He dropped into line to watch. Candace had already picked out at least two of her team, he could see the surreptitious communication between the three of them; all three with worn fireaxes, despite it being just a training walk.

Number One tool of their trade. Got it.

So, her recruit assessment was underway from the inside as well. The two insiders were watching the rookies, but the superintendent also had her eye tracking him.

Didn’t require his kind of training to catch the glance between father and daughter as they assessed him. Let them wonder. There were some things he’d rather not talk about. He was just gonna play Mr. Average Joe Firefighter Hopeful and see how it rolled.