6
Vern woke slowly. After years of flying to fire, something about the morning woke him before sunrise. Maybe it was the call of the first bird of the day. Or the first hint of light in the sky despite closed eyelids.
He liked this time of day, though his brain insisted that coffee was necessary to face it. It gave him a chance to collect his thoughts, get oriented for the day. And when he was with someone, like now, it occasionally gave them time to—
With someone?
A woman…the smoke and summer smell of her hair almost overwhelmed him… Denise? Denise Conroy lay curled up against him. Her head pillowed on one of his arms, a soft warmth against the inside of the other that encircled her trim waist.
How in the hell had…
Any thoughts of waking slowly were banished by his body’s instant an
