Read Online Flame (Firefighters of Montana Book 5) by Victoria Purman - Free Book Online Page A

as a bell,” Dex replied.
    “So tell me,” Sam said with a grin. “What’s the story with you and Cady with the cakes?”
    Dex felt the muscle in his jaw clench. “No story there, captain.”
    “You’re shitting me. Why the hell not?”
    He’d told himself the same thing over and over so it was second nature to say them to Sam. “She’s not my type.”
    “Then you’re a dumbass. She makes the best cakes and pastries in western Montana. Has a business head on her shoulders like I’ve never seen. Has the biggest heart around and—don’t tell Laurel I said this—but she’s hot. What the hell is holding you back?”
    “You my crew captain or my mother?”
    Sam laughed. “Watch your mouth. I’m your captain.” And he looked ahead up the mountain. Dex did, too.
    *
    They made it to the cabins by sunset. Thankfully, there was little wind and Sam directed half the crew to cut a firebreak around the homes, while the other half removed undergrowth from the trees surrounding it, to starve the fire of any burning material if it got closer. Their job was to protect life and property and they would do their job until the threat passed. The cabin’s owners were weekenders, not permanent residents, so they were away and safe. They discovered along their hike that the road had been cut off by a fallen tree, which meant they have to wait until bulldozers could come up the mountain and clear it away before they could get trucks in. Until then, they’d rely on bucket drops of flame retardant from the choppers, and their own tools – pulaskis and shovels and chainsaws – to create the fire line.
    They worked hard through dusk and Sam called them off at about eight. Part of responsibility was looking after they crew—making sure they were kept hydrated and fed, with plenty of energy to do their jobs safely.
    When Dex sat down with the other guys, joshing each other with their ritual complaining about being away from home and The Drop Zone, he opened his ration pack to see a ziplock bag of trail bars. He hadn’t wanted to admit it to Cady, hadn’t wanted to admit that he needed anything from her, but he damn well loved them. He wished he had a stash at home that he could tuck into when he was watching a game or the latest car chase movie. He pulled out his sleeping bag, rolled it out on a flat bit of ground, and crawled into it.
    He looked up into the sky, clear and full of stars, the scent of smoke everywhere around him, and thought of Cady Adams and that kiss four years ago. Of her pink explosion of a bakery. About how one of those chocolate chip cupcakes of hers would taste. Of how Cady would taste.
    Their timing had never been right. When his mother had died, he’d left Glacier Creek, never planning to come back for anything other than a visit every now and again to see his father and Mitch. And when Mitch got married, to see Sarah and a couple of years later, baby Lila.
    He’d never wanted to start anything with a woman here in Glacier Creek. He hadn’t wanted to be tied down that way. He’d needed to roam and he had for years. Montana couldn’t hold him then. But things had changed. He was back now and so was Cady.
    As he drifted into a fitful sleep, the stars winking above him and the smell of smoke in his nostrils and in his hair, he knew things with Cady were about to change.

Chapter Seven
    W hen Cady was stressed, she baked. And she’d baked so much in the twenty-four hours Dex and the rest of the smokejumpers had been up the mountain, she had enough left for a girls-only Sunday afternoon cake and wine date with Jacqui, Laurel, and her two other friends, Dr Lina McArthur and Callie McClain, who was back in Montana for a visit.
    She thought it would be a distraction to have them around. She’d opened a couple of bottles of wine and presented a platter of her most decadent caramel-iced cupcakes, and it wasn’t three seconds into that first bite before all the women were talking about their men. Their