Flash Point - Savannah Kade Page 0,3

extra leverage. When Kane gave her the signal, she began to pull.

Leo Evans cleared the top of the wall with his hands flat on the rock as he pushed himself up and over. He stood slowly, gathered himself before he accepted a fashionable foil blanket that Ronan Kelly held out for him.

At first, the ranger refused, and Jo wanted to shake her head. Rescue guys were the worst! They could talk anyone into taking the damn foil blanket and staving off hypothermia … except each other.

Once he’d stepped out of the harness, and finally put the shiny, crinkly film around his shoulders, he looked up at them. “What the hell happened with the line?”

It was Sebastian Kane who answered, throwing Sam off her game. “Ask Huston, she knows.”

Chapter Three

“Today's training is on the ladder truck,” Chief Taggert announced, and Jo offered a short nod in response.

She kept her hands behind her back, though she noticed the others were slightly more casual. She couldn’t afford to be, not yet anyway.

Trying to stay toward the middle of the group wasn’t an easy thing to do when there were just seven of them. New fire houses are always hard, new districts harder.

Chief Taggert stood at the front of the room as he gave them the instructions then asked, “Where are my volunteers?”

As he looked around, Jo made sure her hand went up—just not first. It was good to see that most of the guys also had their hands up. It probably indicated that whatever Taggert might do to her in training wasn't going to be too horrible. But of course, the chief looked right at her. “Huston, I want you on it. Both inside the rig and up the ladder today.”

She nodded. It figured, every time she went somewhere new, they had to check out her competency.

Taggert wasn’t done though, “But I want you going in second.”

She felt an eyebrow lift in response, but still hadn't said a word.

“That way you can see what we do and, if anything's different, you can grab it before you go in.”

That made sense, she thought. And she liked that he wasn’t intending to throw her in the deep end and see if she swam. She could do it all, but different places had different protocols for different reasons … and they didn’t always write them down for the new guy to study up.

The chief offered her a small nod with a smaller smile. But it was a smile. Jo felt her lips curve in response. It was good that the chief liked her, she needed to maintain that. Then again, her last chief had liked her, too. He hadn't been the issue. Well, until he was …

It was now her sixth shift and she wanted to be settling in, getting more comfortable. She wasn’t there yet. Jobwise, yes, but she wasn’t ready to relax around these guys. She was just grateful that no one seemed to have blamed her for the winch and the park ranger. In fact, they'd seem to appreciate that she'd had a sense that something was wrong before it happened.

Maybe they'd listen to her next time. Maybe they wouldn't.

She wouldn't know until there was a next time. And the nature of the business was that you never knew what would occur or when.

After Taggert made his announcement, she puttered around the station for about half of the morning. The calls were few and mostly medical related. Training would be at two or three in the afternoon. Or four, depending on when the runs came in and whether or not there was even time to have the training.

She polished one of the rigs entirely by herself, happy to be alone with a task. Then Jo hit the small weight room at the back. Only Ronan Kelly was in there when she entered, and he kept to himself then left about halfway through her workout. The trick with the workout was to stay in shape, but to never exhaust herself to the point that she couldn't do a run at full capacity.

By the time she headed back into the main room, she was ready to eat. She checked for food but resisted the urge to wipe down the counters. It was good policy not to clean the kitchen. For whatever reason, most stations assumed that because she had boobs, she should be the one to do it. She would do just about anything but wash the dishes and serve the food.

As she looked in