was going on—he had zero intention of letting anyone else muddy the waters.
Jake’s eyes lit with amusement. “Cole’s down protecting the good citizens of Turtleback Station. I haven’t told him you’re here yet because I wanted it to be a surprise for both of you.”
Great. He couldn’t freaking wait. Even though he’d more often than not been on the same side as the two . . . civil servants, Gunnar had usually found himself having to race them to the finish, because, hell, he didn’t get paid unless he delivered. And they’d separately been closing in on a particularly nasty target about a year ago when everything had suddenly gone to hell in a handbasket . . .
Oh yeah, he really needed to stop being an ass to the small handful of men in the world he actually respected. And even though he’d made sure Wyatt’s hospital room had smelled like a thousand-dollar brothel, he wasn’t in any hurry to meet the bastard anytime soon.
Gunnar’s cell phone started vibrating, the accompanying chime indicating dispatch was toning out Spellbound Falls Fire & Rescue. He snatched up the phone before it vibrated off the table and tapped the link to hear the seventy-second message.
A good ten seconds of tones went off, followed by static, then: “Attention Spellbound Falls Fire & Rescue. Units Nine-eighty-seven and Spellbound Ambulance Two are asked to respond to the north side of Fraser Mountain—they believe near the High Bridge campsite—for a sixteen-year-old male, breathing and conscious, with a possible broken leg. Patient is with a party of nine hikers also requesting transportation off the mountain. Be advised, caller mentioned hearing approaching thunder. Confirmed with Caribou NOAA; squall line expected to reach that area around . . .” The line crackled, followed by a soft chuckle. “Ah, now. Copy units Nine-eighty-seven and Spellbound Ambulance Two: Fraser Mountain, near High Bridge campsite, for sixteen-year-old male with possible broken leg. Piscataquis out, twenty-two-twelve.”
Gunnar grabbed his badge off the table and stood, then headed for the door.
“Wolfe.”
He stopped and looked back to see Jake also standing. His hands hovered casually—but no less menacingly—near his gun holster. “I find out you’re not here on sabbatical, you won’t be recuperating in a palace.”
Gunnar eyed him briefly, then merely nodded and strode out of the bar. Time to do his job.
Chapter Three
Katy had been quite proud of herself for getting to work a full forty-five minutes before the 7:00 a.m. shift change, even if a leaky roof had spurred her on more than a desire to impress her new boss. Only she’d arrived to find one of the five station bays empty and no one around to impress. Her nerves jangled in the silence, sending her thoughts directly to her lifelong anxiety fix: Jane. What a relief it would be to fill the emptiness with her best friend’s laughter, with a steadying round of “atta girls” and “you can do its.”
But one devastating detail kept her phone in her pocket. Jane would know. She’d hear everything—stated or not—in Katy’s tone, her words, even her breathing. They’d spent decades perfecting the shorthand, and Katy knew that gift would sell her out in the end. So now she sat on a bench in front of the newly completed state-of-the-art safety building, trying to decide how she felt about what she’d been told by the teenage intern she’d discovered washing mud off the impressively large rescue truck out back.
“Chief Gillman’s gone,” the kid told her. “Quit.”
Katy felt a hard pulse in her throat at the news. What on earth had made the jovial, grandfatherly chief who’d hired her three months ago suddenly up and quit what had to have been his dream job?
“Family reasons,” was all the kid offered.
“And where are the others?”
“Taking showers,” he said. “They came back dirtier than their vehicles after spending all night rescuing a bunch of backcountry hikers. One of them busted an ankle and had to be transported to a hospital about fifty miles from here.”
Now Katy sat and tried to tamp down her uneasy feelings. Because even with her parents’ blessing, maybe moving to this magical little town wouldn’t prove to be the best decision she’d ever made. Maybe it would represent another pothole on the crooked road of her life. The empowerment that came from getting a position on such an elite squad had helped pull her through the last three weeks, but apparently Spellbound Falls Fire & Rescue was experiencing its own personal—and personnel—crisis.
Katy spent ten minutes roaming the