large station before she found the kitchen. She hunted down a mug, filled it with the questionable remains of the coffeepot, and went outside in hopes the bright morning sun would help banish the chill of the morning’s news.
Damn, she’d really liked Chief Gilmore. Katy smiled sadly, remembering the man’s hazel eyes shining with patient humor as she’d spent her entire interview in a nervous sweat, trying to persuade him to take a chance on her. She wanted the job. She thought she would be good at it. But this squad was such a big deal, it really took a lot of guts on her part to apply.
Heck, all the national news channels had run stories on Chief Gilmore’s search for the bravest and best firefighters and paramedics for the elite squad he was pulling together. He drew applicants from all over the country. Deeply qualified ones.
Katy figured she must have been temporarily insane to even go for it.
Or maybe Chief Gilmore had been for hiring her.
He’d told her he had faith in her and would be there to guide her. And now he was gone.
All of which had her worrying about how the new chief would feel, inheriting a medic who possessed a sum total of three years of volunteer experience. Oh, and a certificate from the highly respected wilderness school Gilmore had pulled a few strings to get her into, which claimed she was now competent in technical climbing, whitewater kayaking, and remote search and rescue. But would that be enough to satisfy the new chief, or would she be let go without even being given the chance to prove—
“Must be nice.”
Katy lifted a hand to her forehead and squinted into the sun at the elderly gentleman stopped on the sidewalk at the end of the station’s driveway. “Excuse me?”
“I was just saying how nice it must be,” he repeated, gesturing in her direction, “to have our hard-earned tax dollars paying you probably double what anyone around here makes, just so you can sit and drink coffee in front of a ridiculously overpriced fire station.”
Katy’s mouth dropped open, but before she could reply, a deep male voice cut in behind her.
“Be glad she’s sitting here instead of out on some road trying to keep your wife and granddaughter from bleeding to death while we cut them out of what’s left of their car.”
Katy spun on the bench to gape at the tall, broad-shouldered man standing in the open bay doorway, his ice-blue gaze locked on the complainer. Despite the absence of a badge, she recognized he was a firefighter rather than a medic. Although he wore a dark blue T-shirt identical to hers, his matching station pants didn’t have cargo pockets to get in the way of slipping into bunker gear.
“Well, that was aggressive,” Katy said, even as she fought the urge to jump up and flee along with the duly chastised gentleman scurrying down the sidewalk.
He shrugged and turned those piercing blue eyes on her. “When people stop making stupid comments, I’ll stop correcting them. And speaking of stupid, lose the badge,” he added, nodding at the one clipped to her jacket.
“Excuse me? Why?”
“Our jobs are dangerous enough without pinning a target on our chests. Pissed-off people will often start shooting at anyone who looks like law enforcement.”
Katy swallowed her anxiety and watched the old man disappear into a local restaurant down the road.
Welcome to Spellbound Falls, she thought, with grim humor.
She turned back to the man and willed her heart to stop racing. Holy hell, were all the firefighters on the squad so imposing? Even though she’d grown up around tall, athletic men—there wasn’t a male in her family under six-foot-three—Katy doubted that even a solid wall of overprotective brothers and cousins would rattle this guy, who stood as solid and grounded as a thousand-year-old oak.
“Thanks for the advice,” she said in what she hoped was an even voice, “but I think I’ll wait for the new chief to tell me to lose the badge.”
“He just did.” His eyes flared briefly before they crinkled with his grin. “Gunnar Wolfe—with an E,” he said, tapping the name Wolfe printed on his shirt.
He reached in his pocket, pulled out a flat leather case, studied it a moment, and then turned it to face her. “Yup, the badge they gave me at the council meeting last night definitely says I’m chief—at least for the next three months. And although my expertise runs more toward fire and rescue, you might