challenging and full of warmth. She wasn’t cowed by him in the slightest, and she might actually be—dare he hope?—flirting right now. “You’re quite the racketeer, Miss MacBain,” he said, unable to control what he feared was a goofy grin.
“Oh, not me, Chief. I’m the straightest arrow you’ll ever find,” she said brightly. Instead of leaving, she took a seat across the desk from him and treated him to a full-wattage smile. “Of course, I did hope that returning your belongings all safe and sound would help my cause.”
Gunnar eyed her for several seconds, wondering if she knew what effect that smile had on men. “You can drop the chief when we’re in station,” he said as he also sat down. “In fact, no titles for anyone unless we’re on scene. Just first or last names or both, depending on your mood.”
Her smile vanished with her surprise. “Seriously?”
“Apparently Gilmore set that rule the day he formed the squad,” Gunnar explained. “He told me he felt that eliminating reminders of everyone’s position in the hierarchy would create a more relaxed and cohesive team.”
“And does it?” she asked, clearly skeptical.
He shrugged. “I’ve only been here two weeks, so I don’t know. And personally, I don’t really care, so long as when I tell someone to do something, they do it.”
“Okay.” The gleam returned. “So long as you also don’t care if I call Gretchen ‘Sunshine.’”
Gunnar snorted and picked up his pencil. “So long as I’m not here the first time you do.”
“Um, speaking of Chief Gilmore,” she said, making him look up and study her. “Did he ever mention having campfires at the station in the evenings?”
Gunnar set his pencil on the desk, then clasped his hands together over his stomach as he leaned back in his chair. “There haven’t been any since I showed up, and there’s no evidence of a fire pit.”
Katy leaned forward. “During my interview for this job, I mentioned that, in Pine Creek, I’d arranged for us to have campfires at the station and invited the townspeople to join us. The fires became so popular that we ended up having one most evenings from spring through fall, as well as several bonfires throughout the winter. And when Chief Gilmore told me right on the spot that I had the job, he said he’d like to start having campfires here, too.”
For the life of him, Gunnar couldn’t imagine why. “Go for it,” he said, straightening and picking up the pencil again.
She shot to her feet like she’d been electrocuted. “Great. Thanks. You’re going to love them,” she said as she turned to leave.
“Just make sure there’s a water hose nearby if the tones go off.”
She stopped at the door and beamed him another smile. “I have a brother who’s an amazing metalsmith, and before I left for Colorado, I asked if he would make another fire pit like the one he made for Pine Creek Fire & Rescue. Only this time, he added a thick dome cover that pivots out from the bottom to smother the flames if we have to leave the station empty.”
Gunnar recalled seeing a website showcasing Brody MacBain’s metalwork when he’d been checking out her family. The ex-Marine was four years older than Katy and one hell of an artist. Which was no small feat, considering the man had returned home two years ago carrying a Purple Heart in place of the body parts he’d left in Afghanistan.
“Any preferences on where I set the pit?” she asked.
He waved her away without looking up. “Put it wherever you want.”
Gunnar waited until she was gone, then leaned back in his chair again and stared at the empty doorway. He still didn’t know why the woman had fallen off the radar for two entire weeks, but judging from what he’d seen of her so far, whatever had sent her into hiding couldn’t have been overly traumatic.
Only enough to make her break a promise to her very best friend, a quiet voice whispered, but he dismissed it. Women had their own logic, and he’d long ago accepted his faulty comprehension.
He grinned then, recalling Katy’s disbelief when he’d ignored her complaint about Gretchen stealing her patient, and his grin broadened as he remembered her expression when he’d asked for his wallet and cell phone after their little water rescue. No doubt, this woman wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met. Even more surprising, he couldn’t imagine being bored in her presence, a thought he’d never had about any woman.
And Aunt