Heat: A Friends to Lovers Firefighter Romance Read online

  Heat

  As the world welcomed 2020, Australia burned. On the south coast of New South Wales, families clung to survival on boats pushed away from the beach.

  In the aftermath of such destruction, can volunteer bushfire captain Reece Sinclair withstand fear and flames to find love?

  Reece, Australia's favorite fire fighter, rose to fame as the face of hope during the devastation of 2020. He's hot, and he knows it. But the only woman he’s wanted has only ever seen him as a friend.

  Zoe has no house, no job and no reason to stay in town. Except for her friendship with Reece. Working together to rebuild their town ignites a passion that was never there before.

  But when Zoe is offered her dream job thousands of miles away, Reece makes the decision for her. "Trust me," he once said. Can she, or will their love turn to ash?

  HEAT is dedicated to those who risk their lives to protect others.

  KENNA SHAW REED

  ALSO BY KENNA SHAW REED

  Aussie Military Romance:

  Avenge Her

  Protect Her

  Save Her

  Defend Her

  Rescue Her (2020)

  Passion without Rules:

  Who is Erebus

  Random Fantasies

  Dark Indulgences (2020)

  Choose Your Own Romance: A Complicated Marriage

  The Politician’s Wife

  The Unfaithful Wife

  The Unforgiving Wife

  The Perfect Wife

  The Rockstar’s Wife (2020)

  Choose Your Own Romance:

  The Uni Student

  The Intern

  The Bad Kitty

  Romance with Passion:

  Trusting his Heart

  A Billion Reasons Why

  Never Second Best

  Shattered Hearts

  Christmas Kisses

  Her Christmas Romance Surprise (Pia)

  Her Surprise Christmas Noel (JoJo)

  Unwrapping Her Christmas Gift (Abbie)

  Her Surprise Christmas Kiss (Zara)

  All books can be read standalone or in any order. Only the Choose Your Own Romance series have cheating (although you can pick a path that doesn’t).

  If you love Heat, then please leave a review. Reviews are like hugs for authors and I can never get enough!

  For all those who fought in the Australian 2019-20 bushfire season. For all those who have suffered.

  In memory of the fire fighters who gave their life to protect others.

  Copyright © 2020 by Kenna Shaw-Reed

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover: Kenna Shaw-Reed

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously.

  Heat

  Prologue – New Year’s Day

  Zoe

  “We fight together or die together!”

  I looked towards my husband, cowering in the corner of the hundred-year-old Meringa pub while Reece Sinclair, captain of the volunteer bush fire unit called us all to arms.

  “Children stay inside, everyone else, grab an old mop and bucket of water. See the embers and put them out.” His voice was calm but commanding. I’d never seen a man in such control of people who had huddled together with one wish. To survive.

  “Come on,” I tried to convince my husband to come outside. Join me, his football mates, the rest of our small town. To do what little we could to save us all.

  “This is your fault,” my husband spat before getting to his feet. Sure, Australia’s biggest natural disaster was my fault. Why not!

  “Something you can remind me of tomorrow, if we live. Come on!”

  For almost an hour, the hundred or so of us who’d sought refuge in town gave up on trying to save cafes and businesses, or even nearby homes. Every drop of precious water went towards saving the one building providing sanctuary to scared children. All the while we watched the wall of flames get closer. Sweltering in my red leather jacket, cropped to the waist and denim jeans. The only clothes I’d owned that could go somewhere towards protecting me from the heat and flames. My long blonde hair kept escaping from its ponytail, whipping around in the wind that blew ashes across my face. Stinging my green eyes. Something else to worry about tomorrow, if I lived that long.

  I couldn’t believe it had come to this.

  “Get inside! Get inside, NOW!”

  Until now, Reece’s calm but firm instructions had held us all together as a team. The change in his urgency came as the firestorm created its own weather conditions, whipping around to send showers of embers ahead of the freight train of flames. Putting out embers one by one was no longer an option. The ground was so dehydrated after years of drought that one ember could explode on impact, creating another risk.

  Stupidly, I chanced a glance towards the wall of flames. Bright orange against the ash-darkened sky. Closer than five minutes ago. Did we even stand a chance?

  I grabbed the arm of Lydia who’d become another local paralyzed by fear, unable to move to safety. “Come on, you need to go inside.”

  Wordlessly, she backed away from the fire, taking Shar and Felicity with her. I skirted around the building, pushing any stragglers who weren’t kitted out in firefighting uniforms to head inside. We’d done our best and in minutes we’d find out if it had been enough.

  The sound of the fire annihilating all in its path as it continued towards us was nothing like they described on the news. Between the sound, louder than any aircraft; the vibrations; the wall of heat and my fear, I knew with all certainty: we were going to die.

  I was going to die, before I’d had a chance to live. I was going to die, before I had a chance to correct my mistakes. Like staying married to the wrong man. Like not releasing both of us early enough to find our own paths to happiness.

  In the black sky and the unbreathable heat, it was all too late for regrets.

  Still, I’d rather be out here, facing it and fighting until the end. Going to my maker knowing we’d done all we could to survive.

  “Zoe, is that you?” I could recognize Reece’s commanding presence and voice but his name tag was lost in the ash and dark.

  “Yes,” I yelled over the exploding trees.

  “Count off everyone against the list on the bar inside. Only come back outside to tell me if anyone is missing. I’m keeping my team out here, everyone else has to be inside.”

  “Are we going to die?” Wasting time with a stupid question. Wishing I could see the truth in his eyes beneath the safety goggles.

  “Zoe, you can trust me.”

  A quick fist pump and then he was gone.

  15 January

  Zoe

  The bloody fire had claimed another victim.

  I watched my now ex-husband, Glenn, drive off in his new car. All his possessions filled a canvas bag on his front seat. All mine were easily stuffed inside my donated backpack.

  The only good thing about the fire was we had nothing left to divide.

  Everything we’d saved or borrowed to buy, anything we could have spent years in court fighting over, had been lost in the New Year’s Eve inferno. Eventually, the Australian bush fire season claimed 23 lives and almost 2000 houses along the south eastern coast. With over a billion animals losing their life in the 11 million hectares burned, I couldn’t complain about my losses which seemed insignificant by comparison.

  Glenn and I had lost our hom
e, our possessions, our jobs and now our marriage.

  All we had was Glenn’s new car, courtesy of a quick insurance settlement, and donated clothes. While I would have preferred fitted canvas jeans and loose shirt over a tank top, I was grateful for the well-worn shift dresses, donated by a country overwhelmed by yet another natural disaster.

  Some couples found strength in surviving.

  Not us.

  I’d found comfort in helping other survivors from that day when we clung together in the pub. Without a job to go back to or a home to clean, I spent my days looking after other people’s children while their parents dealt with insurance assessors. Mine was the name touted out to manage the volunteers who’d descended like a welcome plague, portioning out food to feed those still in too much shock to eat.

  Glenn found comfort and strength in finding a new direction. A new path. One that didn’t include me, even those he’d at least made an effort to invite me to come along.

  As he drove off, I kicked at the box of things he’d left behind. Donated clothes and shoes. He’d driven off bare foot. Preferring to wait until he reached civilisation and purchase his own, than to continue wearing shoes that felt the imprint of the previous owner.

  I couldn’t begrudge him wanting to start in a new city, with new clothes and a credit card bill to match. No. While other couples grew stronger, we’d woken up the day after the fire with nothing holding us together.

  Glenn wanted a fresh start.

  “Why the hell would you want to stay?” He’d raged when I refused to leave.

  “How about we stay, support our friends. We almost died together, we’re family now.”

  “I’ve always hated this town.”

  “How can you say that.” Not only was I embarrassed that other couples and families could hear us fighting, I couldn’t believe how self-absorbed this man had become. Talk about not being able to read a room, everyone else was building a community while Glenn, as always, was looking out for himself.

  “Easy. I’ve got a new job in Brisbane and I’m leaving. It’s your choice whether you come with me or not. Your choice. I don’t care.”

  At the time, I couldn’t believe he could be so blasé. We’d almost died. Surely, that should mean something. Surely, our marriage hadn’t deteriorated to the point that we couldn’t try to rebuild?

  I could have lied and told him I still loved him. That I didn’t want to rebuild our lives apart. But, the stress already apparent in the last years of our marriage was no match for the New Year’s firestorm.

  In the two weeks since the fire, I still slept each night in the scorched clothes that I’d worn that day, cuddling my jacket as a pillow. Still smelling of ash. Comforting and terrifying in equal measure. While families moved into the smattering of caravans that had been donated as temporary shelter, I stayed in a shared room above the pub. Needing the familiarity of people who’d survived with me and the security of sleeping in the one building left standing. Glenn had been one of the first to escape to a nearby, local town. Finding a hotel room with clean sheets and full bar fridge.

  He only came back home to leave.

  During the aftermath of the fire, I’d tried to miss him, but I could only miss the dreams we had the day of our wedding. Nothing since had measured up. For either of us.

  If the fire had claimed my marriage as another victim, it also gave Glenn and I the opportunity to live.

  Just not with each other.

  Reece

  We’d lost two brand new fire trucks, along with more buildings and businesses than I wanted to count.

  Okay, my business was lost, but most of the pets had been saved, protected in my own version of an underground bunker. An old wine cellar that I’d been converting into a pet grooming business. Walls of cages meant to temporarily house pets while waiting for their shampoo and clipping had been the difference between life and death.

  I didn’t want to think about those who’d been lost. It was enough to see the faces of families who thought they’d lost everything, only to be reunited with a beloved family member.

  “We hate to ask, but can you keep—”

  “Of course, they can stay here as long as you need. But you’ll have to come in each day to take them for walks, help clean.”

  “Reece, thank you.”

  “We can’t thank you enough, thanks mate.”

  “What you did that day, and now, thanks.”

  I’d done my job. Or at least tried to. We hadn’t saved the town. The occasional home remained standing. One or two businesses escaped by a miraculous change of wind.

  We saved the pub.

  How fucking Australian. From the country that embraced the song about a pub with no beer, came my small country town. Miles from the city and usually bypassed by the highway. Now, the nation’s media had descended to broadcast to the world about our lost streets, trees and probably a generation of town folk who’d decide to move cities to rebuild.

  But we’d saved the pub.

  And all the lives inside.

  Not one human life had been lost, on my watch.

  Although, as I sent Zoe on her fool’s errand mission to count people inside the pub, I thought I was only keeping her occupied until the inevitable. Get everyone to focus on a bloody list of names instead of watching the flames close in and end their lives.

  My fam. My friends. My crew.

  Together we’d faced our greatest fear.

  Not of the flames or the unpredictable nature of the fire that wanted us to be her bitch.

  Our greatest fear had been letting down the people who’d trusted us. By name, we knew them all. From two-week-old Alice to Jack and Grace Heath who’d just invited the town to celebrate sixty years of marriage.

  Somehow, the fire balls missed the building and the flames were repressed by the halo water sprinklers that I’d convinced Old Man Hobbs to install two or three years ago.

  New Year’s Day had been the worst day of my life.

  And the best.

  We’d lost a town but found a new, bigger family.

  Those of us who’d stayed. Who had faced going back to the plot of ashen land that had once been home, kicked around the remains to look for anything that had survived.

  For me, the only thing left of my house was a box of old cast iron camping gear that I’d meant to donate to the local school fete. If ever I got a kitchen, at least I could cook up the meanest bacon and eggs. The stainless steel in my surgery was warped and would need as much money to repair as if it was going to be replaced. For now, lease payments were still due, and I didn’t have a fucking clue how to cover the rates, loan payments or start again.

  My happy clients gave me a reason to keep going.

  Making Zoe smile at least once a day was the only goal I could make with any certainty of success.

  Yeah, I could turn around and say life sux.

  But at least we all still had a life.

  Now, where was that beautiful girl with the smile that fueled my day.

  “Captain Sinclair!” A stunning, well presented blonde called to me as her high heels stumbled across the gravel and dirt carpark. I had to laugh at the way she shunned brushing up against anything or anyone who might mark her white dress. It might be perfect on camera, but out here, wearing white was asking for trouble.

  “Miss Stone, how lovely to see you again.”

  Shit.

  I’d forgotten. A two-week anniversary from the fires came with more press.

  “Thank you for agreeing to speak with me.”

  “It’s our pleasure. Thank you for agreeing to share the footage with the other stations.”

  “I can only imagine how difficult this has been. My producer thought it would be easier on you and Miss Wynters if we shared the one interview.”

  “We appreciate it.”

  “Where is Miss Wynters?” Danielle’s hand on my arm was the only personal contact she’d made since arriving. Not that I wasn’t attracted to her, hell, my cock ha
dn’t seen any action since the fires had begun in September. But, as each television crew sent in a male and female journalist to interview locals, it seemed that I was the prey for all women.

  Pole bunnies.

  Women who wanted to a fire fighter as a notch on their belt. To tell their friends they’d slept with a hero. It wasn’t personal. I would have just been an instagramable story for their friends.

  Not exactly a pity fuck, but—I didn’t know why I kept knocking them back, but I did.

  Back in the day, when a pro football career seemed mine for the taking, I did take just about any woman who offered. But when injury came and my career took a u-turn, the superficiality of the female race burned harsh.

  I wasn’t anyone’s hero or meal-ticket.

  I refused to believe the hype.

  And I refused to accept the many offers by Danielle Stone to make our interview more private and personal. But I could look back on some of her best interviews and guess how she’d made her male guests so relaxed that they gave up their innermost secrets on camera.

  Them.

  Not me.

  “I was about to find Zoe. Where do you want us to set up?”

  “I thought the old picnic area at the back of the pub?” Danielle couldn’t talk without twirling her perfectly groomed hair with long red talons for fingernails. Not impressed and not interested, sweetheart. “We’d get some great vision of the warped swings, where the massive spider web climbing structure used to be. My producer has white plastic chairs that will be striking against the burnt wooden furniture.”

  “Maximum impact,” I mused.

  “For maximum exposure. We need to make sure that viewers, that the world, realize how much effort it’s going to take to rebuild each one of the communities.”

  “Thanks, that almost sounded genuine.”

  “Reece, I do care. This is my job, but I couldn’t do it this well if I didn’t care.”

  “Then, can you do me a favor?”

  “Anything.”

  “Take it easy on Zoe, at least today. Her husband left.”