Fire
Me UpPine
Mountain # 4
By:
Kimberly Kincaid
Releasing
February 3rd,
2015
Zebra/
Kensington
Blurb
IF
YOU CAN’T STAND THE HEAT…
Teagan
O’Malley can handle a crisis. She’s a paramedic, it’s her job.
But she never expected to land in the kitchen of her father’s pub,
with no notice, no cash, and no room for error. The kitchen is not
her favorite place. Lucky for her, she just scraped a bad-boy chef
off the pavement after a motorcycle accident—and something about
him says he can turn up the heat in more ways than one.
Adrian
Holt has had a rough few years, and he’s not eager to get tangled
up in anything more complicated than a good risotto. But with a
broken arm and a head full of bad memories, he needs a challenge to
keep him sane. Teagan’s dare-me attitude and smoldering mess of a
bar are just what the doctor ordered. And the two of them together
might cook up some even better medicine…
Link
to Follow Tour:
http://www.tastybooktours.com/2014/12/fire-me-up-pine-mountain-4-by-kimberly.html
Author
Info
Kimberly
Kincaid writes contemporary romance that splits the difference
between sexy and sweet. When she's not sitting cross-legged in an
ancient desk chair known as "The Pleather Bomber", she can
be found practicing obscene amounts of yoga, whipping up anything
from enchiladas to éclairs in her kitchen, or curled up with her
nose in a book.
Kimberly
is a 2011 RWA Golden Heart® finalist who lives (and writes!) by the
mantra that food is love. Her digital Line series is all about the
hot cops and sexy chefs of Brentsville, New York. She is also the
author of the Pine Mountain series, which follows small town singles
as they find big-time love. Kimberly resides in Virginia with her
wildly patient husband and their three daughters.
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Excerpt
Teagan shouldered her first-in bag
and jumped out of the rig, her boots barely making contact with the
pavement before one of the cops securing the scene had fallen into
step beside her. “Morning, Officer. What’ve we got?”
Although her eyes were locked in on
the scene about thirty yards away—which was thankfully blocked from
incoming traffic by a pair of police cruisers—Teagan’s attention
was just as sharply focused on the cop’s response.
“Motorcycle versus minivan.
Motorcycle driver is over there, single rider, wearing a helmet.
Denies losing consciousness, no visible head injury, but he’s
combative and complaining of left arm pain. I’ve got an officer on
him now, just to make sure he didn’t fly before you got here. He’s
going to be a handful.”
“Oh goodie. I eat those for
breakfast,” Teagan said, moving swiftly past the barricade. “How
about vehicle two?”
The officer tipped his chin at a
dark green Honda Odyssey sitting halfway on the shoulder of the road,
hazard lights flashing in perfect orange rhythm. “Minivan driver
has her two kids in the backseat, all parties belted in. Everyone
appears stable with no visible injuries, no complaints of pain. Scene
is secure. Just let us know what you need.”
“Got it, thanks.” She swung her
gaze at Evan before letting it land on the Honda. “You want the
minivan before the cops take her report? I’m grabbing Chris and
Jeff from Seven to help nail down this single rider and make sure
he’s stable for transport.”
Evan shook his head and shot her a
wry grin. “I know you owe me, but I can take the cranky biker.”
As if on cue, strains of a heated
altercation filtered past the scene noise, pulling a sardonic laugh
from Teagan’s throat. “Call it even for the fridge. I’ve got
this.”
He turned with a shrug toward the
nearby minivan. “You’re a glutton for punishment, O’Malley.”
Understatement of the frickin’
year.
Teagan called for the two
firefighters before turning her attention toward her patient, who
stood arguing with one of Pine Mountain’s finest in the middle of
the road in spite of the fact that she was certain he’d seen better
days.
Holy big-man-on-a-stick, this might
be more than she’d bargained for.
Even though his back was half-turned
and she was a good ten paces away, the guy was obviously huge, and
from the sound of it, he was no stranger to being righteously pissed
off. Still, the unmistakable edge of pain bled through his tone as
clear as sunrise over Big Gap Lake, and the way he clutched his left
arm at such an awkward angle against his body told her all she needed
to know. Pissed off or not, she was getting her hands on him, pronto.
“Hey, Chris, run and grab the
backboard from the rig and roll the cot over here, yeah? Jeff, you’re
with me for trauma assessment. I get the feeling it’s going to be
an adventure.” She lasered her focus from her crew to the injured
man without breaking stride or waiting for answers.
Time to get to work.
“Sorry to interrupt, gentlemen,
but I heard this is where the party is.” Without a second thought,
Teagan slipped into the hairbreadth of space between the cop and her
irritated patient, assessing the latter with a critical eye. Her
subconscious gave a whisper of recognition as she looked at his
rugged, stubbled face, but the tickle of familiarity took a backseat
to the visual assessment she needed to do in order to gauge his
injuries.
The guy had nearly a foot on her,
which was pretty freaking impressive considering she measured in at
five foot- seven. The physique that went with his height left
impressive in the dust, though, especially since his chest was as
thick as a double-wide trailer and every ounce of it appeared to be
muscle.
Make that leather-clad muscle, which
had probably saved his ass, quite literally. As best she could tell,
thanks to his now-banged-up jacket, the guy’s road rash appeared
shockingly minimal, although she’d have to get the garment off to
be sure.
Too bad the rest of his injuries
didn’t match, namely that arm he was cradling like a helpless
newborn. She didn’t even want to get started on the laundry list of
other injuries that could be lurking beneath the dirt-streaked denim
and leather.
She passed the first-in bag to Jeff,
who caught it without looking while the police officer stepped to the
background to give them a wide berth.
“My name is Teagan O’Malley, and
I’m a paramedic with Pine Mountain Fire and Rescue,” she said,
her hands a flurry of movement as she geared up to do a rapid trauma
assessment. “Can you tell me your name?”
The guy lifted a pierced eyebrow
toward his spiky platinum hairline and speared her with a stare
caught somewhere between hazel and cold gray. God, how did she know
him?
“I’m fine,” he ground out, his
voice pure gravel and aggravation. “Which I already told that
fucking jarhead, but he wouldn’t let me leave.”
Yeah. It was going to take a little
more than a bad attitude and some uncut testosterone to get her to
back down. “That fucking jarhead, as you so eloquently put it,
might’ve saved your life by keeping you here until you can be
medically cleared. While I doubt there’s a gift registry for that
kind of thing, a simple thank you might be nice. Just to be on the
safe side.”
Her would-be patient took a step
back, his stare going from cutting to calculating in the span of a
breath. “I don’t need to be medically cleared,” he said,
although it didn’t escape her notice that he caught the cop’s
attention to toss him a tight nod.
Teagan bit back the temptation to
point out that, from the looks of things, he was a walking, talking
version of the game Operation with that arm bent up like it was.
“Okay. Why don’t you let me give you a quick once-over to be
sure?”
“No.” The word fell between them
without subtlety, and she drew back with a frown. The tough guy
routine was cute really, but nobody was indestructible.
“Look, I know this isn’t fun,
but it’s necessary, so—”
“If you think I’m getting in
that ambulance, then you don’t know shit.”
Jeff locked eyes on her in a
nonverbal communication of say
the word, but Teagan gave
a quick shake of her head. She’d handled enough tough guys to fill
a stadium, and this one was no different.
She craned her neck and stepped
close enough to see the numerous abrasions peppered in with the guy’s
dark stubble, meeting his stare head-on even though it sent an
involuntary shiver down the plumb line of her spine.
“Let me tell you what I do
know.” She dropped her
voice to just a notch above a whisper and threw on a smile as thick
and sweet as store-bought frosting. “I know your arm is broken, and
I think you know it, too. I know you don’t want me to look at it
even though it hurts like a bitch. And I also know that’s not an
option, because it’s possible that broken arm is the least of your
worries. So here it is. You can either cooperate with me and we’ll
do this the easy way, or I can sedate you and work you over so
thoroughly, I’ll be on a first-name basis with every last part of
you. Are we clear?”
A muscle tightened in the hard line
of his jaw, drawing out the silence for a beat, then two before he
turned toward her ever so slightly, as if waiting for her to get on
with it.
Good enough, she thought as she
lifted her hands to start checking him out.
But before Teagan could even start
on his pulse, the guy’s free hand had turned to form an ironclad
circle around her wrist.
Heat shot all the way up Teagan’s
arm and her heart whacked against her ribs like a hockey puck
dropping at center ice . . . right up until she realized the guy had
simply reached out to get her attention.
“Adrian.” The word, little more
than a harsh affirmation, pushed past his lips quietly, and it
snapped her focus back into place.
“Excuse me?”
As fast as he’d touched her, he
loosened his fingers, as if the movement of getting her attention in
the first place had drained his strength to fumes. “My name is
Adrian. And yeah. My arm hurts like hell.”
And just like that, she was moving
again, even though her skin still prickled with strange and residual
warmth.
“Can you rate the pain on a scale
of one to ten, ten being the worst pain you’ve ever felt?”
Something Teagan couldn’t get a
gauge on flickered across his expression, darkening his eyes to a
steely green gray, but he snuffed it out with an audible exhale. “If
I don’t move it, it’s fine.”
“And if you do?”
Adrian paused. “Six.”
Damn. She’d hate to know what had
given him his ten. “Okay, Adrian, here’s what we’re going to
do. I’m going to have you sit on this cot.” Teagan stopped to
acknowledge Chris’s impeccable timing as he rolled the thing over,
and she reached for the trauma shears Jeff had wordlessly taken from
the bag before she continued. “And I’m going to ask you a couple
of questions while I check you out. You okay with that?”
He dropped his chin a fraction, and
the wince it produced wasn’t lost on her. “What’re those for?”
Adrian asked, gaze firm on the shears in her grip.
“I’m sorry, but in order to get
a good look at you, that jacket’s got to go.”
The feral expression she’d just
lulled off Adrian’s face made a vengeful comeback. “You’re not
cutting my jacket.”
Oh, come on. She was a paramedic,
not a magician, and that arm probably resembled a jigsaw puzzle right
out of the box. “You got any better ideas on how to get it off over
a broken limb, Einstein?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
In the time it took her to blink, he
had the jacket halfway off his shoulders even though the move had to
hurt like nothing else, and Teagan’s gut gave an uncharacteristic
yank.
“Wait—stop!”
But before her words could make it
all the way out, the deed was done. “There . . . you go,” Adrian
grated, his face roughly the color of the sheet on the cot as he
gripped the jacket in his free hand. “Problem solved.”
“Are you out of your mind? I can’t
help you if you’re only going to make things worse!” Christ.
If there were broken ribs in that granite wall of a chest of his, he
could’ve single-handedly punctured a lung with that little stunt.
His voice only held the slightest
hitch as he fixed her with a stoic glance. “You said you needed it
off to get a good look, right? Now you’re free and clear, Red.”
Jeff reclaimed the trauma shears and
put them in the bag with a sheepish grin. “Hate to admit it,
O’Malley, but he’s kind of right. What do you need first?”
Teagan sucked down a deep breath and
shot Jeff the mother of all death glares. “I’ve got the RTA. You
work on getting the stuff together to splint that arm.” She turned
her glare on Adrian as Jeff began to rummage for what he needed.
“Park it,” she said, jutting her chin at the cot.
Miraculously, he settled against the
reclined back of the rolling bed and let her take his vitals without
argument. The numbers were startlingly good for someone who’d just
turned his motorcycle into spare parts in the middle of the road, but
she’d seen vitals nosedive without warning too often for that to
mean he was in the clear.
No better way to assess an injury
than to let your fingers do the walking. Starting at the top of
Adrian’s platinum blond head, she skimmed her hands over him,
missing nothing as she worked her way down the corded muscles in his
neck and chest. The injury to his forearm indicated an obvious break,
but since the skin was intact, she placed the limb carefully at his
side to await a splint before sliding her hands to his abdomen.
“Careful. Any more personal and
you’re going to have to take me to dinner first.”
The comment, and the hint of dark
humor that came with it, caught Teagan totally off guard under the
circumstances, and her fingers stuttered over the left side of his
rib cage. She’d done thousands of assessments, and never once had
they been anything other than a hundred percent perfunctory.
But right now, with her hands about
an inch above the low-slung waistband of Adrian’s jeans, her brain
heaved forward into forbidden territory, and her girly parts were all
too happy to shake off the dust and go along for the unexpected
joyride.
Teagan cleared her throat. Twice.
“I’m, ah, just making sure nothing else feels broken. Did you
lose consciousness at any time? Any dizziness, nausea, trouble
breathing? Anything like that?” She reset her hands and forced
herself to concentrate as she moved them over the rest of his upper
body.
Wow. He really was . . . wow.
And she really needed to knock it
off.
“No, and no. Like I told the cops,
I’m not an idiot. I don’t ride without a helmet.”
She worked her way down the lower
half of his body, satisfied that everything was in working order
before returning her attention to his face. “Good intentions aren’t
always enough to save people, you know.”
His pupils looked round, reactive,
and a lot less pissed than before, and his gravelly voice held a hint
of amusement as he said, “Spare me the lecture, Red. I’m a big
boy.”
Teagan fought both the urge to agree
with him and the burning desire to roll her eyes. “Gee, I’ve
never heard that nickname for a redhead before.”
