She was speechless. She couldn’t believe her ears. “Did you make that up all by yourself?” she finally asked.

    “All by myself,” he said.

    “And you think we’d be good together?”

    “Epic,” he said, smiling.

    “No,” she said.

    “It was worth a try,” he said. Then he laughed and kissed the dog on her head. “Molly wants me, that’s obvious.” He put his big hand on Sierra’s head and ruffled her hair as if she were a kid. “How’s the ankle feeling?”

    “Good, as a matter of fact. This week I get to put a little weight on it and if I have no problems, I can go back to work.”

    He put his hand on her thigh. “Listen, I should’ve asked before, is there anything you need—like a loan or something? It must be kind of hard being out of work for so long. I’m sure you don’t get comped at the diner, especially it not being a work-related injury.”

    “A loan?” she repeated. “Really?”

    “I didn’t even think of it until now,” he said. “You’ve got expenses and probably doctor bills and you’re out of work. I have some savings and no worries if it takes you a while on the repayment.”

    Again, she couldn’t find her voice. “Connie, you keep blindsiding me. A loan? No, I’m okay. I have some savings, too. And I’m still helping Sully, though not as much as I was—but I can sit behind that counter and ring up sales all day and night. And if I run into trouble, there’s always Cal.”

    “I thought of that, but he’s got that house. I built a house—it can really be a pocket suck.”

    “You built a house?”

    “Uh-huh. The one I live in. Just outside of town. I put money down on some land when I was just a kid—I was twenty-two. I’m still paying on it. It’ll be paid for when I’m forty-two. And the house—when I’m a hundred and ninety.”

    “Must be some house,” she said.

    “It’s a pretty simple house, but I’m a firefighter. We do all right, but we’re not rolling in dough, though some of ’em act like they are. Thing is, it wouldn’t put me out to help if you need it.”

    “Conrad Boyle, I think you must be about the nicest guy I’ve ever met.”

    He grinned at her. “See, you’re coming around. That’s good.”

    “Don’t get any ideas.”

    “Sierra, I’ve had ideas since about the minute I met you. I figure it’s only a matter of time.”

    “Is that why you offered me a loan?”

    He made a face. “Of course not. I thought you might need a hand, that’s all. That’s how you treat friends, Sierra. Don’t be a pill.”

    “I do like you, Connie. That’s why I wanted to be honest with you. I’ve had a lot of problems over the past few years—most of which I made myself. I’m going to be working my way out of them for a long time. I think you could do better than me.”

    “That’s very nice of you to warn me, Sierra. Now let me make up my own mind about stuff like that. And you make up yours. What you see is what you get.”

    And there’s really nothing better than that, she found herself thinking.

    * * *

    He was completely serious and she knew it. Connie Boyle wanted to be her boyfriend. And frankly, she didn’t know when she’d had an offer so good. He was completely unfazed by her confessions and seemed to like her just the same. He was, in fact, the first normal guy she’d been attracted to since she was about fourteen.

    Over the next couple of weeks, just in the course of conversation, she learned something else about him that should have been obvious from the beginning. He’d been a firefighter for seven years. And a paramedic and a search and rescue volunteer almost as long. It was in his nature to help, to serve. But also—he’d seen some stuff. Some ugly stuff.

    “It’s a little town, but we have a big highway, some vast rural land, huge mountains and a lot of people passing through. The police handle the crime but we usually get the mop-up—after a crash or suicide or even homicide, except we haven’t had one of those in a long time. If you think just because it’s a small and friendly place that nothing interesting happens, think again. All people have complicated lives, get in trouble, have problems and emergencies. We’re a busy little fire department.”

    He had a medic’s knowledge and perspective. His stories were daring and fascinating. One of their search and rescue guys fell out of a helicopter and was killed—they spent hours looking for his body. It was a freak accident—the guy with the best balance and safety record in the state somehow slid right out of the chopper. Then there was the time some dipshit blew up a house because of an unsettled debt and blew up himself in the process; he was cut in half, his upper body up in a tree three hundred yards from his lower body. An old man died alone while eating a bowl of spaghetti and it was a while before someone realized he might be sick or dead. Hikers and campers were continually lost; farmers and ranchers had mishaps with heavy equipment. They rescued a seventeen-year-old from a grain silo—usually a death sentence but they got him out. They even tracked a fugitive once—that was dicey. He was wanted, they worried about the complications of actually catching him, though he was supposed to be unarmed. “Someone just decided to cut our losses and punched him in the face. Knocked him out cold. No one can remember who did it. But he’s behind bars again.”

    “No one can remember who did it? Did it ever occur to you to check the knuckles in the firehouse?”

    With a twinkle in his eye he said, “I guess not.”