Born to Be a Cowboy Read online

  “Lieutenant Bowen,” he said.

  Her eyes widened. “What happened to Lieutenants Russo and Heinz?”

  “Nothing. Lieutenant Heinz runs his team, and I run mine. Russo’s wife got a really great job in Seattle. They’re moving at the end of the month. I’m taking over his team. You new in town?”

  She scoffed and smoothed out her A-line blue sundress, then straightened the shoulder straps made of small embroidered daisies she had painstakingly created on her sewing machine. It was one of the few items in the shop that was an Ivy Serrano original. Part of her wanted him to notice. The other part called her out on even considering flirting with him. Firefighters were not her type, yet today she seemed to need extra reminders.

  “No,” she said, indignant. “I was born and raised in Meadow Valley, California. Been here all my life. Mostly. But I can’t believe I didn’t know Jason and Angie were leaving town.” She’d been in her own little world the past couple of months getting the shop ready to open. Had she really been so wrapped up in her own life that she’d missed everything happening around her?

  “I might be a little out of touch,” she admitted. “But I know you’re not from Meadow Valley.”

  He chuckled. Even though it was a small smile, this one was genuine, going all the way to the crinkle of his blue eyes. Not that she was noticing his eyes. Or how his broad shoulders shook when he laughed. “Just got here last week from Houston. You’re very perceptive, Ms.…”

  She could hear his light accent now. “Serrano,” she said. “Ivy Serrano.”

  He raised a brow. “Any relation to Captain Emilio Serrano, who practically ran the Meadow Valley Fire Station up until a few years go?”

  Ivy swallowed and her eyes burned. “Guess you did your homework. Captain Serrano is my father.”

  The playfulness left the lieutenant’s eyes, but his gaze didn’t falter. “I’m sorry to hear about your brother. From what I’ve been told, he was a hell of a lieutenant himself.”

  “Thank you.” It had been two years since Charlie died in the line of duty, but it still felt like she’d found out only five minutes ago. She cleared her throat. “You were saying something about inspecting the outlet?” She was 99 percent sure the outlet was fine, but right now she’d let him and his crew tear apart the drywall if it meant this conversation would end.

  “Right,” he said. He pressed a button on a small radio clipped to his collar and called for the other three firefighters. “We should be out of here in less than an hour.”

  She nodded. “Can I still open the store? Today was supposed to be my first day.”

  “That’ll depend on what we figure out after a short investigation,” he said.

  The three firefighters she knew poured into her office from the back door.

  “Hey, Wyatt,” she said.

  Wyatt O’Brien, always the gentleman, tipped his helmet. “Hey there, Ivy.” Then he turned to Lieutenant Bowen. “All clear out back, sir.”

  The lieutenant nodded. “Thanks, O’Brien.”

  “This was a waste of time,” Shane said, storming past them all and back out front. That was pretty accurate. Wyatt’s younger brother always had a bitterness about him that clung tight. Looked like not much had changed.

  The lieutenant’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Hi, Ivy,” Jessie said.

  Ivy forced a smile. She’d known Jessie all the young woman’s life. But all she could hope when she saw her in uniform was that Casey would never have to go through what Ivy and her family did.

  “Heard you’re working the front desk at the guest ranch on your off days,” Ivy said. It’s safer there. Maybe you’ll like it and sign on full-time.

  Jessie nodded. “Those school loans aren’t going to pay themselves off.” She looked nervously at the lieutenant. “I’ll go check on Shane.” And she hurried after him.

  Ivy pressed her lips together and forced a smile. “Thanks, gentlemen,” she said to the two remaining men. “I guess I’ll just wait up front and let you do your job.”

  She blew out a shaky breath and headed back into her unopened shop—past the checkout counter and the table of baked goods and refreshments she’d set up for her very first customers.

  All she’d wanted was to start fresh and instead she’d started with a damned fire and four firefighters bursting her bubble of safety.

  A small crowd had gathered outside the store, which meant the gossip mill was in full effect.

  She knew to fight an electrical fire with a type C extinguisher. But the only way to fight small town gossip was to shift the focus. The last thing she needed was every person in Meadow Valley talking about poor Ivy and how fire had brought tragedy into her life again.

  She squared her shoulders and fluffed out her brunette waves, then pushed through the door and out onto the street.

  “Nothing to see here, folks! Just a quick inspection before Ivy’s doors are officially open.”

  “I heard sirens!” a man shouted, and Ivy recognized Lonny Tate, the owner of Meadow Valley’s Everything Store. Most small towns had a general store or a small supermarket, but not Meadow Valley. Lonny Tate prided himself on carrying everything from toilet plungers to the occasional bottle of Coco Chanel. The only problem was that because the place was a quarter of the size of the Target the next town over, you never knew for sure if what you needed was in stock.

  “Was there a fire?” a woman cried. It was Mrs. Davis from the bookstore. “Oh, poor Ivy. Not another fire.”

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Davis,” Ivy said. “Promise.”

  “If you’re fine, then you’ll call me Trudy like I’ve been asking you to do for decades,” the woman said with mild exasperation. “The only Mr. Davis I know is my father.”

  Mrs. Davis—Trudy—was practically family to Ivy, so she understood the worry and wanted to put the woman’s mind at ease. But Poor Ivy? The whole town would be calling her that before long if she didn’t set the record straight.

  She kicked off her wedge sandals and climbed onto the bench. A hush fell over the growing crowd of Meadow Valley residents. The town was still abuzz after the annual Fourth of July festival. Ivy had hoped to open up shop before then to capitalize on the event, which was one of their biggest tourist attractions, but—as her good friend irony would have it—her electrical inspection hadn’t yet gone through.

  “There’s no fire,” she lied. “Everything is fine. Just a misunderstanding. The store will be open soon. But in the meantime…” She held a hand to one side of her mouth like she was telling them all a secret. “How about that dude ranch on the outskirts of town? I hear we got ourselves some real live cowboys over there.”

  “Oh!” Mrs. Davis exclaimed. “And I hear they hired that good-looking new fire lieutenant to give some trail tours. Turns out he’s a bit of a cowboy himself!”

  Suddenly the mumblings changed from the likes of Poor Ivy to things like “I’ve always had a thing for redheads” and “There’s nothing sexier than a man on a horse,” along with “You mean a redheaded firefighter on a horse.”

  Funny. Ivy thought the lieutenant’s hair was more of a brown with a hint of red. And maybe there was something slightly sexy about a rancher on a horse, but not when fighting fires was in the mix. Fire was dangerous. Fire took lives. For the bulk of hers, her family had always worried about her father. But once he hit fifty and still hadn’t let any blaze get the best of him, they’d all been lulled into a false sense of security, one that let Ivy and her family believe that Charlie, her brother, would also be immune.

  They’d been wrong.

  The throng of locals Oohed, snapping her back to the present. They weren’t looking at her, though. They were looking past her. So she gazed over her shoulder to find the supposed sexy redhead striding through her shop door and out onto the sidewalk, his three cohorts following close behind. While the other firefighters pushed through the crowd and headed back to the truck, Lieutenant Bowen did no such thing.
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br />   When he saw her standing on the bench, he crossed his arms and grinned.

  “Are you gonna sing or something?” he asked. “And if so, are you taking requests?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  He thought he was so charming with those blue eyes and that one dimple that made his smile look a little crooked but at the same time really adorable.

  Again, all of the nopes. Men who played with fire were far from adorable.

  “Am I open?” she asked. Please say yes and then go away.

  “Open for business, Ms. Serrano. Though I think you’ll need to retire that pesky appliance of yours.”

  “You heard the man!” Ivy said. “We are open for business!”

  She hopped off the bench, slid back into her shoes, and held open the door, ushering much of the crowd inside.

  “So,” she said. “I was right?”

  He nodded once. “You were right. But it’s still my job to make sure.”

  “And it’s my job to sell the stuff in there, so I better head back inside,” she said. “Thank you, by the way. I know what you do is important. I just wish I could have caught the alarm before you all had to gear up and head over here.”

  He shrugged. “Beats pulling kittens from trees.”

  She laughed. He was funny. If he weren’t wearing all that gear and the uniform underneath… But he was.

  “You obviously haven’t met Mrs. Davis yet,” Ivy said. “She fosters kittens when she’s not at the bookshop. And she’s got a big old oak in front of her house. I’m sure you’ll hear from her sooner rather than later.”

  “I’ll consider myself warned.” He glanced up and down the street, then back at her. “So what do people do around here for fun?”

  Her brows furrowed. “I hear there’s a new firefighter in town who leads trail rides at the guest ranch. Maybe you can look into that.”

  He chuckled. “Checking up on me already, are you?”

  She brushed her hands off on her skirt. “Not sure how much you know about small towns, Lieutenant, but around here we don’t need to check up. Information is pretty easy to come by, especially when someone new takes up residence.”

  “Okay, then. When I’m not riding trails or saving kittens, what do you suggest? What are you doing tonight?”

  She shook her head. “Oh no. I don’t date firefighters.”

  He leaned in close and whispered in her ear, “I wasn’t asking for a date, Serrano. Tonight’s my first night off since I got to town. Just figured if you were going out, it might mean you knew a thing or two about where someone might let off a little steam.”

  His warm breath tickled her ear, and a chill ran down her spine.

  “Midtown Tavern,” she said. “It’s the only place open after eight o’clock.”

  She didn’t wait for a response. Instead she headed into the safety of her shop and headed straight for the thermostat.

  It was getting hot in here.

  Chapter Two

  Even though he’d technically had a few nights off in his first week in town, as a new lieutenant—who’d beat someone on his team for the job—he wanted to hang around the station, get the lay of the land, and hopefully ingratiate himself to those who saw him as an interloper. Chief Burnett wanted to keep it under wraps who it was that lost the position to Carter. Regardless, things were tense. And it was never easy being the odd man out.

  He’d had a good job back home at the Houston Fire Department. It was the home part of the equation that made leaving so easy. There was nothing like a father who disapproved of your life choices. Carter’s solution? He left when opportunity presented itself.

  Now here he was, a stranger in a strange land who didn’t even have a place to live, which meant the firehouse bunk room was the closest thing to home for the time being.

  He checked his watch. It was six o’clock on a Saturday evening, and aside from a trail ride he was leading at the Meadow Valley Ranch tomorrow morning, he had the next forty-eight hours off.

  “Hey,” he said to Wyatt and Shane, the two guys on his team. “What’s the best place to go around here to get a burger and a beer?”

  “Midtown Tavern,” the two said in unison as they stared at the rec room television watching a baseball game that was not the Astros, so he didn’t care what it was. But it looked like the consensus was in on nightlife in Meadow Valley. He nodded his thanks to the other two men, whose gazes stayed glued to the screen.

  He shrugged, assumed the T-shirt and jeans he’d changed into was proper attire, and headed for the station’s front door.

  The sun shone over First Street like it was still high noon, which made it easy to spot his destination—right in the middle of the main block. He laughed. Midtown Tavern was quite literally mid town.

  He crossed the street and strolled past the inn. Pearl, the owner—and Carter’s great-aunt—had offered him a room when he’d first arrived in town, but he’d preferred the station. She was the reason he was here—the reason he’d learned about an opening for a new lieutenant and possibly part of the reason the chief had even considered an outsider, but both Carter and Pearl were doing their best to keep that under wraps until his one-month trial period was over.

  “Secrets don’t stay buried for too long around here,” Pearl had told him. “So make sure they all realize how good you are at doing what you do before they have a chance to claim favoritism.”

  Carter knew he was good at his job. Damn good. That was why the chief had brought him in and why he was in the running—along with the other lieutenant—to be the next captain when the chief retired in a couple of years. This was it. One false move, and he would have to start from square one again at another station. He couldn’t go back to his job in Houston. And truth be told, he needed this distance from home. Going back wasn’t an option.

  So he was bent on proving himself to everyone at the station, which meant no mistakes, no distractions, and no reason for anyone to say he got the job because of who he knew rather than because of his long list of qualifications.

  He passed the Everything Store and chuckled at the signs advertising a flash sale on vegetable peelers in one corner of the window and the release of a romance novel in the other corner.

  He sure wasn’t in Houston anymore.

  It might have looked like noon outside, but when he stepped through the doors of Meadow Valley’s Midtown Tavern, it was officially Saturday night.

  He grinned at the dark wooden tables and booths that framed a square bar in the center of the space. This was what he needed. A place to unwind and mix with the residents of what he hoped to be his new hometown.

  He grabbed an empty stool at the bar and cleared his throat to get the attention of the woman behind it. Her back was to him as she typed something into a cash register, so all he could see was the dark ponytail that swished across the back of a black T-shirt that said MIDTOWN SLUGGERS in a baseball-style yellow font. The pockets of her jeans were painted with what looked like pink lily flowers. Not that he was paying special attention to the pocket area of her clothing. The vibrant art simply drew his eyes.

  His eyes widened when she turned to face him, a receipt and a few bills in her hand.

  “Serrano,” he said. “And here I thought you owned a clothing store.”

  She smiled, not at him but at the older man on the stool next to him. “Here’s your change, Lonny.”

  The man waved her off. “Keep it, Ivy. Put it toward repairing the damage from the fire.” He shook his head. “Such a shame something like that had to happen on opening day.”

  Ivy leaned over the bar. “Nothing happened, Lonny. The shop opened. I sold a bunch of stuff. There’s nothing to repair, but I will accept your tip because I was an excellent server.”

  She brushed off her hands and turned her attention to Carter.

  “Evening, Lieutenant. Yes, I do own a clothing store. But sometimes I help out around here.”

  “You got a thing for flowers?” he asked, remembering the
dress she was wearing earlier that day, the straps made of daisies. Or maybe it was she who stood out in his mind’s eye, and the memory of what she wore simply followed.

  Another woman sidled up to Ivy before she could answer, nudging her out of the way with her hip so she could get to the beer tap. “This is the new guy?” she said to Ivy while looking straight at Carter.

  “Sure is,” Ivy said.

  “You’re right,” the other woman said, blowing blue-streaked bangs out of her eyes. “Totally not as sexy as everyone keeps saying.”

  Ivy backhanded the other woman on the shoulder. “Casey!”

  Casey laughed. “Thanks for covering for me while I took that call. I’m good here, so you can—you know—punch out or whatever.”

  “You don’t pay me,” Ivy said, rolling her eyes.

  Casey finished pouring the beer and winked. “Yeah, but I let you drink for free. And I’ll add a bonus. You can take Dreamboat’s order.” Then she disappeared around the corner to deliver the drink to a patron on the other side of the bar.

  Ivy’s jaw tightened, and then she smiled what Carter guessed was her patented customer-service smile. “Yes, I like flowers,” she said matter-of-factly. “What can I get for you, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m off duty,” he said. “You can call me Carter.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Now, what can I get you, Lieutenant?”

  He laughed. She sure was determined not to like him, which was fine by him. It didn’t matter that he’d been attracted to her the second he’d hopped out of the truck in front of her store. He could have a drink, blow off a little steam, but that was it. No other distractions.

  “I’ll have whatever’s on tap,” he said. “How about you choose?”

  She grabbed a beer and filled it with a dark wheat beer, then slid it across the bar to him.

  “I didn’t call you a dreamboat,” she said. “Just for the record.”

  He nodded. “But there was talk of my sexiness, or I guess lack thereof?”

  She shook her head and gave him a haughty lift of her chin. “No. I mean, I just don’t get what all the fuss is about. So you’re cute in a uniform and can supposedly hold your own on a horse. It’s not like it’s newsworthy.” She looked around the bar and rolled her eyes. “Although not much happens in Meadow Valley, so I guess around here it is.”