Montana Hero Read Free Page B

the next couple of months to observe and get a feel for how you operate. I’ll probably respond to every call. Don’t freak out. I won’t be doing formal evaluations. I merely need to see how we react to 911 calls and what I…we…can do to improve our recovery success rate.”
    He carried his thermal mug to the coffee urn at the back of the room. He didn’t have any diehard ideology he felt compelled to press upon them. But his last boss had taught him a few things about being a manager, and now was Flynn’s time to try implementing them.
    “You’ll see I included my schedule this week. I will do my best to be available if anyone wants to talk. But to break the ice, I’d appreciate it if you’d each return your questionnaire for a quick one-on-one chat. Consider it your chance to tell me what you think works best about this unit’s present protocols and what you think needs changing.”
    He made a sweeping gesture. “I left a job that I loved to move nearly two thousand miles away to take a job that pays less and is completely outside my comfort zone, so obviously change doesn’t scare me. Feel free to make a list.”
    Everyone nodded, except Kat Robinson, who was already scribbling like mad. Somebody knows exactly what needs changing and she isn’t afraid to say so, he thought, forcing his eyes to look away from her pretty auburn head bowed so intently over her work, like a student taking the SATs.
    Flynn’s gut told him he was going to like her—even if his mind cried, “No way, buddy boy. You know what happened the last time you fell for someone you worked with.”
    Darla happened.
    His ex-wife, who was happily remarried and living in the house Flynn bought with his first inheritance. He’d let her pick the “house of her dreams’ thinking they’d be living in it together. Wrong. Schmuck that he was, he didn’t see the writing on the newly painted walls until she broke the news she’d never really gotten over her first love, who was newly single and well…sorry, Flynn.
    He wasn’t going down that road again. Ever. Ryker had encouraged him to start looking for a house sooner rather than later. “Things don’t stay on the market for long around here, Flynn. Even if you decide to rent instead of buy, you need to get out there and look.”
    They both knew Flynn’s temporary living quarters in the back of Bailey Jenkins-Zabrinski’s jewelry shop were just that—temporary. Ryker, too, had made use of the cozy rooms for a few months when he first moved to Marietta. Now, Ryker and Mia were building a new home on the lot he and Flynn had inherited from their father. With the money Ryker paid for Flynn’s share, Flynn decided he could be picky and find exactly the right spot that called to him. No bride with a hidden agenda would take half of it in the divorce. Because if Flynn ever fell in love again—a very big if—he planned to think with his head, not his libido.

Chapter Two
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    B FH, Kat jotted in the margin of her new boss’s neatly typed letter of welcome.
    Big freakin’ hunk.
    She immediately scribbled over the letters. As if life wasn’t complicated enough. The last thing she needed was more testosterone in her world.
    Kat had butted heads with her last boss from Day One. She’d nearly quit a dozen times. Why hadn’t she? Stubbornness. A trait she came by honestly. Plus, Lord knew, she needed the job.
    Starting over from scratch, like evacuees from their old life, took money. And she’d left San Antonio with less in the kitty than she’d hoped. The cost of keeping Mom in a full care facility that specialized in treating Alzheimer’s patients these past three years had eaten up nearly all of her late stepfather’s life insurance money. The hospital and crematorium took the rest.
    Not that Kat had any attachment to Lloyd’s money. He’d made it clear when he took out the policy that if anything happened to him he expected Kat to keep Grace with her at home for as long as humanly