The Firefighter's Appeal (Harlequin Superromance) Read Free

Lily cupped her head in astonishment, her eyes falling to the item that had hit her. Candy.
    Macy snorted. “Damn, Lily. That was either a challenge or an invitation. Probably both, you lucky bitch.”
    Lily palmed the package, then shrieked when another pinged painlessly off the top of her head. She looked; the bartender was staring at her, the I-dare-you smile too much to resist. The crowd of women by the bar had thinned, giving her an easy path. Could she do it? Even if she made a fool of herself—which was pretty much a given—it wasn’t like she’d be back at this bar. She’d never see him again.
    Lily pushed away from the table. Before the fire, she’d just started becoming more social and outgoing. An introvert by nature, she found it terrifying and often exhausting to plop herself in social situations, but she’d been trying. Macy was always a ray of light and energy, everything Lily wasn’t, and Lily had craved some of that for herself.
    So she’d been forcing herself go to friends’ houses for dinner parties or to the movies by herself. Instead of rushing through shopping trips as quickly as possible, she’d made herself slow down and browse—take some time to enjoy her surroundings. And it had been working until the fire. Afterward, she’d holed up in her own little world again, blocking out everyone but her father, brother and Macy.
    She really missed those little peeks of the extrovert she’d experienced before. Risk or not, she owed it to herself to try to find her backbone again. The bartender turned away from the crowd, giving Lily a boost in the nerves department. He wouldn’t see her walk up to him, making it a little easier to approach—or make a detour and go back to the table if she chickened out. She stood before she could talk herself out of it.
    “I’ll play your board while you’re—whatever. Okay,” Macy shouted as Lily walked away. Lily smoothed her hair as she pushed through the crowd. Three steps in, she had to fight the urge to run back to her secluded table in the corner. Lifting her chin, Lily made it to the bar, but a row of people waiting for drinks separated her from the cocky smile she wanted to see up close. She moved down until she found an opening and squeezed up to the bar. The bartenders bustled around. The air cannons had been put away in exchange for bottles of booze.
    “Can I help you?” A tall, lean man with glossy dark hair grabbed a glass from the overhead rack. His eyes flashed with good humor and a dimple appeared in his left cheek when he smiled. She glanced around him, latching on to the man she’d come to see.
    “Ah,” the bartender said with an amused smile. “Hey, September! You have company.”
    September? Lily mulled that over, observing the decor behind the bar in an attempt to settle her nerves. Old license plates, sports memorabilia and beer signs were artfully arranged in between chalkboards full of menu items and fantasy football scores. A glass display case sitting on a shelf caught her attention. It took her a moment to realize a firefighting helmet sat inside. She cocked her head, noticing how the front of the helmet looked normal but the back was a lump of what looked like melted plastic. Must be a prop of some kind, because fire helmets weren’t supposed to melt, right? The men were covered head to toe in gear that could withstand flame and heat—gear that allowed them inside the chaos to rescue the people trapped inside.
    Lily clenched her jaw. Damn. It.
    Suddenly, cold liquid spilled over the curve of her lower back as someone rammed into her. Lily yelped and spun to see a very drunk man stumbling away with an empty plastic cup. Her arms went wide, chills racing down her spine and curving around her hip bones.
    “Here,” a deep voice called to her. Lily turned around and glimpsed a fluffy white towel sliding across the mahogany bar top toward her. Her eyes tracked up from a broad chest to the face she’d wanted to see up close.