Book 3: The Mountain Firefighters
A Baby for the Mountain Firefighter
What not to expect when you’re expecting…
Becca Thomas is thrilled to be pregnant, even though it means bringing up her baby alone. At thirty-eight, this may be her last chance to have a child. She doesn’t expect to see her baby daddy again, nor does she believe the free-wheeling younger man wants to be a father.
Wrong!
Aiden Rodas may live the life of a devil-may-care wildland firefighter, but he’s not going to walk away from his responsibilities, no matter how unexpected they are. His challenge now is making Becca see that their child needs both of them.
A traditional, clean romance with no cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily-ever-after.
Tropes: May-December romance, secret baby, workplace romance, firefighter romance, women’s fiction, adventure romance, traditional romance
Excerpt:
“Whoa! Whoa! Everybody slow up. Big Mama down.” Spider leaped across a couple of boulders just as a pregnant woman with a long blond braid stood on shaky legs.
“Take it easy, Big Mama.” Spider hopped to the ground next to her.
She took a step back, her blue eyes widening at the sight of him. Or maybe it was at the sound of thundering booted feet on rock as the rest of the Hot Shots approached.
“You’re bleeding.” Without sparing a glance at the crew, he yelled, “Doc, get down here!”
Blood spurted over the side of her face, but that didn’t seem to shake her. “Did you just call me big?”
“I don’t know,” Spider hedged. His grandmother would tan his hide if she’d heard him disrespect a woman like that. But the woman was big. And carrying…a baby.
She raised her eyebrows at Spider with the disbelieving expression of a school principal, challenging him to tell the truth.
Spider lasted another ten seconds before he crumbled. “Okay, I might have.”
She huffed. “Were you raised by wolves? Never call a pregnant woman big.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.”
But she was on the offensive now. “Are you so blind that you can’t see a pregnant woman in front of you?”
Spider took a step back. “Hey, these boulders are ten feet tall. I couldn’t see a bear hiding down here.”
“I wasn’t hiding.” She crossed her arms over her large—really large—stomach. “A gentleman wouldn’t knock someone over, call them names and then accuse them of hiding.”
“I never said you were hiding.” Spider kept backpedaling. Pregnant women, as a rule, made him nervous. Sex was supposed to be fun, not result in…in…that. “I’m just trying to make sure you’re okay. Doc!” he yelled again. Sheesh, where were your friends when you needed them?
“I’m fine. Why aren’t you wearing clothes?”
Dang, she was stubborn. “It was hot.” And daring the team to run down the mountain in their skivvies was good for morale. He stared into the woman’s ice-blue eyes. If not for the blood trail on half her face, he might have believed she was fine.
He took a knuckle and gently ran it over her plump cheek below the gash, turning his bloodstained digit in her direction. “This evidence would seem to indicate you aren’t as fine as you claim.”
Cool as you please, she lifted a hand toward her forehead. He caught her wrist before she could touch the wound.
“No-no-no. You might have germs on those fingers. Let’s have a medic look at it.” He craned his neck around, reluctantly taking his eyes off her. Most of the guys were standing up on the boulder, looking down on them with concern. Some were yanking off their boots and pulling on their pants. Arms crossed, Victoria stood apart from the rest in full field gear, living proof that Spider was most likely going to be reprimanded for this stunt.
A moment later, Doc landed on the ground next to Spider with his pants on. Spider suddenly felt a bit underdressed. Air-conditioned, but definitely underdressed.
Lifting her blond bangs out of the way, Doc examined the cut on the pregnant woman’s temple. “It’s already slowing down on the leakage department, but you’re going to need a stitch or two.”
Blond Mama frowned. At Spider. As if it were his fault.
“I don’t know why you were out here hiking in your condition.” He was compelled to say it, although normally, he’d be a little kinder to a damsel in distress, especially one with a bun in the oven. Yet, there was something about this woman that wouldn’t let him be her hero. “There’s a wildfire raging up there.” Spider pointed behind him. “And it’s not safe for anyone, especially a woman as pregnant as you, to be out here.”
She glared at him in a way that made him wonder how she’d ever gotten pregnant in the first place. He could almost imagine her saying “Oh, you are so dead when I get you alone.”
Really. It was as if he could hear that smooth voice filled with playful disdain, as if he’d heard her say those words before or something like them, although he heard a more loaded, sexy undertone in his head.
Sexy? The Ice Mama?
Ignoring her back-off stare, Spider leaned closer and peered at her in the hopes that he’d figure out who she was. She was almost as tall as Spider, and full of chutzpah, not backing down from his scrutiny. They would have gone on staring at each other all day if Doc hadn’t elbowed him aside.
“Give me some space to work, man,” Doc mumbled as he swabbed her wound with an antiseptic wipe and then applied a butterfly bandage.
She drummed her fingers on the huge rise of her belly. She had long, dexterous fingers. Something in Spider’s memory hiccuped. He knew this woman. “Don’t I—”
“No,” she cut him off emphatically, as if reading his mind.
“Isn’t that the Fire Behavior Analyst?” someone asked from the boulder above them.
Spider looked at her again. In her khaki shorts, white T-shirt and sturdy boots, she looked like your average hiker, except for the baby in her belly. He hadn’t noticed she was pregnant, but he’d only been to one base-camp briefing and he’d been at the back of the throng of teams.
Had he seen her somewhere else? He would have remembered talking to a pregnant woman, right?
Well, not usually.
But there was something naggingly familiar about this one.
The Story Behind the Story
This entire series is about the kind of man I knew when I was in my twenties. Guys who got into relationships before they were emotionally ready or avoided relationships because it was just too fun to be single.
Aiden is a smart-talking, strutting bachelor who is walking that line between the joy of being without responsibilities and yearning for something more - although he doesn’t really know what that means until Becca walks back into his life. If only he could remember what happened in Vegas…
My step brother was a Hot Shot. You’ll find many stories in this series reflect his experience.
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