Melody Anne - Baby, It’s Cold Outside

“Good job, Rivera,” Lieutenant McElroy said with a clap on Beck’s back as they gathered for the debrief by the pumper outside the four-story walk-up on Sheridan. “You didn’t screw up once.”

Two kids with minor smoke inhalation, mom with first-degree burns on her hands, and Fluffy the family dog would survive this holiday season. The same could not be said for the Douglas fir that had once stood proud in their living room—or the oodles of presents beneath it.

“Any idea how you pulled this one out of your ass?”

Beck turned to find Luke squinting at him through black-rimmed eyes. He shook his head, still bewildered by the turn of events over the last twelve hours, starting with this morning’s 6 a.m. wake-up call from the deputy fire commissioner.

Your hearing’s been scheduled. Get your ass in gear, now.

Four hours later, witnesses had been called, testimony had been given, and Beck was in the clear with a warning to “not be so eff’n impetuous” and an order to report for immediate duty. His captain said it was a done deal and, while Beck appreciated being back in the fray, he appreciated less the helpless feeling that the strings were being yanked from above.

Decisions made by big men in small rooms.

A little like how Darcy must have felt, when she realized Beck had made a unilateral ruling that affected the course of their entire lives. How her father always made her feel. Growing up as he did, Beck knew the helplessness of having no control over your life. One day you’re on the streets, the next you’re inhaling Irish stew with a bunch of wild foster kids.

Regret at how things had ended with Darcy constricted his chest like he had choked down black smoke. Sure, he could see her point, how cutting her out of the loop minimized her agency—but to use it now to bail on this great thing they had going?

Unacceptable.

He knocked back a half bottle of water to cool his parched throat and raised his gaze to take in Luke. “I never said thank you.”

His brother frowned. “For what?”

“For saving my life.”

Luke gave a desultory sniff. “I won a packet on you at the last Battle of the Badges. You think I’m going to let my meal ticket get incinerated?”

“Screw you, then.”

“You know, Becky,” Luke said in that parental tone that signaled a major speech was about to go down. “Maybe it’s middle-child syndrome, but sometimes I think you forget that we are your family and there is nothing—and I mean nothing—we would not do for you. Walking into a burning building to drag your dumb boricua ass out? It’s just part of the deal. Of course, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to upstage me with the heroics on every frickin’ run. I am older, after all.” With a smile in his eyes, he laid his gloved hand on Beck’s shoulder. “Semper fraternus.”

Forever brothers. Made a man feel good to know he had these people in his corner. But there was someone else who had always been rooting for him, right from the moment their eyes clashed over a boxing ring’s ropes.

“Lock and load, boys,” McElroy called out, his heavy boot on the sideboard of the pumper’s cab. “Back to the house we go.”

“We need to make a stop, Big Mac,” Beck shot back.

The lieutenant’s face lifted, flashing white teeth bright against ebony skin. “Burritos as big as your head? You’re speaking my language, Rivera.”

Luke threw his helmet into the cab and climbed up. “You can stuff your face later. Our boy needs to take care of important business.”

Beck stared past the truck, down the snowy street, and all the way to the merry band of red and green lighting up the hundredth floor of the Hancock on Michigan Avenue. With no time to shower or change, she’d just have to take him as he was. As Sean used to say, you can’t fall off the floor, boy, the only way is up.

The count was not over. He could still haul himself off the mat.

And this time, Beck would fight to win.

With its gold-leafed pillars and crystal chandeliers, the grand ballroom at the Drake Hotel might seem like an odd choice for a charity gala aimed at helping the homeless, but such was the way of big-time philanthropy, Cochrane-style. Opulence always made people feel important, and the decadent surroundings were intended to inspire subconscious counting of blessings and deeper digging into Benjamin-lined pockets.

“They’re more fake than a three-dollar bill.”

“What are?” Darcy asked her grandmother, and immediately regretted it.

“Her tits,” Grams pronounced in a loud whisper, lifting a bony finger in the direction of Darcy’s stepmother, Tori, who admittedly did have a very fake and very fine pair of girls, bought and paid for by Darcy’s father.

Tori and her gravity-defying breasts were currently in deep conversation with Mayor Eli Cooper, who looked like he was hitting those puppies up for a campaign donation. He caught Darcy’s eye and winked. Chicago’s youngest-ever mayor, and undoubtedly its most handsome, Eli was an old friend of the family. Since his election three years ago, he had kept the female voters in a perpetual state of hormonal frenzy.

“You covered up,” Grams remarked in a voice flavored with disapproval.

She had. Darcy could have walked in, tats—and tits—blazing, but frankly she was over it. So she had worn an LBD, though the L stood for long, the B stood for boring, and she looked like she was auditioning for Morticia in the Addams Family musical. Masking every inch of her offensive skin, the dress and matching jacket made her invisible, which was just how her father liked her.

Two tables over, Sam Cochrane sat glad-handing the governor, but raised his head when the low murmur of moneyed voices went from a burble to a babble toward the back of the room.

Darcy turned in the direction of the commotion, and her heart stuttered, stalled, and stopped. Striding toward her in full firefighter regalia, and looking so hot she half expected the sprinklers to go off any second, was Beck. His expression blazed a path of fire to her table, sizzling all the way up her spine. The clucking of the well-heeled crowd increased with every sure step.

He halted, huge and potent above her, and the smell of smoke and man hit her hard.

“Darcy.”

“Beck.” Using the edge of the table, she hauled her wilting body upright. “You shaved.”

“Had to. Back to work.”

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Clean and smooth-jawed, he stared at her for interminable moments. This infuriating man!

“What are you doing here?”

“You said you needed a date. Sorry I’m late. Had to save Christmas first.”

“Nice suit, Pancho Dempsey,” Grams chimed in, her voice echoing in the now eerily quiet room. The clucking had stopped, only to be replaced with silence ten times as deafening.

“Thanks, Mrs. C.” He turned back to Darcy. “I had a big speech planned. Something about fighting for you and claiming what’s mine.” He frowned. “But this is all wrong.”

Panic flared in Darcy’s chest. “It is?”

“What the hell are you wearing?”

“Um, a dress.”

“You look like someone died.” He curved his blunt hands around her hips. “This isn’t you, Darcy. This isn’t the woman I love.”

“I . . .” She slid a sidelong glance to her grandmother, who was not paying attention to her, but had her beady eyes trained on Beck. Unsurprisingly, no demographic was unaffected by his particular brand of sexy.

And he had just said he loved her. Not only in the past, but in the present. Right here, right now.

“I don’t want to make a fuss,” she said, trying to make that sound like it was a good thing.

“Why not?”

He had a point. Why was she lying low until she could slink away unseen into the cold, starless night? This was not the girl who had waited tables in a Boston diner and pulled pints in a Covent Garden pub when her father cut her off. This was not the woman she had worked so hard to become.

She was Darcy Fucking Cochrane, kick-ass body artist, and lover of the brave man who was currently eating her alive with his eyes.

With shaky fingers, she reached for the button on her high-necked jacket and unfastened it. The fabric’s silky slide against her skin as she slipped it off her shoulders felt sensual. Liberating. It floated to the table behind her, likely smack dab in the middle of her five-thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner.

Not a problem. The only sustenance she needed stood before her. In Beck’s eyes, she saw appreciation for her body, respect for her choices. She saw . . . everything.

He laid a soft kiss on the sleeve of ink she had revealed, blessing it and her. “Darcy, I’ve loved you from the first day you distracted me in that boxing ring.” He switched his talented mouth to her other shoulder, cutting a path of sweet devastation along her newly bared collarbone on the way. “The result? A broken nose and the crap beaten out of your brother. Which I know you wanted me to do, by the way.”

“I did not—”

“Yes, you did.” Unwavering, unflinching, those blue-on-blue eyes held her captive. “From that first minute you were in my corner, Darcy, and I’m sorry I wasn’t always in yours. I was careless with your heart and I didn’t trust you to make the important decisions for yourself. No más.” No more.

No more hiding.

No more running.

No more denying.

“I’m yours, mi reina. Always have been, always will be.”

Her apparent promotion from princess to queen sent a surge of power through Darcy, making her so heady she white-knuckled the table’s edge.