“You okay?” Cristina asked the woman, pulling off her helmet.

“Yes, thanks to you. You got there just in time, I don’t know how to thank you.”

“It’s my job. I’m glad to help.”

Dustin knew she meant that utterly sincerely. Much as he’d like it to be otherwise, Cristina was the job. She lived and breathed for it, and little else.

As he’d learned the hard way.

She had a streak of dirt over one jaw, another across her forehead. She had her silky, long blond hair tied back as usual, hanging down inside the stiff collar of her protective jacket, though several strands were stuck to her damp, dirty forehead. She was a mess, and still drop-dead gorgeous.

Firefighter Barbie, her partner Blake had once dared joke.

Once.

Cristina had been so furious she’d tongue-lashed him for a week. Poor Blake-Eeyore to those who knew and loved him-had never made that mistake again.

To Dustin, Cristina was much more kick-ass warrior princess than Barbie, but he valued his life enough to keep that particular fantasy to himself.

“You really should take a ride to the hospital,” he said to the woman they’d rescued. “Just to make sure.”

“No, that’s not necessary. I’ve called my fiancé, he’s on his way.” She whipped around as a man came running up to the rig, shouting her name hoarsely, in stark relief. The two of them hugged tightly. Dustin watched, trying to remain impartial, but he was a sorry sap, and these sorts of reunions got to him every single time.

“Are you okay?” the man demanded, pulling back to look the woman over for himself.

“I’m okay.”

“Thank God.” He hugged her tight. “You are my entire life, you know that, right? If something happened to you-”

“I’m okay. I’m right here.” She hugged him as though she never intended to let go, her eyes closed as she breathed him in as if he were her very essence. “I love you so much.”

Dustin had seen such scenes dozens of times. Hundreds. It still got him. He looked at Cristina, who’d already turned away.

Typical. She was uncomfortable with public displays of affection or love. “Cristina.”

“Gotta go,” she said.

He followed her off to the side, away from the victim and her fiancé. “Right. Because messy emotions disturb you.”

She went still, then turned and looked at him. Things were winding down behind them now. Several cops were taking statements and the tow-truck operators were working on hooking up all the disabled vehicles to pull them off the highway.

“Look,” she said defensively. “It was just one night.”

“And you had such a bad time that you can’t bear to repeat it?”

She sighed. “Don’t make me hurt your manly feelings, Dustin.”

At that, he out-and-out laughed. There was nothing else he could do. “Are you going to tell me it wasn’t good for you?”

Now she opened her mouth, then slowly shut it again. He arched a brow, waiting, knowing damn well she’d had a great night, too.

She rolled her eyes and took a step closer to him, so that their steel-toed boots were touching as she stabbed a finger into his chest. “Okay, so I came once or twice. Big deal, it’d been awhile and I was primed. It doesn’t mean that I’d like to repeat the event. I can do that myself.”

“Three times,” he said much more tightly than he wanted to. He knew better than to take her bait and say anything, but when it came to her, The Most Irritating Woman on the Planet, he couldn’t seem to help himself. “You came two times before, and then again when I was inside you. Can you give yourself that?”

He wasn’t surprised when she spun on her heel and walked away.

A few minutes later, Blake clasped a hand on his shoulder, having come up behind him. “Not the smartest move, man, poking at the bear. You’re going to get bitten.”

Yeah. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.

2

THINGS didn’t go any easier that night for Cristina, who, along with her crew, worked in twenty-four-hour shifts, three days on, two days off. They were going to need both days off to recover after the three fire calls in quick succession between midnight and dawn. It was still dark when Cristina finally made it back to the station, exhausted, filthy and starving.

None of those things were new. It seemed that she spent most of her shifts in some variance of exhausted, filthy and starving. It was a way of life. Her life.

Normally she yelled “Shotgun” for the shower before anyone even got off the rig, but today she let the guys go ahead of her because she felt…wiped.

The station was a comfortable, old, two-story brick building, decorated at the moment with Christmas ornaments made by various elementary schools in town, plus several small trees and what must have been an entire bush of mistletoe.

But she wasn’t going to be kissing any firefighters, not this Christmas.

The station was on the main drag and directly across the street from the beach. The view was always gorgeous, no matter the weather. During the day she could stare at the waves and the surfers in it, and in the hours before dawn, she could watch the moonbeams bounce off the whitecaps as she did now.

As she slid off the rig into the cool December air, she glanced at her watch-4:30 a.m.

Dustin stuck his head out the front door, making the decorated wreath hanging there tinkle noisily. “Cristina.”

Yes, that was her name. She really wished he wouldn’t talk to her until she was completely over him, because he had one of those low, whisky-thick voices that made her quiver.

“Come on. Come in and get a hot shower.”

“I’m not cold.”

“Get in here anyway.”

That was the thing about Dustin, the defining thing that grabbed her every single time-the way he could make an instant transformation from mild-mannered guy to tough, commanding alpha male. “In a few.”

“You’re filthy.”

Yeah, she hated that voice’s effect on her. Where were her knees? Suddenly she couldn’t feel them. “Well, you’re funny-looking. At least I can shower.”

He just looked at her, not scared off like most, and she sighed. “I’ll be inside in a few.”

He gave her a long assessing look, then shut the door. She sank to the front steps and stared out at the water, too tired to move. If she had even an ounce of energy left in her, she’d kick off her boots and walk to the sand.

Twenty-nine years old and too damn tired to walk to the beach. That was so pathetic, she forced herself to bend over and untie her boots, nudging them off. She shoved her grimy socks into them and left them on the front step, crossing the street in her bare feet.

Even in California December could get downright chilly, and she shivered when the cool sand hit her toes. This year she had Christmas day off, and the two days after that, as well. A rarity. Maybe she should hop on a plane and go south. As in the South Pacific south. Yeah, that would work.

But she wouldn’t, and she knew it. For all her bravado, she wouldn’t enjoy such a thing by herself, and she had no one to take, a depressing thought.

She had been invited to Sam’s house for a Christmas fiesta that he was making with his girlfriend, Sara. Or she could head with Eddie to his sister’s house and be overrun with kids. Or Zach and Brooke had asked her to join them. So had Aidan and Kenzie.

She could do any of that, but she’d told them all she had plans, that she was having a thing. An alone thing, not that they knew that. Much as she loved her friends and even thought of them as family, when it came right down to it, they had their own.

The predawn air wasn’t that bad, maybe fiftyish, but it was accompanied by a breeze that had the water just icy enough to make her gasp when the first wave washed over her feet.

“Are you crazy?”

She didn’t turn to see who had spoken in that quiet, raspy tone. Her body didn’t move at all, except on the inside, where something odd happened deep in her belly-a sort of quiver that she chose to identify as annoyance.

That her nipples tightened was sheer coincidence.

“I’m trying to enjoy a moment here.” She shoved her hands into her pockets rather than face the urge she had to grab on to him, just haul him close by the ears and lay one on him. It was so ridiculous, this insane attraction she had for him. Seriously ridiculous. It wasn’t as if he was going to give Brad Pitt a run for his money. In fact, he was the opposite of Brad Pitt, not GQ gorgeous at all.

Actually, he looked a lot like Harry Potter all grown up: dark, perpetually disheveled hair curling around his ears to just past his collar. Laser-blue eyes, magnified by the glasses he required to see a foot past his face. A crooked smile that was both self-deprecatory and contagious. He was tall, lean and lanky, and…hell. He was attractive, made all the more so by the fact that he had absolutely no idea how much.

Not that she was noticing.

Nope, that ship had sailed. She’d had him, curiosity over. Hunger sated.

Or so she told herself.

But did he take the hint and leave? No. Anyone else would have sensed something in her tone and backed away, but not Dustin. Somehow she didn’t scare him off. Somehow she didn’t piss him off.

It was really quite shocking.

And, she admitted to herself, just a teeny-tiny bit of a relief. People came and went in her life. That was just fact. Her father? Never knew him. Her mother? Traipsing through Europe with a backpack, or so she’d said the last time she’d touched base with her daughter, two years ago now. Any other people who had looked out for Cristina during her rough childhood, and acquaintances since that time, all had moved on and so had she. Apparently, she just wasn’t the type of woman to inspire long-term relationships. In fact, her personal motto read something like a government health warning: Stay away from attachments, as they pose a serious threat to your brains, wallet and if you’re stupid enough, your heart.