Free Fire at Dawn: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 2 by Lila Ashe

pour you a glass?”
    “Sure,” said Lexie, her voice a little breathy.
    Coin reached for the wine opener. “Let me. This opener can be a little tricky.”
    “Oh, no problem.” Thomas took it from him smoothly. “I’m good at this.” And he was. A flick and a twist, and the bottle stood open.
    Nosey, the cat he’d rescued from the tree years before, wandered in, yelling for food. This might be good, Coin thought, as he watched Thomas eye the cat. Nosey wasn’t particularly friendly, and he didn’t like strangers.
    But then Thomas said, “Gorgeous beast. Can I give him a piece of cheese?”
    “No,” said Coin.
    “Of course!” said Lexie, handing him a small ball of mozzarella. “Coin, don’t be mean to your cat.”
    “Watch out,” Coin said reluctantly. “He bites.” Hopefully, that was.
    Nosey—traitor that he was—took the cheese from Thomas and then wrapped himself around the man’s ankles. So much for loyalty.
    Lexie took a sip of the wine Thomas had poured for her and sighed. “This is wonderful.”
    “I’m so glad,” said Thomas. “So, will you show me the garden, Lexie?”
    The garden? Coin bristled again. It was his backyard, not hers. “I’ll go with you. I need to check the grill.”
    “I can do that, if you like. Happy to help,” said Thomas.
    Of course he would. He’d probably be happy to save Lexie from a speeding bullet, too.
    “I got it,” Coin growled.
    While Thomas ambled with Lexie through the back part of the yard—down where the jasmine was, Lexie’s favorite flower—Coin scrubbed the grill. Black ash flew from the grate and landed on his shirt. Brushing it off, he just made it worse, grinding the ash into the weave of the fabric.
    “Great,” he muttered, taking a long, deliberate pull on his beer. What kind of jerk brought white wine to dinner? And knew the vintner?
    It was his fault. He’d picked the guy.
    He heard Lexie laugh at something Thomas said, and it was her real laugh. The big one, the one she let out when she was surprised and delighted by something. It never failed to make him feel like a million bucks when he got her to laugh like that. Thomas sure seemed to have brought it out in her quickly.
    Fine. The grill was clean. Thomas and Lexie were hitting it off.
    He’d go hit it off with Ginger, then.
    By the time Thomas and Lexie came back into the kitchen, Coin was putting the food on the table and counting the minutes until the night was over. Ginger was delightful. Everything she said was sweet and kind and generous. Just to test his theory, he asked if she did any charity work in her free time.
    “Oh, yes,” she said with an enthusiastic smile. “On Wednesdays and Fridays, I work at the soup kitchen in Eureka. Just in my free time, you know.”
    Yep. She was fantastic. And absolutely, thumpingly boring. Coin nodded, attempting to look interested.
    They sat at Coin’s dining table. For one brief second, he felt embarrassment that his napkins looked as handmade as they were. Serena had made them—yellow and polygonal—when she’d been briefly obsessed with sewing. When Thomas shook one out onto his lap, he raised one eyebrow.
    The embarrassment faded and pure pride took its place. That’s right, his daughter had made the funny-looking napkins. Because she was awesome.
    As if Ginger could hear his thoughts, she said, “What about you, Coin? You have a daughter, right?”
    “I do.” What if he faked a migraine? Lexie wouldn’t buy it—he’d never complained of one before—but would she blow his cover? She might. She seemed to be enjoying Thomas’s company quite a bit, if you could judge that by the number of times she reached out to touch his arm as she laughed.
    “Tell us about her.” She sounded genuinely interested.
    Coin gave Ginger a second look. A real one. It was rare enough to find a woman willing to date a man with a kid, and even rarer still that she sounded interested. And with that long dark hair, and those snapping,