Free Barefoot at Moonrise (Barefoot Bay Timeless Book 2) by Roxanne St. Claire Page B

knows.” The woman added an easy smile that crinkled a soft sixtysomething face. “Now you can tell me everything so when they get back, I can curry favors for a week by doling out the truth, or what I want them to think is the truth.” She came into the office, extending her hand. “I’m Pookie McPherson, assistant to the chief.”
    Beth shook her hand. “Pookie?”
    “Don’t be fooled by the cute name or my thinning hair. I’m tougher than all of these studs put together, and they know it or they wouldn’t cry on my ample bosom regularly.” She patted that bosom, her hand landing over the fire station insignia sewn into a blue chambray shirt. “So, who are you?” she asked.
    “Oh, I’m sorry.” Telling a man he was about to be a father had thrown basic manners out the window. “Bethany Endicott.”
    “Oh, I know that. I mean who are you as it relates to Captain Cavanaugh?”
    She let out a soft laugh at this new level of bluntness. “I’m an…acquaintance.”
    “Ahh.” She nodded and reached into the pocket of her khaki pants, pulling out a folded piece of paper and flipping it open. “How long have you been seeing him?” she asked.
    “Oh, I’m not…” Good God. “No. We knew each other in high school. What is that?” Beth asked, gesturing to the paper.
    “A betting pool. High school, huh? So you hooked up with him at that reunion he was at a few weeks ago?”
    Forget blunt. This was an interrogation. “We reacquainted ourselves there, if you must know.”
    “Oh, I must.” She snapped the paper open and did another once-over. “He’s my favorite, that’s why.”
    “I see.”
    “I mean, I love them all, even some of the rookies who have the common sense of a doughnut. But Captain Cav? He’s…special.” There was a subtle warning in her voice, as if Beth didn’t know that.
    But she unequivocally did. “He is.”
    “I don’t just mean TD and H, which is kind of the norm for the men around here.”
    TD and…? Oh. Tall, dark, and handsome.
    “They all look damn good without their shirts on,” Pookie continued. “Don’t think because I don’t have a single drop of estrogen left in me that I don’t look, ’cause, honey, I do. Captain Cav’s particularly nice shirtless. Even better than some of the young ones, you know?”
    “I know.”
    She inched closer. “You do, do you?” Pookie gave a little smirk of victory and fluttered the paper. “So his dry spell is over? Can I put good money on it and win?”
    Beth laughed again, more from disbelief than anything. “Is the Spanish Inquisition also the norm around here?”
    “When one of my boys is involved, yes.”
    “Ken is hardly a boy.”
    “As you apparently well know.” She waved a hand, as if pushing away whatever Beth would come back with, not that there was anything.
    Beth glanced at her handbag, longing for escape, but Ken’s parting shot still echoed in her head.
    “How long do you think he’ll be?” she asked.
    “Could be a while at this one.”
    “Is it really a house fire?”
    Pookie shrugged. “Caller smelled smoke but didn’t see flames. Could be a fire, could be a faulty wire in the AC unit, could be a false alarm, could be a raging inferno and somebody doesn’t come back.”
    Beth gasped. “Really?”
    The other woman fired a get real look at her, then narrowed her gray eyes. “Firefighting is dangerous. Are you aware of that? Do you want to be involved with someone who risks his or her life to save others? Because being a firefighter’s spouse is no easy job.”
    Her jaw dropped. “I’m not going to marry him.”
    “Really?” She seemed unfazed. “Because after one look at you, I not only put twenty bucks on the end of the dry spell, I also started a new pool. My money is on the ‘serious relationship with possible name change involved’ block.”
    Beth blinked at her. “Name change?”
    “Oh, you’re one of those who has to keep her name, huh? Fine. But the square still works. There