Free Not Just a Cowboy (Texas Rescue) by Caro Carson Page A

only condemnation Luke had received. He’d skated a fine line, but he hadn’t technically disobeyed an order, because chief hadn’t spoken the words yet.
    The families had stayed behind the yellow tape the cops had put up. They’d peered in their pet carriers and wept tears of gratitude and called out to Luke and the rest, thanking them and calling them heroes.
    Luke hadn’t felt like a hero. The only normal emotion in that situation was fear, and he’d felt it. He’d used that fear to keep himself going in the growing inferno, crawling as fast as he could while trying to control his breathing in the mask. He’d managed to keep the correct wall to his right and not lose his bearings, and he’d made it out. But hell, he was no hero. He was lucky.
    He wasn’t a man to stake his life on the whim of luck, not if he could help it. Just when he’d been feeling darkest, watching another fireman who was less lucky being wheeled away to a waiting helicopter, he’d run into Patricia. Her feelings for him had been transparent, all of her unflappable cool stripped away by worry. For him. And her kiss...
    Well, that had soothed his soul. Whatever it took, Luke planned on running into her again. Soon.
    Chief’s handheld radio squawked as they packed the last hose away. The voice that came over the air was feminine and cultured, extending an invitation as graciously as if she were inviting them to tea. “Chief, I’m re-opening the shower facility for you and the Houston crew. The generators would wake our in-patients, but if you could bring flashlights and tolerate the inconvenience of unheated water, I think the noise will be minimal.”
    Chief keyed his mike to answer. “As long as the water’s wet, ma’am, we’ll be there.”
    Luke felt his mood lift. He wasn’t going to have to wait until morning to scheme for a chance to see the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about. It looked like his very near future included soap and water and Patricia.
    How lucky could a man get?
    * * *
    Patricia knew he’d be here any moment.
    She was sitting on a plastic chair at the entrance to the field showers, waiting with the female firefighter for the men to finish so the women could take their turn. Still, when Patricia saw Luke’s large frame emerging from the shadows, striding toward her with a towel slung over his shoulder, she felt a little flutter, like she wasn’t ready for something.
    The shower facility was, of course, a specialized tent, with a locking wood door set into a wood frame at each end. Six vinyl shower stalls and a common area of tub sinks and benches were inside. Water from an external tank could be pumped in by hand, but lights and heated water were provided by generators. The showers were available to men and women in alternating hours during the day, but they closed every night at nine. There was a reason for that rule: in order to reduce noise when the majority of the staff and patients were sleeping, the mobile hospital ran only vital generators at this hour of the night.
    Patricia hadn’t bothered consulting her supervisor for permission to break the nine o’clock rule tonight. These showers weren’t a luxury for the firefighters. They wouldn’t wake the sleeping staff as long as they didn’t run the generators, so Patricia had made the decision and retrieved the keys from the admin tent. Besides, Karen was already in bed. Why wake her up only to tell her what she was going to agree to?
    Chief Rouhotas hurried ahead of Luke to greet her first. He was very appreciative. So much so, it confirmed Patricia’s earlier suspicion that he knew exactly who she was. The daughters of Texas millionaires were spoken to in a different way than non-profit personnel directors. Judging from his men’s antics while putting up the tent this morning, however, Luke and Zach and Murphy had no idea that Patricia Cargill was that Cargill.
    Her eyes strayed to Luke. He was watching Rouhotas kowtow to her as if the chief had