Free Reckless by Kimberly Kincaid

she said, and damn it, that smile of his was infectious. Zoe knew better than to buy into his boyish charm—after all, sweet talk was Alex’s bread and butter, and he was clearly only trying to save his own skin.
    Trouble was, he’d saved hers in the process. Her standards might be sky high, but she’d been so lean on man power lately that even before this morning’s rotten food debacle, the pantry had needed some TLC.
    And Alex had given it a complete overhaul, all the way down to the baseboards.
    â€œThis pantry is a masterpiece,” he corrected, delivering her back to the snug confines of the shelf-lined space. “I bet you’d get perfect marks if the city health inspector walked through that door right this minute. In fact . . .” He broke off, sauntering to the center of the freshly scoured room. “I’d even go so far as to say you could serve a four-course meal, right on this very spot.”
    Zoe bit back the involuntary laugh tempting the edges of her lips, her curiosity bypassing her caution filter as it made a beeline for her mouth. “Okay, I have to ask. How did you get it so clean in here?”
    â€œWell, the main ingredient was elbow grease, but I wasn’t without help. You remember Tom O’Keefe, right?” Alex asked, and she did a quick Station Eight roll call in her head.
    â€œSure.” The paramedic had been with the FFD for the last few years. She didn’t know him quite as well as she did Alex and Cole and the other guys, but her father had always spoken highly of him, and in the handful of times she’d seen the guy at softball tournaments and department barbecues, O’Keefe had always seemed to live up to the praise. “But what on earth does he have to do with my pantry?”
    Alex laughed in a low, butterscotch-smooth rumble, and the sound took another chip out of Zoe’s doubt. “As luck would have it, O’Keefe is really good at sanitizing small spaces. I guess you could call it a product of his occupation, with all those health and safety guidelines on the ambo. Anyway, I told him I needed a deep clean on the fly, so he walked me through a couple of tricks over the phone. And before you ask”—he paused to lift both hands in concession—“yes, I double-checked his advice against the food safety section of your kitchen doorstop, and yes again. Both the methods and the chemicals I used are all legit.”
    â€œOh,” Zoe said, the word a lame replacement for the already answered question she’d had preloaded on the tip of her tongue. But the last thing she’d expected was for Alex to come through, let alone hit a grand slam on the last-ditch curveball she’d lobbed in his direction.
    â€œYou didn’t think you could rely on me to get this cleaned up right, did you?” The question arrived without gloating or accusation, his smile turning wistful as he pushed his hands into the pockets of his broken-in jeans. Zoe tugged at the hem of her apron, smoothing the fabric even though it was already perfectly in place, but screw it. She’d never been a fan of dancing around the truth, and it wasn’t as if Alex didn’t already know the answer, anyway.
    â€œTo be honest, no. I really didn’t.”
    One brow arched up toward his sun-bleached hairline. “I don’t believe in wasting time on anything other than honesty,” he said. “As for the rest, I’m glad I surprised you.”
    She pulled in a deep breath to counter the bump in her pulse. Alex might be charming as hell right now, with that aw-shucks expression beneath the sprinkling of rugged stubble on his face, but he’d only helped her to help himself. Plus, she had bigger fish to fry—namely, that she had no fish, or protein of any kind for the rest of the day’s meal service.
    â€œWell, a deal’s a deal. While I don’t expect you to repeat your mistakes, or make any new