Free Where There's Smoke: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 1) by Susan May Warren Page A

leg as Jed grabbed his arms, yanked them back. “What’s your deal?” He wiggled one arm free and jammed his elbow hard into Jed’s ribs.
    Jed kneed him in the back. “I like my house the way it is!”
    Reuben rolled, caught Jed’s fist, but missed the other arm grabbing him in a headlock.
    Jed felt the man’s fists pummeling his ribs and relished it, fueling the adrenaline. He needed this, something to burn off the heat of his fight with Kate.
    Reuben head-butted him hard, and Jed’s nose bloomed pain. He let go, howling.
    Reuben got up, rasping, wiping his face. He bore a scrape on his cheek.
    Jed lay there, his eyes watering, just staring up at his two teammates, who peered over at him.
    No one said anything.
    Then Reuben held out his hand to Jed, who grasped it. As he pulled Jed to his feet, he turned to Conner. “Your shot.”
    A beat, a glance at Jed, then Conner walked over, reactivated the waiting game.
    Jed picked up a chair he’d knocked over from the table and sank into it. Felt his nose. Didn’t feel broken. He ran his knuckle under it, just in case, and came away with a trickle of blood. Super. He fished out a bandanna and sat with it pressed against the burn.
    Conner’s shot landed on the green to cheering from the Wii crowd.
    “Wanna play?” Reuben said.
    Jed shook his head.
    “Wanna hit me again?”
    “Maybe.”
    Conner leaned against the table. “Kate has that effect on people,” he said, not looking at Jed.
    But Jed looked up at him. “How do you know? You worked out of the Boise base—you two didn’t—”
    “Chill. Not even close. Kate has a strict no-dating-firefighters policy. But I do remember a few squad bosses who looked like they wanted to drop her out of a plane without a chute.”
    No dating firefighters, huh? Did that mean she’d dated...others?
    And why not? It had been seven years. He shouldn’t expect her to pine for him.
    Not like he had for her, at least.
    Jed checked the blood, found it had already stopped. “If I could, I’d take her wings from her, ground her permanently.”
    He wasn’t sure why he said it, but it came out low, a growl of frustration.
    “Seriously? C’mon, Boss, she’s awesome.” This from Reuben, who’d finally managed par. “I fought a couple fires with her, when she jumped with the Boise team. I’ve never known anyone who could handle themself in a crisis like Kate. And she has uncanny fire instincts, just like her old man.”
    “Her old man got half his crew killed. He should have listened to Overhead.”
    Silence, and Jed closed his eyes. He had deliberately vowed not to talk about this, especially with Conner and Reuben.
    Mostly because they still hadn’t forgiven themselves for letting Jock run back into the fire. Reuben especially couldn’t seem to square himself with it—he heard the guy occasionally wrestling with Jock in his sleep.
    “Come again?” Conner said quietly, and Jed knew he might now have a real brawl brewing.
    He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “It’s just that I was there that day. I heard the hotshot super tell them where to go. Jock ignored it.”
    Reuben put the controller down carefully on the windowsill. Shoved his hands into his pockets, kept his voice schooled. “Jock didn’t ignore it. He just knew better.”
    Jed stared at the men—he knew them, knew they loved Jock. Still, something about their voices... “Okay, what am I missing here?”
    Conner shrugged. “I don’t know. You read the report. The hotshot team was deployed over the face of Eureka Pass, cutting perpendicular to the fire, getting ready to do a back burn. Jock’s team hooked up with the shots, and that’s when Jock and Otis had words.”
    Otis Flannery, former JCHS Superintendent, now working out of Missoula.
    Conner continued, his voice even, as if he might be being debriefed. “Otis thought we needed to spread out more, split our teams into three to finish digging out the line for the burn. Jock didn’t like