Page 6 of Big Daddy Firemen

The four walked through the door and into the big room that made up the kitchen, dining space, and main sitting area. The TV was still on but the sound was down. Now that the three firefighters were back, the building suddenly felt alive again. Daisy’s heart was happy—even though she’d leave them to go home soon.

Apparently, she wasn’t the only one thinking about that.

“Why are you still here?” Cane asked.

“Yeah. You should’ve switched the system over to route calls to us,” Walker added.

They were referring to the system in place at night. It was pretty calm around those parts once the sun went down. While the constant threat of forest fires created the need for a full-time department, the majority of calls were medical emergencies, auto accidents, and things of that nature. And most of those came from tourists. At night, when folks were off the roads and safely in their cabins and hotel rooms, things calmed down considerably. That allowed Daisy to go home, and incoming calls be routed to the guys’ cell phones. There was also a weekend dispatcher—an older lady who lived a few towns over and drove in on Saturdays and Sundays. She liked the fact that she was paid to largely monitor silent lines while she read her beloved mystery novels. Daisy had never once caught the lady sneaking a peek at the guys while they were working out. Tone, muscular young hotties couldn’t hold a candle to Mary Higgins Clark and James Patterson, it seemed.

“I couldn’t route the calls to y’all while you were busy with that fire,” Daisy pointed out. “I don’t mind the extra hours.”

Of course, that was only part of the truth. The other part was that she couldn’t leave until she’d actually seen the men herself. Hearing on the radio that they were safe wasn’t good enough. She’d needed to lay eyes on them, or she wouldn’t have been able to rest.

“Do you want one of us to walk you home?” Walker asked.

“I’ll volunteer!” Austin said with an eager smile.

“Why do you get to?” Cane demanded. “What if I want to walk her home?”

“We could all do it,” Walker suggested, grinning at Daisy and winking.

“I bet y’all are exhausted,” Daisy said.

“Never too tired when it comes to you,” Cane told her.

A warm feeling spread throughout Daisy’s core. She’d love to be walked home by the three men. She’d recently moved to Big Cedar after living a few miles away. Now that she was close, more often than not, the guys would see her home safely if she left the firehouse after sundown.

But another idea struck her.

“Have y’all eaten anything today?”

“Had some energy bars to keep our strength up,” Walker said.

“But that’s it?”

“Nothing else since breakfast,” he confirmed with a nod.

“Well, I’m going to go whip us all up something. I’m hungry, too,” she told them, walking toward the kitchen.

“You don’t have to do that for us,” Austin said.

“Yeah. Don’t you have a date tonight?” Cane wondered.

“That’s tomorrow,” Daisy corrected him.

She couldn’t swear to it, but it sounded like he was a little disappointed when he’d asked that, as if he didn’t like the idea of her going out with another man.

Forget it, Daisy. You don’t have a chance with him, or any of them, and especially all of them. Let it go.

But she knew that was easier said than done. That was part of the reason why she was hanging around that night. If she went home, she’d just be antsy as she thought about them. The other reason was that she cared for the men—beyond her crush—andwanted to make sure they took care of themselves. She wanted to ensure they got a proper meal.

“Let me see what we have.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Walker said, echoing Austin’s previous statement.

“If I didn’t, you’d probably just heat up pizza rolls in the microwave.” She arched an eyebrow as she cast a glance over her shoulder. “Am I right?”

He relented with a grin. “Yeah. That’s what I was planning on having.”

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