Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
I paused. “Uh… Die Hard? What about you?”
“Never seen it,” he said. “But I remember liking the Snoopy one.”
Maya and I, along with Mrs. Hoffman, gasped.
Adrian blinked at us in mock confusion. “You guys don’t like Snoopy?”
I stared at him. “You’ve never seen Die Hard?”
I shook my head and headed to the plumbing section, remembering I had a restaurant full of people waiting for me. “It’s true what they say about people from LA,” I teased over my shoulder.
Maya laughed and said. “You’re from Napa. Don’t go acting all local on us just yet. You’ve been here five minutes.”
I found what I was looking for quickly and returned to the counter. “I’ve been here full-time for three years, and that’s after a decade of summers in Legacy, little lady.”
As I pulled out my debit card, Mrs. Hoffman asked Adrian something I didn’t hear.
“Oh, uh… Actually, I’m going to a holiday bonfire and s’mores tonight with, um…” Adrian frowned. “The fire marshal? I can’t remember his name.”
Hot rage flooded my system. I could have sworn Maddox had counted Kincaid out of the mix when he was putting together all of these video dates… or so Rosie had led me to believe.
“Oh my god, Maddox set you up with Kincaid after all? For real?” I shook my head in disgust. “Good luck, I guess. He’s the grumpiest human you’ve ever met. Makes Maddox look like a happy ray of sunshine in comparison.”
Adrian shrugged. “My business manager hooked me up with a small sponsorship to create fire safety content and just sent me the information this morning. He arranged it with the people at the search and rescue training program who are putting on the bonfire—”
“SERA,” Maya supplied with a nod.
“Right,” Adrian agreed. “So we’re going to film out there tonight.”
I headed toward the door, waving a hand over my shoulder. “Like I said, good luck. Chief Kincaid’s an ass and ten times more stubborn than one. Enjoy!”
I stormed back to Timber in an even worse mood than before. The fire chief was ruining my life. And now he’d accepted a date with the town’s prettiest newcomer.
Great.
No problem.
It was fine.
But like… I obviously needed to go to that bonfire. I had spent quite a bit of time in the past year being schooled on proper fire safety technique, so it only made sense for me to attend the town’s holiday bonfire, where there would necessarily be quite a bit of fire danger. I also liked s’mores, and it wasn’t like Timber would ever get a permit to make them.
So I had to go to the SERA bonfire.
It was downright obligatory, honestly.
Later that night, I turned up at SERA and watched as Judd Kincaid stood up in front of everyone and lectured them on fire safety rules. It seemed to be part of whatever Adrian was filming, and I had to admit it was a little bit of a relief to see Judd more interested in fire safety than in the model-pretty influencer beside him.
I quickly learned from the excited chatter surrounding me that the two of them were filming public safety for the forest service or something. It seemed like our grumpy fire chief was taking his job way too seriously, as usual.
In fact, only a short time later, he seemed to become annoyed at his “date” when Adrian accidentally set his marshmallow on fire.
“What the hell is going on over here?” Judd asked, moving swiftly to remove the flailing marshmallow skewer from Adrian’s hand and stick it in an empty tin can on the ground. “Did you even listen to a word I said? Are you demonstrating what not to do?”
Adrian didn’t look sorry, but he apologized anyway in his charming way. “Sorry, Chief. I got carried away.”
Kincaid narrowed his eyes at the guy like he was ready to string him up for improper marshmallow-toasting safety behavior. “You’re putting people at risk because you can’t put your phone down.”
This was unusually grumpy, even for Kincaid.
I stepped forward and grabbed Judd’s arm, trying to pull him away. No one needed the local fire chief to ruin the mood of a holiday gathering. “Hey! He was just trying to film content like you asked him to. Take it easy on the guy. It’s not his fault you’re impossible to please.”
The chief’s eyes snapped to me and narrowed, causing my heart to flicker with more heat than the flames in the giant bonfire nearby. “Not sure you’re the one who should be giving safety advice, Firebug,” he growled.
“You need to calm down,” I said, mentally owing Ella a shot of alcohol for the inadvertent Taylor Swift lyrics. “You need to just stop.” Dammit. Two shots.
I let out a breath and regrouped. “Listen. It was a flaming marshmallow. We all get them from time to time. Do you want all these little kids so scared of you that they run away from the helpers during a fire? Think about it.”