Authors: Cat Johnson
Zoey’s heart began to pound. This was it. This could be the event that paid that stack of bills on the desk. She didn’t even need to check her calendar to know she was already booked on that day. A Friday night during the holidays, there was definitely something scheduled, but she’d farm that out to someone else if it meant catering a party for Lexi Cooper.
“There’s one thing, though. It’s a charity event and we have to keep expenses at a bare minimum. We can’t afford to pay very much. We were hoping to have you do it at your cost.”
Zoey’s heart sank. She was into supporting charitable causes as much as the next person, maybe more. But since she was nearly a charity case herself at this point, there was no way she could give up her already scheduled paying job during the busy holiday season in exchange for a huge undertaking that paid nothing over the cost of goods.
“I’m very sorry, but I can’t do it.”
“But you have to do it.”
Zoey smothered a laugh. The great Lexi Cooper, best selling cookbook author who apparently didn’t have any financial worries, was telling her she had to do it. That was rich. No actually, it was Lexi Cooper who was rich, and she would just have to cater her own damn party.
On second thought, that was a good point. Why wasn’t Lexi doing her own event?
Zoey didn’t have the time or the energy to worry about Lexi’s problems anymore. She had twenty-four baking penises—or was it peni—to decorate.
“No, actually, I don’t. Look I wish I could help you out but I can’t. I’m booked solid. Good luck finding someone.”
Zoey hung up before she started to feel guilty and did something crazy such as accept the non-paying job. She braced two hands against the desk, gathering the momentum to stand, when she smelled burning cookies and realized she hadn’t set a timer.
She jumped up and heard a dull sickening thud followed by a flash of immense pain and then blackness.
Chapter Two
“What the fu…” Gordy Mullen looked up from the newspaper opened in front of him and cut off the profanity just in time.
His captain, sitting opposite, raised a brow and glanced meaningfully at the cuss jar sitting on the kitchen counter. The large glass vessel was rapidly filling with single dollar bills as the men of Engine Company 31 tried to curtail their use of profanity. Not that the sudden cleansing of their language was their idea. It had been the captain’s order.
Considering Gordy would be playing Santa Claus for the kiddies in a few weeks to promote Ladder 3’s nudie calendar, he figured it was probably a good idea to learn to clean up his usual potty mouth anyway. So far the cuss jar at the firehouse had cost him probably twenty bucks or more.
Gordy veered off in another direction and completed his sentence with the word “fudge”.
The captain nodded approvingly as he folded his own section of the paper and laid it on the table. “What’s the problem?”
Gordy shoved the lifestyle section, which he’d been forced to read since the captain got to the sports pages first, across the table.
The captain glanced down at the photo of the smiling and happily engaged couple and frowned. “Isn’t that—?”
“My ex-wife? The woman who divorced me because she hated being married to a firefighter and then took half of everything? It sure is. And look who she’s marrying.”
The captain squinted at the photo’s caption. “Well, I’ll be dam…uh, darned.”
He would have smiled at the captain’s near slip if he weren’t so damn pissed himself. His ex was engaged to a firefighter. A probie, no less, meaning he was brand spanking new and still had the full twenty years to put in before retiring on full pension. The bitch had left Gordy when he was more than ten years in because she wouldn’t wait for him to retire.
Gordy felt a quick panic over referring to his former wife—though she deserved it—as a bitch. Then he realized he had only thought the word. As far as the cuss jar went, that didn’t count.
The captain pushed the paper back at him and glanced at the clock on the wall. “We’re off in another thirty. You wanna hit the bar for a scotch and bitch session?”
Gordy raised a brow and glanced at the jar.
The captain noticed. “
Bitch session
doesn’t count as a cuss. It’s an official term.”
“Really. Good to know. And no, I think I’ll just head home.” Gordy had realized of late, since his divorce actually, that alcohol was playing far too big a role in his off-duty hours. Besides, he was still recovering from two nights before when he’d met the guys from Ladder 3 for drinks to celebrate the release of their calendar.
He remembered the first time he’d gone out drinking with them. It had been a few months ago, right after the calendar photo shoot. That had been a combo tequila and bitch session after Scotty, one of their guys, had gotten dumped. Gordy had been so far gone, he’d crashed at their house that night.
Those guys knew how to party right. Troy had delivered them all home with the pizza. It not only saved the four of them the cab fare, they had a midnight snack. It would probably work with Chinese food delivery too. He intended to remember that little trick for future use. But for today, he thought it best to stay sober, just so he didn’t do something crazy such as call his ex and give her a piece of his mind.
Gordy looked up from his ponderings and found the captain observing him.
“You all right?”
Gordy nodded. “Fine. Happy to be rid of her. That calendar I’m in will be like a chick magnet. You wait and see.”
The captain smirked. “I’m sure it will be, Mr. February. Although I still think you should have had wings and a bow and arrow. You know, like Cupid.”
Gordy scowled. The married guys who hadn’t been allowed to model for this nude charity thing had plenty of suggestions for his humiliation. “The heart-shaped box was corny enough. Thanks, anyway.”
Shrugging, the captain picked up his section of the paper again. Gordy glanced back down at the photo and then up at the clock wondering if maybe there was a bottle of scotch in his liquor cabinet at home.
At the end of his shift, Gordy left the firehouse and starting walking for home. That was the one good thing about having to sell the house and split the profits with his ex, he now lived in an apartment walking distance from the firehouse. He tried to look at the up side of the divorce as often as possible.
Nearing the building that housed Zoey’s Events, Gordy slowed his pace, trying to glance casually in the window. Here was another up side of being single again, the cute chick he could sometimes spy inside Zoey’s on his walks to and from work.
Today, however, his quick glance became a stare as he stopped directly in front of the glass window.
“What the…” The storefront was filled with smoke.
At the same time he reached for the door handle, Gordy visually searched the sidewalk for something to break the glass with in case the store was locked. There was a metal garbage bin. That would work if need be, but the knob turned in his hand. It was unlocked and still cool to the touch. Thank God for that. The heat within the building hadn’t reached that high of a temperature yet.
He flung open the door and stepped inside. No visible flames. “Anybody in here?”
No response. He didn’t see anyone, but a closer look revealed to him that the smoke was coming from the back room. He pulled his T-shirt over his nose and mouth so he could breath through it, ducked lower and headed farther into the store.
In the back, a room that was obviously a professional kitchen, black smoke billowed out of one of the ovens. Gordy flung open the oven door and got a face full of heat.
“Damn.” Good thing the captain wasn’t there to hear him cursing.
He looked around and found a dishrag on the stainless steel counter. Grabbing it, he used it to save his hand as he pulled out a large smoldering tray and flung it onto the counter.
Confident he’d found the only cause for the smoke and that there was no actual fire, Gordy turned off the oven and opened the back door to let in some fresh air. As the room cleared a bit, he noticed for the first time what was on the tray. Row upon row of blackened penis cookies.
That was interesting. His cute little baker made erotic cookies for a living. Intriguing.
Speaking of the missing chef, where was she? And why was the door unlocked if the store was empty? Maybe she’d run out on an errand? Leaving the oven on with the penis cookies inside
and
the door unlocked? It didn’t seem likely.
Gordy made his way back toward the front room. Should he leave the store as he found it? Wait for her to return? He was trying to decide what to do when he spied a body on the floor.
“Holy fuck.” He dropped to his knees beside the motionless form. Oh, God. It was her. “Shit, shit, shit.” Cursing didn’t count during the discovery of bodies. “Please don’t be dead.”
He placed two fingers against her neck. She had a pulse, thank God for small favors. She wasn’t dead, just unconscious.
Afraid to move her, he did his best to look for injuries while barely touching her, which wasn’t easy. It shouldn’t be smoke inhalation. It hadn’t been that thick when he’d arrived.
He had to call 9-1-1. Sure, he had first aid training, but if he couldn’t find an injury, how could he treat it? Besides, he was a firefighter, not a paramedic. She needed a professional.
Gordy rose and was about to grab for the phone on the desk in the closet-sized office next to her when she moaned.
He dropped back to his knees and ran one hand lightly over her forehead and hair. “It’s all right. You’re safe. Come on. Wake up now, sweetie.”
“Ow.” She groaned and raised her hand, wincing as she ran it over her hair. “My head.” Then she sniffed. “Oh, no. My cookies.”
She tried to push herself up and swayed, sitting with her hand pressed to her head.
“Don’t try to stand and don’t worry about your cookies. I got them out, but I’m afraid if you weren’t going for Cajun blackened cookies, they’re a little overdone. Crispy actually. I saw the smoke from the street. That’s why I came in.”
She sighed and slumped against the wall, still dazed. The deep furrow in her brow told him her head still hurt like hell.
He gingerly felt until he found the egg-sized welt on her scalp. At least there was no blood. “Ooo, that’s quite a lump. What happened anyway? Did you fall?”
“No, I stood.”
He didn’t understand that until she raised a hand and pointed in the air toward the ceiling of the tiny office. Gordy looked up and noticed the clothing pole above the desk. Damn, the office
was
a closet and she’d hit her head on the pole.
Finally convinced she wasn’t going to die, Gordy had a moment to study the woman more intently. She was even cuter close up than he’d thought from his glimpses from the street, all light brown curly hair and green eyes, although he didn’t like how large her pupils looked.
He extended his hand to her. “I’m Gordy, by the way.”
“I’m Zoey.” Her hand felt work-roughened in his, but her grip was a little weak.
“Ah,
the
Zoey of Zoey’s Events.” He nodded, observing her to evaluate her level of injury even as he made small talk.
She laughed. “Yeah. The great chef who burnt the cookies.”
Gordy smirked. “They were uh, interesting cookies.”
She was so adorable she actually blushed. Zoey groaned and covered her face with both hands.
“They were ordered for a bachelorette party. And now they’re ruined. I’m going to have to start all over.” She shook her head. “I’m so tired and my skull feels like someone’s hitting it with a sledge hammer. I don’t know if I can do it…”
Her voice started shaking and her breath came in a sob.
Oh, boy. Here comes the tears
. He slid down to next to her and laid one arm around her shoulders. “Shhh. It’s okay. Come on, I’ll take you home. Tell me where you live.”
“I can’t. I have to make the cookies.”
He shook his head. “No. Not today. You probably have a concussion. I’m taking you home. Actually, I should take you to the hospital.”
“No.” She looked up in panic.
“But you might have a concussion.”
“I might, but I definitely do not have health insurance, so no hospital.”
Gordy sighed. Even though he’d rather have a doctor’s opinion, he knew enough emergency medicine to take care of her. “All right. No hospital, but I’m going to stay with you. I’ll have to wake you up every two hours in case it is a concussion.”
When she didn’t argue, he got up and gently lifted her with him. It looked like he had actually volunteered to spend the night with a hot chick knowing there was not even the remotest chance of sex in sight. And his ex-wife had said he was immature. Ha. This was so mature he should be able to apply for senior citizen benefits afterward.
Chapter Three
“So he stayed with you, all night long.”
Zoey nodded, then regretted the action. Her head still ached and last night was merely a blur of sleeping and waking. There wasn’t all that much to tell so she didn’t know why she was getting the third-degree.
“And you have no idea who he is?” her formerly full-time, now part-time assistant chef grilled.