Fire at Dusk: The Firefighters of Darling Bay by Lila Ashe Read Free Book Online

and the police force dealt with no more than one murder a year.
    But rape happened. Again, not often, but it did happen. Hank had gone on a call earlier in the year in which a young woman, only eighteen, had been pulled off a running trail at the beach and dragged into the manzanita brush. The rapist wasn’t a Darling Bay person—he been a tourist passing through. They’d never caught him. Hank thought of that girl sometimes, shaking so hard her teeth clattered, begging them to let her shower, Bonnie’s arms around the girl before loading her carefully onto the ambulance, treating her as if she were a broken sand dollar. He wondered if she ever felt safe—really, truly safe. Even if she had a huge boyfriend who worked out—a guy who was a trained bodyguard and carried three guns and a knife—there would be times in her life when she’d be walking alone at night. There would be times she’d be in her kitchen, alone, her spatula poised over the stir-fry, wondering if the sound she’d just heard was the dog in the other room or someone breaking a window.
    Hank hated the man who’d done it to her, who’d broken her like that. Who had, in many ways, ruined a large, important part of her whole life . Hank, who knew he would have had a hard time hating the very devil himself knowing that the guy was probably a pretty interesting drinking companion, hated that man who’d no doubt gone on to hurt other women, maybe without ever getting caught.
    “Show me,” he said. He cleared his throat roughly. “Show me how to help them.”
    Samantha threw her arms around him, catching him off guard. No blow here, just a hug that he could feel all the way through the padded suit. “Hug them first. Hug them when you meet them, and hug them before and after each session.”
    He hugged her back. Finally. Something he could probably get right.
     

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    HANK AMAZED HER.
    He’d thrown himself into the training session, heart and soul. The first time she’d flown at him, he’d stumbled backward, protecting himself naturally with upraised arms. The second time, though? He’d fought back. She could tell he wasn’t coming at her one hundred percent, and of course he wasn’t. His whole job—his whole life— was about protecting people. Not pushing them, pinning them down, bringing them to a point where they could heal themselves.
    But Hank had brought maybe eighty percent to their session. It was impressive.
    Of course, she knew the moves by heart. She didn’t have to think when she was ripping his arm away from her shoulder, using her lower body weight to flip him onto his back. He got her down once, but she could tell that he hadn’t expected for her to start kicking as hard as she did. Yeah, he’d get used to that pretty soon. A woman’s greatest strength was in her legs, and driving kicks at an attacker from a position on the ground was not only shocking but effective. Good. He’d reacted like a “normal” attacker, whatever that was, automatically retreating from her forward assault.
    Breathing hard, she stood and signaled for him to take off his helmet.
    “What? Was that wrong?” His face was flushed from exertion, and sweat dripped from the dark hair that hung at his eyes.
    How could a man wearing a padded suit be so hot? She shouldn’t be reacting to him like this.
    It was his eyes. She had to ignore those dark smoky eyes, the way they seemed to ask something of her, something she couldn’t put her finger on.
    She leaned forward, putting her hands on her hips, taking a deep, delicious gulp of air. “No. You’re doing awesome. Perfect.”
    “Good!” He frowned. “I mean, not good. Wait. Is that good?”
    She laughed. “Yeah. It is. Wanna take that suit off?”
    “Damn straight. I’m dying in here.” He unsnapped and unzipped, stripping out of the suit. He’d worn what she’d told him to—a T-shirt, shorts, and his heavy work boots.
    The thing was, Samantha hadn’t thought about the fact