Heating Up by Stacy Finz Read Free Book Online Page B

down.”
    â€œLike are you from here, what are your hobbies, your favorite TV shows? It’s called a conversation.”
    â€œI’m from Reno and I don’t have any hobbies or favorite TV shows. How about you?”
    Who didn’t have hobbies or favorite shows? Fine, he’d break the ice. “I’m from Chicago, where I was a firefighter and an arson investigator. I like football and baseball and just about any other sport you can think of.”
    â€œWhy did you leave Chicago?”
    Their drinks came and he took a swig of his beer. Some kind of microbrew from around here. Good stuff. “I came to visit my sister in February and fell in love with the place. All the wide-open spaces, the mountains, the fresh air. A job opened up with Cal Fire and my sister put in a good word for me. Here I am.” It wasn’t the whole truth but close enough.
    â€œYou must be tight with Sloane.”
    â€œI am with all my siblings.”
    â€œHow many more do you have?” She sipped her iced tea. Nice lips, he noted.
    â€œTwo brothers. I’m the oldest, Sloane’s the baby. My brothers and dad are also firefighters. How about you? Sisters? Brothers?”
    â€œI had a younger brother . . . Paul. He died when I was fifteen.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Dana. That’s tough. Was he sick?”
    â€œNo, he drowned . . . well, sort of.”
    He waited for her to finish.
    â€œIt’s called ‘secondary drowning.’” She paused, like she was trying to come up with the best way to explain it.
    â€œI know what it is.” He’d never actually had a case but had been warned about it in training. “How did it happen?”
    â€œWe were tubing in the Truckee River, near where we lived. Paul went out farther than he should have and his tube got caught up on a rock. He wiggled out of the tube to pry it loose and got caught up in the current, which dragged him under. Luckily, another tuber pulled him out and got him to shore, where he coughed up a lot of water. After a short rest he seemed fine, even went back in the river for a little while.”
    Aidan signaled for the waitress to refill Dana’s iced tea. “Is that when it happened?”
    â€œNo, we made it home. Paul went upstairs, said he wanted to take a nap. We figured he was knocked out from spending the day in the sun. My mother checked on him a couple of hours later and he had white foam around his mouth and blue lips. She called 9-1-1, but Paul never made it to the hospital. He died en route.”
    â€œDid the medical examiner find water in his lungs?” Aidan knew that was typically the case.
    She nodded. “They said he died from asphyxiation from drowning.”
    â€œAh, jeez. How old was he?” Having seen many deaths in his line of work, Aidan knew it was the worst when the tragedy involved a child.
    â€œThirteen.”
    â€œThat’s rough.” He reached out and grasped her hand. “I’m really sorry, Dana.”
    She gazed out over the restaurant, growing distant. “Thank you. It was a long time ago.”
    The server came with all their food at once and the conversation changed to the weather.
    â€œIs it always this hot here?” Aidan pushed the nachos closer to her.
    â€œHot in the summer and cold in the winter. But even so, it’s been unseasonably warm. And the drought hasn’t helped things.”
    He nodded, stuffing his face with steak. The beef here was phenomenal. “What else did you do in Reno?”
    â€œGot a bed.” She turned red and quickly deflected by adding, “And some suits for work.”
    Clearly the attraction thing wasn’t one-sided, he mused. Yet there would be no beds involved between them. Nope, that would be a colossally bad idea.
    â€œI guess it’ll take you a while to reacquire all the things you lost,” he said. “Was any of it irreplaceable?”
    â€œTins from my family’s