With Courage And Commitment

She was about to send them off for free play with blocks and plastic dump trucks and the indoor playhouse, when the front door opened. She looked up and her heart did a ridiculous stutter step.

Danny Sullivan stood there in his navy-blue dress uniform, the pants and shirt perfectly creased as though he were about to stand inspection, his badge glistening. His midnight-black hair was combed back, the usually unruly curls tamed for the moment. She had an almost irrepressible urge to muss his hair with her fingers, to thread her hands through the fullness until he looked like—

She didn’t want to go there. Not now. Not in the presence of twenty wide-eyed preschoolers.

Nor did she want to admit how her lungs seized when his eyes snared hers, their color almost as bright as the royal-blue the children used to color the sky in their paintings.

Only when he stepped farther into the room and young Tami cried out, “He’s gots a doggy!” did Stephanie notice Danny had brought the station’s mascot with him. Mack Buttons, a chocolate Dalmatian with brown spots and a sweet disposition, waggled his tail as the preschoolers gathered around him. Looking a little uncertain about so many children, Danny ordered the dog to sit.

“Careful, children,” Alice warned, snaring the most fearless of the youngsters who had surged forward. “Remember you need to ask before you pet a strange dog.”

“But he’s so pretty!” Tami insisted.

“Yes, I know. And I’m sure Fireman Sullivan will let you all have a chance to pet him.” She hustled the children to the rug, asking them to make a story-time circle. Stephanie helped out by corralling those who failed to respond to the initial request.

Danny stood uncertainly at the edge of the rug while all the commotion went on around him. His gaze followed Stephanie. The room seemed to light up with her in it, everything else paling by comparison. Which was saying something given the rainbow-painted walls and bright splashes of color around the room.

He noticed how easily she touched the children, a brush of her hand on a shoulder to steer a kid in the right direction, a caress of her fingertips on a rosy cheek to elicit a smile.

In contrast, he felt like a giant among Lilliputians.

“Why don’t you sit in the rocking chair in the center of the circle?” Stephanie suggested.

“I think I’d rather stand.” It was better than being surrounded by a mob of giggling three- and four-year-olds.

“Is something the matter?”

“I don’t have much experience with kids. They, uh, make me nervous.”

She looked offended. “They won’t bite.”

“The hamster did.”

“I wish you’d told Alice when she called that you don’t like children, then we could have—”

“I like kids well enough,” he protested. “I just don’t have many occasions to be around them.”

“Think of this as your chance to get used to them, then.”

She took his hand, startling him with the feel of her slender fingers wrapped around his. A jolt of electricity shot up his arm. Not just static electricity but something high voltage. Sexual. Potent. With it came images of hot sweaty bodies—his and Stephanie’s—and rumpled sheets.

Before he could analyze what had happened, she led him to the chair. He sat because the shock had sent his heart into overdrive. He wasn’t supposed to feel any sexual attraction to Stephanie. And if he did feel any, he was supposed to keep it under tight wraps.

No way did he want to get involved with Harlan Gray’s daughter. The girl who had pestered him through half of his life. A woman who was pregnant with another man’s baby.

Buttons sat on the floor beside him, looking at the children expectantly.

Danny made it a point not to look at Stephanie. He didn’t want to know if she’d felt the attraction flowing between them, too.

“Before we give Fireman Sullivan his hero’s medal,” Alice said to the children, “would any of you like to ask him a question about being a firefighter?”

A half dozen hands shot up. Alice gave the nod to a pixie blonde. “Do you get to turn on the siren?”

“No, that’s the engineer’s job—the driver of the fire truck. I sit in back.”

His answer seemed to disappoint the little girl. Maybe he should have lied. A part of him wanted to impress the youngster—and Stephanie, too. But since her dad was the fire chief, she’d probably had her fill of sirens.

A boy asked, “Do you get scared?”

“Sometimes. But firefighters are very well trained. You all know fires can be dangerous and—”

“When were you scared?”

His gaze slid around the room. He had the kids’ attention. Stephanie’s, too. He didn’t want her to know that bravery didn’t always come easily. That sometimes the most courageous man could turn into a coward.

“I spent a couple of summers fighting forest fires in Idaho. I was a smoke jumper. Do you know what that means?”

When the kids shook their heads, he explained that he parachuted out of a plane near a fire that couldn’t be reached in any other way. He didn’t tell them of the terror of his last jump, the fear that still had the power to wake him up in a sweat from a dead sleep.

“That can be kind of scary,” he concluded after the briefest of explanations.

The questions got a little easier after that. Did he rescue cats from trees? Not usually. Was his helmet heavy? Not really, and he was sorry he hadn’t brought his along so they could try it on. Finally little blondie asked if they could pet the doggie yet.

A frequent school visitor, Buttons tolerated the petting with his usual patience, giving only a small yip when one of the kids stepped on his toe.

Then came the medal presentation.

Danny squirmed uncomfortably in the chair as the day’s designated “pet feeders” brought out the hamsters to witness the big event. Giving mouth-to-mouth to a rodent wasn’t Danny’s idea of being heroic. And every shift since last week, he’d been razzed by his buddies one way or the other. He’d be happy for everyone to forget the incident.

Solemnly two children carrying a blue velvet pillow marched in from the back of the room. They halted like little soldiers in front of Danny, an aluminum foil star with a red, white and blue ribbon resting on the pillow. The little girl gave him a shy smile. In a few years she’d be a killer, the boys unable to resist her.

“Let’s ask Miss Stephanie to put the medal around Fireman Sullivan’s neck, shall we?” Alice suggested.

The kids seemed amenable to idea. Danny wasn’t sure if he preferred Stephanie to do the deed or a four-year-old with sticky hands and a streak of blue paint on his chin. Neither seemed a good choice.

Stephanie’s teasing eyes as she approached suggested the kid would have been the better bet.

“Maybe I ought to call the Paseo Daily Press,” she said, grinning at his discomfort. “A front-page photo of this would be great PR for the fire department.”

“You pull a stunt like that and you’re toast!” he whispered through gritted teeth and forced a smile.

Her light laughter rippled around him like the rainbows circling the room. He caught her scent, something fresh and floral, as she leaned forward to place the medal around his neck. Her breasts loomed in front of him. Eye level. Tempting. Definitely not Twiggy.

Leaning back, he tried to escape the allure of her full figure. The rocker landed on Buttons’s tail in mid-wag. He yelped and scrambled away. The sudden movement caught Stephanie off guard. With a cry of alarm, she tumbled into Danny’s lap. Instinctively his arms wrapped around her.

She didn’t weigh much, he thought with a rush of conflicting emotions. She fit nicely where she had landed but she didn’t belong there. Her skin was soft, caressable. He ought to help her up but he didn’t want to let her go. Her kissable lips were enticingly close to his. His rebellious body wasn’t listening to his brain, definitely had a mind of its own.

Shoving her hands against his chest, she righted herself. Her breath came fast, in tiny gasps; so did his. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair mussed, the coffee-brown curls going every which way. He wondered if she realized how she affected him. A totally inappropriate reaction given the situation. And he didn’t know how she could have missed his response to her being in his lap.