Dr. Dad

Noah glared at the woman hanging upside down above him. If the fire and climb didn’t kill her, he’d probably wring her fool neck.

“Ouch,” she shrieked abruptly. “You ungrateful wretch,” she cursed.

Noah blinked. Odd. She didn’t seem to be talking to him, and she didn’t seem to be in immediate danger of falling. Quite the contrary—she inched along the branch with the confident ease of a gymnast, her long hair waving like a golden brown banner in the breeze.

“Damnation,” Walker O’Brien, the Astoria fire chief, growled at Noah’s elbow. “How’d she get up there?” He motioned to one of his men, who trotted toward one of the trucks. “Are you okay, lady? We’re getting a ladder.”

By now she’d reached the center of the tree and she parted a swathe of leaves to look at them. “Don’t bother. I can manage.”

Walker harrumphed. “I should lock you up.”

She leaned out farther and smiled at him winningly. “But you won’t, will you?”

To Noah’s disgust the fire chief chuckled and shook his head. “My God, Starr Granger. When did you get home?”

“A couple of days ago. I’m on vacation. You know, visiting my parents and stuff.”

“And you couldn’t stay out of trouble,” the chief said with a grin.

“That’s—” A muffled growl came from her midsection and she winced. “Ow. Maybe I’ll take that ladder after all. My passenger is using me as a pincushion.”

“Is that where the blood came from?” Walker asked.

Startled, Noah looked up. Sure enough, there were red streaks on Starr’s hands. The front of her jacket squirmed and a furry head poked out above the zipper, squalling in fury.

“I rescued Becky’s cat,” she explained. “But he didn’t appreciate the favor.”

Just then the ladder arrived and Noah grasped it firmly. “I’ll get her,” he said.

Walker grinned and stepped aside. “You’re the doctor.”

“I don’t need anyone’s help,” Starr protested. “Just shove the ladder against the branch and I’ll manage fine.”

Noah climbed up anyway. “Going into that house was crazy,” he snarled.

“I’ve been accused of a lot of things. Crazy is mild compared to some of them.”

“I’ll just bet!”

“Besides, it wasn’t that dangerous,” she asserted. “The fire was clear on the other side of the house.”

At the moment Noah didn’t care if the fire was on the moon. Obviously Starr Granger was a daredevil risk taker. A rebel to common sense. Her vocabulary probably didn’t even include words like caution and yield. “This is an old house,” he said grimly. “It could have gone up like a tinderbox and you’d have been trapped.”

“I took a calculated risk.”

“Noah is right,” Walker O’Brien said from below. “Fires in these old places are unpredictable.”

Starr frowned. “Stay out of this, Walker.”

He shrugged. “Hey, I fight fires. I’d just like to get back to fighting this one...if you don’t mind.”

“Coming, Miss Granger?” Noah held out his hand, trying to control a smug smile.

“I told you, I don’t need any help. Why are you still here, anyway? You should have taken Becky home.”

Noah’s free hand clenched around the ladder. How dare she criticize the way he took care of Becky? A woman who couldn’t even attend her best friend’s wedding or goddaughter’s christening. “One of the firemen fell. I was treating him. Any objections?”

A curious flicker of emotion flashed across her face. “I’m sorry. Is he badly injured?”

“Why do you care? Are you planning to write a story about it, or just take a couple of gory pictures?”

The blue-green of her eyes deepened with indignation. “That isn’t fair. I’m a photojournalist, and a damned good one. I don’t get my kicks out of seeing people hurt.”

The cat hissed at that moment, as though mirroring the fury of the woman who had rescued him.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I didn’t want a story. I just wanted to get Becky’s kitty for her.”

Noah sighed, knowing he’d unconsciously taken his distrust of the news media out on Starr, probably because it was so easy to be angry with her. But that didn’t change the fact she’d risked her life for a cat. A cat! He looked her squarely in the eye. “That animal could have taken care of itself.”

“You’re just mad because you didn’t think of it first.”

He glared.

“Besides,” Starr continued, “the door was closed and the window was shut.... The poor thing was helpless.”

“Helpless?”

Noah grunted. As far as he could tell from her scratches, that poor thing had five effective weapons on each of its paws. Even worse, he suspected the helpless little wretch was about to take up permanent residence in his house; those claws were going to do some serious damage to his leather upholstery. Of course, Becky’s grape juice and peanut butter had already done a job on the furniture...and on everything else.

“Please don’t dawdle,” Walker advised from his position on the ground. “I still have work to do.”

“Coming,” Noah said tersely. He ought to have his head examined for talking to the woman in the first place, much less having a conversation with her on a ladder!

He grasped Starr’s waist as she swung from the tree. Doing so was a mistake. She wiggled indignantly, but the movement only reminded him that she was a woman—soft and nicely rounded in all the right places. Her tight, jeans-clad bottom was intimately aligned with his chest and her hair flew like fragrant silk around his face. He drew a deep breath and caught the scent of honeysuckle on a warm afternoon—except honeysuckle had never smelled that good on a bush.

Stop. Noah groaned. He’d always heard that anger could be stimulating under the right circumstances. Yet he’d never quite believed it until now.

“I’m ready to climb down. You’re in my way,” she said in a muffled voice...squirming to make her point.

Noah gritted his teeth and tried to focus on anything but the sexy slide of her hips against his body. He only partially succeeded. So he thought about the scratches on her hands. They would have to be cleansed and disinfected, then bandaged.

Good, think like a doctor.

But his thoughts were entirely male as he descended with her...one slow rung at a time. Starr kept leaning away from the ladder, trying to protect the cat still snarling loud complaints from her jacket, which meant she came into closer contact with him. When they finally reached the ground, Noah’s jaw ached from being clenched, and the rest of him didn’t feel so great, either.

As they walked toward the ambulance she unbuttoned her jacket and unhooked the angry feline from her shirt. Becky caught sight of the animal and lunged forward.

“Mine.” She held out her arms, and Noah knew his leather furniture was doomed. Kitty had just found a new home.