months. Not all that long.”
He pierced her with a lethal look. “Long enough.”
Riley cleared his throat and attempted to help Rosie by changing the subject. “So, Ethan, you gonna meet up with Red? You know how reporters are. It’s easier not to fight them.”
“Yeah, what the hell. I’ll talk with her.”
“She’s probably left a message on your machine by now. Let us know how it goes.”
“You know,” Ethan said, gesturing with a piece of bread, “a good reporter would be covering something more important, like the damn fireworks. The Fourth is next weekend and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m dreading it already.”
Harris lifted his glass of tea in a toast. “Count me in on that. Every year someone sets a fire or gets burned. Why is it the majority of people who want to play with the damn things are idiots?”
“Are you expecting trouble?” Rosie asked.
“Every year.” Arms folded on the table, Ethan glared down at his half-empty bowl. “And with the new bill just passed, a lot of the pyrotechnics we hate most are now legal for adults to use. Only adults aren’t the only ones getting their hands on them.”
“Firecrackers, Roman candles, bottle rockets.” Harris leaned back in his seat. “Did you know about twelve thousand people get sent to emergency rooms every Fourth of July? Over fifty percent of them are kids, and ten percent are permanently injured. It sickens me.”
“And,” Ethan added, “we have a fireworks dealer in town who’s known to be a little less than reputable. I’d love to shut him down, but for now, all we can do is keep an eye on him.”
Since Rosie had never heard Harris speak so…passionately on a topic, she was enthralled—and unaccountably worried. By the nature of their work as firefighters, Ethan and Harris faced various levels of danger daily. She’d tried to get used to that, especially since Ethan always seemed determined to be the first man in, the last man out, and the quickest to volunteer. He might not want to admit it, but he had hero tendencies that were as plain as his hair and eye color, there for all the world to see.
But this sounded more lethal than the usual day-to-day stuff, and she couldn’t quite keep the worry from her tone. “Will it be dangerous for you two?”
Ethan scowled over her concern, even as he shook his head. “No, but seeing a kid burned is about the most awful thing in the world.”
“I know it’s something I’ll never get used to,” Harris conceded.
Looking thoughtful, Riley said, “Maybe Red can help. She could at least get some of the facts in the paper, right?”
Buck slanted him a look. “Just how well did you get to know her this afternoon?”
Riley shrugged. “We talked about an hour. I told her what the lessons would cost, how often she should come in—stuff like that. She wanted a starter lesson today so we spent another hour on that.” He stretched. “I worked up quite an appetite, I can tell you.”
“Hell,” Ethan muttered, “if you showed her the same stuff you were doing with Rosie, the two of you might be having kids soon.”
Riley laughed out loud at that, and Rosie blushed.
“We’ve seen.” Harris grinned at her, and his blue eyes were glittering with mischief. “Wanna wrestle, Rosie?”
“No.” She stood and collected bowls, hoping no one noticed her heightened color. “Anyone want ice cream for dessert?”
Buck and Harris both cackled at the way she tried to change the subject.
Ethan wouldn’t let it go. “What do you mean, you’ve seen? You two have been down there watching?”
Buck nodded. “Hell of a show.” He and Harris clicked glasses.
Flustered, Rosie smacked them both in the back of the head. “Now you two just quit it. And you, Ethan. You’re making a big deal out of nothing. Why, Riley’s the one teaching me the moves and he doesn’t laugh about it.”
She glanced up in time to see Riley wipe the grin off his face. “All right, that’s it. Forget dessert. You can all go home now.”
Immediate apologies followed, along with a lot of schmoozing hugs and entreaties. Rosie could barely catch her breath, they were all talking so fast and squeezing her so much.
“Enough already! All right, you can stay.” Her eyes narrowed. “But no more razzing on my lessons. Understood?”
After they’d all dutifully nodded, Ethan stood. “I’ll get the ice cream. One of you lazy slugs get the bowls.”
Together, the men managed to serve themselves since Rosie was still peeved and it showed in the way she crossed her arms tight and kept her mouth flat.
The bowls were no sooner filled than the phone rang. Glad for something to do, Rosie answered it on her kitchen wall phone, but then excused herself from the guys to take the call in private. No one seemed to mind that except Ethan, who scowled and asked, “Who is it?”
“A client, nosy.” She started to tell them not to wait for her, then saw that Buck already had his mouth full and Harris was soon to follow. “You’re all social misfits, do you know that?”
They shrugged. Rosie shook her head and walked out.
The interruption was timely, in her opinion. She needed a few minutes to form her next plan of attack. Bringing up home and hearth hadn’t worked, so she’d have to hit Ethan on a more basic level.
Damn it all, she was going to have to seduce him.
* * *
THE SECOND Rosie was out of hearing, Ethan said, “Finish up and get out of here. I want to talk to Rosie alone.”
Riley bit his upper lip, but refrained from saying anything. Buck wasn’t so subtle. “You two hooked up now?”
“No, we’re not ‘hooked up.’ What the hell’s wrong with you? Rosie is a friend and you know it.”
Harris rolled his eyes. “A female friend, and that’s all the distinction she needs far as I’m concerned.”
“That’s about it,” Buck agreed.
Riley set his spoon aside. “Have any of you ever thought of Rosie in a…you know, sexual way?” He saluted the air with two fingers, giving the first admission, and Harris and Buck quickly lifted their hands, too.
Ethan gawked at them. “You can damn well stop thinking of her that way right now!”
“Impossible.”
“No way.”
“Sorry.”
Ethan shoved his chair back. “You’re all…”
“Normal?
