Caught Off Guard Read online

  Caught off Guard

  Tonya Ramagos

  Copyright © 2006

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Prologue

  Captain Dean Wolcott was dreaming. He knew he had to be when he stepped out his front door to find the beauty in the driveway. And no, the beauty wasn’t his motorcycle, though the fire-engine-red Harley FLSTFI Fat Boy, with its twin cam engine, was the current love of his life. It was the long legged, long-haired, completely naked blond leaning against it that had him stopping in his tracks

  He took a moment to study her. Her sunshine hair fell over one shoulder barely covering a breast, her hair a contrast against her completely naked, tanned skin. Her breasts weren’t large by any means, but they were full, perfectly rounded, and oh so enticing. His palms burned to cup those breasts, his thumbs aching to graze over their taut, dark brown peaks.

  He fisted his hands. His gaze slid down her flat stomach, over the patch of blond curls that was barely visible between her legs—oh, yeah, she was a natural blond—and continued down. Her legs were toned, perfectly shaped, and seemed to go on for miles. He swallowed. His mouth watering at the thought of tasting them, skimming his tongue from her ankle up the long length of one leg until he licked himself home to that wonderfully enticing pussy. She would have no problem wrapping those legs around his waist as he slid...

  No. Stop it. You can't do this again. He was not going to get lost in those thoughts again. Not this time. This wasn’t the first time this woman, this vision, had visited him in his dreams, and each time he allowed the scenario to play without a single word spoken.

  Not this time , he thought with a determination that surprised even him. This time, there would be conversation. This time, he would tell her to leave him alone, to stop tormenting his dreams.

  Because I can't have her , he thought miserably. No matter how badly he wanted her, no matter how many years he had dreamed of her, he could never have her.

  She raised a hand, crooked a finger at him. No. Don't go near her. If you do, you're doomed. He tried to dig in his heels but realized all too quickly it wouldn't work when he stood on solid concrete. Tell her to go. Tell her to leave you alone. He tried to speak, but no sound came out.

  Instead, just like every other repeat of this dream, he found himself being pulled toward her. Then the scene changed, as if someone had clicked the channel button on a remote control and he was back inside his house with her in his bed. He was naked now, too, and on top of her.

  Dear God, please don't let me wake up , he thought as his gazed down at her, felt the soft warmth of her skin against his. Her hands were on his shoulders, her long fingernails digging into his back. He could feel those legs wrapped tightly around his waist as he slowly began to ease the tip of his cock toward the sopping wet opening of her pussy.

  All thoughts of telling her to leave, of getting her out of his dreams had been swept away. Replaced by the overwhelming need to have her, to be inside her, even if only in his fantasies.

  A loud crack of thunder had him stopping just before his dick slid home. What the hell? It hadn’t been raining when they were in his driveway. Then an ear-piercing shrill cut through the sexually charged atmosphere, and Dean’s eyes popped open.

  He sighed with the quiet desperation of a man whose fantasies had just been shattered to bits.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Dean sat up, struggling to push his blond vision out of his mind as he swung his legs over the edge of his cot and waited for the no-nonsense voice of the dispatcher. Around him, several of the men mumbled and cursed as they jumped into their turnout gear and prepared to roll. They complained, but Dean knew in truth they loved it every time the tones went off. There was nothing like a good raging fire to get the blood and adrenaline pumping through the veins. Nothing that was, except an incredibly sexy blond, he amended.

  For a man, that adrenaline often settled in his groin, and it was a good thing, too, because his dream had left him with a very visible hard-on. Still, if anyone noticed, they would simply think it was from the thrill and anticipation of the call and not from the fact that he had been only seconds from a serious wet dream.

  Across town, nestled in the central communications office located at the Sheriff’s Department, Julia Bradley was tonight’s dispatcher on duty. Dean had met her only once and had been blown away by how far off his impression of her had been. She was a young, petite slip of a thing but one would never guess by the authoritative, deep timbre of her radio voice.

  “Engine 1, Ladder 12, Rescue 4, we have a report of a structure fire at 3211 Cumberland Road

  . Unknown occupancy. Time out, 2430.”

  That announcement kicked the guys into higher gear, eliciting whoops from a couple of men and even a Hoo-yah from the ex-Navy SEAL. Dean quickly slipped into his boots, snatched his handheld radio off the table between the cots. He followed the rest of his crew down the steps to the bays, listening to the voice of Zack Houston, B shift’s radio operator, over the speaker, confirming the location of the fire for the men responding.

  “I’m taking the IC truck,” Dean called to the crew, bolting around them and through the open bay doors to the Incident Command SUV parked out front. Rain poured in sheets from clouds so dark they nearly blended in with the black night sky. He was instantly soaked. He snatched his handheld off his belt and slid into the driver’s seat. Keying up the radio, he said, “900 in route with Incident Command 2,” as he started the SUV and peeled out of the parking lot. The engineers—more commonly known as drivers—of the rescue engine and ladder companies followed his announcement as they also called in route.

  Visibility sucked even with the windshield wipers on full blast and the momentary brightness from streaks of lightning that shot through the sky. Dean clenched the wheel as he strained to see the road in front of him. Cumberland Road

  was less than three miles from the station, but weather like this would slow their response time.

  “And make putting out this fire a real bitch,” he grumbled to himself.

  Though fires were generally put out with water, and rain was in fact water, fighting a fire in the pouring rain only made the job a thousand times more difficult. It slowed their response time, made everything as slick as frozen ice and as messy as a mudslide. No doubt, it was the weather, the lightning most likely, that had caused this fire to begin.

  But to his pleasant surprise, the rain had diminished to a mere drizzle by the time he pulled up at 3211 Cumberland Road

  . Strange how quickly the weather could change in the distance of a few blocks.

  A small crowd of people, some huddled under umbrellas for protection, had gathered in the yards across from and next to the house numbered 3211. The Abbott house, Dean realized. "Wouldn't you know it," he muttered as he pulled the SUV to a stop in the street and hopped out, radio in hand.

  From his vantage point at the left front corner of the house, he couldn’t see anything wrong. It was a woman in the yard next door frantically waving and pointing that drew his attention to the right side of the house. Sure enough, they had a fire on their hands.

  Dean keyed up his radio. “IC 2 on scene, smoke visible but no flame,” he reported to his crew.

  “Engine 1, 10-4 that. We’re right behind you, Cap. Where do you want us?”

  Dean turned, shook his head, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. The bright red and clear rotating ligh
ts of the engine were already visible, the siren screaming louder as the truck sped toward him. He should have known. Not even a little rain would slow down Ryan Magee, the Engine Company’s engineer and former Navy SEAL.

  “Roll to the house, Engine 1,” Dean said into his radio. “Ladder 12, take hydrant duty, then proceed.”

  “Ladder 12, 10-4.”

  The four-men crew of Engine 1 hopped out before the truck even came to a full stop. Dean made a mental note to reprimand the men for that one later. They all knew better. Safety was always an issue on any scene, but right now, they had a job to do.

  “Anyone inside?” Lieutenant Trip Barrett’s usual lazy, Texas drawl was clipped and accent free in the face of action. He grabbed a pike pole—a long metal pole with an arrowhead and hook on one end—and other tools from the truck before sprinting across the yard with Jason Graham to the front door of the house. The firefighters waited just outside the door for Bailey Lamont—B shift’s latest probie and female firefighter—who had stayed behind to help Ryan pull and connect the engine’s hose before joining them.

  Dean felt a quick twinge of what might have been fear, or apprehension, as Lamont hightailed it across the yard to meet up with the guys before entering the house. She was fresh meat from the Fire Academy, on the job for only a week. In that week, she had responded to several calls, all of them minor, none being a real test of her capabilities. Tonight’s call, on the other hand, held the potential to put her newly learned knowledge through the ringer.

  She had to be put to the test at some point, and knowing that Barrett was leading her crew gave Dean the ability to push his concerns aside. Lieutenant Trip Barrett was one of the best. Lamont would certainly be safe in his hands.

  “It should be vacant but proceed with caution until we know for sure.” The house on Cumberland Road

  had become a second for the Abbott's when they took up primary residence in Florida a few years back. Since they always failed to alert the Fire Department of their comings and goings, Dean had no way of knowing where they spent their time tonight.

  “Ladder 12, charge the line,” Ryan Magee said into his radio before turning to Dean. “You know who owns this place, Cap?”

  Oh, yeah. He knew. The parents of the woman he had longed for in and out of his dreams for as long as he could remember. The parents of the woman he could never have.

  “The Abbott’s,” he confirmed and wondered fleetingly where dear, sweet Veronica Abbott was these days. Was she still the delicate, innocent soul he had fallen head over heels for so long ago? Or had the death of her husband changed all of that?

  The three men of Ladder Company had taken their place on the right side of the house where Dean had seen the smoke. He could see his men now, one on the ground serving as spotter, another at the top of the ladder, and the third on the rooftop.

  “Looks like lightning is our culprit this time, Cap.” David Karston, obviously the man on the roof, reported over the radio. “I’ve got a 3 x 3 section here where it struck. I’m going to cut through.”

  “We’re empty here. Nobody’s home,” Barrett reported from inside the house. “We’re searching for the attic entrance now.”

  “How’s your visibility in there?” Dean asked through his own radio.

  “Smokey but not too thick,” Barrett answered.

  “Ventilation hole is cut,” Karston informed. “And we have flames, gentlemen. They’re smoldering in the insulation. Looks small enough. We can handle this thing with the booster line.”

  “Dean.”

  He turned at the sound of his name and came nearly face to face with Lacy Fergus. She stood in the middle of the street, close enough to be heard over the noises of the trucks and pumps but a far enough distance to be safe and not get in the way.

  He hadn’t spoken to Veronica Abbott's best friend in years. Did he really have to start again tonight?

  Like Veronica, Lacy came from one of the well-to-do families of Silver Springs, but unlike her best friend, she didn’t send Dean’s hormones shooting through the roof. Not that she was ugly. No, she was defiantly a very pretty woman in a business exec, completely serious, high society sort of way. She was tall—taller even in the heels she wore at 0115 in the morning. Did she ever take them off? She had a great pair of legs, too. Dean had always been a legs man, and he had to admit that hers were first rate. She was dressed in a no frills business suit, her ebony hair piled in a bun high at the back of her head.

  Dean turned his attention back to Ryan who had already pulled the booster line from the truck, charged it, and passed it on to Kyle Shannon, the firefighter on the ground. The guys had this one under control. He took several steps closer to Lacy.

  “Is it bad?” She didn’t look at him. Instead, her gaze was glued to the house where Karston had begun putting out the fire through the hole he made in the roof.

  “Depends on how you look at it. Most people see fire as a bad thing no matter how big it is.”

  She looked at him, then tilted her head and frowned.

  He had to stifle a laugh. He liked getting that kind of look from women like her. It was a look that clearly said, “My time is too valuable to spend it toying around with you so give me the straight answer I’m looking for so I can go about my business.”

  “I can’t tell you much at this point. It looks like lightning struck the roof. So far, the fire seems to be contained in one spot in the attic. My guys are putting that out now.”

  “But it should be repairable?”

  “As far as I can tell at the moment, yes.” Dean hated predicting things like this. Fire was completely unpredictable. True, his men seemed to have it under control right now. He was sure it wouldn’t be long before they would have the fire out completely, and they would be headed back to the station. Still, there was always the chance that something else could happen. They had no way of knowing what, if anything, that attic held. If there were anything inside it that was highly flammable and the fire reached it before his men could put it out, they would be playing in a whole different ball game. “Are you still in contact with the Abbott’s? Can you notify them about the fire?”

  Lacy nodded, her attention once again on the house. “I’ll call Veronica. I was going to call her in the morning anyway. She’s planning to move back into the house for a while. There shouldn’t be any reason why she can’t once the repairs are done, right?”

  Dean’s mind latched onto her words. Veronica. Moving. House. Holy God. Veronica Abbott was coming back to Silver Springs. To live! Surprise rendered him speechless. She had been gone by the time he returned from the Fire Academy. She had left to attend college, met someone while she was away, got married soon after, and moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

  Dean didn't ask, didn't look for her when he returned. All he’d needed to do was listen. The local grapevine was always full of gossip when it came to the rich. Without uttering a word, he learned the man she married was a cop. A cop! That had been a hard one to swallow. Her parents actually allowed her to marry a cop.

  He always pictured her getting married to some suit in a high-powered, executive job, who did nothing more than sit behind a desk and push a pencil all day. Then he learned that the guy she married was in fact the son of Robert McDonald II, owner of McDonald Technologies and filthy rich. Instead of following in his old man’s footsteps, Robert McDonald III apparently decided to follow his own dreams and became a cop. It had been a bad career move considering Dean heard the man had been gunned down in the line of duty two years ago. Yes, Veronica Abbott McDonald was a widow.

  And she was moving back to Silver Springs.

  “Captain? There shouldn’t be any reason why Veronica can’t move into the house once the repairs are done, right?” Lacy repeated her question, her irritation with him sounding more and more with each word.

  “Right,” Dean forced himself to answer her. Then he fought to ignore the hope that began to build inside him at the news of Veronica’s impending return. Who wa
s he kidding? So what if she came back to Silver Springs? That didn’t mean she would give him the time of day anymore than she had when they were growing up. No doubt she was still the same person she had been as a girl. So what if she had married a cop? He had been a rich cop. The key word there was “rich.” Despite McDonald’s career choice, he had still been from her world—her rich world.

  Though Dean was no longer the wild and careless soul he had been growing up, he was still as far from the world of the rich as a man could get. Dreaming of starting something with a woman like Veronica Abbott would only lead to disappointment and pain.

  Except, hadn't he spent years imagining exactly that? There was no mystery to the blond vision leaning against the motorcycle in his fantasies. He had known all along it was Veronica. Now the woman from his dreams would be stepping back into reality.

  And Dean was in trouble.

  Chapter 1

  Veronica had second thoughts, and she didn’t like it. She was so certain of her decision, had even forced herself to take a few months to ponder over it, making sure there would be no regrets before she carried through with her plans. Now she could feel the twinges of doubt attempting to take hold.

  “There’s no going back,” she reminded herself, hoping by saying the words aloud, it would etch them in stone. In truth, she could go back. The house hadn’t yet been sold. She signed the contract for the building where her store would be opening on Saturday and filled it with merchandise, but she knew how to get out of contracts, and the merchandise could be returned.

  Yes, she could go back to her life in Baton Rouge and probably make it appear as though she had never left. She could go back to her dull, uneventful life and move about like a zombie as before. Dammit, she didn’t want to. She was tired of living that way, tired of moving through life as if it were simply a string of one monotonous day after another. Besides, Baton Rouge didn’t feel like home. Though she had lived her adult life there until now, she never felt she truly belonged. Silver Springs was her home. It always had been. That was what she wanted, what she needed, to feel at home again. She also wanted to add some spice to her life.