They were all in the kitchen, gulping down icy drinks and standing in front of the opened freezer, vying for space and ice cubes. Cristina rubbed an ice cube across her chest, then gave poor Dustin the evil eye for staring at her damp breasts.

Zach didn’t blame Dustin for looking; the view was mighty nice. He did worry about the dreamy look in the EMT’s eyes. Dustin tended to put his heart on the line for every single woman he met, which left him open to plenty of heartbreak. If Cristina caught that puppy-dog look, she’d chew him up and spit him out. Instead, she elbowed everyone back and took the front-and-center spot for herself.

“You forgot to take your pill this morning,” Blake told her, not looking at her chest like everyone else but nudging her out of the way so he could get in closer.

“I’m not on the pill,” Cristina said.

“Not that pill. Your nice pill.”

Dustin snorted and Cristina glared at him, zapping the smile off his face.

Zach cleared some space for Brooke to get in closer, and she sent him a smile that zapped him as sure as Cristina had zapped Dustin, but in another area entirely.

He wished she was rubbing an ice cube on her chest. He maneuvered himself right next to her. Their arms bumped, their legs brushed and every nerve ending went on high alert.

The bell rang, and with a collective groan, they all scattered. It was exhausting, and he was seasoned, as was the crew. He could only imagine how Brooke felt. If he’d had time to breathe, he’d have asked her.

As it was, they couldn’t do much more than glance at each other, because between the multitude of calls, they still had the maintaining and keeping up of the station and vehicles, not to mention their required physical training.

But he did glance at her.

Plenty.

And she glanced back. She appeared to hold up under pressure extremely well; even when everyone else looked hot, sweaty and irritated, she never did. Look sweaty and irritated, that is.

Hot? That she most definitely looked.

It’d been a long time since he’d flirted so slowly with a woman like this, over days, mostly without words. A very long time, and he’d forgotten how arousing it could be. He figured if they had to pass each other one more time without taking it to the next step—and he had plenty of ideas on what that next step should be, all involving touching and stripping and nakedness, lots of nakedness—they’d both go up in flames.

One late afternoon a week and a half into Brooke’s employment, he headed toward her to see about that whole thing, but of course, the bell rang.