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  He reached out for her hand. Held it tightly. His hands were warm from holding his coffee cup. His touch was firm, yet gentle.

  “You do not have to be afraid,” he said. “I will not let him hurt you or Sophie or anyone else for that matter. I’m going to stop this bastard.”

  That scared Daisy. “He’s got no moral compass, Blade. He won’t fight fair.”

  “I had that pretty much figured out when you told us that he knocked you out of a chair.”

  Harsh. The words were harsh. And her body gave an involuntary flinch.

  “He’ll never get close enough to you again to do something like that. You have my word,” he said.

  Tears came to her eyes. Her grandmother hadn’t been there to tell. Sophie had gotten the sanitized version, and even Jane had simply gotten bits and pieces. It was the first time she’d ever told anyone the whole ugly truth. Well, almost all the truth.

  * * *

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  Dear Reader,

  A Firefighter’s Ultimate Duty is the first book of the three-book Heroes of the Pacific Northwest miniseries. I’m delighted to introduce you to Blade Savick, a firefighter-paramedic. Born and raised in coastal Knoware, Washington, he’s a home-town kind of guy. His job gives him purpose, and when he’s not working, he’s either with his sixteen-year-old daughter, whom he co-parents along with his ex-wife, or hanging with his two best friends—hint: you’ll meet these two again in books two and three.

  But then Daisy Rambler arrives, and this newcomer and Blade suddenly have a shared purpose, both personally and professionally, which is complicated by the fact that she has her own sixteen-year-old daughter. Further complicating the situation are Daisy’s past and the danger that seems to have followed her to Knoware.

  First responders make really great book heroes because they’re heroes in real life. I hope you enjoyed reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  All my best,

  Beverly

  A FIREFIGHTER’S ULTIMATE DUTY

  Beverly Long

  Beverly Long enjoys the opportunity to write her own stories. She has both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in business and more than twenty years of experience as a human resources director. She considers her books to be a great success if they compel the reader to stay up way past their bedtime. Beverly loves to hear from readers. Visit beverlylong.com, or like her author fan page at Facebook.com/beverlylong.romance.

  Books by Beverly Long

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Heroes of the Pacific Northwest

  A Firefighter’s Utimate Duty

  The Coltons of Roaring Springs

  A Colton Target

  Wingman Security

  Power Play

  Bodyguard Reunion

  Snowbound Security

  Protecting the Boss

  Visit the Author Profile page at

  Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To all the first responders who demonstrate such great courage.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Excerpt from Colton 911: Temptation Undercover by Jennifer Morey

  Chapter 1

  “Morning,” Blade Savick said, shoving his backpack into his locker. He kept his winter jacket on. This February day, the thermometer was hovering at thirty degrees, and it didn’t feel all that much warmer inside the fire station. “Heat not working?”

  “Apparently not,” Tony Baroque replied. His fellow firefighter-paramedic stood four lockers down, ready to end his most recent twenty-four-hour shift.

  Blade heard something in his voice. “Busy night?” he asked.

  “Just after midnight, there was a three-car crash at the intersection of Mill and Peyton. Six people, six transports. Two of the drivers required extrication and...it took too damn long. I really thought we might lose one or both of them.”

  Normally he’d have heard that on the scanner, but on the nights that his daughter stayed, he’d agreed with his ex to turn the thing off. Everybody knew to call him on his cell if he was needed.

  “Time is a tricky bastard,” he said, letting Tony know that he understood. No doubt everybody at the scene would have been working as quickly as possible, but seconds turned into minutes way too fast when a victim was trapped. With that many casualties, Tony and the other paramedic on the shift would have had their hands full. The other firefighters on the team would have helped out as much as possible, but without the paramedic licensure, they were limited in offering care.

  “Just after midnight? What the hell were three cars doing there all at the same time?” Blade asked, truly wondering.

  His coworker looked up from buttoning his coat. “I assume one was lost, one had a death wish and the final one was late for curfew.”

  So one had been a teenager. That made Blade’s gut twist. And whether Tony’s assumptions about the drivers was correct or not, it was as good of an explanation as any as to the motivation needed to drive the outer bounds of Knoware, Washington, on a winter night.

  Where’s Knoware? It was their very own knock-knock joke. No where, that’s where.

  Spelled differently, pronounced the same, the joke generally got a big laugh from tourists and a small eye roll from hard-core locals. Those who were being polite, anyway.

  Not that there were many tourists to be polite to right now. From April through October, they’d practically spill out of the bars and restaurants that lined Knoware’s three-block business district, having consumed everything from fried pickles to freshly caught salmon. Off-season, like now in early February, the population went from 7,500 to 1,500 and locals had their pick of bar stools and restaurant tables, especially on nights like last night when the temperature uncharacteristically dropped under twenty degrees. However, stools generally stayed empty and silverware clean as most of the year-round residents needed little prompting to stay in.

  Blade walked toward the door that separated the lockers and showers from the rest of the common areas. He opened it and walked into the kitchen. As he passed by the big scarred and scratched wooden table that could comfortably seat ten on mismatched wooden chairs, he snagged a doughnut from the box at the near end. He pulled a cup from the old oak cupboard that didn’t hang exactly even. Might have been the cupboard’s fault, or maybe the wall wasn’t plumb.

  The team inside the Knoware Fire Department didn’t much care about things like that. Hell, they didn’t even complain too much about the lack of heat.

  What money they had to spend went toward equipment and training. They could make do with a building that wasn’t perfect. As long as they had a working stove, refrigerator and a microwave, they were happy. A nice toaster that someone had donated was considered a real bonus.

  He poured himself a cup of coffee. Drank it black. “Did you check on their conditions this morning?” he asked as Tony followed him int
o the kitchen. They had a good relationship with most of the folks at Bigelow Memorial, the small hospital that served Knoware and the surrounding six counties. There was generally a house supervisor who wouldn’t break health privacy laws but would also provide enough information that a man might be able to sleep on his off-hours. If someone was manning the post who wasn’t as forthcoming, he could always call his good friend Dr. Jamie Weathers who ran their emergency medicine program.

  “I did,” Tony said. “The two critical were stable enough to be airlifted onto Seattle General. The other four were admitted to Bigelow, all injuries non-life-threatening.”

  “Then it sounds as if you did good, man,” Blade said.

  “I guess.” Tony pulled out a chair and reached for the doughnut box. “I should go home.”

  But Blade knew that he didn’t really want to. Tony’s mother-in-law had come to stay for a week, four weeks ago, and was still on his couch.

  Blade technically no longer had a mother-in-law, not since the divorce four years earlier. But he had always liked Sheila’s mom and was grateful that both she and Sheila were willing to work around his crazy schedule. He was generally on for twenty-four hours and off for forty-eight, but even that was up for grabs if somebody needed a sick day or was out on medical leave for a longer period. Sheila’s flexibility made it possible that he could share custody of their sixteen-year-old daughter, Raven. Of course, his parents helped, too, but they had their own business to run so it was harder for them. “I—”

  The blaring alarm interrupted him. He took another swig of coffee, feeling the burn, set his cup down and checked his watch. Five after nine. His day had begun.

  In less than a minute, he had his flame-retardant pants on and was swinging his butt onto the seat of Engine 23 while he buttoned his coat. He gave Charlie, who was in charge and liked to drive, a thumbs-up. Within fifteen seconds, the remaining three of the five-person team were on board and the truck was moving.

  “Male, in his sixties, fell approximately fifteen feet while attempting to climb Headstone Canyon. Unconscious but breathing.” The description came through his radio. “Snagged a ledge on his way down. Approximately twenty feet up.”

  That last part made a bad situation even worse. He nodded at Parnell, the other paramedic on the shift, and knew the man was doing the same thing that he was. Mentally preparing for what they might encounter. Broken bones, almost certainly. Might be a severe head injury if the fall had knocked him out. And it would be a very difficult recovery for them to make. The road went only so far. They’d have to hike in the rest of the way, climb twenty feet, stabilize and immobilize the victim, and carry the man out.

  “Glad I had that doughnut,” he said.

  He got a bark of laughter from Charlie as the man made a wide turn on Treaty Boulevard. From there, it was a one minute ride to the city limits and another eleven minutes to get to the end of the road. Now it was a half mile hike up a big sloping hill and then another mile down a narrow winding trail that would take them through the trees until they got to the base of the canyon.

  There was only one other vehicle parked in the roadside lot—a make and model that might have cost close to what Blade’s duplex had. So the climbers might have a few bucks. A lot of good that was doing them now.

  Everybody piled out and grabbed equipment. By the time they were ready to go, one of Knoware’s finest rolled up, lights flashing and siren blaring. Blade saw that it was his friend Marcus Price. The man got out of his car.

  “Here, grab this,” Blade said, giving him one end of an extension ladder.

  “Good morning to you, too.” Marcus shook his head in disgust but wasted no time, and they were off.

  “You’re touchy,” Blade said as they humped it up the hill.

  “Had a little breaking and entering at Gertie’s last night.”

  Gertie Biscuit was the seventy-some-year-old proprietor of Gertie’s Café, a thirty-seat spot where people who couldn’t get a table had been known to eat their burgers standing up they were so good. “Gertie wasn’t hurt?” Blade asked, concerned.

  “Nope. Everybody had gone home. It happened sometime between midnight when they locked the door and five when they opened it again. Idiot must have used a damn sledgehammer to knock the doorjamb loose. They got away with some food and a little money.”

  “You’ll get them.” Knoware was a small community with limited police resources, but they weren’t rinky-dink cops. Nobody was going to screw with Gertie and get away with it.

  “Damn right,” Marcus said.

  They were at the top of the hill. It was a strenuous walk under any circumstances, and even more wearing his fifty-pound jump bag. Plus he had his end of the extension ladder. But he prepared every day for events like this, by putting in some serious cardio time and finishing off with weights.

  Unfortunately, this was not the first time somebody had fallen while trying to climb Headstone Canyon. People left their ropes and picks at home and free soloed there frequently. And while it was only a hundred feet up, the hand-or footholds weren’t plentiful. One had to know what one was doing. The place’s real name wasn’t even Headstone Canyon. It was Myrtle Canyon, named after a ring of trees at the far side. Rumor had it that in the late 1800s, a gang of thugs had hidden out in the canyon, and when they’d been pinned down, they’d tried to escape by climbing the wall. All of them had died and forever after that, the canyon had been known as Headstone.

  At least their victim hadn’t been alone. There had been somebody there to make the 911 call.

  Blade looked over his shoulder at the rest of his team. Charlie, who was pushing fifty, and had put on an extra twenty pounds in his middle section, was red-faced and breathing heavily. “Okay?” he asked.

  “Great,” the man said, his eyes not meeting his teammate’s.

  Blade didn’t push it. Charlie was his senior in the chain of command. But it concerned him that the physical aspects of the job might be getting to him. Right now, the team was able to make up for any shortcomings, but, unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to do that forever. Every person had to pull their own weight. Lives depended on it.

  He started down through the swath of trees whose straggly branches reached at least ten feet over his head. Almost all were bare of leaves. But there were so many trees, it was difficult to see beyond them. Finally, the team came to the end. They were at the far side of the canyon. “There,” Blade said, pointing across the way. About twenty feet in the air, on what appeared to be a narrow ledge, he could see a woman kneeling over a man’s body. Her dark shoulder-length hair swirled around her face in the twenty mile an hour winds.

  Maybe she heard them. Maybe sensed their arrival. But for whatever reason, she raised her face and turned to stare in their direction, and as crazy as it seemed, across the two hundred yards that still separated them, he swore he felt a pull. He motioned to Marcus to pick up the speed, and they reached the space under the pair yards ahead of the rest of his team.

  “My name is Blade,” he yelled. “I’m a paramedic-firefighter and we’re going to help you. Are you injured?” he added, as the rest of the team arrived.

  “No.”

  That was good. If they didn’t need to devote too many resources to helping her to the ground, all the better for her injured climbing partner.

  He and Marcus set up the ladder, extending it to a length that reached the ledge with about a foot extra. Once it felt secure, Marcus stepped back to make room for Blade and Parnell to start climbing.

  Blade went first. When his head got over the top, he heard the woman sigh, as if in relief. He ignored that, choosing instead to look at the man on the ground.

  Pale skin. Brown eyes that were open. He was conscious. Blade hadn’t expected that. “Was he out for a while?” he asked without looking up. They would need to document the facts in their report.

  There was n
o answer. He looked up at the woman. She was nodding.

  She was strikingly pretty. The hair that had been blowing around was not just brown, but a rich chestnut with some lighter streaks of caramel. Her skin was very fair, her eyes very blue and her face was almost a perfect oval. The only thing not exactly right was the tip of her nose, which was red, evidence that she’d been out here in the wind for a bit. It was a stark contrast to the paleness of her lips, pressed so tightly that all color had been erased.

  Worried. Likely for good reason. A fall was never a good thing. Losing consciousness could mean a concussion. Maybe a fractured skull. All kinds of bad possibilities.

  “It’s going to be fine,” he said, feeling compelled to reassure her. He hoped it would be, anyway. Right now, his immediate concern was shifting her to make room for him and Parnell to work. The ledge was less than three feet wide and maybe seven to eight feet in length. This wasn’t going to be easy. He would give Parnell the inside, next to the rock, and he’d take the outer edge.

  Still holding the ladder, he motioned toward the man’s feet. “I’m going to need you to move right there,” he said. “Carefully.”

  She stood. Tall and lean, she moved easily. She got to the spot and stood.

  “Take a seat,” he said. Once she did that and he wasn’t worried about another fall, he finished the climb, got off the ladder and quickly knelt next to the man, aware that his feet were now hanging off the ledge. He could hear Parnell moving, and soon his coworker was opposite him.

  He gently ran his hands across the man’s thinning gray hair. Yep, he already had a hell of a lump, just above his ear, on his left side.

  “How long was he out? How long ago did he regain consciousness?” Blade asked.

  “Out about five minutes. Came to about three minutes ago,” she said.

  Didn’t mean the fall hadn’t done some damage. He spared her one more look.

  She didn’t sound like a native of the northwest. Which perhaps explained her clothing choices. She was dressed absolutely inappropriately for the day, and for climbing, in a light jacket and dress pants with some kind of silk scarf around her neck. She did have on some good-looking hiking boots and some leather gloves; both items looked brand-new.