Stone Cold Sparks Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Stone Cold Sparks

  Park City Firefighter Romance

  Cami Checketts

  Birch River Publishing

  Copyright

  Stone Cold Sparks: Park City Firefighter Romance: Station 2

  Copyright © 2017 by Cami Checketts

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Dedication

  For my sister, Julia Abbie.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Free Book

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Excerpt: Rescued by Love

  Also by Cami Checketts

  Introduction

  Hello fellow readers,

  Let me begin by saying that’s it’s an honor to write the introduction for Cami’s latest Park City Firefighter Romance book. Before I met Cami and she and I became close friends, I knew her as a writer. Way back when I read Cami’s first book, I was impressed with how quickly she got me into the story and had me feeling the same emotions as the characters. Cami has a wonderful way of capturing the heart of the story and weaving it into a heart-pounding finish. Not only is she a great suspense writer, but she writes romance that has me swooning.

  I’m grateful for Cami as a writer but also as a friend. Cami’s the kind of person you want in your corner. She’s always the first to offer a word of encouragement and genuinely cares about those around her. I’m blessed to have Cami in my life!

  I know you’ll love Stone Cold Sparks as much as I do. Just make sure you get comfortable and clear your schedule because you won’t be able to put the book down.

  Hugs,

  Jennifer Youngblood, author of the Hawaii Billionaire Romance Series

  Free Book

  Sign up for Cami’s newsletter and receive a free ebook copy of The Resilient One: A Billionaire Bride Pact Romance here.

  Chapter One

  Abi Newell pushed her shopping cart through Fresh Market. She’d finished work at Deer Valley Resort early this afternoon and wanted to grab a few things before she went to visit Grams in Midway. If she picked up a few basics for Grams, it would keep her off the roads. Grams was a scary driver in the summer, terrifying in the winter.

  Abi came around the corner looking for spiral pasta noodles when something much more tantalizing filled her vision. Stone Ryland. He and his fellow firefighters were all congregated around a couple of carts. Blue, their captain who was built like a tank and obviously in charge, looked like he was giving out shopping lists. Stone wasn’t as big as his captain, but he definitely had muscles in all the right places. He was a little over six feet, lean, and his face was the perfect sculpture of manly lines. You’d think he was a pretty boy, with his too handsome face and dark hair that was just long enough to curl slightly, if you didn’t look into his grayish-blue eyes. Those eyes were all too often cold and fathomless. Like he’d seen more pain in his short twenty-five years than anybody had any business seeing. She would blame it on his job, if the two of them weren’t best friends and she didn’t know his tragic past. Firefighters definitely saw their share of heartache, but Stone had pain carved into his soul.

  Yet those eyes were different for her … sometimes. Sometimes they thawed and became a true blue and she glimpsed the warmth she knew was deep inside him. The warmth she wished she could bring back. Forcing herself not to get melancholy, she looked at the other firefighters. She knew them from Stone’s descriptions of them: Nikola the handsome foreigner, Jeremy the prankster, and Dax the superficial playboy. She didn’t see Wade, who Stone had told her was almost as quiet as him.

  “Stone!” She called out. Abandoning her cart, she rushed across the distance and threw herself at him. Her quest in life was to somehow yank Stone Cold out of his freezing shelter. Shock and physical contact sometimes worked.

  “Abi?” He obviously hadn’t planned on seeing her here, but he chuckled at her exuberance. He allowed her a quick squeeze, let her feel those hard muscles in his chest and arms and touch her forehead to his smooth jawline, before holding her shoulders and gently pushing her an arm’s length away. She lived for those quick squeezes. Thrills pulsed through her body.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Going to Harry Potter Land then making a quick stop at Rodeo Drive to buy a new Kate Spade skirt.” It was the silliest thing she could think of. She tilted her head to the side and gave a little shimmy in her tight skirt. She knew her heels showed off her legs pretty well. “What are you doing?”

  He shook his head at her, but she caught the small smile that creased his lips and how his eyes almost thawed. Almost was better than nothing.

  The rest of the guys were staring at her as if she might be an apparition or maybe they thought she was a few marbles short. Blue was busy picking out lasagna noodles.

  “Abi,” Nikola said, “Surely a woman as gorgeous as yourself would not waste her time with Stone Cold.” He extended his hand. “Nikola.”

  Abi reached out to shake his hand, but Stone yanked her back. She loved any time his hands made contact with her skin. “Don’t do it.” Stone warned her. “He’ll try to kiss your hand or something lame like that.”

  “Well, somebody should be kissing my hand.” She winked at Stone.

  The rest of the guys chuckled.

  Nikola finally dropped his hand when it became evident Stone wasn’t going to let her go, not that Abi was about to complain—far from it. She’d spent most of her life scheming to get Stone touch her. Well, except for the sixth months he was married to their best friend Virginia. That six months and Virginia’s tragic death had set the sad tone for Stone’s life.

  “We’re still on for Tuesday morning? Nine too early for you?” she said to Stone, ignoring the rest of the men as they stared at her.

  “Snowshoeing?” Stone’s brow wrinkled with concern.

  “Yes, sir. There’s no way you’ll be able to keep up with me, so you’re going to hate it, but I’ll love it. And you love spending time with me, and that’s all that matters.” She blew him a kiss then waved at the rest of the men gawking at her, probably still trying to work out if she’d insulted their buddy. Stone would know she was teasing him as usual.

  She walked away, giving a little sass to her swing. She knew Stone would never look at her as anything but a friend, but she’d never give up hope. Even her sister, Julia, who was usually her staunchest supporter, thought her quest to break into Stone’s rock-hard heart was too ambitious. Yet Abi was undeterred. Until he told her to leave him alone or stopped having momentary thaws, she’d keep whacking away with her teasi
ng and any womanly tools she had at her disposal.

  Abi strutted away with the perfect swish to her hips. Her dark hair was a beautiful contrast to the crisp white shirt that showed off her trim waist. Her legs were the stuff wussy men wrote poetry about. It had felt so good to hold her close and inhale her cinnamon and vanilla scent.

  Stone ignored the rest of his crew standing close by. His resolution to never cross boundaries with the woman he loved, but who was also one of his best friends, preoccupied him. Their other best friends, Jace and Virginia, had blown by the boundaries and it had about destroyed all of them. Now Stone was caught in a web of promises and lies that he didn’t know how to break.

  Stone pulled in a quick breath when Abi finally turned the corner and caught all the guys staring at him. “What?”

  “You’ve been holding out on us.” Jeremy declared.

  “Are you surprised?” Blue grunted out. “Stone doesn’t share details about his woman.”

  “She is not my woman. Abi’s my best friend.” Only close friend, truth be told, but if he could have only one in his life, Abi was definitely the best choice. His buddies on his crew were friends. They were also annoying, too clever, and obnoxious. Even so, they were great guys that he liked being around, but Stone kept everyone except Abi at arm’s length. Okay, he even kept Abi at arm’s length. He hated it, but it was necessary to protect both of them and the friendship he couldn’t survive without.

  “Only Stone would friend status the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” Nikola shook his head remorsefully as if Stone had personally injured him.

  “Watch it.” Blue and Stone both growled at him.

  “My apologies. Lucy is off the market, so she doesn’t count,” Nikola said about Blue’s beautiful Latino girlfriend. Stone noticed he didn’t apologize for gawking at his woman, er, Abi. What could he really do about it though? Abi wasn’t his and never would be.

  Blue rolled his eyes and grabbed some marinara sauce.

  “And you don’t look at Abi like that or try to kiss her hand.” Stone warned him. He knew Abi dated different men every weekend, but at least he didn’t have to see it in person.

  “I think this is more words than you’ve spoken in years,” Jeremy said.

  Stone grabbed the cart and started forward. “Are we done here?”

  “No, we are not,” Nikola said. “If you’re only ‘friends’ with this beauty, there should be no problem when I ask her out.”

  Stone released the cart and had his hands full of Nikola’s t-shirt before anyone else reacted. “Don’t even think about her again.”

  Nikola looked amused rather than threatened. It would be a fair fight if Stone threw a punch, but he was pretty sure he could take him. Sure, Stone was stronger, but Nikola had been through a war in his country and was all kinds of resourceful when it came to survival.

  “I think this woman is much more than a friend to you,” Nikola said quietly, demonstrating practiced calm in a tense situation.

  “Knock it off,” Blue said.

  Stone released his shirt and stomped off without a cart. “I’ll grab the French bread.” He stalked away from his crew, anger radiating through him.

  “Now, we’ve seen him smile and get angry today,” Dax muttered behind him.

  “That Abi is obviously something special,” Nikola said.

  Stone couldn’t get away fast enough. Abi was the most special woman in the world to him and the only person who had wrought any emotion out of him in the past seven years. Which was exactly why he had to keep her as a friend. If she ever thawed him enough to extract his secrets, she’d never talk to him again.

  Chapter Two

  Abi walked in the garage entry of her house after 10:00 p.m., kicking off her heels and leaving them in the laundry room. Julia was sitting at the kitchen counter with her laptop open and her face glistening.

  “Honey mask?” Abi guessed.

  Julia straightened, her eyes looking more glazed than her skin. “Yeah, it’s starting to drip.” She rubbed at her nose delicately. “Do you want to do one?”

  “Sure.” She followed Julia into her bedroom and attached bath. When their parents had retired to St. George, Abi and Julia had purchased and then remodeled their childhood home. They’d knocked out the wall between the living room and kitchen, opening up the space. Then they made the master upstairs into Julia’s space and converted two bedrooms and a downstairs bath into a suite for Abi. It worked perfectly for them to live together in the established neighborhood of Jeremy Ranch, minutes from Park City. At least, it did until Julia found someone wonderful and got married. As smart, kind, and beautiful as Julia was, it would happen someday soon. Abi sometimes doubted she’d ever find someone she could love like Stone, and he obviously wasn’t defrosting anytime soon. Marriage was a long way off for her.

  “How’d your day go?” she asked her sister.

  “Insane. You?” Julia handed Abi the bottle of organic honey with raspberry and carrot seed oils mixed in. Julia turned on the warm water and started rinsing off her face while Abi washed off her makeup with a cleansing towel before applying the mask.

  “Busy, three conferences going on this weekend. And I saw Stone.” She couldn’t keep the dreaminess out of her voice. Whew. Why was the coldest man she knew the one who heated her up?

  Julia turned off the water and grabbed a clean hand towel, patting her face before turning to focus on Abi. Her older sister had that warning look in her dark eyes, and Abi didn’t want to hear it right now. “When are you going to give up your Stone obsession?”

  “You don’t give up on your best friend,” Abi retorted, applying the sweet-smelling honey to her cheeks.

  “If he was truly only your friend and you had no desire for more, I would agree, but you don’t give any other man a chance because you have always wanted Stone as more than a friend.” Julia folded her arms across her chest and dared her to disagree with a tilted eyebrow.

  “I date all the time.” She did, several dates a week in fact, usually presenters or attendees at one of the many conferences she was coordinating at Deer Valley Resort’s convention center.

  “Does it qualify as a date if you have no intention of giving the opposite party any kind of chance?”

  Abi finished applying the sticky mask, rinsed off her fingers, and blew out a breath. She was tempted to say Julia was married to her career as a lawyer and wasn’t in a much better spot, but she wouldn’t throw punches like that. “What do I do, sis? I’ve loved him for so long I don’t know how to stop.”

  Julia’s face softened, and she gave Abi a quick hug, careful to not touch her face. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to tell you to stop loving someone, but I don’t see Stone ever changing. He’s just cold, sweetie.” Julia shivered.

  Her sister wasn’t wrong, but it made Abi sad that nobody seemed to see the Stone she saw. He had a heart of gold and a fire simmering under the surface.

  Abi looked in the mirror at her shiny face and glimpsed fear in her own dark eyes. She acted brave and like nothing could ever get her down, but Stone was her one weakness. Would he ever change? Was she insane to keep hoping and thinking she could be the one to defrost his heart? As the years slipped by, the dream of her and Stone seemed more and more elusive.

  Chapter Three

  Stone started sweating as they pulled up to the traffic accident. He couldn’t wait to get outside in the cold pre-dawn air. Everyone called him Stone Cold, and he wished it were true right now. He kept his emotions in check and wasn’t bothered too badly by tough situations that involved fire, but anything relating to a car wreck, especially with a woman like the dispatcher had said they were dealing with tonight, had the ability to pull him to dark places and the raging guilt that never went away.

  Police lights and spotlights lit up the darkness, making everything feel eerie and disjointed.

  Stone jumped down from the backseat of the engine and rushed with the rest of the crew to the car that was upside down in
the median. The report was black ice and a single car rollover. The police were already there, and one of them yelled, “Gonna need the Jaws!”

  “We got it,” Stone muttered, tapping Wade on the shoulder before hurrying back to the engine. They retrieved the Jaws of Life and hydraulic power unit then hurried through the knee-deep snow to where the rest of his crew had congregated with the policemen.

  A wail rang from the vehicle that curdled Stone’s blood. A woman in pain.

  “Just the one victim?” he asked.

  The policeman closest to him nodded. “But she’s expecting.”

  Stone’s spine felt like ice. He ignored the emotion and went to work with Wade, slicing through the frame of the car like a hot knife through butter. He made the mistake of glancing at the woman, who alternated between softly crying and calling out “Help my baby.” Chills raced through him. Nobody had been able to help his wife or baby girl.

  This woman was hugely pregnant. The steering wheel digging into her abdomen and pinning her in place may have already killed the fetus on impact. His stomach churned.

  The paramedics, Dax and Jeremy, were standing close by, tensely waiting as Stone and Wade peeled back the car frame. They couldn’t get to the patient until Stone and Wade did their job. It was a tricky angle. Stone jammed the spreaders at the base of the steering column and twisted the handle to activate them. The steering wheel lifted away. The pressure released on the woman’s abdomen, and she suddenly dropped. Dax and Jeremy were right there, catching her with hardly a grunt and helping her onto a long spine board. As they carefully slid her away from the car and lifted her onto a stretcher, Jeremy fit her with a soft collar. She was carried away, and everyone but Stone followed. He clung to the thick handles of the spreaders, grateful he had gloves on so nobody could see his hands trembling.