Unforgettable You (Starlight Hill Series Book 4)

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Published by Heatherly Bell Books and Tydandon Publishing

  Copyright © 2015 by Maria Buscher

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Edited by Lesley McDaniel and Jean Mock

  Cover by The Killion Group

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  Chapter 1

  Dear Bradley,

  Thank you for inviting me to your wedding. I would attend, but here’s the thing: I’d rather be hung over a crocodile infested swamp and used as bait.

  No. Diana Mulvaney highlighted the second sentence of her email and hit ‘delete’. Those words didn’t quite get across the message that she wanted. Plus, Bradley might not take her seriously since she’d never even been to Florida.

  I would rather have a root canal without the benefit of Novocain.

  There. Better, because Bradley understood how she hated the dentist. She begged for the laughing gas every time. Paid extra for it. But still not quite right.

  I would rather sit on an uncovered gas station toilet seat.

  Much, much better. Bradley knew how she felt about public restrooms. But it might be a little crude, plus the last thing she wanted was for Bradley or his new bride to picture Diana on any toilet seat.

  She’d just have to keep working on it. Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that. Diana closed her laptop and picked up the ‘Save the Date’ invitation she’d received last week from Bradley. Beautifully engraved, it announced the marriage of Mr. Bradley Ballard to Miss Tiffany Smythe. How kind of Bradley to think of Diana. Another man might not invite their former college girlfriend of six years to his wedding, but not her Bradley.

  He was a special kind of stupid.

  Diana dug in her suitcase, found the silky sexy pink lingerie she’d bought a year ago, and slipped it on. It was just one of many hopeful items in the honeymoon trousseau she wouldn’t need any longer. Dating Bradley for six years meant that she had quite a collection of lingerie now collecting dust, but this one was by far her favorite. The tight pink bodice hugged her girls, trailing to a flowing white skirt with slits that showcased a lot of leg. This would at least serve some purpose now, even if it wouldn’t be to entice Bradley away from his software programs.

  Diana took a long look at herself in the full length mirror then pulled her bathrobe on because let’s be honest, she was nothing if not a prude. She walked over to the sliding glass door facing the back of her motel room and took in a deep cleansing breath. Truly, there was nowhere else in the world quite like Napa Valley. Outside in the twilight of the day, the courtyard garden seemed to glow with purple Bougainvillea, pink Azaleas, and yellow and white daisy shrubs. Everything about Napa Valley, and Starlight Hill in particular, cried out, ‘We do wine and we do it better than you’. How she’d missed this place. Missed Gran.

  Her cell phone rang with the theme from ‘Cops.’

  Mandy, her sister.

  “What’s up?”

  “Did you do it yet?”

  “I’m about to if you’ll give me a chance.” Truthfully, this whole thing was Mandy’s idea and Diana still didn’t think she could do it. Write sexy times when all she’d ever written were sweet coming-of-age stories? Who was she kidding?

  “If you ever want to get published, you need to start writing spicy. The hotter the better. Haven’t you been reading the stuff I sent you?”

  She had, and most of it made her blush and giggle like a sixth grader. “Look, it’s going to take some time. Right now I’m working on my email response to the Save the Date.”

  “You’re kidding. He doesn’t even deserve a response.”

  “Yeah well, he’s getting one. It’s going to be one smartass email, too. I’m going to, in a few carefully chosen words, let him know what a jerk he is.”

  “Great, Diana. Jerk? That’s the best you got? Anyway, the best revenge is moving on. Showing him what a success you can be. He never believed in you, remember? Even after everything you did for him.”

  Right. It wasn’t going to be easy, but as Mandy continually and loudly reminded her, nice girls finished dead last. Tiffany and Bradley had proved it.

  “Have you seen Gran yet?” Mandy asked.

  “I’m going by to see her tomorrow morning.” Gran was the real reason she’d come back to Starlight Hill in the first place.

  After her last brief visit, Mom had become convinced that Gran didn’t leave her home except during family visits which only happened for a week at the end of summer. She’d become a shut-in and a hoarder and Mom had decided to move Gran into a nursing home. Diana was here to stop that from happening. If her Gran needed taking care of, Diana would be the one to do it and not hired strangers. She had a month to prove to Mom that Gran didn’t need to be shelved away like some old appliance that no longer worked properly.

  “Call me back after you’ve seen Gran,” Mandy said and hung up.

  Diana picked up a manila folder on the nightstand filled with paper reminders of her past failures. Inside there was a rejection from her dream agent. Send me anything else you have, the kind woman had said. But two unproductive years later, Diana still didn’t have anything to send her. Lots of false starts and stops, but nothing else. Zip. Zero. Nada.

  Tonight, maybe she would change all that. She rubbed her hands together. “Okay. Sexy times.”

  Diana took off her robe and settled herself among the pillows she’d propped on the bed. She opened her laptop and went to the document she’d titled, ‘Experiment’, forcing herself to read what she’d written the previous day. Then tried not to gag at how awful it read. Many authors were extremely gifted at writing both emotion and sex in a beautiful and compelling way.

  She wasn’t one of them.

  She sighed. It couldn’t hurt to keep trying. Learning something new never hurt anyone. She attempted a few more achingly awkward sentences, winced, flinched, felt flushed, giggled and tried to think of another euphemism for ‘it’. That made her wonder all over again why she couldn’t just use the word ‘penis’ and call it a day. Tired already, she went back to her email to Bradley when she thought of another good “I’d rather” phrase.

  An hour later, Diana had one paragraph written in her ‘experiment’ document. One horribly bad paragraph in which she had twice referred to a woman’s genitalia as ‘her special purpose’. Eyes glazed over from the effort, she took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. My goodness she was tired. All this romance was exhausting work. Maybe she’d just take a little catnap and try again in a bit. She closed her eyes and drifted off.

  What couldn’t have been more than a few minutes later, Diana shifted in her sleep because she was way too warm even though she’d left the air conditioner running. She couldn’t remember pulling the covers up but she tried pushing them off anyway only to find they weren’t there. She pried one heavy eyelid open.

  A column of fire rose to what had to be five feet high near the window, giving off its sweltering heat. “Oh my God.”

  For a second, Diana didn’t move. She couldn’t. Then every survival instinct she owned and some she didn’t woke up. God! Oh God, where was her cellphone? It was always near her bed and now that her life depended on it, nowhere to be found. She went for the landline. Wait. Somewhere she’d read she was supposed to get out firs
t, then dial nine-one-one. Well, no time to argue with her memory.

  She went ahead and dialed. “There’s a fire in my room! Motel 6 on Monterey Road.”

  “Ma’am, get out of the room. Now. We’re on our way.”

  Right. Right. Get out of the room. She was an idiot to call from the room.

  The fire crackled, growing bigger and stronger, taking the curtains next. The whoosh sound the fire made caused her to stare in fear at its power. And Diana froze. How could it be that now, when she needed to move and move fast, her legs were like blocks of dried cement?

  Get out Diana, get out.

  Outside she heard someone yell, “Fire!”

  In the next moment, her frozen legs finally remembered how to move and she used them to get to the door. But as she moved past her bed, she tripped on something sharp and unidentifiable in the dark and smoky room. She tried to right her balance, waving her arms around to grab onto something and catching nothing but air.

  ***

  Scott Turlock had a royal flush and probably the worst poker face at Firehouse 54. Which at this moment could prove to be his undoing. He made a conscious effort to relax every plane of his face and slip on a dead-eyed look.

  “I’m all in.” Ty Gilham, Scott’s lieutenant, threw in his chips.

  The guy had mastered the poker face, and it was anyone’s guess at what he had in his hands.

  “Aw, you ain’t got nothin’.” Mike Yee threw in his chips.

  Julie Hall, the only female firefighter on their squad, studied her cards like they contained the mysteries of the universe.

  “In or out, Julie?” Mike sighed loudly. “Sometime today.”

  “Hold on. I’m thinking.” The tip of her tongue flicked out and touched the corner of her mouth.

  She was cute, and Scott had dated her in high school for about a nanosecond. One thing she wasn’t? Decisive.

  “Trying to rearrange them isn’t going to give you a better hand,” Ty said, staring at the ceiling as if praying for patience.

  Scott figured instead Ty was probably plotting Julie’s death.

  She frowned at their lieutenant and stuck out her tongue. “I know that.”

  In the background, the big screen television donated to them by a kind citizen was tuned to the Channel six news. Another wildfire in a state park. While Scott sat around with a deck of cards in his hands, forest firefighters were fighting a raging out-of-control beast. He wanted to help, had already asked to be placed on the volunteer list. Sitting here looking at his royal flush wasn’t being useful. Not the way he wanted to be.

  “Julie, for all that’s holy!” Mike threw up his hands. “I just lost another brain cell.”

  “Oh all right.” Julie threw one chip in the pile. “I’m in, I guess.”

  Correction. Julie Hall had the worst poker face at Firehouse 54.

  His turn. Hell yeah. Every face turned to him. “I’m all in.” Scott pushed forward every chip he had. For the first time in a long while, he had a good hand. Sweet.

  The radio squawked and dispatch called out engines required to respond. Their unit.

  Scott jumped to his feet and shoved on his gear. Everyone moved at lightning speed toward their rig, their poker game forgotten. Ty held the iPad with the info coming in from dispatch. As they rode, Scott listened to the address of the neighborhood, a little motel on the outskirts of Starlight Hill. Fortunately the ETA was two minutes.

  This was what Scott lived for, the adrenaline rush every single time he came face to face with the sheer force of a fire and walked away to tell about it. As they arrived, flames shot from one of the first floor windows.

  They were met by a wild-haired woman, hair sticking up every which way. “You guys got here quick! I saw the flames coming out of that bottom unit and I called right away. I think everyone’s out.”

  “No!” A kid with a name placard that read ‘Orlando - desk clerk’ said. “Someone checked in earlier and I don’t see her out here.”

  “Was she alone?” Ty asked.

  “Yeah, I think,” the kid said. “She checked in alone.”

  Everyone sprang into action. Mike unfurled the hose and hooked it, the rest of them throwing on their self-contained apparatus so they could go in as needed. The building was spread out in an L shape, but all rooms were on the first floor which would make this easier.

  “Turlock, Yee, search and rescue,” Ty called out.

  Scott headed straight for the unit the desk clerk had pointed out. If someone was still in there, smoke inhalation was his worst fear. They could be trapped and in serious trouble.

  And time was not on anyone’s side. He had seconds.

  Scott wasted none of them, trying the handle with his gloves and finding it locked. He had no choice but to knock the door down with his ax, conscious of the fact he was about to feed the beast. As he pried the door open he stepped out of the way in case of a backdraft. Relieved he’d avoided that scenario, he made his way inside the room. Fortunately, these units were small and in no time he spied the figure of a woman lying on the floor near the bed. He picked her up in his arms and started moving towards the door.

  She coughed, eyes fluttering open to give him a wild and confused look as she struggled to get away from him. He understood that. Sometimes people got disoriented in a fire. He’d seen it many times. But they both had to get the hell out of here. Yesterday. Once he had crossed the threshold and had her safely outside he took another look at the woman in his arms.

  He’d hauled out a few fire victims in the past year, but never one wearing the kind of lingerie that would headline a grown man’s wet dream. Thankfully, no sign of burns on any part of her body, and he could see all of it. Hopefully, this uh…thing she wore, was fire retardant. God help him. He had noticed his victim’s generous rack. Well, if this wasn’t one for the books.

  He headed toward Trish—the EMT—and the ambulance nearby.

  “Found her on the floor,” he said as he laid her down on the gurney.

  “I tripped,” the woman said and coughed several times. “My foot hurts more than anything. Is everyone out? Did anyone get hurt?”

  He didn’t answer, not wanting to give false assurance without more information. Instead, Scott grabbed a blanket and covered her with it. Everyone here tonight had seen enough. He’d seen enough. Scott headed back to help, and only after the area was secured and units were being checked for stability did he go back to check on some of the tenants.

  “If you’re looking for the girl, she got taken to St. Vincent’s to get checked out,” Julie called out. “She’s probably going to be fine. Poor thing couldn’t stop asking about everyone else. Wanted to make sure no one was hurt. My guess? She’s going to want some clothes for when she leaves the hospital. Ones that cover all her private parts.”

  “And I’m betting everything in that room is smoke damaged, wet and pretty much ruined.”

  “I feel bad for her,” Julie said. “Look, I’ve got some extra clothes I keep in my gym bag. She looked about my size. Why don’t you take them to her at the hospital? You know you’re going there anyway.”

  Julie knew him far too well, but yeah, he was always one to follow up. Not everyone did. He’d been warned time and again by more seasoned firefighters that he should start putting up walls between him and the people he helped. Not the reason he did this gig.

  Julie gave him a sly smile. “Think she’s new in town? Pretty, isn’t she?”

  “No comment.” His only thoughts were about the woman’s safety, and okay, maybe a small amount of curiosity as to why in the hell she looked so familiar.

  ***

  The flimsy hospital blanket hardly covered Diana adequately enough, even shoved up to her neck. Somehow in the chaos she’d lost her glasses and being this nearsighted meant that everyone around her was bathed in fuzzy shadows as though part of a hazy dream. But no matter how much she might wish for it, this was no dream or nightmare. This was a Category Crazy mess. She’d spent the res
t of the night in the hospital ER, among the single worst hours of her entire life, and though she’d been pronounced clear to go home she still had no clue as to the state of her possessions.

  She’d nearly died of smoke inhalation, secondary to death by embarrassment. If it were possible to die of awkwardness she’d be dead to rights, but here she was in the emergency room of St. Vincent’s hospital alive and well, dressed in fine lingerie. Smoky fine lingerie.

  She’d been assured over and over again by the nurses and the police officers that had stopped by to take her statement that all the motel’s tenants were fine and accounted for. That was the only thing that mattered, but she couldn’t help wondering if she’d lost everything in the fire. She hadn’t brought everything she owned with her on this trip, but that still meant her laptop, her phone, her glasses. Not to mention the folder of all the agent and editor rejections slips she’d collected over the years and Bradley’s Save the Date.

  Good riddance to that.

  Losing everything was one way to start over. Just not what she’d had in mind.

  A new nurse walked in to take her vitals. Again.

  Diana removed the oxygen mask from her mouth. “Before you ask me too, no, I don’t always dress this way for bed. And no, I wasn’t expecting anyone. And yes, I would love it for someone to bring me some clothes. And no, I’m not going to ask my elderly grandmother to do it.”

  “Relax,” the nurse said. “Your blood pressure just spiked.”

  “Are you sure no one got hurt?’ Yes, she’d already asked a dozen times but one more couldn’t hurt.

  “Now, now. You should be worried about yourself. I thought your foot might need stitches, but you’re lucky there too. Is there anyone you can call? Anyone you can stay with?”

  “My grandmother. I can stay with her.” Only Diana still didn’t know how she’d leave here without her car. Gran didn’t drive anymore, one of the reasons Mom was worried she was a shut-in. And Diana sure in hell wasn’t going to leave the ER wearing nothing but her lingerie. “Do you uh, do you have something I can—”

  “Borrow to wear home? I’ll see if I can find something in my locker. Maybe an extra pair of scrubs.”