How to Tame a Wild Fireman Read Online Free PDF

Street read, THANK YOU , FIREFIGHTERS! She spotted a few ­people walking around wearing bandannas over their mouths, but most Nevadans took the yearly onslaught of brushfires in stride.
    Loveless had a High Noon feel; cowboys were a common sight. Real ones, not the expensive snakeskin-­boot cowboys she occasionally saw in San Diego. These guys were tough as rawhide and could drink all night and sleep it off on horseback.
    The grief that had lurked in Lara’s heart since she’d first gotten the call about Aunt Tam bloomed into full-­fledged sorrow as she passed all the familiar landmarks of Loveless. The family-­run, one-­screen movie theater where Aunt Tam had taken her to every single movie that ever came to town. The Loveless Pharmacy, where Lara had bought her black hair dye. Loveless High School, where she’d spent some of the most miserable years of her life—­except for Liam.
    But lately her contact with him had been via text message only.
    And there, at the edge of town, stood the Haven for Sexual and Spiritual Healing, squatting like a fat, overdressed, confused opera singer stranded by the side of a dusty highway. In its first lifetime it had actually been an opera house, adorned with ornate, elaborate curlicues and even a gargoyle—­anything that might look hoity-­toity. Then it had become a brothel. The owner had painted it pink, chopped it up into rooms, added some frescoes and canopied bedchambers, and named it the Pink Swan. The brothel did well, until a recession hit. That’s when Aunt Tam had swooped in. She’d decided she needed a base where she could help ­people in a more hands-­on manner, in addition to her radio show. And thus the Haven for Sexual and Spiritual Healing was born.
    The inspirational sayings attached to the fence posts that lined the driveway set the tone.
    SM I L E . Y O U A R E D I V I N E . R E L E A S E Y O U R F E A R S . SURRENDER TO BLISS.
    Lara could practically hear her aunt repeating the slogans to eager ­couples. She’d always hidden in her room playing loud music during workshops, but she caught enough to know she wanted nothing to do with the sexual self-­actualization business.
    But that didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate the Goddesses. When the front door, with its carvings of Greek nymphs, opened and four women hurried out, a huge smile spread over her face. She jumped out of the car and into their welcoming group hug.
    “Lara!. . . . Look at you, all grown and luscious . . . I told you she always had good bones . . . never mind her bones, look at that skin . . . We’re so sad about Tam, we’re just lost without her . . . come inside, this smoke is terrible for your skin . . . I heard on the news it’s like smoking a pack a day . . . but my oh my, you should see some of the firemen who’ve shown up to fight this thing . . .”
    Lara let them bundle her inside the building. It was like being carried down a river of fragrant bath suds. It had always been like that; the Haven often felt like a cross between a dysfunctional family and a hippie sorority, with maybe a dash of burlesque show thrown in. The “Goddesses” had always been there for her. They’d helped her with homework, makeup advice, and boy trouble.
    Janey, the most senior Goddess, who had to be in her mid-­fifties by now, still looked spectacular with cocoa-­dark skin and magenta-­striped hair piled on her head in an unruly heap. She led the way into the “Be Loved and Welcomed Room,” which was filled with a motley collection of love seats, fainting couches, and velvet armchairs. Inside the Haven you could easily forget there was another world outside. Everything was either gold or deep burgundy, left over from the brothel days, or a newly added shade of white called “sea breeze.” Lara had mockingly referred to it as “lobotomy white” as a teenager.
    “How you holding up, dollbaby?” Janey asked, when they’d all settled in and Annabella had left to fetch