Ignite (Firefighters of Montana Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

Ace was Dean, she just wanted…to be like Cherrie instead of the virgin who’d never even been kissed because everyone in Marietta had been afraid to touch her.
    She wanted to be like Cherrie, and like her sister-in-law, Sierra, who’d had more than a little fun sneaking around with Lina’s oldest brother before their surprise wedding. She wanted to be like those girls in high school and college who’d put on makeup and laughed and made guys drool.
    She wanted to have fun. She wanted to enjoy some little piece of her youth instead of funneling everything into becoming a doctor. Into making her father proud. She’d come to Kalispell because she was tired of all that.
    She looked up at Ace. He was making it very clear he wasn’t Dean, and maybe she was fooling herself to take his word for it, but what would be the harm in indulging in some of that youthfulness she’d ignored for all of her teens and a good chunk of her twenties?
    What would be the harm in trying for once to have fun? Mindless, girl-plus-guy fun? She took a deep drink of the oddly sweet Long Island iced tea and she fixed Ace with a smile.
    “Okay, fine. Maybe I did come here for companionship . Maybe I came here for yours . After all, you’re pretty hot.” She knew her cheeks were flaming red at this point, but she’d said it without choking on her own spit. She’d said it with her eyes on his and her chin up because she was not afraid of a man. She wasn’t afraid of flirting. She was definitely not afraid of the truth—because Ace was hot.
    He studied her and she didn’t know what he was looking for—either an ulterior motive or just wondering why someone plain and poorly dressed and foolish like her was flirting with him .
    But she refused to feel foolish. Well, she refused to let him see she felt foolish, because of course she felt foolish. He was completely one hundred percent out of her league. It wasn’t even a contest. But that didn’t mean she was going to back down.
    McArthurs didn’t back down, and it didn’t seem like she’d left behind what a McArthur was just because she wanted a new life. So, why not embrace it?
    “Honey,” he drawled, his voice like… She didn’t know. It was like he touched her, but he didn’t. It was the movement of the air from his words, from somewhere inside of her that she’d kept locked away.
    “You’re too pretty and you’re too smart to be here hitting on me.”
    Her mouth dropped open for a second because he seemed very sincere about that. Pretty? Sure, she was used to being told she was too smart for something, especially by dumb boys, but not…pretty. Too pretty? Ha ha.
    Then her mouth curved into a smile against her will. She couldn’t help it. She wasn’t exactly used to physical compliments. Compliments that didn’t come with baggage. How could she ignore that they made her feel a little giddy?
    “Tell me about your job,” she said, resolutely. She was going to sit here and flirt. And maybe that was all it was going to be, but at least she’d have some fun.
    His eyebrows rose to his hairline. “Excuse me?”
    “I’m interested. I’ve never known anyone who fought fires and I’ve definitely never known anyone who jumped out of airplanes to fight fires. I find it fascinating.”
    He looked at her skeptically. “What exactly do you want from me, Lina? Why are you here?”
    “I told you. I think you’re hot. Believe it or not, I moved to Kalispell to experience different things and to break out of my shell. So here I am, breaking out of my shell. I want to know about your job, not just because I think you’re hot, but because I actually do think it’s interesting. And because I like watching you talk.”
    It was funny, the more she said these outrageous things, the easier they were to say without blushing or feeling self-conscious. The more she talked, the more she enjoyed his obvious shock over her being so bold. And if she wasn’t totally mistaken, she was kind of