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between them before she could even make it halfway to the dining room door. “I think we got off on the wrong foot here.”
    She gave him a tight smile without breaking stride. “At least being a firefighter has kept your observational skills sharp.”
    His shoulders snapped into an unyielding knot, his stare flashing cool blue as he kept up with her, step for step. “You want to know what else I picked up with my keen observational skills? You’re in here by yourself, Gorgeous. And that tells me that like it or not, you need all the help you can get to run this place.”
    Zoe’s gut took a downhill slide toward her hips, and she froze mid-pace on the threshold of the shadow-lined hallway. “Help from someone who isn’t serious about being here isn’t going to help at all.”
    â€œOh, I’m absolutely serious,” Alex said, triggering a borderline unladylike snort from her lips.
    â€œYou fell asleep on the job before you even started, then you called your assignment in the program I started from scratch ‘stupid.’ As far as I’m concerned, that makes you about as serious as a tabloid headline, no matter how short-staffed I happen to be.”
    One corner of his mouth lifted upward, disappearing briefly beneath his golden-brown stubble before he folded his lips back to neutral-expression territory. “Look, you and I might not see eye to eye on the value of community service, but I can promise you this. I’m as determined to do my job as you are to do yours. The city sent me here for a reason. I can’t go back to Station Eight until I do my time, and you need a volunteer. So are we going to help each other out here, or what?”
    Zoe opened her mouth, her own personal version of or what preloaded and ready to launch from her tongue. But if there was one rule she lived by above everything else, it was not putting what mattered most at risk, and what mattered most was feeding the residents at Hope House. As much as she knew firefighters— especially ones like Alex Donovan—were nothing but a great, big recipe for disaster, Zoe needed him.
    And that meant she had no choice but to spend the next four weeks with the arrogant, impulsive firefighter in her kitchen and under her skin.
    â€œFine. But let’s get one thing perfectly clear. There’s no freelancing on this job. I run a tight kitchen with even tighter rules.”
    But rather than argue, Alex laughed long and loud, the sound sizzling all the way through her as he said, “Funny. That doesn’t surprise me one bit.”
    â€œOh.” She swallowed hard, wondering how she’d managed to carve out top honors at one of the most prestigious culinary schools on the East Coast but couldn’t come up with anything more intelligent than a single syllable to cover up the heat in her blood or the shock in her chest. “Well, you can hang your jacket in the back. We’ve got a ton of work to do before the other volunteers get here to serve breakfast, and we’re already behind.”
    Sixty seconds later, Alex pushed his way back through the swinging doors from the kitchen, and the gray T-shirt hugging his every last muscle did nothing to bump her vocabulary out of the range of pure idiocy. God, had she learned nothing at that barbecue five years ago?
    â€œYou didn’t grab an apron,” Zoe managed, gesturing to the swath of white cotton knotted around her waist.
    â€œThey’re not part of the rules, are they?” Although he kept his expression mostly cool, the challenge edging his deep blue stare was just visible enough to blot out the last of the weird shot of warmth she’d felt at his laugh.
    â€œNo.” It figured he’d start by pushing his luck. “But the kitchen gets pretty messy. You’re probably going to want one.”
    â€œI’ll take my chances.”
    â€œI’ll bet.” Zoe reached into one of the