Wildfire Read Online Free PDF Page A

have died. A breath shuddered out of her.
She should’ve been in control. But then lately, her control over things had
been fragile at best. Not her actions, not her life, not her dragon.
    Desperate times called for cookies. She grabbed an
oatmeal-raisin and bit into it. Ate without really tasting anything. Leaves
crunched nearby. Lynn whipped around. The approaching firefighter looked like a
space alien in his bunker gear, helmet and breathing apparatus. He stopped in
front of her.
    Lynn steeled herself. OK, she’d earned a lecture. She took a
deep breath and tamped down the beast. The guy helped save Timmy, he could
berate her to his heart’s content. Her pulse pounded in stereo.
    It was a scene out of the movies: the hero standing there, a
knight in shining armor— or in this case, a smoking suit. He reached up and
took off his helmet.
    Her dragon lunged, then fell back. Yikes .
    The man from her vision stood in front of her. He was real.
And he sported a big-ass shiner. Cool green eyes —the right one surrounded by
purplish-black bruising— studied her. Flecks of gold danced in their depths
like sunlight.
    Her stomach clenched. Both dragon and woman trembled .
    The firefighter was a big guy, like those hulking football
players. Tall, well over six feet, with wide shoulders and a thick, muscular
neck. Danger spiked the air around him.
    “Are you going to share that?” The firefighter nodded at the
half-eaten cookie clutched in her hand.
    What? Shouldn’t he say something more dramatic? Or, at
least, lecture her on responsibility? “I think you deserve more.” She handed
him two chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of water. He sat on the ground and leaned
against the car. The cookies disappeared in two bites and then he guzzled water
from the bottle.
    Lynn stared at him, taking in his flushed face and the
sweat-dampened dark curls sticking to his head and neck. A strange feeling
fluttered in her stomach.
    He looked away from the fire toward her. “Thanks for the
cookies. Can I have another?”
    Lynn handed him a third cookie. Their fingers brushed and a
light buzz ran up her arm. She dropped it to her side, rubbed her fingers
against her jeans.
    He devoured the last cookie and swallowed some more water.
“I didn’t get your name.”
    She closed her mouth. “Lynn.”
    “I’m Jack.” He held out his hand .
    Jack. Jen’s Jack? He didn’t seem big brother material to
her. She stared at the knuckles, cuts and scrapes on skin tanned golden by the
sun. She forced herself to present her hand.
    Warm, strong callused fingers wrapped around her skin. Heat
traveled from the touch, bloomed inside, spread lower. She tried to pull her
hand free.
    His grip tightened and he squinted at her in consternation.
Did he feel the strange charge too?
    Tension thickened the air as his gaze burned into her. Panic
clogged her throat. Her lips parted on a silent gasp. Finally, he blew out a
breath, relaxed his hold. She snatched her hand back.
    Why had he appeared in her vision? He didn’t look like he need
rescuing. “Thank you,” she said. “For saving Timmy.”
    He glanced away. “Just doing my job.”
    “If I’d just held on tighter or realized what he was going
to do.” She turned away, grabbed a water bottle and took a drink. Paced back
toward him.
    His gaze bore into her as if looking past the skin to the
dragon and beyond. “I’m the guy Timmy kicked and got away from, and his father
was pretty fooled too,” Jack said. “So unless you have some sort of secret
ability the rest of us don’t know about, there’s nothing more you could have
done.”
    Her hand jerked and she ended up with more water on herself
than inside her. Sputtering, she screwed the top on the water bottle and wiped
her face and neck with the back of her hand. Could he sense her animal? Takes
one to know one . God, she was turning into a cliché queen like her
grandmother.
    She glanced at Tom, Brenda, Timmy and Lucky locked in a
tight family