The Firefighter Meets His Match (Red Hot Reunions Book 4) by Jessie Evans Page A

protective, almost to a fault, and the man she’d just finished kissing looked like someone a girl might need protection from.
    The stranger was now on his feet, and looking even bigger than she’d estimated him to be. He was at least six foot three—just a hair shorter than Bubba’s six four. But whereas Bubba was built like a man who hustled up electric poles for a living and scaled mountains in his spare time, the stranger was built like a man who lifted cars off trapped kittens for a day job and hurled boulders around for fun. With impossibly broad shoulders, thickly muscled arms, and a chest Mia knew was carved from a hunk of solid rock, he was an intimidating specimen.
    He would have been flat out scary, if Mia hadn’t known that he kissed with as much tenderness as confidence, and that his touch made only promises, no demands.
    “Um, nothing’s up,” Mia whispered, hiding how flustered she felt by taking a peek over her shoulder at the shop across the street. “I had a close call with Lula, but it looks like she’s gone back inside.” She turned back to the men. “My new friend helped me out. New friend, this is Bubba, Bubba, this is—”
    “Sawyer,” the stranger said, holding out a hand, sparing her the embarrassment of confessing she didn’t know his name.
    Bubba clasped his hand and gave it a firm shake. “Robert Lawson, but everyone calls me Bubba. You staying at the hotel?”
    “Yeah, checked in this afternoon.” Sawyer released Bubba’s hand. “I was having a hard time sleeping, so I figured I’d grab something to eat, but everything around here looks closed. You two know if anything’s open close by? A diner or something?”
    Bubba gave Sawyer directions to the truck stop diner by the highway, the only place in town open twenty-four hours, while Mia squinted into the darkness and cursed herself for not eating more carrots as a child. Her eyes had adjusted enough that she could see Sawyer was bald, and had a nicely shaped head, but she couldn’t make out much of his face. Just the ghost of high cheekbones, and the sharp right angles of a jaw that was every bit as hard as the rest of him.
    Sawyer thanked Bubba for the directions and shook his hand again before turning back to Mia and adding in a more intimate tone, “I would say goodbye, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”
    “Oh, right, um…Mia.” She thrust a flustered arm toward him. “Mia Sherman.”
    “Nice to meet you, Mia.” His warm, dry palm engulfed her hand, sending a shiver of awareness prickling across her skin. “Hope I’ll see you around.”
    “I’m sure you will. It’s a small town.” She pulled her hand from his, and crossed her arms, willing her body to simmer the heck down. “But I won’t run you over again. I promise. That was a one-time thing .” She hit the words hard, hoping he would understand that she was talking about the kiss, as well as their collision. “I don’t usually go around diving through bushes in the middle of the night so…don’t worry.”
    “I won’t,” he said, a cocky note in his voice Mia didn’t care for. “You two have a nice night.”
    And then he turned and swaggered across the parking lot. Literally swaggered , like the hero of an action film, off to fight the bad guys, and probably blow up a few buildings while he was at it.
    Mia wanted to yell that there was no need to swagger on your way to get greasy eggs at a truck stop diner at three in the morning, but then Sawyer stopped beside the vintage Shovelhead Harley Davidson that Ross had been drooling over earlier in the evening, and swung one muscled thigh over the seat. He mounted the machine with an easy grace that made Mia’s mouth go dry, and things low in her body envy the leather between his thighs, before gunning the chopper to life, and guiding the purring bike out onto Main Street without a backward glance.
    “Am I crazy,” Bubba said, as the rumble of the Harley’s motor faded into the