Safety Hazard

I’m a safety inspector. I live for rules, regulations, and order. I was sent to Liberty Lake to shut down their fireworks display because it’s a fire hazard. The town hates me.

Especially the Fire Chief, Shepherd.
Shepherd is chaos incarnate. He drives a truck the size of a tank, he’s always covered in soot or lake water, and he looks at my clipboard like he wants to eat it. We’ve been fighting for three days straight. He shouts about tradition; I shout about safety codes. It’s the most frustration—and the most sexual tension—I’ve ever felt in my life.

But something is off about this Fire Chief. He smells smoke before the alarm even rings. He tracks lost hikers in the woods without a GPS. And when we got trapped in the lookout tower during a summer storm, the way he held me wasn’t just protective—it was possessive.

We crossed a line in that tower, and now I’m breaking every rule in my own book. I’m supposed to be inspecting the fireworks, not creating my own with the local wildlife.