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because you know it’s the smart thing to do. You’ve worked enough.”
    Patricia had never had a man speak to her like that. Telling her to stop working. Telling her she’d done enough. It made her melt the way poets believed flowers and verse should make women melt. It made her so weak in the knees, she couldn’t take a step for fear of stumbling.
    Weakness was bad.
    “You can’t give me orders,” she said, but her voice was husky and tired.
    “I just did.” With a firm hand in her lower back, an inch above the curve of her backside, Luke Waterson pushed her gently into the tent, dropped the flap and walked away.
    * * *
    Patricia felt strange the next day.
    It should have been easier to focus on the relief operation after a full meal and a good night’s sleep. Instead, it was harder. That sleep and that meal had come at the hands—the very strong hands—of a fireman who looked like—
    Damn it. There she went again, losing her train of thought.
    She checked the to-do list on her clipboard. The items that had been done and crossed off were irrelevant. Being at the helm of Texas Rescue’s mobile hospital was like being at the helm of one of her sailboats. Congratulating herself on having handled a gust of wind two minutes ago wouldn’t prevent her boat from capsizing on the next gust. Whether on a lake or at a relief center, Patricia looked ahead, planned ahead, kept an eye on the horizon—or in this case, on her checklist. One unfinished item from yesterday jumped out: Set up additional shade for waiting area.
    Patricia tapped her mechanical pencil against her lips. She had the additional tent in the trailer. She just didn’t have the manpower to get it set up. According to the tent’s manual, it would take three people twenty minutes. That meant it would require forty minutes, of course, but she didn’t have three people, anyway. She could serve as one, although she wasn’t good with the sledgehammer when it came to driving the spikes in the ground. At this site, the spikes had been driven right through the asphalt in many cases, and she knew her limits. Driving iron spikes through asphalt, even crumbling, sunbaked asphalt, wasn’t her skill set.
    An image of Luke Waterson, never far from her mind this morning, appeared once more. Appeared, and zoomed in on his arms. Those muscles. The way they’d flexed under her fingertips as he’d escorted her back to the tents in the dark...
    Luke could drive a spike through asphalt.
    Patricia went to her tent and fetched his glove.

Chapter Five
    B eing a rookie was everything Luke had expected it to be. He’d volunteered for Zach’s fire department just for the chance to be the rookie. For the chance to shed some responsibility. For the chance to have a little adventure without having to do any decision-making. For a change, any damned change, from the endless routine on the James Hill Ranch.
    He’d gotten that change on Sunday night. Their fire engine had driven through the still-powerful remains of the hurricane as it had moved inland toward Austin. They’d arrived at the coast only hours after the hurricane had passed through, and they’d had rescues to perform the moment they’d rolled into town.
    The repetitive ladder drills they’d practiced for months had finally proven useful as they’d reached a family who’d been stranded on a roof by rising water. Then they’d laid that ladder flat to make a bridge to a man who was clinging to the remains of a boat on an inland waterway. In the predawn hours, Luke had waded through waist-deep brackish water with a kindergartner clinging to his neck.
    That experience had been humbling. He’d been seeking adventure for its own sake, but that rescue made him rethink his purpose as a part-time volunteer fireman. He’d been blessed with health, and strength, and in that case, the sheer size to be able to stay on his feet and not be swept away by a rush of moving water. Being able to carry a child who could not