Wicked Burn (Free Falling Book 1) Read online

  Wicked Burn

  McKenna Jeffries

  Aliyah Burke

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Also by McKenna Jeffries and Aliyah Burke

  Also by McKenna Jeffries and Aliyah Burke

  About the Authors

  All Rights Reserved

  Wicked Burn

  Free Falling, Book # 1

  Copyright © 2018 McKenna Jeffries and Aliyah Burke.

  2nd Edition

  All Rights Reserved. This book is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is coincidental. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form not known or hereafter invented or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system-except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Web-without permission in writing from the publisher or author. The unauthorized replication or allocation of any copyrighted work is illegal. File sharing is an international crime, prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Border Patrol, Division of Cyber Crimes, in partnership with Interpol. Copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is punishable by the fullest extent of the law.

  Published by Simply Sophisticated Publishing

  Cover Design by: MMJ Designs

  Dedication

  From McKenna Jeffries:

  To my mom and sister, whose love of reading made me pick up my first book, which ultimately led me on this path to become an author. Thanks for passing on your love of reading and your support. To my mom, who has always been my number one reader, although you are no longer with me I know you are smiling down each time I publish a book. To St. Thomas, USVI whose beauty inspired me when I was growing up and sparked my imagination which shaped me into who I am today. To the people of the USVI with each Hurricane the landscape of our home becomes changed but the spirit of what makes us who we are will never be changed.

  To the readers who enjoy my sensual, edgy and unexpected books. I appreciate and thank you all for your support and emails.

  Aliyah Burke:

  To Randy all my love.

  Wicked Burn

  By: McKenna Jeffries and Aliyah Burke

  Book One in the Free Falling Series

  Firefighter Yasmine Van Cort is used to saving people and knows sometimes, not everyone can be rescued. Yet something about her last fire rescue keeps bothering her. She cannot forget the anguish of the man who lost his sister and brother-in-law, the man who is now the guardian of the sole survivor of the horrible fire—an innocent baby. Yasmine knows getting involved with those you save could be a bad idea, but she cannot resist checking on him. What she finds is an unexpected complication which will change her forever.

  Sedeo Parker lost the last of his family and now has to care for his infant niece. Distraught at the loss and the responsibility, he is overwhelmed when the woman who saved his niece comes by. His mixed emotions of gratitude and fury that she didn’t save everyone leave him reeling. The unexpected flash of desire for her only complicates things.

  Yasmine knows with her career, a real relationship is difficult at best. Add in a victim of fire, and it makes it doubly so. Sedeo, after losing everything to fire, does not know if he can let himself become involved with a woman who fights the very thing he is afraid of. Together, they will have to decide if it’s worth it to take a chance on a wicked burn.

  1

  The sound of fire hissing never failed to make adrenaline and cautious respect fill Yasmine Van Cort. This fire was no different. The scorching heat of the fully engaged blaze made her sweat even more in her heavy turnout gear.

  Find the baby. She kept repeating the mantra in her head.

  Neighbors had called in the fire, so they knew there was a family of three to be rescued-a man, woman, and child. Her partner, Ethan Zachary, was to her right. They worked in tandem to ensure their safety and that of the individual they had set out to rescue. As they strode down the hall, she could hear the voices on the radio in her ear.

  “Team three. Nothing yet,” Alvin Calles said.

  “Team eight, still searching,” she replied, checking in.

  Ethan motioned to her as he shined the flashlight down the hall.

  She carefully walked ahead, testing the various doors for heat index before opening them. Surprisingly, this left area of the house wasn’t as engulfed at the other side, where team three was searching. As she did a brief check of each room, she could see a family who had seemed happy in this house at one time. A sense of pity filled her. It was a shame their beautiful home was being destroyed. She shook it off. Hopefully they would be able to rescue them, and they would be alive, which was more important than things. Reaching another room, she tested the door for heat. Finding it as cool as the others, she pushed it open. Spotting the crib in what was clearly a nursery, Yasmine’s heart clenched as she approached it.

  Standing beside the crib, she saw what looked to be a ten-month-old curled up holding a teddy bear and a picture. She stripped off her work gloves, checked vitals, and felt a surge of relief when the child’s warm breath puffed against her fingers. “Baby found,” she reported, and slipped back into her gloves.

  Picking up the limp baby, she cuddled it close. The child woke, kicking and screaming as Yasmine headed back to her partner by the door. They hurried down the hall, then the stairwell and out the front door as the fire raged around them. Exiting the house, Yasmine rushed to a waiting EMT. The EMT tried to take the baby, but she held onto Yasmine, refusing to let go.

  “Come with us a sec, to calm this little girl down,” Duff Blantyre, the EMT, said kindly.

  The sympathy in his gaze always got to her. She nodded and turned to Ethan. “Give me a sec.”

  He waved his acknowledgement and stripped off his SCBA ‒self contained breathing apparatus‒before heading to talk with their battalion chief. She followed Duff past the engines and other emergency vehicles parked far enough from the house so they wouldn’t be in danger. They arrived at his rig. As she set down the baby, it reached for her. Quickly, she removed her own SCBA and gloves and held out her hand. The baby gripped her finger, letting go of the teddy and picture it held.

  “Shh... sweetie. It’s okay. We’re not gonna hurt you.”

  The baby stared at her with cornflower blue eyes. The child blinked, then started to chatter.

  Yasmine’s eyes widened at the change. Because the child was so small, she’d thought it was younger. Now, with the clearness of the speech, she changed her estimate to about eighteen months.

  “She’s very friendly.” Duff laughed.

  Yasmine nodded and watched as he checked the little one out. Absently, she picked up the teddy with her other hand and gave it to the child. The child gripped it and continued to chatter. Yasmine smiled, bemused. Picking up the picture, she gasped, startled, at the compelling man it depicted. His eyes were a deeper shade of blue than the little girl’s, but the shape was the same. The various colors in his shaggy hair, from honey blond to dark brown, and the soft but
terscotch tone of his skin showed he spent a lot of time in the Southern California sun. His features were strongly masculine…broad forehead, aquiline nose, sharp cheeks, firm jaw, and full lips. He was handsome in a rough, rugged sort of way. She tried to hand back the picture to the child. The baby didn’t take it, just babbled at her, smiling.

  “She likes sleeping with my picture. She usually doesn’t take to strangers,” a whiskey-smoke voice said from behind her.

  Yasmine turned and held back another gasp. The man was even more compelling in person than in the picture. She cocked her head slightly to meet his gaze. He was taller than her own six feet. “Your daughter is doing well, sir.”

  “Sedeo Parker. She’s my not—”

  “Unca Seddy!” the child’s voice cried.

  The man looked at the baby and stepped closer.

  His scent reached Yasmine as he stood close to her, reaching to touch the baby.

  He smells like sandalwood and vanilla.

  Sedeo turned to her with an intense gaze. “My sister and her husband, where are they?”

  “We’re still searching for them,” she replied.

  She hated having to impart this sort of news to anyone during a fire. Usually, she didn’t have to worry about it. There were others better equipped to do it.

  “Please... Find them.” His look was imploring.

  “We’ll try,” Yasmine replied, patting his muscular arm.

  She would have liked to promise more, but knew they couldn’t always save everyone. There was no way she would give him any false hop—just in case. “I better get back,” she said.

  “We’ve got it from here,” Duff said.

  She nodded, looked at Sedeo once more, and headed off. She could hear Duff speaking as she left.

  “Good thing we have the picture of you. Makes it easier if there is family here, especially for the little one. Hey man, Yas and the rest will do everything to find your family.”

  “I hope so,” Sedeo replied.

  Yasmine continued on. It wasn’t until she was almost to the chief and Ethan that she realized she still held his picture. She put it in the pocket of her coat and pressed the Velcro closed. She would return it later. As she reached them, a loud boom filled the area.

  “Flashover! Team Three, get out of there!” the chief screamed into his radio.

  Horrified, she hurried to Ethan. They hadn’t found any signs of a potential flashover. She and her partner looked at each other, then back at the building. They couldn’t go in and help their fellow firefighters. Flashovers were unpredictable. The men had less than five seconds to get out. She prayed as she counted off in her head. At three seconds, she didn’t think they would make it, but then, Alvin and Walter ran out of the burning house. Seconds later, the structure detonated, as if full of dynamite. The firefighters flew through the air, landing in a heap some distance from it.

  EMTs started running to the men, who were burning in their gear. The firefighters sprang into action and ran to contain the now out-of-control blaze.

  Yasmine glanced back at where she had left Sedeo with the baby. Startled, she realized he had come closer. He watched the burning house, shaking like a leaf as he looked at her. The anguish in his gaze made her throat tight.

  “No!” he bellowed as he dropped to the ground clutching his niece.

  Heart-wrenching sobs came from him as the baby wailed. A strange longing to comfort him came over her. Shaking it aside, Yasmine turned and ran to join the others of her company as they worked to contain the fire.

  Yasmine raised one hand to ring the doorbell, the other clutching the envelope that held Sedeo Parker’s photo. She’d found it in her gear the day after the horrible blaze. Before she could depress the button, she let her hand fall. Cursing softly, she paced the porch of the fairly large‒if the outside was anything to go by‒raised bungalow. She stopped, looking beyond the rail on the left side of the porch and glanced at the windows of the basement which were partially aboveground. There seemed to be a lot of tools and pieces of furniture in there.

  Stop snooping, Yas. She turned away and headed back to the door.

  Tapping the envelope against her leg, Yasmine bit her lip. For the past two months, she’d left the house with the envelope in hand, planning to mail it. Yet every time she returned home, she had it with her. She’d place it back in its spot on the entry table, ready for the next time she went out. There had been numerous opportunities for her to mail the picture, but she couldn’t make herself do it.

  A flash of smiling dark blue eyes came to her. The same eyes in the picture she held. She wanted to see if the man was okay. He wouldn’t be smiling yet, with the loss of his family so recent, but she wanted to make sure he and the little one were okay. She hoped he had a wife or girlfriend to help him out.

  Liar, liar, pants on fire. She refused to acknowledge she was doing anything more than checking on them. She frowned. For all she knew the baby wasn’t with him. She remembered the way he’d touched his niece so gently, and her gut told her he was taking care of the child. Shifting from foot to foot, she glanced at the mailbox next to the door. Maybe she should just drop it in.

  Sedeo Parker stifled a yawn as his niece Shelby laughed and played with her toys. She was making a mess of the already messy living room. He didn’t care. At least, she was happy. These days it was a blessing. One minute she was happy, then the next screaming. The therapist had explained she was adjusting to losing her parents, and to her new living environment.

  Adjust! How does one adjust to something like this? How can your life change so much in just two months?

  His closed his eyes. The fear he’d felt that day choked him. The relief of seeing his niece laughing, alive, and well, being held by a ravishing dark honey-skinned woman in firefighter clothing had made his knees weak. At least that’s the excuse he was sticking with. He wouldn’t admit the compassion in her heavily lashed topaz gaze had made his heart race. The woman had been enchanting, her dark brown hair in a braid resting against one shoulder. He still wondered how long it was. Her broad forehead and full nose had wrinkled, making her cute as she talked with him. Those lush, dark pink lips had thoughts of tasting them filling his head.

  Shame and self-loathing filled him whenever he thought of his reactions to the woman—a reaction which was inappropriate in the circumstances they’d been in. He held back a sob. His sister and her husband had been trapped, about to die in the home they had lovingly decorated together. And his libido had chosen to wake up and take notice of a woman he still couldn’t get out of his mind.

  Yas was what the EMT called her. When he arrived at the hospital with the same EMT to get Shelby checked out, he’d asked her name before they left. Yasmine Van Cort suited the exotic beauty perfectly. After everything had started to settle down some, he had wanted to thank the men and women who had saved his niece personally. His anger that they hadn’t saved them all had stopped him. Rationally, he knew it wasn’t their fault, but emotionally, he felt different. Until he worked through his feelings, he would stay away.

  You’re punishing yourself. You want to see the woman but feel guilty about it.

  It was true. He couldn’t deny it. Cursing himself, Sedeo opened his eyes, then laughed. Shelby had turned to the building blocks and was gleefully pitching them. He really should stop her, but couldn’t find the energy to get up.

  Shelby glanced back at him and laughed too, then returned to throwing her toys.

  Thankfully, it had been easy to adjust‒as the therapist put it‒his living environment. His niece, sister, and brother-in-law had spent lots of time in his home, so he’d had it childproofed for Shelby. She even had a room of her own here, with toys and a bed for those times he babysat while her parents took romantic getaways. Tears stung his eyes again. There were no more calls to watch Shelby. He wouldn’t hear his sister’s voice again. Even the gruff sound of his brother-in-law Jeff’s voice would be welcome. He missed them fiercely.

  Sedeo yawned. H
e was so tired. Taking care of his niece was a breeze. He was used to it. It was the nightmares which woke him every night. They drove him from his bed to his niece’s room. He would watch her for hours, making sure she was actually alive. Most nights, he fell asleep in the chair.

  His niece toddled to him and showed him her block.

  “Very nice, sweetie,” he said, stroking her fine blonde hair.

  “Unca Seddy, play too,” she said.

  She pulled on him, so he slid out of his chair and played with her, praying each second that he wouldn’t lose her. Jeff’s parents were pushing for custody, claiming a single man with a hobby as a career wouldn’t be able to raise, much less support, a little girl. His fist clenched. He would fight them.

  They had no clue he was a successful furniture maker with international demand for his work. His business partner was being very understanding. Kali handled the business end of things, and he created the pieces. He knew their clients must be screaming at her to find out what was going on with their orders. Yet, he couldn’t find the energy to go into his basement workshop.

  The sound of the doorbell made him jump.

  “Belly,” Shelby said, and started for the door.

  He stood and scooped her up. “Uh-uh. What’s our rule?”

  His niece pouted.

  “No door without an adult,” he said.

  She batted her eyes at him.

  Sedeo laughed. His heart ached. He could see so much of his sister in her.

  The bell sounded again.

  He walked toward the door calling, “I’m coming.” He looked at his niece and said, “I wonder who it could be?”