EXCERPT:

Jack Carrington watched the pretty girl with short curly hair snatch up her off-beat friend’s hand and drag her to a nearby bench. Letting out a huge rush of air, he relaxed, surprised to find he’d held his breath for so long. In fact, he’d taken in his last breath right before she’d sat down in the car. In his car.

“Gees, some babes are too weird for comfort. For a minute, I thought the babe with the porcupine hairdo would haul off and clock the guy.” Carl Metters, Jack’s best friend, took a chunk out of his sandwich. “Too bad. I think she’d have taken him.”

Jack shrugged, uninterested in Carl’s opinion of the girl’s fighting ability. “I’ve got to own that car. After all, am I or am I not the best damn paramedic in the city? Hell, the best in the state.”

Muffled words stumbled out of Carl’s mouth. “You betcha.” Swallowing, he added with a grin, “Next to me, of course.”

Jack snorted. “Yeah, right. And being the best--” Refusing to bend to Carl’s ego, he continued, “─paramedic in the whole damn state makes me the best driver in the state. So, by all rights, the best driver should own the best car.” He jabbed his finger at the Porsche. “That car.”

Carl engulfed another huge bite. “When you’re right, you’re right, my friend. Except, of course, about who’s the best driver.”

“Come on.” Coffee sloshed over the edge of Carl’s drink as Jack tugged him through the throng of people milling around the mall’s lobby. He made a beeline toward the sign and flyers. “Let’s find out how I’m supposed to get this car.”

He perused the paper and relief flooded through him. “I’ve got this in the sack, man. Who’s more deserving of a new car than a life-saving paramedic?”

Carl, called “Jaws” by his fellow paramedics, chewed on. “Sure. No problem.”

“Good.” Jack ached to touch the shiny blue surface, but remembered the guard’s reaction to the pretty brunette. Instead, he cooed to the car, much like a doting father would to a child at bedtime. “Say hello to Papa.”

“Excuse me, but don’t get your hopes up, bud. Baby Blue is as good as delivered. To me.”

Jack swung toward the lilting voice and came face to face--or rather her face to his chest--with slitted dark eyes. Those sparkling pools of cocoa ripped all thoughts of the car from him. Suddenly, he fell into their waters without a care for their unknown depths. “What’d you say?”

A sculpted eyebrow shifted upward over a cute button of a nose scattered with carefree freckles. Her face, a perfect oval, presented a magnificent cream canvas for her rosy lips, stretched thin in a direct challenge. “My Baby Blue. You’re talking about my car. I’m going to win Baby Blue, so you may as well save your time and forget about entering.”

“Baby Blue?” His mind refused to cooperate except to note how the material of her uniform hugged her full breasts. The words Foto Fancy called his gaze to her left breast where her name tag Hi, I’m Angie hung sideways. He gave up trying to fight the attraction.

“Yeah, I named him.” She snapped her fingers under his nose, breaking the hold her chest held on his brain. “Ya wanna stop slobbering over my boobs and get your head--” she jerked her chin higher, and fastened her gaze on his eyes, “--the head on your shoulders, I mean, into the conversation? I don’t care what you do with the other head pointed my way just as long as you keep it zipped up tight.”