Firefighter Tanner Hall is used to running into burning buildings and risking his life to save others. It's just another day of work for the father of two. But when he gets a call from the San Diego zoo about an animal attack, he has no idea what he...
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"I'm beginning to think it's you," Brooks snarks, handing me a cup of coffee as he slides into an open seat at the table.
After a solid forty-seven hours, our shift is ending, and as much as it pains me to say, I'm ready. I'm beat—both mentally and physically—and a few days off is exactly what the doctor ordered. I expected my first shift back to be a little rough, but we've been going nonstop since I walked through the door, and it put every ounce of my stamina to the test.
"What do you mean?" I chuckle. The coffee he brought me is terrible, but it does the job well enough, and I gulp down nearly half of it. Even though my shift is over, I won't be able to sleep when I get home. The boys started summer break a few days ago, and with their mom on a yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean, I have them for the entire break. Not that I'd have it any other way. I'll sleep someday.
"I mean, the last few months have been slow. No crazy calls, nothing out of the ordinary. And the very day you come back, we're slammed with the damn circus."
Brooks isn't entirely wrong. The call at the zoo was just the beginning. Straight from there, we went to a ferry wheel malfunction on the pier that left a man dangling forty feet in the air. Then a woman called in because she heard yelling and screaming from her neighbor's apartment. Turns out the couple was getting into BDSM and trying out some seriously wild positions. And my personal favorite was the man who called us out because he was absolutely positive there was a UFO hovering above his house and swore it had nothing to do with the edibles he'd eaten. What he was looking at was the moon. We finally wrapped things up with an actual emergency—a fourteen-car pileup on the 405. It was intense, but we got the job done, just like usual.
"Aw, come on." Riggs joins us at the table, a stupid smirk on his face as he slides a newspaper in front of me. "Don't blame Hollywood. The drama just comes to him."
The nickname makes me cringe. It started after my first valor medal when I saved a three-year-old boy from drowning. My image was blasted all over the news with words like hero and miracle printed beneath it, and the media frenzy got so crazy I even started to get fan mail at the station. After a while, everything died down, but when I had my accident, it started back up again.
Hero Firefighter Close to Death After Harrowing Fall. San Diego Fire Captain Suffers Life-Threatening Injuries Just Months After Saving Child. The headlines made it all sound more dramatic than it was, but my rise to fame earned me the sarcastic nickname from my guys, and now it seems I'm in the limelight once again.
"You're hilarious." I roll my eyes, picking up the paper. Right on the front page is a blown-up picture of both Zoe and me inside the enclosure, feet away from Miko. I don't even read the article because I know it'll just be sensationalized and probably far from the truth.
"Can I have your autograph, Captain Hall?" Coop teases, batting his eyelashes at me. "You're so brave!"
The guys erupt into laughter as the chiding continues. I'm about the last person who appreciates this kind of attention. That isn't why I got into firefighting, and honestly, all it does is make me uncomfortable. Morgan comes out of his office and leans against the nearby wall. He never lets his guard down enough to join in on the fun, but he likes to watch, and he cracks a smile as he looks on.
