Total pages in book: 23
Estimated words: 24365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 122(@200wpm)___ 97(@250wpm)___ 81(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 122(@200wpm)___ 97(@250wpm)___ 81(@300wpm)
Boone Lawson is fire-scarred, closed off, and hiding in the shadows.
Ember Price is color, laughter, and relentless hope—painting life back into a man who forgot how to feel.
When sparks turn into a dangerous inferno, Boone must decide if he’s brave enough to burn again—and Ember must risk her heart on a man who’s terrified of losing everything.
🔥 Grumpy Neighbor from Hell x City Girl Chaos
🎨 Artist Heroine x Wounded Hero
🧰 Reclusive Ex-Military Firefighter
❤️ Moilten Hot Slow Burn
🏔️ Small-Town Meddling
The men of Devil's Peak Fire & Rescue are high heat, big feelings, and gruff devotion
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Boone
I’m elbow-deep in an engine when the noise starts.
Not the good kind—the steady, predictable hum of metal and torque—but chaos. A crash. A clatter. A string of muttered curses followed by a laugh so bright it cuts through my workshop like a flare.
I freeze.
Wrench in one hand. Rag in the other. Spine locked.
The workshop has been my bunker since the explosion. Concrete walls. Oil-stained floors. Tools exactly where I leave them. Silence I can control. No surprises. No sudden sounds that make my shoulder seize or my pulse jump.
Then the door bangs open.
Light spills in first. Actual, blinding light, reflecting off snow outside and bouncing off the chrome of my workbench. And then she barrels in like a fucking wrecking ball—paint-splattered, hair half up and half everywhere, cheeks flushed, eyes bright.
She trips over a bucket.
Catches herself.
Smears blue paint across her jaw with the back of her hand.
And grins at me like she just found buried treasure.
“Hi!” she says, breathless and cheerful and completely out of place. “Sorry—door stuck. I think it hates me.”
I stare.
She’s got paint streaked across her fingers, wrists, the hem of her sweater. There’s red in her hair like she forgot it was there. Yellow on her nose. She smells like cold air and citrus soap and something faintly sweet underneath.
Color and chaos.
Everything I’m not.
“Can I help you?” My voice comes out flat. Rusted. Like it hasn’t been used for anything but short answers in a while.
She looks around my shop like she’s stepped into a museum exhibit titled Angry Man Lives Here. Eyes lingering on the engines. The tool racks. The scorch mark on the far wall I never bothered to paint over.
“Oh. Wow.” She nods, impressed. “This is… intense.”
“Still waiting on the part where that’s my problem.”
Her grin widens instead of faltering. That’s the first warning sign.
“I’m Ember,” she says, sticking out a hand without thinking twice. “Ember Price. I just bought the house next door. Mostly for the great studio space. I’m an artist.”
I don’t take her hand.
I don’t even look at it.
“More like trouble,” I mutter, going back to the engine and pretending she didn’t just blow a hole through my afternoon.
She laughs. Full-bodied. Unapologetic.
“I get that a lot.”
“Not a compliment.”
“Still accurate.”
I risk a glance despite myself.
She’s studying me now, head tilted slightly, like she’s sketching me in her mind. Assessing. Curious. Not afraid. That’s the second warning sign.
“You’re Boone,” she says.
I stiffen. “You ask someone?”
“Captain Cole, he did my house inspection,” she says easily. “He warned me you were grumpy.”
“He would.”
She steps farther in, boots crunching on grit. I don’t like how close she’s getting. Don’t like how my body reacts—alert, coiled, aware.
She stops by the workbench and peers at the engine. “You fix things.”
“I break them,” I say. “Then fix them.”
“Sounds therapeutic.”
“Sounds like none of your business.”
Her gaze flicks up to mine, sharp but amused. “You always this welcoming, or am I special?”
“You’re blocking my light.”
She looks up at the open door, then back at me, lips twitching. “You should try it sometime. Sunshine’s good for the soul.”
I snort. “I’ll take my chances.”
She studies my face again. The scar at my temple. The way my left arm doesn’t quite move like my right. Her eyes don’t linger out of pity—just awareness. It makes my shoulders tense.
“Well,” she says, clapping her hands together and smearing more paint. “I’ll get out of your hair. I just needed to ask—do you have a wrench I could borrow? The old sink next door is held together with spite and rust.”
I don’t answer right away.
Borrowing leads to conversations. Conversations lead to expectations.
“No.”
She blinks. “No?”
“No.”
Her mouth opens. Closes. Then she laughs again, softer this time. “Okay. That’s fair.”
It shouldn’t feel like a victory that she doesn’t argue. It shouldn’t bother me that she accepts it so easily.
She turns toward the door, then pauses. “You sure you don’t want to come see the studio sometime? I’m teaching kids’ art classes. It’s… loud.”
“I noticed.”
“But fun,” she adds. “Messy. Healing.”
I don’t miss the way her voice dips on the last word.
“Not my scene.”
She nods, like she expected that answer all along. “If you change your mind, Caveman—”
I bark a laugh before I can stop myself. “What did you just call me?”
She glances back, eyes sparkling. “Caveman.”
“That’s not my name.”
“No,” she agrees cheerfully. “But it fits.”
“Explain.”
She gestures vaguely at me. “You’re all dark and grumpy and convinced you’re invisible.”
Something in my chest tightens.
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
Silence stretches between us. The engine ticks as it cools. The snow outside hushes the world.
Then she smiles again, softer this time, and backs out the door. “See you around, Boone.”
The door swings shut behind her, leaving the workshop too quiet.
I stand there longer than I should, staring at the space she occupied. At the faint smear of blue paint she left on my workbench.