Page 4 of Striking the Match (Redwood Bay Fire #3)

“I just think you’re awesome, Mr. Garda,” she gushes, her cheeks pink, and she vigorously pumps my hand with both her much smaller ones. “I went to Redwood Bay High, too. I was on the cheerleading squad!”

“No way,” I say kindly, even though the options for schools around here are pretty much either the high school or one of the fancy private academies out of town.

If she’s a local, the chances of us having that in common were almost guaranteed.

But I can tell the connection is important to her.

“I was always a big Sirens fan,” I tell her with a wink.

“Oh, actually, we changed the name to Krakens a little while back,” she says, still shaking my hand. “It felt more inclusive.”

“More badass, too,” I admit.

She nods enthusiastically. “But the football team hasn’t changed from the Buccaneers.

If you’re back in town now, you should come check out the homecoming game in a few weeks!

” She looks down, apparently realizing she hasn’t let me go yet, and jerks her hand away sheepishly. “You know, if you have time, um…”

I chuckle and glance at Bryan who is determinedly glued to his phone, no doubt trying to hurry this encounter along through sheer force of will.

While some fans get under my skin if they’re not respectful, I do enjoy moments like this.

But I’m certain if Bryan had his way, he’d fend every single one of them off with a squirt bottle.

“Oh, I have plenty of time these days,” I say to Paisley ruefully.

That is apparently enough to snap Bryan back to us. “Well, not unlimited time. We do have plenty to be getting on with today, so perhaps we should?—”

“Yes, of course,” Gus says, hopping back and indicating the front door with an extended arm. “Please, come inside. Did you have an idea of what you were looking for today?”

We cross the threshold into the air conditioning, and I hum. Paisley grabs a clipboard from the desk. “We’ve just got a couple of forms we’ll need you to?—”

“I’ll do that,” Bryan cries eagerly, launching forward, desperate for the chance to distract himself from the chit chat with admin.

I don’t want anyone thinking that doing that sort of thing is beneath me.

However, I know how much he’d rather cross Ts and dot Is than deal with human beings.

So as a kindness, I allow him to knock himself out.

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” I reply to Gus’s question. “You’ve got plenty of cats and dogs here, right?”

“And a few other slightly more exotic critters,” Gus says with another easy laugh.

An image of owning a pet alligator flashes through my mind, and I repress a shudder. I’m guessing he means goats or hamsters or something, but I’d rather stick with what I know.

“Maybe we could take a look at the cats to start with?” I suggest.

I’m sure I’ll be longing for a dog’s high energy soon enough. But after everything over the past year, starting with a mostly self-sufficient pet might not be the worst idea. We can both adjust to the new house together in a slightly calmer fashion.

That’s if I feel a connection. I’m sure the temptation to adopt every animal in the building will be strong.

Whatever happens, I’ll be giving a large but quiet donation to the shelter so I can feel like I’m helping all the little souls I don’t take home today.

But I have to have a spark with whoever I do pick.

If I don’t feel that today—whether that’s with a cat or a dog or a god-damned baby kaiju—I’ll just have to come back another day.

The truth is I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking for. But I’m hoping I’ll know it when I see it.

“Oh, we have plenty of kitties who’ll be delighted to meet you, I’m sure,” Gus says as Bryan apparently finishes up the paperwork.

While he looks like he wants to escape to the car, Paisley looks like she wants to grab my hand again and drag me through the doors to start our visit properly.

Instead, she skips ahead and pushes them open, leading us into a clean and bright area with a few dozen cages, almost all of them home to a skittish looking cat.

“We let them out as much as we can,” she explains to us as we follow her inside. I start peering at the faces as we pass. “Especially in the evening when we don’t have any visitors. But it’s easier to keep track of them like this and they spend so much of their time sleeping anyway.”

I sigh, wishing for them to all find the happy forever homes of their dreams.

“Every animal here is chipped,” Gus tells us.

Well…me. Bryan doesn’t look like he’s listening as he practically tiptoes down the aisle, looking more apprehensive of the felines than they are of him.

“If they’re not fixed by the time they’re adopted, we organize for that to happen with their new owners.

” Gus continues. “We do our best to profile our guests all on our socials to attract people from farther afield, but it’s difficult. ”

“When we get litters of kittens, they always go fast,” Paisley says, sounding less than bubbly for the first time since we arrived. “But the older cats…”

I shake my head, not needing her to finish her sentence. “I don’t think I want a kitten or a puppy. I want to give someone a chance that might not have had one yet.”

“We have plenty of those,” Gus says, his voice warm but also a little sad as well.

They take their time as they show me along the row of cats.

As predicted, I could easily take every single one of them.

Who knows? If I don’t work out what else to do with my time, perhaps I’ll just turn my home into an animal sanctuary.

But I’m not feeling that pull I was hoping for with any of them in particular.

Maybe I was wrong and I actually do need a higher energy pet right now to keep me on my toes. Rather than a calming presence, I might need a little crazy to get me out of bed in the mornings. Am I really going to find that here? Should I change tactics now and go look at the?—?

“Holy shit!” I yelp as the cage to my left suddenly rattles and hisses. Okay, so obviously it’s not the cage that hisses. It’s the raging ball of orange fluff inside it. I grab my chest and laugh at myself, taking a breath and peering at the retreating aggressor. “Is…is that a tiny lion?”

Gus and Paisley laugh at me, but not unkindly. “Oh, that’s Flow,” Gus says with an exasperated sigh. “We haven’t had her long. She’s a Maine Coon, but she was so matted when she arrived, we had to shave most of her body to start over again.”

“She had to be sedated for that,” Paisley half-whispers, keeping her distance.

“She was a stray?” I ask.

The cat in front of us might be naked aside from the puffs of floof around her head, paws, and the tip of her tail. But she also has these big blue eyes that are looking at me with such intensity that I can’t help but see her beauty despite her fear.

Gus nods. “A cat like that needs grooming every single day. She would have been in a lot of discomfort—maybe even pain—from the matting.”

My heartstrings tug in my chest. All cats should have access to shelter and regular food in my opinion. But breeds like this need extra special care, and she’s just been left out in the wild to fend for herself.

“You know her name is Flow, though?” I ask, assuming she had a home once and was microchipped.

However, Gus shakes his head. “We know nothing about her other than she was rescued from a river during one of the recent downpours. No collar or chip until we gave her one, no one posting about missing her online that we could find. We guess that she’s about a year old, and I don’t think she’s belonged to anyone her whole, short life. ”

I bite my lip, my gaze still locked with her blue one. That’s so sad. “So you named her Flow because of the river, yeah?”

“Yep! A firefighter pulled her out!” Paisley tells me excitedly.

“He literally jumped into the water to get her and then a bunch of other firefighters had to get them both back out again when they got stuck! I saw a video compilation on TikTok. Super dramatic. That first firefighter brought her into us himself. Wouldn’t leave until he knew she was going to be okay. ”

I blink, looking between the staff and this miracle kitty. I already know she’s the one, but I have to ask. “Didn’t he want to keep her?”

Gus smiles and carefully extends his fingers through the wire loops. Flow creeps forward to sniff them. “I think he would have loved to. He said something about someone being allergic at home.”

“His mom and one of his brothers, I think,” Paisley adds. “But a cat like this is going to be a hell of a lot of work for whoever adopts her. Not for the faint of heart. I reckon she’s probably going to be here a very long?—”

“I’ll take her,” I say firmly, not taking my eyes off Flow’s blue ones. I’m not sure about that name, I must admit. But hopefully she hasn’t gotten attached to it yet.

“You will?” Gus asks in surprise.

“We will?” Bryan asks with far more urgency.

I snicker at him and pat his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I promise this is all on me. No lion-taming duties will be added to your roster.”

As if on cue, Flow swipes at us again before hunching down and hissing.

“You could pick literally any animal in here,” Bryan mutters, sounding genuinely concerned. He eyes up my ginger menace warily in spite of my promise to him.

Gus laughs fondly. “We wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to keep looking.”

“Seriously,” Paisley adds with a wince.

I shake my head. “It sounds like Flow’s going through a dramatic life change,” I explain to the three of them. “I can relate to that. Maybe we can help each other and build a home together.”

“Oh…” Paisley said faintly. I glance to see her looking all melty at me. “That’s beautiful.”

“Not the adjective I’d pick,” Bryan grumbles, squinting at Flow. “But you do like a challenge, don’t you?”

I grin at him. He knows me well enough by now to tell when I’ve made up my mind.

“Yes, I do,” I murmur.

Speaking of someone who likes a challenge…

“You said a local firefighter rescued her?” I prompt Gus.

He nods, but it’s Paisley who answers. “During a flash flood! He was sooooo brave and sooooo hot and…” Gus quirks an eyebrow at her in a very fatherly manner, and she stops talking with a squeak.

“He does sound brave,” I agree. “I’d love to meet him.”

If I’m going to commit to taking Flow home with me, I want to make absolutely certain that her original savior isn’t having any lingering second thoughts. I’ll be disappointed if he changes his mind and wanted to adopt her himself, but I’d rather know for sure.

And—not that my dating life is anywhere close to a priority right now—but if he’s sooooo hot…it might not be a chore to say hello and thank him for what he did, right?

“I bet he’d love to meet you,” Gus says enthusiastically. “Let me go find his details. I’m sure we took down his number.”

“If not, there’s literally only one fire house in town,” Paisley tells me helpfully, a sparkle in her eyes.

“I think we’ve disrupted quite enough businesses for one day,” Bryan says in mild alarm.

As much as I want to get this over and done with as soon as possible, I have to agree with him. It’s one thing to drop in on the shelter when no one else is around. It’s quite another to potentially interrupt a working fire station.

But if I could arrange a one-on-one with this guy before officially taking Flow home, I know I’d feel a lot better. I’m ready to get on with this new phase of my life.

Hopefully, this firefighter can help me out with that.