Most Likely to Turn Up the Heat

By Cheryl Harper

Max Holt's days as high school security guard are numbered. Now that he's recovered from the gunshot wound that forced his detour from Dallas cop to small-town security, he's ready for the adrenaline and satisfaction of his old life.

Sue Walker has a solid dating policy: NO SOLDIERS, NO COPS, NO COWORKERS. Other than those simple guidelines, she's happy to keep an open mind. But teasing Max? That brightens every single day at Lincoln High.

When Max turns up the heat, Sue's got a difficult decision on her hands.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Publishing
• Release date: Feb 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781094438511

Cheryl Harper

Cheryl Harper discovered her love for books and words as a little girl, thanks to a mother who made countless library trips and an introduction to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House stories. Whether it’s the prairie or Regency England or Earth a hundred years in the future, Cheryl enjoys strong characters who make her laugh. Now she spends her days searching for the right words while she stares out the window and her dog snoozes beside her. 

Book preview

Chapter One

Sue Walker inched closer to the open doorway. The boss and her current flame, Ryan Myers, were awfully quiet. This could be a perfect time to shake things up.

Lindy Mason, principal of Lincoln High School, was the kind of woman who liked her ducks in a uniform row, all moving in lockstep precision. She was a great principal, good friend, and all around excellent human being.

Sue contributed to that by loosening the knots here and there.

In Lindy’s line of ducks, Sue was the straggler. She stayed in line, but she chose to moonwalk instead of march.

Jackpot. Ryan and Lindy were standing close together in a shaft of late afternoon sun. Any minute he would press his lips to hers.

Sue was half a second from issuing her best girlish hmm-hmm-hmm when a hard hand wrapped around her biceps and pulled her away from the door.

I could arrest you for being a Peeping Sue. Max Holt guided her back around the long counter and urged her to sit in her desk chair without a single pinch of pain.

Gentle but firm.

Sue fluttered her eyelashes up at him. Are you going to put me in handcuffs, officer?

A man snapping to attention that fast should have his own sound effects. In half a second, he’d let her go and retreated three steps to stand at parade rest, both hands clasped firmly behind his back.

And that was really too bad.

Having Max Holt’s hands on her, even if he wanted to lecture at the same time, would never be a hardship.

The only thing protecting him from her patented seduction technique was her love for her job. Never getting honey where she made her money was one rule Sue had made and kept.

Don’t you have enough work to keep you busy? Max snatched a folder off the counter. A white envelope fluttered to the floor. Security reports. Paper clips instead of staples as you insist. The folder sliced neatly through the air as Max thrust it her direction.

Almost everything about him was hard edges. In Sue’s experience, lots of military and law enforcement types who returned to normal life kept the high-and-tight haircut and let everything else relax into civilian softness.

Max’s soft salt-and-pepper curls were a nice contrast for the hard muscles.

All of those muscles were tensed, ready for combat.

With her.

She made him nervous.

That was fun.

Sue made sure to keep one eye on Max’s face as she bent to pick up the envelope. Nothing in his posture changed, but his tension made it hard to catch her breath until she handed the envelope over.

I was about to tell Lindy that I need to leave early this afternoon. She crossed her legs slowly. Hot date tonight. With a fireman. Lindy waited. Get it? Hot? Fireman?

Max grunted.

I thought we were joking around. Peeping Sue? That indicates that our normal patterns of me trying to get you to lighten up and you grunting in response had turned a corner. She covered her heart with one hand. Oh, dear. Was I mistaken? Have you had your sense of humor permanently removed?

The thing about sparring with Max was that he could maintain an expressionless expression better than anyone she’d ever met.

And her father was career army so that was saying something.

The small twitch under the corner of his eye could have been irritation. Or amusement. Or a nervous tick. Hard to say.

But it was some kind of reaction.

"Two dates with the same guy?" Lindy asked from her spot at the counter. How had Sue missed her arrival?

She was slipping. Her ability to track everything that was happening in her domain was a point of pride. No one came in or out without her knowledge. Max had distracted her.

Different fireman. Sue wrinkled her nose at Lindy and ignored the twist of jealousy that reared up when handsome Ryan Myers draped a hand over Lindy’s shoulder. They’d had some missteps, but lately, everything between them was fairy-tale sweet.

That was enough to make even the most supportive of coworkers queasy with envy.

Great dress. I wondered what the occasion was, since you usually do retro Fridays. Lindy picked up the crisp folder of security reports and flipped through them before setting the folder back on Sue’s desk. Before Ryan, Lindy would have returned to her desk to commit the stats to memory. Now, she had better plans.

I’ve learned that beehives and cat-eye glasses can have a dampening effect on romance with certain types. Sue liked to play around with clothes and hair. Her father’s strict insistence that she be neat and presentable at all times had created a fashion renegade.

That was what she told herself. Really, she had a short attention span. Changing her hair was an easy way to add some fun to her life. So was dinner with a lot of different men.

So today I went for basic black. Firemen may lack imagination and fashion-forwardness, but they make up for that in other ways. Sue ignored Lindy’s coughed laugh to watch Max

closely for more delicious reaction. His lips tightened and she was pretty sure she knew how lottery winners felt.

What are you doing this weekend? Lindy tapped the counter. We could come over and help you unpack. Ryan can handle the heavy lifting. Her lips twitched when Ryan Myers made struck a pose.

Max had crossed his arms over his chest.

No pose necessary. His biceps were bigger.

Every spare hour Sue had for a month had involved unpacking or DIY. The small house she’d bought on the outskirts of Lincoln came with decades of wallpaper and enough space for kids to roam.

Her personal vendetta against wallpaper had taken its toll, but at some point, sore muscles had disappeared. Home ownership might have benefits in addition to never having to memorize a new address.

Sure, but if you can’t make it, Sue said as she waved a hand, "we’ll call it a party game.

Everyone who unpacks a box at the end-of-the-school-year picnic gets a hot dog. Seems fair to me."

The insistence that they could have the party in her cramped backyard, like they had as long as Sue and Lindy had both been working at Lincoln, was on the tip of Lindy’s tongue.

None of her co-workers liked change, but Lindy had done some changing since Ryan and Maddie Myers