When Your Heart's on Fire .... Smoke gets in Your Eyes

Sometimes it's easy to see yourself in someone else's line of work. To imagine going through the doors of a Hospital or an office building on a Monday morning ready for another workday. To see yourself interviewing patients, victims of a felony, "pushing papers", attending meetings and generally just doing the things we watch professionals do in RL and on TV.

But can you imagine yourself heading down the road in a speeding fire engine, can you imagine going towards a burning building instead of running away from it or donning a breathing apparatus preparing to go in ? Probably not ! But don't worry you don't need to harbour a death wish to look up the stories mentioned below sporting fire fighters and the ladies that they cast hot glances .... just stay clear of the fire!

So where to start? Well fire fighters of the female gender got to be kind of butch, so I thought that we could head in the direction of Larisa to see if she has a fire fighter among her protagonists. Yeps - found one .... her name is Jake, she has raven coloured hair and lives at the fire house or she did until she got suspended for putting herself at risk ... again. It is Artemis luck that Jake did put herself at risk, otherwise Artemis would have died, stuck in her car when it caught fire in a crash. "Flames of a Soul" is a pretty standard Larisa fic - go for it if you want to watch a fire fighter do her heroic work of saving lives and getting singed by hot flames and ... a bit of loving.

Let's move on to something a little more poetic this time a fic sporting Jo - chief of the local fire department - and Sisters - a twin house on a lakeside. If you listen real carefully you will probably be able to hear Jo's cursing over the noise of hammering and electric work tools being put to use next door. Miranda and her young daughter Hope has taken over the other half of the twin house, and Jo is not amused - this is after all "her" house, where she can mop around - undisturbed - thinking of her disastrous relationship with Laurel, her fights with the Town Council and her latest conspiracy theory. This time Jo has a lucky mix to brood over - one dead man, a murder suspect on the run, an innocent child, a woman with a lot of cash, a new beautiful, and blond neighbour, and her own heart. If you look up "Where There's Smoke" you can watch Jo do her heroic fire fighters act while she looks for a murderess and gets tangled up with a hot blond. I found the story well worth my reading time.

Now imagine yourself in a burning building, smoke making it hard for you to see your surroundings,  then a fire fighter comes along .... what to you do - get up and follow her or sit back and let her walk away?  Well if you have tried just about everything to kill yourself you might be thinking that this is your best chance of getting rid of your life, so I guess you might actually stay. If that fire fighter is worth anything she will probably just throw you over her shoulder and carry you out. This is not really a story on fire fighters as Alley - our heroic fire fighter - is just doing her stretch of community service as a fire fighter, her day job is much less heroic, but to Erin she proves to be a real life saver. Look up "Trial by Fire" if you want a short humorous romance with just a little bit of smoke inhalation.

Fire fighting is a dangerous business, but somehow even in the worst of times our protagonists always, always ....  manages to walk out of the blazing fires alive. But Cheyne Curry do makes you wonder if this is also going to be the case for Jenna once she joins her colleagues of fire fighters at the site of the World Trade Centre on 9/11. If you want to know if Jenna makes it and reunites with her lover Brynne then look up "The Pocket Watch". This is not a mushy romance but an account of the devastating experiences of 9/11 - so don't open "The Pocket Watch" unless you are ready to turn back time and relive the terror of 9/11.

As you are probably aware Fire Fighters are not the only emergency personnel who will lend a helping hand to a woman in need. So if you have finished putting you life at risk then join Donna and Aleta who are paramedics when they respond to a 911 call at four o'clock in the morning. I guess that in this line of business you get to see the most bizarre things and finding a tennis shoe attached to a nice but very swollen calf protruding from the living room ceiling of a house must be classified as bizarre  - at least if you take account of the hour. "Match Made in Heaven" is a short, fun fling - it wont take you long to read, and it might put a smile on your face. 

Now lets get back to business - when that 911 call comes in and the dispatcher calls your unit you don't have time for flirting even if you line of business is not to run into the flames, but to administer to the sick and wounded as a paramedic. Don't worry we will still find a few tough cookies in this line of work .... even some of those delicious ones, you know the one's crispy hard on the outside and soft ... when you bit into them!

"Lights and Sirens" by Jeanine Hoffman is the story of Chloe, a paramedic who is able to put her own life in danger to save others, but is too scared to face her feelings and risk her heart for love. This time though Chloe is in luck as Cait - her best friend and love interest - is willing to step up to the plate and ask for what she wants. If you choose to look up the story of Chloe and Cait you'll be treated to the story of their lives and those of their close friends and colleagues - romance in the line of fire and such seems to be the order of the day. The story is well worth a read if you take an interest in the work of paramedics and fire fighters.

There are still a few stories with prize fire fighting women to explore if you fancy this theme, but the once mentioned above are the ones I prefer:

• "Incendiary" by Geonn Cannon
• "Blown Away", "Fire and Ice" and "Second Wind" by Kim Baldwin
• "A Fire Ignited Within" by Nanook
• "The Blaze", "Inferno" and "Flashpoint" by ArdentTly