“Really?” She looked at Lock. “Wow, that’d be so cool. But when?”
“Why not this week while you’re all at conference? It’s not like our wedding isn’t already organised, there’s nothing to do but wait now until the big day. Do you guys have to be at the conference all day every day?”
They all looked at each other before Dylan spoke first. “There’s a couple of sessions I don’t need to be at.” Dare and Lock looked at each other and agreed.
“And me,” added Logan. “Once my presentation is out the way Wednesday, I’m home free.”
“But what would you do with the pictures?” Lock asked. “Do we just hang them on a wall when they’re done?”
“I don’t know. Maybe auction them like Caleb’s? Raise money for charity? What about the Bushfire Appeal?”
“A calendar!” Caleb said. “Featuring all of us. We could be the next firefighter calendar, not with photos this time, but sketches.”
“But no buttocks,” Ava promised, really getting excited now. If there was something that got her enthusiasm going, it was a new creative project, and she felt that same zing of energy she’d felt when she’d hit on sketching Caleb’s back. “You’d have to have your pants on at least.”
Dylan shook his head. “But there’s not enough of us for a full twelve months.”
Ava counted them off on her fingers as Bella and Hannie returned. “But there’s Caleb, Logan, Dylan, Lock, and Dare, and I could do one with both of them too, so that’s half the year covered.”
“I can round up a few of the troops,” Caleb said. “I reckon Richo will be in like Flynn for starters. I’ll talk to Mike, our station manager, see what he reckons, whether it’ll work. But I can’t see why it wouldn’t.”
Ava hit the ground running. Caleb rounded up his crew, so she had Matt, Tina, and Richo, and even Mike put up his hand, and Dylan pulled in a couple of his crew to make up the twelve.
It was a very rowdy bunch that got together the next Friday night in the cocktail bar after the wedding rehearsal, waiting to check out the sketches, cheering as each was revealed. There was Caleb bare chested, thumbs hooked in his low slung pants, and Dylan kneeling on the ground with Hannie’s Labrador sitting between his legs. Dare was standing hands on hips and wearing a bandeau over pants, the licking flames of her bold tattoo embracing the smooth tight round of her baby bump. A bare chested Logan balanced an axe in his wide grip, while Mike struck a blow for the fifty-somethings, square jawed and stern, the curls of his chest hair greying on a body surprisingly buff, though Caleb searched for him to see his reaction and saw he wasn’t there – he’d slipped off to one side, pressing his phone hard to his ear.
One by one the sketches were revealed to cheers and applause but it was the picture of Richo that got the most laughs, posing with a hip height spraying hose.
“What?” he said, his arm tight around Gillian on his lap, when Tina snorted.
“I’ve spoken to headquarters,” Mike said, back with them after the last picture had been revealed and the laughter and cheers had died down, “and I want you to know they’re behind this project one hundred percent as a fundraiser for the Bushfire Relief Appeal. Ava’s going to work up the finals and then it’s off to the printer.”
More cheers and clinking of glasses ensued. “There’s only one thing left to decide,” he added, “and that’s a name for the calendar.”
“Beefcake on Parade!” yelled Dylan.
“Firing Up,” suggested Matt.
“Richo with his Favourite Thing,” called Tina, and the mob descended into fits of laughter again and even Gillian laughed this time.
“I’ve got a suggestion,” Ava said, when the laughs died down, for once having no trouble figuring a title for a collection. “I think it should be called Brothers Forged in Fire, because even if you’re not a Knight or don’t have the tattoo, isn’t that what you all as firefighters are?”
It was unanimous and there were cheers all around.
It took five minutes for the din to die down before Mike raised his hand and asked for silence again.
“But headquarters had some even better news they want me to share with you all. The results of the investigation into last year’s Victorian bushfire has just tonight been released – and drum roll please, because, as we damned well knew should be the case, Leonard Knight has been exonerated of all charges!”
Everyone was up cheering and back slapping then, the Knight brothers and cousins and their firey mates and even the soon to be Knight women.
“To Leonard Knight!” cried Caleb in the midst of the din, holding up his glass.
“To Leonard!” everyone toasted, and the legend lived on.
Later that night Caleb was standing behind Ava on the balcony of their suite overlooking the ocean, his arms wrapped lovingly around her body, and if there was a chill in the air, neither of them felt it. Tomorrow they would be married here, in the ballroom overlooking the beach while tonight the sky above was inky blue, a big moon sending a ribbon of gold across the ocean. Meanwhile, a big corner spa bath was filling in the en suite.
“You really are something special,” Caleb said. “Clever. Gorgeous. Not to mention sexy as hell.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to her throat, breathing in the lemon scent of her hair, his hands scooping low around her hips, his thumbs edging close to her sex.
She made a sound like a purr, and angled her head to give his mouth free reign. “I do believe the feeling is mutual.”
“You know the guys are all crazy about you. They already were, but you’ve really won them over with this calendar idea.”
She turned in his arms, slid hers around his neck and pressed her lips to the vee of his open shirt, squirming her hips closer against his
