Chasing the Fire (Backdraft, Fully Involved, Flashover) (22 page)

Her pretty eyes glimmered, even in the dim
light. “Yeah, Captain?” She leaned over so the V in her shirt gaped
a bit. “What kind of woman do you find attractive?”

“Hmm.” There was that spell she cast over him
again. Raising his eyes to her hair, he said what was in his heart.
“I like natural hair. I’m partial to curly.” His gaze lowered to
hers. “Hazel eyes that turn green, I bet, at, um, certain times.
Rounded cheeks. Freckles…”

Her cheeks flushed. “I—”

Just then the group at the end of the bar
he’d noticed earlier came up to his table. “Hey, Cap, I thought
that was you.” Riley Gallagher turned to Stacey. “Stace!” He
dragged her out of the chair and gave her a big hug. “How are you?
It’s been ages.”

She hugged Jane next. “I miss you,
Stacey.”

Even Lisa Beth took her in an embrace. These
people obviously had a history with her. Which maybe he needed to
see. He’d always considered Riley and Jane as kids. The fact that
they were friends with Stacey made his and her age difference—her
experience difference—more obvious.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Nick said.

Stacey gave him a questioning look. He knew
in his gut she wanted to keep the earlier, more intimate
conversation going.

They made room for the four of them, putting
Stacey farther away from him. Physically and metaphorically.

“I think it’s great you’re working on the
Christmas party.” Jane squeezed Stacey’s hand. “Jess would be
pleased.”

She gave them a weak smile. And Nick thought,
even they didn’t consider him a likely suitor.

He bought another round of drinks, while the
young ones reminisced. “Remember when Jess climbed to the roof of
the public pool in high school and dared us all to skinny dip.”

Jesus.

“And that party at the lake. How many kegs
did we go through?”

Lisa Beth said, “I didn’t know him as a young
man, but Jess was a terrific firefighter. Brave, kind.” She
actually winked at Nick. “And by-the-book, right Cap?”

“Right. I hear you two are behaving
yourselves.”

“You bet,” Riley said.

“What are you talking about?” Stacey
asked.

“Lisa Beth and I broke some rules last
summer.” This from Riley.

The doctor with them, Linc Roberts, rubbed
his jaw. “And almost my jaw.”
There were smiles all around, more stories.

And it hit him like a ton of bricks that he
could no longer ignore or push to the side. These were the people
she should be hanging out with. Not some old man who, as Kelly’s
call had reminded him, had come as close to murder as he could get
without shooting or stabbing someone.

They’d sobered him. Made a decision for him,
one he’d been dancing around since he’d met Stacey. He’d been
letting go with her. Letting himself get to know her. Like her. Get
horny for her. And that wasn’t right. Not with someone as good,
kind and happy as Stacey. He’d only drag her down.

He watched Riley, Jane and Lisa Beth, glad
they’d joined the two of them before he’d done something totally
stupid and irrevocable.

oOo

SOMETHING HAD HAPPENED
to Nick right
after he blatantly told her he was attracted to her. Her friends
had sat with them awhile, and she wondered if they’d talked too
much about Jess. Excluded Nick from the conversation. It was
obvious they thought her relationship with him was business, and
the notion disconcerted her.

She was even more disconcerted when the group
said their good-byes, and she turned to Nick.

He drained the rest of his beer. “I’m ready
to leave if you are.”

“Oh.” She glanced down at the round of drinks
he’d bought; she’d only consumed half of her beer. “Sure. Me, too,
I guess.”

He stood abruptly. Gone was the fluid ease
with which he usually moved. With which he’d starred on the
basketball court only a few hours earlier. Now he was stiff,
formal. He waited for her to get on her jackets and accompany him
to the door. Confused, she walked beside him out into the cool
October night, not nearly as chilly as he’d become. She pulled her
outer coat closer around her, poor armor against Nick’s sudden
freeze out. When they reached her Blazer, parked next to his
Bronco, she turned to him. In the light from the parking lot, his
face was cast in shadows accenting the hard planes and somber
angles.

“Hey, this was fun.” His tone was cool.
Distant.

Should she push, or bid him good-night? Was
she going to play it safe and protect her ego or go after what she
wanted? “Nick, what just happened in there?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well,” she said exasperated. “You told me
you liked my looks, more than that really, then you closed down
when the others sat at our table.”

“No, no. I…” He trailed off and watched
her.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No, it’s me.”

Oh, shit, the
it’s not you, it’s me
line.

Still, she asked, “What’s you?”

“I’m…I’m not the man you think I am.”

“Truthfully, I don’t know what to think of
you. You vacillate back and forth with me too much. I want to get
to know you better, go further with what’s between us. I’ve made
that pretty clear.”

“You don’t want to know me better, Stacey,”
he said gravely. “You should be with someone more like Riley,
younger, carefree.”

“Shouldn’t who I keep company with be up to
me?”

“No, it’s up to me. To protect you.”

“From
yourself?”
Now she felt anger
spark inside her. “Isn’t that a little patronizing?”

“Maybe so.”

At a loss for what to do, she waited. She
only knew about men through Jess, and he didn’t have this
Jekyll-and-Hyde persona to him. But damn it, she felt something for
this guy. So she raised her arms and slid them around his neck. It
was dim here under the trees, and the cars blocked anyone’s view of
them. She moved in closer. “Unless you can give me a good reason,
why don’t you kiss me?”

He shook his head.

“Nick…” She went up on her tiptoes. Whispered
in his ear, “Kiss me again. Just once.”

“I won’t be able to stop at once this
time.”

“There you go, then.” Reading that as
concession, she plastered her body against his.

He remained stiff, unyielding…for about ten
seconds. Then his arms slid inside her coat and banded around her
in a fierce embrace so unlike the gentle connection they’d made the
night they had dinner. His mouth came down hard on hers and he took
it, devoured it, feasted himself.

She encouraged him. She angled her head for
better access. His tongue probed her lips and she opened to him,
demanded more from him. He tasted so male, so masculine.

He gave her more—more hot, hard and heavy.
His arms totally encompassed her and his lower body bucked into
hers. She pressed back, deepened the kiss, moaned.

The sound of a car’s horn blaring stopped
him. He wrenched away. “Jesus Christ.”

Disoriented, and chilled from the loss of his
warmth, she reached for him again.

“No.” He stepped back from her. “I don’t want
this with you.”

“You acted like you wanted it just now. For
weeks, really, though you’ve been fighting it.” She said the words,
not so nicely. But added more gently, “Take me home. Come inside
with me this time. Let’s see where this goes.”

“Stacey, sweetheart, you’re too wholesome,
too unspoiled for me.”

Wholesome
was a word no woman wanted
to hear in this situation. “Again, you’re patronizing me Nick. And
it’s damned stupid, if you ask me.”

“I’m not asking. I’m telling. This isn’t
going anywhere between us. I’ve been trying to make this decision
for weeks and tonight solidified it.”

“Then I want specifics why.”

His hand cupped her cheek. It was warm and
she was shivering from the cold, from the loss of him. “I’m not
giving you specifics.”

“That’s not fair.”

“See, you’re an innocent.
Life
is not
fair.”

“Don’t treat me like a child. I’ve had a lot
of tragedy in my life. I know sadness so deep it swallows you up.
But we’re alive, Nick, and free.” Her eyes widened. “We both are,
aren’t we?”

“Free as in unattached, yes. In other ways,
I’ll never be free.”

“What’s so wrong with
this?”
She waved
to encompass him. Them.

“I won’t do it.” He stepped even farther back
and shut completely down. The blast of frigidity wasn’t from the
night air. “Now get in the car and drive away,” he said curtly.
“We’ll work on the Christmas project together but keep things
between us professional. It should have stayed that way from the
beginning.” He raised his eyes to the heavens.
“What
was I
thinking?”

Suddenly, all the doubts Stacey had about
herself, all the feelings of not being feminine enough,
sophisticated enough, converged. He’d battered her feminine ego
with his words and icy demeanor and she couldn’t withstand the
emotional barrage. Why had she ever thought she could be enough for
this man?

“You’ve got that wrong,” she said in a cold
flat voice. What was
I
thinking?” She dug in her pocket for
her car keys. “Good night, Nick. I’ll go along with what you ask.
Let’s do as much as we can for the party through email. I don’t
want to be near you again for a while.”

She turned, unlocked the Bronco and yanked
open the door, forcing him to step back. Slamming it, she stuck the
key in the ignition and the engine roared to life. Without looking
back, she tore out of the parking lot, never before in her life
feeling so inadequate as a woman.

oOo

NICK WOKE UP
the morning after his
fiasco with Stacey, having dreamed all last night of the look on
her face when he’d rejected her. Now, in the stark light of day, he
remembered some of what he’d said that could have kicked into her
vulnerability.

“Fuck!” was his first word of the day. He’d
recognized her lack of self-confidence before. She felt inadequate
as a femme fatale, which she wasn’t. She was a real,
flesh-and-blood woman who’d turned him on from day one. But he
could never fix the damage he’d done to her feminine ego, because
he wasn’t planning to see her outside of the party planning.

He bounded out of bed, hit the john, showered
fast and was downstairs, having coffee, when the phone rang. The
caller ID said Taylor. Huh. He could use a dose of his daughter’s
love today.

“Hey, honey, how are you?”

“Not good, Dad.”

His father’s uh-oh alarm went off. Taylor had
ridden with the punches when he and Lucinda had divorced. She
seemed well-adjusted, though he didn’t get to see her enough.

“Tell me.”

“Mom’s going on a cruise for Thanksgiving.
With some asshole.”

She was sixteen. Should he object to her
language? Nah, not the time. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“She wants me to go stay with Aunt Janet in
Rome.”

Lucinda’s family lived in Europe, as her
mother had been born in the UK. He’d met Lucinda at a fashion show
in New York City, where a fire had broken out. She’d moved here to
marry him but had never been happy as a firefighter’s wife.

“Dad?”

“You’re not going to Aunt Janet’s. You’re
coming to Hidden Cove.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, having my only child with me on the
holiday will be what I need right now. When can you fly over?”

“The week of Thanksgiving. I have to be back
the Monday after.”

“Super.”

“It sounds like fun, Dad.”

“For me, too, sweetie. I’ll make the
arrangements.”

“No, I will. Let Mom pay for it.” With one of
her trust funds.

He laughed.

Taylor’s call brought thoughts of Stacey
again. Who would she spend the holiday with? Jimmy Curtis? Jess’s
family? He had a quick flash of being with her in bed Thanksgiving
morning, and the urge to call her, to grovel and beg was
overwhelming. Grabbing another cup of coffee, he stared out the
window.
Remember what you did, Evans. Remember why you can’t be
with her
…

He’d been twenty-seven and finally had gotten
his sister back, after seven long years. The police had suspected
she was a runaway, but Nick knew in his heart that wasn’t true. And
one day, she was found wandering around midtown Manhattan, and the
cops brought her to him. When she’d told him she’d been kidnapped,
he’d gone ballistic. The police never found the perpetrator.

He’d lived in a small house in Brooklyn with
another firefighter and two guys from the police department. When
Kelly returned, she’d moved into his bedroom, and he slept on an
air mattress. A full year went by before she confessed the worst.
And it was only because they got a visit one morning when they were
having fun making French toast and bacon for themselves and his
housemates, who’d been on the night shift and weren’t home yet…

“Nicky, the doorbell rang.” Kelly still never
answered it.

“Maybe the guys forgot their keys.” Nick
walked to the entryway and opened the door.

A short guy, with slicked-back hair and an
oily cast to his olive skin, stood before him with two bruiser-like
guys. Bodyguards? Nick’s instinct to protect went on red alert. The
little man said, with an accent Nick couldn’t place, “I think you
have something of mine, Mr. Evans.”

“What? And who the hell are you?”

He heard a gasp behind him and turned. “Mr.
Alban?” Kelly had turned totally white…and totally submissive. She
lowered her eyes, her shoulders hunched and she clasped her hands
in front of her. She also remained silent.

“I want my purchase back. It’s taken me
months to find her.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

He smiled evilly. “Have you seen the tattoo
on her neck?”

He had. She wouldn’t discuss the strange
horizontal set of lines.

“It’s a bar code. A
Bill of Sale.
To
me.”