Flirting With Fire (Hometown Heroes) (12 page)

* * * *

I snuck my
portable massage chair outside and into my trunk the next morning. Knock on
wood, I’d done so without drawing any unwanted local attention. The trunk of my
Prix had just shut when my neighbor Hank stepped outside—a good thing, since
Hank and Mitch were old buddies. I didn’t need him going and telling Mitch I
was up to anything unusual. That would surely lead to more questions, and Sarah
freaking out again.

And after
spending forty-five minutes on the phone last night ironing out things between
us, that was the last thing I wanted to have happen.

We’d ironed, but
neither came completely clean: she sort of apologized, and I sort of forgave
her. But I was done playing doormat, that much I had decided. And since she’d
been the one to cave in and call the other first, I think that message was
received loud and clear. In the end I’d decided to keep quiet about my new
moonlighting gig—didn’t want to start rebuilding the bridge between us, only to
douse it with gasoline and light a new match.

So as I stepped
out of my car at Torrunn’s firehouse that night, I can’t say it was without
guilt. Never before had I snuck around behind Sarah’s back. Hopefully, things
would soon calm down and the deceit could stop.

“Here, let me
get that for you.”

“Uh, thanks,” I
said as a hulk of a man took the folded massage chair from my hands. It weighed
a bloody ton, and after having to lift it both in and out of my trunk already
today, I was more than happy to have modern chivalry step in and take over.

“You must be
Torrunn’s friend, Liz.”

“Yes. And you
are?”

“Joe Wozniak, at
your service.”

My hero of the
moment gave me a quick once over, then started for Engine House One’s back
door. He was short and stocky, with the neck of a middle lineman. His hair was
kept short, nearly a buzz, but not short enough to hide its gray dusting. Upon
seeing his profile, I noticed he also had a slight underbite. Like a human
bulldog. I stifled a grin as I scurried ahead of him to get the door.

Inside, I was
greeted by the sound of male voices competing with a blaring television. Joe
walked ahead of me, calling for Torrunn to get his ‘worthless fanny over here’.
The jovial clamor continued until the room’s occupants began to register one by
one that there was now a lady in their presence. Within a matter of seconds, eight
pairs of eyes were on us and all conversation had ceased, making the television
the ultimate noise winner.

“Oh, what’er you
all looking at?” Joe growled as he continued through the room. “Go on, move
over.”

Bodies of all
shapes and sizes stepped out of Joe’s way. Unfortunately, from my brief initial
sweep of their faces, none were anywhere near as handsome as Torrunn. I
silently berated myself at the shallow thought—looks certainly weren’t
everything, and my handsome new client was hardly a fair benchmark. I followed
Joe through a door held open by a tall, lean blond firefighter who smiled
broadly as we passed, and worked on a quick mental attitude adjustment.

“Liz! You made
it!”

Torrunn approached
us, and my body both tensed and melted at the same time. I wanted to kick
myself.

“Hey. Yep, I sure
did.”

Instead of
stopping beside Joe, or extending his hand for a friendly shake, Torrunn kept
right on coming toward me, stopping only when we were practically toe to toe. I
stared up at him, mute and confused by his intrusion on my personal space.

Then, without
warning, he kissed me.

And not just any
kiss, mind you. No, this was a both hands cupping my face while his luscious,
full lips pressed full into mine—
that
kind of kiss. I froze at first
contact, surprised and shocked by his boldness. But damn, if that wasn’t the
most amazing kiss I’d ever had. My eyes slid shut, and without thinking I began
to melt into those lips, my body arching toward his.

A millisecond
later, my brain caught up with what was happening. Logic screamed at me to
stop, he was my client! Desire told logic to shut the hell up.

Much to my
libido’s chagrin, the kiss was over as unexpectedly as it had begun. Torrunn
withdrew his hands, breaking the spell he’d put me under. My eyes flew open as
he turned to face Joe, his hand now settling on the small of my back.

“So, Joe, you
met Liz? Isn’t she great?”

“Not like you, I
didn’t meet her,” Joe grumbled and dropped my chair to the floor. “Kids these
days. We don’t need to be seeing none of that.”

“No, we certainly
don’t,” I said, and stepped away from beneath Torrunn’s touch before I did
something stupid. Like punch him for kissing me like that. He’d just set the
bar to an unattainably high level for any other man. “So, uh, where am I going,
exactly?”

Torrunn pointed
toward the door at the other end of the room. “I was thinking we could set you
up in there. What do you think, Joe? Will the smaller conference room be a
quiet enough space?”

“As quiet as it
can be around here.” Joe’s eyes narrowed. “But don’t think we won’t hear what’s
going on back there.”

An awkward
silence ensued. I shifted my gaze to the door, eager to escape the fatherly
look Joe was giving us.
A better spot would be a big rock…that I could crawl
under for the foreseeable future…

Finally, Torrunn
stepped forward and took the massage chair out of Joe’s hands. “Thanks, man. I
can take it from here.”

“I’m sure you
can,” Joe muttered, giving him a wary look. Then his gaze shifted back to me.
“Holler if you need help.”

“Will do.”

Something told
me that Joe was the proverbial sheriff in these here woods. He held my gaze a
moment longer, then gave us a nod and headed back into the room with the others.
Who, I now saw, were all watching us through the door’s window. I managed a
small smile, then crossed the room and opened its second door, which presumably
led to the smaller conference room.

Once the door
clicked closed behind us, I spun around, fist drawn back and ready to strike.
“What the
hell
was that?”

“Whoa, calm
down!” He shrank back from me, and set the chair down. “I had to do it, for
your own good. You have to trust me on this!”

“
Trust
you? After a stunt like
that
?”

“Just let me
explain!”

I spun away from
him before I did punch him. Or kiss him. Or both. “Damn it, Torrunn! What, did
you plan all this? Talk me into coming here to,” I made air quotes, “‘
help
your friends’
so what, you could pounce on me like that?” The memory of
that kiss washed back over me, and I growled as I tried to suppress it. “How was
that in any way, shape, or form
for my own good
?”

“I do want you
here to help the guys, I really do!” he said, his hands open. Pleading. “It’s
just that, well, some of them are a little unpredictable when it comes to women
and dating. I wanted to make sure they knew you were off-limits—I’d feel horrible
if one of them did anything inappropriate.”

“Like kissing me
without
asking first
?”

He winced. “Look,
I knew they were all watching. So I figured if they saw us,” he cleared his
throat, “do that, then they’d know you were…”

“
Yours
?”
I spat.

Torrunn looked at
the floor.

“Marking your
territory. Lovely. Why didn’t you just hike a leg and piss on my shoe instead?”
I hissed.

“Look, I’m
sorry, alright? So maybe that wasn’t my most well thought out plan.”

“Ya think?” I
ran a hand through my hair. “And what about Bunni? Don’t they all know about
her?”

Torrunn looked
at me like I’d grown a third arm. “Sure they do.”

“Then won’t they
think it’s a little odd that you were lip-locked with someone else? In plain
sight?”

His lower jaw
shifted. Lovely. Somehow my crappy luck had just gotten worse. I should have
known the guy was a grade A player.

A player I
should never have agreed to meet outside the spa. Ever.

“Let’s just say
it wouldn’t be the first time. But that was before.” He let out a long sigh. “Can
you forgive me this once? I’ll behave from now on. I promise.” His face was
repentant. “No harm, no foul?”

My eyes narrowed.

“Alright,
alright! I should have clued you in on my plan before acting on it.”

“Or come up with
one that didn’t involve cheating on your girlfriend.” I looked away from him
and scowled at a picture of some fancy new fire truck on the nearest wall. “Our
relationship is strained enough as it is.”

“Our
relationship?”

The tiniest
glimmer of hope fluttered in my chest, and I was quick to stomp it out. There
was no relationship between him and me. It was strictly professional, and that
was the way it was going to stay. Had to stay.

“Mine and
Bunni’s.”

“Oh. Right.” He
was silent for a moment. “Well, I’ve made a complete mess of things, now
haven’t I?”

I exhaled a
heavy sigh. One kiss wasn’t enough to crucify the poor guy over. Especially not
one like that.

“Not a
complete
mess,” I said. I walked over and gave his arm a jab with my fist, then reached
for my massage chair. “But next time you plan to do something stupid like that?
Ask me first.”

His right
eyebrow quirked. “You can count on it.”

* * * *

Though I had
multiple offers from the firemen at Engine House One to walk me out to my car
that night, I handpicked Joe to be my escort.

“Are you sure it’s
okay for me to leave my chair here?”

“Oh, yeah,” he
said, keeping our pace leisurely. “That room rarely gets used for anything. And
it really doesn’t make sense for you to have to lug it back and forth. That is,
if our rowdy bunch didn’t scare you away tonight.”

I smiled at Joe
in the fading light. Last I’d checked, eight o’clock had come and gone. A long
day on my feet, I can assure you. “Oh, it’d take more than a few curse words
here and there to scare me off.” I laughed. “No, everyone actually was very
welcoming.”

“Good. Because I
threatened them all within an inch of their lives if they disrespected our
guest.” When he saw my eyebrows rise in question, he added, “You don’t know how
bad my shoulders have been without Dawn around. I’m not as young as I used to
be.”

“Your back was a
mess, Joe,” I said quietly. “But it’s nothing a time or two in the chair can’t
fix.”

“You’ll be back then,
when? Tomorrow?”

I laughed and
clicked my keyless entry. “No, I’m afraid I have plans tomorrow. But hopefully
Monday will work.”

“I’ll do my best
to be here. So, how long have you and Torrunn, ah, known each other?”

“Hmm, two weeks,
maybe?” It dawned on me then what Joe was really trying to ask. I shifted my
weight from one foot to the other. “Hey, Joe, can you keep a secret?”

He met my gaze.
“I’d take it to the grave.”

Wow, that was
more than I’d expected. Or needed. “Yeah, see the thing is? We’re not, you
know, seeing each other or anything like that. I hardly even know the guy. He’s
just a client of mine, or rather, of Dawn’s. He did me a favor, and I
volunteered to come down here in return.”

Joe chewed on
that for a moment and then nodded. “I respect you coming out and saying that,
Liz. But honestly? I knew from the moment you got out of your car that you
weren’t seeing T.”

“Why’s that?”

He grinned and
wrapped a fatherly arm around my shoulders. “Sweetheart, you’re not a thing
like his other women.”

It was no secret
I looked nothing like Bunni. I didn’t have her shape, her sense of style,
her…claws. And if she was any representation of these
other women
Joe was
referring to, well, even a fool could see Torrunn was out of my league.

“Don’t let that
bother you any,” he continued. “You’re better than all of them ‘cause you’ve
got brains, and you got class.” He dropped his hand from my shoulder and pulled
open my car door. “And until T pulls his head out of his back end long enough
to settle back into his own skin, he doesn’t deserve to be in the same room as
a keeper like yourself.”

A smile worked
its way across my face. Amazing what an unexpected compliment can do for a
fragile ego. “Thanks, Joe.”

I gave him a hug
and we voiced our goodbyes. And as I made my way back to Autumn Lake that evening, I couldn’t help but wonder if old Joe wasn’t right. Maybe I shouldn’t let
myself get so hung up on a guy like Torrunn. Maybe, just maybe, I needed to
find someone a little more comfortable in their own skin.

Question was:
where on earth was I going to find someone like that?

CHAPTER
11

“Auntie Liz!”
Mason cried as he opened Sarah’s front door and spied me.

“Hey there,
buddy,” I said, and knelt down to draw him into a bear hug. He wrapped his little
arms around me, tighter than usual. “You okay?”

His head bobbed
against my shoulder. “Yeah. I was just scared I wouldn’t get to see you anymore.”

“Not see me
anymore?” I said with a laugh. “Why on earth would you not see me?”

“I heard Mama
talking on the phone,” he said in a whisper. “She was telling Grandma that she
thought she’d lost you for good.”

The puppy dog
look on his face nearly broke my heart. Sarah’s voice greeted my ears, and grew
louder as she made her way toward the door.

“Nah, buddy. The
only thing getting lost around here are your teeth.” I snatched his little jaw
up in my hand and inspected his mouth. “Why, just look at these chompers! How
many have you lost now?”

“Only two.” Mason
giggled, then went ramrod straight as excitement filled his eyes. “I lost my
second one yesterday! It got stuck in an apple!”