Flirting With Fire (Hometown Heroes) (21 page)

Which was
exactly why I couldn’t let it happen.

I put my hand to
his chest. His very warm and solid chest. “Bunni.”

He hesitated,
his lips a whisper away from mine. “Wha—?”

“She’s the
firebug.”

Torrunn pulled
back as if I’d slapped him, brows furrowed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’ve been the
possible target in at least three, maybe four fires now. Kidding is the last
thing on my mind.” I took one step back. Then another.

“Look, I know
you two aren’t exactly best friends or anything, but she certainly doesn’t want
you
dead
.” He shook his head, his look incredulous. “Besides, she
wouldn’t do something like this.”

“Well, I think
she would. And until I know for sure,” I said, forcing my feet back toward my
front door. “You being here isn’t safe for either of us.”

He stood there
for a moment, sizing me up. When I reached forward and swung the door open, he
sighed and crossed the room. Torrunn paused in the doorway, and turned his face
back toward mine. Mere inches separated us, and I felt my heart rate spike once
more.

“And if she
isn’t responsible?”

I kept my gaze
affixed to his chest, fearful that if I looked anywhere else I’d be unable to
restrain myself from dragging him back into my apartment and letting him have
his way with me. Or me having my way with him.

“Then you’re
welcome to come and visit any time. Only, no kissing. I have a rule against
doing that with my clients, and you’ve already made me break it once. No more.”

With that, I
gently pushed him out the door. Once I was sure he had gone, I sank down to the
floor and finally succumbed to the overwhelming emotions of the day.

CHAPTER
18

That night was
torture. I stared up at my ceiling for hours, cursing myself. So what if he was
dating someone else? So what if he was my client? He was freaking gorgeous! And
he’d come onto
me
! Unprovoked! No one else would have to know.

Ah, but I’d
know, I kept reminding myself. And that knowledge would eat away at me much more
than all this second-guessing about the decision I’d made. It’d been the right one.

Unfortunately,
my subconscious didn’t understand I shouldn’t be daydreaming about an
unavailable fireman. Or fantasizing about him, either. No matter how amazing or
vivid those fantasies were.

I awoke, eager
for a reprieve from the image of that almost kiss, so I did the one thing I
knew would take my mind off him for at least a short while: I hit the
apartment’s exercise room at six o’clock the next morning and ran on an open treadmill
until I nearly collapsed. It’d made for a long day at work, but the ache in my
legs proved a continuous distraction for my ever-wandering mind.

Pleased with the
success of my new anti-crush strategy, I headed back to the same room that night
around eight o’clock. This time I chose weight machines that focused on my
upper body. The pain helped clear my head, along with the blaring music I piped
through my ear buds. By the time I got back upstairs, I was completely spent. I
willed my feet to bring me to my bedroom, then promptly collapsed into bed.

I slept better
than I had in weeks.

Thursday I
planned to repeat my new regime, but when my alarm went off at five-thirty and
I could barely move my arm enough to turn it off, I knew it was a lost cause.
So I reset my alarm and got another hour of sleep. A mild ache persisted even
beyond a nice, hot shower, my body’s normal reaction to a sudden indulgence at
the gym.

Yeah, I’d been down
this road before. Several times, actually. It usually followed a messy
break-up. This time I was just being a little more proactive with the pain and
punishment.

Tony eyed me
warily the next morning, but waited until his ten o’clock break to start
prodding. He came in, grabbed a bottled water, and faced me with one brow
cocked.

“Partied a
little too hard last night, did we?”

“Not unless you
consider chest presses and treadmills party props.” A slow smirk stretched
across his face. I dug into the dryer to retrieve another set of clean sheets.
“Forget I even said that. No, Tony, I did not party too hard last night.”

“Hmm.
Exercising? I didn’t know you were a fitness buff.”

“I’m not.
Exactly.”

With that I
clamped my mouth shut, before I admitted my reason for abusing muscles I’d
forgotten I even had. Tony just nodded and took a seat at the break room table.
The innocent look on his face was fooling no one.

“Trying to firm
up that girlish figure for a big date?”

I wish. No,
wait—no I don’t. Well, at least, not with the guy I can’t get out of my head…

“With all these
crazy fires, I haven’t really had time to find a date, let alone go out on one.
Honestly, I’m kinda hoping to sit out on the balcony and chill tonight. Maybe
have a beverage or two. There’s a game at seven.”

“But you haven’t
been down to Autumn Lake all week—are you sure you’re not secretly planning to
sneak down there?”

I shot him a
dirty look. “No.”

“Good girl.”

He began to pick
through the sections of newspaper someone had left on the table, while I tried
to suppress the guilt trip he’d just mockingly triggered. Sarah and I had actually
spent a good deal of time on the phone this week, but each conversation had
felt more and more…strained. No topics came naturally, no dialog easy. And I
hadn’t spoken to Mitch in a few days. He was probably starting to wonder if I’d
fallen off the face of the earth.

My cell phone
buzzed in my pocket, and I wondered if maybe that was him checking on me now.
When I spied Torrunn’s name instead of Mitch’s on the caller ID, though, every
sore muscle in my body tensed. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to program him
in there. I would have let an unknown caller go to voicemail. But this caller I
was too weak to ignore. So I scurried out the room’s back door to the fire
escape for a smidgeon of privacy.

“What?”

“Is that how you
greet all your callers?”

“No, that type
of greeting is reserved for deviants only.” Ah anger, nature’s simplest defense
mechanism. “I’m working, what do you need?”

“I talked to
Bunni for you.”

A mixture of
fury and fear shuddered through me. “You did
what
?”

“Relax. I
thought about what you said the other night, and decided to come clean with
Bunni.”

I’ll be damned
if the image of that almost kiss didn’t pop right back into my head. If she
hadn’t been trying to kill me before, she certainly would be now. “You didn’t.”

“I did,” he
said, pride ringing clear in every word.

“Why on earth
would yo—”

“I told her
there was absolutely nothing going on between us, that I wasn’t attracted to
you in the least, and that she should lighten up and give you a chance.”

I stood there, blinking
and processing. “You…” And trying to cope with the beating my ego had just taken.
“Wow. Really?”

“Yep.”

Now that I
thought about it, Bunni hadn’t hissed at me yet today. But still. Not attracted
in the least? I ran a hand through my hair. “So, uh, what did she say?”

“That she was
relieved, and maybe had been acting a little overprotective lately. Oh, and
that she was pretty pissed when Dawn chose you over her, but she’s over that
now.”

“Huh,” was all I
could manage.

“Anyway, she
mentioned something about stopping by your place tonight to try and clear the
air. I suggested she bring a dessert. Maybe something chocolatey.”

Wait—Bunni at my
house? With just me? Good God, was the man trying to get me killed? No way
would a demented firebug forgive and forget that quickly. Panic clawed at my
chest.

“Wow, Torrunn, that’s
really nice of you to go to all this trouble, but she doesn’t need to—”

An alarm blared
on his end of the line.

“No problem at
all. Gotta go, we’ve got a run. Have fun tonight.”

“Wait! I really
don’t think—”

It was no use,
the line was dead. And so was I, if I didn’t find a way out of this. But how?

And then an idea
came to mind. One that could only be conjured up by sheer desperation. I
punched a few more buttons on my phone and leaned back against the building,
praying the call would get picked up. After a moment, it did.

“Hey, was just
thinking about you.” Mitch’s familiar voice instantly began to soothe the
frayed ends of my few remaining nerves. “Please tell me there hasn’t been
another fire.”

“Hey. No, no
more fires.”
Yet.
“Actually, I was calling to see if you’d like to catch
a game up here tonight…”

 * * * *

My doorbell rang
at six o’clock on the nose. I checked my appearance in the mirror one last
time, then dashed for a look out the peephole. Out in the hall stood Mitch, wearing
dark jeans, and a navy and red flannel shirt with a glowing white t-shirt
peeking out just below his neckline. In his hands were two ball caps, which he
juggled as he cast a nervous glance up and down the hall. Poor guy was like a
fish out of water in the city. I pulled the door open, lest he suffer any more
than was absolutely necessary.

Hopefully
tonight, neither of us would.

“Hey, thanks for
coming.”

“Well, aren’t
you a sight for sore eyes,” he said, his gaze sweeping over me. “Why, I’ve got
the prettiest date in town.”

I rolled my eyes
and reached out to yank him inside by the arm before the neighbors got nosey. “This
isn’t a real date and you know it. You’re just here to make sure some maniacal
pyro doesn’t stop by and try to torch me tonight.”

“Date, rescue
mission…doesn’t matter what you call it. As long as you feed me, I’ll be
happy.”

“Then go get
washed up and I’ll make you a very happy boy.” I regretted saying those words
the instant they came out. His eyebrows shot up. “Good grief, Mitch, not like
that
.
Dinner! I made you dinner! Now hurry up, before dinner gets cold.”

He grumbled
something about good dates being hard to come by, tossed the hats onto my
inherited sofa table, and headed toward the bathroom to wash his hands. While
he did, I hurried into the kitchen and pulled dinner from the oven. It was
Fettuccini Alfredo, made from scratch and loaded with shrimp. The recipe for
its heavenly sauce had been handed down among the Williamses for four generations
and was a family secret. It was also one of Mitch’s favorites.

To help keep my
nerves under control, I’d also run out and grabbed a bottle of Moscato. I
didn’t know if that was a good wine to have with pasta, nor did I care. I loved
Moscato, and knew Mitch wouldn’t complain—this was a rare meal he didn’t have
to cook.

He soon emerged
from the bathroom and helped finish setting the table. Then we settled down to gorge
ourselves on pasta and French bread, shrimp and extra Alfredo sauce. In between
bites, we shared stories from our work weeks: me and some of my humorous client
stories, Mitch having to deal with some personnel issues at work. No one
brought up the fires that seemed to be stalking my every move, which was fine
by me.

“So, what’s with
the hats?”

Mitch shrugged.
“Tradition. We always watch baseball in our Cards hats, remember? I just wasn’t
sure if yours had made the move yet or not.”

I grinned at his
thoughtfulness. “Aw, that’s so sweet. And so ridiculous—of course I packed my
hat!”

“Ah, we haven’t
completely lost you to the big city yet, then.”

We continued on
with our dinner, bantering back and forth like old times. It was so easy with
him. Laughing, joking, sharing. If only he had a twin out there somewhere, one
who didn’t regard me as his adopted little sister. Maybe in Fort Wayne, such a
man did exist.

Turns out, Mitch
wasn’t a big Moscato fan. He opted instead for a Summer Shandy, left over from
the move last weekend. And when that one was gone, he went searching for
another.

“Bud Light?” he
asked, peering into my refrigerator. “Since when do you drink that?”

“Huh?”

I stowed my
empty dinner plate in the dishwasher, and glanced over to the refrigerator.
Sure enough, there were three cans of Bud Light perched on the second shelf. Three
cans left over from Monday’s unexpected baseball party. My slightly inebriated
brain strained to come up with a convincing answer that didn’t involve a room
full of strange men and me.

“Uh, well, since—”

My doorbell rang.
Relief was immediately replaced by panic.

“That must be
her!” I whispered.

“Alright, no
need to freak out. I’ve got your back.”

We made our way
to the door, where I stopped to get a quick peek out the peephole. Bunni stood
outside my apartment looking far less nervous than I did as she studied the
cuticles on her left hand. My gaze shifted back to Mitch, who moved into the
hallway out of view and gave me a nod of encouragement.

Here we go.

I opened the
door, then did my best to act surprised. “Hey, Bunni. What brings you back to
this neck of the woods?”

She popped her
bubblegum and shifted her gaze to her high heel-clad feet. “Well, I had to
swing back by the salon, and thought I should maybe stop by and apologize for
jumping to conclusions the other night.”

Uh, oh. It
suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t told Mitch about the whole pink bra
incident. If I let her say too much, he’d find out about Torrunn—and then I’d
never hear the end of it. Time to redirect our conversation.

“Oh, you know,
it’s really no big deal. I get that all the time.”

I grimaced
internally. For the record, I’d never played tug ‘o war with my bras before,
let alone been caught in the act.