Flirting With Fire (Hometown Heroes) (23 page)

I felt my lips
curl into a flirty grin, but kept my eyes averted to add an air of intrigue. “Nothing
yet.”

“Then let me do
the honors. Hey, Mac! We need a few drinks over here.”

Something about
that voice sounded oddly familiar. I tucked my chin and tried to sneak a quick
glance at my new friend, but he was standing directly behind me. Handsome Bartender
straightened up, set two highball glasses down, and tipped his head in our
direction.

“Sure thing. The
usual?”

“For me, yes,”
said my new friend.

Handsome
Bartender’s gaze shifted to mine. “And what can I get you?”

“A Michelob
Ultra, please.”

“I should have
known,” he said with a sexy-as-hell grin. “You came in with Jess, and Micky
Ultras tend to travel in packs.”

“No worries. We’ll
have her drinking real beer in no time,” my new friend joked, and the
familiarity of his voice nagged at my memory. Either he sounded like someone I
knew, or—

A hand settled
on my shoulder, then, and a vaguely-familiar scent tickled at my nose.
Something clean, with a hint of spice and evergreen.

Oh, no. No, it
couldn’t be.

The smell of
that cologne. The deep, rich timbre in that voice.

Flirting tactics
abandoned, I turned to get a look at who a moment ago I’d hoped would be Mr.
Right. But as my bar-side companion’s face came into view, I knew all hope was
lost. Because it definitely wasn’t Mr. Right—it was his polar opposite, whom
I’d come out tonight specifically to clear from my mind.

* * * *

Handsome
Bartender handed us our beers, and Torrunn tossed him a five. “Thanks, Mac.”

“Any time, T.”

T
. Of all
the places in town, he
had
to come here. Tonight.

Somewhere above
us, Fate was having one heck of a good chuckle.

I downed a third
of my beer in a pitiful attempt to calm my nerves…and dowse the attraction
that’d flared up at the mere sight of him. Damn it. “So, come here often?”

He shrugged. “Some
of the guys come out and throw darts on Fridays. Fire versus police. I stop out
when I’m not working. This your first time here?”

“Yeah. Friends
invited me out,” I said and hitched a thumb back toward Jessica’s group. Okay,
so plural was pushing it. But we’d all exchanged introductions, so they were
sort of my friends now, right?

Torrunn turned
around and leaned both elbows on the bar, cutting the space between us in half.
“So, how’d you end up with that motley crew?”

I shifted on my
seat, trying to put some space between us. Being this close to a man whose
middle name was Temptation was nearly painful. “I met Jessica when she did my
write up on the spa’s website.”

“Ah, right. I
saw that,” he said, eyes still fixed on the others. “It was a good picture of
you.”

“She did a nice
job with the lighting.”

“She had a good
model.” He met my gaze and held it.

I swallowed
hard.
Client. He’s my client.

Handsome
Bartender chucked an empty glass bottle into the trash behind us, and I jumped
in my seat. Heat raced to my cheeks, and Torrunn looked away with an amused
grin.

“So, uh, where’s
Bunni tonight?”

“Home washing
her hair.”

“She…really?”

He reached back
and grabbed his beer, took a long drag of it, then shook his head as he cleared
his throat. “No. She went out with some of the gals from work. They like to hit
KJ O’Malley’s on Fridays.”

No one had
invited
me
to go out to the Irish pub a block over from work tonight.
Guess Bunni and I weren’t to the BFF stage of our relationship yet. “Oh. Cool.”

“So, about Bu—”

“Hey, Mac!” A
guy I hadn’t seen before walked up to the bar then and stopped beside me. “Throw
me a Miller Lite, will ya?”

Our new bar mate
was handsome in his own right, with a broad chest, chiseled chin, and deep blue
eyes. Just the kind of man who could help me forget about the annoyingly
appealing fireman beside me. Mr. Blue Eyes smiled politely at me, then shifted
his gaze to Torrunn, who’d straightened up and subtly shifted away from me.

“Hey, man,” he
said, giving Torrunn a nod.

“Officer Steele.”

Cripes, was
there anyone in this bar Torrunn didn’t know? Ah, but if he knew this one,
maybe I could talk him into introducing me. Happily ever after might be rough,
drowning in those beautiful blues every day, but I’d get over it.

“Liz! There you
are!” Jessica appeared out of nowhere and curled into Blue Eyes’s side. The way
he wrapped his arms protectively around her had me instantly abandon all
thoughts of asking Torrunn to introduce us. This had to be her fiancé, Nate.

Lucky girl.

“I didn’t
realize you were still sitting over here,” she said, and looked up at her man.
“Nate, I’d like you to meet Liz. Liz,” she said, her gaze shifting to me, “this
is Nate.”

I offered him a
wave with my beer bottle and stifled a grin. How often do you get to do
that
to a police officer? “Nice to meet you, Nate.”

“Likewise.” Mac
set a beer on the bar for him. He took a long draw from it, then looked back
over to me. “So, you’re the masseuse?”

“Massage therapist,
honey,” Jessica said, rolling her eyes.

An inebriated
giggle escaped me. I glanced down at my beer. Time to slow down a bit.

“Right. I knew
that.” Nate grinned at me, then looked at Torrunn and tipped his head toward
the dartboard. “So, we gonna throw tonight or what?”

“That’s what I’m
here for,” Torrunn said and grabbed his beer off the bar. But not before giving
me a subtle wink.

A wink that did
not go unnoticed by Jessica.

“You know him?”

“Um, you could
say that. He’s a client of mine.”

Her gaze shifted
from him to me. “Oh my gosh, that’s him, isn’t it? Mr. Off-limits?”

Wow, was I that
easy to read?

“You didn’t tell
me you knew him!” I said in a sharp whisper.

Her gaze flashed
back to mine. “Honestly, I didn’t make the connection until now. Nate always
just calls him ‘T’. I had no idea what his real name was.”

We looked at
each other for a moment, then both rolled our eyes and said, “Men.” A round of
giggling ensued.

“Well, forget
him,” she said. “There’s plenty of other fish in the sea. And a couple
perfectly nice, eligible bachelors right over here…”

CHAPTER
20

“So, you’re new
in town?”

I shifted my
gaze from the dart game across the room to the tall, sandy blond who’d dropped
into the seat next to me. The one recently vacated by another bachelor, whom I
apparently hadn’t paid enough attention to because he had excused himself to
grab another beer and not returned. Not that he was all that exciting anyway—some
computer programmer guy Jess knew from college. Yawn.

Regardless, my
behavior was completely unacceptable and I knew as much.
No more looking
over at the dart area,
I told myself. Focus on the guys I do have a shot
with, not the one I don’t.

“Yeah, fairly
new. ‘Bout four weeks or so. I’m Liz, by the way.”

“Charlie,” he
replied, sliding his hand smoothly into my extended one and give it a subtle
squeeze. “Jessica’s told me so much about you.”

“Oh?” I looked
around for her, but she was off talking to Nate. Who was standing beside
Torrunn.

Damn, I’d looked
again.

“Yeah, her and
Nate were over for dinner last week, and she mentioned something about a little
photo shoot you two had.” Charlie’s warm, brown eyes zeroed in on mine. “Lucky
her.”

I felt my cheeks
warm. The guy was good looking, no doubt about that. His hair was styled in an
intentionally messy look, his skin kissed a honey gold. He was also better
dressed than most of the rest of the guys in the place: dark jeans,
short-sleeved button down shirt left open to reveal a white V-neck that allowed
a hint of his chest hair to peek out the top.

But something in
that intense gaze of his had my guard up. It was like staring into the eyes of
a sheep and somehow knowing under the wool lay the big bad wolf, waiting to
pounce. Then again, it’d been a while since I’d been properly pounced upon.
Maybe it wouldn’t kill me to let my guard down with this one…

“Um, yeah, Jess
did an awesome job. And she made it fun, too. I’m not used to being in the
spotlight like that.”

“Really?” he
said, sliding his chair closer to mine and wrapping a long arm around my
shoulders. “And what it is you do, again?”

“I’m a massage
therapist.”

Charlie’s brows
rose in admiration. “Nice. A job like that requires both talent and just the
right touch.”

He reached out
and recaptured my nearest hand, then began tracing the lifelines on my palm.
“Oh yes, you definitely seem to have that. But don’t you get tired after a
while? I mean, all that rubbing and massaging…”

Butterflies took
flight in my stomach at his touch. How long ago had I ended it with my last
boyfriend? A month? More? My poor body had been sadly ignored for too long.
Judging by the look in Charlie’s eyes, which seemed to have drawn even closer
to mine, I sensed an offer to make all that change. And why not? If he was a
friend of Jessica’s, surely he could be trusted.

“Oh, yes, sometimes
I can get
very
tired from all that, you know,
strenuous exercise
.”

A sly grin crept
across his face, and his eyes seemed to darken in response. “How terrible,” he
murmured, planting a kiss in the palm of my hand. “I bet sometimes you wish
someone else could do the
hard
work for you.”

Mr. Right
,
a little voice popped into my head.
We’re looking for Mr. Right, not Mr. Big
Bad!

“Uh, huh.”

His thumbs went
back to caressing my palm, and my guard started to come down. Screw this whole
looking for Mr. Right thing, what I needed was a night with someone like this.
A night to forget about everything serious for once. To live and let—

“Charlie!”

I sat bolt
upright in my seat as Jessica hurried toward us, scowling. Charlie tightened his
grip on my hand, his face transforming from slightly wolfish to purely angelic.

“Yes, Jessica
dear?”

“I thought I
asked you to leave my new friend Liz
alone
.” She proceeded to peel
Charlie’s hands from mine, then tugged at my elbow to get me to stand and
follow her.

“Oh,
this
Liz? I guess I didn’t realize she was one and the same.”

Jessica rolled
her eyes and dragged me over to another table, where her roommate Grace was
sitting with a bunch of gals flipping through bridal magazines. I’d steered
clear of that table before, not to be rude, but because looking at all those
images of happy brides only drove home the fact that I was still single.

“Sorry, I should
have warned you about Charlie. He can’t seem to help himself around pretty
women.”

“Oh, it’s
alright. He seemed harmless enough.”

She threw me a
look that said we both knew better. At least he’d helped me forget about T—

“Hey, Liz?”

Speak of the
devil. And that’s just what he’d begun to feel like here, lately. Maybe Mitch
was right. Maybe I did need to move back to Autumn Lake, if nothing else to
escape from the Torrunn trap.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“Could I speak
to you for a moment?” His gaze shifted from me to Jessica and back again.
“Alone?”

Great, more
Bunni talk. I could hardly wait. Or maybe he was finally going to apologize for
the near kiss at my place earlier in the week. The one that still haunted my
dreams. Either way, I had a feeling he wouldn’t let up until he’d been able to
speak his piece. So when Jessica’s gaze shifted to mine, I gave her a small
nod. She studied me for a moment, then acquiesced. “I’ll, uh, just leave you
two to talk. Holler if you need me.”

I watched her
go, feeling like someone was reeling in my life preserver without me in it. Then
I followed Torrunn over to the corner of the room and tried to ignore how
everyone seemed to be watching us go. This night, so far, had been a major
boyfriend hunt fail. And that meant my dream of husband and kids had been
delayed yet again.

A surge of frustration
welled up in my chest. “Okay, so what? What could you possibly need to talk to
me about right now?”

He grimaced and
ran one hand over the back of his neck. “Look, about the other night.”

“Water under the
bridge,” I said, setting my mostly empty beer bottle on the table beside us.
It’d gotten warm an hour ago, and I’d held on to it more as a security blanket
than out of necessity. “In fact, I’ve forgotten all about it.”

Okay, so that
was a monster lie. But if that’s what it took to keep my heart safe, then so be
it.

“But I didn’t
get to finish telling you about Bunni.”

“To be honest? I
don’t want to hear about it.” I leaned in and gave his chest—his oh, so solid
chest—a jab to reinforce my point. “Your relationships, your life? They’re all
you, Torrunn. I’m just your massage therapist, nothing more.”
Which, from
what you said on the phone the other night, is exactly the way you want it to
be.

Without waiting
for him to respond, I walked off. Headed for the back hall, where I’d seen a
neon EXIT sign on my way back from the restroom a while ago. I needed to escape,
before things got any worse. And by worse I mean me getting mad and slipping up
about my true feelings toward him in a fit of rage. I stepped out into the cool
night air and dug for my keys in my jacket pocket.

“Liz, wait!”

A low growl
escaped me as I realized I’d parked around front. I kept walking, intent on
putting more space between us. “Why?”