Flirting With Fire (Hometown Heroes) (26 page)

“…just you wait,
Liz. Someday you’ll be all fat and pregnant, and then you can call and whine to
me about it.”

I watched
Torrunn bend down to offer one small, shy child a shiny silver sticker, and said
a silent wish that whoever I did eventually fall madly in love with would be
half as good with kids as he was. Maybe someday Torrunn would even open his
heart to the idea of having a few of his own.

* * * *

When Friday
arrived without him scheduling another appointment, I began to wonder if I’d
scared him off. The thought worried me. Not just because I’d miss the view, but
because I truly did enjoy his company.

Tony walked into
the break room mid-afternoon and stopped beside me. “You okay there, Lizzie
dear?”

I looked up from
the newspaper I hadn’t really been reading and tried to think of an answer that
didn’t rhyme with ‘I’m still hung up on Torrunn’. Today’s headline caught my
eye:
Still No Suspects in Firebug Mayhem
.

“Um, yeah. Just wish
they’d hurry up and catch the person setting the city on fire, that’s all.”

He scowled at
the front page, then continued on to the refrigerator. “Still no leads?”

Only a navy
truck, which may or may not belong to a close friend of mine. A close friend
who hadn’t called me all week…
“No. At least they haven’t tried to burn
my apartment down again. Yet.”

Tony grabbed his
water bottle and came to sit across from me. “Of course they haven’t. Not when
you’ve befriended a battalion of firefighters.”

So maybe I’d let
slip that Joe and the boys had stopped by Wednesday night after my conversation
with Sarah to catch the rest of the game and take turns on my massage chair. But
I kept silent on the fact that no one seemed bothered that Torrunn wasn’t
there.

No one but me.

“Yeah, I guess
having them around does have its perks.”

Tony studied me
for a moment. “You need to break your rule.”

“What?”

He gave me a
look that said I knew exactly what he meant.

“No way,” I
said, shaking my head. “Not gonna happen.”

“Suit yourself,”
he said, then downed a third of his water and stood to go. “But word around the
shop today is that Bunni gave him the boot last night. We’re all invited to KJ
O’Malley’s after work for drinks to celebrate her return to the singles scene.”

“She didn’t.”
Though, that might explain why I hadn’t seen him around for a few days…

“Oh, yes.” Tony
smiled like the Cheshire Cat. “Which means he’s one hundred percent available
now, for whoever’s interested.”

Oh, no. It was
too soon!
Too soon
! I still had five more months to go on my temp job.
How on earth would I be able to resist the temptation known as Torrunn for five
whole months? Panic wrapped its greedy claws around my chest.

Then again, if
I’d pissed him off and driven him away yesterday, that all might be a moot
point. My head began to hum with thought after thought on the meaning behind it
all. Was it a sign? Was it nothing at all?

Suddenly a few
drinks after work to dull my brain didn’t sound like a bad idea at all.

So I filed out
of the spa with everyone else that evening. Walked the short distance over to
the uber-popular KJ O’Malleys. Partook of a few adult beverages and tried my
best not to think about Torrunn.

“To being
single!” cried Bunni as our appetizers arrived, a fresh glass of wine in her
hand.

The single staff
members of Spa del Sol raised their beverages high in agreement. “To being
single!”

Well, okay, so
my glass wasn’t quite as high as hers. And why would it be? I was sick of being
single. In fact, it was the last thing I wanted to be. Screw this being patient
shit, I needed to find a man and needed to do it now.

Unfortunately,
all the single men out at KJ O’Malley’s tonight seemed to be paired up with
dates already. Well, except for Tony. And since I still wasn’t exactly sure
which team he batted for, he didn’t really count. That, and he was much too
good at calling me out. On everything.

“I’m surprised
you came,” he said, his head bent low beside my ear to keep the others from
hearing. “Since there’s an eligible bachelor out there with a wounded ego, just
waiting for the right gal to come along and bandage him up.”

I threw him a
subtle scowl. “Then he’s just going to have to keep waiting,
Tony
,
because I’m definitely not the right person for that job.”

“What is it with
you and this insistence that you can’t be happy?”

He pulled me a
few steps away from the others, then downed the rest of whatever he’d been
drinking. Something on the rocks, that smelled strong and spicy. If I wasn’t
mistaken, it was his second, and his eyes were already starting to look a bit
glassy. So much for him being my designated driver. The walk wasn’t far, but it
sure was dark out tonight.

“You think I
enjoy
being alone and miserable?”

“Well, you sure
as hell seem bent on staying that way.”

I felt my
non-drink-carrying hand curl into a fist. “Why? Because I refuse to compromise
my professional reputation? That’s something you of all people should
understand.”

“Bullshit. You’re
keeping him at arm’s length because you’re scared.”

“Scared?” I
barked a laugh. “Scared of
what
?”

“That maybe you
actually have found the right man for you. And that there’d be no backing out
this time.”

“Backing out?” His
verbal smack in the face had transformed me from mildly irritated to hopping
mad. I struggled to keep my voice down. “I’m the one who wants to get married,
Tony. The one who wants to be pregnant, be a mommy, have a family. Why on earth
would you think I’d want to back out?”

He waved to our
waitress, who nodded and turned back to the bar to grab him drink number three.
Then his gaze shifted back to capture mine. “Because something tells me that
all those other men in your life? You knew from the start they weren’t ‘the
one’. And no matter what you did to try and make them work out, they didn’t. Now
you’ve found the first guy who just the thought of makes your toes curl, but
you’re so afraid of another failure that you won’t even consider giving him a
try. Don’t you see? You’re sabotaging your own happily ever after.”

My jaw hit the
floor. Afraid of failure? Sabotaging my own happily ever after?

Who the hell did
this guy think he was?

“I am not
afraid, I’m not sabotaging anything, and I’m sure as hell not going to sit here
and listen to any more of your bullshit.”

“Liz, I—”

Sidestepping
Tony, I grabbed my purse, and hurried for the door with fists clenched and
blood pressure sky high. I burst out the door, nearly blind with rage, and
turned right instead of left.

“Asshole,” I
hissed under my breath. How could he?

How could he
what?
Be so right?

I hitched my
purse higher on my shoulder and growled. The little voice in my head promptly
shut up.

Afraid of
failure. Ha, as if.

Sure, I’d had my
fair share. More than my fair share. But it hadn’t scared me off from trying to
find Mr. Right. No siree. And if Tony thought me sticking to my ethical laurels
was some sign of weakness, then to hell with him.

I was two shops
down from KJ’s before I realized my navigational blunder. The opening of an
alleyway stood before me, one I knew let out a block from my apartment. It was
well lit, and bordered on one side by the Crooked Wok’s illuminated west wall
of windows. Not wanting to turn around and risk running into Tony, lest he was
looking for me—no way would I be able to bite my tongue this time—I opted to
cut through the alley.

My preoccupation
with what Tony had said dissipated the farther I traveled into the depths of
the alley. Another couple had chosen this shortcut as well, likely headed over
to the martini bar on West Washington, and hurried along with hushed voices
ahead of me. I lengthened my stride to try and keep up, as if being within a
certain vicinity of anyone else would guarantee me a sense of safety.

Up ahead the
alley intersected with one from the South Harrison Street side, making a
brick-walled ‘T’. The sound of hurried footsteps echoed from the side alley,
drawing my attention in that direction.

As the east-west
alley came into view I spied the silhouette of a retreating figure, hurrying
from a large, commercial dumpster pushed against the alley wall a short
distance away. Suddenly there was a flash of light, a blast, and then
everything went black.

CHAPTER
22

The sound of a persistent,
annoying beep irritated me back into consciousness, followed by the low murmur
of male voices. I tried to open my eyes, but they felt impossibly heavy. And
why did it feel like a timpanist was beating on the back of my skull?

A cold hand
touched my cheek, and in a split second it all came back to me: the alley, the ball
of flames shooting from the dumpster, the feeling of being thrown back by some
invisible, giant hand. I sucked in a sharp breath at the memory. Forced my eyes
to open and tried to twist away from the unwanted touch. The movement caused
the pounding in my head to increase exponentially, and I cried out in pain.

“Easy there,
sweetie. I’m just checking your bandages.”

“Bandages?”

My blurred
vision slowly came into focus. A pretty, young nurse wearing baby blue scrubs stood
before me, and reached once more toward my head. I flinched again,
instinctively, and instantly regretted it. The pounding in my head was now
nearly deafening.

“Where…am I?”

I felt a slight
tug at my hair, and then a tiny relief in pressure. The nurse stepped back, a
long white bandage in her hand, spotted with dried blood. My blood. I looked
away before my stomach decided to flip.

“You’re at St. John’s Hospital. My name is Ann and I’ve been taking care of you. Do you remember
hitting your head?”

“My head?”

I reached a hand
up to where the throbbing sensation seemed to be centered, but the nurse caught
my hand.

“Hold on, now.
Let me get a fresh dressing on it first. We wouldn’t want that cut to get
infected.”

“Infected? How
big a cut is it?”

A new voice
spoke up then, one that was much too deep and husky to have come from Nurse
Ann. “Oh, it only covers the entire back of your skull. No need to worry.”

I glanced up to
see Torrunn seated across the room, his face and neck stained with dark
smudges. He was wearing soot-stained firefighter pants held up by red
suspenders, which were pulled taut over a black muscle shirt. His uniform
jacket lay across the empty seat beside him.

And still he
looked amazing, damn him.

I did a quick
scan of my own attire, and thank the good Lord I was still in my own clothes. I
would have died if he’d walked in to find me in one of those God-awful, gappy
hospital gowns.

“He’s just
teasing,” Ann said, a smile in her voice. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who
admired the looks of our chiseled public safety visitor. “It’s smaller than my
fist. Unfortunately, you’ve got a goose egg about that size under it.”

“Will I…need
stitches?”

She shook her
head. “No, the doctor thinks we can get by with steri-stripping it, since the
scar will be hidden by your hair. That is, unless you really want him stitching
up the back of your head.”

“No!” The word
came out more frantic than I intended. Torrunn grinned at me from across the
room. “No, uh, steri-whatevering sounds fine.”

Ann nodded and
finished getting me all bandaged back up, then excused herself to get the
doctor. That left me in a tiny triage room with a monster headache and the one
man I’d rather not see me looking like this. Though, did it really matter?

No, it didn’t.
Shouldn’t. But my cheeks began to burn, regardless.

“How do you
feel?” he asked, rising from his chair to come and stand beside my bed.

“Like my head
was tossed out for tonight’s first pitch at the stadium.”

A smile ghosted
across his full lips. “What were you thinking, walking alone through a dimly
lit alley at this hour, Liz?”

“Why?” I asked,
suddenly on the defensive. “Is it illegal?”

“No,” he said,
his eyes narrowing. “But it wasn’t the smartest move you’ve made, either.
Especially knowing there’s a firebug on the loose.”

“I wasn’t alone.
There were others. Up ahead. And the alley was fairly well lit.” I caught
myself before blurting out the real reason I’d been in that alley. Namely,
because Tony had goaded me…about him. “I had to get home somehow.”

“Couldn’t you
have gotten a ride home?”

“No,
Dad
,
I couldn’t.” He flinched at that, but I continued. “Tony offered, but he wasn’t
sober enough to drive. Stupid me for thinking it’d be safe to walk.”

“Yes, stupid
you.”

His criticism
stung, even more so because it was based on a lie.

…You, my
dear, are a relational liar…

“Well, how the
hell was I supposed to know this would happen? Up until this week, I was
convinced Bunni was the firebug. Then you go and convince her of who-knows-what
about me, and suddenly she’s delivering chocolate to my door. Then,
voila!
No more fires.”

“She’s not the
firebug.”

“Unless she’s freaking
Houdini and can be in two places at once. Or has an accomplice.” I shifted on
the hospital bed and winced at the pain that radiated across the back of my head.
“Why are you so sure she isn’t connected to the fires?”

“I was going to
come by and explain that to you tonight, let the guys watch the ballgame from
the balcony while we talked. But then we had a call to run.” He shook his head
at me.