Off the Map (Winter Rescue #2) (2 page)

“Of course I stopped to help,” she said, holding on to her sweet, deranged edge as if her life depended on it. “You know how much I love that kind of stuff. Besides—that’s what decent human beings do. We forgive others for messing up, and then we do our best to help them get back on their feet again.”

She knew, without getting too close, that he would smell slightly canine, even though his dark brown hair curled damply at the ends to signal he’d had a recent shower. Scott always retained a scent of the dogs he trained for rescue missions no matter how many times he bathed.

In that fair world of hers that didn’t exist, walking around wearing
eau de dog
would detract from a man’s overall appeal, but of course it didn’t. Scott was currently working with a family of German shepherd puppies that made him smell like nature and cuddles, of cold wet noses and an eagerness to please. It was an intoxicating aroma—evidence of the love Scott was willing to lavish on the four-legged females in his life.

Men were the worst. Whenever she’d come home after spending the night at his house, people asked if she recently spent time in a kennel. But Scott, rolling around on the floor with his dogs, a bag of pork products in his pocket, was nothing short of a god.

He frowned, and somehow managed to make that look good, too. If she had to pinpoint why, she’d say it was the dark stubble grazing his jaw, the droopy eyes that always made him seem like he’d just been rudely awakened after a long, exhausting night between the sheets. Or under the sheets. Possibly even tied up in them.

“Maybe they didn’t want your help.” His frown deepened. “Did you ever stop to think of that?”

Dammit.
Irritability suited him. It always had. That was part of the problem. Even at their most electric—their arguments ringing loud into the night, Scott’s sleepy eyes daring her to push him one step further—her attraction to him was a visceral response. Pavlovian, if she was willing to push the dog metaphor that far.

“Did I stop and consider that a mother driving a minivan with three small children might prefer to sit in the cold while she waited for a tow truck to find its way out in this weather? No, Scott. I didn’t. It was too good of an opportunity to burst in and make a mess of someone else’s life.”

Scott’s eyes flashed in recognition of her words, and she realized she’d just given away her earlier eavesdropping. To avoid another unpleasant conversation—which was pretty much guaranteed at this point—she turned her attention to the two other men in the living room. Both were volunteers at the same local Search and Rescue group where she’d met Scott, and they all shared the same adrenaline-fueled blood. They were happiest in the heat of the moment, always driving themselves a little bit closer to the edge, heedless of pesky things like consequences.

In other words, her kind of people. And it had only taken her twenty-seven years to find them.

Max was a few years older than she was, a chiseled and bearded mountain climber she’d always thought would have been a much more ideal man to fall in love with, but there was no accounting for taste. Even Ace would have been preferable, and he was a man so reluctant to let go of his youth he sported iron-grey dreadlocks all the way down his back.

“Hello, boys,” she said cheerfully, and extended the six pack. “I bring an offering of goodwill. There was a pizza too, but I ended up giving it to the minivan mom. She looked like she could use it more.”

Behind her, Scott
harrumphed
.

“Of course, she might have just been pretending to be grateful that I fed her frightened and ravenous children, but you know how forceful I am when I put my mind to it. It’s a good thing I didn’t try to offer them the beer.”

“Thanks, Carrie.” Max took the drinks and her jacket. His guilty flush had been replaced with a genuine smile, doing much to bolster her decision to rampage in here. See? Not everyone thought she was a harbinger of doom. Some people actually liked having her around. “You didn’t have to bring anything.”

“I know. But I wanted to.”

Scott made another snuffling sound that was more horse than man, but she didn’t deign to acknowledge it. The living room in which they stood was clear proof of how wrong he was. The tiny space boasted an octagonal felt-topped table that was wedged between the couch and a brightly decorated twig of a Christmas tree—not a grand house by any stretch of the imagination, but the recent addition of holiday cheer and various Sofia the First toys for his five-year-old daughter made it feel like a real home. She’d helped that happen, and she wouldn’t apologize for it.

“So.” She rubbed her hands and nodded toward the table. If Scott had his way, they’d stand here with full pistons firing all night, which, though tempting, wouldn’t be as much fun for Max and Ace. “Are we ready to deal? What’s the buy-in tonight?”

Ace launched himself over the back of an armchair and settled in. Despite the grey hair, he was a surprisingly agile man. They all were. That was what happened when the majority of your free time was devoted to tramping out in the snow to retrieve missing persons. You became nimble and muscular and impervious to the cold.

Had she mentioned how much she loved these guys?

“If it’s all the same to you, we thought we’d play for pennies tonight instead of quarters.” Max looked slightly apologetic. “Five dollar buy-in? Ten cent maximum?”

“Sure thing.” She rummaged in her purse and pulled out her wallet, extracting a five from among the bills. She looked up just in time to catch Scott glowering at the wad of money.
Oh, Lord. What now?
“Is something wrong?”

“You probably hate playing for pennies,” he said.

“Um. No. I like playing, period.”

“But five dollars is such an insignificant amount of money. Way below your usual standards.”

“Oh, for the love of all that is good and holy—it’s poker night. Ace isn’t wearing pants. I think we’ve long since passed anyone’s usual standards.”

“I have shorts on,” Ace protested. They both ignored him.

“Pizza, beer, wads of cash to lose…” Scott trailed off suggestively. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to buy my friends off.”

“
Your
friends?”

He spread his arms wide, a gesture of masculinity and arrogance she wanted to high-kick into oblivion. “I’ve known these guys for over a decade. How long have you been a part of our Search and Rescue team? Ten months? Eleven? What are you even doing here, Carrie?”

Max and Ace sucked in a collective breath at the direct confrontation, and she felt the sharp pang of it herself, of cupid’s arrow gone awry, but she didn’t let it slow her down. To show him how much his words hurt would only give him power over her, and she was determined not to do that.

Because it was inevitable, this tide of their relationship, a force she’d been stupid to think she could hold back in the first place. Never mind that she’d come out tonight with the best of intentions, hoping to find a way to move forward without losing her place in their SAR group. No matter that she’d rehearsed twenty pleasant speeches ahead of time, determined to keep the peace. She and Scott could be anywhere, at any time, in any situation, and it always came down to this.

The two of them standing opposite one another. High noon. Guns drawn.

Carrie fired first. “You mean, what am I doing here with the friends you’re so close to, you didn’t even know Max had a daughter, let alone one he was struggling to get custody over?”

Scott staggered but didn’t fall. “Of course I knew he has a daughter—I’m not a monster. I just don’t feel a compulsory need to meddle in the personal business of everyone in my life.”

“You don’t feel a compulsory need to do anything related to human beings. Dogs, on the other hand—”

“Stop right there. You better not bring my dogs into this.”

“Why not? You bring them into everything else.” She debated for only a second before finishing her statement with a flourish. “Including the bedroom.”

This time, Ace and Max didn’t breathe collectively so much as suck all the air from the room. It was difficult to tell if their reaction was the result of shock or laughter, but she assumed the latter.

Laughter, unfortunately, was the last thing on Scott’s mind. He lowered his arms and was looming in front of her in a matter of seconds. If it had been difficult to be in the same room with him before, what with all his brooding jean-shirt manliness mocking her, it was damn near impossible when he was so close she could feel the heat emanating off him. Like his dogs, he seemed to operate at a basal body temperature of just over a hundred degrees, rendering him an ideal comfort in cold weather like this. He made a girl want to strip down to nothing and dive into the snow with him. He made
this
girl want to command him to sit and beg and roll over until they were both nothing but a furious, panting mess.

It was just like she said. High noon. Guns drawn and cocked and ready to get off.

“One time,” he said, his voice dangerous. “One time, I let a dog in the room with us, and you know it was because Queenie was having issues with her crate.”

“It was twice, and she barked at us both times.”

“No. She barked at
you
both times. And that was only because of the howling sound you make when you—”

She clapped a hand over his mouth. There were strict rules in place about when and where it was appropriate to touch an ex on the lips, and this was probably breaking all of them, but there was no other way to shut this man up.

Well—that wasn’t strictly true. She knew of one other highly effective way to shut him up, but if the firm press of her palm against his lips was unsafe, she didn’t want to think about what that other method would do to her resolve.

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” she warned.

She felt his mouth curve into a smile, that rare manifestation of joy she’d once considered her favorite sight in the whole world. This man’s grin was both an invitation and a promise, and she didn’t have to see it to understand the implication.
You know you want me, Carrie. It’ll be so good, Carrie.

Nope. No way. Never again. You could lead a woman to temptation but you couldn’t make her drink.

She lifted her hand away. “And don’t you dare smile at me either. This is my poker night. I started it, I planned it, and I intend to keep coming for as long as I want. If you don’t like it, you can go home and bark all alone with Queenie.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he said. “For me to roll over and go home, letting you take everything?”

Oddly enough, she wouldn’t. She hadn’t come here with the intention of taking over his friendship with these men. She just wanted him to
share.
One Wednesday night ritual might not seem like much to Scott, who had a job and friends and roots in this city, but he had no idea how bleak things looked over on her side.

Considering she’d lost her job and the man she loved within the span of a month, it seemed fair to say it was pretty freaking bleak.

Prudence warned her to take a different tack before the entire night dissolved and neither one of them got custody of poker night.
Keep it light. Keep it simple. Keep it fun.
It was the only way to avoid going back to her apartment alone.

Tilting her head and angling for a coy tone, she managed to roll all three mandates into one. “You’re just afraid I’m going to play better than you and win all your money again, aren’t you?”

“You don’t play better than me—you just turn things unlucky when you touch them. And you’re always touching everything.”

“Some men find that a point in my favor.”

“Some men obviously haven’t spent very much time in your company.”

They stood at an impasse for what felt like hours, eyes locked, stances squared, hearts pounding in sync. It was a tactic Scott liked to use when he was feeling superior—this alpha-dog approach to staring others into submission—but she’d be damned if she’d play along this time.

She crossed her arms and settled in for the long haul. She could wait. She literally had nowhere else in the world to be.

Scott must have sensed her resolution because he gave a resigned sigh. “Fine. I’ll play. But we’re not doing any of your stupid wild card or Hi/Lo crap. I hate girly poker.”

“Okay.” She relinquished her upper hand with a smile. “You win.”

He looked confused. “I do?”

“Absolutely. We’ll play macho poker and I won’t touch anything until you specifically ask me to—playing cards and body parts included. Happy now?”

Scott’s eyes flashed a warning, but not even he could find something to argue about in complete capitulation. He’d
try
, but he wouldn’t succeed.

“Ecstatic,” he said dryly.

Chapter Two

“Max, would you please grab these and give them to Scott?” Carrie nudged the red cards across the table with the nub of a pencil. “I’d like two.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Even though Scott had been determined not to be the first to give in, he couldn’t take much more of this. “You can hand them directly to me. I give you permission to touch your own cards.”

“Do you?” She beamed at him, her smile as sincere as if he’d just lavished her with flowery compliments. “That’s nice. We’ll be able to play so much faster now.”

He tossed her the top two cards from the deck, groaning when her eyes lit up and her smile only increased in wattage. Carrie had the worst poker face in the world—every heart and diamond reflected in her oversized brown eyes—which made it difficult to infuse the game with any real challenge. With that woman, you always knew in advance if you were going to win or lose.

Scott lost. Every time.

“Well?” she prodded. “Are you just going to sit there, or are we playing stud?”

He clamped his jaw down so hard he almost bit off his own tongue. Carrie might be enacting some kind of saintly, put-upon ex-girlfriend routine over there, but he knew when he was being goaded.
Playing stud
was something they’d both rather enjoyed in the past.