12-Alarm Cowboys (125 page)

Afterward, he’d taken her out to dinner to celebrate, then they’d gone back to the ranch to hang out. When Skye had changed out of her suit and into a skimpy pair of shorts and a tank top, he’d been all set to strip them off her, but she’d talked him into helping her make cupcakes instead. Jax wasn’t an expert when it came to baking, but he’d helped out as much as he could. He’d made more of a mess than anything else, but Skye didn’t seem to mind, especially when he covered her nipples in frosting and licked it off.

He stifled a groan as he parked his bike and cut the engine. Now that image would have him hard all day.

Jax did his best to act like it was just like any other day at work, except for the part where he avoided Dane as much as he could. He was surprisingly successful, mostly since it seemed Dane was trying to do the same thing. They rolled on two traffic accidents and a Dumpster fire, all without saying a word to each other. They even handled the post-response equipment clean-up without any trouble, then dinner later in the day.

But the station was too small to tiptoe around each other forever and after they’d finished eating, Dane cornered him upstairs in the sleeping area, asking him what the hell was going on between Jax and his sister.

Jax clenched his jaw as he stared at the wall above the bed. He thought about lying for a moment, then said screw it. This needed to come out, and now was as good a time as any.

He turned and faced his friend, looking him squarely in the eye. “If you’re asking if we’re romantically involved, then yeah, we’re seeing each other.”

Dane’s fist clenched at his side, and Jax tensed, ready if his friend started throwing haymakers. But after a long time, Dane just shook his head.

“Dammit Jax, she’s my sister.”

“I’m well aware of that fact, believe me,” Jax said. “But she’s also a grown woman who can made decisions for herself.”

Dane swore under his breath. “If you hurt her—”

“That’s not going to happen,” Jax cut him off. “I care about Skye too damn much to ever do something that would hurt her. And you should know that. Shit Dane, we’ve been friends since we were five years old.”

“I know! It’s just that…”

Just what? But Dane didn’t finish. He didn’t try to take a swing at Jax, though, so that was progress at least.

Shaking his head, Dane turned and stomped down the stairs. While their discussion hadn’t turned into a fight, Jax didn’t feel like lying in bed staring up at the ceiling. And he was too keyed up to read.

He headed back downstairs, but skipped going into the TV room with the rest of the guys, figuring that was where Dane would be. Instead, he slipped outside and called Skye. They’d only slept together two nights and he was already missing her.

“Hey girl,” he said as soon as she picked up. “What are you up to?”

“Jax! Hey!” she said, and all the tension from dealing with Dane’s crap disappeared at the sound. “Nothing. I just had something to eat, then went for a walk with Rodeo, and now I’m getting ready for bed.”

He wanted to ask if she was wearing one of his dress shirts again, but didn’t. He wasn’t sure his cock could handle it. He leaned back against the brick wall and steered the conversation toward more work-safe territory. “So, what’d you do today?”

“I spent most of it on the phone, looking for baking shops that would be willing to enter into a long-term lease for use of their equipment. I found two that sound really promising, so I’m going over in the morning to take a look.”

At the restaurant last night, they’d talked about what kind of facilities she was looking for, and what she thought it might cost to lease them. But when she told him the kind of money the bakeries were asking, Jax was shocked at how much it cost to rent someone else’s mixers, ovens, and bowls.

“Can you still make a profit paying those kind of overhead costs?” he asked.

“It’s going to be hard, but I don’t really have much of a choice,” she admitted. “It’s not like I can make hundreds of cupcakes in your kitchen. It’s just not big enough.”

“I could install a second oven if it’d help,” he offered.

“I appreciate that.” He could almost hear her smiling over the phone. “But I don’t want to completely take over your life with my baking business. How was your day? Dane wasn’t being too much of a pain in the butt, was he?”

“Nah. We actually had a civil conversation a little while ago.” He heard a noise in the background that sounded suspiciously like the mattress dipping. “Did you just climb into bed?”

“Yeah. You wore me out last night. I figured I’d go to bed early and catch up on some sleep.” Her voice lowered to a throaty purr. “I’d sleep better if you were here, though. It sucks that you have to work twenty-four hour shifts.”

“I’m not too thrilled about it either, babe, but you’re going to have to get used to it. This is the life of a firefighter—twenty-four hours on, forty-eight off.”

“I know, I know.” She sighed. “But lying here in bed naked isn’t the same without you in it with me.”

His cock stirred inside his uniform pants. “You’re naked?”

“Yeah.” She let out a sexy laugh. “You didn’t expect me to put something on just because you’re not here, did you?”

Actually, he hadn’t thought about it. But now that he was thinking about it, he was rapidly getting hard. “I’m going to have a very difficult time falling asleep tonight, you know that, right?”

She giggled. “Don’t you mean you’ll have a
hard time
falling asleep?”

Jax groaned and reached down to reposition his hard-on before he hurt himself. “That’s exactly what I mean. Good night, Skye.”

He stood there waiting for his erection to ease long after she whispered good night in that soft, husky voice of hers and hung up. He seriously doubted he’d be able to fall asleep now, not with thoughts of Skye naked in his bed back at the ranch, but he should at least try. He didn’t want to be exhausted when he got off work tomorrow. He had plans for Skye that didn’t include sleeping.

Jax headed back inside and was halfway up the steps to the sleeping quarters when the fire bell rang. He turned and ran for the main bay at full speed. Apparently, he wasn’t going to be getting any sleep after all.

*

Jax had just
finished eating breakfast the next morning when Captain Stewart called him and the other firefighters into the conference room. He topped off his coffee, then followed Dane and the others in. The captain stood in the front of the room, a grim expression on his face as he waited for them to take their seats.

“I just heard back from the arson division,” he said without preamble. “They’ve confirmed what I thought—that the fire at the hotel on Jacobs Street was deliberate. Investigators found plastic residues from a container of gas in the store room along with cloth fibers from an improvised wick.”

Shit
. Jax glanced at Dane and saw that his friend was almost certainly thinking the same thing he was. People typically started fires in old buildings or foreclosed properties because they wanted to get out from under them. But if someone started a fire in a hotel full of people, the reason was likely much more sinister.

“Are we looking at a serial pyromaniac here?” a curly-haired firefighter named Glen Bosch asked from the other side of the room.

“That’s anyone’s guess right now,” Stewart said. “This could just be a one-time thing, like some guy looking for revenge against the hotel chain or a disgruntled employee. Or we could be dealing with some kind of psycho who gets off on starting fires. If that’s the case, we need to be ready in case he tries to do it again.”

His boss probably would have said more, but he was interrupted by the clang of the fire bell. As they raced for the trucks, Jax heard the dispatcher call going out to multiple stations. The fire was at a nearby apartment complex about twenty minutes away. Jax glanced at Dane as they yanked on their turn-out gear. Once again, his friend was wondering the same thing. Was this just a random fire, or another arson attempt?

Jax supposed it didn’t really matter. No matter how the fire started, a firefighter had the same job—put it out.

*

When they arrived
on the scene, any thought that the fire was anything other than the work of an arsonist disappeared. The big apartment complex was burning in at least three different places, and that didn’t happen on its own. As Jax grabbed his SCBA tank, he overheard Lieutenant Boone talking on the phone with the other responding engines, figuring out who was going to handle which parts of the fire.

Jax quickly headed into the building with Dane and Troy to start getting people out of the two-story building while the rest of the firefighters got the supply lines attached to the local hydrants and the attack hoses in place to fight the fire.

People were gesturing madly toward the second floor the moment they got inside, shouting that there were several older people who lived up there. Jax and Dane immediately peeled off for the stairs as Tory searched the apartments on the first floor.

The upper floor was a zoo. While some people were running for their lives from the fast growing flames, others seemed more interested in trying to save their TVs and computers. Jax kicked in the first door he found closed and rushed into the apartment to see if anyone was in there.

The fire was eating through the ceiling and covering the walls at a rapid pace, but when he did a quick search, he didn’t find anyone. He turned to leave, jerking in surprise as a reflection in the glass of his SCBA facemask caught his attention. He had just a fraction of a second to see a man in a big, heavy coat and motorcycle helmet swinging something at him. Whatever it was smashed against his fire helmet like a ton of bricks.

Jax went down hard, his vision swimming in a sea of black, gray, and red. He knew even before he hit the floor that he was about to lose consciousness. If he passed out in this fire, he was never going to wake up.

The thought of what Skye would go through when she heard that she’d lost someone else in her life to a fire made him almost as sick as the dizziness overwhelming him.

His hand moved of its own accord to the radio on his belt. There was no way he could call for help, but if he could hit the orange emergency button, it might be even better.

As the unforgiving blackness swooped in and surrounded him, Jax prayed his finger had found that damn little button.

*

Jax came to
as someone pulled him to his feet. A moment later that same someone draped his arm over their shoulder and slowly dragged him along the hallway and over to the stairs. Halfway down the steps, the darkness shrouding his vision finally began to recede. He determinedly got his feet under him and helped whoever was half dragging, half-carrying him by supporting his own weight.

Tory immediately ran over as they came out of the building. Jax waved him off.

“I’m fine,” he said.

But Tory ignored him, putting his arm around Jax to support him from the other side. Jax swore and yanked his mask away, shaking them off. “I said I’m fine, dammit! There was someone in that apartment with me. Fucking asshole knocked me out.”