12-Alarm Cowboys (38 page)

After about five minutes, the chief came back with Johnson. “Thanks, Doc. Appreciate you pitching in.”

“No problem. Unless there are some animals that need my attention, I’m going to head on home. I’ve got some hungry critters waiting on me.”

“No injuries. Thanks again.”

Dismissed, she headed back to her truck. Deep down she’d thought that Tanner might follow her to her driver’s door but when she glanced back over her shoulder, his back was to her as he continued to work the fire. Once ensconced in her vehicle, she sat and watched the firefighters work. Soot covered faces serious with the firefighting task at hand.

Tanner remained deep in the efforts to control the blaze. She also noticed that, in addition to the chief, the other firefighters looked to him for direction. And from her perspective—not that she knew the first thing about fires—he seemed to know where to go and what needed to be done. If he pointed and shouted, one of the other volunteers would go wherever Tanner was pointing, no hesitation, no questions.

How did he know so much about fighting fires?

While she and Magda had gossiped once or twice about the Marshall men, Georgie realized she didn’t really know anything about Tanner’s past.

A man of mystery. Nothing she liked better than solving a complex problem, and Tanner was nothing, if he wasn’t a problem for her.

*

The fire spread
faster than Tanner had expected but then, there had been no rain in a month. Add in the dying leaves and dead grass for fall and it was the perfect combination for a wild fire.

The house was a total loss, meaning it burned to the ground, but it had little, if any, value left. Empty and neglected for years, the dilapidated building had served as a siren for teenage trouble. And he would know. He’d answered the call many times as a teen. Drinking, smoking, late night trysts with willing girls. He’d done them all here. And that had been over eighteen years ago.

Even with every firefighter on hand, it’d taken another couple of hours to knock the fire down and make sure it was out. In the end, they’d lost the structure, and five trees in close proximity. But they had been successful in keeping the fire contained and out of the parched fields.

Ten p.m. had come and gone when Tanner finally sat down. Sooty, dirty, and hot, he should have nothing on his mind but heading home for a shower. But that wasn’t what was foremost in his head. His brain continued to fire images of the petite redhead he’d had in his arms earlier. Dr. Georgina Greyson was under his skin and he couldn’t figure out why.

Shooting the water hose with her in his arms had been fun, if not more than a little suspicious. The chief had been playing cupid, of that he had little doubt.

Of course he’d known when she had gone to her car. The first time he’d had a chance to glance over his shoulder, she’d been sitting behind the wheel watching the activity through her windshield. The next time he’d looked, she’d been gone, but the fire had been a dragon at that point so he could not stop to think about her leaving.

Now, however, there was an urge inside to see her, talk to her, relive the water hose experience. Although he fought the craving, in the end, he fired up and headed down Albright to her house, telling himself that if her lights were off, he wouldn’t stop.

Her lights were on.

‡

H
e wiped his
face the best that he could with an old towel he had in the truck.

This was insane. He was filthy, stinky, and horny, and not necessarily in that order. Those three adjectives did not go well together.

His best bet would be to turn this truck around and get out of her drive before she saw him. Deny everything if she ever mentioned it.

Her front door opened and Georgina stood there. He studied her expression. Did she look confused to see him at her house? Mad? Happy? But her face gave nothing away.

She walked out onto the porch and then out to his truck.

“Are you going to sit here all night?” she asked with a tilted head and arched eyebrows.

“Haven’t decided.”

She nodded. “I see. Well, I have some cold beer inside and the makings for a sandwich.”

He would sell his soul for a cold beer right now.

“I’m pretty nasty right now.”

That brought a smile to her lips. And oh God, what lips. Full and soft. And the worst part was the twin dimples in her cheeks that magically appeared with that smile.

“Well,” she said. “I do have a shower and running water.”

“I hate to mess up your shower with soot.”

“I’ve got a solution for that.” She opened his door. “Come with me.”

Too far in now to back out, Tanner exited his truck and followed her around to the rear of the house. There, she pointed to an outdoor shower.

“There’s hot water. Feel free to use it. I’ll grab some towels and soap for you.” She turned to leave, hesitated and then speaking over her shoulder said, “I promise not to peek. Besides, it’s too dark to see anything anyhow.”

When she flounced off into the house, indecision held Tanner hostage. Confusion scrambled his thinking. He’d seen her, shouldn’t he be ready to leave?

Even in his indecision and confusion, the answer to his question was no, he wasn’t ready to go.

She came back out carrying a stack of towels, a bottle of shampoo, and soap. Just outside the shower’s splash zone, a small teak table stood in a halo of light shining from a window. She piled all the supplies on the table.

“I’ve used this shower a few times myself,” she confided. “Sometimes after a long day at the clinic, I can come home smelling like unwashed dog, poop, urine, and blood. Even if I change scrubs during the day, I seem to carry the odors home with me. It’s probably all in my head, but a good shower before I go inside tends to keep those smells out here.”

Leaning past him, she turned on the water and held her hand under it until she nodded. “There. The water’s hot. Go for it, Tanner-the-Firefighter.”

No more thinking, he told himself. Just do.

He stripped off his shirt and then toed off his boots. When he reached for his belt buckle, he paused and looked at Georgina. Her eyes, which were a lovely shade of jade-green, were now dark with desire. She studied his chest as though there would be a written exam. Finally her gaze met his. She swallowed.

“I guess this is my cue to leave.”

A slow smile crawled to his lips. “Only if you want to.” He unhurriedly unbuckled his belt and pulled it through the loops. As he tossed it on top of his dirty shirt on the back of the chair, her gaze shifted to the belt and then back to his chest…or maybe his waist.

Continuing his casual undressing, he pushed the metal button through the hole and pulled down his zipper.

He put his hands on the waistband of his jeans. “Last chance.”

Her eyes lifted to his. “You don’t scare me.”

“Okay then.” He shoved his jeans to the ground fully expecting her to leave.

With a roll of her eyes, she said, “If you’re quick, there’s a cold beer in my fridge.” She turned and went in through the back door.

The water was warm and flowed down his body like a curtain of silk. It took two shampooings to get the smoke odor from his hair. He actually shampooed, scrubbed his body and then shampooed again before he felt like the stench of smoke and charred wood was gone. In all his years as a cowboy and as a firefighter, he’d never showered in the yard, if under the garden hose when he was ten years old didn’t count. Yard showers at his age should probably have felt strange or awkward but he liked the idea of leaving all the dirt from the day outside.

When he finished, he dried with one of the towels and wrapped the dry one around his waist. His dirty clothes were piled in the lawn chair. He hated the idea of putting them back on, so he didn’t. Instead, he followed Georgina’s path and walked into her house through the rear door.

He found her in the kitchen sitting at a table, a beer in one hand and a magazine laid flat in front of her. She pointed to a blue terry cloth robe that’d been tossed over the back of another chair.

“I found that for you to put on. I know I wouldn’t want to redress in dirty clothes after a shower.”

“Thanks.” The robe was obviously for a man. Much too long for Georgina, it would have dragged the floor in inches. And if she’d worn it, the material would have wrapped around her twice. So whose robe was it? And was it any of his business whose it was anyway? Still, it bugged him that she had a man’s robe all ready for him.

He pushed his arms through the sleeves. Meanwhile, she got another beer from the fridge and handed it to him.

“Thanks again,” he said. Popping the top, he swallowed half of the liquid in one long gulp.

“Hungry?”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“Super.” She leaned in. “Now that all my hostess niceties are out of the way, what are you doing here?” Her eyes flashed with amused curiosity.

Instead of a verbal answer, he caught her head in his hands, his fingers wrapped around the back of her neck, and he kissed her. The first touch of her lips hit him as if he’d kissed a live electrical wire. Energy ricocheted through his gut.

Stunned at his reaction, Tanner pulled back a few inches to study her, and to give himself time to gather himself. Georgina’s eyes were closed but opened slowly to look at him. A pair of glazed-over green eyes peered at him.

When he went back for a second taste, she met him halfway. Their lips met in a frantic race to taste each other. When he traced his tongue on her lower lip, her mouth parted and he slipped inside. The hops and yeast from the beer mixed with her natural taste, producing an addicting flavor. He was hooked from the first sample.

She pushed her hands inside the lapels of the robe, then glided her fingertips down his chest. Blood surged from his brain to his groin, filling his cock to an almost painful erection. The last time he’d been this aroused this quickly he’d been in high school, when he could become turned-on by a girl glancing his way.

Then she scraped her nail over his nipple, causing the breath to rush from his lips. Pulling away from her magnetic lips, he said, “What’s happening here?”

“You tell me. You started this.”

“You didn’t object.”

A slight smile curved her lips, now red and swollen from his kisses. “You noticed that, did you?”

His gut tugged as his heart took off at a gallop. He stood. “Where’s your bedroom?”

“That way.” She pointed down a hall.

He pulled her to her feet, and started the way she’d pointed. They made it just to the hall before he pushed her up against the wall and kissed her. He pressed against her, growing impossibly hard at her scent, her touch. He was at a decisive disadvantage as he was basically naked while she was fully clothed. Time to change that situation.

He ran his hand under her shirt and pushed it up her body. His palms skated across her breasts, the lace of her bra scratching gently at his flesh. Jerking his mouth away, he tugged her shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. Her breasts were heaving with her deep breaths. The artery in her neck jumped visibly in her neck.

Yeah, he wasn’t in this alone.

*