Always on My Mind (9 page)

“I know you’re awake.”

Kevin slit open one eye.

Jack pointed to the floor.

With a sigh, Kevin heaved himself up and stepped off the bed. He sent Jack one soulful look over his shoulder before heading out of the room. Two seconds later Jack could hear the sound of Kevin slurping water out of his bowl, and no doubt drooling everywhere while he was at it.

Jack rolled out of bed as well, showered, and then hit the road. He’d hired a day nurse for his mom, both to keep her company and to make sure she was getting everything she needed, especially when Jack was on shift and couldn’t help her himself.

But when he stopped by his childhood home on the way to the station, Dee was already up and dressed and sitting at her kitchen table.

Kevin bounded into the room and would’ve taken a flying leap at her, but Jack grabbed his collar just in time.

“Gak,” Kevin said, eyes bulging, tongue hanging out.

Ben stood behind the stove cooking a big spread of bacon, eggs, and french toast. “I thought you were home, still in bed,” Jack said.

“You thought wrong.”

Kevin, desperate to get at Dee, whined.

“Sit,” Jack told him.

Kevin barked. His bark was loud enough to pierce eardrums, and everyone in the room winced.

“Not bark,” Jack said. “
Sit.
”

Kevin offered a paw.

Jesus. “Kevin.
Sit.
”

Kevin turned in three circles and plopped down to the floor, which shook like an earthquake under the one-hundred-and-fifty-plus pounds.

Dee laughed. “Such a sweet boy.”

Kevin smiled at her.

“Sweet, my ass,” Jack muttered.

Ben began loading a mountain of food onto a plate, which he then brought to Dee.

Dee, who always ate less than a bird whenever Jack had tried to feed her, beamed at Ben. “Thanks, sweetheart.” She gestured to Kevin, who all but scrambled his circuits trying to get up at the speed of light. Like a cat on linoleum, his paws fought for purchase as he raced to her side.

“Now you be a very good boy,” Dee said to him, patting him on the head, which was level with hers. “Be a very good boy and sit for me. Can you do that, Kevin? Can you sit for me?”

Kevin sent her an adoring smile and sat.

Jack shook his head. “Fucker.”

“Such a good boy,” Dee cooed. “So much better than my potty-mouthed son.”

“He’s not a good boy,” Jack told her. “He’s a menace to society.”

Kevin sent Jack a glare of reproach.

“What are you doing here?” Jack asked Ben.

“It was your turn to stock the fridge.”

By “fridge,” Ben meant Jack’s fridge, as Ben didn’t use his own. “Yeah? So?”

“So you bought beer, cookie dough, and peanut butter and jelly.”

“Oh, Jack,” Dee admonished.

“Hey,” he said in his defense, “I got the basic necessities.”

Ben shook his head. “No wonder you’re single,” he said in the tone that they both knew would rile Dee up, which in turn would effectively get Jack in trouble. Ben’s favorite thing to do.

“He’s not single,” Dee corrected. “He’s got Leah.”

“Right,” Ben said dryly. “Almost forgot.”

Jack gave him a look. This didn’t appear to bother Ben in the slightest. “So where’s Carrie?”

“I don’t need a nurse this week,” Dee said. “I didn’t want to waste your money, so she took on another patient.”

“Mom, forget the money. I want you taken care of when I’m working.”

Dee pointed at Ben.

Ben saluted her with his spatula.

Jack slid a look to Ben. He knew his cousin felt he owed Dee his life—multiple times over—for taking him in and keeping him on the straight and narrow.

Not that she’d always managed to keep Ben on the straight and narrow, but he’d turned out okay. If you counted being a little off your rocker okay…

“I’m fine,” Dee said again. “Or I would be if I wasn’t worried about you.”

“Me?” Jack asked. “What about me? I’m fine too.”

Ben, flipping a piece of french toast, gave a snort that made Jack feel twelve again and defensive as hell. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s just that you’re awfully cranky for someone who’s fine,” Ben said lightly.

“I’m not cranky.”

Ben shrugged.

Dee’s smile faded a little bit. “Are you cranky?” she asked Jack. “Why would you be cranky? I saw Leah yesterday afternoon, and she said things were great. You didn’t mess things up with her since then, did you?”

Of course he had, thank you very much. Jack sighed and looked to Ben.

Ben just raised a brow, the asshole. “It’s six in the morning,” Jack said as evenly as he could. “How much could I have messed anything up?”

Concern filled Dee’s gaze. “Oh, Jack,” she murmured. “Was it your phone?”

“What?”

“You know,” she said, waving a hand. “Your phone. I read in
Cosmo
that if a woman looks in her man’s phone and he has anyone in his contacts with only a first initial, that means it’s a…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Booty call. Grounds for a breakup. As is having eight contacts with the name Brandy, because chances are that they’re exotic dancers you’ve met on business trips.”

Ben pointed at a stunned Jack with a spatula. “No matter how much your girl presses you about your Brandys, deny everything until death.”

Dee waved an irritated hand in Ben’s direction. “You’re not taking me seriously.”

“Mom, I didn’t mess anything up.”

“Then where is she?”

“Leah?”

“No, the Tooth Fairy,” Dee said, making Ben grin again. “Where is Leah, Jack?”

Probably concocting some new way to make his life a living hell, he thought darkly. Oh wait,
she’d already done that
. Ever since the kiss on the beach—kisses plural, as in many, many amazing kisses—he’d done nothing but think of her plastered up against him, or better yet, beneath him, soft and wet, sighing his name in pleasure…

And yet there was his mom, looking at him with those eagle eyes of hers, the ones that could always tell when he’d messed something up, so he ruthlessly clamped down on the fantasy and shrugged. “It’s six a.m.,” he repeated.

“So she’s baking?”

Right. She’d be baking. He nodded.

Dee relaxed and went back to eating. She had color in her cheeks and looked happy. Jack would like to say that he’d put that happy look on her face, but he hadn’t. Ben had, with his food.

And Leah, with her lie.

Ben was making another plate, loading it full for himself, and Jack snatched it.

Ben muttered “fucker” beneath his breath, which Dee either didn’t catch or ignored. “You going to be around today?” he asked Ben.

“I don’t need a babysitter, Jack,” Dee said.

Jack didn’t take his eyes off Ben.

Ben nodded.

“She’s got an appointment day after tomorrow at ten,” Jack said.

“I can drive myself,” Dee said.

Ben nodded again affably. “But you’ll let me take you.”

“I’m fine—”

“Of course you are,” Ben said smoothly. “But this isn’t for you. It’s for your idiot son. We don’t want him worrying like a little girl while he’s on the job.”

Dee relaxed. “Of course not. But you have a life too, Benjamin.”

Ben lifted a shoulder. “I’m…in flux.”

Ben didn’t talk much about his job. Being a civil engineer sounded innocuous but it wasn’t the way Ben did it. His last job, where he’d gone into Iraq for the DOJ to design and build water systems for some of the war-torn towns, had obviously gotten to him, big time. Usually when he was in Lucky Harbor he went back to his woodworking, and actually he was a hell of a furniture maker when he wanted to be. But he hadn’t picked up so much as a single tool since he’d been back.

So yeah, he was in flux. He
lived
in flux.

Luckily, he never spent much of his income so he had some flexibility. Others in Lucky Harbor hadn’t been so lucky. The economic downturn had been hard on many of the businesses, and there were a lot of properties in trouble and on the market.

But things were starting to turn around. A few new businesses were coming in, and some of the properties were being built up and renovated, when the historical society loosened their bulldog grip on the regulations and permits.

There’d been some noise from the biggest developer sniffing around, a Mr. Rinaldi out of L.A., who was snatching up as many of the available properties as possible. He had three or four in escrow at the moment, including Elsie’s bakery. He’d promised the current residents that nothing would change, but the rumor was that he planned on getting a whole strip of buildings on commercial row and running the town.

There were mixed feelings about this. Any commerce was good. It brought in money and kept people employed. But Lucky Harbor residents were used to being a tight-knit community, and there were fears that this was going to change.

Jack didn’t care about that, but he did care about the bakery, so he hoped Mr. Rinaldi’s word was good.

“What’s that, honey?” Dee asked.

“I didn’t say anything,” Jack said.

“Yeah, you did,” Ben said. “You mumbled something about the bakery.”

Dee smiled. “He’s got his girlfriend on his mind.”

Jack put his empty plate in the sink, kissed his mom, and left, ignoring Ben’s knowing smirk.

L
eah’s breath caught as Jack’s body pressed into hers. His hands stroked up her sides and then his thumbs were brushing over her nipples. Moaning, she arched closer as he kissed her long and deep, grinding his lower body into hers. He was hard, so deliciously hard, and she ached for him. Tangling her hands in his hair, she kissed him deeper until he groaned her name.

Oh, how she liked the sound of her name on his lips.

Then his clever fingers found their way into her panties, and he let out another groan before breaking the kiss and nipping at her ear. “Jesus, Leah. You’ve got to remove your hand.”

What?

She opened her eyes and realized that Jack was standing over her, where she’d fallen asleep at her grandma’s desk. He was fully dressed and breathing heavily, making her realize that her right hand was cupping the bulge behind his zipper. She snatched it away as if she’d been burned, and he stepped back, leaning against the file cabinet.

It took her a shockingly long moment to catch her breath, but even then, she could still feel the bulge of him in her palm. The
big
bulge of him… “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“You were moaning and flushed and sweaty. I came close to check on you, and you molested me.”

She groaned in embarrassment and covered her face while he laughed softly. In spite of the tension in every line of his body, he flashed a smile. “Busy, huh?”

There was a lull at the bakery every day around ten in the morning. Since Leah was usually up by 4:00 a.m. to bake and then serving customers by 6:00, that lull came with the urge to nap.

Usually she combated this with copious amounts of caffeine and something from her day’s wares that had lots of sugar, but today she’d been stuck in the teeny-tiny office facing a stack of her grandma’s bills. A little overwhelmed, she’d set her head down and clearly fallen asleep. “Yes,” she said. “I am very busy.” She bit her lip. “And sorry, about—” She gestured to his crotch. “Though it’s your fault for not knocking. Why are you here?”

“Donuts.”

“Donuts.” She huffed to her feet, pushed past him, and headed out front. “You interrupted the best sex I’ve had all year for donuts.”

“That’s sad.”

“Exactly why I needed the end of that dream!”

In tune to his soft laugh, she loaded him up a box of donuts and shoved him out the door.

From the bakery, Jack headed to work. His amusement had shifted into a solid, churning need centered right at his groin, which hadn’t yet gotten the message that he wasn’t getting any, despite how Leah’s fingers had felt cupping him. Thinking about how she’d looked in the throes of her sex dream made him hard all over again. He’d told her she’d been moaning and hot and sweaty. What he hadn’t told her was that she’d whispered a name.

His.

He blew out a breath and forced that from his mind—as well as the image of taking her on that desk, her long, gorgeous legs wrapped around him—so he didn’t walk into the station with a boner.

Station #24 sat at the end of commercial row, between the pier and downtown. Once upon a time, the two-story brick building had housed the town’s saloon and theater, but it’d long ago been converted to a firehouse.

There were three large garage doors out front, opened to reveal a fire engine, a ladder truck, an ambulance, and the county OES Hazardous Materials response vehicle. Beyond the garage, there was a utility-sized kitchen and a big open living room. Upstairs was a large sleeping area that looked like a frat dorm meets Three Little Bears, except it was the Six Little Bears with rows of twin beds.

Over the years, they’d added a pool table, an X-Box, a flat-screen TV, and some huge, comfy couches. Home away from home or, as they all spent more time here together than they did with their various loved ones, just
home
.

Half the staff were great cooks, and the other half knew how to order in with equally great skill. Eat Me, the local café, served the station on command, as did the Love Shack, the bar and grill down the street.

The station was staffed on a full-time basis with a rotating staff. They shared the site with Washington State Fire—where, by no coincidence, Jack had gotten his start in the first place as a rural firefighter, aka a Hotshot.

As head of shift, Jack usually arrived before anyone else, but today Tim was already there, head buried in a laptop. “Hey,” the rookie said, barely looking up. “The B rotation caught a fire yesterday at the auto-parts store. Lucky bastards.”

Jack had already heard from Ronald since the fire was of suspicious origin, but he looked over Tim’s shoulder at the pictures of the scene on the laptop.

“Burned hot,” Tim said. “Real hot. Bad luck for Lenny Shapiro.”

Shapiro owned the auto shop. “Maybe it wasn’t luck at all.”

“You think it was arson?” Tim asked, surprised. “Nah, man, those rags shoved in that bucket…stupid place for them. Real stupid. Lenny should have known better.” He shut his laptop. “You watch, on our rotation we’ll get all medical calls. Or a false alarm. We never get the fun ones.”

Jack went to his office and brought up the fire pictures on his computer. As Tim had noted, there’d been oily rags left in a bucket near a stack of boxes, and they’d ignited. But this was now the second fire in two weeks where oily rags were discovered in a bucket.

Jack went over everything he had on the fire and moved on to the paperwork required of him as the LT, while his unit worked their daily chores, pulling the equipment out onto the long driveway to be washed, stocked, and inventoried.

Jack had deposited the proceeds from the Firemen’s Breakfast the week before, but he still had to make the statements for the beneficiaries. The breakfast itself had been made possible through the generous donations from the local businesses such as the B&B, the café, the art gallery, and many more, and they each would get a statement and an individual thank you. The FD had set a new record this year for number of meals served, and the profit would guarantee that the seniors would be getting three square meals for the rest of the year without cutting into the town’s general budget.

He was just finishing up when they got their first call of the day from the library. As Tim had groused, it was a medical call, but then again, at least fifty percent of their calls were. A teenager—there with his entire class—had found the staff ladder irresistible. He’d climbed up twelve feet before his belt had gotten caught on the shelving unit, leaving him hanging upside down over the rest of his delighted class.

Jack was going to guess that it would be college before the kid lived it down.

After that, in quick succession they were called to a traffic collision and then a near drowning in the harbor. Later, they took the engine and truck to the elementary school for their annual Firefighters at School Day. By the end of that visit, every single kid between the ages of five and ten wanted to be a firefighter when they grew up.

Jack had once been one of those kids. He could still remember the day his dad had brought an engine to school. Jack had already known every inch of the truck and gear—hell, he’d been playing with it all since before he could walk—but he’d still been as enthralled as his friends. He’d remained enthralled until the day his dad died on the job. But by then, Jack’s fate had been sealed. Because how did the son of a devoted legend do anything other than follow in his father’s footsteps?

After the kids had gone back to class, Jack began reloading all the supplies and gear. He heard the
click-click-clicking
of a pair of heels, and his pulse jumped once as he thought
Leah
, but it wasn’t her. It was one of the teachers, coming around the back of his truck, seeking him out.

Rachel Moore was a pretty brunette he’d met at the gym. They’d been flirting back and forth for a few weeks now, and the last time they’d run into each other during a workout, she’d suggested maybe having a drink sometime.

“Heard about what happened at the Love Shack,” she said, carefully neutral.

Since this statement could cover a lot of ground, and he wasn’t sure if she was on a fishing expedition or simply making conversation, he made a noncommittal sound.

“People are saying you’re…engaged.”

Yep. Fishing expedition.

“Is it true?” she asked.

Jack looked into Rachel’s pretty green eyes and suppressed a sigh. A deal was a deal, and though Rachel wasn’t—as Leah had so delicately put it—a blond bimbo, Jack had agreed to the insanity. Sort of. “I’m not engaged,” he said. “But—”

“No, stop. I understand.” Her smile was a little forced now. “But you should have told me, Jack. When we were at the gym, we flirted. Or so I thought.” She shook her head. “I didn’t realize it was just flirting. My mistake.” With that, she turned on her heel and took her very hot self back inside the school.

Jack blew out a breath and headed around to the front of the truck, where Tim was waiting with a wide grin. “Hey, at least she didn’t toss her drink in your face.”

Jack narrowed his eyes, and Tim sighed. “Let me guess. The senior center again, right?”

Back at the station, they were in the middle of carrying hoses up and down the five flights of stairs on the training tower in the yard when the alarm went off.

They were sent to the senior center with reports of smoke pouring out of the kitchen. Knowing the seniors of Lucky Harbor, this could mean anything. Last year, Mrs. Burland had been making soup for herself when she’d had a heart attack. No one had known she was down until her soup had evaporated and the pan had caught fire. Mrs. Burland had lived. The kitchen, not so much.

Tim was in his seat, leaning forward, as excited as if he’d hit the lottery. “Please be a fire,” he said. “Please oh please be a fire.”

Ian slid him an annoyed look. “Remember, Rookie, follow our lead.”

“Let me take point this time,” Tim said. “Please?”

“No point,” Ian said. “LT’s point.”

But this time when they got there, the only person in the kitchen was Lucille, wearing a neon-green velour track suit and bright-white athletic shoes.

“Jesus,” Tim muttered, holding up a hand to block his eyes. “She’s brighter than the sun.”

Lucille gave him a Vanna White smile. “Hiya!” Then she snapped his picture.

“You reported a fire,” Jack said. “Where is it?”

Concentrating on her phone now, messing with the camera setting, Lucille was distracted. “I realize this is going to sound so wrong, but…” She looked at them. “Could you all take off your shirts?”

Ian laughed.

But Jack wasn’t finding the humor. “Put the phone down, Lucille.”

“Aw. Please? Just one shirtless pic? You can’t even imagine the online traffic boost we get from shirtless pics.”

“The fire, Lucille,” Jack said. “Where’s the fire?”

“Oh.
That.
” She blew out a sigh. “It’s all that fuddy-duddy Mrs. Burland’s doing.”

“She have another medical emergency?”

“Does being a pain in the behind count?”

Jack resisted pointing out that
she
was the pain in the behind. “Is there a fire or not?”

“My goodness, you’re in an awful hurry today. I tell you, storytelling is a lost art nowadays. A real shame too, because—”

“Lucille.”

“Fine!” She sniffed in irritation. “I wanted to make everyone my cheesy toast special. Except a little piece of bread got caught in the toaster and a tiny little flame popped up, and Mrs. B called you.”

Jack turned to the toaster. No smoke. No flames.

“I tried to tell her she was overreacting,” Lucille said. “That she at least needed to pass out or something to make it worth her while.”

“Don’t you mean
our
while?” Tim asked.

“No.” She smiled at the rookie. “Because if she passed out, she’d have had a shot at CPR from one of you hotties.”

For the first time ever, Tim looked relieved to
not
be point.