And Then He Kissed Me (39 page)

So yes, there were things she loved—but a
place
she loved?

The answer seemed impossible. She’d never traveled much outside of Minnesota. Her life up until now had been composed of
getting
places, of ensuring a specific course on a road to success. She’d never stopped much along the way.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Abe said. She could hear the smile on his lips, trying to lighten the moment. As if he somehow understood what a battle this question was.

“I don’t…” The words faded into less than a whisper. She had no answer.

“It’s okay,” Abe said. His hand was on her shoulder again, the other still clasping her fingers against his chest. This man was stronger and steadier and calmer than anyone she’d ever met.

There was a shout above them, and a scraping noise. Casey cringed.

“The place
I
love,” Abe said, “is a little German town called Freiburg. The British messed it up in World War II, gutted it with bombs. But the town was rebuilt with these efficient, logical roads and bike paths that you can take anywhere. There’s also a train, and it always runs on time.
Always
. And there’s all this green technology through what are called passive houses. They don’t require any kind of furnace or device to heat them. They essentially heat themselves. It’s efficient. It’s incredible.”

Casey thrilled at how thoughtful and ordered it sounded. Until a small inner voice reminded her that being logical and ordered is what had almost ruined her life. A straight-laced existence had nearly been her undoing, and she wasn’t about to repeat the pattern. She’d moved to White Pine to do the opposite, in fact.

“When were you there?” she managed to ask.

“Never. I’ve only read about it. I’m saving up to go, but—well, it’s a long story.”

And based on the shouts and noise above them, there wasn’t any time to tell it.

Abe’s radio squawked. “Crew to lieutenant. Elevator tech is here. He’s going to come in from the top. We’ll get you out with the ladder.”

“Message received.”

“They’re coming in though the fire access panel above us,” Abe said. “The elevator door to the first floor is just a foot or so away, so they’re going to pull us out of the top of this thing, then pull us onto the first floor. Does that make sense?”

“Yes.”

Abe’s stubbled cheek pressed against hers. The rough feel of it had her muscles weakening. “You’re almost there,” he said. “Just a few more minutes.”

Before she could gather her next thought, Abe dropped her hand and stepped away, just as the panel in the ceiling above them opened. A flashlight beam pierced through, brighter than a hundred camera flashes. Or so Casey thought as she squinted against it.

“There are better places for a party,” said the firefighter above them. “This one is kind of hard to get to, and I’m not sure the DJ would fit.”

“Get a ladder down here
now
, Reese.” Abe’s voice was back to being razor sharp. Audrey wrapped her arms around herself, thinking she’d liked it much better when he’d murmured.

The flashlight beam bounced as a ladder was lowered into the elevator car. “Reese will hold it from above,” Abe said. “I’ll grab it down here. Go ahead.”

Casey took in the firm set of Abe’s lips, the rugged edge of his jaw, the hardness in his eyes. His kindness, his gentleness was seeping away—that is, if it had ever been there in the first place.

Not that she was about to stay in the elevator one second longer to wonder. She grasped the sides of the ladder and hauled herself up the rungs until Reese helped her stand on top of the stalled car. Golden light poured onto them from the open doors just a few above. Inside the wide doors was the female firefighter, Quinn.

Audrey gulped air, relieved to be away from the confines of the elevator’s four walls.

“You hardly have to move now,” Reese said, smiling a lopsided grin. “You just raise your arms and Quinn is going to pull you up.”

If she had any doubts that Quinn was strong enough, they were gone within seconds. Before she knew it, strong hands had lifted her into the safety of the building. It was all she could do to smile and thank her rescuers. She wanted to collapse onto the floor and kiss the solid ground beneath her feet.

“Casey!” Her director, Ingrid, was racing down the wood-planked hallway to get to her. “Oh my God, Raif called me just as I was dropping Heidi back off at school. I got here as soon as I could. I was so worried!” Whole sections of her white-blond hair had come loose from her ponytail. A number two pencil was tucked behind her ear, its yellow wood indented with teeth marks.

“I’m fine,” Casey managed. “I just don’t like small spaces much.”

“What an ordeal. Take the rest of the day off. Please.”

“I’m sure I’ll be all right.”

“Just do it, okay? It’ll make me feel better, anyway.”

She hugged Casey just as Abe’s voice sliced through the commotion. He was directly behind her. “Get the ladder hauled up. Talk to the mechanic. I want it logged in.”

“Yes, Lu.” The firefighters scurried to get their tasks finished.

“Abe!” Ingrid said, waving at him. “You saved our girl here. Thank you.”

Casey was momentarily confused as to how these two were acquainted. Abe had been tutored at Robot Lit years ago. Had he stayed in touch with the staff?

“You guys know each other?” she asked dumbly.

“Abe’s a good friend to this place,” Ingrid said.

Recognition dawned. Casey hadn’t been around nonprofits very much, but she was beginning to understand that
friend
meant donor.

Abe smiled at Ingrid—big enough to show two rows of gloriously straight white teeth. Casey’s heart jerked. “Happy to help,” he said. “You two take care.”

He started off, radioing more commands. He wasn’t leaving, was he? The thought had her stomach clenching unexpectedly. Casey gave Ingrid a hang-on-a-minute gesture.

She trotted after Abe. “Thank you,” she said, sliding in front of him to stop his forward march. “You kept me calm down there and I’m grateful. You were great. Are great, I mean. At your job, that is.” Her brain still felt tangled, her words twisted into each other.

Oh, God, what was she doing? She should have just let him go. She was making an ass of herself.

If Abe minded her babbling, he didn’t show it. In fact, his eyes flashed with emotion and, if Casey didn’t know better, she’d say it was warmth. Maybe even something hotter than that—a light closer to flame.

“Happy to help.” Then he tipped his helmet at her and walked away, barking orders at the other firefighters. The sound of his fireman’s boots on the warehouse’s wood floors grew more and more distant.

The connection she’d felt between them stretched thin as he retreated, like taffy pulled too far apart. She felt a pang of hollowness, an unexpected disappointment. Did he really have to walk away like that? He’d been so comforting, so calming in the elevator telling her about Robot Lit and the German city he loved. Underneath all those layers of fireman’s gear, she thought she’d glimpsed his tender side, and it left her wanting more.

She thought maybe he’d seen something in her that he wanted more of, too. The way he’d pulled her close, the way he’d murmured into her hair.

But apparently not.

Apparently he was just doing his job.

She pulled in a breath. It was just as well. Abe Cameron was a stranger to her. In her frazzled state in the elevator, she’d simply contrived a connection to a man she barely knew. Even worse, she’d turned him into something he clearly wasn’t—gentle, caring, even sexy, a
hero
—and when the hard light of day hit her again, she’d been left staring at something that had never been.

It’s all for the best
. She wasn’t looking for someone whose lifelong dream was to visit an orderly German town. Practicality was not on her list of sexy attributes. She had enough of that in her own life, thank you very much.

Casey knew that to permanently shed her spinster status, she was going to have to find a man who was her complete opposite. Fun-loving, carefree, adventurous—everything she wanted to be.

She stepped out into the darkening afternoon, the snow swirling and the holiday lights twinkling, and reminded herself she was back in White Pine to change. To be better.

A man like Abe Cameron would be nothing but trouble.

C
HAPTER
TWO

T
he morning sun crested over a snow-covered hill, igniting the icy limbs of the cedar trees in a fiery orange glow. Abe Cameron gulped down the cold air, lungs burning as his hiking boots trundled through the fresh powder on the trail. His hands clutched at the straps on his backpack. Sweat dripped down his neck in rivulets that froze almost as soon as they formed.

Three miles in. Five to go. Eight miles every other day along this trail, rain or shine, carrying a backpack filled with weights and a rock or two from along the path, when he felt like throwing them in.

It was the hardest workout Abe could think of. It was also the only one that made sense to him. Because if something was challenging, you did it. It if was tough, you tackled it.

Abe shifted the backpack slightly, ignoring the ache in his shoulders and neck. He’d long ago stopped asking himself how he felt about things. If he focused on the pain, the hurt, the desire to stop, he’d never do anything.

He’d never run into a flame-engulfed building.

He’d never hold the hand of a car-crash victim and tell them to hang on.

He’d never breathe air into the lungs of a drowning victim, willing himself to bring them back.

In White Pine, fire and rescue were wrapped into one, meaning he could get called on everything from a house fire to a sprained ankle. Doing both meant he’d seen his share of broken bodies and tragic situations.

He pushed himself down the trail harder, as if trying to outrun the memories of the middle-of-the-night calls when someone stopped breathing, and the pain in the family members’ faces as they helplessly watched him work.

An icy wind blasted his face. He turned into it, welcoming the raw cold. His job should have made him grateful for every day he was alive and healthy. Oddly, it had done the opposite. It had numbed him, in a way, to his life. It could all get taken away so easily, so why get invested?

It’s part of why he kept himself cordoned off from any relationships that got too deep or too heavy.

That’s just the way it is
, he thought bitterly. Then immediately wondered how he’d gotten so jaded. He didn’t much like the hardened cynic who stared back at him every morning from the bathroom mirror.

He stumbled, nearly losing his footing. He threw out his arms, fighting for balance. When he righted himself, he took a deep gulp of the crystal air. His thoughts were too heavy, too coarse. He knew this. All this existential clamor about feelings was useless. He should stop right now.

But at the same time, he felt a heavy weariness he couldn’t shake. God, but it was exhausting work, sealing yourself away from the reality that life was tenuous, even delicate. It could all end—poof!—in a single moment. A fire. A misstep. A piano falling from the sky.

This truth had kept him on the edge of his own existence. It had given him his nickname at the station: Ninety-eyed. “Eyed” was a homophone for “IED.” Every relationship he’d ever had blew up after ninety days. Ninety-
IED
. He blew up the connection to the women he’d pursued. He pulled the trigger. He knew it. The guys at the station knew it. And the parade of women through his life certainly knew it—if not at first, then certainly by the time they’d dusted off the rubble and got over the shock.

For years, he’d enjoyed the nickname because he’d been happy. Hot sex for a while, then an explosion before things got complicated. But now, he was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t happy as much as he was…indifferent. It was hard to be too bummed about anything when nothing really mattered.

He grunted, straining under his pack. For the first time in memory, he was experiencing feelings he didn’t want to bat down. A tiny spring bubbled inside him every time he thought about Casey, the woman from Robot Lit, and he was doing a half-assed job of damming it up.

The memory of her soft hand inside his while they were trapped in the elevator had his heart pounding more than it normally would along this section of the trail. He followed a fork to the left into a cluster of birch trees, ducking amid low branches.

If he’d been put off by her reckless decision to go down to the basement when they first showed up, he’d warmed to her when she said she was an accountant. He respected the logic of numbers. And then to find out she was working at Robot Lit was an added bonus. The place had been able to teach him to read, had emphasized the wonder of books when most of his teachers had simply shrugged off his struggle for literacy, saying the words would be there when he was ready. Robot Lit mattered to him, and he liked meeting people who felt the same way.