Bear The Fire (Firebear Brides 4) (2 page)

“When are you planning to leave?” Ragnar asked, as if reading his thoughts.

“Day after tomorrow, I think. An old buddy offered me a job down in Mississippi.”

“That’s a big fire state,” Ragnar commented with that trademark dry wit of his that made Rhodes’s hackles rise in irritation.

“Yeah, well, a smokejumper takes what he can get,” he scoffed.

“I doubt there’s a lot of smokejumping in Mississippi,” Ragnar grinned.

Shooting him a dirty look, Rhodes shrugged. When he said he’d take what he could get, he wasn’t kidding. He had… a reputation. Not a good one. Yes, he was competent at his job and yes, he was one of the best out there. He was young, brave—almost too brave—and his type of blood-boiling anger would ensure that he would always come out of the fire by the skin of his teeth if need be. He never quit.

But he also had a temper, and after a few assault and battery charges and a few more that had been dropped by colleagues in different states, it was becoming harder and harder to find a job. They called him a liability. He called them cowards. At the end of the day, they still had their jobs and Rhodes was slumming it in Idaho, feeling like he’d barged in on a triple wedding in the making.

“I’m not sure you’re the one to talk, Arson Investigator Hamilton. There’s like what? One arsonist every twenty-years here?” Rhodes taunted, seeing whether or not he could get a rise out of Ragnar at the expense of the dark memory both of them shared.

As assumed, he could not. Scoffing, Rhodes pulled a hand through his hair, slicking his dirty blond locks back. He was getting antsy. His hands were itching to do something other than build the damn workshop, which he’d thrown up with the rest of the Hamiltons in a day. The grounds had plenty of work for able-bodied men before they could bring livestock in or plant anything, but the thought of staying in one place like that, shackled to the land, made his stomach knot.

No, he needed to keep going.

“You going to keep running, then?” Ragnar asked as Rhodes got up.

He whipped around, scowling. “You think I’m running?”

“I
know
you’re running, Rhodes,” Ragnar said, taking a swill of his beer. “Question is, from what?”

Rhodes met the question with silence, considering Ragnar’s stoic features. He hadn’t changed a bit, it seemed. Though there was a glow about him, like the pieces had fallen into place and suddenly
his
existence made more sense. Rhodes couldn’t help but envy that, considering the currently fucked-up nature of his own.

“How’s Kali?” Ragnar asked, seemingly determined to test the limits of Rhodes’s patience that night.

Like a hot iron prod being shoved between his ribs, Rhodes sucked in a strangled breath before throwing his brother a murderous glare. Any other man would have been decked for that, but Ragnar could sit there, unflinching, as Rhodes’s rage wafted around him like a blood-red cape.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” Rhodes huffed, slamming his beer down on the table and stalking toward the door leading into the kitchen and the rest of the house.

“If it isn’t mine, whose is it?” Ragnar asked, his words echoing in Rhodes’s ears as he skulked through the house, heading toward the bedroom he’d occupied on the third floor.

No one’s,
he thought grimly.
No one’s at all.

Ragnar was the closest thing to a real friend Rhodes had ever had. Or managed to keep, anyway. His temper got in the way of a lot of things—lasting friendships and bonds being one of them. A green-eyed, laughing face floated up in his memories, smiling at him sweetly and making him and his bear tense with expectation.

No, you’re not going to start this shit again,
he told himself firmly, wiping the memory aside.
Kali has nothing to do with this.

He trundled up the stairs and pulled the door shut so hard behind him that the whole floor seemed to quake. As usual, just a poke and a prod and he was on his hind legs, roaring and spitting at the world at large. That inkling of peace he’d thought he’d felt in his heart was gone again, as if whisked away by the wind—which seemed to be lacking in dry, scorched Idaho, it seemed.

Flustered, he threw off his shirt, boots, and shucked off his pants and lay down on the bed, staring listlessly at the ceiling. Being alone with his thoughts was always difficult. Even with the alcohol sloshing around in his system, the morose and agitating thoughts he managed to avoid so well during the day were with him as soon as he was alone. And damn if he didn’t hate it.

Kali’s name kept coming up like a tease from the past, something almost close enough to grab but always slipping away at the very last moment. He wasn’t even surprised when he gave in, his hand moving to his already rigid cock, curling around it tightly and starting to work himself to release with jagged, hard strokes. He could remember everything about her body, like it was yesterday that she’d been in his arms.

The generous swell of her breasts, those lush, kissable lips, and those eyes that were so green that they looked like pale jade pools, the kind that a man could sink into and never come up for air.

Like always, Kali did it for him fast. But even with that tension out of his body, wadded up and thrown in the garbage, he couldn’t sleep. Somehow it just made him feel emptier, and the void was that much harder to fill.

Fucking Idaho.

CHAPTER TWO

Kali

“Whipped cream or no whipped cream?” Kali asked, forcing a smile on her face.

“I already told you, no whipped cream,” the sullen customer barked, scrunching his nose.

“No sir, I asked you about cinnamon before, not whipped cream. However, noted, no whip cream. Coming right up,” she said, a smile plastered on her features so hard that her face hurt from the strain of wearing the damn thing.

She flipped around and scooted over to the coffee machine, going through the mechanical motions of preparing Dustin’s, as was his name, triple chocolate latte with no cinnamon, no whipped cream. Cassandra gave her a pitying look from the other machine while straightening the rim of her red visor.

“Good day, huh?”

“The best,” Kali answered, smirking.

Her voice still hurt from the concert last night, played to a grand total of about thirty die-hard fans, but she’d rocked out just the same. It wasn’t the size of the venue or the number of audience, but the pipes of the artist, as their drummer, Mike, always said. Sighing, Kali finished off the coffee, capping it and turning toward the counter again with one last commiserating look shared with Cassandra.

“Here you are, sir,” she said, beaming again like it was the best thing in the world to serve surly customers inexplicably expensive coffee in a tiny corner coffee shop in Seattle.

He grumbled something that might have been a curse, grabbed his cup, and stepped away. Relaxing her shoulders, Kali was busy counting her blessings for managing to keep her tongue behind her teeth this time, when a sudden roar of anger made her jump with surprise.

Dustin turned around, his puffy face red with rage, shoving the cup in her face.

“I ordered it
with
cinnamon and
with
whipped cream, you stupid bitch! Can’t you even get your damn job right?!” he heaved, looking like he was about to pop.

Kali pulled back a little, frowning. Hell no he hadn’t ordered it
with
anything. She was mindful about that. Flicking a quick glance at Cassandra, Kali took a calming breath and then smiled again, trying to make it look at least partially sincere.

“I’m sorry, sir. Let me fix you another one on the house. It must have been my mistake.”

All eyes were on them, the packed café experiencing a tiny bit of drama in a dull, warm summer day. Kali felt a blush creep up her cheeks but she kept her cool, knowing damn well that this was one of those things that made her wish she hadn’t dropped her smoking habit a few years ago. Man would it have been good to light one up after getting reamed by a giant asshole like this Dustin.

“No. Fuck you. Honestly, just fuck you, bitch,” he sneered.

The next thing Kali knew, her red uniform top was dripping with triple chocolate latte, no cinnamon, no whipped cream. Her face was dappled with the sugary sweet drink and her big green eyes were wide with shock as Dustin wheeled around and tramped outside, cursing and yelling to no one but himself.

“Holy shit,” Cassandra said, snapping a picture of Kali on her phone as she dripped with coffee. “This is so going on the wall!” she cheered, clearly ignoring Kali’s very capable death-ray glare.

“Exactly what I needed,” Kali said, turning around and stomping into the back room of the coffee shop to change her top.

She wished it was the first time that had happened, but it was far from it. They had a whole wall of customer-related injuries, as Cassandra liked to call them, both physical and mental. Some had pictures, some had bills, and some only had colorful sticky notes to denominate the awesome experience of the horribly scarring events.

Slumping down next to her locker, Kali glared at the wall, shaking her head. Her long, caramel-blonde hair fell over one shoulder, tied up in a ponytail as per corporate’s orders. Squirming out of her shit, she plucked her regular black T-shirt out of her locker and put it on. It wasn’t a uniform top but it would have to do for now.

I hope Malya doesn’t see me in this,
Kali thought grimly, praying that their shift supervisor had chosen this day to have a hangover for the full day, not half the day as she sometimes did.
This day can’t get any worse.

She knew she was supposed to stand up and go back to work like nothing had happened, smiling like a goofball and jumping at every inane request and demand. But her feet wouldn’t move and frankly, Kali couldn’t blame them. Groaning, she buried her head into her hands and sat there for a minute, cursing herself for the choices she’d made.

Become a singer! It’ll be cool! You’ll totally make it big!
Kali mocked herself, remembering her overeager sixteen-year-old self and all the big plans she’d had.

At her parents coaxing, she’d finished a degree in marine biology—which might have been the most useless degree for someone with artistic aspirations—and then put it to excellent use, working as a barista for the last few years. Now at twenty-four years of age, the reality of her choices were crashing down all over her, much like Dustin’s coffee.

“You coming?” Cassandra called, peeking into the back room. “We’re getting a line out here, hon,” she said, her expression marked with a compassionate frown.

“I’m coming! Sorry,” Kali said, hopping up on her feet.

In retrospect, she should have known that dreams were made for little girls and rich people. But somehow, she’d been reluctant to give hers up. She’d already given up too much; saying no to her singing might have just been the last straw to break the proverbial camel’s back.

Scrunching her nose up, Kali turned to close her locker when her phone buzzed. She kept it in there so she wouldn’t feel the urge to browse on Pinterest or Facebook, or hell, SassyDate, during work. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the phone, perfectly ready to ignore the call and get back to whoever it was later.

When she saw the caller ID flashing on the screen, she froze.

Ragnar Hamilton. Shit.

If Ragnar Hamilton was calling her, that could only mean that there was something going on with Rhodes. Rhodes. The guy who’d tossed her world around and then disappeared as she was finishing college. The man she’d fallen head over heels for and couldn’t get off her mind no matter how many shitty SassyDate dates she went on. The man who… no, she wouldn’t even think about that. They’d made a promise to each other. They’d never talk about
that
ever again.

Which was real fucking easy to do seeing as Rhodes had vanished into thin air pretty much straight after
that
had happened.

And the only other person in the world who knew was Ragnar. With trembling hands and a dry throat, Kali thumbed across the screen and brought the phone to her ear.

“This is Kali,” she said, still internally praying that this was some sort of a mistake.

Maybe Ragnar had called the wrong number! Maybe it was all a big old coincidence and it wasn’t him, just her phone going crazy! Maybe…

“Hey, Kali. This is Ragnar.”

Shit.
No such luck.

“Hey,” she replied awkwardly, intimately aware of how her stomach was coiling in on itself and her powerful lungs felt like they were about to scrunch up and crawl up her throat with the next words that she spoke.

“I’m calling you to ask for that favor now, Kali. Do you remember?”

She closed her eyes, her hand going slack around the phone. The corners of her mouth fell and she stood perfectly in place, stewing in the moment and wondering if God couldn’t just strike down and smite her where she stood. It would make things a hell of a lot easier.

“Kali? You still there?” Ragnar asked, his deep voice tinged with a note of worry that would have been heartwarming had Kali not known what was behind it.