Burn for You (12 page)

“I still think you’re way off base,” she said. “But you’re right. No one has to know I’m keeping an eye out. And if someone in my firehouse is behind this, well, they don’t deserve my loyalty.”

“Excellent. So, when’s this wedding I’m going to?”

“Four weeks away.”

“And what’s the dress code? Suit? Tux?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you?” She smiled—that big knockout smile that had thrown him off guard the first time he’d met her. Now, it just made him nervous.

“Tell me what, Toria?”

“It’s a theme wedding. The guests have to dress as their favorite Disney character.”

“Wait. Wha—”

“I’m thinking you’d make a great Sebastian.”

“Who the fuck’s Sebastian?”

“You know. The lobster from
The Little Mermaid
? Yeah, we could get you a lobster costume.”

“Uh. No.”

Victoria laughed. And if he hadn’t been three shades of horrified, he would’ve appreciated the purely magical sound of a truly amused Victoria laugh.

“There’s no way in hell I’m playing dress-up for a wedding.”

She laughed harder, little snorts escaping with each giggle.

“I’m serious. And furthermore, you should tell your brother to ask his fiancée for his balls back. I mean who—”

“I’m kidding, Jason.” She wiped at the tears of hilarity clinging to her lashes. “Oh, you should’ve seen your face.”

“Very funny, Russo.” He tried to sound stern, but her humor was contagious, and he found himself smiling too.

Her laughter tapered off and then was smothered completely when she tipped her beer bottle up and polished off the last of the ale. She put the bottle down with a
thunk
and brought her mirth-filled gaze up to his. “A suit, Meadows. Wear a nice suit.”

Chapter 9

Victoria rolled over, slowly coming to awareness.

Why was her alarm going off when it was still dark outside?

She rubbed her eyes and squinted at her cell phone on the nightstand. It wasn’t the alarm. It was Camille calling.

At ten at night? She sat up in bed and snatched up the phone. Something was wrong.

“Hello? Camille? What’s the matter?”

“Are you watching the ten o’clock news?”

“No. Why?” Victoria’s heart hammered. With four brothers and a father all working for various police and fire agencies, the words
are you watching the news
were not typically followed by good things.

“What’s going on, Camille?” She pulled the blanket off the bed, wrapped it around her, and went to the living room to turn on the TV. “Is Tony okay?”

“Yes, he’s fine. Everyone’s fine. Just turn on the local news. WGN.”

Victoria thumbed through the channels, passing WGN in her hurry to find the right station. She flipped back until a familiar face appeared on the screen. “Oh. My. God.”

“I know!” Camille said. “They’re asking him questions about the photo.”

Stunned, Victoria flopped onto the couch. Jason glared back at her from the flat screen. Well, not at her, but at the balding reporter asking him questions as he walked through the police station parking lot.

“What is the nature of your relationship with Victoria Russo?”

“Oh, shit,” Victoria muttered.

Camille was the only one who knew the truth behind that photo. She’d told her best friend the whole embarrassing tale about how earlier that day she’d cajoled Jason into playing along to save her pride. But she’d never expected that he’d have to pretend for the entire city of Chicago and all of its surrounding suburbs. And on the news no less!

“Folks, no disrespect, but I’m here to work. Not talk about my personal life.”

Good answer, Meadows.

He didn’t slow down but continued toward the back entrance of the PD, forcing the cameraman to speed-walk backwards to stay ahead of him.

“Just a few quick questions,” the reporter said.

Jason tried to slip past them, but the newsmen persisted.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” His tone was anything but polite. “I need to get inside.”

“What do you say to people who think that photo was staged as a publicity stunt?”

“Doesn’t much matter what I say. People will think whatever they want to think.”

“Was it a publicity stunt?”

Jason didn’t answer, but kept walking. He made it around the cameraman, who turned and followed behind Jason while the reporter jogged alongside.

“Were you hoping to show police officers in a more positive light in a time when the public is against you?”

Jason kept walking, but responded over his shoulder. “We do not view the public we serve as being against us.”

“Be that as it may, there are a lot of negative stories about police and use of force in the media right now. Do you think this picture does anything to combat the poor image the public holds of police officers?”

“I think the work that ninety-five percent of us do on a daily basis speaks for itself. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Jason turned away and opened the back door to the PD.

“Do you think Victoria Russo can handle the stress of her job?”

Jason froze. His sudden stillness made the hairs on Victoria’s arm stand up.

“Excuse me?” he asked, turning to face the reporter.

“Do you think she should be working as a paramedic? Or do you think anyone should work in that field if they can’t maintain a certain distance from what’s happening?”

“You think distance is a positive thing?”

“I think she looked overwhelmed in that photo. Do you think she was too emotional to do her job that day?”

That hit Victoria right in the gut. To have her ability questioned on television like this…she couldn’t imagine anything more humiliating. Or infuriating. She felt like puking and cursing all at the same time.

Jason took a step toward the reporter, his voice frightening in its calmness. “And just how much emotion is too much emotion, do you think?”

“Well, some might say that a woman might be less equipped—”

“Oh, he did not just say that,” Victoria said, pointing the remote accusingly at the TV. Camille made uh-uh noises of disapproval on the other end of the line.

“Are you kidding me?” Jason asked. “Are you seriously making this a gender issue? You want to talk about who’s fit to be a first responder and who’s not? Well, let’s talk about that. Cops, firefighters, paramedics—we see a lot of awful sh—” He glanced at the camera. “Stuff. It’s easy to become jaded. But you know what’s not easy? Allowing yourself to care about people. To be invested and then devastated. And to have the strength to drag yourself out of bed the next morning and do it all over again. Victoria Russo is one of a rare breed of people who can do that. She hasn’t lost her humanity. She’s exactly the type of first responder we need.”

“You tell him, Jason,” Camille said.

“Shh!” Victoria didn’t want a miss a second of this.

“And let me ask you this,” Jason continued, eyeing the reporter with ill-concealed contempt. “Who do you want sitting next to you on your ride to the hospital? The medic who keeps a
professional distance
or the one who’s going to feel it down to her bones if something happens to you?”

Ignoring the question, the reporter took the mic out of Jason’s face and spoke into it himself. “There are reports that one of the firefighters is in critical condition after Russo botched a procedure at the scene—”

“Stop. Just stop right there. I don’t know jack about how to place a chest tube, but I do know that if Victoria hadn’t acted as she did that firefighter would not be with us today. So, you will not question her competence. You got that? Not ever again.”

The reporter opened his mouth, proving that he was a total friggin’ idiot. Any fool could see Jason was seconds away from blowing his top. And so was Victoria. But even she couldn’t have defended herself as eloquently as Jason had. If she’d been confronted with those questions she would’ve been a mess of incoherent anger. Which was pretty much what she was now—sitting on her couch, fuming at the TV.

“That’s it for today,” Jason said, cutting the reporter off from whatever stupid thing he was about to say. He turned away and opened the door to the PD once more. “No more questions,” he said over his shoulder and disappeared into the building.

The reporter raised his brows at the camera. “Well, there you have it. Jason Meadows. The police officer from the photo that’s gone viral and captured the nation’s imagination—”

Victoria muted the TV.

“Oh, my gosh,” Camille said. “Did you see how he let that jerk imply all sorts of horrible things about him and barely said a word in his own defense? But the second that reporter went after you, he went all shut-your-damn-mouth on the guy. Did you see that?”

“I did. I saw that.”

“That was hot.”

It really kinda was.

“Girl, if you tell me you’re not the slightest bit interested in that man, I just might leave your brother at the altar and go after him myself.”

Victoria smiled. “You’d never leave Tony.”

“I might.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You going to stop me?”

“I might.”

“You
should
.”

Victoria chuckled and said her goodnights to Camille, promising to call her back in the morning.

Dragging her blanket back to bed, she thought about what her friend had suggested. In eight years, she’d never contemplated seriously pursuing anyone but Graham. Sure, she’d had a few flirtations, but she’d never let those relationships develop, because she’d always assumed she and Graham would find their way back to one another.

But then no man had ever stood in front of a camera and defended her to the whole world.

Well, okay, not the
whole
world.

Just the couple of million people watching WGN.

What Jason had said…it was no small thing.

And not something she would ever forget.

* * *

Three times. That’s how many times Victoria got out of her car, walked up to Jason’s door, chickened out, and walked back to her car. Three times. What the hell was her problem?

Sitting in her car, parked on the street in front of his townhome, Victoria grabbed the periwinkle silk tie she’d brought over for him. It had taken her and Camille three phone conversations and seventeen text messages to finally come up with a decent excuse for Victoria to come back to his house today.

All she really wanted was an opportunity to say thank you. To tell him how much it meant that he’d stood up for her even when she knew he had zero desire to talk to the press. But showing up on his doorstep two days in a row smacked of a neediness Victoria was loath to experience.

Having recently realized that she’d wasted years pining for a man who was never going to be interested in anything more than friendship, the last thing Victoria wanted to do was throw herself into another obsession.

And Jason was quickly becoming someone she could see herself obsessing over.

After the news segment last night, she’d fallen asleep thinking about him and all the things he’d said to that awful reporter. She’d dreamed about his uniquely blue eyes and woken up with a smile, remembering the way he called her Toria whenever he was teasing her.

Which brought her to today’s mission. Yes, she wanted an excuse to tell him she appreciated his words last night, but also, she needed to set a few things straight.

Smoothing her thumb over the soft silk of the tie, she took a deep breath and got out of her car for the last time.

Jason answered the door after just one ring, making her hope to St. Francis he hadn’t been watching her first three chicken-shit attempts.

“Two visits in one week, Toria?” He stood in the doorway, wearing basketball shorts and a gray t-shirt with the sleeves cut out, looking like he’d just returned from a workout. “Did another picture surface? Should I be worried?” With an easy grin, he held the door wide, and she stepped inside.

“I brought you this.” She handed him the periwinkle silk tie.

He took the tie, raising his eyebrows.

“It matches my bridesmaid’s dress.”

“Ah, I see. I thought maybe you were worried I didn’t own a tie.”

“Well, there was that,” she said, teasing. “Actually, the tie I really wanted to get you had an under-the-sea motif with a giant red lobster at the bottom.”

He chuckled.

“But Camille’s a classy broad, and I couldn’t bring you to her wedding wearing that. Funny as I thought it was.”

He nodded. “Well, thanks. I’ll be sure to learn how to tie a tie in the next four weeks.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Still standing near the door, they trailed into an awkward silence.

“So, ah, you want to come in and sit down?” Jason finally asked.

“No, I only have a minute. I’m on my way to Camille’s place to help with some wedding stuff.” She cleared her throat. “Listen, um, I just wanted to say thank you.”

He glanced up at her curiously.

“I saw you on the news last night,” she said.

“Did you now?” He shook his head. “Seems I’m everywhere these days.”

“I really appreciated what you said. That you stood up for me with that reporter.”

“Eh, it was nothing.” He waved the tie in dismissal. “The guy was a real prick. Putting him in his place was my pleasure.”

“All the same, it meant a lot. You take on a lot of risks when you do something like that in the field. It’s not as sterile an environment. You don’t have the same equipment that’s available at the hospital. It was a tough call to decide to place the chest tube before transporting. And not everyone thinks I did the right thing.”

His expression hardening, Jason crossed his arms over his chest, which emphasized his rather large biceps. “Like who?”

“Flaherty, for one.”

“What’s that guy’s problem? Every time I see him, he looks like he’s got a giant pole stuck up his ass.”

She shrugged a shoulder. “I try to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was in Afghanistan around the same time that I was. His unit took some really horrible losses.”

“Still, that’s no excuse for him to give you a hard time.”

“Well, be that as it may, he disagreed with me about placing the chest tube in front of everyone. Made a real scene. I imagine someone shared that with the WGN reporter.”