Fire at Sunset: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 4 (10 page)

It was probably her moral duty to check.
 

Putting on her slippers, she sneaked through her curtain without moving it, avoiding the screech of the curtain rings.
 

The kitchen was dark and still smelled of the ribs Methyl had stolen. No Caz. The dayroom was deserted. She snapped off the television which was playing infomercials on mute to the empty room. She didn’t actually go
into
the men’s bathroom—some things should stay private—but she could tell by the crack at the door that the lights were out inside. The weight room was dark. The cardio room was empty. The app bay was her next stop, but after checking each rig she knew he wasn’t there, either.
 

Where
was
he? Firefighters and paramedics didn’t get to go home on a bad day. You couldn’t just leave if you came down with the flu—you had to get coverage before you could leave or you left your whole crew a body short. An engine couldn’t go to a fire with two people on board; an ambulance didn’t roll with just one person.
 

You didn’t just get to leave the firehouse.
 

So he was somewhere.
 

The only two places she hadn’t checked were the dispatcher’s dorm (no firefighter would
dare
, even Coin, who shared Lexie’s bed when they weren’t at work) and the outdoor patio where they kept the grill.
 

And he was there, on the patio. Sitting on an old wooden chair, with his legs kicked up onto the stump of the palm tree they’d cut down the year before when it got struck by lightning, Caz was asleep. At his feet were curled shavings of wood, resting on top of the newspaper he always laid down when he whittled. In his lap was a half-formed wolf—the head and front paws were startlingly clear, the back haunches still uncarved. Caz’s cheek was propped on one arm. He looked like someone in a hospital waiting room. She’d seen that look a million times before. Someone too worried to go home and lie down, but too bone-tired to stay awake.

What was Caz Lloyd so worried about?
 

And geez, wasn’t he cold? Bonnie wrapped her arms around herself. It had been a gorgeous, barbecue kind of day, yes, but with night, the air had gone cold again. Without the usual layer of fog for insulation, it was downright chilly outside.
 

She should leave him.
 

He was out here for a reason, because he didn’t want to sleep inside.
Maybe he didn’t want to sleep next to her.
 

She turned to go back in.
 

“Sorry I’m not cracking jokes, Mad.”
 

Bonnie jumped. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
 

He shrugged. The dark circles under his eyes were deepened by the yellow light streaming over Bonnie’s shoulder. “But then you did.”
 

Her temper frayed at its tired edges. “What’s your problem?”
 

Caz shoved his hand through his hair and it stood up even more angrily than it had been. “Why does everyone in this department ask me that?”
 

Bonnie stepped forward—ignoring the crackle of electricity that jumped between them—and lowered her voice. There were no windows facing the patio, but the back door to the chief’s dorm was just around the corner, and she didn’t want Barger to hear them arguing. Again. “Because you’re a pain in the ass.”
 

“Excuse me?”
 

The words had been pent up too long. “You act like you’re so much better than the rest of us. You just can’t come down to our level, can you?”
 

“Wait—”
 

“No,
you
wait. I’m sorry that maybe the move to this department isn’t everything you wanted it to be.”
 

“It’s—”
 

“But you’re here. Like my mother would say, ‘You made this bed, now you have to eat crackers in it.’ ”
 

“What?”
 

“And you’ve got the ranch and your other job there, and I strongly suspect the reason you live with your dad is because you have to take care of him.”
 

He stared, his blue eyes darkening to a bruised purple.
 

“But when you’re here,
be
here. You’ve got nowhere else to be when you’re at work. You do such a great job with patients. I’ve seen it. If you could just…be nice to your coworkers. What makes you so much better than us that you can’t sit and enjoy a meal with us? Why won’t you laugh when Guy farts doing that beer commercial dance? Why don’t you ask us how our weekends were?”
 

Caz unfolded from his chair, standing to his full height. Bonnie lost her breath—he was so tall and suddenly so
close
. But she went on. “Why can’t you just try to fit in? Everyone wants to like you. They have no reason not to, or at least they didn’t when you started here. You’re making enemies now, and I hate that. This is a family.”
 

“I don’t need
family
. I’ve had—” He looked down at the carving still in his hands. “You can go on being the popular one, the one saying what everyone else wants to hear even when it’s not the truth.”
 

Bonnie was so close to him that she could feel the heat from his body, could smell the fresh wood scent he always seemed to carry, even when he wasn’t actively whittling. She could feel the desire to touch him in the very ends of her fingertips, and it didn’t make sense—nothing made sense when he was right there, right in front of her. Her anger dissipated, leaving her with nothing but a desire she couldn’t—and didn’t dare—name.
 

“Why are you out here?” His voice rumbled in his chest.
 

“I was looking for you,” said Bonnie. He was too near, too close. If she took half a step forward… No, she should back up. She should run away.
 

But Bonnie didn’t run away from much. She continued, “I was worried.”
 

That made him smile. Her worry was funny, apparently. “Worried I’d fallen asleep in an inappropriate place?”
 

Unforgivably, the thought of her own bed popped into her mind.
That
would be an inappropriate place to sleep. “No…”
 

Slowly, Caz set the half-carved wolf on the table and lifted his hand, touching the side of her cheek. “Worried that I’d forgotten to stay here? That I’d gone home?”
 

“Maybe something like that.”
 

His thumb rubbed softly against her jawline. “I shouldn’t do this,” he said, his voice even lower. Darker.
 

“No,” she agreed. But her own hand lifted and pressed his to her cheek. “You shouldn’t.”
 

Their eyes, already locked, heated. In that second, Bonnie could see reflected on his face the way she felt—the intensity of her longing swept through her.
 

She wanted him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Bonnie couldn’t tell who moved first, but the kiss was sudden—explosive—and she lost her breath like she’d fallen out of a tree onto her back. She gasped against his mouth and he made a low groan in his throat. As his tongue plundered hers, as she tasted him, her senses filled with the headiness of the kiss. Caz’s arms went around her and his hands went low, cupping her buttocks, pulling her tightly against him. He was hard against her—she could feel exactly what she was doing to him. His lips teased and bit, tugging at hers. The harder she kissed him, the closer her got to her. The more strongly he pulled her against his body, the more she pressed herself against him. She wished she could feel more of his skin, more of his body…
More
.
 

“Stupid clothes,” he muttered.
 

“I hate them,” she agreed, and then his mouth took hers again. Caz bit her bottom lip and then sucked it sweetly as if to make up for it. She dug her short fingernails into the ridge of muscle at the top of his deltoid, and his quick intake of breath didn’t stop her from digging in harder.
 

The lower half of Bonnie’s body seemed to be on fire. If she’d pulled away from him and seen that her uniform shorts were smoking, she wouldn’t have been surprised.
 

Caz pulled away an inch and locked his gaze with hers again. His eyes were even darker now, indigo and midnight. “I want you,” he said.

Common sense,
Bonnie counseled herself.
Common sense.
She knew she had some. She wasn’t exactly sure where it was right now, but she was known for it. Bonnie kept a cool head in the most difficult of settings. That’s what she was good at.
 

Not one single part of her was cool right now.
 

Not one.
 

He said it again, “I want you, Bonnie.”
 

The words, all by themselves, had a devastating effect on her. The few remaining muscles in her body which hadn’t been trembling started to shake. She wanted to sit, to slip to the ground, but his arms were still around her, and the hard rigidity of his body, of his…of
all
of him steadied her.
 

“I want you, too,” she said.
 

“But we can’t,” Caz said.
 

Disappointment was a sharp blade that cut into her skin, even though she knew he was right. She groaned and drove her hips against his. “Good
grief
. What have we been
doing
then?”
 

Was that a smile that played at the edges of his lips? Sure enough, his eyes warmed, too, the indigo melting to ultramarine. “I mean we can’t do anything here,” he said.

“
What good does having a bed at work do me?
” she managed to say through the tightness in her throat. Half of her was kidding, of course. The other half (the lower half) was frighteningly serious.

“A date,” he said, and then touched his lips to the sensitive part of her neck just below her earlobe.
 

“A date?”

“Like the last one. Only better.”

She shivered. “Better?”

“Just you. Just me. Dinner. My house.”
 

His broad arm wrapped around her and pulled her harder against him, leaving no doubt in her mind that neither of them were thinking about dinner at his house.
 

“Okay then.”
 

“Bed.”
 

“What?” Bonnie’s thoughts were muddled, her brain melted. “No, I agree, not here…”
 

“We both still have to sleep.” His voice was softer now. Sweet. “We go back to our beds.”
 

“Oh.” He was right. “Yeah.”
 

Bonnie stepped back and rubbed her arms, grateful for the night air chilling her skin, cooling her.
 

“I’ll follow you in two minutes,” Caz said.
 

He wasn’t touching her anymore, but the way he stood there, the way his chest still rose and fell—she’d done that to him. And he was the reason she felt the way she did now, as if flames were licking at her undercarriage. She was a VW on the highway, burning to its magnesium core. “No,” Bonnie said, pressing her hands to her cheeks. “You go first. I’ll follow you.” She needed another minute to pull herself together and cool herself off.
 

Or another couple of years.
 

Caz gave one nod. He didn’t kiss her again. He didn’t say another word; he just turned on his heel and yanked open the heavy station door.
 

Bonnie sank down in the chair he’d been occupying when she came out. She reached down and picked up some of the wood shavings at her feet. They were softer than she’d expected, and lighter.
 

Spilling them from hand to hand, Bonnie breathed. She was sunk. Completely. She had a thing for Caz Lloyd, the stubborn cowboy, the only one of her coworkers she would have voted off the island just a month ago.
 

Good grief. She touched her lips with a thin shaving. Her skin was tender from the scratch of his stubble.
 

She had more than just a thing. She was headed down a steep hill on two wheels, speeding up too fast. There was more than a small chance she was going to wreck, head over handlebars.
 

At least she’d be flying when she went.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lying in the dorm in the dark, Caz counted the ways he was screwed. One by one, he ran through the reasons he had to break the date
that he’d suggested
like they were bills in the folder on the ranch desk.
 

Reason Number One:
Bonnie was his coworker. He did
not
date coworkers. Ever.
 

Addendum to Reason Number One:
But wasn’t there a time for everything? Shouldn’t Caz be more flexible? Right? Wasn’t that what people were always saying? Besides, it wasn’t like they worked that
much
with each other. No more than ten days a month. That wasn’t bad.
 

Caz heard the dorm door’s click. Either one of the firefighters had gotten up to use the john or it was Bonnie, coming back to bed. Caz didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he heard the soft
shush-shush
of her slippers coming off. He heard the rustle of her sheets being pulled back. His hearing had never been so sharp—he could practically hear her eyelashes blinking.

Reason Number Two:
Bonnie was too
fun
. He didn’t date fun women. Fun women didn’t tell you the truth. They lied about their feelings. They lied about what they were going to do, what they wanted to do, what they would do. Caz liked blunt women who verged on rude, the ones who might hurt a guy’s feelings, sure, but the ones who told the truth. You always knew where you were with them. They wouldn’t run away and never come back.
 

Addendum to Reason Number Two:
Fun was surprisingly, astonishingly sexy.
 

Caz heard another rustle. Had she just turned over in bed? Was she facing him on the other side of the partition? If the wall weren’t there, would she throw her leg over his and lie there, face to face, until he had to kiss her to stop his heart from doing that weird jumping thing it did whenever she was near him?