Need You for Mine (Heroes of St. Helena) (3 page)

Not to mention, Harper wasn’t just a graduate from one of the top art design schools on the West Coast—she had graduated top of her class. Sure, her fine arts degree was in set design, which meant she could dress an amazing window, but she’d taken several art editorial classes, excelled in market research, and even interned for a famous men’s magazine.

Her first job had been for a food network, dressing sets for cooking shows. Then she’d moved into kids’ television. Not that knowing which colors promoted deeper learning would help here, but looking around the shop, Harper knew that all it needed was a facelift—a little updating to the already strong foundation.

It would be fun even. She loved her job managing the Fashion Flower, but she missed the creative freedom of setting a scene that told the right story.

“Oh dear,” Clovis said in a hushed voice. “You want to help.” It wasn’t a question, nor was it a compliment. It was a statement.

“Why not? I’m the demographic they’re targeting, I know more about merchandizing and staging than anyone in town, and I have to admit, I dress a mean window.”

“That you do.”

“I could re-dress the window to be more boudoir chic and stage the shop to feel like a trunk show, draped in lace and silk and full of secret fantasies and firsts. Not in a raunchy way, but more of a summery breeze meets Nicholas Sparks film way. Fun, flirty, hot, sexy.” Harper snapped her fingers. “Summer of Seduction.”

“It sounds lovely, dear, and I appreciate the enthusiasm,” Clovis said, patting Harper’s head and making her feel like she was twelve all over again. Harper hated twelve. She’d grown five inches that summer—and not a single cup size. “But who’s going to bring the sexy?”

It was well past the lunching hour by the time Adam dragged himself through the doors of Stan’s Soup and Service Station. He was supposed to meet his brothers there for a bowl of chili at one, but after pulling another all-night shift, which included corralling a few of the smart-assed seasonal hires into doing their jobs, he’d slept through his alarm.

He’d kept on dreaming a crazy dream about him and a Playboy bunny in a game of pin the tail—only when the ears came off, it was Harper standing there in that fiesta-inspired bra and thong. Her lips were shiny from his kiss, her legs wrapped around his waist, and she was suddenly holding a ruler, having morphed into the role of naughty schoolteacher.

“Jesus.” He ran a hand down his face, wondering what was wrong with him, then decided he’d been too long without sex. Yup, that was his problem—he was in a sex drought.

Not surprising, since he’d spent the past thirty days with a bunch of dudes in the heart of a summer fire that was raging south of
Tahoe, digging ditches and sharing the occasional fart jokes when things got squirrely, and it had taken its toll. Then he’d blown his first chance at getting laid by kissing Little Miss Sunshine.

Sure, Harper was one hell of a kisser. And she had boobs, so what? Of course there was expected standard equipment on a grown woman—and she was a woman, no question. He just wasn’t sure he’d noticed before.

They’d grown up in the same town, but they’d lived in very different worlds. Harper was the sweet, sunny girl-next-door who paraded around town befriending everyone and their mother.

Everyone except him. Which never bothered him. Until now. Now he couldn’t help but feel bothered—and in all the right kinds of ways.

As unexpected as that reaction was, so were those long, lush legs. Miles of them, it seemed. Tanned, toned, to her neck, and a total turn-on. Only she was looking for Mr. Right, when he was the reigning Mr. One Night.

And now there he was, going on day thirty-five of what was becoming a serious sex drought, getting all menstrual over some kiss. Which was piss-poor timing because Harper might be the cute girl-next-door with the surprising cleavage, but in a few months she would be a regular at family events, since Adam’s youngest brother was marrying Harper’s best friend.

Adam took a deep breath, checked his man card to see if it was still valid, and strode through the open door of Stan’s. The sun was high and the warm summer air stirred the daisies in the window-box planters.

Stan’s was a soup kitchen meets auto body shop with a counter made from an old tailgate and cooking utensils and engine tools hanging from the ceiling. It was the only place in the county, probably the state, where one could get a smog inspection and a bowl of chilled tomatillo avocado soup with cilantro-infused oil.

It was a cash only, service questionable kind of place where the chili was award winning, the beer was on tap, and his baby brother was, on occasion, the line cook. Not by trade, but by necessity. It seemed chopping vegetables helped keep Dax’s demons at bay—and Adam’s brother had more than his fair share.

“Nice apron,” Adam said, taking a seat at the counter.

Dax smiled, goofy and stupid. “Emerson bought it for me.”

Emerson Blake was mouthy and stubborn, and she had his large military-grade brother wrapped around her itty bitty finger. Which explained why the apron was a little bit leather, a little bit lethal, and had a picture of an apple below the words
BITE ME
.

When Adam smirked, Dax got serious. Real serious.

“You have a problem with it?” Dax looked at the butcher knife, then at Adam, and lifted a questioning brow. Yeah, Adam might be a few years older, but Dax had at least two inches and thirty pounds on him. Plus fifteen years of Army Ranger bad-assery under his belt.

“Nope, just noticed that the metal rivets on the ties really bring out your eyes.” Adam looked around for the other brother. “Where’s Jonah?”

“We had lunch plans, not dinner,” Dax informed him as though the concept of meal times were too difficult for Adam to grasp. “He got tired of waiting. I’m only still here because Emi has the food truck parked up the valley at some summer craft fair.”

“We ran three calls last night, all after 1:00 a.m., the last one being a fire on a hillside vineyard that kept us going well into the morning. I didn’t get to sleep until after sunup.”

Dax looked at the sun streaming in the windows. “It’s nearly four fifteen, so what’s your point?”

Adam looked at his watch. Four fifteen exactly. “How do you do that?”

“It’s a gift.” Dax grinned, then went back to making short order of the pile of potatoes he was butchering.

A fresh breeze blew through the open door and stirred up the spicy garlic, roasting chilies, and baking bread. Adam’s stomach growled. “I’ll have a bowl of the chili and two orders of garlic bread.”

“First, I’m not a damn waitress, and second, you’re too late. I can’t give you any chili.”

Adam looked at the pot of chili on the stovetop behind the counter. “It’s full. I can see it from where I’m sitting.”

“Then move so you don’t have to look at it.” Dax waved the knife toward a booth in the far corner. “I’m under strict orders not to give you any chili. Or garlic bread. In fact, if I serve you anything at all, other than a fist to the throat, I’ll be sleeping on the couch with my hand and lotion for company.”

“What does my lunch have to do with your sex life?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Dax said. “All I know is Emi laid out the rules, and I just want to get laid. Sorry, but I know you get it.”

No. He didn’t. He didn’t get it at all.

He didn’t get what he’d done this time to tick off his future sister-in-law.
Or how sometime over the last year both of his brothers, who had exa
ctly zero game with women, had hooked up with two of the biggest hotties in town. His oldest brother, Jonah, had married one, Dax was two breaths aw
ay from saying
I do
to the other, and Adam, the fucking life of every party, was suddenly the odd man out. Fine with him since it also meant he wasn’t saddled down with a relationship.

He was free to do what—and who—he wanted. Anytime, anywhere. No one to answer to—or disappoint. Adam had no limits on his life, a situation he’d worked hard to create.

One that worked for him just fine.

“Oh, and I wouldn’t cross her path for a few days,” Dax said. “She was sharpening her chef’s knives when she was telling me to steer clear of you, and I’m not sure whether those knives were for work or for the next time she saw you.”

“Great,” Adam said, wondering if he could skip Emi’s food cart for a few days and bring his own lunch.

His phone rang.

“Baudouin,” he answered.

“Yeah, um, hey Adam, it’s Seth.” Seth was a summer hire who was hoping to be brought on full time at the end of the season. He was crafty, well trained, determined, and as the house’s FNG—i.e., Fucking New Guy—a colossal pain in Adam’s ass.

“This had better be good,” Adam said. “Because if you’d taken the time to check the schedule before calling, you’d have seen I’m enjoying my day off.”

“Cap doesn’t come on until tomorrow. And, uh . . .” Adam could practically hear him crying through the phone. “I kind of have a problem.”

“Define problem,” Adam said, and FNG’s sheepish silence had Adam resting his head on the counter. Hard.

The kid had a major talent for screwing the pooch with the best of intentions. The last time he’d called Adam, he’d taken one of Adam’s pranks too far—an April Fool’s petition Adam had circulated to have a condom vending machine installed for “safety” reasons—and replaced all the candy in the machines with tropical-flavored condoms. It was also the day they’d had a scheduled visit from St. Vincent’s Academy. Sister Margaret was not happy when her students spent all their lunch money on Tropical Temptations.

“I kind of dinged the engine.”

Adam sat up. “Which engine?”

“The new one.”

Adam closed his eyes as the thoughts—all having to do with damage control—pinged around his head:
Who’s gonna get pissed at who? How will this affect the FNG? Will it only be a letter in his file? Or a five percent dock in pay?

It was a ping, ping, ping that landed right back on him.

As an equipment apparatus engineer, it was Adam’s job to ensure all of the department’s equipment was in pristine condition. Especially the rigs. But their new rig? His battalion chief would rupture a nut if he heard it was dented.

Adam released a breath. “I’m on my way.”

P
raying for a miracle, Adam headed toward the fire station. It was only six doors down from Stan’s, a two-minute walk, tops. He’d figure out the problem, implement a solution, and get back to business as usual.

He wasn’t sure what that was yet, but he hoped it involved a hot meal and an even hotter woman.

However, as his luck would have it, the only woman in sight was wearing bright orange shorts, sunglasses from
I Love Lucy
, and a denim smock tied at the waist with a dozen or more strips of tape stuck to the front. Unfortunately, it was not the getup Harper wore last night in his dreams, but weirdly it had its own appeal. The smock hid any kind of cleavage she might have going on under there, but those shorts were soft, snug, and showing off her assets.

And what a spectacular asset she had. That he hadn’t dreamed up.

Harper was fighting to hang a sign in the library window and the sign was winning. In her defense, it was pretty big. More like a banner and a two-person job. But since Little Miss Sunshine had made it clear the other night that she didn’t welcome his help, and Adam always listened when a lady spoke her mind, he leaned against a lamppost and watched for a good minute or so, enjoying the view.

A little amusing, a little odd, and fully entertaining.

Then the wind picked up, catching a corner of the banner, which smacked Harper in the forehead. Adam suppressed a laugh, barely, as she struggled to right it. Only it slowly folded over her until all that was visible were those bare legs.

“Need help?” Adam finally asked, and the struggling stopped. He was pretty sure her breathing stopped too. But her frustration—that seemed to grow thick in the air.

“I can’t afford your help,” she said from beneath the sign, which he could now see advertised the upcoming Beat the Heat Festival.

“Helping out with Beat the Heat, huh?” He crossed his arms and grinned. “Does that make you a fire bunny?”

Beat the Heat was an annual festival held at the start of every summer that brought in visitors from all around wine country and beyond. Locals came for the food and the fanfare, and tourists came to experience the beauty of the valley when covered with wild mustard and blooming vines. A fire bunny—well, those were ladies who offered up their services during the event in hopes of servicing one of the single St. Helena Fire Department firefighters.

“I’m not a fire bunny. I offered to help Stephanie Daugherty with the banners since she’s due anytime now and the smell of paint makes her sick,” she clarified. “And I’m fine, thank you for asking.”

As if to prove her wrong, the banner got the upper hand and swallowed her whole, toppling over and taking her down with it. Arms and legs flailed to find purchase, but the sign was too much for her.

“Stupid sign.”

“Now what did that sign ever do to you?”

Ignoring her protests, Adam lifted the banner up and off her with one hand. The other wrapped around her waist and hauled her to a stand. After all, Beat the Heat was an SHFD sponsored event, and as a firefighter, it was his civic duty to step in and help a citizen in need. It was his lucky day the citizen turned out to be Harper.

“It snuck up on me,” she said, flicking a few stray strands of hair out of her face. Strands which, he noticed, were straight and slicked back into that on-the-go messy bun look that took twenty minutes, a flat iron, and a gallon of product to secure. A valley favorite for PTA members and soccer moms, but weird for Harper since she was neither, yet she’d definitely spent quite a bit of time on her hair to make it look carefully casual. “Not a smart move.”

“I don’t know about that.” Adam pressed the sign securely to the window with one hand, then peeled off a band of tape—the one right above that cleavage she was hiding—and attached it to the corner. “I snuck up on you last week and it worked out pretty well for me.”

He reached for another piece of tape, and she smacked his hand. “I said I was fine, and we aren’t going to talk about it.”

She secured the other upper corner and then one of the lower ones.

“
It
as in the stupid sign and how I saved you?” He stepped closer and leaned in. “Or
it
, as in the kiss?”

“None of it,” she said, and if her blush was any indication, she might not want to talk about it, but she was thinking about it.

Interesting.

“You’re right,” he said, snatching another piece of tape, which had stuck to her assets in the spill. “This is more of a conversation to have over drinks.”

She snatched the tape back. “No drinks. No talking. No funny business.” She crossed her arms and then leveled him with a glare as if he were one of her students.

“Says the woman wrestling with a sign.”

Her face heated again. “It’s a big sign, and I have three more to hang up before my next class starts, so this is where I say thank you, then you go back to your world and I go back to mine.”

“If that’s what you want,” he said, as if that weren’t exactly what he’d decided to do a few minutes ago. So then why did the thought of coexisting in the same town with no interaction start a tingling of unease?

Because riling up the town’s biggest optimist was fun. It was like pissing off the tooth fairy.

“It’s what we
both
want,” she said, but her eyes were working double time not to look at his mouth.

So he winked. “Then you and that sign have a good day, sunshine.” With that Adam headed toward the firehouse. Three doors down he half turned and said, “And you might not want to watch my ass when I walk off. Wouldn’t want our two worlds to collide.”

“You’re so annoying,” she hollered.

“You’re so watching.”

He heard a gasp, then some fancy shuffling and what sounded like a huff, seconds before the banner hit the sidewalk and a frustrated “You wish” echoed down Main Street.

With a smile, he kept walking. Right past the flower shop and the party supply store and the urge to go back, until he reached the open bay of St. Helena Fire Station #1.

Built in 1912 and crafted from brick and hand-carved stone, the station was large enough to house two engines, an ambulance, a grass wagon, two support trucks, and a seven-man crew. Out back were spots for several search-and-rescue ATVs and the fire captain’s truck—which was empty.

Presently there was no captain on duty. Not an uncommon occurrence, since their captain worked four on and three off. Lucky for Seth, Captain Roman Brady was off today. Unlucky for Adam, the FNG had called him to fix the situation.

Adam shouldn’t complain—he’d been asking for more responsibility around the station. He’d committed the first few years of his career as a seasonal smokejumper, spending his summers fighting wildfires, and the rest of the year fluctuating between snowboarding in Tahoe and surfing in Mexico. Eight years back, he was hired on as a full-time firefighter, and he’d quickly moved up to an equipment apparatus engineer. Now Adam was ready again to move up the ranks.

The fastest way to lieutenant was to take on training rookie smokejumpers in no-man’s land. Check. Take additional courses and ace the lieutenant’s exam. Check and check. Handle things in the captain’s absence and prove he was ready for a promotion.

Adam was on it.

He strolled toward the kitchen, stopping right outside the doorway. Two guys were standing at the counter making dinner, while the other three sat on the couch watching the Giants game on the plasma. Seth sat in the armchair in the corner of the room.

“It’s at least a double D–sized ding,” Will McGuire said as Adam entered the kitchen—a place he frequented more than his own. “Which means whoever distracted you was way out of your league, freshman.”

McGuire was all lean muscle, young ego, and, until Seth had come on a few months ago, the station’s resident FNG. Coincidentally, up until a few months ago Adam had been the station’s resident smart-ass—excelling in ribbing, pranks, and making a party out of twist ties, tinfoil, and downtime. But that was before Cap had told him he was up for review in a few months, before Adam learned that if he played his cards right, a promotion was a possibility.

Even with his colorful past.

“Then explain how I got her digits,” Seth said, waving a piece of binder paper like it was the Holy Grail.

“Dude, you humped bumpers with the Cal State cheerleading team’s car and you only got one girl’s digits?” McGuire asked, dumping enough spaghetti noodles into the colander to feed a small country. “What kind of victory lap is that?”

“It was the dance team,” Seth argued as if
that
made it all okay. “And it wasn’t a victory lap. Besides, you were the one who sent me out in the first place to get bananas.”

“Is that what she wrote her number on? Your banana?”

The other guys laughed, and Adam could tell that Seth was two verbal jabs away from a swift smack to Will’s head.

Adopting his best
don’t mess with me
face, Adam strolled all the way into the kitchen.

“McGuire,” Adam said, and all the men looked up. He looked back, cool and assessing. “Remember the call we took where you came across that eight-foot python?”

The smug look cleared from his face, McGuire nodded. “The one in that attic?”

“That’s the one.” Adam’s smile said it was also the one where McGuire had pissed himself, and instead of making a big deal out of it, Adam had kept his mouth shut, because he knew this job was hard. Scary as shit. And sometimes they were bound to act human and screw up. Seth had screwed up dinging the engine, severely enough that his job might be on the line, and McGuire shoving it in his face was bad form.

“Yeah, I remember it.”

“So do I,” Adam said in his best lieutenant voice. “We done here?”

That was all it took. The men straightened, McGuire zipped it and went back to making dinner, while Seth pretended to watch the game.

Adam patted FNG on the shoulder and beckoned him toward the garage. They walked to the truck in question. Not a word was said as Adam circled the engine. Not a breath was taken when he studied the bigger-than-double-Ds dent in the back fender.

“That ding is more than a damn bumper, so spill.” Adam locked gazes. “And I mean everything.”

“Everything?” Seth’s eyes went big and his ears went pink, telling Adam this was going to be a whole lot more complicated than a little fender bender with a pretty girl.

“If I wanted the crib notes I would’ve listened to them over a bowl of chili at Stan’s, not here with a bunch of giggling ladies.”

“Right.” Seth swallowed. “But I’d first like to express just how sorry I am for calling you in on your—”

“The dent, freshman.”

“McGuire sent me on a banana run. He said it was for some dessert he was making, but I know it was his way of reminding me I’m the fucking new guy. So I went, got the bananas, let it roll off my back, then I met this girl in line. A spinner with tits. Real tens too, not the purchased kind,” Seth said, as if retelling his account of coming face-to-face with the chupacabra of women. “She looked at my uniform, started chatting me up, paid for her things, then slipped me her number and left. I got in the truck and was pulling out, when she appeared in my side window and stood out the top of her friend’s sunroof.”

Adam looked at the ceiling because he knew,
knew
, where this was going.

“Then she lifted her top—no bra and definitely all real—and I don’t know what happened. My foot slipped off the brake. I was in reverse and boom.”

Adam ran a hand down his face. “Please tell me you didn’t hit another car.”

“Worse,” Seth said, sounding defeated. “I hit a crate of tampons.”

“Tampons? Are you shitting me?”

Seth shook his head. “The delivery guy had just taken them off the truck and was going to roll them into the back bay of Picker’s Market.”

Adam wanted to strangle the kid, but he understood that this kind of attention came with the uniform. It was also the kind of attention that took some getting used to. And for a fresh-out-of-school, freckle-faced new guy, it would have been distracting.

“Aw, man,” Seth said. “When the guys find out I hit a crate of tampons and not the girls’ car, I will be the butt of every single joke until I retire.”

At this point, Adam was more concerned about the kid having a career with the department to retire from. Seth was good at his job, feared the right things and nothing else, was a team player, and knew how to take an order. Problem was, when he wasn’t geared up and beating back a flame, Seth could be persuaded into doing just about anything. And when Roman found out what had transpired from his latest screwup, he was going to hit the roof.

Only Adam could talk his way through this with Roman. Explain it in a way that Roman, who was also one of his closest friends, could write off. Because it wasn’t Roman who Adam was worried about pissing off—it was Roman’s boss, Chief Lowen.

The battalion chief had a reputation for scaring off FNGs, which was why the station was short staffed.

Adam had dedicated too many of his personal hours transforming Seth from a death-defying frat boy into the beginnings of an incredible firefighter. He couldn’t lose him to a crate of tampons. Plus, Adam had been that same fearless troublemaker at one time too, getting distracted by a flash of cleavage and making shit decisions that nearly cost him his entire career—and worse. If it hadn’t been for his former captain seeing the potential in Adam and giving him a second chance, he wouldn’t be a fireman, living his dream.