Slow Burn (Smoke Jumpers) (2 page)

“I thought you were down L.A. way, fighting fires.”

“I am. Doesn’t mean I can’t get married. I did, but . . .” Mike paused, clearly unsure how to condense months of backstory into a few sentences. “It didn’t work out. I fucked up.”

Hell.
Putting words together to console a buddy wasn’t Evan’s thing.

“I’m real sorry,” he said finally, because good manners demanded a reply.

“Yeah.” The other man sighed. “So am I. So I need you to check up on her, okay? She was headed your way—that’s what her sister said. She hit Strong this afternoon. All you have to do is look her up, make sure she’s fine.”

Evan didn’t know why Mike’s wife—
ex
-wife—was visiting Strong, but maybe it didn’t matter much.

“You sure this can’t wait?” he growled.

“Please,” Mike said.

Evan cursed silently. That military unit had been family for Evan, so if Mike really wanted this, Evan would do it.

“Where d’you think she is?”

“Her sister mentioned a bar. Place called Ma’s.”

That worked for him. After Mike’s little bombshell, Evan needed a beer.

There was a pixie sitting on top of Ma’s jukebox. A sensual, goddamn, sexy pixie of a woman. Evan let the bar door slam shut behind him. The pixie was tone deaf, too, if the country tune she was belting out was any indication. Still, the woman perched on the jukebox was a wake-up call he didn’t need or want. She was all legs. Long, long
bare
legs. One leg crossed on top of the other, she sat up there as if the jukebox were some kind of throne and tapped a foot to the beat of the song. The sun-kissed color of those legs made a man think about bikinis and beaches and warm, sleepy afternoons. “Legs” wasn’t wearing a bikini, though. She had on some impossibly floaty skirt. The scalloped lace hem stopped at the top of her thighs, and a particularly vigorous beat in the song had the fragile fabric billowing around her.

Christ.
This wasn’t like him. He didn’t stare at strange women—or, worse,
parts
of strange women—and imagine lustful possibilities.

What he did or didn’t do didn’t seem to matter to his unruly libido, however. He still wanted to smooth his hands up those bare thighs and beneath the gauzy fabric of her skirt. Backlit by the glowing neon bar signs, she looked like an angel. A naughty angel with honey-colored hair and sun-kissed, golden skin.

And she was more than a little the worse for wear.

He counted three empty glasses parked on the jukebox next to her, ice cubes melting into little puddles of wet. Someone or some ones had been buying this angel drinks. He hoped like hell that someone had warned her exactly how lethal Mimi’s rum punches were. The bartender’s concoctions could knock a grown man onto his ass, and his angel was a little bit of a thing.

Damn.
He wanted a shower and his bed. If she was who he suspected—and since hers was the only unfamiliar face in the bar, odds were high that she was Mike Thomas’s ex—she’d be emotional. She’d need the kind of rescuing he didn’t do. He shoved aside his anger at Mike for getting him into this situation. He’d promised, so he’d do this, and he’d do it fast.

He laid in a course for her.

“Faye?” When he slapped a hand down on the jukebox next to her, her head followed the movement of his hand first, before snapping back to his face. Brown eyes stared up at him. She sure didn’t look sad.

She looked pretty. That was his first thought. Real pretty. He could see the soft curve of her jaw and cheek. Not tall, not short, just somewhere comfortably in the middle, where her head would hit his shoulder when he tucked her up against him. Which he wasn’t going to do. Honey-colored hair, thick and wavy and cut into layers, framed her face.

“Who wants to know?” The soft, liquid edge of her words was a definite tip-off. The woman holding court on the jukebox wasn’t one hundred percent sober.

“Evan Donovan,” he drawled. He leaned in closer, but she didn’t move away. That could be a good sign, right there. Most people flinched when he got too close. Especially now, when he was jonesing for that shower and had more than his fair share of soot from the fire streaking his face and his clothes. No way she wanted to be close to him.

“I don’t know you.” Those brown eyes examined him.

“Does it matter?” He could take advantage of the whole halfway-to-drunk thing to get her safely out of there. If he was lucky, she wouldn’t even ask too many questions.

She eyed him, clearly considering something. “No,” she said finally. “I don’t think it does matter. Not tonight. We’re singing.” She patted the jukebox. “You want to come sing with me, Evan Donovan?”

“No,” he said bluntly, and she sucked in a breath.
Way to go, making her feel better
.

“You don’t like to sing?” She asked her question as if he’d copped to pulling the wings off butterflies.

“Not really, darlin’,” he drawled. He was tempted to tell her exactly what he was interested in—and where he wanted to put his hands—but he was supposed to be watching out for her, not putting the moves on her.

“Oh.” She chewed her lower lip. “Can I buy you a drink?”

If she bought him a drink, he’d have to sit down and drink it. Getting in and out quickly was starting to look like pure fantasy on his part.

“Where are you staying?” he asked, ignoring her question. “I’ll take you there. You shouldn’t be driving.”

 

The big, dark bear of a man had come through the bar’s door like some kind of medieval knight. Or a Viking. Faye could definitely imagine Evan Donovan as a helmeted invader, bare-chested and draped in furs. The man was too big and too close, but some primitive, feminine side she didn’t recognize had come
alive
when he burst through the door. Her ex hadn’t been a small man, either, but this stranger was the largest man she’d ever seen. And Mike had been more pleasant, more charming. Evan Donovan was irritable as hell. He smelled strongly of smoke and the outdoors. Despite some recent attempt at a cleanup that had left his short hair slicked with dampness, he’d clearly scrubbed at his face with one big paw of a hand, because dark streaks of soot painted his jaw.

Definitely not her type, though that too-large build of his promised an adventurous ride a woman wouldn’t quickly forget.

You wanted adventure,
a familiar voice whispered.

“Come on,” he said again.

“Where do you want to go?”

He leaned in closer, the heat of that large body surrounding her. “You can’t stay here,” he pointed out, annoyingly logical. The smile tugging at his lips did something less logical to her insides. “And it’s going to be closing time real soon. You got a plan for tonight, Faye? You need to go home, darlin’.”

She didn’t have a home to go to and didn’t know why he wanted her gone—but it was perfectly clear that he didn’t want
her
. Any other man would have seen the opportunity for a pickup, so his lack of interest both hurt and pissed her off. Sure, she wasn’t looking for a quick hookup in a no-name bar to break up her road trip. Not really. Not if she was being honest with herself. Which was, she admitted, much easier to do after too many rum punches. But she’d been enjoying the possibility, the fantasy of choosing someone and enjoying a no-holds-barred, no-strings-attached night of pleasure. He could have at least flirted with her.

Played the game a little, because she’d admit he was beautiful in a raw, male way that woke up some part of her she’d buried when her marriage headed south.

“Christ,” he said. “Why does this have to be so difficult?”

She snagged her drink and raised the glass to her mouth, wrapping her fingers around the cool, damp sides. Most of the rum punch was gone, leaving just a handful of ice cubes slowly melting, watering down the leftover alcohol. Not bad, though.

His hand came up and carefully tugged the glass away from her. “You want to be careful with those.” He shot a warning glare at the leggy blond bartender. “Mimi doesn’t pull her punches when it comes to alcohol.”

She let him take the glass. She was done with it, anyhow. His fingers were so warm, closed around hers. Did he know what he was doing to her? Should she care that such a simple little touch felt so very, very good?

“It’s time for you to get out of here,” he said, tugging gently on her hand.

He was right, of course, but she suspected he was used to being right, because he looked like the kind of man who wouldn’t open his mouth, wouldn’t speak, until he’d thought things through and come to a conclusion. She leaned toward him, staring up at that rugged face of his. Too bad he was in such a rush. “Do you have somewhere to go?”

“I was planning, darlin’, on going home. To bed.”

“Sounds good to me,” she whispered.

Her head hit his chest before her brain could kick into gear. She was too tired, the events of the day—her “six plus one”—pulling her down. She had the sudden urge to let it all go, to fall asleep right where she was, as if she were a baby. Or drunk, she thought, wry humor spiking through her. Too many rum punches in an unfamiliar bar. Dimly, she heard Evan Donovan say something, but sleep was tugging at her eyelids. She’d figure it all out tomorrow. Right now, all that mattered was the solid-and-warm beneath her cheek and the reassuring beat of his heart.

There was a sigh from somewhere up above her, and strong arms closed around her, anchoring her. She let it all go and slipped into sleep.

 

Mike Thomas’s wife—his
ex
-wife—had gone to sleep. On his chest. She slumped against him, all sweet and warm, as if they were spooned up in bed together. Evan carefully closed his arms around her and looked down. This wasn’t good, wasn’t part of the plan. There was an unwelcome feeling in the pit of his stomach, a sensation he hadn’t felt since the last time his steel-toed boots had cleared the jump plane’s bay and sent him hurtling out into empty sky, only to discover that the wind had shifted and the drift streamers he’d checked mere minutes before weren’t pointing in the same direction anymore. He’d jumped off course that day and hung up in the mother of all ponderosas.

The woman in his arms was pure trouble. And if he hung on to her, he’d be off course
now,
so fast, his head would spin.

Mimi came around the end of the bar, sauntering up to him. All long, jean-covered legs, she looked a bit like an angel, too. One who’d fallen but didn’t mind the change in her location one bit. Yeah, she was also trouble, but she wasn’t his problem. He liked Mimi, always had, but last time he’d checked, she’d been busy running the bar she’d inherited and giving his younger brother hell. “You got this?” she asked, propping a hip against the bar.

He looked down again at the woman sleeping against him, but Faye clearly wasn’t going to be any help. She let out a little mumble and snuggled in. Definitely not going anywhere on her own.

“You can put her on the couch in my office,” Mimi offered.

He ignored her. “Hey,” he whispered roughly. His mouth brushed Faye’s ear, and his dick came alive. That was too close to a kiss, too close to touching her deliberately. And he wasn’t. Wouldn’t. He was enough of a gentleman to know there were lines a man didn’t cross. “Wake up,” he growled.

She didn’t. She just turned her face farther into his chest with a long sigh.

Tightening his arms around her, he let himself savor the sweet, hot weight of her body against his for one moment. Maybe two. The filmy material of her skirt floated around his legs. She was impossibly feminine and delicate-looking, but he could feel for himself that she wasn’t fragile. She was strong, despite the sweet, soft brush of her breasts against his arm that he was trying to ignore.

Sliding his elbow beneath her shoulder, he lifted her until her chest was pressed against his. Another thing that felt too damn good. This was professional, he reminded the unruly part of himself that had other ideas. A routine rescue and nothing to get excited about. Grabbing her right wrist with his left hand, he draped it over his right shoulder. Slipped his right hand between her thighs, on the back of her right leg. After that, it was easy money to lift her over his right shoulder in a fireman’s carry and step away from the jukebox.

“She can’t sleep here,” he said to no one in particular.

Mimi looked at him, and there was no missing the humor in her eyes. “Yeah,” she agreed. “This is
so
not a hotel. Although, again, I’m going to point out that I’ve got a couch in my office. You can put her there.”

“And then what?”

Mimi gave him a strange look, almost as if she didn’t recognize him, even though he’d been hanging at her bar for years. Not that he was all that much of a drinking man. Sure, he liked a cold one after a long day, but getting drunk off his ass had never appealed to him. Growing up rough the way he had, until Nonna had stepped in and adopted him, he’d known early on that he couldn’t afford to lose himself like that. A beer or two at the end of the day, yeah, but never enough to forget who he was or what he was doing.