Slow Burn (Smoke Jumpers) (3 page)

Mimi was still staring at him.

“When she wakes up”—alone and somewhere unfamiliar, because she wasn’t from Strong—“then what?”

Mimi shrugged. “Whatever she wants, if she’s okay to drive.”

Cheerful shouts from the other end of the bar had her turning back. “Put her in my office, okay, Evan? It’s not like there’s a Motel 6 in this town.”

He strode down the hall, toward the office, and gave it a once-over. Mimi’s couch wasn’t going to cut it. No way that plaid monstrosity could be comfortable, even small as Faye was. The cushions looked hard. Plus, there wasn’t a blanket.

Maybe, though, the woman in his arms had already solved this problem for herself. Maybe she’d had a plan for the night. Cradling her in one arm, he rummaged quickly through her handbag, looking for answers. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in there. The usual feminine bits and pieces. A package of tissues and a pretty little gold compact with a French name he couldn’t pronounce. And a set of car keys. He’d seen her car on the way into Ma’s. It was hard to miss a red Corvette, especially when it was parked on Strong’s one and only Main Street.

No sign, however, of where she’d planned to lay her head for the night.

The way he saw it, that left him in charge.

He carried his load out Mimi’s back door—he’d already hear about this rescue for the rest of the fire season, so there was no need to give anyone a closer look—and got the passenger-side door to his truck open. It was probably a good thing his unexpected passenger was out of it. He eyed the cherry-red Corvette parked haphazardly down the street. After driving a real pretty car like that, she might not like riding in the beast. His truck was a big, mud-splattered behemoth of a Ford that took him where he needed to go, and fire roads were no racetrack—that was damned certain. The beast could eat up asphalt if he needed the speed, but it was tough, too, if he ran out of road and needed to keep going.

Still, the Corvette would be plenty of fun to drive.

He slid her into the seat, dropping her bag at her feet. Good enough. He buckled her in, careful to avoid the danger zone of her chest. There was no missing that soft rise and fall. She was out real good.

Fine. He’d take her to his place. Mike’s request to watch out for her meant he couldn’t leave her at Ma’s, and, as Mimi had reminded him, Strong was singularly lacking in the rent-a-bed market. There was no motel he could cart her to closer than thirty miles away, which he was too damned tired to do. Plus, she’d want to collect that Corvette of hers in the morning. He damn sure wasn’t letting her near any sports car right now. If he did, he’d be fishing her out of the nearest ditch before long. He palmed her keys from her bag and closed the passenger-side door.

Two minutes later, his tires spat gravel, and he tore out of the parking lot as if he was running from something. But he wasn’t sure that
something
wasn’t sitting right there, in the cab of his truck.

T
he need for an Advil reached kill-for-it status, the dull throb behind Faye’s eyes a warning last night’s adventure had
not
gone as planned. Her headache threatened to spiral out of control.

God.
What had she done?

Little flashes of memory teased her, unfortunate reminders she didn’t really want. Ma’s bar. The positively lethal rum punches the leggy blond bartender had poured. Someone popping a quarter into the jukebox, and who’d’ve thought this town would still have an old-fashioned jukebox? She’d wanted to dance and sing and laugh.

She’d done the dancing, met a few folks—and then what?

Because she clearly wasn’t sleeping it off in the Corvette, as she’d intended. She dug her fingers into the lush softness beneath her. That was one hundred percent mattress. Instead of the Corvette’s plush leather, she was lying on cotton sheets.

Hell.
She was fairly certain that Strong didn’t have a motel and that she couldn’t spare the cash even if it did. Hence her whole sleep-in-the-Corvette plan.

The sound of steady breathing behind her had her opening her eyes wide despite another stab of protest from her head. It was still early, the room wrapped in that not-dark-not-quite-light shadow. She was in a cabin of some sort, the dim outline of a bathroom half-visible through a partly open door. From the middle of the enormous bed where she lay, she could also see a stone fireplace. Two easy chairs. The collection of clothes dropped haphazardly on the floor included jeans and a pair of work boots. A man’s balled up T-shirt.

No, she definitely wasn’t alone.

She looked down. A man’s arm was a warm, heavy band around her waist. There was a military tattoo on his wrist, a dangerously sexy swirl of dark ink that branded that too-large, capable hand as the lethal weapon it probably was.

Great.
She’d started off her grand adventure by hooking up in a bar. She wanted to think she’d been all bold and luscious, that she’d swept this man, whoever he was, right off his feet. Unfortunately, it was looking as if she’d been the drunk pickup instead, because here she was, parked in his bed, wearing only her panties and an unfamiliar, too-large T-shirt.

At least the panties were good ones—Betsey Johnson and all wicked black mesh with little pink bows. She’d picked them out for a weekend getaway with her husband—now ex—all part of a master plan to rekindle the romance that had somehow gone AWOL from their marriage. Instead, she’d come home that afternoon and found Mike in bed with another woman.

Now
she
was in bed with someone else herself. Rolling over carefully, she took stock. And what a man.

She remembered this version of big, dark, and sexy from the bar all too clearly.

Unfortunately, when his eyes snapped open, on full alert, Evan Donovan didn’t look as if he was enjoying this morning-after any more than she was. He looked pissed.

“You’re the firefighter from the bar.” She couldn’t keep the note of accusation out of her voice.

“That shouldn’t come as a surprise to you,” he grumbled. “The whole damn bar was full of firefighters, darlin’. I’m just the one you happened to fall asleep on.”

“I fell asleep?” That didn’t seem possible, but he kept right on glaring at her. Still, whatever had happened, he’d brought her here. He’d put her in this bed—she was suddenly damn sure of that—and then he’d put himself right there beside her. So he had no business acting so pissy.

“Yeah,” he drawled. “One minute, there you were, perched on top of Mimi’s jukebox. The next minute, you’d picked my chest out as your new pillow.”

Pieces of memories, pieces of last night, assaulted her. Since the best defense was attack, she forced herself to lean toward him. Plus, that chest of his was something else, all hard muscles and summer-kissed skin. She wouldn’t mind starting at the top and working her way down, kissing each tempting ridge.

“You’re a big boy,” she said coolly. “I don’t think you did anything you didn’t want to do.”

Lying in this unfamiliar bed—in
his
bed—felt deliciously wicked. This high in the mountains, the day wasn’t hot yet. Not like it would be later, when the sun climbed right on up the sky and got to work. The cotton sheet felt good. She stretched her legs, working out the aches.

He was so big, and she didn’t know him, she reminded herself. God, this was beyond foolish. She should get out of his bed, find her clothes. Leave.

Only, she didn’t know where she wanted to go.

And she’d wanted an adventure. Last night, when she’d first laid eyes on him—before he’d opened his mouth—she’d thought he was every big-brute fantasy she’d ever had come to life. If she’d been home, back in L.A., maybe she would have worried. Right now, though, in this sleepy little town, he represented possibility, and she could feel the anticipation building inside her. He didn’t know it, but he was going to be hers. Only temporarily, of course, but she was so very tired of not living. Of coming home to an empty house. Of having empty arms.

“What,” he growled, “do you think our next step should be?”

He clearly expected her to acknowledge her mistake and get the hell out of his bed. Where he’d put her for some inexplicable reason of his own, undoubtedly tied to those protective instincts so many men seemed to come with. He was a firefighter, and that meant he knew how to protect. To defend. To keep on fighting when all that stood between the flames and others was his body and his determination to defeat the fire.

She sensed he was the last person who would hurt her.

Why
not
ask for what she wanted, explore where this could go? He’d been standoffish last night, but then he’d brought her here. That had to mean something.

She put a hand on his arm, soaking in the warmth of his bare skin. God, he felt so good.
Live in the moment,
she reminded herself.

“You could kiss me,” she said boldly.

 

Faye Duncan was killing him.

“You think this is about sex?” he growled. “Not yet, it isn’t.”

Evan didn’t do relationships. Hell, he barely even had sex anymore. There was no room in a smoke jumper’s life for that kind of complication. When a man jumped head over ass into the heart of a wildland fire at a moment’s notice, that man wasn’t “keeper” material. He never knew when he was coming home or even if he was. Call came in, and he headed out. It didn’t matter what time of day, what day of the week, or if he’d had plans. Fire didn’t wait.

Home was the hangar and the belly of the plane that spat him out over the day’s hot spot, and that left no room for a lover. He certainly didn’t want to make the space or the time, but giving this fire season his all wouldn’t be possible if he kept staring at the woman in his bed the way he was.
Damn
.

He’d known Faye Duncan was trouble the moment he laid eyes on her.

“Well?” she demanded cheekily instead of answering his question. Her hand stroked his arm as if he was some animal she’d decided to tame.

She needed to learn that he didn’t heel.

“You don’t want me to kiss you.”

There.
She sucked a breath in, as if he’d hit her. Now she’d get up and go.

Instead, she simply slid closer. Another handful of inches and they’d be skin to skin, and then she’d know exactly how much she affected him. He’d brought her here because he’d been too damned tired to think straight. Leaving her, alone and vulnerable, in the bar, even on Mimi’s couch, hadn’t been acceptable. What he should have done, however, was cart her ass to Nonna’s. Let his adoptive mother deal with her; Nonna was good at handling strays like Evan and his two brothers.

His erection told him all too clearly, however, why he hadn’t taken that saner, wiser course of action. Part of him really, really wanted to get to know Faye Duncan better.

Much better.

“I think you do,” she challenged.

Yeah, she was right about that.

Cupping the side of her face, he dragged a thumb along her jaw. She had the softest skin. He’d stripped off her clothes last night, telling himself she couldn’t sleep in a skirt and itty-bitty tank top that smelled of smoke and rum punch. Truth was, even though he’d done it quickly in the near dark, he’d wanted to sneak a peek. Yeah. He was definitely a bastard.

He should have thought more about how those memories would stick with him. He’d seen all that pretty skin of hers. Bare. He hadn’t touched, though, not more than was necessary. When she woke up, he’d thought,
then
he could touch a little more. Kiss that neck and those shoulders, kiss his way straight on down her body if she’d let him.

She was Mike’s ex. She was a woman he’d rescued—
temporarily,
he reminded himself—from a night spent sleeping it off on Mimi’s office couch. He needed to get up. He needed to go.

Ignoring the unmistakable dare in her brown eyes, he jackknifed off the bed. His pager picked that moment to go off, and fate handed him an ironclad exit plan. Spotter had seen a fire, and the plane was going up.

“I’ve got to go.” He swiped his clothes from the floor and got ready to bail. Whatever it was she really wanted from him, he’d have to figure out later.

Leaving. Story of his life.

“Fire call?” She rolled over in the bed, taking his sheet with her. She didn’t look surprised, but then, she’d been married to a firefighter, hadn’t she? He’d bet Mike had left her on more than his fair share of late-night calls. “Or is this how you leave all your women?”

Wordlessly, he tossed her the pager. He wasn’t going to argue with her, and he didn’t have the time, anyhow. Time was a luxury none of the jump team had. Summer up here might be slow and hot, real quiet—until the fires started, and the plane went up. But once a fire hit its sweet spot, found the fuel and the air to burn like hell, there was nothing slow about it. The men who fought fires knew, when that happened, that they were pure out of time.

She tossed the pager back to him, but not before she eyeballed it. “I was teasing.”

Grabbing his jeans, he stepped into them and pulled the worn denim up his legs. So much for taking another shower this morning.

He could feel her gaze on him, and suddenly it was that much harder to get the denim past his erection.
Hell
.

“I know you all work hard.” She sat up, and the sheet fell away. At some point during the night, his favorite T-shirt had tangled around her waist. From where he stood, he could spy a strip of bare, sun-kissed skin peeking out between the bottom of the shirt and her panties. With her hair tangled around her face, she looked like a woman who had been well-kissed. Last night she’d been a stranger. She’d been a name dropped in a phone conversation.

Now she was half-naked in his bed, and Evan knew that this image of her was one he wouldn’t soon forget. She wasn’t just Mike’s anonymous ex anymore; now he had his own damned fantasies about her. He wanted to learn her. Wanted to thread his fingers through that silky hair, memorize the texture and the scent of her. Hold her real close.

Instead, he grabbed a T-shirt and yanked it on. Not too far from the cabin, the powerful throb of a plane’s engine kicked to life. His boys were getting business done at the hangar across the runway, and he needed to be there.

“You’re a firefighter,” she said for the second time when he didn’t break the silence but got on with dressing.

“Smoke jumper,” he corrected, because as great as his admiration was for the boys who rode the trucks, that wasn’t who he was. He jumped.

“I came to Strong to take some pics,” she informed him. “Firefighters, smoke jumpers, and progress on the new firehouse here.”

He opened his mouth to share Mike’s request and closed it.

His brother Jack was revamping the mostly volunteer fire department in Strong. Strong had been a one-truck town with a single paid fire chief, until Jack bought the old fire station earlier that summer, with visions of adding more trucks and more men. Too bad the place was a run-down piece of crap. Maybe it was an antique and on the historic register, but Evan figured that was shorthand for
fixer-upper
and
money pit
. Ben Cortez had held the place together all these years, whipping his volunteers into shape, but the older man had to be thinking retirement one of these days, and Jack had apparently picked up a vision of something a little bigger and better, along with a fiancée, in Strong.

If Faye Duncan was supposed to be documenting Jack’s progress, Jack would be plenty pissed about her current location in Evan’s bed. He’d tainted the witness, all right.

It didn’t matter that nothing—much—had happened. Jack had drummed into his brothers’ heads that sometimes appearances mattered almost as much as facts. And this was clearly one of those times. Jack had been hunting down outside funding sources for Strong’s new fire department, and Evan could easily imagine this magazine piece starring front and center in Jack’s efforts.

“I’m already impressed by what you and your guys are doing.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He sank onto the bed’s edge to pull on his socks and steel-toes, because it was the bed or the floor, and his dignity had taken enough of a blow.

“No, I mean it,” she said, and maybe she did. Her voice rang with sincerity, and she shifted closer, the mattress dipping beneath their combined weight. “The firefighter at that mountain brush fire yesterday was really spectacular. He was right there, pronto, before I could even phone it in. It’s like you guys pop out of the woodwork or something when there’s a fire.”

Christ
. According to the official reports, Evan had been first on the scene of yesterday’s only brush fire, pinch-hitting for one of Ben’s guys. He hadn’t seen any sign of another firefighter—or of Faye or her fancy car. “You saw a brush fire yesterday?”