Spark Of Desire (13 page)

Kevin had no idea how he’d managed to be observant enough to give the captain a clear report. He’d been having a hard time tearing his eyes off her body to see what she was doing. When she showed up at his house wearing bike shorts and a tank top, he’d almost lost his composure. The membership at Bobbie’s gym let him work out with her in public. He didn’t trust himself alone with her. Unfortunately, the gym was not much better, and there was competition there. In her bike shorts and tank top, she was never without a spotter. That had been driving him to distraction yesterday. The knowledge that she was at the gym, in that outfit, without him to chase off potential Romeos.

Not that he cared. She was too young, too tomboyish, too tall, not feminine enough, and she wanted to be a firefighter. He didn’t want to have an intimate relationship with another firefighter. Think of the rumor mill if they broke up. Think of the rumor mill if they stayed together. If they were a couple, it might wreck her ranking, and now not only did she want to join the department, but the department wanted her to join.

He knocked.

Jessica opened the door, looking a little flushed and overdressed for running in jeans and a white cotton blouse. “Hi. I’m not ready yet. Come on in.” She stepped out of the doorway, allowing him a full view of her apartment.

He stopped in the doorway. “This is your place? I mean, you live here alone?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t live with a boyfriend, or a girlfriend?”

“No. One bedroom. No boyfriend, no roommate. I don’t even have a hamster.” She smiled uneasily. “Why?”

He shook his head. The apartment, while not frilly, definitely belonged to a girl. Scratch that, a woman. The front door led into the dining room. The room felt warm and welcoming with nice, but not saccharine, art prints on the wall. Against one wall stood a drop leaf table with one of the leaves up and a small stack of mail, three fire exam study guides, and a matched pair of brass candlesticks on it. The other two walls were covered with bookshelves. She could have stocked her own library with titles ranging from
Gross Anatomy
to
The Poetry of John Keats
.

She must have been following his gaze, for as if she’d read his mind, she supplied the answer to his unspoken question.

“The shelves? One of the hazards of working in a bookstore. You acquire a lot of books. I just read something really interesting.” She bent down and pulled a book off one of the shelves. Kevin had to redirect his gaze before she caught him staring at her derriere. “It says in here that in ancient Rome there were private fire-fighting companies who would show up at the scene of a fire and offer to buy the building. They wouldn’t try to put out the fire until the owner sold the place at a huge loss.” She held out the book which had a picture of a hand-cranked pump on the facing page.

“I don’t think that’ll be on the test,” he said, amazed his voice sounded so normal. His throat felt too tight to produce the correct tone. He’d almost refused to come here today. This morning, he’d had his hand on the phone to tell her he couldn’t make it. Under no circumstances did he want to be alone with her in her apartment, and he was feeling those reasons very clearly through his sweat pants just looking at her and she wasn’t wearing the bike shorts. What the hell was going to happen when she went in the other room to change? He’d have to stand out here and imagine her naked. He was already standing here imagining her naked.

She closed the book, looking a little uneasy. “No, I didn’t think it would be. I just thought it was interesting.” She slid the book back into its shelf.

Turning toward the archway to the living room, he tried to get his mind back to where it should be. He’d spent too much time worrying about Jessica, her bike shorts, and the gym yesterday. Looking at the living room didn’t help. In addition to a TV and a couple more prints and burgundy wing-backed chair, she had a big comfortable burgundy couch that made him want to stretch out on it, with her.

Again, she seemed to read his mind. “It’s huge, isn’t it? Every Thanksgiving we have to drag it into the bedroom so we can open the table all the way for the Cast-Off Thanksgiving dinner.” She started toward a doorway that revealed a framed print of another Victorian painting.

“Cast-Off Thanksgiving dinner?” Kevin heard a squeak slip into his voice again, but he doubted Jessica noticed it. Her apartment already felt more like home than his house did.

“Every year I cook dinner for anybody who can’t get home to family.”

Kevin swallowed hard. She was getting more feminine by the second. Maybe they could skip the run today. If the department needed her that badly, they would bump up her ranking enough to cancel out the drop of having her involved with one of their firefighters.

“Have a seat while I change.” She gestured toward the couch, and he decided in that instant there was no way he could sit down on it. If he did, before too long she would end up sitting beside him, and from there things only went downhill. Instead he perched on the edge of the chair. She walked through the door and took a right rather than go through the closed door straight ahead. That struck him as odd because based on the size of the dwelling, if that was a bathroom, it had to be a darn big one and there wasn’t room for a bedroom off the back of the place.

“Hey Kevin, can you give me a hand with something?” she called down the hall.

Kevin stood up, feeling like his knees were going to disjoint by themselves. His calculations about the size of the dwelling disappeared under the haze of her calling him to another room deeper in the apartment that might or might not be the bedroom.

“What do you need?” he asked, stalling for time and hoping she’d change her mind while he tried to come up with innocent reasons for her to need him in the back of the apartment. Nothing came to him.

“I need a hand.”

Kevin walked to the hall and peered down. She stood in another door that appeared to lead outside. “What do you need?” he asked again.

“Will you just come here? Boy, you’re suspicious today.” She stepped through the door onto a narrow porch.

He followed, praying that whatever she needed would be over quickly so they could get back out in public where he was less likely to try to kiss her.

“Surprise!”

Chapter 7

Kevin stumbled back a step, looking for a place to hide. This had all the earmarks of a very bad dream. He looked down to make sure he was dressed. If he was naked, it would be a dream; if he was clothed, it would be worse. Thirty or so of his nearest and dearest friends crowded into Jessica’s small backyard. He saw Jack with Kate and Bobbie and Lew and Dan. They all started singing
Happy Birthday to You
. Jessica watched him with uncertain hope all over her sweet face.

A birthday party. Somehow she’d found out his birthday was Thursday and arranged a party for him. Jessica couldn’t have any idea how much he hated parties, especially parties in his honor. Scanning the crowd, he found Bobbie in the back corner. She was wearing a pleased smirk until his eyes met hers. At least he knew now how Jessica knew when his birthday was. He forced a smile.

“Thanks, everybody,” he said when the singing stopped.

“Come on down before the beer gets cold,” someone shouted. Kevin had been too busy staring daggers at Bobbie to register who.

“There is plenty of cold beer, too,” Jessica shouted back. “You just get the keg open.” She pressed a button to start the music and walked past Kevin into the house. “I left some beer warm for you. Irish style.”

He followed her. “Bobbie put you up to this,” he announced, standing in her kitchen door.

Jessica stopped unwrapping cling wrap from a bowl. “You hate it, don’t you? I’m sorry. It won’t last long. Bobbie thought you’d like it.”

“I’ll bet she did.” Kevin turned to storm outside, but Jessica caught his arm. He froze. Her touch was light, but it went straight to his core.

“Take this with you.” She held out a bowl.

He looked at the bowl for a minute before lifting it out of her hands.

“There’s a table against the fence. Most of the food is already there. You’ll see it. I’ll be down in a minute.” She smiled at him. “Be nice to Bobbie, she meant well.” Jessica turned back to her refrigerator.

Kevin carried the salad bowl to the backyard feeling as if he couldn’t effectively hunt down and kill Bobbie while carrying it. Bobbie seemed to be determined to make capturing her as difficult as possible. When he came around the corner of the house, she was standing across the yard by the fence, but by the time he’d reached the food table, she’d slipped past him to the other side of the yard. He set down the salad and looked at the table. The salad he brought out had black beans, chopped tomatoes, and avocado in it. Also on the table was a carved ham, a plate of sliced cheese, a heap of rolls, potato salad, baked beans, and another exotic looking salad composed of lentils, tomatoes and corn. No one had any hesitation about digging in.

He scanned the yard. Bobbie must have done all the inviting. Every off-duty firefighter stationed in this area of the city had shown up, from guys he worked with every shift to guys he saw once a year. The guys he worked with every shift also seemed to be determined to avoid him, so he was constantly congratulated by guys he didn’t know well as he worked his way through the crowd.

A brick patio spanned the back of the house where a couple of wooden deck chairs sat, along with an aluminum tub full of ice and drinks. The yard sloped up steeply at the back, and Jessica had planted a row of ferns there. Just over the property line, towering elm trees blocked out most of the light but provided a welcome shade. It reminded him that he hadn’t done any landscaping at his house in the year since he’d moved in. He worked his way to where Jack and Kate stood near the ferns.

Jack held up his hand before Kevin could speak. “I tried to stop her. You know how Bobbie is when she gets going.”

“It’s not that bad,” Kate added. “It’s a very nice party.”

“I hate parties,” Kevin growled.

“I already talked to your trainee yesterday. She’s going to start running out of alcohol in about two hours and out of food in three. The music will last about as long as the food. Once there’s no food and no music, everybody will go away. She has party planning down to a science.” Jack shrugged. “If you have to have a party, Jessica is probably the one to host it.”

“The food is very good,” Kate said.

Kevin glanced at the plate in her hand. It wasn’t pizza, he realized. When Bobbie had a party, it always involved pizza. Bobbie may have done the calling, but Jessica catered.

“She seems pretty nice,” Jack ventured. “What made you decide to train her?”

Kevin shook his head. “Good question. I need to talk to you, but not here.”

“Okay.” Jack frowned. “Give me a call. You were going to help me take down that wall anyway.”

“When are you coming back to work?”

“The twenty-fifth.”

“Good.” Kevin looked around the yard. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. If he weren’t so worried about Jessica, he’d be having a good time.

“What’s this playing?” Kate asked.

“Altan,” Kevin answered. The music. Good Irish music, no cheesy
Danny Boy
in sight and no rock. He didn’t have anything against rock, but it was one of the things he hated most about these parties. Everybody played the same six CDs. Every party seemed like a rerun of the last one.

This wasn’t your everyday Irish folk music either. This was some of the better, more obscure stuff. He recalled having heard Capercaillie, too. Not only had the food been carefully chosen, but so had the music. He decided he would be having a pretty good time if this weren’t Jessica’s backyard and if he didn’t have to watch every guy in the department leer at her.

Jessica walked down the stairs with a bowl in her hands. Joe from A shift stopped her. When Joe gestured to the corner of the yard, Kevin decided he was telling her one of his war stories, not hitting on her, and realized with a start that
this
was the location of the infamous Magnolia Boulevard Unfire. Jessica smiled and nodded. His breath caught in his throat watching her. Brushing her loose hair back with her free hand, she laughed when Joe gestured as though he was overturning a bucket. He imagined she would listen to Joe’s stories for hours just to be nice. Glancing in his direction, she caught him staring at her and paled before looking away.

Dan strolled over with a can in his hand. “I didn’t know this was the address of the Magnolia Boulevard Unfire,” he announced.