Flashpoint (15 page)

“You gave it to me for emergencies.”

“Is there an emergency?”

“Well, I thought junk food and porn constituted one, but I can see I was mistaken.”

“Brooke's hair is down,” Sam noted. “That's new.”

“Out.”
Zach pointed at the bedroom door with his injured arm.
“Now.”

When they'd filed out, Brooke covered her face. “This is bad. I fell asleep—”

“It's okay.”

“They thought it was funny!”

“It is funny,” he said. “A little.”

Slipping out of the bed, she hurriedly reached for her clothes. Hearing the guys in the kitchen, digging into the food, she felt naked.

Very, very naked. “I've got to go.”

“At least stay and eat.”

She couldn't stay. Not right now. Not when she'd just realized that in her heart, she was like Dustin, and not cut out for this lightweight sex thing. In spite of herself and her promise on that night on that rock, her damn heart had opened to Zach.

How stupid was that? She'd fallen all the way, leaving herself vulnerable to pain. And there would be pain. She was okay with that, but she needed a moment, a few moments, before she could smile and mean it.

“Hey.
Hey,
” he said when she turned away, snagging her hand, pulling her back. “Brooke? What is it?” The bruise on his jaw had darkened, the white bandage wrapped around his left shoulder stark against his tanned skin. He had bed-head again, and tired eyes that said he was hurting like hell.

He didn't need this, the burden of her feelings. “I need to go home for clothes before work,” she said, faking a smile. “That's all.”

He was quiet while she pulled on her shirt, so quiet that she finally glanced over to find him looking at her. And in his eyes was a wariness because he felt things for her, too, she knew he did, feelings he kept inside because he didn't intend to let them go anywhere—but what was worse was the comprehension she found there.

Oh, God. Despite her best effort, he could see what she was feeling. “Yeah, I really,
really
have to go.”

With a wince, he sat up in bed. “Brooke—”

“No.” She shook her head. “Please don't say anything.”

“I'm sorry.”

Oh, God. “Don't be silly. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Yes, I do. I'm sorry that I can't give you what you want.”

Casually as she could, she slipped into her shoes and attempted to wrangle her hair. “And what is it you think I want?”

Reaching out, he grabbed her hand again, stilling her frenetic movements, waiting until she looked at him. “Love,” he said quietly.

She managed a light laugh. She realized she might be pathetically needy when it came to that particular emotion, but love hadn't exactly been prominent in her life. She'd come here to Santa Rey a little bit in limbo, but the one thing she'd known was she'd wanted that to change. But she'd made Zach a promise
not
to get attached,
not
to have messy emotions.

She'd failed on both counts.

“Brooke.” He stroked a strand of hair from her face, all the while holding her gaze with his so that she couldn't look away to save her life. In these eyes were affection, heat…and a brutal honesty. “I don't want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you, but—”

“It's not your fault—”

“I wanted a physical relationship with you, you know that. And now I'm holding back, you know that, too. It's just that if you're going to add love into the mix—” He grinned ruefully. “Well, you can't. I don't seem to have the parts required to do love. So you can't fall, not for me.”

Her throat tight, she nodded. “I know.”

Only she also knew it was too damn late.

Z
ACH SLEPT
on and off for two days. Or rather he tossed and turned for two days. He spent his third night at home surrounded by the guys, grateful not to still be in the hospital like Blake, who'd suffered a more serious head trauma, his leg broken in four places, and two cracked ribs, and was by all accounts cranky as all hell.

Zach was glad for the company. Sort of. But mostly he kept thinking about the fact that Brooke hadn't come back, and that this was her last week in town, and that he was an idiot.

“Why are you moping around like you lost your puppy?” Sam asked.

“I'm not.”

The guys all exchanged a careful-with-the-deluded-patient look, and he sighed.

Yeah. He was moping.

Because he'd sent away the best thing that had ever happened to him.

“You've got pizza, beer and us,” Eddie joked. “What else could you need?”

“Brooke.” This from Aidan, his mouth full of pizza and a knowing look in his eyes. “He wants Brooke.”

“No.” Sam shook his head. “Our Zach's not much of a repeater.”

Zach opened his mouth, but in lieu of absolutely nothing to say in his defense, shut it again.

“If I had Brooke looking at me the way she looks at you, I'd become a repeater,” Dustin said as he reached for more pizza.

Yeah, but Zach was a moron. Brooke wouldn't be looking at him like that again. He'd made sure of that.

“You're only saying so because you got laid by the woman of your dreams,” Sam pointed out. “Cristina.”

“Cristina?” Zach blinked. This was news. “Since when?”

“Since last night,” Sam informed him. “Dustin fixed her car and then she slept with him.”

Not one to kiss and tell, Dustin tried to hold back his stupid grin and failed.

“Cristina's not going to settle down,” Aidan warned Dustin. “She's not the type.”

“She might, for the right guy,” Dustin said, pushing up his glasses. “It could happen.”

“You're asking to be crushed,” Aidan told him. “Like a grape.
Again.
”

“Actually,” Zach said quietly, “you never know.”

“Then why aren't you seeing Brooke?” Aidan asked. “With only one week in town left, that makes her the perfect woman in my eyes.”

“So why don't
you
date her?” Eddie jeered.

“Maybe I will.”

Suddenly the pizza Zach had consumed sat like a lead weight in his gut. He tried to picture Brooke moving on and dating any one of these guys. His friends.

Then he had to admit it wasn't the pizza weighing his gut down. “No.”

Aidan raised a brow. “What?”

“Nothing.” Zach tossed his pizza aside. “She can date whoever she wants.”

“Really?” Aidan said dryly. “So you wouldn't care if I ask her out?”

Zach opened his mouth, shut it, scrubbed a hand over his eyes and sighed. “We've been friends for a long time.”

“Years.”

“Yeah. And I've always said you should go out with whoever floats your boat, but…”

“But?”

“But if you go out with Brooke, I'll have to hurt you.”

Dustin laughed and clamped him on the shoulder in commiseration.

Aidan just arched a brow that said,
You're in deep.

Didn't he know it.

 

L
ATER THAT DAY
, the bad news came from Zach's doctor—he wasn't cleared to go back to work until his cast came off, which was a minimum of three weeks away.

Three more weeks without work just might kill him, not that the doctor seemed to care, and not that the chief seemed to, either, when he called to check on Zach.

“Enjoy the time off. We'll be waiting for you.”

“I want to come in,” Zach said. “I could handle light duty—”

“No. We want you back, Zach, but sound.”

Sound. What the hell did that mean?

But as the mind-numbing boredom set in, Zach had to admit he didn't feel so
sound.
He sat on his couch with the remote, but nothing on daytime TV interested him. Nothing on his bookshelf interested him. Hell, even the porn didn't interest him. He couldn't go surfing because of the cast and bandages. He couldn't work.

All he could do, unfortunately, was think.
Way
too much thinking going on. About Brooke, about…Brooke.

It was another whole day before he remembered.

The arson fires. He'd actually come close to figuring something out…something really important. He called Aidan. “Where was I with the arson stuff?”

“Close to screwing up your career.”

“Come on. We've fought hundreds of fires, and out of all of those, I'm only talking about four—”

“Five.”

“—So how in the hell is that screwing up my career—”

“Five fires.”

“What?”

Aidan sighed. “Let's get real crazy, okay? I think that the warehouse fire was arson.”

“Why?”

“Gut feeling. Too many things went wrong. And guess what Tommy told me when I mentioned it?”

“I'll go out on a limb here and say, ‘Mind your own fucking business?'”

“Bingo.”

“Did you look around afterward?” Zach asked. “Get sight of the point of origin?”

“No, I was sitting by your side in the hospital after saving your sorry ass.”

“Damn it.”

“You're welcome.”

After they hung up, Zach went out onto his deck and stared off into the night. Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe it was pain, maybe it was simply that he didn't want to face the fact that his chest hurt, and so did his heart.

Or that he missed Brooke.

Over the years, he'd slept with enough women to lose count, and that had never bothered him any, but now he wondered what it would be like to stay with the
same
woman instead of moving on each time? To have some familiarity? A real relationship with depth instead of just heat?

He bet there was comfort in that, which he'd never had any use for before. But now, honestly, he could use a little TLC.

Zach hadn't taken his pain meds in two days, so showering was a bitch, but he got through it, dressed and walked out to his truck. He stopped short at the sight of Brooke getting out of her car.

She was carrying a bag from the local sandwich shop and wore an expression that said she wasn't too sure of her welcome, an expression that changed to disbelief when she saw the keys in his hand. “What are you doing?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“I'm bringing you something more substantial than pizza or McDonald's.” Her eyes met his. “Now you.”

“I was coming to see you.”

She let out a breath. “Okay, you have no idea how I both love and hate that. You shouldn't be driving. How are you feeling?”

Like I missed the hell out of you.
“Great.”

She arched a brow.

“Good.”

“Zach.”

“Okay, like shit. I feel like complete shit.”

With a sigh, she stepped close, and did something he hadn't expected, given how things had gone the last time he'd seen her.

She hugged him.

For a moment, just a heartbeat, really, he stood still, shocked, because normally when he pushed someone away, they willingly went. After all, he was a master pusher when it came right down to it. And he'd all but thrown her feelings for him back in her face.

But Brooke, petite, sweet-but-steely-willed Brooke, hadn't just held her ground with him, she was pushing back.

If that didn't grab him by the throat.

Unable to resist, he slid his arms around her, pulling her in tight. Bending his head, he buried his face in her hair, breathing her in.

Keep it light, keep it casual…

But then she was pressing her mouth to his cheek and he was turning his head to meet her mouth, and as he deepened the kiss he knew the truth.

He didn't want to push her away anymore. He really didn't. So he hoped like hell someone threw him a line, because he was going down.

“You need to get back inside,” she murmured. “You're pale.”

Pale, and apparently stupid, because he kissed her again.

Deep.

Wet.

He was in the middle of working on the long part, but she pulled back. “Careful, I'll hurt you—”

Shaking his head, he kissed her again, then dropped his forehead to hers. “No.” Drawing a deep breath, he straightened and pulled free. “I'll hurt you.”

“Oh.” She stared up at him, then took a step back and nodded. “Right.”

They were still just staring at each other when Aidan pulled up, followed by all the guys.

Incredible timing, as always.

“Okay,” Brooke said. “I'm going to go.”

“No, don't.”

“No, really. It's okay. I just wanted—” She thrust the bag of food in his hands. “Here.”

“Wait—”

“Listen, I know I wear my heart on my sleeve and feel too much, but I'm not slow. I really did hear you the other day, what you were trying to say. You don't want me to get invested, and I get it. I'm leaving and all that, and this was never about that kind of thing. I just want you to know that I understand, and there's no hard feelings.”

Damn, she killed him. “Brooke—”

“Don't.” She shook her head. “Don't go there. Not now.”

“Fine. Later, then. Just please stay until I get rid of these guys?”

She glanced at them all getting out of their cars. “Okay, but Zach? That kiss…”

He couldn't help looking at her lips again. He could still taste her. “Yeah?”

“That didn't feel like a hey-how-are-you kiss. Or even a one-night-stand kiss.” She moved in and whispered for his ears only. “It felt like a helluva lot more.”

Yeah. It had.

“So you might want to think about that next time you tell yourself I'm the only one going to get hurt here.”

 

E
VERYONE ENTERED
Zach's house, carrying food and news of their day. Brooke joined them because Zach had asked, but mostly because she wanted to. She wanted to be with them.

With Zach.

He sat sprawled on the couch, and if it hadn't been for the cast, the bandages and the slight paleness of his face, she'd never have guessed that he'd nearly died.

Her heart tightened at that, but she'd always licked her wounds in private, so stressing about what could have happened, as she had been doing since the fire, would have to wait.

Sam tossed her a soda.

Dustin handed her a plate.

Aidan kicked a chair her way.

She sat in the chair, holding the soda and plate, staring at the group talking and laughing amongst themselves, a huge lump forming in her throat.

She really was part of them. She belonged. And hadn't that been what she'd been looking for at the beginning of the summer? A place to belong?

Zach sipped his soda, his eyes hooded as he watched her over his drink.

She watched him back.

Around them, the laughter and noise went up a notch, but Zach didn't join in. Probably because he was hurting far more than he'd let on. She could see it in the grim set of his mouth and the lines of exhaustion on his face. He eyed the pizza on the coffee table in front of him but didn't take a piece.

He loved pizza.

“You okay?” Aidan leaned in to ask her quietly.

“Not me I'm worried about.”

They both eyed Zach. “Let's try this.” Aidan tossed two slices of pieces on a plate, then handed it to Zach. “Hey. The annual picnic is in one week.”

“So?”

“So we need an anchor for the tug-of-war against Firehouse 32.”

“I repeat. So?”

“So no pansy-asses need apply. Eat up.”

“Not hungry.”

“Really? You like being home all day, watching
Oprah,
eating bonbons?”

Zach opened his mouth, probably to tell Aidan where to go, but the doorbell rang again, and in came Cristina, carrying a tray of cupcakes.

Everyone looked at Dustin. Everyone except Cristina, that is, alerting Brooke to the fact that something was going on. Happy not to be at the center of the gossip mill for once, she watched with fascination as the blonde shuffled around without her usual cockiness.