Flirting with Fire (Hot in Chicago #1) (27 page)

After Lisa, Luke had punched things and shouted at people and punched more things, then spent months becoming one with his couch and making a very fine acquaintance with the bottom of a bottle. That he wasn’t curled up in a fetal ball of Jack-soaked misery worried them.

Ignoring them, he poured coffee, then pulled out his ringing phone. He frowned on seeing it was Alex—as in the same Alex who was sitting behind him at the kitchen table.

“What?”

“Just checking that your phone is working,” his sister said. “Kinsey said you haven’t answered any of her calls.”

Luke’s neck prickled at the mention of her name. He rearranged his expression to neutral as he did the turn-and-sip.

“What are you going to do about it?” Gage asked. Today’s T-shirt announced: I’m a firefighter. To Save Time, Let’s Just Assume I’m Never Wrong.

“About what?”

Gage’s look was cutting. “I really like her.”

“You have enough friends.”

“
You
really like her,” Alex said.

“It was just a fling, sis. Nothing more.” The lie felt blasphemous on his lips—at least ten Our Fathers at confession, Mary would have said. He took a gulp of coffee to keep from screaming.

“Bullshit.”

Luke’s eyes zeroed in on Wyatt. “Bullshit?”

“Woman’s perfect for you. Puttin’ up with your hoverin’ crap. Givin’ us all a break.”

“My hovering crap?” He moved his gaze around the kitchen and was met by eyebrow shrugs. “You mean the fact I care about you a-holes enough to actually want to know where you are and when you might be home? You mean that hovering crap?”

“But that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Alex chewed on her lip, Dempsey determination taking over. “You’re always thinking of us. Worrying about us. You can’t be there for every run, for every mistake.”

“Someone has to be!” He turned and slammed the coffee cup down, not caring that its contents splashed the counter. Who would look after them if he weren’t here? Wyatt? Wyatt was useless as a caregiver. Great to have by your side in a fire or a foxhole, but he was so hands-off with the juniors, they may as well be unrelated.

“There’s a box of nails under the sink,” Wyatt said. “Should be strong enough to keep you up on that cross.”

“Oh, shut it, Wy,” Alex snapped. “Give him a break.”

Gage sighed, ever the peacemaker. “We’re adults, Luke. We’re trained professionals—”

Wyatt huffed at that.

“—and sometimes we mess up, but it’s not your job to fix it.”

“I’m just looking out for you all. That’s not going to change. It’s ingrained in my DNA.” He couldn’t fight for Jenny. He was powerless then, but not anymore.

“I need to speak to Luke alone,” Wyatt said.

Luke turned back in time to catch the surprise on Alex’s and Gage’s faces. Wyatt never made a request
like this. All family matters—not that this was a family matter, but it was the nature of the Dempseys to stick their noses into everything—were discussed as a group. Wyatt and he might talk about the kids when alone, but they never asked anyone to leave the circle.

Acutely aware of the significance, Gage and Alex exchanged worried glances, but obeyed and left the kitchen.

In the pause so heavy it could have crushed a fire truck, Wyatt stared at Luke.

“I wasn’t here,” he said finally in a low voice. “When Sean and Logan died, there was no discussion about who would stay.”

“I was happy to do it.” He did it as much for Wyatt as for the juniors. Given the choice, he would do it all over again, no hesitation.

“You’ve every right to be bitter about that,” Wyatt continued as if Luke hadn’t spoken, “and not just because you loved the Marines. I was no use to you or the kids.” His chest lifted on an inhale. Luke might have called it the most demonstrative display of emotion from Wyatt he’d ever witnessed, except that was bordering on melodrama.

“It was tougher for you, Wy. Logan was blood.” Luke knew what it was like to lose your blood. Wyatt’s pain had cut so deep that the regimented life of the Marines was the only thing keeping him somewhat steady during the storm. Mourning Dempsey-style was too messy for his personality.

Wyatt didn’t argue the point, just nodded his acceptance of Luke’s conclusion, and in that moment, Luke had never loved him more. They had always understood each other.

“No one expects you to give up your life anymore, Luke. You’ve got to think about what you need. This woman of yours . . . what she did for Alex . . .” He frowned. “If she’d had it in her power, Lisa wouldn’t have lifted a bony finger to help and you know that. Kinsey gets you. She gets
us
.”

Yeah, she did. She put her job on the line and it came back to bite her beautiful ass. But that did not change the cold, hard facts. “She doesn’t want me. Jesus, she didn’t even tell me she got fired, Wy. She’s already planning her life thousands of miles away.”

“You tell her already how you feel?”

Luke delivered the look of,
Hell no
. It was not as if he was emotionally well adjusted like Gage or anything.

His brother shook his head, the wisp of a smile almost strange on his lips. “She needs the grand fuckin’ gesture. Like all chicks.”

An inappropriate laugh burbled up from somewhere deep and painful. Wyatt dispensing relationship advice was about the funniest thing he’d heard in a long time.

“And I should be taking tips from the guy who never dates because . . . ?”

“Forget it. Just tryin’ to help.”

Evasion would no longer get a pass here, not when Wyatt had opened the touchy-feely door. “I need to ask you something. When you’re gone overnight, is it for a woman?”

“Nope.”

“Is it illegal?”

Wyatt looked affronted. Damn, screw the risk of offense—Luke had to be sure. Visions of Wy drag racing the Camaro down Western Avenue darted
through his brain. Luke needed to know that he could trust his brother to be here if he wasn’t.

If he wasn’t.

Holy shit. He was really considering this.

Wyatt took a slug of his coffee. “Years ago, I let a girl go. I knew she was mine, but I wasn’t brave enough to claim her, and she moved on. If I could do it over, I’d make sure she knew she was my woman. In no uncertain terms.”

If Wyatt had said he was joining the circus, Luke wouldn’t have been more surprised. His oldest brother was the most private person Luke knew, and it had to be hard for him to, one, spill anything personal, and two, cop to being deficient in the bravery department. The latter admission, especially, was something no Dempsey ever made. Fearlessness was treasured more than Hawks tickets, and just because they were talking about all this emotional crap did not change the rules.

Luke had been living in a state of comfortably numb for the last year. Longer. Lidocained by the security blanket of his family, he had a role, a reason, and the self-deluding assurance that it was enough. But it wasn’t.

He would happily crash through the flame-hot door of an apartment building to rescue someone, yet he didn’t have the sac to take Kinsey Taylor into his arms and tell her he wanted her forever. His useless heart was in shreds without her. He needed her like he needed oxygen. If there was a chance he could make this right, what in hell was he doing sipping coffee in his kitchen?

Wy slid a glance toward the door and Luke felt the
beginnings of a smile mixed in with a little sadness. “You can come in now,” he said.

The door pushed open, bringing Gage and Alex tumbling into the kitchen, ready to pick through the rubble of the truth grenade that just exploded.

“About time,” his sister griped. She wrapped her arms around him and lay her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Luke. About Cochrane, about Kinsey losing her job. It’s my fault she’s gone. Well, it’s that cretin Eli Cooper’s fault, but I know I have some share in it. I’ve never been anything but a pain in your ass.”

He smiled against her hair. “True that, but we’re not going to armchair-quarterback this anymore. It’s done and now we have to move on.”

She held him tighter. “You’ve always been my favorite brother.”

“Jesus wept,” Gage muttered, and everyone laughed, breaking the tension after what seemed like weeks of disharmony and stress in Camp Dempsey.

The kitchen door opened and in strode Beck and Darcy. They halted at the scene before them.

“What’s goin’ on here, then?” Beck asked, his blue eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Luke just extracted his head out of his ass,” Wy said.

With a sigh, Darcy made a move on the cinnamon rolls. “There we go missing all the excitement as usual. Can you do it again? In superslow motion.”

Luke divided a look among his annoying-as-all-fuck family members. “Any more opinions or comments before we wrap this up?”

Gage eyed him shrewdly over his coffee cup. “Yeah. I suggest you take off your dress and go get her.”

 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

T
he pop-pop synth of Röyksopp and Robyn’s “Do It Again” kept Kinsey’s feet on track as she punished the streets of San Rafael, but it did squat to keep her thoughts from straying to Luke. His sharp blue eyes haunted her. Watching, wanting, ready to spark into laughter or desire at any moment.

She turned up the volume.

Her querulous mind churned up images of Luke’s hard body joining with hers. Much better. Objectify that beefcake. Think of him only as the guy you had a hot fling with during a sultry Chicago summer. The last few months had been like a vacation from real life. An internship of sorts with the mayor’s office. Campaigns realized, crises averted, worth proven, and even though it ended on a less-than-stellar note with that awkward firing business, she had still come out ahead experiencewise. And she’d managed to get some hot firefighter lovin’ while she was at it.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Except . . .

There was no except—and to prove it she picked up the pace. There was only the past, filled with unworthy men standing in the way of her goals. If she couldn’t stay strong on this, then what kind of sister was she?
Was she doomed to repeat her mistakes and the mistakes of women before her? This wasn’t why women marched and burned bras and fought for respect. Not that her job was to represent the entirety of womanhood, but she had to do what worked for her, for once, and right now taking the job with Max Fordham was it.

But Luke Almeida also worked for her. In the bedroom. In his Chevy. In her heart. He worked for her so damn well he had taken up permanent residence in her brain. Ten years with David and now she barely spared him a thought. Ten days without Luke and she could think of nothing else.

But he clearly was not thinking of her. She had called him several times in the week following that heart-sickening phone conversation, with no response. It was one thing for her to insist he was a fling; it was quite another to have it so unmistakably affirmed by his silence. Anyway, what would she have said to him if he’d answered one of her calls?

Great knowin’ ya, babe—thanks for all the orgasms?

Yanking out her earbuds, she rounded the drive up to Dad’s ranch house and slipped through the passage at the gable. Masculine voices carried on the warm breeze. Jax must be here for brunch already. She ambled into the backyard to say a quick hello before hitting the shower.

Only it wasn’t Jax.

Heart slamming madly, she took a long, lingering look to soothe her parched brain. Once again, she was sharing the same time zone as Luke Almeida.

“Hey,” he said coolly, as if the idea of him popping in for brunch at her father’s house two thousand miles from Chicago was perfectly normal.

Words refused to form. Man on fire in the garden, lady IQ plummeting.

Her memory had done him no justice. He wore jeans, those soft ones that molded to his powerful legs like old friends. God love the man, she would never tire of how he looked in denim. His tee was gray, its simplicity only serving to accentuate the man’s incredibly powerful chest. It had never been
only
a chest. She was glad to see he hadn’t dressed up to meet her father. He was just as he should be—the sexy, take-me-as-I-am warrior she loved like crazy.

She loved this man.

“Luke’s been filling me in on his service in the Marines,” her father said, hauling her out of the Luke fug she’d become lost in. In her dad’s voice, she heard approval. Acceptance. They were cut from the same cloth, these two. Good, family-oriented, value-driven men.

Find woman, claim woman
 . . . oh dear. She’d fallen in love with a guy like her dad. Her brothers would never let her hear the end of it.

“I’ll grab the orange juice,” her father said, never mind that there were two pitchers already perspiring on the picnic table. He raised a raggedy eyebrow as he passed her.

Message received, Colonel.

Luke’s gaze, that piercing, unnatural azure, traveled across her face as if it were the first time he’d laid eyes on her. “Surprise,” he said softly.

“I’m all sweaty,” she blurted, because she knew what was coming next and oh, God, if he touched her now she was going to lose it.

“That’s how I like you, Taylor. Sweaty, pliant, and at my mercy.” And the next thing she knew, she was
in his arms and his mouth was fire-hot, man-hot, and it was as if everything distilled to this pure moment of heat-infused peace.

The kiss was perfect, the man even more so. Damn him.

He laid his forehead against her damp brow. “I would say we need to talk, but I much prefer what we’re doing now.”

“Solving the problem with sex?”

He grinned. “Even with my mad skills, I couldn’t pull that off before your father gets back with a third pitcher of OJ. Looks like dehydration won’t be an issue.”

She let loose a laugh that staved off the threatening tears and smothered about 50 percent of her nerves. Maybe 55.

Luke drew back, his air now grave. “Have you started your new job yet?”

“My final interview is tomorrow.”

“You should have told me. About everything.”

“I know. It’s just . . . losing my job like that, I thought I was prepared for it after the decision I made with the video, but it wrecked me. I couldn’t think straight.” Around him, she meant. In Luke’s orbit, her brain came unglued and her heart started calling the shots.

“Baby.” A murmur, not judging, just understanding.

She rubbed his biceps. She had missed these arms, and the familiar motion distracted from her guilt at running like a quitter. “When did you get in?”

“Yesterday.”

At her obvious disapproval of the fact that he
had been here overnight and had not contacted her sooner, he pulled her flush again. “Kinsey—”

“Why, hello, there,” she heard from her brother Jax, who had rounded the corner into the yard.

Luke eased up on his grip but didn’t release her, just switched his arm to circle her waist possessively.

“Hey,” she said to her brother. “Jax, this is Luke. Luke, my brother Jax.”

Luke thrust out a hand and shook Jax’s firmly. Avidly, she watched for signs of her brother’s feelings in this.

Oh hell, what did any of it matter? Luke was here to do the caveman club-and-drag back to Chicago, and surrendering to his demands was an impossibility. She would not be a fool for love. Not again. Still, her heart stirred that he would fly across the country to claim her. She’d have to be made of stone not to be floored by the pure romance of the gesture.

Her father came out, sans OJ. Luke shot her a sidelong glance, his lips curved in amusement.

Now for the true test. “I should take a shower.” She braved a peek at Luke to see if the idea of being left alone with the male Taylors bothered him, but those impossibly blue eyes betrayed nothing.

“You do that, sweetheart.”

As she stepped away, his fingertips brushed hers, a touch as intimate and arousing as the smoldering kiss he’d laid on her before.

Better make that shower a cold one.

F
orty minutes later, she headed downstairs and found Luke, Jax, and her father in the kitchen. Luke
was cooking French toast—suck-up—and her father was plating so much bacon she wondered how many pigs had been sacrificed to supply it. Their laughter stopped abruptly on her entrance.

Jax shot her a look of,
Well, isn’t this special?

Yes, she got it. The man had come a long way, and of course her father was going to appreciate that. Dad was a soppy old romantic at heart, and he recognized a kindred soul when he saw one.

But Kinsey wasn’t a romantic. She couldn’t be swayed, no matter how many grand gestures Luke pulled out of his hat. The risk was too much to bear.

“There’s our girl,” her father said, handing off a piece of bacon and kissing her on the forehead. Luke winked at her, in on the joke.

Brunch wasn’t quite as rambunctious as a Dempsey family meal, but after a few minutes, they found an easy rhythm once Luke and Jax fell into trash-talking hockey and baseball teams. Still, around the ebb and flow, every thread of conversation wound back to Luke’s unfaltering gaze seeking her out. She found herself heating under his inspection, and when she looked away, it was worse. Worse not to stare at him, and worse to have to meet the wiseacre grin of her brother and the knowing scrutiny of her father.

Both of whom made no secret of their approval. Twenty-three minutes in, her father invited Luke fishing. At the thirty-seven-minute mark, Jax had clearly revised his opinion of her summer fling as “a tool with a hero complex” and was assuring Luke he’d take to skiing like a duck to water. You know, for that trip to Vail that Luke was welcome to join over Thanksgiving. By the end of brunch, Kinsey suspected
the cozy male knitting circle would have decided the color scheme of the invitations, along with the wedding china pattern.

“So, Luke. Have you been to San Francisco before?” her father asked.

“No, but what I’ve seen impresses me.”

“One day,” Kinsey said, “and you’re that impressed.”

“It’s where my woman is. That’s all I need to know.”

Something lurched in her chest. What the hell did that mean?

The Colonel interpreted that as a sign to make himself scarce. “Luke, it was great to meet you. In person.” With a squinty-eyed grin, he stood and extended his hand.

Luke rose and gripped firmly. “Likewise, sir.”

“We’ll get you on the slopes and then we’ll see what you’re made of, Almeida.” Following her father back to the house, Jax sent Kinsey a significant glance of,
Do not fuck this up
. So fickle, that brother of hers.

Luke sat down again, pulled his chair closer, and took both of her hands in his. “I missed you.”

Her heart clattered wildly, panic sharpening some fuzzy knowledge that existed on the outer corner of her mind. “You said you arrived yesterday. Why didn’t you come visit sooner?”

“I had dinner last night with John Carson. He’s a fire chief over at SFFD in the Mission District.”

“Old friend of yours?”

“Never met him before in my life.”

Every thought in her brain spun out like bowling
pins, and still she refused to go there. This could not be happening. “Picking up tips for the CFD?”

His smile was droll. “Feeling him out for a job.”

“You mean—”

“Yes.”

She swallowed against the sand-dry lump in her throat. He had cooked up a batch of French toast, sat through brunch, joked with her father, endured her brother, and now he was dropping this on her?

“I—I thought you were here to bring me back,” she said, astonishment pitching her voice too high. “I thought that’s why you came.”

“You made up your mind, Kinsey. Following a man, staying put for one, is off the menu. I would never expect you to compromise. It’s why I’m so damn crazy about you.” He raised her hands to his lips and brushed fire across her knuckles. “There’s no reason why I can’t move here.”

“There are a million reasons and they’re all called Dempsey,” she said, shocked. “Luke, your family. You can’t leave them.” For her? He would do that for her?

He nodded thoughtfully. “It’ll be hard at first. I’ll miss them, but I have to start thinking about what I want. What I need. It’s right here before me. I thought I wanted someone easy who’d let me run roughshod all over her. Instead I get you, Kinsey. Bossy, strong, sexy as hell, a pain in my ass. A gorgeous pain in my ass. My heart hurts when I’m not with you and”—he squeezed her hands tighter—“shit, baby, it hurts when I’m with you, too, but it’s that good hurt, you know? You’ve got your hook in me. You’re the barb I can’t get loose.”

She couldn’t breathe. “Luke, your job—”

“Carter at SFFD said with my experience, I can probably take the lieutenant’s exam in a year. It’ll be a slight step down at first, but it’s doable.”

Doable? How about insane? Her summer fling couldn’t have become so serious that he would give up everything and everyone he had ever known, the people and city he had vowed to protect, to be with her. She adored her family, but for Luke it was different. It was a biological imperative that he watch over them. Could she live with knowing she was the reason he was here, separated from the people he loved?

“Luke, this is”
—crazy, stupid, the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for her—
“not going to work. We hardly know each other.”

“I love you. It’ll work.”

She lowered her eyelids. He loved her, and those words had never sounded sweeter or more sincere. But the realist beat the romantic into submission as she sought out fissures in his argument. “This job I’m up for, if it works out, it’s headed to Congress in sixteen months. D.C. What happens then? Are you going to turn your own life upside down every time I move to a new job?”

He slanted her a look. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. Instead of thinking about all the reasons we can’t be together, think of all the reasons why we should. Right now, all I know is that when I’m not with you, I’m unhappy. With you, I am. The rest will sort itself out as long as we observe that simple truth.”