Scorch (17 page)

“Was that… I mean, it’s okay if that was just…” She was trying so hard to sound brave, but her gaze fell and her face crumpled briefly before she controlled her expression. “Seasonal affectedness disorder.”

“If I want to get laid, I can get laid,” he said flatly, washed in self-disgust now. “I don’t have to start here, where it’s—”

“Bad?”

He snorted. “If that was bad for you, I probably wouldn’t survive ‘great.’”

She smiled then, lips pulling into a soft, womanly grin that was both sly and smug. She sat up, teasing over her shoulder, “Yeah, it was okay.” She reached for her underpants.

He bit back a remark questioning her vast experience, not the least interested in hearing comparisons. One other lover. What the hell was he supposed to make of being her second?

Funny how he could think Jacqui attractive, maybe speculate in the shower or the dark with his hand on his dick, but he hadn’t really known what kind of passion she possessed until she was resetting the bar on his scale of experience.

What a stick of freaking dynamite she was.

As she dressed, he folded his arm under his head and watched, indulging himself, distantly thinking it was laughable that she needed reassurance. Of course this had been more for him than running out his preseason kinks.

“You’re hot, Jac. I’ve always thought so.”

She stood on her knees to zip her shorts, then, after dropping her T-shirt over her head, glanced down at her modest chest and back to him. “Really,” she said skeptically.

“I’m more of an ass man. Yours is…” He cupped his hands in the air, easily picturing the plump round lobes that he’d memorized long ago. She was positively hypnotic in tight jeans. “…pretty fucking fantastic.” He let his hands drop. “But it’s never been appropriate to say so.”

She sat on her folded knees, palms together, hands tucked between her thighs, regarding him solemnly. “You’re not mad, then?”

“Mad? I’m so relaxed I can’t even work up disappointment that I ate all the waffles. And I would love another waffle right now.”

She rolled her eyes, smiling briefly, but it turned into a bite of her bottom lip.

He suppressed a sigh, aware that he couldn’t joke his way through this. As cardinal sins went, they’d ticked the box on a handful here. Lust, greed, envy… Was coveting thy best friend’s wife one of them?

He rolled onto his elbow and reached out to touch the little brown dot above her knee, brushing at it with the side of his thumb only to discover it was a birthmark.

“This wasn’t bad. But you know it wasn’t wise.” He left his hand on her thigh, liking the softness and warmth of her skin. Stroking softly as if that could cushion any impact from his words. “Don’t you?”

“Regret, then,” she murmured, looking away. He read the hurt in her profile.

“I’m never going to regret making love to you, Jac. That was fantastic.” It took effort to keep his voice steady when his insides still shook at the power of it. Not just the final culmination, but the whole experience of having his way with her. Feeling, for a few minutes, like she was his.

He drew a circle around her birthmark with the pad of his thumb. “But I will hate myself if I wind up hurting you. I probably will, depending on what you think this is.”

“What do you think it is?” she asked, chin tucked in, kind of admonishing.

He sat up and reached for his shorts. “A couple of friends letting off steam.” Him subbing in for the husband she missed with every fiber of her being.

“We’re fuck buddies, then?”

“Hey.” He rolled to his feet and straightened to smooth the waistband into place, frowning down at her.

“I’m not supposed to know phrases like that? Or I’m not allowed to have one?” She rose gracefully, legs still winter white, brows arched with indignation.

“I wouldn’t call
you
that,” he said, biting back a clarification that no, she wasn’t allowed to have one.

“It’s not like I plan to introduce you to strangers that way.”

“I don’t think we should make a habit of doing this, is what I’m saying.” It made him itch inside to say it. Like he’d been to the barber and all the short hairs had fallen under his skin to prickle and poke, aggravating him.

“Ah.” Her throat flexed. “So, no regrets, you liked it, but you don’t want to do it again. Let me guess. You think we should just be friends?”

“I’m hoping we still are.” His voice hardened, willing her, while he held his breath for the verdict.

“Nice,” she said, tilting him a knowing look. “Make me the bad guy. Sure. Fine. Of course we’re still friends. But I wasn’t just getting back on the bike, you know. This wasn’t months of abstinence building up. I’m not a firefly. I
like
you, Vin. I care for you.”

A stabbing sensation pierced his chest and he reflexively pushed away any deeper meaning in her statement.

“I like you, too, Jac. But what am I going to do? Shack up with my best friend’s widow?” A voice way in the back of his brain said,
you mean with your best friend
.

“Is that the real issue? You don’t want anyone to know? I’m okay with keeping it secret,” she said decisively. “I’d love to be in a relationship that only involves two people for a change.”

He snorted. They had just used her husband’s condoms. There were definitely three people here. He was not going to fool himself into pretending otherwise on
that
score.

And she was kidding herself if she thought this was a relationship. Despite what she’d said about not using him, he knew he was only one more step in her recovery process.

As for hooking up on the sly?

“You really want us to be each other’s dirty little secret?”

*

“I’m guessing we
already are.” She crossed her arms, trying to shield her heart, but it wasn’t working. For a few minutes on the carpet, she had felt like she and Vin were two halves of a whole, but now she was getting a taste of that one-night stand disenchantment he’d warned her about.

“I told you why I can’t be that guy in front of the crew. You want me to go around bragging that I nailed you?” His own arms were crossed, his sleeved arm a dark line against the unmarked one, underlining the script beneath his collarbone.
Fire chose me
, she recalled it said.

“No.” She scowled, then said with an attempt at levity, “I just think we could go on nailing each other if we want to.”

He only stared at her, looking carved from stone. His nostrils flared.

“You might be the most understanding woman a smokejumper could ask for, but I told you before. This is a lousy time of year to start up with one.” He glanced around, one hand sifting through his hair. “Look.” His voice was painfully gentle. “Don’t do any of this for me.” He waved at the emptied room. “I really think it would be best if I moved out.”

Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach where it churned sickly.

“Because of this?” The best sex of her life was going to become the worst mistake of her life? “No! Vin. Fine. We don’t have to have sex. Geez, I’m not going to make you. But this house is
yours
.”

He sighed heavily, hands shifting to hang off his hips. “Give it up, Jac. I have.”

I don’t get what I want. Shit always happens
, he had claimed.

She thought about the string of bad luck he’d already confided—not getting the first job he had wanted and his marriage not turning out the way he had hoped. She imagined there were a thousand disappointments as a foster child.

“Listen.” She held up a hand. “Sometimes things work out, even for you. What about smokejumping? You got into that without a problem, right? Got hired on permanent as soon as there was an opening?”

“And my boss died and I’ll wind up quitting and moving on because of
that
.” He pointed to the place on the carpet where the pile was swirled like a smoky cloud against dull blue sky.

“No!” She actually stamped her foot, aware it was childish, but she couldn’t stand this. “Don’t you dare!”

“Then don’t make me,” he said fiercely. “Don’t tangle me up in something that’s a fuse on a bomb. You’re the closest fucking friend I have, for Christ’s sake.” He pointed at her, then whirled his hand to indicate the house. “Don’t make it impossible for me to be here. Don’t make me start over somewhere else. Again.”

His fist fell to his side and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

She squeezed her arms around herself, chin crinkling as she tried to keep her lips from trembling. She didn’t want to be a fuse on a bomb. She wanted to be his closest friend.

“Okay,” she said, voice hoarse. “I just—”
Love you
.

Her eyes watered as the knowledge stung through her along with the recognition that he wouldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t want to hear it. Maybe didn’t even want her heart, not the way she wanted to give it.

“We’re friends, Vin. Nothing is going to change that,” she promised in a thin, scratchy voice.

His cheek ticked and his mouth twitched, because they both knew that everything had already changed, but he stopped himself from saying so.

“Please don’t write off the idea of buying this house. I want you to have it. I want you to have a home.” So maybe he would start to believe in….what? Fairy tales?

She stared at the spot between his bare feet.

“I’ll look for somewhere else, if you don’t want me here.”

He made a hissing noise of exasperation and muttered, “Do whatever you want. I gotta go to the base for a while.”

He was walking out on her. It was one of the last precious days off he would have and he didn’t want to spend it anywhere near her.

She told herself not to let that hurt. What had she thought would happen between them? Marriage and a baby carriage?

Walking over to the box of tissues on the night stand, she pulled up a couple and pressed them to her stinging eyes, crying with new pain for a change.

Except it was still the same old heartbreak.

Why didn’t the men she loved ever love her back?

*

No storms had
come through so when someone spotted smoke on Sunday night, the consensus was that early campers in the backwoods had been less than diligent about putting out their fire.

Vin and his crew were assigned to it.

Jacqui supposed that ought to be a relief. Activity was ramping up around the base and Sam was doing everything but stare into a crystal ball to account for every possible eventuality. He kept her on her toes and she found the simplified dynamic of him only being her boss a huge relief. She’d spent too long as the captain’s wife. Now she was just an employee like everyone else.

When Vin came back a couple of days later, however, it was the rookie wrap-up party at The Drop Zone. He stayed in the barracks that night and through the weekend, then through the next week as the season officially started.

Everyone
took note, although it was several days before anyone said anything to Jacqui.

She first caught wind that the gossip was making the rounds when she walked into the bathroom to see Miranda Ferguson coming out of a stall, closing the front of her pilot’s suit. Loggers burning slash had set off a couple of spot fires and Miranda had already dropped a crew this morning.

“Please don’t tell me I have to take off right away again. I’m starving,” Miranda said as she washed her hands.

“No, I came in to use the facilities. I’m not chasing you. In fact I left a casserole in the fridge. Help yourself. I thought Vin was going to come home last night”—since it was his day off—“but he stayed here again.”

Miranda pulled her brows together as she dried her hands. “What’s going on between you two? I thought he was buying your house.”

“So did I.” Jacqui moved to set her hand on the stall door, deliberately trying to end the conversation and avoid the harder half of that question.

Miranda searched Jacqui’s expression, obviously waiting for more.

Jacqui pushed into the stall. It was kind of rude, but honestly.

The next afternoon, someone asked Vin across the common room, “Are you staying here in the barracks? Why?”

Vin paused halfway up the stairs to the loft. “My house sale fell through. It was time to quit bumming off Jacqui.”