SmokingHot (2 page)

“Katie, huh?” He flashed her another quick, hard look from eyes that said he’d seen plenty. That just reminded her of Kade again, so she grinned, forcing the dark thoughts back into their box.

Mystery man stared at her dimples, his fingers flexing on the rags. She had no idea what he was thinking, but she took a stab at it anyhow while she waited for the gods to bless her with secret mind-reading powers.

“Switch.” He tapped her left ankle with his fingers. The goosebumps were because the rag was cold and not for any other reason.

“Kade’s not dead.” Sure, she was apparently the only person who believed that, but one person was better than none. Every instinct screamed her fiancé was still alive. Obviously, he’d run into trouble—or he’d be here himself—but he was coming home.

The alternative was unacceptable.

“He is.” Her rescuer stood and placed his hands on her waist, swinging her effortlessly over the paint before she could so much as squeak.

“You can’t know that.”

“Can too. I was there.”

“Who are you?” she asked, when what she really meant was
How?

Reaching over, she nudged his sunglasses up. He let her. That surprised her as much as anything about today because he wore that aura of a leashed predator like other men wore Ray-Bans. He was definitely deadly. Imagining him moving through the back streets of Baghdad with a semi-automatic in front of him was all too easy. The look in his eyes was serious. Hard. The small lines fanning out from the corners could have been due to age. Sun. Experience. Any one or all of those three were possible, but the one thing they sure weren’t were laugh lines.

“I served on Kade’s SEAL team. Tye Callahan.” He stuck out a hand, looked down at hers, and handed her the pile of rags instead.

“Well, Tye Callahan,” she said, wiping off the paint the best she could, “I don’t believe Kade’s dead.”

“Uh-huh. I was there,” he repeated. “I saw the insurgents surround Kade. We were pinned down, taking some heavy fire. We’d called for backup, but our boys had our position wrong and we got in the way of their insurgent meet-and-greet.”

“Really?” He sounded like a late night movie and she must have sounded as confused as she felt because he heaved a sigh and summed up for her.

“Kade got hit by friendly fire. There was nothing left but a crater.”

She stared at him. “You redefine
blunt
.”

He stared right back, not moving. “You want me to lie to you?”

She had a feeling he would, if that was what she wanted. His dark eyes held hers, making her wonder what else he’d seen. She pushed the wave of sadness away. No matter what Tye Callahan thought he’d seen, Kade was coming home. He was just delayed because he’d never been on time for a damned thing in his life. Believing anything else was impossible.

Taking the rags back from her, he spread her fingers out and began to methodically wipe the paint off.

“You fought with Kade?” Kade had mentioned the guy. What had he said? She racked her brain. Oh, yeah. Big, badass, and deadly. She could see that. Despite that, her libido was jumping up and down, going
Pick me!

“I did,” he agreed, his voice tight with an emotion she couldn’t identify.

“And you saw it all.”

“Jesus.” He balled up the dirty rags. “Sure. It was dark o’clock. Our Humvee hit an IED and we got out, which was dumb luck right there. We were pinned down in a back alley, taking fire from hostiles. Then, our team got into the act and fired. Ten seconds later the insurgents—and Kade—cratered.”

“No one told me,” she said. “Not the details.”

Walking away from an IED was lottery ticket material in itself.

He shrugged. “It’s probably classified.”

“Why are you here?” She forced herself to step away.

“At the firehouse? Or in Strong?”

Both were good questions. Right then, he’d clearly made it his mission to help her clean up. Or, if she was being honest with herself, he’d taken charge of the mop up operation and she was just along for the ride.

“Either,” she said finally.

He nodded. “I promised Kade I’d look out for you. You got shoes?”

Well. Alrighty then. She hadn’t seen that one coming, but the request certainly sounded like Kade and right now she’d take any connection to him that she could get.

She motioned towards the corner. “Campers,” she said.

He stared. She’d bet he knew the brand name for every handgun out there, so she wasn’t taking any guff because she could name her shoemaker.

“Those are shoes?” He sounded slightly stunned.

What was wrong with him? Her shoes weren’t just nice—they were spectacular. The canvas shoes had a little curved wooden heel and green ribbons that tied over the instep for those days she needed a little extra jaunty in her step. Plus, not only were they covered in tiny pink roses, but they were comfortable
and
feminine. A double-win.

“They’re Spanish.”

He looked skeptical. She looked at his feet and, sure enough, he sported a pair of combat boots so shiny she could see her face. Her red and pink face.

“You could buy a small car in some countries for what these shoes cost,” she pointed out. He still didn’t seem impressed and, really, the price tag wasn’t what made the shoes so awesome. That was the wooden heel, in her opinion. She’d spent hours trying to recreate that heel for herself.

“You can walk in those?”

She went for
show
instead of
tell
and slid her feet into the shoes, bracing a hand against his shoulder while she tied the laces. Probably, that touch was playing with fire but she’d already molested the man, so his opinion of her social skills couldn’t possibly sink any lower.

As soon as she was shod, he placed her cans and brushes neatly into the milk crate she’d lugged them in with. Apparently, he’d decided painting was done for the day. She snuck a peek at her watch and decided she could live with that. She had an art class to teach at the senior center in an hour and she needed to change first.

Since she was now wearing a quart of pink paint.

“I don’t need looking after,” she said.

He dropped the dirty rags into the trashcan at the end of the hallway. “Right. Humor me.”

“For how long?” Ten minutes, she decided. Humoring him could last that long while he walked her to her car, which she’d driven only because she had what seemed like fifty pounds of art supplies and only two arms. Once they reached the car, she’d pat him on the head—metaphorically speaking, of course, because no one could ever mistake this man for a puppy dog or anything else cuddly or cute—and they’d go their separate ways.

Which was really too bad.

He was the hottest man she’d seen all summer and, given the delicious abundance of firefighters in Strong, that was saying something.

He shoved his sunglasses back into place.

“You’ve got me for the summer.”

He shouldered the door open and held it for her.

Oh, she wished. She really, really wished he were hers.

Instead, he led the way to her car—which wasn’t creepy at all, she told herself, because it wasn’t like any of Strong’s firefighters would even fit in her tiny purple Kia, so it just
had
to be hers—put her things in the backseat, and stood there, hands on his hips and watched her drive off.

Katie sucked in a deep breath. Think French. And sexy. Millions of people managed this on a daily basis, so why should it be so hard for her? An unexpected image of Tye Callahan popped into her head, all hard muscles, crouched by her feet. Just a tantalizing foot or so from her really good parts.

Even if those parts were drying up from non-use.

She opened her mouth and the syllables rolled out, smooth and sexy and very, very French.

“
Voulez vous coucher avec moi
?”

Commentary was immediate from the woman sprawled in the lime-green plastic Adirondack chair next to Katie. Abbie, the newly-minted Mrs. Donegan and self-styled bestie number two, chewed on her lower lip, clearly trying not to laugh. “I don’t think you use
vous
when you’re trying to get someone into bed. Unless you’re into that whole master-sub thing.”

On the other side of Abbie, Laura nodded her head vigorously in agreement. Laura Carpenter might be bestie number one. She covered half the rent check for the bungalow behind them, but she’d never had any problem attracting men.

Maybe neither Laura nor Abbie had never entertained any lovers on a
vous
basis, but God knew Katie didn’t excel at that happy flirting thing. It wasn’t from lack of trying. Men—well, they tended to pat her on the head and see her as the little sister they’d never known they wanted. That was certainly what Tye Callahan had done. She huffed out a breath. Yep. Kade had said: hey, swing by Strong—which had to be who knew how many miles out of Tye’s way—and check on my fiancé… and Tye did. There would be more to the story. Of course, he wouldn’t tell her
those
parts, because they’d be dark and gritty, the kinds of things men like him protected the little sister from. Frankly, she was surprised he’d even mentioned how he believed Kade had died.

He hadn’t been overly descriptive. She had a feeling getting the man to speak more than a sentence or two would be a feat right up there with running a marathon—which was also on Kade’s bucket list, now that she thought about it. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Tye had said though. Imagining it was easy. One minute, Tye and Kade had been patrolling and the next… boom. Hostile fire. Friendly fire. Everything all mixed up and gone to hell, until that final explosion rocked her world and Kade was gone.

Temporarily.

Temporarily
gone.

As disturbing as Tye’s brief account had been, he hadn’t seen a body. The Humvee had exploded or otherwise come to an unexpected halt, but he and Kade had both gotten out. Gunfire had followed and the kind of firefight she’d only seen in the movies. She didn’t
believe
that Kade had died. She’d been handed a flag and a medal three months ago, but no fiancé. No body. She and Kade had always had a connection and she was sure she’d know if he was dead.

And she was fairly certain he wasn’t.

So, while she wrote letters to her Congresswoman and waited for Kade to hurry up and get his ass home so she could yell at him for making her worry and hug him for the next three years or so, she’d picked out a new project. She always did best when she had a project to focus on. She and Kade had swapped bucket lists while he’d been out in the field. Or, rather, she’d badgered him by email for his list until he’d sent her a list he claimed to have written when he was sixteen. He’d signed off with a rather snarky
You going to take care of this for me?
That had been one of the last emails she’d received from him, so, yeah, she
was
going to take care of that list for him. She’d work her way through his wishes and plans and, when she finally finished, he’d be back home where he belonged.

Everything would be fine.

All she had to do was believe.

Abbie snapped her fingers in front of Katie’s face. “Earth to Katie.
Attention!
”

Abbie’s accent sounded near perfect. Katie had no idea how she did it. It was almost too bad that her friend was happily married to a member of the Big Bear Hotshot team, because Kade would have loved her accent. She suspected that was why he’d put learning French on his bucket list in the first place. Kade certainly enjoyed dating and anything that gave him a leg up with the females.

She’d teased him that their engagement would crimp his style, but he’d just flicked her on the nose and told her not to worry about it. After all, it wasn’t like they were
really
engaged. Even if all of Strong—and apparently most of the military—believed they were. Kade had “popped the question,” so to speak, in Ma’s, Strong’s one and only bar, when some I’m-just-passing-through asshole had pressed her a little too hard for her number. She was too nice, Kade said. She said
no
and
piss off
and guys heard
yes, please sit down next to me
and
Rip my panties off, please?

She wasn’t nice.

She was an underemployed art teacher with a shoe fetish, for crying out loud. She’d plenty of practice saying
no
and
you’ll get it when I get it
, both to the good folks at the student loan offices and to Visa.

But there was no getting around the fact that she hadn’t been able to shoot down the guy in the bar and Kade had been worried and shipping out.

“We should totally do it,” he’d said.

“Do what?” She’d watched the other guy lurch out of the bar, holding a wad of paper napkins to his nose—she probably should have gotten on Kade’s case for popping the guy—and she’d
fully
expected Kade to suggest a concert or a restaurant. Anything but what he’d said next.

“We should get engaged.” Picking up her hand, he ignored the sticky patches from the bar, and looked her in the eye. “How about it, Katie Lawson? Will you marry me?”

“You’re joking,” she’d announced, scanning the bar for cellphone cameras. Kade loved posting stuff on Facebook, the kind of pictures that haunted you in job interviews or you’d been using your parents’ computer and you’d forgotten to sign out.

“I don’t think I am,” he said. “I’d marry you any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Besides, imagine what everyone will say.”

He’d grinned. Kade had been a practical joker and this was the best joke of them all.

Kade was her best friend. He’d been her prom date. They’d also been each other’s first kiss because that had made the kissing comfortable. Which had, over the years, also led to comfort sex. They were friends with benefits and a cubic zirconia ring she’d picked out on the Home Shopping Network.

Now, everyone thought she was the grieving fiancée, and she? She didn’t know what she was, other than alone and more than a little lost.

“Katie?” Laura rubbed a hand over her shoulder, jerking her back to the present. Yeah. No zoning out in the middle of the French lesson.

“I’m here,” she said, then corrected herself. “
Je suis...
”

Somewhere. She was somewhere.

Abbie winced, reconfirming Katie’s theory that Abbie might actually know a thing or two about French. The problem was Katie herself had absolutely no ear for accents and the self-teaching thing wasn’t working out. Maybe she should sign up for French lessons at the local community college, even if it was a two-hour drive each way. She’d definitely have lots of time to listen to her Rosetta Stone CDs.

“I’m trying,” she grumbled and snagged the last chocolate croissant from the plate. Maybe the language would rub off while she ate. Or not. Finding French snacks in Strong was proving almost as hard as learning the language. “This is just harder than I expected.”

“Hey.” Abbie’s fingers slapped the empty plate. “I was counting on that croissant.”

Laura eyed the empty plate. “I’m pretty sure the two of you ate all the croissants, leaving none for me.”

“I brought French fries.” Katie waved at the red and yellow box.

“French fries aren’t French,” Laura complained. “And I’m almost certain McDonald’s is a U.S.-owned corporation.”

Katie shrugged. “According to Yahoo! Answers, French people eat French fries and snails for snacks. I preferred the carb approach.”

“Snails?”

“Be glad Kade didn’t have a culinary bucket list.”

Laura slid a fry from the box. “Friendship only goes so far,” she warned. “Snails are out of bounds.”

Like so many things, including talking about what had
really
happened to Kade and the odds of him coming home.

Not going there.

“I think it’s time to try another item on Kade’s list.”

Abbie and Laura stared. “You don’t want to wait until you’ve got the French thing down?”

It was going to take
years
to learn French. Possibly an eternity. She had her suspicions about her language ability or lack thereof. Tye Callahan, on the other hand, had whispered French curse words in her ear with a near pitch-perfect accent. Which figured. The man reeked of competence.

“I think we need to do more than one thing at a time,” she said.

“Who’s this
we
, kemo sabe?” Abbie grumbled. “That’s not my bucket list we’re working on.”

“You have a bucket list?”

Abbie grinned. “You bet. Will is helping me check items off.”

Katie held a hand up. “Don’t tell me. Please.”

Good for Abbie. Katie was thrilled her best friend had a sexual bucket list. She really was. She just didn’t want to hear the details or imagine the part Abbie’s new husband, Will, was playing in that particular to-do list. Ever.

“So I’m pretty busy on the bucket list front,” Abbie continued. “But thanks for asking.”

“One of you guys is going to help me, right? Please?”

“Katie—” Laura sounded torn between amusement and something more pained. “Why do you have to do this? Knocking off the list won’t bring Kade back.”

“He’s not dead.” As long as she kept on believing, it would be true.

Laura gave her The Look. Her friend didn’t want to contradict her, but the expression on her face made it perfectly clear she believed Katie was engaging in a whole lot of wishful thinking.

“Okay.” Abbie bumped her shoulder with her own. “But why do you need to do his bucket list? At least do a list of your own.”

“I can’t,” she said. She didn’t know how to explain the way she felt. She just needed to keep that connection to Kade and this was the only way she’d found. As long as she was thinking about him, acting for him, then he was still coming home. Somehow. Some way. Never mind that the U.S. military was convinced otherwise. And, a small part of her admitted, if everyone else did turn out to be right, she’d at least have these few final memories of Kade. She’d also feel better with company. Moral support. Someone to catch her. Take her pick. She just wasn’t ready to let go yet and Kade would have had a good laugh at her crazy-ass way of honoring his memory.

He’d always urged her to live more, live louder.

Kade was a larger-than-life guy himself. Not just his physical size—although he was built like a linebacker—but his zest for living. He’d always laughed louder and longer than anyone she knew. He wouldn’t have hesitated if he’d had the chance to swim with sharks or fire a machine gun. She’d bet he’d do it all twice, too.

“You really intend to work through Kade’s list?”

“I need to,” she said and Laura and Abbie nodded. They’d tease her and they’d protest their involuntary enlistment—but they’d help.

“I’ve only been married for three months,” Abbie warned, as if anyone on the porch was unaware of that fact. “I’m not allowed to break anything. Bones or the law.”

“Did Will say that?” Laura eyed the empty plate and sighed. “We need more snacks.”

Abbie grinned. “He did. He pointed out that our delayed honeymoon would be a whole lot less fun if I were in a full body cast or prison. I think he might go without me.”

“Smart man. Although being immobilized has its possibilities. You’d be amazed at the calls we get.” As an EMT, Laura had seen her share of sex acts gone awry. She was also an over-sharer.

“Ewww.” Katie clapped her hands over her ears in mock horror. “Leave me with some illusions, okay?” She still had nightmares about old Mr. Cochran and the garden hose.

Abbie shook her head. “That’s not Laura’s M.O. We’ve got French covered—and Will said to tell you
thank you
for that, by the way—so what’s next?”

Katie reached in her bag and pulled out the list. “We don’t have to cover the list in numerical order.”

1.
Learn to speak French

2.
Have a
ménage a trois
. In French

3.
Own an island

4.
Fly a helicopter

5.
Ride a Segway

6.
Run a marathon

7.
Steer a hot air balloon

8.
Gamble in Las Vegas