The Night Belongs to Fireman (6 page)

She shook her head to clear the sudden swarm of hot images. Where the heck had that come from? She didn't normally lust after virtual strangers.

Fred stepped back into the room. She managed to lift her gaze just in time to innocently meet his eyes, even though her face felt hot.

“Sure, I'd appreciate a tour. I never even knew this place was out here,” he said.

She made a show of checking her schedule, though she knew her next appointment was in an hour. “Fine, then. Just give me a second, okay?”

He nodded and snagged his thumbs in his back pockets. She backed away a few feet, then hurried through the back door and swung a right into the bathroom. Hair: totally boring in her work ponytail. Face: no makeup. Outfit: dull as dirt. Normally she dressed for her clients, who happened to be dogs, and none of them cared what she wore. But for time spent with a cute guy, it simply wouldn't do.

She whipped out her cell phone and called Cindy, who'd been released from the hospital the day before and probably needed some distraction.

“Girl emergency,” she hissed into the phone when Cindy answered.

“What's up?”

“Remember the fireman from the limo?”

“The totally hot one who saved our lives? Well, duh. I might name our first kid after him.”

“He's here. I'm going to show him the Refuge.”

Cindy let out a long whistle. “Hoo boy. Let me guess. You smell like dog pee.”

“Oh my God, I didn't even think of that.” She sniffed at her blouse, then grabbed an atomizer from her purse and drenched herself in the outrageously expensive House of Chanel custom perfume her father had ordered for her eighteenth birthday.

For sure, when her father had given that gift, he hadn't meant it to cover up dog pee.

“Get rid of your hair tie,” directed Cindy. “Men love loose hair.”

Rachel yanked her hair from its ponytail and shook it out. “Done. What else?”

“What are you wearing? Is it sexy? Or at least stain-free?”

She shot an agonized glance at her top, which was about as sexy as a maternity blouse. She ran to the bathroom, where she kept a laundry hamper, since plenty of her clothes had gotten soiled in the line of duty. Rummaging through it, she didn't spot anything in better shape than what she was already wearing.

“This is a disaster,” she moaned to Cindy.

“Forget it. Men don't care about clothes, except when it comes to taking them off. Just don't forget to smile. Don't pull that hands-off-or-my-bodyguard-will-stomp-you thing you usually do.”

“I don't do that!” Did she?

“I'm just saying. Be friendly. He's earned it.”

“Friendly. Right. How are you feeling?”

“A thousand percent better. This is so much more fun than
Teen Mom
reruns. Call me after, okay?”

Rachel hung up and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked too pale, and not so much friendly as . . . alarmed. If only she'd gone to a normal high school and had slumber parties and done makeovers and gone to proms. If only she'd casually dated, fallen in love, gotten her heart broken, all the usual teenage rites of passage. But she'd done none of those things. She'd alternated between pricey, private Everwood School for Girls and home tutoring. In college, for the first time, she'd made real friends, not fake whose-family-has-more-money friends. But she still hadn't gotten the hang of casually dating. Face it, doing anything casually was pretty impossible for her.

But none of that meant she couldn't give a nice, cute fireman a tour without looking like Wednesday Addams. She pinched her cheeks, trying to give them some color.

“Ow.” That hurt. But it did make two distinct dots of pink appear on each side of her face. She rubbed at them, trying to make the color spread. Would a slap in the face work better, give more of an all-over flush? Then again, it might be hard to look friendly if her cheeks were in pain.

She poked at her hair one more time, then made a face at the mirror.
Who do you think you are, Scarlett O'Hara?
With a roll of her eyes, she abandoned her reflection and went back to the foyer.

As it turned out, her ridiculous efforts paid off. She experienced the thrill of seeing Fred's eyes widen and an appreciative grin spread across his face. “Your hair looks pretty like that,” he said. Such a simple compliment, and yet it kindled a trickle of warmth in her heart. Maybe because he said it so sincerely. He obviously meant it. Compliments usually made her suspicious, especially when they came from men back home trying to suck up to her father.

But Fred had no idea she had anything to do with America's third wealthiest man.

“Thanks,” she said, then stuffed her purse behind her desk. It was safe here. Everyone who worked at the Refuge had been extensively vetted by her father's security team.

She led the way onto the gracious grounds of her favorite spot on earth. She'd worked so hard to create the Refuge for Injured Wildlife. No one knew how hard, and she couldn't tell Fred without revealing her true identity. She wasn't ready for that. “Is Stan pretty well behaved around other animals?”

“If you have any rescued squirrels, I'd tell them to hide,” he said lightly. “And your sheep will be herded so fast they won't know what hit them. On the other hand, if anyone's trapped, he'll let you know. He used to be a rescue dog.”

She led the way down the main path that wound through the grounds. “I've thought about training my border collie to be a rescue dog. She has an amazing prey drive.”

“Stan has an amazing sleep drive, but I'm sure he used to be great. Right, Stan?”

The beagle gave Fred a world-weary sort of look. Rachel smiled to herself. Whether he intended to or not, Stan was telling her a lot about her visitor. All good, so far.

“What would you like to see first? Do you like birds? Camelids? Foxes? Goats? Someone just brought in a wounded short-eared owl.”

“Do you take in every sort of animal?”

“Yes,” she said proudly. “At least temporarily, until we can figure out the best place for them. We don't turn any animal away. We only have a small staff, about six people, plus security, but we manage to do a lot.”

“I've got this bruised nose,” Fred mused, running his hand across it. “Is there a space for me?”

Again, she laughed. Fred had a way of drawing the laughter from her. “I hope the other guy looks worse.”

“Nope. The other guy looks pretty good.” He cast her a sidelong glance that made her face heat.

“Well,” she said tartly. “If it's any comfort, no one watching me walk home that night thought I looked good. I had blood speckles everywhere. People probably thought I had chicken pox.”

He stopped, turning her to face him. “Yeah, I've been meaning to ask how you got home. I was worried but didn't know how to find you.”

“I was fine.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Honestly, after being penned up in that limo, it felt good to walk for a while. I went home and then to the hospital.”

“You know, I've been at a lot of accident scenes, and I've seen some strange things.”

Rachel dreaded what was coming next. People often thought she was odd. It came from spending too much time with animals and a taciturn security guard. “Let me guess. I take the cake?”

“Well, it's true that I've never been punched in the nose during a rescue before. But that's not what I was going to say. I was going to say you're one of the toughest accident survivors I've ever seen.”

“Oh.” The way he was looking at her, so closely, his dark eyes taking in everything about her, made her feel very exposed. “Really?”

“It made me curious. I was hoping I'd run into you again. And then you sent that note.”

Shivers were traveling down her arms. This whole conversation felt unexpectedly intimate. “I felt bad. You didn't deserve the way I acted.”

“I didn't take it personally. But”—he gave her a sidelong look—“there might be a way to make it up to me.”

“I can't go on a date with you,” she said quickly.

“Go on a date?” An expression she couldn't interpret crossed his face—maybe shock? “Not like that. That's not what I mean.”

“What do you mean, then?”

For a moment he simply stood, hands in his pockets, as if utterly perplexed. “I'm trained in urban search and rescue,” he finally said. “I volunteered in Japan after their last big earthquake.”

That certainly came out of the blue. “Okay.”

“I've worked with both rescue and salvage dogs. I know someone who trains them. I could . . . help you train your dog.”

She had the feeling he was making it up as he went. But why? If he wanted to see her again, why didn't he just ask her? He was really confusing her. “You're offering to train Greta?”

“Yes.”

Adding rescue dog training to the Refuge's repertoire would be wonderful. Starting with Greta made sense, and it was something she'd been thinking about for a while. His offer was tempting, if only there were a place she wouldn't worry about news cameras. Her apartment was safe, but she never invited anyone there other than Cindy, Liza, and Feather, who already knew her story. Then the perfect solution came to her.

“Fine, I'll bring Greta to your house. Friday at eight.” She grinned at his obvious surprise. “I'll bring the ice cream.”

W
hat the hell was he thinking? He shouldn't be offering to train another girl's dog. If Courtney caught wind of this, she'd be furious, no matter how broken up they were. Once again, he'd feel like the bad guy. He should take back his offer, right now. He couldn't have Rachel coming over, even if it was just a friendly dog-training session. Which was exactly what it would be, nothing more.

True, he liked walking beside her, liked being able to glance over at frequent intervals and take in her wildly curling black hair and her enthusiastic gestures as she pointed out features of the Refuge. He liked listening to her grow more and more passionate in her descriptions of things like feeding schedules and the effect of oil spills on wildlife.

He liked watching her with the animals. Never in his life had he seen anyone with such an affinity for injured creatures. Even the owl, who'd just been brought in, seemed comfortable with her presence and allowed her to gently test the splint on its broken wing.

“Are you a vet?” he asked as she adjusted the towel keeping the owl warm.

“No. I completed most of a vet tech program, but I don't need a degree to do what I do. We have a couple of actual vets here who perform surgery and work with the wildlife. My work is with dogs. I'm just . . . a dabbler, I suppose.”

“My friend Sabina said you helped a search dog who'd been injured in a mudslide and traumatized.”

“Yes. Dog therapy. Laugh if you want.”

“I'm not laughing.” He wasn't. Now that he'd seen her with Stan, he didn't think it was at all ridiculous.

She rewarded him with a quick smile, like a crystal catching the sun. “People bring their dogs to me when they're exhibiting strange behavior, and I try to figure out what's going on and how to help the dog.”

“How do you do it?”

“I can't really explain. Ever since . . . well, something bad happened to me when I was young, and a German shepherd saved my life. Ever since then, I feel as if I can understand them. Dogs have all sorts of ways to communicate with us, if we pay attention. The tilt of their ears, how they hold their tails, if they bare their teeth. Even an air snap has a purpose; it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to attack. When I work with dogs and their owners, I work mostly on communication. Dogs are very intelligent, but if their owners are confusing them or not providing good leadership, they can develop bad habits.”

“Sabina said you have an amazing record of success.”

“Thanks,” she said, shrugging. “Mostly, I just want to help the dogs. I've never forgotten how one helped me.”

Fred was finding it hard to tear his gaze away from her. While she might not be the most typically pretty girl, she was fascinating to watch. Her face held lots of opposing angles that somehow managed to balance perfectly. Her eyebrows tilted up while the corners of her mouth slanted down. Her high cheekbones gave her an almost exotic look, as if she had a dose of Gypsy in her. He caught a faint whiff of her fragrance, light and fresh, like a walk through a rose garden after a morning rain.

She seemed different here. Calmer, maybe. Less skittish. Happier. As he watched her crouch to check on a tortoise with a bandage on its little leg, he got a flash of the way she'd bent over the drunken kid at the City Lights Grill. Now that he knew her better, he saw that she'd been trying to help the guy the same way she tried to help wild animals.

That realization brought a surge of protectiveness. Someone that softhearted could get into big trouble.

As they headed back toward her office, he asked, “How are your friends?” The last he'd heard, everyone had been released from the hospital and the wedding postponed for a month so everyone's bruises could heal.

“They're all getting sick of telling the story over and over again. And Cindy really wants to invite you to the wedding.”

Embarrassment crept over him at the memory of how Cindy had announced on TV that she was dedicating her wedding to him.

“Tell her there's no need for that.”

“Oh come on. They'd really appreciate it. She's going to send an invitation to the firehouse.”

“I'm a little wedding-ed out. I've been to three in the past year.”

“Yes, but how many of those were people whose lives you'd saved?”

He thought about it. “Actually, all of them, in a way. Although Psycho would never admit it.”

“
Psycho?
”

“Another fireman. He moved to Nevada, so I don't have to save his ass anymore. But if you pinned him down, he'd tell you I had his back a bunch of times. Sabina too, and definitely Vader. I saved Vader's mom when their house burned down.”

“You just go around saving people's lives?”

He shrugged. “Well, sometimes. If it works out. It's the nature of the job.”

“I've never met a firefighter before.” She paused to wait for Stan to take a leak on the base of a tree. He hadn't even noticed that Stan had to pee; she really did have superior dog communication skills. “You're not exactly what I would have expected.”

“What'd you expect?”

She eyed him up and down, giving him that tingling sensation again. “I didn't really think about it, I suppose. Maybe more . . . swaggering?” She put her thumbs in the belt loops of her pants and mimicked a boastful stance, lowering her voice to a macho growl. “I can put out fires with nothing more than my bare hands and a mouthful of spit.”

He gave a surprised hoot of laughter. “Have you met my captain, Vader? Dead-on. Nah, I'm just kidding. Firefighters have a pretty healthy respect for fire. If we ever swagger, it's just to keep our confidence up.”

“You don't seem to swagger much. You must be really confident.”

Taken aback, he paused outside the closed door of her office bungalow. “I don't know. My brothers are confident—you don't want to mess with them. Me, I'm confident in my training and my crew. When I go out on a call I feel like I know what to do. What's that add up to?”

“Sounds like confidence to me. I'm not just good with animals, you know,” she added. “I'm pretty perceptive when it comes to people too.”

“Oh really?” He knew he shouldn't ask the next question, but he just couldn't help it. “So what have you picked up about me so far?”

“You really want to know?”

He angled his head to look down at her. In the world of San Gabriel firefighters, he was on the short side at roughly six feet. Rachel stood nearly a head below him, so if he leaned forward, he'd be able to press his lips to the dark curls framing her forehead. Not that he would, of course. He barely knew her, and then there was Courtney.

Courtney, who would make someone a powerhouse wife, and didn't understand why he wasn't that “someone.” Courtney, who usually got what she wanted and didn't like to lose.

Rachel, despite obvious signs of wealth, didn't look like someone who always got what she wanted. She looked like someone who knew life could knock you over the head sometimes.

He realized they were staring at each other. If she was really good at figuring people out, she'd probably already determined that he wasn't the star of the firehouse, or the star of anything, despite Ella Joy's new crusade. He was just . . . Fred. Fred the Fireman. He put out fires and got people out of trouble.

While she was . . . well, whatever else, she was clearly something special.

“Sure,” he said, his voice gruffer than he intended. He cleared his throat. “Lay it on me. What have you picked up about me?”

“This,” she said in a dreamy voice. Then, under his astonished gaze, she tilted her body toward him, rose onto the tips of her toes, and brushed her lips against his. He froze as a wash of electricity sizzled across his nerve endings. The touch was so slight, so brief, like a butterfly coming to a rest. Her breath was warm and sweet; he wanted to soak it in through every pore.

And just like that, every thought that didn't involve Rachel Allen fled his mind.

He felt as if every cell of his body had turned into one of those satellite arrays, rotating toward a newly detected signal.
Who's this? Where did she come from?
Electric desire raced through him. He wanted to know her, body and soul, on a raw, primal level. He wanted Rachel Allen in a way he'd never wanted anyone—or anything—before in his life. Urgently. Compulsively. Impossibly.

Sanity returned in a cold wash of horror. He backed off, putting his hands on her shoulders to set her away from him. That was a mistake, since the feel of her made him instantly hard. “I have to go,” he said, releasing her and taking a big step backward.

“I'm sorry,” she said, putting a hand to her lips, astonished. “I didn't mean to—”

“That's okay. I didn't mean to either—” He broke off, completely unsure of what he wanted to say. “I mean, it was me. It was both of us.” He should cancel Friday night. Bad, bad idea. No way could he have her in his house and not try to kiss her again. And kissing couldn't happen again.

He opened his mouth to call it off, but instead uttered the words, “I'll see you Friday at eight.”

Holy fuck. That wasn't calling it off. That was the opposite.
What was wrong with him?

She bit her lower lip, looking troubled. Good. If she was going to back out, he should let her. It would be better for both of them.

Courtney's angry face filled his mind's eye. She'd be furious, even if he hadn't initiated the kiss. She'd grill him about it, then explain why a “trial separation” didn't include kissing other people. He'd be expected to buy her something, or go get mani-pedis with her, or go to one of her business school keggers. God, he'd probably get back together with her out of sheer guilt.

Everything in him rebelled, and he knew right then, with complete certainty, that he'd had enough. One way or another, he had to make Courtney understand they were through.

A little whimper from Stan brought him back to the moment.

“Friday at eight,” he said in a slightly choked voice, then wheeled around, Stan at his heels. He quickly gave her his address before she could say anything else. “I just have to take care of something first.”

R
achel closed her
office door behind her and leaned against it. What on earth had possessed her to
kiss
Fred? She never initiated kisses, and usually waited a long time before letting anyone kiss her. When other girls complained about men wanting them for sex, Rachel felt the opposite. In her case, sex was way down on the list of what guys wanted from her. Most of the men she dated came from her father's world and thought of her as Rob Kessler's daughter, with all the connections and advantages that brought. In San Gabriel, as Rachel Allen, she didn't date much; it felt dishonest.

This kiss was totally different. For a moment, it had been sheer magic, as if some sort of enchanted spell had sprung to life around them. Then he'd ended it so abruptly.

Maybe he'd been as shocked as she was. She hadn't intended anything like that. The kiss had been meant as a thank-you for saving her, for saving her friends. Really, she'd been aiming for his cheek. She wasn't sure what had happened along the way. The closer she'd gotten, the more aware she'd become of his hard body, the smell of his skin, the strong tendons that stretched from his neck to his shoulders, the sturdy health he exuded, the firm curves of his mouth . . .

Yes, that's where the problem had started. His mouth.

Once she'd been leaning against him, her lips on his, nothing had triggered the panicked desire to run that often flooded her when she got close to someone. The opposite, in fact. She'd had a very strong urge to climb his body like a monkey. It was a good thing he'd stepped back in such a hurry, or he might have found himself playing jungle tree.

On her desk, her phone made the little buzz that meant someone had called while she'd been out. Strange, she never forgot her phone. She always had it with her, for her father's peace of mind. If Fred the Fireman had made her forget her phone, he'd accomplished one more astonishing first.

It wasn't a call, but a text message from Bradford Maddox IV, one of the Refuge's board members and a friend of her father.
Saw you on TV. Glad everyone's okay. Please advise regarding new wedding date. Looking forward to escorting you to the happy event
.

Ugh. In all the drama of the accident, she'd forgotten that Bradford was taking her to Cindy's wedding. But the worst part was that he'd seen her on TV. Did she have to tell her father about that? If she did, he'd insist she get an extra bodyguard, and there would go her freedom. Such as it was.

Good Lord, couldn't she just have one tiny sliver of a normal life? Maybe a sliver the size of one evening at a cute fireman's house? Cute didn't really cover it, she was beginning to realize. Outrageously attractive was better.

Yes, she'd wait until after her dinner at Fred's. Then she'd let her father know about Bradford's text.