The Night Belongs to Fireman (8 page)

He released them both. They hung their heads and scuffed their feet on the floor.

“But I appreciate the effort,” he added, since he couldn't bear to see them look so downcast.

Tremaine, rubbing his shoulder, revived. “He can beat grown-ups too,” he told Rachel eagerly. “We watched him beat up a guy at the gym, it was sick.”

“That's, uh . . .” Rachel seemed at a loss for words. He couldn't say for sure how she was reacting, because he was afraid to look at her. In fact, he wouldn't be at all surprised if she ran out the door the second it was cleared of blockading kids.

Instead, he looked around for his shirt. Jackson gathered it up, neatly separated the T-shirt from the outer shirt, and presented them with a bow.

“Thank you.” He pulled on his T-shirt, which made him feel more in command of the situation. “Now can you guys please go? Remember what I said before.”

“That you didn't need help. That's okay. You didn't mean it,” said Tremaine confidently. “Ma'am, you tell him.”

“Um . . .” she said, looking completely at sea.

“Out,” said Fred firmly, and corralled the boys out the front door. Rachel stepped aside so they could pass.

“Is that ice cream?” Kip yelled. He had an unerring nose for sweets.

“New York Super Fudge Chunk, Chubby Hubby, and Cherry Garcia,” Rachel answered. She looked relieved to finally be on familiar ground. “And I promise that we'll leave you some leftovers, since you've been such good butlers and doormen.”

If anything was guaranteed to cement their approval, that was it. They skipped out the front door, hooting and hollering, and shot across the street to their own house. The last thing Fred heard was “He's going to get some, for sure!”

Cringing, Fred shut the door firmly, then locked it. Then slid the deadbolt, which he normally never used, into place. “I'm really sorry about that.” He turned to face her, expecting either shock or horror, or some combination. Courtney had been appalled by the Sinclair boys and their nonstop energy.

But Rachel's face brimmed with amusement. “Don't be sorry. They're so much fun. Do they really come over here all the time?”

“All. The time. Their mother says they need a male role model and I'm the closest they've got. Want me to take that off your hands?”

“Sure.” She handed over the ice cream, which made him relax a little. Contributing ice cream seemed like a commitment to stay for the entire dinner. Which reminded him . . .

“Uh oh,” he said with dread. “Something tells me the boys didn't get around to checking the pasta. Come on in, make yourself at home.” He hurried into the kitchen, where the pasta water was at a full boil, making the lid bounce up and down with a clatter. “I hope you like spaghetti, because it's the only thing I make well,” he called to Rachel. “Usually,” he muttered.

The pasta sauce had thickened around the edges of the pan and made sluggish gurgling sounds. He turned it off, jabbed violently at it, then went hunting through his cabinets for a package of spaghetti. How could this be such a disaster already?

“I love spaghetti,” Rachel said, making him jump. He hadn't realized she'd followed him into the kitchen. “Do you mind if I put the ice cream in your freezer? It's starting to melt out here.”

Oops
. He'd left her ice cream on the counter while he dealt with the looming spaghetti crisis. “Yeah, yeah, go ahead. I promise no neighbor kids will jump out at you. Reminds me of the time we got a call from a woman during a blackout. She was freaking out because she'd put her dead cat in the freezer and it was starting to thaw out.”

Spaghetti package in hand, he pulled his head from inside the cupboard, horror dawning as he replayed his words. “Did I really just mention a dead, frozen cat? To a pet therapist who works at an animal refuge?”

Rachel closed the freezer door and faced him. Her face was the same deep red as her top, making him wonder if she'd gotten freezer burn in there. As a trained paramedic, should he do something about that? What was the treatment for freezer burn? What about the treatment for full-on, maximum strength humiliation?

Their eyes met. Dry sticks of spaghetti slid through his fingers and bounced onto the floor like pickup sticks. Rachel burst into laughter.

R
achel felt all the worries of the last few days float away on a cloud of laughter. The accident, her friends' injuries, the news cameras, the text from Bradford, and of course, always, the kidnapper, it all vanished at the comically mortified expression on Fred's face.

“It's . . . it's okay,” she managed when she finally managed to stop the waves of giggles. “You didn't have to make dinner for me anyway. We can go straight to ice cream. Or straight to Greta.”

Her dog was sniffing at the dry spaghetti and pushing it with her nose, trying to determine if it was edible. Fred bent down to give her a pat on the head. The motion pulled his T-shirt snug against his chest muscles, which made her remember the sight of him without his T-shirt. Which made her mouth go dry.

That image wasn't likely to leave her any time soon. At first glance, Fred didn't look like a muscleman, but the guy was rock-solid. His torso was a spectacular landscape of rippling muscles. With his shirt on, he looked like a cute, nice guy. Without his shirt, he looked like someone you didn't want to mess with. A badass. The easy way he'd lifted her out of the limo made complete sense now.

“Is there any way we could start this evening over from the beginning?” Fred was still crouched next to Greta, staring in dismay at the spaghetti littering the blue-and-white kitchen floor.

And that was the other thing. Fred's home was so . . . homey. The windows had ruffled curtains, not reinforced bulletproof glass. Instead of state-of-the-art stainless steel, the kitchen featured worn wooden butcher blocks and counters the color of speckled sunshine. She tried to imagine what would have happened if three exuberant boys had tried karate kicks in her apartment without previously notifying Marsden. There probably would have been lawsuits involved at some point. The thought of the kids made her smile.

“No way,” she told him emphatically. “So far I've been treated like a queen. I had the door opened for me and got my own personal martial arts exhibition. I wouldn't change a minute of it.”

The dimple that appeared in Fred's cheek when he smiled made her a little weak in the knees. “You're a good sport. I like that in a guest.”

She smiled back. Something hummed between them, and again the memory of his bare, tautly muscled chest flashed into her mind. No one would guess he had so much hidden power under that shirt. It was as if he was masking his true identity beneath a regular-guy exterior.

He broke the moment by clearing his throat. “Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that was my last package of spaghetti. But . . .” He whipped a piece of paper off his refrigerator, which was cluttered with photos and magnets shaped like fire engines and Betty Boop. “My sister, who visits a lot, made this list of takeout places. Anything look interesting?”

He handed her the sheet of paper. At the top, its title, written in round handwriting, read, “In Case of Emergency, Call These Numbers. Aka How Not to Starve at Freddie's House.” A list of restaurants and phone numbers followed, with short descriptions such as “killer egg rolls” and “chicken salad = eww.” One of the notations caught her eye.

“‘For a hot date, try the fudge cake'?” she read aloud.

He snatched the list away. “My sister likes to ruin my life on at least a biweekly basis. How's pizza?”

“Perfect.” They settled on ingredients, finding themselves perfectly in harmony on the issues of green peppers—only if they were the last vegetable on earth—and pepperoni—it couldn't be considered pizza without some. He opened the fridge and retrieved two bottles of beer, while she tried very hard not to notice his butt. And failed.

“Like a glass?” he offered as he dialed the number of the pizza place. She shook her head. “I'll order. Go ahead into the living room and I'll be there in a second.”

She, Greta, and her bottle of microbrewed beer wandered into the living room. She sank onto Fred's comfortable couch and surveyed his decor. Clearly he'd spent little on his furniture and a lot on the big plasma screen TV mounted on the wall. The house definitely felt like a bachelor pad, although the neighbor kids had left their mark with a few abandoned Transformer toys. He had no security whatsoever; in fact, one of his windows was open, letting in the evening air. No screen, she noticed. Someone could climb right in.

Oddly, it didn't make her nervous. The house felt safe to her. Or maybe Fred's presence made it feel safe. After all, he'd practically made a second career out of rescuing her.

As Fred came into the room with a tray filled with wooden bowls of chips and salsa, she gave him a big smile. “That looks perfect. Chips, pizza, and ice cream, my favorite kind of meal.”

Fred sat on the armchair kitty-corner to the couch. Greta trotted next to him and fixed a determined gaze on his face.

“Ignore her,” she told him. “Greta, stop begging.” She gave her dog a subtle hand signal.

Greta gave her a reproachful look and dragged herself dramatically to a corner.

“She's such a drama queen,” said Rachel. “I don't know if that makes for a good rescue dog or not. I figure she might like all the applause.”

“Hmm, I don't know. How does she handle physical discomfort?” Fred offered her a torn-off paper towel. She thought of the linen napkins at Cranesbill, and the housekeeper's likely look of horror at the thought of eating off a paper towel.

“She spent a week starving in a sewer pipe before I got her.”

An appalled look widened Fred's eyes. “Poor girl. But that might be a problem because rescue dogs need to be able to work around rubble.”

“Yeah, I should test her on that.”

“We could take her to a fire station where they do USAR training, for earthquakes and so forth. They have big piles of concrete and an overturned train set up. We could see how she takes to it.”

“Maybe.” Depending on how safe it was from prying media eyes. She carefully brought a chip to her mouth, holding the paper towel underneath it to avoid spills. He noticed her caution.

“Don't worry about dripping on the floor. The . . . uh . . . the kids do it all the time. Any stains are entirely their fault.” He gave her a ghost of a wink, and she relaxed a bit. If this was her one tiny sliver of “normal life,” she wanted to take full advantage and find out all about him.

“How old is your sister?”

“Twenty-three. But she's been hopelessly spoiled by having four older brothers, so she's more like twenty, on a good day.”

She stared. “There are five kids in your family? Are you the oldest?”

“Oh no.” Fred scooped up salsa with a chip. “I'm the second youngest. All my brothers are older. They're all in the military. Two in the Army, one in the Marines. I'm the only one who stayed around, so I get to walk Lizzie through her heartbreaks. I have a stash of chick flicks and extra pints of ice cream in the freezer.”

“That's a bit of a cliché, don't you think?”

She thought he'd be offended by her comment, but he wasn't. He tilted his head and thought about it. “Maybe it is, but it seems to work for Lizzie. She spends the night and rants about clueless guys, we eat ice cream and watch a movie and that seems to do the job. Whatever works.”

Rachel thought Fred's sympathetic company was probably all Lizzie really needed, but she didn't point that out.

“How about you?” Fred asked. “Brothers or sisters?”

“None. Well, I had a stepbrother and sister for a short time, but that marriage didn't last. I never saw them after my father and their mother divorced. It was nice while it lasted, though.” She'd never told her father, not wanting to make him feel bad, but she'd cried herself to sleep for weeks after that particular divorce. Her stepsiblings had wanted nothing to do with her anymore, which had hurt her terribly.

“So you lived with your father?”

“Yes.” His name hovered on her lips. She pressed them close together to stop it from leaking out. That bit of information could ruin everything. “My mother died when I was seven and it broke my father's heart. He married two more times, but it's never been the same. At least according to . . .”
The household staff
. Again, she caught herself. “People who knew him back then.”

Fred took a swallow of his beer. “Do you remember your mother?”

People didn't ask about her mother much. Maybe because once they knew about Rob Kessler, everything else faded away. He was the sun, blotting out every other celestial body. “I mostly remember the feeling of being with her. You know what I mean?”

“What was the feeling?”

Again, something no one had asked. Not even Dr. Stacy, who'd always focused on her time as a hostage. “Lightness. Laughter. Safety.” Three things she hadn't felt much since her mother's death.

“My mother's more of a tough cookie,” said Fred. “She had to be, raising a rabble like us. She's from the drill sergeant school of parenting.”

“What about your dad?”

“Same, except he was often deployed too. I broke the family tradition by going into firefighting. They never let me hear the end of it, believe me.”

She found the whole picture fascinating. A bunch of big, loud soldiers tromping around the house being ordered around by their mother. “Why didn't you join up too?”

Looking embarrassed, he ran a hand across the back of his head. “My brother Jack says I'm too much of a . . . softy. Well, that's not the word he used, but you get the point.”

She frowned, trying to understand. “Softy” didn't exactly describe the man who had dragged them all out of the limo. “It's not like you went into hairstyling or something.”

The groove in his cheek deepened as he gave a laugh. “Believe it or not, Trent, my oldest brother, actually does a mean buzz cut. He used to trim the whole family's hair. Thing is, my brothers have a point. I'm better suited to the fire service. I guess I wanted to protect people without having to shoot anyone. I look up to my brothers, they're heroes, all of them. But I'll never be like them.”

She puzzled over the picture he was painting. It seemed as though Fred thought more highly of his brothers than of himself. Which, considering that he'd saved her life, she didn't really agree with. “Are you close?”

Fred shrugged. “Sure. Family, you know. I worry about them when they're deployed.”

“They must worry about you too. Firefighting's a dangerous job, from what I've heard.” No need to tell she'd been researching the topic online.

He munched on a chip with an abstracted frown. “Lizzie might worry. And my mom. But my brothers have enough on their minds without bothering with San Gabriel Station 1. Except . . .” He hesitated.

“What?” She nudged his leg with her foot, which gave her a little thrill even through her flats and his jeans.

“Except for lately. They caught wind of this media crap and they're all over it. I wish they'd go back to forgetting the firehouse exists.” He looked so glum that she had to laugh.

“Maybe they're jealous.”

He shot her an incredulous look. “Believe me, each of my brothers has a couple inches, a lot of pounds, and a few medals on me. No one's jealous of Fred the Fireman.”

“Really?” She crinkled her forehead skeptically. “The Bachelor Hero? The one all the girls are going crazy over? I picked up a button the other day, you know. It says ‘Fred's My Hero.'”

He carefully put down his paper towel, made a show of dusting off his hands, and leveled a threatening glare at her. “I'm afraid I'm going to need that button, miss. You have five minutes to hand it over.”

She picked up her purse and shoved it behind her, so it was wedged between her back and the couch. “I don't think so, Officer. I paid good money for that button. Ninety-nine cents, I think it was.”

“I'll give you five bucks for it. Five times the asking price. A hundred times its actual value.”

“It's not about the money,” she said virtuously. “I can't be bought.”

He left the armchair, took a step toward her, and leaned over, bracing his hands on the back of the couch behind her. A sharp thrill raced across her skin. “Everyone has their price. I'll get you another bottle of beer.”

“No, thanks. I'm not a big drinker, as you probably figured out the first night we met.”

“Good point. An extra slice of pizza, when it finally gets here.”

He leaned closer. She noticed amber glints in his velvet-brown eyes, the smell of tomato sauce and . . . that mouth again. “Not a chance. I'm trying to cut down on cheese.”

“First crack at the New York Super Fudge Chunk.”

“All forms of dairy, in fact.” With each shake of her head, each denial, giggles bubbled to the surface. By now she was plastered against the couch, her purse a hard lump against the small of her back and Fred so close she felt the warmth of his breath fanning her face.

“Maybe I'll have to find some other way to persuade you,” he said, low in his throat, his voice a good octave deeper than usual.

She squeaked out an answer that was little more than a surprised grunt, before he was kissing her, hot and deep. Not like the kiss she'd given him, which had barely qualified for the name. This kiss sent lust streaking through her like a freight train. She forgot about the purse, forgot about her squished position. Arching her body against his hard, eager weight, she kissed him back, just as fiercely as he was kissing her. He made a funny sound and, with one knee on the couch, took her face into his hands and devoured her mouth. His fingers fanned across her jaw, his thumbs stroked along her cheekbones. Her heart raced about a mile a minute.

When the doorbell rang, they pulled apart with a sharp gasp. Had she made that sound, or had he? Or both? She took in a long, ragged inhale. A few inches away from her face, Fred fought for breath, his eyes dark as midnight.