To Tame a Wild Firefighter (Red Hot Reunions Book 2) (5 page)

Mick grinned wickedly. “And why would you be worn out, Miller? Were you planning to ravage me all night long?”

“No!” Faith smacked his thigh—his well-muscled thigh that she did
not
want to see out of those jeans,
thankyouverymuch
. “Sometimes I work three day shifts. This week, I go in at noon tomorrow and don’t get off until noon on Thursday, and my bunk is in an old utility closet where the pipes bang the entire time I’m trying to sleep.”

Mick’s brows drew together. “They make you sleep in a utility closet?”

Faith shrugged. “I don’t mind. At least I have some privacy and don’t have to listen to Kevin snore in the guys’ bunkroom all night. And it won’t be for much longer. The new firehouse is going to have six individual rooms so everyone on shift will have their own space.”

“I’m glad you’re getting a new fire house,” Mick said. “Maybe when you guys move, my sister will spend less time making googly eyes at the other side of the street.”

Faith laughed. “Jake is the same way. We’ve started singing
Moon River
every time we catch him staring out the window.”

“That’s awesome,” Mick said with a smile. “I’ve been throwing rolls at Naomi every time I catch her giggling and waving, but I’ll start singing
Moon River
while I do it. It will be good for them. Help reinforce the message that drooling over each other in public is gross at their age.”

Faith snorted. “It’s gross at any age.”

“Agreed,” Mick said, nudging her knee with his leg. “But if you find you can’t help yourself, I’m not going to judge. I’m pretty drool-worthy.”

“In your dreams, Whitehouse.” Faith rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t deny she enjoyed chatting and joking with Mick almost as much as she enjoyed kissing him.

“But seriously, I’m glad we’re going to go out,” Mick said, the teasing note vanishing from his voice. “Do you think you’ll be up for something Thursday night, or will you need to head home to crash?”

“I should be fine,” Faith said. “Assuming we don’t have any middle-of-the-night calls the night before. But even if we do, I don’t need a lot of sleep to function.”

“Then I’ll pick you up Thursday night at six?” Mick reached up to tug a lock of her hair. “We can get dinner and then go bowling or something.”

“Six is perfect, but I’m terrible at bowling,” Faith said, finding it hard to resist the urge to touch Mick, to let her fingers explore the way his were exploring her hair. “Let’s go to the shooting range instead, and I’ll kick your ass at target practice.”

Mick laughed. “You’re on. But I wouldn’t be so sure about kicking my ass. I know my way around a gun, Miller. I haven’t missed a deer season since I was in diapers.”

Faith grinned. “Well good, that should make beating you more fun.”

“You talk a lot of smack for a girl who couldn’t brush her own teeth last night,” Mick said. “I think you need to be taught some manners.”

A second later he tackled her, making Faith giggle with unusual girlishness as he trapped her body between his powerful legs and gave her a noogie on the top of her head.

“Stop it,” she said, batting at his fist. “You’ll give me split ends.”

“Oh no, not split ends,” Mick said, moving his fingers to her ribs where he proceeded to tickle her until she was dying with laughter, so out of breath that when Melody threw open the door with a spatula in hand and demanded to know—

“What’s going on in here? Do I need to defend this woman’s honor, Mick?”

—Faith couldn’t say a word.

“We’re just goofing off.” Mick grinned as he released Faith from his vice grip. “Sorry, did we wake you?”

“No way.” Melody waved her spatula. “I’ve been up for an hour and almost have hangover breakfast ready. You two hungry?”

“Starving,” Mick said, springing up from the futon.

“Me too,” Faith said, her cheeks heating. “If you’ll trust me to eat in your house. I am so sorry I got sick last night. I am ten different shades of embarrassed.”

“Seriously, don’t worry about it,” Melody said with a smile that looked sincere. “We used the garden hose. Yours was the easiest clean-up of the night.”

“You hear that?” Mick grinned over his shoulder as he shoved his feet in a pair of enormous black shoes. “You won the Best Barfer Award.”

“You did,” Melody said. “We’re so proud.”

Faith laughed, finally trusting that it was okay to put her shame behind her. “Well, thanks. Next time I’ll win the Best Designated Driver Award.”

“Now those are always our favorite people,” Melody said, pointing at Faith approvingly with the spatula. “Breakfast is almost ready. Y’all come get yourselves some coffee.”

Faith slid her sock feet to the floor and stood, brushing her hair from her face as Melody bustled back into the main part of the apartment.

“See?” Mick said softly. “I told you no one would think you were the Mayor of Loserville.”

Faith shrugged, tugging her glittery shirt down around her hips. “Melody’s really nice.”

“You’re really nice,” Mick said.

“I am not,” Faith said, narrowing her eyes in his direction. “I’m mean as spit, and don’t you forget it.”

“Cute as a button is more like it,” he said capturing her hand in his, sending a sizzle of awareness skittering across Faith’s skin as she glanced down, surprised to see that Mick’s hand engulfed hers.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to you being so big,” she said, curling her fingers tentatively around his. She hadn’t held hands with Eli until they’d been dating for months and then rarely in public, but she couldn’t deny how good it felt to hold Mick’s hand. Just nice and warm and…good.

“Nostalgic for the days when you could crush me beneath your little pink sneaker?” Mick asked, tugging her closer.

“I never wore pink sneakers, Mick Whitehouse,” she said, her voice breathy as she tilted her head back to meet his eyes. “You take that back or I won’t ever kiss you again.”

“Retracted,” Mick said, a rough edge to the word that made Faith think she wasn’t the only one feeling the air thicken between them.

“Good, now let’s go get some grits,” she said, stepping past him.

“Only if they have cheese on them. Grits without cheese are an abomination.” Mick followed her into the kitchen where Melody, her fiancé, Nick, Kitty, and a handful of other people were already gathered around the table.

The others welcomed Mick and Faith with easy smiles and warm Happy New Year wishes, as if it wasn’t strange at all to see the two of them acting like a couple. And maybe it wasn’t, Faith thought as she pulled up a chair next to Mick’s and spent the next hour and a half having the best breakfast she’d had in years. Melody was a professional chef so the food was amazing, but it was more than that.

Faith felt free to be herself in a way she usually didn’t. She was sitting next to a guy who thought she was cute despite the fact that she had vomited in his presence hours before, a guy who laughed at her jokes, passed her the salt and pepper without her having to ask, and really listened when she talked. It was hard not to feel relaxed when in the company of someone who seemed to like her for who she was, no modifications required.

And if she were honest, that was the number one item on her list of things she wanted in a boyfriend. Growing up, she had always sworn she would never be like her mom, that she wouldn’t change to please someone who would take her for granted, or do anything else to risk becoming a serial victim like Pressie Miller.

Her mother had been used up and tossed out so many times her skin had started to look thin, like a dress washed too often until the flesh shows through underneath. But what showed through on Faith’s mom was pain, hopelessness, and the growing certainty that she would always be alone. And alone would never be enough. Pressie Miller had been waiting her whole life for a man to love her enough to make her love herself, but her fiftieth birthday had come and gone and still, not one in her long line of frogs had turned into Prince Charming.

Before Faith was old enough to read fairy tales on her own, she’d known she had no interest in Prince Charming—she didn’t need anyone to save her, and she refused to put the power to decide her happily ever after in anyone else’s hands.

But she could use a new friend, especially a friend who kissed the way Mick did, and whose hand felt so perfectly right in her own.

“I don’t like the idea of not seeing you for three days,” Mick said later, as they wandered through the cool winter air toward the fire station.

“You’ll see me,” she said. “I’ll be right across the street.”

Mick shrugged, a hint of shyness in the gesture that was undeniably cute. “You know what I mean.”

“Well there’s no reason we can’t hang out,” she said after a moment. “I’m allowed to have visitors. A lot of the guys have their families come for dinner when they’re on duty.”

“Are you asking me to come to family dinner?” Mick asked, sending a shiver of anxiety across Faith’s skin.

Family dinner wasn’t just a phrase to her. The guys at the station and their wives and significant others were as good as Faith’s family—better really, because none of them ever made her feel like she was only worth talking to when they needed to be bailed out of a bad situation.

She was open to dating Mick, but she wasn’t ready to introduce him to her family.

“How about we have lunch,” she said, backtracking. “Or you could come work out with me. I usually start around two if we don’t have training or maintenance that needs to be done.”

Mick nodded. “Sounds like fun. I’ve been lifting in the garage at my parents’ house, but it’s freezing in there.”

Faith stopped next to him on the sidewalk, across the street from where her truck was parked. “Cool. I’ll text you tomorrow when it’s safe. I have to make sure Jamison isn’t around, or he’ll tease the shit out of me for having a boy over.”

Mick smiled down at her. “Am I the first boy you’ve had over?”

“Don’t make too much out of it,” Faith said, as she backed away. “I don’t date, remember?”

“You do now,” Mick said with a wink so disarming she couldn’t think of a snappy comeback, so she simply rolled her eyes and said—

“Whatever, Whitehouse. Smell you later.”

“Not if I smell you first,” he called after her, making her mouth quirk up into a goofy grin that felt strange on her face.

Strange, but…good. So far the New Year wasn’t going the way she had expected, but she couldn’t deny she’d had more fun this morning than in the last month of mornings combined.

And the reason for that was watching her unlock her truck and swing up into the driver’s seat, a smile on his handsome face.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mick

Mick hadn’t been this excited for a work out in weeks. He jogged down the stairs leading from his apartment the next afternoon with a spring in his step and a smile on his face.

A smile that vanished as his eldest sister, Naomi, dashed across the bakery to block his way out the front door.

“You’re not going anywhere!” She threw out her arms in a dramatic “none shall pass” gesture. With her honey-streaked brown curls pulled into a ponytail and a bright pink “Show Me Some Sugar” apron on over her clothes, Naomi looked sweet enough to be hosting a children’s baking show, but the expression on her face was all business.

“What? Why?” Mick asked, wondering what he’d done this time.

He was glad Naomi and Maddie were coming out of their respective funks, but since their spirits had improved, his sisters had reverted to picking on him like they had when he was a kid. Mick was trying to be a good sport about it, but he was nearly twenty-four years old. He wasn’t a little boy, and he could be trusted to live by himself and cook his own meals without setting his apartment on fire.

“You’re staying right here,” Naomi said, pointing a threatening finger in his direction. “And that’s final.”

Mick backed away, holding his hands up in the universal sign of surrender, the workout towel in his hand hanging from his fist like a white flag. Apparently it was going to take him longer to get across the street to the fire station than the five minutes he’d texted Faith.

“What?” Mick asked again. “I swear I didn’t touch anything in the bakery kitchen, not even when I really needed milk for my cereal.”

“Liar!” Maddie, Mick’s middle sister, popped up from behind the glass display case, her cheeks flushed and her brown ponytail frizzy from spending the morning in the kitchen. “I caught you on the Nanny cam I hid in between the flour sacks. You are a milk thief, Mick Whitehouse.”

Mick shot Maddie an incredulous look. “You were
spying
on me?”

“I was checking up on you,” she said, with a grin that made it clear she felt no remorse for setting up video surveillance on a family member. “And my checking reveals that you are a big, hairy liar.”

“It was three tablespoons,” Mick mumbled, rolling his eyes. “Seriously. I don’t know why you two are so stingy with the milk. You have eight gallons in there.”

“We have health codes to think about,” Naomi said with a judgmental sniff.

“Well, I didn’t rub my hands in feces first,” Mick said in an exaggeratedly patient tone. “I just went in with my clean hands, poured some milk into my clean cereal bowl, and walked back out, keeping all my nasty man germs to myself.”