With Every Breath (18 page)

“I’m sure it’s not your spatula skills they’re interested in.” Cole chuckled and transferred a patty from a tray to the grill. He waved at Paul inside the firehouse bay. “You can bring over another tray of these.”

“Guys are getting ready for the hotdog eating contest. You in?” Mason crouched to pet Rex, who sat down between his legs.

“Eat until I throw up?” Cole shook his head with a laugh. “I’ll pass. You?”

“I’m chief. I’m always in.”

“That’s why I’m a volunteer. I can say no to these things.” He turned the grill on low, then shut the lid.

“Hey, Drabek!” Trey called from the street. “Line’s getting pretty long, slacker.”

Mason stood and said, “Get your ass over here and help us cook, then.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Trey waved.

“Where’re the rest of your guys?” Cole hung the spatula from the grill handle.

“I sent three of them out to old man Wilson’s farm earlier. He decided today he needed to do a controlled burn.”

Cole shook his head. “That man lives to be a pain in the ass.”

Trey stopped to drape an arm around the redhead who laughed at whatever he whispered in her ear.

“One of these days, that guy’s gonna get himself into a hell of a lot of trouble and lose a couple male parts.” Mason tossed the water bottle into a blue recycle bin nearby.

Brett nudged Mason in the back. “Your burgers are burning again.”

“Crap,” Mason muttered, and scrambled to save the four burgers from flames.

Cole reached over and turned the burner on Mason’s grill to low.

Trey reached for a pop from the cooler beside Brett’s grill. “You get the ‘Vette done?”

“She’s ready for the show.” Cole held his hands up and Trey tossed him a pop. “Where’s the ball and chain?”

Trey popped the top on his can. “Man, she was pissed.”

Cole lifted his brows with a sniff. “What’d you do now?”

“Guess I told her I’d take her to the dance or some shit. Fuck, I don’t remember that. I was probably drunk and she was probably shoving those boobs in my face to get me to agree to stuff.”

“I’m sure it didn’t take much,” Brett said, and Trey punched him in the shoulder.

“Jesus, man. You eat cement for breakfast again?” Trey rubbed his knuckles.

“Are you referring to these?” Brett flexed, and his biceps strained against the sleeves of his T-shirt. Someone whistled nearby.

“Showoff,” Trey grumbled.

The four of them had grown up together—rebellious little fucks who’d spent more than a couple of times in the back of a cop car in their youth. Time had reformed them; that’s what old age did to the bunch of hell raisers they’d been. Cole figured it was their gift to the community—the sheriff’s department and town cops were a lot more efficient at their jobs because of their generation.

“Warning: Jaden looks dynamite tonight.” Trey nodded over Cole’s shoulder.

Cole easily found her in the crowd. A white cotton dress was bright against her long tan legs. She strolled the sidewalk across the street, her hands animate as she laughed about something with Mia. They stopped in front of the bar, and when she moved, the hem of her dress rode a little higher on her thigh. He sucked in a breath and devoured the low dip of the dress on her slim back.

Brett blinked. “Damn. You doing anything about that, Brooks?”

“He’s working up to it.” Trey snickered and slapped Cole on the back. “Slowly. You know how Brooks rolls.”

Mason shook his head. “Don’t wait too long, man.”

Cole ignored them and set off across the street, wending his way through the crowd. Before he reached them, Mia waved to him. She whispered something to Jaden, then disappeared into the bar. Jaden turned to face him, her head tilted in thought.

“You’re beautiful,” were the first words out of his mouth.

Her cheeks blushed pink. God, she was perfect. Did she know that every second he spent gazing into her eyes made it all the more difficult to look away?

“Are you trying to charm me, Cole Brooks?” She narrowed her eyes in a playful glare.

“Is it working?” He drifted closer, as if a magnet pulled him in. He wasn’t interested in fighting it.

With only an inch of space between them, she lifted to her toes and whispered in his ear, “Maybe. A little.”

The air escaped his chest in a whoosh. The deliberate seduction in her voice was new. He slipped an arm behind her back and pulled her up against him. The fact they were on the sidewalk of the town’s busiest street didn’t matter. He might have pressed her up against the outside of the bar if he thought she’d let him. Instead, he pressed her against him, conscious of every curve, and how tiny the small of her back was beneath his hand.

“I can work with a little.” He rubbed a thumb against her dress, over the dimple at the small of her back.

She sucked in a breath.

He pressed a kiss against her jaw near her earlobe, and though it wasn’t easy, he let her go. He wanted his lips against her mouth, the taste of her filling him. But even more, he needed her to want him—to need him—the moment he was gone. “Save a seat for me in the bar,” he said as he backpedaled, savoring the bewildered crease to her brow and the way her full lips had fallen open.

He left her there on the sidewalk, imagining her hot gaze trained on his back as walked away.

Jaden stared after Cole, dazed. What the hell just happened? And so much for staying strong and indifferent around him.

Shameless. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and headed inside to join Mia. The room was crowded and warm. Somewhere a fan hummed, but with the door opening and closing every few minutes, it was useless. Mia waved to her from a small table across the room.

She made her way through the tables, careful not to jostle anyone’s drink. Setting her purse on the table, she said, “Is Hills here?”

“Over there.” Mia nodded to the bar as she fiddled with her fingers. “Do you mind if I leave you here with Hills? David just got home.”

“Of course not, go see him.”

Mia’s shoulders slumped, tension rolling off her in waves. “Oh, good. I hate leaving you here, but I really need to hash this out with him.”

“Go take care of your marriage, lovely bug.” There was a quiver of apprehension in her stomach, and she reached for Mia’s hand. Squeezing, she said, “Call me if you need me, okay?”

“Of course, thank you.” Mia leaned over and kissed Jaden’s cheek. Her smile shook when she stood. “Wish me luck. I’m about to tell him it’s in vitro or...” She shook her head and hurried off without finishing her thought.

Jaden unzipped her purse and pulled her cellphone from the pocket inside. She rolled the encounter with Cole around inside her head, and studied it from every angle. The moment he’d spoken, it was as if an internal dam had broken—she couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. Her heart still raced.

“Hey, where’s Mia?”

Jaden came up from her thoughts. “David’s home.”

“Ah.” She handed Jaden a shot glass filled with blue frothy liquid. “Waitress is bringing us a couple of draft beers. I needed something in a frosty mug.”

“Sounds perfect.” She didn’t ask what was in the shot glass; she shot it back in one swallow, then licked an errant drop from her lip.

Hillary raised her brows. “Rough day?”

“You could say that.” She set the empty shot glass down. Before the night was over, she had an idea she’d need a few more of them to cope with her indecision.

Hillary drank hers down and set the empty glass beside Jaden’s. She braced the table, her brow creased, and winced as she lifted her leg. Before she finished crossing her legs, she set her foot back down.

“You okay?”

“I’m so sore. Remind me never to let myself go, okay?”

“Did you just start this morning? You seemed fine yesterday.”

Her grimace made Jaden’s muscles hurt.

“Yeah, after the high of winning the trophy yesterday, I decided to go home and make some life changes. I threw out all of my potato chips and went to the gym. Had a motivational chat with a fitness instructor, and proceeded to work out like I’ve been doing it for years.”

“Oh no,” Jaden breathed. She knew where Hillary was leading with her story. She’d been there before, the deep tissue muscle pain that made a person curl into a painful ball, and whimper.

Hillary’s eyes glistened with a painful nod. “It all seemed fine, you know? Until I couldn’t move this morning. I mean, I couldn’t even get out of bed. I had to roll out of bed, and when I landed on the floor, that hurt even worse.”

Jaden lifted a hand and waved at a cocktail waitress nearby. When she came over, Jaden pointed to the empty shot glasses. “We’re going to need a couple more of those blue things.”

The waitress left, and Hillary moaned. “I’m going to need a lot more of those to forget how much my body hates me right now. Mostly, I just want to cry.”

“It’ll get better.”

“If you say so. I just wonder how I’ll get up my porch steps tonight. It was the worst pain of my life trying to get down them.”

“I’ll stretch with you tomorrow. That’s probably all you need for now. I wouldn’t go back and get crazy with the weights for a couple of days.”

“Don’t worry. I might never go back to that gym again.” Before Jaden could respond, Hillary’s eyes bulged wide. She jerked her gaze away from the bar and over Jaden’s shoulder. “Don’t look at the bar.”

Why?” Jaden looked at the bar.

Hillary kicked her under the table.

“Ouch, jeez, I’m sorry.” She reached under the table to rub her shin.

“I said don’t look!” Hillary was on the verge of hysterics.

“Who am I not supposed to look at?” She attempted to peek towards the bar out of the corner of her eye, but it gave her an eye ache.

“It’s my trainer. He’s sitting at the bar.” She gripped the edge of the table and leaned in. “He makes me stupid. Like, really stupid. I couldn’t even talk around him yesterday.”

“I’m sorry, but you can’t say something like that and then not expect me to look.” She searched for muscles, and found them. A dark red T-shirt stretched taut across a wide, muscular chest coupled with the dimpled smile of a country boy.

“Sweet baby Jesus, that’s your trainer?” Jaden raised the beer to her lips and took a long drink of beer.

“Not anymore. I fired him.”

Jaden gaped, and her eyes blinked a rapid flutter. “You fired the hot trainer?”

Hillary lifted her hands, palms up, and looked panicked. “I had to! I couldn’t concentrate on one damn thing with him hovering over me. I was worried I was breathing too hard. Then I worried my sweat smelled. I couldn’t stop thinking of how much I sweat. It was like all of these things were piling up on each other and suddenly I just burst out, ‘You’re fired!’ It was mortifying. He didn’t even seem to mind. He gave me that crazy gorgeous smile and said he’d send Mary to work with me.” She dropped her face into her hands. “And Mary’s evil. She spent the whole time yelling at me and now I can’t walk.”

“You should have kept the hot trainer.”

She shook her head. “No. Being yelled at is better than worrying I look like a whale in front of Hercules.”

“Yikes.” Jaden grimaced. “Is that actually his name?”

“No. I can’t remember what his name is. I told you, I went stupid.”

Laughing, Jaden glanced at the fitness instructor. He caught her staring and must have deduced they’d been talking about him. The corners of his lips lifted into something breathtaking. But his smile wasn’t for Jaden, it was aimed at Hillary. And his gaze lingered.

Jaden leaned into the table and whispered, “He’s looking at you.”

“Yes, because I made an ass of myself.” She glared at Jaden. “Just don’t stare.”

“How about instead I get us a couple more drinks. We’ll numb your muscle pain.” And I’ll numb my inner slut. Because her inner slut had one thing on her mind, and that was Cole.

They drank. Too much, probably. By the time the next band started, Jaden and Hillary felt more than all right. When the door opened and Cole walked in, Jaden’s smile froze on her lips. So much for numbing her inner slut—that part of her went haywire at the sight of him, remembering the feel of his thumb making lazy circles through the thin cotton of her dress.