Fire at Twilight: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 1 (6 page)

And have her think he was shy? No way.

“That’s okay. I know I didn’t have an appointment and all. I guess I should have called.” He jerked his head in the direction of the way they’d come. “You want me to come back another day?”

She gestured to the empty recliners. “Shoes off, please.”

“Oh.” He’d been halfway hoping he’d get out of it. Maybe she’d even tell Lexie he’d come by, and then she’d get off his back.

“I actually have a pretty full afternoon. It’s good that you’ve come now. A patient’s first appointment is the most important, and it’s the one that takes the longest.”

What was she planning to
do
to him?

“As you saw,” Grace said while pointing him to the recliner nearest the stereo, “this is my main treatment room.”

Was he supposed to just sit down? She wasn’t going to take his blood pressure or his weight or anything? He tugged at the laces on his work boots, all he really ever wore anymore. At least he didn’t have feet like Chief Barger—that smell could kill a possum half a mile away.

“Right there’s perfect.” She pulled out a rolling stool from under a counter and placed it next to his recliner. “Go ahead and tilt it back,” she said, now standing at the shelves on the north wall. “I want you to make yourself as comfortable as possible.”

“Because this is going to hurt, huh?”

She took a folded white towel and a peach-colored blanket from a shelf. “Are you scared of needles?”

“No.” Tox felt a thin sheen of sweat break at his hairline.

“Really?” She was close to him again, that same sweet-tea vanilla smell in his nose. Man, he liked that smell. He inhaled and felt something inside of himself ease.

“I don’t think I am,” said Tox.

“But you’re nervous.”

He shrugged and sent the recliner backward. Yeah, there was the same sweet spot as the ones at the station. Get the feet adjusted right, and the head in that comfortable zone, and you could just bliss out, no matter what dumb crap your partner was watching on the big screen TV. “Not nervous. Maybe just a little … concerned.”

“Here,” she said, leaning over him, draping the blanket over his legs. “Adjust this so that you’re warm enough.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Too warm?”

“I’m sweating here.”

She removed the blanket and draped it over the next chair. “Are you
sure
you’re not scared of needles?”

“They’re sterilized, right?”

Grace laughed, a light, pretty sound. “Of course. Each one has never been used.” She glanced down at her paperwork. “Why do they call you Tox?”

The change of subject startled him. “What?”

“Is it short for Toxic?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I’m a hazardous materials guy.” He paused. “Kind of
the
hazmat guy. If something bad blows up or off-gasses, they want me around to analyze it.”

She looked down at his paperwork. “What’s your real name?”

“Nuh-uh. If you need that for insurance or the gift certificate or something, I’ll just pay cash.”

“No, no, I’m just curious, that’s all.”

Tox cleared his throat. “How many needles are you planning on using?”

“Not that many. A hundred and thirty or so?”

He jerked upright. “No way. No freakin’ way. Screw Lexie and her bright ideas.”

She laughed again and put a cool hand on his forearm. “I’m teasing you. We’ll probably do between ten and twenty points today. But at any time, if you feel uncomfortable, or if you want to leave, you can.”

He tried to relax back into the chair, but it was hard. The fight-or-flight reflex left the webs between his fingers damp. He hoped he wasn’t sweating through his shirt. “What’s the towel for?”

Sitting on the stool and rolling closer to him, holding his paperwork, she said, “I would tell you it’s to mop up your blood, but I think I’m at the edge of too much teasing with you.”

Tox pushed out his chest. “Impossible.”

“Really?” She stuck the tip of her pen lightly into his forearm, and Tox jumped so high he felt his neck protest in response. “Ow,” he said. “Man.”

“I’m sorry,” Grace said, leaning forward again. “I don’t usually do that.”

“Scare people into tweaking their necks?”

“Tease patients.”

Tox had to admit, he liked it in theory. He liked being teased, especially by a woman so hot he could barely look away from her. Yeah, his neck hurt, but the trade-off was that he got to stare at those big coffee-colored eyes of hers.

Not a bad trade, really.

CHAPTER TEN

Grace felt like an idiot. A terribly
young
idiot, who wouldn’t have passed her California licensing exam if she’d done anything like that. Teasing a patient until she hurt him! What had she been thinking?

She wasn’t. That was the point. Around Tox, she acted like a twelve-year-old girl, too young to understand why she wanted to poke a boy in the shoulder as she ran past him in dodge ball.

Taking a deep breath, she grounded herself for a moment, placing her feet flat on the floor.

Grace was a helper. She would help Tox. It was what he needed. The fact that he made her hormones swirl like he’d stuck a spoon in them and stirred, that wasn’t his fault. She was the pro here.

“Okay. This is to prop yourself on if you want it. It looks like your neck hurts.” Rolling the towel, she kept her gaze firmly on the area his fingers were absentmindedly rubbing. She carefully didn’t meet his eyes, worried that if she did, she’d want to tickle him next, or worse. “It might help to have this behind it.”

He leaned forward so that she could tuck the towel behind his head.

“I’m going to check your pulses now.”

As she reached forward to hold his wrist, she felt Tox watching her closely.

She straightened her back and concentrated on feeling the blood and energy move under her fingertips. He felt strong. Vital.

“Okay.” She rolled so that she was at his feet. “I’m going to roll up the bottoms of your jeans now.” With some people, Grace was careful to talk them through every step of the process. He was one of those people who needed it, and she was having a hard time forgiving herself for being so unaware that she might have scared him.

It was just hard to believe that a man who looked like he did could be scared of anything.

“Now I’ll take the pulses at your feet.”

Tox snorted. Grace looked up sharply.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry. Keep going.”

Grace palpated his foot gently.

“Will I live?”

She patted him—a professional touch, sure—on the ankle and moved around, rolling up to his other wrist. “Probably.”

Wrapping her fingers around his right wrist, she listened. She’d had a lot of education, yes. She’d trained for years in not only Eastern but Western medicine, too. She’d be paying her student loans back for the rest of her life. But this—listening to the body with her hands—was more than just learning where to place your fingers. She unfocused her eyes and let herself hear what the blood was saying in this man’s thick wrist.

She’d expected thready. She could tell Tox wasn’t in the habit of taking care of himself. But instead, she felt his energy moving quickly. It was wide and full. It was what one of her teachers would have called “a rebellious Qi.” Its rhythm was hurried—that didn’t surprise her. She liked the way his pulse felt under her fingertips. And that fact—the unprofessionalism of it—unnerved her more than his strength.

A grip. She had to get one. “May I see your tongue, please?”

A lazy smile spread across his face. “I didn’t think this was that kind of place, but sure, babe.”

He was
trying
to rattle her.

But she wouldn’t be rattled. Nope. “Thanks. Just stick it out for me.”

So close. She was so close to him.

“Okay.” She cleared her throat. “Have you ever had trouble with your gallbladder?”

He shook his head.

He smelled of soap, a green scent, and lightly, of sweat. But his breath was sweet. “You can put your tongue away now, thanks.”

“There are so many responses I want to make to that …” he said.

“Well, you don’t have to.” Grace rolled her stool backward and grabbed the needle box from the low Chinese table. “I’ve probably heard them all. Tell me about your body.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to take them back.

A low laugh. “I think we’re moving a little too fast, sugar. Don’t I get to buy you dinner first?”

She prayed her cheeks weren’t flushing the way she felt they might be. “Tell me about your back issues.”

His eyes narrowed. “My back is fine.”

“Really?” His posture was protective, even now, sitting in the most relaxed position possible. His elbows were tight at his sides, his legs pushing tension toward her so that she could feel it in waves.

But she kept her voice light as she gestured to her own neck. “You seem to be rubbing right here.”

With a guilty expression, he dropped his hand. “Just a little tight. In the neck. Not my back.”

Grace nodded. “Sometimes the neck is the way the back gets our attention.” She picked up a needle. “We have a place to address that, don’t worry.”

“
Ooof
.” He winced.

“I haven’t touched you yet.” Why did everything she said come out sounding dirty? Grace had never had this problem before. When she’d been getting her Master’s, one of her fellow students had fallen in love with a patient who frequented the student clinic. It had been the scandal of the year, and she’d never completed her training. Grace remember thinking,
You shouldn’t be in the job if you can’t keep your hands to yourself when it matters.

And right now, all she could think about was the way his skin felt under her fingertips, rough and hard and somehow … sweet, too. Dang it all. She had to get a grip.

“Okay, have a look at this.” She rolled back toward him, conscious of going slowly. “See how tiny it is? Thinner than a human hair.”

“It’s still a needle.”

“But look, it’s so flexible.”

“You can’t pierce skin with a human hair. Therefore, that’s a needle.”

Grace warmed up. This was the part she was best at. “Just lie back. You can keep your eyes open or close them, whatever’s most comfortable to you. I’ll press on different areas of your skin and ask you questions, and then I’ll put in the points. If it’s an area where you need work, it will zing.”

“You mean hurt.”

“I mean twinge. Just a little.” She touched the skin between his thumb and first finger lightly. “I’ll put the first one here.”

Tox sat back with his eyes closed. Then he opened them again. Yep, she knew he’d be a watcher. He wasn’t the kind of man who liked to relinquish control over anything at all. “Do it,” he said.

“I already did.”

“Huh?” Yanking his hand toward his face, he examined the needle wobbling in the back of his hand. “Ow.”

“Really? Does that actually hurt?”

“No,” he said slowly. “So freaking weird. I didn’t feel you put it in.”

“Don’t worry,” said Grace. “You will.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

She was right. Tox felt three of the needles stab him like tiny little vicious knives. She put one a few inches above his ankle, and he almost came right off the chair. “What are you
doing
?”

“Mmm,” she said. “Have you been craving sugar lately?”

All the time. Every day. Morning and night. “Nah, not that much.”

“Huh, that surprises me.”

The pain, as sharp as it was, was precise and lasted only a second. Most of the needles he didn’t feel at all, not even as a tickle.

“That’s bizarre,” Tox said, marveling at the way the needles danced and bobbed in his arms as if they were dancing on air currents. Maybe they were.

“Now just relax,” Grace said, snapping the box shut. She swiveled to face him. “Are you comfortable? Warm enough?”

She was so dang pretty. That was the thing. The more Tox looked at her, the more he
liked
looking at her. Her skin was practically radiant. Shoot. That’s not the way he needed to think. Next thing he knew he’d be spouting poetry about flowers and kittens at her. And her lashes were so long he thought they might tangle if she slept on her pillow the wrong way. “Are you wearing that … black stuff?”

Tox knew the word he was looking for, but his brain was suddenly too relaxed to work very hard to come up with it.

“Excuse me?” She blinked hard, and her maple-syrup eyes seemed even prettier.

He blinked back. “You know. That stuff that makes your lashes long.”

Grace bit her lower lip and a fingertip brushed her eye. “Mascara? No. I forgot to put any on this morning. I didn’t think anyone …”