Flirting With Fire (Hometown Heroes) (11 page)

“He shouldn’t
have to. Me, having to come down here? It’s going to kill any trust I’ve built
up at the spa, and it’s not fair. I didn’t set the stupid dumpster on fire.
Heck, I’m scared of fires. I hide inside every Fourth of July for fear of
getting hit by falling bottle rockets.” I stopped pacing and ran a hand through
my hair. “You believe me,” I asked, spinning to face him. “Don’t you?”

He smoothed an
amused grin from his face and nodded. “Yes, I do. Though, you were a little
flustered when you got into the massage room.”

I snorted. “Not
because of anything going on outside.”

“Oh?” Torrunn
leaned forward in his seat, eyes bright with interest. “What could possibly
have had you so frazzled?”

Why
had
I
been all worked up as I raced into the building? Was it really because I was
running late, or because of who was waiting for me on the table…?

The door to the
room swung open, and spared me from having to go any further down that line of
reasoning. A tall, slender man with salt and pepper hair and steel gray eyes
entered the room. His white, short-sleeved button down shirt was starched to
perfection, his black pants perfectly creased.

“Miss Williams,
I’m Captain Stevens.” He extended his hand toward mine, which I took and tried
to offer a confident shake. “Thank you for agreeing to come downtown and
provide a statement of your account. Please, have a seat.”

Forty-five
minutes, and what felt like a hundred questions later, I stepped outside and
dragged in a deep breath. My gut said Captain Stevens didn’t have it out for
me. But he wasn’t taking the dumpster fire lightly, either. Two summers ago,
shortly after the ball diamond had opened, there’d been a rash of fires in the
downtown area. Nothing major, but the damages had scared off a lot of the
tourism Fort Wayne desperately needed to keep its downtown revitalization
project alive and well.

Seems not
everyone in town was happy with the decision to drop a ball diamond smack dab
in the middle of town.

I vaguely
remember hearing about that on the news. But since I didn’t come into Fort Wayne much back then, I hadn’t lost any sleep over it. The firebug had been caught,
ticket sales were up, life had gone on.

But a fire broke
out a block west of the spa last Wednesday just after five o’clock. It struck
me as odd that I hadn’t heard the sirens. Then I remembered Xavier had let me
leave a little early since I’d gotten all my laundry done and had no more
appointments that day. It was in fact the same day I thought I heard footsteps
in the alley. Could that have been this new firebug?

If it was, my
appearance hadn’t scared them off for long. They’d obviously come back a short
while later to finish the job. Unfortunately, I was the last person actually
seen in the alley that day as well—a fact that hung over my head like the
gleaming blade of a guillotine.

The door behind
me creaked open. Torrunn stepped outside and joined me. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” I lied
with a shrug. “I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t let him
intimidate you, Liz. Stevens is a good man to have in your corner. He just
wants to find this guy before things get out of hand. Like last time.” Torrunn
exhaled a long sigh. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride back. It’s the least I can
do, after dragging you down into the pits of fire administration hell.”

The apology was
as unexpected as it was unnecessary. He didn’t have to drive me here, or stay
to defend me, and yet he did. Why?

I shook my head,
and debated hoofing it to give myself time to clear my head. “How far is it to the
spa from here?”

“Five or six
blocks,” Torrunn said.

Okay, hoofing it
was out. After the afternoon I’d had, I didn’t have
that
kind of energy.
“I’d love a ride. Thanks.”

He headed for
his car in the parking garage and I followed a few steps behind. It felt like
it’d been days since we’d first arrived. Stress’ll do that to you, I suppose—make
you lose track of time while it sucks the life right out of you. Mine had
started the minute Bunni threw me under the bus in front of a parking lot full
of people.

Though, why
she’d done it was still beyond me. I mean, come on, could she really be that
insecure? Because if she thought pointing the finger of blame at me would
somehow turn Torrunn against me, then her plan had backfired horribly. As soon
as the onsite fire captain requested I come downtown for questioning, Torrunn left
her side without looking back and volunteered to bring me himself.

The captain had
looked surprised; Bunni looked like she was about to have a coronary.

I’d enjoyed
being the source of her misery then, but didn’t look forward to what lay
waiting for me back at the spa now.

As we settled back
into Torrunn’s orange Dodge Challenger, I thanked him once more for coming with
me. “But, I’m curious,” I said, and risked a quick sideways glance at his
handsome face. His cheeks were dusted with their usual stubble and, in the dim
lighting of the parking garage, it was sexy as all get out. I forced my gaze to
something safer: my shoes. “Why did you volunteer to waste your entire afternoon?”

“Because I had
nothing else planned. My massage clearly wasn’t going to happen.”

“I’m so sorry
about that.”

“Don’t be. It
wasn’t your fault some jack bag decided to set a dumpster on fire.”

“True. But I
could have just driven myself.”

He shook his
head, and my gaze followed the movement. Damn—ensnared by his good looks again.
At least his eyes were focused on the road instead of me. I found it hard to
breathe under the full weight of his stare.

“No way. You
should have seen the look on your face when Sam asked you to come in for
questioning. You never would have made it here in one piece. And even if you
had, you wouldn’t have been thinking straight. No way was I going to let my favorite
MT go and say something she didn’t mean to, and get thrown in jail for a fire
she didn’t start.”

MT. No one had
ever given my occupation an acronym before, but it did have a nice ring to it.

“Wow, I hadn’t
thought of that. You’re probably right. Well, I appreciate the save. And the
compliment. But really, your favorite? Just how many have there been?”

His lips quirked
into a crooked smile and his gaze flickered in my direction. “Dozens.”

Were we still
talking about massage therapists? A light sheen of perspiration formed along my
hairline. The black interior of his car was suddenly too intimate.
Too…confined.

“Well, don’t go
telling Dawn that. She made it very clear my first day that I wasn’t supposed
to come in and steal her clients.”

“Ah, but Dawn
doesn’t have the hands you do.” We’d come to a red light, and he reached over
to tug gently at my left wrist. “Seriously, let me have a look.”

“Wha—?”

His grip was
firm but gentle, and a hundred percent unexpected. Every neuron in my body went
on high alert. I just stared at his hand and wondered when the last time a touch
so simple had triggered this kind of a reaction from me.

That answer
would be never. And it scared the bejeezus out of me.

Not flirting.
He’s just being nice. Don’t read into this.

“Funny,” he
said, sliding his thumb slowly back and forth across my palm. “They don’t look
as strong as they feel.”

His touch felt
incredible. My cheeks warmed, and so did a few of my other body parts.
Girly
parts.
Much neglected
girly parts. I cleared my throat and carefully
extracted my hand from his grasp. “Nope, just your average, everyday hands.”

“You don’t give
yourself enough credit, Liz.” His gaze shifted to my face. “And I see Tony got
a hold of you.”

“Tony?”

Oh, God. What
had Tony said to him?

“Your hair?”

I exhaled a
breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Oh, right.”

Phew! Thought I
was going to have to maim my new hairstylist during his next massage there for
a moment. Wait…why had I started to panic?

Oh, no. No it
couldn’t be. I wasn’t. Crushing. On Torrunn.

He studied my
‘do’ for a moment longer, oblivious to the warning alarms going off inside my head,
then nodded his approval. “Looks good.”

“Um, thanks. He,
uh, worked his magic on me, or something like that.”

“Magic, huh?” He
still hadn’t looked away. After a moment, his gaze shifted from my hair, to my
face. Possibly even my lips, though that could have been my imagination. And
here, in his car, with one of my clients, was no time to let my imagination run
wild.

Out of the
corner of my eye, I saw the stop light flip from red to green. Hallelujah, I’d
been saved.

“Um, Torrunn?” I
said, tipping my head toward the windshield.

“Oh.” His gaze
shifted up—yes up—to meet mine, then back to the road. “Right.”

We rode the rest
of the short trip back in silence, me afraid to speak and him lost in his own
thoughts. As soon as he pulled into the lot across from Spa del Sol, I readied
myself to bolt. By the time he shifted into PARK, I had my seatbelt unlatched
and door handle in my grasp.

“Thanks again for
driving me down there and back. I owe you big.”

“Anytime.” The
tone in his voice was surprisingly sincere.

“Great.” I opened
the car door, eager to escape from the scent of his clean, with a hint of
evergreen, cologne—the same scent that had been teasing my senses all
afternoon. “See ya—”

“You know.” He
reached out and put his hand on my bicep. “About that favor you think you owe
me? I have an idea.”

“O-oh?” The
first few possibilities that flashed through my mind were anything but noble. I
gave myself a good mental smack. “Okay. Shoot.”

“See, I’ve got
these friends…”

CHAPTER
10

I pulled into my
driveway, killed the engine, and just sat there for a moment, trying to wrap my
head around everything that’d transpired today. Sarah had yet to call or even
text me about what happened last night. The man I was secretly crushing on—so secretly,
in fact, that even
I
hadn’t realized it before today—surprised me with
not only an early visit, but then a rescue, a ride, and a bizarre request for
payback. I still didn’t know how I was going to make
that
work. And to
top it all off, a fire had broken out in the dumpster next to my building and
I’d ended up the prime suspect thanks to good old Bunni.

It was no wonder
I hated Wednesdays.

As I stared out
at the drab, tan, paint-peeling façade of my apartment, an old, familiar
feeling crept into my subconscious: loneliness. Wednesdays probably wouldn’t
suck nearly as much, I knew, if I had a loving husband waiting inside for me.
Or a few adorable kids grinning in the windows at the sight of Mommy arriving
home.

Ugh, I had the
baby bug, and I had it bad. And there was Sarah, pregnant for the fourth time
and not even wanting to be. Sometimes life just felt downright cruel.

My cell phone
rang and I snatched it up with a growl from my center console. Again, no Sarah.

“Hey, Mitch.
What’s up?”

“What’s up?
Seriously? I just saw the news. Are you alright?”

“Sure. Why
wouldn’t I be?”

“Don’t play innocent
with me, Liz. I know there was a fire just outside your building today. All
four networks had it listed as a top story!”

“No kidding?
Geez, it was just a little dumpster fire. Probably some idiot prank. Hardly
headline news. But yeah, I’m fine.”

“Really? I mean,
I know how much you love fires and all.”

A shiver ran
down my spine. After our seventh grade science experiment had gone so horribly
wrong, I’d never been able to look at Bunsen burners quite the same again. Or
lab coats. Definitely not lab coats.

“Well, sure it
kinda freaked me out, hearing the alarms go off and all. Had just started on a
client. Talk about awkward.” It’d been awkward for me, anyway. I’d stood there
frozen with fear, watching him spring into action. Not that I’d minded the
view.

Not. One. Bit.

“Man or woman?”

“Uh, woman,” I
lied. Had it been Sarah, I might have fessed up. But telling Mitch I got to
watch a naked guy scramble off my table? Yeah, again, awkward.

He bought my
story and chuckled. “Gee, lucky you.”

“Oh, yeah.
Lucky, alright.”

And my luck had
gotten even better at the end of the day. Not only had I gotten to enjoy the
view, I’d also been handed a side gig to offer chair massages for some of
Torrunn’s coworkers as after-hours clients. Seems some of the guys were too
manly, or just too stubborn, to walk into a spa or salon and ask for a massage.
Even the new massage chain store that’d opened in town was too hoity-toity for
them. Dawn had worked on a few of them out of her apartment last summer, but
then she’d gotten pregnant and moved in with Xavier, who quickly put the kibosh
on firemen stopping by after hours to see his fiancée.

“Sorry to do
this, but I gotta go,” Mitch said. “Dinner rush is starting to pick up. I’m so glad
to hear you’re okay. Now will you please call Sarah? She’s been a wreck all day
after what happened last night.”

I bristled. He
hadn’t seen her reaction to my makeover, or her storming away without a second
glance. “I’m sure she is.”

“
Liz
…”

“Alright,
alright. I’ll call her.” Eventually.

I hung up and
let my head fall back against my Prix’s headrest. It wasn’t Sarah’s fault she
was living the life I wanted—it was mine. I’d been too picky for too long, and
had no one to blame but myself. A reality that hurt a lot more than I cared to
admit.

Perhaps this
whole after-hours thing at the fire station would bring me to Mr. Right. And if
that happened, maybe I’d be able to overlook the ‘no dating my clients’ rule.
After all, these were only chair massages. If their clothes stayed on, how
unprofessional could things truly get?