Hot for Fireman (22 page)

Numb, she let him drag her toward the truck. The sight of his muscles moving under the bare skin of his back hypnotized her. Being with Ryan was like falling down a rabbit hole. If she went too much farther, she’d never come back.

She dug in her heels. “No. I can’t.”

He spun around and planted his hands on her shoulders. “Why not? What’s going on?”

“Why aren’t you studying? Your exam’s this afternoon, isn’t it?”

“Is that it? You’re worried about me getting my job back?”

Sure. That sounded good. “It’s not easy finding a good bartender.”

But he wasn’t falling for it. He narrowed his eyes at her. “What does that matter? You’re not going to stay there forever anyway. You hate it.”

She stuck out her chin and forced the words out of her mouth. “As a matter of fact, my father just offered to sign the business over to me. I guess he thinks I’m doing a good job.”

Suddenly still, he studied her. Awareness of his hands on her shoulders burned through her. “Is that what you want?”

What she wanted?
This wasn’t about what she wanted. She wanted Ryan more than anything, but she couldn’t tell him that. “No, it’s not what I want. It’s the last thing I want. I’d even rather go back to grad school. But I don’t have a choice anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Why do you think?” she practically yelled at him.

She could see the wheels turning. If she’d ever thought Ryan wasn’t smart, she knew better now. In no time, he’d put it together. “Because you gave all your money to John Springer. Fuck. I told you not to give him anything. How much?”

Dumbly, she shook her head.

“
How much did you give him?
”

“Nine thousand dollars.”

He went white. “Come on. We’re going inside. You have to tell your parents. It’s not right that you should sacrifice your future to some asshole criminal.”

“No. No.” She fought against his relentless tug toward the house as if her life depended on it. “I’ll deny it. I swear to God, I will. I’ll never forgive you.”

He finally stopped, but didn’t let go of her arm. He stared down at her, all playfulness gone. “This isn’t right, Katie. You’re going to spend your life in that bar, hating every second?”

“I don’t hate every second.” She liked the seconds when he was around, but he’d be gone the instant he passed his exam. “I only hate every third second or so. The other two are just fine.”

His lips quirked. Then his Adam’s apple moved. He snorted. A wide smile spread across his face. He laughed, and that beloved, playful sound, along with the summery light in his eyes and the goddamn groove in his cheek, flooded her being.

He brushed his thumb across her cheek. “You know I get a kick out of you.”

Lead, sick and heavy, settled in the bottom of her stomach. “You get a
kick
out of me?”

“Yes. A big kick.”

“Well, stop.” She brushed his hand away from her face. No touching. Not now. Not while he was breaking her heart. “No more kicks.”

“What are you talking about?” He loomed over her, frowning with blue-eyed confusion.

“I want you to leave me alone.” She turned blindly, desperate to get away before she started crying.

But he stopped her again, all trace of that easygoing Ryan charm gone. “No. What’s going on, Katie?”

“Let me go!”

“Not a chance. Something’s wrong and I want to know what. I’m your friend, you can tell me.”

At that, Katie lost it completely. She wanted to rip that concerned look off his face with her bare hands, but his grip on her kept her pinned to the ground. “
That’s
what’s wrong, you idiot!”

“What?”

“I’m in love with you! And to you, I’m a friend. And you get a kick out of me. A
kick
!” She emphasized the point with an actual kick at the air between them.

His grip loosened, his arm fell away from her shoulder. Every part of his body went slack, including his jaw. Even his bare chest looked shocked. And she couldn’t bring herself to look at his face. What would she see there? Pity? Alarm? Joy? But no . . . if he wanted her to love him, he would have said something by now. Instead the silence dragged on, and on, and on. She wanted to die right there on the spot.

She ducked under his arm and ran for her car.

“Wait,” he called, but his voice sounded weak and confused, as if he knew he ought to say something but couldn’t think what.

“No. Forget about it, Ryan. Forget any of this ever happened.”

When she finally dared a look at his face, it was in the rearview mirror as she pulled away from the curb. He stood, bare-chested and gorgeous, hands fisted in his pockets, staring down at her parents’ lawn.

Chapter Twenty-Two

F
orget about it? Not likely, although Ryan almost wished he could. Katie
loved
him? She was
in love
with him? It felt like a new vocabulary word he had to learn. Zeke hadn’t ever used it. His former girlfriends had used it in a casual way, a love-ya kind of way. Come to think of it, had he ever in his life told someone he loved her, or him?

Nothing came to mind. He loved the guys at the firehouse. He loved Brody. But he hadn’t ever told them so. The very thought made him choke.

When she’d said—well, yelled—the words, a strange feeling had come over him. A warm, tender, itchy, unfamiliar feeling that made him want to find a fire to blast a hose at.

He checked his watch. Almost time for his exam. Brody was probably already waiting for him at the station. He jammed his foot on the accelerator. He didn’t have time to work this out right now. He had a job to win back.

In Captain Brody’s quiet office, he sat down facing the implacable charcoal eyes of his mentor. The six binders of the Manual of Operations sat on the desk in front of him. As if to emphasize the seriousness of the occasion, Stan had been banished from the office.

“Are you ready for this, Ryan?”

“Yes, sir.” He didn’t usually call the captain “sir,” but the situation seemed to call for it.

“You’ve been studying?”

“I know that manual inside and out.”

Brody nodded thoughtfully. “Did Katie Dane help you?”

“No. Not at all,” he answered, more forcefully than he intended. “The opposite.”

Brody raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“Got a little distracted.”

Brody looked at him steadily. Something about that calm attitude of his drew the words right out of Ryan’s mouth.

“When I should have been studying, I was shaking my ass at a bachelorette party, thanks to her. Then I had to go see my father to check out some . . . lowlife she got hooked up with. Not to mention—” Just in time, he stopped himself from telling the whole story of Katie’s nefarious deeds. “Well, I had to keep an eye out for fire. Place has bad luck when it comes to fires.”

“Sounds like you’ve been busy,” said Brody.

“Damn right. I haven’t had time for anything else besides watching over Katie. And studying.”

Brody nodded, considering him. “Well, let’s give this a whirl, shall we?” He opened the manual. “We’ll start with wildland fire procedures.”

But Ryan’s mind was still wrapped up in Katie. “It doesn’t seem right that a smart girl like her would get stuck doing something that doesn’t suit her. She hates running the bar. And she’s gotten bored with graduate school. She doesn’t like people much, is the problem. Except kids. Loves kids. They love her too. You should have seen her with Danielle. And now her father wants to sign the Hair of the Dog over to her. It’s not fair. It’s not right. She deserves to choose what she wants. She could do anything. Well, anything that doesn’t involve a lot of people. People are not her thing.”

Brody closed the manual, holding his place with his thumb. “She seems to like you pretty well.”

“She says she lo—” He stopped himself before he said the whole word.

Brody cocked his head. Ryan snapped his mouth shut and pressed his lips together. He wasn’t ready to talk about this.

Brody flipped open a binder. “Well, then—”

“The thing is,” burst out Ryan. “I don’t know why I can’t stop thinking about her. I worry about her when I’m not there. She has a way of getting into trouble, even though she means well. And she has this loser ex-boyfriend who won’t leave her alone. And her family calls her whenever they need something. Ride to the airport. Make burgers for a barbecue. Pick up a gnome at the hardware store.
Run the bar
. And she does it. She has a big heart, that’s the thing. She loves her family. She’ll do anything for them. But that’s not always a good thing.” He shook his head at Brody when the captain seemed about to speak. “Sometimes she goes too far. It’s like she doesn’t think she has a right to a life of her own. Her brothers get to go off and play baseball. Did I mention their whole family is athletic? Bridget teaches step class. She’s supposedly the beauty of the family, although to me, Katie has her beat by a mile.”

Brody snapped the manual shut. “Did I mention this exam is about the procedures and policies of the San Gabriel Fire Department, not the life of Katie Dane?”

“Oh. Of course, Cap. Sorry.” Ryan collected himself. Katie’s declaration of love had completely thrown him. “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

Brody opened the manual and read. “ ‘All responding fire companies shall utilize and establish LCES.’ Walk me through it, step by step.”

“LCES. It means you select Lookouts, establish Communications, identify Escape routes, and select Safety zones.” As Ryan concentrated on answering the questions Brody threw at him, the image of Katie danced at the edge of his mind the entire time. When Brody finally stopped firing questions, he couldn’t remember a single one of them.

“Thanks for coming in, Ryan. I’ll let you know what I decide.”

“Thanks, Cap.” He hauled himself to his feet, feeling wrung out.

“Before you go, one thing.” The gleam in Brody’s eye made Ryan distinctly nervous.

“Yeah?”

“Have you considered the possibility that you might be in love with Katie?”

Ryan stared at his captain. Was some kind of crazy love virus going around that made everyone harp on that particular word? “Are you nuts?”

“Have you ever been in love before?”

Ryan wanted to say something easy like,
Not since my first dirt bike
, but the question seemed to call for a more serious approach. He considered it the way Brody would, carefully, thoughtfully.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I haven’t had many examples of . . . love . . . in my life. Except you and Melissa.”

“Do you remember how crazy Melissa drove me when we first met?”

“I remember.” The whole station had noticed. They’d been worried. Until they’d all taken Melissa into their hearts.

“Love can do that. Love can do all kinds of things.”

Maybe that’s what he was afraid of. Ryan dragged himself out to his truck, sure he’d failed the exam. Sure he’d ruined everything with Katie. Sure he’d never been more mixed up in his life.

D
oug Atwell knew the exact moment his life had gone to shit. When he’d allowed that freakin’ Ryan dude into the Hair of the Dog
.
Before then, he’d felt one hundred percent sure Katie would come back to him. He knew her. When it came to soft hearts, no one beat Katie Dane.

But Ryan had messed everything up. Now when Katie looked at him Doug saw something new in her eyes. Boredom. Katie was bored with him. He needed to do something spectacular to chase that look away. Nothing he’d tried so far—setting fires, finding Carson Smith—had worked. Because of freakin’ Ryan.

Good thing he knew where Carson Smith was staying. He knocked on the man’s door at the Days Inn. When he answered, the sight of a purpling bruise on his cheek and his swollen nose made Doug take a step back.

“What the hell do you want?”

“I . . . um . . .” Doug stammered. Over Smith’s shoulder, he saw a packed suitcase ready for departure. He’d caught him just in time. “I want to hire you.” He put his hand in his pocket and brought out the wad of cash he’d withdrawn from the bank. The sight seemed to soften Smith. Behind his aviator glasses, his eyes slid to the cash, then back to Doug.

“I’m heading out. What did you need?”

“Can I come in?”

“Make it swift.”

Doug followed him into the hotel room. The sound of the door clicking shut gave him an unpleasant start.

“State your business.” Smith didn’t even sit down. In his tan windbreaker and chinos, he faced Doug like a baseball coach deciding whether to bring in a new pitcher.

“There’s someone I want to get rid of. Not kill,” he added hastily. “Just chase away. He’s a bartender at the Hair of the Dog, and he’s trouble.”

Carson Smith’s gaze sharpened. For the first time, he focused seriously on Doug, who felt vaguely pleased by that.

“Ryan Blake.”

“Oh, you know him?”

“I make it a point to know everyone involved in a job.”

“That’s it. I don’t
want
him involved. I want him to leave. I don’t want him near Katie anymore.”

“Is Katie your girl? I thought you were just friends.”

The nasty gleam in the man’s gray eyes made Doug’s spine stiffen. “We’re way more than friends. Way more. From way back.”

“So you want your girl back. And Ryan’s getting in the way. I can see how he would. Good-looking fellow.”

Doug ground his teeth. He didn’t like this man knowing his private business. He didn’t like the patronizing looks he kept tossing at him. Carson Smith was treating him like a child. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if Smith would treat Ryan Blake like this. The thought made him madder than ever. “So will you do something?”

“Hell no.”

“
What?
”

“I don’t get involved in domestic issues. Now get out of here.” He waved his hand as if Doug were nothing more than a mosquito.

Dismissed.
Doug hung his head and turned to go. His gaze snagged on a desk drawer that stood slightly open. Something black gleamed within. It looked like a gun.

Operating on sheer impulse, he dove toward the drawer and grabbed the black thing. He bobbled it in his hands, shocked to find it actually was a gun. Good thing he’d had a hit of weed before he came here. He always thought better slightly stoned.

He held the gun in both hands and aimed it at Carson Smith, who held his pudgy hands in a calming gesture.

“Like to rephrase that?” Doug put on a nasty tough-guy sneer. Wasn’t that a line from a Clint Eastwood movie? Or one of the
Die Hard
s? It worked perfectly, in any case.

“I really don’t,” said Carson Smith, mildly. “Do you actually think you can shoot me at a Days Inn in the middle of the day? Come now, son, I know you’re upset. Put down the gun. It isn’t even loaded.”

“Oh.” Doug tossed the gun onto the desk.

Smith ambled over to the desk and idly picked up the gun. “Did I say it wasn’t loaded? Oops.” He clicked the safety off and aimed it at Doug, who turned white. “You’re dumber than I thought, boy.”

“But . . . Days Inn . . . middle of the day . . . all that stuff you said,” stammered Doug.

“I’m not going to shoot you, jerkoff.” He lowered the gun. “Actually, you’ve touched my heart with your sad tale of thwarted love. But some things a man has to do for himself. Like get his woman back.”

Doug nodded frantically. He would have agreed with anything the dude said right now.

“But I have to admire your tenacity. And you are Jay’s nephew, so I suppose I can help you out. For instance, I could tell you about a perfectly obvious solution staring you in the face.” Smith caressed the gun, put the safety back on, then bent down to stow it away in a holster strapped to his shin. He pulled his chinos over it. Doug watched every movement with a kind of sick fascination. Was he supposed to be guessing at the brilliant solution right in front of him? His solution had been to come here. So far it hadn’t exactly been a raging success.

“Mr. Blake is a fireman, correct? Firemen know a lot about fires. They probably know how to set fires better than anyone. Not only that, they keep highly flammable substances on the premises. They buy a certain brand of varnish in bulk. They use it on their ladders. Do you know what kind?”

Doug shook his head.

“That might be a convenient piece of information to possess. In fact, I happen to have a can of it in my car, but I’ll probably drop it by the Dumpster on my way out. If a fire broke out at the Hair of the Dog, and it appeared to be set by a professional fireman, and there happened to be such a person working on the premises, why . . .”

Doug squinted, trying to follow the logic. “They’d blame it on Ryan?”

“Indeed. Arson is a serious crime for a fireman. For anyone, but especially a fireman. He’d be shunned by his own kind.”

“But . . . Katie wants the bar to burn down. She might like him more than ever.”

“Ah, but my understanding is that the insurance policy runs out in a very, very few days. A little patience goes a long way, son.”

“That’s, that’s . . . evil,” whispered Doug. “They’d lose everything.”

“Well, yes. She’d probably be quite upset. And she’d certainly never forgive the man who set the fire. Now. Unless you’re planning to help me carry my bags to my car, perhaps you can find some other lucky problem solver to pester.”

Doug started. “Right. Sorry. Thanks. I’ll . . . uh . . . think it over.”

Carson pushed his glasses higher on his nose and shouldered his duffel bag. “Do what you want. But don’t ever come my way again. I don’t usually let young idiots like you point a gun at me and live.”

He shoved past Doug on his way into the hall. Doug caught a close-up look at the damage to his face as he passed. Whoever had stood up to Smith like that, Doug would like to shake his hand.

A
fter his exam, a restless, aimless energy consumed Ryan. Normally he would head to work, where the twin distractions of serving drinks and teasing Katie would take his mind off things. But he couldn’t go there, not while things with Katie were so up in the air.

Before he saw her, he had to figure this whole thing out. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a clue how to approach such a problem. So when Vader called to see how the test had gone, he jumped at the distraction.

“Spread the word. Party at my house. I’ll grab some beer and chips.”

“How about the Hair of the Dog? That’s where the chicks are nowadays.”

“It’s my day off. You feel like putting out fires on your day off?”

“Yeah.”

“Just come to my place.”

When Vader, Double D, and Joe the Toe showed up about an hour later, Ryan was pulling a pan of nachos out of the oven.

“You’ll make some lucky girl a fine wife someday,” said Joe the Toe, settling himself onto the couch. Between him, Vader, and Double D’s belly, Ryan’s living room suddenly looked tiny.