Let Me Love You (2 page)

“You don’t think I can land there?” Joey rose off his seat to get a better view of the makeshift runway. “The trees have got to be forty feet apart.”

The landing would be risky. Difficult at best.

Walker gave him a slanted glance as if he’d read Joey’s mind.

“Okay,” Joey admitted, adjusting his grip over the yoke. “I’d probably brush wingtips. But still, the grass is smooth. It’s long enough, too. With the right wind and the right angle, I could land her.”

“Bullshit!” Walker coughed out a laugh. “You couldn’t land this plane in that stretch if Gillian Anderson was down there waiting for you naked and spread-eagle.”

Joey had always had a thing for the
X-Files
actress. All skeptical green eyes and fiery red hair. He’d damn near cried when Fox canceled the show—not that he’d ever admit that aloud—and now regretted that Walker had been there to witness his pain.

“She might be down there, you never know.” Walker pouted his lips and curled his finger in the air. “I’m sure she’d say, ‘Come and play alien abduction with me.’ She might even call you Mulder if you ask her real nicely.’”

“Walker—”

“Did you pack your space probe for the flight?”

“Hold on to your ass.” Joey banked left and circled toward the clearing. His cell slid off the dash, landing on Walker’s lap. As the phone hit, it vibrated, jarring Walker out of his seat.

In the middle of his hysterics, Walker held up the phone. And his laugh cut short. “Joey…”

“I said shut it!” Joey dived toward the runway, flying the plane hard. They were going to land, and it was going to be perfect. After Walker ate his words, he’d find his jump point before dark.

“Joey.” Walker clamped his hand on Joey’s shoulder. “It’s not that. We have to go back. Now.”

“Hell we do!”

They were so close. Once they cleared the final tree line, he’d drop down and glide onto the grass. Walker wouldn’t be able to say shit after this.

“We have to go back. It’s the chief. He texted again.” Walker’s voice turned grave. “There’s a fire at your brother’s house.”

As the words rattled through Joey’s ears, his heart clenched. The air pushed out of his lungs and his hands went cold as ice. His grip loosened on the yoke. He didn’t have time to fly back, land, and then drive to his brother’s place in Blue Lake. If he’d turned around when he’d gotten the text from the chief, he would’ve been able to rush to his brother’s house instead of being here, in the air. Completely useless.

The sour pit of helplessness swallowed him whole.

They didn’t hang in the air much longer. The tail wing clipped the treetops. They went down to the sickening sound of metal meeting mountain.

Six years later

“Take it off!” a seventy-something woman screamed from the row of chairs closest to the stage. “Shake it, CJ!”

Lucy Stone dragged her best friend Rachael into the Blue Lake fire station and scanned the room for the rest of their friends. If Rachael hadn’t taken so long to say good-bye to her new love—smoking-hot rock star boyfriend Cole Turner—Lucy would’ve been able to enjoy girls’ night in its entirety.

Blue Lake Firefighters’ “Date for a Dollar” auction was in full swing by eleven. It was a good thing Lucy didn’t show for the men (the hot ones were first in the auction lineup). She attended for the cheap beer, complimentary dessert, and hilarious, bellyaching laughter with the best girlfriends in the world.

The station was packed to the max, with a DJ set up along the back wall next to racks of fire gear, and a wooden runway slicing through dozens of folding chairs. Rick “CJ” Caffey (Blue Lake’s most notorious firefighting bachelor) slung his suspenders off his shoulders and gave a little shake near the front corner of the stage.

“Do you see the girls?” Lucy hollered over the roar of the crowd.

Rachael shook her head, gasping when old Mrs. Busbee waved a dollar in front of CJ’s crotch.

“Whoa! Whoa!” Joey Brackett interrupted, striding onto center stage, microphone in hand. “This isn’t a strip show. Put away the dollar, Mrs. Busbee, and buy a date for your granddaughter instead!”

The fire station put on the auction every year and gave all proceeds to programs assisting students in Blue Lake School District who struggled with dyslexia. Although they’d named it Date for a Dollar, that’s simply where the bidding began. Through the years, Lucy had witnessed one dollar turn into two thousand. All for a good cause.

“There!” Rachael pointed over Lucy’s shoulder. “See ’em? Down in front by the speaker!”

Nodding, Lucy weaved through the crowd to join April Cassidy and Laney Owens, two of her very best friends. As they approached the table, CJ’s bid skyrocketed to two hundred dollars. The ladies standing behind their table went wild.

“He’ll take you out on a date to remember!” Joey hollered, his deep voice echoing through the station. “Guaranteed. Just make sure he leaves his suspenders at home! We don’t want to see that dance again!”

Lucy plopped into her seat and stole the beer in front of her. “Tell me this is mine.”

“It’s yours, and number two is on the way.” Brushing her chocolate-brown hair out of her eyes, April pushed her coffee mug aside. “Hope the beer’s better than the coffee. It tastes like motor oil.”

“You’re biased,” Lucy said, and took a hard drink.

April owned the coffee shop in the center of town and brewed the richest coffee Lucy had ever tasted. It was no wonder nothing compared.

“What’d we miss?” Rachael said, crossing her legs and swiveling her hips toward the stage. “Or maybe I should say
who’d
we miss?”

“This year they did the silent auction first, and the cocktail hour felt more like two,” Laney chimed in, yanking a mini-caramel-pop out of her mouth with a slurp. The treat was delicious, made by Laney’s own hand. If there weren’t so many people around, Lucy might’ve stolen the lollipop right out of the candymaker’s fingers. “You only missed the first ten guys or so.”

“How high’d the bids go?” Rachael asked excitedly.

Lucy laughed, nodding in thanks when a firefighter acting as a waiter brought over her second beer. “What d’you care? It’s not like you want to buy a date with any of these guys anyway! Not when you have your dream guy waiting for you back at home.”

Rachael and Cole had been together a year and still couldn’t take their hands off each other. In the last month, they’d left most of the rooms in Rachael’s historical inn vacant, so they could spend private quality time together.

Lucy didn’t blame her. With a guy like Cole on her hands, Lucy wouldn’t leave home for days. Okay, okay…
weeks.

“I may not be shopping for a date for me,” Rachael said, swiping Lucy’s beer. “But I bought Laney a date last year and April a date the year before that. I paid twenty bucks for Jimmy Swanson and thirty-two dollars and fifty cents for Bucky Leo.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.” April rolled her eyes and set them on the next firefighter coming out on stage. “Bucky kept trying to get me naked that night.”

Laney snorted, choking on her lollipop.

“I’m serious!” April said, once Laney burst into a giggle fit. “He did this weird fist-pump-thing to the middle of my back and popped the hook on my bra. From the outside of my shirt!”

Lucy held her hand in front of her face and wiggled her fingers. “Fancy hands, that one.”

“Anyway,” Rachael said, shimmying her eyebrows. “Tonight’s your turn. I want to know how much I’m going to be out.”

“Oh no!” Lucy said. “Nuh-uh. You’re not buying me a date with Bucky.”

“How ’bout Jimmy Swanson?” Laney said, grinning ear to ear. “When we went out after the auction last year, he folded up the corner of our bill and picked his teeth with it.”

Lucy cringed.

“And then he handed it to me so
I
could pay for our dinner,” Laney went on as the music cued up once more. “He’s a charmer. Might be your type, Luce.”

“My type?” Lucy downed her first beer and moved on to the next cold soldier. “How is Ron…or Bucky, for that matter, my type?”

“You go out with a guy once and then you ditch him. You’ve got some kind of second-date phobia.” Rachael spun her chair around as Joey motioned for the next firefighter to walk down the makeshift runway. “At least with Bucky or Ron you won’t be worried about hurting the poor guy’s feelings when you don’t call. They’re used to being rejected.”

Lucy flicked Rachael’s blond ponytail so that it swung over her shoulder. Lucy couldn’t help but be jealous of her friend, all silky blond hair, blue eyes, and smooth skin. Lucy was shorter by a good three inches with crimson curls that brushed her shoulders and freckles dotting her nose. Makeup did wonders hiding the peppering of color on her pale skin, but Rachael didn’t have to work to be beautiful. She simply was. Not to mention she’d found a guy who loved her and treated her well, without putting pressure on setting a wedding date.

“Next up,” Joey said, his voice a rich baritone, “is Fire Chief Bud Hammock! He’s single, ladies, and looking for a fun time!”

Rachael craned her neck around to hitch her eyebrows at Lucy. “Single? Looking for fun? I think he just quoted your eHarmony profile, Luce!”

“Oh, bite me.”

She didn’t have an eHarmony profile.
Not anymore, anyway
, she conceded with chagrin. Leaning back and crossing her arms, Lucy waited for her probable date to prance onstage.

“Here he is, ladies! Fifty has never looked so young!”

Laney and April screamed, clinking their bottles as the fifty-something Bud clunked his work boots toward center stage and danced in a circle with his arms over his head.

“See, when he raises his arms, the beer gut disappears!” Rachael said. “He’s got potential!”

“Great, so on our date, I can tell him to walk around town with his arms swinging over his head like a chimpanzee.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Sexy.”

“All right, listen up.” Joey leaned against the speaker tower and folded his arms over his chest as if he were about to say something deadly serious. As the four ladies at the table next to them hollered for him to take off his shirt, he blushed and dropped the mic to his side. “I don’t think taking my shirt off would make you listen any harder.”

At the mention of something being hard, the station erupted with whistles and catcalls. His cheeks went red.

Oh, Joey Brackett was hot all right.

Just like his twin brother, Dane.

Lucy had always thought they were gorgeous, even when they were in high school. Joey used to be shorter and skinnier than his brother, who’d developed into a total hottie senior year. But since joining the Blue Lake fire crew, Joey had bulked up. He was just under six feet tall, with a flop of dark hair on his head and a five-o’clock shadow covering his square jaw. Ridges of muscle on his chest and arms stretched his white cotton T-shirt, and the dark-washed jeans covering his lower half didn’t look bad either.

Although Joey had definitely caught Lucy’s eye, she’d always wanted to go out with Dane. He and Lucy were two peas in a pod: neither wanted to settle down, and they both took ownership over the family business. She’d inherited StoneMill Winery when her parents died, and Dane had started managing Brackett Outdoor Sports instead of going away to college.

Joey, on the other hand, was the straight arrow of the two brothers. He’d always wanted a doting housewife, 2.5 children, and a house with a white picket fence. He’d always been stable and from what she’d heard, was the more dependable (read: boring) of the two.

Lucy had never wanted that life. Marriage was limiting, a choke chain that could strangle the life out of a person. She’d always have to put someone else’s happiness over her own. She’d always have to check in before she made plans. And going somewhere at the drop of a hat? Forget it. Marriage tied people down, and she had enough responsibility to last a lifetime, right down the highway outside of town.

The legacy her parents had left behind.

She’d poured her heart and soul and all of their dreams and wishes into the place. The stone walls around the winery, the grapes growing on the vines in the two hundred acres, and the employees under her charge…she was responsible for all of it, married to her job, and refused to be tied down in her personal life, too.

Dane believed the same—at least that’s what she’d heard from the women he used to date—but he’d never approached her or made a move.

Didn’t he know how much guiltless
fun
they could have together?

“I’ve got twenty on Brackett!” the blonde next to them shouted, jarring Lucy back to the auction. “Do a twirl, Joey!”

Smiling, he put up his hands. “I’m flattered, ladies, but the MC is auctioned off last! It’s the chief’s turn now. Who’ll start the bidding at one dollar?”

As he scanned the crowd with those big puppy-dog eyes, Lucy wondered why Joey wasn’t married yet. There were dozens of women in Blue Lake who would kill to have a guy on their arm who was anxious to get married and have children. He either had a whole lot of baggage he’d somehow managed to keep private (not an easy feat in a small town like Blue Lake), or he was horrible in bed.