Slow Burn: A Colorado High Country Novel (5 page)

She waved. “Hey.”

Lexi waved back, an excited smile on her face. “We’re taking two vehicles in case the guys get called out. Britta’s riding with Eric this morning, so hop in.”

Vic climbed into the backseat behind Lexi, doing her best to be cheerful despite her aching head. “Good morning.”

Cheyenne, Austin’s younger sister, sat in the backseat, too. Tall like her brother, she wore her dark blond hair in a messy bun, sunglasses covering her eyes. She hadn’t wanted Austin to get back together with Lexi and had been a real bitch to Lexi at first. She’d eventually come around—which was good news because Vic didn’t have the energy to scratch her eyes out this morning.

“I heard you kicked ass at the res yesterday,” she said.

Vic pushed a smile onto her face. “It was a lot of fun.”

Lexi pivoted in her seat. “Did you get a good night’s sleep?”

“Yes.” Vic didn’t want to worry her with something as stupid as a headache. “I stayed up a little too late.”

She didn’t see the look that passed between Lexi and Austin.

* * *

T
hey drove
from Scarlet Springs along the Peak-to-Peak Highway, the scenery taking Vic’s breath away—snow-capped peaks, aspens with their white bark and tiny green leaves, meadows filled with wildflowers. Lexi, Chey, and Austin pointed out landmarks and named the peaks for her, the landscape something they knew well.

Then it dawned on her. “This is your office, isn’t it, Austin?”

He grinned. “Not bad, eh?”

“Pretty fantastic, I’d say.” What would life be like if she never had to set foot inside an office building again? She couldn’t even imagine it.

Almost an hour later, they drove through the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, stopping so that she could get out of the car and take photos—and gawk at a herd of elk that had taken up residence in the middle of the road.

“A Colorado traffic jam.” Eric came to stand beside her. “Check out that rack.”

Was he messing with her again, or was he talking about the elk’s antlers?

She refused to let Eric bait her. “He’s huge.”

“You should come back in the fall. During the rut, the bulls bugle and fight to establish dominance over harems of cows. You can stand here and hear bugling coming from all over this valley.”

“How like males to strut and brawl and make a lot of noise to get attention.”

He chuckled. “How like females to fall for that shit.”

She started to object, but hadn’t she done that with Stewart? Yes, she had. Stewart had put on a show and lured her right in. He’d had her like a fish on a hook the first night she’d met him. How could she have been so stupid?

She changed the subject. “How did it go last night?”

“It was just someone running the Scarlet Midnight Triathlon.”

“There was a triathlon last night?” Something didn’t make sense here.

Or maybe that was just her headache, which was getting worse.

Eric laughed. “The Scarlet Midnight Triathlon is made up of three events. First, you get drunk in Boulder. Second, you roll your vehicle into Scarlet Creek. Third, you run away.”

It was supposed to be a joke, but she didn’t find it funny. “Someone rolled their car into the creek and ran away?”

Eric nodded. “We found him hitchhiking a couple of miles up the road.”

“He’s lucky he wasn’t killed. What a stupid thing to do.”

“Honey, if we could cure stupid, I’d be out of a job.”

* * *

E
ric parked
at Forest Canyon Overlook, the parking lot overrun with tourists, snowflakes drifting lazily from an overcast sky. He glanced over at Britta, who was wearing only a tank top and shorts. “You want my jacket?”

Britta laughed. “I’m the idiot who didn’t bring a coat. I’ll be fine.”

They climbed out of the truck and met Lexi, Austin, Chey, and Victoria at the trailhead that would take them over the tundra to the actual overlook.

Vic snuggled into a purple fleece jacket, her hands in her pockets.

“Even the city girl had enough sense to bring warm layers,” Eric teased.

He got a laugh out of Britta, but Victoria didn’t even look up.

They headed up the trail, now above eleven thousand feet elevation. Lexi, Austin, and Chey were in the middle of a conversation about the wedding reception and didn’t seem to realize that Victoria was falling behind.

Eric held back. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Yes.” She was winded—not unusual for a flatlander. “Woke up … with a really bad headache. I shouldn’t … have had that margarita. I don’t want to … ruin it for everyone.”

“You’re not going to ruin anything, and it wasn’t the margarita.” He walked her to a bench. “Sit down. Stay here.”

“I’m not … a dog.”

He ignored that, jogging to catch up with Austin and Lexi. “I’m taking Victoria down. She’s got altitude sickness.”

They stopped in their tracks.

“Really?” Lexi turned to look back at her friend. “God, why didn’t she say something?”

“What’s going on?” Austin was a paramedic, too.

“Bad headache, shortness of breath. She thought she had a hangover and didn’t want to complain. I’ll take her down and get her hydrated. We’ll catch up with you later.”

He turned and left them staring after him.

Victoria was right where he’d put her, but now there were tears on her cheeks. She pressed fingers to her temples. “Sorry to be a baby … but it really hurts.”

He knelt down, wiped away her tears with his thumbs. “You’re not being a baby. You’ve got altitude sickness.”

“Altitude sickness?”

He didn’t feel like taking the time to explain. “How long has it been since you’ve had a piggy-back ride?”

She got to her feet. “I can walk.”

So, she was going to be stubborn again.

“I know you can, but I’m not going to let you.” He knelt down, her arms going around his neck as he caught her legs and lifted her weight onto his back.

She gave a startled squeak as he got to his feet. “Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you to a lower elevation until you’re better.” He ignored the curious stares of tourists on their way up the trail. “Are you okay back there?”

“Oh, my God!” she whispered. “I’m being carried by a fireman!”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” If only the women of Scarlet were as impressed with his profession as Victoria was…

He set her on her feet beside his pickup, unlocked the door, and helped her into the passenger seat. Then he reached into the back and grabbed a bottle of water. “Drink. Lots of little sips. Got it?”

He headed back down Trail Ridge Road, hazarding the occasional glance her way. “Keep sipping.”

Her eyes were closed, her face tight with pain. “This didn’t happen last time.”

“Last year, Lexi had a broken leg, and you spent most of your time sitting indoors with her. You didn’t spend a day in the sun wakeboarding. I’ll bet money you’re dehydrated. That makes it worse.”

It took about thirty minutes to drop to nine thousand feet, the road crowded with tourists in RVs, campers, and family sedans.

“Do you feel any better?”

“No.”

He kept going all the way to the park’s entrance, but he didn’t have to ask to see that she was still hurting. “How do you feel about taking a little drive to visit my mother down in Boulder?”

Victoria didn’t even answer.

V
ic opened her eyes
, stretched, glanced around her. Late afternoon sunshine spilled through homemade drapes adorned with images of balls—baseballs, footballs, soccer balls, basketballs. Posters of pickups and cars competed for wall space with posters of rock bands—Led Zeppelin, Boston, Journey, Metallica, U2.

Where was she exactly?

Eric’s bedroom.

Not his real bedroom, but the bedroom he’d had as a kid.

She’d had altitude sickness, and he’d brought her to his mother’s house, given her ibuprofen, taken her pulse, made her drink a lot of water, then told her to rest.

It had worked.

She sat up, both relieved and amazed to discover that her headache was gone. Then again, she was close to a mile lower in elevation than she’d been when Eric had carried her back to his truck.

Oh, God!

She’d been carried by a firefighter.

And, of course, she’d been in too much pain even to think of taking a selfie.

Damn.

She glanced around again, the innocent boyishness of the room putting a smile on her face. This is where teenage Eric had hung out back when he and Lexi and Austin had been in high school together and—

Lexi!

She must wonder what in the world was going on.

That thought had Vic out of bed and on her feet. She reached for her handbag, which sat on the small desk in the corner, and searched inside for her cell phone. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t in the pockets of the jacket she’d been wearing either. Maybe she’d left it in Eric’s truck.

She opened the bedroom door and followed the sound of voices down the hallway and through the living room, snatches of conversation drifting through the front screen door. Outside, Eric’s mother, Robin, was talking with her son, who was lying on his back beneath an old SUV, only his legs and a strip of bare abdomen visible.

“They cracked the cap on your transmission tank. Probably screwed it on too tight when you got the fluid changed. That’s where the leak’s coming from. I’ll run to the auto supply store and get you a new one and then top off your transmission fluid. That ought to take care of it.”

Vic stepped outside. “Hey.”

Robin’s head came around. “Hey, there. How do you feel?”

“Much better. Thank you.”

“I should thank you.” Robin looked down at her son, who was wriggling his way out from beneath the car. “I haven’t seen Eric for a while. You brought him home.”

A tall woman in her mid-fifties, she had a gentle demeanor that Vic had found instantly soothing when they’d arrived a few hours ago. Like Eric, she had brown hair, though hers was now streaked with gray. Apart from that and her eyes, there wasn’t much of a resemblance.

“It’s only been two weeks, Mom.” Eric’s head appeared, the muscles of his bare chest and belly shifting as he sat up. “She just likes to put me to work.”

Robin laughed, a happy twinkle in blue eyes that were so much like her son’s. “Don’t let him fool you. He puts himself to work when he comes here, doing things I can’t do by myself. I’m very lucky.”

Wiping his hands on a rag, Eric got to his feet, the damp hair at his temples and the beads of sweat on his chest telling Vic he’d been working outdoors for a while. He walked over to her, those blue eyes studying her, concern pulling his brows together in a frown. “How’s your head?”

“I feel fine. Thanks.” She tried to keep her eyes on his face and not his pecs with their dark curls. It wasn’t easy when his chest was even with her eyes. “Um … Do you know where my cell phone is? I need to let Lexi know what’s going on.”

“She knows. I’ve been keeping her posted.” He opened the front door for her.

“Oh. Thanks.” She walked indoors, following him back toward the kitchen.

“Your phone is in the fridge. The damned thing wouldn’t quit buzzing.”

“You put my phone in the refrigerator?” She hurried after him.

He walked into the kitchen, jerked open the refrigerator door, and pulled out her phone. “I didn’t want it waking you up.”

“Thanks … I think.” She took it from him and entered her password, her stomach sinking at the sight of the half dozen messages that waited for her.

It’s not him. He’s in prison.

Relief and irritation chased through her one after the other when she saw the emails were all from Abigail.

“Hey, if you don’t mind, I’d like to mow my mom’s lawn before we head back up to Scarlet.” He grabbed two glasses, filled them with ice and water. “It will only take about twenty minutes. Is that okay with you?”

“Of course.” She took the glass he gave her, looked up from her phone—and froze, her email inbox momentarily forgotten.

The muscles of Eric’s throat worked as he drank, a rivulet of sweat trickling slowly down his neck, his sun-kissed skin radiating heat. He finished drinking, set the glass down on the counter, and walked outside, leaving Vic standing like a statue, glass raised halfway to her lips.

* * *

“
H
e likes you
.”

Robin’s words took Vic by surprise, her gaze jerking from the window to the woman who sat beside her at the kitchen table. “What do you mean?”

“He’s never brought a woman home before.”

“Wait. You think …?” Heat rushed into Vic’s cheeks. “It’s not like that. He didn’t bring me
home
home. I’m just here. I was sick and ... Eric and I … We’re just friends. Yeah. We’re not even good friends.”

“I can tell when my son is attracted to a woman.” She dropped this bombshell, then took a sip of her iced tea. “You’re attracted to him, too.”

“Well…” What could Vic say to this?

“Most women see the muscles, the badge, the bunker gear. What they don’t see is the man who still mows his mother’s lawn, who fixes her car, shovels her sidewalk in the winter, puts up her Christmas lights, and cleans the gutters on her house.” Robin’s love for her son was palpable, her blue eyes soft as she spoke about him.

“You two are close, aren’t you?”

Robin nodded. “He’s my only child. For a long time, it was just the two of us against the world. His daddy left Scarlet the day after I told him I was pregnant, so I raised Eric on my own.”

Vic supposed she ought to feel awkward hearing Eric’s life story. She didn’t know him that well. But there was something about his mother that put her at ease, that made her feel safe and at home. “That must have been tough for both of you.”

“It was tougher on him, I think. It’s hard for a boy to define himself as a man with no man in the house to act as a role model.”

Vic had to bite back a laugh. If there was one thing Eric did not seem to lack, it was a sense of his own masculinity. “He seems to have figured that out.”

This made Robin smile. “His friendship with Austin helped fill in the gaps. He spent a lot of time at Austin’s house, hanging with Austin and his father. They’re like brothers, those two.”

Altitude sickness must have scrambled Vic’s brains. There was no other way to explain what she said next. “Why is he still single?”

Robin glanced out the window into her backyard, where Eric was pushing the mower from one side to the other. “He had a lot of responsibility placed on his shoulders at a young age. Being fire chief, volunteering for the Team—that’s a lot of responsibility, too. Can you imagine having someone’s life in your hands?”

Vic shook her head. “That would scare me to death.”

“I know what some people say about him—that he’s a playboy, that he’ll never settle down, that he’s afraid of responsibility because he was forced to work too hard as a boy.” Robin’s brows knit together in a frown, hurt behind her blue eyes. “But a man who’s afraid of responsibility doesn’t spend his days off helping his mother. I think it’s the reverse. I think some part of him is afraid he’ll let a woman down, given his schedule. He’s seen a lot of firefighters end up divorced. It’s just another hazard of the job.”

“I didn’t know that.”

Robin’s eyes narrowed. “So tell me your story. I’ve wanted to know more about you since you set tongues wagging during your first visit.”

* * *

E
ric brushed
his arm across his forehead to wipe away sweat, opened the front screen door, and stopped with one foot inside, the door still open.

Someone was crying.

“It’s not your fault, Victoria.” His mother’s voice was calm and soothing, the tone she used when someone was upset. “Men like him are always looking for an opportunity to hurt women.”

Some bastard had hurt Victoria?

Sweat trickled down Eric’s back and chest as he listened, rooted to the spot.

“I can’t believe I trusted him.” Victoria sniffed. “He used me. He humiliated me, and he enjoyed it. He almost destroyed my life.”

“He’s in prison now, and that’s right where he deserves to be.”

Prison?

What the hell?

What had the bastard done?

A dozen ideas flashed through Eric’s mind, none of them pretty.

If she wanted you to know, she’d have told you.

Taylor and Lexi knew. That’s why Taylor had warned him about her.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust myself when it comes to men again. I was so
stupid
.” Victoria spat the last word out, her rage at herself palpable.

“No, you weren’t. There’s no way you could have known what kind of man he truly was. But you know what? I don’t hear the lawnmower. Eric will be back inside in a minute.”

Another sniff. “I don’t want him to see me like this.”

Well, shit.

His mother had always been someone that people trusted, someone they confided in, someone they turned to for support, so it didn’t surprise him that Victoria had opened up to her. But Victoria needed more time, and Eric knew how he could give it to her.

He stepped inside, let the screen door slam good and hard behind him. “Hey, Mom, I’m heading to the auto-parts store to get that cap for your transmission fluid tank. I’ll be back as soon as I can be.”

“Okay, son. Thank you!”

He grabbed the T-shirt he’d tossed onto the floor a few hours ago, yanked it over his head, and stepped outside again, cutting across the yard to his pickup, which sat parked at the curb. He jerked open the door, threw himself into the driver’s seat, then jammed the keys into the ignition. Only when he nearly missed the stop sign at the end of the block did he realize how tense he was.

No, not tense. Angry.

He was pissed off that Taylor hadn’t trusted him with the whole story. He was pissed off that all he had to go on were the ideas his imagination was churning up one after the other. Mostly he was pissed at the son of a bitch who’d hurt her.

Damn it.

He had no tolerance for men who abused women.

Then again, why was he so worked up over this? Sure, he felt compassion for Victoria, but then he felt compassion for anyone who was suffering. But what was with the rage? He was getting primal and protective over her, and he barely knew her. She was the friend of a friend who happened to cross his path. Next Sunday, she’d get on a plane and fly back to Chicago. He’d see her now and again when she came to Scarlet to visit Lexi, and that was it.

You’re falling for her.

A laugh burst from between his lips.

That
was loco. Absurd. Completely insane.

Hell, yeah, he was attracted to her. She’d been on his mind a lot since she’d arrived. But there was no chance he and Victoria were going to get together. He didn’t do relationships. He didn’t even have time to get laid these days.

That was it. He was horny.

You’re always horny.

No, seriously. He hadn’t been with a woman in … hell, months? After the wedding, he’d have to do something about that.

Relieved to have worked that out, he drew in a deep breath, turned up his music, and let U2 blast his thoughts away.