The Last of The Red Hot Firefighters (Red Hot Reunions Book 1) (3 page)

The day before yesterday.

Every toilet in the station backed up on a regular basis, the roof was leaking so badly no patch-job stood a chance, and the break room was a pitiful beige nightmare that practically invited men to get into a fistfight just to liven up the joint.

Mitzy Chambers was a force of nature and had a gift for raising money. If she believed this month-long investment of his time would help raise the funds for a new firehouse, then Jake would do his best to fetch a decent auction price. He had no illusions about selling for as much as Jamison—his little brother had always had a way with women, and not a shy bone in his body—but Jake didn’t think he would embarrass the department.

“Go on, Jake,” Mitzy said, after asking the room for a five hundred dollar bid. “Show these ladies the strong arm they’d be hanging on to for the next four Fridays.”

Jake was flexing his bicep—trying not to laugh along with Mrs. Mulligan, an old friend of the family who was giggling hard enough to make her entire chair shake—when an eerily familiar voice called out—

“Fifteen hundred dollars.”

The shouts and laughter filling the room gradually gave way to indrawn breaths and shocked murmurs.

Jake lifted his eyes, his gaze honing in on the owner of the voice. There, at the back of the room, with an auction card raised high above her head, her honey-streaked brown hair tumbling around her shoulders and her blue eyes round in her undeniably gorgeous face, stood Naomi Whitehouse.

Naomi, the only girl who had ever broken his heart.

The girl who told Jake his love wasn’t enough—
he
wasn’t enough—and ran off to date half the world’s male population.

On national television, no less.

Naomi Whitehouse was almost as famous for her string of high-profile boyfriends as she was her cooking show,
At Home with Naomi,
and her line of gourmet products. And now she was back in Summerville, playing house with her sister and brother while her parents snow-birded in Florida, thinking she could breeze back into his town, his
life
, and act like they were nothing but long-lost friends.

Once upon a time, Jake had loved the woman meeting his eyes across the crowded room more than his own family. There was a time when he would have done anything for Naomi—moved to the ends of the earth to be by her side, given his last dime for her comfort, laid down his life for her happiness.

Now, he didn’t want to give her the time of day.

“Do I hear sixteen hundred?” Mitzy asked, a strain in her voice that made Jake acutely aware of the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the room.

Most of these women knew that he and Naomi had been high school sweethearts before she’d gone on to bigger things, and he had wised up and married a woman who valued him. A sweet, wonderful, loving woman who had been taken away from him too soon, before they could move into the house they were building, or start the family they had dreamed of.

Jenny had died almost two years ago, leaving him alone without even a little boy or girl with her freckled-scattered nose to remember her by. He was ashamed to say he was forgetting the sound of her laughter, and needed to glance at her picture on the dresser to remember where the dimples had popped on her cheeks. He was forgetting what Jenny had smelled like fresh from the shower, when she used to crawl in bed beside him and tuck her cold toes beneath his legs.

He was forgetting the little things about his wife of three years, even as his stupid subconscious clung to memories of Naomi that he wished would disappear. But he couldn’t seem to forget her. He could still remember the way Naomi cried when he told her he loved her for the first time. And if he closed his eyes and took a deep breath of winter air, he could pull up every detail of the last time they’d made love in the tree house behind his dad’s place, from the glow of Naomi’s skin in the moonlight, to the hitch in her voice when she promised never to let him go.

But she had let him go.

She’d left Summerville a week later, leaving nothing behind but a letter telling Jake that it was over, and that she needed to get out of Georgia. She’d written that she wasn’t ready to promise anyone forever, not when she still felt like a kid in so many ways. She’d insisted that it wasn’t his fault—she was to blame—and on and on for five, torturous pages, obviously trying to lessen the blow, but all her excuses hadn’t done a thing to ease Jake’s broken heart.

He’d locked up every tender emotion he possessed that day and put away the key until nearly a decade later when his friend Jenny from the gym had slowly become something more. But it had taken years,
years
for him to forget Naomi and let another woman in.

Maybe someday, years from now, when the loneliness got to be too much, he might find the strength to lower his defenses again, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be for Naomi Whitehouse, no matter how much of her Hollywood money she plunked down. Some things couldn’t be bought, and forgiveness was one of them.

He held her eyes, hoping she’d see the futility of this stunt and back down while she had the chance. But Naomi only took a deep breath and stood up straighter, meeting his challenging gaze with a determined one.

“Sixteen hundred?” Mitzy asked again, but the room stayed as silent as a honky-tonk on Sunday afternoon. “All right. Fifteen hundred going once, going twice, and Jake Hansen is sold to number fifty-eight!”

With one final glare in Naomi’s direction, Jake turned and stomped back down the catwalk, barely able to hear the polite applause or the throbbing bass line of the music over the roar of his own blood rushing in his ears.

He hadn’t been this angry in…

Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this angry.

CHAPTER FIVE

Jake

By the time Jake escaped through the curtain to the backstage area, his hands were balled so tight his knuckles were cracking.

He wanted to hit something, to slam his fists into the punching bag at the station until his hands were bruised. Instead, he shrugged on his T-shirt and sweater and stalked over to the snack table, pouring himself a cup of soda and doing his best not to squeeze the red Solo cup into plastic splinters as he took a drink.

“You all right?” Jamison asked as he approached, his brother’s tone leaving no doubt he knew exactly who had purchased Jake for the month.

“I’m fine,” Jake said, crunching a piece of ice viciously between his teeth.

“Who was that chick? Do I need to kick her ass for you?” Faith asked, coming to stand next to Jake, propping her hands on her hips in a way that made it clear that if Jake gave the word, she was ready to rumble.

Faith was the lone female member of the SFD and like a little sister to Jake and Jamison. Her uncle and their dad had worked together for years, and both families boasted three straight generations of firefighters.

Faith had grown up at the firehouse, but that hadn’t stopped some of the guys from giving her shit when she first joined the department. Jake had stood up for her from day one, a fact that had earned him Faith’s undying loyalty. There was no doubt in his mind that the spunky blonde with the killer right hook was absolutely serious about smashing Naomi’s face in.

Too bad this was a situation neither of them could solve with their fists.

“No, it’s fine,” Jake said, ignoring the skeptical look Jamison shot his way. “I can handle Naomi.”

“Are you sure? Because I will pound her for you, J. I have no problem with that.” Faith narrowed her brown eyes, managing to look menacing despite the fact she had the kind of face seen on billboards for apple pie and wholesome country living. “Anyone responsible for making another freaking cooking show for my mom to make me watch on Sundays deserves to be roughed up.”

This time, Jake’s smile wasn’t forced. “I’ve never watched her show.”

“Good. Because it’s stupid,” Faith said, grabbing a handful of corn chips from the bowl on the table.

“Are you sure you should eat those?” Jamison asked in his usual teasing voice. “You have to go look sexy in a few minutes. Wouldn’t want to get chip belly.”

Faith turned her glare on Jamison. “I don’t get chip belly.” She shoved a handful of chips into her mouth and crunched as she spoke. “And even if I did, I’d still be hot lady firefighter meat. I’ll probably go for more money than you did.”

Jamison raised a dark brow. “Oh, yeah? You want to bet on that?”

“Yeah, I do,” Faith said, wiping her hands on her jeans as she backed away from the table. “But I told your daddy I wouldn’t encourage your gambling problem, so…” She shrugged and tightened the plaid shirt knotted below her ribs before lifting her hands into the air.

“I don’t have a gambling—” Jamison broke off with a laugh as Faith stuck out her tongue and turned her back on him, sliding into line behind Brandon, a newbie to the department who, at the moment, looked more like he might vomit on the catwalk instead of strut across it.

Normally, Jake would have gone over and tried to put the kid at ease, but right now, he had no ease to spare. The reality of being forced to spend several hours in Naomi Whitehouse’s company every Friday for the next month was settling around his neck like a boa constrictor determined to squeeze the life out of him.

“You could tell Mitzy you can’t do it,” Jamison said.

Jake’s little brother could always tell what he was thinking, no matter how firmly Jake’s defensive walls were in place.

Jake shook his head. “We need the money.”

“We don’t need it that bad,” Jamison said. “The other fundraisers should make up the difference. I mean, things are hard enough for you this time of year.”

Jake clenched his jaw. It
was
a hard time of year, but Naomi didn’t know that. She didn’t know anything about his life since she left, or his recent, painful history. Maybe if she did, she could be convinced to leave him alone. All he would have to do is drop the wall long enough to let her know he wasn’t up for being friends or making nice or whatever it was she wanted from him.

Naomi was as stubborn as hell and had enough determination for three women and a bulldog, but she used to have a well-developed sense of empathy. If he let her see how messed up he was by her sudden return, he could probably convince her to leave him alone. A few minutes of vulnerability is all it would take to spare himself the misery of escorting his ex-girlfriend to a month of high-profile fundraisers.

“So what do you think?” Jamison asked, his eyes on the soda bottles he was arranging in a long, even line at the edge of the table. “Want me to talk to Mitzy? I think she’s got a soft spot for me. I bet I can sweet talk her into telling Naomi you’re off the market.”

“Nah,” Jake said, crunching another chunk of ice. “It’s no big deal. She just surprised me. I’ll be fine.”

Screw vulnerability. He’d rather suffer a year of Fridays in Naomi’s company than let her in his head for a split second. He’d just have to grin and bear it, and hope she got tired of playing small-town pastry chef and split before the Fireman’s Ball.

Dating Naomi he could suffer through, but dancing with her would be pure torture. Just the thought of her in his arms, her curves pressed tight against him and her head on his shoulder, was enough to make him ache. He might hate Naomi, but he also wanted her—always had, always would.

“All right, man, whatever you want,” Jamison said with a heavy sigh, eyes still focused on the soda bottles.

“What I want right now is a beer.” Jake set his empty cup down on the table. Soda definitely wasn’t going to cut it tonight. “Want to head to
The Horse and Rider
after this?”

Jamison shook his head. “Nah, I’ve got to head into work tomorrow, catch up on the hours I missed tonight.”

“So do I,” Jake said. “Never stopped us before.”

Jamison’s smile flickered but didn’t stick around for long. “I can’t, bro. I’m beat. The schedule change for this month of dates thing has me all messed up. I need to make it an early night, especially if we’re going to be up late at the holiday fair tomorrow.”

The fair tomorrow. Come tomorrow night at six o’clock, Jake would be in hell, forced to make civil conversation with a person he wished would vanish from the face of the earth and take all of his memories of her along for the ride.

The thought made him want a beer more than ever, but he never drank alone, not since Jenny died and he realized his one or two beers after work had turned into nine or ten. It was too easy to lose control and give into the urge to get numb when he was by himself. So he’d stopped keeping anything alcoholic inside the house, preferring to do without his much-loved five o’clock beer rather than risk losing control.

“Nine hundred dollars!” Faith bounded back through the curtain, out of breath and laughing as she held up a hand for Jake to high-five.

“Good job.” Jake gave her palm a firm slap, and forced a smile. “Want to cut out of here early and let me buy you a beer to celebrate?”

“Sure.” Faith turned to Jamison, punching him none-too-gently on the arm. “What about you, loser? Want to come with? I’ll buy you a beer to make you feel better for selling for a whole hundred dollars less than a girl with chip belly.”