Naughty All Night

by Jennifer Bernard

  This was just bad on every possible level.

  “You know Darius?”

  “He’s the fire chief.”

  “Of Lost Harbor?”

  “Of course. Where else?”

  “No,” Kate moaned out loud.

  “Yes. He was pretty mad at me at first when he found out I was hiding there. But then he got over it and he’s my friend now. I’m going to say hi.” S.G. hopped out and scampered down the sidewalk to greet him.

  Kate felt as if she was watching a movie unfold in slow motion. Darius dropped his t-shirt and gave S.G. a wide grin. The dog, who looked to be some kind of husky mix, sat on his haunches and watched alertly as they conversed.

  Slowly her breathing returned to normal. So Darius lived in Lost Harbor—was the fire chief of Lost Harbor—and he was jogging through the neighborhood. So what? It was just a weird coincidence, or one of those things that happened when you lived in a small town. That didn’t mean they’d be running into each other all the time.

  Luckily, they hadn’t actually done anything last night.

  Taking in a deep breath for strength, she got out of the truck and tucked her hands in her pockets. Strolling down the sidewalk toward them, she decided it was her turn to give someone else a shock.

  “Hello there, Darius.”

  He turned to greet her, but he didn’t seem surprised. “Hi Kate.”

  Managing a friendly smile, she walked down the driveway toward him. And toward S.G., of course, except that somehow the girl was little more than a blur at this point. All she could see was Darius’ wide shoulders and tousled hair. In the daylight, he was even more attractive, which didn’t happen very often, in her experience. The firm lines of his face, the set of his jaw, the sensual curl of his lips, all were details that she hadn’t noticed the night before.

  “How are you feeling—” He paused, glancing down at S.G.

  Which was a very thoughtful touch that she appreciated. S.G. didn’t need to know their business.

  “So you’re the Lost Harbor fire chief,” she said quickly, changing the subject. “Fancy that.”

  “Yeah. And you…” His gaze shifted to her truck and her load of boxes. He raised an eyebrow. “You’re delivering something?”

  “Oh, just myself and my possessions,” she said cheerfully. “I’m moving into this house. I had no idea the first neighbor I met would be the fire chief. Do you live around here?”

  “Pretty close.”

  She glanced at S.G., who was now crouched down next to the dog, cooing and petting him. Oblivious to anyone else. ““Listen, about…last night. I…uh…”

  “I was worried about you when I woke up this morning.” He deepened his voice to an intimate level that sent shivers through her. “Didn’t think you should be driving.”

  “Well, it was fine. And…thank you, for helping me. I…uh…” His physicality was so distracting, she was having trouble forming a complete sentence. “I thought you were from Oregon. If I’d known you were from Lost Harbor, things never would have gone so far.”

  “A little too close to home, huh? Okay, I guess I see the logic.” She watched one corner of his mouth lift into a slow curve. There was a sexy draw to those lips. A fullness, a promise of reckless naughtiness.

  Was she swaying toward him? Good God.

  She took a determined step backwards. “Awkwardly enough, apparently we’re neighbors. My first order of business is dealing with the tenant who lives downstairs.” A bright idea struck her. “Maybe you can help me with that.”

  “Sure. Happy to. What are you thinking…rent reduction? Maybe some renovating?”

  She blinked at him in confusion. A slight wisp of an ache drifted behind her eyes, like a flashback of a headache. “Why would I do that?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re about to do something nasty and kick him out. That could definitely get you off on the wrong foot in this neighborhood.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because people tend to be protective of their local fire chief.”

  All the pieces settled into place—and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized it right away. She also couldn’t believe her bad luck. Maybe she really was cursed.

  “You’re D. Boone,” she groaned.

  “Fraid so. Darius Boone.” He smirked at her as he stuck out his hand. “Guess you’re my new landlady. Nice to meet you. You’re a lot different in person. In your emails, you came across kind of…antagonistic.”

  Without returning his handshake, she wheeled around and headed for her truck. The pulse behind her eyes was blooming into a full-fledged ache. She probably should still be in bed. He was probably right about that. And she hated that he was right about that, because he was a jerk.

  Okay, a jerk who had taken care of her last night.

  And a jerk who was nice to S.G..

  And a jerk who had rescued her from the mud.

  She stalked past the bed of the truck, brushing against one of the boxes that had shifted during her drive down the hill.

  “Watch it!” he called after her. She flung her arm up in an “I got this” gesture—and hit the box.

  Which tumbled off the pile and headed for the ground. She lunged for it, hoping to stop it in midair, before it spilled her possessions all over the lawn. But she was a second too late, and instead it landed smack on her right foot.

  She held back the swear words that wanted to fly from her mouth. Cursed was beginning to seem like too mild a word for this string of bad luck.

  Wincing from the pain in her foot, she crouched down and picked up the box.

  Darius stepped to her side and frowned at the pile of boxes in the bed of her truck. “Could have secured that load a little better.”

  As she gritted her teeth, the box slipped from her grasp and landed on his foot.

  Obviously, their tenant/landlady relationship was off to a fantastic start.

  Chapter Eight

  Darius ignored the pain in his toe. First of all, the box was pretty light. Second, it was nothing compared to the confirmation that the woman he kept running into—the woman he was definitely hot for—really was the same woman who wanted to evict him. He could barely believe the warm, laughing woman from last night was the all-business shark behind those emails.

  He had to get this situation sorted out.

  “Listen, why don’t I help you unload these boxes and then you guys can come in for some coffee. I’m due at the firehouse soon but I have a little time.”

  “I promised I’d take S.G. out for cheeseburgers.” After a moment of tension, her face relaxed. “But maybe we can talk later. I’ll…email you.”

  “Right. Looking forward to that.”

  She laughed reluctantly, and just like that, the woman from last night was back. No red halter top this time. She was wearing a cambric work shirt and her dark hair was caught back in a ponytail. The sparkly high heels had been replaced with mud boots. And yet she was still sexy to him. Tall and curvy and outrageously attractive.

  The palms of his hands twitched, and he curled them into fists, then stretched out his fingers.

  “Your email address…dboone@lhfd.org. All this time I assumed your name was Daniel Boone.”

  He tilted his head back and laughed. “Family legend says we’re related, but who knows? You always signed your emails Catriona. I didn’t make the connection to Kate.”

  “I go by Catriona at work. Or I used to, anyway. Now I’m a peony farmer named Kate.” A wry smile quivered in the corner of her mouth.

  His pager buzzed. He checked it and swore out loud. Message from Nate.

  Dispatcher called. Nuisance fire number gazillion out on the mudflats on the boardwalk. No address, just meet me at the firehouse in two minutes.

  “Gotta go. We’ll be in touch.” He turned to S.G., who was still cooing to the neighbor’s dog. “Hey, S.G., can you take Thor across the street before you leave?”

  Since it was the quickest option for the short trip to
the firehouse, he hopped onto his Harley.

  Kate planted her hands on her hips as he maneuvered the bike down the driveway. “A Harley. Let me guess. That’s why Emma rented this place to you.”

  He grinned at her and hit the kickstarter. “You got it. Guess Harleys are thicker than blood.”

  He zoomed off, leaving her shaking her head in rueful defeat.

  Darius changed into his gear in record time and hopped into the already moving Engine 1 as it left the apparatus bay.

  Nate drove the rig, setting the flashers to clear the way through town.

  Not that there was much to clear, ever, except in tourist season. But visitors didn’t generally start heading to Alaska until later in May. Only a few of the boardwalk businesses were even open yet. They encountered no obstacles during their race to the long finger of land that extended into the bay like a claw.

  Darius watched the snowcapped mountains across the bay draw closer while the crew—Nate, Rick Puente and Betty Riley—speculated about the fire.

  “Punk kids,” announced Rick. “They’re ready for school to be out. I know my kid is.”

  “Could be the hippie dude who lives in an old bus on that property. Maybe he wants all the mud to himself,” said Betty.

  “If it’s the hippie guy, then it could be a one-off.” Nate frowned at the road ahead. “But it sure seems like it’s connected to the others. It’s a pile of soaking-wet lumber on a mudflat. How does something like that even burn?”

  Rick adjusted his gloves. “It’s got to be connected. This time of year we’re usually fighting mud, not fires.”

  Even though Darius was relatively new to Lost Harbor, he knew the pattern. The most intense time for firefighting was the summer, when massive brushfires could develop in the wilderness. Sometimes they encroached on the settled areas, in which case it was all hands onboard to set fire lines and backfires.

  Here in town, structure fires just didn’t happen all that often—because there weren’t many structures. Emergency medical calls took up the bulk of their time.

  But this was the eighth time in the last couple weeks that a random fire had broken out. A shed behind the feed store had caught fire. A burn barrel at an empty homestead had been knocked over and sparked a small brushfire. And now an abandoned houseboat was burning.

  Darius glanced over at Nate, who’d grown up here and knew the territory inside and out. “What do you think, Nate?”

  “You know what they say. Strange things happen around Lost Souls Wilderness.”

  All the others said the last words along with Nate, while Darius rolled his eyes. He’d only heard that saying about a hundred times since moving here. It seemed to be a point of pride with the locals, but he preferred a more reality-based approach.

  “How about we see what’s going on with this fire before we speculate,” he ordered the crew.

  And that put an end to that.

  The fire had broken out at one of those quirky Lost Harbor locations that didn’t fit a conventional location marker. On the long, narrow arm of land that led to the harbor, there was a stretch of marshy mud flats where a series of old boats had been abandoned over the years. Ancient fishing boats and dinghies rotted away into the mud. Some of them still belonged to people, some didn’t. One old fishing vessel occasionally flew a pirate flag.

  They found the houseboat fully engulfed in flames, spewing thick black smoke into the air. A haphazard pile of old rowboats and skiffs and ropes and other gear extended from the houseboat all the way to an RV park. Someone should have cleaned up that mess years ago.

  At the other end of the trail of junk was the office building that serviced the RV park. Restrooms, a gas pump, a small convenience store. The houseboat was a goner, but they had to protect those structures.

  Darius issued swift orders to hose down the debris closest to the houseboat and clear the area adjacent to the RV park. He helped Nate haul the three-inch hose to the jumbled junk pile of marine detritus. He held the hose in place while Nate went to turn on the flow.

  Unlike every previous place he’d worked, the tiny town of Lost Harbor didn’t have many fire hydrants. Engine 1 was equipped with a seven-hundred-and-fifty pound water tank. If that wasn’t enough, sometimes they had to find other sources of suppressant—ocean water would work in this instance. Just one of the ways in which firefighting in a remote location was new and different.

  As he saturated the weathered old dinghies and buoys and broken crab traps, he kept an eye on the blazing bonfire that had been a houseboat. The wind was blowing the smoke toward the bay, creating a trail of dark swirls that wafted into the sky.

  Why would anyone want to torch that old thing? Had someone set this fire? At first glance, he saw no other reason why it would have caught fire. Nothing electrical, nothing chemical, nothing weather-related.

  It probably wasn’t insurance-related. There was no way an insurance company would cover this old hulk. None of it made any sense, but then again, at this point, he just needed to make sure the damn fire didn’t spread. After that, he and Nate would come in and look for signs of an accelerant or anything else that would indicate arson.

  Along the road out to the boardwalk, cars slowed to watch them work, and a few people took photos out their windows. The fire made a spectacular sight against the backdrop of silver mudflats and snowcapped peaks.

  This was a piece of Lost Harbor going up in flames; it had once been someone’s home. Maybe a newlywed couple or a retired couple looking for peace and adventure.

  Sad, when he thought of it that way. Romantic dreams gone up in smoke; he knew how that went.

  “Who owns this thing?” he asked Nate as they watched the sparks swirl across the mud.

  “The houseboat? The story goes that a smuggler bought it as a way to launder his ill-gotten funds. Then he hooked up with a local baker, who wanted to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast. They fought so much that one of them—not clear who—shot a hole through the hull and it foundered. Instead of trying to salvage it, they towed it here and beached it. They never spoke a word to each other again.”

  Darius stared at him, noting the usual laughter in his gray eyes. Nate was an easygoing guy who loved a good laugh, so there was a good chance he’d made up that entire story. “You’re serious?”

  “I know it sounds far-fetched, but yeah. If you don’t believe me, ask Jessica at Sweet Harbor Bakery. That baker was her mother. After the boat sank, the Dixons opened up the bakery and never looked back.”

  Darius shook his head with a laugh. “Seems like there’s a moral in there.”

  “Don’t launder money?”

  “I was thinking more like a metaphor. All the stages of a relationship are right there. You start with the naive dream. You progress to the fighting, which ends up with a bullet hole in your planks. Then you drag the rotting remains to a mudhole and try to forget about it.”

  Nate waved away an ember riding past on an air current. “Such a romantic.”

  “Hey. I was. That was the problem.”

  Though why he was getting onto that topic, he had no idea. He didn’t really care for digging around in the past.

  Nate took over the hose. “If you’re trying to get me to disinvite you to the wedding, not gonna happen. You’re coming, romantic or not.”

  “Of course I’m coming.” Nate and Bethany were planning a summer wedding, and it was already marked on his calendar. Hard for a fire chief to ignore his crew’s big life events. “I’m not against marriage. Fuck, I did it twice. I’m against marriage for me. You and Bethany, different story. I think you two might have a chance.”

  Nate gave a hearty laugh. “The optimism, it burns.”

  “Sorry. Translate that into happy-fluffy language and you know what I mean.”

  “You think I’m happy-fluffy? Seriously, man, I was the last person who thought I’d be getting married this summer. I used to be as cynical as they come.”

  Darius didn’t buy it. Nate was the kind of guy wh
o would do anything for anyone. A solid, loyal, down-to-earth man loved by all. Also, he hadn’t been married and divorced twice, the way Darius had.

  They shifted to stamping out hotspots, bringing the heavy stream of water closer to the houseboat to hem it in. The fire was losing its fuel, dying back, like a dragon collapsing into itself.

  It occurred to Darius that he might be able to quiz Nate about his new landlady.

  “Do you know someone named Kate? Friend of Maya and Jessica Dixon?”

  Nate squinted off at the ocean. “Couple of Kates in town. Does she run that Thai place with her husband?”

  “No, no. Not Kate Saelim. Kate Robinson.”

  Nate kicked at a smoldering plank, which split open and disgorged a pile of sparks onto the mud. “Oh, you mean Naughty Kate.”

  Darius gave a double take, nearly losing his footing on the smoldering debris. “Naughty Kate?”

  “It was a nickname she had for a while, to distinguish her from Nice Kate. She was kind of a wild child when she used to come here. Her grandmother runs that peony farm up on the ridge.”

  “Right. Emma Gordon.”

  Nate gave him a speculative glance but went on without any ribbing, which Darius appreciated. “Emma’s daughter ran away and got pregnant. Married a dude who turned out to be a small-time grifter type. Then they got divorced and sent Kate to Lost Harbor every summer just to get her out of the way. Kate did a lot of acting out, I guess you could say. Shoplifting, underage drinking, minor stuff like that. But then she got her life together and became a lawyer. I haven’t seen her in years.” Nate jerked the hose to unkink it. “Is she back?”

  “She’s back. I pulled her out of the mud the other day.”

  “Now that’s interesting. She and Maya used to be best friends. Why don’t you ask Maya more about her?”

  Darius shrugged. “It’s not that important, that’s why.”

  “Bullshit, boss. This is the first time you’ve asked me about a specific woman since you’ve been here. There’s gotta be some kind of reason.”