by Jennie Marts
“Come here, baby.” She pulled it into her arms, cradling its hurt leg while trying to keep it from licking the white foam from her bare arms.
“Are you okay?” the ranger called to her as he continued to fight the flames that now engulfed half of the park’s outhouse.
The sound of a siren filled the air, and another Park Service vehicle arrived, equipped with a water tank and hose. Two men jumped from the truck and had the fire extinguished within a few minutes.
One of the men patted the ranger on the back. “You all right, Wade? Lucky for you, we were already coming up the pass when we heard your call.”
Wade ignored the fireman and turned to her, his face full of anger. “What the hell were you thinking? You could have set the whole forest on fire. This is a state park, and we’re under a fire ban.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” She awkwardly tried to stand, wobbling on one foot with the hurt dog in her arms, her broken shoe lost somewhere in the chaos of the fire.
A low chuckle sounded from one of the firefighting rangers as he glanced at her chest.
She looked down to see the liquid from the extinguisher had turned her ivory camisole see-through. The white lace bra she wore was no help in concealing her assets, and her headlights took advantage of that moment to shine.
That’s just great.
She lifted the dog higher as Wade stripped off his shirt and held it out to her. Distracted by his broad shoulders and seriously muscled chest, she clumsily handed him the dog and took the shirt. Tearing her eyes from his slim tapered waist and tanned bare skin, she pulled the warm shirt around her. It smelled like aftershave and campfire smoke. “Thanks. Look, I really am sorry. I’m happy to pay for the damages.”
She felt horrible for starting the fire. Her stomach ached at the thought of what could have happened.
But her regret was lost on the ranger.
His face darkened with anger. That had apparently been the wrong thing to say. “What’s wrong with you people from the city? You think you can come up here with your fancy clothes and your flashy cars and disregard all the rules. You could have caused some real damage here. You don’t care about anyone but yourselves. Money doesn’t fix everything, lady.”
Whoa. This guy was hot. And not just in a handsome way. In a seriously pissed off way.
She needed to tread lighter. Not make him any angrier.
Hmmm. Why did this feel familiar?
Because this was what she always did. With her father. With Brock.
Hadn’t the purpose of her drive up here been to take back control of her life? To throw away not just the mementos but the bad habits of trying to please everyone else and bending over backward to not get anyone upset?
The only way to quit being weak was to be assertive.
No time like the present.
She squared her shoulders and stared the ranger in the eye. “Look, mister. It was an accident. I said I was sorry and offered to pay for the damages. That’s my offer. What are you going to do about it?”
Thirty minutes later, she was reconsidering her decision to test her newfound assertiveness on Ranger Wade as she cooled her one dusty heel in a jail cell.
Chapter Two
She would not cry. Damn it.
It was just a jail cell.
Reese took a deep breath and focused on the positives. She had the whole cell to herself, so that was good. No sharing with a creepy ax murderer. The quiet would allow her to use the time to contemplate how she’d gotten here and how she was going to get out of here.
The two jail cells were located in the back of the police station that Ranger Wade had marched her into several hours ago.
They must have looked quite a sight to the shocked dispatcher and two police officers sitting at their desks. Wade shirtless and carrying a fat sausage of a dog and her limping along with only one shoe and wearing his shirt.
Both were smudged with soot, and chunks of her hair had hardened where the extinguisher foam had landed and dried.
A rotund police officer had taken Wade’s statement and left her in this cell with nothing but a pompous look and her wounded pride.
Who knew what they’d done with Bagel?
She’d yelled herself silly for the first half hour, but when no one came to her aid, she’d sunk down onto the cot in defeat.
The ginormous hole in her hose stared up at her as if it were an eye and suddenly the fabric of the stockings seemed to bind and tighten, suffocating her lower half.
She hated everything about these stupid hose. From their sheer toe to their control top. Even the name of them had control in it.
She stood and turned, leaning on the cot for support as she hiked up her skirt and pulled the offensive material from her legs.
Freeing one leg, she let out a sigh and her constricted stomach muscles at the same time.
Ahh. Freedom at last.
She peeled the hose from her other leg.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
Reese shrieked as the deep male voice spoke from behind her, and she frantically reached to pull her skirt back down over her exposed bottom.
She hadn’t quite freed her foot from the hose and the motion countered her balance. She toppled over, grazing her head on the corner of the cot as she fell.
Pain seared through her forehead, and shame filled her cheeks as she crumpled to the floor, burying her face in her arms, the tears she’d been holding in finally ready to fall.
The sound of keys jangled, then the door screeched open.
The scurrying tap of tiny toenails against concrete preceded the thud of Bagel’s chubby body as he plowed into her in a frenzied panic to lick her face.
She sat up, cuddling the dog in her lap. His back leg was wrapped in a white bandage, and a drop of bright red blood fell onto the gauze as she leaned forward to check the dog’s foot.
“You’re not really having the best day there, are ya lady?” Ranger Wade bent before her, a paper towel in his hand. He’d washed up and wore a fresh uniform shirt.
She groaned inwardly at what a disaster she must look like. “You don’t know the half of it. And my name is Reese. Reese Hudson.”
He tipped up her head and dabbed at the cut on her forehead. “Reese? Like the peanut butter cup?”
“Yep. Only singular.” She tried to nod, but winced at the pain. “It seems like you’re quite the hero today. Putting out the fire and now offering first aid. Did you bandage my dog’s leg, too?”
“No. I took him over to my vet to get him checked out. I was worried he broke his dang leg falling out of the car like that. But Doc said it’s only a sprain. He needs to rest and not be too active.”
She arched an eyebrow at the ranger. “Does this dog look like it’s ever been too active?”
That earned her a grin, but before he could answer, a young police officer poked his head in the cell. “The judge is ready for her.”
“A judge? Already?” Her pulse quickened.
She’d never been in trouble before, and the idea of going into a courtroom to face a judge scared the hell out of her.
The officer nodded. “We don’t have a lot of court cases here in Cotton Creek Falls. Plus it’s Friday afternoon, so the judge wants to clear this case from the docket so he can go fishing this weekend.”
“What about my one phone call? Or getting a lawyer?”
“Do you want one of those?”
Did she want one of those? Who would she even call? Certainly not her dad.
And even though the company had several lawyers on retainer, there was no way she was calling one of them. She didn’t need this getting back to her dad.
Or to Brock.
Besides, waiting for a lawyer would mean more time spent in this cell, possibly the entire weekend. No thank you.
She wanted to take control, stand on her own two feet. Now was her chance.
She could certainly handle defending herself in a small-town court. The fire was an acci
dent. It hadn’t been malicious. All she had to do was explain that to the judge.
She shook her head. “No, I’ll take care of this myself.”
“Let’s go, then.” The officer opened the cell door and cringed at her bloody forehead. “Looks like you’re gonna need a Band-Aid.”
…
“The honorable Judge T. Booker presiding. You may be seated.”
Wade sat behind the small plaintiff’s table as the bailiff instructed. He’d known the judge since before he could walk and wasn’t concerned about him not meting out a fair judgment.
This was a small-town court, though, and the judge was also known for handing down unconventional solutions for some of the townsfolk’s lesser crimes.
He couldn’t believe how fast that fire had sparked, and he cringed at the harm it could have done. The other rangers had shown up just in time, and he was thankful the fire hadn’t spread and caused any worse damage.
He knew it was probably an accident, but damn it, this park meant something to him, and he’d yelled at her before he could stop himself.
In retrospect, he’d probably let his temper get the best of him. She had seemed sorry, standing there in her smoke-smudged clothes with a giant hole in her snagged-up panty hose. And her top covered in liquid foam.
Hello. That fire extinguisher was supposed to put out flames, but what it did to her flimsy little shirt had worked to ignite some new ones.
Looking embarrassed, she’d taken his shirt, and he’d softened a little when she’d passed him the hurt dog.
The fat little thing licked his chin, and he was this close to letting the whole thing go.
Then she had to go throwing her pocketbook around, acting like money was the answer to everything. Well, he had news for this lady. All her money wasn’t going to get her out of this mess.
He snuck a glance at Reese now. She sat at the table across from him, and despite the circumstances, he couldn’t deny she was still attractive. Hell, she was gorgeous. Long blond hair, green eyes, legs a mile long, curvy hips, and pouty red lips—the kind of woman men had fantasies about.
Although, she currently looked pretty pathetic wearing only one shoe and swallowed up in his soot-stained uniform shirt. Drops of blood from her cut were already drying on the sleeve to a dull brown color.
Someone had brought her a white gauze bandage for her forehead, and she and the dog were a matched set with their medical accessories.
His face warmed as he thought about the image he’d walked in on thirty minutes earlier. Reese bent over the side of the cot, her skirt hiked up, and her bare cheeks visible around the tiny white lace thong.
Holy hell. His mouth went dry, and his hands started to sweat at the same time.
Her figure was perfect. Just the way he liked it, curvy and lush. He loved the feel of a soft voluptuous woman in his arms, with a body he could grab onto and fill his hands with.
Whoa there, bucko. Who said anything about filling his hands with anything of Reese Hudson’s?
This woman spelled trouble with a capital T. It didn’t matter how sweet her cheeks were, he wanted nothing to do with this poor little rich girl.
The judge cleared his throat and looked up from the file. “It says here on your license that your name is Reese O’Neal Hudson. Any relation to Bud and Dorothy O’Neal?”
Reese nodded. “They were my grandparents. I used to come up here to visit them when I was a kid. I love Cotton Creek Falls. It’s one of my favorite places. I would never purposely try to destroy it. I’ve already offered to pay for the damages.”
All the sympathy Wade had been feeling drained away as she turned to money as the answer to the problem. “This isn’t like a speeding ticket where you pay the fine and move on. Somebody’s going to have to go up there and clean up the mess you left behind. It’s going to take the state’s resources and manpower to replace that building. And we don’t have a lot of either to spare.”
The judge held up a hand. “All right now. Simmer down there, son. I’m sure we can come up with a solution that will be reasonable to all the parties involved.” He looked thoughtfully between Wade and Reese as he tapped his desk with his index finger.
Picking up his pen, the judge made some notes in the file, cleared his throat, and addressed Reese. “Ms. Hudson, your grandpa and I were fishing buddies since before you were born, so I’m prepared to offer you a little leniency. However, Ranger Baker does have a point in that the outbuilding will need to be replaced. Therefore I am sentencing you to two weeks community service whereby you will be responsible for rebuilding the restroom at the falls.”
“That sounds fine,” she said. “Can you recommend a construction company or just tell me who to write the check out to?”
The judge chuckled. “There won’t be any construction company. The sentence is for you to build it yourself.”
Reese gaped at the judge, her mouth opening and closing like a trout on a hook. “But…but…I have no idea how to build an outhouse. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“That is precisely the point. If I gave you an easy task, it wouldn’t be much of a punishment. This way you can make restitution for the damage to the property and repair what you destroyed. If you’re determined to write a check, it probably wouldn’t hurt if you made a nice donation to the park as well.” The judge turned to Wade. “And before that smug grin takes over your entire face, Ranger Baker, I’m putting you in charge of supervising her work.”
“Me? Why me? I didn’t do anything.” This wasn’t turning out at all like he’d hoped. “You’ve got to be kidding, Judge.”
The judge fixed him with a hard stare. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“But I don’t have time for this. I have a job to do.” He didn’t have time to babysit this little rich chick who probably didn’t know a hammer from a screwdriver.
Well, she was about to learn. He’d be damned if he ended up doing all the work while she sat around and painted her nails. She probably didn’t even paint her own nails.
The judge banged his gavel. “You’ve heard my ruling. My decision is final. Ms. Hudson, you’ll be required to stay in town for the next two weeks.”
“Two weeks? But I have a job, too. A life.” She slumped in her seat.
The judge arched an eyebrow at Wade. “I won’t require her to stay in the county jail if Ranger Baker is willing to accept guardianship. Wade, I’m sure your grandmother has room for her over at the bed and breakfast. Why don’t you take Ms. Hudson over there now? She looks like she could use a rest. I’ll have someone drop her car over there later this evening. Are you amenable to that, Ms. Hudson, or do you prefer the fine accommodations of county lockup?”
She offered the judge a glazed nod. “A bed and breakfast sounds great.” She lifted a hand to her bandaged head. “In fact, any bed sounds great right about now. Thank you, Judge.”
Well, this was a fine kettle of fish. Wade had wanted to be rid of this pampered princess, not sentenced to spend the next two weeks with her. And now she’d be staying at Gram’s place so he’d be stuck with her at night, too.
At least she was easy on the eyes. Or would be, if she cleaned up a little. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. He’d get to kick back and spend the next few weeks watching a beautiful woman do manual labor, bending and stretching as she hammered and cut lumber.
He’d bet Ms. Reese Hudson could wear the hell out of a tool belt.
Yeah, right. Ms. Hudson did not strike him as the type of woman who got her pretty little hands dirty.
She only had one shoe left, but even he knew it was an expensive style. He recognized the name on her purse as one Tawnya constantly coveted, and bet the price tag on the purse alone could pay off one of those damn credit card statements that filled the stack on his desk at home.
He grimaced as he snuck a glance at Reese.
She held the dog against her, its plump body covering her lap as she stroked its fur and it nibbled her hand.
He knew the next two weeks with Reese Hudson were going to try all of his patience, but danged if he didn’t feel a tiny stab of envy for the dog as he imagined Reese stroking his back while he found a few places of hers to nibble.
Chapter Three
What a mess she’d gotten herself into.
She’d set out this afternoon on a quest to express her freedom and gain control of her life. Instead she’d landed herself in jail and under the thumb of another man who would spend the next two weeks telling her what to do.
As far as men were concerned, if she had to be chained to one, Wade Baker wasn’t the worst choice she could think of. He did have some redeeming qualities.
Even when his face wore a frown of annoyance, he was still a gentleman.
She could tell he was angry, yet his hand was gentle as they left the courthouse and he helped her into the passenger side of an old pickup truck.
He drove down Main Street then pulled into the Cotton Creek Drug Emporium, the small-town equivalent of a Walmart. “You’re probably gonna need a few things. It’s not fancy, but they’ve got toothpaste and most of your essentials. I’ll wait with Bagel if you want to run in.” He casually leaned back in the seat as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Wow. This was new.
Brock always hated when she had to run into a store, even if it was for a bottle of wine to take to a party of his friends. He’d explained that his time was valuable, and she needed to complete errands before he picked her up.
“Thanks,” she said, climbing from the truck. “Would you like for me to get anything for you?”
He let out a whoosh of breath. “Oh yeah. I almost forgot. I need a pair of panty hose. Suntan-colored, in queen-size talls.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. Maybe there was more to the ranger than she’d first imagined.
He rolled his eyes. “They’re for my grandma. She asked me to pick some up for her for the church supper tonight.”
She nodded. “Suntan. Queen-size. Talls. Got it.”
As casual as Wade seemed, the image of his scowl stuck in her head, and Reese made a quick run around the drugstore grabbing a bag of dog food, assorted toiletries, a couple pairs of shorts, a few T-shirts, some flip-flops, a pair of canvas tennis shoes, and a value pack of bikini underwear. She hadn’t bought underwear in a package since she was a child.