“Boston’s a strange place,” she said.
Lydia nodded. “But you chose to stay because you fit right in.”
Jamie smiled. “Good point. Is it safe for me to leave now?”
“Yeah. I’m sure I’ll see you again, though, right? We didn’t scare you off?”
If she was smart, she wouldn’t come within a mile of Kincaid’s Pub for the rest of her time with E-59. “I don’t scare easily.”
“I didn’t think so. We’ll have to drag you out for a girl’s night sometime. Ashley and I. It’s probably good to get away from the guys now and then.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Jamie had walked to the bar, which meant she had plenty of cold, fresh air to help clear her head on the way back to her apartment. Her head refused to be cleared, however, and her thoughts ran in circles all the way home.
She was glad she’d kissed Scott because it was fun and hot and everything she wanted in a kiss. And there was no harm in it because her stay was temporary and he was killing time while on the lookout for his television wife, as Chris had called the future Mrs. Kincaid.
She shouldn’t have kissed him because she was going to have to show up at the station in a couple of days and not only work side by side with him, but be his superior. It wasn’t 1955 anymore and her record was pretty impeccable, so her career would survive kissing a fellow firefighter. But she didn’t need the side-eye looks and the snickers behind her back.
A mug of hot chocolate didn’t help. Nor did repeats of one of her favorite shows, about dropping naked people into the jungle to test their survival skills. And when she finally gave up and went to bed, she wasn’t surprised when closing her eyes turned her thoughts right back to Scott.
She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to kiss him longer, somewhere his sister wasn’t yelling for a mop and there was a soft surface for them to collapse onto when her knees finally gave out. That one kiss had been like running her finger through frosting. Now she wanted the whole slice of cake.
It was a long time before she finally drifted off.
Because it had been Danny’s turn to go on a grocery store run, Jamie got up the next morning—usually an off day—and, after showering under cool water to force herself awake after a rough night of tossing and turning, headed to the station to meet Grant Cutter and one of the guys from another E-59 group, who typically worked Wednesdays and Saturdays. Grant had told her they could manage without her and she could have a pass, since she was new, but she not only didn’t shirk her duties, she had nothing better to do. If nothing else, it would keep her from thinking too much about kissing Scott in the back room of the bar.
It was all she’d thought about since she walked out of Kincaid’s Pub last night, including during the hours she should have been sleeping. Standing in front of him, she’d been stupid enough to think she could kiss him and then, curiosity satisfied, they could move on.
Instead, the kiss had jacked her sexual attraction up to sexual hunger and she didn’t have a lot of willpower when it came to denying herself something she really wanted.
“Hey, Jamie.” Grant waved to her from the back of the bay. “This is Derek Gilman.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, extending her hand when she was close enough.
Tall and blond, with a scar down his jaw, the other man shook her hand. “Welcome to the house.”
“Thanks.” She didn’t see any sign of him having a problem with her gender, which was a relief. “Are we ready?”
“In a sec.” Grant looked over his shoulder. “I think I hear him coming now.”
She frowned. “Who? I thought it was just the three of us.”
“Oh, Scotty showed up because he got his wires crossed and thought you weren’t going. Since he doesn’t have anything better to do, he said he’d still tag along.”
Shit. She’d thought she had another day before she’d have to see him again. Because his sister had yelled for the mop, there hadn’t really been a resolution between them. No hey, what are we going to do about this conversation so she could be absolutely sure they were on the same page. And that page was nobody on the job knowing there might be something going on between her and one of the firefighters in her company.
When Scott stepped out of the stairwell and into the bay, she swallowed hard and focused on keeping her expression neutral. He stopped when he saw her and their eyes locked for a few seconds, but then he lifted in his chin in a casual nod. “Morning, Jamie.”
“Good morning.”
He turned to the other guys. “Hey, Gilman. Good to see you.”
“You, too.”
“I guess I’ll drive,” Scott said. “My truck will fit all four of us and it’s a nice day, so we can throw the groceries in the back.”
“Shotgun,” Jamie said, smiling when Grant groaned.
She’d said it out of reflex, but it didn’t seem like such a good idea when she was sitting next to Scott, separated only by a center console between the bucket seats. Grant and Derek were talking hockey in the backseats, while silence and classic rock reigned in the front seats. Through the corner of her eye, Jamie could see Scott’s thumb tapping the steering wheel with the rhythm of the music, and she wondered if he was the kind to sing along if he’d been alone.
It took them almost forty minutes to drive to the big chain supermarket, but Jamie knew it would be worth the time. Supporting the local businesses and small markets in a fire station’s neighborhood was something they all tried to do on a day-by-day basis, but when it came to stocking up for the month, they had to try to keep the prices down.
As they walked across the parking lot, Jamie asked, “So how do we do this? Is the list divided up?”
Scott shook his head. “That would be far too organized. We wander up and down the aisles together, looking for the stuff on the list, and then eventually we’ll start splitting up as we remember things that aren’t on the list and they’re almost always back in aisles we already hit.”
She laughed. “That explains why we volunteer to come on our own time.”
“That and the probability we won’t have to abandon the carts to put out a fire.”
Scott and Derek each pushed a cart. Grant had the list, and he and Jamie kept an eye out for the items they were looking for. And she kept her mouth shut about the fact they were starting in the refrigeration section, which made no sense to her. But the fact they’d all turned to the left without a discussion told her it was just the backward way they always did it, and she didn’t want to nag. After grabbing a variety of sliced and shredded cheeses, a product on the list caught her eye, and she lifted the box out of the cooler with a frown.
“What is this stuff? Yogurt in squeeze tubes?” She’d seen some odd snack requests on house grocery lists, but this stuff looked like it was meant for the kindergarten crowd. “For the firefighters too lazy to wash a spoon?”
“Oh, we’re not getting those,” Derek said. “Mikey G. is the only one who eats those. His kid got him hooked on them, I guess. But he’s behind on throwing his share of money into the kitty, so if he wants them, he can bring them from home.”
“Harsh,” Grant said. “Poor guy won’t have his squeeze yogurt.”
“Third month in a row this has happened,” Derek replied. After a short pause, he chuckled. “He’s lucky we don’t make him eat bread and water at mealtime.”
“Is he doing okay?” Scott asked.
Jamie had been thinking the question, but she wasn’t sure how to phrase it. She liked that Scott was concerned being late on his firehouse fund payments three months in a row might indicate Mike G. was in some financial trouble. If he was and could swallow his pride enough to admit it, there were ways for him to get help.
“Yeah. We let him slide when he went through the divorce because getting his own place was expe
nsive and then the child support and everything. But we get the feeling he’s taking advantage now, so we’ll start small. No yogurt for Mikey.”
Jamie put it back and leaned over Grant’s shoulder to see how much stuff was left on the list. “Maybe I should have packed a lunch.”
“We kill the supplies in March,” Grant said. “A lot of slow cooker meals because we get so many nuisance calls. People forget in March that it’s still winter and it can be slippery out there. Plus, around St. Patrick’s Day we’ve got extra guys on hand and we’re busy and the pantry suffers.”
“We should split the list,” Derek said. After scanning it, he carefully tore a chunk out of the side of the paper. “We’ll take these staple-type items. Coffees, spices, flour, sugar and crap. Plus paper goods. You guys keep working on the rest of it and then we’ll go from there.”
When Derek handed the paper to her, Jamie realized he’d naturally drawn the teams based on where they were standing at the time. Grant was standing next to him, while Jamie was in front of Scott’s cart.
Great. Unexpected alone time.
They made it to the cans of fruit, where they needed to grab pineapple rings for ham, according to the list. Then Scott leaned on the handle of the shopping cart while she was reading labels. “Hey, while we’re alone, I wanted to say something to you.”
She tensed, fighting an urge to look around and see if they really were alone. Just because Grant and Derek weren’t in Scott’s sight line didn’t mean they weren’t still in earshot. “In the grocery store?”
“Yeah. I wanted to apologize for losing my temper last night and hitting that guy.”
She hadn’t been expecting that, and had braced herself for talking about the kiss while standing in front of canned fruit. “Oh. I should probably apologize for pulling your hair, then.”
“I’ve worked on controlling my temper, but the way he was talking to you was... I should have let you handle it.” Then he looked sideways at her, grinning. “I didn’t mind the hair pulling too much, though.”
“Stop that,” she said in an urgent whisper.
He leaned closer to her and her fingers itched to bury themselves in his hair again. “We’re still not at work.”
“We’re here in a professional capacity, though.” She needed a stronger argument because the kiss at the bar was pretty solid evidence her current tactics weren’t working. “Besides, you’re supposed to be on a break from dating, remember?”
He shrugged. “Maybe I need a break from taking a break. A temporary relapse, like six to eight weeks long.”
It was incredibly tempting. And also incredibly risky, because that was treading dangerously close to real relationship territory. “There’s no possible way we could keep even a supercasual relationship a secret for two months, and it won’t be you who suffers the brunt of the gossip or ends up with the tarnished reputation. It’ll be me because I’m the officer and, most importantly, because I’m a woman.”
“You’re not good at secrets?”
“Me? Your company is like the freaking Brady Bunch or something. One big happy family—literally, almost—and I’d bet you a hundred dollars right now that some combination of Danny, Ashley, Lydia or Aidan have already had a conversation about us. Your life’s part of a family game of Telephone right now.”
It seemed as though he wanted to deny it for a few seconds, but then he gave her a chagrined look. “Yeah, secrets are tough. But, Aidan managed to date Lydia without me knowing for a while. It can be done.”
“Would he have been able to if she’d been working at the station and sharing living quarters with you guys for twenty-four-hour tours?”
“No. Shit, all you did was walk by me in the bar and Danny’s radar pinged.”
“You said at the bar it doesn’t have to be complicated, but it already is. We don’t need to make our jobs complicated on top of it.”
“But—”
“Hey, Kincaid! Catch!”
Scott turned and got his hands up in time to catch the bulk package of paper towels Grant threw at him.
“Did you hear me?” she asked quietly, while they still had a few seconds.
He looked at her, his gaze holding hers in an intense way that made her shiver. “Yeah, I heard you.”
It was for the best, Jamie knew. Their relationship needed to go back to being strictly business. But that determination she was doing the right thing didn’t stop her from sneaking a huge bag of chocolate candies into the cart. A woman could only deprive herself of so many delicious things.
FIVE
SCOTT USUALLY HUNG out with his dad in the evening if it wasn’t a night Scott had anything going on and Tommy wasn’t going to the bar to sit and swap the same old stories with Fitz. It seemed stupid for Tommy to sit and watch television alone while Scott was one floor up, watching the same shows alone.
But tonight, Scott felt restless and he lingered in his own apartment. It didn’t have too much of a homey feel, with most of the personal touches being limited to the leather sofa and love seat in front of his enormous TV. But he’d redone the floors from carpet to wood laminate himself, and repainted the entire apartment. He’d also sunk a lot of money into the bathroom, but none of that made him feel particularly bonded to the place. It was just where he lived, and he got a great deal on the rent.
It wasn’t a home, though, and he wondered if that’s what was nagging at him. Was it stuff that made a home? Or was it the wife and kids he didn’t have? He was only twenty-seven, so he wasn’t sure why he felt such a strong desire to finally settle down, but he couldn’t deny it was there.
Maybe he should buy some stuff. He wasn’t sure what. Wicker baskets? Or maybe some plants. He’d get a pet, but it wasn’t like he was asking a dog to make it through an eight-hour workday without him. He was gone twenty-four hours at a time, and that wouldn’t be fair to anything except maybe a fish, and he didn’t see the point in that.
When he realized his dad was probably scowling up at his ceiling, wondering why he hadn’t come down, Scott stepped through the sliding glass doors onto his deck. One flight of stairs down, he walked through his dad’s back door.
“I was beginning to wonder if you were coming down tonight,” his dad called from his ancient recliner.
“Yeah, I was on the phone,” he lied. As he walked through the kitchen toward the living room, Scott looked around him.
Was it the stuff that made it feel like home, or just the fact he’d grown up in this house? Unlike the second and third floors, nothing had changed in the three-bedroom first-floor apartment, and there was definitely an ’80s feel about it.
He had really vague memories of his mom nagging his dad to start remodeling, room by room. He’d always promised he’d get around to it soon and she’d roll her eyes. Then she’d been diagnosed too late with breast cancer. Scott was nine when she died, and giving away her personal possessions had been heartbreaking enough. The remodeling never happened.
Scott plopped down on the sofa and put his feet up on the old wooden coffee table. “I’m beat. I almost went to bed instead of coming down. I volunteered for supermarket duty today.”
“I’d rather scrub floors. Speaking of the house, how’s Danny’s fill-in doing?”
“Jamie? Okay, I guess.” He wondered if his dad’s curiosity was related to the job, or if one of his sisters had said something to him.
“Pulling her weight?”
“Yeah. There hasn’t been much weight to pull, other than some odor and medical calls.”
His dad shook his head. “It’s never made sense to me for fire to respond to medical calls. Especially both trucks.”
Scott knew that, since they’d had this conversation many times at the bar. “I know, but E-59 and L-37 roll together, and we can be almost anywhere in four minutes. More fire truck covera
ge than ambulance coverage, which you know. But anyway, we haven’t worked an active fire yet, but I don’t have any doubts about her ability to pull her weight.”
“You sound pretty sure of that.”
Scott shrugged. “If I was worried about her doing her job, everybody would know.”
His dad chuckled. “Yeah, you’ve never been shy about giving your opinion. We should invite her over for dinner. I’d like to get to know her some.”
Oh, there was no way in hell could Scott let that happen. Jamie had made it pretty clear in the grocery store that she wanted to keep a wall of professionalism between them. Turning around and inviting her home to meet the parent probably wasn’t what she was going for.
“I’m sure she’ll stop by the bar some night and you can meet her,” he said.
“The bar’s loud and people are always interrupting my conversations to talk to me. Here we can have a nice meal and relax.”
“It’s just not a good idea, Pop. And she won’t be around long, anyway. Once Danny’s cleared to come back, she’ll be gone.”
“So? She’s here now. And I wouldn’t mind meeting the woman, seeing as how my son started a brawl in my bar over her.”
Dammit. Somebody—maybe Lydia, or maybe anybody else who’d been there that night—had ratted him out. “It wasn’t a brawl.”
“I told you what would happen if you started a fight in the bar again.”
“Yeah. You’d throw me out. But that was years ago, and I didn’t start the fight. He threw the first punch.”
His dad turned the television down a couple of notches and turned to give him a stern look. “From what I heard, he threw the first punch because you went flying across the room, knocking Jamie’s beer out of her hand, and grabbed hold of him.”
Unless one of the douche bag’s friends had gone back to the bar when Tommy was there and complained, the only people who knew that were Danny and Jamie. Since Danny hadn’t ratted him out directly to the old man, he must have told Ashley the details. And either Ashley had told their dad, or Ashley had told Lydia, who told their dad. He was guessing the latter.
Fully Ignited (Boston Fire #3) Page 6