The Woman for Dusty Conrad

by Tori Carrington

  She swallowed the sudden emotion clogging her throat. Hugging Dusty should be the last thing she wanted to do. After five years of marriage, and a whole lifetime together before that, six months had gone by with little word from him. Except, of course, those words that came through his attorney.

  She shivered despite the sunshine warmth of the day and the heavy gear she wore.

  Martinez made some comment on Dusty’s getting a little soft around the middle, then said, “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you, buddy. Where in the hell have you been? How in the hell are you?”

  “Fine,” Dusty said, his gaze never leaving Jolie’s face.

  Suddenly Jolie’s boots seemed made of cement rather than specially treated leather, and her gear weighed a ton. She felt as if she’d just come off from fighting a four-alarm fire rather than chasing chickens that had been granted unexpected clemency down the highway. Something brushed against her foot and she started, making her realize that while she may appear completely at ease at seeing her husband for the first time in six months, her nerves were pulled taut and her stomach burned so much it hurt. Almost as an afterthought, she looked down at the scrap of fur that wound itself around her ankles. The usually coolly indifferent station cat traced figure eights around her legs. Jolie grimaced as Spot nudged her with more power than she would have thought possible. She stumbled forward, then played it off as if she’d meant to do that. Plucking her hat from the truck cab, she began shrugging out of her coat. Spot followed.

  “Dusty,” she acknowledged, trying to treat him like any other fellow firefighter as she entered the station. Pretend she hadn’t spent the first month after he’d left crying her way through the night, then the next month dreaming he’d come back.

  But as she grew nearer to him, she became all too aware of how exactly he wasn’t just a fellow firefighter. And it had more to do with just the plain gold band she still wore around her ring finger.

  Dusty Conrad was her husband. The man who had promised to love and cherish and care for her until “death do us part.” And though she hadn’t checked with the pastor, she was sure that those vows in no way included a note that read, “Please forgive me,” and a disappearing act that would have made Copperfield sit up and take notice.

  Chief Jones cleared his throat. “Hey, Jolie, you schedule that annual physical yet?”

  She glanced at Gary, as if unable to comprehend his words. “Not yet.”

  “You’ve only got till the end of the month, you know.”

  She nodded slowly. “I know.” And to think, just this morning she was thinking how much she hated checking in for her annual physical. Compared to facing Dusty now, it came a distant second.

  The brief exchange proved the silence-breaker and the guys started talking again, conversation centering on Dusty and his sudden return.

  Jolie purposely jutted her chin out. No matter how good he looked standing there in those faded jeans and soft chambray shirt, she wasn’t going to let on how loudly her hormones screamed or how much she wanted to pin him against the firehouse wall and make up for lost time. She wasn’t about to reveal anything until she found out why he was here. And even then, it might not be a good idea to tell him how much she’d missed him.

  “I’m going to clean up,” she said to everybody and nobody in particular. She sprinted for the locker room, nearly tripping over the fluff of black-and-white fuzz that was Spot blocking her path. So much for making a graceful exit.

  Well, hell, that hadn’t gone quite as he’d expected.

  Dusty cast a glance toward the empty kitchen doorway and wondered exactly what Jolie had gone to clean up. He’d assumed she’d meant herself. But in the forty-five minutes since she’d been gone, she could have cleaned the showers, bunkhouse and both fire engines…with her toothbrush.

  Anxious, he flipped over the chicken-fried steaks he was preparing, seeking comfort in his old familiar role as cook. But his mind wasn’t having any of it. The truth was being here was a little too familiar. Too comfortable. And to think he’d purposely come to the station instead of going to the house because he’d been afraid of familiarity. Wanted to avoid the temptation of falling back into old routines.

  If that was the case, then why was it taking every ounce of restraint he had to keep himself from going after Jolie in the back rooms? Not to confront her about their divorce papers, but to rediscover her mouth, relearn her taste, find out if the flame he’d glimpsed in her eyes a short while ago burned just as hot now as it had back when.

  He cleared his throat, ordering his coiled muscles to relax, holding his long-denied libido in check.

  He glanced behind him, although he knew exactly where each of his former fellow firefighters was sitting at the table without looking. As always, Jones was at the head of the table looking every bit like the chief, while Martinez leaned back, rocking the front legs of his chair from the floor, acting the renegade rookie ready to take on the world. John Sparks was smack-dab in the middle of everyone, his sheriff’s shirt rolled up to his elbows, those same elbows resting against the tabletop, while Sal was snacking on something or other he’d pilfered from the refrigerator. Dusty fell right into the old routine of exchanging verbal jabs with them with far too much ease. Even found himself listening for the old bell alarm that would call them out on a run.

  He glanced toward the doorway again, only this time Scott Wahl blocked his view. Dusty looked back to the cooktop, not wanting to compare how similar the young man was to his brother, Erick. Not wanting to think about the chair at the other end of the table that was left empty because Erick was no longer there to fill it.

  “You were the cook?” Scooter asked, propping a too skinny hip against the counter next to the stove.

  “Yeah.” He tested the boiling potatoes with a fork.

  “I always thought cooking was a sissy chore.”

  Dusty hiked a brow.

  “Not to say that you’re a sissy or anything,” Scott said quickly, his spine snapping flagpole straight. “Actually the guys have been telling me how, you know, you are the best and everything—”

  “Was,” he absently corrected the boy. “I was the best.” At least up until the point when he’d caused the death of his brother. “How old are you, Scooter?”

  The kid looked relieved that he’d changed the subject. “Eighteen.”

  Eighteen. Dusty nearly burned himself on the skillet handle. Erick had been eighteen when he started hanging out at the fire station, not content to do other things until he turned twenty-one and qualified for being a firefighter. No, Erick had automatically expected an exception to be made for him. Of course, none was. But that hadn’t stopped his younger brother from dogging their steps when they went out on runs. If not on his bike, then in his car.

  “You eat, don’t you?” he asked Scott.

  “Yeah, of course I eat. If I didn’t eat, I’d be dead.”

  Damn. “You trying to tell me you’ve lived eighteen years without preparing a single meal, Scooter?”

  “Scott,” the teenager said, the tips of his ears reddening. “Everyone calls me Scott now.”

  “Is that so?”

  The boy nodded.

  “All right, then, Scott it is. And you didn’t answer my question.”

  The boy shrugged. “I’ve fixed stuff for myself. You know, like macaroni and cheese and frozen pizzas when my mom’s not home. But that doesn’t count.”

  “How so?”

  Scott grinned. “Because no one but me eats it.”

  “Ah.” He switched on the fire under the vegetables, then held out his fork. “Well, then, I think it’s about time that changed.”

  The kid stared at the fork as though it was a wild hose he couldn’t bring under control. Dusty chuckled. “Don’t panic. Just keep an eye on those steaks. When they start to brown, they’re done. Just take them out and put them on the plate over there.”

  “Mr. Conrad, I—”

  Mr. Conrad? Dusty fought the urge to look
around to see if his father had dropped in for a visit from Arizona. “It’s Dusty, kid.” He patted him so hard on the back, Scott nearly doubled over. “And I have complete faith in you.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about. I mean, I think it’s cool and everything that you cook, but…I…”

  “What? You never linked firefighting with cooking?” Dusty shook his head. “See, Scott, that’s one of the things you have to learn around here if you hope to make a good…no, great firefighter. Every job, be it wiping down the engines, checking the gear, or cooking, is an important one. After all, where are the men going to get the energy to fight fires if they’re not eating healthy food?”

  Scott turned redder than the fire engine Dusty could see through the door. Behind them, the men snickered.

  “We sure could use some of that money you’re making in Toledo in the ante,” Martinez said from the table, tapping the edge of his cards against the top. “That is, if you can handle the pressure.”

  Dusty grinned. There was no more than seventy-five cents on the table if there was a dollar. “Sorry, guys, but you’re just going to have to squeak by without me. Bets are too rich for me.”

  He started for the door, giving up on restraint and intent on tracking Jolie down. He reached the doorway at the same time she popped into it from the other side. Her appearance should have eased the tension from Dusty’s shoulders. Instead, seeing her pulled his muscles tighter.

  It was the same reaction he’d always had when faced with Jolie. That stomach-tightening, breath-robbing, mouth-watering sensation that if he didn’t kiss her within ten seconds he’d die. And six months away from her had only made the reaction more acute. Which definitely didn’t bode well for his mission.

  “Hey, hey, hey, there she is,” Jones called out. “Now, here’s somebody not afraid of losing a few dollars.”

  Dusty noted the way Jolie avoided eye contact with him. For all the attention she’d paid him since she’d returned from her run, he was beginning to feel as if he were invisible. A nonentity unworthy of her attention. Which was no less than he deserved, he supposed. If only her unexplained emotional distance hadn’t been part of his reason for leaving in the first place.

  He hadn’t meant to make their…meeting again so public. He’d thought about showing up at the house without letting anyone else know he was in town, then realized that was wishful thinking. The moment his truck rolled over the county line half the population probably already knew he was back, and by the time he parked it, his return was probably old news.

  Ah, hell, who was he kidding? He’d come to the station on purpose. Had needed to be surrounded by others in order to make what he had to say go down easier…both for him and her.

  Jolie skirted the table. “Sorry, guys, I’m going to pass tonight.”

  Exaggerated groans followed her to the refrigerator, where she pulled out salad fixings, then dropped them to the counter next to the stove.

  From next to Dusty came an audible swallow. He didn’t kid himself into thinking Jolie had made the giveaway sound. No, Scooter looked like he’d rather be in the skillet with the steaks, rather than watching over them. “Um, Mr. Conrad. I mean Dusty…”

  Now that Jolie was where he wanted her, at least for the moment, Dusty accepted the fork from Scott and turned the steaks out onto the plate. “Your instincts were straight on, Scooter. Trust them.”

  “Okay.”

  The teenager too happily turned cooking duty back over to him, all but scuttling to the chair he’d abandoned at the table. The rest of the men gladly dealt him into their next hand of poker.

  But now that Dusty had the opening he’d been looking for, all his rehearsed words drained from his brain like water through a sieve. Taking his cue from Scott, he cleared his throat and slanted a glance toward Jolie. With neat, violent strokes of a knife, she made quick work of the salad. He was afraid if he didn’t say something now, she’d finish and likely up and disappear on him again.

  “Um, Jolie?” He winced at the hesitant sound of his voice. Especially when she pretended not to hear him.

  A windblown strand of sun-kissed brown hair curved against her cheek. Dusty stopped himself from brushing it back around her ear or tucking it into the French braid neatly fastened at the back of her head.

  “Spit it out, Dusty.”

  He blinked a couple of times, as if to verify that she’d actually spoken to him. She laid the knife on the counter, then wiped her hands on a towel. She turned cloudy blue eyes on him. “I’ve already accepted that I’m not going to like what you have to say, so just be out with it.”

  “Uh…” Grand sakes alive, he felt like a speechless teenager all over again. There was something about the thin black that encircled her irises. The direct way she looked at him and only him. The enticing way she discreetly caught the inner flesh of her bottom lip that shot his best intentions all to hell.

  The widening of her pupils told him that the effect was fully mutual. All at once the stiffness around her jaw eased, and he was afraid she was a heartbeat away from bestowing on him one of those all-Jolie smiles that would undoubtedly knock him down for the count.

  Before he could question the wisdom, he reached out and gently worked a single white chicken feather from her hair. Her intake of breath was so shallow he was certain he was the only one who heard it. He slowly pulled his hand back, displaying the feather. “Um, a little remnant from your run.”

  Her cheeks colored, then her gaze dropped suggestively to his mouth. She blinked. “You shaved off your mustache.”

  Dusty lifted a hand to his bare upper lip. “Yeah.”

  His own gaze lingered on her just-moistened lips. If she didn’t stop looking at him like that, more would be sizzling than just the steaks.

  With incredible self-restraint, Dusty hauled his gaze from Jolie’s mouth. He switched off the burner under the nearly melted potatoes, wondering just how he went about switching off the flame in his gut.

  Just be out with it, indeed.

  “Jolie…I’ve come to pick up the divorce papers.”

  For the life of her, Jolie couldn’t figure out why she felt as if she’d just lopped a finger off with the knife. In the time she’d avoided coming into the kitchen she’d pretty much figured out that the reason Dusty had come back was not a good one. She merely hadn’t taken the assumption to the next step and connected his presence with the unsigned papers she’d stuck into a drawer at home the instant she received them a couple of months back.

  Which was stupid, really. And that only agitated her further. She’d spent her life proving that she was the exact opposite of stupid. Up to any task set in front of her, she was. A regular anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-just-as-well kind of girl, with her feet firmly steeped in reality. She’d had to be for her own survival. It hadn’t been easy being raised by a paternal grandfather who didn’t have a clue on how to react to a six-year-old girl, much less raise one. As he’d told her often enough, he’d seen to raising his one son and that should be more than any one man should have to endure. So Jolie had learned at a young age how to not only look after herself, but after him. Seemed she was always trying to keep placated the well-meaning but nosy townsfolk who questioned the old man’s ability to look after her. For they were at the ready to take her away from the only family she had left.

  Of course, no one was happier than she was when the time finally came for her to start making her own decisions. And nothing had intrigued her like the beast that had stolen her parents from her: fire.

  “Jolie?”

  She blinked Dusty’s handsome face back into focus, noting the pity there. She hated that he felt sorry for her. That hadn’t always been the case. Of course, when you were six years old and the older next-door neighbor was paying you attention, you didn’t recognize that same attention as pity. You just took attention any way you could get it.

  Now she knew better.

  “They’re…um, the papers are back at the house.”

>   “I see.”

  She gathered the salad fixings into a bowl and tossed them. “You didn’t think I kept them here in my locker, did you?”

  His half grin made her remember that mischievous boy who used to include her in all the goings-on. “Let’s put it this way—it wouldn’t have surprised me.”

  She realized then that the room had gotten suspiciously quiet. She turned to find the poker game going on as if in slow motion. Her cheeks flamed. How much of her conversation with Dusty had they overheard? She hadn’t told a soul that she’d heard from Dusty, much less received divorce papers from him. Heck of a way for them to find out.

  Who was she kidding? She was probably the last person in town to figure out he wasn’t coming back when he left.

  She cleared her throat. “Okay, guys, wrap it up. Dinner’s on.”

  A flurry of activity followed, though any attempt at conversation was awkward at best. She began to set the table alongside Martinez when Dusty grasped her wrist.

  Her pulse gave a telltale leap and her throat went as dry as charred wood. Which was silly, really. His touch was meant as nothing more than a halting measure.

  Yeah, tell that to her body.

  “Jolie?”

  She looked to where everyone was nearly settled around the table. “Look, Dusty, can we talk about this later?”

  The sound of the alarm sliced through the room, eliciting a series of groans and curses. Three bells. That meant they needed both engines, which would nearly empty out the firehouse.

  “Figures,” Gary groaned. “First decent meal we’ve had around here in six months and I can’t even eat it.”

  He along with a couple of the other men stuffed what they could into their mouths and pockets, then rushed out of the room to grab their gear.

  Jolie started after them, feeling almost relieved. Talk about being saved by the bell. Although she was certain that whoever had coined the phrase hadn’t had quite this interruption in mind.

  “Jolie,” Dusty said again, more insistently.