The Woman for Dusty Conrad

by Tori Carrington

  Jolie tucked her hair behind her ear, finding her hand shaking as she did so. Of course she’d agreed. After talking with Nancy for two straight hours, she’d also put in an official request to foster other children…with the hope of adopting.

  The traffic light ahead of her turned red. She pulled the Jeep to a stop. The town circle sat before her, all cleaned up from the Halloween festivities the night before, the arcs of water the fountain sprayed up reflecting the midday sun’s rays. Jolie’s gaze moved beyond the fountain, gazing at the empty lots across the way on Main Street. Her stomach dipped as she stared, stunned, at all the destruction. And to know that little Scooter Wahl had been the cause of it…She shook the thought from her mind, having too much to think about without adding the boy’s uncertain fate on top of the others. She was glad that Dusty had stepped forward, agreeing to act as Scott’s guardian until his case came up for trial. With Dusty on his side, and the rest of the fire department, she knew that the teen would get the help he needed.

  The light changed and she drove the short few blocks to the house. As it always did in the past few days, her throat tightened at the sight of Dusty’s truck in the driveway.

  When she’d come home last night, she’d found the papers gone from the kitchen table, and Dusty noticeably missing. She’d checked the master bath, only to find everything done, though she took little pleasure in seeing the gleaming tiles, the monstrous Jacuzzi installed and working. All she could think about was what had passed between her and Dusty the night before last in that very room.

  She’d found out later that he’d walked Scott to John Sparks’s, where the remorseful teenager had confessed to setting the second fire at the general store. But that hadn’t stopped the acute pain that resided in her heart, making it almost impossible to breathe at times.

  Flicking on the blinker, she pulled up into the drive beside Dusty’s truck. Movement caught her eye. She glanced at the house to find Dusty coming out. Her pulse speeded up when she spotted the duffel bag he held.

  He’s leaving.

  Of course, she knew he would. But knowing and being prepared were two completely different things.

  Her limbs growing numb, she forced herself to get out of the Jeep, to walk on the brick path still blanketed with leaves, then to climb the steps. Finally, she stood on the porch…and felt as if her heart would beat straight through her chest.

  She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

  He cleared his throat. “I…I, um, didn’t want to go without saying goodbye.”

  She nodded, as if she understood, but right now understanding was the farthest thing from her mind.

  “I’m not going back to Toledo,” he said quietly.

  Jolie’s gaze flicked to his face.

  He grimaced. “I mean, I’ll have to go back to close up my apartment, put in my resignation. But I plan to return to Old Orchard.”

  Return to Old Orchard…but not to her. Jolie’s throat tightened so much she was afraid she might choke.

  “I just thought you should know that. You know, in case we run into each other every now and again.”

  Every now and again…

  She forced herself to nod, afraid to say the words on the tip of her tongue, afraid that the sob behind them might come rolling out, as well. Instead, she looked absently at the front porch swing, the red-and-white Ohio State Buckeyes stadium blanket lying across it. “And Ellie?” she asked.

  He shifted from foot to foot. “She’s inside. I explained everything as best I could.”

  She nodded again, then ordered herself to stop.

  He moved toward the stairs and Jolie nearly cried out, wanted desperately to ask him not to leave. Her chest felt like it might cave in on itself.

  “Goodbye, Jolie.”

  Then he was descending the stairs, getting into his truck and driving away. And Jolie stood cemented to the spot, feeling like her world had just crashed to a sudden halt.

  The door squeaked open, barely catching her attention.

  “Jolie?” Ellie said quietly.

  Glad the girl couldn’t see her face, she covertly wiped the dampness from her cheeks, then turned to face her.

  “Scooby-Doo’s on.”

  A strangled laugh escaped her throat. Scooby-Doo. She smiled sadly, then grasped the door handle and let herself in. Maybe Scooby-Doo, and little Ellie, were just what the doctor ordered.

  Chapter 18

  Jolie sat in the office at the firehouse, going over the schedule for the next month. Eyeing the calendar, she paged backward, then forward, her gaze resting on the date. December 1. She ran her hand slowly down the page. It was hard to believe that a month had passed since Dusty had last said goodbye. Some days it felt like yesterday. Others, it seemed like years had gone by.

  She dropped her hand to the desktop, trying to figure out what today felt like.

  “Jolie, Jolie, I’m done! Do you think my daddy will like it?”

  Busy, Jolie thought, filling in the gap. Today felt busy. Nothing more, nothing less.

  She glanced up to where Ellie was bounding into the office from where she’d been in the station kitchen drawing along with the rest of the guys. She got up to round the desk, nearly tripping over Spot. She frowned down at the cat. Somehow, the feline seemed a little more antsy today than she’d been recently. While her visits to the house were becoming fewer and farther between than they had a month ago, the fact that she stuck around the house at all, then was nearly on top of her whenever she was at the station, was puzzling.

  Stepping around the desk, Jolie refused to buy into any of the stories that surrounded Spot’s visits to her neighbors and the things that had happened as a result.

  She gazed down at little Ellie, knowing the energetic, fun-loving five-year-old was to credit for giving her reason to be happy at all. She considered the picture Ellie had painted that would be tacked up with the half-dozen others she’d already made for her father on the hospital room wall.

  She curved her hand under Ellie’s chin and smiled. “I know he’s going to love it, sweetie.”

  Two weeks ago Nancy had finally rubber-stamped the idea of Ellie visiting Jeff in the hospital. Up until that point, social services and the child psychologist had thought it would be too traumatic for Ellie to see her father in such poor condition. But after several trips to a Cleveland burn clinic for extensive skin graphs and reconstructive surgery, he had steadily improved and was progressing even more aggressively now that Jolie took Ellie by to visit him as often as she could. And if she couldn’t do it, Darby did, generously filling in gaps that might otherwise have been handled by family members that Jolie didn’t have. Of course, it also meant she looked after the twins on occasion, but she was coming to find that the fuller her house, the happier she was.

  Yes, she would be the first to admit that being around others helped her ignore the pain caused by Dusty’s final leaving. But it also aided the healing process. She found it awfully difficult to wallow in self-pity when a five-year-old was standing in front of her, footprints trailing after her, covered from head to toe in the mud she had dug up in the backyard, telling her she’d invited her entire kindergarten class for lunch.

  And if every now and again her heart surged with hope that she’d spot Dusty whenever she ran errands or traveled back and forth to the firehouse…well, that was only natural, wasn’t it? Just because things were over between them didn’t mean he hadn’t played a huge role in her life at one point. And she was coming to see that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make herself stop loving him.

  “Are we going now? Are we?” Ellie asked, repeating herself in that eager way she’d taken to over the past couple of days.

  Jolie grasped her shoulders and turned her around toward the hall. “Yes, we are. Go get your coat.”

  She watched the girl skip out of the office and close the door, then shook her head. Ah, to be that young and carefree again.

  “What do you want, Spot?” she quietl
y asked the cat, who wound around her ankles again and meowed. “Sometimes I wish you could talk so you could just be out with it.”

  She patted the purring feline on the head, then turned and gathered her purse from the bottom desk drawer. There was a brief knock on the glass of the door.

  “Ellie?” she called. “You can come on in, honey—”

  Whatever words she might have uttered caught and held in her throat. Simply because when she opened the door, she found that Ellie hadn’t been the one knocking. Dusty had.

  Jolie’s knees threatened to give out from under her. She blinked several times, just to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.

  No, she definitely wasn’t. If she couldn’t tell by looking at the strikingly handsome man in front of her, her complete physical reaction would have been a dead giveaway.

  He stood in the hall wearing a well-worn pair of jeans, a black T-shirt and a leather bomber jacket. His brown hair had grown out slightly, making her remember how he’d looked before he’d joined the department, when his thick, wavy hair used to fall over his brow.

  He looked good enough to eat. Either with or without a spoon.

  “Honey?” he asked, hiking a dark brow.

  Jolie opened her mouth to speak, to tell him that she’d been talking to Ellie, but nothing came out. So she clamped it shut again.

  “Dusty! Dusty!” Ellie cried, catapulting herself down the hall and into his arms, crinkling the picture she’d drawn for her father between them.

  He hoisted her up and took a good look at her, his grin nothing but one-hundred-percent irresistible.

  “How are you doing, munchkin?” he asked.

  Jolie knew that while he hadn’t stopped by the house to see Ellie, he visited her often out at Darby’s place. She also knew his visits meant the world to the little girl, who cooed about Dusty having said this, or having mentioned that whenever she saw him. If the new arrangement confused Ellie, she didn’t say anything. Then again, after all that had happened in her young life, a little confusion was the least of her problems.

  Dusty finally placed Ellie back onto her feet. Jolie gently rested her hand on top of her head, reveling in the feel of her silken hair against her skin.

  She looked down at her. “Ellie, why don’t you go into the kitchen and get the cookies we made for your daddy last night? That is, if the guys haven’t eaten them already.”

  Ellie poked out her chin. “They better not have.”

  She started walking, then skipping down the hall. If her skip was a little lighter, a little happier, Jolie pretended not to notice. And that had nothing to do with the sudden skipping of her heartbeat.

  She cleared her throat. “I hear the new construction company is doing well.”

  His gaze seemed to intensify as he scanned her face. “Yes, it is.”

  She nodded, her mouth feeling dry as dirt. “That’s good.”

  For long moments she stood there, waiting for him to say something, to indicate why he was there, what he wanted. Only as an afterthought did she glance down the hall. She saw three adult heads and one child head duck back into the kitchen.

  “So…” Dusty began, nodding toward the door where her name was painted on the opaque glass. “It’s Chief Conrad now, is it?”

  Feeling her cheeks heat, she looked down at her civilian clothes of jeans and a sweater, this being her official day off. She’d just stopped by the station to go over a few things before moving on to the hospital with Ellie.

  “Yes, I am,” she said, then stopped.

  How did she explain to him that what he’d said to her before he’d left made a lot of sense? That the night of the Devil’s Night fires, she had decided that she no longer had anything to prove on the front line and had decided on a compromise? To take the chief’s exam at the same time she had her physical and claim the position Gary Jones had vacated only a week ago? But that she hadn’t shared her decision with him because she’d thought it was too late?

  She didn’t know how to explain it to him, so she didn’t. She merely smiled and said, “Not that I had any competition. Gary said that if I hadn’t stepped forward, he probably would have been stuck here until they could bring someone in from outside.” She shrugged. “I took pity on him and let him keep his hunting plans.”

  Dusty’s grin made her curl her toes inside her hiking boots.

  She swallowed hard, catching movement from the corner of her eye, but helpless to order the guys and Ellie to stop spying, and too distracted to invite Dusty into the office.

  “So…” she began this time. “What brings you by the station?”

  He slid his hands into his front jeans pockets and shrugged slightly. “I, um, was thinking of coming back part-time. Or being put on call, you know, in case you need an extra pair of hands.”

  “Here?” she asked. “At the station?”

  His grin made a comeback. “Yeah. I meant to stop by before now, but I was waiting until things at the company settled down first.” He cleared his throat. “The truth is, I’ve missed everybody here.”

  She turned, catching every last pair of eyes peering at them before heads were pulled back into the kitchen. She gestured toward their audience. “And obviously, they’ve missed you.”

  Silence fell between them, and Dusty’s eyes grew darker. “I missed you, Jolie.”

  Jolie’s stomach dove down to her ankles then back up again. She didn’t know what she expected him to say, was at a complete loss for his reason for being there. But it would have been the last thing on the list, had she made one.

  She didn’t know how to respond. She pushed her hair behind her ear and tried for a smile. “Yeah, I’ve missed you, too.”

  They stood like that for a long moment, neither of them moving, neither of them saying anything. Then Dusty appeared to remember something. Moving his hand behind him, he slipped something out of his back pocket. Jolie instantly recognized the divorce papers…and she felt the sudden urge to run.

  Dusty scraped his fingertip along the edge of the folded papers. “You know, when I went in the house to find these waiting on the kitchen table for me that night, I came to a ridiculous realization.”

  Jolie stared at his boots, unable to look into his eyes.

  “I recognized that despite everything we’d gone through, even after I’d left, I never really thought it was over between us.”

  Her gaze flicked up to his face. “Dusty—”

  “Wait. Let me finish.” He ran his free hand through his hair and grimaced. “I don’t know. I guess I took for granted your tenacity, your determination to see things through, no matter what.” His swallow echoed in the hall. “And I realized that never in a million years had I expected you to sign these papers.”

  Jolie’s breath caught. She tried to figure out where he was going with this, what he was trying to say.

  “What I mean is…oh, well, hell, Jolie. I don’t know what the right way is to say this….”

  “Just say it, man,” echoed a voice from down the hall.

  Jolie glanced toward her colleagues, then back at Dusty, her eyes wide, her heart beating a million miles a minute.

  She forced the words from her tight throat. “John’s right. Just say it, Dusty.”

  The hopeful, unsure look in his eyes made her knees go weak all over again.

  “I love you, Jolie.” He dragged in a deep breath, then exhaled, laughing quietly. “There, I said it. I love you, have always loved you, and will continue to love you until the day I die.”

  “I love you, too,” she whispered, her chest tight.

  He didn’t appear to hear her as he looked down at the papers he still held. “I…I never thought you’d actually sign these.” He glanced at her from under his brows. “And didn’t realize until the other day that despite what I’d thought, you hadn’t signed them, had you?”

  Jolie’s cheeks blazed fire hot as she watched him unfold the sheets of paper, then hold up the page in question. He raised a brow. “Scooby-Doo?
”

  Just like that Jolie was in his arms, holding him as hard as she dared, filling her nose with the sweet smell of him, providing her starved body with the feel of him.

  Behind her back, she heard him rip the papers in two, then his hands rested against the back of her head, gently tugging her until she was staring up into his emotion-filled face.

  “God, woman, do you have any idea what you do to me?” he ground out, dipping his head to kiss her.

  Jolie leaned against him for support, suddenly incapable of the simple task of holding herself upright as he slowly plundered her mouth. She ran her hands up his leather-covered back, then tunneled her fingers into his soft hair.

  “Marry me,” he said between fresh assaults on her lips. “Marry me all over again, Jolie. This time forever.”

  A soft sound escaped her throat as she burrowed closer against him, seeking his warmth, his love, his nearness. “Yes,” she breathed.

  A deafening, simultaneous whoop went up in the kitchen, at the same time the fire bell rang. But Jolie didn’t even open her eyes. Didn’t budge a muscle.

  “Uh, Chief?” She heard Martinez call to her as the sound of the rest of the men scrambling for position filled the hall.

  Jolie reluctantly tugged her mouth from Dusty’s, laying her temple against his chin as she glanced at the fireman.

  “It’s the Glick farm again. Seems some teenagers were playing some pranks and let all of the chickens out this morning.”

  Jolie quietly laughed. “Well, then, you’re just going to have to go out and help round them up, aren’t you?”

  Martinez grinned. “And you?”

  And her? She glanced up at Dusty, finding passion and desire shining in his Irish-coffee-colored eyes. “After a swing by the hospital, then out to Darby’s to drop Ellie off for a visit…my husband and I are going home.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5719-5

  THE WOMAN FOR DUSTY CONRAD

  Copyright © 2001 by Lori and Tony Karayianni

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.