That he wanted her.
Sloane hurried down the hall toward the elevator, her mind on the clock and the relentless calendar. She’d just been through a morning that could have won awards for lack of productivity. She could only hope the afternoon would be better. Ahead of her, the elevator doors opened back up. A sign, she thought. Something, at least, was going right.
And then she stepped into the elevator.
“Hey.” Nick smiled at her lazily, leaning against one wall of an otherwise empty car that suddenly seemed very small. He wore a leather bomber jacket over a rough-weave blue shirt and khakis. She’d gotten familiar with the look of him in his departmental T-shirt and trousers. This was the first time she’d seen him in civvies.
She wasn’t at all prepared for the impact. They made him look leaner, rangier and subversively sexy.
“Going to the lobby?” Nick’s hand hovered over the lighted buttons of the control panel as the car started to move. “Better decide quick.”
“The lobby, please.” She stood next to him, immensely conscious of his eyes on her. After their last interlude, she’d resolved to put him out of her mind, which had worked about as well as the childhood game of not thinking of elephants. Still, just because she couldn’t stop thinking of the kiss didn’t mean she had anything to worry about. After all, how long had it been since she’d locked lips with a guy? Of course she’d overreacted. She probably would have with anyone. It was simply a physical response to an extremely attractive man, she’d told herself. Physical hunger was something she could recognize. Physical craving was something she could ignore.
But the feelings that assaulted her when she saw him weren’t simple at all.
Nick studied her for a moment. “You look a little frazzled. What’s up?”
She gave him the easy answer. “Too many meetings, not enough time.” The numbers over the doors lit and extinguished as the elevator dropped. “I spent half the morning in a production meeting with our head of manufacturing and the other with OSHA over at Government Center. I blasted over to Quincy for an eleven o’clock with the National Fire Protection Agency regulator, who told me he had an unavoidable conflict and could I do it this afternoon? I came over here to try and switch my three o’clock meeting with Bill Grant and his gang in research to right after lunch, because of course today of all days I left my cell phone at home. And naturally they can’t switch. So far the morning has been a complete write-off and I don’t have a whole lot of faith in the afternoon,” she finished in frustration.
“It’s kind of early to be going to the NFPA and OSHA anyway, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” She was in no mood to take grief from anyone, Sloane thought, as the elevator slowed. Particularly Nick Trask.
“NFPA certification. I thought that all happened after testing is completed.”
“We’ve spent a lot on R & D for the Orienteer. Exler wants to go into production as soon as the testing is signed off. That means getting as much of the paperwork out of the way now as I can. Assuming that’s okay with you.” The doors opened and she exited into the lobby without saying goodbye.
She got a few steps outside the door of the building before Nick caught up with her.
“Sloane.”
Reluctantly, she turned to face him, expecting mockery or suspicion. And finding neither.
His eyes were steady on hers. “How about if we call a truce? You’re having a rotten day, I just got out of a two-hour exam. We both could use a break.” He paused. “I’ll buy you lunch, but only under certain conditions: no Exler, no gear, no fire department.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and gave her a disarming smile. “What do you say?”
She should have refused. If he’d been in uniform, it would have been easy. But he wasn’t. For the first time they were totally away from fire department territory, no reminders in sight. For the first time, she saw him as just Nick. Just a man.
And before she quite knew what she was doing, she nodded.
It was his favorite dive, a classic railroad-style diner sandwiched in a small lot between two buildings. Maybe the weather of countless winters had taken the shine off the brushed-steel front, but the windows gleamed and the steps that led up to the door at the end were swept clean. A cheerful neon sign spelled out Ray’s in red script. Good Eats flashed above the name; Always Open flashed below.
The interior was just large enough to hold a counter and a row of narrow booths. The gold and white Formica tabletops were spotless, though they’d lost some of their gleam; red vinyl, cracked in places, covered the seats. Next to the cash register hung a photo of a grinning city-league softball team in their Ray’s T-shirts; a Red Sox World Series pennant dangled from a thumbtack above it.
And Sloane looked absolutely transported. “I don’t believe it,” she exclaimed, following Nick to the only two empty seats at the counter. “This is exactly like a place we used to go to where I grew up, only the Blue Hen had pictures of the local bowling team and Little League instead of softball.” She shrugged out of her silvery blue overcoat, sighing happily as the comfortable-looking redhead behind the counter laid paper placemats and cutlery before them. “My grandfather used to take us there sometimes for breakfast or after we’d gone sledding. They had the best hot chocolate.”
“Where was this?” Nick hung their coats on the nearby wall and handed Sloane a menu from the oblong condiment rack.
“Rochester.”
“Land of lake-effect snow?”
“Hey, it saves you money on alarm clocks. You don’t need one in winter—the snowplows wake you up every morning.”
“Now there’s a recommendation.”
Her quick, flashing smile stopped him for a moment. He couldn’t recall seeing it before. He’d have remembered, he thought, savoring the jolt to his system.
“Sometimes you gotta take what you can get,” Sloane said. “It’s a good town. It knows where it came from. Like Boston.”
The waitress stopped in front of them. “You folks ready to order?”
Sloane took a look at the menu. “Clam chowder for me.”
The waitress nodded approvingly. “Made right here, every day. And to drink?”
“Hot tea, please.”
“And you, hon?” the waitress asked Nick.
He scanned the menu. “How about the open-faced turkey sandwich and a coffee?” He wasn’t interested in food, he was interested in Sloane, in finally having a chance to look his fill, in finally having a chance to peel away some of the camouflage and find out what lay beneath.
Nick shifted in his seat a little to watch her. She looked around the diner, still grinning. This was how he wanted to see her, he thought, happy and carefree for once. Then she glanced at him and he felt the punch of desire.
And in his bed. He wanted to see her in his bed. “Rochester, huh? So you’re east-coast born and bred?”
“Not exactly. I’m originally from San Diego. How about you?”
“I’ve been a New Englander all my life,” he said. “Lived in the same town until I was eighteen.”
That raised her eyebrows. “Really. Whereabouts?”
“Eastmont, Vermont. It’s just over the border from New Hampshire. You know, apple cider, maple leaves, all that stuff?”
“I’ve never been up that way.”
“Too bad. You just missed the best time. Vermont’s spectacular in the fall.”
“In your unbiased opinion.”
He grinned. “Everybody says so.” He could see her there, he realized, that bright hair gleaming against the backdrop of blazing color. “When the leaves turn, you get entire hillsides just covered in red and gold. It’s pretty spectacular.”
“It sounds nice.”
“Well, there’s always next year to see it. So did you move to the East Coast when you were a kid or have you just been a latecomer to sledding and hot chocolate?”
She flashed him another grin. “Second grade. I thought snow was the greatest thing in the world.
Couldn’t get enough of it. Snowmen, snow angels.”
“Snowball fights,” he added. “Remember getting a couple dozen kids together for the monster snowball fight?”
She moved her shoulders. “I didn’t know that many people.”
She wouldn’t have, he thought. He’d never met anyone so self-contained. “It must have been tough,” he commented, reaching over to take the coffee the waitress set before him. “New town, new school, new friends. Everything changes.”
In her eyes, a shadow flickered. “Everything did,” she said softly, looked at the thick, white ceramic mug before her. “Hey.” False brightness jangled in her voice. “These are just like the mugs they used to have at the Blue Hen.”
Nick watched her unwrap her tea bag and drop it into the small metal pot of hot water to steep. She was an enigma, hard as steel, brittle as glass. There was vulnerability there and a fascination in the mystery. Only a putz fell for the puzzle instead of the woman, he reminded himself, but it didn’t stop him from being drawn to her. “So is your family still in Rochester?”
She stiffened, so subtly he might have missed it if he hadn’t been looking for it. “No. They’re gone.” Something in her tone of voice told him not to ask anything more. Fair enough. He’d stop with the family.
For now.
“San Diego, Rochester, Boston. You get around.”
“Connecticut, too. I went to UConn.”
“For engineering?”
She shook her head. “Biology. I was going to do DNA research, cure cancer, that kind of thing.”
“What brought you to Boston?”
“Cambridge, actually.” Sloane poured some tea into her mug. “Grad school at MIT. I built the Orienteer for my master’s project.”
“That seems like kind of a long way from biology and research.”
And that quickly the wall was there again, hard and solid. “Things changed.” She stirred her tea, even though she hadn’t added any milk or sugar.
He studied her. Beautiful? Sure. Desirable? Without a doubt, but there was more to her than that and the more he saw, the more he found himself wanting.
Sloane took a sip of her tea. “Anyway, I seem to be doing all the talking. It’s your turn. Tell me about growing up in Vermont. Is Eastmont town or country?”
“Pretty much everything in Vermont is country,” he said dryly, “except maybe for Burlington. I grew up on a maple sugar farm.”
“Seriously?”
“You bet. Sugar house, maple groves, the whole nine yards.”
She gave him a bemused look. “I didn’t think people did that kind of thing anymore. I figured it was all agribusiness, like cattle and wheat.”
“Not hardly. There are a lot of small farms in Vermont, a lot with history. Trasks have been farming for five generations and we’ve been producing maple syrup the whole time.”
A corner of her mouth tugged up. “With your own two hands?”
He waggled his finger at her. “Don’t laugh. I grew up working the farm. Come the spring thaw, we’d be out in the groves before it was light, even, tapping trees, emptying buckets. As soon as we got home from school, same drill.”
“I’m sure that violates some kind of child labor laws.”
“I didn’t mind it, really. I loved being out in the groves the morning after we had a fresh snow. And the smell of wood smoke and maple in the air when we had the sap cooker fired up in the sugar house, that was spring to me.” The little surge of nostalgia took him by surprise. He gave his head a shake.
Sloane watched him over her mug. “It sounds like you miss it. Why aren’t you up there on the family farm drawing sap or whatever it is you do?”
Now it was time for a few walls of his own to go up. “Just like you. Things changed. Or maybe I did.” The waitress was coming by with their plates, he noticed with relief, welcoming the interruption.
“It must have been hard to go from being a small-town boy to living in a city like Boston,” Sloane commented, unfolding her napkin in her lap.
“Not really. I don’t know why but I just took to the city right off. I like it. It feels right, somehow.”
“You don’t miss the country?” She sampled her soup.
“Maybe sometimes. Hot apple cider after being out in the groves. All the green in high summer. And I miss skiing every day in the winter.”
“Every day?”
He grinned. “When I wasn’t cleaning sap buckets or whatever it was that had to be done. We lived maybe half an hour from three or four different ski lodges. We’d head over and do the double diamond runs.”
“Why am I not surprised?” She could see him as a reckless sixteen-year-old. “What is it with you adrenaline junkies, anyway? What are you after?”
“Excitement, challenge.” His eyes glimmered. “I guess I wanted to lead a reckless life.”
“You do,” Sloane said quietly, setting down her spoon, appetite suddenly gone.
“Not really. There are safeguards,” Nick answered, both of them knowing skiing was no longer the topic.
“Not enough of them.”
His expression sobered. “It’s the nature of the job. If it’s hazardous, it’s only because it deals with potentially bigger hazards.”
“You act like it’s nothing, putting your life on the line.” Sloane’s voice tightened. It was all suddenly there, the danger, the fear. Today he was sitting next to her, chatting about childhood. Tomorrow he could be engulfed in flames. It was crazy to get to know him, crazy to let any of them get under her skin. It was everything about why she had to leave.
“Sloane.” He reached out and turned her chin toward him. “We had an agreement, remember? No fire department.”
His touch shimmered over her skin. “I have to go.” The words held an edge of desperation. “It’s close to time for my appointment.” She set her napkin on the counter, refusing to meet his eyes.
Nick studied her. “All right.” He rose to get her coat.
It felt cozy, too cozy to have him hold it for her, to feel his hands on her shoulders when he finished. He’d snuck up on her blind side with his talk of Vermont and falling leaves. Now, her only defense was escape. “You don’t need to go also. You haven’t finished your lunch.”
“That’s okay, I’m used to it.” He picked up the bill and guided her past him with his fingertips in the small of her back.
And heat radiated through her.
She stiffened. This was not the way it was supposed to go. Nick Trask belonged with work and the fire department in the special “handle with care” compartment in her life. She couldn’t let his sexy eyes and persuasive voice and pretty stories get to her. And that mouth that turned her mind to mush. She had to stop it and stop it now.
Leaving him at the cash register, she pushed open the door, hoping the October air would clear her head. Outside, the sky was the crystalline blue of a New England fall. The chill breeze whisked red and gold leaves along the avenue. Entire hillsides covered in red and gold… Sloane resisted the urge to pound her head against the cold steel pole of a streetlight. Behind her, the door opened.
“So, where to from here?” Nick walked up to lean against the light pole, looking like something out of a magazine ad.
Sloane gave herself a mental shake. “I should get back.”
“You’ve got, what, an hour and a half until your meeting? There’s time.”
She jammed her hands in her pockets. “Look, it was nice of you to take me to lunch. I enjoyed it.”
“So did I.”
“But I don’t think it should happen again. There’s a job to do here, and in the interest of professionalism, I think we should keep away from any other involvement.”
His gaze roamed to her mouth, lingered at her neckline. His hands ached to touch her. “What’s unprofessional about spending time together?”
“I work for a vendor, you work for the fire department. You’re involved in qualifying my equipment.”
He couldn’t prev
ent the corner of his mouth from twitching. “It’s pretty fine equipment.”
“Stop it.” Face flaming, she stared at him. “I hardly think the fire department would want us involved. I don’t want us involved.”
“Are you sure about that?” He pushed off the lamppost and took a step toward her. The wind tugged at the collar of her blouse, exposing the long, liquid column of her throat. “What about the testing center?”
“The testing center was a mistake.”
“It was pretty intense for a mistake.” And it had kept him up at night more than once. “Answer me this. If you’re not interested, then why is it you always start trembling when I get just a little bit too close?”
Her chin came up. “I don’t tremble.”
“Sure you do.” He traced his fingertips down her cheek. “Just like you are right now.”
Sloane blinked, then shook her head briskly. “You’re imagining things.” She glanced at her watch. “Look, I have to get back.”
“That’s a cheap out. You’ve got time. You can’t keep ducking away from this, Sloane.” Nick’s eyes were smoke dark, snaring hers, not letting her look away.
Awareness rippled through every muscle of her body. Her breath caught in her throat. “Stick to business, Trask,” she snapped, trying to mask the edge of desperation. Distance was evaporating. She couldn’t continue this much longer. “Round two of testing is tomorrow and then we’ll be ready to go live.”
The wind caught at his hair, tossing it over his forehead. “Fine. Anything else?”
She should have recognized the dangerously tight tone in his voice. She was too preoccupied with trying to keep her own responses damped down to notice. “No, that’s all.”
“Good.” He bit the word off and pulled her into his arms.
Where There's Smoke (Holiday Hearts #1) Page 6