12-Alarm Cowboys

by Cora Seton

  Fortunately she got it together before she embarrassed herself. But right before she dropped her arms and stepped back, she could have sworn she felt something hard and interesting poking her in the tummy. She supposed it could have been his belt—if he’d been wearing one. Clearly, she hadn’t been the only one getting a little turned on from a little hug. And for some silly reason, that made her extremely happy.

  Jax didn’t say anything, but his dark, smoldering eyes practically undressed her where she stood. Skye wet her lips, wondering if he’d kiss her. Or maybe she was the one who’d do the kissing. Because right then, she wouldn’t have been surprised if either of those things happened.

  But after a long, heart-stopping moment, Jax stepped back. “Good night, Skye,” he murmured. “Sleep well. And feel free to make yourself at home while you’re here.”

  Giving her a smile, he turned and walked down the hall, Rodeo at his heels. She waited until he disappeared inside his bedroom before going into her own. She leaned against the door until her pulse returned to something close to normal, then walked over to the bed. She unbuttoned her shirt as she went, her breath hitching as the material grazed her hypersensitive nipples. Draping the dress shirt over the end of the bed, she picked up the long T-shirt she’d left there earlier and pulled it over her head, luxuriating in its softness as she turned out the light and climbed under the covers.

  But instead of falling asleep, she lay there in the dark. Between her aroused nipples and the thought of Jax just down the hallway with a hard-on in his shorts—if he even wore shorts when he slept—she was pretty sure sleep was going to be a long time coming.

  Sighing, she rolled over on her back and relived the day she’d had. Not the bad parts, but the good stuff. Like running into Jax after all these years and having him offer her a place to stay, not to mention finally having a sounding board she could talk about following her dreams.

  While Aiden Dunn was a good friend, he wasn’t Jax. Maybe it was because she’d known Jax since they were kids, but he made her really believe she could start a whole new business from scratch with little more than a hope, a dream, a Kitchen-Aid, and a cupcake pan. It wouldn’t be easy, and she was going to have to deal with Dane’s disapproval, but with Jax in her corner—symbolically at least—there was nothing she couldn’t do.

  Chapter Four

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  Jax yawned as he walked through the station’s big roll-up doors. He’d only gotten a couple hours sleep before coming in, but his normal twenty-four hour shift ran until noon, and he felt bad leaving his guys one man short even for as long as he had. He made his way around the side of the sparkling clean fire engine, intending to go to the captain’s office when he ran into Dane just rounding the back of the truck.

  Dane pulled up with a look of surprise—an expression that lasted all of half a second. Eyes narrowing, he glanced behind Jax, then pinned him with a glare.

  “Where’s my sister?” he demanded.

  Shit. Dane might be his best friend, but the guy had one hell of a short fuse, and he’d always been prickly when it came to his sister. Jax certainly understood why. Skye was the only family he had left. But man, right then, his friend was way out of line.

  “She’s at my place, sleeping in the guest room. She was so exhausted after last night, I wouldn’t be surprised if she sleeps the whole day.”

  Dane looked concerned for another half second, then he squared his shoulders. “Did she seriously quit her job in New York to come back here? What the hell kind of business is she talking about starting anyway?”

  It would have been easier to tell Dane everything, but he couldn’t do that. Skye had told him what she had in confidence, believing he wouldn’t go running off to tell Dane.

  “Skye asked me to not say anything about it to anyone,” he said.

  “I’m not anyone,” Dane ground out. “I’m her brother.”

  Jax swore silently. Dane was her brother, but he could also be a jackass sometimes—like now. “She’ll tell you when she’s ready, okay? You just have to be patient.”

  The muscle in Dane’s jaw flexed. Shit. Maybe telling him to be patient had been a bad idea. Dane wasn’t known for that trait.

  “What the hell does that mean?” His friend took a step closer, his fists clenched at his side. “You haven’t seen my sister in a decade and all of a sudden you decided you know more about what she needs than I do?”

  Now it was Jax’s turn to get pissed. “Maybe I do. I haven’t seen her in nearly a decade, but how many times have you?”

  He knew it was a dirty shot. Dane had told him more than once it bothered him that he and Skye hadn’t seen each other more than a couple times since she had left for college. But that didn’t keep Jax from taking advantage of Dane’s stunned silence.

  “Look, your sister is fine,” Jax said as calmly as he could. “But she needs you to give her some space.”

  “You don’t need to tell me how to handle my sister,” Dane shot back. “I raised her just fine after our parents died.”

  “Raised her?” Jax snorted. “She’s your sister, Dane, not a farm animal! You didn’t raise her. She raised herself.”

  Dane charged him, his fist swinging at the same time. Jax loved Dane like a brother, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let him punch him. He ducked to one side, allowing Dane’s fist to slip past him before lunging forward and wrapping his arms around his friend, slamming him sideways into the fire engine.

  Dane twisted in Jax’s arms, swinging his elbows in an effort to take off his head, cussing the whole time. Jax cussed right back. He was gonna have to deck his friend to end this, and preferably before Dane decked him.

  “What the hell is going on out here?” A sharp voice demanded from the back of the station. “You two get paid to fight fires, not each other!”

  Jax and Dane immediately broke apart to see their captain coming toward them. Earl Stewart, the senior man in the station, was hard, whipcord lean, and not someone to mince words. He’d run this station for over ten years and didn’t put up with things not being done his way. And he sure as hell didn’t put up with his people taking shots at each other.

  Stewart gave Jax a hard look before turning his gaze on Dane. “I thought you were supposed to be inspecting the SCBA bottles for the next shift, Chandler.”

  Dane shot Jax a glare that could melt paint off a fire engine, then gave Stewart a nod. “I’m on it now, Captain.”

  Jax watched him go. Something told him this wasn’t going to be the last time he and Dane argued.

  He turned back to the station boss, prepared to apologize for the scuffle, but Stewart cut him off. “In my office. Now.”

  Jax clenched his jaw as he followed the older man, but didn’t say anything. He’d already been MIA for a good part of his shift, and that brawl with Dane wasn’t going to win him any points.

  “I know I missed eight hours of my shift, Captain,” he said once the door to the office was closed and they’d both taken a seat—the captain behind his big, dark maple desk. “I’ll work today’s shift—all twenty-four hours—to make up for the time I took last night.”

  Stewart scowled. “I don’t give a shit about that. You work more hours off the books than anyone in here. I want to know why Dane was trying to smash your face in. I thought you two were friends. Is this about you pulling his sister out of that hotel fire?”

  Jax leaned back in his chair with a sigh, not surprised Lieutenant Boone had told the captain about that. Unlike in the movies, firefighters didn’t pull people they knew personally out of burning buildings that often.

  “It’s not so much that I pulled her out of the hotel fire,” Jax said. “It’s that she was in the hotel in the first place, that she didn’t call him when she got into town, and that she decided she’d rather stay with me than her brother.”

  Stewart lifted a brow. “Ouch. I take it there’s some kind of argument going between Dane and Skye, and that neither one of them intend to back down. Ho
w did you get yourself in the middle of it?”

  Jax frowned. “You know Skye?”

  Captain Stewart knew all his people and their immediate families, but Skye had lived up in New York for the past ten years and as far as Jax knew, she’d never stepped foot in the station.

  Stewart nodded. “I knew her parents. Went to school with her dad, in fact. They were good people. I was on the truck that rolled to their house the night of the fire, and seeing Dane and Skye like that afterward… Well, it was tough. I knew I couldn’t ever take their pain away, but I did what I could. Got Dane into the department. Helped him pick out a college for Skye.” He blinked, and for a moment, Jax was sure he caught sight of tears misting the older man’s eyes. But they were gone before he could be sure. “So, did Skye and Dane have a fight?”

  Jax hadn’t known Stewart was friends with the Chandlers. How could he know? Dane never talked about his mom and dad. Ever.

  “Yeah,” Jax said. “She quit her job in New York to move back here to start a business of her own—one she doesn’t think Dane will approve of.”

  “She’s probably right about that,” Stewart said. “Dane’s a good man, but he has a blind spot when it comes to that sister of his.”

  Jax couldn’t argue. “That’s why she was staying at a hotel. She wanted to get her business up and running before Dane knew she was back.”

  Stewart scowled. “And he got pissed because you offered to let her stay with you?”

  “That’s part of it,” Jax said. “But mostly he got pissed when I wouldn’t tell him why Skye quit her job or what kind of business she’s starting.”

  The captain eyed him appraisingly. “You plan on helping Skye, even if it gets you into hot water with Dane?”

  Jax shrugged. “Skye could use a friend right now, and since I wasn’t around right after her parents died, I figure I owe her. Dane’s a big boy. He’s just going to have to deal with it.”

  Stewart was silent for a moment. “Don’t worry about finishing the rest of your shift. I’ll cover for you. And stay on your normal forty-eight-hour off routine. If you need any more time off to help Skye get her feet under her, let me know. Normally I’d expect Dane to take care of this, but right now he’s too wrapped up in his own issues to see what his sister really needs.”

  Jax breathed a sigh of relief. He’d been secretly hoping this was what the captain would say. Now he had more than two days off to focus completely on helping Skye. He couldn’t ask for more than that. He thanked his boss and got up to leave, but then stopped.

  “I forgot to ask. Did they get everyone out of the hotel okay?”

  Stewart nodded. “Looks that way, though it was damn close. Tory did one hell of a job. Probably going to get a commendation out of it.”

  Jax nodded. He was glad Tory and the others had gotten everyone out. And even more glad Tory was being recognized for it. The guy was a damn fine firefighter, one of the best.

  Jax started for the door again, but this time it was the captain who stopped him.

  “I thought you’d want to know,” he said. “The department is officially calling the fire in the hotel suspicious pending a formal arson investigation. The clean-up crew from Station 15 found evidence of accelerant in a first floor storage space. Probably just some moron leaving a can of gas on the shelf, but you and I both know you can’t be too careful.”

  Jax swore under his breath. That’s all the city of Dallas needed, some kind of psycho out there trying to burn down hotels.

  *

  Jax expected to find Skye all snuggled up and sleeping in the guest room when he got home, but instead she was sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop in front of her, wearing a pair of his workout pants, a T-shirt, and the flip-flops he wore when he was feeling too lazy to put on real shoes. Everything was about a dozen sizes too big for her—especially the flip-flops—but damn, did she make it look good.

  Rodeo was sleeping on the floor at her feet, but while he lifted his head from his paws, he didn’t get up. Skye, on the other hand, didn’t notice him standing there at all because she was busy scribbling notes on a pad of paper. He leaned one shoulder against the square pillar between the open-concept kitchen/living room combo and watched her work. The sun coming through the window was like a halo around her, making her look like an angel and taking his breath away.

  When she finally looked up and saw him, the smile she gave him almost made his knees weak. If he wasn’t leaning against something, he probably would have fallen over.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” she said.

  He pushed himself away from the pillar, praying his legs would support him. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  She gestured with her pen. “I was just writing down some ideas. Hope you don’t mind that I borrowed your clothes. I tried to wash mine, but after three times through the machine, they still smelled like smoke. Hope you’re okay with me using your laptop, too.”

  He pulled out the chair beside her and sat down. “Of course. I told you to make yourself at home, and I meant it. I’m surprised you got into my computer without the password, though.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You do know that having the word Password as your password is a really bad idea, right?”

  He shrugged. “Anything more complicated and I’d have to put it on a piece of paper and pin it to my fridge. And that wouldn’t be any better.”

  She laughed. “Probably not.”

  He leaned closer. “So, what are you looking at? Pinterest or something?”

  He’d never actually been on Pinterest himself, but had ex-girlfriend who was addicted to it.

  Skye shook her head as she turned her attention back to the screen. “No. I love me some Pinterest, but I can’t let myself get distracted right now. I have a meeting with a loan officer from the bank in a couple days and want to make sure my business plan is ready to go.”

  “Business plan?” He frowned. “I thought you lost your laptop and everything else in the fire.”

  She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “I did, but I keep all my important stuff backed up on the Cloud for just that reason. You do that too, right?”

  “Afraid not.” He gave her a sheepish smile. “Not just because I don’t have anything important enough to back up, but because I don’t have a clue what the Cloud is and how to put anything there.”

  She laughed, and it was a completely beautiful sound. That fact that she could still laugh after the fire and the fight with her brother was amazing.

  “So, what’s a business plan?” he asked.

  Skye scooted her chair closer to his, turning the laptop so he could see the screen, too. “A business plan lays out everything an investor might want to know about my business—my product line, who my customers are going to be, my pricing list, earning versus profit, equipment expenses, rental costs, promotion, and overhead. It shows the investor—in this case, the bank—that I know what I’m doing and have a good chance of being successful.”

  Jax studied the mountains of information. It definitely seemed like Skye knew what she was talking about. Her plan even showed that she had enough money of her own to spend the first two years growing her client list. He didn’t have much money in the bank, but if she’d let him, he’d invest in her.

  “You seem to have a pretty good amount of cash set aside,” he pointed out. “Why do you even need a loan from the bank?”

  “I could go out on my own right now, but that would cut into my long-term reserves, putting my plan at risk,” she explained. “My biggest initial cost is getting access to a place to do all my baking. I obviously can’t afford my own shop right now, which means sharing space at night in an established baking business. If I can get the bank to give me a loan, I can sign a lease with a place, which will give me priority access at a reduced rent. Plus, I want to show the loan officer my long-term plan for purchasing my own space and see what they think of the idea.” She scrolled down the screen. “This part of the plan is wh
ere I show them how my expenses would go down once I move to a permanent location.”

  She scrolled again, showing him what kind of promotion she intended to do, how many baking assistants she’d need, and the costs associated with storefront locations. Damn, she had this well thought out.

  “This is really impressive,” he said. “When do you meet with the loan officer?”

  “I have an appointment Friday at two.”

  He eyed the laptop screen. “I probably can’t ask all the thorny questions they will, but would you like to go through your proposal with me? Sort of a dry run?”

  She beamed at him, her blue eyes sparkling. “That’s a great idea. Though, could you do me a favor and envision me in a power outfit instead of these sweats?”

  He chuckled. “I can do that.”

  And the image that came to mind was sexy as hell, right down to the sky-high heels he pictured her wearing. Although he had to admit, any intelligent person would be mesmerized by Skye, even if she was wearing baggy sweats.

  *

  After the second time through her proposal, during which she kicked off the leather flip-flops she’d borrowed from Jax’s closet, Skye decided it was probably time to get out of his place and buy some clothes. She loved wearing his stuff, but she needed to replace her wardrobe if she ever hoped to be ready for her meeting at the bank. Since she didn’t know many men who liked shopping, she was surprised when Jax offered to take her to the mall. She fully expected him to hand her the keys to his truck and tell her to have fun.

  “I just need to check on the horses before we go,” he said.

  Skye waited in the kitchen while Jax changed out his work uniform and into a button-down shirt, a pair of jeans, and cowboy boots. He looked even better in them than she imagined—and she had a pretty vivid imagination.

  “What’s in there?” she asked, pointing at the smaller structure that stood halfway between the horse barn and the partially open-sided hay storage unit as they walked across the clearing.