by Ashlyn Chase
“So, about that health food restaurant…” she began.
Oh no. She isn’t thinking of canceling, is she? He wouldn’t give her a chance. He was looking forward to spending time with her. Sitting across from that beautiful face would give him an excuse to gaze at her—and he couldn’t keep his stare from wandering to her anyway. “I can follow you back to the city and take you from wherever you park your car.”
“I don’t have a car.”
Huh? “You don’t? Then how did you get all the way out here on Moon Island? You’d be spending a fortune on cab fare.”
One side of her mouth curled up in a sly smile, as if she were going to say something snarky, but instead she said, “I used a Zipcar.”
“Oh.” He’d heard about the program. It saved city dwellers from having to own their own vehicles, paying for insurance, and parking when they’d only use them a few times a year. “So, do you want to leave it here overnight and come in with me tomorrow, or did you want to drop it off in one of the designated spots and pick up another one tomorrow?”
“I’d rather not put you out. I’ll drop it off at the Prudential Center garage and walk since you said the restaurant is on Boylston Street. What’s the name of it?”
“How about if I meet you at the entrance to the garage. We can walk there together.”
She shrugged. “Whatever floats your dinghy.”
“The saying is, ‘whatever floats your boat.’”
That sly smile lifted the side of her lip again. “I know.”
He sighed. Trying to date her isn’t going to be easy. Fortunately, he loved a challenge.
* * *
An hour later, Ryan was pacing outside the garage. What the hell could have happened to her? Traffic wasn’t that bad on the Southeast Expressway.
He looked at his watch again. “Jesus,” he muttered. What was taking her so long? As if it had just occurred to him, he stopped and balled his fists. If she stood me up…
That thought was replaced by, Of course not. She has to see me tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
Now he was back to worrying. But why? She was a grown woman. One who’d made it abundantly clear she could take care of herself. So why did he have this niggling feeling he should take care of her?
It was annoying.
At last he spotted the bright-green compact car literally zipping down the ramp and into the underground garage.
When she emerged on the escalator, all thoughts evaporated. She was stunning, even wearing a serious expression—which he saw way too often. He’d love to make her laugh and see what her smile looked like. A real smile, not a smirk.
“Nice of you to show up,” he said.
She held up one hand. “Don’t start.”
“Start what?”
“Bitching at me because I’m late.”
“I don’t bitch,” he bitched. Do you hear yourself, Fierro? “So what happened? Are you okay?”
She let out a deep breath. “Yeah. Just frustrated. I had to stop for gas. The Zipcars need to be at least one-quarter full for the next person. Using the gas card was stupidly complicated.”
“Let’s walk. You’ll probably feel better when we get some juice into you.” He turned toward the street they had to cross and took off at a brisk pace. She came up beside him and matched his stride, something Melanie could never do. She was forever asking him to slow down. Crossing busy streets like Boylston with her was downright dangerous.
“We get juice into me? What are you going to do? Pour it down my throat?”
He chuckled. “Only if I have to.”
She let out a snort. “I can feed meself.”
“There’s that Irish accent again.” He wondered why she had come to this country.
“So, what brought you to America?”
When she didn’t answer, he added, “Another potato famine?”
“Sheesh. You’re nosy,” she said.
A suspicious reaction if he’d ever heard one. He let her dwell on it. When they arrived at the restaurant, he held the door for her. There was only so much “equality” he could give her without feeling like a douchebag.
The place was packed. There was a small opening at the “standing room only” raised bar. “Why don’t you grab that spot and I’ll order.”
“Why don’t you grab it and I’ll order? You’ll take up more space, and when I come back you can turn sideways and there might be room for both of us,” she said.
She didn’t wait for him to tell her what he wanted, she just walked off and joined the line. She didn’t leave him much of a choice other than to jam himself into that one open spot and wait to see what she came back with.
Fortunately, the guy next to him finished his tall, orangey drink and left. Now Ryan had to try to hold the spot for Chloe. He reached toward his back pocket for a paper from class to plunk down on the bar next to him. As much as he’d like to stand close to Chloe, he didn’t dare let her bump up against his arousal.
He grabbed something, but it wasn’t the handout.
A woman’s shriek hurt his ear. When he turned to see what had happened, she slapped him.
“How dare you?” the forty-something sophisticated-looking woman cried out.
“I’m sorry. It was an accident.”
“Like hell,” she said as she stormed off.
The place had gone silent and all eyes were on him…including Chloe’s.
When she returned with their drinks, she plunked the swamp-green one in front of him and asked, “What was that about?”
He picked up the handout so she could set her orange-colored drink down. “Uh…I went for the papers in my back pocket to save your place and I guess I grabbed something else.”
She reared back and laughed—hard. Yeah, he’d wanted to make her laugh and smile, but not by making an ass of himself.
* * *
Chloe didn’t usually laugh at the misfortune of others, but this time she couldn’t help it. She’d wanted to slap Ryan’s face a few times herself.
She’d bought him the wheatgrass drink he’d mentioned, hoping it tasted as bad as it looked, but now she almost felt sorry for him. He was having a very bad start to his evening.
He nodded to her drink. “What did you get?”
“Orange mango.” She tried to look innocently at his gross green drink and said, “You mentioned wheatgrass before, so I guessed that’s what you must like. There’s a little carrot juice in it too.”
He picked up the glass and examined it. “You could have asked.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I suppose…”
He sniffed it and wrapped his handsome lips around the straw. After sucking up a generous amount, his nose wrinkled a bit. But he gazed at her amused face, then smacked his lips and said, “Ahhh…” as he slapped the glass back down on the counter.
“So, I guess I got your order right?”
“The carrot kind of saves the rest of that disgusting crap.”
She burst out laughing again.
He grinned. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Kind of,” she admitted. “For all I knew it really was what you liked. There’s no accounting for taste.”
He held her gaze. “That’s for damned sure.” Then he surprised her by picking up the drink and taking another long pull on the straw.
“You don’t have to drink it. I’ll get you another.”
“Oh no. Please don’t. As probies, we might as well get used to this kind of treatment. It’s going to happen a lot. Probably more to me than you.”
She was sincerely puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“You know. The razzing we’ll get just because we’re probies.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you saying the more experienced firefighters will be mean to us just because we’re
new?”
“It’s an age-old tradition.”
“Feck,” she murmured under her breath. She thought she’d said it quietly enough so as not to be overheard in the noisy restaurant, but he laughed and his dark eyes twinkled at her.
“But I imagine they’ll take it easy on you.”
“Why? Just because I’m a female?”
He tipped up his chin. “Exactly.”
“What if I don’t want them to?”
He barked a laugh. “Why? Are you a glutton for punishment?”
“Not at all. I just don’t want to be treated any differently. Anything a man can do, I can do too.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You can pee standing up?”
Her back stiffened, and he quickly held up one hand. “Sorry. I was just giving you a taste of the kind of teasing you’re apt to get.”
“Don’t worry. I can give as good as I get. I’ll just infer that they probably pee sitting down.”
He reared back and laughed, long and loud. “Yep. You’ll fit in fine.”
Then his thoughts darkened, and she must have noticed the change.
“What’s wrong?”
He shook his head, but said nothing. What could he say? That she might fit in better than he would? Since both of them would be on probation, and it wasn’t like the city to create a position for a new firefighter, he deduced that one of them could be transferred to another station as soon as something opened up.
“What?” she insisted.
When he ignored her a second time, she folded her arms. “I demand you tell me what you’re thinking.”
“You demand?” He snorted. “What are you? Some kind of princess?”
Her eyes rounded as if she were shocked for a moment, then she schooled her features. “Never mind. It’s clear that you’re afraid to tell me.”
“Afraid? Hell no, princess. I’m not afraid of anything.”
He was a phoenix. He had nothing to fear. He’d survived Afghanistan. Even if he did die, his parents would pour gasoline over his body, light him up, and he’d be reborn from the ashes. It had happened before.
“So, I was just wondering about your background…” he finally said.
He’d turn the focus back on her and keep her from asking too many questions.
A brief flicker of what could only be called fear crossed her face. There. What was that?
“I don’t know what it is you want to know about me background. I mean, my background. I already told you I’m from Ireland.”
“I thought you said you were from Ulster.”
She waved away the comment like she was swatting a fly. “Ulster, Erin, Northern Ireland, Ireland, it’s all the same to you people.”
“You people? What, Americans?”
She nodded and took a long sip of her mango drink.
“I thought you were an American.”
“I am. I’m a naturalized citizen. That means I have the same rights as you. The only difference is, I know what they are.” She smiled wickedly.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I had to study the Bill of Rights for my citizenship exam. Can you rattle off the entire Bill of Rights?”
She had him there. Americans who were born in the States often took those rights for granted and probably didn’t know the third from the Tenth Amendment. Even though she was just pointing out a truth, it made him sad.
He tried to get back his swagger. “That’s what the Internet is for.”
Her sexy smirk appeared. “Oh, is that what it’s for? I thought it was for porn, pictures of kittens, and shopping.”
“Maybe for you.”
She laughed, and he was reminded that she could take a joke as well as dish one out. Yeah, the guys would love her…
Chapter 3
Chloe found the following day of training easy and challenging at the same time. Unfortunately the most challenging part was Ryan’s not-so-subtle pop quizzes about history—and not just America’s history. He kept slipping in questions about her life before Boston.
Was he fishing? Knowing she had something to hide, she felt nervous.
When the day was finally over, she trotted to her Zipcar before he could reach her and jumped in. In her rearview mirror, she saw him coming toward her, so she threw the car in reverse and sped off, kicking up enough gravel to stop him in his tracks.
All the way home, she replayed her answers to the questions she chose to answer. There were plenty she’d sidestepped with a changed subject or distraction. Could she keep this up for eight weeks? The other guys in training seemed like a good bunch. They weren’t giving her a hard time about being an Irish woman. Why should Ryan care?
“Yeah. Why does he give a feck who I am?” she muttered out loud. “As long as I can pull his arse out of a fire, he should be grateful.”
And she’d proven she could—repeatedly. Although the fire was imaginary that day, their carries were not. They had deadweight dummies of various sizes from newborn infants to obese adults. She’d learned how not to carry a person too. The training film demonstrated the wrong ways, so no one would tweak their backs or pull out a shoulder. But even if she got hurt, she’d heal quickly.
“Morgaine,” she muttered out loud. Morgaine could tell her what he was up to. She was a psychic.
The female half of her apartment building’s management team read tea leaves at the Boston Uncommon Tearoom a few blocks away. Perhaps she could make a private appointment so she wouldn’t have to talk with customers around.
Morgaine knew what Chloe was. All the residents did. Not that anyone knew much about dragons. The species had almost died out. But fortunately, there was one other dragon in Boston who’d proven he could be trusted, so her family had found a safe haven with people who accepted them.
The whole building was made up of several one-bedroom apartments and an exclusive paranormal club. She had never seen the penthouse, but she’d met the building’s owners who lived there—a professional baseball player and his young family. They seemed kind but very protective of their privacy.
If only she could find a way to protect her privacy as well.
She glanced in the rearview mirror. “Is that him?” Ryan’s Jeep kept pace behind her in the evening traffic. “Ah, feckers! He’s following me.”
Relax, Chloe. Maybe he’s just taking the same route home. Now she was becoming paranoid. She had to figure out what his deal was and do it quickly.
She fumbled in her backpack for her cell phone.
Stretch. One. More. Half inch…
Her car must have swerved into traffic, because the vehicle behind her blared its horn. She popped up straight and grabbed the wheel with both hands. The drivers beside her weren’t even glancing her way.
“What the feck?” Did Ryan just beep at her because she wasn’t sitting up straight with her hands on the wheel in the ten-and-two position?
She glared in her rearview mirror and caught his darkened expression.
“Oh, this is going too damn far,” she muttered. She saw an opening where she could cut over and take the next exit off the Southeast Expressway. They were near South Station, so if she wanted to, she could leave the car there and take the subway home.
She cut the wheel hard, but unfortunately Ryan followed right behind her.
“What is your problem?” she yelled, as if he could hear her.
At last she pulled into the parking lot and found the spots allocated for Zipcars. If Ryan wanted to park, he’d have to do it somewhere else. That should give her enough time to…
“Hey!” he yelled out the window as he stopped right behind her, blocking her in.
She was so tempted to hit reverse, but this wasn’t her car to crumple. She’d just have to deal with the beast—for that’s what he looked like at the moment. His intense eyes flashed
and his dark hair shot out in wild directions, as if he’d just raked his fingers through it. He probably had.
She grabbed her backpack, slammed her door, and marched up to his window. “What the feck is your problem, Fierro?”
“My problem? Where did you get your driver’s license? Correspondence school? Did you know you almost caused an accident back there?”
“I did not.”
“You did. If the car on your right hadn’t swerved, you’d have hit him. What were you trying to do all bent over like that anyway?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I was going to grab my cell phone, call you, and ask if you were stalking me.” She slung her backpack over her shoulder. “Looks like you just answered my question.”
“I wasn’t following you,” he said. At last his expression and his voice softened. “At least not like that. I don’t know why it matters, but I just wanted to see that you got where you were going safely. Driving around here can be a bitch.”
“Tell me about it.”
They stared at each other for a long moment. At last Chloe said, “I wasn’t actually planning to come here. I was going to leave the car closer to home and walk. From here I’ll have to take the T. Now, if you’ll just make like a tree and get the hell out of here…”
“Huh?” The light of understanding dawned in his eyes and he started laughing. When he settled down he said, “I’m not ready to leave. You can take any car tomorrow, right? It doesn’t have to be this one.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So, let me take you home the rest of the way. The car is already dropped off in a proper place.” When she hesitated, he added, “I promise I’ll behave.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’ll probably behave better if you’re not criticizin’ me drivin.’”
He grinned. “Get in.”
She didn’t want him to know where she lived, but she could always ask him to drop her off on the corner. In fact, she could choose a corner where taking her directly home would be impossible. Thank goodness for all the one-way streets in Back Bay. She heaved a sigh, then trotted around to the opposite side of the car and jumped in.