by Jaci Burton
She sighed, feeling that natural relaxation an orgasm gave her. “That was nice.”
“What? Not terrific, or stupendous, or the best sex you ever had? Just nice?”
She pushed on his chest and rolled off the bed. “It was mind-blowing. I doubt I’ll recover from the amazingness of it.”
He grinned. “Better.”
“I’m going to check the lasagna.”
“I think I’ll just lie here and bask in the glory of my amazingness.”
She shook her head as she slipped her underwear back on. “You do that.”
She’d just finished washing her hands in the kitchen when Kal joined her. “That was a quick inventory of how amazing you are.”
“I’m just that good.” He brushed her lips with his. “What can I do to help?”
She scrunched her nose as she thought. “How about a salad?”
“I can do that.”
“Stuff’s in the fridge.”
“Got it.”
Kal washed his hands and then got to work making the salad, while Hannah pulled the lasagna out of the oven and placed it on the kitchen table. She set the table, then made dressing for the salad. They took their seats and she scooped out the lasagna.
“I might have forgotten to mention that it’s eggplant lasagna.”
He looked up at her. “I’m sure it’s great. And you can’t scare me away with your meatless meals.”
She laughed. “I wasn’t trying to. I just make the food I like to eat. You’re either along for the ride or you’re not.”
He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her neck, then gave her a lopsided smile. “Definitely along for the ride. Plus, I like food. And this looks good.”
“So does your salad.” She scooped a pile of the greens onto her plate. Since she’d left him to make the salad, he’d added tomatoes, slivered carrots, mushrooms and bell peppers. It looked fabulous.
She waited while Kal took a bite of the lasagna. People could pay lip service to eating a meatless meal, but that didn’t mean they’d actually like it. He didn’t say a word, just shoveled in three forkfuls, then looked up at her.
“What?”
“Nothing. I was waiting to see you grimace.”
“It’s really good, Hannah. The eggplant is tender, and this sauce is killer. Plus, it has cheese. Anything with cheese on it is a good meal.”
Her lips curved. “I’ll make a note of that.”
She dug in and ate, and Kal was right. It was tasty.
“So I was thinking,” Kal said between bites. “This weekend there’s a fall festival. They’re doing hayrides, pumpkin patch, rides and things.”
“That sounds fun.”
“It’s also a fundraiser for the homeless.”
“Oh? Tell me more.”
“They’re collecting donations for discounted entry. Like socks, hygiene products, soaps, shampoos, things like that.”
“What a wonderful idea.”
“I thought maybe you and Oliver would like to come with me. Jackson and Becks are gonna go, too.”
“It sounds fun. When are you going?”
“Sunday. I’m on shift Saturday, and I know that’s a workday for you, too.”
“Sunday sounds perfect. We’d love to go.”
“Great.” He sent her the kind of smile that warmed her all the way to her bare feet. Not that she wasn’t already completely heated from the inside out after that hot sex session, but this kind of warm was different. It was the way he looked at her, the way he thought to include her in his life that made her feel . . .
Special. It also sent warning bells pinging in the logical part of her brain, the part of her that told her to hit the brakes on this— hard. But she also knew how much giving back to the homeless community meant to him and to his brothers, and now wasn’t the time.
They cleared the table, wrapped up the leftovers and put those in the fridge, then settled on the sofa to watch TV. She chose a baseball game, and they argued over balls and strikes, something they used to do when they were younger.
“Good call,” Kal said after the ump made a call for ball four and the batter walked to first base.
“You must need glasses, because it was right over the plate, and he should have been called out on strikes.”
He shook his head. “I see just fine. Not my fault you’ve never known where the strike zone is.”
She sat up straight and swiveled to face him. “Excuse me? Who pitched for the varsity softball team?”
“Who was the catcher on varsity baseball? Trust me. I know my strike zone.”
“So do I.”
They glared at each other, and then she launched herself on top of him. They wrestled until she laughed so hard she was out of breath.
“Give up?” he asked.
“Never.”
He flipped her over on her back and came down on top of her, smoothing her hair away from her face. “That’s what I like about you. You never give up.”
Kal’s lips met hers, and she wrapped her leg around his as his tongue slipped inside and made her instantly hot and needy. She arched her hips to feel that sexual connection with him, and he ground against her in the most intimate of ways.
“Mom, I’m home.”
She shoved Kal so hard he almost fell off the sofa. Instead, he hurried to the corner of the sofa and dragged his fingers through his hair.
Hannah stood and smiled while trying to regain her composure. Fortunately, Oliver had headed down the hall and hopefully hadn’t seen the two of them making out on the sofa.
“Hey, kiddo. How was soccer?”
“Good. Oh, hi, Kal.”
“Hi, Oliver. I heard you had soccer practice. How was it?”
“It was good.” Oliver plopped down on the sofa right next to Kal. “What are you doing here?”
“I ate dinner with your mom tonight.”
“Cool. What did you have?”
“Eggplant lasagna.”
“Oh. We had tacos. I got to play forward and halfback today at practice. I did my homework already, Mom.”
“Okay. I’ll check it later. You need to go take a shower.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now.”
Kal stood. “I gotta go anyway. I’ll see you this weekend, Oliver.”
Oliver looked up at him. “You will?”
“I will. We’re gonna go do something fun.”
“All right! See you later, Kal.”
“See ya, buddy.”
Oliver went down the hall toward the bathroom, and Hannah walked Kal to the door. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s life with a kid.”
He didn’t seem upset about it, and she appreciated that he understood that her life was filled with interruptions. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
He wrapped his arm around her and tugged her against him, long enough to press a steamy kiss to her lips. Then he let her go. “Yeah. Soon.”
She didn’t want to let him go, and there was that problem again. “Bye, Kal.”
“Bye.”
He turned and walked out the door, and she lingered to watch him, far longer than she should have.
CHAPTER 16
As they made their way to the scene of this accident, Kal mentally prepared for how they were going to conduct the rescue. It always helped him to walk through the steps of what gear they’d need, how they’d work the scene, what role he’d take and how dangerous it was going to be. Though everything the TRT did was dangerous, some situations were worse than others. He hoped this wasn’t one of the worse ones.
They arrived on scene at the large farm and immediately started unpacking their gear. Kal caught sight of the nervous parents standing on the side of the road.
Lieutenant And
erson stepped up to talk to the parents, who hurriedly motioned them toward the back.
There was an old well that had been broken apart and a black hole where their ten-year-old son had fallen.
The parents were John and Belinda Lindquist.
“We haven’t used this one in years, and we knew it was a danger, so we were planning to fill it in,” John said. “We told Caleb to stay away from it, but he must have come out here to take a look and fallen in.”
“When he first fell in we heard him cry, and now we don’t hear anything,” Belinda said, tears filling her eyes. “Please, get him out of there.”
“Any water down there?” the lieutenant asked.
The man shook his head. “No. Well’s been dry for a while.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Lieutenant Anderson said. “Now you need to step back and let us get to work.”
John and Belinda also had a thirteen-year-old daughter named Roberta who looked just as worried as her parents.
The thing he liked the most about his lieutenant was how calm he was under pressure. He also made sure to fill in the parents about what they were doing and how they planned to get their son out.
He gave the team their assignments, and they all jumped to perform the tasks. They began to set up the tripod, get the ropes in line, and both Meg and Micah harnessed up. While all this was going on, their lieutenant laid out what was going to happen and what everyone’s job would be.
Meg would go down first, with Micah as backup if needed, though with the hole being so tight, hopefully they’d only need one of them. Dean and Phil would provide weight on the tripod. Kal was in charge of the blue rope that would be used to pull Caleb up. Irish and Andy were in charge of the red rope and lowering Meg.
They were a well-oiled machine, but all this took time to set up. They were thirty minutes in by the time they were ready to lower Meg into the hole.
“Oh, please hurry,” Mrs. Lindquist said.
“He’s gonna be fine,” Mr. Lindquist said, putting his arm around both his wife and his daughter.
EMTs were also on hand to provide aid for the child as soon as they pulled him out. Kal hoped the kid was okay enough to not need EMTs. He hated to think of the other outcome, not with the parents and his sister standing right there.
“You ready?” Lieutenant Anderson asked, looking around at all of them.
“Yes, sir,” they all said one by one.
His gaze landed last on Meg, who nodded, gave the rope team controlling her a thumbs-up, then slid over the edge and into the abyss.
Kal’s muscles tensed as he waited for the signal, hoping he’d get to pull up a survivor. He knew the entire team was focused on their duties, all connected via their mics to listen to Meg’s descent into the well.
He watched as Irish and Andy continued to give rope to Meg’s descent, which meant she was going pretty far down. He had no idea the depth of the well, but it was obviously a ways.
“Okay, I see something,” she said. “Looks like a figure curled up at the bottom. White T-shirt, blue jeans. No movement.”
Kal’s stomach clenched as he waited for her to reach Caleb.
“Feet on the ground,” she said.
And then nothing but silence. They knew she was checking Caleb’s vital signs, examining him for injuries, so it’d be a few minutes before they heard back from her. To the team it seemed like an eternity. To Caleb’s parents, even longer.
“He’s conscious. He was asleep. Amazingly, nothing is broken. He has some deep cuts and scrapes, but nothing major. Looks like he might have a sprained ankle. Maybe a concussion. Says he’s hungry and really thirsty. I’m harnessing him to pull up.”
They all exhaled in relief. The lieutenant reported Meg’s findings to Caleb’s parents, who both burst into tears, and the family embraced one another.
Within a few minutes, Meg gave the okay to pull Caleb, so Kal gently retracted his rope, not wanting to jar him or bump him against the side walls of the well. EMTs stood at the entrance to grab hold of him as soon as he appeared and put him on the stretcher. They headed straight for the hospital, the family following in their car. After he was up, Phil and Dean pulled Meg out.
“Whew,” she said after she disengaged from the pulleys. “Dark and tight down there.”
“Long way down, too,” Kal said as he was folding up his rope.
“No kidding. Caleb was lucky to have escaped with only minor injuries.”
Phil walked by, then paused. “Your rope was slack on the withdrawal. You could have banged that kid against the wall. Do better next time.”
Kal just stared after him as he walked away, then turned to Meg. “My rope was fine. Taut. Fucking perfect.”
She shrugged. “Ignore him.”
“Kind of hard to when he rides my ass every chance he gets.”
They packed up their gear and headed back to the station. Since it was late afternoon and they’d worked through lunch, Irish put together some bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches and tomato soup for them to eat. Simple, but it tasted great.
“Heard you fucked up handling the rope today,” Dean said to Kal after everyone else had left the table. It was only Kal, Dean and Phil.
“No, I handled my rope duties just fine.”
Dean looked over at Phil and smiled, then sent a smirk back at Kal. “Not what I heard.”
There was so much he wanted to say, but what was the point? All it would do was cause more animosity with two of his teammates, so he let it go.
Then again, he was tired of having to take it almost every day.
“What’s your issue with me?”
“We worked our asses off to land a position on the TRT, kid,” Dean said. “While you just waltzed in and were given the job by your daddy, the battalion chief with connections.”
That’s what they thought? “Look. I applied, I tested, I trained and I got in, just like everyone else. My father had zero influence in my getting in here.”
Phil let out a laugh. “Yeah, right. Everyone knows how you got here, and it wasn’t your skills.”
Now he was pissed. He stood up. “Bullshit. Talk to the lieutenant if you don’t believe me. Talk to anyone else.”
Phil leaned back in the chair. “No need to. Everyone knows the truth, and the truth is you didn’t earn your way here, Donovan. You got in through family connections.”
“You believe that, then prove it. Otherwise, shut your fucking mouth.”
“Is there a problem here?”
Kal snapped to attention when his lieutenant walked in. “No, sir.”
Phil and Dean went back to relaxed mode.
“Nothing going on here, Lieutenant,” Dean said. “Just having lunch.”
Lieutenant Anderson gave them all the once-over as if he didn’t believe what they told him.
“Donovan.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is there a problem I need to know about?”
“No, Lieutenant. No problem.”
He stared at all of them for a few more seconds, enough to make Kal really uncomfortable. And judging from the squeamish looks on Dean’s and Phil’s faces, they weren’t comfortable, either. The lieutenant finally left the room. Kal glared at Phil and Dean, then he left the room, so wound up he needed to punch something. And since he couldn’t punch Dean or Phil, he headed to the workout room, deciding to take it out on the weight equipment.
He might not be able to beat the shit out of the guys who irritated him, but he could burn some of the rage off in there.
This time, anyway.
But one of these days, they were going to push him too far, and he was going to knock them both on their asses.
And that was going to feel really damn satisfying.
CHAPTER 17
“Oliver, if you aren’t ready in five minutes, I
’m going to call Kal and tell him we’re not going.”
“Mommmm. I’m in the shower now.”
Hannah rolled her eyes and took in a deep breath. “You are not. Get in there right away.”
There were days when being a parent took every ounce of energy she had. Today was one of those days. Oliver had woken up cranky and obstinate, fighting her on every single thing. Even though he was excited about going to the festival, he was doing everything he could to not take a shower, like lying around on the sofa all morning and playing in his room.
But she did finally hear the bathroom door close, and when she walked down the hall, the shower was running.
Progress.
She pivoted and headed toward her room, running into her mother. “Kids, huh? Pain in the ass. Wonder where he gets it from,” her mother said with a knowing smile.
“His father, probably.”
“You’d like to think that, but I had to light a fire under your butt to get you moving all the time. So the hard-to-get-moving part? That’s on you, honey.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Well, I’m not like that now.”
“That’s because you married a boy even lazier than you. You had no choice but to grow out of it.”
“I guess you’re right. I won’t let Oliver grow up that way.”
She patted Hannah’s shoulder. “That’s my girl.”
After her mother walked away, she went down the hall and into her room. Now that she’d gotten Oliver started on getting ready, she had to do the same. She’d already showered, but she had to get dressed and put her makeup on. The weather was nice today. The temperature wasn’t unbearable for a change, so she put on a pair of capris and a short-sleeved T-shirt and slid into her canvas tennis shoes. After applying makeup, she brushed her hair and put it in a high ponytail. Perfect for a festival. She didn’t have to be glamorous, and it wasn’t a date, anyway. Anytime you brought your kid on an outing, it wasn’t a date.
After Oliver got out of the shower, she went into his room to supervise the rest of his routine, since he tended to get easily distracted. He got dressed and put on his shoes. She made sure he combed his hair and brushed his teeth. After that, he was required to pick up his room, since it looked like a tornado had swept through it after he’d slept. They’d argued about that, too.