“I think Haddy has a lot to do with that.” Gini watched her friend fuss over her brother.
“Nothing like a beautiful woman to raise a man’s spirits,” Patrick said.
The way Patrick’s hazel eyes combed down the length of Gini left her feeling as if he’d caressed her, but he hadn’t laid a hand on her. His simple gaze stirred her body, brought her to life.
“Where do you want me to sit?” he asked.
“You and Midas can go to the table after Jonah’s. I made you Mr. July.”
“Why July?”
“My birthday is in July,” Gini said.
“I’ll have to remember that.”
“Yes. Yes, you will.” Gini smirked and nudged Patrick toward his table. Midas trotted over to Jonah. “You also need to remember that no matter how many women throw themselves at you tonight, you’re coming home with me.”
“Don’t want to go home with anyone else, Gini,” Patrick said. “Just you.”
Just you. Patrick’s words filled her with peace—a peace she didn’t think possible for someone like her.
She watched Patrick walk away and knew that women would definitely try to get his phone number at least if not a date with him tonight. But he was hers. He actually wanted to be hers. The thought sent her heart skyrocketing.
Only the door opening behind her pulled Gini from her Patrick-watching. Raina glided into the hall in a long red dress that tied around her neck like a halter top.
“My Goddess,” Gini said. “You look stunning, Raina.”
“Figured I should try to be as fun to look at as the man candy you’ll have here tonight. Give the men something to look at.” Raina grinned. “Plus, I can’t wait to see the look on Mason’s face when he gets a glimpse of this number.”
“Fortunately we’ll have trained CPR professionals—twelve of them—on hand to resuscitate him when he goes into shock.”
Raina laughed and headed for the piano. Several other fighters arrived and took up their posts around the hall. Guests wandered in shortly thereafter, and soon the hall was full. Raina’s voice and piano playing wafted over the crowd as folks mingled and chatted, drooled and giggled.
Gini’s parents came in and gave her huge hugs.
“My, my,” Liz said as she fanned herself with her hand. “Either I’m having a hot flash or those fighters are steaming up the place.”
“Try to contain yourself, Liz,” Walter teased. “I used to look like them back in the day.”
Liz patted her husband’s cheek. “You still do to me, sweetie.”
Walter kissed Liz’s hand and led her to a seat. Gini watched them and finally understood what they must feel for one another. She hadn’t truly got it before. Now she had it herself. Her mother’s belief in soul mates made perfect sense now. Yes, Patrick had a risky job, but Gini had to love him just the same.
Her gaze swam across the crowd and connected with Patrick’s. Three women were standing in front of his table, chatting it up, but his attention was on Gini. A wash of heat crept over her face as she smiled at him. When he smiled back, Gini regretted the dinner invitation she’d extended to the gang. What she wanted was to drag Patrick back to her farmhouse and make love to him until the sun came up. Now she’d have to feed people. Talk to them. Laugh with them and kick them out before she got to touch Patrick the way she wanted to. The way she needed to.
Letting out a sigh, Gini headed for the sales table where Haddy had set up shop and had been selling calendars since the first guest had arrived.
“Selling like bottled water in the desert,” Haddy said. “Sheer brilliance, Gini Claremont. Sheer brilliance.”
“I’ve got a few good ideas now and then.” Gini patted herself on the back. “I’m going to get things formally started at the microphone now.”
“Okay. I’ll keep selling, boss.”
Gini corralled Chief Warner, who’d come out to support his men, and Josephine, the director of the shelter, now back from Paris. She tugged them both to the front of the room over by the piano. Raina wrapped up the song she was singing, and the room quieted. Gini stepped to the small podium she’d set up.
“If everyone could take a seat, we can get started in a couple of minutes.”
As people meandered to the seats, Gini’s attention yet again circled toward Patrick. Yet again, he was staring at her, all of his focus on her and no one else. If she didn’t get to touch him soon, Gini was sure she’d lose her mind. Or maybe she’d already lost it.
Either way, she didn’t care as long as her evening ended with Patrick in her arms, in her bed.
****
She was so beautiful up there with her smile dimpling her cheeks and her long, toned legs stretching down into those sexy sandals. Patrick couldn’t wait to slide them off her feet and free her from the rest of her clothing. Gini was undoubtedly the most amazing person in the room. Looking at the photos she’d taken for the calendar and the pictures of the animals decorating the hall, Patrick appreciated the talent Gini had with a camera. She had an artist’s eye and maybe a magician’s hand, because everything she photographed looked absolutely perfect. He didn’t recognize himself standing with Saber and Midas in his calendar picture. Was that actually a smile on his face?
“I’m next,” a voice sang in front of Patrick. “Hello, Mr. July.”
“Hi.” Patrick took the calendar opened to his month and uncapped his pen.
“Can you make that out to Cecilia Bennette?” the woman asked. She proceeded to spell the name for him.
Patrick signed the calendar. He focused on the letters forming his name as he wrote them because he could feel the woman’s eyes on him. Made him uncomfortable and he didn’t want to look up to catch her ogling.
“You’re my favorite picture,” Cecilia said. “The others are nice, don’t get me wrong, but you…” She let her voice drop off. “You’re something.”
Taken. The word popped into Patrick’s head, and he had to smile at the notion. He was taken. Taken by that fantastic woman still up on the stage waiting for everyone to get to a seat.
Patrick slid the calendar back to Cecilia. “Enjoy your night,” he said.
“Oh, I am. That Gini Claremont sure knows how to throw a fundraiser. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.” Cecilia giggled and walked away.
Me neither, Patrick thought. The mere idea he’d be around to see what Gini came up with next excited him. He was thinking in future terms when it came to being with her. He glanced back to the stage and was bothered by the bodies between Gini and him. If he could send them all home right now, he would. He just wanted to be alone with her.
“Looks as if everyone’s almost settled,” Gini said into the microphone. “I’d like to welcome you to the first ever Burnam Firefighter Calendar Signing.” She hooked her arm through Chief Warner’s and looked up at him. “Hopefully it won’t be the last.”
Chief Warner grinned. “That’s up to the men.”
Gini gestured to the tables of fighters set up around the edges of the room. “What do you say, fellas? Was it too dreadful posing with dogs, cats, horses, birds, and the occasional rabbit?”
“Not for you, Gini,” Willy called out.
She shot Willy a killer smile that had Patrick’s insides bubbling. How could a mere smile have that effect on his body even when the smile was directed at someone else?
“A special thanks to all the test dummies…I mean, fine, upstanding firefighters for helping me and the Burnam Animal Shelter. We will be able to do quite a bit with the money we raise tonight, don’t you think, Josephine?”
“Absolutely,” Josephine said. “I know the animals would thank you themselves if they could. Your support means so much to each of them and to the staff at the shelter. We shall proudly display your calendar in our shelter and always remember how you suffered the trials of being treated like supermodels to help us.”
Chuckles sifted through the crowd, and Gini stepped back to the microphone.
&nbs
p; “Don’t forget to enter your name in the raffle to win a dance with one of the fighters. Twelve lucky women will get the chance to sashay across this floor with a hero. Enjoy yourselves, folks, buy calendars and animal photos, and thanks again.”
A round of applause filled the hall then died off as people headed back to the tables to get their autographs and enter the raffle. Patrick lost sight of Gini when she stepped away from the microphone and got swallowed by the crowd. He craned his head, but couldn’t find her.
“Looking for your next admirer?”
Patrick focused on the woman standing in front of his table. Petite, thin, almost sickly so, with short, spiky black hair. Her skin was grayish, her eyes a strange shade of blue, nearly violet. Her mouth was full, but the corners were angled down in a permanent frown. She reminded Patrick of a sad fairy.
“Hello.” Patrick watched the woman’s jaw tense slightly then release.
“Evening.” She set a calendar on the table and flipped to Patrick’s picture. “Nice photo.”
“The photographer’s a genius.” Patrick smiled, but the woman’s facial expression never changed. Her lips kept their downward arc. The purplish eyes narrowed as they stared at Patrick’s face. He waited for her to say something, but she merely watched as he picked up his pen, its tip hovering over his picture.
“Would you like this made out to someone in particular?” he asked.
The woman shook her head. “Just your name will do it.”
As Patrick signed his name, Midas rose from his spot beside him. He sniffed at the woman’s shoes, up her leg, around the back of her, and let out a deep bark that had the conversation in the hall quieting for a moment.
“Couchez, Midas.”
The dog lay down, but he continued growling at the woman.
“Sorry, about that.” Patrick closed the calendar and handed it back to the woman. “Have a nice…” He stopped when she tucked the calendar under her arm and walked away without letting Patrick finish.
“Nice manners, huh?” Chuck, Mr. August, elbowed Patrick.
“Maybe Midas offended her or she’s in a rush to get other signatures.” Patrick shrugged, but as he watched the woman, he noticed she didn’t stop at any of the other tables. Instead, she headed for the front doors, her slight body easily weaving through the dense crowd. He lost sight of her for a moment then saw the door open and close. Midas let out a short bark and sidled up next to Patrick. A bit closer than he was before.
“How’s it going?”
Patrick shifted his gaze to take in Gini leaning on the table in front of him. In that position, he could see down the front of her dress, catch a glimpse of her full, round breasts contained in a black bra. Did she know the effect she had on him?
Chuck cleared his throat and stood. “I’m getting a drink. You want one, Patrick?”
Patrick didn’t take his gaze off Gini. “No, thanks.”
Gini followed his eyes and smirked. “A preview,” she said after Chuck left. “You like?”
“Very much.” Patrick met her gaze now, and the noise of the hall dropped away. The smells of the crowd vanished, replaced by that heavenly wildflower scent that was unmistakably Gini.
“Who was that last chick?” Gini asked.
Patrick blinked and pulled himself out of the play-by-play scene running in his mind of what he was going to do to Gini when he finally got her alone tonight.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I was going to ask you. She didn’t give a name. Just wanted my signature.”
“Maybe she’s your number one fan,” Gini said.
“I was hoping that title belonged to you.” Patrick grinned as he ran his index finger over Gini’s hand resting on the table.
“I consider myself a groupie. Has more of a devoted connotation. As if I’d follow you anywhere.”
“Would you?”
Gini puckered her lips out and looked up to the ceiling as if she were considering her answer. When her gaze leveled with Patrick’s, she slowly eased forward and kissed him.
“You know, Mr. July, I think I would follow you to the moon and back.”
Patrick looped the dangling beads of Gini’s necklace around the fingers of his left hand and tugged her closer. He caught her lips with his and collected another kiss.
“I can’t wait to go home with you,” he said.
“That makes two of us.” Gini maneuvered the beads out of Patrick’s hand and glanced over her shoulder. “I better move along. Your line is getting rather lengthy.”
She blew Patrick a kiss and walked away on those magnificent sandals. When she reached Haddy at the sales table, she immediately sparked up a conversation with an older woman purchasing a calendar. Only the sound of the next person wanting an autograph tore Patrick from his admiration of Gini.
“Did I hear talk that you’re from Rhode Island?” the woman in front of him asked. Beside her stood an enormous bear of a man with his arms folded across his Harley Davidson T-shirt. Clearly, the woman had dragged him to this event. Clearly, he wasn’t happy.
“Yes. You heard right.”
“My daughter lives in Rhode Island now. Could you make the calendar out to her? I’m going to send this to her. I know the gals she works with will get a hoot out of these pictures.”
“Sure.” Patrick took the calendar, found his picture, wrote the name the woman told him, and signed his own name.
“Thanks. If only Gini could have figured out how to make there be more than twelve months in a year.” The woman laughed. The man standing beside her did not.
Patrick nodded toward the man, and the man nodded back, but that was the extent of their interaction. The woman collected her calendar and moved on to the next table. The man followed her wordlessly.
“Can we say jealous?” Chuck whispered, now back with his drink.
“Huh?” Patrick turned to look at him as the next person in line handed him a calendar.
“Old Finneas Yasberg. You know, I think this is the first time I’ve seen him without a shotgun held lovingly in his hands.”
“Now that you mention it,” Patrick said, “he looked familiar. I think he was poking around on my land the other day. Had a beagle with him whose nose never left the ground.”
“That would be Haggis, his hunting dog.”
“Isn’t haggis sheep guts or intestine or something?” Patrick’s stomach did a sick flop as he thought about it.
“Yep. Tastes as good as it sounds too.”
“Why name a dog that?”
“Dog has a fondness for sheep. Never picks up the trail of deer, or moose, or bear. Always sheep.”
“People don’t generally hunt sheep, do they?” Patrick asked.
“Nope,” Chuck said. “Hence, the ever-present sour look on Finneas’s face. He’s wanted to get rid of the dog for ages, but Helen won’t let him. He’s stuck with the dog. And Helen, for that matter.”
Patrick slipped the bit of town lore into his mental filing cabinet. If he were truly going to make a life in Burnam—one look back at Gini at the sales table confirmed he was going to attempt it—he should start getting to know the people and their stories. After all, he’d signed up with the fire department to keep them safe. He should know whom he was protecting.
“Tough having all these lovely ladies giving you attention, ain’t it, boys?” Gini’s father asked as he rested a hand on Patrick’s shoulder.
“You remember how it is, Walter,” Chuck said. “They can’t resist the uniform.”
“Put puppies and kittens in your hands, and it isn’t any surprise they’re lining up to eyeball all of you. Gini is a marketing genius,” Walter said.
“She gets that from me,” Liz said as she sidled up to Walter.
“No one else can push pastry out the door like you,” Walter agreed.
Gini’s mother beamed a smile at her husband. “Hand getting cramped?” she asked Patrick. “Your line has been the longest.”
“It’s because I’m the new guy.�
� Patrick fiddled with the pen cap while there was a lull in his line.
“No, dear,” Liz said. “It’s because you’re adorable.” She cupped his chin.
Normally, Patrick shied away from letting people touch him. Easier to keep his distance if he didn’t let them into his circle. Easier to keep his secrets. Being with Gini these last couple of days, though, had definitely thawed something inside him. Thawed wasn’t the right word.
More like melted, Patrick thought. His self-constructed walls, thick and insulated against the world, had been melted by Gini’s touch, by her acceptance of him, by her choosing to be with him even though he wasn’t perfect. He hadn’t thought about his scars or about hiding from folks over the past few days.
“Oh, he is adorable,” Chuck said, his eyes rolling as he pretended to swoon.
“You shush,” Liz said to Chuck. “Or there’ll be a sudden shortage of apple turnovers next time you come into the bakery.”
“You wouldn’t.” Chuck grabbed Liz’s hand.
“I most certainly would.” Liz tried to contain her laughter.
“Sorry, Mrs. Claremont.”
“That’s a good boy.” Gini’s mother patted Chuck on the back. She turned back to Patrick as he signed another calendar. When he was finished, she bent so she was close enough to whisper in his ear. “You’ll take care of Gini, won’t you?”
Patrick looked up into Liz’s eyes, ones as blue as Gini’s, and knew she’d been looking for someone to take care of Gini for a long time.
“We’ll take care of each other,” Patrick said.
Liz squeezed his hand as a single tear rolled down her cheek. Never had Patrick felt so important.
Chapter Thirty
“We’re rolling in dough.” Haddy accepted payment for several calendars. “People aren’t buying one or two, Gini. The last four customers bought six apiece and your animal photographs are flying right off the walls.”
“Sweet. I have to say I didn’t think it would be this successful.”
“No one’s ever done an event like this before around these parts. People had to come and check it out.” Haddy picked up a calendar and flipped through the pages. “And one glimpse at these pictures is enough to have the stingiest of folks forking over their cash.”
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