Scorch

by Dani Collins

  He finally glanced her way and froze, giving her a long look that kindled and warmed until he held open his arms.

  Jacqui threw her arms around his neck and he hugged her hard for a long time, wordless, but saying everything.

  In fact, his first words when he set her on her feet were sweetly and characteristically unsentimental. “They’re pretty fancy on the east coast. What the hell did they do to your head?”

  “I wanted to look like you,” she claimed.

  “Handsome as hell?” He gave her one more quick squeeze then dropped his arm from around her to pour a beer and push it across to the waitress who was waiting for it. “Good to see you, kid. Heard you were back to work.”

  “Yeah, nice mess you left.” She teased.

  “Like I was going to touch your files?” He blew out a scoffing noise, adding a second beer and taking a chit that he stabbed onto a pike. “The very idea brought you running from two thousand miles away.”

  “Maybe.” She grinned. It wasn’t far from the truth. She was pretty obsessive about how the office was run.

  “How’s the new guy?” He leaned to ask in a confidential undertone.

  “Good,” she said honestly. “From my perspective, anyway.” Sam’s military background meant he was very comfortable with her being so particular about keeping her paperwork organized. “I can’t speak for anyone else.”

  He nodded and she had no doubt he was quietly polling every man and woman affected, ensuring the new captain was leading to his satisfaction. He might have relinquished his post at the station, but he still looked out for his crew.

  “Busy night. I have to get back to work.” He poured her a beer, saying, “On me. Don’t be a stranger.”

  “Thanks, Hugh.” She resisted sipping the foam. She was a lightweight and only drank if she didn’t have to drive.

  Which was one of the reasons she had come here. Hugh wasn’t the only one who looked out for the crew—especially when she knew one of them was going through something personal.

  Sometimes, because of private information like medical records or even a quiet conversation next to the coffeemaker, she was the only one who knew what some of the men and women were dealing with in their daily lives. Firefighters were a close bunch, but most of them were still men. When it came to talking about a divorce, or confiding anything else that might make a man feel vulnerable and therefore fear he’d be seen as weak by his fellow fighters, they often preferred to talk it through with her.

  Moving into the bowels of the bar, Jacqui found most of the crew around the pool tables.

  Vin noticed her and subtly stiffened, looking away in a way that warned her he would not appreciate her approaching him.

  She skimmed her friendliest smile past him and around the group, but her heart pounded. She took a subtle breath, trying really hard not to be obvious about her fresh crush.

  The group greeted her with a light ripple of surprised welcome that fed her own smile.

  “’Bout time you showed up here,” Greg Winters said. “I owe you a beer for getting our baby onto the insurance plan last year.”

  “I have a beer—for the winner,” she said, lifting the glass then setting it on the edge of the table where Ace and Liam were down to the last few balls.

  “Thanks, Jac,” Liam said with sincere appreciation. They’d always been friends, given her closeness to Hugh and his sister, even staying in touch via email while he’d been in Australia. Jacqui bantered easily with all the smokejumpers, but Liam was the one she would make faces at and tease by saying things like, you lost your seniority so you have to come in early to make the coffee. It’s a rule.

  And he had no compunction about accusing her of being full of it because he knew she was.

  “Thank your dad,” she countered. “But my money is on Ace for drinking it.”

  “Why you gotta be like that, Jac?” Liam asked with mock injury.

  “Just doing my part to keep you humble.”

  “What are you drinking?” Marco asked, reaching for his wallet. He wore the glow of someone who’d put away more than one already.

  Vin’s words about men stalking her came back to her. Sometimes the men flirted with her at the base, but it had always been very good-natured and light, especially since they were doing it under the nose of her husband, their boss. Rookies had always been a little more heavy-handed about it until they realized the dynamic. She had always let it slide; confident it would die a natural death.

  Suddenly she wasn’t so sure. She was very aware of not having Russ at her side tonight.

  Everyone was aware of the difference, it seemed, since all the heads on the seasoned jumpers turned to stare at Marco.

  Maybe Russ was here after all, she thought dryly.

  “What?” Marco said with an oblivious frown.

  “I’m not staying,” Jacqui said, licking her lips so she could find a fresh smile that didn’t stick to her teeth. She ignored the fact that her sex life was, apparently, vacuum sealed and not to be so much as glanced at. That was certainly the impression the accusatory glares off the men were giving.

  “Muttley is in the car,” she continued. “I just came in to say hi to Hugh and let you all know that I’ll be home with my phone on. If someone drinks too much and needs a lift, give me a call.”

  She didn’t make a point of looking at Vin, but he was the one she was talking to. The fact he’d come straight here despite already being away all week told her exactly where his head space was at.

  Please come home.

  “I’ll take your number,” Marco said with enthusiasm, then let out an, “Oof!” as Liam shoved his elbow into his middle.

  Marco doubled over. “What?” He demanded.

  She heard someone mutter, “Shut up,” but Tyler spoke over them.

  “Thanks, Jac. I’ll keep an eye on everyone and give you a call if we need you.”

  *

  Vin had downed his first beer with gusto, caught a light buzz, started to relax, then watched far too many men take notice of Jacqui’s arrival. Her not-too-subtle offer to come get him if he drank his face off had been a little too smothering, though, annoying him.

  Even though part of him had appreciated she hadn’t told him not to drink.

  The real message underlying her brief appearance was that she understood. No, that wasn’t quite true. She hadn’t lived his life, so she didn’t really understand why he had this bleak shoreline of pessimism running down his middle, but she knew he was choked, and she was worried about him because of it.

  He had only ever experienced that sort of subliminal understanding from his fellow firefighters and then it was usually work-related and mostly amounted to steering clear of a man in a lousy mood.

  Jacqui was leaving a door open. She couldn’t possibly know how tempted he was to walk through it and find solace in whatever way she offered.

  “That’s the captain’s wife,” Winters said to Linetti as Jacqui departed.

  “I thought his wife was dead?” Linetti frowned with confusion.

  Vin glanced around and thankfully didn’t see Sam here or that blurt would have been even more tactless than it already was.

  “Our old captain. Edwards. You know. The ’chute on the loft?” Winters said.

  “Oh. Shit.” Linetti rocked on his heels. “That’s too bad. She’s cute.”

  “I thought she lived with you,” Jessica Mendez said to Vin. Her brow wrinkled with equal confusion. She was one of the women looking strong for completing training with a job.

  Vin didn’t think she was gossiping, just stating what she knew to be fact, but he still gritted his teeth as all eyes turned to him.

  He didn’t even want to be here tonight. He’d come, thinking he’d ask around about a place to live, maybe see Tori and get a better handle on exactly what had happened. If Jacqui hadn’t been at the house, he would be headed there by now, where he could slouch in front of the TV, drink his beer alone, and brood.

  It wasn’t
his home though, and wouldn’t be.

  That was what really kept his butt planted on this stool. Not only couldn’t he trust himself to go there in this mood, because Jacqui had already made it too difficult to keep his defenses up against her, but he knew he’d be packing up and leaving it all.

  He took a long pull of beer that wasn’t cold enough to ease the ache behind his breastbone.

  “I’ve been staying there, but not for much longer,” he said flatly. “The sale fell through on my house with Tori. I won’t be able to buy Jac’s place after all.”

  “That bites,” Ace said, and picked up the beer Jacqui had left on the pool table. “I’m going to go ahead and drink this, since you’re obviously forfeiting,” he told Liam, making Liam toss back some trash.

  Everyone quickly got back to enjoying their evening.

  Vin let out a slow breath, mentally thanking Ace for redirecting the attention.

  Dodson sat down across from him a little while later, though, and said, “You’re dropping the chance to buy that house? Because if you don’t, one of us will. It’s a damned nice house.”

  Didn’t he know it.

  Vin fought letting the crashing waves of disappointment and futile hope for a Hail Mary kind of miracle show up on his face.

  “I didn’t feel right about taking it from Jac when she’s still figuring things out. This is probably for the best.” Depressing as hell, but whatever. Let it go, Kingston.

  “Well, if you’re serious about needing a place to stay…”

  Vin shrugged. “I can stay at the base if I wind up in a pinch. And you know Jac. She’s not going to throw me out.”

  “Yeah.” Dodson left it at that, but Vin couldn’t shake the cloud of doom hanging over him.

  Everyone else was having a rip-roaring good time, however.

  Linetti proved himself to be as youthfully shortsighted as Vin had judged him, drinking way too much and becoming a sloppy drunk who needed help getting home.

  “Call that cute one. What’s her name? The captain’s wife. I want her to drive me home,” Linetti insisted as they poured him into the back of Vin’s king cab. “Am I the only one who thinks she’s hot?”

  “Give it up,” Winters said. “She’s off limits.”

  “Why? Are you really living with her?”

  “No,” Vin answered flatly. “We’re just friends.”

  “She’s still in love with her dead husband,” Winters said.

  It was nothing less than the truth, but the remark went into Vin’s chest like a spear, sticking and vibrating.

  “That’s a waste,” Linetti slurred. “She’s really hot.”

  Vin was glad to dump the kid at the base where he was staying in the barracks, but the conversation kept pinging in his head as he dropped off Winters and drove to Jacqui’s, then crept through the house.

  Off limits. Still in love. What a waste.

  Really hot.

  Jacqui wasn’t on the sofa and for a second the floor fell away beneath him. Then he recalled that her car was in the garage. Mutt was on his mat and her purse was slung over the back of a kitchen chair.

  She was here. And apparently back in the bed she’d shared with Russ.

  Vin stood there in the dark, pinching the bridge of his nose, hating himself for letting that hurt. Why? Why was he letting any of this get past all his hard lessons? The first time he’d been cocky enough to leave some skin unprotected around a fire, he’d caught an ember that had left a blister that throbbed for weeks. He knew better and made sure to have all his layers in place before he got close to the heat.

  So why was he walking around with his emotional shirt wide open where Jacqui was concerned?

  He climbed the stairs on heavy feet, then stopped as he came level with the landing.

  The doors to the master bedroom were open, the bed made up but empty. Even in the low light of a few moonbeams, he could tell it was a disaster in there.

  To his right, the door to the office was closed.

  She’d bought a bed and moved into the office?

  He stood there a long moment, thumb moving on the smoothness of the rail, absorbing that she wasn’t in her old marriage bed.

  Finally, he moved forward, noting the landing was empty of Russ’s gaming chair and big screen. The cable wire hung out of the wall and the bookcase where he’d stored all his games was still there, but its shelves were empty.

  Jacqui had been busy while he’d been away.

  He sat down on the foot of his bed and dropped his face into his hands, silently cursing her.

  Russ’s things had offered both of them some protection. That empty landing was one more layer of Kevlar peeled away from his own lifesaving gear.

  *

  Vin woke feeling hungover even though he wasn’t. Most of it was soreness from the pack out along with the dull headache of being up too late. He hadn’t even finished his second beer last night. He rarely did. He had done the heavy drinking thing in his teens, but learned very quickly that it might make him forget for a few hours that his life had taken some shitty turns, but things like getting thrown off the football team added fresh ones.

  Then, once he became a firefighter, he’d begun seeing the ugliest results of overindulgence—car accidents, bar brawls, alcohol poisoning. He would far rather be the guy sober enough to save a life than the drunk being cut out of a car that resembled an accordion.

  He threw off the covers, determined to make a serious effort to find his own place now that he finally had a weekend off.

  He stepped into a pair of running shorts and threw on a loose muscle shirt then walked out to the smell of coffee and vanilla.

  Jacqui was coming up the stairs, flushed, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Her hands were empty, her gaze cautious.

  He tensed.

  “I felt like waffles. There are some in the oven, staying warm for you. Strawberries and whip cream are in the fridge.”

  He wanted to live with her forever.

  *

  “That was really good, thanks,” Vin said, coming to the doors of the master bedroom. He wasn’t sure of his reception. There was a pall in him. He could live with losing this house. He really didn’t want to lose her and now that he’d cooled off, he knew he had been in the wrong yesterday.

  “You were right,” he said. “I was shooting the messenger.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She took a pair of white satin heels from the closet. They had spangles on them in a fancy swirl. Her wedding shoes maybe.

  They were pretty and he instantly pictured her standing in them with those Daisy Duke shorts that were currently framing the tops of her thighs with a line of frayed thread. His dick twitched.

  Down boy. Friend.

  She set the shoes in a bin. “How was your night?”

  “Fine. Yours?” He glanced pointedly at the chaos.

  “This has been going on all week. Roni helped me go through Russ’s things.” She nodded toward the bins stacked against the wall. “Cliff came and took the gaming chair and big screen. I think I told you back at Christmas that he wanted it?”

  “Yeah, I kept waiting for him to call or show up.”

  “I think he was trying to wait a suitable period,” she said wryly. “Anyway, he and Roni took some stuff that they thought the kids and Russ’s parents might want, but she had a really good idea for the console and things like this.”

  She nodded at a bin.

  He went across to see a sports jersey and a signed baseball in a clear box on top of the neatly stacked games and bundled joy sticks.

  She picked up the baseball and turned it so he could read the signatures.

  “Look. Chase Goodwin. He’s from Marietta. I wonder if Piper and Sebastian know him. Russ got this at a silent auction, loved the Marietta connection. I bet he would have moved there if he hadn’t been so dug in here with family and everything.” She turned it over. “I always wondered if they really got lost that time, or if there had been a reason they went to Ma
rietta. Like a girl, I mean.”

  The look she turned up to him wasn’t so much jealous as wistful. It made his heart lurch.

  “I didn’t want to ask Piper in front of his parents.” She set the ball on top of the jersey. “But Roni said we should auction it again, along with the rest.” She nodded at the bin. “For the family fund. I’ll ask Hugh to set it up.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Vin said absently, thinking he should say something reassuring about her husband’s love. All he could think was, what a waste. The perfectly good ball in its plexiglass case. A man’s life going into bins for the goodwill. A woman devoted to someone who was gone.

  Did she really believe Russ had had an early love that hadn’t panned out? Even so, didn’t most people have a puppy love like that?

  Wait. He grabbed her hand. “Where are your rings?”

  “Oh, um. The wedding band was a family heirloom. I gave it to Roni for Cinda. I put my engagement ring in the safety deposit box.”

  She lifted her hand out of his, kind of flustered as she moved to open the closet, like she was unnerved. He could only see a sliver of her profile, but she seemed to be blushing.

  “I’ve accomplished a lot while you were away. This side is completely empty and dusted.” She nodded at the empty side of the closet that Russ had used. “I’ve been thinning my wardrobe. Look. When did I think these were a good idea?”

  She opened the other side and shook out a pair of jeans that were worn to threads in big streaks down the fronts of the thighs. “I buy stupid things like this because they’re on sale, then I won’t wear them because they’re so impractical. If you don’t want your legs covered, wear shorts, right? If you spill coffee wearing these, you might as well be naked. Completely negates the purpose of wearing clothes in the first place.”

  “I—What?” Naked? Focus, meathead. “Look, Jac. I said forget it and I meant it. Don’t pack your stuff.” He managed not to sound like a cretin this time. He was calm and resolved.

  “Vin, your house will sell. They all do, eventually.”

  “I know, and when it does, I’ll figure things out. It took six months to get that first offer. You can’t put your life on hold waiting for me to get another one, then wait some more while it closes.”