Chapter Two
River’s decision to forget about Luke lasted exactly fourteen days. Two weeks after the romance novel book club, River was hosting a fantasy fiction book club. The pies from The Sweet Crust had been a resounding success at the romance book club, so River decided to order another round for the fantasy fiction gathering. River believed in sticking with a good thing once you found it, and The Sweet Crust pies were definitely a good thing. Besides, River liked the gal that ran the pie shop. Riley seemed like a genuinely nice person.
When River walked through the front door of the pie shop, she found herself staring directly at Luke, who was eating pie with the same friend as before. Luke’s face lit up at the sight of River, and his smile almost melted the wall she’d built around her heart. Almost.
Reminding herself that Luke was an asshole who hated books, River tossed her long, sleek hair over her shoulder and strode up to the counter without giving him a second look. Why was he sitting here during the middle of a weekday again, anyway? Didn’t he work?
River avoided looking in Luke’s direction as she picked up her pies and made small talk with Riley. But she couldn’t ignore him when he walked right up next to her and offered to help carry her pies again.
“Thanks, but I think I can handle it,” River said, precariously balancing the five pie boxes in a wobbly stack between her arms.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Luke said, grabbing the top three boxes from her. “You’re going to drop some of these pies, and your book club members will never forgive you.”
River huffed. “Fine. If you insist.” She strode past Luke and stubbornly opened the front door herself before he could get to it. She almost dropped one of the pies in her rush, and she heard Luke let out a huff of his own as they left the restaurant.
She ignored his exasperation and marched to her Jeep without any small talk. She fumbled with the keys while holding her two pies, finally opening the door and placing the pies on the backseat. She wordlessly took the other pies from Luke, while he looked at her with an expression somewhere between amusement and concern.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” River said flatly, refusing to meet his eyes as she rearranged the pies on the backseat. She knew she was acting borderline ridiculous right now, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She should have graciously let him carry the pies and then been on her way. Instead, she had made things awkward and weird.
Luke waited patiently as River moved the pies around. Finally, she had to admit that the boxes were sufficiently secure and she was stalling for time. She took a deep breath and turned around, standing to her full height, looking at Luke. She felt her heart do a flip flop as she took in his tanned face with its strong, sculpted jaw line. His deep brown eyes matched the dark brown of his thick, tousled hair. For a moment, she forgot about everything except the rugged, handsome face right in front of her.
Luke reached around River and closed the Jeep door, leaving his hand resting on the back door. He reached to place his other arm on the front door, so that River was caught leaning against the vehicle between his long, muscular arms. He must spend all of his spare time working out, because she had never seen biceps quite as large as his. They pushed against the confines of his fitted, long-sleeved t-shirt, and River fantasized for a moment about what it would feel like to have those strong arms wrapped firmly around her. It had been so long since she’d been held by a man. She craved the warm, secure feeling of being enveloped in a sturdy hug.
She tried to shake off the thought and still her pounding heart. He hates books, she told herself weakly. You’re all wrong for each other. But she couldn’t stop the tingling pleasure spreading through her limbs at the proximity of his body to her body. He smelled like a mixture of pine and sugar, and she breathed in deeply, enjoying the sweet, outdoorsy scent.
Luke looked deep into her eyes, his gaze searching and anxious. “Last time I carried your pies, you were bubbly and talkative. This time, you’ve barely looked at me. What did I do wrong?”
River blinked, trying to come up with an answer that sounded reasonable. “I’m just having a bad day,” she said, looking down at her shoes as she told the little white lie.
Luke put his index finger under her chin and tipped her face back up to look at him. “Let me make it better,” he said. He made a deep, sexy sound that almost sounded like a growl. River felt the breath leaving her body as a wave of electric heat ran from where Luke’s finger touched her chin and spread through her body. Her stomach clenched up in tight anticipation, and she could feel moisture building between her legs. There was no denying that this beast of a man turned her on. One tiny touch from him, and her body had responded with a desperate plea for more. But that just proved her theory, didn’t it? He was probably an asshole, used to getting what he wanted from women. If she gave in to the feelings of passion running through her body right now, wouldn’t she be turning herself into just one more notch in his belt?
River tried desperately to slow her racing heart, but the proximity of Luke’s face to hers made it hard to think clearly. It had been so long since she’d had some fun. Maybe she should loosen up with her strict, self-imposed rules about dating and just spend a night with Luke. They could both scratch an itch, and then go their separate ways. People did it all the time. Why shouldn’t River join in on the fun?
“Let me make it better,” Luke repeated, dipping his lips to meet hers in a soft, brief kiss. River felt the heat in her body intensify to a nearly unbearable level. This was crazy. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had affected her like this. She tried to talk some sense into herself, but her swirling thoughts made that a difficult task.
She turned her face away from Luke’s. “I have to go to my book club,” she said, but it sounded more like a question than a statement.
“What time is it over?”
“Late, usually. Like after ten p.m.”
“Meet me at Red Valley Pub for a beer. I’ll wait.”
“But, you hate reading. We’re totally incompatible,” River said, making one last, feeble attempt to stop herself from giving in to Luke’s charms.
Luke chuckled. “I don’t hate reading. I just haven’t found the right kind of book yet, remember?”
River bit her lip, unable to think of a good comeback.
“Look,” Luke said, “Just give me a chance. Have at least one drink with me before you decide we’re totally incompatible. If nothing else, you’ll get a free drink out of it. I promise, if you have an awful time, you never have to see me again after that. I won’t even pester you to help carry your pies next time.”
River laughed, in spite of herself. “Okay, fine. One drink. I’ll see you at the pub at ten.”
Luke grinned, then gave River a wink before turning to head back to the pie shop.
“Don’t be late,” he called out over his shoulder.
River bit her lip, this time to keep from smiling. This was probably a big mistake, but she’d deal with the regrets later. She needed a little distraction from the mediocrity of everyday life, and Luke looked like just the kind of gorgeous distraction she needed.
River climbed into the driver’s seat of her Jeep and started heading to the library. She already knew that she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the discussion at the book club tonight. She’d already started counting down the minutes until ten.
* * *
Luke arrived at Red Valley Pub just shy of nine p.m. He had spent an embarrassingly long amount of time agonizing over what to wear, and had finally settled on a relaxed pair of blue jeans and a charcoal gray crewneck sweater. He wanted to look good, but he didn’t want to look like he had tried too hard.
He’d spent the last two weeks regretting letting River get away on the day he’d first met her. He hadn’t been able to get her striking blue eyes out of his head, and his bear had been constantly restless. When River walked back into the pie shop today, he knew he had to make a move. Ev
en if she ended up breaking his heart, at least he could say he gave love another chance.
As usual, Luke had been less than smooth when asking River out for a drink. He had probably come off as wanting a one night stand, instead of a long term romance. To try to remedy his earlier blunder, he’d picked up a dozen red roses from a local florist on his way to the bar. But now, as he looked at the giant bouquet resting on the barstool next to him, he worried that he’d gone over the top. Maybe he should have just gone with flowers, instead of roses. He should have at least chosen a different rose color. Red was so obvious. River would probably take one look at the flowers and decide that Luke was trying too hard or was too cliché.
Luke ordered a whiskey neat to try to calm his nerves. He couldn’t be too hard on himself for not knowing how to play the romance game very well. He’d been avoiding women for almost half a decade now, and his memory of how to impress them had become decidedly fuzzy. Around 9:15, Luke’s phone buzzed. He whipped it out of his pocket quickly, hoping it wasn’t River calling to cancel. Then he remembered that she didn’t have his phone number. In his overanxious state earlier today, he’d forgotten to exchange phone numbers with her. The caller I.D. on his phone displayed the name Ian Reed, and Luke frowned before answering. Ian was his alpha, and the crew chief of the Burning Claws Smokejumpers. The odds were pretty low that Ian was randomly calling after nine p.m. to discuss anything good.
“Hey, boss,” Luke said into his phone.
“Luke! Where the hell are you?”
“In town. At a bar.”
“Shit, man. You’re not drunk are you?”
Luke’s frown deepened. “No, I’m fine. I’ve only had one drink. What’s up?”
“I need you to get back to base right away. Boise just called. There’s an emergency, and they’re sending a pilot to pick us up right now. They want us to get our gear packed a.s.a.p. and get out to a lightning fire that just started in a really dry area of Sequoia National Forest. If we don’t get it under control quickly, it’s going to be really bad.”
Luke sighed. “Boise” referred to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. During wildfire season, Boise coordinated all of the federal and state resources available for fighting forest fires, including the Burning Claws Smokejumpers. When Boise said to hurry up, you better hurry up. Luke couldn’t wait another forty-five minutes for River to show up so that he could explain to her why he had to leave. And, since he had brilliantly forgotten to get her phone number, he couldn’t even call her to apologize and save her the trip to the bar. This whole “jumping back into dating” thing wasn’t going so well for Luke.
Luke grabbed the tiny note card that came with the bouquet of flowers, and asked the bartender if he could borrow a pen. In his messy, chicken-scratch penmanship, he wrote out an apology for River.
River, I’m so sorry, but I had a work emergency come up. Please, buy yourself a drink on me. Can I have a rain check? My phone number is on the other side of the card.
Luke wrote his phone number on the reverse of the card, then pulled a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket and folded it up with the card. He would have loved to write a longer, more detailed explanation, but he couldn’t fit anything more on the card’s small surface. Luke flagged down the bartender and handed him back his pen.
“Hey, man, I was supposed to be meeting a girl here, and I had a work emergency come up. Can you give these flowers to her when she gets here? She’s tall, with dark hair and beautiful blue-gray eyes. She wears some edgy-looking glasses, too. Her name’s River.”
“Sure, no problem,” the bartender said. The Tuesday night crowd was pretty thin, so it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out who River was when she walked into the bar.
Luke thanked the bartender, then got up to leave the bar. He felt awful about leaving River behind on what should have been their first date, but he didn’t have a choice. The wildfire season was winding down, but it wasn’t over yet. Duty called, and Luke had a plane to go jump out of and fire to fight. He could only hope that River would understand.
Chapter Three
Early the next morning, as dawn’s first light cracked over Northern California, the Burning Claws Smokejumpers stood in the large door of a skyvan, waiting on their alpha’s signal to jump. Despite the chilly October morning air, Luke could feel sweat trickling down his back. In his heavy jumpsuit, loaded down with a parachute and nearly a hundred pounds of gear, it didn’t take much to overheat.
Luke glanced down, watching the forest below them pass by as the plane sped ahead. He suddenly remembered that he hadn’t double-checked his gear, and he quickly ran through his checklist: Leg straps, secure. Chest strap, secure. Main parachute handle, clear and accessible. Reserve parachute handle, clear and accessible. Helmet, secure.
During smokejumper training, veteran jumpers had warned Luke that the day would come when he would start forgetting to check his gear. At the time, the idea of jumping out of a plane without triple or quadruple checking everything had seemed preposterous. Luke had been more nervous than he cared to admit every time he stood in the jump plane’s door. But, as time marched forward and Luke accumulated several jumps, he found that the veteran jumpers had been right. Jumping from a plane seemed normal. Luke didn’t feel nervous at all, and he had to remind himself to perform all of the proper gear checks that now felt redundant and unnecessary.
Besides, how could Luke be expected to think about safety procedures when his mind could only focus on the lovely River Bennett, whom he hoped wasn’t raving mad at him right now. He couldn’t even check to see whether she’d tried to call him, since cell phones had to be left back at base camp. Maybe he should have found a way to leave her a longer note and explain things, but it was too late now to do anything except get on with the job at hand and cross his fingers that River would still want to talk to him when he returned.
Luke took a deep breath as he saw Ian nodded affirmatively at his clan, giving them the signal to start jumping. The smokejumpers started exiting the plane in rapid succession, led by Charlotte, who was Ian’s lifemate and the only female on the crew. Zach, the loud-mouthed second in command of the crew, jumped next, followed by Hunter and then Trevor. Luke jumped right before Ian, launching himself into the open air and letting muscle memory take over as he arched his back and stabilized his body. He pulled the handle to open his parachute, and the blue and white canopy unfurled smoothly above him, abruptly slowing him from a rapid freefall to a gentle, floating descent.
Luke loved the three or four minutes of time spent under an open parachute on every jump. After the noisy rush of freefall, he relished the time of quiet, peaceful solitude. Today, as he drifted slowly toward the earth, he thought about River. He imagined her lively smile, and went over her sexy curves in his mind’s eye. He felt his agitated bear stirring within him, and he tried in vain to push away the churning, clawing beast. Luke had tried to deny the intensity of River’s hold on him, but his bear would not be silenced. After years of successfully avoiding women, Luke was being drawn in deep and fast. His heart beat faster at the possibility that he might finally find love again.
In the distance, Luke saw smoke rising from the forest fire that the crew had come to fight. The fire was growing quickly, but it had started out small. The clan should be able to get it under control within a day, and then Luke could head back to town to see River. Luke steered his parachute toward a small opening in the tree line, hoping to land without getting caught in one of the giant Sequoias that filled the forest. He could see Charlotte and Zach, already on the ground and folding up their parachutes, with Hunter and Trevor not too far behind. Luke carefully guided his parachute between the trees, managing to avoid the large branches stretching out into the clearing. He landed with a soft thud a few feet away from Trevor, losing his balance and tumbling forward as his feet hit the earth.
“Nice one,” Trevor said, laughing at Luke’s expense.
Luke slowly stood up—not an easy feat wh
en loaded down with nearly a hundred pounds of gear. “At least I missed the trees,” Luke said, brushing off the dried leaves and dirt that had attached to his jumpsuit during his clumsy landing. He immediately started unpacking his gear and stepping out of his jumpsuit.
“Wow, someone’s eager to get to work,” Hunter said. Hunter was still folding up his parachute.
“More like eager to finish work,” Trevor said. “Rumor has it that Luke has a new lady friend back in Red Valley that he’s eager to see.”
“Shut up, Trevor,” Luke said, not looking up from the cargo bag of tools he was unloading. He pulled out a portable chain saw that was folded down into two pieces, and started attaching the blade and body of the saw together.
Hunter narrowed his eyes in Luke’s direction. “Wait, a lady friend? Is this the gal from the pie shop that Riley told me about? She said she thought you had a thing for one of her customers. Do you have a new girlfriend you’re not telling me about?”
Luke yanked the safety guard off of the chainsaw’s blade. “I’m not sure whether I have a new girlfriend, and I won’t know until this job is over and I get a chance to talk to her. So, if you boys will excuse me, I’ve got some work to do.”
Luke walked over to the thick forest edge and revved up his chainsaw. Without another backward glance at the rest of the crew, he started to clear away the dry shrubs and undergrowth to make a fire break. The smokejumpers would clear a fuel-free zone and set a backfire that would meet up with the wildfire. The two fires would burn each other out, and then the crew could hike out and head home. Luke wasn’t wasting any time on this job, now that he finally had a reason to look forward to going home.
Fire Bear Shifters: The Complete Series Page 19