by Heidi Rice
“I’ll see you around, Deputy,” she said, rolling the address off her tongue, reminding him of the nickname that had slipped out during their argument.
Deputy Hard-Ass.
Instead of calling her on the cheeky comment, he tapped two fingers to his forehead in a mock salute.
As she walked off toward Our Lady of the Angels Catholic Church on the corner of 4th and Front Avenue, he noticed the sway of her slender hips in the tomboy jeans and the shot of heat hit him squarely in the crotch.
“Not if I see you first,” he murmured beneath his breath as he slammed the squad car door and tore his eyes away from her butt.
Charlotte Foster was trouble.
Smart-mouthed, feisty, and far too sexy trouble. Exactly the sort of trouble he did not need in his life. Because he had enough trouble already dealing with the upcoming calving season, his kid brother Lyle’s addiction to jumping out of planes into the middle of forest infernos, and figuring out how he and the rest of Marietta’s First Responders were going to raise enough money to bring Harry’s House up to code in less than ninety days.
The good news was, Miss Foster was a tourist who would be gone on the first bus out of town tomorrow morning.
Not so good was the squeeze of regret as he watched her slim figure stroll round the back of the church and disappear.
Chapter Two
For such a small town, Marietta, Montana, certainly has way more than its fair share of prime man candy.
Charlie nursed her second bottle of beer and enjoyed the impromptu floor show in Grey’s Saloon supplied by the group of guys standing ten feet away having a heated discussion about some place called Harry’s House.
All of them topped six foot and every single one of them had shoulders wide enough and butts tight enough and faces ruggedly handsome enough to leave any woman breathless. Especially a woman who hadn’t gotten laid since last September—and she wasn’t sure the one-night stand she’d had with the curator after the preview of her last New York showing even counted. The celebratory encounter in his penthouse had been the sexual equivalent of watching wood warp, very slowly.
Surely her sex drought had to explain her bizarre reaction to Deputy Hard-Ass a couple of hours ago too—which she was totally over now, because she was already appreciating the prime assets of other men. Ten other men to be precise.
So what if this smorgasbord of earthly delights wasn’t giving her quite the same buzz that her bossy arresting officer had earlier in the evening. She took another sip of the icy local brew and savored the sight laid out before her, determined to get turned on if it killed her.
The men’s body language was certainly making the shadowy booth of the local saloon feel pleasantly warm, the discussion obviously something they were all passionate about.
“We can’t risk losing the house. That’d set the project back for months, maybe even years,” the guy in a dark green uniform shirt said. Charlie had christened him Forest Ranger Hottie. She’d noticed he had a sort of world-weariness about him, a guardedness that made him not quite part of the group. She’d seen the same kind of behavior in guys she’d photographed coming back from service in Iraq. Guys who had seen too much.
She coughed out a laugh at the romanticism of her thoughts. How he’d managed to get so guarded as a Forest Ranger she had no idea given the breathtaking beauty of the local countryside. Perhaps forest management could be more stressful than she thought.
“Which is why we have to come up with a plan to raise the money, like yesterday,” the guy she’d dubbed Fireman Hottie chipped in. Charlie couldn’t quite shake the thought that he looked vaguely familiar, the classically handsome bone structure and the magnetic dimple in his chin definitely reminding her of someone even though she knew she’d never met him before.
“So we step up to the plate as Marietta’s First Responders and make damn sure it gets done,” said the only other guy in uniform apart from Forest Ranger Hottie, the vibrant red jacket he’d discarded on entering the saloon setting him apart as Search and Rescue Hottie.
The other guys all nodded or spoke their agreement.
“Where are Logan and Lyle?” Fireman Hottie added. “It was their idea for us to come up with a fundraising plan. I thought they’d be here by now.”
Logan? Not…
Charlie hadn’t even had the chance to finish the thought when her worst nightmare swung open the saloon doors and marched into the bar.
All the oxygen sucked out of the room as Charlie slid further back into the shadows of her booth. She took a long gulp of her beer, but it failed to chill the geyser of heat working its way up her torso at the sight of him.
He’d lost the badge and the gun belt, but none of the attitude as he strode up to the long wooden bar to be greeted by his friends. She watched him unobserved, the pleasant buzz from checking out the other hotties becoming a firework display worthy of London’s new year celebrations on the Thames.
Crapola. Even with all this prime man candy on display, only Deputy Hard-Ass had the power to make her go up in flames.
What on earth was that about? Had the Montana air turned her into a masochist? Or a nymphomaniac? Because until this evening, she would have said she was not the sort of girl who got off on being bossed about.
He didn’t spot her, his attention focused on the other First Responder dudes as they greeted him. The discussion continued as they suggested and discarded ways to make money for their pet project. Charlie was only listening with half an ear now, though—all her attention pinned on the man whose superpower was to totally mess with her karma. Then another guy entered the bar, swelling the hotness smorgasbord to a round dozen.
This guy was leaner than Logan and nowhere near as moody, his dark blond hair contrasting with Deputy Hard-Ass’s darker coloring to make him light to Logan’s shade. As soon as he arrived, the new hottie energized the group with his wide grin and backslapping bonhomie. Everyone except Deputy Hard-Ass, who gripped the new guy’s shoulders, gave him a man hug, then glared at him.
The tension radiating from his big, buff body made the fireworks in Charlie’s core go a little berserk, but everyone else seemed to be oblivious to his brooding, the new guy most of all, who ignored the frown of disapproval as his other friends all made a fuss of him. The name Lyle got bandied about as they congratulated him on his heroics during an emergency incident in a neighboring county.
Well, hello, Smoke Jumper Hottie.
No wonder these guys were all so buff, obviously First Responder was a euphemism for local hero. They spent their time rescuing the local populace. Well, all except Deputy Hard-Ass, who spent his time arresting innocent jaywalkers.
Charlie finished off her drink and decided she’d hidden in the shadowy booth long enough. She’d never been the sort of woman to back down from a challenge. And Deputy Hard-Ass was certainly that.
She’d let him get the upper hand during their earlier showdown.
When she’d given him her word that she wouldn’t leave town, she’d planned to break it as soon as she walked past the church. But somehow she hadn’t quite been able to hitch straight back out onto the highway—eventually ending up at a picture-perfect Bed and Breakfast on the outskirts of town run by a woman who looked like an angel, but appeared to have the work ethic of a Trojan.
She’d taken a load of shots of the town on her walk to the bar this evening, all of which would make great fodder for her blog on America’s hidden heartlands—and had made the decision to stay for a while longer, maybe even a couple of weeks to get more shots of the town. She could already tell Marietta was rich with opportunities to document an essential part of small-town life in the US for her book project.
But if she was going to stay, she needed to make it crystal clear to Logan Tate that he could not interfere with her plans—which meant getting all up in his face, thus showing him that no one bossed Charlie Foster about. Not even men with buns of steel and quite possibly the most kissable lips on the planet.
At that precise moment a blast of divine inspiration came from on high—or more likely from way down below in the lower reaches of hell—and struck her right in her solar plexus.
Oh. My. God. I have the perfect solution to their fundraising problem.
A solution that could also solve her issues with Deputy Hard-Ass—and put him right where she wanted him, at her beck and call in front of her camera lens.
Giving in to the urge to jump the guy was not going to happen. She did not do complex relationships. And this guy—and her unexplainable reaction to him—had complication written all over it. But leaving town now without getting to photograph him was not going to happen. She had killer instincts about her photography, and this guy could be the cover shot for her book.
The essence of American manhood. Tough, taciturn, and take-charge—with a hottie quotient that was off the charts. But asking him politely to sit for her after their earlier run-in was out of the question—not only might it require her to beg, but she was also fairly sure the guy would say no just to be pissy—so she was going to have to get sneaky.
And as luck would have it, Marietta’s First Responders and their charity project had just provided her with the perfect opportunity to make sure Deputy Hard-Ass would have to pose for her, preferably with as few clothes as possible—if she could persuade his friends to go for the idea. And she knew she could.
She’d done a commission last year in Chicago for a firehouse that had wanted to raise money to help the widow and children of one of their own who had been lost in a house fire in Lincoln Park. They’d contacted her through her website—after a National Geographic shoot she did on Pennsylvania steelworkers had gotten a lot of attention—and she’d been happy to waive her fee. The project had raised a staggering fifty thousand dollars in under a month, given her lots of great exposure, and had gone on to gross over two hundred thousand by the end of the year.
Obviously small-town Montana wasn’t Chicago. But from the extensive research she’d done in the last twenty minutes on their hotness, Marietta’s First Responders were every bit as hot as the firefighters of Local 32. These guys had a secret weapon that they were clearly unaware of, which could raise all the money they needed and then some. And she was just the woman to point it out to them. Surely it was her civic duty. And if it involved getting her nemesis to pose for her… Well, blimey, that was simply a fortuitous fringe benefit she intended to take full advantage of. That she was almost certain the guy would hate the idea—because it would shift the balance of power between them—just made her ingenious solution all the more ingenious.
She detached her gaze from his—time to plan a strategy. She turned to the guy behind the bar who had introduced himself earlier as Reese.
“Hey, English, what can I do you for?” he said, the gruff tone not exactly over-friendly but not snotty either, reminding her that some Montana men could actually find a modicum of charm without bursting a blood vessel.
“Another bottle of this, please, Reese,” she said, slapping the empty on the bar. “I’m feeling extra thirsty tonight.”
Adrenaline raced through her veins as she scooped the bottle off the bar and took a hefty swig. The cold malty lager soothed her dry throat and went some way to cooling the fireworks display in her panties as she worked out exactly what she was going to say. And how she was going to say it.
She’d pitched for work before, back in the early days of her career when she’d been traipsing round the magazine circuit in London’s Soho with her portfolio, desperate for commissions. Now the work came to her. But it was doubtful that any of these guys subscribed to Vanity Fair or Vogue, or kept up on the latest hot photography shows on the New York art scene. She would have to put her best pitch forward to get them onside.
Licking her lips, she locked gazes with Deputy Hard-Ass again. Time to beard the lion in his den of hotties.
She headed toward the group of guys, enjoying the sensation of something rich and fluid as their heads turned and Logan Tate’s wide sensual lips flattened into a thin line of displeasure. Her own lips quirked in an I’m-so-about-to-make-your-life-hell smile.
Game on, Deputy Hard-Ass.
*
“Hi, guys, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’ve been shamelessly eavesdropping on your conversation and I think I might have a solution to your fundraising issue.”
The smoky, slightly snooty British voice and the spark of mischief in mossy green eyes sent Logan’s here-comes-trouble radar right through the roof. He hadn’t expected to lay eyes on Charlotte Foster again. Had only just worked off all the sexual frustration caused by their first meeting on Highway 89 by shucking and splitting bales for the pregnant cows on the ranch for three solid hours.
And now the sweaty backbreaking work had been for nothing, because the sexual tension snapping in the air had put him right back where he had left off the last time he’d laid eyes on her, and her tight little butt, swinging out of view past Our Lady of the Angels on 4th Street.
“Sugar, you can interrupt me anytime,” his brother Lyle announced, rolling out the easygoing grin he always had ready to charm any woman old enough to wear a bra and young enough to have a pulse. “Lyle Tate, at your service.”
“Pleased to meet you, Lyle. Charlotte Foster.” The bane of his existence took his brother’s hand and gave it a firm shake. “But my friends call me Charlie,” she said, making it clear she didn’t consider Logan to be one of them. “Are you any relation to Deputy Tate here?”
“So you’ve met my brother, huh?” Lyle sent a mocking look Logan’s way. And the muscle in Logan’s jaw tightened. When was his brother going to let go of her hand?
“I sure hope you won’t hold it against me, Charlie,” his brother said, clearly picking up on the tension and deciding to increase it.
Charlotte laughed, a throaty, husky laugh that sent every last one of Logan’s pulse points into overdrive. “Well, that all depends,” she said, the naughty smile a dare aimed exclusively at him. “On whether you plan to arrest me or not.”
“Logan arrested you? What for?” Lyle did his appalled look and staggered back clutching his chest—which was obviously supposed to be hilarious.
Logan was not amused. He still hadn’t forgiven his kid brother for failing to pick up a damn phone in the last four days.
“Was it for being gorgeous without a license?” his brother said, answering his own question, and Logan’s temper kicked up to critical.
He opened his mouth, ready to tell Lyle to back the hell off, when Kyle Cavasos beat him to it.
“Lyle, quit flirting for two seconds so we can hear what Miss Foster has to say.” He reached out a hand to Charlotte, too. “Hey there, I’m Kyle Cavasos, one of the local firemen.”
“Hi, nice to meet you.” Charlotte shook his hand. “Kyle and Lyle, that could get confusing,” she said, checking out his brother and the local firefighter who spent way too much time in the local gym. Not something Logan had noticed until right this second as Charlotte’s gaze lingered on the overdeveloped pecs stretching the guy’s Marietta Fire Department T-shirt.
“Not really, sugar,” Lyle jumped right back in. “I’m way younger and much better looking.”
“Quit it, Lyle,” Jonah Clark got straight to the point in his usual way. The search-and-rescue pilot was not a big talker, but it seemed he’d finally managed to shut his brother up, when he said to Charlotte as they all looked on, “What’s your plan, Miss Foster?”
“Before I get to that,” she said. “Can I ask you a bit m
ore about the project? And how much you need to raise and in what time frame?”
“So your shameless eavesdropping didn’t tell you that?” Logan said, not getting a good feeling about this woman’s sudden interest in Harry’s House. Or the fact that a part of him had actually been pleased to see her when he’d spotted her across the bar. Hadn’t he already decided this woman was bad news?
“Not precisely, unless I’m right in thinking you have to raise upward of fifty grand in less than ninety days,” Charlotte replied, not sounding remotely ashamed that she had obviously listened in to a lot of their conversation.
“That’s about the size of it, all right,” Todd Harris remarked. The local Forest Ranger had moved to Marietta a couple of years ago from Chicago but was as invested in the community now as any of them. “The whole town’s been working toward getting Harry’s House up and running by the end of this year—it’s an after-school program for kids who want enrichment classes or tutoring, or who just need a safe space.”
The quietly spoken words had Logan sobering. He rubbed his thumb over the spot on his chest instinctively. However much trouble Charlotte Foster might be, he needed to listen to her suggestion with an open mind. This project was important, maybe more important to him than to most of the other guys in this bar, because he knew exactly how bad things could get, if a kid didn’t have that safe space when they needed it.
“We just had a Bake-Off that raised over thirty grand,” Todd continued, and Logan shoved his hand into his pocket, determined to push the dark memories back where they belonged. That was all ancient history. He’d survived. Harry’s House wasn’t about him and what had happened to him as a kid—because no one knew about that, thank Christ.
Lyle caught his eye and then looked away, unsettling Logan. For a moment there, his kid brother had actually looked serious. Then again, why wouldn’t he? Harry had been a friend of Lyle’s in high school and they’d worked together at the Fire Station when Lyle wasn’t on Smoke Jumper duty. And for all his horsing around, Lyle understood how important it was to honor Harry’s memory just like the rest of them.