by Tessa Layne
Maybe it was because she was back in Prairie, or because she still felt the tiniest bit self-conscious at the fire station, but she’d come home from every Guard weekend jumpy and ill at ease. She was fine on the training ground with a weapon in her hand, or flying practice missions in the air with her new team, or on the bike. But anywhere else? She didn’t feel settled. Couldn’t hang with the gang the way she once had.
Cassie turned the bike onto 4th Street and came to a stop in front of the open garage door where Parker, Tony, and Mike sat on camp chairs next to the fire truck. Pulling off her helmet and giving her head a shake, she slipped off the bike. “Gents.”
They raised brown bottles to her.
“That Big Mike’s root beer?”
“Yep,” Tony said proudly. “Too bad we drank it all while you were communing with your bike.”
She unzipped her leather jacket and pulled out a bottle. “Too bad I snagged one before I left.” She let it dangle between her thumb and forefinger.
Mike and Parker threw their heads back, laughing. “Good one, Ace,” Mike called out.
The guys had started to call her that after they’d discovered she’d been the lead Aircraft Commander on the National Guard crew that had helped with the Hutchinson prairie fire. She liked it better than the name her Guard unit in Washington had given her – Knuckles.
Her old Guard unit had been tight. Two back to back tours in the sandbox did that. And she missed them, but when her dad had called worried about her mom, and a command slot had opened up in the Kansas National Guard, she’d felt she had to jump on it. Her family needed her, and she’d give them her best. Even if her best at the moment was pretty pathetic.
Parker jumped up, offering his chair, and she sat down, taking the bottle opener he’d handed her. Her root beer might be warm, but the fact she’d beaten the men at their own game was a win. The fact they enjoyed it, an even bigger win.
She took a sip, letting the warm liquid slake her thirst. Even warm, it was delicious. “Park’s right, Mike, when you gonna open a brew pub?”
“When are you gonna win the lottery and be my backer?”
“If I back you, could I stay behind and clean the firehouse tonight?”
“Hell, no,” Tony said. “It’s a rite of passage to hold the barf bucket tonight.”
“Besides, who’s gonna keep me company?” Parker chimed in.
Mike chortled. “No kissing her behind the ambulance either, Park. She has to man the barf bucket.”
Fireworks barf bucket duty always went to the newest member at the firehouse. This year it fell to her. Cassie faintly remembered having some poor young firefighter hold her head over the barf bucket one very hot and inebriated 4th of July, when she and a few of her friends had snuck a bottle of Boone’s strawberry wine into the fairgrounds.
The whole team had been called to duty this afternoon. Three lucky sons of guns would get to stay behind to clean and attend to any in town calls that might happen during the fireworks. But the whole town showed up to the fairgrounds so staying at the firehouse offered respite from the chaos. And chaos was exactly what Cassie wanted to avoid.
“Please? I’ll clean the truck for a month. And the fridge.” That was saying something.
“And the toilets?” Tony’s eyes narrowed speculatively.
Cassie sighed heavily. “Even the toilets.” She’d do it too, if it meant getting out of being on site for the fireworks.
Tony stretched his legs out, resting his hands on top of his head. “Mighty kind of you. But, no.”
Cassie finished off her root beer before she spoke. “I’ll be giving the station a white glove inspection when I return, Cruz. Hope you pass muster.” She winked at him and rose, tossing the bottle into the recycle bin where it clattered loudly. “I’m gonna go change. What time do we report?”
“Thirty minutes.”
Thirty minutes later, the fire chief’s truck, the firetruck, and Cassie and Parker riding in the ambulance, pulled into the fairgrounds and parked behind the display board. In the center of the arena, the fireworks technicians bustled back and forth setting up row upon row of shells.
As Cassie entered the arena with the crew, her stomach dropped. The technicians bent over wood, wires, metal tubes and fireworks shells covered in thin paper. Her mouth went dry, tongue going numb and ears buzzing loudly. The fireworks looked like IEDs.
She swallowed, breathing through her nose, trying to bring her heart rate down to a normal pace. These were just fireworks. Balls of explosives that showered beauty over an appreciative crowd. Not weapons of death and chaos.
“Cassie?” Parker’s voice reached her through the fog of panic. “Cassie.” His voice was sharper this time.
He touched her shoulder, and she flinched. Shame flooded her. “I-I’m fine.”
“You look like you saw a ghost.”
Yeah. Yeah, I did.
She blew out a breath. “All good.” She made herself smile. “Pretty amazing, huh? All those fireworks? Now, where’s that barf bucket? I should go get it.” She might need it. Cassie turned and, forcing herself to walk slowly, headed back to the trucks. It was going to be a long, long night.
By the time they’d returned to the fire station and washed down the vehicles, it was well after midnight. Cassie made a beeline for the kitchen, hoping there’d be some leftover barbecue from the afternoon’s festivities. She had to give Tony props. The kitchen sparkled.
“Bingo,” Parker called after looking in the fridge. “Grab some forks.”
She pulled a couple forks from a bin of silverware on the counter, and popped the top on the first Tupperware Parker handed her. Pulled pork, already doused heavily in sauce. She dug in, too tired to go hunting for a hamburger bun. The stress of keeping her shit together for eight hours had exhausted her. How was she going to stay awake until shift end?
They ate in companionable silence until Parker held up his container. “Coleslaw? It’s your mom’s.”
They traded containers, fingers brushing. It still surprised Cassie how the most casual touch put her senses on alert. She glanced up to find Parker staring at her curiously. Did the same thing happen to him?
“Wanna tell me what happened at the arena this afternoon?”
“Nothing. Is there any pie?”
A look of frustration crossed his face. “No. And you’re deflecting. Something happened at the fairgrounds today. Did you have a flashback?”
Damn.
Of course, he’d notice. He wasn’t dumb. And he’d seen more than his fair share of tragedy. A flash of anger sliced through Cassie. How come he managed to stay calm and unflappable all the time? And one look at a bunch of wires and metal and she was back on a battlefield half a world away?
“No. No flashback. I just don’t like the Fourth.”
His face softened. And there was that look again. The one that was almost, but not quite pity.
Dammit. “And I don’t need your pity. I’m perfectly capable of doing my job,” she snapped.
“No one said anything about you not being able to do your job, Cass,” he answered quietly after a moment.
God, she was a bitch. Parker didn’t deserve to be treated like that. She set down the coleslaw and scrubbed a hand over her face, the fight draining from her. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Parker closed the distance between them, wrapping her in a tight embrace and kissing the top of her head.
“Someone will see us.”
“First I don’t care. Second, the only other people here at the station tonight are sound asleep already.”
She could feel herself melting in his embrace. But she couldn’t soften. If she did, she’d fall asleep, and she couldn’t let that happen. Not tonight. “Don’t you think we should exercise some discretion?”
He chuckled. A warm laugh that vibrated against her cheek. “Like we did in Hutch?”
Her body warmed at the memory. Messing around with Park in a utility closet had been super risky. And ex
hilarating. But she didn’t have it in her tonight.
“Chicken?”
Now it was her turn to chuckle. “I’d never admit it if I was.” Parker’s hands made lazy circles across her back. “But for the record, I’m not. In Hutch, we weren’t on the same team. Here, we are.”
“So you mean to tell me you never dated a colleague in the military?”
“I was no saint. But I also paid the price.” She could admit that much to him. And maybe that would be enough to stop his questions. She tilted her head and kissed his chin, moving along his jawline to place a final kiss on his neck just under his ear. Her favorite place because she could always detect his cologne there. “So for now, let’s wait and go back to your place tomorrow after shift change.”
Parker turned his head and captured her mouth in a gentle kiss. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”
He stepped back and immediately she felt the loss of him. Her body burned with the temptation to throw caution to the wind and crawl into his arms and go for a quickie on the counter.
“Foosball?” Cassie grabbed the containers and returned them to the fridge. A game would wake her up, and keep her mind off Parker’s abs.
“Best of three?”
“Wager?”
Parker shot her a dirty grin over his shoulder. “Yes, but not money.”
“I’m not playing strip foosball in the firehouse.”
“Then we can bet what you take off later, after I crush you.”
“Talk is cheap, cowboy. Be prepared to give me a show when you strip,” she hungrily eyed his ass as she followed him up the stairs to the large rec room.
CHAPTER 12
The sounds of the rotors settled in her bones. Nothing made Cassie feel freer, more focused, more herself, than when she was on a mission.
A flash of light went off in her peripheral, followed by a sickening metal crunch. Alarm horns sounded, Master Caution Light, On. No.1 Engine Light, On. Low Rotor RPM Audio Warning blared as the bird hung suspended for a perfect moment, then began to plummet like a rock. She was ready for this. She’d practiced autorotation until they were second nature. But the controls were jammed, and there was blood on the windshield, and she couldn’t get a visual. “Murph, I’m stuck. Jesus, Murph, you have to–” She glanced over to see her co-pilot slumped unnaturally over the cyclic.
What in the hell? Was she suddenly inside a Pulp Fiction scene?
“Pull him off the cyclic,” she called over the intercom.
Her crew chief called her height above ground. “Two-hundred, one-hundred, decel.”
This wasn’t supposed to be happening. The helicopter landed hard, and she jerked in her seat. How they’d made it down, she had no idea. She reached over searching for a pulse, as her crew chief asked a question she didn’t register. Surely he was just unconscious? There was no way a Taliban shooter could aim that well.
“Fire, fire, fire,” someone screamed into her headset. “Get out, get out, get out.”
“Get Murph first,” she shouted. The smoke and chaos closed in on her, flashing in quick succession like a scene from a bad 80’s movie.
Another flash, and they were huddled behind the carcass of a burned out vehicle, Murph stretched out behind them, the medic working frantically. She couldn’t look at him again. She no longer recognized him. She glanced at the M-4 she clutched in her bloodied hand. Had she been injured? Her left leg hurt like hell.
Another flash. She looked into the hate-filled eyes of an insurgent coming for her and with her good hand, reached for her knife. Panic surged through her. Where the fuck was her knife? She always had her knife.
She moved to stand, stumbled and fell, quickly rolling onto her back. The man fell on top of her, and she cried out, reverting back to her self-defense training, but he had the momentum, was too big, and too angry. She struggled, yelling and flailing, trying with only one leg and one arm to pitch him off her. “You will never get me, motherfucker,” she screamed over and over again until she was hoarse. But screams wouldn’t save her. He was winning. “I will never surrender,” she shouted with a final heave hoping to throw him off.
“CASSIE. CASSIE.”
The enemy shook her. But how did he know her name?
“Cassie,” he shook her harder. “Wake up. Wake up.”
She thrashed again, resisting with everything she had. “I’m awake you asshole, where’s my knife?”
“CASSIE. You’re dreaming,” this time the enemy’s face rippled and Parker’s voice cascaded over her. The body restraining her wasn’t the enemy, it was Parker. Holding her as she thrashed and screamed.
But no. Parker was home in Prairie, and she was in Helmand Province with a dead co-pilot in the middle of a hotspot. “I’m. Not. Dreaming,” she ground out, struggling to reach for her knife, rage, and loss roiling through her.
C’mon, think. You can escape. Or die trying.
With a final heave, she dug deep and torqued her body, trying to throw the body on top of her off-balance. And it worked, except instead of being able to leap up, they fell with a crash, and Parker’s voice cried out beneath her.
“Jesus, Cassie. Are you okay?”
Reality came blasting back at her as she took in the four walls of the dimly lit quiet room. Her breath came in great heaving gulps as she lay across Parker. She raised her head absorbing his twisted clothes. “Oh God, Park. Did I hurt you?” Hysteria threatened to overtake her.
“I heard your screams in the other room,”
“I was screaming?” Oh God, did she scream at home too? But her parents didn’t have the heart to tell her? “Who else did I wake?”
Footsteps stopped outside, and a second later the door burst open. Tony stared down at them, wide-eyed, two others behind him. “What the fuck man?”
Cassie shut her eyes. Great. Now the team would think that she was fooling around on the job.
“Cassie had a nightmare,” Parker answered, propping himself on an elbow.
Tony stared down at her, scowling. “I thought someone was being murdered up here.”
Yeah. So had she. She swallowed. “I’m okay,” she mumbled, shame clouding her vision and burning her from the inside out. “I’m sorry. I usually stay awake on shift.”
“So this isn’t the first time,” Parker said sharply, body tensing under her.
It was against her code of honor to lie. So she didn’t answer. “I’m sorry I scared everyone.” She pushed herself off Parker, and sat back against the bed, draping her arms loosely over her knees. She was wide awake now, adrenaline so high her hands trembled. She had so much energy, she could probably run a marathon right now. With all her gear.
She folded her fingers to keep them from shaking in front of the others. She smiled weakly and shrugged as the guys moved away from the door back to their bunks in search of sleep.
She leaned her head back against the mattress and closed her eyes, tuning out what Parker and Tony were quietly saying to each other. But as soon as she shut her eyes, the wreckage and bodies floated before her, as if she was still there. She needed to think of something else. Anything else. Sky diving, mountain climbing, running a marathon. Sex. Anything else.
The quiet room door clicked shut, and Tony was gone. Parker dropped to the floor beside her and took her hand. “Wanna talk about it?”
Parker’s hands felt strong and steady around hers. He gave her a squeeze, and in the movement, it felt like a little of his steadiness had been gifted to her. She could tell Parker, couldn’t she? Confess the burden she’d been carrying for far too long. The words lay bottled up at the top of her throat. But after a brief struggle, the bottle stay firmly closed. She let out a heavy sigh. “I can’t stop seeing it.”
“Whatever it is, Cass…”
She loved him for his patience. His calm, steady strength. But she was too broken. There wasn’t anything left of her heart in the wreckage. In spite of that, all she wanted was for Parker to make the emptiness go away. How pathetic was she, that she was
going to ask her boyfriend for mind numbing sex to chase the demons away? At work? Hooah for the new low in cowardice.
Hell, by the time the next shift came in, the gossip would be that they’d gone at it so long and loud they woke the whole building. Might as well put some teeth on that rumor.
“Park?”
Parker shifted his position and reached across to draw the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “What is it, sweetheart?”
She leaned into his touch, turning her face to kiss the back of his hand. Those beautiful, steady hands. “I need you,”
He stilled, doubt flickering across his face.
Taking his hand, she guided it to her breast. “Please Park. I want to forget everything but the way you make me feel.”
CHAPTER 13
Pain radiated off Cassie, her eyes pools of sorrow. “Please, Park. Help me forget,” she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. Like her request took the last shred of her courage.
Well, color him dumbfounded. Parker’s heart ached for Cassie. For the pain that she couldn’t seem to shake. His thoughts drifted to the years of nightmares he’d endured as a kid, afraid to tell anyone about the vivid, bloody dreams. The irrational worry he lived with every day that another family member might be injured or worse on his watch.
He cupped her cheek and kissed her gently, pouring all his love into her. And then he drew back. “Cassie, sweetheart. I… you’re not in a condition… I’m not sure–”
She chased his mouth, and he let her, treasuring each of her kisses. God help him, he’d take any she offered. He wanted all of them. But his conscience got the better of him, and he pulled his hand from her breast. “Cassie–”
“I. Want. You.” She punctuated her words with kisses.
“I want you too…” Always.
She grabbed his hand, this time slipping it under her shirt. He groaned. Her skin was so soft. So smooth and delicate in the space underneath her breasts. And her hand had dropped to his cock, stroking and squeezing through his sweats.