How to Tame a Wild Fireman

by Jennifer Bernard

  She wrinkled her forehead, trying to picture it. Dynah might like that. “I guess, maybe.”

  “Well, he’s going to call you. You can work it out with him. But never fear, we’ll get this thing sold and get you a tidy little profit.”

  “To be shared with the Goddesses.”

  “You can share it with God, your janitor, a pet shelter, whatever you want.”

  Luckily, he hung up before catching her involuntary burst of giggles. She’d forgotten that most people didn’t refer to other people as “Goddesses.”

  Oh, Aunt Tam. Your legacy lives on. Even though it may become a dude ranch.

  By the time she turned the key in the door of her condo, she was bone-tired. Which was why her first thought was that she had to be hallucinating.

  Patrick Callahan IV sat in her one good piece of furniture, an armchair upholstered in sleek lipstick red. Dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt, this one black with the white outline of a lizard, he sat with one ankle crossed over the opposite knee. Adam must have insisted he take off his shoes, because on his feet were blue athletic socks with holes worn in the heels. Dark stubble dotted his jaw; he looked as though he’d driven all night to get here.

  The entire room vibrated with his blue-eyed, red-blooded, utterly masculine energy.

  Adam sat on the couch, wearing an apron with the words, LAUGHTER ISN’T THE BEST MEDICINE. ATIVAN IS. He was watching Patrick as if he were an unpredictable zoo specimen. Lara couldn’t tell if he looked horrified or fascinated. The holes in Patrick’s socks had probably given Adam a heart attack. On the other hand, there was no ignoring Patrick’s incredible, potent charisma. Just sitting there, he made the entire room tilt in his direction. It was nearly impossible for Lara to drag her gaze away to meet Adam’s.

  Patrick jumped to his feet. “Lara. I have to talk to you.”

  Adam got to his feet too. “Should I have warned you, Lara? He said he was a friend from Loveless.”

  Patrick gave Adam a hard look. “I am a friend from Loveless.”

  “He is,” agreed Lara. “Psycho.”

  Adam frowned, looking highly offended.

  “I don’t mean you’re psycho. He’s Psycho.”

  Now Adam took a step back.

  “I don’t mean that he’s crazy, although I wouldn’t rule it out. Psycho’s his nickname. For obvious reasons, if you know anything about him. But let’s stick with Patrick for now. Patrick, have you met Adam? He’s the chief resident in the Family Medicine program.”

  Now why had she thrown that in? Was the exact nature of her relationship with Adam any business of Patrick’s?

  Adam apparently thought it was. “Well, I’d say our relationship is a bit more than professional,” he sniffed.

  Lara directed a full-throttle smile his way. “How’s the purple feast coming?”

  “Very well. It’s only enough for two, though.” He sniffed again and eyed Patrick, who now had his arms crossed over his chest and his feet braced apart.

  “Patrick won’t be staying. But can I have a minute alone with him?”

  Adam, after darting a triumphant look at Patrick, headed into the kitchen.

  When they were alone, she caught Patrick’s puzzled look. “Purple feast?”

  “All the food’s going to be purple.”

  “Yeah? I had a grape Slurpee on the way here.”

  She laughed, then wiped the smile from her face. “What are you doing here?”

  Patrick tilted his head. “For some reason, you don’t seem too happy to see me.”

  “Well, I’ve had a long day. You could have called and let me know you were coming. It wouldn’t have been such a shock that way and—”

  “Where’s Liam?”

  The blunt words dropped into the stream of conversation like twin boulders. She stalled. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t play games with me, Lara. This is too important to me. If you don’t know, fine. I’ll leave you alone. It’s a simple question. Do you know where he is?”

  Throat constricting, she gazed at him helplessly. She didn’t want to lie. In fact, she’d told Liam that she wouldn’t lie. “Don’t put me in this position,” she whispered.

  Patrick’s eyes flared, as if he were a tiger sighting its prey. “You do know. Damn it, Lara.” He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, no doubt to keep himself from strangling her. “Tell me where he is. Please.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because I’m his brother. Because I want to make sure he’s okay.”

  “He’s okay.” There. If there had been any doubt about her involvement, she’d just blown it out of the water. “And anyway, that’s not enough.”

  He whirled on her. “Not enough? What the fuck does that mean?” The force of his intensity might have been enough to make her flee, but this was about Liam. She’d go pretty damn far for her old friend.

  “He wants to be left alone, unless someone has a really good reason to find him. So I want to know your reason.”

  “You’re the one with the keys to the gate? Saint Peter of getting to see Liam?”

  She lifted her chin and folded her arms across her chest, trying to quell her nerves. Hell, if things got really ugly, she could call on Adam. He could come out and throw purple food at Patrick. “He’s a grown man, Patrick. This is how he wants it.”

  A muscle in his jaw jumped, and a grim expression settled over his face. He looked infinitely older than the boy she’d once known. “Fine,” he finally said. “I want to see him because I want to see him.”

  Before she could protest that it was the lamest reason ever, he continued in a low voice that vibrated, raw and powerful, through the room. “I want to see him because my eyes hurt from not seeing him. My heart hurts from it. He’s my brother. I love him. He knows how much I love him. I bet he wants to see me too. And I want to . . . tell him I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left him, like you said.”

  Damn it. He had to go and say the perfect thing. Her throat tightened with emotion. That wary, vulnerable look on Patrick’s stubbly face made her want to hold him and kiss him and . . .

  “Okay. But if you’re going to see him, I’m coming with you. I don’t think it would be a good idea to surprise him, and it’s not always easy to get ahold of him. And it might be better to have a third person there. And I’ll want to explain why I ratted him out.”

  Patrick let out a long breath. “Fair enough. Is it far? Can we go tonight? It’s kind of late to be showing up on someone’s doorstep. Maybe tomorrow? How long will it take to get there?”

  “Patrick. Take a breath. It’s going to take at least a day to get there.”

  “A day?” He ran one hand through his short-cropped hair. “Where the fuck is he?”

  “He’s in Mexico.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Since Lara hadn’t yet unpacked from her trip to Loveless, she was ready to go in just a few minutes. While Patrick cleared space in the Hulk, she explained the situation to Adam, who was meticulously slicing eggplant. Why oh why had she let him come over? She felt like the biggest jerk in the world, telling him she’d have to skip out on the purple feast.

  “I’m really sorry, Adam. Can you invite someone else?”

  Adam set down the extremely expensive ceramic knife he must have brought over; it certainly didn’t belong to her. “You’re going to go away with this guy the second he snaps his fingers?”

  “It’s not like that. He wants to see his brother. It’s a long story.”

  “One you’ve never even mentioned to me.”

  “Well . . . that’s because . . .” Because why? Because their friendship hadn’t included such basic information as her life before her residency.

  “Have you slept with him?”

  “That’s sort of a personal question.”

  He shot her a sour look. “I didn’t realize those were off-limits. I thought we were friends. Is there a reason you can’t tell me the truth?”

  Lara shifted the strap of her
overnight bag from one shoulder to the other. It would certainly be easier to tell him the truth if he weren’t currently making her dinner. “Yes, I did sleep with him. It just, you know, happened.”

  “The way it’s never happened with us.”

  Lara chewed at the inside of her mouth. “I guess you could say that. But other things happened with us. Good things. Friend and coworker sort of things.”

  “I could have any woman at the hospital, you know.”

  That might have been a slight exaggeration, but she wasn’t going to quibble. “I know. You’re great, Adam. But don’t you think if something was going to happen between us, it would have by now? Maybe we’re better off as friends.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder. The muscles of his upper arm felt firm and solid under her palm. Adam worked out, after all. But tingling electricity didn’t race through her body the way it did when she came into contact with Patrick.

  Stop comparing them, she told herself. It’s not fair.

  But Adam was apparently thinking along the same lines. “You’d better quit that,” he murmured. “Something tells me your Psycho guy wouldn’t like seeing us like this, and he isn’t nearly as polite as I am.”

  She snatched her hand away. “He doesn’t own me.”

  “I saw the way he lit up when you came into the room.”

  “Yeah right. He’s not that type.”

  “And you lit up when you saw him. The two of you were like a couple of lightbulbs.”

  “I have to say that you’re taking this really well, Adam.”

  He shrugged and turned away. “Like I said, I’m not exactly hurting for company. I told you we’d be friends as long as we were honest. You’ve been honest.”

  A lump formed in her throat. Obviously, she’d underestimated Adam. Maybe he truly could be her friend.

  “I’ll lock up here,” he continued. “Good luck with that maniac. See you on Monday.”

  As she skipped down the stairs, she thought about the fact that she and Patrick had never defined what was going on between them. They’d left things—well, she’d left—in a completely unsettled state. And now they were about to drive to Mexico together. This could be trouble.

  Patrick was still in the back of his Dodge, moving things around. Wrinkling her nose, she went to the tailgate and handed him her bag. “Why does it smell like a zoo?”

  “I had Goldie in here for a while, and it’s never recovered, no matter how much air freshener I spray. But it’s clean.” He put her bag at the head of a pile of blankets he’d spread out on the vehicle bed. “I’ve got a sleeping bag and three blankets here, and the top one just came out of the laundry. It’s fleece, it’s soft as a baby bunny, and smells like Megan’s lavender detergent. Do you want to lie down? You look pretty wiped out.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We haven’t even talked about how we left things, and—”

  “I didn’t say have sex, I said sleep,” he said shortly. “I’d like to cross the border tonight. You can sleep while I drive.”

  Lara blessed the darkness for hiding her fierce blush. “Right. Well, that’s okay. It looks comfy, but the border guards might think you’re trying to smuggle someone into Mexico. Don’t we have to get some kind of permit to cross the border?”

  “We can get it there.”

  Even in the scant light cast by the street lamp, she noticed the dark smudges under his eyes, which matched the shadow darkening his jaw. “How long have you been driving?”

  “I left around two. What is it now, about nine?”

  “Patrick! You need to sleep.”

  “I’m a firefighter. I’m used to going without sleep.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay here and leave first thing in the morning? It’s not exactly safe to drive all night on no sleep. They say it’s just as bad as driving drunk.”

  “No.” It came out as more of a bullet than a word. “I’m a perfectly safe driver. And I’m not staying anywhere near that guy.”

  The jealous tone in his voice gave her a sneaky thrill. “Adam? Why? He’s a nice guy.”

  “Glad to hear it.” His voice was muffled as he jammed old cardboard cups and fast food wrappers into a plastic grocery bag. “I’ll sleep in the Hulk if you want to stay here at your place.”

  Sure. She could do that. But that would require parting ways with Patrick for the night, and that thought had zero appeal. “We could stay at a motel. You could get some sleep and we could leave when we wake up.”

  He went still. She held her breath. He found one more stray wrapper, stuffed it into the trash bag, then crawled out of the truck. He closed the tailgate—the entire vehicle shook as he did so—and confronted her. Resting one hand on the back of the truck, he leaned close, his eyes fierce points of light in the ambient dimness of the street.

  “It will be really hard for me to keep my hands off you if we’re sharing a motel room. Or the back of the Hulk. Or anywhere, for that matter. No sleep would be happening, that’s for sure.”

  She swallowed hard, and didn’t answer. But that seemed to be enough of an answer for Patrick.

  “Any other helpful suggestions?”

  She shook her head.

  “Let’s load up, then.”

  For a while they said little as Lara gave him directions to the Mexican border. She sat with one leg under the other, angled toward him as she pointed him toward the I-5 freeway, which would end at the crossing. A feeling of warmth and inevitability spread through her. Had she really thought she’d seen the last of Patrick Callahan? She must have been delusional.

  “Where do we go after we cross the border?” He took a long swig from a can of Red Bull that sat in his cup holder.

  “Baja,” she answered, deciding that she’d make him pull over at some point and shut his eyes. Red Bull only went so far.

  After they crossed into Mexico, the busy freeways of San Diego County gave way to a long, nearly empty highway that took them into the warm, sage-scented night. It unfurled hypnotically before them, interrupted only occasionally by signs that said things like DESPACIO and CURVA PELIGROSA. Her thoughts drifted. Everyone in Mexico must be sleeping, since it was way past midnight. They must be snuggled up in bed, cozy and relaxed . . .

  And just like that, her eyes fell shut.

  She came partly awake again when they pulled onto a scenic outlook that might have been carved from the top of a cliff. It overlooked a rugged canyon filled with shadows. When he turned the headlights off, deep night closed in around them. She murmured a question.

  “Shhh,” Patrick said as he slid out of the driver’s seat. “I’m going to take a short catnap in the back. Are you okay here? The doors will be locked. You can have the whole seat to yourself.”

  She shook her head, still too sleepy to form words. But she knew she didn’t want to be separated from him.

  “You’re coming with me, then.” She heard the tailgate clang open, then felt a rush of fresh air. Then she was being lifted in his arms like a baby and carried around to the back. It felt sinfully good. She wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled her face into his chest.

  “Don’t drop me,” she murmured.

  “Oh no.” The tenderness in his voice gave her a shiver. “I’m never going to drop you. And one of these days you’ll start trusting me.”

  She wanted to protest that statement. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust herself, or maybe herself with him, or him the way he had been, or something like that . . . the thought was simply too tangled to emerge. Instead she let him settle her onto the nest of blankets. When he lay down next to her, she cuddled close, with a sense of regret that they weren’t naked. After one long, luxurious exhale, she fell back asleep.

  She woke up with something tickling her cheek. Soft puffs of air warmed one side of her face. The dust-coated window was a block of cobalt, shading to glowing amethyst at the bottom. It must be close to dawn. She tilted sideways and saw Patrick, deeply asleep,
his mouth open just enough to let out little snuffling noises. For a moment she simply took in the sight of him at rest. Normally he had such a vibrant, alive presence. It was hard to take her eyes off him. It was just as hard now, with his face relaxed into peaceful lines, his eyelashes fanned across his cheeks. He looked almost absurdly handsome.

  She traced the line of his jaw, feeling the roughness of his whiskers. He must be going on a couple days without shaving. His scruff abraded her fingers and sent a pleasant wake-up call to her nervous system. When she reached the corner of his mouth, she felt it twitch. She froze. She hadn’t intended to wake him up, just to . . . fondle him. Without his knowing.

  Not cool, now that she thought about it. She started to draw her hand away, then yelped as she found her index finger enveloped in warm wetness.

  “Where do you think you’re going,” he murmured thickly, his words blocked by her finger.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you up.” She tugged her finger free.

  “Then you’ll have to pay the price,” he growled. He rolled to his side and raised himself on one elbow. “I did warn you, after all.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts. I’ve got you right where I want you. In the back of my truck in the middle of a foreign country.” His eyes glittered like chips of blue quartz. With his zero dark thirty shadow and general air of disrepute, he looked downright dangerous. Something thrilled deep in her belly.

  “So you planned it this way,” she said breathlessly.

  “Yes. My master plan is working perfectly. Prepare . . .” He nipped at the corner of her jawbone, where it met her neck. “ . . . to surrender.”

  “Really? Surrender? What about, ah, negotiation?”

  “I’m open to negotiation.” He grabbed the edge of the blanket between his teeth and yanked it aside. Her heart skipped into double time. “What are you offering?”

  “Well, I could, um, give you a kiss.” She pressed her lips against his strong throat in a quick, darting kiss.

  “Ah, the famous throat kiss. An intriguing opening gambit. One might say it’s a low-ball offer. Especially compared to, say, this.” With a dramatic gesture, he unzipped her sweatshirt. She wore a thin tank top underneath; the sudden rush of air made her nipples tighten. “And now you’re upping the ante, I see.” He homed in on her chest with a focus that made her nipples peak even further.