If she had meant to stop him by remaining passive, it wasn't working. Not because he was in any way forcing her, but because she had stopped being passive and started kissing him back.
Forcing himself to be gentle, he rubbed his mouth over hers and tasted her morning coffee. She smiled, then tentatively touched his mouth with the tip of her tongue, something he'd taught her a long time ago.
Feelings he'd denied for years were pushing at his control, sapping him of the rigid discipline that had kept him sane in those early years when it was all he could do to live one more day with the remorse clawing at his gut.
His hand shook as he slipped it down her spine and over the tight curve of her fanny. Her skirt shifted against something silky. A slip, her skin. It didn't matter.
As soon as he got her out of here and into a bed in some private place, he was going to strip her out of those city clothes and touch every smooth, warm inch of her. And she would arch her back and make that small eager sound in her throat. She would tremble with need, the same need that had his belly quivering and his loins heating.
"Mr. Calhoun, really!"
Killing thoughts swept through him as he lifted his head and glared into the stony eyes of his previous tormentor while Darcy pressed her face against his shoulder and gulped air.
"A vengeful God sent you to drive me into an early grave, is that about it?" he muttered through a tight jaw.
The woman's scythelike mouth turned down even more sourly than before, which he'd been sure was her limit. "Here are your crutches and Dr. Armadi has written a prescription for a painkiller," she said crisply. "You're to take it every four hours."
"Forget it. I don't need pills."
Stiff as a probie being chewed out for the first time, she marched across the room, propped the crutches against the bed, plunked down the prescription and retraced her steps. At the door she paused to give him a stern look.
"No more than four pills in any twenty-four hours."
"I told you, screw the pills."
"Believe me, Mr. Calhoun, by this time tonight you'll be glad to have them." He could swear she was chuckling when she left.
"Tyrant," he muttered, winning him a choked laugh from the woman still wrapped against him.
"This will be all over town by noon."
He drew back and used his hand to smooth back the hair that had escaped the two neat combs at her temples and was now flopping in her face. "This?"
Her lashes lifted, giving him a good look at the drowsy bewilderment nestled in her eyes. "You and me, kissing in a public place."
"Does that bother you, having my name twisted around yours?"
"Yes. No." She licked her lips, setting another flame under the heat in his groin. "What is it between us that keeps undermining all my good intentions?"
The exasperation in her voice touched him more than the sexiest purr. "It's called chemistry, Red. We seem to generate more than our share."
"Well, you can't say you didn't warn me."
Her mouth curved, but her eyes remained uncertain as she slipped from the loose coil of his arm and smoothed her skirt with one hand while trying to fix her hair with the other.
"I have an appointment at the bank, so I'd better let you, um, finish dressing."
No one had to hit him over the head with an ax handle. The lady was having second thoughts and he told himself that he was glad. He was crazy to think they could put the pieces together and make some kind of whole. Chances were, even if they tried, he'd just end up hurting her again.
"Thank the twins for the flowers, okay?"
He tried to repair the damage caused when the flowers had gotten jammed between them, but all he succeeded in doing was shredding a few more petals from the little pink ones.
"Don't worry about salvaging those. The twins will never know if you want to toss them." She sneaked a glance at the elaborate bouquet by the bed. "They look pretty seedy next to those, anyway."
"From Tom Billings and his wife. He was here earlier."
"Very thoughtful." Giving up on the comb, she jerked it from her hair with an impatient scowl and tucked it into the purse still dangling from her shoulder.
"Uh, can I give you a ride to the firehouse?"
"No thanks. I'll call one of the probies to come pick me up." He managed a pretty fair imitation of a casual grin. "One of the perks of being chief."
As he'd intended, she smiled, but the shadows that had been in her eyes last night were creeping back. "Uh, by the way, is it standard procedure after a fire for someone from the fire department to notify the next of kin?"
"That wasn't the procedure in San Francisco. I haven't been here long enough to learn all the local customs. Why?"
"It's just that … well, I probably shouldn't even mention this, but a man called me just before I was leaving for town. He said he was Carmen's nephew from someplace in California and started asking me all kind of questions."
"Like what?"
She frowned. "Like, did she have anything of value stored at my place, and did she regain consciousness in the ambulance, maybe leave a message for someone in her family? Things like that."
Judd laid the wildflowers carefully on the end of his bed, then reached behind him to untie the gown and strip it off his shoulders.
"Anything else?" He was careful to keep the icy suspicion creeping into his mind from his voice.
"No, and the man was very polite and sounded genuinely sad about his aunt's death, but…"
Judd pulled the sweat-stained T-shirt over his head and managed to keep from wincing as his strained muscles protested.
"But what?" he asked as he finger combed the hair that hadn't gotten singed off.
"I could have sworn that she told me more than once that the only relatives she knew of lived way down in the wilds of Mexico someplace and didn't speak any English. But the man who called me certainly did."
"Maybe this nephew had someone call for him, use his name."
"Maybe."
Judd looked around but his socks were nowhere in sight. Nor were his coat and boots. He shrugged, then carefully fitted the crutches under his arm, collected the wildflowers and fixed Darcy with an impatient look.
"Ready?"
"For what?"
"I've decided to let you give me that ride home after all. And if you play your cards right, I might just let you buy me lunch."
She gave him a half-bemused, half-startled look that had his blood racing again. And then she was turning him down. Politely, even regretfully, but definitely turning him down.
"We have this problem with chemistry, remember?" she added on the tail end of the deep breath she'd taken before she'd begun.
Judd ignored the thud in his stomach. He'd been rejected before. He even agreed with her; it was dangerous for them to be together. But that didn't keep him from feeling more alive, more confident, more … everything but so darn empty when she was around.
"Actually it's business, fire department business, and it's important or I wouldn't ask."
"Oh. Well, in that case, how can I turn down such a romantic invitation?"
* * *
Chapter 8
« ^ »
The young man just slamming the door of the big red truck had a diffident smile and shy eyes. "Is there something I can do for you, ma'am?" he asked as Darcy closed the front door of the station behind her.
"No thanks. I'm meeting the chief in his office."
"Yes, ma'am. It's all the way to the back and to the left."
"I know. I practically grew up here. My uncle was chief."
"Oh, yes, ma'am. Sorry, I should have recognized you. From the funeral last month, I mean."
"Thank you for coming. I know it would have meant a lot to Uncle Mike to have seen all of you guys looking so impressive in your uniforms."
"I … never really got to know your uncle, but—"
He was interrupted by the sharp, steady tone coming through a speaker over her head. At the same time the t
hree huge steel doors that made up the facade of the station rumbled upward on well-greased tracks, spilling sunshine onto the recently swept concrete floor.
The station erupted with activity. Silent, grim-faced men came from the direction of the kitchen, already in their boots and hitching their suspenders over brawny shoulders.
She saw Monk, several other men she knew by sight. One, the cook for the day, she supposed, was pulling an apron from his muscular neck as he ran, and another was struggling with a stubborn suspender as he headed for the coats hanging near the trucks.
Self-contained breathing units, fire axes with one end pointed to splinter doors, heavy gauntlets—all were neatly arranged and easy to grab.
Overhead, from the hole in the ceiling, two men and one woman came sliding down the shiny steel pole, one nearly on top of the other. They split at the bottom, each going to a different part of the big red truck with a massive, complicated-looking ladder folded neatly on top.
Expertly the firemen shrugged into heavy coats and pulled on helmets with the insignia of Grantley South emblazoned on the front.
A metallic voice called out an address, there was the roar of a finely tuned, powerful engine exploding into life, followed almost instantaneously by two more as their drivers started the pumper and the emergency van.
One by one they pulled out and turned right, sirens shrieking and exhaust billowing white. Only one vehicle remained. Judd's red truck.
Her ears were still ringing as she hurried across the cavernous building, which now seemed abandoned. Delicious aromas came through the open door to the kitchen, making her mouth water, and from somewhere deeper in the building, she heard the drone of a TV.
Fire fighters were devoted soap opera fans. Daytime dramas, Uncle Mike had invariably corrected. "Firemen don't watch soaps."
Judd's door was open, inviting her to enter. Through the opening she saw him balancing on one crutch in front of his open locker door, tying his plain black uniform tie. He'd picked up some color in his face since he'd shaved off his beard, and the uneven lengths of his hair reminded her of the latest Hollywood heartthrob—except that guy had to pay to achieve his tough-guy look.
"You need a haircut," she said when the ripple of muscle across his back told her he'd sensed her standing in the doorway.
Their eyes met in the mirror. His were dark and lined from lack of sleep, but for an instant they seemed to smolder with a stark man-for-his-mate longing. Out of nowhere, she suddenly thought of green grass and the hypnotic whisper of cool water over smooth stones.
A quick flutter of nerves had her running her tongue over her mouth, as though tasting his mouth claiming hers again and again.
"I guess I look pretty bad, huh?" he said with a scowl.
"Let's just say a stranger meeting you for the first time would have a good idea of what you do for a living."
His eyes crinkled, his face intriguing. The rest of him, however, was all rugged male. In the aggressive angle of the jaw, in the directness of his gaze, in the latent strength in the long muscles of his back and the breadth of his thighs.
"I'll try to fit in a trip to the barber before I embarrass the city fathers. And mothers."
Darcy leaned against the doorjamb and tried not to notice how the white uniform shirt seemed to add extra breadth to his muscle-heavy shoulders, or the way those muscles moved beneath the material as his hands worked on his tie.
"Rachel at Beau Monde does wonders with my hair. I'd be happy to put in a good word for you."
"Forget it. I'd take a dull knife to it myself before I'd go into one of those ladies' places."
Finished with the tie, he ran the flat of his hand over his still-damp hair, then shrugged as he closed the locker door.
Darcy grinned, but she was busy noticing the bouquet of wildflowers in a mayonnaise jar on his desk.
It was the only sign of color, the only personal touch. No photos, no mementos, nothing but neatly piled folders and papers and, near his elbow, a utilitarian desk calendar opened to today's date.
From all appearances, Judd's work was his life. A self-imposed penance? she wondered. A driven man's way of dealing with guilt that would be unbearable otherwise?
"Sounds like the guys got off all right," he said as he reached for the other crutch propped against the wall. His movements were easy, practiced, as though injuries like this one were commonplace.
"Guys and one gal."
"It's all the same on the job." He made his way to the desk, where he set aside one crutch, then opened the top drawer. The lines on his face were taut and his mouth was rimmed with white, as though each movement cost him more pain than he intended to admit.
"Did you ever work with a woman?" she asked, more out of need to fill the silence with sound than anything else.
"Sure. Even had one save my butt once." He retrieved his wallet, checked to see that he had money, then wedged it into his back pocket. "I bought her dinner at the best place in the city as a thank-you. The next day she worked and I didn't. I never saw her again."
"She was killed?" Darcy asked softly.
His keys went into his pocket, along with a small notebook and a pen. "Yeah. It was a three-alarm in one of the worst sections of the Mission District. She'd gotten this blind kid and his mother out before the roof came down, and then she went back in for the kid's Seeing Eye dog."
He spoke calmly, without emotion, as though they were discussing something as commonplace as the weather. In a way they were, she realized as she watched him fit the crutch under his arm again. Death and injury were commonplace to people like Judd.
"It sounds as though she was a wonderful person."
"She was, and one hell of a fire fighter. The mayor himself walked in her funeral parade."
"I'm glad." Emotion tickled her throat and pressured the spot behind her eyes that always signaled the approach of tears.
"Hey, I didn't mean to upset you, Red. Things like that happen in this job. You of all people should know that." His voice was gruff, but for an instant, his dark eyes were shot with an inner anguish that had nothing to do with his physical injuries.
"Yes, I do know that, but I'm still sorry about your friend."
He acknowledged her words with a curt nod that told her she was pushing too close to the wall he kept around his softer emotions.
"I'm sorry for something else, Judd. Sorry that Papa didn't live to see the kind of man you turned out to be. He would have been very proud of you."
He stiffened and his eyes narrowed, turned dangerous. "Yeah, right."
"Don't look at me like you think I'm crazy. I mean it."
She took a step forward until she was sure he could see the sincerity in her eyes. A new, different emotion took over his face, and for an instant she knew that he intended to take her into his arms again. The thought had her holding her breath, waiting, her body shivering inside in anticipation. And then he had pulled into himself again, shoring up already granite-hard walls.
"C'mon, let's get out of here," he said, shoving the drawer closed. "I'm hungry. The breakfast they gave me wasn't enough to fill up a baby."
He fisted both crutches and set off smoothly toward the door. When he realized she wasn't following, he stopped and half turned to give her an impatient look.
"Well, are you coming?"
"Yes, I'm coming." She followed him to the door, stunned by the memory of what she'd just seen in the drawer before he'd closed it.
It was a photograph of a young mother seated under a pear tree in full bloom, two identical redheaded toddlers in her lap.
It was the same photo she'd given her uncle one Christmas. A photo that he'd kept in a place of honor on his desk. A photo that Judd had kept when he'd packed up everything else.
"Judd, wake up. We're here!"
He was awake but he kept his eyes closed a moment longer, letting her shake his shoulder.
"Sorry," he said, pushing himself upright before he remembered his knees. He took a moment to l
et the pain ease, then blew out a long stream of air. His stomach was still queasy, and his chest still burned.
"You hurt those knees once before, didn't you?" She was watching him with a matter-of-fact expression he liked. He'd had enough gushing sympathy to last him a dozen lifetimes.
"Yeah, about a year ago." His hand made a quick swipe across his face and came away damp. It was hot in Darcy's car, even hotter beneath his skin.
"What happened?"
"I was working the second story and took the quick way down when the roof blew."
"You fell?"
She was close enough to catch the quick stretch of muscle along the edge of his jaw, but his voice carried a sardonic humor.
"Yeah. Wiped out a couple of the city's prized oleander bushes on the way down. Why are we parked in your barn lot instead of in front of Groler's?"
"I thought you might like a home-cooked meal for a change."
"Oh yeah? When did you learn to cook?"
Was that the beginning of a teasing glint in his eyes? she wondered, warming inside. Teasing was something he used to do a lot. Now it seemed just another part of the boy he'd left behind.
"I didn't. Not that I didn't try, but Aunt Bridget is, um, very protective of her kitchen."
"Made a mess, did you?" He slanted her an amused look that had her remembering a tough guy with a heart so soft he covered it with dry humor.
"Let's say it took me more time to clean up after dinner than it took me to cook it."
She grinned and tugged her keys from the ignition.
"In that case, let's hope that Bridget's home today," Judd muttered, thinking of the tasteless eggs and weak coffee they'd fed him at seven. And then, inexplicably, he was thinking of the way Darcy had looked when she'd swooped into his room, carrying those ridiculous flowers as though they were spun gold and bringing the morning sunshine in with her.
"Don't worry, she's home." She reached through the gap between the bucket seats to retrieve her purse and jacket before opening the door on her side.
She had removed the suit jacket, revealing a sleeveless shell that clung far too loosely to her body to be intentionally provocative, yet the material was just thin enough to reveal the small buttons of her breasts through her bra. Judd's imagination started giving him fits, which in turn darkened his mood even more.
FIREBRAND Page 13