by A. J. Goode
"Oh, God," she breathed. Sean trailed kisses along her jaw and down the side of her neck to her collarbone, where he slowly swirled his tongue across her soft, warm skin.
She turned slightly in his grasp, and he dipped his head lower, to caress the sensitive skin between her breasts with his tongue. She wasn't wearing a bra under the sundress; he found his way to one erect nipple and closed his lips around it, pulling it into his mouth.
She pulled back from him, and for one awful moment he was afraid she was going to ask him to stop. But instead, she slid her hands up under his shirt and ran her fingers lightly across his abdomen, up to his chest. Her eyes met his, an enigmatic little smile crossing her face as she touched the tip of her tongue to her lips.
He plunged his hand into her hair and pulled her up to crush her lips with his own. He didn’t remember ever kissing a woman with this kind of passion, this kind of unstoppable desire. He wanted to keep kissing her forever; he couldn’t get enough of her.
Her hands crept slowly downward, her fingers dancing across his skin until he was sure he must surely erupt into flames any second. When he felt her reach for the button at the waist of his jeans, he suddenly lost the ability to breathe. “Maggie,” he gasped, “you’re playing with fire.”
A sudden, high-pitched tone rang out from the pager on his belt.
Aw, hell no.
"Beach Haven Fire Department, stand by for dispatch for a grass fire."
Sean pulled away from the woman in his arms. She looked as shocked as he felt. "Maggie," he began, but the pager sprang to life again, reading off an address this time.
"Saved by the bell, I guess," she said.
"I—I didn't mean to. . ."
"Go," she told him. "We'll talk later. Go put out your fire."
Easy for her to say, he thought as he raced up the beach toward his truck. I think I've got more than one fire to put out now.
Chapter Seven
Maggie was mortified. What, she wondered, had come over her on the beach? She’d behaved like some sort of tramp, practically tearing the poor man’s clothes off mere seconds after he kissed her. That was just not the kind of thing she did. Ever.
All right, so she had a history of being impulsive and jumping into situations without really thinking them through. But there was a world of difference between jumping into a situation and jumping into bed with a man she barely knew. She made rash decisions when it came to career choices or deciding what to eat for dinner, but not when it came to men.
Well, except for signing on for a reality show that involved agreeing to marry a stranger, and then leaving said stranger at the altar.
Okay, so maybe she did have a history of impulsivity with men, too. She hated to admit it to herself, but she hadn’t been making a lot of good decisions lately about anything. If she was going to be honest with herself, however, she’d have to say that there wasn’t a lot of decision-making of any kind going on with Sean. Ever since seeing his chiseled, naked body strolling through the kitchen, she’d been unable to get that picture out of her mind; every time they got within arms’ reach of each other, she seemed to end up touching and/or kissing him without even thinking about it. It just seemed to happen.
She avoided Angie Carrington’s knowing smile and tiptoed up to her room, where she opened the windows and drank in the cool evening air. It was hard to imagine that she had only been here for a day. Part of her dreaded the thought that she only had two more days here and part of her wished the days would fly by uneventfully so she could just go home and try to forget the debacle that she had made of her life.
But what about Sean? she asked herself. She’d only known him for a day, but she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him here in Beach Haven without ever getting to know him better. Of course, now he thinks I’m some kind of crazed beach nymphomaniac. He’ll probably be afraid to come anywhere near me now.
It would only be worse if he found out she’d been engaged to another man roughly twenty-four hours before throwing herself at him on the beach. And it was just a matter of time before he found out about Devon, because her “kidnapping” was turning into a media circus with her picture plastered all over the place. Soon, the entire world would know that Maggie and Maeve were one and the same.
“Face it, Maggie,” she said aloud. “You’re screwed.”
# # #
It was nearly two a.m. by the time Sean and the others finished cleaning up and putting away their equipment after the grass fire. His body ached with a kind of fatigue he had never felt before, and he knew he was going to have to start taking some time off from one of his jobs if he didn't get a break soon. He could see the same exhaustion on the faces of his fellow firefighters. Even the two rookies on the department were starting to lose a little of their starry-eyed enthusiasm.
"Hang on a second," Chief Rollie Griswold called out as the tired men and women headed for the door. "I want to say something while we're all here."
Sean stifled a groan. This was not the time for one of the man's long-winded rants about team spirit and cooperation. This was the time for warm beds and pleasant dreams about leggy blondes and moments of uninterrupted passion on empty beaches.
"What the hell are you smiling about, Spiffy?" one of the men demanded.
"Didn't realize I was smiling," Sean said wearily. "I'm so tired I'm just getting stupid."
"And that's what I want to talk about," Chief Griswold said. "I know we're all wiped out. The county is working on setting up an automatic mutual aid arrangement with two other townships until the grass fire danger is over and done. If you have reason to think that you are too tired to do your job safely, let me know so I can put you on inactive status for a couple of days. I know most of you have other jobs besides this, and you're all getting tired. A tired firefighter makes stupid mistakes, and stupid mistakes get people killed. Got it?"
Tired grumbles of assent rolled through the crowd.
"The family night cookout is still on for tomorrow night – well, I guess it's tonight now. I still expect to see all of you and your families at my place at 7. I want my officers to stick around here for minute; everyone else, get the hell outta here and go get some sleep."
Sean didn't even bother to hide his groan this time. He would gladly trade in his white shirt and Lieutenant's badge if it meant he could go home and sleep. But he stayed with Assistant Chief Alexa Hale and waited for the chief to speak again.
He got right to the point. "I think we have a firebug," he said bluntly. "I've called in the Fire Marshall to investigate, but I need you two to keep your eyes and ears open. You hear anything suspicious, you tell me."
"You think these grass fires are arson?" Alex Hale asked, her voice husky from fatigue and smoke. She was a tough-as-nails middle-aged woman who easily held her own alongside her male counterparts, but tonight she just sounded old and worn out. She ran her hand through her short gray hair and left it standing up in wild disarray.
"Yeah, I do. This spring wasn't unusually dry, so there's no reason for the fields to be burning up around us. We’ve been lucky so far that there’s been no real damage yet.”
“’Yet’?” Sean echoed.
Griswold nodded. “Whoever it is, he’s being very careful about setting the fires in big, open fields away from any homes or buildings. But it’s just a matter of time before a fire spreads out of control before we can get there.”
“Do you have any thoughts on who’s doing it, or why?”
“I just don’t know, Alex. I might have some ideas if I ever get enough sleep to get my brain working again.” Griswold shoved a stack of papers into a folder and tossed it in the general direction of his office. “Let’s get out of here, guys. Cross our fingers that the firebug is getting as tired as we are.”
Sean was almost to the door when the man stopped him again. “Hey, Spiffy, have you heard anything since your interview?”
“Nothing, sir.”
"I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you. W
e’d miss you around here, but I think you’d be an asset to any department."
"I—I appreciate that," Sean told him.
“ ‘course, your mom will kill you if you take another job and move away.”
He thought about it all the way to his home, where he tumbled into his bed and tried not to think about anything at all. He loved being a firefighter, even when the exhaustion was this overwhelming. He had always dreamed of fighting fires and rescuing people, and he understood that being a volunteer was the best he could do in a town this size. If he wanted to do it professionally, he was going to have to relocate to bigger town.
But he also loved Jackson Auto Repair, the business built by his father. He'd grown up there, working with engines and learning what made them run; some of his earliest memories involved grease and metal. The idea of leaving that behind was almost unbearable.
Sean growled and punched his pillow. Right now he didn't want to worry about his father's business or being a full-time firefighter. He wanted to think about Maggie and those heated moments on the beach, when they'd been all over each other like a couple of hormonal teenagers. Even now, he could still feel the warm fullness of her body pressed against his; he could still taste the sweetness of her lips and feel the silky smoothness of her skin on his tongue.
Hell, that wasn't going to help him sleep, either.
.
Chapter Eight
Sean managed to sleep for a few hours before waking up and heading into work. By noon, however, he had had enough. He knew when to admit defeat, and he was defeated. "Ma, I'm taking the afternoon off," he said wearily.
"About time," Suzanne told him. "We've been taking bets all morning on long it would be before you either gave up or fell down."
"Funny joke, Ma."
"Who's joking? I won the pool."
He wished he had enough energy to make a comment about mothers who bet on their son's imminent collapse, but decided to let it go. He needed sleep.
Now.
Well, after he saw Maggie. Just to make sure she everything was all right between them, he told himself. He owed her an apology, although he wasn’t sure if he needed to apologize for what had happened, or for leaving her there alone on the beach without finishing what they started. Then right home and straight to bed.
Alone, of course.
She was just coming back from the beach when he arrived at Carrington House. She was wearing a simple blouse and jeans with the cuffs rolled up to her knees, and the wet fabric told him that she had been wading in the cold waters of Lake Michigan. He forced himself to think clean thoughts as she bent to brush away the wet sand that clung to her ankles.
His heart sped up when he looked up and smiled at the sight of him. "Get your fires all put out?" she asked.
"No problem. Just a matter of putting the wet stuff on the red stuff." He tried to hide a yawn behind his hand.
"Sean, you're exhausted."
"I am," he agreed. "I'm going home to get some sleep right now, in fact. Since we missed out on the whitefish last night, I wanted to invite you to come along to a cookout tonight with the rest of the Fire Department and their families. It's really casual, just a dozen of us and a few family members."
"I can't—"
He kissed her then, because he couldn't think of any other way to stop her protest. It was a gentle, sleepy kiss with none of the passion from the previous night, but it felt good. When he pulled away, he was surprised to see that now-familiar enigmatic little smile on her face.
"Come on," she said softly, taking his hand and leading him toward inside.
"But, Maggie, this isn't why I stopped by."
"Shhh." She led him up the stairs and down the hall to her room, which, although tastefully decorated, contained little more than a bed and a dresser. "Make yourself comfortable," she told him, and disappeared into the bathroom.
Comfortable? He looked around again, hoping to find a chair hidden somewhere. She was every bit as tantalizing as she had been the previous night; he could have kicked himself for wondering if there wasn't some way to get a rain check for whatever she had in mind right now.
He perched carefully on the edge of the bed. It was comfortable. And she did tell me to make myself comfortable, he reflected. He pushed himself back away from the edge and leaned carefully against the pillows. Just for a moment or two, he told himself. That was all. Then he would make his apologies to Maggie and drive home for a little nap.
He didn't even have time to argue with himself. He thought he heard Maggie laughing quietly as she snuggled in next to him, but decided that it must be part of the dream that started even before he had drifted all the way to sleep.
# # #
Maggie awoke to the sound of Wagnerian opera music. Ride of the Valkyries, to be exact. She felt the bed move as Sean stirred beside her, fumbling in his pockets for his cell phone.
"Hey, Ma," he answered sleepily.
She rolled over to get a better look at him while he talked on the phone. He still looked a bit groggy, but the crushing fatigue was gone from his face. Even as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, she could tell that he was already more wide awake than he had been when he stumbled along behind her into her room earlier that day.
"I'm fine," he was saying into the phone. "I'm at a friend's place. I was too tired to make it all the way home. I'm good." He smiled at Maggie, and then rolled his eyes at something she couldn't hear. "As a matter of fact, no. You don't know this friend. Good-bye, Ma."
"Ride of the Valkyries?" Maggie arched an eyebrow at him.
"Trust me, it's the perfect ring tone for my mother. But I really don't want to talk about my mom while I'm in bed with you." He twined his fingers in her golden hair against the pillow.
“What would you like to talk about?”
“Hmm,” he murmured, trailing his fingers across her lips. “Last night? What happened on the beach.”
“Almost happened,” she corrected him. She caught his fingers in her hand and gently pushed them away. “Sean, that was . . . that was . . . “
“That was what? Amazing? Hot?” He smiled lazily at her.
She couldn’t help it; she smiled back at him. “You’re a great kisser, Sean, but we barely know each other. I’m not, I mean, I don’t usually . . . we don’t know anything about each other,” she finished lamely.
“What do you want to know about me, Maggie?” Sean sat up against the pillows and stretched his arms out wide. “I’m an open book. Ask me anything. I’m part-owner of an auto-repair business that I own with my mother, and I’m a volunteer firefighter with the Beach Haven fire department. A Lieutenant, actually, if you’re the kind of girl who’s impressed by that sort of thing.”
“A Lieutenant. Hmm, does that make you an officer and a gentleman?”
“Only when I have to be.” He grinned at her again. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me all about Maggie Reynolds.”
She hesitated. “I’m a chef,” she said, after a moment. “At least, I will be someday. I graduated from Culinary School a year ago, and someday I’m going to open my own restaurant.”
“Ooh-la-la! A Chef! So you make all kinds of fancy dishes that nobody knows how to pronounce?” He seemed impressed.
“Not really.” It was hard to explain, and Maggie had become accustomed to people shaking their heads at her or laughing outright when she tried to tell them the kind of foods she liked to prepare. “I like to make simple food, comfort foods. I like to take old, classic recipes and break them down to their most basic elements, and then re-build them in unique ways. I believe that most people want to eat real food that tastes good and makes them feel good. A good meal should also be an emotional experience. It’s a thing to be enjoyed and shared with others.”
She glanced to see if he was laughing at her yet. He wasn’t.
“I want my restaurant to be the kind place that feels like having dinner at a friend’s house, or going home for the holidays,” she plunged on. “My mom died when I was ver
y young, so I had to do all of the cooking for Dad and me. He’s a very busy man, so sometimes our dinners were the only part of our days that we could share, and I wanted to make each meal a memorable experience. I came up with some pretty strange flavor combinations over the years, like vanilla and almond in my French toast, or cinnamon in my chili, but he was always a good sport about trying everything.”
“Your dad sounds like a good man.”
“He is. He calls me ‘Shortcut Maggie’.” Maggie heard the wistful tone of her own voice. She really wished she could call him, just to hear his voice.
“Why is that?”
She started, suddenly realizing what she’d said. “I like to take the simplest route,” she admitted. “When I was younger, I would try to change the recipes and sometimes left out some important steps or ingredients. I ruined a lot of dinners and we ended up eating a lot of pizza.
“Now that I’m out of school and he’s retired, he likes to cook with me. He goes through all of these gourmet magazines and comes up with crazy recipes, and we start arguing over whose way is better. Like with last year’s Thanksgiving turkey. He wanted me brine it and marinate it and then treat it with all kinds of crazy herbs and spices, but I argued that nobody really wants fancy gourmet fare on Thanksgiving. Instead, I seasoned it with a citrus glaze and slow-roasted it. It turned out moist and delicious and just proved my point that sometimes simplicity is the very best recipe.”
“Does your dad know that your friend ditched you here in Beach Haven?”
Maggie sat up abruptly. Just like that, the moment of openness was gone.
“Does he know you’re hurt?” Sean pushed, gesturing toward the still-vibrant bruise on her face.