Hearts on Fire
Page 10
I turned the engine over, but before I could back out of the lot, there was a tap on the window.
Shit.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” Kyle asked as I cracked the window. He leaned down, peering at me from under his baseball cap.
“I—” my voice cracked, and I turned away, too ashamed to face him. “I left something in my cubby.”
“You haven’t gotten out of the car.”
“I know.” I swallowed, wiping the tears from my face as quickly as I could, but there was no fooling him.
“What’s going on, Harper?”
“Nothing. I—I just—I have to go.”
“Go where?”
“To drown my problems in booze,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Hallie,” Kyle called, but I was already driving away.
Humiliated even more for thinking that stopping by my place of work had been a good idea, I drove and drove some more until I finally came to another stop in front of a popular college bar. It was the middle of the week, so the place was empty.
My phone was ringing again in the seat next to me, but I didn’t answer it. Instead, I silenced it and stuffed it into my purse, fixed the mascara stains from under my eyes, and went into the bar for a stiff drink.
Chapter 23
Tate
I found her sitting alone at the bar, one hand wrapped around an amber glass of whiskey as the other hand tugged mindlessly on her bottom lip, deep in thought. I couldn’t tell how many drinks she’d already consumed.
“Is this seat taken?” I asked Hallie, nodding at Joe who filled a mug for me. She looked up from where she’d been staring aimlessly at the wall behind the counter, surprised to find me standing beside her.
“Feel free.” She reached over to move her bag, dropping it on the ground next to her. I slid onto the barstool and took a drink of my beer.
“Rough night?” I asked.
“What makes you think that?” Hallie said. She wouldn’t look at me.
“Kyle’s text, for one. I was enjoying a perfectly relaxing night off at home when he texted me and said he thought you might do something stupid. Said that you looked pretty out of it when you stopped by the station.”
Hallie laughed, but there was no humor in her tone. “I knew that was a mistake,” she muttered. “So how did you find me?”
“You aren’t the first off-duty responder to hang out at this bar after a shitty shift,” I said. Hallie smiled then, but it wasn’t genuine. There was something behind that smile, a secret she didn’t want me to know. She was full of them, this girl. A never-ending chamber of secrets. As soon as I discovered one, another one merely rose to the top of the barrel, darting into corners, hiding away.
“You know, you can talk to me,” I said.
“You’re my boss, Tate,” Hallie said.
“I may be your boss, but I’m still a person.” I felt the overwhelming urge to reach out and touch her, just as a sign of support, of encouragement.
“That’s not the vibe you were giving off this morning,” Hallie said bitterly. Before I could respond, she rambled on, “Besides, there’s nothing to talk about.” She tossed back the rest of the whiskey in her glass and then signaled Joe for another fill.
“You’ve got work tomorrow,” I reminded her.
“We’ll see,” Hallie said. Before I could ask her what she meant, she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket to look at the time. I caught a glimpse of the screen: thirty-six missed calls. Jesus. She shoved the cell phone back into her pocket and stood up, swaying a little as she signed her tab.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a ride?” I stood and followed her to where she headed out the for her car. She didn’t seem to even hear me. As she dug for the keys in her purse, I pulled her back gently, wishing I could get inside her head and know what she was thinking.
“What do you want, Tate?” She didn’t sound angry with me; just tired. Frustrated. Defeated. I took the keys from her fingers and set them aside. My hands slid on either side of her arms, my eyes searching her face for something, anything, she could tell me.
“I want you to talk to me,” I said. “I want you to tell me that you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” I took her face between my hands, trying to get her to look at me. She swallowed hard and I watched as her body seemed to relax under my touch. As I waited for an answer, she finally looked at me, and before I could even figure out what was about to happen, she leaned forward, her lips meeting mine in a whirlwind of confusion, desire, need...
Hallie’s tongue slipped between my lips as one hand reached up and ran her fingers through my hair. I sucked in a breath, dizzy with anticipation, kissing her back. Passion clawed at me. The desire to have her in my arms was so overwhelming I couldn’t function. I wanted her. I needed her. I—
“Hallie, stop.” I caught her wrists in my hands, drawing back, panting for breath. Her eyes searched my face as she chewed her bottom lip, a loose tendril of hair falling into one eye.
“You don’t want to,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t know what happened with you and Jeremy, but I can’t do this.” Every word that flowed from my mouth felt forced, a blatant lie sitting like a brick in my throat.
“Why not?”
“I’m with Julia,” I said. “I’m not an unfaithful man, Hallie, and I won’t hurt her like that.”
Silence settled over us as she pondered this. I dropped her wrists and took a step back to keep from doing something stupid. What I didn’t tell her is that all I wanted to do at that moment was take her in my arms and kiss her until she was all I could taste on my tongue. I wanted to take her clothes off, feel the softness of her skin under my fingers. I wanted to run my hands through her hair and kiss her neck. I wanted to hold her and never let go.
“You’re a good man,” Hallie said finally. “Loyal.”
“I’m not.” It was the blunt fucking truth. “The way I feel about you is not good, Hallie. It’s not loyal. Not for you, not for me, and not for Julia.”
“Then what do we do?” Hallie asked. I could tell she didn’t want to hear the answer, but there was no way around it, no matter how much I hated it.
“You go home,” I said. “Go home and work things out with Jeremy.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll go home to Julia and pretend like I didn’t just stand here for fifteen minutes and fight the urge to take you right here.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay.”
“I’ll be going then.” She reached for the keys and unlocked the car door, sliding into the driver’s seat of the car.
“You shouldn’t be driving,” I said. She looked at me and smiled, but there was something behind that smile that wasn’t real.
“I’m not yours to be concerned about. Goodnight, Captain.”
“Hallie, wait.” I put my hand in the door to stop it from slamming, then pushed my body between her and the open door. “Let me give you a ride home, yeah?”
“I’m fine, Cap.”
“Whether you truly believe that or not is irrelevant, Hal. You’re a member of my crew and it’s my duty to take care of you.”
“We’re not on duty.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I reached over her body to grapple for the keys in the ignition, catching the subtle scent of cigarette smoke from the bar mixed with the sweet odor of her shampoo. I paused halfway across her lap, realizing just how close we were suddenly. My heart leapt into my throat and I had to focus on taking a breath, breathing through the desire to pull her into me and ravage her where she sat. As I jimmied the keys loose and began to pull back, Hallie turned her face towards mine, and I noticed her eyes were damp with tears. Without considering the consequences, I took her chin between two of my fingers and pulled her head a bit in my direction, then leaned in and met her lips with my own.
Hallie pulled back first, and her eyes met mine. She touched her lips with the tips of her fingers, then drew them between her teeth anxiously.
“Tate...”
“I know. Come on. I’ll drive you home.”
Chapter 24
Hallie
Jeremy was sitting at the kitchen table when I got home. He looked up as I came in, his eyes red, hair even more disheveled than usual. I kicked off my heels and yanked the clip out of my hair, wanting nothing more than to crawl into bed and forget everything.
“I don’t want to look at your face right now.”
“Sit down. Please. We need to talk.”
Too tired to argue, I took a seat at the kitchen table across from him and took a long drink of water, hands quivering. The last thing I wanted to do was sober up and face this disaster, but I had no other choice, not if I wanted to find the underlying cause of it.
“Hallie, please.” Jeremy reached out to take my hand. I withdrew from his touch and cradled the glass between my fingers.
“Please don’t touch me.”
“Let me explain,” he begged. I stared at him, studied the sad lines in his face, the soft brown eyes I knew and loved. He was the man I’d been prepared to marry, the man I’d said yes to many months ago. He was my friend, my confidant, my lover.
He was...
“Explain what, Jer?” I was impressed with the way I held it together, considering all I wanted to do was break his goddamn nose. “Unless you plan to go into intimate detail about the sexual positions you tried. I’m not entirely sure I’m keen on hearing it.”
“Don’t be like that.”
“Don’t be like that?” I repeated. “Don’t be like what, Jeremy, like the fiancée you screwed over? Don’t be like that?”
“It was a mistake. I made a mistake.” Jeremy got to his feet, and I wanted so badly to throw something heavy at him.
“How many mistakes were there, Jeremy?” I pushed the glass of water aside so I wouldn’t accidentally break it over his head. Then I stood up from the table. “Just that one? Or were there more? Was there some undergrad student every night that you didn’t come home on time?”
“No. I—”
“Think hard before you answer,” I said. Jeremy fell silent, chin dipping slightly, the secrets written all over his face.
“Get out,” I said.
“Hallie...”
“I said get out, Jeremy, and don’t come back. You’re not welcome here anymore.”
“And what about you?” Jeremy rounded on me suddenly. “What about you and all your boyfriends at the station, huh?”
“You are a fucking idiot,” I seethed. “They are my colleagues, my coworkers. Half of them are in serious relationships and the other half of them can barely stand me. What boyfriend are you referring to, asshole?”
“Don’t play coy, Hallie, I saw the way that Tate guy looked at you the day of the accident. The sexual tension was undeniable.”
“Jesus,” I cried, and threw my hands in the air. “I can’t even talk to you, Jeremy. You justify my relationship with my coworkers by going out and fucking the first gullible student you have?!”
“It’s not like that.”
“I’m not really interested to know what it is like.” I was worn out, exhausted, angry...I wanted this night to be over.
I walked to the front door and opened it, stepping to the side. “You can leave.”
“Hallie.”
“I mean now.”
Giving me one last pathetic, puppy dog look, Jeremy shrugged on his jacket and walked out the door.
My alarm went off at six thirty the next morning for work. I was just rolling out of bed with a splitting headache when my phone on the nightstand rang. Cursing, I grabbed it and put it to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Sweetheart, it’s Mom.”
“Shit,” I said.
“What was that, Dear?”
“I said ‘hi, Mom’.” I groaned and sat up on the bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “I have to get ready for work. What’s up?”
“What’s up, Hallie, is that Jeremy called your father and me last night. He was devastated, told us you had kicked him out. Have you?”
I yawned, stretched, and shuffled to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.
“And?”
“And?” Mom shrieked. “What were you thinking, Hallie? This young man is your fiancé, not some God-forsaken one-night-stand.”
“He’s a fucking chauvinist, Mom.” There was no disguising my bitterness. “And did he happen to tell you why I kicked him out? Maybe the girl who had her hands wrapped around his dick last night can recount the story.”
“Hallie Ann Harper,” Mom hissed. “Do not use that language with me.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Your father and I always knew you might have issues in that relationship, Hallie,” she said. “You’ve never seemed attentive to his needs and wants.”
“Oh, you mean like I was my own person and not Jeremy’s pet?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you implied.”
“Darling, be rational,” Mom said. “People slip up, they make mistakes. God knows your father made plenty of mistakes before I married him.”
“Wow. That’s real comforting.” I grabbed some creamer from the fridge and poured a cup of coffee, thinking suddenly of Tate’s lips on mine last night. “Mom, I don’t have time for this. I need to get ready for work.”
“Well, I know that you two love each other very much. And I hope that soon you’ll be able to work things out with him.”
“I’m not working anything out with him, Mom, and if you speak to him, you can let him know.”
“Hallie, don’t be like that.”
“Love you, Mom, gotta go.” I pressed End on the cell phone and rubbed my temples, trying to ward off an incoming migraine. I could barely piece things together. Fighting with Jeremy, seeing the other woman. Kissing Tate in the parking lot of the bar—the humiliation that came with his rejection. Embarrassment. Anger. Hurt. I wanted so desperately to see him this morning, to talk to him about what had happened. Yet at the same time I wanted to quit and crawl back into bed and never see him again. That would certainly be easier, wouldn’t it? Avoidance. Men were so good at that.
Chapter 25
Tate
Hallie looked surprisingly put-together when she walked into work that morning, and not like she’d spent most of the night throwing back shots of whiskey at the bar. We locked gazes when she came in, and a flutter of something I didn’t recognize seized me by the chest. But she didn’t say anything to me; she didn’t even smile. She nodded once, professionally, and walked right by me to greet the others in the kitchen.
I watched her go, the sensation of her lips on mine lingering in my memory, refusing to fade. I hadn’t slept much last night, with Julia snuggled in my arms, sound asleep. I hadn’t been able to wipe Hallie’s face from my memory; her tear-stained cheeks, the sweet smell of perfume in her hair, the little black dress she wore. Something bad had happened with her and Jeremy, and I had no idea what. It wasn’t my business; it never had been, and it never would be...so why was I so desperate to know?
When I joined the others in the kitchen for breakfast, Kyle was in the middle of showing Hallie the proper way to fry an egg. She watched him with a mixed expression of uncertainty and revulsion, nose crinkling, lips pursed into a thin line.
“You know the egg doesn’t actually have to float in the pan, right?” she asked.
“Excuse me?” said Kyle.
; “No excuses for you,” I said, playfully punching Kyle on the shoulder as I went to pour a cup of coffee. Hallie looked up at me when I came in, but her eyes darted to the floor as quickly as she’d glanced over. A small flush creeped up her neck.
“Where is everyone?” I asked, taking a seat at the table. Ty and Simon, a couple of my best paramedics, along with a few scattered guys on Kyle’s rescue squad, were already seated around the table for breakfast. But some were still missing, which was odd, because if men gathered for anything, it was to eat.
“Tanner Rey and Joe Haney should be down any time now,” Kyle said, sliding a wet egg onto a plate for me. “They got up late this morning.”
“Kyle is being polite,” Hallie cut in. Her face flashed with annoyance, but she still wouldn’t look at me. I envied the way she was opening up to Kyle, it was as if they hadn’t been sworn enemies’ mere days before.
“What do you mean?”
“There are still a few people here who can’t get on board with the fact that I’m part of the crew now,” Hallie said. She picked up her own plate of food and slid into a chair at the end of the table, reaching for the newspaper. “It’s whatever. I mean, it’s not like I can control how they feel.”
At that moment both Tanner and Joe joined us in the kitchen, fresh out of the showers. They nodded a good morning at me but ignored Hallie completely. She didn’t seem to mind; she didn’t even look up from the paper.
“I thought we all ate breakfast together as a crew,” I said. “We all need to be on the same page, boys.”
“Yeah, uh sorry, Cap. I’m running behind this morning,” Joe said, but Tanner only scoffed and rolled his eyes. I opened my mouth to push the subject further, but Hallie shook her head, just slightly, and I shut my mouth. She was right; she didn’t need defending. She had won over most of the guys by herself.
I picked up my fork and focused on the oily eggs on my plate, occasionally sneaking a glance at Hallie to see if she was looking at me. She wasn’t, not even a little bit, and not even once. Disappointment settled over me, and a small prickle of jealously traveled down my spine. Last night’s events played like a bad movie over and over in my head. The kiss, the passion, and the hesitation...the conversation on the drive back to her place. I wanted to relive it, to make better choices this time around, to be there for her in a way I hadn’t been last night. Like an angsty teenager, I wanted her to notice me as someone more than the boss she’d kissed in a drunken, angry haze.