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Braden gave him another look. It wasn’t a glare. It was more a pitying glance. Then he shook his head.
“What?” Wyatt asked. Nobody had ever pitied him before. Envied? Hell, yeah. Pitied? Never.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Braden told him.
And nobody had ever accused Wyatt of not knowing women. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” And he truly had no idea.
“Random sexual encounters don’t sound fun,” Braden explained. “They sound sad and empty.”
Wyatt laughed, but it echoed oddly in the weight room, sounding hollow and uncertain. It wasn’t as if Braden was getting to him. It wasn’t as if Wyatt was about to question the lifestyle he’d chosen. He shook off those niggling doubts and laughed harder.
“You’ve been out of the game too long,” Wyatt said. “You’ve forgotten what it’s like to be single.”
“Unfortunately I haven’t...” Braden sighed. “I’m going to my office to make some calls. See if there’s anything out there...”
He knew the captain was talking about fires. But he chose to be obtuse. “I’ll show you what’s out there,” he offered. “I’m going to finish a few more reps before I hit the showers. Then I’ll take you out on the town.” Not that the village of Northern Lakes was much of a town. It was a resort area, though, and quite the party town during tourist season. “And I’ll show you what you’ve been missing.”
Braden laughed now. “You’re the one who has no idea what you’ve been missing.” His laughter continued, growing fainter as he walked out of the weight room.
Wyatt didn’t get guys like Braden. The captain should have known better than anyone that the job and marriage didn’t mix. And now that it was over, Braden needed to just move on instead of dwelling on it. Wyatt had never had any problem walking away after spending some time with a woman. But he’d been careful to date the right kind of woman—the kind who only wanted a good time, too. He steered clear—very clear—of women who wanted commitment. Because commitments led to marriage and ultimatums and heartbreak.
He shuddered again. Then he focused on the weights, lifting with renewed energy. Braden wasn’t the only one who was feeling edgy. But at least Wyatt knew why he was. He’d been having some trouble finding those fun-loving girls. Of course, it wasn’t tourist season yet.
It had been a long winter with spring just breaking through now. But it was a dry spring, which was conducive to fires—especially west of where they were based in northeastern Michigan. The Hotshots traveled the US and Canada, dropping in where they were needed to fight fires. Just as there was a tourist season in Northern Lakes, there was also a fire season. Usually the first fires started out west, where it was driest.
Maybe Braden was right.
Maybe there was something out there, just getting started.
Over his grunts, he caught the sound of footsteps against the cement floor of the weight room. Maybe Braden had realized he was right.
“Sheesh,” he remarked without stopping his reps, “you must be super tense and edgy. You can’t even wait until I’m finished, you want to get laid so badly.”
He waited for Braden’s laugh. No matter how glum the guy had been since his wife had left him, that was no excuse for losing his sense of humor. And Wyatt was damn funny. He even uttered a laugh at his own joke.
But it echoed off the cement walls with that same weird hollow sound. While he had only been razzing his friend to get him out of the funk Braden had been in since his divorce, Wyatt knew his joke had fallen flat. He settled the bar onto the bench rest and sat up, ready to be serious. He was a good listener—which he’d proven to Braden plenty when the captain’s marital problems had begun.
He was also a good adviser when he wasn’t being a smart-ass. He had a bachelor’s degree in psychology and plenty of experience as a mentor for the county’s youth services division. “I’m—” He swallowed the apology he’d been about to make and nearly swallowed his tongue, as well.
Braden wasn’t the one who’d walked into the weight room. This person’s green-eyed glare was far more lethal than the captain’s. Fiona O’Brien stood before him—all fiery red hair and outrage.
“What the hell did you just say to me?” she demanded, her voice raspy with indignation.
He could have explained. He should have, really.
But on the few occasions he had seen Fiona O’Brien over the years, he’d never seen her like this. Oh, she’d glared at him before, but with more benign disdain—like a cat staring down at the puppy pissing on the carpet. Now her face was so flushed her freckles had disappeared into her complexion. And her body—which she insisted on concealing with businesslike suits—trembled with her temper. She’d always acted so cold and snobby around him that he hadn’t thought she was capable of such passion. And he’d considered her good looks wasted on an empty, emotionless shell.
He’d had no idea what she’d been hiding beneath that flawless, impervious surface...
“What did I say?” He paraphrased her question as he jumped up from the weight bench and closed the distance between them. She stepped back, stumbling slightly on her high heels.
She might have only been wearing the heels because she was petite and wanted the extra height. Or maybe she wore them because they made her legs look longer, toned and sexy as hell. The beige suit couldn’t hide her curves, either—not when the skirt was snug and ended above her knees.
Her eyes widened briefly in surprise at his nearness, but then narrowed in another glare. “You know what you said.”
“That you must be really tense and edgy,” he repeated the words he’d meant for his boss.
He should have pointed out that he’d had no way of knowing she was the one who’d walked into the weight room. He couldn’t imagine why she had stopped by the firehouse at all. She had never gone out of her way to speak to him those few times they’d previously met. So why had she driven across town to seek him out now?
He wanted to know that. But he couldn’t resist seeing just how much passion lurked beneath that beautiful surface. So he stepped closer to her as he said the rest, as if he meant the words for her, “You can’t even wait until I’m finished, you want to get laid so badly.”
His head snapped back as her hand connected—hard—with his face. His skin stung from the force of her slap. While she was petite, she packed a wallop. That wasn’t quite the way he’d wanted to test her passion. So he jerked her up against him and lowered his head.
2 (#ulink_967df0f4-42ca-53af-a7a3-3abb5d588866)
FIONA LIFTED HER hand to slap him again. But he caught her wrist and jerked her more tightly against him. The heat and dampness of his sweat-slick bare chest penetrated her suit jacket and blouse, burning her skin.
Or was that just her anger?
She was flushed with it, trembling with it. And appalled by it. She had actually struck another human being. And if he hadn’t caught her wrist, she would have struck him again. A gasp of shock at her own behavior slipped through her lips.
His blue eyes widened as he stared down at her. His face was close to hers—so close that she’d been sure he was going to kiss her. But he abruptly released her and stepped back, so quickly that she swayed slightly on her heels before regaining her balance.
She trembled, probably from the force with which her heart pounded in her chest and her pulse raced. With anger. It could only be anger. She hadn’t actually wanted him to kiss her. He was beyond arrogant. He was obnoxious.
As if to prove it, he threw back his head and let out a loud laugh.
“I should have slapped you harder,” she remarked. He’d certainly deserved it.
Still laughing, he shook his head. “I wasn’t saying that to you.”
She gestured at the room, which was empty but for the two of them and all those weights and machines. “I’m the only one here.”
“But I didn’t know you were the one who’d walked in,” he said.
Her skin heated with embarrassment as she realized he spoke the truth. He’d been flat on his back on that bench, lifting the weight bar. He hadn’t even glanced up before he’d spoken. He must’ve just known someone had walked in because he’d heard her heels hitting the floor.
“You’re the last person I expected to show up here,” he continued.
So he had been expecting some other tense and edgy woman who couldn’t wait for him to finish before getting laid. Not that she was tense and edgy.
Well, she was—but with outrage, not desire. Her gaze kept slipping, though, down to his chest. To all those muscles, his skin glistening with sweat. A bead trickled from between his pecs and trailed over washboard abs to disappear into the waistband of his shorts.
Her throat suddenly very dry, she struggled to swallow. And to pull her gaze up—back to his face. But that wasn’t much better. His square jaw was dark with stubble, and his black hair, slick with moisture, clung to his muscled neck. Her fingers itched to touch his face again, but not to slap it. Then she met his eyes, saw the amusement there, and she reconsidered...slapping him.
“Why are you here, Fiona?” he asked, his mouth sliding into a slightly crooked, sexy-as-hell grin. Sounding almost hopeful, he added, “Are you feeling tense and edgy?”
She lifted her hand even though she had no intention of losing control enough to swing it. “Do you want me to slap you again?”
“Are you into that?” he asked and arched a black brow over one of those twinkling eyes. “I didn’t figure you for the S&M scene. Didn’t actually figure you for any scene. Didn’t think sex was your thing...”
She didn’t know what infuriated her more. That he’d thought about her and sex. Or that he’d thought about her not having sex. Ever.
She wasn’t frigid. Not at all...
At the moment—standing too close to his sweat-slick, musky-smelling body—she wished she was, though. Then she wouldn’t have noticed how muscular he was. Muscles bulged in his arms and chest and back. Did he spend all his time in the gym?
Or in some woman’s bed?
His gaze skimmed down her body to her high heels. “But now I can see the whole dominatrix thing.”
“I’m here because I’m mad,” she admitted. If only she could have controlled her temper long enough to realize that it was pointless to try to talk to a man like Wyatt Andrews. He was infuriating. “And you’re only making it worse.”
“We aren’t equipped to put out those kinds of fires here,” he remarked.
“Pointless,” she murmured as she spun on her heel to turn toward the door.
Long fingers wrapped around her arm, tightly enough that she jerked against his grasp as she tried to walk away.
“Wait, wait,” he said. “I can try to help. Why are you mad?”
“Because of you.”
He sighed. “I told you I didn’t realize you were the one who’d walked in—”
“No, I’m not mad about that.” Not anymore. Not now that she had calmed down enough to be rational. Of course he hadn’t known who’d walked in. Since she’d driven over here anyway, she might as well talk to him. She drew in a deep breath to brace herself and turned back around to face him. “I want to talk to you about my brother.”
His hand dropped from her arm and he stepped back. “Has he done something?”
“You know what he’s done,” she said. Since she was pretty sure it had been Wyatt’s idea, or at least his influence. “He’s dropped out of college in order to join the Forest Service Fire Department.”
“So why, exactly—” he spoke slowly, as if he were dealing with someone unstable “—are you mad at me?”
“Because he wants to become you.”
His mouth curved into that slightly crooked grin again. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
God, he was arrogant. But maybe he had a reason to be. He was sexy as hell—so sexy that women were apparently unable to wait to have sex with him.
“Pointless,” she murmured again. “I made a mistake coming here. I can’t reason with you.” She could barely reason with herself at the moment—his bare skin and rippling muscles were too distracting.
“I don’t know what you want to reason with me about,” he said, “but I’m willing to talk to you.”
Frustration gnawed at her. She had practiced her argument the entire drive across town. But now she could remember nothing of what she’d rehearsed.
“Let me shower first,” he said, “and change. I’ll meet you at the bar around the corner and you can reason with me.”
She doubted that. “Why?” she asked.
He arched the brow again. “Why what?”
“Why are you willing to talk to me?” She’d expected the arrogance and the argument. She hadn’t expected him to be open to reason or even to a conversation. “I thought you had a date.”
She swallowed a groan as she remembered that she had one. She had intended to call Howard on the drive across town to cancel their date. But then she’d gotten distracted rehearsing what she would say when she confronted Wyatt Andrews. All those words had left her mind the moment he’d made his suggestive comment.
He glanced to the doorway behind her and remarked, “Here’s my date now.”
So much for that conversation. She doubted he would pass up a sure thing to instead just talk to a woman he’d figured was frigid. She turned around to leave and to check out his date. But a man—as tall and muscular as Wyatt—blocked the doorway. He was the one who had directed her where to find Wyatt.
The man laughed. “You should be so lucky as to date me.”
Wyatt grinned. “You wouldn’t turn me down,” he said. “You’re so tense and edgy, you’d definitely go home with me at the end of the night.”
Both men laughed. But Fiona failed to see the humor. Her pulse quickened instead. Was Wyatt expecting her to go home with him at the end of the night?
“If you’re busy...” They could do this another night. That didn’t mean that he wouldn’t expect her to go home with him that night, too.
“Have you changed your mind about making me listen to reason?” Wyatt teased.
The other man laughed again—harder. “If he’s willing to listen to reason, you should take him up on that,” he advised. “And we didn’t actually have any plans. He’s just messing with me.”
Was he just messing with her, too? Probably. But she hadn’t driven across town to just yell at him. Or slap him. She’d wanted to talk to him—to get him to help her. His influence was why Matthew had dropped out of college; he was the only one who could get her brother to change his mind and get his life back on track.
“The bar around the corner?” she asked. “Which way?”
“To the right,” he said. “I’ll be there before you finish your first drink.”
She had no intention of drinking with him. And she definitely had no intention of going home with him.
She wanted only to talk.
But since she wasn’t going to see him with so few clothes on again, she couldn’t resist letting her gaze slip once more—over his chest and down his six-pack abs. She was definitely not drinking with him; she couldn’t risk losing control. And because she never risked losing control, she hadn’t built up a tolerance for alcohol. She was the proverbial lightweight when it came to drinking.
If she had too many drinks, she might go home with him. She jerked her attention away from all that naked flesh and muscle and turned toward the door.
“I’ll be there right after I hit the shower,” he promised.
And an image of him standing completely naked beneath a spray of water sprang to her mind. Her skin flushed again and heated more than it had with her temper. She quickened her step. Because of the heels, she couldn’t run. But she had the urge to run—and to keep running.
* * *
THE WOMAN HAD some ass, wriggling inside that snug skirt as she walked away. But Wyatt wasn’t the only one watching her leave. Braden actually craned his neck to stare as she turned outside the door and headed down the hall.
When she’d disappeared from sight entirely, the captain finally turned back to Wyatt and let out a low whistle. “I hate to admit it, but you might be right about me,” he said. “What bar are you meeting her at? The Filling Station?”
It was the only bar around the corner. But Wyatt wasn’t about to point that out to his boss. Feeling tense and edgy himself, he shook his head. “Not her.”
Braden whistled again. “It’s not like you to stake a claim. Thought you didn’t get attached...”
