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Through her adolescent years, Stephanie had logged hours upon hours puttering in the kitchen, just far enough back from the window so he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of her. Assuming he ever looked in her direction. Which he probably hadn’t.
Nonetheless, she’d turned snooping on the boy down the street into an art form.
“Is something wrong out there?”
She jumped at the sound of her father behind her. “No, nothing.” Her voice squeaked.
“Good, then I’m hoping it’s about dinnertime.”
“Coming right up.” Chastising herself for her wayward thoughts, she used a hotpad to pick up the frying pan filled with Sloppy Joe mixture and carried it into the dining room where the family had always eaten their dinners when Stephanie’s father was home. When he was working, her mother had served her two daughters their meals less formally in the kitchen.
“C shift is on duty tonight,” her father commented idly from his place at the head of the table.
“Oh?” She went back to the kitchen to get milk for herself and water for her dad.
“I can get you a station schedule, if you’d like.”
Acting unconcerned, she placed the glasses on the table. “Did I ask?”
“No. I just thought it would easier for you if you knew when to bother looking out the window to see if Danny’s home.”
She glared at her father, which didn’t do an iota of good. The only redeeming merit of this conversation was the faint hope Danny would be too tired after twenty-four hours on duty to show up tomorrow at the preschool to help them paint over the fire and smoke damage.
By morning she knew that wasn’t going to happen.
At ten minutes after eight there was a knock on the door.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked.
Dressed in ratty jeans and an old T-shirt, he looked sexy as all get out. In contrast, her ballooning blouse and baggy shorts simply made her look fat.
“Go where?”
“To the preschool. It’s painting day.”
“You mean you’re not going to tie me to a chair and leave me here at home in order to protect me from those nasty fumes you’re so worried about?”
He cocked one eyebrow, an incredibly seductive mannerism he’d perfected during his adolescent years. “Darn, I hadn’t thought of that. You got any rope?”
“Oh, hush!” Barely able to suppress a smile, she swatted his arm with the back of her hand. “I could drive myself, you know.”
“I figured it didn’t make any sense for both of us to drive since I’ve gotta come back here tonight anyway. Better to save on gas.”
As if an eighth of a gallon would make much difference. “What? Saturday night and no big date? You’re slipping, Sullivan.”
“Some of us are willing to make huge sacrifices for the greater good.” He glanced past her as if expecting her father to appear. “Come on, Twiggy. Time’s a’wasting.”
She bristled. She really didn’t need to hear that nickname again, especially when this particular twig had swollen to proportions previously unknown to humankind.
And she wasn’t done growing yet.
They walked down the driveway together, and he halted at the passenger side of his SUV, blocking her way. “You did talk to your doctor like you promised, didn’t you?”
“Of course.”
He cocked a brow. “And she said?”
“For the sake of my blood pressure, I should stay away from exasperating men like you.”
His rich baritone laughter wrapped around her like an old, familiar blanket on a chilly night and did something extraordinary to her insides.
And it irritated her like crazy that he could affect her so strongly after all these years.
“You don’t have to come at all, you know, since the doctor said I’d be fine.”
Ignoring her comment, he played the gentleman, helping her up into his SUV—which annoyed her even more.
ALICE HAD RECRUITED HER husband, Jeffrey Tucker, to help with the painting job. A grocery store manager by trade, he was long and lanky with a receding hairline that he’d covered with a white painter’s cap. Carrying a gallon can of paint in each hand, he greeted Stephanie and Danny when they arrived.
“Alice has the coffee brewing. Should be ready in a minute.”
“Sounds good to me,” Danny said.
“Is there more stuff in your van?” Stephanie asked, noting the familiar nine-passenger vehicle parked at the curb that the school used for field trips.
“Right. Ladders, drop cloths, rollers, the works.”
Danny angled toward the van. “We’ll get ’em.”
Stephanie followed him, making a concerted effort not to notice his tight buns. Either bicycle riding was an excellent firming exercise or men got all the genetic breaks when it came to avoiding cottage cheese derrieres. Probably some of both.
He handed her a bundle of old drop cloths. “I don’t want you climbing any ladders today.”
“Oh?”
“And you need to take lots of breaks, too. I don’t want you to get overtired.”
“Oh, you don’t, huh?” A spark of anger fed her rising temper.
“Nope.” He reached for an extension ladder to slide it out of the van. “We’ll have to be careful that the place is well ventilated so you—”
She clamped her hand on the ladder. “Daniel Sullivan, I have spent the past two years in a relationship with the bossiest man on the face of the earth. He told me where we would go, what I should wear and where I should shop. Half the time he ordered dinner for me as if I were a child who didn’t know my own mind. And the worst thing is, I let him do it.” She leveled Danny the sternest look she could manage. “No man is going to boss me around like that again. I’m a grown woman and I can decide for myself what I’m going to climb and what I’m not.”
His eyes held hers, the most sincere, most stubborn shade of blue imaginable. “Fine by me. Then I’ll assume you’re smart enough to know you shouldn’t be climbing ladders in your condition.”
“I can climb—”
“For the sake of the baby.”
She wanted to argue but, of course, he was right. No way would she risk her unborn child. “As long as you know I’m not climbing ladders because you ordered me not to. Only because of the baby.”
“Absolutely.” A teasing smile threatened at the corners of his lips and his eyes began to sparkle. “You never did anything I told you when you were a kid. Can’t think why you’d start now.”
Rather than giving him the satisfaction of returning his smile—which she was sorely tempted to do—she sniffed with mock disdain. “See that you remember that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered as she whirled, bundle of drop cloths hugged to her chest, and marched into the preschool.
Danny watched her for a moment, taking special note of her long, firm legs, then hauled the ladder out of the van.
He’d discovered yet another reason why he’d like to get his hands on the guy who’d gotten Stephanie pregnant. He didn’t like the thought that she’d cared for the guy so much that she’d forgotten how to be feisty, to talk back. To argue until she was blue in the face.
In his view, that was one of her most admirable qualities. She didn’t take guff from anyone, including him.
Smiling, he carried the ladder up the walkway. Seemed to him that Stephanie was well on her way to being her old self again. She certainly seemed ready enough to give him plenty of grief. He was looking forward to sparring a few rounds with her anytime she gave him the go ahead.
Within hours, Stephanie was more than ready to take one of those breaks Danny had been so insistent upon. Alice and Jeff were struggling to paint in the close confines of the storeroom while she and Danny labored in the kitchen area. Her back ached. She had the troubling feeling her ankles had begun to swell.
Ah, the joys of pregnancy, she thought as she boosted herself up to sit on a worktable to watch the master painter.
“You missed your calling,” she said.
Perched on the ladder, Danny was cutting in a swath of paint where the ceiling met the walls to make the roller work easier. “How’s that?”
“You wield a mean paintbrush.”
He glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “I have all kinds of talents you have yet to plumb.”
Stephanie suspected that was true—and many of those talents were no doubt related to his ability to seduce women. She wasn’t about to lead the conversation in that direction.
“I didn’t know you were a smoke jumper. Do you still parachute for fun?”
His brush stopped in midstroke and his shoulders visibly tensed. “No. Too many memories.”
Stephanie sensed she’d touched an emotional hot button. “What happened?” she asked cautiously.
He climbed down the ladder and moved it to the right a few feet, but he didn’t look at her.
“They were dropping us way inside the wilderness area. Two planeloads of guys. Hotshots going after lightning-started fires. Something happened—” Resting his hand on a rung of the ladder, he shook his head. “The wind shifted just as we were bailing out. It blew us right smack into the face of the fire. Two of the guys…”
Hopping down from the table, Stephanie crossed the room to him. His shoulders shook and she placed her hand on his back, soothing him.
Visibly struggling with his memories, he fought to pull himself together. “They drifted right into a couple of trees that were already on fire. The turpentine in a pine tree turns it into a torch, the flames going maybe a hundred feet high. Even with all their protective gear on—”
“Oh, God…” Her fingers trembled. She could see what he saw, feel what he felt. A firefighter’s daughter knew the awful realities of fighting a fire. The danger. The fear. What the red devil could do to a man.
“My damn canopy melted in the heat, and I hit the ground hard. And then I ran.” He looked up at the ceiling, the uneven border of new paint over old, his Adam’s apple working in his throat. “It’s not something I’m exactly proud of.”
“Shh.” Instinctively she took him in her arms. Tall and strong, yet as vulnerable as a child whose invisible wounds had never healed. How many other scars did he have? she wondered. His childhood hadn’t been easy. Yet somehow he’d found the strength to make the most of himself. “There wasn’t anything else you could have done. You couldn’t save your friends. There was no way.”
“Yeah, I know.” Gathering himself, he gave her a quick hug, then stepped away. “Gotta tell you, though. Seventy-five pounds of gear and I swear I set a new world’s record for the quarter-mile run. I’ve never moved so fast in my entire life.”
She recognized he was trying to lighten the mood and went along. “Maybe instead of the triathlon, we ought to sign you up for the next Olympics.”
“Not much chance of that.” With an easy shrug, he started up the ladder again, brush in hand.
Stephanie wished he’d hugged her a little longer. She liked the feel of his arms around her. She even liked the paint-tinged smell of him clashing with the lingering soapy scent from his morning shower.
But she reminded herself the most she could hope to have with Danny was a platonic relationship. Neighbors. Part of the extended family of firefighters. Friends who cared about each other.
Not that she’d want more than that, given her pregnant state. Or even if she wasn’t pregnant, she told herself.
But she really did like the way his arms felt wrapped around her. And how her head fit so neatly resting on his shoulder at the crook of his neck. And how her palms itched to cup that tight butt of his.
She sighed and mentally swore. Her hormones must be on the fritz. Pregnancy did that to a woman, or so the book said.
Picking up the roller she’d been using, she ran it through the pan of paint. “Dad says you’re the big gun on Paseo’s triathlon team.”
“Yeah, and every race I rededicate myself to those guys in Idaho.”
She shivered. No man could outrun such a terrible memory.
Just as she’d never forget she had once placed her trust in a man who was unable to love her…or her baby.
“YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’VE BEEN infected by a severe case of white spotted fever.” Painting job completed and ready to head for home, Danny opened the truck door for Stephanie.
“I always looked forward to your compliments. They’re so…” She boosted herself into the seat. “…flattering to a woman’s ego.”
“Hey, on you, white spots are kinda cute. Like freckles.”
“Wonderful.” Rolling her eyes, she half turned in search of her seat belt.
Automatically Danny helped her out by grabbing the metal connector and reaching across her lap to snap it in place. For a moment, his forearm rested on her midsection, making him intimately aware of the swell of her belly. Then something poked him.
He froze and so did Stephanie.
“What was that?”
“The baby.”
“He kicked me?”
“She kicked you. I had a sonogram last week. It’s a girl.”
He wanted to move away, to ignore the sudden tightening in his throat, the twist in his gut. Instead he slipped his palm across her belly, cupping her. This was real. Not a shadowy, half-formed thought that Stephanie—the pesky kid who lived down the street—was someday going have a baby of her own. This was now.
Beneath his palm, the baby moved again. A tiny foot pressing into his hand or a tight little fist.
An unfamiliar emotion filled his chest. He could barely breathe and had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Feisty as her mom, huh?”
