The Eleventh Hour. Wendy Etherington
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As he sipped his beer, he caught a glimpse of a blonde at the far end of the bar, a black camera bag resting by her feet. “Laine?” he said aloud, though nobody likely heard him over the toasts.
He rose. “I’ll be back,” he said absently to Cole, leaving his beer on the table and keeping his gaze locked on the familiar woman across the room.
She looked nearly the same. Lovely. Delicate, but strong. Wearing jeans, a crewneck white shirt and navy blazer, she didn’t seem ordinary in the ordinary clothes. Instead of the ponytail he remembered, her hair fell to her shoulders and curved softly around her face. Her lips, which he always remembered her biting, were full and glossy pink.
He stopped next to her and felt a familiar desire slide into his stomach. “Hi, Laine.”
“Hi, Steve,” she said, her brown-eyed gaze meeting his dead on.
This close, something about her, the look in her eyes, or the strength of her posture, made her seem bolder, more confident. Though he’d been crazy about shy and sweet Laine, he found himself drawn to the change.
Oh, yeah, rekindling the heat between him and Laine could be just the thing to jolt him out of his depression and distract him from the duty he dreaded.
He loomed over her and liked the way her eyes widened at his proximity. “Can an old friend buy you a drink?”
“Sure.” Cool as a cucumber, she shrugged. “If you can fit me into your fan club. Maybe you should give everybody membership numbers. You know, to keep things fair.”
The old tension returned as though seven minutes had passed rather than seven years. He couldn’t help it if people felt comfortable approaching him. He was a firefighter and well known in Fairfax. His height communicated confidence. Hell, people liked him. Was that a crime?
“I don’t have a fan club,” he said.
She winked. “Right.”
He realized she was teasing. Of course she wouldn’t still be carrying around seven-year-old jealousy. “Hey, we’ve been in the woods for two days.”
“So I hear.” She patted the empty stool next to her, her smile dispelling the gloom that had settled over him that afternoon. “Have a seat.”
Steve swallowed. Why does she make me so weak?
He stepped toward her, stopping just short of his chest brushing her back as he settled onto the stool. A spicy, fruity scent washed over him, and his body hardened.
“You look really beautiful.” In fact, he had to curl his hands into fists to keep from stroking her shoulder.
“Thanks.” She grinned. “So do you.”
Ridiculously, he felt his face heat. “Thanks. Josh told me you’re covering the fire for some major magazine.”
“Yeah. I signed on with Century.”
He whistled. “I’m honored to think I was part of the test photos.”
“I do still have one of you in my portfolio.”
“No kidding?”
“Yeah. One of you, Josh and Tommy stumbling out of a plane after you’d just come off a two-day wildfire on the California–Oregon border.”
His heart lurched.
“I heard about Tommy,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”
Oddly enough, despite her aversion to his job, it felt right sharing his pain with her. “The fire. A sudden wind.”
She closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, tears clung to her lashes. Her compassion reminded him why he’d fallen so hard. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t want to face his grief for Tommy now. He’d been wallowing in it for a week. He slid his hand around her waist. “I’m better now.”
She leaned back and gave him a wry look. “And still smooth as ever.”
Smiling, he gripped her side. “Why am I thinking that’s not a compliment?”
“But it is. And especially convenient for the available ladies of Fairfax.”
“And do you include yourself in that group?”
“Definitely not.”
Damn. “You’re married?”
“No. Just not available.”
“To me?”
“To anybody.” She polished off the pink contents of her martini glass. “Another cosmo, please,” she said to the smiling young bartender who appeared before her.
Steve ordered a beer. “Since when do you drink cosmos?”
“I have for years.”
Something was definitely up with a cosmo-drinking, sassy-mouthed, unavailable Laine. It’s been seven years, man. People change. Look at you.
He was challenged by her lack of interest in him. Because he was still interested in her? Or because she’d once been so dedicated to him?
Either way, it was probably a good idea to back off. At least for the moment. “How’s Aunt Jen?”
“Stubborn as ever. She doesn’t want to leave her house.”
“She may not have to.”
“Chief Arnold seemed to think differently when I was at base camp yesterday. You really believe she won’t need to leave?”
“We’re supposed to be thinking positively on the front line, but no. Evacuations will happen.” He accepted his beer from the bartender; Laine did the same with her cosmo. “If we don’t get some rain soon, the town is right in the fire’s path.”
She held up her glass. “Then a toast to rain. To Tommy.” Pausing, she met his gaze. “And to the rest of you staying safe.”
He tapped his mug against her glass. “To Tommy.” He wasn’t toasting himself. The reluctance he felt at every jump, every trip into the ravaged forest, made a mockery of the other teams’ bravery.
She sipped her drink, then puckered her lips and set the glass aside.
“Too strong?”
“No, it’s…fine. So, how’ve you been?”
He drank his beer, figuring at least they’d agree on the changes he’d made in his life. “I gave up smoke jumping and moved back home to Georgia a few years ago.”
Laine nearly fell off her stool. “You—What?”
“I went home, joined a regular firehouse, started saving cats from trees. I even bought a house.”
She couldn’t grasp it. “What about parachuting from planes into fire-choked forests? What about rappelling from helicopters? What about Italy and Greece? You had hiking, biking, scuba diving and who knows what else planned.”
“The farthest I’ve been from home in the last four years is Atlanta.”
Bad boy Steve had reformed? Settled down? Good grief.
“Did you get married?” she asked, still stunned enough to wonder what else she’d missed.
“No.”
“Have any kids?”
Leaning toward her, he grinned. “No. Are you volunteering?”
That brought back painful memories. When she’d been young and wide-eyed. When she’d thought she and Steve would get married someday, have a family together. Instead, he’d asked her to move in and made it clear he planned to be a smoke jumper until he was old and gray.
Going back there wouldn’t help, and she really didn’t want to