* * *
Despite spending all night buried in Bo’s body, I woke up exhausted. Well-rested and somehow, still, exhausted. The sun had barely breached the horizon as I stood out on Bo’s back deck staring at the lake that had been her granddaddy’s pride and joy. She pretended to hate it yet she carefully watched the fish population and brought out some marine doctor once a year just to be sure. The fact that I knew that about her and that I’d spent all night tangled up with her in bed should be all the proof she needed that this thing between us was right. Damn near perfect.
But it wasn’t enough. I didn’t know if it would ever be enough, which is why I had a lukewarm cup of coffee in my hand while I stared at the lake and the small fish making small waves. Bo was, as Nate had said a tough nut to crack. But I wanted to, badly. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was an impossible task.
The buzzing in my back pocket tore me from my thoughts and even though I didn’t recognize the area code or the number, I answered. “This is Jase.”
“Jase Callahan, this is Deputy Fire Commissioner Sean Sullivan from Omaha FD.”
Um, okay? “Hello, sir. How are you this morning?”
He had a good, well-used laugh that brought a smile to my lips. I didn’t know this man or why he would be calling and I didn’t want to be rude. “You’re wondering why the hell some stranger is calling you at the butt end of dawn, I bet.”
“The thought had crossed my mind, but a good southern boy would never say such a thing.”
He laughed again. “Met your boss Rafe a few months ago at a new fire safety methods conference and he couldn’t stop singing your praises. I’m in need of a new captain for one of my ladders and it needs an outsider’s perspective.”
I looked at the phone like an idiot because I didn’t know what else to do. This was the dream job I never let myself hope to have. “I’m not sure what to say, Sir.”
“I was hoping to hear you squeal like a girl while accepting with an embarrassing amount of gushing. Rafe says there’s no move up for you down in Texas.” It was a brutal reminder but it was also the truth.
“Still, I’d like to think about it. I am beyond flattered and excited but to be honest, I didn’t even think this was an option.” I hoped I didn’t sound like an idiot but it was strange to get back a dream you mostly given up on already.
“I understand perfectly, Callahan. You have a week.” The call ended about as abruptly as it had began.
A captain position was something I thought I forfeited when I made the decision to move back to Tulip and start at the bottom of another firehouse and I was okay with it. Because I had to be. Because there was no other option other than to move again and start over, again. Now with a firm offer on the table, it was more than a dream.
It was a possibility.
Eventually, everyone leaves. Bo’s words came back to me like a punch in the gut and another one in the family jewels.
I made the decision then and there not to tell her until I had made a decision because it would only fuel her worst fear that she pretended was a cynical worldview. When I turned towards the house and found her moving around the kitchen, I knew I had some serious thinking to do. Bo was beautiful. She was my best friend and she was beautiful as she was, with no makeup on her face, hair in a messy attempt at a ponytail and body wrapped up in a lightweight flannel robe. “Morning.”
She looked over her shoulder, eyes wary but also filled with heat. “Morning.”
“Why didn’t you come out?” This was her second favorite time of day to enjoy the view of the lake, which made me wonder if she had come out and heard any part of that conversation with Deputy Commissioner Sullivan.
She shrugged and pulled bacon from the skillet. “It seemed liked you had things on your mind. I figured you were out there because you wanted space.”
I clenched my jaw and bit back the initial response on the tip of my tongue. “You mean you didn’t want to risk I’d make you talk about it.”
She brought the eggs and bacon to the table to join the toast and fruit, dropping them both down on the table with more force than the task required. Dropping down in her seat, she smacked together an egg and bacon sandwich. “You want to talk about whatever took you out there before the sun rose? Let’s talk about it. What’s on your mind, Jase?” She stared at me for several long seconds, and though she tried her best to look tough, I saw what was really there.
Fear. She was deathly afraid I would burden her with a talk she clearly wasn’t ready or willing to have. Might never be ready to have.
“That’s what I thought. For some reason you’re in the mood to fight.” She chewed her sandwich and I could only imagine who she was thinking of as she bit into that sandwich.
“Talk, not fight Bo.”
“We tried talking last night but you only want to hear what you want to hear.”
“The truth would be nice.”
“Is this the thing that you do with your women? Pick a fight with them so they’re happy or relieved when you stop taking their calls? Great. I’m not in the mood to fight so I guess I’ll see you around.” She grabbed more bacon and more toast before running upstairs and slamming the door just in case I had the foolish idea to follow her.
I didn’t. I stayed there and stared at the food she’d made so we could have breakfast together. She was trying. And I screwed it up.
Knowing she needed to cool down, I waited until she stomped back down the stairs and out the front door, probably on a hike, before I gathered my clothes and made my way home.
It was time to regroup before I messed everything up.
Bo
“What’s going on with you and Jase?” Mikki sat across the booth from me at Black Thumb, a big steaming stack of fried food and cold margaritas between us but her chin cradled in her hands demurely. Like we were having high tea instead of greasy bar food.
I stabbed a fried cheese stick into the spicy marinara like it was capable of doing actual physical damage. Maybe I was a little frustrated. “Who knows, Mikki.” He was gone when I came back from my hike and I felt relieved, and sure a little disappointed too. But mostly relieved.
“How can you not know when you’re sleeping with the man?” It was hard to be mad at her thick southern drawl but I was teetering on the edge of mad already and I didn’t need much help.
“Who says we’re sleeping together?”
“Seriously?” She rolled her eyes to the sky and groaned. “Okay, fine. That kiss at the dance for starters. That wasn’t a first time kiss, that was a we know how to push all the good buttons already kind of kiss.”
Dammit, I was hoping she’d say anything but that. “Fine. We are. Whatever.”
“No offense, honey, but you don’t sound like a woman who’s getting good lovin’ on the regular if you know what I’m saying.”
It was impossible not to know what she was saying. “He woke up in the mood to fight so I left.”
“Maybe he was using fighting as a way to get to the naked part. My ex used to do that, but most of the time it wasn’t worth the fight.”
“Well sex isn’t the problem with us,” I told her and turned the tray so the devil’s wings were right in front of me. I needed something to numb the pain if I was gonna talk about this. “We fought last night about us and then spent the rest of the night naked. But it was like a flip switched, so like I said, I don’t know.”
Mikki blew out a breath and ate her own devil wing with a knife and a fork. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, even when you’re not lookin’ back at him. That man thinks you hung the moon just for him, Bo.”
“Right now, he does sure. But people have a bad habit of leaving just when you need them.” I told her a very abbreviated version of my family history and I liked her just a little bit more for keeping the pity out of her eyes. “Jase will leave too and it’ll be easier to miss my friend when that happens.”
Mikki tortured another wing with her knife and fork, making me wait while she
ate it and then dunked one steak fry in ketchup about six times. “Maybe he will want to leave Tulip and maybe he’ll ask you to go with him. You ever think of that?”
“Honestly? No.” Was that pathetic or did it just sound that way to my ears? “This was all fake,” I confessed to her, telling her everything. “Until we started sleeping together. That’s when things got confusing.”
She laughed but it wasn’t mean-spirited. “Sex has a way of doing that and I’ll bet for you it’s never happened.”
“No, because I don’t sleep with people I like.”
Mikki’s dark brows dipped into a confused vee that pulled a laugh from me. “Good to know, I guess?”
“I mean that I don’t sleep with my friends and I don’t really get to know the men all that well.”
She blew out a breath. “I wish I could do that, then everyone would know that I wasn’t secretly pining away for my brother in law.”
Her answer surprised me. “Yeah well now I’m kind of wishing I’d stuck to my original plan because this, sucks.”
“Only because you’re being a chicken.” She nodded behind me and I turned just in time to see Jase and Nate stroll into the bar. Those brothers had some good genes, they were big and broad and had that swagger that made all the women around take notice.
“I am not,” I told her and stuffed a fry in my mouth. “I’m being smart. Why ruin a friendship for a relationship that’s doomed?”
“It’s ruined either way, I’m sorry to say. The fact that he wants to talk means he’s probably in love with you and there’s no coming back from that.”
I frowned. “So you’re saying we’re over no matter what?”
She nodded and took a big long pull from her margarita. “I’m saying you’re already in the middle of this thing so why not take a chance? The worse that can happen is what you expect, he leaves you brokenhearted. You’re strong enough to handle it and if you’re not, I’ll be strong for you until you can.”
“Why would you do that for me?”
“Because you need a friend and so do I. We’re hard women to love. You’re tough and I’m abrasive so we gotta have each other’s backs.”
I liked the sound of that. “Okay. Want me to beat up Nate for you?”
Mikki’s face turned pink and I filed that away for later consideration. “No thanks, he’s not worth the time in jail.”
“Interesting.”
Her gaze narrowed. “No. Don’t even think of going there, Bo.”
I mimicked zipping my lips and tossing away the key, making her laugh.
“You know Bo, if you really want Jase,” she nodded over my shoulder with her glass, “you better use this time wisely.” Something in her tone made me look over to the pool table where Jase and Nate had settled in and where two cowboy chasers in denim miniskirts pressed their bodies up against the men, their smiles promising the night would end at last call.
“If that’s what he wants, he’s exactly where he should be.” And so was I.
Jase
What were the odds that the one night I choose to go out with my brother to blow off steam, that it would be the same night Bo ventures from her hideaway to hang out in town? My stupid damn dumb luck, more so when those two puck bunnies confused me and Nate for a pair of bull riding brothers on the circuit. I felt her gaze burn the back of my neck, only briefly, but I felt it.
And I couldn’t help turning every once in a while to see if she was still there. To see if she was staring daggers at me. To see if she gave a damn at all. I snorted an amused laugh to myself at that thought. If Bo was even aware of her own damn emotions, she would never let them show, never let herself be that vulnerable.
“Just go over there and talk to her. It has to be better than this creepy stalker staring thing you’re trying hard to pull off.”
I glanced down and realized Nate was right. I stood about a foot from our pool table, arms crossed as I scowled across the bar to the booth she shared with the sassy shop owner. I turned to Nate. “You just want to get up close and personal with Mikki.”
His jaws clenched but Nate didn’t deny it which was more interesting than my own problems. “You two fighting or something?” But no one, except maybe Bo, was as good as Nate at shutting down any attempt at conversation.
“Or something.” I told him about the job offer. “Apparently Rafe recommended me. I still can’t believe it.” It still hadn’t sunk in, hours after the call.
“You haven’t told Bo.” His deep words pulled me from thoughts of Omaha.
“I just got the call this morning.” It was a weak excuse but it was all I had.
“And you decided to run away instead of staying and talking to her about it?” Nate shook his head and tipped his bottle back until it was finished. “You two are a matched set of ridiculous and stupid.”
“Yeah, thanks Nate. Helpful as usual.”
His amused grin faded into a gravely serious expression. “You risked everything to have this girl, Jase. Don’t be stupid and give it all up now just because it’s hard. Don’t be like him.”
I didn’t know if he meant our miserable excuse for a father or Bo’s, but either way he was right. “I know that, dammit.” I lined up a shot and it went right in, but the cue ball went along for the ride. “Dammit. I haven’t given up, I’m just frustrated as hell.”
“Women have a tendency to do that to a man, little brother.”
“It’s not regular woman stuff though. She sincerely believes that I’ll leave. That like everyone else, I will choose to walk away from her.”
Nate took a minute to process it, winking at the new waitress who’d arrived with another round for each of us. “You’re thinking of doing just that so don’t deny it. If you weren’t, you’d already be over there making her cuddle against her will.”
“She only pretends that she doesn’t like it,” I insisted because it was true. Bo was a woman who needed to feel loved. She needed to know it in every way imaginable and no one knew how to love her better than I did, dammit.
“Then tell her about the job offer. Tell her about it and then turn it down. Or leave her alone and go to Omaha.” Nate called the corner pocket, sank the eight ball and tossed his stick on the table. “Meanwhile, I think I will go ruffle a certain southern belle’s feathers.” He strolled away wearing a wide grin while I stared after him, waiting for my feet to get the message to move.
By the time I arrived at the girls’ table, Bo stood beside the table counting cash. “Perfect timing,” she said with a fake smile. “Mikki isn’t ready to leave but I have an early morning so I’m heading home. Keep her company and get her home safely.”
“I told you we could leave together,” Mikki said, trying very hard to ignore the way my brother stared at her.
Bo turned to her, expression soft but forceful. “You’re enjoying that super margarita and relaxing after a long day of retail. Enjoy yourself and we’ll talk later.” She gave a general wave to the table, all without looking at me, and marched right out of the bar like I was invisible.
“That’s how it’s gonna be between us from now on, Bo?”
My words stopped her in her tracks and she turned, her gaze carefully blank. “No, but I’m not ready to talk to you yet.” That was Bo, honest even when it hurt like hell.
I wanted to argue, to fight, to insist that she listen to me, that we hash everything out right now so we could go back to how things were just a few hours ago. But that wouldn’t get me any closer to what I really wanted so I nodded. “Okay, then.” But I couldn’t let her leave without knowing this was just a fight, another in a long list we’d had over the years. “Have a good night, Bo.”
“You too, Jase.”
I pressed my lips to hers, kissing her hard and intense and too damn short, but it had to be. “Good night.” I walked away from her now, because that’s what she wanted.
Next time, it would be all about what I wanted.
Bo
“You look breathtaking, B
o.” Mikki’s sweet southern drawl had a way of making me feel too damn girly, but tonight I appreciated it. “Jase is gonna die of heatstroke when he sees you.”
I gave my reflection one final look before turning away from the mirror. “Let’s hope he doesn’t die.” But I could admit that I had chosen this dress with Jase in mind, right down to the fire engine red color. “While we’re at it, let’s hope I don’t die of embarrassment.”
“Not even a possibility.”
I was glad that Mikki was so hopeful because I wasn’t sure at all. Jase and I hadn’t talked in two days, which had to be a new record for us except when he left Tulip to help with the wild fires. I couldn’t talk to him without wanting to pummel him for changing the rules and making me wish for things I shouldn’t. Making me want things I knew I couldn’t have.
But tonight I had to set all that aside because tonight was about Jase and the other firefighters in Tulip and the rest of the county. Tonight was to celebrate their hard work and dedication, their commitment to community, and I would be there to help honor them all. For my best friend. Who I was in love with.
It still felt weird to admit it, even to myself, but experiencing the past couple days without Jase in my life made me realize that Mikki was right. We’d already gone too far to go back to how things were before, so the only hope was to give us a real shot and hope for the best. And that’s what tonight and this ridiculous dress was all about.
“Let’s do your lips since we’re ready to go.”
I puckered up and closed my eyes, hoping that all of this was enough for Jase. “What if he’s had time to realize we would never work?”
“Then he’s a bigger idiot than we thought. I have a better question for you, what if he’s more certain than ever that you’re exactly who he wants and tries to put a ring on it?”
“He won’t,” I insisted because that was crazy. “We’re not even technically dating.”
“This isn’t a court of law, sugar. You’re together and that’s what matters. Now think on that while you put on your shoes or else we’re gonna be late.”
Kissing My Best Friend: A Friends to Lovers Romance Page 12
