This job had come in days ago.
Before the auction, before Hunter, before the theft, before the explosion.
And they hadn’t told her.
They’d sat on this new opportunity. Why?
“You’re taking on a demo job and not even telling me about it?” Jesse kept her tone even, controlled. If she were a man, she could call them fucktards and point out what shitheads they were. But she was a woman. Which meant their rules did not apply to her. She couldn’t get angry. She couldn’t raise her voice. She had to be better at this than they were.
She lifted her gaze to James, then Justin.
The rest of them were dead to her.
And her brothers? She had to stop thinking of them in terms of family.
“What with everything going on Jess, it didn’t seem like the smart thing to do.” Justin leaned back in the tall, ladder-style wooden chair at the head of the table. He wasn’t even sorry.
Jesse stared at her older brother, lips pressed together to keep from calling him out. She could be hurt later. He most certainly wasn’t concerned about her feelings. She could see that in the way he stared at her, not the least bit sorry she’d found them out.
“Everything going on? Really? That’s your excuse, man? That’s pretty lame.” Hunter spoke the words out of her brain. God, she wanted to hug the man and deck him all at once. The next-worst-thing to losing her temper would be to have a man speaking for her.
No, Jesse had to stand her ground. Alone.
“Why are you here?” Justin’s gaze jumped up, over her shoulder. Now she saw the hostility boiling just under the surface. Justin didn’t feel a thing when he looked at her. She was just another problem for him to deal with. But Hunter? He could find emotions where he was concerned. “This is a private business meeting.”
Jesse clenched her hands and glared at her brother. How dare he? “Justin—”
“A private business meeting that probably involves the very person who stole explosives from you.” Hunter’s tone dripped with contempt.
“Hunter—shut up,” Jesse snapped. Her heart pounded in her throat. She didn’t need to look at Hunter to know he was looking at Nicholas. This was spinning out of control. Hunter was going to make everything worse. Didn’t he get that? Couldn’t he see that butting in was the worst thing to do?
“Better get your new pet on a leash, Jess.” Justin’s gaze never left Hunter’s face.
She winced, his words cutting deep for some reason.
“What? You don’t like being called on your shit? What the hell is this?” He gestured at the table. “With a brother like you, who needs enemies?”
“Hunter.” Her cheeks burned and she clenched her hands into fists. He might speak the truth, but this wasn’t the way to get through to Justin. She—they—couldn’t come at him head on. That wasn’t going to fix things.
“No, I’m serious.” Hunter continued, not the least bit deterred by her or Justin’s stare. “Every time I meet you, you’re coming up with new ways to be a dick to your sister. And this? This is just stupid. You know someone’s stealing from you and you—what? Plan a way to give them another opportunity to steal? Because that’s great.”
“Hunter!” Jesse stood and whirled, glaring daggers at him. “Outside. Now.”
For a few seconds, no one moved. No one spoke.
He glanced from her to Justin. God love him and his loyalty, but didn’t he see that he was making this worse? She had to stand on her own two feet. She didn’t need him for that. She was strong enough, capable enough, to hold her own. The same rules that applied to him didn’t work for her. She had to be better, smarter, stronger than her brothers at their own game. And Hunter was barely learning the board.
Hunter pushed off the kitchen bar and strode toward the door. She followed him, her head up, back straight.
How was she going to salvage this?
Justin, and maybe James and Nick, had gone behind her back. They’d withheld job information from her. And now what? Where was this going?
Hunter yanked the front door open.
“Yeah, better take him out now,” Justin said just loud enough for her to hear.
Hunter’s back snapped straight and he stopped on the Welcome mat.
Jesse grabbed Hunter’s arm and muttered, “Not one word,” under her breath.
She closed the door, careful not to slam it. She marched him to the right, away from the windows and under the shade of a Bradford Pear tree. She’d helped James plant it, though they nearly killed the thing getting it in. They’d laughed so hard she’d cried.
The first stab of pain hit her low in the chest. It didn’t pierce her heart, but soon enough Justin would get there. But he didn’t need Hunter’s help hurting her.
“What the hell?” She let go of him and threw her hands up in the air.
“Your brother’s a dick. This is stupid.” He gestured at the house. “I can’t believe they’d have a meeting like this with Nick there.”
“No—what the hell are you doing?”
“Me?”
“This has nothing to do with you.” She gestured at the house and the meeting happening right now, without her, about her future. “Why the hell are you even opening your mouth? I can stand up for myself without you butting in. Do you know what that does to me? How they see it?”
“I was just trying to help…” Hunter blinked at her, his mouth hanging open. God bless the man, but she wanted to strangle him. She expected sabotage from her brothers. Not him. “You were just sitting there, letting them talk over you.”
“I can take care of myself, Hunter. I have for thirty God damn years without you. Why do you think I need someone fighting for me?”
“Wow, easy, take it down a notch.”
Jesse’s vision blurred and her blood went white hot with rage.
Take it down a notch?
Easy?
Oh, he had no idea how easy she was taking this kind of backstabbing.
“No, you need to leave,” she said in her most even, calm voice possible. “I do not need you here talking over me like I need your help. I can manage this on my own”
“I was just trying to—”
“I don’t need you, Hunter.” She pushed her hands through her hair. “I want you to leave. Just—leave. Please. Now I have go to fix this.”
“Jesse—wait, Jesse.” He grabbed her hand, trying to reel her back in.
“Let go of me.” She twisted her hand out of his grasp and whirled around. Here was another man trying to manage her life. Control her. Handle her future. Well, fuck him. “You know why I had to leave the last crew I worked for? Do you?”
“No.”
“Because a guy just like you got involved in my business. I do not need you, Hunter. You’re fucking everything up. Leave. Me. Alone.” She turned on her heel and stalked back toward the house.
She didn’t get to choose her family, but she did get to chose who slept in her bed. And it would not be a man who undermined what she’d spent so long building.
16.
Hunter scrubbed at a bit of stuck-on food. The tables in the eating area were filthy. From the looks of it, someone last shift had made chili. It was everywhere. And no one on that shift seemed to know how to scrub a God damn table clean.
Just because they were a bunch of guys didn’t mean they had to live in a pigsty. He squirted more of the lemon-scented cleaner on the table and attacked a particularly large glob of the mess.
He was willing to bet money that was Reid.
The man shoveled food in like he expected someone to steal it from him.
Had Justin spoken to Reid about him?
Thoughts of Justin quickly morphed into Jesse. Yesterday. How he’d fucked shit up, yet again. One moment, things were great. The next, she wasn’t returning his calls. All he could hear were those last words.
You’re fucking everything up. Leave me alone.
Jesse was…unexpected. And right. He hadn’t been kiddin
g when he told Drake that someday The One would walk into his life and…he’d know. It’d taken about twelve or so hours to realize his horniness was more than attraction. He’d realized it before it was too late. And he’d still manage to screw it all up. How?
“Are you going to rub a hole through that table?”
Hunter jerked upright. Abby Winters stood in the door, her eyes twinkling with mischief. Most days he loved giving the reptile-loving firewoman hell, because she gave as good as she got , but not today. He wasn’t in the mood.
“Wow, who pissed in your Cheerios?” Abby strolled in and perched on the edge of the table he’d been scrubbing, her focus on him.
“No one.” He slid past her to the other end of the table, sprayed it down and started scrubbing.
“Well, my day’s going great. I really hope we don’t get called in to do any sort of back-up for that political rally thing downtown. Other than that, things are good. Except I have some weirdo texting my snake hotline number about how to get a good set-up going. I’m pretty sure he’s trolling me.” She rolled her eyes.
Back at the beginning of the month Abby had begun a campaign, promoting a service where people could text her and find out if a snake was dangerous or not. Since the scaly beasts were starting to become more active what with it being spring and all, she spent a lot of time glued to the phone. That alone had been a feat of wonder, considering the chief had to sign off on it and allow her to answer messages during working hours.
“Yeah?” Hunter said when she didn’t go on.
“Yeah, I think he’s flirting with me.”
“That’s a bad thing?” He glanced sideways at Abby.
She was pretty, he supposed, but she’d become more like a kid sister to him, and it was hard to see her objectively. Granted, her brother was also a fireman on another shift and Hunter didn’t treat Abby anything like Kyle did.
“What is your deal? You’re such a grump today.” She circled the table and sat down across from him. She was a dog with a damn bone.
“What do you want, Abby?” He straightened.
“I want to know why you’ve got asshole tattooed on your forehead. You never even asked how I was doing.” She pouted a bit, which was completely unlike her.
“What?” He frowned. “Something wrong?”
“My point!” She threw up her hands.
“What happened?” Had he missed something.
“You totally missed that I wasn’t here last shift, I’m guessing?”
“You—what?” He scrolled back through his memory, the warehouse fire playing prominently and…no Abby. No Kyle either. The chief had the two of them on opposite shifts to keep their sibling bickering in check. If one wasn’t there, usually the other was. “What happened?”
“I had a super severe allergic reaction at that fundraiser thing. All the dog hair.” She gestured to her face. “It was really bad. I came in for my shift, but the chief sent me home right before you guys got sent out. I hate to say it, but that was the right call. I went in for a breathing treatment to get me back up to speed.”
“Fuck, Abby, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” He pulled out a chair and sat across from her. “How you doing? I never heard anything about it.”
“Yeah, probably because Spencer was right there. The ass.” She rolled her eyes.
Spencer was an EMT attached to Firehouse Three. Hunter knew him pretty well, considering he, Spenser and Reid had painted the town red a number of times. One of Spenser’s favorite pastimes was riling Abby up.
“What happened?” Hunter crossed his arms and leaned forward.
“Oh, no, you first. Where the hell have you been? And why are you so pissed off?” She arched a brow at him.
Hunter sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. He couldn’t ask Drake for advice, not after their last conversation and especially not if Drake was involved with Everly. His friend deserved happiness and the last thing Hunter was going to do was get Drake involved in his fuck-up. Maybe Abby was the right person to talk to.
“I fucked up,” he said.
“Shocking.”
“Fuck you.” He glared at her.
“No, thanks, that would be weird, and judging by the way you’re moping I doubt she’d appreciate that either.”
“I am not moping.”
“Are too. What’s her name?”
“Jesse.”
“Oh, I like it. So, what’d you do to make Jesse mad at you?”
“How do you know I did something?”
“You’re moping, angry and defensive. Classic symptoms. Besides, it’s you and your mouth probably got you into a load of trouble, am I right?”
Hunter winced.
“I’m right!” Abby grinned, taking far too much joy in his pain. “So, out with it.”
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face.
The ache in his chest had dulled, but not gone away.
Where did he begin?
He started with the auction and gave Abby the weekend highlights, glossing over some parts and venting his frustrations about Jesse’s brothers in-depth. And yeah, he was moping. So was Elsa. He’d rather have spent last night at Jesse’s place and not stalker texting her with zero replies. She was shutting him out. Walking away. And he didn’t like it one bit. She was the girl he wanted and…he’d fucked up.
“So…let me get this straight. This girl is amazing, you totally dig her, she’s got a weird work environment and you thought it would be a great idea to call out the assholes in front of everyone, with her there?”
Hunter groaned.
“Dude, if I were her, I’d have probably bashed in your kneecaps.” Abby’s stare was not kind.
“What’d I do?” Could she spell it out for him? Help him understand? Because he still didn’t get it.
“Hunter. Think about it. What did she tell you?”
“That...she left her last job because of a guy.”
“Yeah. And, why did I come back to Dallas when I made a big deal about leaving home to get away from family?”
“Because you broke up with your station chief…”
“And?”
“And it was hell on you.”
“Exactly.” Abby stated at the table top a moment. “I’m going to tell you something, and you can’t repeat this. Ever. Got it?”
“Okay.”
“My family flipped out when I decided to become a firefighter. Like, I was pretty sure Mom and Kyle were going to lock me up somewhere, but I did it anyway. Because…I wanted to. Dad wasn’t happy with it, but we have zero relationship, so whatever. The first day of training, I walk in…and guess who’s there?”
“Your…dad?” All Hunter knew about Abby and Kyle’s dad was that he was a K-9 cop and their family had split when Abby was still pretty young.
“No. Kyle.”
“Oh…” This wasn’t going to end well…
“He tried to talk me out of training, but I wouldn’t listen to him. I stopped talking to him for a long time. I moved away the first chance I could, then when I came back here…there was Kyle. A fireman, too. Having my older brother breathe down my neck constantly was…it’s not fun. We used to fight a lot, but we’ve worked things out now. It was hard getting to where we’re at.”
“Fuck.”
“What I’m trying to tell you is…women doing the kinds of things Jesse or I do is hard. I have to prove I’m as good, and a lot of the times, even better than you are at something, to be seen as half as good. I’m really lucky you guys are so great to me here, and I know it. It wasn’t always so great for me. I can’t imagine what it’s like for Jesse working with older, super protective brothers like that. Now, think about everything she has to go through just to be considered equal to her brothers and the rest of the guys there. And now think about what you did.”
“I…embarrassed her?”
“And?”
“And I looked like her guard dog.”
“And?”
“And fuck. I just…
”
“It doesn’t matter how much you want to protect her, shield her, help her, some things she’s got to do on her own. If she has help, no one will give her credit. No one at all. You just make it harder for her to succeed, because now she not only has to be better than everyone else, she has to do it twice as many times.”
“God damn it. I’m screwed.”
“Pretty much. Now, how are you going to fix it?”
“I don’t know, Abby.” He leaned his elbows on the table and stared at the gleaming surface.
How did he fix a fuck up this big?
Jesse parked the borrowed truck outside of Oscar’s house. He’d been missing from her brother’s surprise meeting yesterday, and no one had heard from him since the demo night. After working the last few weeks nonstop, Oscar was due for a few days off, so it wasn’t unheard of for him to turn off his phone and spend some time with his family. But the way things were going, she needed to talk to someone and she was at a loss for who. Oscar had been with them from the beginning and was about the only person she could think of that she might be able to trust.
Justin was pissed with her and James was walking a tightrope of people pleasing, making excuses for everyone. Most of their managers and contractors barely tolerated her anyway. Nicholas…she couldn’t look at him without thinking about his cousin.
Oscar wasn’t exactly her friend, but he’d always treated her fairly. He’d worked alongside Justin and managed his crabby temper. He was the closest thing she had to a guide on how to handle him.
The yard was strangely toy free. Oscar’s three kids were hell on training wheels the last time she’d seen them. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen Oscar’s children or his wife since… Was it last summer? How strange.
At Christmas he’d said they all had a bug… Yet he never missed a day of work…
She slid out of the truck and pushed her sunglasses up on her forehead. Maybe she’d take Oscar and his family out to lunch as a thank you for listening to her whine. She strolled up the walk and knocked on the front door.
The moments stretched on.
No answer.
She peered at the driveway. Oscar’s truck was sitting in the drive.
Up in Flames (Firehouse Three Book 1) Page 15
