Her Sexy Challenge (Firefighters of Station 1)

by Ballance, Sarah

  They hit the floor with a dull thud. Matt scowled. “You realize you’re never going to live up to this image you’ve crafted in your head, right? You won’t ever be him.”

  His dad. What Shane wouldn’t give for that to be different. It would have changed so much. Too much, maybe. “You sound like my sister.”

  “Jess doesn’t hold back. She wants you here.”

  “I earned that transfer,” Shane said evenly, but even as the words left his mouth, he wondered. His dad’s guys had stayed in touch, and their support had been steadfast for two decades now. From the time he’d joined the FD, he’d been told he had a job in Denver if he ever wanted one.

  All because of his father’s name.

  For the first time in his life, he didn’t see that as a good thing. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have anything to prove.

  It left him with more to prove.

  “Your dad was an in,” Matt said. “I’m not saying you don’t deserve the job, and I know you’d kick ass at it, but you’ll be there because of him and you know it. We all know it. What the rest of us know that you don’t is that he’s gone.”

  Shane gave Matt a sharp look. “Do I punch you now, or wait until you’re not expecting it?”

  Matt held his arms wide. “Take your shot if you want it. You’ll only prove I’m getting to you.” His smile faded. “Look, you aren’t your father. It doesn’t matter how great he was, or how great you’ll be. You’re your own damn person, and if you’re worried about what he’d think, I’m guessing nothing would make him prouder than to see you make your own way in this world. Love him. Remember him. Honor him. But step the fuck out of his shadow. Things don’t grow in the dark.” He paused. “You know what every parent seems to want?”

  Shane blinked. “Do you?”

  Matt nodded. “I think so. You’d be horrified by how much Hallmark Channel I’m forced to watch with Lexi.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What does every parent want?”

  “For their child to be happy.”

  “Not much of a revelation there,” Shane said.

  “Then try this one for size,” Matt said. “And try not to lie to yourself. You’ve got Denver on one side and Caitlin on the other. Let’s assume there’s no compromise and that you have to pick one. Which one are you willing to live without?”

  Life without Caitlin. He’d need his memories wiped to have a chance in hell for that to happen. But he’d worked too hard and for too long to give it up now. He hadn’t done that for his family, and he couldn’t do it for her.

  He had to go to Denver.

  …

  One week later

  Now that Caitlin knew what Netflix and chill was, she was surprised to have any traffic at her grand opening, but the place was jumping. When the tenth person arrived within the first hour, Caitlin and Lexi exchanged perplexed glances. Lexi shrugged. “Maybe the word got out about the sex books.”

  “That would not be ideal.” Besides, she’d stashed most of those in the back. She didn’t want to be run out of town for being the porn lady, though those dusty old volumes were yet another thing that didn’t have anything on the internet or streaming television. “But something had to have happened. Any idea what?”

  Lexi reached over to scratch the head of the fluffball of a kitten Caitlin had adopted from the shelter. “My guess? People met you and like you and they want to see you succeed, so they’ve all piled in here to buy books.”

  “That would be fantastic, but I have a feeling I’m going to end up putting a lot of these obscure books online.”

  “Good,” Lexi said. “Go with the flow of things. That’s how you succeed. And by the way, you’re not fooling anyone with this cat’s name.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Caitlin lied.

  “Lou? Really? No relation to a certain lieutenant?”

  That certain lieutenant was long gone. She hadn’t seen him since the morning at the firehouse, and while she wasn’t quite okay with that, she was getting there. Kitten’s name notwithstanding. To Lexi, she said, “I’m certain they don’t share a single strand of DNA.” That much, at least, was true, if not exactly what Lexi meant.

  “Good to know,” Lexi said, though her tone suggested she wasn’t buying it.

  Caitlin pushed those thoughts away and rang up a stack of books for one customer, and then for two more customers after that. Before she stepped away from the register, a striking young woman with glossy dark hair approached. She seemed familiar, and Caitlin assumed from the picnic, until Lexi greeted her.

  “Hey, Jess,” Lexi said. “Have you and Caitlin met?”

  “No,” Jess said. “Because my brother is a moron who thinks sticking his head in the sand makes things a little less real.”

  Lexi offered Caitlin a bemused look. “Jess is Shane’s sister. She’s as blunt as he is obtuse.”

  “I love you already,” Caitlin said. No wonder she thought Jess looked familiar. She and Shane intensely favored each other. She wanted to ask how he was, but his name on her tongue…it was still too raw. Breaking down in front of the fifteen people currently crowding her store wouldn’t go over well.

  Jess offered a warm smile. “Good, because that book you took to the fire station for Shane to read? If it’s for sale, I’d like to buy it.” Caitlin’s curiosity must have been obvious, because Jess added, “I want to give it to him for his birthday.”

  “Now I love you,” Lexi said. “Without even knowing the details of this plot, I’m convinced he deserves it.”

  “So he told you about that book?” Caitlin didn’t try to hide her surprise, though she did manage to shoot Lexi a dirty look. Surely Jess hadn’t heard the sordid details of Caitlin’s not-a-relationship with Shane from her brother, and Caitlin didn’t want her to hear them here. Not in front of her.

  “Sort of,” Jess replied. “I saw him with it, and it didn’t exactly look his speed. I asked; he gave me a hard time.” She smiled sweetly. “I figured I’d give it back.”

  Caitlin grinned. “I like how you think.”

  She grabbed it out of the storage room, then let Lexi finish ringing up Jess’s purchase.

  Package in hand, Jess took a step toward the door, then paused and caught Caitlin’s eye. “He’s actually going to love this book,” she said.

  Caitlin swallowed the surge of memories that followed. Don’t go there. “I hope things are going well for him with the new job,” she finally said. She managed to spit out the words without her voice breaking. That was something.

  Jess frowned. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I’ve never heard him sound more miserable. I thought leaving to chase a ghost was the dumbest thing he’d ever done, but he managed to outdo himself when he walked away from you.”

  Oh hell. Now she was going to cry, but for what? She’d tried. He’d walked. Discussion over. “I don’t know what he told you—”

  Jess offered a reassuring smile. “Nothing. But I’ve known him my entire life. He used to light up when he talked about the department. Now, that’s all you.”

  “He left,” Caitlin said. She managed to keep her voice even, but the sharp edges of her emotions left her raw and twisted inside. Again.

  “He and his pride will figure it out soon enough, but you didn’t hear that from me.” Jess glanced around the store. “I’m glad to see so many people supporting you. This place is a sentimental favorite around town. I think you’ll be really happy here.”

  “Thanks,” Caitlin said.

  Jess nodded and made her way to the door, stopping to greet a couple of people on her way out.

  “For what it’s worth,” Lexi said after Jess left, “I agree with her. He really is an idiot to have walked away from you.”

  Caitlin tried not to scowl, but keeping her mouth from twisting into a frown took an enormous amount of effort. She didn’t disagree. But Shane had followed his heart and ended up in Denver. She’d followed hers and landed in Dry Rock. There wasn’t a comp
romise there, so the fact she was irritated only irritated her more.

  Put on your big girl panties and shake it off.

  “Well, maybe he’s not the only one who needs convincing.” Caitlin pocketed her phone. “Can you watch the store for a few minutes?” There was no point in her sitting there glaring at the walls. Not when she could close the book on her so-called relationship with Shane, at least as far as she was concerned.

  “Um, sure. Where are you going?”

  “To take a selfie.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bravado was great in theory.

  In the face of a hulking, vibrating bridge, it morphed into a bad idea.

  A really, really bad idea.

  Caitlin hesitated at the foot of the cross-town bridge, convinced she already felt the span shaking under the weight of the traffic. Why couldn’t she have found a bookstore for sale in the desert? With her luck, it would have been at the edge of the Grand Canyon.

  Though even that might be preferable to this.

  “Breathe,” she told herself. “One foot in front of the other. You’re too short to be blown over the edge.”

  At least her bridge-panicked mumbling had been upgraded to a pep talk, however pathetic. Plus, she wasn’t crying. Definitely progress. Just a few more steps and she could consider herself on the bridge. After that, it was a matter of taking a selfie without dropping her phone, then sending it to Shane. He’d announced to the world that he was over her by leaving. This would be her version of that. She didn’t need his help. Or him.

  She needed him to know that.

  Maybe she needed to know it, too.

  She stared at the bridge, mere steps in front of her. The stupid pedestrian lane offered an impossible choice: cling to the rail that separated her from falling to her death, or skirt the edge of traffic, where massive trucks could roll over her without feeling the bump.

  Hero, her ass.

  Like it had been a feat to convince her off this thing.

  Getting her on it, however…

  Her slow-motion progress, now all of six inches from dry land, ground to a halt. He had gotten her on the bridge. But it didn’t count. She was doing this to prove she didn’t need him in her life. Totally different thing.

  Irritated, she took another step. Then another. It was probably the slowest water crossing since Columbus, but she was doing it.

  Without him.

  Inch by inch, she forced herself to take each terrifying step, convinced the undulating span had nothing on Tacoma Narrows. The worst part was trying to look normal, or at least the exact opposite of whatever had made someone call her in as a jumper that first day. All she needed was for that scenario to play out a second time. Granted, Shane wouldn’t be there—as far as she knew, he was off searching for the kind of meaning that required fifty-six floors of concrete instead of twelve. But she didn’t need a do-over any more than she needed to offer the guys a second round of ammo.

  After nearly thirty painstaking minutes, she neared the center. Above the bridge, a sign announced the name of the river, so she took her first selfie with that in the background, pretty damn proud of herself for not looking terrified. Then she turned to take the hard one—the one where she had to hold the phone up to see the river behind her and far below. Her hand shook so hard she almost dropped the device, but she finally managed to get a somewhat clear shot. She sent them both to Shane via text message. The pictures said what words couldn’t: she was moving on.

  Satisfied that she’d accomplished something earth-shattering, she crammed the phone in her pocket then eyed the remaining distance. Actually crossing the bridge would be huge, but that would put her on the wrong side of her grand opening, and besides…she was almost halfway. The trip back counted.

  If she made it.

  She’d make it.

  When she turned to head back, a shadow crossed her periphery, but she didn’t follow it. Instead, she pinned her eyes on the solid ground ahead and took her first tentative step toward freedom.

  And hit a wall that was decidedly not in Denver. One whose achingly familiar scent nearly crushed her. Her pulse fluttered, dizzying her, but she’d dropped to her knees for the last time. At least for Lt. Shane Hendricks, or whatever he was now that he’d switched departments.

  “You need to move,” she told him, trying to ignore the unruly cadence of her heart. There was no denying the shift, or how little it had to do with the bridge.

  “Actually, I don’t.” There he went, straight back to cocky, and barely glancing up from his phone, the jerk. Then she remembered the pictures she’d sent. At least he now had proof they weren’t Photoshopped.

  “I know I’m short,” she told him through gritted teeth, “and I know you have the upper hand, but I swear to God if you don’t get out of my way, you’ll be on the evening news with me.” She paused. “Why are you even here? Aren’t you in the wrong city?”

  He leaned over the rail, his forearms resting on the top while his shoulders and head extended over the river. “I was.”

  Caitlin felt sick at the sight of him bent over the railing like that. “Good for you for getting out.”

  He loosely touched his fingertips and stared down at the water. “That’s kind of what I was thinking. In fact, I was on my way back to your grand opening—”

  “You’re at the wrong address,” Caitlin told him. So what if she melted a little because he’d bothered to be there? Her emotions had been raw since the day she’d met him on that bridge. Every girl had her breaking point. “I appreciate the effort, but really, you should go home.”

  He cocked a brow. “I did.”

  Whatever that meant. She tried not to stare, but it was either him or the ground, or the river beyond it, and she couldn’t go there. Instead, she decided to drown her own way, by looking into his eyes.

  “Funny thing about Dry Rock,” he said.

  She silently willed him to step aside so she could get off that bridge. Her discomfort welled. She didn’t dare step into traffic to go around him, and getting past him would require climbing over or under. No way in hell she was getting any higher or crawling, which left only one option: spinning on her heel and heading in the other direction. She’d get a ride back once her feet hit solid ground.

  “My family is here,” he called after her. “My life is here.”

  “Happy for you,” she muttered, probably not anything he heard over the traffic, especially with her back to him.

  “My girl is here.”

  She halted. Turned slowly. He stood several feet away, right where she left him. When she realized the distance she’d traveled without a second thought, pride bubbled in her chest. “Your girl?”

  “Yes. A pain in my ass redhead with a store full of sex books.”

  “No librarian jokes?” she stammered. Really, she had to be hearing him wrong. And if she wasn’t, she needed to do something other than swoon, because he didn’t deserve it. Not the way he’d left. And what was he going to do? Ambush her at her store?

  “Sweetheart, when you knelt in front of me with that little skirt and those glasses and your hair pulled back—”

  A passing car honked. Caitlin desperately hoped it was coincidental timing. “You do realize your so-called girl said she was falling in love with you, and you left?”

  He closed the distance between them. She was grateful he’d finally given up hanging over the edge, but she didn’t need him in her face, either. “I waited twenty years for that job, Caitlin. Ten as an adult, but all those dreams before that time counted, too.”

  She eyed the railing. She might be able to get past him…nope, not that brave yet. He watched her, probably waiting for her to fall at his feet and swoon. Hell, she was tempted to do exactly that. He looked too good, and she’d really missed him, but they were over. She had to remember that. She really needed to get back to solid ground. “You’re right,” she said. “Those dreams counted. I shouldn’t have implied otherwise.”

  He blin
ked, and she took advantage of the moment to push past him. For three terror-filled seconds, she had to squeeze against the railing, but then she was free. Nothing but open space between her and her store. She’d been gone so long Lexi was probably losing her shit. Either that, or giving tours of the back room where the sex books were.

  Shane didn’t try to stop Caitlin, at least not physically. But she was only a few steps into her escape when she realized traffic was no longer whizzing past. She turned to see him standing in the middle of the road, a line of cars stopped behind him. “Yeah, you should have,” he said, like he wasn’t blocking two lanes of traffic. “Because there’s something that matters more.”

  “You’re crazy,” she said.

  “Kind of like when you showed up at the station and said you were falling in love with me?”

  “Yes. And it didn’t work out.” God help her if the windows were down in any of those cars. Was holding the bridge-goers hostage something that was supposed to work on her?

  “I think it could work out,” he said.

  They really should be having this conversation anywhere else, but that didn’t stop her from staring. Of course, there were dozens of people watching him, listening when he called out to her. He tilted his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I figured as long as you’re in Dry Rock, Denver has nothing on it. Hell, I checked. They haven’t had a call for a bridge jumper in months.” He approached, slowly, but didn’t let the traffic through. “Not once in the last twelve months has a woman smoked herself out of her bookstore trying to use an air conditioner.”

  Damn it. The knot in her chest loosened.

  “No one has reported any kind of rooftop break-ins involving phallic glazed ham-and-Swiss and wine.”

  “You told me you had permission to be there,” she sputtered.

  “And now I’m here,” he said, “to tell you I love you.”

  A handful of hoots erupted from the stopped cars. Ordinarily, she might have been mortified, but ordinarily, she didn’t have a man blocking traffic to say he loved her. He left the road, meeting her where she stood on the side, so close that she could see the hazel in his eyes.