“Don’t you ever say that. You’re so damn beautiful, so perfect. You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“No I’m not.”
“You are to me. Know that.” I grab both of her hands and stand from my seat, sliding over closer to her and I kiss the backs of her hands. “And you’re smart as a whip too. I know that for a fact.”
She blushes. “Thank you.”
But I’m still furious. “Did he do something else?”
“Let’s just eat.”
“Tell me.”
“Nothing physical. He just tried to give me lower grades than I deserved and told me to come to his office after-hours so we could talk about making it up. He didn’t want to ‘punish’ his friend, which is what he was trying to paint me as...his quote unquote friend, because my lab partners were so ‘pitiful.’ Of course we were anything but friends at this point, or any point, and my lab partners were awesome, very talented to say the least. And what made no sense is that he gave them high marks, for the same group project where I was teamed up with them. It really made no sense at all, especially when I uncovered more information from my lab partners when I asked them about our classes and projects later. Geoff was always very serious and persistent about reminding us, no reminding is the wrong word...pretty much demanding or better yet threatening us, about sharing with our classmates what grades we received. I figured that was fine because why would I care? I’d get the same grade they did for a group project, right? It only makes sense. So I suspect he gave them good grades to keep them off his back, while he tried to hold me back, control me, and possibly even delay my graduation. Then he started seating me in the front of the class, saying how nice I looked…all the things you’d expect in some sort of stalker movie. And stalker is exactly right because freshman year I remember seeing him out and about sometimes at places where students were known to hang out. I figured it was no big deal. There were always some professors there, and he was still relatively young so it made sense that he might be there. Then I started thinking more in terms of patterns of behavior...he wasn’t just at the student hangouts I was at from time to time. He was also in the coffee shops where I studied, on and off campus, but that didn’t alarm me at first because he was there before I sat down on almost every occasion. He wasn’t stalking me if he was there first, right? Well, by this point I was pretty sure he was stalking me, but instead of blatantly following me he must have just studied my patterns and then shown up at the places I frequented on a pretty regular basis. But since he got there first on almost all occasions, if anything it could have been interpreted that I was the one following him. Pretty clever on his part if there was ever a point in time where something really, really escalated and surveillance footage from around campus or the surrounding areas needed to be pulled as evidence. After the acid incident when I forced myself to quit giving people the benefit of the doubt and really examine this guy, to really focus on the totality of his behavior over the last two years, that was the point where I was like, okay, I see where this is going. If I come back for junior year then I’m truly too stupid to live. I got a certified copy of my transcripts from the registrar’s office and left campus early. No more.”
“And there won’t be anymore once I pay him a visit. I’m not letting him get away with this and I’m not letting him try this with anyone else.”
“Speaking of getting away our food is getting cold. Let’s just enjoy it for a bit.”
“You’re right.” But as much as I enjoy her company in no way can I be at peace knowing this prick is out there and he hurt my woman.
Did I learn my “mistake” from what happened with that first incident when I beat that arsonist that killed our fire captain?
Not in the way society thinks, but the whole town learned something about me.
I’m a man of honor, whether mine or my own, and I’ll fight to the bone to protect it.
And Geoff is going to learn exactly what that means sooner than he thinks.
CHAPTER 14
Daphne
Dinner goes surprisingly smooth after, and the conversation is light and fun with a lot of banter thrown in. Somehow I still feel like my reveal of my time at my prior college has Jonah already plotting a way to wreak havoc on Geoff’s life.
After dinner we kind of sit around and wait before the offer for dessert comes. It’s then I decide to focus the attention back on Jonah, the unanswered question still lingering in my mind.
“I hate to pry, but can we touch on why you got into firefighting again?”
“You’re not prying. It was my mother.”
My face goes still as does the rest of my body.
“I was at school. She did it during the day, not that did it is the right word, although that’s what those greedy bastards at the insurance company surmised. The thing is my mom wasn’t perfect. She loved to sit in her chair and smoke ciggys and drink booze straight from the bottle while she watched games shows all damn day. She’d sit right by the window, curtains drawn except in-between shows when she’d peek outside and see how the rest of the world lived…for a few seconds. So she’s watching something on TV and apparently the booze kicks in and she passes out. She was up late the night before. I remember because I woke up in the middle of the night to find her…watching TV. So she passes out that next afternoon with a cigarette in her hand in a chair, which was upholstered in polyester, right next to big, thick curtains…made out of polyester. Once they caught she didn’t stand much of a chance. She was so out of it that…”
I bring my napkin up to my eye and dab it knowing that’s not going to be enough.
“So I get interviewed by the cops and the insurance company and basically they’re in it together, trying to get me to say bad things about my mom so I don’t get the insurance money. They wanted it to look negligent to the point of non-insurable. One cop, not realizing that just because I was five it didn’t mean I didn’t understand what was going on around me, was asking questions that were so leading in the direction he wanted to push the narrative and I wanted to push him straight on his ass when he bent over to talk to me like I was some sort of idiot.”
He takes a drink.
“The thing was I didn’t even care about the insurance money. All I cared about was my mom’s reputation and there was no way in hell I was going to say bad things about her. See, the thing is she didn’t just watch game shows. She watched Falcon’s Crest, bought high society magazines with what little money she had left over after feeding me and paying for my books…basically she just loved gossip mags and celebrities and high society and wanted more than anything to feel important and glamorous just once in her life. Her death ended any chance of that and I wasn’t about to put a stamp on it and let her final memory be what happened. She raised me after my dad walked out on us, and there was no way I was ever going to turn my back on her like he did. What she did was hard. She did everything I could have asked, but I just wish she wouldn’t have coped with the situation the way she did. She just loved my dad so much that it really broke her heart when he said he was going out for a pack of smokes and never came back. Yeah, I know…it’s practically a punch line from the old days but like most jokes it’s grounded in some truth…a very real truth for me. So in exchange for not pushing the insurance case the local authorities printed just a simple cause of death as a home fire. Could have been a faulty plug, could have been anything. But the one thing it couldn’t be was…the truth.”
“How did you know that’s what happened?”
“She did that every day. She'd passed out before and I'd take the cigarette from her hand and try to say something to her about it. The forensic scientist confirmed it, but he was a really nice guy…pretty much the only one of the authorities that I trusted and treated me like I deserved to be treated in that instance.”
“So here I am growing up with respect and admiration for authorities, to a fault in some ways, and you’re on the opposite end of the spectrum?”
&n
bsp; “Yeah. I was angry. I lashed out a lot of course. Nobody wants to grow up in a foster home, especially a young boy with too much energy and aggression, but eventually I learned to separate the wheat from the chaff. Can’t throw out the whole bunch of apples just because one’s spoiled. Wow, I’m really stacking the analogies here.”
He breaks the tension with a smile and small laugh.
“So where does that leave you now? I mean that happened in another city and now you live here where there was another incident that went down. Do you feel like this is home now? Do you feel settled and at ease with life?”
“I have a house here, not a home. When I saw you for the first time that idea clicked in my mind…for the first time. A home isn’t where you sleep at night and where you have your meals. A home is who’s in that bed next to you, the children in their beds in the surrounding rooms as you keep them close so you can always watch over them, protect them, and read them bedtime stories and sneak out of their rooms and into yours without waking them because you want nothing more than to not interrupt that perfect sight of a child completely at rest. You can eat a delicious burger at a restaurant, but it will never be as good as a burnt or undercooked, less than optimal beef patty if you’re surrounded by the ones you love.”
The tears from before have changed from sadness to the appreciation of just how much value this man places on the right things in life. And just when I think he’s absolutely nailed it, he goes for the absolute tear-jerker of all time.
“And all of that starts with the right woman. You.”
CHAPTER 15
Jonah
Two weeks later
The next couple of weeks fly by in the blink of an eye.
I told Daphne two weeks ago that she didn’t have to work. I would support her immediately and indefinitely, and she could get back to focusing on her education.
She refused.
It’s just one of the things I admire about her although I’m a bit perturbed she didn’t take me up on my offer.
Everything about us I’m doing for the long haul, and her getting her degree sooner rather than later is the best move. I want her to be happy and I know that’s what she wants. I haven’t pushed too hard yet though, because it is summer and she can still enroll somewhere else by fall and she’s way too independent for me to think I could push her down a path, not that I’d even want to.
Speaking of paths, both of ours have been troubled. In a weird way those experiences are one of the ways that there’s chemistry between us. We know what it’s like to not have had smooth sailing before and we appreciate and hold on to the time we have now and want to make sure the future doesn’t resemble the tough times…especially considering how much I want to have a family with her.
And I will.
The chemistry only deepens between us with our love of battling fires and I’m able to give her an education she wouldn’t receive in a forensic science classroom. Sure there are things they know that I don’t, but it’s also true the other way around.
And of course there’s the physical chemistry between us despite the glaring fact that I’ve even yet to kiss the woman of my dreams.
She’s worked every day the last two weeks, fourteen in a row, and I’ve worked a solid ten twenty-four hour shifts.
We try and squeeze in time, but there literally is none, which has led to this moment.
Between me battling a sharp increase in fires and her focused on socking away tips like there’s no spare time between us.
And it’s both time for us to mentally and physically unwind, although booking a weekend getaway is going to be very stimulating for both our minds and our bodies…just in a different way.
My head is spinning as I try and figure out why all these blazes have suddenly started happening. Sure it’s summer and people doing their holiday barbecuing, shooting fireworks, and things of that nature, but some of these look like arson. Thank god there have been no casualties yet.
I’m working with the police to quietly profile who we think this guy might be, and yes, they are almost always guys.
Whoever he is, he’s good. He’s leaving no trails, no evidence, and it would technically be hard to prove one hundred percent that these are arson.
He varies his patterns, which makes it more difficult for us to catch him and get him to court.
But I know he’s out there and he’s gonna slip up. It might be on his own and it might be a trap I set, but before I come up with any ideas I need to focus my mind on what matters more than anything in the world.
Her.
I pull up to her Airbnb and she’s already out on the curb ready for me. I’m excited that she’s able to trust, allowing me to drive and take control of all of the planning and even the location, which I haven’t revealed to her yet.
The best part is we’ll be far away from her brother, which means we won’t have to look over our shoulders or worry about someone seeing us and relaying the information.
I already offered to tell him there was something between us, but she asked me to wait so I respect that.
It’s not that she’s not sure, it’s just that she knows him very well, as do I, and this is going to require a sensitive approach, which is kind of funny considering how big of a man he is.
We both value our relationship with him and neither of us wants to jeopardize that.
I take her bag and help her into the Jeep, heading straight to the airport.
She’s temporarily nervous about not having a passport, but I reassure her she won’t need one.
And when she sees we’re headed to Puerto Rico, a legal territory of the U.S., she wraps her arms around me.
A few minutes later we’re boarding the plane to finally get some time together, and away from everything that we need to escape for awhile.
CHAPTER 16
Daphne
“I needed to be somewhere surrounded by water, the opposite of fire,” Jonah says as the waiter brings our drinks right up to the swimming pool, sitting them on the edge in front of us.
“This is too perfect!”
“A toast.”
“To?”
He pauses, staring deep into my eyes before taking the drink from my hand and setting it back on the ledge, as he does the same with his own.
He pulls me in closer and I feel his cock pressing against me as there is absolutely no space between our bodies.
My nipples harden, poking through my swimsuit top and into his skin causing his dick to jerk.
“I’ve been waiting over two week for this and it’s been the longest two weeks of my life. But two weeks is a lie. I’ve been waiting my entire lifetime…for you.”
My breath catches as his eyes move from mine to my lips and back.
“If you have any doubts about me, about my past, about our future together this is your last chance to step off the train, because I’m pulling out of the station fast, gaining speed, and once this goes further there’s no turning back. We’re on a one-track trip straight towards a family.”
I nod. “I want that. I want it with you.”
“Good, because there was no way I was going to turn back. Not now. Not ever.”
His hands rise up, taking my face in his grasp as he looks so deep into my eyes I swear he can see my soul and I can see his.
My body is shaking, shivering, and it’s hot as hell outside both in terms of the air and water, and my skin. I’m burning with desire, wanting him like he’s an addiction. My addiction that I’ll never quit.
“The way you look at me is…” I don’t even have the words to finish.
“Dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“Because you can see, without a shadow of a doubt, that I want to take this slow, cherish this, make it last all weekend before I finally claim you as mine…but that’s not possible.”
I nod.
“You deserve the world and I’m going to give it to you, but right now all I can think about is taking you, and it’s not slow and
sweet. It’s fast and hard because I’m teetering on the edge and I’m damn close to losing control, falling into the abyss with you into a life that becomes so unbelievable they’ll be writing about it years later.”
“I want that. I want everything.”
“Be careful what you wish for.”
“Why?”
Brother's Fireman Friend (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 106) Page 8
