Blaze (The Firefighters of Darling Bay Book 1)

by Rachael Herron

  “Maybe,” she said. “But I’ve seen more than I would have liked to have seen. My first acupuncture job was in an alcoholic rehab center.”

  “Okay.” He paused. “Maybe you’ve seen a little bit, then. What’s with the saint, then?”

  She said, sounding a bit abashed, “She kind of looks like me. A little bit, I mean. Around the nose, maybe.”

  Heck, she was right. Now that she said it, he could see it. It was as if they’d modeled the whole image on her. The same long toffee-colored hair that curled at the ends—always looking like it had just been caught in a windstorm. And the same big, brown eyes, as light as her hair. Almost clear, really. As expressive as the sun setting at twilight.

  “My sister actually pointed it out to me in the magazine. I thought she was full of it, but I was…I was in a low place, then. Relationship-wise. Later, I dug the magazine out of the recycling and cut it out. Look, even the same dimple.”

  Tox longed to touch that dimple with the very tip of his finger. Instead, he shoved his hand in his pocket and forced himself to listen.

  “I used glitter glue on her dress, or robe, whatever it is. The thimble was my mother’s, and it reminds me that needles have always been important in our family. After my father died, before she got sick, she took care of both me and my sister as a single mother on just the income she made as a seamstress.”

  There was pride in her voice, a stubbornness that drew him to her. He liked it. And recognized it. “What’s the matchbook for?”

  She made a murmuring sound in the back of her throat, as if she was trying to decide what, or how much, to tell him. “It’s…to remind me of something.”

  “And is that…”

  “A piece of chain-link fence? Yeah.” Grace straightened her back. “It is.”

  Tox hated it when anyone pushed him, so he wouldn’t do it to her. “I get it.” He accepted the mug of tea from her. “Thank you for this.”

  They sat on the red loveseat. She was so dang close that if he moved an inch their legs would tangle. Just one inch, and they’d be touching. He wanted that so much. But she was like a kid who had called 911 after learning about it in school—all jumpy, jangled nerves. If he moved too fast, he thought she might scream, and that would seriously kill his chances of scoring another kiss from that luscious mouth.

  Did she really not know how she was affecting him?

  Grace drew her legs up and rested the mug on her knee. She sighed and faced forward.

  Her body language read as defensive. “Hey, Grace.”

  She started. “Yeah?”

  “We don’t have to do anything else.”

  “What?”

  He knew she was only pretending confusion. “I mean it. Yeah, I freakin’ loved making out with you at the beach. You’re so hot I can barely look at you sometimes. You do something to me. And I like it. A whole lot.”

  “Oh.” Her voice, again, was small, but that little smile stayed on her face.

  “But you’re spooked. And I hope to all heck it’s not me doing that, but if it is, I want to make it clear that all I want from you at this exact moment is this here cup of tea.”

  She stared at the wall behind his head, where the nicho hung. She bit her lower lip again. It wasn’t that she was shy—Tox would never have called her that. She was scared of something.

  That was fine. As long as it wasn’t him.

  “There was this guy.” Grace said. “That’s the matchbook.”

  “He was an arsonist?”

  “He burned me. The matchbook is to remind me not to let it happen again.”

  Tox held out his hands and looked at them. “Sugar, we might have a problem. Because it’s hard for me not to light a match when it’s in my fingers.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Grace made a noise that was between a choke and a cough.

  Tox was worried immediately. “How’s your breathing?”

  “Fine. I’m fine. It’s just that sometimes you…”

  “What?”

  “You make me so nervous.” Grace closed her eyes, and Tox stared at the way her long lashes played against her cheeks. “I’ve screwed up so many times before. It’s embarrassing. I’m supposed to be the healthy one, and…”

  “Tell me about him. Matchbook guy.” He wanted to hear her secrets, all of them. At the same time, he wanted to keep his. No way would he tell her about his worries that his neck was going to put him out on medical. That he’d lose the job that meant everything to him if he didn’t somehow fix it. That without the job, he was nothing. A nobody. A failure.

  Yeah, Tox shouldn’t push her. It wasn’t fair. “I mean, you don’t have to.”

  “It’s fine. It’s just that I was with him a long time. Four years. It was my longest relationship.”

  “I’ve never made it past two.”

  “I hadn’t either, until him. I thought he was the one.”

  “Your first real love?”

  She shook her head, her hair skimming one eye. It was almost amber in the light of the orange lamp, and for a second Tox imagined sweeping it back over her shoulder. He clenched the mug tighter.

  “No. I’d been in love before. I have no problem falling in love.” Grace smiled again, a real one. A wide smile, and she directed it right at him. Tox felt something in his chest tighten.

  She went on, “I love falling in love. I’m good at it. The problem was, I’ve never been good at picking the guys. One was an alcoholic, and I didn’t know until he didn’t call me for three weeks because he was in freaking rehab.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “I’m clueless. That’s the whole problem.” She sighed and took a sip of her tea. “Another had a gambling problem. He stole the little bit of jewelry my mother left me and sold it to bet on his ponies. I almost killed him for that. And again, I didn’t see it coming.”

  Tox’s fist curled into a ball. He’d like to get his hands on that guy. “That must have hurt.”

  “Nothing like the four-year guy, though. I thought I’d finally done it right. Picked a guy who was healthy. Strong. He was a yoga teacher, for Pete’s sake. We met when he came in for a tune-up. Nothing wrong with his body, he just wanted to make sure he was in alignment.” Grace’s eyes were far away. “He swept me off my feet. Told me I was beautiful.”

  “You are.” He couldn’t help it.

  “Oh!” Grace looked startled. And pink, so prettily flushed. Tox had never wanted to kiss anyone so much in his whole life.

  Then she went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “He told me that I was everything he was looking for. He’d been with a bunch of screwed-up people, too. He’d gotten taken in by a woman who’d turned out to be a coke-head, and he hadn’t even noticed her using. We congratulated ourselves on finding someone healthy. Someone not crazy or screwed up or mean. Every year on our anniversary, we’d toast each other for not being insane.”

  “So what did he end up being? A sex-addict?”

  Her mouth dropped open and she turned to face him, crossing one ankle under her knee. “Do you know him? Tim Smith? Oh, please tell me you don’t know him.”

  “It was the only thing on your list of losers you hadn’t mentioned.”

  “Sex addict.” Grace almost spat the words. “I can handle that people have problems with alcohol and drugs. I believe those are diseases, and that it’s hereditary. But he tried to tell me that sex addiction ran in his family.”

  “What he meant was that he saw his father cheating on his mother his whole life and had learned it was the only thing to do.”

  “Holy cow,” she said. “Yep. That’s it exactly.”

  Tox felt as if he’d gotten an A on a really important test.

  “And the worst part was that I’d missed it entirely. Again. It was like my eyes were so open, and I was so happy that I was in something healthy that I completely didn’t believe any of the warning signs. He would come home late and say that he was working.”

  “As a yoga instructor.
”

  “Yeah.” She laughed humorlessly. “I knew his studio closed at nine, and I believed him when he said he was doing paperwork. Paperwork! Until one in the morning. He was helping someone with her poses all those nights, and I found out later it was always a different someone. So I guess he was working, all right.”

  “How did you find out?”

  Grace set the mug on the low yellow coffee table in front of them and covered her face with her hands. “That was the worst part.” She peeked at him through her fingers. “He told me.”

  “He told you?”

  “He said he had to come clean before he asked me to marry him. He wanted it to be perfect between us, and nothing would do but total honesty. And the funny thing was, he thought I would be proud of him.”

  “He sounds like a dog.”

  Grace sat bolt upright and stared at him. “Methyl. You have to go home.”

  Tox held out his phone. “Sims sent a message. He’s sleeping on the couch with her tonight. Look at this.”

  The picture was darling, a tuckered-out yellow puppy curled into a ball on a blue pillow. Grace held out a finger as if she could touch the dog from her seat. “Okay, good.”

  “So yoga-dude.”

  “Was awful. It was all terrible. And the worst part was that even as I prided myself for being strong and healthy, and helping other people recover, I couldn’t seem to do it.”

  “You were in love with him.” Tox wasn’t that fond of what he felt inside when he said it.

  “That’s the weirdest part,” said Grace. “I was. But I realized the person I loved had never existed, and it was more like mourning a death, in a way. I’d been with him for four years, and I’d never had the foggiest idea who he was.”

  “That sucks.”

  “It did.”

  He wondered if they’d had good sex. Or was it great?

  He stood, setting his mug next to hers, needing to move around, distribute some of the tension that ached in his bones.

  Grace pulled up her knees again. “What about you, though? Long history of girls chasing you around the fire station?”

  “Nah. I tend to meet the ones who spiral out of control after the first date. Because of that, I don’t really do relationships. You know.” He touched the nicho and turned.

  “I do.” Grace looked at him, and their gazes tangled for one long moment.

  Tox felt something build inside him. A determination of sorts. But it was blended with heated excitement, a fine tremor that made his hands feel jittery. “I should go.”

  She stood, too.

  “Thanks for the tea.” Instead of moving away, though, he came forward the two steps it took to get close to her. Tox lifted a hand and carefully, slowly, so as not to spook her, touched the strand of hair that kept falling over her eye. “Would hanging out with you make me healthier?”

  “Probably.” She tilted her head to the side and rubbed her cheek against his hand. “You should probably leave. You’re bad for me.”

  He could be so much worse for her, she had no idea. The guys called him the Angel of Death for a reason. Wherever he was, chaos came roaring in right behind. He ran the back of his fingers down the slope of her jaw, and let his thumb rest where it had wanted to all night, right on the plumpest part of her lower lip, exactly where he wanted to taste it again. “You’re probably right.”

  “Obviously. Your nickname is Toxic.”

  “I helped save your sister. Doesn’t that make me good for something?”

  Oh, shoot. Wrong words, wrong phrase. Her eyes widened, and he saw the incident flash in front of her again.

  “Samantha…How could I forget? Even for a minute?”

  “What, that she’s okay?” Tox trailed his finger down, over her chin, down her neck. Slowly. “She’s fine.”

  “I could have lost her…I can’t—”

  “Shhh, sweetheart.” The endearment slipped out so easily. “She’s sleeping. We’re the only two people not sleeping in Darling Bay right now, I’d be willing to bet.”

  She lifted her chin so that his finger could find an even smoother trail down to the vee of her shirt. He paused at her neck, skimming it. A whisper of touch.

  Then, instead of kissing her mouth, he leaned down and kissed there, in that sweet, warm spot, just under her chin. A soft kiss. A reassuring kiss.

  But the noise she made in the back of her throat was anything but gentle. With a primal growl, she put her hands on both sides of his head, dragging his mouth up to hers. When they kissed, her tongue met his with a blaze that made him know he was lost.

  He wrapped his arms around her, sliding his hands down so that he could cup her deliciously soft derriere.

  He shouldn’t say it—he knew he shouldn’t—but he did. He spoke against her lips, never breaking the kiss. “I want to take you to bed.”

  She’d say no. She’d kick him out. That’s what she should do, after all.

  But instead, Grace said, “Behind you.”

  He tried valiantly to take his lips away. “Wha…”

  “Don’t stop,” she pleaded, her hands pulling his head back to hers. “The bedroom’s behind you. Go.”

  He went.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Grace woke in a happy tangle of legs and sunshine.

  It felt good.

  She straightened her legs, pushing them against the wall, pressing her toes onto the cool lemon-colored paint.

  It was the two extra-long legs that were wrapped with her own that she was thinking about. Heavy, muscular legs.

  Screwing her eyes shut tightly, she tried to block out the ray of sun that lit up not only her own face, but Tox’s. His chin was covered with what looked like a three-day beard growth. The hair on his bare chest ran downward, curving in at the sloping muscles of his stomach, headed under the sheet…

  No, she had to focus on herself. Take inventory of her mental and physical states, just as she’d trained herself to do. From bottom to top. Calmly.

  Her legs still felt a little weak. It was a good thing he’d carried her into her bedroom.

  The middle part of her body? Well, that had been a workout she hadn’t expected. She was glad she’d been doing crunches. At least her core was strong enough. She grinned to herself at the thought.

  Her heart? Oh, no, she couldn’t think about that right now. She knew intuitively that she wouldn’t be able to trust whatever she told herself. A guy like Tox? Last night had been… No one had ever touched her like he had. He’d made her feel like a kitten and a sex doll and best of all, like she was someone he could never get enough of. No matter what she’d done, he’d wanted more. And she’d felt the same way about him. She’d wanted him harder and deeper, and then again. She blushed as she remembered the third “again” she’d wanted. And gotten.

  And then, as dawn had broken as rosy as she’d known her cheeks must have been, he’d kissed her to sleep. Quite literally, she’d gone to sleep with his mouth on hers. Breathing each other in.

  She’d never known such tenderness.

  Yeah, so she just wouldn’t think about her heart. Whatever.

  Her head. That was the problem. Her brain. Tox wasn’t good for her. She knew that. In the logical area of her thoughts, she knew that he didn’t share her pursuit of health. He didn’t sleep. He ate fast food, fried food, and way too much sugar. He drank too much coffee. He didn’t take care of a simple injury, making it worse.

  And worse, he couldn’t cultivate relationships. Or, in his words, he didn’t really do them. That meant he broke women’s hearts. She wouldn’t be one of them. No way.

  Still, she felt her resolve slipping. Was it that he couldn’t cultivate relationships with women? Or was it that he wouldn’t? Was it something he could fix? With help, maybe?

  She regretted the thought as soon as it flitted through her mind. This. She flipped back the sheet only to realize that she, too, was naked as a jaybird. This was why she got into crappy relationships with men. Because she thought s
he could help fix them.

  No more. She’d promised herself that. But she let her eyes crawl over Tox’s sleeping body one more time, as she reached slowly for her robe hanging on the back of the bedroom door. Oh, his legs, so long under that sheet. His feet hung off the end of her bed. The perfect naked chest…Those amazing sea-green eyes.

  She gave a squeak as she realized his eyes were wide open, staring at her with amusement.

  “Good morning, gorgeous.” He pushed himself up on one elbow.

  “Your hair is crazy!” The words were out before she could stop them. “I mean…”

  He ran his fingers through his mop of hair slowly. “I do have mad scientist hair in the morning. What are you doing up?”

  “Coffee!” she exclaimed. “I like coffee.”

  As she ran out of the room, she could hear him laughing behind her.

  As the coffee brewed, she called her sister for an update.

  “I have to go do a couple of tests, but they say I’ll be ready to leave by this afternoon. Can you come get me then?”

  “You sure you don’t need me now?” No matter who was in her bed, she’d rush to the hospital if her sister wanted her.

  “No, I’ve been up a while, and I want one more nap if I can get it. I’ll call you later.”

  Grace thought that maybe by the time she got the coffee brewed and had poured them both cups he would have been dressed and ready to get on with his day. After all, she had to get to the clinic to post on the door that she would be closed early. She had to cancel afternoon appointments. Then she’d bring Samantha home and watch over her, fussing over how many blankets to pile on and making her take anti-inflammatories until she was strong enough to answer all the questions Grace had stored up for her.

  Yeah. Maybe when she brought Tox coffee, he’d be dressed. Ready to head out.

  No such luck. When Grace ventured back in the room that still smelled like warmth and sex—their sex—he was sitting up, leaning on her headboard as if he’d been born to do it, flipping through a Yoga Journal magazine.

  He held it up. “You know about this kundalini stuff?”