Red Hot

by Cat Johnson

I didn’t dare have a third beer. I was clumsy on a good day stone cold sober. Another one and I might end up spilling the coffee in Cash’s lap.

  Although then he’d have to take his pants off . . .

  Jeez. I was a lunatic around this man.

  It was like I forgot how to flirt. But maybe I never did know how to act like a real woman around Cash.

  With him I was more a school chum. Like one of the guys. The girl he’d picked for his team in dodge ball because he knew I could both throw and catch.

  I was most definitely in the friend zone.

  That had been fine in grade school. It had stopped being fine in fifth grade when I fully realized my schoolgirl crush on him. It was definitely not okay now that I was an adult woman.

  I had adult feelings. I also had adult needs. Needs I’d love Cash to take care of.

  But then what? Was one incredible night with him worth the lifetime of awkwardness that would follow?

  How did people do it? Have a casual hook up in a town the size of Mudville where you were pretty much guaranteed to see the other person daily until one of you died?

  It was quite the conundrum.

  Conundrum.

  That was the word-of-the-day last week in the calendar Bethany had given me for Christmas as a joke gift, but not really a joke, because Harper was always using words that Bethany and I had to look up.

  My mind was spinning. I could blame Cash for that. He was very distracting in his tight long-sleeved T-shirt. The way it outlined his upper body and all those hard-earned muscles.

  Throwing bales of hay and splitting cords of firewood sure did nice things for a man’s body.

  I forced my gaze back to his face and found his focus on me. One brow was cocked high as an amused smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.

  It spread into a full out grin and I felt my face grow hot as blood flooded my cheeks.

  Yeah, that wasn’t too embarrassing! Getting caught staring at his pecs.

  Needing an escape, I stood.

  “Done?” I grabbed my empty dessert plate and then his, thinking the diversion of carrying them both to the sink was exactly what I needed.

  There at least I could hide my red face for a moment.

  Cash came up behind me as I stood facing the sink. He slid a plate next to me on the counter and said, “I believe this cookie is yours.”

  I hadn’t counted on Cash getting up and carrying over the serving plate that contained the one remaining uneaten cookie. I swallowed hard and glanced down at the heart-shaped cookie that had RED HOT printed on it in big bold letters.

  Thanks, Bethany, for that choice of sugary sayings.

  What did this mean? Was Cash saying he thought I was hot? Me? Freckles and all?

  He was standing so closely behind me that the scent of the fabric softener in his clothes reached my nose. Fabric softener had never smelled so sexy.

  “Mine?” I asked, since my brain wasn’t working right now as my heart pounded.

  “Yeah. I had two cookies and you only ate one. So, this one is yours,” he explained, deflating my balloon of hope with one sharp stab of reality.

  “Oh. You can have it. I certainly don’t need to eat any more sweets.”

  It was ridiculous, me facing the sink when I wasn’t even washing the dishes. They were going to go in the dishwasher anyway. Time to turn around and face him.

  I turned and saw the crooked smile that made me want to nibble on his lips.

  “No,” he said. “That cookie says Red Hot, so that one definitely belongs to you.”

  Maybe he was calling me hot after all.

  But no. My name was Red. That had to be why.

  Chastising myself for being silly once again, I forced out a short laugh. “Because of my name.”

  “Well yeah,” he nodded. “But also, because you’re hot.”

  I felt my eyes widen at his comment. I probably looked like a cartoon character with my eyes bulging out, which was the opposite of hot.

  But holy moley, he’d said I was hot.

  He had, hadn’t he?

  I felt for a second like I might have imagined the whole thing. As if I’d fantasized about this man and this moment so often, I couldn’t tell reality from delusion anymore.

  But then he leaned lower and I could see the tiny scar on his upper lip where he’d gotten cut during a particularly vicious snowball fight during recess in seventh grade.

  And I could smell the coffee on his breath as his lips parted and he leaned closer, exhaling as his hazel eyes focused on me.

  It felt like he was thinking about kissing me. Then he leaned in closer.

  Holy crap. He was going to kiss me.

  Cashel Morgan was leaning in for a kiss. Our first kiss. The kiss I’d wanted since I was a pre-teen. Only now, unlike then, a kiss would open up a whole world of possibilities between us.

  I was an adult. He was an adult. I lived alone in an apartment with a nice private bedroom outfitted with a beautiful antique iron bed with an almost brand-new ergonomic mattress.

  Just thinking about where this kiss could lead had me parting my lips as he reached out and wrapped his big strong hands around my upper arms.

  My eyes drifted closed as I anticipated the first touch of his lips to mine . . . and then he cussed and dropped his hands from me.

  My lids flew open just as he leaned away, then took a step back.

  “I have to go.”

  “What? Why?” I squeaked.

  What the heck? What had just happened here?

  Flustered. Confused. I ran after him, baffled and, truth be told, kind of insulted as he strode for the door.

  He was not just leaving, but leaving at a near sprint.

  Having to grab his jacket from the hook next to the door slowed his exit enough I could catch up.

  He glanced at me as he pulled his jacket on over his broad shoulders and thick arms and said one word. “Fire.”

  Fire?

  Then I heard it and realized I’d been so engulfed in my fantasies about kissing Cashel I hadn’t even heard the fire whistle.

  The firehouse was on the other side of town so in my defense I wasn’t that oblivious. The sound was muted by distance and the massive amounts of insulation I’d installed when I’d renovated the top floor of the carriage house to be my home.

  But Cash had heard it. As a volunteer, it was probably wired into him to be on alert.

  Darn. Could I have worse luck or worse timing?

  I could swear I saw regret coupled with longing in his gaze as he reached for the doorknob. “Thanks for dinner.”

  “Sure. You’re welcome.”

  He took one step forward than glanced back. “See you later?”

  Was that a question mark I heard at the end of that sentence? And did that mean that I would indeed see him later if I said yes?

  “Yeah.” I managed a breathy answer as Cash nodded, and then he was gone. But the schoolgirl who still lived inside me and the adult both looked forward to seeing him again. Very soon.

  Two hours later there was a knock on my door.

  I’d cleaned up everything from dinner and had just put on my pajamas to settle in for a night in front of the television when the sound startled me.

  I rarely got anyone knocking on my door and never this late at night.

  “Red, you up?” Cash’s voice settled my nerves as I’d been deciding if I should grab the cast iron frying pan in self-defense.

  Cash was back.

  When I made that wish—that I’d see Cash soon and we’d pick up where we left off—I had no idea it would be now.

  My pulse raced as I struggled to extricate myself from the winter cocoon I was ensconced in on the sofa. My fleece pajama bottoms and the thick fur-lined throw acted like Velcro, trapping me in a tangled mess.

  “Coming!” I called as I nearly fell on my face trying to stand while still a prisoner of my winter comfort.

  Finally, I managed to stumble to the door while leaving the throw
on the floor behind me.

  Before I reached for the lock I hiked up the elastic band of my bottoms that had gotten tugged down to my hips from the struggle. It was about then that I realized exactly what I was wearing.

  The last thing I wanted was for Cash to see me in my smiley face pajama bottoms.

  Scratch that. The dead last thing I wanted was for Cash to leave before I got the door open because I’d taken so long. There was no way I was taking the time to change now.

  I flipped the deadbolt and then the lock on the knob, finally yanking the door open with both hands.

  His smile was as captivating as it was cocky as he took me in from the toes of my Grinch green socks, to the aforementioned yellow smiley face bottoms, to my old Mudville 4-H T-shirt.

  “Nice outfit,” he said.

  “Yeah, thanks,” I said, with as much sarcasm as I could muster.

  My heart was vibrating my body, it was pounding so hard.

  It didn’t help that Cash began to look a bit unsure of himself as we both stood there in the doorway, barely a foot apart but with me on the inside and him on the outside.

  The silence was deafening. It didn’t help either of us, I was sure, so I decided to break it.

  “How was the fire?” I asked. A ridiculous question, I knew, but I couldn’t come up with any other topic at the moment.

  He’d left his fire fighter overalls on and they were hella distracting.

  Holy cow, did he look hot in his uniform. If Harper knew what she was doing she’d be writing fire fighter heroes for her romance books because damn, he looked good.

  “Ended up not being a fire. Just a tree shooting sparks where it fell on a power line.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s good though. I mean not good it was on the power line, but good it wasn’t a fire or anything worse.”

  He nodded, his hands braced on the doorframe as he hovered halfway between being inside and outside.

  Finally, he said, “I forgot something when I was here before.”

  “You did? What?” I asked, wondering if his cell phone had been in between my sofa cushions all this time and I could have been snooping in it.

  I had no doubt his passcode would be something simple, like his birthdate, and I’d known that since kindergarten when his mom brought in cupcakes.

  “This,” Cash said as he stepped forward and pulled me into his arms.

  This time he didn’t hesitate. Didn’t hover. His warm lips covered mine in a hot kiss that knocked me off balance and back a step.

  I grabbed on to his jacket with both fists to make sure I didn’t get any farther away if his kiss threw me further off balance.

  He tipped his head, taking the kiss deeper as his tongue parted my lips. I happily allowed him access.

  This kiss was everything. Everything I’d imagined. Everything I’d hoped for. Everything I’d been living without until now.

  The one thing I knew for certain was that I didn’t want to live without it again. Didn’t want another moment that his lips weren’t on mine.

  Cash groaned. The sound cut through me, straight down to long neglected parts.

  But then he pulled back from the kiss. He watched me through narrowed eyes as he drew in and blew out a big breath.

  It was like the oxygen brought him back to his senses. He dropped his hold on me and took a step back, just when I wanted him to stay right where he was.

  “All right.” He nodded. “Good night.”

  What? He was leaving?

  I took a step forward, so many things on the tip of my tongue. When would I see him again? And where did this leave us? Were we friends who kissed occasionally, such as when it was late at night and we’d had too many heart cookies? Or was this more?

  As it ended up, I didn’t say anything besides, “Okay. Good night.”

  He smiled as his gaze lingered on me for longer than necessary before he turned and left, leaving me confused.

  There was one possible explanation for Cash’s odd behavior tonight, but I was having trouble wrapping my head around it.

  Was Cashel Morgan a gentleman?

  That might be the biggest surprise of all. And the most irresistible.

  ELEVEN

  Cash

  “So, Cash, you got home late last night.” Stone’s comment dripped with suggestion.

  It wasn’t a shock to me he was acting like a smart ass.

  What was a shock was that Stone was actually at the farm at the right time to help unload the feed.

  Stone being home was a rarity nowadays since he spent so much of his time with Harper at Agnes’s place. I should be happy he was around to help with the chores. I was not happy he was around to pry into my business.

  “Yup.” I cocked a brow and shot him a sideways glance, answering the question he hadn’t actually asked with one word, which was all he deserved.

  “Hot night, I guess. Huh?” Stone continued.

  “Yup.” I smiled and decided to play with him a bit. “Downright explosive.”

  I shot Boone a glance. My little brother chuckled, quick to pick up on what I was up to. Boone could be dense sometimes, but when it came to sibling sparring, he was always right on the ball.

  Taunting Stone was one of my favorite things to do.

  It was especially fun today because he had already convinced himself that I strolled in late last night because I’d been getting busy with Red, when in fact, the lateness of the hour had nothing to do with my dinner and everything to do with the damn tree that had fallen on the power lines.

  I was confident in this plan to lead Stone into a false sense of superiority and then knock him down because Boone had been at the call with me.

  Of course, I’d gotten the expected inquisition from Boone last night, but since it had been early, he believed me when I’d told him I’d just barely finished eating when the whistle blew.

  Since Boone and I were the two who routinely got yanked out of our warm beds, and away from our hot dates, because of our service to the community, and Stone for reasons of his own that I couldn’t comprehend did not volunteer, I figured he was fair game for taunting.

  Of course, I had made that one very short but oh so eventful detour to Red’s place on the way home from the fire call, but Boone didn’t know about that so it didn’t count.

  I’d told him I was stopping to gas up the truck and I’d see him at home. And I had filled up the truck—earlier that day—but the stop at Red’s took about the same amount of time, so I figured I was in the clear.

  Meanwhile, Stone was still looking cocky. Like he had something on me. Which he most certainly did not.

  “So, is there going to be a repeat?” Stone asked, as I wondered when he’d become such an old wash woman.

  “I hope not,” Boone said. “I’m not sure that tree can take a repeat of last night.”

  I burst out in a laugh. “True that.”

  Stone frowned. “What are you talking about? What tree?”

  I waited to allow Boone to explain, figuring the story would hold more credibility if it came from him.

  “We got called to a fire last night. Tree leaning on the power lines shooting sparks everywhere. Lucky it didn’t blow the transformer. But that’s where we were from just before eight until about ten last night. Cash was with me and the fire crew. Not with Red.”

  Stone glared at me. “Why didn’t you just say that?”

  “What fun would that be?” I grinned. “Besides, if you did your civic duty like the two of us and joined the fire department you would have known where I was and what I was doing.”

  He scowled, but at least it shut him up for the time being.

  After a smile at Boone I went back to doing what I’d come to the barn to do, unload and stack the bags of feed in the back of Boone’s truck.

  The truth was, hell yes, I would like a repeat of that kiss last night with Red, but there was no way I would tell either of my brothers that or the details of my dinner with her—intimate or oth
er.

  However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t pry into their private lives.

  I knew Boone had been in the middle of a heated game of pool at the bar when the call had come in. He’d had to forfeit and that had caused him to go on a nice long rant while we diverted traffic and waited for the power company to come.

  But Stone was still ripe to be plucked.

  “So, what were you so busy doing last night when the whistle blew that you didn’t even hear it, big brother?” I asked him.

  I hadn’t noticed his truck parked at Agnes’s when I’d driven by. Which was odd.

  He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t hear it because I was in Vestal.”

  “Vestal? Why?” I frowned.

  “Harper misses real shopping at real stores, as she put it. Apparently, she’ll buy everything, including chicken feed, online but when it comes to certain things, she wants to go to a store to get it. And the nearest store she wanted to go to happens to be in Vestal.”

  Boone laughed. “Sorry, bro. But if you wanna play, you gotta pay.”

  I had to agree with Boone. Stone got a lot of perks from Harper for a pretty small price, in my opinion.

  An occasional trip to Vestal in exchange for all the times he rolled in after midnight after being with her—yeah, he was getting away cheap as far as I could see.

  “What did she buy?” Boone asked.

  The kid was freakily into minute details. Even if I had been mildly curious about what purchase had inspired Harper to drag Stone to Vestal, I hadn’t bothered asking about it.

  “Pajama bottoms.” Stone scowled.

  Bursting out with a laugh, I had to admit I was suitably amused that Stone had driven almost an hour each way for pajama bottoms, until the memory of Red looking adorable in her smiley face bottoms drained all the blood away from my brain.

  “Were they nice ones?” Boone asked, which only had Stone scowling deeper and me laughing harder.

  What made the moment even more precious was when Harper, the pajama queen herself, walked in. Or actually, ran in and skidded to a stop.

  Stone may bitch a bit, but one look at his girl’s distraught face had him dropping the bag of feed back into the truck bed, jumping down to the ground and striding to her. “What’s wrong?”