A Glimpse of Fire

by Debbi Rawlins

  The compassion in her eyes touched him, as misplaced as it was. He took another look at the guy, evidently homeless and drunk. “He needs a good meal instead of spending his money on booze.”

  “You don’t know his circumstances.” She pulled away. “He may have just lost his job or received some horrible news.”

  “You’re right.” He drew her back against him and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I shouldn’t have said that. But there were a lot of steel mills where I grew up. I saw what happened to men who lost their jobs.”

  Looking away, she murmured, “Yeah, I’ve seen it, too.”

  That surprised him. What did she understand about that world? About the blue-collar laborer who was so readily sacrificed to improve the bottom line of a corporation’s financial statement? He understood. Too well. His brothers were fools for languishing in the mills, and settling for the same scraps their father had.

  He caught a glimpse of Central Park a couple of blocks away, along with the lineup of carriages and horses with their colorful hats. “I have an idea. How about a carriage ride?”

  “Are you serious?” She laughed softly. “Only tourists do that.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we just eat in a touristy restaurant?”

  “Touché.”

  “Come on. Let’s pick out a horse.”

  She made a face. “We don’t have much time before it gets dark.”

  He smiled, his body thrumming with anticipation. “Sometimes interesting things happen in the dark.”

  5

  BY THE TIME THEY GOT TO THE fourth horse—wearing a straw hat with an orange band and large drooping yellow daisies—Dallas knew Penelope was the one for them. The chestnut-colored mare had sweet, soulful eyes and a soft neigh, and Dallas immediately bonded with her.

  She stroked her velvety head. “Penelope’s definitely the one.”

  “You’re sure now?”

  “Positive.” Glancing at Eric, she realized he was teasing her and she lightly punched him in the arm.

  “Okay.” He laughed. “Penelope it is.”

  He spoke to the driver a moment—an older man with drooping eyes and a face lined and brown as shoe leather—and then helped Dallas into the carriage. In seconds they were trotting into the park, the sound of Penelope’s clopping hooves on the asphalt stirring a wistfulness in Dallas.

  She sighed. “I haven’t ridden in ages. I used to ride every weekend when I was in high school.”

  “Where?”

  “At my grandparents’. They had a couple of Arabians and a palomino.”

  “Am I allowed to ask where?”

  She smiled. “In Connecticut.”

  He slid his arm around the back of the seat and she snuggled closer. “They have ranches in Connecticut?”

  “I didn’t say they owned a ranch.”

  “Just recreational stables.”

  “You ask too many questions.”

  “I believe that was a statement.”

  She just shook her head. He chuckled, and then they rode in silence for a while, enjoying the slight breeze produced by the movement of the carriage.

  Ironically, more and more questions about him paraded through her head. Based on what Tom had told her, she’d figured she knew exactly who Eric was. The Rolex around his wrist, the Gucci shoes, the designer clothes—all accessories of an image-conscious social climber—confirmed her belief.

  Eric was exactly the kind of man her parents wished she’d bring home. He was precisely the type she never would.

  But his comments about the steel mill usurped her logic. Made her wonder about his link to the other side of the coin. Not just because he had lived in an industrial city like Pittsburgh. A variety of jobs existed there just as in any other city. But there had been something personal in his voice, a tinge of bitterness that came from firsthand experience.

  “See? Playing tourist isn’t so bad, is it?” he whispered, his mouth so close to her ear that his warm breath sent a shiver down her spine.

  “I’ll admit this is nice.” She turned her head toward him, knowing exactly what would happen.

  His lips brushed hers lightly, a teasing swipe that left her wanting more. She angled toward him, resting her palm on his thigh. She heard his sharp intake of breath and realized just how high up she’d placed her hand. Resisting the urge to jerk back, she pressed her lips harder against his.

  He ran the tip of his tongue across the seam of her lips until she opened to him. She heard voices along the path, someone giggling, but she didn’t care. Her pulse raced with every swipe he took with his tongue, exploring the fleshy inside of her mouth, leisurely tracing her teeth.

  Heat spread through her chest and up her neck. And then the warmth flooded her belly, spiraled lower, until she had to squeeze her thighs together.

  Eric moved his hand to her waist, his fingers probing her bare skin where her shirt ended. She sucked in a breath as he explored her belly and then moved his hand higher so that he cupped the underside of her breast.

  The driver started to whistle an unfamiliar tune. He hadn’t turned around and seen them, she was relatively certain, but the reminder that they were out in public put a damper on her excitement.

  Eric obviously sensed her retreat and stilled his hand. He broke the kiss and pulled back to look at her. She couldn’t see his face very well. It seemed to have gotten dark so quickly.

  “Something wrong?” he asked, his fingers idly stroking her skin.

  “Other than the fact that we’re in the middle of Central Park acting like two hormonal teenagers, no.” She snarled. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “It’s too dusky. No one saw anything other than us kissing.”

  She shifted so that his hand fell away from her belly.

  “Tell you what, let’s use the blanket.” He reached behind him and brought out the small stadium-style blanket that had been left on the seat.

  “It’s too warm for a blanket.”

  “Exactly.” He shook it out. “So why else do you think the driver left it.”

  She laughed. “He did not.”

  “Ask him.”

  “Right.”

  He laid the blanket across their laps. “Trust me. We aren’t the first couple to neck in Central Park.”

  “I’ve always had a problem with the term ‘trust me.’”

  The carriage ran over a small bump and she fell against him.

  “Sorry, folks,” the driver muttered half over his shoulder without turning around.

  Eric slid both his arms around her and brought her back against his chest. “Isn’t that more comfortable?”

  “It would be if I could—” She gasped as his hands moved up to cup her breasts. She leaned her head back and he kissed the side of her neck.

  He inhaled deeply and whispered, “You smell good.” He kissed her neck again, trailing his tongue to the area just below her ear. “You taste good.”

  She turned her head so that their lips met and slipped a hand between his thighs. Something he clearly hadn’t expected. But wasted no time in using to his advantage.

  He shifted his hips, and her palm slid against his bulging fly. His hardness startled her. Excited her. Empowered her. She twisted toward him, deepening the kiss, letting him slide his hand underneath her shirt. He reached her bra and worked his fingers inside, gently stroking the sensitive flesh around her nipple.

  With her free hand she clutched the blanket to her chest. Not just for privacy but because he was making her crazy. What was she doing? She’d only met him last night. This wasn’t her style.

  She breathed in deeply. This was her fantasy, she reminded herself. She wasn’t hurting anyone. In fact, it had been a long time since she’d felt this good. Felt the uncontrollable burning in her belly. Felt like saying screw everything and dragging him down to the grass.

  He took her nipple between his fingers and she whimpered softly. He smothered the sound with his mouth, delving in deep with his tongue
until she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t feel anything but his heat searing her skin, the feverish desire in his touch.

  Like a sound echoing in a distant cave, she heard voices murmuring, laughing. Momentarily disoriented, she shifted, let her head fall back against his shoulder.

  Approaching them on the path was another couple, on foot, not so far away. Dallas moved away from him and tugged down her bra and shirt. The blanket still hid them from view, but the spell had been broken.

  Eric didn’t move. He continued to hold her, his warm breath dancing over the side of her neck and ear. Once the couple had passed, he whispered, “My apartment isn’t far from here.”

  She bit her lip. God, it was tempting. Incredibly tempting. She liked him. The chemistry was certainly there. This is what she wanted. So, what held her back?

  She did have to get up early tomorrow.

  What a load of crap. Her reluctance was about the whole fantasy thing. It would end. No more mystery woman. He’d find out she was an ordinary woman, working in construction, trying to pay off her student loan.

  The polished nails and perfect hair, the sensational tan, the nice clothes—none of it was really her. If he passed her on the street while she was working in her normal torn jeans or coveralls, her hair tied back in its usual messy ponytail, he wouldn’t give her a second look.

  But then again, he’d only find out if she told him.

  Which she’d probably blurt out once they’d made love. Except it would only be sex. Very different. So maybe…

  “Dallas?”

  Lost in thought, she jerked at the sound of his voice.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to push you. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not that. Really.”

  He kissed her briefly on the lips. “On Wednesday night one of my clients is having a reception. I’d like you to go with me.” He paused, watching her closely. “Unless you have to work Wednesday night.”

  She did everything in her power not to laugh. His fishing was so obvious. Fortunately the original model had recovered and was back to work. “I don’t work nights. Where’s the reception?”

  “At an art gallery on the Upper East Side. They’ll be serving champagne and hors d’oeuvres. We can go out to dinner afterward.” He kissed the side of her jaw. “Anywhere you want. Say you’ll come with me.”

  The carriage began to slow just as the driver said, “End of the line, folks. Hope you enjoyed the ride.” He slowly turned and grinned at them. “For thirty bucks, I’ll take you around again.”

  “No, thanks.” Dallas straightened and made sure she was put together before dropping the blanket. “I really do have to get up early tomorrow,” she said to Eric and started to climb down.

  “Wait. Let me go first.” He hopped down before she could protest and then grasped her around the waist and lowered her to the ground.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, stopping herself from informing him that she was perfectly capable of climbing down by herself. She wasn’t normally treated so chivalrously. In fact, she made it a point to be one of the guys. As it was, they needed little ammunition to harass her and the only other woman on the crew.

  Eric handed the driver a couple of bills. She resisted arguing over who should pay. They’d already gone that round in the restaurant.

  It didn’t matter that it was a Sunday night. Around Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth there were always people on the streets, mostly tourists, returning from Broadway or dinner or watching the street entertainers.

  Not far from the corner a magician transfixed his audience with disappearing balls and trinkets, earning him delighted gasps and fistfuls of change dropped into his proffered top hat.

  “I know a place that makes the best cappuccino.” Eric raised his hand to hail a cab.

  Dallas smiled. “I’ll have to pass.”

  “It’s only five minutes away.”

  “Sorry.”

  He muttered a mild curse. “I’ve screwed up.”

  “No, you haven’t,” she said, touching his hand. “Not at all.”

  He turned his hand over until their palms met and squeezed gently. “Am I going to see you again?”

  She nodded just as a cab pulled alongside the curb.

  “Will you go with me on Wednesday night?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t have your phone number.” He opened the cab door and stood aside for her.

  “I’ll call you.”

  “What if I can’t wait until Wednesday?”

  She smiled. “You can take this cab. There’s another one behind it.”

  One side of his mouth hiked up. “I don’t suppose you’d let me ride with you to your place.”

  “I don’t suppose I would.” She leaned toward him for a kiss. A brief, friendly good-night kiss.

  He wanted more and took it.

  He tugged her forward and she came up against him, her still-sensitive breasts pressed to his chest. He cupped her nape, and as she opened her mouth to his demanding kiss, he held her steady while he got his fill.

  The impatient cabbie muttered something about turning on the meter. The interruption saved her from ending up on the sidewalk in a boneless mess. She pulled away from Eric, her knees close to giving out, and crawled into the backseat, yanking the door closed behind her.

  On the other side of the closed window, Eric smiled and then mouthed Good night.

  The cab pulled away. She tried to wave. She didn’t have the strength.

  “YO, SHEA.” TONY ST. ANGELO called from hands cupped around his mouth. “You ready for lunch?”

  “Five more minutes,” Dallas hollered back and then used her sleeve to wipe the sweat off her brow.

  Today was way too hot to be working outdoors. But that was the breaks. Just part of the job. That’s why she got paid the big bucks.

  Right.

  She adjusted her sunglasses and then dug for her bottle of water without letting go of the heavy Stop sign she’d been holding most of the damn morning. She hated traffic duty. With a passion. Even shoveling rocks and brick from a razed building was preferable. But this was a punishment she often received. For no other reason than being a woman working in a man’s world.

  Tony was one of the good guys. One of the pathetically few who didn’t blame her for “taking a man’s job away from him.” He always waited to have lunch with her, though he was allowed to break at any time. The two traffic workers had the only formally scheduled breaks. She even had to get permission to go to the bathroom.

  She waited for the radio message and then dutifully carried her sign to the middle of the road, bringing traffic to a halt and enduring angry honking until the back loader cleared the intersection. Then she radioed to her partner on the other end to resume traffic and waited for someone to come and relieve her for lunch. She pushed back the top of her glove and checked her watch. As usual her relief wasn’t in any hurry.

  In the beginning, with the exception of Tony and Sam—and Billy, when the other guys weren’t around—the rest of them had treated her like a pariah, pulling seniority and giving her jobs that no one else wanted. They had made snide remarks, sometimes crude ones, under their breaths when no one but she could hear. Even so, after they’d clocked out for the day, half of the stupid bastards had hit on her at least once.

  That had mostly changed after she’d made it clear she wouldn’t put up with that ridiculous behavior. Of course there were two exceptions who insisted on acting like macho idiots, but they were easy to ignore.

  What really got to her was that Nancy—the other woman on the crew—put up with their harassment. She accepted after-work drink offers even though she couldn’t stand the guys. But she was a single mother with limited skills who desperately needed the job and felt she had to play nice no matter what.

  Dallas, on the other hand, stuck around partly out of stubbornness but mostly because she didn’t know what else to do with her life. Nothing really called to her; she had no passion. Not like her b
rother or sister who both lived and breathed the intricacies of the law, or her father, a well respected judge, whose views on education and child abuse had achieved national notoriety. Even her mother had made a name for herself in the science community. Dallas envied them their passion and focus. While in graduate school, after she’d become disgusted with modeling, she’d gone to a temporary agency for work. She’d quickly found she hated sitting in front of a computer all day. Adding columns of numbers hadn’t turned out to be her thing either.

  Then a new temp agency had mistakenly placed her on a construction site. To her amazement, she’d found she liked working outdoors. She no longer had to worry about every morsel she ate or what to wear, or how many mistakes she made typing. After she punched her time card, she didn’t have to worry about anything related to work.

  “Okay, Shea. Lunch.” Rocky roughly grabbed the sign out of her hand. He was one of the two Neanderthals left and hated relieving her. “That’s thirty minutes only. Got it?”

  “Really?” She raised her eyebrows and looked at him over her sunglasses. “It hasn’t changed?”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass,” he mumbled and snatched the radio.

  “I wouldn’t want to take away your job.” She smiled sweetly and walked away from his barrage of curses.

  Tony was waiting for her at the curb with both of their lunch pails. “He giving you a bad time again?”

  “What’s new?”

  “Damn low-life bottom-feeder. I still think you should report him.”

  “Like that would help.” She took her Aladdin lunch pail—a gag gift from Wendy— from him and they both turned toward the small park they’d found last week. “He’s in so tight with old man Capshaw, it’s pathetic.”

  “Yeah, he’s either kissing ass or sleeping with the old guy.”

  Dallas laughed. “You would think of that.”

  “Tell you what, how about I just punch him out in the meantime?”

  “Hey, if that’s what I wanted, I’d do it myself.”

  This time Tony laughed. “Yeah, you probably would. Seriously, though, I don’t care how tight Rocky is with Capshaw, this is a legal issue. Capshaw’s Construction is too big. He can’t afford to ignore a complaint and get ripped apart by the EEO, ERA or whoever the hell is involved.”