by L. A. Boruff
When we reach our new street, I expect my cat to climb the tree outside of the tall, pale blue home with white shutters. She does, but instead of going into my open bedroom window, she goes to the other branch. I’m confused until I see her angling for the open window of the firehouse next door.
What the hell?
No! I try to tell her. Not in there!
She confidently flicks her tail and continues walking along the branch. When she reaches the end of it, I know she’s going to jump into the window.
No! I tell her again. What will the firefighters do if they find a strange cat in their home?
But the bitchy cat ignores me and leaps inside.
I hope they take you to the pound. I don't mean it, and she knows it.
She moves through the building, sniffing and inspecting every nook and cranny, but doesn't find anything to interest her. I get the sense that we’re in a bedroom at first, then in a hall. I smell the kitchen and pass a gym. A minute later there’s a sound.
We freeze as a man emerges from a room. He has a towel wrapped around his waist, and he uses another one to rub his untamed dark hair. If I were in my human form, my mouth would be hanging open. He’s gorgeous. So fucking chiseled that I get an immediate image of myself licking ice cream off his chest.
Oh, I would lick so many foods off his chest! I would nibble every inch of him like my favorite new snack.
But my cat? The bitch. She wants pets.
No! I groan in our mind.
She moves forward and rubs herself against his leg.
"Fuck!" he cries out, leaping back.
His towel almost drops, but it’s not my night, because he snags it before it falls from his waist. Then, his stunning sea-green eyes focus on me.
"Well, you’re a cat!"
He kneels then reaches his hand out. "Come here, sweetie!"
My cat and I move closer to his hand, and he pets us. Oh hell, I don’t think a man this beautiful has ever pet my cat.
Oops. That almost sounds like I’m talking about that cat. Nope, I’ve had my human... cat pet plenty. But this? It isn’t nearly as erotic, but it’s fucking amazing. Like he knows every single sensitive spot in my body.
We start to purr, rubbing harder and harder against him.
"What’s your name?"
And then he’s touching my necklace.
We hiss and jump back. If he gets that, he’ll see my pictures. He’ll know too much. Not even my precocious cat wants that.
He puts his hands up and gives the sexiest half-smile. "Alright, no touching of your weird collar."
My cat doesn’t move closer, she simply regards him.
His smile widens. "We’ve never had a firehouse cat before, but I think such a pretty cat would do nicely. What do you think?"
My cat likes being called pretty, so she decides to forgive him and let him pet her again.
He hums softly. "If you’re here tomorrow, I don’t care what the guys think, I’m keeping you."
I let him pet me for a while longer, then he rises and goes to change. I want to follow him. Maybe get a little peek of what he’s hiding under that towel. But my cat has other plans. She continues exploring the firehouse until she wedges herself into a room. It’s dark, and we hear the sound of a man snoring.
Nope. Let’s get out of here, I tell the cat. We’d been lucky with the other guy. Who knew how this one would respond to finding a strange cat in his room?
Instead, my cat leaps onto the bed, moves around, sniffing, then lies beside the man. I finally realize she plans to go to sleep.
Come on, no! Go home.
But she settles in, closing her eyes.
And then I’m left in her dark mind, wondering how the heck I’m going to be able to get out of this place before I shift back. I plead with my cat, but she’s out like a light, no matter how mad and loud I get. I finally have to accept that it isn’t up to me, so I stop worrying about it.
Instead, in the darkness of my mind, I have flashes again of that night. The night my parents were murdered. The one that changed my life forever.
Instead of being a girl with a curse, constantly on the move with my parents, I was homeless. And when I was found, naked and scared, and placed in foster care, things only got worse. Dangerous. Painful.
I spent so much time trying to hide my curse. Hiding the shifting that I couldn't control, still can’t control, that’s as much a part of me as I am myself.
This is the stuff I don’t like to think about, but something about watching another person die, even one who might be an asshole, brings those painful memories back.
Yes, I found my first real lead to my parents. But I have a weird feeling that the more I investigate, the more death I’ll see, and that’s a hard idea to shake.
I can only hope that tomorrow will be better.
Chapter Two
Hank
Sunlight tickles my eyelids. Is it morning already? Everything inside of me screams to roll over and go to sleep. I’ve only gotten three hours of sleep, maybe four. Damn late night calls. Even if weird hours are a part of the job, it doesn’t mean I have to like mornings like this one, especially when we'd been woken for the same old, same old.
Last night, some kid moved into his first apartment but didn't know how to use the gas stove. Unfortunately for him, it resulted in a small fire.
Fortunately for us, it could've been a lot worse. He had a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, so by the time we arrived the fire was out. We calmed him and made sure the flames were completely gone. And then taught him how to use his stove.
All in all, a successful call, but too bad it had come in the middle of the night.
I stretch, knowing I have no shot of falling asleep. Might as well get up.
My foot catches on something at the end of my bed. Sitting up on my elbow, I realize someone is lying at my feet. "What the hell?"
The someone wakes up when I speak and sits straight up.
Holy shit. It's a woman. A very beautiful, very naked woman. I try to force myself not to look at her rack, but it’s impossible not to. Beautiful blonde goddesses don’t appear in my bed every damn day. For a few stretched out seconds, I’m completely dumbstruck by the beauty staring at me, her big blue eyes wide in shock.
And then the moment between us shatters.
"Shit," she says, grabbing part of my blanket and pulling it to cover her body. "No fucking way."
I yank my gaze up to her confused, frightened face. She looks like she has no idea how she got here. Is there something wrong with her? Is she a beautiful nutjob?
"Are you okay?"
She shakes her head and looks around. "Where am I?"
Her voice is so soft and terrified that I can’t help feeling an instant need to protect her. To find a way to make this situation less awkward, even if she is some crazy girl who ended up naked in my bed.
"You’re at my fire station."
She still looks confused.
"Do you not remember how you got here?" I'd left my bedroom door cracked open all night, which explained how I didn’t hear her enter the room. Still, I can’t believe nobody noticed a naked woman walking into the firehouse. Especially this firehouse.
She looks down at her stunning long legs, still exposed, and tugs on the blanket, trying to cover herself better.
"Here." I untangle the blanket around myself and hold it out so she can cover herself up.
Her eyes widen as she stares at me, so I glance down. I’m not wearing a shirt or pants, but I do, at least, have boxer briefs on. She can’t have crawled into my bed naked and then feel uncomfortable with me being in my underwear, can she?
She jerks her gaze away and wraps the blanket around herself like a dress before standing up. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I sleepwalk." She backs toward the door, half bent over. "I'm so sorry."
For some reason, my pulse picks up. She was sleepwalking? So maybe she isn’t crazy. Maybe she’s just a stunning woman who accidentally ended up
in my bed, and I’m the idiot who doesn’t have a clue what to do or say. But I need to do something because I’m pretty sure she’s about to take off.
"Forget this ever happened, okay?" She turns around, looking like she's going to bolt.
Crap, she's going to run for it!
"Wait. It's okay," I say, but she slips out the door.
I snatch my exercise shorts off the top of my bureau and follow, heart pounding. In my mind, I can’t stop picturing her. I’ve never seen her before, which means she’s new to town. In a place this small, everyone knows everyone, so where did she come from?
I guess it doesn’t matter, as long as I find out before she disappears. Hurrying out the door, my gaze locks onto her. She’s paused in the hall, looking both ways.
"Go right," I say as I step into my shorts.
The last thing I want to do is help her run away, but I also don’t want to be the asshole who takes advantage of her situation. She looks so panicked, like she wants nothing more than to escape. I imagine it’s pretty scary for a woman to wake in a strange man’s bed, so I want to help her, even if I wish she’d stay and let me make her breakfast.
She darts to the right but pauses with her hand on the doorknob. "I'll bring your sheet back!"
I open my mouth to call after her, no idea what to say, but she opens the door to the truck bay and smacks right into James.
"Whoa." His face lights up as he looks at the pretty woman. "Who are you?"
She shakes her head, darting around him and toward the open bay doors. His jaw drops as I reach his side. For one second we both stare after the beauty, dumbstruck about what the heck to do. We need to stop her, to get her name and number at the least, but how the hell do we do that?
Our volunteer firefighter, Sugar, walks in the doors as the mystery woman tries to exit.
"Stop!" Sugar orders, stepping in front of her.
Sugar’s in her street clothes. Her dark, swept-back hair and bright pink halter top don't scream authority figure. Yet, her hands on her hips, combined with her commanding tone, is enough for even trained soldiers to obey.
Thank goodness for Sugar!
Blondie with the nice rack skids to a halt and looks between us and Sugar. "Listen, I'll return the sheet, but let me go home." She looks panicked, but anger brews under the surface.
"You can wait two seconds," Sugar says in her bossy way.
That’s Sugar, always keeping life interesting.
"Who are you?" she asks, giving the mystery woman no choice but to answer.
But Blondie draws herself up. "Why do you need to know?"
Sugar raises a brow. "Uh, because if you'd been invited to be here, you wouldn’t be running out the door practically naked."
The blonde tosses her hair, a movement that’s comically confident considering the position she’s in. "I’m sure with hot firefighters around, naked women are running out the door all the time. You know? Morning-after regrets?"
But Sugar isn’t buying it, because even though we live at the fire station, it’s rare we have women here. As much as we look like stereotypical firefighters, some of us are plain relationship guys. And some of us got our man whore ways out of our systems a long time ago. Either way, a naked woman running out our door is weird, and Sugar knows it.
"You know what?" Sugar says, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Maybe we should call the cops and let them figure out who you are."
The two women lock eyes in a tense glare for one long second before the blonde sighs. "My name is Callie."
Sugar nods. "Good. Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"
Callie glares. "It would’ve been a hell of a lot easier to let me go."
James and I exchange a look, and then we both grin. No one talks back to Sugar.
Seems like we’re both kinda smitten with this Callie. Beautiful and gutsy? That’s our weakness.
I walk closer and see she's shaking. My smile fades. She might be acting like she’s ready to go toe-to-toe with Sugar, but deep down she’s scared and embarrassed.
"Let her go, Sugar."
Callie shoots me a grateful glance. "Like I said before, forget I was here. Okay? It was a mistake. One I’ll try not to repeat."
When Sugar shoots me an annoyed look, Callie darts around her and out the door.
Sugar’s jaw drops like she can’t believe the girl went against her orders. But very quickly, her irritated look swings right to me.
"Why'd you go and do that?"
James and I approach the open door and watch Callie rush across our lawn and head for the house next door. When she reaches it, she hurries inside.
She’s our new neighbor? I saw a little moving truck outside recently, but I never imagined a woman that beautiful would be moving in.
"Guys?" Sugar says.
I jump a little. "What?" Did she say something?
"I asked why’d you go and give her an excuse to take off?"
I shrug, wracking my brains to try and figure out what I did wrong this time. "She told me she sleepwalks. She was embarrassed."
Sugar gets a look in her eyes, the one that usually means she’s coming up with an idea. Typically, an idea that is going to be a lot of fun, even if it gets us into trouble.
Then she grins. "You know what? She needs to get one of those alarms for her door."
"Probably a good idea," I say, wondering where she’s going with this.
"We can go get her one later today and invite ourselves over to install it."
I give Sugar a little side-eye. She's the loudest person I know, but she’s got a sharp mind. She probably knew the second she saw the beauty that we might be interested. Which explains why she was trying to keep her here and get some information about her.
Again, I’m thankful for Sugar. "You know I'm in."
"I wouldn’t miss it," James adds, still staring at the house next door. He’s been a part of our team for so long I rarely notice his English accent anymore.
She nods, then turns back to me. "So, how'd that go down?"
"Yeah, I'm curious about that myself," James says.
Is there an edge of jealousy to his voice? I almost laugh. I consider making up a story about her waking up and us going at it like rabbits, but then I decide to tell the truth. Sugar might not be quite as eager to help us if she thought I already banged her. So, I explain how fast it happened, leaving out a few choice details.
James lets out a low whistle. "That’s one way to meet the new neighbor."
When I look at Sugar, I realize she’s watching me again. "You like her."
I laugh. "Who wouldn’t? I mean, did you see what I saw?"
She punches me lightly on the shoulder. "I don’t mean you want to fuck her, you like her, right?"
My cheeks warm as I shrug. "She seems interesting."
"By interesting he means stunning, intriguing, mysterious—"
"Yeah, yeah," I cut James off. "So we both like her."
Sugar gives me a dead serious look. "Then you can’t fuck this up."
"We’re not going to—"
"Yes, you will," she cuts me off. "I love you guys. You’ve got big hearts and a lot to offer a woman, but I’ve seen you with the women in this town. I haven’t once seen you two half as interested in one of them as you were in this Callie."
"That doesn’t mean we’ll mess it up." I know I sound defensive, but I am.
Are we that bad?
She raises a brow. "You’ve all got baggage. So if you want her, we need to make up for this screwy start. We’ve got to show her that you guys are total catches."
"She’s right," James says.
Internally, I sigh. Maybe she is. And maybe we could use a better plan than fumbling like morons, like usual. Which might mean getting a little help from Sugar.
"I say, let's go get her a couple of those door alarms and a cake, then come welcome her to the neighborhood," Sugar says confidently.
I would’ve never thought of a plan like that. It seems too simp
le. But I’ve never made a relationship work, so trying something new is just the thing we need to do.
"Sounds good to me," James says, grinning. "And luckily for us, this place is already clean as a whistle. All we need to do is tank up the truck. Which leaves plenty of time for getting to know the hottie next door."
Sugar laughs at James’s British phrase. "Gas, James. It’s gas here. Or in the case of the truck, diesel. So we’ll fuel up the truck." We always keep the truck full of fuel. Never know when we'll have to drive out to help the county station with a fire. These firetrucks burn through fuel. Pun intended.
"Can we take the truck on our errands?" Sugar asks, the smallest pleading note to her voice. "I love taking the truck."
Like she needs to tell us. She’s obsessed with anything firefighter related.
"Sure," James says. He's the Lieutenant of our shift. Captain usually rotates shifts, and he's on with the other crew this week. We work three on, four off, constant duty when on.
Captain had been on shift with us the week before. He's a good guy, but 'by the book' is a phrase he's never heard of. He and James clash sometimes because James is very by the book.
It all works out in the end, though. "Since we need to fill it up anyway."
"I'll get Will. They can radio us if we get a call." I walk out of the room toward the showers. Steam slips out from under the door, so Will is in there. "Hey man," I call through the door. "You about done?"
The water cuts off. "Yeah, we got a call?"
"No, but you missed all the excitement this morning." He cracks the door, and I step away from the wave of steam that exits.
"Tell me while I dry off."
I roll my eyes but tell him what happened.
"Okay, but tell me the part about her rack again."
"Are you coming or not?" I ask, rather than repeat the part about how gorgeous her breasts were.
"Hell, yeah. I'm coming." He walks out of the bathroom completely naked.
I should've known he would. He's the most uninhibited man I've ever known. "Dude, is that necessary?"
"I ain't got nothing you've never seen before," he says as he walks into the bedroom he shares with James when we're on duty. Our station is our home away from home.
