Always On My Mind

by Jill Shalvis

  Each firefighter was assigned a very specific job, but that job shifted with each rotation. So sometimes Jack was the ladder, sometimes the engine. Sometimes he drove, sometimes he was tails. Everyone had their favorite position. Ian preferred driving. Emily liked the ladder. Some guys were just better at some jobs. Jack was good on the medicals with teenagers or old people, so he usually got that job instead of, say, Tim, who didn’t have the experience needed and often came off as an impatient asshole.

  On the way, they all dove into the bag of candy that Ian pulled out of his pocket, laughing at Tim when he dropped his and Kevin inhaled it before anyone could stop him.

  “Candy’s bad for him,” Jack said. “Don’t let him have any more.”

  Tim turned to Kevin. “You hear that? Candy’s bad for you. Give it back.”

  Kevin licked his chops and wagged his tail for more.

  The joking halted on a dime when they got to the fire.

  Just outside of town was an older residential section. Hardworking, lower-middle-class families lived here, in a row of apartment buildings close together and in need of repair. In this particular complex, there were three floors of units, most likely full of sleeping families.

  And flames were shooting out the roof.

  The other station had responded and arrived at the same time. So did Ronald. As deputy chief and fire marshal and the highest ranking official there, normally he’d be incident commander, but he passed this off to Jack, who did a quick walk around of the perimeter while the ladder was positioned to open up the roof and let out the hot gases accumulating in the upper floor of the building.

  Until that happened, the danger could only escalate.

  Jack relayed by radio that they had fire out two windows of the first floor on the south side, extending up into the second floor and the attic. A third alarm was struck, and the coordinated attack began.

  “Holy shit,” Tim breathed, sounding awed as he stood still at Jack’s side staring up at the flames. “Holy shit. Let’s go! We’ll head into the—”

  Jack caught him up by the back of his gear. Firefighters were taught from day one to never enter a structure alone, but it was usually the first thing an excited rookie forgot. “You know you’re on exterior with Emily.” At LHFD, they practiced what was known as the two-in, two-out rule. Anytime someone entered a hazardous environment, there was an equal number of personnel available outside the hazard area to rescue those who entered in case they got into trouble.

  Emily and a pissed-off-looking Tim moved into position on the exterior. Sam joined the ladder team and headed to the roof. Jack and Ian would clear the interior and make sure everyone was out.

  Forcing the rear door, they hit the stairs, standing at the top floor, doing a sweep, banging on doors, getting people out. Panic and fear always made people clumsy and difficult to maneuver. Jack and Ian moved fast and efficiently together, searching each apartment, working in sync with the other platoons by radio.

  By the time they’d finished the floor, the smoke was so thick they were working blind, even with their self-contained breathing apparatus.

  When they finished they started again on the secondary search, even if everyone was confirmed out, because sometimes people forgot that Johnny had a friend sleeping over, or that Uncle Joe didn’t work tonight, and so on.

  They were on the stairs to the second floor when they heard it, the sound of the team on the roof. They used a pike pole to push down on the ceiling below, letting smoke and gases escape from above the fire. It was always a gamble working on a roof that may or may not be able to handle the weight of the guys, the gear, and all the equipment, and tonight the weather wasn’t helping.

  But from one moment to the next, the heat and smoke lifted, and everyone in the interior took a breath of relief. They worked to finish clearing the building, most people happy for the help. Of course, Jack and Ian came across the one cantankerous old guy who wasn’t. Neither was his snarling poodle. The man was waving a baseball bat, yelling about his “constitutional right to remain put.”

  “You also have the constitutional right to die here,” Jack said. “But do you really want to?”

  The guy lowered his baseball bat. “Bum leg,” he admitted. “’Nam. Me and Killer here are just guarding our valuables.”

  “What do you have that’s worth more than you and Killer?”

  The old man scratched his head. “Well, when you put it like that…”

  In the end, Jack carried him and Killer out, the six-pound poodle snarling and yipping in his ear the entire time, and Jack decided a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound pesky Great Dane with an eating disorder wasn’t so bad after all.

  Then the radio crackled, and out came the words that struck terror in all their hearts.

  “Northeast corner of roof collapsed. Firefighter down.”

  Ian whirled to face Jack, eyes wide. “Fuck!”

  Jack ordered Tim and Emily to enter and finish evacuating, and he and Ian fought the flames back up to the third floor, smoke curling around them, thick and unforgiving.

  At the top, they met Tim hitting the stairs, carrying Sam. “Got to him,” he said.

  “You were told to stay on evacuation,” Jack said.

  “Firefighter down,” Tim said simply.

  Jack held his temper because now wasn’t the time or place, but not following directions was a good way to get someone hurt, or worse.

  And Tim knew it.

  Sam had fallen through the roof, landing perilously close to an air vent. If Tim hadn’t gotten to him, he might have fallen another twenty feet to his certain death. He was bruised and bloody from a few fairly deep gashes, but mercifully nothing seemed broken.

  Half an hour later, the flames were out and so was everyone who’d been inside.

  They’d gotten lucky. Three hours from start to finish, and other than Sam, there’d been no injuries.

  The building wasn’t as lucky. The firefighters had all done their best not to destroy more than was necessary but they’d opened up the place to ventilate it, breaking windows and tearing down sheetrock to do so. Checking for hot spots was always messy, but it was just too dangerous not to do it. If they’d left any embers smoldering, the fire could renew itself hours and hours later.

  So when it was all said and done, the roof was completely gone, the building had lost three units on the top floor, and there was extensive smoke and water damage.

  Back at the fire truck, tensions were high among the crew. No one had liked what Tim had done, but neither could anyone argue with the results.

  Ian shoved Tim out of the way. “Move.”

  “Jeez,” Tim said, staggering. “Take a Midol.”

  “Shut up.”

  “What the hell is your problem, man?”

  “You. You’re my problem,” Ian said.

  Tim looked confused.

  “You didn’t follow procedures, and you ignored a command,” Jack said.

  Tim didn’t look concerned. “I saved a guy’s life. One of our guys. You’re all pissed off because I got there first. What are you going to do, give me the shit jobs? Dishes? Send me to the senior center?” He laughed and shook his head. “Oh, wait. I already do all that. You’re just jealous because I got to be the hero today.”

  “A hero wouldn’t call himself a hero,” Ian said.

  “You guys are all assholes. Jealous assholes.” He climbed into the truck. “Where’s my candy?”

  Kevin uncurled his big body from his sleeping spot in the driver’s seat and blinked at them. “Woof.”

  Tim searched high and low, and swore. “Goddamn dog. Did you eat my candy?”

  Kevin hunched over and yakked on Tim’s boot, a slimy mess that was all that was left of Tim’s candy.

  Chapter 12

  By the time they debriefed, got back to the station, and deconned the masks and regulators and refilled the air tanks, dawn had broken and Jack was off shift. After a night like they’d just had, sleep would be impossible,
no matter how tired he was. He had adrenaline coursing through him and needed…

  Something. A hard run, a fast bike ride…

  Sex.

  Too bad he had a pretend almost fiancé who’d gotten all his options cut off in that department. He and Kevin stepped outside the station to head to Jack’s truck, both man and dog stopping short at the sight of a woman leaning on it. Long, toned legs were shown off to perfection in low-riding jeans and leather boots, and the snug tank with an unbuttoned cropped sweater over it wasn’t so bad on her curves either. She wore a baseball cap, but there was no mistaking that auburn hair falling to her shoulders, lit to a fiery gold by the rising sun.

  Leah.

  When had she gotten so damn beautiful?

  She did her fair share of staring right back, which had his heart executing a funny little beat in his chest. Yeah, he thought, still keyed up.

  Kevin recovered first with a joyous bark and rushed her. Leah wrapped her arms around the dog and gave him a big, warm hug that gave Jack a twinge.

  Jealous of a damn dog…

  Leah loved Kevin up, murmuring into his fur. “You big knucklehead. Scaring me like that. When the call went out that a firefighter was down, I…” She shut up and squeezed the dog tighter as Jack went still.

  “You have a scanner?” he asked.

  She lifted her head, and for the first time he got a good look at her. Eyes shadowed, face tense. “Grandma does,” she said.

  “No casualties.”

  “That part didn’t get transmitted,” she told him.

  How many nights had his mom looked just like that, waiting on his dad to come home? Too many.

  And then had come the night that his dad hadn’t come home at all.

  “Stop with the scanner,” he said gruffly and tossed his bag into the back. He didn’t want to ever see her waiting and anxious because of him. “Just turn the fucker off.”

  “Right.” She let loose of Kevin, eyes flashing. “I’ll just turn the fucker off. And my damn head and heart too. How’s that, Jack? Is that how you do it?”

  Well, hell. He was way too tired for this. “Leah—”

  “Never mind. I get it.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah. You don’t want a relationship, pretend or otherwise. You never have.”

  He didn’t bother to point out that he’d told her so, multiple times. “My life doesn’t lend itself to one,” he said instead.

  “I wonder, Jack, if you’ve said that so often that you actually believe it.” She shook her head. “Your staff at the station, all the other rotations…more than half of them are married. Have families even.”

  He was absolutely not doing this here, now.

  Ever.

  “Jack,” she said, still sounding furious. “You could have the same thing. You don’t have to cut yourself off like you do.”

  Did she think he didn’t realize that other people managed the job and a life? Of course he knew it. Just as he knew, after watching his mom struggle all these years, that he personally wasn’t capable of it. “I don’t want anyone to care for me that way. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s life like—”

  “Like your dad ruined your mom’s?” Leah asked after a terrible beat of painful silence. “Oh, Jack.” She rubbed her forehead and softened her voice. “You’re not responsible for what happened to him, or her. And as for controlling anyone’s feelings, that’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard. You can’t. You can’t control my feelings any more than you can control how I breathe.” She studied him for a beat, and then shook her head, looking as frustrated as he had. “And talking to you is like talking to a brick wall,” she said, picking up a big purse at her feet. From inside, she came up with a smaller white bag that smelled like heaven. “Breakfast,” she told him. “Don’t ask me why, because honestly I don’t know.”

  “Leah,” he said when she’d whirled off. Jesus. “Leah, wait.”

  She stopped but kept her back to him.

  “Thanks,” he said to her stiff spine. “For the food.” He paused. “And for…caring.”

  “Thanks right back at you,” she said in what might have been a slightly grudging tone.

  “For?” he asked, confused.

  “For being too stubborn to get hurt.”

  This tugged a low laugh out of him, and she turned to face him, still in a temper given the light in her eyes. “Your knee okay?”

  No, actually, it wasn’t. It ached like a son of a bitch, but he’d live. “I’m good,” he said.

  She gave him an eye roll accompanied by a sound that spoke volumes on what she thought of his definition of “good.” “You’re such an idiot.”

  “In more ways than one,” he agreed.

  “Yeah?” She sounded greatly interested in hearing more of his idiocy. “What’s more idiotic than turning down no-strings sex?”

  He went still. “You never said no-strings sex.”

  “You should learn to read between the lines, Jack,” she chided softly. “And you call yourself a ladies’ man.”

  He laughed. “Oh, trust me. I’m well aware how little I know about the ladies.”

  He could admit that he’d had more than his fair share of meaningless attachments. But what she didn’t seem to get was that nothing about her was meaningless to him.

  “So what do you want to do?” she asked.

  “About?”

  “I know you’re not going to sleep. You’re going to go do something to let down all that adrenaline coursing through you. What’s it going to be?”

  The list of possibilities clicked through his head, each involving a different version on the same theme, her naked—except for those boots—and beneath him.

  Or over him.

  Or however he could get her.

  In fact, he actually got hard standing there having it all flash through his head.

  But this was Leah, he reminded himself for what felt like the thousandth time. Leah, who had always been fickle with her heart and its wants. If he let himself fall for her again, losing her this time would kill him. Which meant that he was going to go for Door Number Two—his motorcycle and the narrow and windy and isolated roads outside of town.

  It would work.

  It would have to.

  “Jack?”

  “A fast bike ride,” he said.

  She nodded and got into her car.

  Well, that was that, he thought, and he and Kevin got into his truck. But as they pulled out of the lot, Jack realized Leah was following him.

  Apparently, she was coming with.

  And for the life of him, he couldn’t have said whether he was relieved or terrified.

  Leah pulled in behind Jack at his place, not at all sure what she thought she was doing. The whole “firefighter down” thing had rattled her much more than she’d thought, to the point that she’d needed to see him. Needed to be with him every bit as much as he needed to burn off his excess adrenaline.

  She let out a breath and decided not to think beyond the fact that he was okay, and that she was grateful for the few mornings that Riley opened for her.

  She got out of the car. It was going to be a lovely day, already nice and warm. The leaves were changing, slowly turning from green to every shade of gold, brown, and red under the sun and just starting to fall.

  Someone had painted Jack’s and Ben’s duplex. Probably Ben, since she doubted that Jack had any spare time right now between his work and caring for Dee.

  Leah was still pretty steamed at him, although she didn’t examine why too closely as she got out of her car.

  He was standing at the top of his driveway looking at her. Without a word, he let Kevin inside the house.

  He was in jeans that were faded at all the stress points, and he had some most excellent stress points. His T-shirt said LHFD on the pecs and was stretched tautly across his broad shoulders. His hands were loose at his sides, his face carefully blank, but everything about him gave off a warning: bad ’tude alpha a
lert.

  She didn’t care.

  Nor did she know what she thought she was doing.

  Okay, that was a lie. She knew. She watched him walk toward her, clearly favoring his knee, which had her taking a deep breath. “You need to get off that leg,” she said. “What did you do, jump out of a window? Carry someone? Run the stairs?”

  “All of the above.”

  She knew this should reach right inside her heart and squeeze hard, and it did. Which was a good part of why she got even madder. Since he was now close enough, she poked a finger into his chest, hard. “You’ve paid your dues, Jack. You paid them a long time ago now.”

  “What are you talking about?” He grabbed her finger and pushed it away. “And ouch.”

  “Do you think the only way you can match your dad’s legend is to die like he did?” Letting her fears finally escape, the ones that had been choking her ever since hearing those two terrifying words “firefighter down,” she let him have it. “You have some sort of stupid martyr complex. You won’t be happy until you die like your dad, is that it? You’re not Superman, you know.”

  “Jesus, I know that.”

  “Do you? Do you really? Because we both know that the uniform comes with an expectation. Especially as the son of a hero.”

  He shrugged, like, what am I supposed to do, and she let out a sigh. “You don’t have to follow the exact same path to honor his memory. You know that.”

  “I know that you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Don’t I? You’re always doing your duty, what’s expected. In fact, you’ve never done anything unexpected in your life—”

  He proved her wrong by cutting her off with a hard kiss.

  And she learned something else—apparently a brain couldn’t hold onto anger when unexpectedly pummeled by sheer lust, because she let out a gasp of desire and flung her arms around his neck. Letting out a low, very male sound of satisfaction, he took the kiss deeper, rougher, stroking his tongue to hers. Leah welcomed him with a shocking eagerness that she’d have to hate herself for later because she had no room in her brain for anything but the erotic, sensual feel of him against her. In fact, the heat of him burned through her clothing. She didn’t know who was moving—maybe it was both of them—but she found herself grinding against him, and then he thrust a muscled thigh between hers and she greedily rode it. She might have drowned in him then, but from behind them a door opened.