“Okay, so”—she straightened her back and glanced at her notepad—“is there a difference between firefighter Nick and off-duty Nick?”
The question threw him. He was always in protector mode, always aware of his surroundings, and ready to lend a hand without being asked. But since leaving the navy, he’d had a chance to stop feeling like he had to be on top of everything. He’d chilled out and taken himself less seriously. Remembered what it was like to be carefree.
The time off had been exactly what he’d needed before he ran himself into the ground. That, and a certain long-legged photographer who’d made him feel alive again.
“There is now.”
“Can you explain?”
“Firefighting is in my blood, and that will never change, but I’ve learned to relax when I’m not working. Be spontaneous and drop my guard.”
“And is there anyone special who has helped you reach this new state of being?”
Nick narrowed his eyes in warning. No way in hell was he talking about Sid during this interview. His sister knew it. He knew it. In fact, he’d told Rowan to drop the topic of Cassidy all together when she’d tried to bring up her best friend.
He’d walked away from Sid. It killed him to think he’d hurt her, but she’d asked for more than he could give. Time might erase the pain of loss, but he didn’t want to risk feeling even one day of torment like that ever again. Three human beings—four counting the life growing inside Sloan—had been ripped from him. There was only so much a person could handle.
Shit. He’d been trying really hard not to think about Sid. But each day over the past week got harder than the last. He missed her. Ached for her. And now she sat front and center in his mind again.
“Next question.”
“Come on, Nick. You’re a gorgeous, unattached firefighter and single women are going to want to know about your love life.”
He ground his teeth together. “My love life is private.”
“So, you have one then?” She smiled at him like he’d walked right into that one.
Nick had known calling Rowan with his worry about Sid would come back to bite him in the ass, but he’d felt an actual pain in his chest when he’d woken at six AM in their hotel room and found her gone. Fear had slammed into him. He’d needed to do something and being a hundred miles away from home, he’d had to rely on his sister for help until he could see Sid for himself. He also knew Sid would tell Rowan everything the minute Ro had texted him Sid was alive and well.
Rowan put down her pad and pen and scooted to the edge of the couch, her back straight, her eyes determined. Great. She’d decided to go off the record. “Tell me how you really feel about love.”
“I told you to drop it.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s nothing to tell.”
She tilted her head to the side. “I think there is. And I think you should get it off your chest. It will make you feel better. I promise.”
“I feel fine.” At least he had up until two minutes ago when his tenacious, little sister turned their interview into a therapy session.
“Fine isn’t good enough. I want you to feel over the moon happy.”
“Get back to our agreed upon interview and I will be. Otherwise, I’m walking.”
“You promised,” she said with a pout that, goddammit, worked every time.
He clenched his hands into fists. The high back chair that was usually his favorite place in the house to sit suddenly grew uncomfortable. “One question.” He ground out.
“Could you love Cassidy?” Interesting how she’d said “could” instead of “do” because there was a distinction and she knew it.
“No.” Hardest fucking word he’d ever said. Again.
“Because of your job?”
“That’s two questions.” But she’d pretty much nailed half of it on the head. He’d decided to take the job with the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho and bottom line was his job came with danger he didn’t want to subject anyone else to. If he could spare someone feeling the way he’d felt with loss, he would.
“Oh, my God!” Ro threw her arms up in the air. “You’re such a cliché. Fireman loses his first love in a fire, loses two best friends, too, and thinks he can’t love again because of some misplaced lone wolf thing to keep heartbreak to a minimum. Well, news flash, people lose their loved ones no matter what their occupation or how safe they play it. Shit happens. All. The. Time.” She shook her head in irritation, her eyes blazed with anger. No. Disappointment. Which killed him. “Also? You’re not sparing your parents or your sister or your friends their feelings, so why not close yourself off from them, too?”
“Rowan.” He leaned forward to put a hand on her arm but she slid down the couch out of reach, picked up her pen and paper.
“She means something to you, Nick, and you’re an idiot if you don’t do something about it.”
He’d done nothing but think about that something for the past five days. And without a doubt, he’d think about it for the next fifty years.
*
Cassidy’s craving for mac and cheese couldn’t have come at a worse time. She tapped her foot on the tiled floor of Main Street Diner waiting for her take-out and willed herself not to look in Nick’s direction for the tenth time in the last minute.
Oops. There her eyes fell again. She had zero willpower when it came to him. His black untidy hair, chiseled face and broad shoulders were to blame at the moment, so she cut herself some slack. She’d noticed her gaze wasn’t the only one to land on him. Thankfully, he sat with a group of guys who kept him distracted from looking toward the diner’s entrance. Not that he’d be aware of her if he were alone.
Guh. She turned her back to him and stared out the double glass front doors at the moonless night sky.
Rowan had told her he was leaving in three days. Seventy-two more hours and they wouldn’t chance a meeting unless they both flew into Marietta for visits at the same time.
She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them, the diner had fallen into complete darkness. Cassidy heard Flo, the chef, curse from the direction of the kitchen. Paige, the owner of the diner grumbled from behind the register and said, “These darn power outages are really getting on my nerves. What good is the electrician if he doesn’t fix the problem.”
Then Cass heard something she’d managed to avoid for the past eight years, but which had been stamped into her memory whether she wanted it there or not.
The striking of a match. That distinct sound of the stick swiping across the box and catching fire.
Panic rose up the back of her throat, jagged and sharp, as the agony from Michael burning her flesh came roaring back. Rationally, she knew Paige was probably only lighting a candle, but that didn’t stop the fear from engulfing her. Somehow she managed to swallow her scream as her fight or flight response kicked in and she rushed to escape, to get outside into the fresh air before anyone noticed she was having a panic attack.
Her skin too tight, her fear too overpowering, she slammed into the glass door of the diner when she pushed instead of pulled. Her forehead stung as she clawed at the door handle. Her heart hammered so hard in her chest she could barely breathe. She needed to get out of there.
“Cassidy?” Paige said. “You okay?”
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Not without giving herself away. She vaguely heard her name again—Sid—just as she got grasp of the door and tugged it open enough to scurry through.
The cool evening breeze slapped her in the face. A welcome strike that took the edge off her anxiety as she ran into the middle of the parking lot and opened her mouth to inhale large gulps of air back into her lungs.
“Sid.” Only one person called her that. “Are you all right?” Only one person spoke to her with that tone of voice. The kind that tricked her into believing she was something more.
“Fine,” she managed to say before she walked away on shaking legs.
Nick stopped he
r with a hand to her shoulder. His touch grounded her, took her lingering fear and shrank it. God, how she wanted to turn and bury her face in his neck, take comfort in his arms, and let him erase the rest of her misery.
But that wasn’t how this worked. And she could take of herself.
“Talk to me,” he said. “Please?”
She stayed still. Debating. He wasn’t demanding she speak to him. He was asking her to keep him in the place where she let few in.
He dropped his arm. She silently counted to five and turned. She couldn’t bring herself to look into his eyes so she focused a little right of his ear, catching the lights flickering back on inside the diner.
“Paige lit a match and the sound took me back. I haven’t had a panic attack like that in a really long time.”
When Nick didn’t say anything, she continued.
“I used to get them a lot. Didn’t even need an actual trigger because my mind would go there at the worst possible time. Right after the sound always comes the pain and the smell and then this feeling of being trapped and struggling and wanting to die to escape the unbearable—”
Nick pulled her against his chest, wrapping her inside his strong arms. She went willingly, grateful he’d initiated contact. The embrace didn’t mean anything more than reassurance at a time when she desperately needed it.
After her heart rate slowed and all the sharp edges inside her softened, she pulled back and stared into his handsome face. “Thanks.”
“Welcome.” He turned his head to glance back at the diner.
“I’m really okay now. Please go back and finish your dinner. Oh, and uh, good luck with the new job.”
His eyes settled back on hers, unreadable, and her heart stuttered, her stomach turned. He’d closed himself off from her, because of what had just happened or because they’d already said everything they needed to say to each other she didn’t know, but she had to get away from him.
She’d laid herself bare to him, made herself vulnerable, again, and it was obviously more than he wanted to deal with.
If she never saw him again that would be fine with her.
“Bye,” she said, twisting around and practically jogging to her car.
“Sid, wait.”
“Nick!” A guy shouted a short distance away. “You coming back in?”
Cassidy kept moving without a look back. She climbed into her car, fiddled with the key, and after a deep breath, started the car. Waited a beat.
No one stopped her.
God, she hated this. Hated feeling so messed up inside that just when she thought she’d found freedom from her past for good, she allowed it to be ripped away from her.
Worse, though, was the pain at seeing Nick. Having him hold her so lovingly. Then losing him again. She’d thought nothing could hurt her more than the burns on her back, but she was wrong.
The moment struck her as monumental. Something hurt more than her ordeal in college. And even though her heart was breaking, she had Nick to thank for making her feel again. She’d look back on this day and remember this moment as the one that prompted her to take action, to conquer her fear of matches. It was time to do this.
She drove straight to the liquor store. The older man behind the counter took care of her purchase, dropping it into a small brown paper bag so she didn’t have to touch it.
Her palms were slick, the back of her neck hot when she walked into the kitchen of her house a few minutes later. She dropped the bag on the counter before she flipped on every light in the room, including the tiny one above the electric stove.
You’re in control here, Cassidy. It can’t hurt you. What happened to you was because of a person, not an object. An object that when used correctly can bring light into the world. Happy light. Hopeful light. Romantic light.
She stopped pacing to pull the lone candle from the cabinet above the microwave and placed it on the counter. The large square pillar was white gardenia. Cass loved the smell of gardenias at night.
With hands shaking, she opened the brown bag and lifted out the box of matches. She dropped them next to the candle like they’d burned her fingers.
Her heart thrashed around the inside of her chest. This is so ridiculous. They were stupid matches. But it wasn’t stupid. She’d been told over and over again that she wasn’t crazy to fear them after what she’d been through.
She reached around to her back to feel the scarred skin she lived with every day as a reminder that she’d survived. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?
The matchbox glared at her. Mocked her. She scowled at it and then…then she laughed. She was bigger, stronger, smarter, than some wood sticks and she could do this. With a deep breath, she slid the box open and took out a match. Dropped it. Picked it back up. Nerves rattled her, but she held on to her determination like it was a lifeline. She pressed the red tip to the side of the box and swiped. Nothing happened. Open your eyes, Cass. She tried a second time, focused on the task. This time a flame appeared. Her knees wobbled so she leaned against the counter for support as she stared, trance-like, at the tiny orange flame, colored blue at its base. She watched it burn down the stick, charring it black, until it almost reached her fingertips and she panicked and blew the flame out with a quick breath. A tiny thread of smoke billowed up, then disappeared.
With the match extinguished, so was the unease that had twisted her spine while she’d watched it burn. The awful smell that made her want to vomit also floated away. She’d done it. Sweat coated her back, but she’d done it.
She lit another match. And another. Each time got a little easier. She lit them all until she had one left to light the candle with. The flicker of light, calm and beautiful, and innocent, filled Cass with a sense of peace long missing from her life. She walked around the room to turn off all the lights so that only she and her white gardenia candle glowed.
Hours passed in the kitchen. She watched the candle burn, feeling the pain, heartache and fear latched inside her, finally unlock. Not all of her apprehension was gone. If she let them, her thoughts strayed to an unhappy place, but she was close. So very close to smothering her fear for good. She might never be one hundred percent over it, but knowing she could handle herself made all the difference. And when she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer and bent to blow out the flame, she smiled, thinking that on her next birthday she wanted to blow out cake candles for the first time in nine years.
Chapter Twelve
Nick thought he could let go. Let Sid go without any further words between them, but he couldn’t stop thinking about two nights ago outside the diner. The look on her face before she’d run away undid him. He had no idea what prompted her to take off like she did, especially after he’d held her in his arms. And it had felt right. So right that he’d planned to bail on his friends and take her somewhere to talk.
Her sudden dismissal under guarded eyes had stolen his voice. It wasn’t just embarrassment over her panic attack that troubled her. She’d turned her back on him, and he’d gotten the message. They were through. He’d told her as much last weekend in her kitchen.
Only they weren’t. Not when he couldn’t sleep, plagued by dreams of her naked in tousled bed sheets with a shy smile on her face that took him to a better place. And not when she’d gotten past his defenses and done what he thought impossible. Taken his heart. He wasn’t sure what to do about that, but he couldn’t leave for Idaho tomorrow without telling her maybe someday.
Would that offer be enough for her? Because right now he still couldn’t trust his feelings. But tomorrow…
His head fell back against the car seat. Hell, he’d already screwed with her emotions enough already, hadn’t he? He’d deserved the brush off at the diner. But he couldn’t stop remembering before that, when every time she looked at him he saw affection. Warmth. And he’d done nothing to discourage her feelings because they’d felt good.
She was right. He was the selfish one.
He braced his hands on the
steering wheel. Leave or walk up to her front door? He’d come for a reason, to make sure she was okay after the candle incident, but he could do that with a phone call.
A tap on the passenger window startled him. He turned the key in the ignition and hit the power down button to lower the glass. An older man he didn’t recognize put a hand on the open sill and smiled. “Nick Palotay, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Read about you in the Courier. Nice article. Thanks for your service.”
“No thanks necessary. It was an honor.” Nick had gotten several pats on the back since Rowan’s piece appeared in the newspaper. She had, too, which made the torture she’d put him through for two hours worth it.
“You’ve been sitting out here a while so I thought I’d check on you.”
“I appreciate that.” Nick’s gaze jumped over the man’s head toward Sid’s house. “I’m good.”
“She’s not home, you know.”
“Sorry?”
“Cassidy,” the man said, his eyes shrewd. “She left for Los Angeles early this morning.”
Disappointment seeped through Nick’s skin. She was gone? Already? Rowan didn’t leave for LA for another few weeks.
“She’ll be back in a couple of days. Still has some unfinished business to tend to before she’s gone for good.” The old guy paused, then glanced down at the passenger seat. “Those for her?”
“They were.” Nick had never given a woman flowers before, but the multi-colored bouquet of roses had caught his eye at the stand on the side of the road so he’d stopped to buy them.
“Want me to leave them inside for you? You could write a note.”
He could. Maybe list the things he lo-liked about her. He smiled inside. She’d call him on a note like that, wouldn’t she? “You’ve got a key?”
“Live right next door. I promised her folks I’d look after her whenever she was here and after the house when she wasn’t.”
“That’s nice of you”
“Everyone needs looking after. And Cassidy, well I’m guessing I don’t have to tell you how special she is. I’m going to miss her when she’s gone.”
Falling for Her Bachelor (Bachelor Auction Returns Book 2) Page 13
