by Lynne Silver
She’d focused on PR thanks to her tragic past. Her mother had been the head of a large charitable foundation. After her death, they’d handled the curious media circus surrounding her and her father, and silenced the phone, which had been ringing nonstop. As a little girl, she’d admired the cool, competent woman who’d managed with a few distinct words to instill order into a life where chaos had fallen.
She toed her dusty shoe into a crack of the brick in the sidewalk and thought about how to explain this to Jason without also explaining about her physical and emotional scars. “I like the structure of it,” she finally said. “We control the message to the public and instill order on what could otherwise become chaos.”
“You don’t like chaos,” he said, stopping on the corner to wait for the light to change so they could cross busy M Street.
No, she didn’t, and she was impressed he’d picked it up so soon into their acquaintance. He didn’t wait for her to comment and launched into observations. “Your shoes are perfectly polished. No scuffs.”
“Not after that walk on the canal,” she said with a wry laugh, looking down at her once bright shoes, now tinged with a coat of ashy dust.
“Sure, but you’ll go home and clean them up.”
He didn’t make it sound like a bad thing. Arianna laughed at her need for clean shoes. “I have an old high school friend who works for the FBI; maybe you should go work for him. With your powers of sleuthing, Sam could use you.”
He laughed and continued. “Your fingernails are a perfect shade of pink, and the nails are not too long, not too short.”
She held out her hands and examined her fingers. She’d been getting the same shade of O.P.I. peony pink as long as she could remember. “What’s wrong with my nail color?”
“Nothing. It’s understated and elegant, just like you. But have you ever gone red? Or blue? I noticed some crazy toenail colors this summer on a lot of women.”
“Of course not. Blue nails don’t exactly scream professionalism.”
“Why not? They’re just nails.” The light changed and they merged into the pack of people crossing at the intersection up the hill.
“Because eventually I want to be a partner at my firm. Partners don’t have crazy nails. That’s not me anyway.”
He laughed. “I’m not saying you should go punk rocker, but I am worried you’re a little too held together, like you can’t allow any cracks in the persona.”
She did not like this conversation one bit. How dare he start poking fun at her? She was supposed to be managing a project for his company. Period. The End. But he didn’t seem to care that she was frowning and practically stomping on the sidewalk next to him.
“I mean, what if you don’t make partner? Then what? Can you dye your hair purple then?”
“I don’t want purple hair,” she practically shouted, shocked that this virtual stranger was getting under her skin when, on a normal day, diligent reporters didn’t ruffle a feather on her. “And I will make partner.”
He froze while she kept storming ahead, and he called after her. “Do you want to make partner?”
She stopped and spun on the ball of her foot to walk back to him. “Of course I want to make partner. What else would I do?”
“That’s a good question.” He smiled at her. Because of the slope of the hill, they were nearly at eye level.
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. She felt like a bowling pin smacked by the ten-pound ball. Never had she expected in-your-face honest conversation like this when she’d agreed to dinner with a firefighter. In the last six years she’d consented to go to dinner with a tiny handful of men. Men who kept conversation to a polite discussion of favorite vacation spots and war stories about not getting a flight upgrade on business trips. They never made her feel they were peeling her skin back to look into her soul. They never made her feel her scars were showing as Jason was doing.
He asked again softly, “What would you do if your fairy godmother came down tomorrow, waved her wand, and granted you a career doing anything?”
She laughed a little unsteadily. “You’re being fanciful. I didn’t peg you for a fanciful type.”
He didn’t look ashamed, only curious. No one had ever asked her such a question, but maybe because she’d never let them. She’d set her goals from an early age, got on her path, and never deviated.
“What would you do,” he asked again, “if you could do anything?”
She decided to give the question the thought it deserved. “I’d be a dolphin trainer at an aquarium or a street artist hawking my wares on the sidewalk for dollar tips.”
He smiled at her. “What else?”
This was becoming fun. “I could be a sign spinner, and I’d spin the heck out of my Going out of business sign.”
“You sure would. Your spins would be so phenomenal, they’d put that company right back in business.” There was his dangerous charm again. Women likely tripped in their haste to rip their panties off while chasing after him. Too bad for him, she wouldn’t be one of those women.
To her shock, she broke the lighthearted joking with something that had been floating in the very back of her mind for a few months now. “Or I could be a PR specialist for a more worthy organization. Like for a literacy charity or women’s rights group, because sometimes it’s hard repairing the images of people who don’t deserve it, for people who really are jerks.” She broke off the flood of words. She’d never said it out loud before.
Helping others wasn’t something she’d known she liked until she’d started volunteering through her firm’s charitable efforts six months ago. To her shock, she’d connected with the children she’d tutored in reading, and had found herself wanting to do more than to only help the kids with their phonics skills. She’d found herself questioning the clients her firm took on and wondering about her own moral code when, day in and day out, she went to the media to metaphorically dig slimy people out of the swamp. More and more, she was starting to think some of these people deserved to drown in the mire.
Jason stood close enough to touch, but they both kept their hands to themselves. He didn’t take advantage of her reeling at this revelation. She shook off the insight with a physical head shake. “It’s a ridiculous thought, though.”
“Why?” He looked curious and challenging all at once.
“Well, for one, I’m hoping to make partner someday. And two, I have bills to pay and a reputation in the industry. I’m already invested in my career. I can’t simply jump ship.”
“So?” He shrugged. “Figure it out.”
She rolled her eyes and started walking toward the car again. “Yeah, right. I turn twenty-eight in a few months. It would be ridiculous to start over.”
“You’re not even thirty. That means you have thirty-plus years before you think about retirement. Do you really want to be stuck in the same path you’ve been in for thirty more years?”
Well, no. Not when he put it that way.
“Your face lit up when you mentioned working with charities. Did you know that?”
No, she hadn’t, but she could imagine.
“No one is forcing you to stay in your job, Valerie.”
“No, but it’s laughable to switch careers at this stage, even if I wanted to.”
“You could do it,” Jason said. “And it’s not really switching careers, right? It’s more like switching clients.”
Exactly what she’d been telling herself. And ignoring. “I’ll give it some thought,” she said lightly, but she knew she wouldn’t. The idea was too overwhelming and huge to consider. “What about you?” she asked. “If the career fairy came knocking on your door? What would you ask for?”
“Nothing,” came his rapid response. “I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing.”
Lucky him. “Really?” she asked, somewhat shocked that someone could actually like having a job facing a frightening fire every night. “You never wish you did a job that wasn’t life-or-death dangerous?”
He shrugged. “The truly terrifying calls happen so rarely. Usually we’re squirting cats out of trees with our hoses or cleaning the equipment.”
She laughed in shock. “You do not squirt cats out of trees.” At this time of night on a weekday, Georgetown was devoid of its usual throngs of revelers, and they were able to walk side by side on the sidewalk.
“True story if we’re running low on time.”
“You’re very lucky to be exactly where you want to be.”
“Well—” He pursed his lips and looked ahead as if he wanted to say something, but changed his mind.
“Well, what?” she asked. “Come on, you made me spill one of my more precious secrets, so secret I barely knew about it.” What was it about Jason that had her confessing things she’d barely released from her subconscious? Yet another sign that he was dangerous to her equilibrium and life as she knew it.
A small smile ghosted over his lips. “I want to make the USAR Team 1.”
“The what?”
“The Urban Search and Rescue team,” he explained.
She’d heard of the team. Everyone in the area had. Anytime there was a catastrophe in the world such as an earthquake or a tsunami, the Search and Rescue Team was on a plane within hours to go assist. They were tough, and from what she knew, they were an elite group of people. Jason’s confession made her consider him in a new light. A light that had more layers than simply casting him as a womanizer. “So do it,” she said, echoing his earlier words back to him. At this point, they’d arrived at her car, and she unlocked it with a beep of the key fob. When they were both inside and buckled, he continued talking.
He couldn’t believe he’d told her about his dream to make the Search and Rescue Team. He’d never told anyone, but there was something innately trustworthy about Valerie. As if she’d really hear you, not just listen to your words.
“How do you make the team?” she asked after she’d reversed out of the driveway and was back on the main road.
“You apply,” he said.
“And? That’s it? Do it. What’s stopping you?”
About four essays. “Nothing. I’m going to apply for it in a few weeks.” But then he shuttered down like a hose turned off. They stared out the window, both lost in thought. Finally he admitted, “It’s really competitive. And you have to be mentally prepared. You see some scary shit on the rescues.”
She took her eyes off the road for a brief second to assess him. “You look like you’re tough enough to handle it.”
Her compliment meant a lot to him. “Thank you, but it’s tough to make. Maybe this year I’ll get lucky. The process starts in a few weeks.”
“Well, I’ll wait to congratulate you on making it, but I’m sure you can do it.”
She said the words easily, as if she had no idea what they meant to him. She was so smooth and cool, driving her fancy car earned from money from her fancy job, which she’d gotten from her fancy Ivy League education. She had no idea she was the only one in the world who knew he was considering applying for the rescue team.
It took half the time to make it back to the fire station, where he’d left his car. He kept his fists clenched on his lap, trying and failing to stop thinking of kissing Valerie at the end of the night. At various points in the evening, he’d decide to honor her request about ignoring their mutual attraction, but then she’d go and say something so damn cute, like her dolphin trainer comment. Or the fact that she totally believed he could make the USAR Team 1, no doubts whatsoever. And then he was right back to wanting to touch her, to kiss her.
In a few minutes, she’d pull into the fire station parking lot, and the night would be over, and it felt as if there were a ticking bomb in his body. His gut instinct told him that if he let her go tonight without making a move, he’d be shunted strictly to the friend zone with no chance of getting more. He glanced at her driving her sweet car so competently, and wished he had boyfriend privileges to put his palm on her lap or stroke her soft hair. Earlier tonight, he’d succumbed to temptation and wrapped a strand around his finger. It had been every bit as soft as he’d imagined.
He watched her for the rest of the ride, until finally, obviously feeling his gaze, she took her eyes off the road to frown at him. “You’re staring.”
“You’re beautiful,” he said, the words falling easily and sincerely from his lips.
“Don’t…”
“Don’t what? Tell the truth?”
She pulled her gaze back to the road and murmured, “We shouldn’t do this.”
“Do what? Talk? Hang out?”
“None of it.” But she frowned as if she hated the idea as much as he did. Within a minute, she pulled up into the parking lot, next to his car, and the time for good-byes and see-yas had arrived. The moment he’d been both dreading and dying for because he knew he was going to make his move and either get shut down or get the grand prize.
He leaned across the gearshift as she turned to say good-bye. Pulling a move he hadn’t used since high school when his big brother taught him it, he dodged right then left as if going to buss her cheek, but planted one smack on her lips instead. He pulled back quickly to check on her reaction to his “accidental” lip lock, and one small taste had him reeling. She tasted as good as he’d expected, and she was looking across at him a little stunned. She touched a finger to her lips.
“Sorry about that,” he said, inwardly smiling at her stupefied expression, though he imagined his own expression was identical. He’d gone for the surprise kiss, but had been the one to end up surprised at how his body reacted strongly to her nearness.
“I—it’s all right,” she said, still rubbing her finger over her plump lower lip. If she kept it up, he’d grab the finger and suck it between his lips. The way she kept staring, almost as if she’d never been kissed, made him think he should do it again. He leaned forward and brushed his lips deliberately across hers. She accepted his kiss passively for a few seconds, but when her hands curled in his hair, he knew he was making a point. There was chemistry between them. Too much chemistry to ignore it—no matter what she said, her reaction to the kiss told him she was feeling the tug as much as he was.
He was dying to push back the seats and explore her mouth further, but for now he settled for palming her cheeks and pressing his lips firmly against hers. She released a little throaty moan, which pulled a desirous groan from his own throat as he imagined them doing way more than this simple kiss, though there was nothing simple about it.
Their tongues darted against each other then quickly back, as if a wet, open-mouthed kiss would be too much of a declaration. He kept his lips soft and repeatedly tugged on her lips then released them, planting tiny little nips across her mouth, savoring her taste. Her nails dug into his scalp, pulling him forward into her body, where he went willingly.
They kept up the kiss play for long moments until he’d thought he’d die if they didn’t take this to a horizontal position and use their mouths on other needier body parts, but when a light and an alarm went on in the adjacent station, they both came back to their senses.
With great effort, he finally pulled back to collapse against his seat and catch his breath. He glanced at her to see she was gripping the steering wheel and staring out the front window as if the world hadn’t tilted with their kiss, so he opened the passenger door, struggling for calmness. “Night, thanks for coming out with me. See you, Valerie.” He exited the car as if the kiss had meant nothing and he wasn’t desperate to yank her out and press her back against the hood, or better yet, toss her in the flat bed of his truck with a blanket.
Chapter Five
Valerie smiled down at the twenty expectant six-year-old faces staring back up at her. She knew she wasn’t the star of this show. That would be Jason waiting in the hallway outside the kindergarten classroom. She’d wanted him to make a grand entrance in his full firefighter gear, but with insight developed from experience, he’d suggested he show the kids how he went from nor
mal guy to firefighter extraordinaire. As if there were anything “normal” about him.
She hadn’t stopped thinking about their kiss last week. Of course, he’d been casual about it, but that hadn’t stopped her from replaying the moment in her mind on a loop all week. She should’ve expected the kiss. A guy like him didn’t put much weight in a simple kiss. Not like she did. She kept imagining how she loved latching on to his hair, feeling the short curls slide through her fingers, and keeping his lips locked in place over hers. She could’ve used her tongue to swipe his lips and delve deeper into his mouth.
They were not a couple, and the kiss had meant nothing, though that knowledge hadn’t stopped her from lying awake for hours last night knowing she’d see Jason this morning. Not to mention the two wardrobe changes. The door opened to reveal Jason filling the doorway. The kids went wild and cheered, boosting the steady pounding beat of her heart.
“Hey, kids,” Jason announced. “Who wants to be a firefighter when they grow up?” Every hand shot up but one. He stopped at the dissenting child. “Not you?”
The small boy shook his light brown locks. “I’m going to be a Power Ranger,” he said seriously.
“Good plan,” Jason said and bumped fists with the boy.
Valerie bit her lip to hide her smile and focused on breathing. Seeing Jason chatting easily with the kids, looking way better than any man had a right to, was wreaking havoc on her resolve to remember he was a man who wasn’t cut out for a serious relationship and they needed to keep their interactions professional. One glance at the young teacher in the back of the room told her the teacher was having the same problem. Jason was glorious; there were no other words.
She grinned and snapped a photo as he showed the kids how he stepped into his turnouts straight into his big boots. Soon he was completely suited up and unrecognizable as the handsome man who’d sauntered into the room a few minutes ago. A few of the children scooted back and had worried looks on their faces. She was thankful Jason had dealt with this before and knew the sight of him suited up could be intimidating to small children. If she’d had her way, the kids would now be sobbing and hiding under the tables.
