by Jessica Gray
“Remember that guy last year? The one who thought fighting wildfires is a piece of cake and he didn’t have to obey a woman? He ran with his tail between his legs after his first mission,” Kelly said with a laugh. In hindsight it was funny, but when Jules had been by his side, waiting in vain for him to do his part, she’d wanted to ring his chauvinist neck.
“God forbid we get another one of those this year. I’ll make sure everyone who’s not fit for the fight quits…” Jules pursed her lips in a half smile, but her flashing eyes gave her away. If someone had a problem obeying orders, he was out. “I, for my part, plan to stay alive.”
“Me too,” Denis said. “I’m planning to retire after this season.”
“Really?” Kelly gave him a playful punch on his biceps. “Haven’t you been saying that for the last five years?”
“No, this time I mean it. I’m getting too old for this shit,” he grinned, apparently not believing it himself.
“Anyone up for a game of pool?” Troy asked.
“Sure. Holler when you’ve secured a table,” Jules said, giving a full turn on her bar stool. That’s when she saw a guy so hot her stomach clenched. “Wow!” she whispered under her breath, letting her eyes take in his appearance and feeling her heartbeat speed up.
It wasn’t that she didn’t see super-hot guys day and night. She lived on base with plenty of ripped, muscled, testosterone-laden guys, for God’s sake. So why did this specimen cause her female parts to take notice?
The man was well-built with muscles in all the right places, his biceps bulging the black t-shirt, a tattoo snaking out from under the sleeve all the way down to his elbow. Holy Lord, she was a sucker for men with tattoos…and tousled dark hair cropped short…
When he caught her staring, she felt the blood shooting to her face. Fighting the urge to spin back around on her stool, she gave him her most arrogant glance, and mentally high-fived herself. But she shouldn’t have, because he smiled right back at her.
His dark blue eyes seemed to electrify the entire room, sending tingles coursing through her veins. Somehow, she managed to tear her eyes away from him and turned on her stool in a dignified arc.
“So, are you ready for the season to start?” she asked Kelly, who’d been ordering another beer.
Kelly grinned, nodding at the bartender when he handed her the drink. “Thanks, Mitch. Yes, I’m ready. Off-season is boring.”
Jules laughed saying, “Thank goodness. Gives us time to recuperate.”
She sensed his presence, before she saw him. A jolt of sensation snaked up her spine.
“Hi, you come here often?” an incredibly sexy deep voice asked. An internal war ensued between groaning at the corny line, or melting into a puddle at his feet. Something about his voice touched a part of her that had been long buried. To tell the truth, everything about him had her tied up in knots, waiting for him to wrap those muscled arms around her and press her against his hard body.
She glanced up at him, the smile in his deep blue eyes hitting her like a lightning strike. Holy Lord, how on earth could her body react like this to a man she’d never seen before.
Using all her mental strength to tear her eyes away from him, she decided it better to ignore him and picked up her beer. Kelly signaled with a slight shake of her head that she was paying attention to Mr. Hotness.
He leaned a hip on the bar, facing her sideways and then asked, “What’s your name? Mine’s Tyler.”
She had to give him credit for having balls, but that didn’t mean she would succumb to the unprecedented lust flooding her being. She wasn’t averse to having sex, actually enjoyed it, but she didn’t do relationships during fire season. Afraid that a romantic or even purely sexual relationship would mess with her focus, she’d decided long ago that sex and fires didn’t mesh. Better to end it right before it started.
“I’m Jules, and I’m going to save you a lot of trouble and tell you straight up I’m not interested in whatever you have going on in that gorgeous brain of yours.”
Tyler grinned at her, his wonderful eyes gleaming with mischief. “So, you think I’m gorgeous?”
Jules mentally rolled her eyes. Leave it to a man to take the compliment and ignore the rest. “Like I didn’t just tell you something you haven’t heard a thousand times already.”
“Let me buy you another round,” he said, glancing at her almost empty beer.
“Look, Tyler, I’m here with friends and really, I’m not interested.” She tried to soften her words with a smile, relieved when he simply looked at her for a moment and then inclined his head.
“Alright, but if you change your mind, I’ll be over there.” He shot her another panty-melting smile and then sauntered off, giving her a prime view of his positively gorgeous ass wearing long khakis. His aftershave lingered in the air, assailing her nostrils and dampening her panties from the waves of desire rushing through her.
“I can’t believe you brushed him off.” Kelly shot her a disbelieving look.
“Come on. There’s more than enough hot guys on base. He’s nothing special,” Jules said.
“Nothing special? So why’s your heart going a mile a minute?”
“It’s not.” Jules put a hand over her heart to hide the frantic hammering.
Kelly giggled. “Hey, it’s me. Your friend. Female friend I must emphasize. And I know lust when I see it. You’re lusting after that hot body.”
“I’m not saying he isn’t hot. I’m just not interested.” Actually, Jules was interested. A lot so. But rules were rules. Having an affair or even a one-night stand might derail her focus. And lack of focus meant that the firefighters depending on her might get hurt. Or worse. “Fire season starts tomorrow. No guys. Period.”
Kelly shook her head. “You and your rules.”
Jules turned and surveyed the tables in the bar. “Quite full today. Must be plenty of tourists in town.”
“Handsome tourists,” Kelly said and pointed to the table where Tyler was now taking his seat on the bench again, amidst some other muscular men and one blonde woman.
“I wonder what they’re doing here?” Jules said. Bear Mountain was the village that hosted the base camp for the hotshots, but it was also a popular starting place for a hike into the adjacent National Park.
“Probably out for a few days of camping. Let’s hope they are responsible and don’t give us the first fire of the season.”
Jules sighed. As much as she loved firefighting, at the same time she hated what the fires did. They destroyed so much of the wonderful nature and the wildlife. But what she hated with every fiber in her body were negligent tourists who caused fires to start because they didn’t adhere to the safety rules of camping out.
“Look at that one.” Kelly pointed at a guy in his mid-twenties who got a little too hands on with the woman he was trying to charm and ended up getting a glass of beer dumped in his face.
“Crash and burn,” Jules murmured with a chuckle.
“So how was L.A.?” Kelly asked.
Jules shook her head saying, “Dirty and crowded. I’m glad to be back up here in the mountains. I’d live here year-round if I could.”
“Bet your mom would love that, huh?” Kelly asked, the subject of Jules’ mom having occurred on more than one occasion.
“Not hardly.” Jules huffed a laugh, downing more of her beer. “She’s never going to understand why I do this job, and I’m okay with that. She spent most of the winter months trying to set me up with this actor or that producer.”
“So, she’s moving up in the world?”
“If you call rubbing elbows with some of Hollywood’s A-list actors and actresses moving up in the world, then yes. She just can’t seem to understand that her friends aren’t my crowd. I mean, they’re just people…”
“Who make lots of money making movies and posing for photographs.”
“Yeah, but money isn’t everything.” Jules paused a moment as she contemplated how different they were. “I’d r
ather spend a night out under the stars than gawking at stars made of concrete on a sidewalk.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m not in agreement with you on that one, but there are a few hot actors I wouldn’t mind meeting.”
Jules shook her head. “You’d be sadly disappointed. I know I have been. Everyone in that world expects you to be plastic, and they wouldn’t know what to do with a real-life person. They live for labels and being seen at the right events and hob-knobbing with the right people. That’s not for me.”
Troy’s signal that they’d procured a pool table cut the conversation short.
“Let’s go.” Jules followed them across the bar, holding her eyes hostage so they wouldn’t glance anywhere in the vicinity of the smoking hot Tyler. By the way her spine tingled, his eyes were caressing her backside. Throughout the pool game the exciting sensation of him watching her popped up again. Each time she turned to confirm or deny, he met her eyes, winked at her and then looked back to the group of ever changing men sitting at his table, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to do. As if he’d known her all his life.
As if she already belonged to him.
Jules shook her head, eradicating the images of Tyler coming over and putting an arm around her waist, whispering dirty words into her ear and then knocking her out with that devastating smile of his.
Damn him and his perfect lips.
She ruined the perfect shot she’d needed to win the game.
“What’s wrong with you, Jules? Forgot how to play pool during off-season?” Castor teased her and finished off the game at the same time. “I win.”
Jules shot him an angry glance. “Sorry guys, I’m tired. I guess I better get some shut-eye.”
“Come on, it’s not even midnight. Stay and play one more game with us,” Kelly pleaded with her.
“Not tonight. We’ve all got an early day tomorrow. I’ll see you all at breakfast.” She nodded to everyone and started for the door.
Focused on the pool game, hell no scratch that, on erotic fantasies with Tyler, she hadn’t noticed the influx of new patrons in the bar. It was awfully crowded by now and some of the men had clearly pregamed and were in different stages of drunkenness.
“Hey, baby! Come on over. I’ve got something just for you.” A big man with longish dark hair and a moustache slurred.
Jules ignored the comments flung her way as she weaved between the tables, heading for the exit. But when a hand reached out and snagged her elbow, she spun around, knocking the offending hand away and backing up.
Chapter 3
Tyler had been keeping an eye on Jules the entire evening, watching as she laughed and joked with her friends. Never before had a woman made his insides go to mush like this one did, and he’d had more than his fair share of them.
In fact, he prided himself on being the last free and single man standing in the Armstrong family, and up until today he’d never wasted a thought about changing. Hadn’t even begun to fathom how his brothers could have fallen so hard and fast for just one woman when there were plenty around. Warm and willing to join his bed for a night or two.
It rankled that Jules had turned him down flat. Not in a rude or unfriendly way, but firm. Despite the clear signs of appreciation he’d seen in her eyes. He was no fool and if that woman wasn’t aroused by his presence, he’d eat a broomstick. So why did she deny them both the pleasure they could find in each other’s arms?
Tyler was a patient, determined man and since she’d already stolen his breath after just spending a minute in her presence, he decided to get down to the essence of things – of her. Strange as it sounded, he wanted her. And her alone.
He shook his head at his own thoughts, a sliver of understanding hitting him that this might be the lightning bolt his brothers had talked about.
The one.
“It hits you between the eyes, a dart going straight through your heart and that very moment you know you want to spend the rest of your life with this woman,” Preston, his oldest brother had said.
A commotion across the bar pulled him from his thoughts and he squinted through the hazy air, his eyes rising as he realized Jules was in a not so pleasant exchange of words with a bunch of douche bags.
He glanced over to the pool table where he’d last spotted her friends, but none of them made a move to help her. “Some friends you are,” he muttered and pushed himself to his feet. He couldn’t sit there and watch those fools give her shit.
“Get out of my way,” Jules threatened the man blocking her path with a voice sharp as a sword.
“Now, there’s no need to be so unfriendly. How about you kiss me first, and we take it from there?”
Tyler rushed across the bar to reach her, but the gawking crowd blocked him. He elbowed his way through and heard her saying, “I don’t think so. Now, step out of my way! This is my last warning.”
“You threatening me, babe? I’ll come and get my kiss,” he laughed dirty and took one step toward Jules.
Tyler struggled desperately through the thickening crowd of onlookers to reach her when it happened.
The man put an arm around her shoulder and she jerked up her elbow, connecting it with his mouth. He gave a sharp hiss, followed by a curse. “Bloody bitch!” His hand automatically flew to his mouth, where blood streamed out. Using her attacker’s moment of pain, she slipped out of his embrace, bumping into another man.
“A wildcat. Fine with me,” her attacker said, trying to grab her again. Tyler almost went berserk at the sight. He’d arrived within three steps from her, but froze in place at the spectacle that now unfolded.
“Look, I don’t want problems, so I’m asking you nicely to back off,” Jules said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. But the man was like a dog with a bone. He adjusted his crotch while leering at her.
“Now we’re talking baby. So, here’s my plan: I’ll buy you a drink and then I fuck out your brains. What do you say?”
“I say no. No thanks.” She turned to leave the tumult, but his friend stepped into her way.
“Not so fast. First you’ll pay for that knock to my friend’s lip.”
“Look,” she raised her hands, “I just want to go home. It would be better for everyone if you stepped aside. Nobody will get hurt and you can continue praying to the gods of alcohol.”
The eyes of the man lit up with rage, but she saw his punch coming and ducked away, followed by a nice uppercut to his chin. Tyler wanted to applaud when the drunk dropped like a felled tree.
Jules stepped across him, shaking her head and said, “I don’t like being insulted by drunks, don’t bother to get up to say goodbye.”
“Nice punch,” someone from the crowd called to her, but Jules didn’t seem to hear.
Holy Shit. I love that woman. Tyler couldn’t help but be thoroughly impressed at her fighting talents. Looks like she didn’t need my help after all.
“We’ve got this. My mom used to make me take out the trash. Looks like that’ll come in handy now,” a mid-twenties guy with broad shoulders said with a chuckle. He grabbed the drunk and hauled him toward the exit.
“Have a good night,” Jules said in a sarcastic tone, lips pursed and stepped aside to let them pass. “I need a drink,” she murmured, fatigue showing in her beautiful eyes.
Tyler knew it was probably not the perfect time to approach her, but the magic spell she held over him wouldn’t let him do anything but follow her to the bar as if in a hypnotic trance.
“Vodka. And make it a double.”
“You want me to call the cops?” the bartender asked, pouring her glass.
She seemed to think about it for a moment, but then shook her head, “No thanks, Mitch. They’ll make us stay up all night to do paperwork and I’m really not in the mood for this.”
“Your call, Jules,” the bartender said, “but if those thugs come here ever again to cause trouble…”
When the bartender slid a shot glass her way, she tipped it back in one swallow, sla
mmed the glass down on the bar top and shook her head when he offered to pour her another.
How much sexier could that woman get? A powerful hum spread through Tyler’s body, warming his heart and heating other parts of his anatomy. He sidled up to her, leaning his hip against the bar top. “Nice moves you’ve got there. I wouldn’t want to get on your bad side.”
She glanced up at him, those pale blue eyes ruining him. For a moment he saw them twinkle, before she shook her head and turned her attention to her scraped knuckles. The bartender slid her a wet cloth and she dabbed at the traces of blood on the cracked skin.
Tyler reached for her hand, but she evaded him. “I’ve got this. Why are you here?”
“Because you must be the hottest woman I’ve ever met.” Tyler grinned at her when she fidgeted on the barstool and signaled the bartender over. “Let me buy you another shot.”
Jules shook her head. “I’ve really had enough of men hitting on me for the night.”
“Please. I promise I’ll be a Boy Scout. No hitting, just friendly talk. Relax and enjoy.” He reverted to his last trump card and hit her with the puppy-glance he’d perfected over the years with his stubborn-as-a-mule sister Vivian and even his mother.
Jules looked him up and down, slowing her eyes when she reached his groin, making Tyler painfully aware of the blood rushing into this unruly part of his body. Given the smirk that threatened to break across her face, she noticed exactly what affect her perusal was having on him.
When she reached his eyes once more, she swallowed and nodded once. “Fine, but you’ll drink with me.”
“Would be an honor.”
“Don’t wish for things you can’t handle,” Jules grinned. “Mitch, a dozen shots for Tyler and me.”
A dozen? What kind of freaking maniac was she? Although, if he was being honest with himself, that twist turned him on like hell. If she didn’t stop doing one unexpected, incredibly sexy thing after another, he’d explode in front of her.
