Her Firefighter SEAL

by Anne Marsh

  Her

  Firefighter

  SEAL

  ANNE MARSH

  Chapter One

  The truck’s motor ticked as it cooled, and a hawk screamed overhead, hunting for breakfast. Otherwise, the only sound was Stan panting and the faint echo of music from inside the dance studio. Some kind of Swan Lake, I’m-wearing-a-tutu-and-tiptoeing music. It sure as hell wasn’t drinking music.

  “You’ve survived harder,” Kade Jordan told himself. He checked his watch—he had two minutes until class started, and that was just long enough to get through the door and not long enough for Abbie Donegan to evict him.

  “Execute,” he muttered, but plan or no plan, his backside remained glued to the side of his truck. Apparently his ass was a coward.

  Stan bumped against his shoulder, and he looked around at the dog occupying the passenger seat. Stan had adopted Kade’s SEAL team in Afghanistan, and Kade had made it his own personal mission to bring the dog home with him. Stan wasn’t handsome, but he was happy-looking. He sported the biggest, goofiest doggie grin on his face, and Kade dared anyone to not smile back. Stan also had caramel-colored short fur and big brown eyes to go with the endless supply of cheerful slobber. The vet had decided Stan was part hound, part Labrador. In other words, Stan was a mutt like all the guys on the SEAL team Kade had served with.

  “You have to stay here, big guy. No wingmen allowed.”

  Stan licked his cheek but dropped to his haunches. Kade would have bet his last SEAL incentive bonus that Abbie wouldn’t be anywhere near as obedient. She’d been stubborn since the day they’d first met in high school, and time hadn’t made her any easier or more flexible. She didn’t draw lines in the sand—she built a fucking Great Wall of China with laser cannons.

  Nevertheless, when Katie Lawson had asked him to check up on Abbie, to do something to wake her up and knock her back into the land of the living, he’d agreed. He wouldn’t refuse Katie anything. Not after everything she’d done for him. He didn’t like accepting help—so he paid it back. That made life neat and tidy, a predictable set of checks and balances, pluses and minuses, black and white. Yeah. He had an endless supply of clichés.

  “Why me?” He’d stared up at Katie from his lawn chair when she’d run him to ground at his place, nursing the cold can of Coke that had replaced his usual Budweiser when he’d realized his beer tab was getting higher even as the time between drinks decreased. The question had earned him an impatient look.

  “Because she’s hurting,” Katie had said, like the answer was what-color-is-the-sky obvious. “And she’s lost. She won’t move into the new house the smoke jumpers built for her, and she’s just treading water, waiting for the baby to be born. She’s closed everyone out, and the only time I see her now is when I take one of her dance classes.”

  She’d shuddered, looking pained. “You have no idea how badly I dance—or how sore my butt gets after forty-five minutes at Abbie’s mercy.”

  Which had been way more than he needed to know, but he’d toasted Katie with his Coke, not bothering to bite back his smile. Always good to know someone else had tested the waters first. When his SEAL team had been diving in the Indian Ocean, they’d drawn straws to see which guy went in first in case the sharks were hungrier than usual. Same principle, tamer locale.

  Katie hadn’t been done talking though. “Plus,” she’d added thoughtfully, “you drive her crazy. She won’t pass up an opportunity to yell at you.”

  Well, that much was true.

  Katie had stared at him expectantly, but he’d had zero intention of sharing those particular secrets with her. He’d given Abbie plenty of reasons to hate him back in their high school days, starting with the eighteen months, two weeks, and three days that they’d dated. Sadly, he could probably calculate their relationship to the minute, but he tried to avoid self-torture whenever possible. After his stint in Khost, he was all about living pain-free. He’d managed to avoid Abbie for the most part after his return to Strong, but if shocking Abbie Donegan back into the land of the living was what Katie wanted, he’d stick to Abbie like white on rice. It wasn’t enough to pay Katie back for her loyalty, but it was a start. Plus it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do.

  Goddamned knee.

  He hadn’t been okayed to jump with the Donovan Brothers smoke-jumping team yet and that left him sitting on the sidelines when he wasn’t making EMT runs for the local fire station as fire season heated up. A guy had to do something and, right now, the team he’d jumped with when he’d been home on leave from his SEALs team didn’t have a place for him.

  Shoving off the side of his truck, he grabbed his duffel bag from the bed and headed for the studio before he could chicken out. Abbie was one small woman, and he’d cleared entire insurgent-infested neighborhoods. Sure, he didn’t have heavy weapons, and hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do, but he needed to suck it up and grow a pair. So what if they’d dated in high school? They were adults now and had moved on. It doesn’t matter that she was your first—and you were hers. The wedding band on her ring finger was proof of that.

  Heating up the Barre was tucked off Strong’s single main street. Glass windows lined the front of the simple one-story bungalow, the studio’s name immortalized in the curliest, most purple font Kade had ever seen outside a Disney movie. Pink and white flowers cascaded out of a row of barrels that wouldn’t stop a speeding truck. One mortar shell could easily turn all that glass into a lethal weapon. For a moment, Strong shifted, melted into Khost. The Afghani streets shimmered in the heat, the scents of hot metal, gasoline, and days-old trash mixing in a noxious cloud. Stand down, sailor.

  He yanked the front door open too hard, needing the bite of the metal on his palm. He was home. He was safe, and no one was going to drive a pickup packed with explosives into the studio. But damn if his head wasn’t slow getting that message. The little bell on top of the door clanged loudly, and six female faces turned to stare as he stumbled in.

  Shit. He should have researched cardio barre class, because he was out of his element here. The women stretched on rubber exercise mats, exposing more skin than he’d seen in months. Boobs in leotards, legs going everywhere, and sweet Jesus, they were flexible. Maybe he needed to rethink ambushing Abbie here. Sure, she couldn’t get away from him—she had the class to teach—but he couldn’t escape either. His last tour of duty had certainly taught him the value of knowing his exits.

  Abbie moved toward him, her long brown hair pulled up in a ponytail on top of her head. The sleek tail swung left-right-left in a beat as steady and unyielding as the scowl on her face. She wore stretchy yoga pants over her leotard and some kind of blue strappy bra thing that exposed the firm line of her spine. And a visible baby bump. Five months’ worth of baby. Which could have been yours if things had worked out differently. He shut down the unwelcome voice in his head—since he didn’t have a time machine or superpowers, there was no fixing that particular fuckup—and focused on the woman he’d seen only in passing since high school.

  “Mr. Jordan.” Cool hazel eyes swept over him. “You made a wrong turn. The door is right behind you if you’d care to use it.”

  Telling, not asking. He didn’t do orders so well anymore.

  “Nope,” he said, dropping his duffel bag against the wall. “No door needed.” He was right where he needed to be. Sort of. The other gear bags were pink and girly. His was olive green canvas and covered with the dog hair Stan shed unrepentantly.

  “Excuse me?” Her composed tone made him itch to get beneath her cool surface. To snap her back to living. After all, if anyone knew about coming back from the dead, it was him. He suspected that was why Katie had tapped him for this particular job. Uncle Sam had written him off
as dead last year, and yet here he was, living, breathing, and braving cardio barre class. Katie had been the only one who hadn’t given up on him.

  “I’m your new student.” He held out a coupon thing he’d printed off the Internet. He’d bet she was regretting offering online registration now.

  She took the chit, examined it, and then examined him. He felt that cool gaze on every inch of his body, and the possibility of kissing her—again—popped unexpectedly into his head. He had to admit he’d had more than one erotic dream starring his new cardio barre teacher, and that was before he’d seen her in a leotard. Abbie had been pretty fucking gorgeous in high school, but the adult Abbie was downright devastating. He forced his tongue back into his mouth. Now that he’d seen her in stretchy spandex, he had all-new fantasy fodder. Since sporting an erection in sweatpants would be awkward as hell, he did a quick mental walk-through of his last SEAL mission in Khost, replaying the heavy concussion of the Humvee hitting the IED and the following shockwave. Boner averted.

  Abbie didn’t look happy, and she wasn’t the one with the blooper reel from a mission gone bad running through her head. “You want to take a cardio barre class?”

  “I live for cardio barre.” Since he’d paid in full, he was betting she wouldn’t kick him out. He looked at his watch. “We need to start. You’re one minute late.”

  She hissed something between her teeth and stomped back to the front of the classroom. He apparently still possessed the ability to aggravate the hell out of her. Her departure left five women staring at him. Two of the Donovan women, the lady who ran the flower shop, and two unfamiliar faces. He was definitely outnumbered. It could have been worse.

  “Take your places, ladies.” Abbie poked various buttons on the iPod plugged into a set of Bose speakers, and annoying chick pop replaced the la-la-la classical music. The music was unfortunate, and he really didn’t want to spend the rest of his day with a Justin Bieber earworm, but there were worse places to be than in a pretty little dance studio. Khost came to mind.

  Instead, he was surrounded by women in leotards and leg warmers. The stuff was close enough to swimsuits for him. He also didn’t care if he looked ridiculous: three months in Afghani captivity had beaten that shit out of him.

  “Plié,” Abbie announced, and nope, he had no idea what she was talking about. The women around him surged into graceful action. He’d survived BUD/S training and Navy Hell Week. He’d carried logs over his head, dropping to give his instructors push-ups in the wet sand, the surf freezing the hell out of his body. How bad could this be?

  ~*~

  Don’t piss off the paying customer. Abbie needed clients, and Kade Jordan was in possession of both a working credit card and an enormous pair of balls. While she no longer possessed any interest whatsoever in his manly equipment, his Visa was definitely near and dear to her heart. The dance studio was barely breaking even, and she desperately needed more paying customers.

  The class was done mostly at the barres lining the room. The workout was quick paced, high energy, and guaranteed to make even the most toned person sweat. Abbie liked the exercise, and she loved the paycheck (even if it was double digits some weeks), but the truth was that everything was better when she danced. She’d majored in dance at UC Berkeley, spent a couple of years trying to make it in New York City, and then hooked up with Will and followed him back home to Strong.

  Nothing about Kade Jordan said dancer. MMC fighter, hired gun, tough guy? Yes, yes, and, darn it, yes. He muscled through the barre work with determination and the confidence of a man who’d spent a lifetime working his body to the limits, but she didn’t think he’d developed a sudden interest in ballet or that he needed another minute of cardio in his life. No, for some unfathomable, unthinkable reason, he’d developed an interest in her, and she didn’t think he wanted to reminisce about old times.

  He’d been calling and texting her twice a day like clockwork for the past two weeks. Once at nine a.m. and once at seven p.m. Since she hadn’t wanted to talk to him, she hadn’t answered. Clearly, he hadn’t gotten the message. Equally clear, he liked to stick to a schedule, because he’d never deviated from those two set times.

  Somewhere along the line, she’d become his personal mission, but he was merely next in a long queue of well-intentioned-but-annoying people who thought they needed to help her get over her grief and move on. The entire town of Strong had been in her business since Will had died, making her a widow. She appreciated the concern but wanted to scream Go away. Unfortunately, even hiring a skywriting service wouldn’t get the message across.

  She didn’t deserve their sympathy. She and Will had given their marriage their best shot, but they hadn’t been fairy-tale material. Somewhere along the line, the sweet, silly, fabulous adrenaline rush of first love had worn off, and they’d both realized the truth. They were friends. Best friends. Friends with some pretty awesome benefits even. And those were all good things, but what they weren’t was in love anymore. It wasn’t her fault any more than it had been his. It had just been one of those things that happened somewhere between the I dos and happily ever after. They’d talked about living apart, but then Baby had made his or her presence known, and after bemoaning the unreliability of birth control and the drawbacks of a friendship with benefits, they’d stuck with each other.

  He’d be her trusty steed, Will had promised, his brown eyes crinkling up at the corners as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back against his chest. Or her white knight. Her squire. Whatever, whoever, she needed him to be. Robin Hood, she’d wanted to say, and I’ll be Marian, but that would have been mean. He couldn’t love her wildly or romantically, but she didn’t feel that way about him either, and they’d had a baby on board and a new chance at being a family. It would have been silly to wish for more.

  The problem was steeds, squires, and knights only worked when they weren’t dead, and Will was dead. Unlike the six-foot-tall problem plié-ing in her studio. Just looking at Kade took her mind right off Will because he looked ridiculously out of place. He was a big, battle-hardened SEAL in sweatpants and a Navy T-shirt doing cardio barre with six women. If she’d been meaner, she would have snapped a picture with her phone and posted to the town’s Facebook page. Eventually, she stopped worrying about why he was there and just lost herself in the pull and glide of the dance moves. Stretching a little farther, sinking a little deeper. Letting the music hum through her and swallow up all the thoughts she was so tired of.

  Kade was stiff, but he caught on quick. Although pretty arms wasn’t something he’d be mastering this century, he handled the legwork like a pro. In motion, his body was a thing of beauty, the only moment of uncertainty when he put his weight on his busted knee. His face didn’t give anything away, but even she could tell that knee didn’t work like the other one.

  When she moved the class to the mats for ab work, calling out the moves from the front of the studio because this was the one piece she couldn’t do anymore thanks to the baby on board, he smoked them all. It was a pity he hadn’t shed his T-shirt, because she was betting he had a six-pack. Or a nine-, ten-, or twelve-pack. The SEAL took his crunches seriously.

  Precisely forty-three minutes into their session, she segued into the cooldown, walking her ladies through a series of gentle stretches.

  “And we’re done, ladies. Good job.”

  There was the usual flurry of happy noise as her ladies gathered up their things and shoved on street shoes. They chatted about their plans for the rest of the day and moved toward the door. Leaving her alone with Kade. That hadn’t been part of her plan.

  Of course Kade stuck. He’d been chasing her for two weeks. Now that he’d run her to ground in her studio, he’d say whatever it was he was so desperate to say. Not that he looked desperate. Instead, he looked good, which had pretty much been a permanent condition for him since high school.

  “How are you?” He leveled his dark gaze on her, unfazed by his introduction to cardio barre. She s
hould have told him tutus were obligatory wear for newcomers. Maybe then he would have left before she had to make small talk with him. Because what did he think she was going to say? TGIF. Fridays sucked. So did Saturdays, Sundays, and every other day ending in Y.

  “I’m fine. Do you want to discuss the weather too? Because this is California. It’s sunny. It’s hot. There’s zero chance of rain and, yes, I know they’re predicting a bad fire season.”

  She didn’t give a damn if she came off as hostile. He shook his head but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t Kade’s fault, but she was pissed off at him. He’d come back. Everyone had written him off as dead, but then he’d come back. So why couldn’t Will come back?

  “You need help with your social skills,” he said agreeably.

  “I don’t need help. Period. What do you want?” She grabbed her towel and draped it around her neck. The towel had been Will’s. It was plain gray and had bleach stains along the edges from the one and only time he’d been allowed near their washing machine.

  “To talk.” He crossed his arms over his chest. How unfair was it that he hadn’t even broken a sweat?

  Of course he wanted to talk. He’d want to know how she was feeling. He’d offer to be the shoulder she cried on or the loaner guy she called when she needed a free handyman. He’d change lightbulbs, move furniture, drive her from point A to point B. It was all so nice. Thoughtful. Blah fucking blah. What she felt was mean, and the sooner he—and everyone else in Strong—accepted that, the better.

  It somehow seemed even worse because, once upon a time, she and Kade had talked marriage and living happily ever after together. Granted, they’d been young and stupid, and he’d hotfooted it out of Strong and into the military when she’d passed on his less-than-romantic proposal (hello, broken condom and teenage guilt), but she didn’t need him to be her pretend husband now.

  “Class is over,” she said. “Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”