by Anne Marsh
She cried out, like she felt it too, moving and trembling until she collapsed against his chest and he caught her there with one hand as he followed her over the edge.
~*~
Still buried deep inside her, he gave in to impulse.
“Marry me.” He’d get to keep her and, added bonus, the peanut.
His first clue that he shouldn’t have repeated his high school mistake was the way she stiffened. Second clue? She swung off him.
“No.” She didn’t even look at him as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and started scooping up clothes.
“That’s it? That’s all I get?” He might not be a Cosmo-reading, card-carrying member of the female sex, but even he knew a proposal merited more than a two-letter response. This was familiar territory too.
“Getting married isn’t some kind of game. It’s hard work.”
His clothes hit him in the chest. “I know that.”
“Really? Because the way you throw unromantic proposals around, I was wondering.”
“Did you want your name spelled out in fireworks or four hundred white fucking roses? I was seventeen.”
“I wanted you to make an effort.” She stood up and dragged on her panties.
“You’re nothing but effort.”
“The condom broke. You proposed. What was I supposed to think, Kade? That a little tear in the latex opened your eyes to your deep and heartfelt feelings for me?”
It hadn’t been like that. Sure, he hadn’t planned on proposing five minutes after he’d pulled out of her body. He’d been thinking in vaguer terms, like after college, but the broken condom had been a fact, and he hadn’t planned on letting her down.
“I wanted to take care of you,” he said, pulling her back against him. “I wanted to fix the problem.”
She tugged. “And I wanted to be loved.”
He held on. “I loved you. Don’t ever doubt that.”
She gave him a look that said she not only doubted him, but was certain she was right. He’d failed her that night, but he damned well wasn’t going to fail her now. Somehow, he’d figure out how to convince her to take a chance on him.
“I can’t do this again,” she said.
He had no clue what she’s talking about, but this time he wasn’t letting her leave until he did understand. “Explain.”
“Be in a marriage where I’m just friends. Will was a great guy.”
Those words made Kade want to dig him up and kill him himself, which in turn made him feel like shit because, hello, the guy had died in service, inhaling super-heated gases into his lungs. He was a bona fide hero, and he’d undoubtedly wanted to give Abbie every last damn thing. He’d just died too soon, which meant Kade got a second chance.
A second chance he’d blown.
“We had sexual chemistry,” she continued, not done blowing a hole in his ego. “At least in the beginning. And we thought we loved each other. We really did, but then things changed, and we became more friends than lovers.”
What was wrong with friends?
“I want more than hot sex,” she said. “I want it all—the romance, the passion. I want to be some guy’s everything, and then I want to feel the same way about him.” She paused for a moment. “And that’s the funny thing. I never thought that was what I wanted but... I guess it is.”
He let go. Because really, what else could he do? If she couldn’t look at him and see that guy, then she couldn’t. He didn’t want to be second-best either.
Chapter Sixteen
Give the woman some space. In theory, it was a real good idea. In practice, however, Kade had no idea how not seeing Abbie would fix their relationship. Or whatever it was she thought they had, because he’d missed a signal or two. Three days after Katie’s wedding and his own epic screwup of a proposal and he was no closer to hearing a yes come out of Abbie’s mouth. In fact, he hadn’t seen her once because she’d decided to avoid him. Yeah. He’d struck out. Big time.
Slamming the door of his truck, he strode into the hangar and came to a halt. Not only was his relationship in the crapper, but now he got to see firsthand what a good one looked like. The way Rio Donovan had wrapped himself around Gia, you’d think the man hadn’t seen his wife in months. Possibly years. The fact that the couple was making out on Rio’s desk in full view of the main floor was apparently no deterrent. Damn it.
Had he ever looked at Abbie that way? Kade watched Rio hitch his woman closer, one hand cupping the back of her neck, while the other moved lower. Jesus. He did not need to see this. Face flushed, Gia all but crawled up Rio’s big body, her eyes closed as she did some counterexploring of her own. Kade probably should work on his social skills, but he settled for crossing quickly to the locker room because he’d already seen way more of that particular Donovan brother than he needed. Rio broke off the kiss with a groan when he spotted Kade.
“You ever hear of announcing your presence, man?”
“Try closing the door next time.” Or flipping the lock, using a bedroom, or not having sex with his wife when Kade’s own life had gone to shit. “I’m suiting up.”
He slammed his way into the locker room because hitting shit was pretty much the only option he had left for working off his frustration. Since the summer temps had already hit a hundred, running wasn’t a possibility until the sun went down. He checked his phone before tossing his gear into the locker, but Abbie hadn’t texted. Big surprise. He thumbed through her previous messages knowing that made him a pussy, but he liked rereading what she’d written. When Rio finally wandered in, having pried himself free from his wife, Kade was already in his flight suit and lacing up his steel toes.
He looked over at the other man. “Any chance you speak French?”
Abbie had laughed when he’d sung that French nursery rhyme at the wedding and he’d trade his left nut to see her smile again for him. Maybe he could come up with a sequel. A sequel that would make her stop and listen to him.
“I’ve got three words for you. Baguette. Merlot.” Rio slammed the locker door closed. “Ballet.”
“You forgot merde,” Mack hollered, wandering into the room. “Gia says to say she’ll see you later and don’t forget the doctor’s appointment.”
Rio grinned. “And voulez vous couchez avec moi?”
Mack looked skeptical. “You gonna use the formal form of address when you’re inviting a chick back to your place?”
Wait. How come every guy in the room knew more French than him?
“They’ve got apps,” Rio said helpfully. “If you’re into looking up French words.”
He imagined Abbie’s face if he stopped her midsentence so he could check his phone. Yeah. He’d be a dead man. Still, it wasn’t a bad idea, so he grabbed his phone and did some downloading while Rio changed. Then he plugged in Abbie’s last few words. The translation app spat out a paragraph of gibberish. Or Cyrillic. Kade honestly wasn’t sure which, but he was sure of one thing. Abbie’s French didn’t contain a secret love note.
Rio looked over his shoulder. “Coded message?”
“Private joke.” He tossed the phone back into the locker. He couldn’t spout French poetry on demand, and he doubted that was actually what she wanted. It was stupid to want her to wish him luck today or to even think about her. They were over, and he had a job to do. “Let’s do this.”
The training area was located behind the hangar. Originally little more than an empty clearing surrounded by trees, it now housed an obstacle course he’d spent hours sweating on. Donovan Brothers had also built a tower for practicing exits. The trainees hooked themselves to the cables and rode the line to the end where the short, hard snap mimicked the jerk of a chute opening. Then they swung down on the cable, hitting the ground hard in a simulated parachute landing.
Rio slapped him on the back. “Start climbing and good luck.”
Climbing up the ladder wasn’t so bad. The first two flights of stairs were easy, although he had to work through the third flight, hi
s knee locking up and pulling. It would get better. Hooking into the riser lines went smoothly too, and then Rio slapped him on the shoulder, signaling for him to go, and he was flying down the cables, the ground rising up meet him.
He hit hard. Bounced up. Slammed down on his bad knee again as he ran with the impact. Fuck. He didn’t need a medical degree to know the burning sensation spearing through his leg wasn’t happy news.
He unclipped from the cable, took a step, and bit it. His knee buckled, dropping him to the ground. For long seconds, he focused on breathing in and then out as waves of pain radiated through his body. Rolling over, he stared up at the sky. The day was perfect for jumping, and he was flat on his ass in the dirt.
A minute later, Rio jogged over and nudged him with his boot. The man must have flown down the tower stairs. “Do I need to call Laura Jo, and get you a ride?”
Kade would have given his left nut to bounce up, fly down that damn cable track, and stick the landing. Unfortunately, it probably would have involved crawling up the stairs and then more falling than flying.
“Give me a hand up.”
Rio’s leather-gloved hand clasped his and pulled him carefully upright. “Lots of other options out there,” he said quietly. “Other than coming to jump full-time with Donovan Brothers.”
The last thing he wanted to admit to was defeat. Fuck, but that wasn’t how he rolled. Life knocked him down? He punched back and jumped up. Unfortunately, all the running and PT hadn’t been enough. And while he wanted to tell himself that it wasn’t enough yet, he had to admit the truth. He was done as a smoke jumper.
“Fifty shades of fucked up. That’s me.” Maybe if he stood there in one place long enough, his knee would agree to make it to his truck. Right now though, the distance between him and his front seat seemed approximately the length and breadth of Siberia.
“Women like that shit.” Rio looked down at his knee. “Seriously, man, if you need a doctor, now’s the time to say so. You don’t want to make things worse.”
“I’ll survive,” he said and put his foot down on the ground. Pain shot through him, but it was better this time. Less intense. On a scale of one to ten, he was only at a fifteen now, so that was progress.
He started a slow limp-lurch toward his truck, Rio pacing him. “I’m here to help,” the other man said quietly. “No judgment. You throw an arm around my shoulder, I can take some of that weight off your knee.”
“Help sucks.”
“Yeah. I hear you there.” Rio looked rueful as he threw an arm around Kade’s shoulders. “It’s not my thing either, but unless you want to crawl back to your truck or call someone else, I’m your best option.”
He snorted. “Like I want anyone else to witness my humiliation.”
Rio looked unconcerned. “So your knee doesn’t work right. You think Abbie’s going to care about that?”
Not particularly. “She broke up with me,” he admitted.
“Really? Because Gia spent most of Katie’s wedding talking about how good you two looked together.”
“It’s all past tense.” Two hundred yards to go. Crawling now would be mortifying.
“Gia and I got married in a plane, and then we jumped together,” Rio said abruptly.
“That’s real nice.” Trying not to fall on my face here.
“She saved my ass on one of our jumps.” Rio plowed on. “My chute lines tangled, and the backup malfunctioned. I was seconds from slamming into the ground, and she flew right into my flight path and ordered me to wrap myself around her like some kind of goddamned monkey. She carried my sorry ass all the way to the LZ, me riding her like I was helpless.”
“She must have got over it.”
Rio grinned. “She said I was too pretty to waste on the ground. I guess she decided to keep me.”
He couldn’t help thinking about Abbie again. Damn it, his head was playing nonstop highlight reels of their time together. He and Abbie in high school. That last night when he’d asked her to marry him and then coming home from Khost to learn she was still in Strong. Abbie and him fishing and then that kiss in the water. The two of them together in bed. Yeah. That one right there was a favorite, but what he really wanted was to hear yes come out of her mouth.
“I’ve got stuff to fix,” he said when Rio finally got him to his truck.
“Go home,” Rio advised. “I’ll get someone to drive you, okay? Put the knee up, ice it, and dig out your insurance card.”
Neither of them mentioned the obvious, that he wouldn’t be jumping with Donovan Brothers ever again. Right now, as is, he was a liability to the team. Some things were broken and weren’t going to get fixed. Ever. He just didn’t want Abbie to be one of those things. Unfortunately, he had nothing to offer her except himself, and that was nowhere near enough.
Chapter Seventeen
Abbie woke alone. That had been the case since she’d left Kade at Katie’s wedding four days ago. He hadn’t called. He hadn’t swung by. And he definitely hadn’t asked for another sleepover. Of course, part of that could be because he was out in the field with the hotshot team. Although he wasn’t approved to smoke jump, he was apparently darn good at swinging a pick axe and mopping up forest fires. In fact, she was almost certain he’d mentioned a Donovan Brothers thing.
Or maybe that was wishful thinking, something she’d done far too much of since getting home. He’d asked her to marry him. She’d told him to fuck off. She figured he was done hankering after her bitchy self.
“Your mama talks first and thinks second,” she told the peanut. The peanut’s answer was a small flutter kick deep inside her stomach. “I should have let him talk.”
Because maybe then he would have said the three words she was apparently waiting to hear from him—I love you—and then she could have said them right back, and they could have got on with the business of living happily ever after.
Plotting her next move, she stepped outside. Funny. On the other side of the river, the sky was dark—but it was morning. Well, hell.
Wasn’t that just like her to move and end up in a fire?
Still, it couldn’t be that bad. No way she had both the hotshot and the smoke jumper team hanging around her all summer—only for them all to leave her alone the minute fire threatened. Moving quickly, she went back inside and turned on the radio while she dialed the Strong Fire Department. Two minutes later, she knew there was a five-hundred-acre fire several miles away, but no mandatory evacuation order. Since it was better safe than sorry, however, she hung up and got ready to move.
“We’re on the move again, Peanut.”
Except her battery was dead when she went out to her car, probably because she’d left her lights on again. Stupid pregnancy brain. She swallowed and pulled out her cell. He’d come if she called. She knew that.
“Kade,” he answered almost immediately.
“It’s Abbie. I’m out at the house.”
He cursed. “There’s a fire headed your direction.”
“Yeah,” she admitted in a voice that was smaller than she liked. God, she hated feeling stupid.
“Get in your car and drive out. Now.”
“The battery’s dead,” she admitted.
There was a pause on the other end, followed by a curse. Yeah, she felt that way too.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he promised. “Be ready to leave.”
It was a twenty-minute drive from Strong, and that was if the driver didn’t mind breaking a few traffic laws.
“Should I start walking? Or shelter in place?” She had a river between her and the fire. She wasn’t the expert, but surely that should be enough?
“No. Stay in the living room and watch for me. I’m going to keep you on the line, and if anything changes, I’ll know.”
He sure looked like a white knight when his truck tore up her driveway. Kade rides to the rescue. He’d left her on speaker for the entire eleven minutes it had taken him to reach her. He swung down from the truck, leaving the motor
running and the truck pointed toward the road, and it felt right to run to meet him.
“You okay?” His arms closed around her, pulling her close.
“Going to be,” she promised. “You really think we need to leave? We can’t wait this out inside?”
He scrubbed a hand over his head. “Look, you want to stay, it’s do-able. I can wet the house down more, stand guard on your front porch with the hose, but it’s a risk. I’d rather drive you out of here, take you into Strong for the night, and then we can come back in the morning and laugh at how overprotective I was.”
He was right. They both knew that, but he was going to let it be her decision, her call.
“Then let’s play it safe.” Funny, that word safe. She’d wanted so badly to feel safe, to know that she wouldn’t have to lose anyone or anything again. Instead, she’d discovered that her heart was perfectly unsafe around Kade.
~*~
Abbie’s house felt two sizes too small when they pulled the curtains. He’d ducked inside to make sure the place was as secure as it could be in case the fire did the unlikely and hopped the river. Closing the curtains would cut the ambient heat inside. The lack of light was an illusion, he told himself. He’d been fine five minutes ago when he’d been able to look out the glass. The glass was still there, just like the trees and the space outside were still there. His head simply needed to accept the fucking logic that a few yards of fabric weren’t a problem.
Yeah. Good luck with that.
Five minutes later, he put Abbie in the truck, loaded up her gear, and drove her out. She spent the first five hundred yards twisted around in her seat, staring at the smoky hillside like she was channeling Lot’s wife.
“It’s not going to jump the river. If it does, we’re going to be miles away. It’ll be just like watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.” He hoped. Fire wasn’t entirely predictable.
