Desperately Seeking Fireman

by Jennifer Bernard

  This time, the pang of envy wasn’t nearly what it had been. Jeb’s easy acceptance of her story made a difference. He’d treated her with the same degree of teasing interest after her revelation as before. He still saw her as a desirable woman, instead of as a pitiable failure.

  So maybe she had been a little harsh on herself.

  Nita drew up a chair and helped herself to one of the powdered-sugar almond cookies Melissa was devouring.

  “How’s the interview coming?” She asked her friend.

  “We’re about to go on camera. He’s doing his makeup now.” Melissa quirked a smile at her. “That phrase takes on a whole new meaning, knowing what we now know. You won’t mind if I make him sweat, will you?”

  “Don’t hold back on my account. This is between him and the public. And the online drag queen community. And the makers of Spanx. Allegedly.”

  “Yeah, well, I was just going through the photos, and I think we’re way past allegedly. We’re in the ‘OMG, no he didn’t’ range. He gives Lady Gaga a run for her money.”

  Nita winced. “If only he hadn’t posted those stupid selfies online. The Internet is a dangerous thing when you think you’re one step down from God Almighty.”

  “Nita! I’m shocked. I’ve never heard you talk about the senator that way.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve never been stranded on an island with him before. It’s given me a whole new take on his character.”

  Melissa leaned in, then winced a little as her belly squished against the table. “I really appreciate the tip. I haven’t been able to work as much as I want, and it’s been driving me crazy. Brody calls me every two minutes when he’s on shift. At home he acts like some fire-breathing dragon guarding the cave.”

  “But things are good?” Nita asked, a little worried.

  “Oh yes,” Melissa answered quickly. “I’m not really complaining. I love that man. I know he’s just being extra-protective. I mean, sending Jeb Stone out here? Come on. Who does that?”

  Nita felt a distinct sense of warmth in her cheeks. “He doesn’t seem so bad.”

  “Oh.” After a quick glance, Melissa sat back. “You like him.”

  The warmth increased. “I barely know him.”

  “He makes an impact.”

  “That he does.” Nita nibbled on a cookie, watching the powdered sugar float onto the tablecloth. She decided to put her cards on the table, the way Jeb would. “What do you know about him?”

  “I know Brody likes him, and that’s enough for me. I know he’s putting his daughter through an expensive college and that he let his wife take most of their possessions in the divorce.”

  “What’s she like?” Nita tried to sound casual, but failed completely. What kind of woman would walk away from a man like Jeb Stone? She was having a hard time wrapping her mind around it.

  “Belinda?” Melissa gave a quick glance around the empty tea room. “She’s . . . pretty. Really into tennis. Kind of bubbly. Has a lot in common with . . . um, Ellen DeGeneres.”

  It took a moment for Nita to make the connection. “What are you saying, that she’s . . . really?”

  “Just my own personal, private speculation that I’m sharing only with you. As a little thank you for the tip. Not to be shared with anyone.” Melissa made a zipping motion across her lips. “I’ve never even wondered aloud in Brody’s presence. I figure it’s not our business. And since Jeb never said a word, it’s especially not our business.”

  “Do you think he knows?”

  “Not much gets past Jeb.”

  “That’s . . . uh, wow.” Boy, had she been off the mark. She did a slow burn, thinking of her snap judgments about Jeb and his wife. “I feel like a fool. At the wedding, I thought they were a perfect-looking couple.”

  Melissa grinned. “I knew he caught your eye.”

  “I wonder why they stayed together so long.”

  “Well, I also happen to know that both Jeb and Belinda’s parents were missionaries, and that he’s not the kind of man who would walk away from a marriage, especially if that would mean exposing any secrets his wife might be keeping from her family.”

  “Wow,” said Nita, again. “You are quite the investigative reporter, aren’t you?”

  Melissa laughed. “That’s a compliment, right?”

  “Of course. Just remind me not to be too revealing around you.”

  From Melissa’s suddenly self-conscious look, she realized it was too late. “Oh hell. You know about my miscarriage?”

  “Only if you want me to.” Melissa spoke from behind the tea cup she’d quickly raised to her lips.

  Nita struggled for a moment, chewing on her cheek. Melissa was her friend. But could an eight months’ pregnant woman truly understand? On the other hand, she’d told Jeb—at least the basic facts—so why shouldn’t she also tell her dear friend? “I should have told you. I’m not sure how much you know, but it was horrible. I ended up in the hospital and lost a lot of blood. It was scary.”

  Melissa went pale, her green eyes dark with worry. “My God, Nita. Are you okay?”

  Nita fixed her gaze on the table, worried that too much sympathy would make her lose it. She did much better when she was moving, moving, moving. “I’m fine now. I couldn’t tell anyone, I . . . I felt like such a failure. Bradford dumped me as soon as I got pregnant. I was so wrong about him, I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid. I just . . . lost so much confidence in myself. I barely felt like a woman anymore.”

  “Oh, Nita.” Melissa put a warm hand over hers. “I’m so, so sorry. Oh, crap. Here I go.” She mopped at her eyes. “This is partly for you, partly because I keep bursting into tears at random moments. You know that I never thought Bradford was worthy. Did you love him?”

  Nita thought about it, really thought about it. “I think I did, in a way, but I also never felt at home with him. If that makes sense. Do you know I never let him see me without makeup? Even when he spent the night?”

  “Hmm,” said Melissa wisely. “The no-makeup test. An essential part of the courtship process.”

  Amazingly, Nita chuckled, feeling another microscopic lightening of her heart. “I’m really glad you’re here, Melissa. Maybe I ought to thank the senator.”

  “Of course you should thank me. But thank me for what?” Senator Stryker loomed over them, barely recognizable under layers of foundation. He wasn’t scowling at her, perhaps because he was afraid to disturb his makeup.

  Nita jumped to her feet. “I was just telling Melissa I ought to thank you for talking to her. I wasn’t sure if I had already.”

  “Hm.” Vanity gratified, the senator gestured to Melissa. “I’m as ready as I’m going to be. Nita, you have my talking points?”

  “They’re on my computer.”

  “Well, I just got off the phone with my lawyer, and he advises against going on camera at all.”

  Melissa looked a little alarmed by that, though Nita shot her a reassuring glance. She knew from experience that once the senator had donned the makeup, there was no going back. “You’ll do fine,” she told him. “If lawyers had their way, no one would ever talk. And then how would you get publicity? Get the audience on your side. Be charming. Apologetic. A little humble. You can do this, Senator.”

  He gave a brusque nod. It didn’t matter what the lawyer said, he knew as well as she did that he needed to make some sort of public statement. They couldn’t stay at the Enchanted Garden forever.

  Although the thought of leaving this place made her unexpectedly sad.

  “Where do we set up, Melissa?”

  “My camera’s out by that little bench in the front. It’s shaded and quiet. It’ll show people another side of you.”

  “Showing another side of me is what got me into this mess.” He winked, and a puff of powder drifted into the air.

  Melissa and Nita burst into surprised laughter. “If you say that on camera, I’m quitting,” Nita said.

  From the senator’s jovial smile, the one he reserved for
upper-level staff members, she knew he didn’t believe her. But for the rest of the afternoon, the words “I’m quitting” ricocheted around her brain. Was she, shocker of shockers, considering quitting? Why? What would she do? Her job was all she had anymore. Why would she want to quit?

  JEB TOOK A break from his handyman duties to help Angie in the Knit, Purl and Tea. This became necessary when Angie plopped down at a table with five of her friends, apparently forgetting she had anything to do with running the place. He brought the ladies a pot of tea, which delighted them so much that he made a joke of it and donned a frilly apron. That’s when things got ugly. They set about trying to determine his marital status and suitability for their single female relatives. An hour later his apron pockets were stuffed with phone numbers scrawled on scraps of napkin.

  Finally—hallelujah—Nita walked into the room, looking lip-smackingly good in a light blue sundress that bared her long, tan legs. She stopped in her tracks, gave him a lingering, incredulous once-over, then burst into laughter.

  He wanted to be offended, but the joy in her face made him so happy, he couldn’t. Her dark hair flowed down her back, just begging to be released from that ponytail. Why did women like ponytails? He’d never understand that. One strand had come out of her hair tie and bounced against her shoulder as she rocked with laughter.

  Okay, enough was enough. He strode toward her, in as manly a manner as he could with that darn apron around his hips. “You’re disturbing my customers,” he told her with a scowl. “Now if you’d like to place an order, that’s different.”

  “If you say ‘coffee, tea, or me’ I’m going to totally lose it.”

  “Sadly, the Knit, Purl, and Tea doesn’t serve anything as stimulating as coffee. We draw the line at black tea. How about some Earl Grey with an estrogen chaser?”

  The corners of her eyes were wet from laughing; she swiped at first one, then the other, letting out a sigh. “It’s nice for the ladies to have a place where they can be themselves.”

  Jeb glanced over at his table of six, three of whom were checking out his ass. He reached into the apron pocket and brandished a handful of scribbled numbers at her. “Being themselves apparently means hitting on me.”

  She took the scraps of paper from him, frowning. “That seems inappropriate. I don’t like to see the staff treated like this.”

  “I’m not the staff,” he growled, then stopped short. The word “staff” echoed between them, hovering between joke and suggestive double entendre. She picked up on it too, judging by the pink that appeared in her cheeks. Once, twice, she opened her mouth, then closed it again. Finally she cleared her throat.

  “Well, I have a manlier task for you, if you’re interested.”

  “Hmm, let me ask my balls.” He paused. “The answer’s yes.”

  She gave a delighted little chuckle that seemed to reach right to his cock. “There’s an order of supplies coming in on the next ferry. Can you drive down with me and help load it up?”

  “Can I do it wearing a frilly apron?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m in. Let me just check on Melissa first.”

  “She’s fine. She’s with the senator, asking him follow-up questions.”

  “Thanks, but she’s still my main responsibility here. I’ll do a quick visual check, then meet you at the van.”

  He wasn’t sure why that made her laugh, but once again, he didn’t mind at all.

  Chapter Six

  * * *

  THE WORD ON the wharf was that the ferryboat was going to be nearly an hour late.

  “Some big swells out there,” one of the old fishermen told them. “Could be a storm coming.”

  “It’s only September,” said Nita with a frown. “Don’t the storms start up in December?”

  But the man had already moved on. Jeb took Nita by the elbow as they made their way back up the ramp to the wharf parking lot. “I can think of something to do with that hour.”

  “Really?” One slim dark eyebrow rose meaningfully. “Are you thinking of pulling a shift at the nail salon?”

  “I swear I’m never putting on a damn apron again. I was thinking we could take a quick tour of the island.”

  “A tour? That sounds so . . . touristy.”

  “I am on vacation, after all. When’s the last time you had a vacation?”

  With her hand on the door handle of the Suburban, she cocked her head, considering the question. “Where have I heard that before? Oh right. My mother.”

  He let out a curse. “Fucking apron. Never again.”

  She laughed, throwing her head back. If you asked him, she was getting better at the laughing thing. Maybe it was like riding a bicycle. Or like sex. A pleasant little flare of anticipation flickered in his belly.

  “Hop in,” she said. “Let’s take a tour.”

  As he slid into the passenger seat, he remembered his rented Maserati, now sitting in a parking garage on the mainland. He thought about the girls who had checked him out, the interested glances he’d collected up and down the Pacific Coast Highway. And he realized he’d rather be right where he was. In a rattletrap Suburban driven by the sexy, incredibly appealing Nita Moreno.

  The “zing.” It was all about the “zing.”

  Nita steered the van along the road that ran through town. She gave him a rapid run-through of the highlights—the town hall, the best fish burger in town, the Maritime Museum, the original homestead from the island’s first settlers. As they passed the fire station, she said, “By the way, the fire chief stopped me at the grocery store. He said you’re to keep the hell away from his crew.”

  He shook his head as they rumbled off the pavement onto the gravel road at the edge of town. “Aw, he shouldn’t have done that. Now I’m going to have to go.”

  “Excuse me?” She glanced over at him. The wind from the open window whipped her hair against her cheek, with a few strands getting caught in her mouth. She tried to flick them away with her tongue, a maddeningly sexy effort that did nothing to the hair and everything to his dick.

  “Here, let me,” he said in a suddenly gruff voice. He reached over and gently tugged the wet hair away from her face. “Where’s your hair tie?”

  “Don’t tell me you do hair too?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but I have opposable thumbs and I know what to do with them.”

  Her eyelids flickered. Pink appeared on her cheeks. Oh, he was getting to her, he just knew it. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, giving him another glimpse of her tongue. He remembered the taste of her, sweeter than peaches.

  “Don’t stop there,” she told him, carefully keeping her eyes on the road. “What else do you know how to do with your thumbs?”

  “See, I’m not good with words the way you are. I’m better at demonstrating.” He took a chance and put his hand on the back of her neck, under the wind-tangled mass of hair. He made a slow circle with his thumb, rubbing the tight tendon he found there.

  She made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan. “You have no idea how good that feels.”

  “You don’t relax much, do you?”

  “Sometimes I do. I watched a Bones marathon just last week while sampling all the Ben & Jerry’s flavors the island carries.”

  “Bones? Isn’t that about a coroner? Doesn’t sound very relaxing.” He ran his thumb down the slope of her neck to her collarbone, found some more tense muscles along the ridge of her shoulder and got to work on those. Her skin felt incredibly soft to him. He’d given Belinda plenty of backrubs over the years, but they’d lost their erotic charge, and her skin didn’t have this effect on him. This galvanizing, seductive effect.

  “Are you trying to make me pull over?” She tilted her head to the side, offering him more access.

  “Is it working?”

  “Well, I was going to take you to the abandoned lighthouse. It’s at the top of this hill and has an incredible view. I haven’t been inside yet.”

  “Drive,” h
e ordered her, removing his hand from her neck. “I work much better at a stationary location.”

  They drove in loaded silence. Jeb wanted to burst into song—some sort of triumphant, male victory chant. At the moment, all he wanted in life was to get this woman naked. Images skittered through his brain. Lovely amber skin, long legs, that shadow between her breasts, dark hair falling across her bare breasts, eyes half-lidded in sleepy arousal, her hands reaching into his pants . . .

  He made an involuntary sound in the back of his throat.

  She whipped her head toward him. “What is it?”

  “Just drive fast, would you?”

  Closing her mouth with a quick snap, she drove. He stared out the window, determined to get a firmer grip on his excitement. They wound their way up a hill covered in scrubby, low-growing grasses. A few cows grazed among the clumps of grass. Beyond the hill, the periwinkle ocean basked in the sunshine. The setting was pure beauty, and he didn’t give a crap. All he wanted was to get to the damn lighthouse.

  And then, there they were, pulling up outside a charming little lighthouse, its white paint peeling, its windows cracked. A fence ran along the perimeter, with a big sign that said “Keep Out.”

  It didn’t seem to worry Nita, so Jeb shrugged and followed her around the building. And there, at the side, was a gap in the chain link fence.

  “Angie told me about this,” said Nita as she ducked through the hole. “It’s sort of a Lover’s Lane kind of thing. They say if you drive up here and see a car, it’s common courtesy to turn right back around. And . . .” She pushed open a door built into the lighthouse. Inside, a cozy little room glowed with hazy sunlight that filtered from slits of windows high above. Cushioned benches ran along each of the six walls. Colorful pillows were piled in one corner, and a stack of blankets filled another. When both of them had stepped inside, she closed the door behind them and turned the lock. “The best part is, it locks from the inside only.”