Fire at Twilight: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 1

by Lila Ashe

  “Whatever you want, darlin’,” said Tox with an unexpected drawl that made Grace’s knees get warm.

  The puppy sat on Grace’s lap during the short ride to Fenton’s Beach. When Tox took the corner at First she almost spilled off, but then she scrambled back, seemingly desperate not to lose contact.

  Tox parked in the lot and they walked past Mabel’s Café toward the sand. Grace felt awkward, rejecting every sentence that came to mind as too silly or too frivolous.

  Down near the water, though, the salt wind whipping her ponytail, the small dog stretching her leash to its limit, Grace felt the tightness in her jaw start to relax. “She’s adorable,” she said to Tox.

  “I know.”

  “That fur, though.”

  “She has a grooming appointment tomorrow.”

  Grace nodded. “She’s too skinny.”

  “Agreed,” he said amiably. “We’ll fix that right up.”

  “How?”

  “Steak. Lots of steak.”

  Surprised, Grace said, “I can’t imagine that would be the best diet for a puppy.”

  “I was teasing,” he said. “Mostly. But ice cream isn’t out of the question.”

  “Really?’

  “Man, you’re easy to tease.”

  “Gah. I’ve always been gullible,” said Grace. She bent over and undid the laces of her shoes. “Once a guy convinced me he was the first test-tube baby in the world.”

  “Why would he say that?”

  “I don’t know.” Grace had never thought to wonder why he’d done that. “I have no idea.”

  “Men will say anything to get laid,” he said.

  The sand was cool and damp between her toes. “Is that true, do you think?”

  Tox’s eyebrows raised as he took off his own shoes. They left them in a companionable pile at the edge of the iceplant, safely out of the waves’ way. “Oh, yeah.”

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to admit that on a date,” said Grace.

  He looked rueful. “Probably not.”

  Something that resembled daring filled Grace spine. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever said? To get laid?”

  “Oh, man. I really don’t think I should go there.”

  Her heart beat rapidly. “I’ll tell you the worst thing I ever said.” Grace could only think of something she’d heard her sister say at a bar.

  Tox laughed. “Girls do it, too?”

  The bar line Samantha had said tripped off her tongue. “I told a guy that I could tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue.”

  “I’m intrigued. You can?”

  “Sure. Who can’t?” Grace had never even tried. The lie burned a path into her stomach.

  Tox tugged on the leash. The puppy ran toward a seagull, pretending she wasn’t on leash, her short legs scrabbling at the wet sand. “Wow. But if it was the truth, then I don’t think that counts as a bad thing. It’s only morally reprehensible if you’re making it up, just to get some action.”

  “A man with a conscience,” Grace said, trying to will her blush to stop. “That’s admirable.”

  “Don’t say that yet. I once told a girl I’d run a baker’s dozen marathons.”

  “And you hadn’t?”

  “I don’t run unless it’s from a bear.”

  A wave ran at them, and they dodged. A young woman wearing headphones race-walked past them, arms pumping. Grace said, “What kind of exercise do you do then?”

  Tox looked at her with a leer.

  She blushed harder. “Okay, never mind. Just get some exercise sometime, would you? It’s good for you. What other lies have you told women?”

  “My worst lie?”

  “Yeah.”

  Tox guided her around a large strand of seaweed that blocked their way. “I once told a girl that I was a Russian prince.”

  “To get in her pants?”

  He shrugged. “She was gorgeous.”

  Grace felt a funny twist in her stomach. She wondered what gorgeous looked like to him. Probably not jeans and a sweatshirt with hair pulled back in a scruffy ponytail. “How did you explain your lack of accent?”

  “Oh, I had an accent.”

  “You’re kidding me. Do it.”

  He grinned. “No way.”

  “Do it.”

  “Zen I vud haff to keel you.”

  As she dodged another wave, Grace laughed, deeply, from her belly. “So you were a German Russian?”

  “I was Eastern European. Of some flavor. I was rich, and my mother owned a fleet of horses.”

  “Horses come in fleets?”

  When he smiled, his eyes crinkled at the edges in wonderful ways. “They did for me, when I was a child in the palace. I was raised by six full-time nannies.”

  “How could being raised by six nannies possibly be attractive to someone?”

  “I think it was the implied money that the fleet of horses and the flight of nannies that did it.”

  “So it worked.”

  He gave a nod and whistled to the dog who gave no sign of hearing him. “Totally.”

  “How long did it last?”

  “A week.”

  “A good week?”

  He glanced at her sideways. “Not that great. She was a little crazy.”

  “Crazy for falling for a Russian prince?”

  “Actually, that was my out. I had to return to the land of my people.”

  “And you’re calling her crazy?”

  “She tried to choke my ex-girlfriend when we ran into each other at a bar.”

  “Oh!” said Grace. “Okay, that’s crazy.”

  “I’ve never been attracted to the sane ones. The good-for-me ones.”

  Me, neither. She didn’t say it. There was a pause. Grace considered filling it, but she was thrown. Everything about this man threw her. His casual good looks, his confidence, his jokes. The way she wanted desperately to brush against him. Casually. Or more.

  Then Tox said, “Which is what makes you so interesting to me. That I’m so attracted to you.”

  Dang, he just put it out there, didn’t he? Grace felt a warmth flood her. “Oh.”

  “I’m looking for your crazy.”

  She laughed, turning her face to the last of the sunlight. It would drop behind the rapidly advancing fog bank soon, and the air would cool rapidly. Three different couples wandered the same way they did, dodging into and away from the waves. They walked in silence, laughing periodically at the dog. After a few more minutes, they both turned back toward the pier companionably.

  Grace finally said, “You’ve seen me in two different crisis modes, so you’re closer than most to knowing what my crazy is like.”

  “And in both cases, you were trying to take care of someone else and not yourself.”

  “What? No, I wasn’t. Not the second time. I was just trying to breathe.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You were taking care of your sister, doing everything you could do make her think you were okay. Then you were helping me, getting the guys out to me with the baby.”

  “Hey,” said Grace, remembering. “Why did that firefighter call you the Angel of Death? Doesn’t seem like that’s a very firefighter-like thing to say.”

  Tox’s green eyes went darker, the color of the water at the edge of the foam. “Just a nickname.”

  “Like Tox?”

  “Worse. Some people … It just seems like bad stuff happens around me, that’s all. If a call’s going to go south, I’m usually either there or on my way to it.”

  “Huh.” She wondered briefly what that meant about his relationships. “But you’re a helper. You help. That’s your job.”

  “Same as you. That’s what we do, right?”

  “Well.” She shrugged. “If that’s true at all, it’s only because it’s easier.”

  “I think that’s your crazy.”

  “Taking care of people?” She pointed at the dog, still straining on her leash. “Number one, pot, meet kettle. And number two, that’s
not such a bad problem to have.” She had to change the subject. This was too much, too intimate. “What are you going to name her?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What’s in the running?”

  He shortened the leash as an errant wave threatened to drench the puppy. “I like Loki.”

  “No,” said Grace without hesitation.

  “Why not?”

  “She’s a girl! And Loki was the god of destruction. It’s like naming your kid Damien. You get what you deserve.”

  “Okay. Then Appaloosa.”

  “That’s the opposite of Loki, I guess, but that’s so long. And wouldn’t you shorten it to Loose? Then she’d be guaranteed to be pregnant before she even graduates her first training class.”

  “Methyl.”

  “Ethyl?”

  He slowed his pace, and then stopped, slapping his thigh. The dog came running. Heck, Grace wanted to, too. “No, Methyl. It’s a hazmat thing.”

  “It’s short for some chemical?”

  “Yep.”

  Why wasn’t he just saying what it was short for? “And …”

  “Methyl-ethyl bad stuff. Only … we don’t normally say the word stuff.”

  “Ah.”

  “You know the rule of thumb for methyl-ethyl bad stuff?”

  Grace shook her head. His voice was teasing again, and she liked the way it sounded in her ears. Rough and happy.

  He held up a fist, his thumb up, holding his arm out straight toward the horizon. “Imagine there’s an explosion out there, way out at sea.”

  Squinting, she said, “Okay.”

  “You want to stay far enough away from the methyl-ethyl bad stuff that when you hold up your hand like this, your thumb covers it up.” He looked at her, and then, to her surprise, he put his arm around her waist and drew her against his chest. “It’s pretty technical.”

  “I can tell,” she laughed, breathless. “You must have gone to school a long time for that.”

  “I put in at least six hours of training. Can I kiss you now?”

  “Again,” she said. “You did that once already.”

  He smiled. “And it’s all I’ve been able to think about doing ever since.”

  She reached up on tiptoe to kiss him.

  Grace thought it would be a light kiss, like the moment. A sweet kiss. On the beach, in the sunset, in a handsome firefighter’s arms, what could be nicer?

  But the kiss wasn’t nice. Or, at least, it wasn’t for long. His mouth, soft at first, soon blazed against hers. The heat of it stunned her, lighting every cell in her body on fire. His tongue was firm, direct, sure. He tasted like mint and something darker. His hands held her close, tightly, so that she could feel his arousal. He said her name against her kiss, so that the wind tore it away.

  Grace felt something at her ankle.

  Something insistent, even more so than Tox’s kiss.

  Methyl was humping her shoe. “Oh, come on, dog!” She shook her leg out of Methyl’s grasp and ignored Tox’s laughing. “Really? How did you train your dog to do this already?”

  Tox drew Grace close again. “She joost feels zuh passione.”

  Bumping her hip against his, she turned so that she could look out at the ocean, hoping to catch her breath. To draw herself back in line. No man should affect her like this. She felt thrown, off kilter. It was a foreign feeling, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.

  “I thought you were supposed to put out fires,” she said, not looking at him. “Not start them.”

  His lips were at her ear. “I’m an arsonist when it comes to you.”

  Grace wheeled, pulling from his arms. “That’s the worst line I’ve ever heard.” She pointed at the pier ahead of them. “Are we headed back there to eat?”

  “Yep.”

  “Race you.” She ran. Somehow, she knew he’d let her get ahead.

  But she knew he was right behind her. She wanted nothing more than for him to catch her. And at the same time, she knew he wasn’t right. Toxic.

  A terrible idea.

  A hot, terrible, intoxicating idea.

  She ran harder.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Grace, since the kiss on the beach, had kept him at arm’s length, and Tox wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong.

  Surreptitiously, he blew into his hand. Breath, check. Still minty from the gum he’d chewed on the way to her house. He remembered putting on his deodorant before he left the house, so that wasn’t it.

  Maybe he was a terrible kisser. Maybe he’d horrified her with a bad kiss! Oh, no. Could that be it? He’d never had any complaints in that area, but there was always a first time.

  But then again, she’d accused him of starting a fire. And that had to be a good thing, right?

  They’d tucked Methyl safely into her crate, locking the door. She drank water and promptly passed out in a sandy heap.

  Now they sat facing each other at one of the picnic tables Darling Bay had installed two years before. Tox had never taken the time to sit here before. It was pretty great, actually. The view of the breakers was impressive from up here on the raised sidewalk—they could watch not only the water crashing, but the surfers being thrown over the waves, as if the ocean was shaking them out like a damp towel.

  “How’s your burger?” he asked.

  “Terrible,” Grace said, but she took another big bite.

  “I can tell you hate it.” Tox opened the bun and added more salt from the paper packet. “Hey, look, there’s Lexie.”

  Lexie strolled next to an older man who was dressed in a blue polo that paunched out at his round belly. It couldn’t have been a date—he looked at least twenty-five years older than she was. Lexie leaned down and said something to the man and then skittered toward them, leaving him standing at the top of the stairs that went down to the sand.

  Lexie raced toward them, draping herself over the end of their picnic table. “Yes,” she said, “before you ask, I’m on a date. I’m on a date that I got online, and right after this I’m going to go home, eat a package—no, a crate—of Oreos while in the tub, and then drown myself.”

  Grace said, “You sure you don’t want to dump him right now and join us?”

  Tox said, “Yeah. You wanna? Hey, wait.” Was his own date going so badly Grace wanted her friend to join them? But then Grace dropped a quick wink at him, and he remembered the way she’d responded to him on the beach. He took another look at the man standing by the steps. His thinning hair was almost in a combover because of the wind. Tox could have some compassion for the guy.

  “Nah,” said Lexie. “I just want you both to get a good look at him so that if I go missing, you’ll know whose basement to tear up. His name is Scooter Fuzz.”

  “It is not,” said Grace.

  Lexie held up a hand. “Swear. He showed me his license. Okay, I have to go so I can get this over with faster. Enjoy your burgers.” She waggled her eyebrows and was gone.

  Tox took her advice and took another big bite out of his burger. Around it, he managed to say, “Thish is amashing.”

  Grace shook her head and held up her hamburger to the sunset streaking across the sky. “Neither of us should be eating this. Think of the gluten in the bun, the fat in the burger, and that’s not even to mention how processed the bacon is. And this cheese! This isn’t cheese. It’s melted plastic.” She glared at it. Then her face softened. “Delicious, delightful, addictive melted plastic.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about. And hey, this is a step up for me? You know how times I eat McDonalds a week?

  “Don’t tell me.” She meant it.

  “I throw some Carls Jr. in there if I’m feeling like I need a little something better. This, this is highbrow cuisine. Lettuce and everything. Have a fry.”

  “No, thanks,” she said, but her fingers lingered near his fry basket. “I’m happy with my salad on the side.”

  “Which you haven’t touched yet.”

  “I will.”

  “No, y
ou won’t,” Tox said. He nudged the fries closer to her. “Because you want some of these.”

  “No way. I want to live to be a hundred.”

  “Potatoes. They’re a vegetable.”

  Her hand skittered toward the fries and then away. “No …”

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “That’s not the point,” she said. She had a tiny dab of mustard just below her lip, and he wanted to lick it off.

  “What’s the point, then?”

  She put down the french fry she’d picked up, placing it squarely back in its paper basket. They both looked at the squabbling seagulls next to the table who were fighting over half a dropped corn dog.

  “This isn’t real food,” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

  “Look,” Tox said, opening his burger bun again. “Meat. Vegetables. Wheat. Pretty straightforward food to me. You’re sad it’s not a tofu burger? Because we can go get you one of those. They have ‘em down the block.”

  “No!” She gripped her burger tighter and took another bite.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Grace chewed and watched the waves. She was so all-fired cute, with that ponytail and that earnest expression. She’d gone somewhere, far away, and he wasn’t sure how to get her back.

  “Give yourself a break, huh?”

  She jumped. “What?”

  “I know when someone’s beating themselves up, and that’s what you’re doing. Just enjoy your burger, huh?”

  She bit her bottom lip, then licked away the mustard. He missed it as soon as it was gone. “I’m fine.”

  Sure. She could play it that way. Tox wasn’t that big on pushing anyone, anyway.

  A little boy wandered past the table, his mother right behind him. She was on her cell phone, looking into the parking lot, and didn’t notice the little boy had let go of the string of his yellow balloon. Tox lunged sideways, grabbing it while it was still a few feet over his head. “Hey! Here you go, kid.”

  The mother thanked him as she tied the string around the child’s wrist.

  When he sat back down, Grace said, “That was nice.”

  “All in a day’s work. Helium’s deadly, you know.”

  She laughed again. “Yeah. That’s why every kid in America sucks it as often as possible.”

  Tox smiled gamely. Helium was actually a great way to kill yourself, too, and he’d been on enough of those calls over the years that he had a hard time forgetting that.