Red Hot

by Lisa Childs

  She shook her head and reminded him, “It wasn’t my choice to leave. You know that.” According to the judge, she had been too young at eleven to make her own decision. But even then she’d known herself better than anyone else had. And she’d known that Matthew, at five, needed her more than her grandparents did.

  He sighed. “I know. I know…”

  “And I never forgot about you.” She had visited as often as she’d been allowed and her mother had been able to afford. Her grandparents, who’d lived, and still lived, in Florida, had made certain the judge made her mother responsible for her travel expenses. They’d known it would keep her visits home to a minimum.

  He laughed. “Maybe it would be better if you had forgotten about me.”

  She gasped.

  “I’m just joking,” he said.

  But she wondered.

  “You do tend to forget that I’m not that little kid you left,” he said. There was nothing little about him now; he towered over her. “You can’t boss me around anymore, sis.”

  “I don’t want to boss you,” she assured him. “I just want you to—”

  “Do what you want,” he finished for her.

  “That’s not the case at all,” she said. She wanted him to finish college, but before she could explain, knuckles tapped against the open door behind Matthew.

  “Hello?” Wyatt Andrews called out. “There wasn’t anyone at the reception desk.”

  Fiona regretted now that she’d been so tired she’d forgotten to lock the outside door. She hadn’t minded Matthew coming inside, but she would have rather not seen Wyatt Andrews again.

  “Hey, Wyatt!” Matt turned around and grabbed the bigger man in a tight embrace. And there was that adoration with which he used to look at Fiona when they were kids.

  Wyatt flinched and eased back. And Fiona gasped at the bruise on his handsome face.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Matt asked.

  Wyatt shrugged. “Bar fight…”

  “I should’ve been there,” her brother said. “I would’ve had your back.”

  “You’re not twenty-one,” she reminded him. He was too young to be in a bar, much less in a bar fight. He was also much too young to decide on a career that could cost him his life.

  Matthew glared at her before turning back to his idol. “I’m sure the other guy looks worse.”

  “Guys,” Wyatt corrected him.

  And encouraged him. Fiona could almost see her brother’s admiration grow. She was right in thinking that Wyatt had influenced Matthew’s decision. Matthew didn’t just want to be like him; he wanted to be him.

  “What was the fight about?” Matthew asked. “Did you steal someone’s girl?”

  “I didn’t steal anyone,” Wyatt said. And he glanced at her over her brother’s shoulder.

  Matthew laughed and playfully punched his shoulder. “You wouldn’t have to—all the women just want to be with you because you’re a Huron Hotshot!”

  Wyatt turned the bruised side of his face toward them. “And I thought it was because I’m so damn good-looking…”

  He was—even with the bruise. It had done nothing to detract from his appeal. If anything, it had added to his attractiveness, giving him that air of danger women like Fiona’s mother craved. But not Fiona…

  “No sensible woman would want to get involved with a man who constantly risks his life,” Fiona said. So where had her sense gone? Why had she let images of Wyatt Andrews keep her awake all night?

  Matthew snorted. “Who wants sensible women?”

  Definitely not a twenty-year-old kid. And probably not a thirty-year-old playboy firefighter who got into bar brawls. Tammy had been crazy to think Fiona would be able to use her limited feminine wiles to influence Wyatt to help her.

  But she needed help. She wouldn’t be able to convince Matthew on her own. If anything, her objections seemed to make him more determined to follow through with his dangerous plan.

  “What are you doing here?” Matthew asked. He glanced nervously from one of them to the other.

  Fiona had been wondering that herself. She doubted he’d lain awake thinking about her. Hell, he probably hadn’t gone home alone—after he’d returned to the club to help his friend. He’d definitely been the most attractive man in the place.

  Wyatt shrugged broad shoulders. “I have an appointment to talk…”

  They hadn’t made an official appointment. They hadn’t had time before he’d rushed back inside the club.

  Matthew turned to her, and his brown eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What are you doing?”

  She gestured toward her desk. “Working…” It was what she was usually doing—making sure people were protected. That was what she was trying to do for Matthew, but he wouldn’t appreciate her protection. He would see it only as interference.

  “Yeah,” Wyatt agreed. “I’m here to talk insurance.”

  The suspicion didn’t leave Matthew’s eyes—even as he turned to look at his idol. “Like you would ever worry about being insured…”

  “I didn’t agree to buy anything,” Wyatt said. “I just agreed to talk.” He glanced at his watch. “But I don’t have much time.”

  Matthew looked between them again. He obviously wasn’t buying that Wyatt had come to her office for an insurance appointment. But he respected him too much to call him a liar.

  He respected him so much that he would listen to him—if Fiona could make Wyatt listen to her. She had to make him listen.

  Matthew shot her a glare before he turned and headed out the door. He patted Wyatt’s shoulder as he passed him. “I’ll catch you later.”

  He made no promises to see her again. His showing up at her office had been unusual. But he’d known his call, telling her that he’d dropped out of college to become a firefighter, had upset her the day before. Had he come to check on her? Or had he been worried about what she might have done to stop him?

  Like Wyatt?

  Would she do him in order to stop her brother?

  She turned her attention to him and where he now leaned against her doorjamb. She saw him as she had the night before in her dreams, as she had in the gym: bare-chested, muscles rippling, perspiration beading on his skin…

  Maybe doing him wouldn’t be such an extreme sacrifice after all. Not that she actually would. She was already dating someone. But she had never dreamed about Howard the way she had Wyatt. In fact, their relationship had been in limbo for so long that maybe it was time she ended it. Not for Wyatt, though. Not because of those decadent dreams…

  *

  THE INTENSITY OF Fiona’s stare slightly unnerved Wyatt. Like he usually did when he was uncomfortable, he started goofing around. Lifting his hand to his bruised jaw, he asked, “Is there something on my face?” She hadn’t been staring at his face, though. His fingers brushed the swollen flesh. “A smudge?”

  “A fist-size bruise.” She stepped closer and her fingers replaced his, skimming along his jaw. Instead of sympathy, her lips curved in amusement. “Did the dancer do this?”

  He snorted. “And risk breaking a nail? No…”

  “So what happened after I left the club?”

  “My captain got in a fight on the dance floor.”

  “With the dancers?”

  He shook his head, and now the amusement was all his. “No, with a couple of women who thought he was a dancer and were trying to take off his clothes.”

  “So how’d you get hit?” she asked.

  “I gallantly stepped in to save my captain,” he said. “And I got hit with a shoe.”

  She gasped. “Someone kicked you?”

  He’d probably have a bigger bruise had that happened. “No, she swung it at me. It had a very large and hard wooden sole. Felt like getting whacked with a baseball bat.”

  She nodded. “Must’ve been a wedge.”

  “I don’t know what it was,” he replied. “Just that it hurt like hell.”

  “Not quite the bar fight you led Matth
ew to believe,” she admonished him.

  He shrugged. “I just let him assume.”

  “You said that he should see the other guys.” She called him on his lie.

  He shrugged. “And he should. He’d probably think they were cute. Maybe a little burly for women…”

  She laughed. “If that’s what you have to tell yourself in order to protect your fragile ego…”

  He lowered his brows and fake glowered at her. “Hey, it did hurt like hell.”

  She rose up on tiptoe and replaced her fingertips with her mouth. “Poor baby,” she murmured, her breath as soft and silky as her lips against his skin. She pressed a quick kiss to the bruise and stepped back.

  He curled his hands into fists and held them at his sides so that he wouldn’t reach for her—so that he wouldn’t pull her against him and kiss her back.

  He wanted to kiss her again—the way he had in the Filling Station. He needed to feel her lips moving beneath his. But that wasn’t why he had come to her office; at least that wasn’t what he had admitted to himself.

  She turned away from him and walked back to her desk. He couldn’t help watching her hips sway. Even though the office wasn’t officially open, she was dressed as if it was. Another little suit with a tight skirt and high heels. She’d even bound her hair into a sexy knot on top of her head again. He wasn’t sure if he preferred it that way or down around her shoulders.

  Hell, he’d prefer it best spread across his pillow.

  “You misled Matthew about your reason for being here, too,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Maybe not…maybe I realized that I am woefully underinsured.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you are,” Fiona readily agreed. “But you’re the last person I would insure.”

  “Why?” He pulled out his wallet and glanced inside. “Funny how my money looks the same as anyone else’s.”

  “Even if I would insure you, you wouldn’t be able to afford the premium.” She stared at him as she had moments ago—with an intensity that slightly unnerved him. She sighed now, almost as if she was disappointed. “You’re too great a risk…”

  Somehow he suspected she wasn’t talking about insurance anymore. But that wasn’t what he’d intended to speak to her about anyway. Still, he was intrigued. “Why am I too great a risk?”

  “Statistics show that men in your profession are very likely to die on the job.”

  He flinched. “I’ve been doing this a long time and never even had a close call.” Of course, that all depended on one’s definition of close. He suspected his differed from hers.

  She replied, “There have been so many deaths, though, among regular firefighters—”

  “I’m not a regular firefighter.”

  “And even more among Hotshots and smoke jumpers.”

  He knew the horrible tragedy that had skewed those statistics—where a whole team had died when a fire had shifted. He couldn’t argue those statistics, not when lives—heroic lives—had been lost. And unfortunately they weren’t the only Hotshots who’d died trying to save others.

  “That’s why Matthew has to go back to college,” she said. “He needs to get a degree—”

  Because here their opinions did not differ, Wyatt nodded. “I agree. I have one myself.”

  Her eyes widened slightly with obvious surprise.

  “You thought I started fighting fires while I was still in high school?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t know…”

  “I did,” he replied. “When I turned sixteen, I started working summers for the forest service while I finished high school and college. I have a degree in psychology.”

  “How does that help you fight fires?”

  “You’d be surprised…” he murmured. There was a lot she didn’t know about him. But he’d enlightened her as much as he intended.

  “So you agree that Matthew should finish college?”

  “Is that why you wanted to talk to me?” he asked. “To get me to agree with you?”

  She furrowed her brow and stared at him as if he was an idiot. “Well, yeah…”

  He laughed at her honesty.

  “Why did you agree to talk to me?”

  Because he’d wanted to see her again. Because he’d wanted to kiss her again. But he wasn’t about to admit to those reasons. “Because you’re worried about your brother.”

  Her breath caught, and he saw that worry dim the brightness of her eyes. “Yes, I am.”

  “You should be,” he admitted.

  Her eyes widened in surprise. “I thought you’d stick up for him—that you would try to assure me that being a firefighter isn’t too dangerous for him.”

  “It isn’t,” Wyatt said. “The forest service trains their firefighters very well. And nobody makes the Hotshot team until they’re ready.” And it could take years for someone to be ready. Most never were—even after they’d taken the jobs. So many burned out.

  It was grueling work. But he loved it.

  “If you don’t think it’s dangerous, why do you think I should be worried about him?” she asked.

  He shivered as if there was a sudden chill in the air. “That’s how it felt being in here with the two of you—like January on Lake Huron.”

  “He resents me,” she admitted.

  “He’s going to resent you more if you keep interfering in his life.” That was his fear; it was why Wyatt had kept so many of his opinions to himself regarding Matt. He hadn’t wanted to alienate the kid. He couldn’t help him if the kid refused to talk to him.

  Since he’d turned eighteen, Matt could have ended their association entirely. But they’d remained friends. It was, in fact, all Matt considered him now.

  “I’m not interfering in his life,” she said.

  He arched a brow.

  “I’m trying to save it,” she said.

  “I told you that the job’s not dangerous.” Especially not for Matt. There was no way he would ever be doing it. But Wyatt hesitated from sharing that with her. He wasn’t involved in hiring, had nothing to do with the application process, so he wasn’t supposed to comment on it. Braden always warned that there could be legal ramifications if anyone said too much about it. But the job wasn’t the real issue between the siblings anyhow.

  She shook her head. “Then how come so few insurance companies will underwrite firefighters or police officers for disability or life insurance? Statistics have proven that those professions are too dangerous.”

  People from other professions died, too. He knew that all too well. But he never shared his sad story with anyone; he didn’t like to think about it much. So he just shrugged. “And insurance agents never die? They don’t get in car accidents?”

  “Not when they drive safe vehicles carefully.”

  He’d been right about her car; it had been a Top Safety Pick—chosen by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety. They had probably come to that decision based on statistics, too.

  He grinned. “Do you ever take a risk?”

  Her eyes widened again. She looked both surprised and fearful at the thought. Or maybe it was at his sudden closeness as he stepped away from the doorjamb to close the distance between them. “What do you mean?”

  He leaned across her desk, his face close to hers, and asked, “Do you ever drive over the speed limit? Accept a drink from a stranger?”

  She shook her head so vehemently a strand of red hair slipped free of that knot.

  “That’s too bad…” He emitted a pitying sigh. “You don’t know what you’re missing…” He wanted to show her. That was why he leaned a little closer—close enough to brush his mouth across hers.

  Her breath shuddered out, warm and silky against his lips. And her thick lashes drifted down as her eyes closed. He deepened the kiss—as much as he could with a desk between them. He wanted to kick it aside; he wanted nothing between his body and hers. His tongue slipped inside her mouth; he thrust it deep, like he wanted to thrust inside her. He groaned at the thought.

&
nbsp; And she jerked back as if she’d just awakened. Her chair creaked as it rolled her away from the desk—away from him. “I asked to meet with you just to talk,” she said.

  He sighed again. “That’s too bad…”

  “You admit you’re worried about Matthew, too.”

  “I’m worried that you’re going to try to manipulate and control him, and you’ll totally alienate him.” He was a little worried that she might do the same to him—manipulate and control. He wasn’t certain that even her doing that could alienate him, though. He narrowed his eyes and studied her with the same suspicion her brother had.

  “I love my brother,” she said.

  He nodded. “I see that.” Matt didn’t, but Wyatt couldn’t deny her affection and almost fanatic protectiveness of her brother. Matt was lucky to have family who cared about him. “You would do anything to protect him.”

  She nodded. “Of course I would.”

  “Then give him some space,” Wyatt suggested. “Don’t lecture and antagonize him. You’ll just make him more determined.”

  She tilted her head as if considering his advice. But, despite her cautious nature, she was driven—so driven that she worked Saturdays in an office where no one else worked the weekend. He suspected she was incapable of doing nothing.

  She confirmed that suspicion when she asked him, “So what do I do?”

  “Me.” He only said it to tease her—because he liked the flash of anger in her green eyes. But to himself he could admit that he wasn’t entirely joking.

  Fortunately for him she was too cautious and uptight to take his suggestion. She was exactly the type of woman he wouldn’t risk getting involved with—she was manipulative and controlling and had no respect for his career. Hell, being a Hotshot wasn’t just a career to him; it was as much his identity as his name.

  He was glad that Fiona considered him too great a risk for her. Because she was too great a risk for him…

  6

  WYATT WAS RIGHT. She would do anything to protect her brother. Even him…

  But if she was going to start something with Wyatt—and she was afraid it had already started—then she owed it to Howard to officially end it with him first.

  Whatever it was…