The Night Belongs to Fireman

by Jennifer Bernard

  “Is he still interested in playing, chasing balls, that sort of thing?”

  Fred couldn’t answer. He needed to give his dirty mind a damn timeout.

  She rose to her feet and planted her hands on her slim hips. She had to be one of the most petite girls he’d ever met. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “No.”

  “Stan doesn’t have any issues, does he? What’s going on here? Is there a reporter outside? Is this some kind of camera crew ambush, the fireman hero reunited with the girl he rescued?”

  “What? No!”

  “I’ve seen all the stories on TV. They’re calling you the Bachelor Hero.”

  He groaned and rubbed the back of his neck. “Ella Joy’s playing some sort of game, trying to make me into a superhero. Believe me, I’m doing everything I can to avoid her and her cameras.” An idea came to him. “Maybe that’s what has Stan so upset.”

  “Oh please.” She took a step toward him, looking so furious he feared for his nose. “Leave poor Stan out of this.”

  “You aren’t going to punch me again, are you?” he asked, standing his ground.

  She stopped dead, looking completely taken aback, then crossed her arms over her chest. “I didn’t mean to punch you. It was an accident. And I apologized. Is that why you’re here, for another apology?”

  Stan pawed at her pants leg, clearly hoping for more petting. Fred watched in amazement, since Stan usually kept his distance from strangers. Rachel must really have a way with dogs.

  “No. I wanted to apologize. I shouldn’t have tried to put you in the ambulance right away. I knew you were having trouble with your claustrophobia. I owe you an apology for that.”

  She examined him closely. The thoroughness of her inspection gave him a disembodied sensation, as if the two of them were floating together a few feet off the ground. He stood still and let the moment play out.

  “You don’t owe me any apology,” she finally said, a wide smile breaking across her face. That grin gave her an entirely different look, sort of mischievous and pixie-faced. “I assume you got my note?”

  “I did. And I’m afraid department regulations prohibit me from accepting personal gifts.”

  Her smile vanished. “Really? But I looked online and read that many firefighters drink coffee, so that seemed like a good choice, and then I read that the Lazy Daisy is popular with the . . .”

  Fred could have kicked himself. Rachel clearly wasn’t used to being teased. She wouldn’t last two minutes at the firehouse. “I’m kidding,” he interrupted her. “It was going to be a clumsy attempt to ask if you’d like to take a drive to the Lazy Daisy with me and cash in one of those coffees.”

  Her mouth dropped open, then a slow flush drifted across her cheeks. “Oh.”

  “Very clumsy,” he added. “If you laugh me out of your office, I wouldn’t blame you.”

  A notch appeared between her eyebrows. “So your dog is fine.”

  “As fine as a dog surrounded by firefighters can be. Sorry for dragging him in here.”

  She knelt next to Stan and ruffled his ears again. “That’s okay. It’s nice to see Stan.”

  He noticed that she didn’t say anything about it being nice to see him. Maybe she was still worried about the Bachelor Hero crap.

  “The truth is that I shamelessly used him as an excuse to check on you. I wanted to make sure you were okay, and the news hasn’t said anything about you.”

  “They’ve been too focused on you, I think.” Still occupied with Stan, she glanced up at him. The black fringe of her eyelashes was astonishingly long.

  “Flavor of the week,” he said.

  “I don’t know. The media can be like a dog with a bone. Sorry, Stan.” She patted his sleek brown and white head. “I don’t mean to compare you with those vultures. The thing is”—she rose to her feet—“I don’t like cameras.”

  “I remember.”

  “And you’re on every news show lately, so I don’t think—”

  “My fifteen minutes will be over before you know it.” Fred smiled. “I think Snooki’s making an appearance at the mall. I’m old news, Rachel. Believe me.”

  She eyed him warily. “I don’t think you are. And I know they’re curious about the disappearing bridesmaid. I’m sorry, I just can’t take a chance.”

  The look on Fred the Fireman’s face made Rachel feel about as low as the carpet under her feet. And the thing was, she didn’t want to turn him down. Everything about him appealed to her. She’d never been drawn to huge, muscular men; perhaps because the man who had abducted her had been brutally strong. Fred, to her mind, had just the right balance of muscle and agility. His presence, and his brilliant brown-eyed gaze, made her office foyer several degrees brighter.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and angled his head briefly toward the floor, before looking up and giving her a quick nod. “I understand. Offer’s open in case you change your mind.”

  He turned to go, giving Stan a soft whistle. The dog didn’t hesitate, but jumped to his feet to follow Fred, whom he clearly adored. Rachel saw so many wounded and traumatized animals that she’d nearly forgotten what a happy dog looked like. Stan was a very contented canine.

  At that moment, as had happened so many times in her life, a dog helped her make a decision.

  When Fred was halfway through the door, she called after him. “Would you like a tour of the place, since you’re here?” He paused, giving her the opportunity to appreciate the muscular shape of his rear. She used to tease her college roommates for obsessing over men’s butts, but at the moment she completely understood why. Because a fine male rear end made you think of the way he’d use those muscles to control his thrusts, to grind . . .

  She shook her head to clear the sudden swarm of hot images. Where the heck had that come from? She didn’t normally lust after virtual strangers.

  Fred stepped back into the room. She managed to lift her gaze just in time to innocently meet his eyes, even though her face felt hot.

  “Sure, I’d appreciate a tour. I never even knew this place was out here,” he said.

  She made a show of checking her schedule, though she knew her next appointment was in an hour. “Fine, then. Just give me a second, okay?”

  He nodded and snagged his thumbs in his back pockets. She backed away a few feet, then hurried through the back door and swung a right into the bathroom. Hair: totally boring in her work ponytail. Face: no makeup. Outfit: dull as dirt. Normally she dressed for her clients, who happened to be dogs, and none of them cared what she wore. But for time spent with a cute guy, it simply wouldn’t do.

  She whipped out her cell phone and called Cindy, who’d been released from the hospital the day before and probably needed some distraction.

  “Girl emergency,” she hissed into the phone when Cindy answered.

  “What’s up?”

  “Remember the fireman from the limo?”

  “The totally hot one who saved our lives? Well, duh. I might name our first kid after him.”

  “He’s here. I’m going to show him the Refuge.”

  Cindy let out a long whistle. “Hoo boy. Let me guess. You smell like dog pee.”

  “Oh my God, I didn’t even think of that.” She sniffed at her blouse, then grabbed an atomizer from her purse and drenched herself in the outrageously expensive House of Chanel custom perfume her father had ordered for her eighteenth birthday.

  For sure, when her father had given that gift, he hadn’t meant it to cover up dog pee.

  “Get rid of your hair tie,” directed Cindy. “Men love loose hair.”

  Rachel yanked her hair from its ponytail and shook it out. “Done. What else?”

  “What are you wearing? Is it sexy? Or at least stain-free?”

  She shot an agonized glance at her top, which was about as sexy as a maternity blouse. She ran to the bathroom, where she kept a laundry hamper, since plenty of her clothes had gotten soiled in the line of duty. Rummaging through it, she didn
’t spot anything in better shape than what she was already wearing.

  “This is a disaster,” she moaned to Cindy.

  “Forget it. Men don’t care about clothes, except when it comes to taking them off. Just don’t forget to smile. Don’t pull that hands-off-or-my-bodyguard-will-stomp-you thing you usually do.”

  “I don’t do that!” Did she?

  “I’m just saying. Be friendly. He’s earned it.”

  “Friendly. Right. How are you feeling?”

  “A thousand percent better. This is so much more fun than Teen Mom reruns. Call me after, okay?”

  Rachel hung up and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked too pale, and not so much friendly as . . . alarmed. If only she’d gone to a normal high school and had slumber parties and done makeovers and gone to proms. If only she’d casually dated, fallen in love, gotten her heart broken, all the usual teenage rites of passage. But she’d done none of those things. She’d alternated between pricey, private Everwood School for Girls and home tutoring. In college, for the first time, she’d made real friends, not fake whose-family-has-more-money friends. But she still hadn’t gotten the hang of casually dating. Face it, doing anything casually was pretty impossible for her.

  But none of that meant she couldn’t give a nice, cute fireman a tour without looking like Wednesday Addams. She pinched her cheeks, trying to give them some color.

  “Ow.” That hurt. But it did make two distinct dots of pink appear on each side of her face. She rubbed at them, trying to make the color spread. Would a slap in the face work better, give more of an all-over flush? Then again, it might be hard to look friendly if her cheeks were in pain.

  She poked at her hair one more time, then made a face at the mirror. Who do you think you are, Scarlett O’Hara? With a roll of her eyes, she abandoned her reflection and went back to the foyer.

  As it turned out, her ridiculous efforts paid off. She experienced the thrill of seeing Fred’s eyes widen and an appreciative grin spread across his face. “Your hair looks pretty like that,” he said. Such a simple compliment, and yet it kindled a trickle of warmth in her heart. Maybe because he said it so sincerely. He obviously meant it. Compliments usually made her suspicious, especially when they came from men back home trying to suck up to her father.

  But Fred had no idea she had anything to do with America’s third wealthiest man.

  “Thanks,” she said, then stuffed her purse behind her desk. It was safe here. Everyone who worked at the Refuge had been extensively vetted by her father’s security team.

  She led the way onto the gracious grounds of her favorite spot on earth. She’d worked so hard to create the Refuge for Injured Wildlife. No one knew how hard, and she couldn’t tell Fred without revealing her true identity. She wasn’t ready for that. “Is Stan pretty well behaved around other animals?”

  “If you have any rescued squirrels, I’d tell them to hide,” he said lightly. “And your sheep will be herded so fast they won’t know what hit them. On the other hand, if anyone’s trapped, he’ll let you know. He used to be a rescue dog.”

  She led the way down the main path that wound through the grounds. “I’ve thought about training my border collie to be a rescue dog. She has an amazing prey drive.”

  “Stan has an amazing sleep drive, but I’m sure he used to be great. Right, Stan?”

  The beagle gave Fred a world-weary sort of look. Rachel smiled to herself. Whether he intended to or not, Stan was telling her a lot about her visitor. All good, so far.

  “What would you like to see first? Do you like birds? Camelids? Foxes? Goats? Someone just brought in a wounded short-eared owl.”

  “Do you take in every sort of animal?”

  “Yes,” she said proudly. “At least temporarily, until we can figure out the best place for them. We don’t turn any animal away. We only have a small staff, about six people, plus security, but we manage to do a lot.”

  “I’ve got this bruised nose,” Fred mused, running his hand across it. “Is there a space for me?”

  Again, she laughed. Fred had a way of drawing the laughter from her. “I hope the other guy looks worse.”

  “Nope. The other guy looks pretty good.” He cast her a sidelong glance that made her face heat.

  “Well,” she said tartly. “If it’s any comfort, no one watching me walk home that night thought I looked good. I had blood speckles everywhere. People probably thought I had chicken pox.”

  He stopped, turning her to face him. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask how you got home. I was worried but didn’t know how to find you.”

  “I was fine.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Honestly, after being penned up in that limo, it felt good to walk for a while. I went home and then to the hospital.”

  “You know, I’ve been at a lot of accident scenes, and I’ve seen some strange things.”

  Rachel dreaded what was coming next. People often thought she was odd. It came from spending too much time with animals and a taciturn security guard. “Let me guess. I take the cake?”

  “Well, it’s true that I’ve never been punched in the nose during a rescue before. But that’s not what I was going to say. I was going to say you’re one of the toughest accident survivors I’ve ever seen.”

  “Oh.” The way he was looking at her, so closely, his dark eyes taking in everything about her, made her feel very exposed. “Really?”

  “It made me curious. I was hoping I’d run into you again. And then you sent that note.”

  Shivers were traveling down her arms. This whole conversation felt unexpectedly intimate. “I felt bad. You didn’t deserve the way I acted.”

  “I didn’t take it personally. But”—he gave her a sidelong look—“there might be a way to make it up to me.”

  “I can’t go on a date with you,” she said quickly.

  “Go on a date?” An expression she couldn’t interpret crossed his face—maybe shock? “Not like that. That’s not what I mean.”

  “What do you mean, then?”

  For a moment he simply stood, hands in his pockets, as if utterly perplexed. “I’m trained in urban search and rescue,” he finally said. “I volunteered in Japan after their last big earthquake.”

  That certainly came out of the blue. “Okay.”

  “I’ve worked with both rescue and salvage dogs. I know someone who trains them. I could . . . help you train your dog.”

  She had the feeling he was making it up as he went. But why? If he wanted to see her again, why didn’t he just ask her? He was really confusing her. “You’re offering to train Greta?”

  “Yes.”

  Adding rescue dog training to the Refuge’s repertoire would be wonderful. Starting with Greta made sense, and it was something she’d been thinking about for a while. His offer was tempting, if only there were a place she wouldn’t worry about news cameras. Her apartment was safe, but she never invited anyone there other than Cindy, Liza, and Feather, who already knew her story. Then the perfect solution came to her.

  “Fine, I’ll bring Greta to your house. Friday at eight.” She grinned at his obvious surprise. “I’ll bring the ice cream.”

  Chapter 6

  What the hell was he thinking? He shouldn’t be offering to train another girl’s dog. If Courtney caught wind of this, she’d be furious, no matter how broken up they were. Once again, he’d feel like the bad guy. He should take back his offer, right now. He couldn’t have Rachel coming over, even if it was just a friendly dog-training session. Which was exactly what it would be, nothing more.

  True, he liked walking beside her, liked being able to glance over at frequent intervals and take in her wildly curling black hair and her enthusiastic gestures as she pointed out features of the Refuge. He liked listening to her grow more and more passionate in her descriptions of things like feeding schedules and the effect of oil spills on wildlife.

  He liked watching her with the animals. Never in his life had he seen anyone with such an affinity for
injured creatures. Even the owl, who’d just been brought in, seemed comfortable with her presence and allowed her to gently test the splint on its broken wing.

  “Are you a vet?” he asked as she adjusted the towel keeping the owl warm.

  “No. I completed most of a vet tech program, but I don’t need a degree to do what I do. We have a couple of actual vets here who perform surgery and work with the wildlife. My work is with dogs. I’m just . . . a dabbler, I suppose.”

  “My friend Sabina said you helped a search dog who’d been injured in a mudslide and traumatized.”

  “Yes. Dog therapy. Laugh if you want.”

  “I’m not laughing.” He wasn’t. Now that he’d seen her with Stan, he didn’t think it was at all ridiculous.

  She rewarded him with a quick smile, like a crystal catching the sun. “People bring their dogs to me when they’re exhibiting strange behavior, and I try to figure out what’s going on and how to help the dog.”

  “How do you do it?”

  “I can’t really explain. Ever since . . . well, something bad happened to me when I was young, and a German shepherd saved my life. Ever since then, I feel as if I can understand them. Dogs have all sorts of ways to communicate with us, if we pay attention. The tilt of their ears, how they hold their tails, if they bare their teeth. Even an air snap has a purpose; it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to attack. When I work with dogs and their owners, I work mostly on communication. Dogs are very intelligent, but if their owners are confusing them or not providing good leadership, they can develop bad habits.”

  “Sabina said you have an amazing record of success.”

  “Thanks,” she said, shrugging. “Mostly, I just want to help the dogs. I’ve never forgotten how one helped me.”

  Fred was finding it hard to tear his gaze away from her. While she might not be the most typically pretty girl, she was fascinating to watch. Her face held lots of opposing angles that somehow managed to balance perfectly. Her eyebrows tilted up while the corners of her mouth slanted down. Her high cheekbones gave her an almost exotic look, as if she had a dose of Gypsy in her. He caught a faint whiff of her fragrance, light and fresh, like a walk through a rose garden after a morning rain.