Right, as if she needed a reminder that she’d gone from living three blocks off Madison Avenue to sleeping in a barn. Technically, it was a tiny area above the barn—more like a garage apartment than a hayloft—but still.
“You sure you didn’t see any flames? Not even a flash?” Lieutenant Cole arched a brow as he aimed his flashlight at the plug closest to her bathroom vanity. The plastic plate covering the outlet was covered in dark soot.
Madison blinked, horrified. “Oh my gosh. I...um...no.”
Her back had been facing the outlet when the lights flickered before going out entirely. Shouldn’t she have heard something, though? Had this grumpy public servant been right, and she’d failed to notice an actual fire in her home?
The indignities were multiplying by the second, but Madison no longer cared. The thought of the barn burning down around her was terrifying, to say the least.
“Is this the part where you use that?” She winced in the general direction of the ax.
Lieutenant Cole’s frown deepened as if the struggle to fight off an eye roll was causing him physical pain. What was his problem? “No need. The flame burned itself out.”
“How can you know that for sure?” She swallowed hard.
He sighed and crooked a finger at her, beckoning her forward.
She took a tentative step, butterflies swarming low in her belly. If she didn’t know better, she would have mistaken the feeling for attraction. But that was impossible, obviously. It was probably just a normal reaction to her recent near-death experience, even though she hadn’t actually been aware she was experiencing it.
Lieutenant Cole sighed again, regarding her with piercing blue eyes.
Madison’s mouth went dry as the butterflies beat their wings even harder. What was happening?
“May I?” He flicked a finger toward her wrist.
He wanted to hold hands? High-five? What was going on, and why was she suddenly mesmerized by the square set of his jaw?
Her hand drifted toward his, seemingly of its own accord. He took it, placed her palm flush against the wall and held it in place with his own manly grasp. “Feel anything?”
Goose bumps cascaded up and down her arm. She felt everything all of a sudden. Everything. Everywhere.
“Um,” was all she could manage to articulate and to her complete and utter horror, her gaze drifted toward his mouth. He had a small scar near the corner of his upper lip. Madison wondered if it might be the result of some heroic act during a fire.
Then she wondered if she might be having a stroke, because what was she doing?
She forced her gaze away from his perfect bone structure and back toward her hand, still flat against the wall with Lieutenant Cole’s strong fingers ringing her wrist like a bracelet.
“Heat,” he clarified. “Does the wall feel hot at all to you?”
“No.” She shook her head.
“That’s how I know.” He dropped her wrist and shrugged. “If the flash hadn’t burned itself out, either a fire would be visible or the Sheetrock would be warm, indicating a flame inside the wall.”
Madison nodded. “Obviously.”
“But if you really want us to hack away at your walls, that could be arranged.” He narrowed his gaze, studying her for a moment until a hint of amusement crept its way into his eyes. Then Madison caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror behind him and realized he was looking at her mismatched hair.
“That won’t be necessary.” Good grief, he was annoying. She was willing to bet whatever was going on beneath his fire helmet wasn’t much better than her current half-done mess.
She flashed him a triumphant grin, fantasizing about the state of his helmet hair.
But then, as smoothly as if he’d just read her mind, Lieutenant Cole removed his helmet and raked his hand through a head of dark, lush waves. He looked like he’d walked straight out of a shampoo commercial. Or one of those sexy firefighter calendars.
It was maddening.
“Are we done here?” she said tartly.
“Yes, ma’am. You’ll need to get an electrician out here to replace your outlet.” He jammed the helmet back on his head and then pointed at her flat iron. “Don’t use that thing anymore. It’s not safe.”
“It’s from Sephora,” she said, but he’d already begun walking away, covering the distance from her vanity to the front door in three easy strides.
The other fireman—the nice one—smiled at Madison as Lieutenant Cole brushed past him. “Sorry for the intrusion.”
She glared at the lieutenant’s back, silently cursing both her lingering butterflies and his fine head of hair.
“Is your colleague always so charming?” she said, injecting her voice with a massive dose of sarcasm.
The fireman offered her a conciliatory smile. “Again, my apologies. If you experience any more trouble, please give us a call.”
He turned to follow Lieutenant Cole back to the fire engine parked at the foot of the gravel drive, where two additional firemen stood waiting and a crowd of curious onlookers had gathered. Odd. In New York, no one paid attention to flashing lights.
But Madison wasn’t in her beloved New York anymore. Clearly.
She shut the door and fought her sudden urge to cry by channeling all of her energy into disliking the smug lieutenant and his smug, handsome face. On some level, she knew she was overreacting. But after ten days of trying her best to look on the bright side...to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and move on...she just couldn’t do it anymore. Vermont had won. She needed to find a way to get her life back. She didn’t belong here—that was the real emergency. Somebody call 911.
The nice fireman’s parting words rang loudly in her consciousness as she picked up her flat iron.
If you experience any more trouble, please give us a call.
She hurled the hair appliance in the trash with more force than was probably necessary. But seriously, like she’d even want to risk having to call for help and roll out the welcome mat for the perfectly coifed Lieutenant Cole?
Not in this lifetime.
* * *
Lieutenant Jack Cole was dreaming.
It was a bothersome dream, plagued by a nagging voice, the sort that would ordinarily drag him back to wakefulness. But he hadn’t slept in such a long time—weeks, months, years—so he fought it. He fought it hard.
Just closing his eyes felt so damn good, even better than he remembered. He just wanted to ride it out. Go with it. Let the dream take him wherever it wanted if he could just keep sleeping for ten more minutes. Five. Anything.
“Dude.” Someone snapped his fingers in Jack’s face. “Wake up. I’m talking to you.”
With no small amount of reluctance, he cracked one eye open and realized he wasn’t dreaming at all. He’d fallen asleep on the rig. Again. The annoying voice that kept breaking through the heavy fog of sleep belonged to the firefighter sitting across from him as the engine bounced along the rural road back to the station.
And now that firefighter was shaking his head and eyeing him with sympathy. Jack wished he could close his eyes again. He’d seen enough pitying glances aimed his direction over the past six months to last him a lifetime.
“You’ve got to get some sleep, man,” Wade said. “Either that or take another leave of absence.”
Jack shook his head. “Not an option.”
He was a firefighter. It’s what he did, and he was damn good at it. Or he used to be, back when sleep was a thing that happened with any sort of regularity.
“Well, you can’t keep nodding off on the rig. At least wait until we get back to the station where there’s a recliner with your name on it,” Wade shouted above the jostle of the engine.
Jack shouldn’t have been able to sleep through such a noisy ride, especially in one of the jump seats. No one should. Firefighters so
metimes carried earplugs for this very purpose.
He scrubbed his hand over his face and did his best not to succumb to his near-constant overwhelming feeling of exhaustion. The passing scenery helped, but only marginally. Wade was right. He couldn’t go on like this.
“Speaking of things you probably shouldn’t be doing...” Wade jerked his head in the direction of the farmhouse and accompanying barn with its converted apartment space where they’d just completed their first call of the morning. “What was that back there?”
“What do you mean?” Jack narrowed his gaze.
Their captain and the driver were situated in the cab of the truck behind Wade. The call at the farmhouse had been simple enough that they hadn’t needed more than two team members to take a look around. Good thing, since there hadn’t been room for any more people in the tiny apartment.
Wade shot him a knowing look. “Come on, man. You weren’t yourself just now. Don’t you think you were a bit harsh?”
“Harsh?” Jack shook his head. “No. You weren’t there when I first knocked on her door. She tried to argue with me about whether or not there was a problem when, in fact, her fancy hair straightener almost burned the place down.”
“You mean the one from Sephora?” Wade deadpanned.
Jack laughed, despite his foul mood.
“Seriously, though. You could have been nicer.” Wade held on to his seat belt as the engine rounded the curve leading back to the station. “Or at the very least, civil.”
“I was perfectly civil,” Jack said. Granted, he hadn’t exactly been chatty, but he’d done his job. What more did Wade want from him?
“Don’t you think she seemed a little...” Wade’s brows rose, prompting Jack to fill in the blank.
“Out of place?” Granted, she’d been beautiful—in a just-rolled-out-of-bed sort of way. But she’d had big city written all over her. It was practically stamped across her forehead. “Yeah. Definitely.”
“That’s not what I meant at all.” Wade frowned. “I was going to say she seemed vulnerable.”
The engine slowed to a stop in front of the familiar red brick building decorated with a large American flag blowing just below block letters that spelled out Engine Co. 24. They idled for a moment until the diesel engine powered down with a prolonged whoosh that almost made it seem like the big red truck had sighed. Jack could relate—he felt like sighing himself.
“Vulnerable?” He let out a sharp laugh as he unfastened the buckle of his harness and hopped down from the jump seat. “I don’t think so. She’s a grown woman. Adults aren’t vulnerable. Babies are vulnerable.”
The second the words left his mouth, he wanted to swallow them up again and reel them back to the place where he kept all his frustration buried deep. Talking about it didn’t help matters. So far, the only thing that had made him feel better about his current difficulties were the ridiculous letters he’d been writing lately. They were strangely cathartic, and they weren’t hurting anyone.
Were they?
For a brief moment Jack wondered what Wade would have to say if he knew about his recent correspondence. Nothing good, that was for sure.
“You’re right. Babies are indeed vulnerable.” Wade shrugged out of his turnout gear as they walked toward the station. “But I don’t think you noticed how that woman back there looked at you. I sure did.”
Jack just shook his head. Maybe she’d seemed a little lonely, standing there all wide-eyed in her polka dot bathrobe. Jack recognized loneliness when he saw it. Hell, he knew that feeling better than anyone.
He’d even caught a glimmer of a spark between them when their fingertips touched. But a spark didn’t mean anything other than a simple transfer of electrons. It was just science, and as Jack knew all too well, sometimes a spark could set off a burning rain of destruction.
No, thank you. Not again.
“Not all women are like Natalie, you know,” Wade said. The earnestness in his voice made Jack’s head hurt.
“Never mind,” Jack muttered.
He’d said too much. He knew better than to drag his daughters into this conversation.
Adults aren’t vulnerable. Babies are vulnerable.
Why hadn’t he just kept his head down and his mouth shut? Now he was sure to be on the receiving end of more pitying looks from Wade. The rest of the guys at the station, too.
He could feel Wade’s gaze on him even now, weighted down with concern. He didn’t dare look up.
Jack didn’t need anyone’s pity. He had a roof over his head, food on his table and two precious babies waiting for him at home. Other than being a little sleep deprived, he was perfectly fine. Not lonely. Not wounded. Not miserable.
Certainly not vulnerable...
Even if he almost felt that way, every now and then.
Copyright © 2020 by Teri Wilson
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ISBN-13: 9781488069888
A Mother’s Secrets
Copyright © 2020 by TTQ Books LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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A Mother's Secrets Page 20
