Burning for You: A Steamy NYC Firefighter Romance

by Kaye Kennedy

  When I was about to leave my house, my phone buzzed and I got a text message from a number with an area code that I didn't recognize. It simply read, I miss you. Whoever it was obviously had the wrong number so I slipped the phone into my pocket and headed out the door.

  I parked at the restaurant, which wasn't far from where I worked, and thought for sure I had the wrong place. I double checked the text my brother had sent and it was definitely the right spot, but it was posher than our usual tavern-style haunt. That should've been my second clue. When I went inside, I told the hostess that we had a reservation under Hogan and she showed me to the table, which was set for two—not three. I took out my phone and keyed up the group message with Jesse and Dylan.

  Kyle: Did one of you fuckers cancel?

  I'd be pissed if they did when I'd been chastised for not wanting to go.

  Jesse: Don't hate me.

  My jaw clenched.

  "Kyle?"

  I looked up into the face of the cute blonde from that damn dating app. I was gonna kill him. Since it wasn't the woman's fault that my brother had duped us both, I did the polite thing and stood to shake her hand. "Uh, hi." I wracked my brain in attempt to recall her name. It was something trendy and ridiculous like Star. I pulled her chair out for her like the gentleman my mom had raised me to be, then said, "I'm very sorry because I know this is rude since you just got here, but I'm dealing with a bit of a family emergency. Can you excuse me for a moment?"

  "Absolutely. Take your time."

  I weaved through the restaurant to the restrooms in the back. Once there, I scrolled my old messages until I found the one Jesse had sent with the blonde's name. Skye. Then I texted the group.

  Kyle: You're both dead.

  Dylan: For the record, I said it was a bad idea.

  Jesse: Give her a chance, Kyle. I think you're gonna like her.

  Kyle: DEAD

  After taking a piss, I went back out for my ambush date. I'd be nice, but I was going to rush through it as quickly as I could. As I walked by the bar, I did a double take upon noticing the brunette at the end. Allie. You've got to be fucking kidding me. My plan changed. When I got back to the table, I told Skye the truth about what my moronic little brother had done. I was mortified. She was embarrassed and left awkwardly after I made sure she had Jesse's phone number for scolding purposes.

  I asked the hostess to hold my table while I went up to the bar. After taking a deep breath, I stepped in beside Allie and said, "Would you believe me if I swear I'm not stalking you?" I probably shouldn't have chosen the moment she'd been taking a sip of wine to surprise her because she coughed on it so badly that she had to drink water. "That seemed less creepy in my head."

  That got a smile out of her. "What are you doing here?"

  "It's a long story, but I've got a table that has a chair with your name on it if you'd like."

  She bit her lower lip and I thought for sure she was going to say no, but then she said. "Okay. Just let me settle up with the bartender."

  "Don't worry about that." I flagged the guy down. "Could you transfer the lady's tab to my table and can I get a lager on draft?"

  "No, Kyle, that's not necess—"

  "We can split it up later if that's why you want to argue with me." I had no intention of actually letting her pay for it, but she didn't need to know that.

  The guy handed me my beer, then I led Allie to the table and pulled out her chair. As I took my seat across from her, she said, "Umm, Kyle, why is there lipstick on this glass?" She pointed to the water in front of her.

  I stifled a laugh. "So, funny story..." I told her about what my brother had done.

  Her grin put a huge smile on my face. "I've got to hand it to Jesse. That was clever."

  "Oh, you think so, huh? Because I'm gonna strangle the moron." Well, maybe not anymore because his asinine plan had led me to an unintentional date with Allie. If I could call it that. I couldn't take my eyes off her. She had on black leggings and a tunic-style gray-knit sweater. If it was even possible, she’d gotten more beautiful than she'd been when we were younger. Despite the dim lighting, I spotted six sliver strands peppering her chocolate-brown hair and the lines around her eyes and on her forehead all told of a life lived. They also served to remind me just how much of that life I'd missed out on. Hell, we'd been apart more years than we'd been friends. That thought made me sick.

  "Cut him some slack. He was trying to help you."

  "Because I need help in the dating department, do I?" I regretted the question as soon as it came out of my mouth.

  She shrugged. "I don't know."

  Of course she didn't.

  The waitress came over to take our order. Steak for me. Salmon salad for Allie.

  "The girl I knew wouldn't be having salad for dinner."

  "That girl had a much faster metabolism." She tilted her wine glass toward me. "We can't all be freaks of nature who get more fit as we age." Her compliment made me smile.

  "You're still beautiful, Allie." And I meant it. Sure, she didn't have the body she’d had at eighteen, but she looked good with a little bit more meat on her bones. She looked like a woman. I liked it. A lot.

  She took her time sipping on her white wine, then replied, "Thanks."

  "So," I changed the subject, "it seems like you've got a great class, Ms. Pierce."

  She flinched, but it was so slight that I'd almost missed it. "Yeah, I do. They loved your visit. It was all they wanted to talk about the rest of the day. They must've done stop, drop, and roll at least five more times before dismissal."

  I blew past the compliment. "Being a kindergarten teacher suits you."

  She shrugged. "I enjoy it. I'd planned to work with older kids, but I accidentally ended up in a kindergarten for my student teaching and it had me hooked."

  It saddened me to know I'd missed out on those moments. "You've always been great with kids. Do you have any?" I hadn't heard about it if she had, but it seemed odd to me that she wouldn't.

  "No." She pursed her lips and I sensed a story, but I didn't feel comfortable asking her about it. Not anymore. It'd been too long. She adjusted her spoon, lining it up perfectly with the knife on the white table cloth. "How long have you been a lieutenant?" Her abrupt subject change suggested my suspicion had been correct. At least I still had the ability to read her.

  "Five years. I've got eleven total on the job."

  "And is it everything you'd hoped for?"

  "You know what? It is. I love it."

  That earned me a smile. "I'm really happy to hear that."

  "And I got to play hockey on the FDNY team for a while, so I got both of my dreams."

  "No kidding."

  Our food arrived and she placed her napkin daintily on her lap. Whatever life she'd been living had refined her. I could tell in her posture and the way that she kept her elbows off the table. Plus, the girl I knew hated wine. Her years in the Midwest had also given her a slight accent. She stretched her a's.

  While I had my first bite in my mouth, she said, "I used to watch you play when the Pelham games were on TV."

  I stopped chewing and covered my mouth with my hand. "You did?"

  She nodded. "Of course."

  My knee bounced a few times as I warred with myself over wanting to ask her why she'd disappeared on me. I was simply enjoying her company and I didn't want that to end, so instead, I asked, "So what brought you back to New York? Michigan finally get too cold for you?"

  "It really is brutal. I'm not sure how I survived that long." She pushed a cucumber around on her plate. "I got divorced. Although I guess I should've started with I got married and then divorced. He'd grown up in Ann Arbor, so his whole family was there. After we split, I had nothing holding me there anymore other than my job and I needed a change."

  "I'm sorry, Allie."

  She waved me off. "Don't be. It's a good thing." She put a forkful in her mouth.

  "So you decided on a familiar change, then?"

  She
finished chewing and replied, "Not exactly. I also applied to jobs in Boston and Baltimore. I wanted to be back on the east coast because I really missed the ocean, but I also wanted to be in a city, so I threw New York into the mix as well."

  "What made you choose here?"

  She picked up her wine glass. "Honestly, it paid the best. Divorce isn't cheap."

  I nodded. "I work with a guy who's going through a divorce. He bitches about the cost almost every time I see him."

  "Yeah, I get why some people stay in shitty marriages because of the financial burden. It was different with me and Kevin, though. He wanted to marry someone else, so..."

  Kevin Pierce. I burned the name into my mind. The bitterness in her tone told me that he'd hurt her and I'd be glad to pay him back for that. "Seems like a stand up guy."

  She laughed at my sarcasm. "Stellar." She broke off a flake of her salmon and speared it with her fork. "What about you?"

  "Uh, well, I was here on an ambush date so there's that."

  She laughed again. "And before that?"

  I shrugged. "No one special."

  She stared into her salad and asked, "Kids?"

  "Nope." I'd given up on that dream quite some time ago.

  She spun her wine glass on the table by the stem.

  "How are your brothers?"

  "They're good. Tyler turned the military into a career and became an Army Ranger. He's stationed in Savannah, Georgia but they deploy frequently."

  "Wow."

  "Yeah. I worry about him pretty much daily, but he loves it and he's obviously good at it. As for Brandon, he stayed in Houston after college and got married. He and his wife have two girls."

  "You're an aunt." I grinned.

  "I am. How about your brothers? You said Dylan got married, right?"

  "He did. His wife, Autumn, is great. Like I said, they live here on the Upper West Side." I took a sip of my beer. "Jesse's engaged to Lana. They're getting married this spring and they live in Long Beach. He's a lieutenant as well. In Brooklyn."

  "Both of you made lieutenant? That's amazing."

  I nodded. "Yeah, he's damn good at it, too. I'm proud of him." Though I wondered if he knew just how proud I was. "You'd love Lana. She owns a brewery in Island Park called Hop Toddy. She actually brews it, too."

  "That's so cool."

  "Yeah and it's pretty good."

  "What about Ryan?"

  He'd always been her favorite.

  "He lives and works in Queens. He and his girlfriend, Zoe, have a place in Forest Hills. She's a nurse, but is planning on going to medical school soon."

  "It's great that you're all so happy."

  I shrugged. Happy wasn't a word I'd use to describe my life.

  When we finished eating, I excused myself to go to the restroom, but I actually went to pay the bill in order to avoid having her argue with me over it. She wasn't happy about it when she found out, but she thanked me. I hated for the night to end, especially before I'd had a chance to ask her why she'd cut me out, but it was getting late and I had work early in the morning, plus she had to get some lesson plans done.

  "Can I drive you home?" I asked her once we were on the sidewalk.

  "I'm only two blocks away. I can walk it. No need for you to fight the traffic in the opposite direction of where you've got to go."

  "Let me walk you then." I offered her my arm and prayed like hell that she'd take it.

  She did.

  I'd desperately missed holding her close.

  It took hardly any time at all to get to her apartment, which was in a quaint, four-story brick attached home. She paused at the ornate metal gate and released my arm. "Thank you, Kyle. Tonight was a really wonderful surprise."

  I smiled down at her. "Thanks for saying yes."

  "Well, good night." She went to open the gate and I had a sinking feeling that this might be my one and only chance, so I had to take it. I couldn't risk her vanishing on me again and never knowing the truth.

  I put my hand on top of the gate. "Wait. Allie, what happened back then? Why'd you cut me out?"

  She took a deep breath and stared at her door. "Trust me, Kyle, you're better off not knowing." She pushed open the gate and headed up the stoop.

  "That's it?" I called after her. "Fourteen years of friendship and that's all I get?"

  She fingered her keys. "Know that I'm sorry. I take full responsibility and I've spent every day beating myself up over it ever since." She slipped the key in the door. "Goodbye, Kyle." She slipped inside before I could say anything else, leaving me standing there alone on the sidewalk with even more questions than I'd had before.

  As I drove home, her words replayed in my head. We'd had a very nice night together and it had given me hope that we could at the very least rekindle our friendship, but when she'd said goodbye, I'd gotten this dreadful feeling that it was permanent. The pain and anguish from all those years ago had returned with a vengeance. By the time I got home, I was holding on by a thread. Once inside, I pulled a pillow off the couch and screamed into it at the top of my lungs. Even though I hadn't heard from her in sixteen years, even though I knew she'd gotten married, I'd always held out hope that one day...maybe...

  But after that goodbye, I realized she would never be with me. It didn't matter that I'd been in love with her for twenty-years. I finally had to let her go. I eyed the framed photo of us on the bookcase beside my living room fireplace. It was the photo that had been with the letter she’d written me that day she’d left. Despite the passing years, I could never bring myself to get rid of it.

  On an impulse, I grabbed the frame and chucked it against the far wall, splintering it into pieces and shattering the glass. I stared down at the wreckage on the floor and muttered, "Now you know how I feel." I shuffled upstairs and collapsed on my bed. Then I did something I hadn't done in years. I cried.

  32

  Allie

  All day I'd been feeling terrible about how I'd left Kyle hanging, but that was a conversation I needed to prepare for in advance. And it certainly wasn't one I'd have on the sidewalk in front of my house. When I hadn't gotten a text back from Kyle the night before, I'd gone to the restaurant to cheer myself up. Running into him had been a happy coincidence, and I'd excused him for not texting me back since he'd been on an ambush date, but I was surprised that I'd made it to three o'clock in the afternoon without hearing from him after how we’d said goodnight. While I recognized that I hadn't left things in an inviting manor, I half expected him to at least send me an angry message.

  After dismissing my students, I loaded my bag with the big envelope that contained the handmade cards they'd colored for Kyle and Hot Dog, and I took the subway to Columbus Ave. Finding Kyle's firehouse was easy, but getting into it was another story. I knocked on the door, but no one answered and when I peered through the window, I found it empty. There was a coffee shop across the street so I decided to go wait there until I saw them come back, but before I could cross, the massive red truck came around the corner. When it pulled up, two guys hopped out and blocked traffic so the truck could back into the building.

  Once they'd done their job, one of them jogged over to me. "You need something, miss?"

  "I'm looking for Kyle Hogan." He'd mentioned that he was working that day.

  The guy pointed at a second truck that was pulling up. "He's on the engine."

  "Okay, thanks."

  He tilted his chin and went inside.

  Kyle got out of the passenger's seat and made his way over while the other guys backed the truck in. He looked sexy in his gear with his coat slung over his shoulder and his chest bulging beneath his suspenders. That was the moment I fully understood why women had firefighter fantasies. His expression, however, was cold.

  "Allie."

  "I'm sorry to just show up like this, but my students made thank you cards for you and Hot Dog." I tugged the envelope out of my bag and handed it to him.

  "Thanks."

  I took a deep breath.
"I also wanted to invite you over to my house for dinner tomorrow night. You were right. You deserve an answer. But it's a long one and it's not going to be an easy conversation, so I think we should—"

  "I'll be there."

  I nodded. "Thanks. Six o'clock?"

  "Sure."

  I did something I had no business doing, but I couldn't stop myself. I reached out and hugged him. It was quick and he couldn't hug me back because of the gear he was holding, but when I stepped away he looked a bit less angry. "See you tomorrow," I uttered before scurrying down the block.

  I'd woken up so nauseous that day that I'd considered calling in sick. Miraculously, I'd only heaved once during the day, and since I'd been too nervous to eat, nothing came out. I attempted to go to Pilates after school, but I only made it through the first ten minutes before I had to run to the bathroom and dry heave again, so I left and went to the grocery store. Not wasting time, I headed directly to the frozen section and grabbed a pre-made lasagna from the cooler. I'd originally planned on making something nice, but my nerves were firing on all cylinders and I didn't trust myself with a knife.

  When I got home, I put the lasagna in the oven and changed into my softest pair of black leggings and my favorite sweatshirt from college. I probably should've dressed to impress, but I was so on edge I needed to get comfort anywhere I could. I cuddled up on the couch and stared at the back of the door for forty-five minutes until the door bell rang. Taking several deep breaths, I shuffled to the intercom and buzzed Kyle in. My apartment was on the second floor, so it didn't take long for him to knock.

  After one more breath, I opened it. "Hi."

  He looked good in his jeans and the hunter green flannel. "Hey." He smiled.

  I stepped to the side, letting him in, then closed the door.

  "I brought wine. I think this is the same one you got that night at the store." He placed the chardonnay on my coffee table.

  "That's very sweet of you. Thanks. Would you like some?"