Chapter Twelve
Peyton couldn’t sleep. The hard mattress was softer than the ground, the scratchy sheets more comfortable than her smelly sleeping bag. She’d showered, had the AC on and still tossed and turned.
Without being asked, Gabe got them two rooms, adjoining. He probably wished her back in Chicago, probably regretted inviting her to help Doug. She wished she shared his regret.
She hadn’t been alone in days, not easy since she was used to being alone ninety percent of the time. She may have forgotten how.
Her thoughts were too loud, Gabe’s words echoing. Bad enough she had those ideas about herself without hearing them from a man she admired.
The TV didn’t drown out the swirling thoughts as her mind whipped through the events of the past few days with dizzying speed, only to land on one bit over and over.
Gabe.
God, she missed him, his calm reassuring presence, his sharp mind, his warm body. After only a few days, the man saw things in her she had forgotten about herself, saw strengths in her she didn’t recognize. While at first she’d wanted to impress him, she learned he didn’t need to be impressed. Yes, he wanted her to do a good job on the line, but he was pretty damn accepting of her mistakes. In the short time she’d known him, he made her feel better about herself than anyone ever had.
He’d seen her stripped bare—of defenses and everything else—and he still accepted her.
So why was she lying here playing victim? She’d decided that she was taking charge of her life. Easier said than done, especially when it came to how another person made her feel, but she would make him see her side.
She was rising from the bed with the intention of heading to his room when the news about the fire came on.
“Gabe!” Peyton pounded at his door, not caring about the hour, about the annoyed shouts from the rooms surrounding theirs. “Gabe!”
He pulled the door open, the phone tucked between his ear and shoulder. She saw the tears on his cheeks before he turned away. She entered the room, closing the door behind her.
“Who is it?” she asked.
He indicated the phone and mouthed, “Jen.”
She’d meant who died. Had the four dead Hot Shots been Bear Claws? Someone they’d celebrated with last night? But he’d given his attention back to the phone. She leaned against the dresser, all her attention on him, not caring that eavesdropping was rude.
“No, Peyton just came in. I know, there’s nothing we can do tonight.” Frustration colored his voice. “We’ll go to the base first thing in the morning, get back there as soon as we can. No, wait for me. I want to do it. I need to do it.” He glanced over at Peyton. “Yeah, you too. Try to get some sleep. Good night.” He hung up the phone, stared at it. “Doug’s been charged with the murder of the Hot Shots who died out there,” he said over his shoulder, his hand still on the phone, like he was using it to brace himself. “Four counts of manslaughter. They picked him back up at the fire camp.”
“Jesus.” She dropped to the edge of the bed, her legs weak.
“Yeah, and if that’s not bad enough—”
“It’s someone you know.” Peyton forced the words past numb lips.
Dan had lost friends in the line of duty, and had had a similar reaction. It had been hard comforting him, trying to absorb his pain, but this was harder, because while she’d never thought Dan would fall, now she understood Gabe was not invulnerable to the same fate.
Gabe dragged his hands over his face, not looking at her. “Yeah.”
“Not from your crew.”
“No. Friends.”
“And you want to bring them back.”
He did turn to her then, his eyes dark and hot with pain. “I need to.”
She didn’t understand his desire, but she wasn’t going to argue with him, not now. She covered his hand with hers, not sure if he wanted the contact. She did. “What can I do?”
He pulled away and reached for the keys to the truck. “You can hope a liquor store is still open.”
None were, but they were able to pick up a couple of six-packs at the grocery store. Gabe twisted off the cap of the first bottle before he closed the motel room door behind him, had half of it drained before Peyton fished her first bottle out of the bag.
She sat on the bed, cross-legged, no longer concerned about keeping him at arm’s length. “Tell me about them.”
“I knew two of them, Jon and Bev.” He sat against the headboard and reached for another bottle. “This was Jon’s favorite beer. I trained with him, about a million years ago, and Bev was on my crew before I moved over to the Bear Claws.”
“You slept with her.”
He looked at her sharply. “What made you say that?”
She merely lifted her eyebrows as she drank.
“Yeah, I did. Hell. It was a long time ago, before Jen.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “She wasn’t going to do this long, was only going to do it to pay for college, and hell, she should have graduated about seven years ago. She must’ve got bit.”
“What was she going to school for?”
“Testing me to see how well I remember her?”
“Just curious about the kind of woman who draws you.”
“You already know you, and Jen.”
“And I can see no similarity, except this.” She laughed, pulling a strand of blonde hair through her fingers. “So tell me about Bev, unless it bothers you.”
He shook his head. “She was young. This was, what, almost ten years ago. She wanted to be a kindergarten teacher, and had that look, you know, the dimples, the twinkling eyes, the kind of singsong voice. And yes, she was blonde. She had this great energy. Really lit up the place.” He took in a deep breath through his nose, his focus on his hands.
“Did you love her?”
“No. I liked the hell out of her, though. Seriously, she left to go back to school. I don’t know what she was doing back up here.” He turned his head, opened his eyes. “I don’t want you back on the mountain.”
“What?” She nearly knocked her bottle over. If he’d slapped her face, she wouldn’t have been more surprised.
He righted the bottle before the beer foamed over the lip and onto the mattress. “I don’t want you up there. If this fire can take two veterans...” He lowered his head, gathering himself, then looked back at her. “Well, I don’t want to go get your body.”
She reached over, cupped her hand over his cheek, the stubble bristling against her palm. “Why do you feel you have to get theirs? It isn’t your fault they died.”
His gaze sharpened and he drew back from her touch. “I know.”
“You going up there won’t solve anything.” She leaned forward, tucking her beer in the circle of her legs. “You don’t want me to go up there, I don’t want you to go up there. You shouldn’t see them like that.”
“If it were me, I’d want someone I know to be the one to bring me down. It’s the right thing to do.”
Honor. It meant so much to him, and made him the man he was. The man she loved.
Whoa. How had that slipped past her defenses? And now that it had, could she pretend it wasn’t there?
Did she want to?
“Will you be there when I get back?” he asked.
And because it was such a small thing, because it was good to be needed again, she said, “Yes.”
He leaned toward her, took her beer and put it on the table before cupping her face in his hands and kissing her deeply. She wrapped herself around him, unable to stop herself.
“I’m sorry, Peyton,” he whispered against her hair. “I want you.”
“Gabe—” Peyton’s pulse kicked into high gear. She felt like a mouse facing a hungry cat.
Then he was kissing her, his hands fisted in her hair, his mouth slick and hot and desperate. He loosened her ponytail, stroked her hair against her neck. The touch of her own hair made her nerves dance.
His unshaven cheek scraped her cheek and she reached up to touch his jaw, stroke the stubble, at once scratchy and silky. Beneath it his skin was hot and damp. She dragged her touch down his throat, feeling the play of his muscles as he devoured her mouth, sending reason into flames. She slid her hands up his chest to wind around his neck as he tugged her closer.
He broke the kiss for the moment it took him to lower her to the bed. He pushed his hips rhythmically against her until she pushed back, and the sound of heavy breathing and pounding pulses covered the rasp of zippers and swish of cloth.
Gabe reached into his pocket for a condom, not moving from his position, blanketing her body.
“I want to be on top,” she whispered.
He let her up and rolled onto his back. She straddled him and he sucked in a sharp breath in anticipation. She played up her own pleasure, as the insides of her thighs brushed the outsides of his, the roughness of his hair focusing her senses. She guided him to her and sank onto him, hugging his hips with her knees.
Finding her rhythm didn’t detract from his pleasure. He slid his palms over the smooth skin of her back before framing her hips. She gasped when he shifted beneath her, and her breath shuddered.
Peyton wanted nothing like she wanted Gabe and she bent to pull his head up to hers, sucked on his lips and tongue, scraped her teeth over his ear. He smelled of smoke and man and she wanted to feel him come inside her.
So she threw her head back and rode him until his breathing went ragged, and he moved beneath her, inside her in his quest for climax.
His search lead to her own orgasm and she dropped her head to his shoulder and turned her mouth against his throat to hide her cry of release.
“My God, Peyton,” he murmured when his body no longer trembled from the power of their joining. “My God.”
She buried her face into the curve of his throat and tried not to cry.
Gabe stroked his fingers up and down Peyton’s arm as she slept beside him. She was so soft. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d touched anything so soft. He pressed a kiss to her hair, sniffed her fruity shampoo.
Would it always be like this, would he always be drawn to her like a magnet, like he had been last night? After Jen’s bombshell, and then the deaths of the firefighters, he’d been staggered with the painful thoughts of what might have been. Only thoughts of Peyton cleared the haze, of her directness, her softness, her courage, even when he’d said those hurtful things to her.
Almost made him forget about her husband. Did make him forgive her for it. She hadn’t tried to change him because she didn’t approve of him. She tried to change him to save him. How could he fault her for that?
If he stayed with her, she’d want the same from him, especially since her worst fears had come true when Dan died. And for the first time in his life, he might have found someone he’d walk away from this life for. Could he walk away altogether, leave this life? Would Peyton accept anything else? Maybe if he didn’t go out on the fire line, but worked toward a position in command, like Jen had always wanted him to do.
Goddamn. He itched to pull back, but he didn’t want to wake her. Jesus, he’d never thought about leaving the job for a woman, about leaving the job, period. What was it about the woman beside him who made him consider it? Her vulnerability or her toughness? Her compassion or her determination? He’d only known her for a few days, but the idea of saying goodbye made his stomach plummet, like jumping out of a plane.
He wished he could offer her more than cheap motel rooms. He hadn’t wanted to give a woman more, and the idea shook him. When he’d been with Jen, leaving hadn’t occurred to him, but she was from the community and being in the firefighting world was enough for her. Peyton was from another world entirely, and he wanted to be able to offer her something from her world, something outside of firefighting, something she understood. He just wasn’t sure he was capable.
He turned onto his side and pulled her close. She accepted his touch and nestled against him, sliding her hands over his chest to his shoulders. With her eyes still closed she raised her face and nuzzled his chin.
She wasn’t asleep but she wasn’t fully awake. Gabe hadn’t done the dreamy lovemaking thing and his body responded to the silent suggestion.
He lowered his head toward her and she captured his mouth with hers unerringly.
Her lips moved idly over his, her tongue moved into his mouth, probing gently, and he glided his hands over her back, letting her set the pace. The warmth of the kiss flowed through him. He hadn’t known this slow lazy lovemaking could be so powerful. He reined himself in from rushing forward, though it was torture when she floated her fingertips over his body. He clenched his teeth as he fought for control.
“I love your body,” she whispered, coursing her palms up his thighs, looking at him through sleep-dazed eyes.
She was so beautiful as she rose up over him, her hair tousled from his hands, her features sleep softened. But when he kissed her, the ache in his heart matched the ache in his loins. He didn’t want to hurt her. He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her cheeks. He rolled her beneath him, worshiping her body.
She bowed against him, clutching both his hands in hers as he came into her.
“I love you,” she murmured, stretching up for him.
His heart seized at the words, though his body didn’t stop delving into her warmth. She loved him? How could she? Did he deserve—?
He didn’t mean to let go so soon, and he groaned, in a mixture of pleasure and regret. Maybe it was the powerful foreplay, but he knew it was those three little words.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Peyton smoothed her hand over his pounding heart. After a moment he leaned over and kissed her hair, tilted her head back and kissed her mouth softly, searchingly.
With all the love he’d rediscovered.
He couldn’t say the words, not yet, but he could show her.
“Do you still want to interview me?” he asked, his own rough words surprising him when his heart rate approached normal once more, when the sweat had mostly evaporated from his body.
She sat up, her earlier languor gone, her eyes bright. “Do you mean it?”
He dragged his hands over his face, his usual stalling tactic, still not believing he’d come to that decision. “Yeah. I mean it.”
“Let me just get dressed—”
“There might be something to be said for doing a naked interview,” he teased, needing a touch of humor after what felt like a momentous decision.
“Right.” She reached for her underwear and jeans, clearly not willing to give it a shot. Still, she moved with a lack of modesty he appreciated. “You’re just wanting a distraction.”
“Not me.” He rolled onto his side to watch her. Even the way she dressed was such a feminine task. He let himself enjoy the show, and she allowed him to, not speaking until she was decent.
“Are you going to get dressed?” She looked pointedly at him.
He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back on the mattress.
“Nope.”
“All right. Well, you know my first question.”
“I thought your first question might be what just happened here.” He sure had a question or two about those three little words. Still, he kept his tone teasing.
She dragged her eyes over his body with lazy approval. His instinct was to cover his reaction to her perusal, but he resisted. “I bet you’d prefer that off the record.”
“Oh, you shallow, shallow girl. Aren’t you going to get your notebook?”
Facing him, she sat cross-legged on the bed. “I can remember. And I believe you’ll be more comfortable talking if I’m not writing everything down.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’d hate to be misquoted.”
She mimicked the expression. “You won’t be.”
“All right, the reporter question.” He took a deep breath, another delaying tactic. This memory he didn’t want to revisit, but he’d started this, he’d finish it. “Why I hate reporters.”
She drew one leg up and rested her chin on her knee. “You’re stalling.”
He grinned. “I know.”
“I think there’s a specific incident which caused this animosity, am I right?”
“Yeah.”
“Pulling teeth here, Cooper.”
“Okay.” He reached for his boxers on the floor, wanting just another moment. “Do you remember Angel Ridge?”
“Howard told me you were there.”
“Yeah, well, Howard has a big mouth.” This was not something he wanted to be discussing so soon after making love with her. The images—he didn’t want to sully the memory of Peyton with the memories of horrible death.
While his reluctance was nothing new to her, she gave him a minute before pressing. “He wanted to help me understand you.”
“So hearing this, it helps you understand me?”
“It made you the man you are.”
He couldn’t deny it. “All right. Anyway, Angel Ridge was a huge mess. The fire should have—could have—been put out days before. Do you know the story?”
She nodded. “Fourteen died.”
“The ones who escaped ran for their lives uphill. You know how it had to feel, you were there not long ago. Only they were running through brush and high grass. Shelters wouldn’t have saved them, there was no safety zone.”
“Were you there?” she asked quietly.
No, but he could see it, could feel their panic. Experienced firefighters, and they’d been trapped, just like he and Peyton had been. He shook his head. “Not on the mountain, not till it was over.”
“Then you brought the bodies down.” Like he would later today.
He rubbed his hands over his face, as if the movement could erase the memories. “That was the thing, or part of it.” He dropped his arms to his knees, letting his hands dangle, consciously keeping them loose, though the rest of his body was tense. “We couldn’t bring them down right away. We had to identify them, to reconstruct what had happened. It was grisly work. Have you ever seen a burned body?”
“Pictures.” Her eyes hadn’t left him, but he couldn’t look at her and see her face superimposed over the images of death in his mind’s eye.
He shook his head. “Not the same. There’s nothing left that’s human.”
“And you knew these people?”
The room was getting too small. He needed to get up and move, to get away from the questions that hurt too much to answer, so he pushed to his feet, walked to the window, stared out over the mist rising off the blacktop. Still, if he was the hero Peyton called him, the pain wouldn’t stop him. He reached for his shirt to occupy himself while he spoke.
“One was a good friend of Jen’s and mine. I’d been to his house, met his family. The firefighting community isn’t very big.”
“So you were a member of the team that reconstructed what had happened to these people you knew,” she summarized.
“Yeah.” He glanced over, saw her hands fisted, her expression tight. She was living it with him. God, if he hadn’t already decided he could love her...but he didn’t want her there, not for any reason. He reached over and closed his hand over hers.
“How did you get through it?” She studied him closely.
Too closely. “One step at a time.” And even that had been too much.
“Did reporters go up with you?” she asked when he leaned against the dresser and linked his hands behind his neck before he looked up at her, signaling he was ready to go on.
“They were waiting at the bottom of the mountain, ready to pay for stories, pictures, anything they could get. Some of the pictures of the bodies that came out in the tabloids could only be from our investigation.” He dropped into the chair by the window.
“Did you sell them a story?” She kept her voice carefully neutral.
He brought his hands around, rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed his eyes. “I talked to a reporter. I didn’t take any money, but I didn’t watch what I said. My words came out twisted, and next to pictures of the bodies that devastated the families, so they assumed I’d sold the pictures, sold my story. I’d been angry when I spoke to the reporter, angry at the tragedy, at the BLM, at the Forest Service. But he took what I said and made it sound like something completely different.”
“How did they twist it?”
“Blame was flying all around at the time. Firefighters were blaming management, BLM was blaming the Forest Service, management was blaming firefighters. I came across as the firefighter blaming the other firefighters.”
“Surely when you told everyone the truth—”
He shook his head. “You of all people know how powerful the written word is, Peyton. The article cost me friends at a time when the community should have stuck together. So I don’t talk to reporters anymore.”
“Then why do you suppose Jen assigned me to you?” she asked. “Therapy?”
He laughed dryly. “I can’t figure it out, entirely. She doesn’t hate me, at least not anymore. Maybe to keep me out of her hair, since this is our first fire since the divorce. Or to keep you out of her hair.”
“Did you ever make peace with your friends? The ones who turned away from you after Angel Ridge?”
What, she thought he was that much of a loner? “Some of them. I didn’t want to have to beg them to believe me.”
“Imagine that. You didn’t want to swallow your pride.”
Damn, he loved her smart-aleck tone. “It’s not a good chaser to all the BS I’d swallowed.”
It was her turn to laugh.
“What else do you want to know?”
She leaned back, regarding him with surprise. “Really? You’ll answer anything?”
“Within reason.”
“Why do you go back? After what you saw on Angel Ridge, after what almost happened to us, how can you go back? Why do you want to go up there today?”
“Same reason I don’t think about what will happen when I can’t do this anymore.” He dug under the bed for his socks. “Because it’s bad luck.”
“Worse luck than almost getting toasted?”
He didn’t want to think about how close they’d come to cashing in less than forty-eight hours ago, how close he’d come to losing her. The pain of the realization stunned him for a minute, and he had to bring himself back to reality. “Hey, we were pulled out of there.”
“By our singed bootstraps. Don’t give me anymore of those flippant answers, Cooper. I really want to know this.”
Too close to the bone here. He needed to push her back from this topic she’d latched onto and he could think of only one way. “Because of what happened to Dan?”
She whipped her head up. He actually watched her drag herself together before she answered. “I already told you that was the reason I was doing these articles.”
He shifted toward her, intent to hear her answer, sick that he hadn’t seen it before. Just like Jen, she didn’t see the real him. “But is it the reason you’re sleeping with me? Am I a replacement for your dead husband, Peyton?”
“Gabe—” She sat on her heels and gazed at him imploringly, but once spoken, the idea was too strong in his mind. How could she love him after only a few days? He had to be right about this.
“Do you think about him when you’re with me? What about when I make love to you? Are you making love to him?”
When she didn’t answer, only opening and closing her mouth, he sat and started pulling on his socks with brutal efficiency. “You told me you love me. I should have known. Damn it, I should have known better.”
“What?” She grabbed his boots and holding them out of his reach.
He tried to reach for them, then gave up. “It isn’t me you love. How could you? You’ve only known me a few days.” And if Jen hadn’t been able to love him after four years...
Now she leaned forward, her eyes dark with pain. He glanced away from it. His pain was too strong. He couldn’t deal with hers. He rolled away to get his pack together.
“Do you really think I’m so shallow, I’d just replace one man with another?” she demanded.
He couldn’t look at her. “I think you’re hurt and lonely. Isn’t that why you’re out here, why you’re doing these articles?” He gestured jerkily toward the door. “To fill the place Dan left behind? What better way than with a man who reminds you of him?” He reached for his boots. This time she didn’t fight him. Stopping at the door, he looked back at her.
“It’s really too bad, Peyton. We could have been something. If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll go to the Fire Depot on my own.”
He walked out, his throat tight, his eyes burning. His heart broken.