Chapter Four
Twenty-four hour shifts with the Dry Rock FD didn’t leave Shane fatigued. They left him restless. He normally capped off those hours of being on call with a strenuous hike through the mountains that jackknifed the western sky, but today he found himself standing in front of Shelf Indulgence. A bookstore, of all places. He had absolutely nothing against reading—especially not good old-fashioned paper books—but there weren’t any mountains to climb within those walls, which thankfully stood unscathed. They’d removed the smoke-spewing window-unit air conditioner, and the brick exterior wall bore only the faintest scar.
The door didn’t have a sign indicating whether the place was open or what the hours might be. He hadn’t shut down the building, but she’d only arrived in town yesterday. Hardly enough time to get the paperwork in order, especially after the way her day had gone.
For that matter, he wasn’t sure if she’d made it back across the bridge, let alone twice. He should have looked up her address—one not in Wyoming—but what would be the point? He’d be gone in two weeks. He’d gotten her off the bridge and they’d kept her building from burning down. His job was done.
So why, instead of tearing up those mountains, was he knocking on her bookstore door?
And why the hell did he forget his name when she opened it?
If she’d been gorgeous the day before, today she took his breath and stomped on his chest. And that was before she smiled. She didn’t look different, exactly, so he wasn’t sure why she left him reeling. Maybe it was the openness of her expression. Maybe it was the way her eyes lit when she saw him. At least that’s what he wanted to think, or else his visceral reaction was seriously overkill.
“Hey,” she said, like they were old friends.
Bewildered, he glanced over his shoulder. Nope. No one there but him. “Uh, hey.”
“I’m glad you’re here. Come in.”
He stepped inside, though now as suspicious of her intentions as he was of his own. She wore the same clothes as the day before, he finally realized, though she’d managed to correctly button her shirt. Still, had she spent the night at the store? Only one way to find out. “I guess you made it across the bridge this morning?”
She hesitated. “Actually, no. I stayed here. But if that’s some sort of code violation, yes, I made it home and back just fine. And I wanted to thank you,” she rushed on, not giving him a chance to comment on her sleeping arrangement, “for yesterday.”
“You’re welcome?” Was this a sane version of this woman? Maybe this was what happened when one didn’t begin the day terrified on a bridge and round it out with a small fire. It should have been a good thing, but instead of relishing her apparent lack of fight, he found he missed it. Very few women batted more than their eyelashes at him, and this one had thrown nothing but roadblocks.
Her eyes hitched to his at his questioning tone. “No, I mean it,” she said. “You’re clearly good at your job. I thought you were being unprofessional, but you read me…well, like a book. So thank you, and, um, of course I won’t hold you to having to see me again. The justice system forgives statements made under duress, so I can do the same.”
He stared while her words tumbled over one another in their rush to get out. She didn’t want to see him again? He should have been thrilled. The woman was afraid to cross bridges, for heaven’s sake, and he rushed toward danger at every turn. Plus, he was moving in two weeks. He couldn’t begin to guess what else they didn’t have in common, but it didn’t matter. He was as good as gone.
He watched as she fought to hold her smile, then realized his suspicions had been on point. She really didn’t want him there.
He’d rescued her twice in one day, and she had to fake a smile?
“You’re probably right,” he said, only pretending to agree with her. “If you can’t handle that bridge, there’s no way you can handle me. Much better you stay somewhere safe. In fact, I could use the peace and quiet of a bookstore.” He vaguely remembered a sofa from his quick trip through the day before, and he found it in a corner before she had a chance to object. A faint smoke smell lingered, but she had the windows open and the fans on. Fresh mountain air poured in, only a hint of the city on its heels. He flopped onto the cushions, which gave more than he expected, but if she’d noticed the unceremonious landing, she didn’t flinch.
She bit her lip, leaving him with an ungodly urge to follow her bite with one of his own. “I’m not…open,” she said.
He ignored her and his stupidly clawing urge to kiss her. “Do I smell coffee?”
“It’s cinnamon roll.”
He inhaled, sure he smelled otherwise. “Not coffee?”
“No, it’s coffee, but cinnamon roll flavored.”
He blinked. “How is that coffee?” Coffee was supposed to be black and rich. Not…fluffy.
She pasted on a gratuitous smile. “Perhaps you should go to a convenience store for something more your speed.”
“I happen to enjoy a good cinnamon roll,” he said. He had no desire to drink one, but he didn’t throw that in. Plus, she hadn’t mentioned Starbucks, which he considered a huge plus. “I’d love some.”
She crossed her arms, though it was the only falter in her facade of friendly professionalism. “I didn’t offer.”
He glanced around the space. It was cluttered and a bit unkempt. That was to be expected, but it still reminded him of his grandma’s living room. “Can you recommend any reading material to go with my cinnamon-roll coffee?” Ignoring her was getting tough. He wanted to call her out, get her all riled up, and wait for the hurricane to blow through, but she remained steadfast. To a fault.
“I’m still getting organized,” she said primly.
He held his arms out wide, accidentally whacking the windowsill with one hand and nudging a cardboard box nearly off the end table with another. He righted the box then returned her saccharine smile with one of his own. “And yet I see books.”
“Fine.” She smiled, and it was so tight he was surprised by the effort, but she spun on her toe and walked away.
He settled against the cushions and checked out the store, this time without the benefit of smoke and a fire crew at his back. The space wasn’t large, and with five short lengths of stacks dominating the room, the impression of his grandma’s place gave way to that of an elementary school library. A couple of long paper bookmarks poked from the lines of volumes on the shelves. He wondered if she’d begun inventory, or if that was where the last owners had left off. The proprietors before her had been an elderly couple, and the few times he’d stopped by he’d noticed their tastes tended toward the eccentric, but his last visit had been years ago. The place had closed down for a couple of years without any interest from a buyer.
Then Caitlin showed up out of the blue, or fresh from Wyoming, as it turned out. He found himself wondering what her plans were.
And then, why he cared.
She returned in short order with a coffee mug, handing it to him without a word before leaving again.
He read the cup. I’m single, because apparently the only good men are fictional. He grinned. This woman clearly had no idea how much he loved a challenge.
The squeak of a metal cart with poorly greased wheels caught his attention. “Reading material,” she said, handing him a book off the top. “I haven’t had time to get through much, but I’m sure these will do.”
He glanced at the book title. History of Childbirth. Fully illustrated, with a knobby brown exterior and crispy yellowed pages that looked and smelled to be a hundred years old. “It’s been a few months since my last paramedic recertification,” he said. “This might be useful.”
Her polite, albeit strained, smile faltered, but she pulled it together with a subtly deep breath that not-so-subtly pushed her breasts against her blouse, straining the buttons. “If there’s anything else you need…”
She let the words trail off, like she couldn’t bear to finish the offer, and he had to bury his nose in the musty book to hide his grin.
There was something else he needed all right.
And when she realized what he had in mind, Caitlin Tyler wouldn’t know what hit her.
…
Caitlin was going to kill Lt. Shane Hendricks. It had been four hours. Four hours of him pleasantly turning pages through musty old medieval childbirth manuals and feminist essays. They should have been the least of all topics interesting to a Neanderthal who thought he was God’s gift, but a few stolen peeks through the stacks assured her he was, in fact, reading. Either that or taking the joke too far, but the steady shift of his eyes across the page indicated otherwise. Irritation waged war against pride. He wanted her to throw him out.
Which meant she had to tolerate his existence.
If only that was all she did.
She tried, hard, to focus on inventory, but—worst pun ever not intended—the man was on fire. He’d been hot enough in his bulky work jacket, which was beyond not fair. If she wore something that thick and drab, she’d look like she was caught in a burlap sack. But on him, it was rugged.
Without it, no less so.
She feared the lack of clothing between them. Whatever fire retardant gear he’d worn the day before had been a sufficient barrier—one suggestive enough of that God’s gift hero complex thing he had going on. The one that left him smirking at her while she almost died on a bridge. And again in a fire.
The one that made her want to keep her distance.
Today, though, she wanted to climb onto his lap and slide down the fire pole. She didn’t know if the firehouse had one, but she knew the fire guy did.
Damn him.
It had been too long since she’d had sex. The last time had been a rebound thing with a guy who volunteered shelving books at the library. It was so cute it was almost book-worthy, but sixty seconds of frantic-on-his-part missionary on a well-worn carpet in the reference section hadn’t been hot. No orgasm to show for the rug burn. Not cool. And then the guy wouldn’t quit calling.
Guys like Shane, on the other hand, rarely bothered to call at all.
So maybe he had a thing going for him.
A thing other than sinful hotness.
She must have sighed, because at that moment her heart did the swoony thing, he glanced up and somehow managed to meet her eyes through the narrow view she had of him between volumes lined on the metal shelves. She blinked and jerked away, only to realize she’d just arranged a half dozen gardening books in a section on international politics.
“Private Sex Advice to Women,” he said, making her jump.
This was ridiculous. It was her store. Maybe it hadn’t burned down because of him, or at least the rest of his shift had handled it while he goaded her, but that didn’t give him an unlimited open-door policy.
“I’m not interested in your advice,” she muttered.
“It’s a book,” he said. “So far you’ve given me childbirth, feminism, and sex. Is there a message here?”
Yes, yes there was. A message not to hang out in her store.
“An ABZ of Love.” The sound of flipping pages cracked the silence. “Hey, did you know alcohol can provide a form of substitute for a reasonably harmonious sex life?”
“You’re not getting me drunk,” she said, though she made a note to research if that might be true. As if a bottle of anything could compare to the smallest touch from a guy like him.
“I don’t recall offering,” he told her. His tone could have been teasing, though she didn’t know him well enough to make that call. All she knew was that her face was on fire, and it would just have to burn because there was no way she was putting in another call to the fire department, even if he clearly wasn’t on duty at the moment. “But,” he added, “if it’s a substitute for sex, and you’re refusing it, does that mean you’ve found other forms of self-plea—”
“Stop. Enough.” God, she hoped he was only there until she gave in, because otherwise she was about to make a huge fool of herself. Again. “I’ll do one thing. One. One non-sexual, non-alcoholic thing on what is absolutely not going to be a date, and then we’re done.”
She’d managed to emerge from the stacks before spitting out the entire sentence, which meant she had an unobstructed view of his infuriatingly cocky grin when he closed the book.
“I thought you’d never ask.”