3

PICK

It takes twenty-four hours for me to get Hunter alone. The four-thousand acre fire blowing up the side of the nearby mountain is partially to blame for the delay. The blaze starts out small enough. The Rogues arrive and scratch out a line, shoveling dirt over the smoldering embers. But as the day goes on, more grass burns and the fire gets happier, although no trees catch. Right about dinnertime, however, Mother Nature picks a side, the wind kicks up, and we end up with flames crossing the line. The scene explodes, flames devouring the dry grasses and rushing upslope. Boxed in by cliffs, the fire’s crackle is overly loud, amplified by the rock walls. The tall, black column punching up into the sky guarantees that every breath I take is thick with smoke and the unmistakable smell of burning. Eventually, the fire’s head hits rocks upstream and dies, a lucky break, leaving only the treetops flaming, along with patches of smoldering grass.

Now, fighting fire becomes a routine mop-up followed by a quick break while we wait for the helicopter to swing by and lift us out and back to base camp before it gets too dark to fly. My teammates pass the time by giving me shit about my having been on the breakfast menu yesterday. Several produce videos shot on their phones, and I’m pretty certain we’re now Facebook stars. I take a bow, pretending that Sarah Jo’s kiss is just a prank. A funny stunt that means nothing.

Maybe it doesn’t.

Maybe I’m crazy for thinking that kiss came with possibilities.

I definitely understand the value of a good joke. I get that the camp cooks were teasing Sarah Jo and that I’d been a convenient bystander with a penis and a set of lips to kiss. Any other summer, any other woman, and I’d laugh it off right along with them. I’m not claiming to have fallen in love on the spot. Nope. Not claiming that at all. It’s just that I felt something when Sarah Jo kissed me, and I’m almost certain she felt that something right back. Maybe I believe in insta-lust. Or sex-ever-after.

Even if I’m not supposed to.

I don’t need the HR lecture to know that shaking the sheets with a co-worker is a dumbass move. After the orgasm, I still have to work with her—and she has to work with me. It’ll suck if having seen each other naked becomes an issue instead of spank bank material. Ergo, I steer clear of my co-workers, and that includes the camp staff. So it’s just too damned bad that Sarah Jo kissed me, because she put ideas in my head and now I’m curious.

Beside me, Hunter’s Pulaski chews through the iron-hard ground. Two regulation inches down and then straight back up, turning over the dirt nice and neat. Too bad it isn’t as easy to get a handle on Sarah Jo.

I give Hunter side eye, not breaking my own rhythm. Hunter’s all muscle and he can keep pace no matter how fast I dig. The front line is loud. Men shout over the roar of chain saws, almost drowned out by the crackle of the fire and the steady chop of the helo ferrying new crew in.

Too tired to bother with subtleties, I open with the truth. “You set me up.”

“That kiss?”

I shoot him a look and Hunter just grins. “Uh-huh.”

Hunter flips the Pulaski, dropping the hoe end down into the dirt and spreading it around. The line is good. The trees, however, are still a damned problem.

“Hazard tree,” I say, jerking my head toward the nearest snag. “She’s leaning and the fire’s got her good.”

Hunter tilts his head back and gives the tree a onceover. He comes to the same conclusion as me. “Let’s drop her.”

A quick round-trip to the pickup and he returns with a chain saw, the rest of the hotshots falling back to a safe distance.

I fall into step with him as we case the tree. It’s a big, gnarly motherfucker, slanting worse than the Tower of Pisa. The risk isn’t unacceptable, however, and we’ve got the team cleared out. Better to drop her safely before her top snaps off and lands on someone’s head. Good men die that way every year.

Hunter starts checking the chainsaw while he picks up our previous conversation. “Rumor has it those girls do that every year. It’s just a game to them.”

Yeah. That secret, unreasonable disappointment comes right back. Sarah Jo kissed me like she meant it. Had she? Or was it all just the game Hunter mentioned? She’s got a playful streak if the color in her hair and her T-shirt collection is any indication, but now that I’ve had a taste of her, I want more.

Lots more.

If she’s playing games, I’ll play. I totally rock at games. I’ll be in it to win it.

I smile. “She distracted me.”

Hunter grunts something unintelligible. I don’t think it’s encouragement.

“Have I ever told you how much I love games? I’m a huge fucking fan.” I pin my eyes on the snag, ready to call any movement. Doesn’t matter how dirty my plans are for Sarah Jo if my dick gets squashed by a falling tree. Since Hunter’s got a girl, I’m assuming he’s similarly attached to his equipment.

“Right.” Hunter yanks the cord and the chain saw roars to life. “More like you saw Sarah Jo standing there and you lit up like a Christmas tree.”

“Did not.”

Hunter shakes his head, making the first cut through the trunk. “Say what you want, but if I’d gone first, Lola would have killed me. Those girls are friends.”

“Maybe.” Lola’s definitely a firecracker—the kind with a really short fuse and an endless number of explosions. She’s all color and pinwheeling shit that lights everything up while you knock back a beer and try to figure out if it’s a dragon or a comet or cosmic poop up there in the sky. I consider pointing this out to Hunter but he’s already started on his second cut and he might be tempted to use the saw on me instead. He’s super touchy about any implied criticism of Lola.

Do you think she would have gone off on him if her own girlfriend had done the kissing? It’s hard to pass that kind of liplock off as an accident. You don’t just slip and shove your tongue into some random guy’s mouth. Still, Lola’s got a great sense of humor. She’s also not afraid to use her own mouth. I’m betting she’d either do a whole lot of yelling at Sarah Jo or simply kiss Hunter long enough that he forgot all about an unexpected lip-lock.

“You liked kissing Sarah Jo,” Hunter says. Okay. He fucking bellows it loud enough to be heard two states away because the chain saw’s not shy about making noise. The blades roar through the back-cut, and the snag topples. For a long moment, the charred treetop hangs there in the smoky air, undecided which way to fall.

Hunter makes a give-it-up gesture at me. See that look of glee on his face? The way his eyes light up and the corners of his mouth quirk? The bastard got an eyeful when Sarah Jo kissed me, and now he thinks he’s getting details. Which he’ll then share with Lola, who will turn around and unload on Sarah Jo. Do I look stupid?

I smile. “Watch the sky, hotshot. You’re not getting me to kiss and tell.”

Calling a warning, I step back. Right on target, the snag comes down in a slow-motion, flaming arc. The clearing lights up like a birthday cake for an octogenarian.

Hunter Black is no talker, either. He’s the one who first made friends with the bunch of women who’d rented out a string of cabins ignominiously called Baby Bears Lodge. If you’re going to name your place after wildlife, you should at least aim for the top of the food chain. Pick a badass predator—not something cute and fuzzy. However bad the name was, however, the cabins are now well-stocked with hot, lonely chicks hosting some kind of summer camp for adults. Hunter confided once that the girls called themselves the Break Up Club and that they were working through the end of their most recent relationships. Since club meetings seem to involve pajamas and ice cream, I can understand why Hunter chooses to stick around. Hell, if they add naked pillow fights to the agenda, I’d join.

Although, on second thought, that might be more of Hunter than I need to see.

Hunter, of course, seems perfectly happy that his days are seemingly numbered. “So was that kiss a onetime thing?”

Let’s pause that line of questioning, okay? Anytime someone starts questioning the future of a relationship, it’s quitting time. Time to hit the road, to get the fuck out of Dodge before things get even stickier. Sarah Jo kissed me. And she didn’t protest when I kissed her back, did she? I’m thinking that if the movie preview is that awesome, I’d be crazy not to see the whole show. Still, I go with the safe answer.

“Sarah Jo’s the boss.” I’m no prize. Hell, I’m working-class all the way. In the off-season, I own my own garage where I work as a mechanic. I pay my bills, but I’ll never be a California billionaire. I’ll never wear a suit. I like Budweiser, Monday Night Football, and burgers. That doesn’t mean I won’t try other things—when I look at Sarah Jo, I can imagine all kinds of things I’d like to try on her—but I prefer my shit simple and straightforward. Sarah Jo is going to be complicated as fuck. If I’m a straight line about sex and relationships, she’s some multivariate calculus—in Mandarin.

She kissed me—and then she let go so fast I still have whiplash. She peeled that pretty mouth of hers off mine and then she’d danced back behind the serving table. As the guys had jostled forward, elbowing me, I’d stared at her like an idiot. Thanks, she’d said, like I was just the Mr. Helpful who’d popped a lid on a jar or passed the salt.

Thanks doesn’t begin to cover that kiss. My dick is still singing Hosannas, my fingers itching to find her waist again. Yet she wants to pretend that nothing happened.

Hell, I’d half-expected her to call next, and I still don’t know what I’d have done then.

Because I’m going to be her next and her last, at least as far as this summer goes.