Page 4 of Hiding with the Mountain Man

She pointed toward the ladder, and I cleared my throat. It was feeling awfully dry. Relations. That was her polite term for sex.

I shook my head and pointed toward the corner of the garage. “Not here. There’s a camera right there. The chief is security conscious.”

“So you’d have to be out in the field for that to work,” she said.

She was still staring at the fire engine. Was she imagining where a couple could have sex? Maybe inside the cab, as I’d pictured when I was sitting in there with her.

The more important question, though, was whether the two of us were the couple in her fantasy. Maybe she was picturing her fictional characters, while I was thinking about the two of us.

I stared at the truck thoughtfully. “I’m not sure how that would work. We never go out on a call alone.”

“Maybe if my hero was taking it for a wash or repairs,” Mina said.

I shook my head. “We do all that here. You don’t exactly run a fire truck through a car wash or take it into the shop for service.”

“So you hire a mechanic?” she asked.

“We do the work ourselves. It just so happens the chief knows his way around a vehicle.”

“That means the chief would be able to get away with sex in the truck, but probably nobody else.” Mina looked back over her shoulder at the camera before returning her stare to the fire truck. “Hmm. Where else could a couple have sex in a fire hall?”

I sucked in a deep breath, still not looking over at her. I worried she’d see my thoughts written all over my face, and I certainly didn’t want to come across as a perv.

“I’ll show you around,” I said.

I gave a shrug, as though this conversation didn’t have my head spinning, and started walking, gesturing for her to follow. I showed her the fire pole that we rarely used, and she chewed her lip thoughtfully.

“Kind of like a stripper pole, don’t you think?” she asked.

I frowned at it. “I guess you could see it like that. Do they still call them stripper poles?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Maybe dancer poles? They teach classes on that sort of thing for fitness, you know.”

“Well, there you go. Maybe the woman in your book took classes, and now she can work a dancer pole.”

I showed her the kitchen area, but there was nothing all that special about it. She bit her lip as she looked around, and I wondered if she was imagining a couple having sex on the various surfaces. If she was imaginingushaving sex on the various surfaces. That image replaced the one I had of us in the cab of the truck.

Her eyes lit up as soon as we walked into the locker room. It was empty, but rows of cubbies filled with helmets and uniforms lined one wall.

“So you don’t keep these at home?” she asked.

“We don’t stay at the fire station like paid firefighters,” I said. “We have to be prepared to head straight to the location when a call comes in.”

Mina gestured to indicate the gear that surrounded us. “But there are uniforms here.”

“The chief gets everything cleaned for us. We drop it in that bin over there and pick up a fresh one.”

“Can he do my laundry?” she asked with a laugh. “Seriously, though, it has to be scary. Running into burning buildings and all.”

I shrugged. “Not too much of that in this town. But we’re first responders, so if someone has a heart attack or car accident, we’re dispatched to the scene.”

She was watching me as I spoke, and her eyes flashed. She saw me in an all-new light. At least that was how I interpreted the look. It made me want to continue to say things that impressed her.

“Can you put one on now?” she asked.

I frowned, not sure what she was asking. But she gestured, and I followed the direction of that gesture to the cubbies.

“You want me to put all that gear on?”

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