Page 6 of Last First Date
I shrug. “Please. That was my best rescue since I got this job. And mostly I was thinking you had to be almost as miserable as I was in there. If I faked an emergency about some important sounding business, then we could both get out of that crummy situation easily.” I look down at her fingers, but she doesn’t show any sign of wanting to hold my hand again.
“Was it that bad, really?” She brushes her fingers across her forehead, trapping the frown starting to form. “I’m so damn awkward at all this guy-girl stuff. My mom was trying to set me up with Hesse—”
I roll my eyes. “You don’t say. Good thing I’m not dead or stupid, because then I might have missed all the match making.” I tap the toe of my shoe once, twice. “And what exactly is it that makes Mister Kotner so appealing?”
She waves a hand in the air. “You know the type. Old money, family friend. He probably spends more time at the lawyers’ club than you do.”
I sniff. “Absolutely not. You have to be an actual lawyer to get in, no matter how rich your daddy is or what your last name might be.”
Her lips press into a thinned-out line. “Hesse is a lawyer, Thom. He never actually practiced because, well….” Her voice trails off, as if it’s embarrassing that I’ve had to work for my money.
Perhaps it is embarrassing to work, if you’re a certain type of person. Fortunately, I’m not that type. Because I’ve worked damn hard for every penny I have and I’m proud of it.
“You mean he didn’t practice law because he’s the kind of guy who’d get chewed up and spit back out after just one day of litigating against a man like me?” I spread my hands out in that whatta-you-gonna-do gesture. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Her eyes sparkle at my joke, but then her lips tighten up again. “I’m supposed to go to the hospital fundraiser gala, Abernathy. And Mother wants me to take a guy like Hesse.”
She gnaws at her bottom lip for just long enough to draw my attention to her mouth, and then she sighs. “But I’m terrible at that type of guy. If a guy can’t talk about any of the things that I really care about, what am I supposed to do all night? Twiddle my thumbs?”
A small, rough laugh slips out of my mouth, and I can see she’s trying to figure out if she should be offended. “I’m sure that any reasonable man would be able to have a conversation with you, even if it isn’t about firefighting.”
Darcy’s mouth pulls down. “I don’t know the first thing about richy-rich men like that. I couldn’t even tell if I thought Hesse was flirting with me or making fun of me.”
I shake my head at her. “That’s not your fault. If you couldn’t tell, then he was doing it wrong.”
Her cheeks heat again, and she worries her lip in between her teeth again. She’s killing me right now. “No, no. It was probably me. I’m so awkward sometimes. Especially with new people.”
I peer at her closely. “We’ve been doing just fine with one another, and this is the first real conversation we’ve ever had.”
She pauses, sizing me up. She take a long damn time tracing me with her eyes before she settles her dark gaze on my own. Then her nose wrinkles up. “Well, don’t let it go to your head, probie. It’s probably because I saw damn near all of your junk just now, so there are really no secrets left between us.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. I was expecting something almost heartfelt and instead I got a big helping of smart mouth instead. And even that’s attractive to me too. I love a smart woman, and one who has a quick wit and a sassy mouth is about as good as it gets in my opinion.
But right when I think things might be getting good between us, her eyes flick down and she flushes again. “I’m going to make a break for it and get back to work. Can you please attend the fictional mentorship luncheon without me just this one time?”
I put my hands in my pockets, feeling somehow disappointed. I know I’m not her type, but I expected a little something more from Darcy than a quick see-you-around speech. I almost felt like we were heading somewhere good together for a moment or two, but I guess I’m the only one. “You’ll owe me for it, Albrecht.”
Her bright laugh keeps ringing in my ears long after she’s walked away.
Darcy
Lieutenant. I can’t believe I actually did it.
I’m tempted to pinch myself, but somehow it really happened. And I suppose I have my mother to thank for this. I wouldn’t have even applied for the promotion without her basically telling me that she thought I was failing at life the morning of the photoshoot.
That morning I’d made my escape with Thomas Abernathy, the hottest man I’d seen almost naked in my entire life. I’ve definitely spent a few nights alone since then with my remembrances of his delicious looking body in mind.
I barely managed to keep a straight face when my mother asked how the mentorship luncheon went. But thankfully, she didn’t press me for details.
I wish I had seen Abernathy again to thank him from sparing me from the tapas date from hell, but he’d disappeared. And I’m not going to use my new job credentials to snoop around in his personnel file. No matter how tempting it is to see him again.
No, I’m going to be too busy for anything like that now. I can’t be chasing after a man like that anyway, no matter how attractive he is.
Plus, the promotion means I’ve been reassigned from my old station, and I know the rules. The guys at the main station where I’ll be working from now on are just as likely to pull pranks on me as they are any new recruit.
Especially because the main station where I’ve been reassigned is affectionately known as The Island of Misfit Toys. The firefighters there are the oddballs and the weirdos that don’t fit in at the close-knit, smaller township houses.
It’s my job to straighten out the mess and make it the best fire station in our County even though I’m the first female lieutenant in our county’s history. No big deal, right?
