Page 25 of Flirting With Fire
Brannigan had impressed me when he admitted he fought for every cent to train the men so they could get better jobs. Not many chiefs would have been happy to lose trained firefighters. He’d also told me training the volunteers would be my job from now on. He was getting too old to be running up and down ladders. I eyed my new chief. He looked fitter than most men his age. I didn’t believe him for a moment.
Ten pairs of eyes shot to me as I walked in. I was about to say hello when a huge dog bounded up to me. If I was going to put a breed on the dog…I studied it for a moment…Cane Corso, German shepherd, and part Shetland pony? I bent down and scratched the dog behind its ears. It was too hairy to determine the gender. It closed its eyes, and one back leg thumped in happiness.
“Who are you? Aren’t you handsome?” I crooned.
“He passes,” one of the men said dryly. He was a tall man with dark skin and large brown eyes, maybe late thirties.
I looked up from petting the dog. “Is this lovely…boy…a test?”
“Curly is the station mascot,” Brannigan said. “The last pick didn’t like dogs. He didn’t last.”
“I love dogs,” I said honestly, and the dog nudged me for more attention. “Who does he belong to?”
“Me,” the man who’d told me I passed said. “I’m José Garcia.”
I held out my hand. “Meyer Jones.”
His grip was firm but not crushing. Then the others came forward and I learned their names. I’d memorized the team before I arrived but now I could put faces to names. Garcia was an EMT, and his partner, Ray Pérez, was an EMR. Most of them seemed friendly and pleased to meet me. Two men hung back and were the last to introduce themselves. One of them needed no introduction. Skip White. His mom had spoken to me on my first day in town and my mom had shown me a photo of him and his family. He shook my hand warmly. The other man was a stranger to me, and his name was Caleb Wyatt. I placed him in his mid-twenties. He was civil enough but not friendly like Garcia and Pérez. He studied me with an intensity that made me uncomfortable.
The rest of the day passed much as I expected. Form filling, booking me on training courses, and in the afternoon, we conducted training exercises. I found Brannigan’s assessment of the crew was correct. They could do their jobs, but they didn’t have the fluidity I was used to, and it was my job to change that, as the chief had told me pointedly. It hadn’t escaped my notice that Brannigan had mentioned retirement more than once. The chief wanted the right man to hand over his firehouse to, and he wanted it to be me. I hoped his faith in me wouldn’t be misplaced.
By the time my shift was over, I was tired. It hadn’t been especially taxing, just different from what I was used to. Back in Chicago, I could do my job without thinking. It would take time to get back to that stage again. I contemplated going home and calling Dex, suggesting we meet another day. But the sooner I saw the cottage, the sooner I could say no.
And you want to meet him again.
I couldn’t deny it. I wanted to see my hot cowboy again. I said goodbye to the others and got on my bike, heading to the samepath Dex had taken earlier in the day. The distance was farther than I expected and mainly uphill. By the time I spotted fencing, which signaled the start of the ranch, I was sweating profusely. I stopped for a drink, downing half the water in my bottle in one go.
“I didn’t know whether you’d follow through,” Dex drawled behind me.
Just his voice made me want to do all kinds of wicked things with him. I looked over my shoulder. “Ialwaysfollow through, Chase.”
His cheeks went crimson. “Good to hear it.”
In my head, I punched the air. Meyer - 1: Dex - 0.
Chapter Eight
Dex
Meyer hadn’t spotted me where I leaned against a juniper tree by the ranch gate as he parked his bike. I was watching his ass as he moved past me and up the driveway to the house. It was a damn fine sight, and I hated how much I enjoyed the way he moved. In high school, his masculine grace had been equally as alluring—his ability to fluidly dart and dodge the opposing team as he charged down the field, clutching the football as he led our team to another victory was the stuff of legends.
Meyer filling out his skintight football uniform was what had first caught my attention and what eventually led me to my doom. Muscular thighs bulging beneath the stretchy fabric of his uniform, biceps flexing as they gripped the ball to his chest with a vice-like grip from his powerful, square hands—a grip so masterful that all I could do was bemoan the fact that I wasn’t a piece of sporting equipment to be overpowered and pawed by the delectable Meyer Jones.
And now? I wished for the same damn thing. But I still hadn’t figured him out, wasn’t sure about the ex-boyfriend story. At what point had he morphed from a homophobic jerk to sharing with me the sad story of his gay relationship falling apart? Thesituation with him left me unnerved. If I was being honest, I’d been unnerved since Freshman year whenever it came to Meyer.
“I didn’t know whether you’d follow through,” I called out, moving out from under the shade to meet him in the driveway.
He paused, angling his body to me, the corner of his mouth twitching. “I always follow through, Chase.”
My cheeks heated. “Good to hear it.” I didn’t dare ask him what he meant. I was remaining on red alert until I figured out his real deal. “Then I guess we should go take a look at the place. It’s out past the barn.”
As we walked silently toward the old foreman’s cottage on the other side of the barn, I wondered what his little remark had been about. The comment had seemed a bit too flirty. Maybe one day I’d work up the nerve to confront him about how shitty he was to me back in high school. Because until I knew what the hell his problem was, I wasn’t about to get my heart entangled again—despite him being hotter than ever.
Meyer gave me a sideways glance. “How much are you asking?”
“Eight hundred. Utilities included.”
Meyer grunted—an indeterminate sound that further left me guessing. I also couldn’t decide if he was merely looking at the place so he could honestly tell Lindy he wasn’t interested. Now that he knew how close I was to his mom, he probably figured he couldn’t simply tell me to go to hell. He’d have to come up with a plausible reason why it wouldn’t work for him.
