Page 10 of Reckless
“For you, sugar plum? Of course.” Tina’s half-dozen plastic bangle bracelets clacked out a happy rhythm as she waved Zoe all the way over the threshold. She pushed her reading glasses to the crown of her head, where they promptly got lost in the waves of her dark auburn hair. “I missed you yesterday. I popped into the dining room during lunch, but Millie and Ellen said you were up to your elbows behind the lines.”
Zoe sank into the secondhand chair across from Tina’s desk, tracing a finger over the bold geometric pattern printed on the fabric armrest. While the room boasted the same dollhouse-sized dimensions as Zoe’s office on the other side of the building, between the colors and the clutter, the resemblance definitely stopped there. “Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to connect with you. We had perishable and dry goods deliveries back to back, and let’s just say things weren’t exactly a slice of pie with my new community service volunteer.”
“I know you’re not talking about Tall, Blond, and Holy Crap in there,” Tina said, popping her chin toward the hallway and waggling her brows from behind the mountainous stack of file folders piled high on her desk.
Shock bounced Zoe’s ponytail against the shoulders of her loose, white peasant blouse. “Who told you about Alex?”
“Are you kidding? My morning volunteer texted me before I was even halfway here yesterday, wanting to know when we started recruiting from Hot Guys R Us. Then Millie gave me the rest of the scoop when I stopped over.” Tina paused, measuring Zoe’s expression with open curiosity. “Anyway, he showed up two days in a row, his paperwork is all in order, and he certainly looks able-bodied, if you know what I mean. How bad could the situation really be?”
Zoe’s libido pumped out a white-hot reminder of exactly how able-bodied Alex had looked as he’d unloaded yesterday’s dry goods delivery, but she cleared her throat in an effort to show it who was boss. There were conservatively a thousand items on her List of Important Things that trumped the way Alex Donovan’s flawlessly broken-in jeans pressed over his even more flawless ass.
God, his ass really was perfect.
Zoe snapped her spine as high as it would go, replacing the image in her head with one of a big, bright fire truck, and funny, that killed the sudden shot of heat in her veins, lickety-split. “Well, first off, he’s a firefighter.”
Tina lowered her red rhinestone-studded pen to the top of her desk, her breath escaping on an audible sigh. “Look, honey, I know you and your dad haven’t been on the same page since your parents split up last year, and I definitely know how you feel about his chosen line of work. You’ve got good reasons to be cautious. But don’t you think you’re jumping the gun by judging Hot Stuff based on his pedigree alone?”
Oh, if only it were that easy.“Did I mention Alex’s home station is the number between seven and nine and that I’ve known him since I was a sophomore at Fairview College?”
“Whoa,” Tina said, her shoulders hitting the back of her creaky pleather desk chair with a thump. “I mean, I saw on his paperwork that he’s a firefighter, and I figured you might not be in love with the fact given your family history. But I had no idea the guy was from Station Eight, or that you’d know him.”
Zoe’s frown tasted like day-old coffee and felt just as cold as it crossed her lips. “I know him, all right. Don’t let the pretty packaging fool you. He’s a firefighter, through and through. Right down to the reckless attitude and the refusal to put the job anywhere other than first, no matter who might get hurt. It’s going to be a huge energy suck to rein him in for the next four weeks.”
Tina paused, her brown eyes narrowing. “Wait…I know these assignments are supposed to be strictly according to need, but your father’s worked in the department for twenty-five years, and he’s got a hell of a lot of clout. You don’t think he got Alex assigned here on purpose, do you?”
Her movements froze at the same time her heart jacked to ninety miles an hour behind her sternum, and she sat momentarily poleaxed to her chair. “No,” Zoe finally managed, easing up on the death grip she’d involuntarily locked over the multicolored armrest. “The only reason my father would throw me and Alex together on purpose is if he’d gain something from it. He and I might not agree on much anymore, but I’ve made it clear how serious I am about making a difference with this soup kitchen, and it’s wildly obvious thatseriousisn’t anywhere in Alex’s operating system. My father has to know that despite Alex’s penchant for sweet-talking his way out of things, I’m not going to go easy on him just because he’s in-house.”
In fact, her father probably wanted Alex back at Station Eight as badly as the cocky Casanova wanted to be there, which meant the last place on earth he’d put the guy was her short-staffed soup kitchen, where he’d have to earn every nanosecond of his community service. This whole thing had to be a coincidence.
“There really aren’t a whole lot of places that need community service volunteers more than we do,” Tina agreed slowly. “I guess it’s nottoomuch of a shock that Alex landed in your kitchen.”
“Yeah.” Zoe huffed out a laugh, because it was that or cry, and she’d never been partial to a whole lot of boo hoo. “Even if it is the mother of all ironies.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing else between you and Mr. Oooo-La-La?” Tina asked, her obvious spark of curiosity making Zoe clamp down on her lip two seconds too late. “Or do you have something you’d like to share with the class?”
“Of course not,” she said, strong-arming her thoughts into submission along with her words. She and Tina worked together closely—they were friends, even—but no way was Zoe copping to the near-miss-kiss that haunted her like the ghost of Christmas Stupid. Her only saving grace was that somewhere over the course of the last five years, Alex seemed to have blanked on the entire incident. Not that being forgettable was a major boost to her pride, but it was definitely better than being remembered for letting your beer become the spokesperson for your vagina in an uncharacteristically impulsive moment of I’m-going-off-to-college-so-maybe-you-should-kiss-me weakness.
Zoe cleared her throat. “I mean, come on, Tina. It doesn’t really get more ironic than the fire captain’s daughter getting stuck with the least serious guy in the house for a very serious community service assignment. It’s like somewhere out in the universe, my karma totally exploded, and now I’ve got to deal with the aftermath for four whole weeks.”
Tina measured Zoe’s answer, taking a sip from a coffee mug broadcastingThere’s too much blood in my caffeine system,before she said, “I don’t know, sweet cakes. Maybe once Alex gets used to being here, he’ll surprise you.”
Please. Zoe was too organized for surprises of any kind, especially ones boasting six feet two inches of nothing but ego. “He’s pretty determined to squeak by on as little effort as possible, and he’s made it perfectly plain that he doesn’t want to be here. Hell, he doesn’t even think he did anything to deserve community service in the first place. I highly doubt he’ll be shocking me with a change of heart.”
“Well, hands are hands, I guess. At least you can use ’em while you’ve got ’em.”
“More like use ’em until they screw up,” Zoe countered, her resolve finally snapping back into place in her chest. “I might need help in the kitchen, but I don’t have the time or the energy to clean up anyone’s messes. If all he wants is to punch the clock, fine. I can’t make him love it here.”
The admission took a jab at her breastbone, although she didn’t hesitate with the rest. “But Hope House is the only thing I can rely on, and this place means everything to me. If Alex Donovan sets so much as one toe out of line, I’ll send him packing. You can bet the bank on it.”
4
Alex auto-piloted his way through the swinging doors connecting Hope House’s kitchen and dining room, balancing a slotted tray of coffee mugs between his dishpan hands. He’d spent the last three hours alternating between scrubbing what felt like every last pot in the kitchen and getting the ancient commercial dishwasher to (sort of) run without blowing a gasket. While the tasks weren’t exactly neurosurgery, the routine was about as thrilling as watching daisies germinate, and damn it. If he was already counting the minutes on the morning of day two, the next four weeks were going to send him around the bend.
Giving up the bare bones of a smile to the two fifty-something ladies working behind the dented-up food service counter, Alex swapped the clean mugs in his grasp for the dirty counterparts that had amassed since his last trip, hefting the tray back up for yet another round of lather, rinse, repeat. But with T minus four steps to go until he reached the swinging door, he clipped the corner of the unwieldy tray on the metal edge of the coffee station counter. Tightening his stance over the rubber floor mats, Alex managed to keep both his grip and his balance, but there was no helping the slosh of cold, leftover coffee that splashed over his wrist and forearm.
“Shit.” He slid the tray to the slim stretch of countertop next to the double-wide bucket sink, giving his hands a quick scrub and quicker pat down on the dish towel he kept terminally slung over his shoulder. Although Zoe had been dead-on accurate about the need for an apron—much to the chagrin of the T-shirt he’d sacrificed during yesterday’s shift—he couldn’t quite bring himself to do the chugalug with his pride and go grab one from the back. It was a small and fairly ridiculous defiance, but the less of a groove Alex found here, the better. He didn’t belong cooped up in a kitchen, wasting his time and energy on some stupid principle.
Christ, he missed the firehouse.
