Page 40 of The Night Belongs To Fireman

Now that was a blatant lie. Getting involved with men held so many land mines that she rarely attempted it. And none of the sexual encounters she’d experienced held a candle to Fred’s kisses. From under her lashes, she stole a glance at him. He was toying with his coffee mug, staring into the depths as if it held all the answers.

And suddenly she felt horrible.

“Actually, I don’t kiss people all the time,” she corrected herself softly. His gaze flew to meet hers, and suddenly it felt as if a pathway had opened up between them, a river of connection, swollen and tumbling with confused emotion. If she dipped a toe into it, it would sweep her away.

“Besides, my father doesn’t have to know everything,” she added.

“Does he know that?” Fred’s dry question, delivered over the rim of the porcelain coffee mug, made her laugh. Clearly, Fred had already gotten the hang of the mighty Rob Kessler. It made her feel a little less alone, actually.

He put down his mug and ran his thumb up and down the handle. His thumb was large and sturdy, just like the rest of his hand. Her stomach clenched in a sort of electric shock. The force of it astonished her; she actually put one hand to her midriff. Never, ever in her life had she reacted to a man the way she responded to Fred.

If he was here, with her, around the clock, would she be walking around tingling all the time?

This was a bad idea. A really bad idea. She was crazy to even be contemplating it.

Greta trotted over to Fred, sniffed his pants leg, then curled up next to him, her chin on his shoe.

And suddenly she was back in that place, that lonely cage, where the only friendly face was that of a stray German shepherd. She used to watch him for hour after hour, soaking in his every twitch and growl, learning his moods. She called him Inga after her doll at home, even though she figured he was probably a boy dog. He was hungry all the time, so she tossed him food through the bars of the cage they kept her in. Then one day, when one of the hired guards had opened the cage door, Inga sank her teeth into his leg and wouldn’t let go. In her mind, Rachel clearly heard the dog telling her to run. She scrambled out of the cage. The guard kicked her in the head with his free leg, but she kept going, out of the old warehouse. Gunshots rang out. She never knew if Inga got shot, or if the guard was shooting at her. If so, he missed. She kept running and running, into the desert, until she passed out. The next thing she remembered, she was in a hospital and her father was there.

Ever since Inga, she’d never gone wrong following the guidance of a dog.

“What are you thinking?” Fred’s soft voice brought her back to the moment.

She took a long, bracing swallow of her coffee. “I guess … I guess I was thinking that we should do this.”

“You’re right. We should.”

“But I still don’t understand why you want to.”

He met her eyes, his expression so determined that she started. This must be the “badass” Fred his friend had mentioned at the City Lights Grill. “Believe me, as soon as your father filled me in on the situation, there was nothing on earth that could have kept me from taking the job.”

She screwed up her face in genuine puzzlement. “Is this a man thing? Do you like danger? Or wait, maybe it’s a crazy firefighter thing?”

She didn’t understand why that made him laugh so hard. “Don’t think being my bodyguard gives you license to tease me,” she told him. That just made him laugh all the harder.

“A little teasing never hurt anyone,” he said with the ghost of a wink. “Take it from me.”

Vader scowled at Fred from behind his desk. Station 1’s newest captain had always been the most fitness-obsessed in the crew. Thick ridges of muscle bulged against his uniform shirt. Powerful tendons flexed in his forearms. Fred couldn’t help thinking that Vader would be a much better choice as a personal bodyguard. No one would dare mess with Rachel if Captain Brown was on the job.

On the other hand, he might be inclined to pick a fight just for the recreational benefit.

“How long of a leave of absence?” Vader asked.

“Two weeks. Maybe three.” Kessler’s testimony was supposed to happen in two weeks, but Fred thought it wise to leave his options open.

“And what is this special project? Something to do with USAR?”

Well, it was a sort of rescue situation taking place in an urban area. “Something like that,” Fred murmured. “I can’t say too much about it.”

“Military? Something to do with your brothers?”

“Nah, nothing like that.”

Vader narrowed his eyes at him. Fred wouldn’t mind filling him in; it might help to have backup. But Rachel had asked him not to tell anyone at the station, in case word got back to Ella Joy.

“It’s personal,” Fred finally said. “I can’t say any more.”

“Is it about that girl? The one from the limo?”

How the hell did Vader guess? Fred didn’t answer.

“I recognize trouble when I see it,” said Vader. “And that girl is five-alarm trouble.”

Well, yes, that was definitely true. Rachel had already upended his life in any number of ways. He could only imagine the challenges of guarding her. But Vader didn’t need to know any of that.

---