Читать книгу Where There's Smoke - Kristin Hardy - Страница 11

It was visible as she drove in, an improbable, eccentric structure that looked as though a committee of quarrelsome architects had built it out of giant-sized Tinkertoys. The closer Sloane came, the more bizarre it looked, meticulously executed building segments arbitrarily slapped together into a four-story monstrosity, the whole considerably less than the sum of the parts. Depending on the side of approach, the structure looked like an apartment house, an industrial building, a parking structure or a tract house on stilts.

It was the showpiece of the Boston fire-training facility and every inch of it had been carefully planned. It would never win any beauty contests, Sloane conceded ruefully as she parked her car and got out, but its sheer quirkiness appealed to her.

Or perhaps it appealed to her because it was where she was going to get a chance to see what her gear could really do.

Anticipation sharpened her awareness of everything around her, the early-morning tang in the air, the lines of the putty-colored tower silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky. Nerves knotted her stomach as they had since she’d awoken that morning. There was no need to worry, she told herself for the hundredth time as she got out of her car. Everything was going to go fine.

Ladder 67’s truck was already parked on the wide concrete apron surrounding the tower, its aerial ladder stretched out to the top of the building. Nearby was a pumper, hoses trailing out toward the tower. From a distance, they looked like Tonka toys. In fact, the whole scene looked like nothing so much as a child’s play area after its owner had gone for milk and cookies. A mind-boggling array of fireplugs poked out of the concrete at intervals. Sloane skirted one, heading toward where the ladder truck waited in the slanting shadow of the tower.

Why did it have to be Ladder 67? she wondered, glancing at the group gathered around the truck. Things would have been so much easier if Bill Grant had let her change to another company. She had enough to worry without having to contend with Nick Trask. Not that she was about to let a man distract her from her job, but she’d have far more peace of mind with a captain who was oh, say, pushing sixty, with the start of a paunch and a couple of grandkids on the way.

She wouldn’t have felt so much at risk.

Still, Nick Trask was far from the first challenge she’d faced in bringing the Orienteer this far. She’d deal with him, just as she’d dealt with everything else. The important thing was to keep focused on what really mattered.

Making her brother’s death mean something.

She recognized Nick immediately. He stood out from the other men, even though they were all dressed in their department T-shirts and dark trousers. Cockiness, Sloane thought immediately, but intrinsic honesty forced her to admit that it wasn’t. Instead, it was confidence, complete confidence in his ability to deal with any fire that might arise and a man who could walk into an inferno without flinching wasn’t daunted by much else. He turned to look at her from where he leaned against the side of the truck and against her will she felt the spurt of adrenaline in her veins. Oh, yes, the legions of women who probably fell at his feet had to have had something to do with that confidence, as well. Willfully ignoring the sardonic curve of his mouth, Sloane squared her shoulders and kept walking.

When she drew near, Nick pushed away from the side of the ladder truck. “What, is Councilman Ayre running late for his photo op?”

“No Councilman Ayre, sorry to disappoint you.”

He studied her a moment. “Who said I was disappointed?”

No man should be allowed to have such long eyelashes, she thought. “Just a guess. It’s good equipment. It can save lives, including yours.” Pulling a neat pair of files out of the battered leather satchel at her feet, she stacked them on her clipboard. “After Hartford, I can’t see any department giving up equipment like this.”

“You’re obviously new to Boston, or at least the politics.”

“Hardly. I’ve been here three years.”

He laughed. Sloane stared at him, her cheeks tinting. “What?”

“No wonder you’re such an optimist.” The high color that stained the edges of her cheekbones suited her, Nick thought. And it was definitely personal with her.

Sloane frowned. “If Boston’s such a useless place and you hate it so much, why do you stay?”

“Loving the city doesn’t mean I have to agree with the agenda of the people running it.”

“I suppose, but why choose a job that’s subject to the whims of the politicians?”

“I didn’t. It chose me.”

For a moment, she just stared back at him. She looked a little like a Hollywood femme fatale, Nick thought, in her black turtleneck and tan jacket, dark glasses hiding her eyes. Her hair caught the light like a shower of sparks. Her skin was milk-pale and flawless.

He wondered abruptly how it tasted.

Concentrate on the job, Trask. “So what’s the plan?”

“First let’s go over how the equipment works, then get some smoke going and let them take the Orienteer through its paces.”

“You want smoke, we’ve got it. Come on, I’ll show you.”

A change came over her as she faced the burn tower, a tenseness he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been so aware of her. For a moment something in her stance suggested wariness, perhaps dread. It was there and gone in a flash. There was a story there, he thought again.

Sooner or later, he was going to find out what it was.

He led her into the cool of the burn tower’s shadow. At close range, the cinder block walls were scarred by water-marks and black flares of soot.

“What do they use for the fire?” Sloane asked.

“Bales of hay, wood pallets. It depends on whether we want smoke or heat.” Nick led her to stairs that threaded up the outside of the tower. He stood back to let her go first. He’d given the tour plenty of times. Funny, he’d never noticed the narrowness of the stairway before, even when it had been crowded with a dozen people.

They stopped at the first landing, in front of a discolored steel door that led to the interior of the building. Nick pulled it open. The metal groaned in complaint. Fire was never easy on anything. “Here’s the first burn room, in through here.”

Coming in from the bright sunlight, it took Sloane’s eyes a moment to adjust to dimness as she shoved her sunglasses up onto her head. The air felt dank and close. In the mix of odors that assaulted her nose there was the stench of stale smoke, drowned char, of burned concrete and gasoline. Their footsteps echoed as though they were in a cave.

Nick stepped in behind her. The back of her neck prickled in sudden awareness. Then the room became shrouded in shadow as he closed the door. Sloane forced her attention to the space in front of her, away from the soft sound of his breath.

She blinked, then blinked again.

The scene in front of her was weirdly disorienting, like a surrealist painting or a scene from a psycho movie. There was much that was familiar, but the context bewildered. The space looked like an ordinary living room, if one discounted the fact that the walls and furniture were completely encrusted with soot. There were the familiar shapes of a couch and a coffee table, but instead of rugs, the center of the floor was piled high with gasoline-soaked wood. It was like something out of an arsonist’s daydream—or a firefighter’s nightmare.

“Well, the color scheme’s simple enough,” she said dryly. “Black on black.”

Nick stood motionless by the door, watching her as she moved about the room. “The training people like to simulate a real-life situation as much as possible,” he murmured. “The furniture’s heavy-gauge sheet steel. Watch yourself, by the way. This stuff is coated with soot an inch thick.”

The furniture was absolutely matte black, sucking up all the available light, baffling the eye. It looked both soft as velvet and absolutely solid. Sloane couldn’t resist touching it with her fingertip. She gave a surprised laugh when her finger sank in to the second knuckle, sending soot cascading down in small avalanches.

“I warned you,” Nick pointed out mildly.

“Empirical method.” Sloane tried unobtrusively to shake the soot off her fingers. “I have to experiment and observe. I’m a scientist, it’s part of my profession.” She caught the quick gleam of teeth as he smiled.

Nick pulled a rag from his back pocket and tossed it to her. “Good thing you wore a black sweater. You ought to do a study sometime of the migration and breeding patterns of soot. You’d be amazed at how much of your clothing that little bit will cover.”

Sloane gave a scrub or two to her hands and handed it back to him. “Maybe I’ll turn into one of those people who write fan letters to the detergent companies.”

“Maybe.” He frowned and stepped forward with the cloth. Before she knew what he was about, he’d touched it to her cheekbone.

Sloane jerked back.

“Hold still for a minute. You’ve got soot on your face. You don’t want to look like Tom Brady on game day, do you?”

She felt the touch of the fabric, the heat of his finger beneath. The heat of his body. He was too near, she thought, too solid, too hard to ignore. “Are you done yet?” She glanced up and locked eyes with him and the words caught in her throat. His gaze was intent, as if he were trying to see through her skin. His eyes looked hot and dark.

The silence stretched out. “Well, that’s all we can do here. Come on,” he said abruptly, moving to the far side of the room. “If you like interior design, there’s more to see.”

It was time to get out of this close, dark room. She didn’t want to react to his presence so strongly, Sloane thought as they started down the interior stairs.

She didn’t seem to be able to help it.

In the stairwell, sunlight spilled through an open door high above. Light and shadow, bright and dark. They climbed the stairs in sync, shoulder to shoulder in silence broken only by the hollow ring of footsteps echoing off the cinder block walls, the whisper of hands sliding on the railings, the almost imperceptible rhythm of breath.

“Is this the first time you’ve been in one of these?”

Sloane jumped at Nick’s voice. “Yes. I didn’t expect it to be like this.”

“Are things usually the way you expect?”

You’re not. “Often enough.”

They came to a landing and stepped through a door into another burn room. Light streamed in through the empty window cutout and Sloane breathed a sigh of relief. There would be no repeat of the shadowed intimacy of the room downstairs, no repeat of the closeness of the stairwell. It should have helped.

It didn’t, especially when she saw the furniture. “The master bedroom, of course.” Her voice sounded stilted and strange in her own ears. Her mouth was dry. Silly.

“Not much sleeping goes on in here.”

Sloane walked to the window to lean out of the open cutout, immensely conscious of every movement, every breath. “I didn’t realize we were so high up,” she murmured. “The tower doesn’t look that big from the ground.”

“It’s a lot higher when you’re hanging off it on a rope.”

“No thanks. I hate heights.” Sloane started to turn away from the window, then gasped and jerked backward, knocking into Nick. His hands caught her shoulders automatically; he released her a moment later.

But not before she absorbed the feel of his palms.

Deep in her belly something clenched like a fist.

Adrenaline, she told herself, that was all it was. Whether it was from Nick’s touch or the thing she’d seen, she couldn’t tell. Because she didn’t want to find out, she stared instead at the figure wedged between the bed and the wall. “What in God’s name is that?”

“That?” Nick grinned. “That’s Harvey.”

It lay flat on the concrete, dressed in turnouts and steel-toed boots, one arm stretched out plaintively toward her ankle. It was ridiculously thin and even in its reclining position was tall enough to have been instantly drafted by the NBA, had it only been alive. “Harvey?”

Nick seemed to relax. “Our search-and-rescue dummy. They stash him and his wife, Gladys, in here somewhere before they start the fires. When we send the crew in to search, they’d better come out with both of them. Harvey’s set up to weigh about as much as the average man. Feel.”

Nick reached past her to pick up the outstretched arm. He was near enough that she could catch the scent of male, near enough that she could see the play of muscle through his T-shirt as he bent over. She moved to step away but a stray piece of wood from the fire pile caught her heel and she stumbled backward, arms out to brace against the wall behind her.

And in a surge of terror felt only empty space.

There were moments of absolute clarity in life. One minute Nick was bending down over Harvey, glad of something to do, the next, Sloane’s cry was ringing in his ears. There was no pause for thought, no time for horror. Operating only on reflex, he surged up toward the window cutout even as Sloane’s feet left the floor. Pulling her back in to safety took a flicker of a second. For an instant there was only adrenaline. Then he swept her to him, holding her tightly.

“There was nothing there.” Sloane’s voice wavered. “I just backed up and there was nothing there.”

Four stories. Four stories down. His mind repeated it like a litany of horror. And at the bottom, solid concrete. “It’s all right,” Nick whispered, as much to himself as her. “I caught you. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

He’d saved lives before. The amazement and rush were familiar, but no close call had ever shaken him this much. All the fragrant luxuries of her, the precious individuality, so fragile and so very nearly snuffed out. She was alive now, though, wondrously, completely alive.

He’d had no idea how right she would feel in his arms, close enough that he could feel her heart beating against his chest. For a moment, there was only the soft feathering of her breath over his neck, the silkiness of her hair against his cheek. He heard her sigh, then her body seemed to melt into his.

There was a shout and the sound of footsteps clattering up the stairs. Nick pulled away, staring at Sloane, who looked as shaken as he felt. Then O’Hanlan and Knapp burst into the room.

“My God, are you all right?” O’Hanlan turned to Nick. “Jesus, Trask, what happened? We turned around and there she was hanging half out the window.”

Sloane sounded calm, looked calm unless you noticed how rigidly she’d clasped her hands together. “I tripped.”

“Good thing Nick was here.” O’Hanlan studied her with concerned eyes. “You’re sure you’re okay? You scared the life out of us.”

“I nearly scared the life out of myself.” Sloane glanced over at Nick, as though unable to help herself.

He knew how she felt. He hadn’t caught up with what had just happened himself, knew only that it had started something, a drumbeat in his head that made the idea of professional detachment toward her a joke. “Let’s get downstairs,” he said brusquely.

It replayed in her mind over and over as they descended the tower. The whole thing had taken a matter of seconds. Shadow, then harsh sunlight, then a glimpse of blue sky as she’d rocked outside the building. And there had been terror, blinding terror. It had seemed like hours before her heart had begun beating again.

The solid ground under her feet came as a relief. Sloane couldn’t understand why it was only then that she started to tremble, first her hands, then her whole body. The men milled about nearby, talking idly, staring over at her. She took a deep breath and willed the shakes away. If she just ignored it, she thought with a tinge of desperation, maybe she could manage.

Nick walked up and looked at her carefully. “Do you need some time to get calmed down?” he asked.

To her utter horror she felt tears threaten. For a ridiculous instant, she wanted only to be held by him again. Instead, she laced her fingers together to still their trembling and took a deep breath. “I’m fine.” She attempted to smile. “Let’s get started. The gear’s in my trunk.”

Nick studied her and shook his head decisively. “Give me your keys and go sit down for a couple of minutes,” he instructed.

“Don’t order me around,” she returned. “I’m—”

“Look, don’t argue,” Nick said sharply. “I don’t care how tough you are, anyone would need a couple of minutes to recover from a scare like that.” His voice softened. “We’ve got plenty of time. I’ll get a couple of the guys to bring the gear over and then we can go to it. Now sit.” He paused. “Please?”

Sloane perched on the step of the ladder truck and gradually the wobbliness went out of her muscles. It was a relief to feel like herself again and ready to get started. Before she did, though, she had something to take care of.

She stood and dusted her hands off. “Hey, Trask?” Not Nick. Nick was far too personal now. “I’m ready to get rolling.”

Nick turned inquiringly and crossed over to her. “You bounce back fast.”

Time to get it over with. She cleared her throat. “Listen, I want to thank you for catching me in there. You saved my life. I’m sorry if I was rude just now.” She fumbled for words. “I just…thank you.”

He smiled then, clear and uncomplicated. “Relax. It’s in my job description. Come on, let me introduce you to the guys.”

He led her over to where the crew stood. “Sloane, meet the guys from Ladder 67. This is Todd Beaulieu, Tommy Knapp, George O’Hanlan, our chauffeur, and Jim Sorensen, our probationary firefighter.” Nick pointed to each of them quickly. “This is Sloane Hillyard, from Exler. She designed the gear we’re testing and she’s running the program, so listen up.”

Sloane picked up one of the Orienteer modules. “Nice to meet you all. You’ve gotten the briefing on the equipment. Basically, we use data from a couple of sources to track where you are in a building, so that your commanders and colleagues always know where to find you and you always know your way out.” She paused. “The equipment is easy enough to use, but I’d like to demonstrate adjustments and operation first. Volunteers?”

There was silence while the men all looked at one another. O’Hanlan nudged Sorensen. “You should do it, Red. You’re the probie.”

Sorensen hesitated and with a sound of exasperation, Nick stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”

“Great.” Sloane handed him a helmet and one of the breathing masks equipped with the sugar-cube-sized display module. Then she held up a flat black package about the size of a pack of cigarettes. “This is the Orienteer data module.” She slipped the webbed belt around Nick’s waist and pulled it around until her fingers snugged up against the flat, ribbed muscles of his stomach. Sudden awareness rolled over her and she fumbled with the clasp. Shadow, then harsh sunlight…then the hard feel of his body pressed to hers.

“I’ll get it,” Nick said abruptly, pulling the strap from her hands. With a snick, the clasp locked. He put on the helmet and breathing mask.

“The belt pack sends a signal to a head-up display embedded in your mask so that you get a blue schematic projected on your faceplate over the background,” Sloane murmured, a catch in her breath. “The belt pack also communicates with the master unit at the outside command post so whoever’s running the scene can monitor locations on an LCD. The belt pack’s a wireless unit, so it can go under your turnouts or even in your pocket.” She found herself aware of every slight shift, every scent, every inch of his body. “The switch on top triggers a distress alarm to all of the other units. It shows up on the display here.”

As she tapped the clear plastic of his breathing mask, her fingers brushed Nick’s cheek. She glanced up involuntarily to find his eyes leveled straight at her. Even with the clear shell of the mask between them, the intensity of his gaze, the desire that flared for an instant stopped her words in her throat.

If the pause was too long, she couldn’t tell. For just that time, she was incapable of speaking. Sloane stepped back, too hastily. “I think that’s all. If anyone has any trouble with the fit, just ask me.”

Nick pulled off the mask. “All right, guys. We’re going to run this as a standard timed drill. Keep your mind on the gear, but let’s remember that this is also a search-and-rescue exercise. Treat it like the real thing. O’Hanlan, Knapp, you guys take the top two floors, Beaulieu, Sorensen, you guys take the bottom two. By the book, guys, and let’s get Harvey and Gladys while you’re at it, okay?”

It was the scent she noticed first, the odor of burning wood drifting across on the breeze. Faint tendrils of smoke trickled from the top window.

Knapp rubbed his hands together. “Smell that, guys? Break out the hot dogs and marshmallows, we’re ready for a party now.”

With casual efficiency, the men donned the masks and modules and walked to the tower. Sloane saw them give a quick thumbs-up to Nick, then they plunged into the thick pall of smoke.

Nick pulled on his turnouts, the thick yellow garments obscuring the lines of his body, to Sloane’s relief—and a tiny, sneaky sense of unease that she didn’t want to admit. “Are you going in, too?”

Nick slipped on his gloves. “Part of my job. I do it in all fires, unless there’s no one else to supervise.” He pulled on his gloves. “Besides, I want to see what your work is worth.”

In full uniform he became anonymous, one of the ones who walked into hell. She could almost forget how he’d looked at her. She wanted to, Sloane thought as he headed toward the tower. How very much she wanted to.

There was a gut-level dread of fire in her that skittered around her already nervous stomach. It was a controlled situation, Sloane told herself, there was no need to be apprehensive. Still, where fire was involved no situation was ever really controlled. There was always the freak accident, the unexpected. Firefighting was a profession predicated on risk. And if you took enough risks, it stood to reason that sooner or later you’d pay the price.

She’d won the state science fair in high school, had graduated with honors from both college and grad school. She’d won research grants to develop the Orienteer. None of it had meant as much to her as the fact that her first live test had gone flawlessly. The crew had a suggestion or two, but overall it had been a success.

Now she just needed more.

“Trask,” Sloane called as O’Hanlan brought down the ladder. Nick headed toward her, his walk loose and athletic. He’d taken off his turnouts and wore only his gray sweat-darkened department T-shirt and blue pants. It wasn’t fair that they looked so good on him.

He looked at her inquiringly. “What do you need? We should get back to the station.”

“I wanted to talk with you about the upcoming schedule.” She had to strain to be heard over the drone of the ladder motor.

“It’s too noisy out here. Let’s go into the observation tower.” They climbed the steps of the squat tower that sat apart from the burn structure. Nick opened the door and let her go in ahead of him.

The small room appeared to be entirely made up of windows overlooking the training ground. Water had streamed over the concrete and the tangle of hoses from the fire engine. Harvey and Gladys sprawled over behind the ladder truck, amid a pile of helmets and turnout coats, Halligan tools and six-foot-long ceiling hooks. “It looks like a battleground from here,” Sloane murmured. She didn’t glance away as she spoke.

“It is a battleground. All fires are. It’s a matter of winning before they claim any casualties.”

Sloane shook her head at the idea and turned. She wasn’t prepared to find Nick so close behind her. “You’re all crazy, you know.” She raised her eyes to meet his. “How can you walk into a burning building knowing you’ll face fire, injury, maybe even death?”

Nick shrugged. “I’m a firefighter. It’s what I do.”

For a moment, Sloane was reminded of a statue of a Roman centurion she’d once seen, strong, proud and utterly fearless. A quick, primitive wave of response rippled through her.

She forced herself to breathe. “I want to do one more testing session in a controlled environment. We’ve gotten permission to burn down a condemned two-story unit in Roxbury in a week. I’d like to run the crew through there, through a floor plan they don’t know to get them used to relying on the Orienteer.”

“We can’t afford any more time off the street.”

His words were quick and final. Sloane’s chin came up. “It’s not your choice, Trask. I want to be sure about this.”

“And I want to keep my men from walking into a burning building if they don’t have to. Why not do the second round of testing here?”

“Because after one run through the burn tower, even I could navigate it through heavy smoke.” She didn’t bother to hide the sarcasm. And she didn’t plan to take no for an answer. “I want a better approximation to a real fire ground. I’d think you’d want that, too.”

“Look, you know my concerns.”

“And you know mine,” she countered. “We need to do the testing, period. One or two more days won’t hurt.”

“It won’t hurt?” His eyes were turbulent as hell smoke. “Every minute we’re out of the firehouse, people are potentially at risk. Ladder 67 had eighty-two calls last week alone. If an alarm comes in for our company while we’re gone, they call in a truck from the next station over.” He took a step closer and he was all she could see, all she was aware of. “The next station is two miles away, five minutes under the best of conditions. Do you have any idea what a fire can do in five minutes? Do you know how long even a second is to a person who’s trapped, waiting for a ladder?”

The blood drained from Sloane’s face. Her eyes were on Nick but her gaze was within as she remembered talking with Mitch’s crew chief. “The flashover just took a second or two. If we could have found him, we could have saved him. We got there just after the flashover, but it was too late….”

With an effort, Sloane drew herself together. “I’m sorry about departmental policy, but we need to do this testing in the safest possible way. If everything goes well with the next round, I’ll release the units to you to take on a fire ground. It’s my decision, though,” she warned him. “We’ve got to be sure everything’s working flawlessly and the guys really understand what they’re doing.” And the conversation needed to be over with, now. She brushed past him toward the door.

“Wait.”

“I’ve said everything I had to say.” She was too close to the edge, Sloane thought desperately, way too close.

“Will you just hold on a minute?” Nick pushed his hand against the door. “Stop, dammit.”

“What?” Her voice was tight with tension.

“You’re right, okay? I’m sorry. I was wrong. It’s a fair decision.” He caught Sloane’s shoulder and turned her to face him.

Because she hadn’t had time to compose herself, she was still pale. Her eyes were huge. Nick looked at her slowly, carefully, feeling the pull begin again. “This really matters to you, doesn’t it?”

She looked as if she was holding herself together with sheer nerve. “Of course. I want my design to work.”

Nick shook his head. “There’s more going on than that. You care about this project too much.”

“I care about doing my job,” Sloane answered stiffly.

“There’s something going on here that doesn’t have anything to do with the job.”

He was right, this wasn’t about the job. It was about what had started in the tower and was moving out of her control with frightening speed. “Perhaps you just have an overactive imagination,” Sloane responded, fighting to keep her voice even.

“I don’t know. Let’s test it. Empirical method,” he told her as he leaned in, sliding his fingers along her cheek. “Experiment and observe.”

“You’re out of your mind, Trask.”

“Nick,” he corrected softly, so close she could feel his mouth form the word.

“What?”

“Call me Nick.” Then his lips brushed hers.

Sloane stilled at the contact. Warm, soft and unexpectedly gentle. The sensation didn’t bowl her over but simply engulfed her like an ever-rising tide, deceptively calm, relentless in its power. For years, she’d kept herself separate from everyone, for years she’d shied away from a simple human touch. Now, her nerve endings hummed with forgotten sensations. A quick brush with the tip of his tongue, a nibble to tempt her, his exploration was unhurried and exquisite. She barely noticed as he slipped past her defenses and made her yearn.

The subtle sounds of intimacy filled the small space of the tower: the whisper of skin against skin, the soft, involuntary noises of breath, of arousal. And the scent of desire rose around them.

He knew she intrigued him. He hadn’t expected the taste of her to trigger an immediate hunger for more. When she gave a soft sigh, he fought the sudden drive to go deeper, to find out if she carried the passionate urgency she brought to the project to all aspects of her life.

He forced himself to go slowly instead, his touch gentle. She was like a fire smoldering in a closed room. He could sense the heat and power but couldn’t find its source. The taste of her skin was maddening, her scent powerful enough to make him reel. He journeyed from the soft side of her throat back to her lips and suddenly the fire blazed as her mouth came to life under his.

Sloane didn’t know where the hunger came from, knew only that she was driven to taste, to savor, to revel in sensation. For too long, she’d denied herself any contact. Now she searched for more, driven by the feel of his mouth and light brush of his hands over her skin. Desire flashed through her, hot as flame, threatening to overwhelm her entirely.

A blast from the ladder truck’s air horn made them jerk apart. Sloane returned to a rapid, flashing clarity. She stared at the scene outside, unable to tell whether any of the men were looking at the observation tower. “Very funny, Trask. Was this some kind of a show for your men?” She attempted to brush past where he stood, unmoving.

“Hardly. This tower is designed so people can’t tell if they’re being watched. The windows are smoked so dark you can’t see in with the lights on, much less off.”

“You’d be the first to point out that designs don’t always work as intended,” Sloane said curtly. “Now listen to me very carefully, Trask.”

“Nick,” he corrected.

“Just listen,” Sloane snapped. It was terrifying, how easily he’d slashed his way through the barriers she’d surrounded herself with. She had to push him out. She had to escape before he knew how much she was at risk. “I am here to do a job that is entirely dependent on the cooperation of your truck company. I will not have my credibility damaged in front of your men.”

“It wasn’t damaged.”

Her eyes flashed. “It could have been. You’re interfering with my work.”

“The testing was done for the day,” Nick countered.

“I’m on the job as long as I’m on fire department property.”

Nick reached out to finger a stray curl of her hair. “Next time I’ll make sure we’re off department property, then.” There was a hint of danger in his smile. It frightened her, because it made her want.

“There won’t be a next time,” Sloane flared, pushing past him. She paused, her hand on the doorknob. “After all, I’m just a tool for Ayre, right? Try to remind yourself of that every so often.”