Читать книгу Fanning the Flames - Victoria Dahl - Страница 7

Chapter One

FIREFIGHTERS. THE BANE of her existence.

Shaded beneath the fading awning of the Jackson Town Library, Lauren Foster watched as Fire Captain Jake Davis jogged along the other side of the street, his eyes straight ahead, brow furrowed against the bright sun. It was one of the hottest days of August so far, so he’d shucked his shirt and wore only black shorts, the Jackson Fire Department logo bunching at his hip with every stride. His shoulders and chest were tanned from months of summer running.

The noise from the firefighters annoyed her every day, but the most torturous thing about the library being attached to the fire station was this: being exposed to Jake Davis’s beautiful body.

He crossed the street and moved closer, and Lauren watched a trickle of sweat slip down his skin to tangle in the salt-and-pepper hair in the middle of his chest.

God, she loved a hairy male chest. If she wanted to feel soft and smooth, she had free dibs on her own chest. No one else was using it.

Sighing, she frowned at Jake’s wide, taut shoulders as he approached the building. He looked up then, of course. She imagined the picture she must make: the spinster town librarian sitting primly on a bench with a book, frowning her disapproval over a man’s sweaty public nudity.

Lauren looked back to the book in her hands and frowned harder. No, she couldn’t even claim the cliché of spinster. She was just an empty-nester divorcée, counting down the years to menopause. She was in the single digits now and could feel the hot flashes looming over her, strobing in the distance like approaching lightning. Every time she went to that cute little boutique in town, she was more and more attracted to the wildly painted reading glasses with the beaded chains that let them hang around your neck.

And she didn’t even need reading glasses. Yet.

But a pair of new shades might do her good. Then she could truly enjoy the sight of Jake’s glistening chest as he jogged toward the fire station. Sharing the building made for a nice summer view during her lunch hour, but it was bittersweet, looking at what she could never have.

Lauren didn’t realize he was moving straight toward her and not the door of the fire station until he stopped right in front of her. She sat up straighter.

“Lauren,” he said in that familiar gravelly voice. “You wanted to see me?”

She blinked in confusion before remembering that she’d sent him an email. “Oh. Yes, but...” But not half-naked, she wanted to say. As she hesitated, another little rivulet of sweat trickled down his neck and made its eager way toward his chest hair. “Uh.” Jesus. Lauren gave herself a mental shake. “Your guys are playing music again.”

His brow tightened with momentary irritation. “Loudly?” he asked.

His irritation fueled her own and helped her get over his glistening chest. “Yes. Loudly enough that I can hear the lyrics in the library.”

“They’re working out. Give ’em a break. They only—”

“Earbuds. Check into them.”

Another twitch of his brow. Lauren stared him down.

“It’s a library, Jake. Come on. Our whole shtick is silent contemplation. When your sirens aren’t blaring, we need it to be quiet. Plus, your guys have terrible taste in music.”

His face finally relaxed into something that was almost a smile. “All right. I’ll give you that. Their music sucks.”

“Just remind them of the library’s hours, okay? They can blast music as loud as they want after closing.”

He ran a hand through his short hair, and another drop of sweat slipped down his neck. This time it curved over his shoulder and disappeared down his back. “They’ve got earbuds, but listening to music together is bonding. It’s good for team cohesion.”

Lauren took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, hating the stereotype she was becoming. “Do you really think I want to be the uptight middle-aged librarian asking the young guys next door to turn down that terrible rap music?”

When she opened her eyes, she thought she saw his gaze rise, as if he’d been looking at her body, but maybe that was just her own wishful thinking.

“What?” he asked.

Lauren sighed and stood. “Take pity on me and don’t make me ask again, OK? I don’t enjoy being the nagging house mother.”

He was frowning again, but he at least offered an unenthusiastic “Sure,” as she turned to open the library door.

“Thank you, Jake.”

His hand appeared above hers to pull the door open, and there was no mistaking the scent of his clean sweat as the air moved around both of them. It hit her hard, drawing something tight deep in her belly, and Lauren considered it a triumph that she didn’t turn and lick him before moving inside. He smelled the way a man should smell when he was in your bed and working hard for it.

The door finally whooshed shut behind her, and she breathed a sigh of relief that all she could smell now was paper and Windex.

Her thirties had been a fairly dry decade, what with her failing marriage and then her divorce. But her forties? God. Her body clearly wanted her to get busy humping any man who caught her eye before all her eggs dried up. What her body didn’t seem to understand was that there were plenty of healthy-egged young twenty-somethings who were attracted to men like Jake Davis, too. She couldn’t compete with them. But honestly, she wouldn’t mind a few hopeless tries.

Why had it taken her four decades to realize how beautiful the male body was? And how very much she wanted more of it? She’d never once thought about tasting a sweaty male chest in her twenties. Now she wanted to lick Jake Davis clean.

Sneering at her own absurd thoughts, she headed for the privacy of the tiny office to the side of the circulation desk. “I talked to Jake,” she said, collapsing into the chair next to her best friend Sophie.

Sophie looked up from her computer. “Oh, you talked to Jake, huh?”

“He said he’d have a word with the guys.”

“Yeah? Did he also say, ‘Oh, Lauren, it’s so hot I can’t wear a shirt when I run. I hope that’s okay with you?’”

Lauren’s face felt like it burst into flames. “What?”

“I saw him when I was driving back from lunch. That is one hot fire captain.”

“I didn’t notice!” Lauren hissed, ducking her head and opening her own laptop.

“Liar! Oh, my God, you’re beet-red.”

“Shut up. I mean it. Having those stupid firefighters right next door is a damn work hazard.”

Sophie shrugged. “They have their uses.”

Lauren tried to shove her curiosity down and keep her mouth shut. She and Sophie had been friends for two years, but despite their frequent joking, Sophie rarely divulged concrete details about her own love life.

This time Lauren was going to nail her down. “Exactly how many firefighters have you used?” Sophie was the picture of modesty, always wearing knee-length skirts and button-up shirts with her sensible heels. But she wasn’t as innocent as she looked. Once you got a drink in her, she could dish about blow-job techniques with the best of them.

Sophie shot her a wicked grin, but she didn’t answer.

Lauren crossed her arms and refused to let the girl off the hook this time. “Spill it, chick. How many firefighters?”

“Only one.”

“Jake?” Lauren asked, a stone dropping into her stomach from thin air. She didn’t want to picture him with her cute friend. She couldn’t deal with that.

But Sophie laughed. “No, not Jake! A guy who doesn’t work there anymore, thank God. The fire station is a little too close to home for me. In a town this size...”

Lauren nodded in understanding and tried not to let out the sigh of relief pushing at her throat. It hadn’t been Jake.

Sophie poked her arm. “But you need to ask him out.”

“Who?” Lauren asked, her heart already speeding up to belie the question.

“Jake.”

“You just said it was too close to home. And it is! If he said no, I’d have to see him every day. And if he said yes, even worse.”

“Lauren, ask him out. Good God, you two have been pretending not to eye each other for at least a year.”

On her part, it’d been more like two or three, but his wife had died only four years before, so he’d probably still been grieving then. Which made her a terrible person. Even more terrible than the fact that Jake and her ex-husband were good friends. “You know why I can’t.”

“Oh, my God, your divorce was eight years ago! As long as you don’t have sex with Jake on your ex’s dining room table during Christmas dinner, I think you’re ethically okay.”

Lauren just shrugged, but she knew it wasn’t okay. That was probably why Jake had never asked her out. That or the fact that even forty-six-year-old men didn’t typically date forty-three-year-old women. Stupid youth culture.

“Fine,” Sophie said. She glanced over her shoulder and spoke in a lower voice. “Then just take one of the younger guys home for a discreet evening of fun. Firefighters love adventure, you know. They’re risk-takers. And they stay in such good shape. Close to home is a bad idea, but there’s a reason I couldn’t resist. Have a little fun, Lauren.”

“I’m too old for that.”

“Please,” Sophie snorted, then ran a careful hand along the chignon she so often pulled her pretty red hair into. “Thanks to all the talk about cougars, those guys are totally into older women. They’ve heard you forty-somethings are insatiable.”

“We are,” Lauren grumbled, but she couldn’t help but smile as Sophie broke into peals of laughter. “Shut up.”

“All right. But let’s do a girls’ night out tomorrow. Mountain bike season is almost over. Maybe you need a quick and dirty hookup with a tourist you’ll never see again. If you don’t do it now, you’ll have to wait for ski season.”

“Maybe you need a quick and dirty hookup, if you think it’s such a good idea!”

“It’s more complicated for me. You know.”

Lauren did know. Sophie’s family had a history in this town, so she was extra careful about her reputation.

“Anyway,” Sophie went on, “maybe I will, too. Maybe we’ll pick up a whole group of guys and split the difference.”

Lauren grinned at her. Sophie was awfully fun to work with, and Lauren was thankful they’d gotten so close. It had been a long time since she’d had a friend as close as Sophie, and now Isabelle, too, the one who’d come up with girls’ night out six months before. “We already cancelled girls’ night because Isabelle isn’t done with her commission.”

“Isabelle won’t care if we go without her. She doesn’t care about anything when she’s finishing up a painting. Let’s go. Just us.”

Lauren hesitated for one more moment before giving in. “Okay. Fine. Tomorrow.”

Sophie jumped up with a squeal. “Yes! After work. Dinner, and then fun. Wear a cougar dress.”

“I don’t even know what that means!”

Sophie shrugged. “Something that says you’re putting out.”

“But I’m not putting out,” Lauren croaked.

“You never know.” Sophie exited the room with a wink.

Lauren swallowed hard. She considered chasing Sophie down to say she’d changed her mind. She wasn’t putting out. She didn’t even feel fun anymore.

But she had been once. She’d been fun and sexy and childless long ago. It felt like that had been another person’s life, but now that Sawyer had left to drive across the country for college, she was childless again. And single.

Even if she wasn’t young anymore, she was hornier than she’d ever been. That had to count for something. Maybe it was time to find out exactly how much she could make it count.

* * *

“ANNABELLE!” JAKE CALLED. “I’m on my way out.”

His daughter popped out of the bathroom and flashed her endearingly wide smile as she waved a curling iron. “Whatever happened to twenty-four on, twenty-four off? You worked yesterday.”

“I’m captain now. That’s what happened.”

She set the curling iron down and hurried toward him, her blond curls bouncing. He was struck, as always, by how beautiful she was. It still amazed him, even after twenty-four years. “I’m worried about you, Dad.”

He scowled. Hard. This again? “I’m great.” It was nice having his daughter back in the house, but she wouldn’t stop with this.

“You need to have some fun.”

“I do have fun. I run. I bike. I help you plan the wedding.”

“You don’t plan. You sit there, pretending to listen and grunting halfhearted agreements when I force you to weigh in on decorations.”

He scrubbed a hand over his hair. “I like helping, I just don’t have much to offer. If your mother were here...”

“Well, she’s not here, and you need to start dating.”

Jake managed to hide his wince. “I’ve dated. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Have you gotten back in the saddle? Like, really in the saddle?”

“Jesus, Annabelle!” Jake grabbed his keys and backed toward the door, heat climbing up the back of his neck. “You don’t need to know that. Just like I don’t need to know what you and Kevin do. I assume you’re waiting for the honeymoon—”

“Dad!” she laughed.

“And that you’re also really careful with birth control.”

Annabelle rested a hip against the counter and cocked her head. “While waiting for the honeymoon?”

“Exactly.” Jake pointed at her as he backed out onto the front porch. “Condoms. Pills. Celibacy. All of it.”

Her laughter followed him out to his truck. She was only home for another three months, then she’d get married and be gone again. Overprotective as he was, Jake really liked his future son-in-law, which was a damn good thing since he worked with the guy.

Kevin Chen was as outgoing and adventurous as most young firefighters were. Jake could see why Annabelle liked him. But the reason Jake liked him was that Kevin was also deeply caring and kind. The other guys looked up to him already, even though Kevin was only twenty-seven.

Kevin had been working in Casper when he’d met Annabelle, but he’d happily agreed to move to Jackson so Annabelle could come back home. The good skiing in Jackson hadn’t hurt Kevin’s decision, either, according to him, but Jake suspected it was more because he was crazy about Annabelle. Even an old dog like Jake could see that they were perfect for each other.

He still gave them a hard time, though. He’d told Annabelle all her life never to date a cop or a firefighter. In retrospect, he should’ve kept his mouth shut so she wouldn’t get any ideas.

Now she was the one giving dating advice. Jake shook his head as he pulled into the parking lot behind the station. He’d tried dating. He hadn’t been able to avoid it. The whole world seemed to have a hard-on over the idea of a widower dating again. And it wasn’t that he wasn’t ready. His wife had died four years ago. But it all just felt...weird. He’d met his wife in college, when you wandered through parties until you ran into a woman who made your heart beat faster. This “meeting over coffee” crap was just awkward.

He’d progressed to dinner and drinks with a few of them, and he’d even gotten back in the saddle, not that he’d ever tell Annabelle that. But Jesus. What had happened to just noticing someone across the room? Feeling that surge of awareness when a pretty woman walked your way? It was all online dating and finding a computer-generated match these days.

Sometimes a guy just wanted to notice the swing of a woman’s hips as she walked past his truck and headed toward the library, her ass perfectly hugged by a tight black dress that ended a few inches above her knee and—

Jake blinked and frowned toward the woman reaching for the back door of the library. His eyes rose from her nicely rounded hips to the pretty curve of her waist to the dark hair streaming straight down her back. Was that...

“Lauren,” he murmured.

Of course. Speaking of women to be noticed. He’d been noticing her for so long that he hardly registered it anymore. Lauren, whose blue eyes always met his straight-on. Who never backed down from anything. Who’d been married to one of his oldest friends.

He admired her, or that’s what he’d been telling himself, but that was an easier lie when she was wearing khakis and a modest sweater and reading a book to a gang of kids.

But today she was a woman with hips. And an ass. And shiny hair that tempted a man’s hands.

Jake cursed and reached to turn off his truck before realizing the engine was already silent. After making sure he’d put the damn thing in Park, he headed inside, telling himself that Lauren Foster’s ass was none of his business and never would be.