Chapter 15
Kissing Mabel. Zane’s mind struggled to grasp it as they reclined on his sofa, enjoying the fruition of what waiting for sixteen years to kiss again could bring.
Their first kiss when they’d been kids had been powerful…and also awkward, scary, forbidden, and rash.
Now? It was like his whole life had prepared him for this, for being with Mabel as she was coming through her trauma and beginning to trust him.
He thought of the journey. All the long hours becoming a firefighter, getting his degree to add paramedic to his life, then going away to vet school, only to be packing his bags to go home a year later with the one thought in his head being that Mabel was sick and alone.
He’d given up his grant—gifted it to the son of one of the old-timer volunteer firefighters in Silver Plum studying at the same school.
Then he’d come home to be by Mabel’s side, but respecting their long-standing belief that they had to keep this wedge between them.
He’d continued to work like an ox, and being appointed to Fire Chief was a new dream come true.
He liked the responsibility of it and training the new guys, all of them his brothers and sisters.
But when he went home at night to his house, it was Mabel who was in his head, always. Even when they’d grown increasingly apart, achingly, frustratingly separating little by little, resentments and awkwardness and unrequited need always between them.
Now? She was in his arms, and he knew something had happened to free her from the block she’d had.
“Zane,” she whispered, pulling his hand to her lips and kissing each knuckle. The ferocity of their kisses had died down, but there was no less want, no less need. Her slow, sweet kisses were the most glorious kind of torture.
“I wish you could put your retainer in your mouth and say my name again,” Zane said. "I kind of liked that.”
She wailed and dropped his hand to bury her face in her own. “Nooo.”
He reached for her hands and gently pulled them away from her face so he could see her better.
Her lips were swollen and pinkish red; her hair was wild.
“I’m kidding. I mean, not kidding because I really would enjoy that.
But I have to joke some way, somehow, because if I didn’t, I—” He shook his head and growled.
“I wouldn’t be able to control myself with you. ”
She snuggled up against him and sighed. He felt her smile growing. “I like this. I like us.”
“’Like’ like us?” The memory of that old note in the library reared up, and he wasn’t sure if he’d made a mistake or not by mentioning it.
“Uh-huh. I ‘like’ like us.”
“Me too.”
She sighed and struggled to sit up straighter on the sofa. “I do need to study for the NCLEX.”
“But you’re not going to take it until next year.”
“Next spring, so only a few months away. But I have a study group every week online, and it’s intense. If you miss too many practice questions, you get moved down to another group.”
“That would not be good.” To Mabel, being moved down to a lower level in anything would mean failure.
“So you have to study for your study group?” he asked.
Her smile was firm. “Exactly.”
“Well, I’m not an RN, but I am a paramedic. Hit me up. I bet I can at least quiz you a little.”
“I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”
At the frustrated look on Zane’s face, she laughed. “Okay, so you don’t mind me taking up your time. But when are you on call for the fire station?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“What about for the ambulance?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
She slapped her thighs and tilted her head to one side, waiting.
“All right, all right. I’m on call for the firehouse tomorrow morning, and for the ambulance tomorrow night. But, Mabel Joan. You’re here with me right now, and I don’t want that to end.”
“Fine. Let’s do this, then.” She pulled up some sample questions on her phone, sinking her fingers into the fur of Zane’s dog, Chief, a border collie mix. She glanced over at Chief and grinned, grasping the dog’s chin and talking in sweet, low tones.
Mercy. Chief wasn’t what you’d exactly call a cute little dog.
He was a mutt. His head was a little too big for his body.
Zane knew that and didn’t care. He’d lost an eye in a farming accident.
But the way Mabel looked at his old dog had his stomach filling up with sensations like bubbly soda pop, nervous in an exciting way.
Mabel planted a little kiss on Chief’s head before turning back to the list she needed to memorize.
“I’m jealous of my dog.”
A smile twisted Mabel’s lips. “You could plant one on me if I get the answers right.” Her voice was breathy. “When I get the answers right.”
Well, sign me up. “Who’s that a reward for? Me or you?”
She shrugged, the muscles in her shoulders under her yellow t-shirt beckoning him. “It sounds mutually beneficial.” That yellow on her was drawing him in like nothing else. She was all sorts of hard and soft, and he wanted to know more.
He stared at her enticing form, one leg bent at the knee with her foot on the couch. Chief had begun to nose his way under the space created by her bent leg. Man, that dog was so lucky. Zane was jealous of his dog.
“Want a sample?” he asked. It was a little shocking how natural and normal this playful banter between them was.
Her brows went up. “I’ve had a sample of your lips before, and I’d like a full-sized version, please. Or maybe biggie-sized.” Her smirk was small but definitely there.
“Yes, ma’am. I can oblige.”
She giggled at his fake Texan accent. Or maybe she giggled because that’s what she did earlier when he first started kissing her. Maybe giggling was Mabel code for Lay it on me, big boy.
He drew his head back before he reached her lips. “But kissing was supposed to be your reward for getting the answers right. You’re jumping the gun, Mabel Joan.”
She slid her arms around his neck, and his skin prickled with want yet again. “Well, maybe one small sample of your kisses to jumpstart my thinking and then some more after the study session is done?”
“Happy to oblige.” He dipped his head, his Texan accent reminding him of the Westerns his Grandpa Taylor used to watch every night after dinner. Zane would also be much obliged if she’d keep looking at him like that too. Every minute of every day would never be enough.
She pressed a kiss to his lips, firm, but with a closed mouth. A sigh escaped her lips, and he was on top of the freaking world.
He chuckled when they pulled apart. “But seriously,” he said. “S.A.M.P.L.E. What does it stand for?”
She scowled. “So you didn’t want to kiss me? You wanted me to tell you what S.A.M.P.L.E stands for?”
“No, no, no. You know I wanted to kiss you.”
Her scowl softened into a smile. “It’s to remember the patient assessment questions: symptoms, allergy, medicine, past medical history, last oral intake, and events leading up to the injury or illness.”
“Nice. You’ve got this.”
She bit her bottom lip between her teeth. “That was the easiest question. Give me some more.”
He goosed her around her waist, peals of laughter from Mabel causing Chief to raise his head and stare.
Competitive Mabel, huh? That was interesting.
She was a nice person. It wasn’t her set point to get all in a huff if someone were beating her in a game.
She didn’t much care if others shined brighter than her in some aspects, although Zane’s chest bumped up in a snort because, technically, that was impossible in his eyes.
Nevertheless, she had a high standard for herself. Driven with a side of kindness. Which was why he didn’t need to prod her into working hard for the next couple of hours, until it was far too late to be able to have rational thoughts about such things as propriety anymore.
He felt forlorn at the end of the evening as he walked her out to her car.
He’d just had the highest of highs. He and Mabel.
Together. Something good was definitely happening, and he didn’t want to watch her drive away and wonder how she’d be the next day.
And the day after that. Their history had been so up and down, frankly more down than up the last couple of years, that this sense of foreboding was like sticking a fork in a popover fresh from the oven.
There was nothing to tell him where they stood. They’d crossed a threshold, one they’d been standing and waiting on, tapping their watches in nervous anticipation for so long. But did that mean things couldn’t slide right back to where they were?
No. Things with Mabel were still tenuous. It was like a mama bird on the edge of her nest, watching her babies with their craning necks and delicate skin.
He opened her car door, and she slid in, drawing in her shapely legs after her. Her eyes still flirted just a touch. “See you tomorrow?”
Now that right there, that smile with the happy dimple pop, was worth the little sleep he’d get tonight. The 4:15 a.m. alarm to get to the firehouse by five was going to hurt a little. But it wouldn’t feel like a chore because every moment spent with Mabel was worth it.
“You like her, huh?” he asked Chief as he took the steps up the porch of his house, patting his head.
Me too, boy. Me too.