3. Killian
3
KILLIAN
“Anything?”
Mason’s voice crackles through the radio, checking in on me now that I’m out on patrol. I lift mine to my mouth to reply.
“Nothing,” I assure him. “All quiet out here. You guys are fine. I’m going to go around the lake, and then I’ll be done.”
“Sure. Tell us if you need anything.”
“Will do.”
With that, the radio falls silent again, and I tuck it into the loop of my belt. I’m not expecting to come across anything out here, if I’m being honest. It’s too early in the summer for the campers and other problem-makers to have turned out, but we like to get on our patrol routine early, to make sure we’re ready to react if anything does take a turn for the worse. And besides, it’s beautiful out here. That’s not the reason we came out to the woods like this, but it’s a damn good bonus to get to enjoy the changing seasons and the fresh air, far from the city.
The grass is soft beneath my boots as I duck beneath a tree branch to turn onto the path that leads around the watering hole. This is one of my favorite places to stroll this time of year, and soon enough, it’s going to be inundated with people swimming and cooking and camping. Best to soak up the last few weeks of quiet before it all kicks off.
And besides, I was getting restless in the cabin. After what happened a couple of days ago, I’ve been itching to get out and see if I can accidentally-on-purpose run into that woman again. I don’t even know her name, but she’s been burned onto my mind ever since I laid eyes on her. That little towel, her full breasts poking out over the top of it as she remonstrated with Jake, her thick thighs…fuck, I’ve been out here without a woman in sight for way too long.
And that’s not exactly something I’m used to, even now. Sure, when Jake and Mason told me their plans to move out here and do their public service as firefighters to keep any more forest fires from spreading to the local township, I came with them—to make sure they didn’t go stir-crazy out in a cabin alone, as much as anything else. And maybe I needed a chance to get away from some drama I stirred up back in the city, with a few too many women I was seeing at one time. I swore off girls back then, convincing myself that I just couldn’t be trusted with them, but damn if I don’t miss the hell out of it sometimes.
You know, the whole game—the flirting, the touches, the heated looks, the first kiss, the hands all over my body as I move inside of her. Now that I’m nearing forty, I figured I’d grow out of my need to pick up chicks, but it seems like that’s just baked into who I am as a person. For better or for worse.
And now that there’s a hot girl living just a few hundred yards away from our home…well, it’s not fair to ask me not to notice that, right?
Reaching the path, I start around the watering hole, checking for any ashy remains that might indicate some campers have been around here. But just as I stoop down to check on some dark wood on the forest floor, I hear voices, and my head snaps up in time to see that woman and her daughter on the other side of the watering hole.
I straighten up again at once. Damn, can’t say I expected to run into her here—it’s like thinking about her hard enough has conjured her right in front of me, like some kind of mirage. It takes her a moment to spot me, but when she glances up and sees me on the other side of the small pool, her eyes widen.
“Hey!” she calls out to me, waving, and I make my way toward her. She’s holding her daughter’s hand as she wades into the shallow water. I glance around, half expecting to see a dad standing nearby, but there’s nobody. I grin and lift a hand.
“Hi,” I call back, and I arrive at the side of the pool she’s standing on. She’s a little more dressed now, not that I was complaining about the towel, in a pair of cut-off denim shorts and a light pink tee. I can’t help but notice the way her soft thighs are spilling out of the bottom of those jean shorts, my hands itching to brush against them.
“It’s too cold,” her daughter protests, pulling back from the water. “I’m going to go collect some sticks instead…”
“Okay, Callie, you do that,” she replies, ruffling her daughter’s hair before she sends her off into the woods. As soon as the girl is out of sight, the woman turns to me, plants her hands on her hips, and raises her eyebrows curiously.
“So, do firefighters do follow-up calls now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you guys were at my house the other day after the alarm went off,” she reminds me. “I didn’t expect to see you in the forest again so soon, unless you’re checking up on me?”
I chuckle and shake my head.
“We’re not checking up on you, you have my word,” I reply, planting a hand on my chest to prove how serious I am. “We just live here.”
She cocks her head to the side with interest.
“You live here?”
“Yeah, in that cabin just across from yours,” I reply, gesturing back in the direction of the place we call home.
“I don’t get it,” she mutters. “You live here? Is it, like, a fire station or something…?”
“No, we just do volunteer work through the summer,” I laugh. “We live there the rest of the year and keep an eye on the place, ever since the forest fires a few years ago.”
“A few years ago?” She frowns. “I thought those happened…God, when I was in high school, at least.”
“You’re probably right,” I agree. “Time doesn’t work the same way when you get to my age.”
“Your age?”
“I’m nearly forty.”
Her lips part in surprise.
“No way!” she exclaims. “I never would have guessed?—”
“Hey, much as I appreciate the flattery,” I laugh, “you don’t have to throw that at me.”
“No, it’s not flattery, I just…” She trails off, her gaze sweeping up and down my body. “Wouldn’t have put you at that age. Didn’t think guys your age could manage life in the middle of the woods, anyway.”
“You think we’re that decrepit?” I shoot back, raising my eyebrows. “We’d have saved your ass from that fire if it had gotten any worse?—”
She rolls her eyes skyward. “It wasn’t a fire!” she protests. “It was just a burned pie. And I don’t think it could have gotten much worse than that—it was charred by the time I got it out of the oven.”
“Yeah, well, point still stands,” I reply. She lets out a sigh and pushes a hand through her hair.
“I am sorry about all of that,” she admits, finally. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I just had a long journey out here the day before, and I was exhausted. I didn’t think I was going to fall asleep in that bath…”
“Hey, everything turned out alright in the end,” I assure her. She glances at me out of the corner of her eye.
“You’re a lot nicer than the one who talked to me.”
“Jake? Yeah, my brother can be kind of an asshole.”
“Your brother?” She sounds surprised.
“Yeah, they both are. Jake and Mason. And I’m Killian, by the way.”
She leaves the shallow water she was standing in to come shake my hand, saying, “I’m Vanessa, and my daughter’s name is Callie.”
I grin at her. “Great to meet you, Vanessa.
“You too, Killian.” She smiles back. “Damn, so you live with both your brothers—it’s a whole family thing, huh?”
I chuckle. “I guess you could say that, yeah.”
“How do you get into that? Your dad was a firefighter or something?”
“Nah,” I reply, shaking my head. “We were all SEALs.”
“Like, the Navy?”
“Well, not like the marine animal.”
She laughs. I like her laugh—it’s full and sweet and bright, a pleasant change from the encounter we had with her the other day.
“So you’re putting those skills to good use?”
“That’s the idea,” I agree. “Get out here, do some good. Keep any assholes from burning the forest down without realizing it…”
“That sounds like a pretty worthy way to spend your time,” she replies, craning her head back toward the cabin. “I’ve got to say, your place is…it’s a lot bigger than I’d expect for anything out here.”
“Oh, yeah? You been snooping?” I fire back, grinning to let her know I’m fooling around. Her cheeks flush slightly, and she shrugs.
“You got me,” she concedes. “I was curious. Wondered what you had going on there.”
“It’s a nice place,” I agree. “Quiet too, most of the time. Till all the campers and tourists come by in the summer.”
“And I guess I’m in that group now, huh?” she remarks, raising her eyebrows.
“Depends,” I reply. “What brings you here?”
She hesitates for a moment before she answers. I can see a slight hitch in her chest, as though she doesn’t really want to come out and say it. I have to admit, I’m curious.
“Uh, work,” she replies evasively. I can tell there’s more going on than she’s willing to admit to, but I figure she’ll tell me when she’s ready—if she wants to tell me at all.
“And I wanted to bring my daughter out of the city for a while,” she continues, her voice shifting to a light, easy breeziness. “She hasn’t really seen much in the way of nature, and I thought it would do her some good, you know?”
“I’d agree, if I hadn’t met you when you’d been trying to burn your house down.”
“Oh my God ,” she groans, but this time she manages a laugh. “Are you ever going to let that go? I was fine. It was just a burned pie. And for the record, we were making it for you.”
I stare at her for a moment, surprised.
“I’m sorry, what…?”
“You heard me,” she replies. “My daughter saw your cabin, and she wanted to introduce herself to the new neighbors. I figured the best way to do that would be with some baking. That’s why I was making the pie—I was going to come round and introduce myself. That’s what people do out here, right? Bake and share it with the community?”
“Something like that,” I murmur. There’s something charming about her reasoning for causing all that chaos, even if I get the feeling that Jake wouldn’t believe a word out of her mouth right now.
“But you have my word that I’m not going to cause any more trouble by baking more pies,” she tells me, holding her fingers up in the Girl-Scout salute.
“So we’re going to miss out on the welcome wagon?”
“If your brother insists on trying to break down my door whenever I turn the stove on, then yeah.”
I chuckle.
“I’ll tell him you said that.”
“Go ahead,” she fires back. “He’s the one who cost you that pie.”
“And your pie is something I should be sad about missing out on, is that what you’re saying?”
“Uh, you have no idea,” she replies, planting her hands on her hips. The corners of her lips curl up into a playful smile, and before I know what I’m doing, I shift slightly toward her. I don’t know if she’s wearing perfume or if it’s just the scent of her skin, but there’s a soft floral fragrance wafting from her, and it takes every bit of restraint I have not to lean down and bury my face into her neck right then and there.
“Guess I’ll have to live with wondering, then,” I murmur. My gaze flicks down to her lips. It’s almost a subconscious gesture—a learned one from all the women I’ve flirted with over the years. But I can’t help but notice the soft curve of her lips, the way her breath hitches slightly when she catches me looking at them. Her teeth rest on her pillowy bottom lip, and she tilts her head slightly, her eyes searching mine, and then?—
“Mom!”
The two of us spring apart as though we’ve been shocked with an electric current. Her head whips around, and she smiles widely as she spots her daughter coming out of the woods, holding a cluster of sticks.
“Can we try to make a boat out of this?” Callie asks, hardly seeming to notice the tension between us in that moment.
Vanessa breathes deep, stepping back from me as though cutting herself off from whatever was in the air between us for a moment.
“Of course we can, honey,” she replies, stooping down and holding her hands out so she can get a better look at what her daughter is dealing with. “Let’s see what you’ve got…”
“Seems like you’ve got a busy day ahead,” I remark to her, taking my cue to leave. “I’ll catch up with you some other time, huh?”
“Sure,” she replies, flashing me a grin. “I’ll see you around.”
And with that, I head back to the trail, and make my way toward our cabin once more—even if all I can focus on is the warmth of her presence just a few inches from mine, and that aching need to pick up right where I left off with my womanizing ways.