Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
REED
I t’s seven by the time McCafferty dismisses me from our day of hell. I have to force myself to walk without a limp to get back to my room. Our room. Man, I hope he doesn’t come back here for a while.
Most of the crew must have taken their R&R elsewhere. It’s silent in the barracks.
I hip-check the door, not caring when it rebounds off the old frame. All I can think about is getting out of these work boots.
The springform mattress creaks under my weight and folds like a pool noodle in the middle. I don’t have to bend very far to tug at the thick laces of my right shoe. Raw skin grates against my sock as I rock the heel, working my foot free. A layer of flesh pulls back with the cotton, and I wince when it makes contact with the open air.
Balancing my heel on the edge of the bed, I rummage around the bottom of my bag for the only box of Band-Aids the old Safeway by my house had in stock. The wrapper husks open with little effort and the tabs fall off before I’ve even touched them. The strip covers up the section of raw skin about as good as my sock did. I switch to my left foot, whining like a baby .
“Got a problem there, Morgan?”
My foot slips off the edge of the mattress and crashes to the floor. From my bent-over position, I catch Hailey leaning against the wood frame of the doorway. Her arms cross her chest, amusement playing on her face as she snoops at my handiwork.
I scramble to stash the bloodied pair of socks underneath my pillow. My elbow knocks into my bag, dumping the box of character Band-Aids and half the clothes I packed onto the floor between us. I swipe at everything I can reach, but she’s dangling a pair of black briefs from her pointer finger by the time I right myself.
Smooth .
My mouth cracks into a grin. I can turn this situation on its head.
I press off the mattress and grab the fabric, letting my palm brush against her finger.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” I say, my voice low.
She flusters.
“I don’t recall you answering when I asked where you were going next. I thought I made a good enough impression to at least get that much,” I add.
Her face heats and I use the opportunity to tug the briefs free of her grasp and drop them in the opening of my bag.
Mission accomplished .
She blinks, and a smile works its way up to her eyes. Two can play at this game , they seem to be saying.
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. Your first impression was terrible,” she says. “And I didn’t think it mattered that you knew where I was going. You didn’t plan to see me again, now did you?”
I finally break our eye contact. She’s got me there.
I fit a sock over my foot and slip my boots back on, tying the laces way too tight. When I take my first step, I grit my teeth behind closed lips and pretend everything is fine. She watches my face like she’s waiting for me to respond.
I’m no actor, but I must be doing a terrible job at hiding my grimace because she says, “Let me look at that.”
I should not be staring at her mouth as she kneels before me, but man if I don’t gawk at her red lips all parted and covered in some form of berry color.
Get a grip .
She reaches out and cradles my foot in the palms of her hands. Her fingers sweep across my ankle in a way that requires me to flex my entire anatomy of leg muscles to keep them from shuddering. The warmth of her touch seeps into my skin, and I find myself leaning closer instead of pulling away like I should be. Keeping up the facade that I don’t need help.
“You’re supposed to break them in, you know,” she says, swiping her finger beneath my sock and peeling it away gently. “Not wear them for the first time on a training day.”
I didn’t get into my past with her on that flight or tell her how this job came to be for me—that I didn’t exactly have time to break anything in. But I stop myself. Remind myself that you can’t get hurt if you don’t open up.
I steal the sock from her hands, slide it on, and stand. “I like to live on the edge, remember?” I arch a brow at her.
“And how’s that working out for you?” she asks.
I model the box of Scooby Doo Band-Aids. “Saving the day.”
I take another step and hiss through clenched teeth.
“All right.” She straightens and drops her hands to her sides. “I guess those crappy Band-Aids will do the trick then.” She saunters away from me, and the way her hips move makes it difficult to keep my eyes above her waist. I manage to appreciate her hair and the way it weaves in a long braid down the middle of her back instead .
“Crappy?” I scoff. “I’ll have you know I paid seven bucks for quality first aid.”
“Yeah, well, those overpriced stickers are half the size of the blisters on your heels. But suit yourself.”
I don’t want her help. The last thing I need is to look weak around here. But I’m not naive enough to believe this is a smart decision. In fact, I might not have a choice in the matter if I don’t want to humiliate myself in front of McCafferty tomorrow.
“Wait!” I stop her.
She turns slowly, those deep brown eyes making me swallow before I can get any words out.
“Okay.”
She cups her hand around the shell of her ear. “I’m sorry?”
“You heard me.”
What more does she want? A Scarlet Letter speech?
“You’re impossible,” she says with a shake of her head as she leads the way to the EMT wing.
If I thought the barracks were quiet, you could hear a needle drop with how empty this room is. Minus a couple of medical gurneys, a locked hazardous waste box, and a long supply table, we’re the only ones in it.
Hailey grabs an oversized lunchbox with a white cross stamped on the front. The first aid kit opens with the squeeze of a buckle and the pull of a zipper but might need to be shrink-wrapped shut now that it’s been broken into. Supplies overflow onto the table. A saline solution wipe, a roll of gauze, and red medical tape are what she reaches for.
She gestures for me to sit in a fold-out chair across from her. I unlace my boots again and work them off my feet while she washes her hands in the sink, then she’s back in front of me and cradling my ankle as she lifts my foot onto her lap.
I’ve had worse moments, but I’m given an I-told-you-so smirk when the Scooby Doo Band-Aid falls to the floor with my sock. I flinch when she dabs the surrounding area with a saline solution wipe. She uses two fingers to hold a square strip of gauze over the blister and her teeth to rip a strip of medical tape.
I find myself wondering what it would feel like if those teeth sunk into my bottom lip. Would it send an electric current through my veins like her hands are now?
I clear my throat, trying to focus on something other than her mouth and her hands and her impossibly close proximity and what it’s doing to my head.
“You want to tell me what you’re doing here, Red?” I ask.
“Same as you, it would seem.”
She’s wearing a pair of blue slacks and a far-too-sexy-for-a-wildfire-crew blouse that buttons up the front.
“A wildfire EMT, huh?”
She nods. “Got hired yesterday.”
My mind drifts back to our interaction for more pieces of the puzzle I think I might have missed.
Jack … I see the name on her phone screen. I hear it whispered in my father’s voice inside my head. He’s been through a lot , him and his — It hits me like a tidal wave.
Hailey Hart is Jack’s daughter. He’s the jerk who told her not to come.
The whole situation is muddy. I don’t know how to make it less so besides doing what I’m good at.
My lips tilt into a smirk. “You ready to be surrounded by a whole lot of those guys you love to hate? The ones who only ask questions so they can get in your pants?”
She lifts her gaze to me. Leans in close, only a whisper from my face, and says, “I think I’m good. I handled you, didn’t I?”
Heated eyes dart a path to my lips and back up again and hell if I don’t wonder what it would be like to lean the rest of the way in and kiss her. Wonder if she’d yelp if I grabbed behind her neck and crashed our lips together in the hungry way I want to right now. It’s impossible to think with her looking at me like that. Like she wants to lock that door and be alone in this room with me. It’s messing with my head.
She doesn’t need to be someone’s rebound, and I don’t need the distraction, but her breath is way too hot against my ankle not to focus on our proximity to each other.
“There,” she says. “All finished. A hell of a lot better than a Scooby Doo Band-Aid.”
I work my foot from side to side, inspecting all the angles. “I don’t know… you think it’ll hold?”
She swats me playfully on the arm. “Get out of here, rookie. You need to get some sleep.”
I groan. “You can call me anything you want, but please don’t call me that.”
She offers me a smug grin as a parting gift. “Since you asked so nicely.”
It’s difficult, impossible really, to leave her, but I make my way to the door. I pause with my hand on the knob and turn back around. “Can I repay you with coffee in the morning?”
“It’s my job, Morgan,” she says.
Even though I promised myself I wouldn’t let this thing between us—whatever it is—become a distraction, I still let myself want to be around her. It feels good to forget for a minute. Who knows, maybe it’s what I need to move on.
“Okay. But hypothetically speaking, if a guy were ever to do such a thing… how do you like it? Your coffee order, I mean.” I stuff my hands in my pockets.
Her eyes follow her hands as she restocks her kit. The soft glow pooling through the west windows highlights her smiling profile.
“I like it black.”