WADE #2
It's a good day. The sun is high in the clear Montana sky, the mountains a majestic green-gold.
I'm standing behind a smoker in my apron, handing a rib to a six-year-old with sauce already on his chin from the sample he stole ten minutes ago, and I think: This is the life. This is the whole dream right here.
Then the smoke changes direction.
The wind's been steady from the west all morning, pushing the smoke across the lawn and away from the crowd. But it turns, and suddenly a thick white billow rolls right across the serving area.
I hear someone cough. A few people laugh and wave their hands. It’s no big deal, just part of the cookout experience.
Then I see the shape of a woman walking back through the smoke toward the cook site, arms full of stuff—napkins, maybe, or a tray. She's headed straight for the rig, and more specifically, straight for the firebox.
Why is the firebox open?
I was feeding it oak ten minutes ago and Riley must’ve forgotten to close the door.
That thing is three hundred degrees of cast iron with active coals glowing inside it.
She can't see. I can tell by the way she's moving…tentatively with one hand half-raised as if she's trying to feel her way through. The smoke is thick enough to blur anything past arm's length, and the glasses she’s wearing have got to be completely fogged up.
As she closes in on the firebox, I move.
I drop the tongs, take three fast steps, and get a hand on her arm. I pull her sideways, and into me hard enough that whatever she’s carrying scatters. She stumbles back into my chest with a startled yelp.
"Hey—hey there." I've got her by the shoulders now, turning her toward me.
She blinks up at me. Her glasses are still fogged, and she's trying to push them up her nose while I'm running my hands over her bare arms, turning them over, checking for the angry red of a fresh burn.
Her hands are fine. They’re small and soft without any marks. Her wrists and forearms are good. Her upper arms are…
…really smooth and my thumbs are brushing over them and I need to stop.
I let go like she's the hot surface and take a half-step back.
"You're good," I say, rougher than I mean to. "You didn't touch anything."
"I—what just happened?" She finally gets her glasses up and blinks at me with big blue-green eyes, trying to get her bearings. The smoke is clearing around us, and for the first time I get a real look at her.
She's…really, really pretty.
Nope, she’s fucking gorgeous.
She has blonde wavy hair that hangs just past her chin, a heart-shaped face that's all soft curves and wide eyes behind those tortoiseshell frames, and a mouth-watering body in a floral sundress that has my blood rushing south in a tidal wave.
But god, she looks young, Maybe Sloane’s age.
I turn toward the firebox.
"You almost walked into an inferno,” I tell her. "That firebox was open. You walk into that blind, you’ll get burns that take months to heal and scars you’ll keep forever."
I hold up my forearm and show her the patchwork of old burn marks across my knuckles and wrists. "Trust me on that."
She stares at my arm, then at the open firebox, then back at me. "I couldn't see through the smoke. My glasses—"
"Then you stop. You don't keep walking. You stand still and call out, and somebody comes to get you." I can hear myself, clipped and tight, and I know I'm running hot from the adrenaline still buzzing through my chest. "You never walk blind into a live pit. Ever."
For a second she just stares at me. And then her chin tilts up and her eyes sharpen behind her lenses.
"First of all, thank you," she says, her voice steady.
"Seriously, thank you. That could've been bad.
Second, I'm not a child wandering onto a construction site.
I was sent back here to deliver some serving trays, the wind shifted, and I couldn't see past my own nose.
It's not as if I was doing cartwheels next to an open flame. "
Wow. It’s been a while since anyone’s called me on anything. I mean, I'm the guy with the fire and the knives and thirty years of experience handling both.
This woman, who is five-foot-nothing and covered in smoke, just told me off in a sundress.
She’s right. I may have gone overboard. But it’s only because I’d hate to see her get hurt.
"Fair enough," I reply. "But next time, holler."
"Next time, close your firebox thingy."
I chuckle. She's right about that, too.
"My kid screwed up. She was supposed to close that," I mutter.
"Blaming your child, I see.”
“She's been doing this her whole life. She should know better. Safety’s very important to me. Obviously.” I run a hand through my hair.
“Listen, I understand,” she admits. “It’s just not everyday I get manhandled at a charity cookout.”
She laughs, and it makes my insides all…gooey.
“Sorry about that.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it. You saved me from harm. According to folklore and literature, I owe you.”
“Nah,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck, trying not to blush.
But she's studying me now, and I’m sure she’s taking all of me in—the apron and the gut underneath it and the sweat on my forehead. I wait for the assessment to finish and for whatever polite thing she's going to say before taking off.
Instead, she looks at the rig. "So you're the one responsible for all this?"
"Sure am."
"The ribs are mind-blowing. I mean, I had one about ten minutes ago and almost cried it was so good. How long have you been doing this?"
"Barbecuing? Since I was sixteen. Competing? About five years."
"You compete?" Her eyes light up behind those glasses, and I feel it in my stupid chest.
"Regional circuit. State a few times." I wipe my hands on my apron, trying to be casual. "Got a big one over Labor Day I'm prepping for."
"Are you going to win?"
“That’s the plan.” I scratch my jaw. "Execution's the tricky part when you're a one-man show going up against crews of four."
"Can't you get a partner?"
"Tried. Turns out most people don't want to stay up all night feeding a fire for free."
She tilts her head, studying me, and it makes me feel as if I'm standing under a spotlight. But she’s smiling.
"Wade!" Sloane's voice cuts across the lawn. "Oh, I see you've met Tess!"
"Tess?" I ask the woman in front of me. “Tess Fields, the English teacher at Deepwood High? Sloane's friend?"
She nods, gears clicking. “And you must be Wade Dawson, then. Riley’s dad.” She huffs out a little laugh. “I should’ve put two and two together. Nice to meet you,” she says, extending her hand.
I take her hand. It's warm and she's got a firm grip. “Nice to meet you, too.”
Sloane reaches us and clasps her hands together, all innocence.
This is the woman Sloane’s been trying to get me to meet for months.
And I'm standing here, twenty years her senior, with smoke in my beard, sauce on my apron, big enough to crush her.
Plus, she’s so goddamn hot it’s painful.
There’s no way this woman would want anything to do with me.