Stretching His Tiny Lookout (Forbidden Firsts #6)

Chapter One

Someone was already in the tower.

The first thing I noticed was her boots, way too big, set awkwardly on the grate.

Then I saw her: blonde hair pulled through the back of a cap that kept slipping off, swallowed up by a Forest Service shirt made for a man.

She had the weather log open on the map table, holding a pencil between her teeth like it might save her.

“Quinn.”

She jumped, and the pencil fell from her mouth. It rolled across the floor, bumped into my boot, and stopped. She looked up, tilting her head back to meet my eyes.

“Ranger Hale. I didn’t hear you on the stairs.”

“That’s because you were talking to the log.” I picked up the pencil and handed it to her. Her fingers were cold when she took it. “First overnight?”

“Yes, sir. Tessa Quinn. Everyone just says, Quinn.”

I walked over to the rail. The ridge in the west was turning purple, storm cells building up faster than the morning report had said. She followed me and pressed her hands to the glass, like she thought being up high would keep her safe.

“Off the windows.”

“I was just—”

I put my hands on her waist and moved her aside, just one step. My hands fit easily around her. I felt her breath catch under the thin shirt, noticed how slight she was, and I didn’t let go as quickly as I should have.

She noticed.

I made myself release her and nodded at the log. “Barometer.”

“Twenty-nine point eight and falling.”

“Wind.”

“Gusting to thirty from the southwest. I already wrote it.”

“Write it again when it changes. It will change.” I checked the bowline on her gear bag. Slack. I pulled it, redid it, put the rope in her hands. “Like that. If I send you down those stairs in the wet, that knot is the only thing keeping the pack on you. Do it until you don’t have to think.”

She tied the knot three times, getting better with each try. She learned fast once she stopped trying to look capable and actually listened. That might be an issue.

“How long have you been with the district?”

“Since January. Day shifts. Trail work. I only got cleared for tower overnights this spring.” She glanced up, then back at the rope. “The waiver’s twenty-one and up. I signed it the week after my birthday. March.”

“So this is the first night they’ve trusted you with a radio.”

“This is the first night I asked.” She gave a small, crooked almost-smile. “I thought the tower would be quieter than the bunkhouse.”

“It is,” I said. “Until it isn’t.”

Rain slammed against the glass all at once. In half a minute, her shirt was soaked and clinging to her. She crossed her arms, but it only made it clearer how small she was.

I stripped my flannel off and held it out.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re shaking. Put it on.”

She turned, expecting me to help her put it on. I did, even though I shouldn’t have. I held the collar while she slipped her arms into the sleeves, then rolled the cuffs twice so her hands were free. The shirt still swallowed her. My knuckles brushed her wrist, and she froze.

“School?” I asked, because the alternative was admitting I was still standing in her space.

“State. I go back in August if the season doesn’t take the rest of summer.” She tried to smooth a sleeve that kept unfolding. “Environmental science. This was supposed to be the hands-on part.”

“This is the practical part.”

I reached past her for the radio. I did not ask her to move. She did not move on her own. My chest came close enough to the flannel that I felt her breathe in and forget to let it out.

“Lookout Seven to base. Hale on site with Volunteer Quinn. Visual on building cells west of the switchback.”

Static. Then Miller, bored and chewing something. “Copy, Seven. Road’s still open. Keep us posted.”

I hung up the handset. I did not step back.

“You’re in my way,” I said.

“You’re in mine.”

Her reply was quiet. She blushed and stared at the map, pretending the contour lines were suddenly important. I pointed at the ridge, needing some reason to stay close that wasn’t just wanting to kiss her.

“If it closes, it closes here. Trees come down across the hairpin, and nobody drives that in the dark. You hear me tell you to stay put, you stay put. You do not get heroic on a grate twelve flights up.”

“I wasn’t going to—”

“You were thinking it.”

She closed her mouth. Good. Even through two shirts, I could feel her warmth. I lifted my hand from the map and tipped her chin up, telling myself it was just to make sure she was paying attention. Her pulse jumped under my thumb.

“Grant,” I said, before she could put the title back in her mouth. “If you’re going to stand this close in my shirt, use my name.”

“Grant.”

Lightning flashed on the far slope. The thunder that followed was still far off. Not close, not yet. She flinched, her whole body tensing before she tried to hide it. I put my hand on her waist again to steady her, and this time I didn’t pretend it was just about the window.

“Easy.”

“I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that.”

I should have told her to take the cot and sat in the chair myself. I should have called Miller for an updated forecast. I should have kept my hands off a twenty-one-year-old volunteer who signed her waiver in March and came up here thinking the tower would keep her safe.

I said, “This is a bad idea.”

She did not step back.

“I know.”

The next strike hit nearer. The cabin went white. The glass rattled in the frames, and she made a sound that had nothing to do with weather. I felt it against my palm.

I kissed her.

The kiss wasn’t gentle, and I didn’t ask.

I held her jaw, lifted her face, and kissed her like fixing a bad knot—quick, certain, before it could cause trouble.

She made a surprised sound, then relaxed.

Her hands gripped my shirt but didn’t push me away.

I tasted rain and the cheap coffee she’d made earlier.

It would have been easy to back her into the table and forget about the radio.

The handset cracked to life.

I broke the kiss.

I did not step back.

Miller, less bored. “Seven, you seeing that cell? It’s organizing faster than the model.”

I reached past her for the radio without putting space between us. My chest was still against the flannel. She was breathing like she had run the stairs.

“Copy. Visual confirmed. We’ll keep the watch.”

“Road’s still open,” Miller said. “For now.”

I hung it. The glass was still shivering from the strike. Her mouth was still open. My hand was still on the table behind her, caging her there without quite admitting that was what I was doing.

Thunder rolled through the floorboards. She did not look at the windows. She looked at my mouth.

I stayed where I was, close enough to feel her breathe, and listened to the next cell come up the ridge.