Fully Ignited (Boston Fire #3) (11 page)

Jamie was right, but he hated admitting it. And he wondered if this was how Aidan had felt when he first started seeing Lydia—having to hide out in his apartment because they didn’t want anybody to see them and guess they’d been sleeping together. The difference, though, was that Aidan and Lydia had fallen in love and were going to be married in a few weeks. Maybe a casual fling was easier to hide.

“You sure you don’t want to go?” he asked again forty minutes later, when he was standing at her door to kiss her goodbye.

“I’m sure.”

“What are you doing tomorrow?” He was having a hard time making himself leave until he knew when he’d see her again.

“I have some errands to do. And I might go see some friends.”

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “So you’re busy, then?”

“Yeah.” She sighed and then gave him a tiny smile. “I like having some time between you leaving my bed and me seeing you at work, you know? And before we know it, I’ll be moving on and you’ll be back on the search for your television wife. I don’t want to get too used to having you around.”

That, he understood. He could already feel himself getting used to being around her and it felt good. “Again with the television wife thing. The guys are idiots, I swear.”

She laughed. “It’s pretty funny, though, imagining you married to a June Cleaver type.”

Rather than explain again that the guys had taken what he’d said and exaggerated it to a ridiculous degree, Scott just shrugged. “I should buy some button-down sweaters or whatever those things are called.”

Smiling, she leaned forward and kissed him. He put his hands on her waist and held her for a moment, deepening the kiss and making it last until she pulled away. “You should go. Aidan’s going to be wondering if you stood him up.”

“I’ll see you at work, then.”

Scott walked to Kincaid’s Pub, since he’d walked from home to Aidan’s place, and then to Jamie’s. It was definitely a lot more walking than he was used to, but he chalked it up as good exercise and it meant there was no chance of somebody seeing his car parked outside of her building. Several times, he thought about sending a text telling Aidan something had come up so he wouldn’t make it and circling back to Jamie’s. But then he’d have to come up with a lie when Aidan asked him what had come up, and Jamie might not welcome his return.

He paused with his hand on the door of the bar, taking a second to get his head straight.
I don’t want to get too used to having you around.

Her words echoing through his mind, along with remembering the look in her eyes when she said them, didn’t help him sort out his own thoughts. It seemed as if she might be feeling the same thing he was—wanting to keep their relationship in a nice little box separate from the rest of their lives, but not finding the box so easy to seal and shove under the bed. He spent way too much time wishing he was with her for that to happen, and he wasn’t sure if he hoped she felt the same, or if he needed her to have willpower for both of them.

The door opened and an exiting customer almost walked into him, putting an end to his sidewalk introspection. He stepped out of the way as three guys left, and then walked inside. Lydia was at the bar, and she lifted her hand in greeting when she saw him. He headed toward the bar, giving a wave to his dad and Fitz in the corner. They were deep in a conversation with some other old-timer, so they barely acknowledged him.

And Aidan was sitting at the end of the bar, as far from the old guys as he could get without turning the corner to the side with no stools. Scott sat next to him, smiling at his sister when she set a frosted mug of beer on a coaster in front of him.

“Thanks. Slow night?”

She shrugged. “Not busy, but we’ve had enough customers to make the time go by. Not that it matters since my guy’s here with me.”

He watched his sister give Aidan the kind of smile and eye contact that most men would have killed to be on the receiving end of, and then took a few gulps of his beer. The Celtics were playing, so he turned his attention to the basketball game on the big TV.

“They’re not having a good night,” Aidan said after Lydia walked away.

Scott snorted. “Yeah, because they’re not playing hockey.”

“You get all your stuff done this evening?”

For a few seconds, Scott was confused. But then he remembered he told them he had things to do when he left their apartment earlier, only saying he’d meet Aidan later at the bar. “Yeah.”

His friend nodded, drumming his fingers on the bar. Scott knew it meant Aidan had something on his mind he was reluctant to talk about, and he knew it had to do with Jamie. And Aidan wouldn’t ask and Scott wouldn’t tell, so that conversational train had reached the end of the rails.

“I talked to my dad about the pool table,” Scott said, hoping to change the subject.

Aidan chuckled and stopped drumming. “I heard all about it. We have to put some kind of insulation down to protect the felt from hot dishes, and then plastic to protect it from any spills. Then a tablecloth so it looks nice.”

“He’ll probably be the one spilling stuff because he keeps lifting the tablecloth to check on the felt.”

They both laughed, and Aidan started telling him about some of the wedding plans. They’d decided on an open bar for beer, soft drinks and coffee, but a cash bar for anybody wanting liquor. And they were leaning toward a potluck situation rather than having the cook trying to keep the guests fed.

While Aidan talked, Scott thought about the day he’d figured out his best friend and his sister had been lying to him. Lying by omission, maybe, but he’d been hurt and pissed and felt stupid and betrayed. He’d gotten over it. He loved both of them too much not to, especially when he’d thought about how much Aidan had stood to lose. It was Lydia on one side, and the guy’s best friend, his father figure and mentor, and possibly his ability to stay with his engine company on the other. It was hard to hold a grudge against a guy who loved a woman so much he’d risk everything important to him to be with her.

But it had hurt at the time, and he didn’t want Aidan to be in that position. It wouldn’t be as personal, because Aidan and Jamie didn’t have a relationship other than at work, but hiding things from him didn’t sit well with Scott.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Aidan asked, bumping his arm.

“Sorry, my mind wandered.”

“I can’t believe you have anything more important to think about than Lydia’s concern that if we just put
potluck
on the invitation that we’ll get fifteen slow cookers of chili and one pan of brownies.” He rolled his eyes, but then threw an affectionate smile at his fiancée, who was pulling a pint of Guinness for a customer at the other end of the bar.

“That happened at Mrs. Eames’s funeral, remember? Except it was like ten pots of baked beans and a vegetable platter.” Scott grimaced. “That was a function hall that could have used better ventilation.”

“We’re open to suggestions.”

He shrugged. “I’m the best man, not the wedding planner. But maybe if you add a note there aren’t any outlets for Crock-Pots, you can avoid getting too much chili. Nobody’s going to start stringing extension cords together at Tommy’s bar.”

The wedding talk went on for the rest of the night, with a few digressions into basketball, and Lydia joined in when she wasn’t busy. They laughed a lot, and Scott found himself relaxing into the familiar rhythm of his life.

The only thing that would have made the night more enjoyable would be Jamie sitting next to him.

TEN

J
AMIE
SKIRTED
THE
edge of the scene, keeping an eye on the action around them as they worked on repacking their equipment. It hadn’t been a particularly bad motor vehicle accident, but there were four cars involved and the intersection was a mess.

Police officers were managing to squeak one lane at a time around the two cars still waiting for tow trucks, and the ambulances had already departed. Jeff, Grant and Gavin were helping a couple of guys from the city who’d been nearby to sweep up broken glass, and she estimated they were only about twenty minutes from being able to return to quarters.

Usually she paid little attention to the clock other than taking note of the time for paperwork when necessary. Today, though, she was counting the hours until the tour was over. For the last two weeks, she and Scott had fallen into a comfortable rhythm of keeping their distance at work, and then hanging out in her apartment. Sex, talking, movies, food, books, music, card games, more sex.

But tomorrow they were going out on a date. A real date, not in her apartment, and she couldn’t wait.

They were going on a nice, long drive to a South Shore restaurant Scott liked, right on the water. As much as she enjoyed curling up with him in sweatpants to watch television, getting to dress up a little and go out in public with him would be a welcome and long-overdue change.

She’d told him the night they’d watched that stupid space movie that she didn’t want to get too used to having him around. She’d meant it at the time, but it hadn’t worked. She’d not only gotten used to having him around, but she was happier when he was with her.

Only being with him in her apartment was growing old, though, so she hadn’t even hesitated when he invited her to take a ride out of the city with him so they could go to a real restaurant.

Laughter drew her attention from what she was doing, and she looked over her shoulder to see Scott and Aidan laughing as they knelt next to the truck, repacking their first aid supplies. She wasn’t close enough to hear what they were talking about, but it was obviously amusing.

She loved watching Scott with Aidan and the other guys. Mostly with Aidan, though. So many facets of his personality came through during his interactions with them, maybe because they worked together in a professional capacity, but the nature of their jobs made them almost family. He often played mentor to the younger guys, and he respected the older ones.

But it was seeing him with Aidan that always made her smile, even if she had to stifle it for work. They were a lot alike, though Scott was more intense while Aidan more laid-back. She wondered sometimes if Scott’s reputation for being a hothead came mostly from being contrasted to his best friend.

Of course, there had been that fight the first night she went to Kincaid’s Pub, but overall he’d either mellowed a lot lately or his temper hadn’t been as bad as people said it was.

“Hey, LT,” Aidan called, and she wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or to Rick. Technically, she was their lieutenant and not him, but nobody had used the nickname for her yet.

Both of them were looking straight at her, though, so she walked over to them. “What’s up?”

“What’s your opinion on cake?” Aidan asked.

“I’m in favor of cake.”

He laughed and stood, swinging one of the first aid bags over his shoulder while Scott did the same. “I mean wedding cake. Ashley wants to make a carrot cake because she says it’s traditional.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Chocolate coming from cocoa beans is as close as I like to come to vegetables in my desserts.”

“See?” Scott nudged Aidan with his elbow. “I told you she had good taste in cake.”

They both gave her approving looks and, even though it was stupid, it made her feel good. “Don’t some couples do two cakes now? Like a big wedding cake and then a groom’s cake?”

“I suggested that,” Scott said. “And I got an earful about how all the men have to do is show up in suits and...there was more, but I tuned it out, to be honest.”

“Every time I say that everybody would rather have chocolate cake than carrot cake,” Aidan said, “Lydia shakes her head and mutters
men
under her breath.”

The lightbulb went off in Jamie’s head. “Ah. And because I’m a woman, you think if I suggest the chocolate cake, she might listen to me.”

“At this point, I’m willing to do anything I have to do to keep my wedding cake from having shredded carrots in it.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“You’re the best,” Aidan said, grinning.

And Scott winked at her. “Definitely the best.”

She rolled her eyes at them and went back to what she was doing, ready to get out of there and back to quarters. It was time for some food and some rest, in that order.

Later, she lay in her bunk, almost wishing the alarm would sound just to give her some way to pass the time other than staring at the ceiling. But if the alarm sounded, that meant somebody was having a bad night, so she stopped short of hoping it actually happened.

Eventually, it was time to go home. After a long, hot soak in the tub, she forced herself to stretch out on her bed. It had been a slow night, but she’d been restless, so she actually slept for a while. Then she packed a bag and waited for Scott to show up.

“I thought it would never be time,” he said once she’d let him in and he’d kissed her senseless.

“I was beginning to wonder if all the clocks were broken because they didn’t seem to be moving.” When they reached the top of the stairs and stepped inside, she grabbed the front of the blue button-down shirt he was wearing and hauled him close to kiss him again.

“I want you so much, but we have reservations. And it’s a really cool restaurant.” He stepped back to look at her. She’d thrown on a simple plum maxi dress for the occasion, but it had a scooped neckline and a deep slit on one side. “There are other restaurants, though. Or takeout. Hell, you must have something in the fridge.”

Laughing, she stepped out of his reach. “Oh, no you don’t. I’ve been looking forward to this date too much to stay home tonight, even if it means staying here with you.”

“Then let’s go, because my resistance gets a little weaker with every minute I can see that bed over your shoulder.”

They took her car, though Scott drove. He said it was just as easy to walk to her place and there was the better gas mileage to consider, but she knew he went out of his way to make it so his truck was never parked in front of her building for very long. There were enough businesses around so he could explain away being parked there for an hour or so, if anybody asked, but not after hours.

When she wasn’t gasping and clutching the door handle as he worked through the city traffic, they spent the time talking, mostly about the television shows they both watched. A lot of couples probably would have talked about work, she thought, but they rarely did. She wasn’t sure what was in his head, but for her it wasn’t only the fact they worked together. Talking about work was a reminder to Jamie that they weren’t supposed to be seeing each other, and the more time they spent together, the more that bothered her.

“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Scott said when he finally turned into the restaurant parking lot. “But trust me, the food is amazing. I don’t get down here often, but it’s my favorite place to eat.”

It was one of the things she’d come to really like about Scott. He could have made a reservation at some fancy restaurant to impress her, but instead he was choosing to bring her to his favorite place, even if it looked a little sketchy from the outside.

Scott was that way about almost everything. He didn’t pretend to like movies because he thought they were what she’d want to watch. The same with TV shows and magazines and food. He was willing to try almost anything, but his favorites were what they were and he didn’t care what anybody thought of them.

Inside, the restaurant had a nice ambience, especially with the lights dimmed to help conceal the slightly shabby decor. But they were led to a private table at the back, in front of a bank of windows that overlooked the water, and she felt herself falling in love with the place.

“It’s gorgeous,” she said as the hostess put menus in front of them.

Scott grinned and looked out at the water. “I was young the first time we came here. My mom talked my dad into taking us all to the Cape for a weekend, because she was from there originally, and we stopped here on the way down. It was so good, we stopped on the way back, too. When I got my license, I couldn’t remember the name to look up directions, but I came down and drove around until I found it.”

“Seriously?” She leaned back in the booth, watching his face as he looked out the window. “Because the food was that good or because of your mom?”

He shrugged, turning back to her. “Both? I don’t know. It was a happy memory. My parents got along for the whole weekend and it was the only family vacation I remember us ever taking. And the food was that good.”

Jamie tried to imagine a teenage Scott, driving around looking for this place. His mom had died when he was nine and he would have been at least sixteen to have his license, so enough years had passed that she was surprised he’d found it. And it could have gone out of business or changed ownership and names. He must have really wanted to reconnect with the place.

“How often do you come here?”

“I try to get here a couple of times a year. It’s been a while, though. The last time I was here I brought Ashley not long after she and Danny split up, just to get her out of the neighborhood for a day. The time before that I think it was me and Aidan and Rick.”

“Family, huh? I thought maybe this was your hot date spot,” she said, half-jokingly.

“Nope.”

That was all he said, but the way he looked directly into her eyes when he said it seemed to give her the answer she’d been fishing for. He wasn’t in the habit of bringing girlfriends here, then. So was this simply a two-birds-with-one-stone situation—take her on a date out of the city while revisiting a favorite restaurant?

Or did bringing her to this place that was so important to him he’d gone looking for it as a teenager mean something?

* * *

S
COTT
LOOKED
ACROSS
the table at Jamie and, maybe for the first time in his life except for his mom, wished everything could be different.

He wished he and Jamie didn’t work together. That their relationship didn’t have to be a secret. That he was the kind of guy she would want to have a real relationship with, and that she didn’t think he was on the hunt for some kind of television wife who’d stay home and bake cookies while raising their children. When he looked into Jamie’s eyes, he could almost see his future...if only their present wasn’t so screwed up.

When she gave him a questioning look, he realized his thoughts might be showing on his face and smiled. All that mattered right now was the fact he was sitting in his favorite restaurant with a woman who could set his blood on fire with just a look or a single word.

“What’s good here?” she asked, picking up one of the menus.

“Not to be unoriginal or anything, but definitely the seafood.”

He already knew he was having that, so he watched Jamie as she read over the menu. Her face was expressive, and he could tell when something sounded appealing to her and when something didn’t.

Their server arrived to introduce herself and take their drink orders. Jamie ordered a glass of white wine from their limited list, and Scott asked for an orange soda. While they waited for the drinks, they decided to split the seafood platter and a big basket of fries.

Once they’d placed their order, Jamie sipped her wine and looked out the window, her face relaxed and happy. “I can see why you like to come here. I’m surprised it’s not overrun by tourists, though.”

“It’s just far enough off the beaten path, I guess. And it’s a word-of-mouth kind of place. It’s been busier since people started using those restaurant review apps, though. There’s no hiding from the internet.”

“I’m glad you were able to get a reservation for this table. It has the best view.”

“It’s too bad I have to go with Aidan tomorrow to pick out suits. Otherwise I would also have reserved us a nice hotel room down the street with a deck facing the ocean.” He looked at her over the rim of his glass, wanting her so much his body ached. “Maybe I could tell him I’m sick.”

“You can’t call in sick to best-man duties for your best friend,” she said, laughing. “Besides, I’m going shopping with your sisters tomorrow and I suspect I’m going to need a good night’s sleep to get through that.”

“Shopping? Didn’t you just go shopping?”

“Yeah, but for groceries. We’re going shopping for dresses.”

He laughed and held up a hand. “Okay, I should have guessed that. How the hell did you get roped into dress shopping with my sisters?”

“I didn’t get roped into anything.
My friend
invited me to help her and her sister pick out dresses for her wedding.”

“That’s weird.”

She frowned at him. “Taking friends wedding dress shopping with you is weird? For a guy who grew up with two older sisters, sometimes you don’t seem to know a lot about women.”

“No, not the shopping. Women shop in packs. It’s just a little weird that Lydia’s my sister. And Lydia’s your friend. But there’s no three of us together. Does that make sense?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it does. It’s weird for me, too. It’s like living two separate lives, but the lives intersect in multiple places.”

“Yeah.” He paused and then smiled at her. “Don’t forget to mention the cake thing, okay?”

“I’ll do my best to save us all from cake with vegetables in it. But in return I want you to tell me something. What made you decide to take a break from dating?”

The question seemed to come out of left field and he mentally flailed for a few seconds, trying to come up with an answer that might make sense. “It was a lot of things, I guess. Part of it’s probably just a natural progression of life. I’m almost thirty, so there’s that. It’s time to starting thinking about the future and all that. But the last woman I had what I’d consider a real relationship with started asking a lot of questions about my benefits and whether they’d cover plastic surgery. And she said if she got pregnant, I’d have to marry her and put her on my bennies plan.”