Plain Jane & The Hotshot (7 page)

T
his was no chance encounter. Her guilt of seconds ago about mistreating Nick was swept away on a wave of indignation.

“Skinny-dipping, my brave firefighter?” she asked sarcastically.

“Well…I—” He held out his unused tackle.

“Yeah, right. You have some nerve,” she fumed.

His silhouette was clear, backlit by silver moonwash, slim-hipped and wide-shouldered. When he came toward her, moonlight limned his handsome profile, emphasizing the strong jaw, patrician nose, and his much-too-experienced lips.

Despite her anger and embarrassment, the memory of their torrid kiss on the bridge assailed her. Desire licked at her in a dizzying rush.

An awkward silence took over.

“Well, at least I know now you weren't hurt,” she blurted out, not quite thinking.

“You thought maybe I was one of the ones who got it today? And you cared?” he said, astonished.

Is that a smile, she wondered, or just a little cynical pull of his lips? It was hard to tell, even though the moonlight was generous.

“Come here, girl,” he said without demanding an answer to his question.

Even
she
knew her silence had answered well enough, anyway.

She dreaded being alone with him. He was a male she was infinitely attracted to, and she wasn't over Ned yet. It was coming at her way too fast.

For a few moments she felt herself balanced on a feather edge between excitement and apprehension. She was hurtling toward something, the same heady dizziness she'd initially felt during her affair with Ned.

One part of her liked it and wanted to keep hurtling; another part wanted to back out now and avoid the heartache that would surely come when she crashed.

“C'mon, walk with me around the lake,” he said. “It's a fine night.”

“I have to go to the other side, anyway, to get back to camp.”

He laughed. “Does that mean yes?”

She shook her head, exasperated. Anything was
better than just staring at him in the moonlight. She was relieved to walk.

He speared his fingers through his hair, expelling a humorous sigh. “Ahh, I guess I should confess.”

“Hazel set me up, didn't she.”

“Oh, I s'pose she might have.”

“Hazel's never fooled me,” Jo asserted. “For a woman who never even considered dating after her husband was killed, she sure likes to play Cupid.”

“And she's pretty damn good at it, if you ask me.” He looked down at her, his face a hard, marble profile in the moonlight.

“I certainly feel snared,” she answered, feeling wary.

A smile touched his lips. “Good.”

Before she could say or do anything, he pulled her into his arms and hungrily sought her mouth with his.

The center of her being suddenly turned liquid, and her pulse exploded as if she'd been running hard.

For a few electrified moments she responded eagerly, probing his mouth with her tongue, pressing tightly against his muscular form, feeling herself mold to him, sharing his body heat.

Thrilling at the bulge of his arousal…

But then she seemed to be spinning out of control too quickly, and the apprehension was back.

This way misery lies,
a voice cautioned.

It was the same, sudden pyrotechnics she'd felt with Ned, too, a hot need to tear off her clothes and make furious, intense, exhausting love for hours.

And just think how that all ended…

She pulled away from Nick and started walking again, fighting to get her breathing under control.

He simply fell in step beside her, matching her silence for some time, content with her company and the beautiful, moonlit lake, its calm surface reflecting diamond points of silver-white light.

There was a gentle, steady hum of insects, and now and then an owl hooted, the sound making a ghostly echo in the stillness. Occasionaly there was a plopping sound from the lake when a fish jumped.

He took her hand in his, and she let him, liking the strength and form of his grasp. The rough, callused spots reminded her how hard he worked with those hands.

“You know,” he said after a minute or two, “I was thinking tonight how it must feel for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for instance, like when all us guys ran into you on the bridge, all the ogling and smart remarks. They rib the hell out of me, too, but it's all basically harmless.”

“Believe me,” she said, “when it comes to the teasing, the guys aren't as bad as the women I'm camped with.”

“Yeah, you mean…like Kayla catching us?”

“Yeah, like Kayla catching us,” she repeated dryly. “I'll never hear the end of that.”

It wasn't cold, but Jo shivered a little, and Nick must have sensed it, for he took off his denim jacket
and draped it over her shoulders. Then he encircled her waist with his arm, drawing her closer as they strolled.

He brought her left arm around his own waist. He felt strong and supple, and everywhere she moved her hand, muscles rippled under it. Not bulked-up, weightlifting muscle, more like the compact strength of tempered steel.

“Hazel's a savvy old dame,” he remarked, kissing her hair. “She's right, you know. We've been at each other's throats, and yet we don't even know each other.”

“And, of course, being Hazel,” Jo interjected, “she's at least hinted that I've had a relationship problem recently, right?”

“Something like that,” he admitted. “But that happens to everybody. What really got me thinking was her mentioning it hasn't been much fun for you, growing up in Miss Montana's shadow.”

“I love my mom, but thank God she wasn't Miss America, too, or I might be in a convent today.”

They both laughed, easily and without forcing it, and it felt good to her. It felt good to have a strong pair of arms around her, too. Without knowing it, she'd been bottled up now for too long, emotionally and physically.

“So tell me about the guy,” he said, nearly stopping her in her tracks.

She took a deep breath. Pulling her arm away from his waist, she said, “Blunt and unapologetic, spoken
just like Hazel,” she said. “No wonder she likes you.”

“But he's the brick wall I have to get through, so it makes sense to cut to the chase.”

She stopped and stared at him. “You're amazing. You just assume we're going to have some kind of affair, don't you? Well, let me tell you—”

He pulled her to him and kissed her.

In the insanity of the moment, she stopped protesting.

Finally, when they began walking once more, she released a frustrated moan and began her confession.

“Look, this guy isn't going to determine my life, okay? It wasn't a big deal. But there I was, totally gone on the guy, and he pulls out this wife and family like a rabbit out of a hat. But things like that happen all the time to women. This time it just happened to me.”

“To be deceived that way,” he said gently. “Must've really hurt.”

She nodded. For a moment her mouth quivered, but not from the cold. The memory of Ned's sheepish, self-centered confession made old wounds throb anew. For some reason, with this man, she felt like talking about it. It was cathartic.

“It had happened at the beginning of the summer. I was taking my required continuing-ed courses at the state university. He was the charming, young visiting professor. I fell hard, and Ned pretended to have fallen, too. But in fact, the only thing I fell for was
the oldest romantic con in the books. He was only in it for the sex. At the end of the summer term, when I wanted to talk about our future, he bluntly informed me he had a wife and kids back in Ohio.”

She was quiet for a long time, the memories hurtling through her mind.

For some reason, some of them almost seemed funny to her now. “‘But I'll be eternally grateful,'” she mimicked what Ned had told her with a straight face, “‘for the kind way you validated my manhood. You'll always be so special to me.'” She almost laughed. “Can you believe it? He'd spoken to me as if he were signing the back of a publicity photo for a loyal fan.”

Nick studied her.

After her confession she had a difficult time meeting his gaze.

“You must have been crushed,” was all he said.

She closed her eyes, not revealing the half of it. Shy by nature, she'd been half tempted to become a hermit after the Ned disaster. Ned was weak and dishonest, but she couldn't help the persistent conviction that it was somehow all her fault. Her beauty-queen mother had imprinted upon her the notion that the only thing a man could devote himself to was eye candy—and eye candy was the last thing Jo cared to be.

“Well, I
won't
go through that again,” she said, more for herself than for Nick. She looked at him. “And for all I know you've got a wife and twelve
kids back in Mystery. So enough about me.” She was eager to change the subject. “I've been insulting you for days, but I'm supposed to know the enemy.”

He helped her over a fallen log, lifting her as effortlessly as a feather. She knew he was studying her in the ample moonlight, and her face, she hoped, mirrored nothing.

“Not a whole lot to know,” Nick said quietly. “When I was four years old, my parents were killed in a car accident up in the Canadian Rockies. It was one of those weekend getaways, you know, to celebrate their fifth anniversary. I was staying with my grandma Jane in Denver when it happened. I hate to admit it, but I have only the vaguest memories of them.”

His tone changed a little, hardened. “So Grandma had custody of me until she had a stroke when I was fourteen. Child Protection Services had to take over then.”

“God, that must have been hard for you.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. “When you're a teenager, adoption is hardly likely. Most people want cute little babies, not a gangly adolescent with a chip on his shoulder. So I had a series of foster families, three in four years.”

He grew quiet as if the memories of that time were again fresh and raw.

Gently she offered, “You must think me shallow, after what you've been through. Here I am,” she mut
tered, “complaining about growing up in my mother's shadow.”

“Hey, I don't remember them much, but Grandma told me my parents loved me, and I'm grateful I had them. And Grandma.”

“What were your foster parents like?”

“Oh, I'm sure they meant well. I wasn't abused or anything like that. But to tell you the truth, I felt more like cheap labor than part of the family. My chief memories are of mowing lawns and washing cars and baby-sitting. Thank God I got a full scholarship for college when I turned eighteen. I've been on my own ever since.”

“Kind of like a rolling stone that gathers no moss, right?” she probed.

“Something like that, maybe.”

“So you don't have a wife and twelve kids somewhere?”

He laughed. “Frankly I'd probably really like that, but I'm afraid I don't have squat. When I get off this mountain, I have nothing waiting for me but a neglected cabin and an old mutt who spends more time in the kennel than with his master.”

“I guess you aren't home much during the fire season. But do you ever think about settling down?”

“Are you kidding, lady? Does King Midas think about gold?”

“Yes, and so he hoards it. Why don't you go for your gold?”

“Maybe I'm not sure how to get it,” he said. “I
did meet one woman I considered settling down for, maybe taking a teaching job, starting a family, all that. But I guess I stalled too long making up my mind, and she got sick and tired of dreading the evening news during fire seasons. Not to mention hardly seeing her boyfriend from spring until fall.” His jaw hardened. “Can't say I really blame her. No one else in my life has managed to stick around long.”

A silence wedged itself between them.

Nick suddenly seemed distant and cold, very much unlike the man who'd been pursuing her.

She wanted to say something to somehow bring him out of himself, but she stumbled on her words.

“My—my mother always called me a mouse. She never thought I was vivacious enough or popular enough—and the truth is, I wasn't. Not for her, anyway. But I realized one thing after Ned. It takes a lot of guts to be alone. My mother will never have the courage to do that.”

Nick stared at her for a long moment. Then, as if compelled, he raised his hand and ran his knuckles gently down her cheek.

He leaned to kiss her once more, and she felt the starry night swirling all around her like the whirlpools on the river. She sensed his hunger, and it deepened her own.

When she tried to pull away, he wouldn't let her go.

Her heart raced, and a giddy, nervous tightness filled her chest. She was pretty sure she knew what
he planned on doing during his time with her tonight, and while she was against it in theory, with the moonlight and the soft bed of pine needles on her feet, theories were useless.

If she was truthful, a part of her longed for the warmth of physical contact and the ease of her loneliness, but another part of her sent up a red flag.

Now's your chance to back out, Jo lectured herself. You rushed things with Ned, too, and look how it turned out. You had to pick your heart up from his heels.

But all that was just sand in the wind. Nick's kiss still burned on her lips, and like a moth to a flame, she only wanted more of the fire.

“Why don't you forget about being courageous for the night?” Nick whispered.

She took his kiss, trembling with anticipation.

She said nothing more.

J
o knew it was madness, craziness to lie with Nick on the soft carpet of pine needles, but she realized, as he pulled her down onto his spread-out jacket, that her need was an open invitation, an invitation that came from the core of her physical and emotional being.

He would not simply lie down with her and tease her like a kid in high school. Nick was a man and he would make love to her like a man, fully and deeply.

His intensity should have triggered more red flags, for she had surrendered once before to passion and lived to regret it. Instead of “once burned, twice shy,” she seemed to be seeking the flame again like an addict, immersing herself in her destruction.

But Nick was different, she assured herself. Their talk tonight, just as Hazel had insisted, had shown how wrong both of them were about each other. It left Jo greatly relieved and yet feeling guilty for the insults and barbs. Her physical need seemed to converge with her emotional need to feel close to him, to make up for the wrong she'd done him.

“You cold?” he murmured as he kissed the sensitive skin on the side of her neck, tasting and smelling her, his breathing quickening when he pulled her closer.

“I think you're taking care of that,” Jo teased.

She squirmed her hips invitingly and thrilled at the feel of his very noticeable arousal, opening her legs wider so he could press even closer against her.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice husky, “and you just turned my thermostat way up.”

“What's the matter, Hotshot, can't take the heat?”

“I'll be brave,” he resolved, unbuttoning her shirt. “I have to warn you, I've been up in these mountains fighting fires a long time now. Once I get started, I may not want to quit. I hope you're feeling as greedy as I am.”

She moaned as his hands slid inside her shirt. Before she knew it, he'd reached behind her and unfastened her bra. She felt her nipples stiffen instantly when he cupped her breasts and began rubbing his palms in little circles on the hardened nipples, sending electric shivers through her entire body.

She fumbled at unbuttoning his shirt, her hands
trembling with the pent-up hunger now being released.

She shuddered at the indescribable, intimate pleasure of pressing her naked flesh against his. Her hands traced the hard ridges of muscle cording his back, chest and shoulders. His stomach was flat and hard, and a mat of silky chest hair grew between rock-hard pecs.

He raised his face to kiss her mouth, and Jo looked up at him in the luminous moonlight, knowing she would never forget how handsome and desirable he looked in that moment. Like an exquisite bust combining the strength of Mars and the looks of Adonis.

And above him, the star-shot dome of a beautiful Montana night sky, with the pines soughing softly in the cool breeze. The chill against her bare skin was offset by the heat burning within her, and she knew that she could let this man take her naked in a snow-drift and she'd never notice the cold until it was too late.

This time they kissed for countless minutes, tongues probing greedily as they pressed more and more urgently together, as if he was already inside her.

Jo fumbled his belt loose while he, in turn, unbuttoned her jeans and tugged them over her hips.

“At this point,” he said reluctantly, “isn't one of us supposed to bring up birth control?”

“Surely,” she teased, “the babe slayer has several condoms in his wallet?”

Guilt stabbed her briefly when she realized she sounded like Kayla.

“See, I only bring a dozen with me on each job,” he teased right back, “and I'm fresh out. Guess I need to order by the gross.”

“Not to worry,” she assured him. “I'm on the pill.”

She hardly felt like explaining right then that she was only on the pill since meeting Ned, or that she meant to stop taking them once her current prescription ran out. All that would have to wait.

In fact, she was incapable of even thinking clearly as his hand glided under the elastic waistband of her panties and down to the damp center of her need.

She opened her legs wider, gasping with pleasure when his fingers teased her soft folds open like petals to the sun. He lowered his mouth over one of her nipples, sucking and teasing it as his fingers moved more and more urgently between her legs, making her hard nubbin swell.

“Nick…Nick.” She whispered his name over and over like a chant.

An intense climax suddenly crashed down on her, the pleasure bending her almost double and immediately making her hungry for more, even as she gasped for breath.

He slid his briefs down and placed her hand on his rock hard length to feel his need throbbing. He was powerful in her hand, saber-curved, excitingly hard.

She was so anxious for him it chilled her. She
opened her legs wide in the night air, and a moment later all she knew was incomparable pleasure as he slid into her, no teasing, but going in deeply the way she wanted, filling her with nothing but man.

He moved against her, his breath hard and fast, as if he was holding himself back. His hard body rubbed along her soft chest, creating a frisson of eroticism that had nothing to do with her loins.

Taking her mouth in a last heated kiss, his pumping became increasingly faster and furious. She jockeyed along to wherever he went, her own pleasure coming in waves that seemed to never end.

Unable to take it much more, she cried out at the pleasure, moving her hands to his hard-flexing gluteus muscles, and encouraging him to keep driving deep and hard.

She had no idea how many times she climaxed before he spent himself in several final, hard plunges, crying out her name and then spasming violently in the powerful aftermath of his orgasm, as if his body circuits were overloaded.

She herself had never climaxed so quickly and repeatedly with any man, and yet, feeling greedy as he'd wanted her to, she secretly wished he would not stop even after his release.

He seemed to understand her muscles holding him in, silently asking him not to slide out of her, and suddenly her need excited him to full arousal again. Almost without any pause, he began the pleasure rhythm again, hard and ready.

She lost all track of time after that, rising again and again to peaks of almost unbearable pleasure, then almost blacking out in a daze before one of them would start all over again.

It was literally pure, mindless pleasure. The two of them were one, and nothing else existed.

But at the back of her mind, like the tag end of some pop tune, she kept hearing a warning voice. All she could understand, however, was its urgent tone, for the words themselves were lost in the pounding of her heart.

 

“I don't believe it.”

Nick's voice sounded thick with sleep, almost drugged.

“It's 3 a.m.,” he told her, kissing her eyelids open. “We've been here almost six hours.”

Six hours, Jo thought with little reaction at first. A moment later, however, she sat up, buttoning her shirt and shivering in the damp chill.

“Six hours,” she repeated, suddenly feeling like a teenager who had missed curfew. “I guess we…lost track of time.”

They both laughed self-consciously at her silly understatement, and he kissed her. Instantly, despite the mild ache between her legs, she wanted him again. But the thought of what possibly waited up at the cabins cooled her ardor.

Shivering even more as nervousness was added to
the cold, she took his extended hand and rose to her feet, quickly straightening and buttoning her clothing.

He must have read her thoughts, judging from his next remark. “They're probably all asleep, you know. Which doesn't mean you won't get razzed tomorrow. I know I will. The guys in my crew don't miss a thing.”

“You're right,” Jo decided, feeling brave. “I'm sure Hazel would tell them I was with you, anyway, so I'll just sneak quietly into bed and face the music tomorrow.”

They set off hand in hand, following the switch-backing blacktop road that wound its way up to Bridger's Summit.

“You sorry?” he asked.

“Abject with remorse,” she deadpanned, and they both laughed again, stopping to kiss.

In truth she felt that her feet weren't even touching the ground. She'd made love with him for hours and the world went away. The hurting went away. She wanted to do it again and again until…

She noticed he'd turned quiet. Gently he led her along the road to the cabin.

His silence began to rattle her.

All sorts of demons appeared in her mind. The worst demon of all was the fear of tomorrow. Of never seeing him again, of realizing she'd just been had for a one-night stand.

She watched him, their breaths forming faint wraiths in the waning moonlight.

They were near the summit now, and she could make out the faint outlines of the two cabins through the cluster of pines ahead. Beyond them she could see the faint glimmer in the east known as false dawn.

“I think we best say good-night out here in the road,” Jo suggested. “I don't want to get caught with you. I'll have to fess up soon enough, but I'll need some sleep first.”

The first pang of remorse tightened her heart. Staring at him, she felt cold reality seep in. The question circled silently overhead like a vulture.

When am I going to see you again?

She'd behaved impetuously, and imprudent acts were usually paid for in a pound of flesh. She hardly knew him. They'd fallen together in the moonlight, in the heat of loneliness.

Right now she wondered if what they'd shared had even been real, let alone if it was something with substance, something that would last.

Is this going to be it? she wondered, a chill overtaking her.

Or would they just keep meeting when they could, maybe have a wild little fling in the boonies until it was time for her to go back to Mystery?

Would the whole experience be chalked up to good times, and they'd never see each other again?

Perhaps she was ready to revise her opinion about men. Maybe it was enough to have just the best sex in the world and nothing else. After Ned, maybe that was all she needed. No heart involved. Just free-
wheeling physical pleasure, no strings. That might be best. Low emotional expectations but high-power orgasms, to avoid the heartache.

Acting far more bravely than she felt, she finally summoned the courage to speak the dreaded question. “So when I am going to—”

“Look,” he said, cutting her off, “I have to tell you my schedule up here is pretty mercurial. I can't plan any kind of date until the fires are all out. But I'd still like to see you if I can.”

Pain shot through her heart like a thunderbolt. She knew what he was saying. If she was convenient, he'd come around again. But there were no plans. There was really nothing between them but sex.

So maybe she should be relieved, instead of hurt, she scolded herself. It was easier this way. More direct, less messy. Minimum involvement, maximum fun.

“We'll see how it goes, then,” she said evenly, not showing a trace of her wounded feelings.

He paused as if he had something on his mind that he was burning to let out. Finally he said, “I know Hazel keeps you busy, but there's a good café in Stony Rapids. We've got a van I can use, parked at the ranger station. How 'bout lunch tomorrow? I don't go on duty until six down in the canyon.”

“I don't know,” she murmured, not sure if she could keep the act up. “Maybe that would work. We've got a break tomorrow because Hazel and her
cronies are going into town to buy…uh, Neat's-foot oil and a few other weird things like that.”

“Neat's-foot oil isn't weird, townie. You use it to waterproof leather. I rub it on my boots all the time.”

“I know,” Jo said, nervousness tickling her stomach as she thought about the Chute. “We'll be waterproofing ours, too, for the river rafting.”

“Piece of cake,” he assured her. Then he smiled. “So maybe I'll see you tomorrow?”

“Looks like it, Mr. Fireman.” She studied him, wondering if his plans for lunch involved a stop at the hourly motel. The tawdriness of it crippled her heart even more. She wasn't sure she could go through with it.

Minimum involvement, maximum fun needed a stone-cold heart. And so far, from the hurt she felt inside, hers still had a bit of warmth in it.

“Between ten and ten-thirty, okay?”

“Sure. Sweet dreams.” She made to walk away, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her to him. He kissed her. She wanted the willpower to cut it short, but instead, her need grew for more. He seemed to trigger her like some wild animal in heat.

“See you at ten.” He finally pulled away and retreated down the road.

She turned toward the cabins and again felt the knife through her heart. There was no denying her passion for him, but she was vulnerable, especially now. She was bound to make the wrong choices, and
going to town with him for a quickie didn't seem like the right choice.

But when he showed up at ten, she would go with him, she knew it. He would kiss her, and she would want him. And for an hour, he would make the hurt go away, until it fired anew with a vengeance.

Nonetheless, she couldn't help feeling the irony of the situation. Hazel had lectured Kayla and the others on the “true purpose” of this trip into the wilderness; now her main protégée was slinking home in the dark, guilty as sin, man scent still clinging to her.

They're all asleep, she assured herself as she approached her cabin.

But somehow she knew explaining herself wouldn't be that easy. Because even she didn't understand what she had done.