SmokingHot (6 page)

“I like to be square,” she said. “If you’re going to do this, I want to do something for you.”

He could think of all sorts of things she could do for him, starting with running her lips down his neck. “I’m not a cheap date.”

“Art lessons don’t come cheap.”

She’d decided to give him the hard sell. He bit back a grin. He’d played poker almost nightly with a dozen of the most bad-ass SEALs around. She wasn’t out-negotiating him.

“I charge ten dollars a lesson and that’s the group fee. It’s more for private sessions.”

Deflection time. He snagged the bag from her and dropped it on the trunk. “Is the list in here?”

She laughed. No more tears—he’d done something right. “Tye—”

Hearing her laugh was worth everything. Moving swiftly, he popped the snap and shook it open. The inside of her bag was even worse than the backseat of her car. Not only did the bag weigh a good fifteen pounds, but it clearly doubled as a second closet. Or a trash can. He wasn’t really sure which.

“That’s mine.” Her hand reached around him, feeling for the bag. “Give it back.”

“Nuh-uh.” He shook the contents. “I’m going in and you owe me hazard pay.”

“Don’t malign my bag.” She ducked under his arm, but that move left her sandwiched between him and the Kia’s trunk. Not a whole lot of space, he thought happily, as her backside pressed against his front, making parts of him stand to attention. “That’s Coach.”

“You name your bag?” He’d named dogs. His unit had adopted an Afghan dog, feeding the animal, watching out for him, and generally loving on him whenever a damp nose nudged their hands. Or their guns, boots, or packs. Stan, so named because of the plethora of Waziristans, Nuristans, and other places ending in -stan on the Afghan map.
Kade
had wanted to bring the dog home.

Katie’s finger jabbed the hot pink circle on the bag’s side.
Coach.
Apparently, that was a brand name. And a good one, too, based on her exasperated huff. He’d know next time. Methodically, he rifled through the contents. Which consisted of completely disorganized layers of crap interspersed with various female bits and pieces.
Jesus.
And a strip of condoms.

“I want to see that list.”

“Need-to-know,” she chirped.

“You made me curious,” he argued, pretending he hadn’t just manhandled her condom stash. “And I think I should know what I’m getting into. There’s a reason why you’re offering to trade these high-priced art lessons for my services. I’d like to know what it is.”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d take a pair of heels,” she said. “Although I can certainly switch the offer up if you’d prefer shoes.”

“No shoes,” he agreed.

“You knew Kade. I think he would have liked this.”

Kade would have kicked his ass six ways to Sunday and back for what Tye was thinking.

He filtered another layer of crap, more cautiously this time, and came up with some kind of bright blue leather slipper thing curling up on itself. He had no idea where someone would wear a shoe like that. At least, he thought it was a shoe. Maybe. And then there it was—an eight by fourteen piece of yellow notepad paper folded into thick eighths like some kind of grade school love note.
Bingo.
He plucked the list out of her bag.

She made a sound like a distressed bird and twisted in his arms until she faced him, reaching up for the note that he held out of her reach. Which wasn’t hard because Katie wasn’t an overachiever in the height department.

He waved the paper, shaking out the folds. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

“That’s private.” She leaned into him, stretching. Apparently, full body contact wasn’t off-limits in her rule book.

“Not for long,” he grinned at her and started scanning. “I’m not sure you should be allowed near a machine gun.”

“Says you,” she grumbled, reaching half-heartedly for the list again.

He gently batted her hand away. “Sharks. A mountain. And an entire novel. Are you sure this list is Kade’s? The man bitched about completing a postcard.”

“He wrote to me.”

He didn’t want to think about that, so he went on reading. When he got to the top of the list, he knew precisely what Katie hadn’t wanted him to see. He raised a brow. “You’ve got your work cut out for you. And I think you need to recruit another girl if you’re planning on a proper ménage.”

And there it was—her blush. He’d hit pay dirt all right. “That’s Kade’s list.”

He shrugged. “You’re the one who said she planned on checking the items off his bucket list. Every. Single. One.”

Face still pink, she got back in the game, raising a brow. “I can find another guy.”

And… point to her, because his reaction to the mere thought of
sharing
Katie with any one was off the radar. “Since this is Kade’s list, you need to find a girl.”

“You wish,” she groused.

She had no idea how badly he
wished
. “Uh-huh. Count me in.”

“When are you coming home?” Tye’s father sounded the same as ever. “Your mother and me, we’d like to know. We’ll make some plans.”

Hell.

The family phone call probably shouldn’t make Tye feel like he had his back to the wall and his weapon up, only to discover that the clip had jammed. Going home for the summer hadn’t been part of his plans. He had Kade’s temporary gig in Strong to fulfill and the man’s fiancée to sort. In other words, his plate was full.

You don’t
want
to go home
, a little voice said.

He ignored it.

“Not this leave,” he said, because clearly once hadn’t been enough.

“You’ve got two months, right?” His father circled back to the meat of the problem like a shark scenting chum.

“I’ve got plans.” Cradling his cell phone between his ear and his shoulder, he moved to the RV’s kitchen counter and grabbed the loaf of bread he’d bought in town. Maybe carbs would help. “I signed on for the summer with the Strong smoke jumping team.”

“Sure,” his dad acknowledged, tiptoeing around the elephant in the room. They both knew Tye was supposed to be taking time off—not moonlighting as a smoke jumper. “But you get time off, right? There’s no reason why you can’t come down for a weekend.”

And there it was. The
son, I’m disappointed in you
tone that made Tye feel like he was twelve again. He slapped peanut butter on whole wheat while he considered his answer. He didn’t miss the MREs, but his own cooking wasn’t much of a step up. Thank God for the camp cooks.

“One weekend,” his dad said, twisting the parental screws just a little tighter. “For your mom. You do what you need to do the other seven, but give her those two days.”

Tye didn’t wash out or ring the bell. He’d survived the hell that was BUD/S training and not once had he been tempted to cross the deck and ring the bell that signaled he was quitting. Instead, he’d rolled with the challenges. Beaten them.
Won.
But, Jesus, the rulebook didn’t apply to parents.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, meaning
Please let me hang up the phone.

“Tye—” His dad huffed out a breath. “You were overseas for ten months. Your mother misses you. I miss you. So level with me. Why can’t you come home?”

“I have something I need to do here.”

“And it has to take all summer?”

Maybe. Hell, he didn’t know. How long did it take a woman to get over her fiancée’s death and get her own life back on track? Katie’s face as she ran had been determined but teary, as spunky as those ridiculous shoes of hers. She wouldn’t let life knock her down for long.

“I lost a man,” he said, instead of answering his father’s question. “In Afghanistan. His fiancée lives here in Strong.”

“You can’t live his life for him,” his dad pointed out. “If that’s what you were thinking of doing.”

“I know that.” He stared out the RV’s open door. A couple of smoke jumpers wandered by, headed for their own temporary shack-ups. Several guys were also batching it in trailers for the summer, while others camped up in the row of rental cabins near the hangar. The place buzzed with easy camaraderie and there were plenty of pizza dinners when camp food got old, followed by a cold beer for the off-duty. It was like summer camp for adults, in some ways, except that when the call came in, these guys would go up and out the plane bay, determined to fight whatever wildland fire needed fighting.

He understood why Kade Jordan had wanted to come back here. This fight made a hell of a lot more sense than the fights in Afghanistan or the Middle East, where the SEALs had only a piece of the intel picture.

“Look. Maybe we can come up, okay?” his dad offered.

“I don’t know when I’ll be on the ground.” Fire was unpredictable. “But that would be great.”

Not
.

He wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened in Afghanistan and his parents would ask. That was the thing about love: it worried. His mother would want to fix him and his father would get behind her one hundred and ten percent. Dealing with all that concern was just not something he could do right now. So here he was. In Strong.

And... he spotted incoming.

Katie Lawson pulled up in front of his RV, precisely fourteen minutes late. Frankly, he was amazed that itty-bitty, too-purple Kia had managed highway speeds. He eyeballed the car, but the sides and fenders seemed good. She hadn’t acquired any more dings since the last time he’d seen her.

“I have to go,” he said.

While his father worked his way through the goodbye spiel, Tye watched Katie extricate herself from the car. His eyes went straight to her shoes and he could feel himself smiling. Kade hadn’t mentioned the thing she had for ridiculously feminine shoes. Maybe it was a new thing and the other man hadn’t known.

He liked that even better, pretending he had a piece of Katie that had been off-limits to Kade.

***

“You’re starting with an easy one.” Hands on her hips, Katie pouted at him. Deliberately. He recognized the look. She’d play him for all she was worth and then she’d reel him in. The catch would be sweet, but he’d be dancing to her tune. Had it worked on Kade?

“I told you before, no machine guns.” He tapped the end of her nose. “It’s Segway or nothing today.”

He’d borrowed the Segway from a local police unit where a former SEAL team member was working and the x2 looked pretty bad-ass with oversized treaded tires and plenty of black. There was also an add-on bumper, so no worries if she dumped the Patroller.

Joey, however, looked like he might not let go of the fender frame. He’d volunteered to help Tye unload the Patroller from the back of Tye’s pickup and Tye was fairly certain it was lust on first sight on Joey’s part.

“That’s a sweet ride. Are you keeping it all summer?” Yeah. That was naked longing in the other jumper’s voice.

“Long enough,” he said. “You can ride it later.”

The
get lost
was plenty clear in his voice. Katie got the first ride, no matter how many covetous looks the other smoke jumpers tossed her way. He’d share his toys later. Joey finally ambled off with one last lustful look at the Segway and Katie watched him go.

“He could have taken it out for a spin.”

“Ladies first.”

She shot him a grin. “Joey would tell you I’m no lady.”

He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t answering that. “So, sharks, huh?” he deflected.

Her smile lit him up inside and made him want to do whatever it took to earn a repeat. Huh. He ran through a few quick memories, but he couldn’t remember ever feeling like that before. He’d earned winning times on a course. Medals. And kill counts. Smiles, however, were foreign territory.

She ran a finger down the handlebar. “I like fish. I love the ocean.”

Uninvited, his imagination immediately transplanted her into the middle of the Indian Ocean. Surrounded by fifteen-foot sharks. He didn’t think that was what she had in mind. Of course, his next mental image—of her in a shark cage with the toothy bastards swimming around her and knocking into the bars—wasn’t much better. Cage diving was safer than what the SEALs got up to, but it was also no afternoon snorkel with stingrays. Fortunately, there were plenty of other items on Kade’s bucket list.

And ecoparks. He was fairly certain there was at least one ecopark in Mexico where you wadded into a pen up to your knees and, boom, there were the sharks. That might be safe enough, plus he’d get to see her in a bikini.

“Swimming with sharks is pretty hard to do when you’re landlocked.”

“I’m up for a field trip.”

“Not today,” he said, because he wasn’t. He had commitments to the jump team and he wasn’t ready to leave Strong anyhow. Being in Strong felt right, the place strangely peaceful, with a side of smoking hot. Both literally and figuratively, he thought, running his gaze over Katie.

“Do I pass inspection?”

And…there was another land mine and a question with no right answer. Her white sundress was going to drive him crazy long before they finished the ride. The dress was made out of some kind of floaty fabric with thin ribbons crisscrossing her shoulders. Little white buttons marched down the front, making him wonder if they were decorative—or functional. Flicking them open one by one would be the best kind of Christmas present.

The shoes, however, were a different kind of problem.

She stuck out a foot for said inspection, presenting a red leather boot with appliqués of white moons and yellow stars. More buttons marched up the side. Apparently, Katie had a thing for buttons. Unfortunately, the sexy heel was only part of the problem. The boots also stopped two inches south of her knees. Her dress started three north of her knees. He wanted to wrap his hands around her bare legs and explore.

“You can’t ride in those boots,” he decided. “You’ll fall off.”

She eyed the Segway’s platform. “I’ve been standing for years, Tye. I’m not going to fall off.”

While she stared at the Segway, he stared at her legs. Falling off was the least of his worries. She was Kade’s fiancée, for Christ’s sake. He had no business looking at her and imagining those red boots wrapped around his waist, the heels digging into the small of his back as he took her on a very different kind of ride. The problem was, he couldn’t seem to turn off the fantasies where Katie was concerned.

“Show me how to ride this thing,” she ordered and parts of him—southern, unruly parts—wanted to do just that.

“Don’t you own a pair of sneakers?”

She turned her head and looked at him. Laughter crinkled the corner of her eyes. “Don’t you own anything besides those steel-toes?”

“What’s wrong with my boots?”

“You own just one pair of shoes. That’s it, isn’t it?”

He had a pair of hiking boots. And he was fairly certain he also had a pair of sneakers. Somewhere.

“Two,” he said. “I own two pairs of shoes. Possibly three, but I’d need to confirm the whereabouts of the third.”

She stepped closer, the frothy material of her skirt brushing his thighs. “That’s seriously sub-standard.”

“What do I need more for?” He narrowed his eyes. “How many pairs do you have?”

And why had he noticed her shoes anyhow? Because they demanded attention, he decided virtuously.

She waved a hand. “I honestly have no idea.”

“Guess.”

She chewed on her lower lip, clearly considering a resounding
no
.

“Or I’m not letting you on the Segway,” he said. “Joey can have the first ride after all.”

“All of my shoes?” she asked. “Or just the ones I made?”

“You make your own shoes?” Maybe that explained the collection.

“I made these.” She wiggled her foot at him and her skirt spilled back higher.
Jesus
. Both the shoes and the legs were gorgeous.

“I picked mine up from the PX.” He shrugged, playing it casual. “They get the job done.”

From the pained look on her face, shoes weren’t a function in her world. Negative. They were a
calling
along the lines of a religious vocation. He made a mental note not to damage any of her footwear.

“I’ve always had a thing for shoes.” She shrugged. “From the moment I got my first Barbie and realized you could buy cards and cards of these little plastic pumps. Barbie had shoes for every outfit. Learning how to make them was a better way to feed the addiction.”

“I thought Barbie was a feminist nightmare.”

“She was fun, although the shoes were a killer. I’d pop them on my fingers and walk them around.”

O-kay. And he’d been making weapons out of anything he could get his hands on when he was that age.

“Do I get to ride?”

“Yeah,” he said, giving in because he was being an ornery bastard and he knew it. It wasn’t her fault—much—that her shoes redefined
come fuck me
shoes. His problem. Not hers.

“But let’s review the safety protocols and how-tos, okay?”

“
Maraveilleux,
” she said and he figured swimming with the sharks was safe because, damn, her French accent needed work. Lots and lots of work. She wasn’t checking
learn French
off Kade’s bucket list any time soon.

“Shift your weight forward to go straight; lean backward to go backwards; squeeze the handle left or right. It’s pretty basic.”

“Got it.” She hopped onto the platform, clearly itching to get started.

Yeah. Time to rain on her parade somehow. He stepped up behind her, putting his arms around her and covering her hands on the grip.

“Scoot forward,” he demanded, pressing against her back. And her legs and her ass... There were advantages to sharing a Segway built for one.

“I thought I got to drive,” she groused.

“Not this time,” he said, although he’d seen her Kia and the answer was really
not a chance in hell.
He had to return this thing in one piece.