Fire at Twilight: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 1 (9 page)

“My sister’s clothes,” Grace said, stepping forward onto the porch, closing the door firmly behind her. “I told her it was a bad idea.”

“Are you kidding?” Tox almost stuttered, tripping over the words. “No! I don’t want you to think—well, of course you’d think …”

“That you think I look terrible?” She put her shoulders back, and her next words were strong. “Well, I think I look nice.” She blinked hard, as if she were working on believing it herself.

Tox stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders. “You look incredible.”

“I … what? You just said …”

“You look hotter than the devil’s kitchen. I can’t believe how good you look.” Didn’t she
know
that?

“Oh.” She bit her bottom lip. Chewed on it, really. Then she blushed. Yeah, Tox liked it when she did that. In fact, he wanted her to do that all the time. Everywhere. He wondered what she looked like she was naked and blushing. How far did that red spread?

“But you do have to change.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re doing something that will require the use of sneakers. And old clothes.”

An expression of relief crossed her face. “Oh, thank goodness.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

Tox waited on the porch. Grace had a knack for decorating, he noticed. Not like the designers on HGTV that Coin watched at the station, not all fancy, but both her practice in the old Victorian and this little house had the same feeling, as if they had grown up around her, naturally. There had to be fifty potted plants, flowers blooming and draping, all colors. Comfortable old wooden furniture—a swing and three chairs—invited him to sit. He imagined her entertaining out here, seated with her bare feet pulled up underneath her, hair loose, pouring glasses of iced tea for friends.

For a brief second, he wondered if he could ever be someone who sat out here with her. He imagined her bare feet resting in his lap.

Grace came outside, dressed in a blue zippered sweatshirt, jeans, and blue canvas shoes. Her hair, so carefully styled before, was pulled back into a ponytail. She’d rubbed off the dark lipstick, but she still wore the prettily smudged eye makeup. She looked ready to paint a house or play paintball. How was it possible that she looked even hotter now, dressed like this?

“What are we doing?” she asked. Her face was open. Happy. Expectant.

Tox didn’t want to let her down. “I’m not sure if you have an online profile, but I think it’s required by law that if you do, you have to say you like long walks on the beach. So I thought we’d do that.” He’d meant it as funny and tongue-in-cheek. Now that he’d said it out loud, it just kind of sounded stupid. So he added the clincher. “With my new dog.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

He’d kept the dog!

Grace squeaked—she knew she did—when Tox led her to the dog crate leashed into the back of a black truck.

“Where’s your motorcycle?”

“Turns out she doesn’t like riding much. That was one exciting ride home yesterday, I’ll tell you that much.”

Grace grinned and climbed up on the back tire so she could reach through the crate’s bars to give the wee pup a scratch. “So you own all the big boy toys? The motorcycle, the big truck … Do you have the boat, too?”

“Does a jetski count?”

Raising one eyebrow at him, Grace decided to let him off the hook for the water sports safety lecture. Besides, the dog was taking all her attention. “Can she ride in the cab with us?”

“Whatever you want, darlin’,” said Tox with an unexpected drawl that made Grace’s knees get warm.

The puppy sat on Grace’s lap during the short ride to Fenton’s Beach. When Tox took the corner at First she almost spilled off, but then she scrambled back, seemingly desperate not to lose contact.

Tox parked in the lot and they walked past Mabel’s Café toward the sand. Grace felt awkward, rejecting every sentence that came to mind as too silly or too frivolous.

Down near the water, though, the salt wind whipping her ponytail, the small dog stretching her leash to its limit, Grace felt the tightness in her jaw start to relax. “She’s adorable,” she said to Tox.

“I know.”

“That fur, though.”

“She has a grooming appointment tomorrow.”

Grace nodded. “She’s too skinny.”

“Agreed,” he said amiably. “We’ll fix that right up.”

“How?”

“Steak. Lots of steak.”

Surprised, Grace said, “I can’t imagine that would be the best diet for a puppy.”

“I was teasing,” he said. “Mostly. But ice cream isn’t out of the question.”

“Really?’

“Man, you’re easy to tease.”

“Gah. I’ve always been gullible,” said Grace. She bent over and undid the laces of her shoes. “Once a guy convinced me he was the first test-tube baby in the world.”

“Why would he say that?”

“I don’t know.” Grace had never thought to wonder why he’d done that. “I have no idea.”

“Men will say anything to get laid,” he said.

The sand was cool and damp between her toes. “Is that true, do you think?”

Tox’s eyebrows raised as he took off his own shoes. They left them in a companionable pile at the edge of the iceplant, safely out of the waves’ way. “
Oh
, yeah.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to admit that on a date,” said Grace.

He looked rueful. “Probably not.”

Something that resembled daring filled Grace spine. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever said? To get laid?”

“Oh, man. I really don’t think I should go there.”

Her heart beat rapidly. “I’ll tell you the worst thing I ever said.” Grace could only think of something she’d heard her sister say at a bar.

Tox laughed. “Girls do it, too?”

The bar line Samantha had said tripped off her tongue. “I told a guy that I could tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue.”

“I’m intrigued. You can?”

“Sure. Who can’t?” Grace had never even tried. The lie burned a path into her stomach.

Tox tugged on the leash. The puppy ran toward a seagull, pretending she wasn’t on leash, her short legs scrabbling at the wet sand. “Wow. But if it was the truth, then I don’t think that counts as a bad thing. It’s only morally reprehensible if you’re making it up, just to get some action.”

“A man with a conscience,” Grace said, trying to will her blush to stop. “That’s admirable.”

“Don’t say that yet. I once told a girl I’d run a baker’s dozen marathons.”

“And you hadn’t?”

“I don’t run unless it’s from a bear.”

A wave ran at them, and they dodged. A young woman wearing headphones race-walked past them, arms pumping. Grace said, “What kind of exercise do you do then?”

Tox looked at her with a leer.

She blushed harder. “Okay, never mind. Just get some exercise sometime, would you? It’s good for you. What other lies have you told women?”

“My worst lie?”

“Yeah.”

Tox guided her around a large strand of seaweed that blocked their way. “I once told a girl that I was a Russian prince.”

“To get in her pants?”

He shrugged. “She was gorgeous.”

Grace felt a funny twist in her stomach. She wondered what gorgeous looked like to him. Probably not jeans and a sweatshirt with hair pulled back in a scruffy ponytail. “How did you explain your lack of accent?”

“Oh, I had an accent.”

“You’re kidding me. Do it.”

He grinned. “No way.”

“
Do
it.”

“Zen I vud haff to keel you.”

As she dodged another wave, Grace laughed, deeply, from her belly. “So you were a German Russian?”

“I was Eastern European. Of some flavor. I was rich, and my mother owned a fleet of horses.”

“Horses come in fleets?”

When he smiled, his eyes crinkled at the edges in wonderful ways. “They did for me, when I was a child in the palace. I was raised by six full-time nannies.”

“How could being raised by six nannies possibly be attractive to someone?”

“I think it was the implied money that the fleet of horses and the flight of nannies that did it.”

“So it worked.”

He gave a nod and whistled to the dog who gave no sign of hearing him. “Totally.”

“How long did it last?”

“A week.”

“A good week?”

He glanced at her sideways. “Not that great. She was a little crazy.”

“Crazy for falling for a Russian prince?”

“Actually, that was my out. I had to return to the land of my people.”

“And you’re calling
her
crazy?”

“She tried to choke my ex-girlfriend when we ran into each other at a bar.”

“Oh!” said Grace. “Okay, that’s crazy.”

“I’ve never been attracted to the sane ones. The good-for-me ones.”

Me, neither
. She didn’t say it. There was a pause. Grace considered filling it, but she was thrown. Everything about this man threw her. His casual good looks, his confidence, his jokes. The way she wanted desperately to brush against him. Casually. Or more.

Then Tox said, “Which is what makes you so interesting to me. That I’m so attracted to you.”

Dang, he just put it out there, didn’t he? Grace felt a warmth flood her. “Oh.”

“I’m looking for your crazy.”

She laughed, turning her face to the last of the sunlight. It would drop behind the rapidly advancing fog bank soon, and the air would cool rapidly. Three different couples wandered the same way they did, dodging into and away from the waves. They walked in silence, laughing periodically at the dog. After a few more minutes, they both turned back toward the pier companionably.

Grace finally said, “You’ve seen me in two different crisis modes, so you’re closer than most to knowing what my crazy is like.”

“And in both cases, you were trying to take care of someone else and not yourself.”

“What? No, I wasn’t. Not the second time. I was just trying to breathe.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You were taking care of your sister, doing everything you could do make her think you were okay. Then you were helping me, getting the guys out to me with the baby.”

“Hey,” said Grace, remembering. “Why did that firefighter call you the Angel of Death? Doesn’t seem like that’s a very firefighter-like thing to say.”

Tox’s green eyes went darker, the color of the water at the edge of the foam. “Just a nickname.”

“Like Tox?”

“Worse. Some people … It just seems like bad stuff happens around me, that’s all. If a call’s going to go south, I’m usually either there or on my way to it.”

“Huh.” She wondered briefly what that meant about his relationships. “But you’re a helper. You help. That’s your job.”

“Same as you. That’s what we do, right?”

“Well.” She shrugged. “If that’s true at all, it’s only because it’s easier.”

“I think that’s your crazy.”

“Taking care of people?” She pointed at the dog, still straining on her leash. “Number one, pot, meet kettle. And number two, that’s not such a bad problem to have.” She had to change the subject. This was too much, too intimate. “What are you going to name her?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What’s in the running?”

He shortened the leash as an errant wave threatened to drench the puppy. “I like Loki.”

“No,” said Grace without hesitation.

“Why not?”

“She’s a girl! And Loki was the god of destruction. It’s like naming your kid Damien. You get what you deserve.”

“Okay. Then Appaloosa.”

“That’s the opposite of Loki, I guess, but that’s so long. And wouldn’t you shorten it to Loose? Then she’d be guaranteed to be pregnant before she even graduates her first training class.”

“Methyl.”

“Ethyl?”

He slowed his pace, and then stopped, slapping his thigh. The dog came running. Heck, Grace wanted to, too. “No, Methyl. It’s a hazmat thing.”

“It’s short for some chemical?”

“Yep.”

Why wasn’t he just saying what it was short for? “And …”

“Methyl-ethyl bad stuff. Only … we don’t normally say the word stuff.”

“Ah.”

“You know the rule of thumb for methyl-ethyl bad stuff?”

Grace shook her head. His voice was teasing again, and she liked the way it sounded in her ears. Rough and happy.

He held up a fist, his thumb up, holding his arm out straight toward the horizon. “Imagine there’s an explosion out there, way out at sea.”

Squinting, she said, “Okay.”

“You want to stay far enough away from the methyl-ethyl bad stuff that when you hold up your hand like this, your thumb covers it up.” He looked at her, and then, to her surprise, he put his arm around her waist and drew her against his chest. “It’s pretty technical.”