Smolder (Firefighters of Montana Book 1) (13 page)

“It’s my greatest handicap.” Her eyes met his as she stared at him over the rim of her wine glass. “Well, one of them anyway.”

Sam leaned back in his chair as she sipped her wine. He pulled a nacho off the plate and crunched it, trying to tamp down on his rising frustration. “Is that how you see me? As a handicap?”

“No! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.” She reached across the table and took his hand in hers. “If anything, I’m the one who’s handicapped. I keep picking guys who…who…” She chewed on her lip again.

Damn it, this one time why couldn’t she say what she meant?

“Who what, Laurel?”

“Who—”

Her friend, the woman with blonde ringlets, the big blue eyes, and an insatiable thirst for appletinis, stepped around the parachute. “Laurel?”

Laurel tried to pull her hand free, but Sam wrapped his fingers around hers and held on. She shot him an aggravated look before turning to her friend. “Ivy? What’s up?”

Ivy’s gaze bounced from Laurel to Sam and back again. “Um, Bryce is here.”

Her hand went limp in his grasp. “What? Bryce is where?”

“Here,” a male voice said as Ivy stepped away to reveal Bryce Johnson and his cheesy grin.

*

All the air
seemed to leave Laurel’s lungs in one gasp. “Bryce! What are you doing here?” Panic suddenly set in and she glanced past Bryce and Ivy. “Where’s Tyson?”

She tugged at her hand, anxious to look in the front of the bar for Tyson. But Sam wouldn’t let go. Didn’t he understand that something must be wrong with her son and she needed to get to him? Laurel glared at him, but when she met Sam’s eyes, a fierce determination shone back at her. There was compassion in them, too, but what hit her hardest was the calm competence she saw reflected there. The reliable soldier that was ingrained in him. He was there for her, his eyes communicated, soothing her. With a slight nod, he slowly released her fingers.

“Relax, Tyson’s fine,” Bryce said as he helped himself to a nacho. “He’s at home with your parents.”

Confused, Laurel’s heart was still racing. “I don’t understand. You weren’t supposed to be home until tomorrow.”

“Change in plans.” Bryce wiped his hands with a napkin and fixed his gaze on Sam. “Sorry to put a monkey wrench in
your
plans, though.”

Ivy giggled before quickly covering it with a feigned cough. Her friend shot an apologetic look at Laurel. It belatedly registered with Laurel that they weren’t alone. Worse, the crowded bar had quieted substantially.
All the better to eavesdrop on what was playing out behind Hugh’s parachute.
Her stomach rolled. It wasn’t enough that everyone in town gossiped about her being a single mother with a superstar baby daddy. Now Bryce was making it seem as though she was out partying and hooking up while Tyson was away.

Which, of course, she was,
damn it
.

“You must be the soldier Tyson was talking about.” Bryce extended his hand toward Sam. “The one with the…
horse
Laurel is riding.”

Laurel cringed at the double entendre, her anger with Bryce escalating. His hand hung in the air awkwardly for a long moment before Sam grasped it with his own. “Yep,” was all he said. He was a mountain of unflinching muscle as he stared Bryce down.

Tori, seemingly oblivious of the palpable tension, slipped in between Ivy and Bryce. “On the house,” she said with her mouth while her hips communicated a host of invitations.

Bryce accepted the bottle of Blue Moon with the trademark smile his parents had paid a fortune to a Marin County dentist for.

“Thank you, darlin’.”

“Whatever you want,” Tori called over her shoulder with a wink.

Ivy crossed her arms in front of her and groaned audibly. Laurel would have, too, but she still wasn’t sure what was happening.

“Bryce, tell me what’s going on. Now,” she ordered. It wasn’t lost on her that she had to use the same mommy voice she used with Tyson on a grown man. “Why are you home early? Tyson was looking forward to this trip. What happened?”

“That’s the thing,” Bryce said sheepishly. “I don’t think he was ready for a trip like this.”

“What do you mean?” she demanded.

“He’s kind of whiny and a bit of a baby.”

“What?” Laurel stared at Bryce in disbelief.

“He’s
five!
” Ivy shouted.

“Going on six. And you two”—Bryce pointed to Ivy before turning his finger on Laurel—“have turned him into a mama’s boy.”

Laurel would have charged across the table, but Sam’s hand on her arm stopped her. He gave her that look again and she sucked in a deep breath.

“It’s the first time the boy had been away from his mother for any length of time, Johnson. It happens,” Sam said quietly. “If you spent some time with him, you’d see he’s a typical kid who is, in fact, very independent.”

Bryce’s body stiffened and the people in the bar seemed to collectively hold their breath while Garth Brooks sang about friends in low places on the jukebox.

“Well, well, Laurel.” Bryce’s eyes grew hard as he directed his stare at Sam. “It seems this guy knows more about my son than I do. Is there something you’re not telling me about your relationship with the captain?”

She buried her head in her hands with a groan. “There is no relationship!”

Sam stilled beside her, and even the stupid jukebox was quiet as it shifted to a new song. Laurel peeked out from behind her fingers to see Ivy, her eyes wide in her pale face. Bryce, on the other hand, wore a cocky expression that clearly said he was having fun stirring up trouble. The thing with Bryce was that he thought everyone wanted to push the envelope like he did. He didn’t understand there were repercussions to most of his bold words or actions. Bryce was a lot like his five-year-old son that way.

She was saved from having to look at Sam when the sound of alarms sounded on multiple cell phones.

“Cap?” Miranda poked her head around the parachute. “The crash site is seventy miles west of here. Because we’re going that direction we’ve got an hour and a half left of daylight. I can be wheels up in twenty minutes and have you on scene in forty-five.”

Sam looked up from the screen of his phone just as Tyler Dodson rounded the corner. “I need three people to suit up,” Sam told Tyler in that no-nonsense military tone of his. “We’ll go in with search and rescue and make sure the fire stays contained. It’ll be boots out though, so we’ll be gone overnight at the very least.”

“Ferguson and Rivers are gearing up in the ready room now. I’ll be your fourth.”

Laurel shivered at the cavalier way Tyler put his life on the line, as though he were simply committing himself to a game of cards.

“Let’s go,” Sam said.

It stupidly dawned on her that Sam was going, too. He wasn’t issuing orders to a crew; he was leading it.

Jumping from an airplane into a fire.

“Wait!” Laurel shot out of her chair, barely able to squeeze the word out through her constricting throat.

She’d hurt him a moment ago. Not that he’d ever admit it. But she knew she had. This thing between them confused him just as much as it did Laurel. She needed to apologize, to fix this, in case…in case… She swallowed roughly, unwilling to fathom what might happen to him.

Sam’s body was poised for flight and she could see it was costing him to halt. When he turned toward her, his eyes still had that steely, competent look, but the compassion that had been there moments earlier was gone. Laurel’s felt its loss down to her toes.

The Dixie Chicks were singing something about things not working out and Laurel would have laughed at the irony—except tears burned the back of her eyes.

“I—you—I,” she stammered.

“Laurel,” Sam said, not bothering to conceal his impatience. “A small plane has crashed into the side of a mountain. There are three people who need to be rescued and a fire that needs to be contained. Whatever this is, it’s going to have to wait.”

He was right. She felt foolish and small and just a little bit desperate, emotions she’d sworn never to feel again after she’d first become pregnant with Tyson. But now wasn’t the time for her and Sam to resolve things.

“Of course, yes.” She nodded, tucking her trembling hands behind her.

Just when he looked like he might say something more, he turned and headed out of the bar.

“Be safe,” she whispered at his retreating back.

Miranda gave her a sympathetic look before hurrying after Sam.

“W
hat do you
mean you didn’t tell Tyson you’re getting married?” Laurel had just gotten her emotions under control when Bryce dropped yet another bombshell.

Earlier, she’d hurried from the bar, eager to get back to the ranch and see for herself that her son was in fact fine. It wasn’t until Tyson had wrapped his skinny arms around her neck and she’d breathed in that familiar scent of sweaty little boy and baby shampoo that she felt her chest begin to relax a bit.

“I missed you,” she whispered against the smooth skin of his cheek.

“I missed everyone,” Tyson said, his blue eyes shining when Laurel brushed his soft hair off his face. “But I missed you the most.”

Laurel managed a painful swallow; her throat was so constricted with emotion. “Didn’t you have fun meeting Mickey and Donald?”

“Yeah, but I wanted you to meet them, too.”

She hugged him more tightly as she squeezed her eyes shut to hold back tears.

A half hour later, dusk was falling at the ranch. Seated in his grandmother’s lap on the big porch of the main house with Oreo, Truman, and Pirate crowded at his feet, Tyson was busy telling all the animals about his trip. Laurel and Bryce had wandered over to one of the paddocks to speak more privately.

“I tried to tell him about the wedding, believe me, but he refused to give Audrianna more than two words the entire time. I think he was a little put out that she was even there,” Bryce explained.

“He doesn’t get a lot of time with just you.”

Bryce rested his forearms on the wooden fence. “Don’t hit me with a guilt trip, Laurel. You know what my life is like. Full-time fatherhood was never in the Olympic training plan.”

Her sigh was part exasperation and part guilt. “I know that, Bryce. And for the millionth time, I’m sorry.”

Bryce swore. “Stop it. I don’t regret having a son. And I certainly don’t regret that you’re his mother. I wish things could have worked out between us, but they didn’t. Tyson needs to fit into the life I’m making, though, Laurel.”

Laurel wrapped her arms around her middle in hopes of quelling the rising nausea that this conversation always brought on. “He’s in kindergarten. He doesn’t understand everything that’s happening. Give him time.”

“I’m not sure time is going to change the scenario that Tyson has in his head.”

She cringed, thinking about what Sam said Tyson had told him the previous week. Laurel had ignored it, not wanting to put a damper on her son’s trip. Now she wondered if she’d just been in as much denial as her son.

“Mommy! Daddy,” Tyson called merrily as he ran from the porch, Oreo barking excitedly at his heels. “Grandpa says there are new baby lambs at the animal sanctuary. Can we go see them tomorrow? Please?” He scrambled up on the railing between Laurel and Bryce and wrapped an arm around them both. “Maybe Daddy could take me to school in the morning tomorrow. Cameron’s daddy drops him off in the mornings so his mommy can sleep in. Mommy has been studying a lot. We should let her sleep in, huh, Daddy?” Tyson chattered on while Bryce looked shell-shocked. “Then we can all have a family outing to the sanctuary. There are picnic tables and a playground. Lots of families have picnics there.”

Bryce’s blue eyes—so much like Tyson’s—had that ‘I told you so’ look in them when they met hers over the top of their son’s head.

“Tyson, honey,” Laurel said gently. “Nobody’s sleeping in tomorrow because I have to work and you’ll want to go to school and tell Miss Ivy and your friends about Disneyland.” She went for a diversion, peering into Tyson’s ear. “Oh, my goodness, I think I see some pixie dust that Tinker Bell must have left in your ears,” she teased. “How about we get you into the tub?”

Her son wasn’t easily distracted, however. He wrapped his arms firmly around Bryce’s neck. “Daddy can give me a bath. I want to show him my wind-up hippo toy.”

When Bryce didn’t immediately respond, Laurel stepped in, just as she always did. “Honey, Daddy can’t stay. You can show him your toy another time.” She said a silent prayer her son would understand.

Tyson’s eyes dimmed. “Can’t you stay until the little hand is on the nine?” he asked softly.

Bryce shifted Tyson in his arms so the two were nose to nose. “Remember how I told you that I have to go to find the snow so I can practice for the Olympics?”

Tyson’s head bobbed up and down solemnly.

“Well, the team is leaving for South America soon and I have to get my gear all ready. I have to fly back to Utah tonight.”

“They have rain forests in South America. Did you know that, Daddy?”

Bryce’s face softened as he gazed in amazement at their son. “I did know that, Halfpipe.”

“The horned frogs live there. We learned about them in school.”