Smolder (Firefighters of Montana Book 1) (21 page)

But she was smiling that big smile he hadn’t seen since last summer and said, “Oh, Vin!” She threw herself at him.

She was light, wispy as smoke, but she hit him like a mallet in the middle of his chest, winding him. He held her carefully. She was like a fine-boned fairy, smelling like magic yet her wiry arms were surprisingly strong, hugging him with a firm grip she kept around his neck a long time.

He hugged her back, enveloped in a desire to shield her from all the hurt she was facing by coming back here. The words
I miss him, too
, formed on his tongue, but he hesitated. He wasn’t someone who expressed much emotion. Hell, he might make himself cry if he said something. He sure as hell didn’t want that. His chest ached enough as it was, just holding her, but he found comfort in the embrace. The yawning emptiness hanging like a mist in front of his future became less gloomy.

He caught the eye of an older woman with curly, dark hair. She was smiling at them.

This isn’t want you think
, he wanted to protest. This was his best friend’s wife. He and Jac were friends. That was
all
.

If he happened to be aware of her small breasts flattened against his chest, or her soft hair against his jaw, that was just his starved libido whimpering on its chain. He ignored the signals and set her on her feet before his twitching wood became obvious.

Jac was totally off-limits.

*

Jacqui felt her
feet touch the floor and the emotion charging her grounded out, but she was still shaken. That had felt weirdly good. Her father was paunchy, so hugging him was pure comfort, but Vin was built the way Russ had been. He was vital and strong and pure man. Hugging him had felt like a lover’s embrace.

He smelled different from her husband, though, beneath the fragrance of snow and pine that clung to his clothes. Which was stirring in its own way. Recognizable, yet exotic.

She hadn’t felt so much as a hint of sexuality since—

Okay, she wasn’t going there. This was all just really overwhelming. Arriving home to have all her hard-made decisions wobble was taking a toll.

“Hey,” Vin greeted lightly, and sent the back of one finger along her jawline, sweeping away a tear. He bent and shouldered the carry-on bag she’d dropped when she’d thrown herself at him. “Your luggage is blue, right?”

“Yeah. Shar put a pink and yellow ribbon on it. I kept telling her this isn’t Denver, but she’s used to big airports.”

Jacqui was babbling as she tried to pull herself together. She couldn’t even explain the emotion that had overwhelmed her when she’d seen him. Homecoming times a million and completely unexpected. In the last months, she and Vin had connected regularly over Skype, mostly so she could see Muttley. Usually, they had talked about incidental
“how is your day”
stuff. He was working on the house in his spare time so he gave her updates, showed her tile samples and paint chips. Sometimes they talked about more personal things. He always made her laugh at least once. She almost always cried at least once.

Vin took it all in stride, never ruffled beyond his black, spiky hair. His brows were steady, straight lines over blue eyes that never missed a thing. His nose was a reliable bridge, his jaw strong and shadowed with a hint of stubble, his mouth… She had never looked at his mouth up close like this. His upper lip was a line of masculine perfection, deep at the corners, the sexy peaks accentuated by his stubble, his lower lip not quite as wide, but a little fuller.

The weird little catch of sexual attraction pulled at her again.

Vin was good-looking. Of course, she had always been aware of that; she wasn’t blind. But she had never been so struck by
how
hot he was.

Get a grip, Jac
.

Wiping at her cheeks, she said, “Thank you for coming to get me. I know I could have asked…” She shrugged. There were a dozen friends and in-laws she could have asked. “But I knew you’d be easier to be with. You don’t care if I cry.”

He brought his gaze back from scanning the carousel. His brows went down and he tucked in his chin, admonishing. “I care.”

“I mean you
let
me cry. Dad and Sharlene don’t know what to do with me when I’m like this. I’m really not looking forward to…” Talking. Seeing everyone. All the hugging and explaining and processing. She sighed and looked around, dreading bumping into someone they knew.

“It feels strange to see you in person.” He commented with a faint smile. “You’re not much taller than when you’re sitting on the coffee table. And what the hell is this?” He chucked his chin at her hair.

“Last minute madness.” She touched the silky tails at the back of her neck. “I was going for a job interview so I let Shar sheer me. It felt like a clean start at the time, but I wasn’t considering that I was coming back to Montana in April. Look at me.” She plucked the sweater off her mosquito-bite breasts. “Dressed for Florida. I left in the summer so I didn’t take any of my warm clothes. I had to borrow this from Shar so I wouldn’t freeze to death on arrival.”

“Snow’s melting. It’s not too bad.” He commented, and set down her carry-on to shrug out of his plaid shirt.

“Oh, don’t.” She protested.

“I’m acclimatized. I’ll be fine.” He wore a white T-shirt with a smokejumper crest over his heart. It clung to his tight frame, accentuating his muscled chest and flat stomach.

Seriously, Vin was
so
hot.

And so familiar in a million ways she wanted to cry all over again.

He swung his shirt around her and hung it off her shoulders. It was warm and held the smell of clean laundry and Montana spring and man deodorant along with the scent she’d already picked up as foreign.
Not
the man she slept with.

Used
to sleep with.

She pushed her arms into the sleeves, blushing a little, liking how it made her feel like he was still hugging her. “You’re the best, Vin.”

“I hear that a lot,” he said with a wink, then nodded at the carousel. “That your bag?”

*

Vin wanted to
take back the wink. What the hell was he doing? There was no flirting with the widow of your best friend. Jesus.

He retrieved Jac’s bag and said, “Is this it? You don’t pack like any woman I know.” He gave it a few pumps like a free weight, judging it to be under thirty pounds.

“I didn’t take much with me and mostly brought that one back so I’d have something to pack for the return.” She frowned at the bag, mouth pursing in dark thought. “But I can carry the small one.”

He gave her a look, not bothering to spell out that he regularly shouldered gear that weighed more than she did and carried it for miles over hilly terrain. She knew.

She even rolled her eyes a little as she met his disparaging look. “Always so macho.” She teased as they started toward the exit.

“Gotta stay in shape in the off season.”

“Yeah, you guys. Married to your muscles. I miss real men, you know. There are tons of ripped guys in Florida, but they don’t
do
anything with it except strut around the beach kissing themselves. Oh!”

She stopped as they exited the airport. The biting wind off the glaciers hit them in the face like a mean slap.

“Yeah, that feels like home,” she said in a strained voice. “Sometimes I think April is the coldest month here, because of that wind. Ugh.”

They hurried through the crosswalk, heads down, while the cars were stopped. “Where—?”

He pointed his key fob at short term parking where his blue pickup sat. When he pressed the button so the lights blinked, the click stirred Muttley. He jerked to his feet and paced in a ripple of shadow behind the reflection on the windshield.

“Vin! Did you bring—?” She ran toward the truck and jerked the driver’s door open. “Mutt!”

Her dog proceeded to go bananas, moaning and whimpering and licking Jac’s face while she laughed and probably cried. Happy tears this time, but still.

Vin cared that she cried. Her saying he didn’t bothered him. He knew he was reticent with his own emotions, but he felt hers. Her grief broke his heart. She and Russ had been his icon, the couple he aspired to be. His own marriage had fallen apart not even two years in, but that was because he wasn’t meant to have the happily ever after family that most people had. All those people in the airport, the Jacs and Russes of the world… They were born for that kind of happiness.

He was made for fighting fires. It was cellular, DNA level stuff.

But losing Russ had undermined Vin’s sense of how the world worked.

And Vin’s career, the family he’d made with the smokejumpers, was supposed to be inviolate. After Tori had kicked him out—for being away fighting fires too much—he had made a deal with the fire gods that he wouldn’t chase the picket-fence dream again. The men and women who cut line beside him were his brothers and sisters and that was enough.

But with Russ’s death, he’d been brutally schooled that even his best friends were temporary and could be taken away.

Their work was dangerous. Everyone knew death could happen, but it was supposed to happen to
him
. Vin. He wouldn’t be missed. Losing Russ? It had shaken the whole town.

It had leveled Vin. He didn’t know what he was supposed to believe anymore. Life didn’t have any meaning at all.

They got themselves settled in the truck. Muttley was way too big to be a lap dog, but he was trying to curl up his mass of yellow fur on Jac’s thighs, black muzzle lifting to keep up with giving her kisses, his tail thumping madly.

She hugged the goofy rescue. “Thank you so much for bringing him.”

“I had to. He’s been excited to see you. It’s all he’s talked about for days.”

“Really? Been counting sleeps, have you?”

She was continuing the silliness Vin has started, but Vin
had
been counting the days, he realized uncomfortably. He told himself he was merely eager to settle the house purchase and feel like he was finally putting down roots, but he’d been keyed up for days, anxious for her arrival.

“Oh, Christmas,” Jac said on an exhale as he turned out of the airport onto the highway.

“What’s wrong?”

“What? No, I mean it looks like Christmas. I pretty much gave that holiday a miss this year. We had dinner with the neighbors. They barbecued. I was glad it didn’t feel real. But now, here it is. So pretty.”

She brightened as she waved at the trees that were already losing the sparkle of this morning’s late-season flurry. The roads were clear and the snow mostly reduced to patches on shady lawns and piles in grocery store parking lots.

“Are we heading straight to the house or do you need to make some stops?” he asked.

She was quiet for a long moment, hand stroking the dog’s head.

“I think, since we’re driving right by…” She sent him an apprehensive look. “Can we stop at the base?”

Find out what happens next in Scorch….

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Tracy Solheim
is the international bestselling author of the Out of Bound Series for Penguin. Her books feature members of the fictitious Baltimore Blaze football team and the women who love them. In a previous life, Tracy wrote best sellers for Congress and was a freelance journalist for regional and national magazines. She’s a military brat who now makes her home in Johns Creek, Georgia, with her husband, their two children, a pesky Labrador retriever puppy and a horse named after her first novel. Her fifth book for Berkley, Back To Before, will be released in January. She also has a digital holiday novella for Tule Publishing’s Southern Born Books coming October 20. See what she’s up to at
www.tracysolheim.com
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