“Hey, be careful,” he shouts, closing the distance between us in two gigantic steps. “Let me do that, you don’t have shoes on. Here, let me just–” He takes the broom from my hands and leans it against the wall before placing his hands on my waist and lifting me onto the counter, away from any danger of cutting my bare feet.
Oh no. Why was that hot?
My pulse flutters rapidly as I watch him clean up the mess, his eyes carefully combing every inch of floor to make sure every last piece is swept up. He dumps the dustpan into the trashcan, and immediately pulls the bag out and ties it up, taking it straight to the outside bin. I don’t move from where I’m perched on the cold granite, completely frozen by the utter disbelief of what just happened.
Goddamn, he didn’t even bat an eye when he picked me up.
When he comes back into the room, he looks surprised to see me still on the counter.
“You can get down now,” he laughs. “It should be safe.”
“Oh, right,” I say, hopping down quickly. “Duh. Thanks for taking care of that.”
“No problem,” he says, shrugging out of his uniform jacket and sitting in a dining chair before bending down to unlace his boots. Now that the shock has worn off, my heart jolts when I see how disheveled and exhausted he looks.
“Areyouokay?” I ask. Stepping closer to him, I inhale deeply. “You smell like smoke. Why do you smell like smoke?”
“Garrett got food poisoning,” he grunts, yanking off his shoes. “So it was just me and Tyler, and two of the new guys. We got a call about a house fire, and I had to go with them. We didn’t have enough guys, and they needed all the help they could get.”
My stomach drops, and I feel the color drain from my face.
“I thought you weren’t going out in the field?” I ask tensely.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t planning on it,” he sighs wearily. “But I didn’t have much of a choice, they needed me.”
I don’t say anything, trying to will my blood pressure to decrease, for an entirely different reason now. At my silence, he looks up at me.
“I’m okay, Abs,” he says, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “I’m bone-tired, but I’m fine. It was a simple kitchen fire, some kid put tin foil in the microwave. It stank like hell, but everyone was okay.”
“I just didn’t know I needed to worry about that,” I mutter, unfairly. He’s literally the deputy fire chief–of course he’s going to fight fires. I can’t be upset about that.
He also has no obligation to tell you these things. You have no right to be upset about anything at all.
“I know,” he says apologetically. “I should have called you instead of showing up looking like a mess. The worst part was just being out of shape, I’m not used to it anymore. Tyler gave me shit about that–he was still fresh as a daisy when we left the scene.”
I step up to his chair and wrap my arms around him from behind.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten irritated. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve just had a weird day, regulating my emotions has been tough.”
Emotions, daydreams, libido–tomato, tomahto.
“You don’t need to apologize, Abs,” he says, reaching up to pat my arm. “I was in such a rush to make it home on time that I didn’t think to warn you.”
I glance over at the clock–it’s only 6:05.
“You made sure you were back when you said you would be.”
“Of course I did,” he says, standing up and hooking his thumbs into his fireman suspenders. “I told you I’d be back by a certain time, in one piece, and I meant it. I might look a little worse for the wear, and smell like it, but I’m here for you, like I promised.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, overwhelmed with emotion. “That means more than you could possibly know.”
“I will be wherever you want me, anytime you ask,” he emphasizes, brushing my hair back out of my face, something more than just comfort shining in his eyes. “You just say the word. You aren’t alone, Abby.”
After today, I really and truly believe him.
Chapter 14
Jack
