Tonight, he didn’t care who noticed.
Not when Johanna still stood beside him wrapped in his hoodie smelling faintly like vanilla lotion and ocean air.
MacKenzie scooted across the oversized blanket spread near the fire. “Come sit down before y’all freeze.”
Blaze guided Johanna toward the blanket without letting go of her hand. The second they sat, warmth from the flames rolled over them while waves crashed steadily somewhere beyond the dunes.
He stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back onone arm while Johanna tucked her knees beneath the blanket covering the group.
Then the wind shifted harder. Johanna shivered lightly beside him. Blaze noticed. Without saying a word, he reached behind them, grabbed another blanket from the pile nearby, and pulled it over both of them before sliding one arm naturally around her shoulders. Like he’d done it a thousand times before.
Because he had.
Johanna inhaled softly beside him at the contact.
Blaze lowered his mouth near her ear slightly. “Relax.”
The quiet rumble of his voice against her skin made her shoulders tense for exactly one second before she tried pretending otherwise.
“I am relaxed,” she whispered back.
Blaze’s mouth curved against the side of her hair.
Liar.
But he let her keep the illusion.
For now.
The fire popped loudly while Michael launched into a wildly exaggerated retelling of a rescue call that had half the firefighters yelling corrections across the circle.
“You are lying already,” Ryan interrupted.
“I’m storytelling.”
“You almost fell off the ladder,” Blaze argued.
“That is not what happened.”
“It absolutely happened,” another firefighter shouted.
Laughter erupted around the fire again.
Beside Blaze, Johanna slowly relaxed despite herself. He felt it happen gradually beneath his arm. Her body softened against his side while her breathing lost some of that careful tension she carried around him earlier.
Maybe it was the fire, or it was the music.
Or maybe it was the way his thumb moved absently alongher upper arm beneath the blanket like touching her had already become instinct again.
Dangerous thought. Very dangerous.
MacKenzie looked across the fire suddenly. “You know this fool almost fought somebody at the auction?”
Johanna’s eyes snapped toward Blaze. “Excuse me?”
Blaze sighed heavily. “He’s being dramatic.”
Ryan barked out a laugh loud enough to scare birds. “I’m absolutely not.”
