Ace really had
no idea how it happened, but somehow an hour had passed and he had spent it enjoyably talking to Lina McArthur.
She didn’t just to ask about smokejumping—she was
interested
. He could tell she was paying attention by the questions she asked, by the comments that she made. A lot of times when people asked about his job they wanted to hear the near-death experiences, the danger and he loved that. He loved making people think he did something crazy and amazing and life-threatening every day.
But the reality of the situation was this was a job dictated by seasons and waiting. Some days were doing not much of anything and sometimes putting himself in that kind of danger was downright scary.
While he didn’t admit to being scared to Lina, she did ask about the more nitty-gritty things. She didn’t want to just know the heroics, she wanted to know the ins and outs. He found the more she talked to him about this thing he’d grown to love, the more he liked her.
She was… Different. There wasn’t a lot of softness to her, and yet he thought that was why he was attracted to her. Because she gave the impression she was this impenetrable rock, and he couldn’t possibly do any damage here.
It was probably unfair to think so. Probably wrong to think she couldn’t be hurt, and yet here he was, still doing nothing more than talking.
Craziest of all, he was enjoying himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he talked to a woman for an hour without thinking of getting into her pants and enjoying himself horizontally.
Well, not that there weren’t a few times his gaze had dropped to the way the ridiculous turtleneck hugged her breasts and his thoughts had wandered. She was uncommonly beautiful. Nothing classic or in-your-face, but something more in the way her personality seemed to match her appearance. There was a sharpness to her features, and a…solidity. She was tough rather than pretty perfumes. She was this austere thing and, for him, it worked.
More, there was something about her blue eyes that made it feel as though she could see through him, and he found it being her somehow didn’t bother him as much as it normally would have.
She didn’t ask any more about his childhood, so he had to think she believed him about not being Dean. Which…somehow made him feel like a jerk. Which was stupid. Insane, considering he didn’t have any real connection to her. He couldn’t let his weird feelings for a stranger derail his life’s mission since he’d finally escaped foster care.
Stay the hell out of Jess’s way. She deserved a life without him.
So, of course, he’d sidled up to someone she knew, probably quite well, and was enjoying the hell out of his evening with her.
Well, he’d never claimed to be a genius.
“So, how did the fall happen?” she asked, still nursing the remnants of that first drink.
“Well, part of jumping is being able to read the wind and making sure your chute hits it right, but every once in a while a gust comes out of nowhere and you lose control. I missed the grab, tried to overcorrect, then boom—right into a tree.”
“Was it scary?” She didn’t ask it in the breathless way many a woman had. No, Lina was all…direct and analytical. She wanted to work out the situation, not be wowed by his prowess.
He didn’t know if he liked
that
or not.
“Scared is a weird word.”
“Because you’re afraid if you admit you were, you’d look like a coward?” she asked, that hint of sharp humor in her tone making him want to smile even though she was insulting him.
“No. There are a lot of times on the job when I’ve been scared, but there’s different levels of fear. Because I’ve jumped out over huge blazes where I couldn’t see anything but smoke and flame for miles—that’s a hell of a lot scarier than hitting a tree that wasn’t even on fire.”
“Alright. I’ll take the coward back.”
“See that you do.” He grinned, realizing that over the course of their conversation they’d slowly leaned into each other. Part was to hear in the din of the dimly-lit bar, but part—he thought—was attraction—a force. Like magnets or a wind guiding them closer and closer.
“What about you?” he asked softly, hoping she’d lean even closer.
He was rewarded as she leaned forward and he could make out the individual wisps of her dark hair, the somewhat vanilla smell of what he assumed was her shampoo.
“What about me?”
“You’re a pretty little thing working in the ER. Have you ever been afraid?”
She cocked her head as if pondering. “You know… Not really.” She laughed, shaking her head. “That sounds so conceited, but I just… That’s kind of the thing about growing up in a town where your name means something. People don’t really mess with you and then you get this weird sense of…” Her expression changed, less amusement more…defeat. “Infallibility and invincibility, I guess.”
“Somehow you don’t seem too happy about that infallibility and invincibility.”
“The thing about both of those things is that they can be taken away from you pretty quickly.”
She looked sad now and he hated he’d put it there. He liked her smiling and engaged. He liked the way her eyes danced when she was interested in a topic. He liked…her. Which could only serve as a problem.
It was such a shame he was so damn irresistibly attracted to problems.
“Let me buy you another drink,” he offered.
“No. This is really enough. I’m not much of a drinker. In fact, I should probably head home.”
“That’s not fair. You pick my brain. Don’t I get to pick yours now?” He grinned, but inwardly kicked himself for…being stupid. For wanting to talk to her more.
“What would you pick?” she asked, the hint of a smile on her lips.
He took a minute to think about it. If he could ask her anything, what would he ask her? He had a million questions and lines that he would’ve thrown another woman he was attracted to, both outrageously suggestive and foolishly romantic. There were a million questions he could ask to make her laugh or to make her blush. And yet, he found himself inexplicably drawn to the curiosity of who this woman was. “Describe your perfect day.”
She wrinkled her nose. “My perfect day? What is this, some weird online personality test?”
He chuckled. “No. I’m interested. You can tell a lot about someone based on their perfect day.”
“Like what?” she demanded.
So demanding. So…not cowed by anything. Yeah, he liked her way too much.
“How about this? You explain to me your perfect day, and
then
I will tell you what it means about you.”
She sighed and still seemed extremely suspicious, but finally she said, “all right.” She fiddled with her empty glass. “My perfect day would be… I’m not sure I know what my perfect day would be. I think I’d want to see something beautiful.”
“Something beautiful?”
“Yes… Like… Like going on a hike to see the top of a mountain or a peaceful lake. Beautiful forests. Something like that. I’ve lived in Montana my whole life and I never really enjoyed the outdoors stuff because I was so busy studying and working. I think my perfect day would be… Seeing something beautiful. And having a picnic. With really terrible food my mom never let me have. Like Cheetos and Cheez Whiz on crackers.” She laughed. “That’s so ridiculous. Who would ever want to do that?”
“You’re far too hard on yourself. I think it sounds great.”
She blinked, staring at him with those all too understanding eyes. “Okay, sounds great. What does it tell you about me?”
“It tells me that you’re…solitary.”
“Why am I solitary?” she demanded, clearly offended by his interpretation.
“Your perfect day is being alone.”
“I didn’t say I had to be alone. I just that I’d want to see something beautiful. I could want someone to go with me.”
“Okay, sure, but your perfect day isn’t going to Paris and being surrounded by people. Your perfect day isn’t going to a bar and talking with a dumb smokejumper.”
“You’re not dumb.”
“Don’t flatter me, sweetheart.”
“I think it takes a lot of intelligence to face what you do,” she said, her tone so indignant. Standing up for him
to
him. How weird. “You’d have to be very quick to learn how to jump out of a plane and how to fight fires. There’s different kinds of knowledge out there. You know, my brother does rodeos. I swear he just knows how to read animals. He touches them and understands them and how to move with them. I think it’s amazing… Not that I’ve ever told him,” she muttered, her eyebrows furrowing. Then she shook her head. “But talking about this is ridiculous.”
“You are not at all what I expected,” he murmured. He wasn’t sure he’d expected anything after he’d left the hospital. He’d just hoped to never see her.
But she was here, and she was funny and sharp, and he…was drawn. It would be a mistake to lean forward and touch her. It would be a mistake to pretend like this could be anything other than this one night of conversation.
And yet leaning forward and brushing his fingertip across her cheek was exactly what he did. She was soft and the delicate pink flush he enjoyed all too much bloomed across her cheeks.
He should say something. He should bow out of this, because he was lying to her. He wasn’t who she thought he was. Or, he was who she thought he was, but he was pretending he wasn’t and…
Whatever it was—he was a liar and she was the threat he’d originally thought she was, only bigger. More potent. Because he liked her. He wanted to know more about her. He wanted…
Damn, but he wanted. But he couldn’t act on that. Couldn’t touch her more. And he definitely couldn’t kiss her.
But it was all he wanted to do.
L
ina found herself
holding her breath. She couldn’t possibly inhale or even exhale when Ace’s finger gently stroked over her cheek. Breathing might be an involuntary, bodily function, but apparently her brain had just…lost all activity.
It was a terribly intimate touch for someone she had only just met yesterday. The way she could feel the roughness of the side of his index finger, the way her skin seemed to shiver as if separate from the rest of her. All these little places inside of her that had forever been dormant leapt to life and she wanted…
Well, she
wanted.
She wanted this intangible, unknowable
thing
inside of her, and she never wanted intangible, unknowable things. Just like she’d never sat in a bar and talked to a guy companionably before. She’d never learned so much about someone in such a short period of time, so easily, so comfortably.
Much like her, Ace’s life seemed to be his job, and she understood that. They’d both built themselves from this thing they’d decided to spend a lot of time doing. And they used their personalities like a shield, hiding all those scary vulnerabilities deep below an exterior—his easygoing and charming, hers sharp and spiny.
But it seemed to…work. Because she could see when she hit a vulnerable spot in the way something in his eyes would shift, and she thought maybe he saw the same in her. She thought maybe his charm and her spines…worked.
She thought maybe she…understood
him
. More than she’d understood most of the people in her life for most of her life. Because it had become clear in the past year she didn’t know much about her family at all. She barely had friends.
But this man, stroking her cheek, staring intently at her… He made sense. He was comfortable. And that didn’t
make any sense
, but this
feeling
was eroding all her sense and…
And if he’s Dean?
But he wasn’t. Obviously he wasn’t. He had a story about a father and a mother and a life in Portland, Oregon. Why did she have to be so suspicious? Why should she be suspicious of a man who was sitting there
touching
her—like he was going to
kiss
her?
Because that’s not what men want from you.
All of her doubts crashed back into her brain. She blamed the liquor for them ever being gone in the first place. Guys didn’t like her. She wasn’t pretty and she wasn’t nice. It was ridiculous to think… She had to force herself to look up at him, to be strong enough to say,
yeah right, this is a scam
.
But he was looking at her so intently, as if he could find some answer to some important question in the curve of her eyelashes or the slashes of her too sharp cheekbones.
“I…I should go.” Get out of here, let the alcohol leave her system, and find some
sense
in the little apartment near the hospital she’d rented.
“Let me drive you home,” he murmured, his finger never pausing its unfairly sensual onslaught.
Despite all those voices in her head that told her he couldn’t really be interested, that this had to be some kind of manipulation, she…
wanted
him to drive her home. She
wanted
to spend more time with him, and so much more, she wanted him to erase those inches between their mouths and kiss her, damn it.
This was so weird. She never wanted to spend time with a guy, and they certainly hadn’t had much interest in spending time with her unless it was to copy her notes or pick her brain.
So, it made more sense his interest was manufactured. He was Dean, and he was being nice to her and lying to her to throw her off the scent.
Which was…completely illogical, actually. Was she that low on self-esteem when it came to a guy she had to concoct an insane story about him lying about his identity, about him being her best friend’s long, lost brother?
This wasn’t Marietta. Maybe she
was
attractive to a certain kind of guy—it had just taken leaving her hometown and college circles and her
name
behind. Maybe she was interesting, and fun to talk to, and… Maybe the move to Kalispell
had
worked. Maybe she was someone else and she hadn’t realized it yet.
So, maybe she
should
let him drive her home.
“It’s not
that
complicated of a question, is it?” he asked, humor curving his full lips, making his blue eyes seem to dance in the dim light of the bar. She’d never really known an ease like that. Her family was straightlaced and possibly a little warped, even Jess, for all her genuine care and softness, wasn’t…easily
humored.