Amy shook her head.

Tucker looked him over. "You okay?"

Clearly Jake was more tired than he'd thought because that had sounded like real concern in his brother's voice. "I'm fine. Where do you think Callie is?"

"Hopefully in her cabin asleep," Tucker said, and Jake nodded, not wanting to set off an alarm, because he intended to find her and put her in bed himself.

He looked in the weight room, thinking maybe Macy had come to give her a massage, but Macy was working on one of the college guys. Jake left, wondering where the hell Callie had gone, when he saw the light coming from beneath her office door. He opened it without knocking, took one look at her sitting behind her desk, and shook his head. "You are shitting me."

"I'm just-"

"I don't care what you're just." He came around her desk, pulled her to her feet. She'd lost her hat. Her long, red hair had partially dried in loose curls down past her shoulders. She'd taken off her wet sweatshirt and shoes, but was still in her jeans and blouse, which clung to her in a way he might have enjoyed, if he hadn't been so pissed. "So you took care of everyone but yourself?"

"I was just checking the petty cash, which I'd locked in a different drawer this time."

"Let's go." He tugged on her hand.

"Don't you care if it's all there?"

"I'll care tomorrow. Tonight, it's you. You're wet, tired, and still shaking, damn it." He felt the tremor in her chilled limbs. Shrugging out of his jacket, he put it around her, waited until she shoved her feet back into her boots and led her out of the office and out of the big house.

It was still raining, coming down in long shiny rivers, as if Mother Nature was making up for lost time. And the noise. It was unbelievable how loud the slapping of the water on the parched earth sounded. He figured he'd seen enough rain today to last him a lifetime. "I'm going to kill Goose if she-Damn it."

Once again Goose came running through the rain honking at them.

"Go night-night, Goose," Callie said, and unbelievably, the goose walked away.

Jake gaped at her, rain running into his eyes. "How do you do that?"

"I don't threaten to eat her for Thanksgiving." She kept moving, her boots striking the puddles on the rain-soaked ground.

"I think of her as my father's spirit. Yelling at me."

"Ever think maybe she's just squawking at you, wondering what took you so long to get here?"

He stared at Goose's butt waddling away. "No," he muttered. "I don't." But now he would.

When they got to her cabin, she opened the door, and would have walked in alone if he hadn't kept his hand on her arm.

"I can take it from here," she said through her chattering teeth and blue lips.

"Uh-huh." He shut the door behind the both of them, then slipped his arms around her and drew her into him. "Humor me," he whispered.

"I don't need help."

"We've already established that. This is for me, not you."

She shivered again, but put her hands over his, stopping him from removing her blouse.

"I want you to take a hot shower and warm up." He tunneled his fingers through her hair, clamping her face very gently between his palms. "Go." When she didn't move, he shifted closer. "You know what? Never mind. I'm here now, I'll just warm you up myself."

And he covered her mouth with his.

18.

Jake."

With a sigh, he pulled back and stroked a long wet curl out of Callie's face.

"I'm not quite as emotionally challenged as you," she whispered. "I can't separate sex and emotion like you can."

"Hey, give a guy a handicap." His finger rimmed over her ear now, and her breathing went shallow. Quite a satisfying reaction. "I'm just a little slow, but I'm catching on."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that even I, an emotionally challenged male, can figure out this isn't just sex. Not between us."

She stared at him, eyes wide.

"Yeah. Terrifying, I know." Jake drew her hands down to her sides, then slipped his jacket off her shoulders. It fell to the floor. "Worse than running into a burning building, I'll tell you that."

Thunder rolled. In the ensuing flash of lightning, her eyes were luminous. He knew she was afraid of getting too attached. Well, damn it, he was already attached, far more than he wanted to be, so she should suffer the same as he. He dropped to his knees and tugged at a foot until she lifted it. He slipped off one boot, and then the other, tossing both over his shoulder.

"We can't do this, Jake."

"Why not?" His fingers went to the button on her jeans. Pop. The rasp of her zipper came next. In the open wedge of the denim he saw sheer black lace and groaned.

"For a million reasons."

"Name one."

"Okay." She hesitated. "I had you already, and I still want you."

"I want you, too." He ran a finger over the lace. "I want you a lot."

"Yes, but you're..." She seemed to have trouble speaking, so he surged back up to his feet, took her hand, and directed her into her bathroom. There he flicked on the shower and waited for it to start steaming. Turning to her, he put his hands on the buttons of her blouse. She covered his fingers with her own shaking ones. "You're bigger than life, Jake. You're wild and adventurous, and everything I'm not."

"Are you kidding me?" He had to laugh at that. "I've been here, what, a month now? Every single day you're either racing across the rough ground on the back of a twelve hundred pound fickle animal, or you're shimmying up the hay barn on a rickety ladder, or you're taking a bunch of stupid kids out into the wilderness. Jesus, Callie. Are you really going to try to tell me your life out here isn't as wild and adventurous as it gets?"

"It's real," she said simply.

"And what, mine isn't?"

"Your life as a firefighter is real, intensely so. And dangerous, and admirable, too. You're a hero."

"But? Because I sure as hell hear a big but at the end of that sentence."

"But when you're not working, your life is city. It's women. It's just having a good time in between shifts."

"Callie-"

"And if that's not enough, if you need another reason, then fine." She crossed her arms. "You're not my type."

"Well, if that's true, then you'll be left completely unmoved by this." He slid his arms around her wet body and dipped his head.

"Jake-"

"Shh. It's just a kiss." A bigger lie he'd never told. "You're not afraid of a little kiss, are you, Callie?" He settled his mouth against hers. Deep, wet, and instantly hot, he had her clinging to him two seconds in, but actually, the clinging might have been mutual. Pulling back a fraction, he looked down into her surprised, aroused, frustrated face. "If I'm not your type, then why do you melt all over me when I do that?"

She let out a sound, but didn't stop him when he reached down to unbutton her wet shirt. She was breathless, and the pulse at the base of her neck leapt wildly. "Damn, you're soft," he said. "Sexy as hell, too. I can't keep my hands off you, Callie."

Another sound came from deep in her throat, and eyes closed, she slid her fingers into his hair and held on.

Enjoying that, he dragged more open-mouthed kisses down her throat as he slid the blouse off her shoulders. "All you ever wear are jeans and work shirts, and all I ever think about is what you have on beneath them." He stroked a finger over the black lace bra that matched her panties. Her nipples pebbled against the lace.

Her hands slid from his hair, fisting on his shirt right above his heart, holding on for what felt like dear life.

"Love it when you do that," he said roughly. "When you make that little sound..."

She made it now, breathing heavily over the sound of the driving rain hitting the roof. He loved that, too, that he affected her so strongly, but he wished he didn't have to coax her into these hot embraces, into admitting she felt something for him. "Should I point out here that you clearly are enjoying my type?"

"Shut up and kiss me." But she kissed him first, with all she had, while steam rose all around them. Thunder rattled the small bathroom window, and he held this amazing woman and wondered how it would feel when he'd gone home, without her in his life on a daily basis. He looked up at the same time the lightning flashed, looked right into her eyes as she gently touched her mouth to his with a questioning light in her gaze. "You okay?"

He kissed the line furrowed between her brow, then the bridge of her nose, feeling an almost overwhelming sense of tenderness. "Yeah." He wanted to scoop her up, but that was beyond him after dragging Smithy through the raging water, so he took her hand and opened the shower door. "Get in."

She dropped her bra and panties, and stepped in. He watched her silhouette as the scent of the soap she ran over her body teased his nostrils much like her outline was doing. When she turned off the water, he tossed her a towel over the glass. She came out wrapped in it. He took her hand again, led her to her futon couch.

They sank upon it. Callie tugged at his shirt, and he obliged her, lifting his left arm. "Can't lift my right all the way yet," he whispered.

"Then let me," she whispered back, and rearing up, kissed his right shoulder before carefully, slowly, maneuvering his shirt off without disturbing his shoulder. She stroked a finger over his bare flesh and then kissed the long incision scar before lifting her gaze to his. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You're not." She was only killing him.

She went to her knees, having to straddle him so she didn't fall off the futon, and went to work on the buttons of his Levi's, concentrating hard, the tip of her tongue resting on her upper lip. Finally, she managed to rid him of his rain-spattered clothing. He pulled off her towel, tugged her down over the top of him, and kissed her. Her breasts bore into his chest, the heat between her legs rested on the part of him desperate for a repeat performance of a night from all those weeks ago. Unable to take it anymore, he reared up, and when that didn't hurt, he tumbled her over, tucking her beneath him.

"That's an improvement," she gasped.

"Isn't it?" He settled between her sprawled legs and gently took her face between his hands. "I have several condoms this time."

"Well by all means, get one."

She helped him put it on, by which time he was trembling like a damned baby. He couldn't wait to experience the almost unbearable erotic sensation of her wet flesh tugging on his every time he thrust into her.

She ran her hands up his arms. "I need a time frame on this thing, Jake. A beginning, a middle. An end."

"Well, we've had our beginning." Lowering his head, he took a nip out of her throat, which caused a satisfying reaction to her pulse. "We'll have our middle tonight, all night." He kissed his way over her collar bone, and cupped a breast. She was having trouble breathing again, which sent a surge of possessive pride and heat right through him.

"And the end?"

"It's not tonight," he promised, his thumb making several passes over her nipple while he watched it react to his touch.

She hummed deep in her throat and arched up. "Spell it out for me, Jake."

"All right, but I'm not very good at spelling things out." He kept his hands on her warm, gorgeous body. "I like you. I like you a lot." Her eyes darkened, and he touched his forehead to hers. "And I'm scared shitless it's more than like."

Her fingers sank into his hair. "How much more?"

"I've never wanted another woman like I want you. Never," he said, tracing her mouth with his thumb. "But as for where it's going, or what we'll do with it, I don't know. I'm facing a lawsuit, the possibility of never being able to fight fires-" Horrifying him, his voice cracked, and he shook his head.

"Oh, Jake."

"Look, I have no future to offer you. You can either live with that, or walk away."

Her eyes were huge on his, and wet. "I can't imagine being told I can't do what I love anymore. I'm so sorry-"

"Don't," he said softly when a single tear spilled over. "Don't."

"You have so much to offer," she said fiercely. "No matter what you end up doing. So very much."

"If you really believe that, then of the two options, I hope walking away isn't the one you pick."

"But what about when you walk away? When you go back?"

"There's this new-fangled contraption called an airplane." He heard the words come out of his mouth with some surprise. Alien concept, a future with a woman.

"You're not going to want to come back here."

"Maybe you'll come to me."

"Maybe."

"So does that mean you're in?" he whispered.

"No." Callie watched the disappointment flash across his face, then slipped a hand down his belly, wrapping her fingers around him, guiding him to her. "You're in."

The bathroom light spilled into the room, the only light in the place. It silhouetted him towering above her, pushing into her slow and deep. Then his wide shoulders were blocking the light, and she could only feel, and she let herself fall into the immense pleasure of his eyes on her, his scent, the weight of his body.

His expression was a tight grimace of intense pleasure; a low, raw sound ripped from within his throat. His hands slid down the backs of her thighs, urging them open even more. All day she'd been cold, a bone-deep cold, but as he began to move he vanquished it, until she was hot, burning up, from the inside out.

How could it be like this again, she wondered wildly, so intense, so mind-bogglingly intense? It was as if every moment they'd ever spent had been leading toward this-every word, every look, every touch had all culminated in this unrelenting ball of fire inside that threatened to consume her if she didn't let it out.