Oh, screw you, Hank. Angry at herself for having that ridiculous tiny little hope, she pushed open the heavy door.

Wait. His voice was low.

Samantha owed him nothing. She didnt have to wait. But she gave him the second. If he was going to ask for his job back I killed someone.

She turned toward him again, one leg out of the car, one leg in. Are you kidding me?

Wish I was. Hank leaned his head back on the vinyl headrest and looked in the rearview mirror as if the car was still moving. Right before I graduated. Not long after you left, actually.

What happened? Samantha's voice was still curt and shed lost all ability to figure out what to feel next.

We were climbing in Colorado, on a trip with some other guys in my paramedic training. We were trying a cliff face none of us had done before.

He was going up, I was belaying. His hand slipped at the same time that the foothold he was using gave way. We hadnt double checked our knots. The rope slid through my hands, and I tried to grab it, but it was like I was moving in slow motion and the rope just twisted away from me so fast. There was nothing I could do. Hanks voice was even. Calm. It was as if he were relaying a story about someone else, someone he didnt know very well. He twisted in the air when his foot hit the wall and he landed on his back, snapping his neck. I knew he was dead even before I took the twelve steps to get to him.

Samantha's breath caught in her throat. It wasnt your"

Oh, it was totally my fault. Our fault, but I was the one who lived, so its all mine. I was c.o.c.ky, and going too fast, and I hadnt used the right protocol. I wanted to be a firefighter. I wanted to protect people, and Id done it wrong and killed someone instead. There are rules for everything, everywhere. Protocol for safety in firefighting, in stocking grocery shelves, even in relationships, for cripes sakes. And Id ignored protocol.

Softly, she said, What was his name?

Hank glanced at her. Jimmy. His name was Jimmy.

She didnt remember a Jimmy in the group of people that had hung around with Hank back then.

He was a redhead. The one who insisted on riding his skateboard everywhere, even if I offered him a ride.

Oh! She remembered Jimmy. Hed given her a piece of Bazooka bubblegum and theyd laughed together at the comic inside the wrapper. That day in the cafeteria of their junior college felt like it had happened last week. She didnt recall anything else about him, but she remembered clearly how hard hed laughed at that silly comic strip. He gave me gum once.

Bazooka? Hanks voice was heartbreaking, hopeful and desolate at the same time.

Yeah.

His mom had huge bowls of that gum out at the funeral. I still cant even smell bubblegum.

Im so sorry. Samantha wanted to touch him, to put her hand on his arm, but she suspected that if she moved even an inch, hed snap. His body was rigid, as if he were holding himself together with rebar.

No. Im the one whos sorry. He looked steadily forward through the gla.s.s. My behavior tonight was unforgivable.

Nothings unforgivable.

Now he looked at her, and his eyes were dark with despair. Didnt you hear the story I just told you? Once you kill your buddy, theres nothing you can do to get him back. Thats pretty much the very definition of the word.

It wasnt, but it didnt do to tell him that right now.

Samantha twisted in her seat, drawing up her legs so that she was half-kneeling. A gust of wind pushed the car door closed behind her.

Without thinking about it, worried that if she did she would stop, Samantha leaned forward and put her lips on Hanks. For one long second, their mouths rested against each others. Samantha didnt hear him breathing. She certainly wasnt. His lips were firm, warm. Just the right shape.

Then, with a jerk, he pulled back. What the"

Awesome. Sorry. Maybe if Samantha backed straight out as fast as she could, she could get out of the Mustang with one percent of her dignity left. Shed gladly leave the other ninety-nine percent hanging in shreds behind her, if it meant she could go upstairs and push her head under her pillow. Okay, then And then Hank came out of his seat. At her. In a split second, both his hands were wrapped around the back of her head, and he was pulling her to him, his mouth hot and demanding against hers. She pushed back against him"it was a war as to who could kiss the hardest, and Samantha would do anything to win. And shed do anything to lose.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she moved forward, bringing her knee over the middle console. His tongue tangled with hers, stroking her at first and then plundering her mouth. He tasted like mint and, faintly, of something sweet, something else that was all him. She wanted more, more. She wanted to kiss his neck, she wanted to nip the skin just under his chin, but she couldnt tear her mouth from his for even a second. Every time she tried, he kissed her harder. Deeper.

She leaned her upper body against his, and his whole seat shot backward as he hit the release. She grinned against his lips and brought her other leg across so that she was straddling him on the front seat. His hands cupped her b.u.t.tocks and she tilted so that her jeans pressed into his. She could feel his hardness under the material, hot against her thigh, and she pulled away for a split second to meet his eyes.

Hanks gaze was so dark he looked like the devil. He looked like her salvation, too.

He pulled her head down to his again for another kiss. She was liquid inside, quaking with the need. What his tongue was doing to hers, the way it made her writhe against him, out here in the parking lot for all to see"she wanted that tongue to go other places. All her places.

Come inside.

Honey, he drawled, pulling her hips against his again, I like to use protection.

She laughed. Inside the apartment. Please.

He sobered suddenly, pushing his forehead against hers. I cant.

Why? She ran her fingers up the line of his jaw, under his ear, reveling in the strength of the muscle she felt there. She put her thumb to his bottom lip and he groaned.

You just fired me, he managed, lifting his hand to hers. For the second time.

She slipped his finger into her own mouth and sucked for a second. She felt him get even harder. Youre unfired.

Thats emotional whiplash. I should sue or something.

Then well call it even, she said. You got mad at me, way too mad, but now I know why. Lets split the difference and go inside where you can take off all my clothes.

He laughed, but it sounded choked. You are the hottest thing on two legs.

It wasnt the most romantic line shed ever been handed, but shed take it. He was a firefighter, not a poet. Thanks. I like your legs, too. And I like this. She tugged on his belt, drawing his hips to hers again. She leaned over and kissed him. When she came up for air, she said, I like that, too. I know, well do this a different way. Come upstairs, and Ill take off all your clothes.

This time it was a real laugh. But he twisted, putting her away from him with a smooth lift and turn. Im not going to take advantage of you like that.

She flopped back into her seat with a groan. I want you to. That was the whole point.

Samantha. He scooted his seat forward again and looked her straight in the eye. I want you. Honestly, Id love to try to get you out of my system.

Samantha smiled. She felt the same way and liked his honesty.

Hank went on, I reckon you felt just how much I want you. But I cant.

Why? No, she didnt get this. Yeah, you got angry, but"

That. He gripped the steering wheel. Thats the problem. Ive been trying to make it up to Jimmy since the day it happened by being the guy he wanted to be"we both, we were so into being firemen. Protecting. Saving. Instead, I scared a woman. I scared you. You were right to fire me. He reached forward and touched her cheek. His hand was warm.

It made her feel safe while doing absolutely nothing to relieve the feeling of need deep inside her.

I have to go.

She growled in the back of her throat. Then she jammed open the car door again, kicking at it with her foot like she would an a.s.sailant. Fine. But I need you at the community center at nine a.m., day after tomorrow. You said you were off, right?

Hank nodded, his eyes narrowing. But Look. I need your help, Hank.

As she slammed the Mustangs heavy door behind her, she felt a grim satisfaction. At least, putting it that way, he might show up.

But it was going to do nothing for the fire she still felt inside her body, low and deep. The firefighter had started that flame"that was the problem. No one but him could help her put it out.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

OF COURSE HANKS grandmother would come by at eight in the morning. Hank hadnt been able to sleep, not even after he got up and went for a run in the middle of the night, battling his way through the freezing night-time air, his lungs heaving with something he hoped would turn to tiredness. Hed come back and gotten into bed, and instead of dropping into sleep, his head had spun with thoughts of her.

The taste of her.

The feel of the nape of her neck in his hand. The way her body molded to his, the way when he kissed her she responded with the perfect heat before she took it even higher.

No fire hed ever fought, not even the one at the magnesium plant seven years before, had ever burned hotter than she did against him.

After a cold shower followed by a hundred push-ups, hed finally started getting tired. He dropped off to sleep sometime after five a.m., so when the doorbell shrilled, Hank shoved his head under the pillow and cursed.

The doorbell rang again. Gramma Maureen had a signature way of doing it"she pushed the b.u.t.ton once, quickly, and then, always unsure it had rung inside since her hearing was going, shed lean on it for a long minute. Before his old dog Samson had died, that particular method of ringing the doorbell had driven his dog right over the edge. Hed howl for a good ten minutes after Maureen left, scared that shed come back and do it again.

Get up.

The doorbell rang again. There was no ignoring Maureen.

Dear boy. Maureen, wearing a red knitted sweater with the image of a large banana embroidered into the front, a black skirt that looked frayed at the edges, and big clompy black mens shoes, lifted herself to her very tiptoes to kiss Hanks cheek. Hank still had to bend down to receive it. Look at you. You look like you just rolled out of bed.

I did.

As if she hadnt heard him"and perhaps she hadnt"Maureen went on. But its past eight in the morning"

Two past.

And a boy like you doesnt oversleep.

Sometimes Hank wondered how old Maureen thought he was. Shed treated him the exact same way since shed taken over raising him when his parents had died. She treated him like a child who needed to be coddled, while at the same time, maintaining an implicit faith in him to do everything the way a good man would.

It was always good to see her, of course. If it didnt happen to be eight-oh-two in the dang morning.

She bustled through the living room, tut-tutting at yesterdays paper hed left strewn on the couch cushions. Somehow she managed to balance her red basket and cup of coffee while still gathering the sections of newspaper under her arm.

You look like Little Red Riding Hood, with your sweater and your basket.

His grandmother humphed. She didnt have such a gorgeous sweater. She touched the embroidered banana proudly. Did I show you this one?

You did. I hadnt noticed that youd used glitter yarn for the banana, though.

Best invention of the nineties.

He didnt bother filling her in that a couple of decades had come and gone since the nineties. She still lived alone, just four blocks away, and while she lived on his grandfathers life insurance, she made her spending money by teaching knitting cla.s.ses. Shed somehow gained fame through knitting; Hank didnt know how shed pulled that off, but she had tourists coming to town expressly to learn her yarn embroidery techniques. Maureen enjoyed nothing more than creating sweaters that most of the world would call ugly, and wearing them so proudly that hed seen people in Mabels Cafe offer to buy her sweaters right off her back.

His grandmother had to take over being mother and father right at the point hed been headed into his awful teen years, and shed done a fine job with limited means. Hank loved her more than he loved anyone in the world. And she loved him even more fiercely. He knew that. He felt it in her grip when she hugged him.

And yet that didnt ever, ever get him off the hook.

Heard you were a b.u.t.thead in Eureka yesterday, Maureen said.

Hank groaned and reached for the coffee pot. Thats it. Im moving.

Maureen set her knitting basket on the table with a clatter and pulled out her needles. The sweater-in-progress was a toxic green-yellow. Dont bother with coffee. I had mine hours and hours ago.

Im sure you did. This is for me.

So, what made you so mad you canceled a whole date?

Hank turned, the pot still in his hand, and stared. He could imagine that Maureen could glean info that included who hed been on a date with, and perhaps what theyd done, but the fact that hed canceled it? That hed been a jerk of the first degree?

Did you also know that we had s.e.x in the Mustang?

Maureen waved her hand. Dont you try to shock me, young man. I know you smooched and then she left in a huff.

There were eyes in the trees, spies everywhere. Really, he had enough in savings that he could run off to Mexico and be pretty d.a.m.n comfortable for at least a few years before he had to figure out a next step. He should just go. But d.a.m.n, if hed packed a bag, Maureen would have heard it through the grapevine and would probably show up within minutes of him zipping the suitcase.

Do you happen to know where I left my spare key? It was a smart-alec question. His spare hadnt been on his hook for the last month, and he couldnt figure out what hed done with it. There was no reason for Maureen to know where it had gone, though.

She lifted a ring of keys out of her basket and jingled it. I took it.

Didnt that just figure. Why? You already had one, and you always ring the doorbell anyway.

So I could have Eva come in and clean. She needed a key.

Thats what I hire Rosamunde to do. Every two weeks. Hank was terrible at house-cleaning and he knew it. Rosamunde was the daughter of Eva, Maureen's longtime best friend.

Shes terrible at the baseboards. Evas better.

Youre too old for the baseboards. For that matter, sos Eva. Hank hated to think about someone his grandmothers age hunched over, wiping the corners of his rooms.

Ah, Im just messing with you, said Maureen. Rosamundes great. I just wanted a key so we could watch your cable TV when youre at work.

And again, what about your key?