Charming the Firefighter. Beth Andrews
I want you to play hero for me.”
Though her words were throaty and cajoling, he doubted, very much, that she meant it the way it sounded. Which was fine. He wasn’t interested in her. Yeah, she was pretty enough with her dark complexion and light eyes and that little mole next to the right corner of her mouth.
Okay, maybe he was a little bit interested. He wasn’t dead, after all. And the image her words created in his mind—one of him, shirtless in only his uniform pants and suspenders, standing next to a bed where she reclined in a fire-red teddy that ended high on her tanned thighs—took hold and rooted deep.
He let his gaze skim down her legs to her bare, narrow feet, the toes painted a pale pink. She had great legs, curvy and muscular.
“I’m flattered,” he told her, unable to count the number of times he’d said that to a female while on call. “But it’s against regulations for me to fraternize with women while I’m working.”
Or at least, it was highly frowned upon.
He wouldn’t do so even if his captain gave him a notarized note telling him to go for it. His family thought he was a dog, some playboy who took any and every opportunity to make time with women. Not completely untrue, but he had his standards, whether they believed him or not. He didn’t hit on women under his care.
“Flattered? What are you...” Her eyes widened and she blushed, the color staining not only her cheeks but also her throat and the sliver of skin on her chest visible in the vee of her shirt. “You think I...that I want...” She shook her head, then reached up and held both sides of it as if afraid it would fall off her shoulders. “I’m not...I’m not flirting with you.”
He pulled his stethoscope from his bag. “My loss.”
She twisted her fingers together. “I do not flirt with men.”
“No? Just women?”
She laughed, a surprised, light burst of sound that washed over him, sweet and warm, like a ray of sunshine. He wanted to absorb that brightness, soak it into his skin, into his bones. Wanted it to dispel the coldness inside of him, to erase his memories of last night.
“I’m not gay. I just...I don’t flirt with men or women. I don’t flirt with anyone.” Her voice trailed off in resignation. Or disappointment. “At all.”
“That clears it up,” he murmured, his voice inadvertently husky. He skimmed his gaze from her long, side-swept bangs to her prominent cheekbones, then lingered on that mole. “Like I said...my loss.”
Her mouth opened on a soundless oh, her eyes wide.
He bit back a grin. Technically his comment, his demeanor, could be considered flirtatious, but he wasn’t big on technicalities.
“I couldn’t find it,” the teenager said as she stepped into the room. She pulled her own phone from her pocket. “Do you want me to try calling it?”
Penelope blanched; her guilt over her little white lie couldn’t have been clearer on her face if she’d written out a full-blown confession on her forehead in red marker. “Isn’t it silly? I had it in my pocket all along.”
The kid, a pixie in hippie clothes with hair to her waist, lifted a shoulder. “No problem. Are you sure I can’t fix you something to eat? Or I could do your dishes,” she said, crossing to the sink. “Maybe throw in a load of laundry for you?”
Penelope glanced at Leo. “Oh, I don’t need you to—”
“And when I’m done, I’ll grab a couple of movies from my house. You probably shouldn’t be alone.” The kid turned to Leo. “She shouldn’t be alone, right? If she has a head injury?”
Penelope’s sigh was as close to a whimper as Leo had ever heard from a human. She sent what could only be described as a long, yearning look at the bottle of wine.
And Leo finally got it.
Why the hell hadn’t she just said she wanted him to get rid of the kid for her? Women. Always wanting a man to read their minds, know their every thought and react accordingly.
Only to give the poor sap hell when he didn’t.
Wrapping his stethoscope around his neck, he stood. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name when I came in.”
“Gracie Weaver,” she breathed. But when she shook his hand, she made eye contact and didn’t send him any underage come-hither looks or step closer in order to brush against him. Unlike what a few of the bolder cheerleaders had done after their first scrimmage last week.
Thank you, sweet Jesus, for small favors and for young girls who didn’t hit on him. Amen.
“Weaver?” he asked. “Wes’s daughter?”
“The one and only.”
Far as Leo knew, she meant that literally. Last he’d heard, Wes and his wife, Molly, had enough sons to form their own basketball team.
He took the girl by the arm and led her toward the door. “You did a great job,” he told her. “Calling us, shutting off the grill and helping Ms. Denning inside. But HIPAA rules state that unless you’re related, or a legal representative of the patient, you can’t be present at this time.”
All bullshit, and if he wasn’t mistaken, something Gracie suspected, but unless she called him on it—and whipped out a copy of the HIPAA regulations—he was standing by his words.
He opened the French doors, avoiding Forrest’s smirk as he deposited Gracie on the deck. “I’m sure Ms. Denning is grateful for all your help.”
And he shut the door.
“You were a little rude to her.”
He crossed back to Penelope, who was giving him the time-honored death stare of doom.
Some days, a guy couldn’t win.
“Sometimes playing hero means being the bad guy.” He unwound his stethoscope and put the ear tips in. “Just going to listen to your lungs, make sure they’re clear.”
She sat rigidly, her hands on her thighs, her fingers curled. Everything sounded good.
“Gracie meant well,” she said.
“I’m sure she did.” He wound the stethoscope around his neck and straightened. “But it seemed to me you could use a break from her good intentions.”
“She was very helpful,” Penelope said, glancing nervously to the deck as if worried Gracie was going to return. “But she was quite...chatty. And pushy.”
“That can be a lot to take in. Especially when someone is having a rough day. She seems like a sweet girl, but it was obvious she was wearing out her welcome.”
“I think she’s lonely,” Penelope said softly. “Her parents went to some picnic and left her home by herself.”
“Wes—that’s her dad—is a good guy. And Molly, his wife, is as sweet as they come. I’m sure they didn’t abandon her. They love their kids.”
Her ill-natured shrug told him she was firmly on Gracie’s side in this imaginary battle she’d concocted between the teen and her folks—no matter that the kid had bugged the hell out of her. “So you’re close friends with them?”
“Nope.”
“Then how could you possibly know what emotions they do, or do not feel, toward their children?”
“I don’t,” he said simply. “But Shady Grove’s a small town with all sorts of ties among the people who live here. Some of those ties are personal—friendships, marriage, family. Some are professional. But even if you don’t know someone personally, chances are someone you know does. In this case, that someone would be my eldest brother and his wife. They went to school with Molly, hung out in the same crowd. And Wes is good buddies with my captain.