then shrugged and propped her hands on her hips, breathing deep and fast, waiting for him to answer the question she’d dropped.
“I don’t socialize with them.” Or anyone else. This was the most he’d chatted with anyone that he could remember. At least anyone that wasn’t an animal.
“I noticed.”
“So I never asked them.”
“Hence my point. How can you know what they experience without asking when you see them for only short periods and don’t talk to them?”
Another point.
“I don’t know,” he said finally, because the truth sounded a lot more pathetic. He was usually pretty good at reading people, and leaned on that ability to keep from having to ask questions. From having to talk. From having to get involved.
She looked at him for a long second, then nodded, and jerked her head in the direction they’d been running. “Offer of couch or cabin still stands.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.” With that, she got back up to pace, leaving him to run a few yards behind and consider his options.
The idea that anyone would be treated unfairly bothered him, even though he’d seen it frequently enough in life. It jarred with the whole team life Treadwell pitched. It also didn’t line up with what he wanted the service to be. A teammate, though temporary teammate, was offering him a place to sleep.
It might not be so bad to take the couch she offered. But it would be dumb, if simply touching her hand made parts of his body go tingly.
Last time he’d brought a tent and never shared quarters with anyone, using only the communal showers and dining facilities when he was awake and not actively sweating to death. Having any roommate was a step up from that, proof he was trying to be a team player. But volunteering to room with the woman who’d made him see her as a woman, not just another coworker, would be the kind of stupid Treadwell already seemed to think him.
As they neared the end of the second lap, about to cross their five miles off for the evening, he sped up to catch up with her so she wouldn’t leave immediately when she stepped off the path.
“Hey.” He touched her arm to stop her, but as soon as he did, the words he’d wanted to say left his head. Her skin was so hot and slick...firm...
The touch of his hand, no matter how quickly he drew it back, stopped her in her tracks. She turned slowly back to face him, and stepped forward one pace, breaching that bubble of empty space he usually kept around himself. Out in the open air, the last light of day was fading, but the lights on poles around them buzzed, beginning to burn, and he found those astonishingly green eyes staring back at him.
The calm he’d been seeking tickled at the edge of his perception, like a hint of honeysuckle on the night breeze, and he wanted to touch her again.
Swallowing, he took one step back.
“If someone dumps on you because you’re a woman, tell me.”
As soon as he’d gotten the words out, before he saw more than her little ears pulling back as her face lit with surprise, he stepped around her and jogged off. It was almost chow time, and he was hungry and in need of a shower away from honeyed golden skin and perceptive green eyes.
No way would he take her up on the invitation to share a cabin. He was used to roughing it. Sleeping outside in a sleeping bag hardly qualified. He’d wait for his cabin assignment.
* * *
The next morning, Beck awoke in the cab of his truck, neck stiff and head clogged with thoughts he generally avoided. He’d dreamed about her. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d dreamed about a woman.
It wasn’t one of those dreams, it wasn’t even her pestering him with a million questions. They were just sitting on the porch of his little cottage, playing cards and drinking beer, and she’d kept looking over the top arching edge of her red-backed cards, her eyes even greener for the proximity, and flashing mischief.
There was something very sweet about it, although even trying to explain why just left him wanting to call it boring. Boring dream. Cards. Beer. Porch. Stupid thing to dream about. He’d rather have had some kind of wild sex dream about her. If he’d taken her up on the offer to sleep in the other bed in the cabin she’d claimed, he probably would’ve had something more cinematic in his head last night.
So he was up early, and made it to the dew-covered field just as the sun came up. Mist still rose from the grass, the morning siren hadn’t even blasted, but a few other folks were coming down from the cabins.
“Here.”
Her voice came from the side suddenly, and he turned at the waist to see her, his neck refusing his order to turn. She looked as fresh as a daisy, and had a steaming paper cup in each hand, one of which she held out. “I don’t know how you like coffee, but there was a coffee maker in the cabin, and I doubted you had one in the trunk.”
“Truck,” he corrected. The quirk of her lips said she’d knowingly made that verbal typo. He probably did look like he’d been sleeping in a trunk.
“Black, but I have sugar in my pocket,” she added.
God help him, he’d bet she did. Sugar. Sweet, addicting sugar...
“I like it black.”
“Thought you might. You probably also like it a week old when it’s condensed down to an inky liquid you could use to strip an engine block.”
“You’ll get used to roughing it.” He took a sip with some effort, the bitter shot of liquid a fleeting wake-up jolt. “Men in my unit used to pack coffee grounds in their lower lip like tobacco when on guard duty.”
“Gross.”
“Or chew coffee beans directly.”
“Double gross.”
“When you’re tired enough and the threat of a court-martial rides on you staying awake...”
She smiled at him then, and he really looked at her. Even in the low morning light, it was the first thing he saw. Malachite. Beautiful. She was girl-next-door cute, but her eyes...
He took another drink of his coffee. Talk. Ask her something. Just stop thinking. She liked to talk. “You’re not former military.”
The siren blast that called everyone to morning PT startled her, causing her hand to jerk, and heavily creamed coffee sloshed over the side.
“Should’ve warned you,” he said, watching her grumble and shake the liquid off her hand. “Every morning. Get used to it.”
“I’ll get a sippy cup,” she muttered, wiping her hand on her hip.
He grinned at the image, so opposite from the tough exterior she portrayed. Cute. Funny. Able to laugh at herself. That was something new.
When he opened his mouth to comment, the sound of movement behind him had him turning. More folks streamed in, but nowhere near as many as there had been yesterday—the teams were still out. Treadwell, however, was back. He walked in from the main buildings.
“Wasn’t sure they were back,” he murmured to Autry.
“Looks like he just got here.”
The observation wasn’t wrong. Treadwell’s hair had the spiky, sweaty quality of a head that had spent hours in a helmet being baked from the outside, and the sturdy, vibrant man from yesterday looked like he could’ve been knocked down with a breath.
“Does he always look like that after a fire?” She kept her voice low, for his ears only.
A closer look and the contrast between the man he saw and what he expected immediately concerned him.
Without another word, he broke away