ton. She felt as if she’d just come off from fighting a four-alarm fire rather than chasing chickens that had been granted unexpected clemency down the highway. Something brushed against her foot and she started, making her realize that while she may appear completely at ease at seeing her husband for the first time in six months, her nerves were pulled taut and her stomach burned so much it hurt. Almost as an afterthought, she looked down at the scrap of fur that wound itself around her ankles. The usually coolly indifferent station cat traced figure eights around her legs. Jolie grimaced as Spot nudged her with more power than she would have thought possible. She stumbled forward, then played it off as if she’d meant to do that. Plucking her hat from the truck cab, she began shrugging out of her coat. Spot followed.
“Dusty,” she acknowledged, trying to treat him like any other fellow firefighter as she entered the station. Pretend she hadn’t spent the first month after he’d left crying her way through the night, then the next month dreaming he’d come back.
But as she grew nearer to him, she became all too aware of how exactly he wasn’t just a fellow firefighter. And it had more to do with just the plain gold band she still wore around her ring finger.
Dusty Conrad was her husband. The man who had promised to love and cherish and care for her until “death do us part.” And though she hadn’t checked with the pastor, she was sure that those vows in no way included a note that read, “Please forgive me,” and a disappearing act that would have made Copperfield sit up and take notice.
Chief Jones cleared his throat. “Hey, Jolie, you schedule that annual physical yet?”
She glanced at Gary, as if unable to comprehend his words. “Not yet.”
“You’ve only got till the end of the month, you know.”
She nodded slowly. “I know.” And to think, just this morning she was thinking how much she hated checking in for her annual physical. Compared to facing Dusty now, it came a distant second.
The brief exchange proved the silence-breaker and the guys started talking again, conversation centering on Dusty and his sudden return.
Jolie purposely jutted her chin out. No matter how good he looked standing there in those faded jeans and soft chambray shirt, she wasn’t going to let on how loudly her hormones screamed or how much she wanted to pin him against the firehouse wall and make up for lost time. She wasn’t about to reveal anything until she found out why he was here. And even then, it might not be a good idea to tell him how much she’d missed him.
“I’m going to clean up,” she said to everybody and nobody in particular. She sprinted for the locker room, nearly tripping over the fluff of black-and-white fuzz that was Spot blocking her path. So much for making a graceful exit.
Well, hell, that hadn’t gone quite as he’d expected.
Dusty cast a glance toward the empty kitchen doorway and wondered exactly what Jolie had gone to clean up. He’d assumed she’d meant herself. But in the forty-five minutes since she’d been gone, she could have cleaned the showers, bunkhouse and both fire engines…with her toothbrush.
Anxious, he flipped over the chicken-fried steaks he was preparing, seeking comfort in his old familiar role as cook. But his mind wasn’t having any of it. The truth was being here was a little too familiar. Too comfortable. And to think he’d purposely come to the station instead of going to the house because he’d been afraid of familiarity. Wanted to avoid the temptation of falling back into old routines.
If that was the case, then why was it taking every ounce of restraint he had to keep himself from going after Jolie in the back rooms? Not to confront her about their divorce papers, but to rediscover her mouth, relearn her taste, find out if the flame he’d glimpsed in her eyes a short while ago burned just as hot now as it had back when.
He cleared his throat, ordering his coiled muscles to relax, holding his long-denied libido in check.
He glanced behind him, although he knew exactly where each of his former fellow firefighters was sitting at the table without looking. As always, Jones was at the head of the table looking every bit like the chief, while Martinez leaned back, rocking the front legs of his chair from the floor, acting the renegade rookie ready to take on the world. John Sparks was smack-dab in the middle of everyone, his sheriff’s shirt rolled up to his elbows, those same elbows resting against the tabletop, while Sal was snacking on something or other he’d pilfered from the refrigerator. Dusty fell right into the old routine of exchanging verbal jabs with them with far too much ease. Even found himself listening for the old bell alarm that would call them out on a run.
He glanced toward the doorway again, only this time Scott Wahl blocked his view. Dusty looked back to the cooktop, not wanting to compare how similar the young man was to his brother, Erick. Not wanting to think about the chair at the other end of the table that was left empty because Erick was no longer there to fill it.
“You were the cook?” Scooter asked, propping a too skinny hip against the counter next to the stove.
“Yeah.” He tested the boiling potatoes with a fork.
“I always thought cooking was a sissy chore.”
Dusty hiked a brow.
“Not to say that you’re a sissy or anything,” Scott said quickly, his spine snapping flagpole straight. “Actually the guys have been telling me how, you know, you are the best and everything—”
“Was,” he absently corrected the boy. “I was the best.” At least up until the point when he’d caused the death of his brother. “How old are you, Scooter?”
The kid looked relieved that he’d changed the subject. “Eighteen.”
Eighteen. Dusty nearly burned himself on the skillet handle. Erick had been eighteen when he started hanging out at the fire station, not content to do other things until he turned twenty-one and qualified for being a firefighter. No, Erick had automatically expected an exception to be made for him. Of course, none was. But that hadn’t stopped his younger brother from dogging their steps when they went out on runs. If not on his bike, then in his car.
“You eat, don’t you?” he asked Scott.
“Yeah, of course I eat. If I didn’t eat, I’d be dead.”
Damn. “You trying to tell me you’ve lived eighteen years without preparing a single meal, Scooter?”
“Scott,” the teenager said, the tips of his ears reddening. “Everyone calls me Scott now.”
“Is that so?”
The boy nodded.
“All right, then, Scott it is. And you didn’t answer my question.”
The boy shrugged. “I’ve fixed stuff for myself. You know, like macaroni and cheese and frozen pizzas when my mom’s not home. But that doesn’t count.”
“How so?”
Scott grinned. “Because no one but me eats it.”
“Ah.” He switched on the fire under the vegetables, then held out his fork. “Well, then, I think it’s about time that changed.”
The kid stared at the fork as though it was a wild hose he couldn’t bring under control. Dusty chuckled. “Don’t panic. Just keep an eye on those steaks. When they start to brown, they’re done. Just take them out and put them on the plate over there.”
“Mr. Conrad, I—”
Mr. Conrad? Dusty fought the urge to look around to see if his father had dropped in for a visit from Arizona. “It’s Dusty, kid.” He patted him so hard on the back, Scott nearly doubled over. “And I have complete faith in you.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about. I mean, I think it’s cool and everything that you cook, but…I…”
“What? You never linked firefighting with cooking?” Dusty shook his head. “See, Scott, that’s