The air was still thick with smoke when Aimee parked along the curb behind the second fire truck. Firefighters stood all around the parking lot of the thrift store, some chatting casually while others doused what was left of the building and the remaining embers with hoses shooting water in gigantic arcs.
The acrid scent of scorched flesh and wet fur hit her nose, and her stomach dropped. Aimee hoped they weren’t too late.
After re-securing the bobby pin holding back her growing-out blonde pixie cut, she grabbed one of the carriers, a towel, and a pair of work gloves from her back seat, then slammed the door shut with her hip. When she reached the nearest firefighter, she said, “I’m from Animal Control. Where are they?”
The guy pointed a finger to the other side of the parking lot, where another firefighter stood with his back to them.
“Thanks.” She carried her gear across the asphalt. The summer heat combined with the smoke and the charred building remnants suffocated her senses. She cleared her throat as she walked, then repeated her introduction. “Hi, I’m Aimee, from Animal Control.”
The man turned to face her. He was wearing oversized fireproof pants and suspenders. A dark, tight T-shirt clung to his torso, drenched in sweat. His tanned, muscular arms lined up horizontally in front of his torso, and a tiny black kitten lay draped over his forearms. Its eyes were shut and Aimee held her breath for a moment until its body shook with a small shudder-breath of relief. Aimee was certain she’d feel relieved and safe in those arms too… until her gaze rose from the kitten to the sooty, sweaty face looking down at her.
“Hi, Aimee from Animal Control.”
She wasn’t sure he recognized her at first, then she caught a slight smile of embarrassment playing at the edges of his mouth.
Damn right he ought to be embarrassed.
“Cody, right?”
After a slight flinch and a fade of that smile, he corrected her. “Caleb.”
She knew damn well what his name was. But if he could forget her number, she sure as hell wasn’t gonna let him know she remembered his name.
She flashed a friendly, innocent smile. “I didn’t realize you were a firefighter.”
Another lie.
She’d gotten the entire scoop on him the night they’d met at her friend Leslie’s master’s graduation party four years ago. She didn’t remember much else from that night, but she remembered being unable to take her eyes off of him and asking everyone around her what they knew about the guy.
Then she remembered slamming back several cups from the keg before making her move. Giggling and flirting. Punching her number into his phone. Sloppy hot sex in his pickup outside her rented house near campus.
Ice cream on the couch with her roommate a week later when he still hadn’t called.
“Yeah. I just transferred to this station though.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “So. Animal Control, huh?”
“Yup,” she said.
She pressed her lips together to keep from giving away any additional information. No need to ease this conversation. He deserved awkward.
“Is this the only one?” she asked, switching to business mode. “The call said there were more.”
Please let there still be more.
She was one of the lucky few who could work in this field and turn her emotions off long enough to get the job done, but even she couldn’t fully guard her heart against the harsh realities of animal rescue. Fire calls. Hoarding calls. These didn’t usually have happy endings. At least not for all the animals they were called to collect.
“Couldn’t catch the rest,” he said, disappointment weighing heavily on his face. “Two and what looked like the mama all disappeared into the field behind the building. Owner said they’d hang around the dumpster but were all pretty feral. This little guy must have gotten confused and ran in through an open door in the back during the chaos.”
Aimee released a sigh of relief. Then she remembered the first thing she’d noticed when she’d arrived. “That… smell?”
Caleb looked confused for a moment, then shook his head. “Oh, no. It’s fine. They apparently were having some Christmas in July sale. The place was loaded with leather jackets and fur coats.”
Gross.
But less gross and less devastating than what she’d feared.
She made a mental note to contact the owner and the neighbors. Maybe someone would be willing to keep an eye on a trap, so they could spay and release the mama cat and hopefully find homes for the other kittens.
Aimee placed the carrier on the ground with the towel folded inside. Thankfully, it didn’t look like she’d need the gloves with this one. “Well, if you put it in the carrier, I’ll take it from here.”
The kitten shuddered in his arms as if it had understood, even though its eyes were still shut tight.
He opened then shut his mouth. Looked down at the bundle of fur draped over his arm, then back up at her, his eyes filled with hesitation and concern.
“I promise,” Aimee said. “It’ll be fine. It’s tiny. And cute. It’ll get scooped up soon enough.”
He looked back at the kitten and rubbed the top of its head with his index finger. The tender gesture tugged at Aimee’s heart.
No, she told herself. Don’t fall for the kitten shit. The guy’s already proven himself a turd.
“But won’t it just go in a cage? Shouldn’t it get checked out by a vet or something? He inhaled a good bit of smoke in there.”
“We have a vet,” she said, knowing damn well the vet wouldn’t have time to check on this kitten until tomorrow.
“I mean, don’t you have contacts or something?” he asked. “Someone who could watch it for the night or whatever? Make sure it’s okay for a couple days? Even in full grown humans, more serious smoke issues can show up hours after an incident.”
Fuck. He wasn’t going to let this go.
And somehow, despite his dick move four years ago, she still wanted to hug him for it. Not many people in this world gave a shit anymore. Hell, most days even she barely gave a shit.
At least that’s what she tried to make everyone believe. Everyone including herself.
“Listen, I’m not supposed to do this, but I know someone. She runs a black cat rescue out of her house in Breaux Bridge. I was going to call her tomorrow to see if she’d take the kitten, but I guess given the circumstance we can maybe skip a step.” She pointed at the carrier on the asphalt. “Just put it in there while I call her.”
He shook his head. “I can hold him while you drive.”
There were two huge problems with his suggestion. First, there was the whole safety protocol issue. That kitten needed to be in a carrier. All cats should be contained while driving. No matter how big and strong the arms holding said cat appeared.
Second, did he just assume she’d give him a ride? That she would want to be in the same town, much less the same car as him? Jeez, the entitlement of this guy.
Aimee took a deep breath and pressed her lips together again. No point arguing until after she checked if Liz could even take this kitten.
Of course, Liz could take the kitten.
More like of course Liz agreed to take the kitten, no matter how overrun with rescue cats she might already be at the moment. But Aimee knew Liz would do everything she could to make sure the kitten was cared for. And no matter how overrun she might be at the moment, Liz’s house was still a better option than the shelter.
Aimee had loaded up the unused carrier and gloves while Caleb let the other guys know he would meet them back at the station. Aimee had to guess this probably wasn’t proper protocol for them, either.
When he sat in the passenger’s seat with the kitten still in his arms, Aimee became painfully aware of the preexisting odor in her car. The stench of stale, feral cat urine lingered in her interior despite numerous attempts to clean it. Those cleaning attempts meant it now stank of a pungent vinegar and piss combo.
She hardly noticed anymore, but Caleb had to have noticed, even though he smelled like a campfire himself. Great. Now she could add smoke smell to the permanent mix.
When she opened her mouth to apologize for the stench, the kitten’s eyes flew open. It completely lost its shit, howling and yelping and clawing at Caleb’s arm as it circled in a panic on Caleb’s lap.
“Toss it in the carrier in the back seat,” she shouted over the feline screams. “Can you reach it?”
“Yeah, but he won’t sit still.” Caleb struggled to pick up the kitten, its tiny claws flailing through the arm and tearing up Caleb’s hands. “I can’t get a grip on him.”
“It’s scared. You have to scruff it.”
“Scruff him? But if he’s scared—”
“You have to,” she said, her voice loud and firm. “It’ll be fine. I promise. It won’t hurt it.”
He looked hurt and lost, but concern for the creature won out. He followed her directions and gently grabbed the wailing banshee by the skin on the back of its neck, lifting it in the air. It flailed for a second but calmed once it realized its efforts were futile, and it became mesmerized by the world zooming past the window.
“Good. Now put it in a crate before it freaks out again.”
“Can’t I just hold him? He’s calm now.”
“Until it isn’t,” she said. “The last thing we need is it getting loose and running under my pedals while I’m driving.”
“Right,” he said.
She didn’t know why she hadn’t insisted on him locking the kitten in a carrier before they hit the road.
Actually, she knew exactly why. The sight of his big arms holding that tiny, exhausted furball had turned her heart to mush. And her judgment to mush, apparently.
But no more. No more mush brains. No more poor judgment. No more heart decisions. She knew better than that.
Especially around a guy who’d already broken her heart.
Some random guy not calling her after a hookup would have been bad, but not bad enough to cause damage. But Caleb hadn’t been just some random guy. At least not by the end of that night, after talking to him for hours before they ended up mostly naked in the cab of his truck. Aimee didn’t open up to many people, but for some reason she couldn’t help telling him all kinds of things about herself. About her absentee family, all her favorite movies and books—many of which they had in common—and even her dream of running an animal rescue of her own one day.
And it hadn’t been just a one-sided conversation. She might have been hammered when she found the courage to stumble across the room and give him her number, but she’d sobered up over the several easy, relaxed hours they’d spent in deep conversation outside away from the rest of the party, and later in his truck… before they had their hands all over each other.
After that, she never heard from him. And she hadn’t even gotten his number to yell at him about it.
Caleb twisted around in his seat to shove the kitten into the closest carrier in reach, but the second the door shut, the thing started wailing and howling. Poor Caleb looked heartbroken and guilt-ridden, but Aimee had long ago learned to tune out that sound and concentrate on driving. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, but if she didn’t keep her focus, this little guy and all the other ones like him wouldn’t get to safety. And she took that job seriously.
Caleb mumbled something she couldn’t hear over the racket in the backseat.
“What?” she scream-asked.
“I said I don’t know how you do this every day!”
She shrugged. No point screaming back an answer he wouldn’t understand, anyway. Besides, she didn’t exactly know how. It was just something she did.
They rode the rest of the way without another word while the kitten screamed his head off behind them. By the time they pulled into Liz’s driveway, his little voice was strained.
“You think he’s okay?” Caleb asked as she removed the carrier from the back seat.
“Yeah,” she said. “Just hoarse from screaming.”
They walked past a sprawling live oak with a wooden swing hanging from a large limb and climbed the front porch steps. The front door opened, and a woman with shiny, thick waves of black hair and intense red lipstick filled the doorway.
“That poor darling.” She waved a hand and stepped aside, holding the door open wide. “Come in, come in.”
“Thanks.” Once inside, Aimee nodded to her side. “This is Caleb. He found it. Caleb, this is Liz.”
The kitten was still screaming its head off when Liz took the crate from her and peered inside. “Got a name yet?”
“Not yet,” said Aimee.
“How about Soot?” Caleb offered. “Ember?”
“Got one one of those already. Had one with the other name recently,” said Liz. “I try to space out my repeats to cut down on record keeping confusion.”
Caleb nodded in understanding. Then he narrowed his eyes, deep in thought.
Liz looked at Aimee and grinned. “How about Smolder?”
Caleb looked at the kitten. “Sounds perfect.”
Aimee rolled her eyes while Liz chuckled, clearly proud of herself. Caleb appeared to be clueless that he, not the fire-rescued cat, was the inspiration for the name.
“So, you okay with this?” Aimee asked Liz, switching gears to break her thoughts from Caleb and his smoldering. “Need anything?”
“Yup. Good to go,” she said. “Luna’s helping me set up an acclimation cage in the bedroom, so I can keep a close eye on it.”
Caleb moved toward her and stuck a finger into the carrier. “You take care, buddy. Okay?” The kitted rubbed against his fingertip, and loud, rolling purrs immediately replaced its screams.
Aimee felt her heart rate increase and heat rush throughout her body. Damn it if she wasn’t a sucker for a big, tough kitten softie.
Too bad this guy was the softie, because he was definitely off limits. She didn’t have a habit of making the same mistake twice.
Aimee rolled to a stop in front of the fire station and put the car in park.
Why the hell did she do that? She was just dropping the guy off, not parking to make out in front of his place of employment.
Shit, why was she thinking about making out with him at all?
“Well,” he said, his voice low and smoldery like everything else, “thanks for taking me along. I appreciate it. And Liz seems great.”
That’s why she was thinking about making out with the guy. Because besides being hot as hell and triggering some majorly ecstatic recall, he had a soft spot for kittens in distress.
“Yeah, well, it seemed important to you. And the kitten’s better off there than at our facility.”
She’d have to deal with the fallout from not following proper procedure for bringing the kitten in, but she’d take the heat. The kitten had already taken its fair share. This way, it would get a soft bed and a watchful eye tonight.
She waited for him to open his door and leave—to wave goodbye and not see him again, just like last time—but he didn’t move. He just sat there in the passenger seat, filling her car with the lingering smoke from his uniform and heat from… him.
He ran a hand through that gorgeous, silky brown hair of his, then turned to look her in the eye for the first time since they’d left Liz’s. He held her gaze with those dark eyes and said, “It was good to see you again.”
Her mouth hung open, her breathing heavy and labored as she remembered sitting in another vehicle staring at this man, his strong hands moving over her body, their mouths pressed together, their bodies following suit…
“Yeah,” she said, shaking her head to dislodge those memories. “Good to see you again, too.”
No, it wasn’t. None of this was good.
Or was it?
She didn’t know up from down when she was around this man, and her heart had the bruises to show for it.
Part of her wanted to ask what had happened. To clear the air. Appease her curiosity. Pour salt in the wound.
But only part of her. The rest of her was too proud and too stubborn. Too battered and weary of people disappointing her.
Besides, no answer he could give would make her feel any better about that night. No answer could erase the pain he had caused.
He cleared his throat. “Listen, I don’t know what—”
Her phone chimed loudly and buzzed in the cupholder between them. Aimee snatched it, grateful for the distraction, but her gratitude quickly evaporated.
“Shit.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It’s Liz. The kitten’s crashing.”
The door flew open and Caleb jumped outside.
“Wait,” she shouted before he could shut the door. “She’s taking it to the vet.”
He stopped and leaned down, poking his head back inside the car. “Which vet?”
“Bridge Street Veterinary Clinic. It’s down—”
“I know where it is,” he said. “Thanks.”
He shut the door and sprinted toward a dark blue pickup truck. Aimee sat with the car still in park, watching him for a few moments. The brake lights lit up, and the truck exited its parking spot, speeding down the road back the way they came, back to Breaux Bridge.
Aimee needed to get to work. She’d done her job. More than her job. And she’d broken procedure enough for one day. There was absolutely nothing she could do that Liz and the vet weren’t already doing.
But the fear and concern on Caleb’s face were etched in her brain now. She couldn’t erase that image any more than she could erase that night.
The only thing she could do now was move on. Again. Go back to work and get back to her life.
She put her car in gear and left the fire station. When she reached the road, instead of turning left to go back to work, she turned right, Caleb’s pickup truck drawing her in like a tractor beam.
When Aimee entered the vet clinic, Caleb was already sitting on a bench, tapping his foot and rubbing his palms over his jeans. He’d disappeared in traffic and must have been flying down the interstate. Aimee had spotted Liz’s car in the lot, but she wasn’t in the waiting area.
She sat beside Caleb beneath a bright, colorful impressionist painting of a pug. “Wouldn’t let you in I guess.”
“I tried,” he said with a frown. “That vet tech was tiny but scrappy.”
“They need space. They’ll take good care of it, I promise.”
She was making a lot of promises today. A lot of promises to a man who hadn’t kept his own promise to her.
But for some reason, she couldn’t curb her need to soothe things for him. To reassure him. She couldn’t stand seeing a big, tough guy in pain over an animal. While Caleb’s job wasn’t easy, it wasn’t anything like hers. He didn’t see the cruelty and neglect. All the horrors Aimee witnessed daily.
She’d lost all faith in people somewhere along the way over the last few years. But this man… she couldn’t reconcile his villain origin story in her head with the caring individual sitting beside her.
Maybe she was still right about people, but maybe she had been wrong about this person.
“Hey,” she put a hand on his knee to stop his nervous bouncing as second thoughts ran through her head. But he needed a distraction, and she couldn’t think of anything better. “Why didn’t you ever call?”
His leg froze, and he looked sideways at her, a startled expression taking over his face. “What?”
She pressed her lips together, regretting the question, but committed to this path now. She really, really didn’t want to hear the answer to this. “That night. After. Why didn’t you call?”
Did I do something? Say something? Were you really just a jerk, and I misread you so, so horribly that I couldn’t trust my judgment in anyone from that moment on?
His brow furrowed in confusion. “I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.” He took a beat, mulling over some thought or another, then asked his own burning question. “Why did you give me a fake number?”
“A fake…” She shook her head. “I didn’t.”
“I called. The next morning. I wanted to meet you for breakfast or coffee or something. I remember, my roommate told me I was an idiot for calling too soon.” He let out a small, strained laugh. “But I called anyway. And I got the voicemail for some divorce attorney.”
“Divorce attorney?”
“I mean, you could have just told me you weren’t interested.”
She saved her lecture about how women aren’t allowed the freedom in this world to just tell men they aren’t interested in them. Normally she’d run down facts and stats on how often that gets women in trouble and even killed. But there was something even more important she needed to clear up.
“Caleb, I didn’t give you a fake number. You must have dialed wrong. Didn’t you try again?”
“I dialed five times.” He pulled his phone from his back pocket and opened his contacts. There was her name on the list. Just “Aimee.” No last name. Spelled correctly. Just as she’d typed it in for him four years ago.
She felt something warm and unfamiliar tugging at her chest. “You… you kept my contact?”
He ignored the question and opened the entry. The only information contained was her first name and her phone number.
“Shit,” she said, staring at the screen. The second to last digit was one number off. She must have had one too many “courage drinks” before she started talking to him and fumbled the number.
“So wait,” he said. “You didn’t give me a fake number on purpose? You weren’t trying to blow me off?”
She shook her head. “I really thought you were the one ditching me.”
He smiled at her, lightness reaching his eyes for the first time that afternoon. He stared intensely at her, making her squirm in her seat just like she had in that truck before he’d kissed her.
Realizing the phone was still in her hand, she hit the edit button and changed the off-digit to her correct number.
He took the phone and looked at the number, then back up at her. “Maybe we can have that breakfast some time?”
An exam door opened across the room, and they both jumped to their feet as Liz walked toward them. Aimee’s pulse raced as her heart clambered against her chest. She knew better than to get emotionally invested in the health of a tiny, fragile animal, but she had no idea how to not be emotionally invested in Caleb’s investment in that animal.
“He’s fine for now.” Liz directed her words at Caleb, who looked ready to barrel past her into that room. “They’ve got him in the back getting oxygen, but they think it might be more shock and dehydration than smoke damage. Checked him out good, then gave him fluids and precautionary meds, and he’s looking perkier already.”
“Oh, good,” Aimee said. Caleb nodded, but his shoulders were still hunched with tension.
“They want to keep him on oxygen for a little while before they release him, then I’ll monitor him closely for the next couple days and bring him back if he isn’t improving.”
“Thanks, Liz.” Aimee took a deep breath and a long exhale of release. “Well, I need to get back to work.”
Liz nodded. “I’ll keep in touch and update you tomorrow. Gonna wait in the room.”
When she disappeared back into the exam room, Caleb turned to Aimee and said, “Thank you.”
“Just doing my job,” she said, knowing full well that none of this from the moment she arrived at the fire had been part of her normal job protocol.
He took her hand and squeezed it softly, sending heat radiating all the way up her arm. “Thank you,” he repeated, staring into her eyes.
This time, she simply nodded and said, “You’re welcome.”
“I’m going to stick around a while, see if I can visit the little guy before he leaves again.” Then, with a small grin, he said, “I’ll call you.”
Aimee slung her bag over her shoulder and waved goodbye to her coworker at the end of the hallway. Her feet and back cried out for the long, hot bath with Epsom salts and lavender oil waiting for her at home. But her brain—and other parts—were crying out for something else.
Someone else.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Caleb all afternoon. Even worse, she couldn’t stop grinning every time she thought about Caleb.
Or maybe that wasn’t actually worse. Maybe it wasn’t even a bad thing at all.
The whole thing four years ago had just been a misunderstanding… well, her fault, technically, since her own drunken ass had typed in the wrong phone number.
But did she really want to go down that road with him now? They were probably different people than the two who’d spent that night talking about their hopes and dreams. Did she want to do that all over again, knowing it might not work out again, knowing they might not connect this time? Did she want to take that risk? Did she want to risk that disappointment?
As soon as she sat in her car and turned on the air full blast, she grabbed her cell phone. Maybe he’d want to grab a drink tonight.
Maybe breakfast…
But he’d beaten her to the punch. She opened the text message he’d sent and found what was definitely not a breakfast invitation.
Another cat situation. Not an emergency, but can you meet me here after work?
She frowned at the message and address beneath. Someone probably found the rest of that kitten’s family and needed her to take them in. Liz had her hands full, and if the momma cat was even mildly feral, she couldn’t just hand her over to a foster.
Good thing she hadn’t bothered to unload the extra carriers in her back seat yet. Her aching feet and hot bath would have to wait.
Ten minutes later, Aimee pulled into the driveway of a small house with overgrown crepe myrtles in full bloom and front beds in desperate need of weeding. She checked the address again. Yup. This was the place.
For a second, she wondered if Caleb had mistyped this time, but the sight of him waving her in through a side door confirmed this was the right house. Although she didn’t understand how. This was way too far from the site of the fire to have found any of that kitten’s family here.
Unless he’d found some other cats he needed help with.
Shit. She couldn’t just run out every time this guy found a cat. She’d never sleep. Not in this town, where people refused to spay and neuter even when rescue groups begged and offered to cover the costs.
Although running out every time Caleb called had very tempting potential…
“So what’s this about another situation?” she asked once she entered the house.
He closed the door behind her, and a moment later a black streak zoomed across the linoleum and over her shoes. The kitten batted a sparkly pom-pom between its paws and skittered across the kitchen floor.
“Soooo.” He ran a hand through his dark hair, a guilty grin playing on his lips. “Smolder is my situation.”
She pressed her lips together to fight back a laugh. He definitely had a perma-smoldering situation happening. No surprise there. But the cat was a new development.
“I thought Liz was keeping an eye on him and finding him a home?”
“Well, she sort of did.” He scratched nervously at the back of his neck. He’d taken a shower and changed into jeans and a clean black T-shirt that looked so soft it begged for snuggling. The crisp, clean scent of woodsy body wash had replaced his smoky odor from earlier in the day.
“Uh-huh.” Aimee fought back another grin. She couldn’t remember the last time she had smiled had this much in a single day. “Let me guess. She found him a home here?”
“Bingo,” he said. Smolder ran back through the kitchen in the opposite direction. “I figured I was gonna worry about the little guy anyway, might as well keep an eye on him myself.”
“So you’re fostering until she finds him a permanent home?” Aimee asked, knowing full and well what the answer to that question was. Even if Caleb himself didn’t know yet.
“That was the agreement, yes.”
This time, Aimee allowed a small laugh to escape. “We’ll see about that.”
“Right.” He returned her smile, then shifted his gaze back to the kitten. “But see, I have no idea what to do with this guy now.”
Aimee shrugged. “He looks pretty happy so far. I’d say you’re on the right track. You have a litter box, right?”
He nodded. “Liz gave me a small one with some litter and food to get me started.”
“Then it sounds like you’re good to go.” She took a step towards him, narrowing her eyes. “Any particular reason you needed me to come over here, if you have everything you need?”
“I didn’t have everything,” he said, his voice dropping as he looked down at her with those intense, dark eyes.
“Oh, yeah? What were you missing?” She allowed her voice to echo the hint of mischief growing inside her.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Toys. A bed. I thought maybe you could come shopping with me to pick out some things?”
She closed the space between them and took his hand in hers. “Caleb, you don’t have to take in a stray cat every time you want to see me.”
Not anymore.
The idea of seeing Caleb whenever she wanted sent a shiver of delight up her spine.
“Good,” he said. “Because I was worried how I’d up my game when I wanted to kiss you. Thought I’d have to adopt a dog. Maybe a ferret. Alligator in the toilet?”
“Caleb?”
“Yeah?”
She squeezed his hand and stood on her toes, her mouth mere inches from his as she smiled and said, “Shut up and kiss me.”
Read more about Liz and animal rescue and Breaux Bridge in my Bayou Rescue series.