Page 8 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Firefighter

“Let’s get you to the shower,” Heather says.

“But you haven’t finished your food.”

“I will.”

She flips the water on, sets a towel on the bathroom counter, and heads for the door. “I trust you can get undressed on your own?” she asks, hand on the doorknob as she starts to pull it closed.

“If I said no?”

Blush colors her cheeks, and I can’t help but feel a little smug. “Get your ass in the shower before I send Aries in.”

The hot water revives me, but it’s short lived.

With a towel wrapped around my waist, I head for the living room. But Heather intercepts me in the hallway.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Sleep.”

“You’re not sleeping on that piece of plywood,” she says, turning me around. I’m too tired to fight her, so I just shuffle back to the bedroom.

I drop onto the bed like a lead weight, and Heather tosses a blanket over me.

“You can’t sleep on the couch,” I insist.

“You need this bed more than I do tonight,” she says. “I think I saw a cat bed. Looks brand new.”

I catch her by the wrist, and without thinking, softly plead, “Stay with me?”

“It really was a bad one, wasn’t it?”

I don’t answer. I don’t have to.

“Okay, I’ll stay.” She crawls under the covers next to me. I yearn to pull her close. After the day I had, she’s the only thing that makes sense. The anchor I crave in a world that doesn’t always make sense. But it’s enough that she’s here beside me, so I don’t press my luck.

“Heather?” I say, yawning as my eyelids can no longer fight gravity. I’m too tired to fight the heavy pull of exhaustion, so I don’t.

“Yeah?”

“That kiss wasn’t a mistake,” I mumble the words, not certain I’ve said them at all, and add, “Not for me.”

5

HEATHER

I’ve beenawake for hours. Of course I have. Because Dean Walker had the audacity to tell me the eggnog-induced kiss wasn’t a mistake right before he dropped into a damn coma. Every follow-up question I’ve had since he uttered those words has been racing through my mind for the better part of three hours. What the hell am I supposed to do with that confession?

I want to be mad at him, but how can I be? Isn’t this what I’ve always wanted? For the cute boy I had a ridiculously large crush on since I was fifteen to see me as more than just his little sister’s best friend?

But did he mean it? Or was he just exhausted and unaware of what he said?

I’m frustrated, but I can’t hang onto that emotion long enough to truly be upset. Every time I try, I just picture Dean sitting at the kitchen table, looking as though he’d been whipped around in a tornado right before he got run over by a bus. I’ve always viewed him as heroic for being a firefighter, but I never really thought about what he went throughafterthe fire was extinguished.

Is it stupid that I want to be the one he comes home after a long, hard day? The one who takes care of him the same way he took care of me after that disaster date from hell? I could learn to cook more than spaghetti. And, if not, well, at least I’d have a professional firefighter on standby to keep me from burning down the kitchen.

Ugh, I wish I knew if he meant what he said. Because if he was being honest, that would mean my entire interpretation of our first kiss is all wrong. Maybe what I perceived as his rejection in the garage that night was really just surprise.

The mortified expression he wore is burned into my brain, making a hard counterargument, however.