Page 40 of Smoke and Roses

It’s an all-out attack on my senses and works exactly like he knows it will.

It’s fast and quiet and a little bit crazy with his belt buckle clinking against a bucket until I hiss and shove the bucket away.

Travis puts his hand over my mouth, gently, when I can’t stay quiet.

That does something to me, but it’s his laugh against my ear that nearly splits my heart in half.

The van is rocking. Thank god everyone is inside.

I come with a shrill squeak against his hand, and he follows a second later with a groan into my neck that isn’t really quiet.

“Oh, you bad boy,” I say, laughing against his shoulder.

We lie there on the moving blankets in a tangle of limbs and clothes, breathing hard.

“I’m going to hell,” I say to the van ceiling. “I’m taking you with me.”

“Fair.” He props himself up on one elbow and picks a leaf out of my hair. He’s still wearing the boutonniere. It’s crushed flat. He says, “I think I ruined your flower.”

Travis’s gaze rises to mine and he takes me in. Sprawled on the blankets with my hair everywhere and my face on fire, and his expression is so soft and so open that my heart flips over.

“Lindsey,” he says.

“Hmm?”

That’s all. He looks at me like he’s memorizing me.

“What?” I whisper.

“Nothing.” He kisses my forehead. “I’m getting a cat.”

I laugh so hard the van rocks again.

Chapter Thirteen

“You must be the Ranger.”

The man standing in the station bay with a duffel bag over his shoulder is about six feet, lean, with a shaved head and a grin like he just got away with something.

He’s holding out his right hand. His left hand is missing the last two fingers.

“Ryan Novak,” he says. “Navy EOD. Rob says you’re the one who makes the coffee.”

“Rob lies.”

“Rob said you’d say that.” He pumps my hand. “He also said you’re dating a florist, you don’t talk, and you’re mean on a ladder race.”

I look across the bay. Rob, at the coffee pot, raises his mug at me.

“Some of those things are true,” I tell Novak.

“Which ones?”

“Figure it out.”

Novak laughs, loud and easy. Behind him, a big dog comes around the end of Engine 1 at a slow walk. A Belgian Malinois, tan and black, gray around the muzzle. Behind the dog comes a man about my size with dark hair buzzed Marine-short. He doesn’t smile.

“Nate Folsom,” he says, and holds out his hand. “Marine. This is Bruno. He outranks me.”