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“I’m sure someone will let you use their phone.”
“If it were that simple, I would have asked to use yours by now!” Another bout of wind dances in the air, kicking the flaps of my robe apart. I push the ice bucket into his arms and grip my robe with both hands.
He looks down at the bucket like I just handed him a grenade that’s about to blow. “Miss, please, you can spectate from across the street.”
“I don’t want to stand over there.”
“We need the area clear.”
“And I need to get into my room and get my things.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not wearing any underwear!” I yell entirely too loud, as I’m pretty sure everyone heard me over the sounds of engines roaring, water gushing, flames blazing, and people scurrying.
How is it that I, Jillian Hathaway—loving mother, fierce wedding planner, friend extraordinaire, and someone who does the right thing, lives a proper life, crosses hert’s and dots heri’s, and avoids all things troublesome—have found myself in the biggest pickle of a lifetime?
I squeeze my fists and scrunch my face as I beg the universe for a solution to this nightmare of a situation.
“Jillian?”
My heart, which is already thumping a million beats per second, goes into overdrive as my name is said by a man behind me. The voice is deep and gravelly—that low, sexually charged frequency that makes the hair on your arms rise and your chest quicken.
I turn slowly, wondering who could know me in this town three hours away from my home of Greenwood Village and say my name with such potent familiarity.
Then, I see him.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in heavy firefighter equipment, sweaty and covered in the faintest amount of soot. Despite the helmet casting a shadow on his face, I can see his eyes clear as day. They’re hypnotic, soul-searing eyes. Dark blue with sparkles of gold and tiny crinkles on the sides. They’re the kind that ooze charisma as they flirt and sizzle and make you drop your panties … if I were wearing any, that is.
My jaw falls to the pavement, and my stomach plunges as my heart lands right in the pit of my belly.
“Luke,” I utter in disbelief.
Three swoonworthy days, one sinful night, and a ghosting that could frighten a vampire. It’s been years since I saw this man, and here he is, on the streets of Walden.
“What are you doing here?” He assesses my robe, which I’m still clinging to for dear life.
“Oh. You know, just, um … work.” I swallow the lump in my throat.
He appears just as stunned to see me, and I scowl, wondering how on earth out of all the firemen in all the world, the one I met over a three-day wedding and then threw myself into bed with like a whore in church, is standing here. Here. In Walden. In front of the Walden Hotel as I wear nothing but a damn bathrobe with my hooha feeling the midnight breeze.
“How did you know it was me?”
He hesitates before replying, “Your auburn hair. Only woman I know with that shade of red and who pulls it back as tight as you do.”
I lift a hand to my head, as if needing to make sure it is indeed pulled back.
“Can you handle this, Incendio?” The fire captain hands Luke the ice bucket. “I need to attend to matters on the ladder. Get your friend here to remove herself before she gets trampled.”
Luke nods as his eyes remain on mine.
The captain leaves, and we’re still standing here, entirely too close to a burning building.
He’s looking at me like I’m a mirage in the desert. Since he blocked me from all forms of communication, I’d have assumed I was the last woman on earth he’d want to run into again.
