The Fireman I Loved to Hate by Jenna Gunn
Chapter 6
I huff down Marina Road. For one, I’m tired of the cat calls. Two, I don’t want to deal with Raina and the weird attraction I have to her. Do cats wait for me to be on duty? I don’t ever hear about anyone else taking these calls. I’m the lucky one.
I sigh loudly when I park near Raina’s house. As soon as I turn off the ignition, I hear her cat’s caterwauling. I look up and there’s the three-legged orange fuzz bucket on her neighbor’s chimney. No survival instinct in that little guy.
I lean back into my headrest for a moment and collect my thoughts. I pray she doesn’t hound me like last time. It’s a pet peeve of mine, when people crowd the space at the bottom of my ladder. That’s the equivalent of my desk. They need to back off. But there she stood, looking worried and sexy and in my way.
Sexy?
No, I mean, vexing. Sounds the same. That’s probably why I thought sexy. She can’t be sexy. She’s pure trouble. Whatever.
As soon as I shut the truck door, the front door opens. An older woman emerges with a glass of iced tea. She’s short and round and has a great big smile. “Well, hello there!”
“Hello, ma’am!” I pop the tailgate down and retrieve the ladder.
The cat screams, I assume it’s at me. The furball must recognize me as the guy who helped him last time. If I keep saving him, I’ll have a fuzzy new friend. Super.
The elderly lady says, “He’s a loud whiner, ain’t he?”
“Yes, ma’am. He belongs to the neighbor, right?”
Just then, Raina comes out of the front door. “Oh, it’s you again.”
“I’m the cat guy at the station.” I look her over and she’s looks so different. And oddly mismatched. Her hair and makeup are perfect, she’s wearing a nice top, but the denim shorts and bare feet make her look like she was in the middle of getting ready when this happened.
“You’re the cat guy?” she’s shocked by the news.
I wonder how obvious it is that I don’t like cats. “Yeah, so um, I’ll get started.” I head to the other side of the house and she follows me. Super.
I prop the ladder, and she begins. “Do you think he’ll be alright? This is a much higher trip down a ladder. Shouldn’t you have a bucket truck or something?”
I shoot her a look that silences her. “It’s not my first rodeo, Miss Groves.”
She glares at me, then reads my name on my jacket. “Mr. Whitmore, he is everything to me-”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t let him out so much.”
“I did not let Monroe out! He snuck out!” She looks offended.
“I’ll be right back.” As I climb the ladder, Monroe glares at me over the edge. I’m pretty sure he knows I pissed off his mom. I mumble, “Whatever, Monroe, I just want to get you down to her.” The ranch-style house isn’t too high up, so it just takes a minute to get to him. But then he almost leaps into my arms and purrs. “I knew you weren’t mad at me.” I head down and he pulls the same maneuver into Raina’s arms, sending my balance off kilter. I have to shift my weight fast, or I’ll tip over. She reaches out to steady the ladder, but I snap, “I got it!”
“Sorry, geez,” she mumbles.
Once on the ground, I look her in the eye. She’s mad that I snapped at her, and the hurt softens her detached coolness that I saw before. It makes her look…strangely more human. Her lips twitch, like she wants to say something, and I notice just how pouty and full they are. Damn, she’s beautiful. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just about to fall because of your cat, and I was startled.”
“Is that your idea of an apology?”
“I don’t have anything to apologize for. If anyone does, it’s you, for letting your cat loose.”
She glares at me, but the old lady says, “Well, thank you for rescuing Mr. Monroe. Would you like some iced tea or some supper? I’ve got water bottles in the fridge, nice and cold, if you need to be on your way.”
“No thank you, ma’am, I’m heading back to the station and I have everything I need there.” I say while I load the ladder up.
“Thank you again for all your help,” she gently nudges Raina.
“Yeah. Thanks for the advice on taking care of my pet, too,” she says bitterly while she shoots daggers out of her eyes.
“Yep. Take care,” I say as I get into the truck. As I back up, I notice Raina’s stance. Enraged and gorgeous, the wind blowing loose blonde curls around her face. Before I leave, I steal one more glance in her direction.
It could never work with someone like her.
But I’m no quitter.
-
“You ever meet someone you instantly loathe, and it became something else?” I ask Bridges while I spot him at the bench. I don’t know why he asked me to spot him. He could bench press me. I suspect he has something on his mind, but I ask my question first.
“Can’t say I have. I’m usually right about my first impressions with someone.”
“Hmm,” I sigh.
“You’re looking to turn someone around. Who?”
“I don’t want to talk about it just yet. You doing alright?”
He nods. “I’m great. Family is good, too. Just wondering about you, man.”
“What about me?”
“The other day, when you were asking all those questions about family and all that, it wasn’t hypothetical, was it?”
I don’t know how to avoid talking about it with him. At 6’5” and 250 pounds, Bridges made me feel small, which is saying something. Being 6’ 2”, I’m used to being the biggest guy in the room. Or I was, until I came to the Rockville Fire Department. His paternal side makes me want to tell him everything. It makes him far too easy to talk to. “Guess it’s been on my mind more lately. Weird, huh?”
“So, you’ve met someone who hated you at first and now you’re thinking about starting a family. With them?”
I laugh. “That’s a riot. No, I just, um, no. It’s not like that. Hell, I haven’t even kissed her.”
“You just saved her cat twice?”
I feel my face warm up and I look away. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”
He belly laughs and says, “Well, if you do become a dad, my first tip is to become a much better liar. No one’s going to believe those presents are from Santa, if you lie that badly. Kids know when you’re lying.”
I frown at him. “Look, it’s never going to happen with her. I’m thinking about other women.”
“Oh. Okay.” His mouth says he believes me, but his eyes tell a different story.
I shake my head. “Okay, fine. I think I’m into her a little.”
“Finally!” he slaps my back and laughs. “What’s wrong with liking her?”
I shrug. “She’s a cat person.”
“You’re a dog person. No one’s perfect.”
“She’s skinny.”
“You like to cook.”
“She hates me.”
He laughs. “That’s just passion, man. You can work with that.”
“I guess.”
“Besides, she doesn’t hate you.”
“No, she absolutely hates me. I saw it on her face today.”
Bridges shakes his head. “She doesn’t know you well enough to hate you, Alex. Hate, real hate, that comes from knowing someone well and loathing every part of them. This is just a dislike, and dislikes can be changed.”
“Maybe.”
“You know what doesn’t change?”
“What’s that?” I wonder.
“That you need to stop stalling and get on the bench.”
I chuckle and he wipes the bench down, while I unload the bar for my set. I don’t pretend to lift what he could. No one in the station is fool enough to do that. “You really think I can change her mind about me?”
“Happens all the time. You saved her cat. Why doesn’t she like you in the first place?”
“It’s strange. Like we met, and I was pre-annoyed about the whole cat thing, you know how I am, so I didn’t feel like talking about the situation when I got there. And she seemed put off by my silence. I thought, if I stayed silent, I couldn’t make any snide comments about cats, so I thought I was doing good. And she kissed me.”
“Nightingale syndrome?”
I shrug. “Does it count as Nightingale, if you don’t rescue them, but you rescued their cat?”
Bridges thinks on it for a moment. “You know, I’m not sure. But for the sake of argument, let’s say yes.”
“So, see, she doesn’t like me.”
“What happened today?”
I explain the whole story, “…and the ladder wobbled-”
He shudders, “I hate when that happens.”
“We all do. And she reached for it, tried to help, but I snapped at her. From there on, she was butt-hurt about everything else I said. Like the kiss never happened.”
“She sounds complicated.”
I nod. “I looked her up. She’s a writer. You’ll never guess what she writes.”
“Children’s books?”
“Victorian romance novels.”
He laughs. “Oh, hell, man, she’s gonna be trouble.”