“Colleen, Bryce shot a nail through his hand.”
She looked up abruptly. “Uh...what?”
“Do you have a first aid kit?”
“Dude,” Bryce said cheerfully, coming into the kitchen, his hand held aloft. “Total Jesus moment, right?”
The nail went through the webbing of his hand between his thumb and forefinger, and blood streamed down his wrist.
“Oh,” she said. “Uh, yes, we do.”
Then she fainted.
WHEN HE SAW Colleen’s eyes roll, Lucas did try to catch her. Didn’t quite make it, unfortunately, not before she cracked her head on the counter. “Jeanette!” he called. “We need you!” He glanced at his cousin. “Bryce, you’re dripping blood on the floor. Grab some paper towels and hang on a sec, okay?”
He cradled Colleen from behind. Very uncool to be thinking lustful thoughts, but she smelled like fresh mint and sunshine, and her hair brushed his face. “Mía,” he said, pushing her head forward a bit to get some blood flow there. “Time to wake up.”
“Connor, why did you punch me?” she muttered, reaching for her head.
He smiled into her hair. “Colleen. You okay, sweetheart?” She sat up straighter and gave him a confused look. “You fainted,” he said. “Bumped your head on the way down, too.”
“I never faint. Also, you’re supposed to catch me. Haven’t you ever been to a movie?”
“I broke your fall.”
“Not good enough.”
“Did she faint?” Carol Robinson asked as the three women bustled into the kitchen like a flock of purposeful chickens. “My daughter fainted once. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, it was hot, and I said, ‘Beth, why didn’t you eat breakfast?’ but no one ever listens to me.”
“Bryce Campbell, whatever did you do to your hand?” Mrs. Johnson said. “Come here, child.”
“Don’t you two look adorable sitting there,” Jeanette said. “Is it wrong to hope for grandchildren?”
“Mom, I’m injured. Be nice to me.”
Jeanette sighed and rustled around in the freezer for a minute, then handed Colleen a pack of frozen Brussels sprouts. Coll went to hold it against her head, but Lucas took it out of her hand and did it for her. She started to protest, but he made that little tsk noise that worked with his nieces, and she settled back against him.
He pushed her hair to one side—she had a lot of hair. And it smelled really good. And she felt...perfect. His arms were around her, his back to the cabinet, his woman in his arms.
Dangerous thinking, that. Especially after her little speech.
“What do I have to do to get that nine to a ten?” he whispered against her ear, and she shivered.
“You always hit on injured women?”
“You’re the first.” He smiled.
“They’re adorable together,” Carol said. “Are you Spanish, Lucas? You look like a pirate.”
“I’m half–Puerto Rican.”
“Ooh. That’s so exotic,” Carol said, and he had to smile. Manningsport wasn’t exactly a melting pot.
Mrs. O’Rourke was standing in front of the freezer, flapping her shirt. “Colleen, you didn’t turn on the heat, did you?”
“No, Mom. I didn’t turn on the heat.” She sighed, the movement sweet against his chest.
“Now hold still, Bryce my darling,” Mrs. Johnson said, grabbing his hand.
“What are you gonna do?” he asked. “Oh, dude! A little warning next time.”
Mrs. Johnson held up the nail. “You children today. So careless. Now hold on, this might sting a little.” They watched as she poured hydrogen peroxide on Bryce’s hand. He took it like a man.
“You’re brave, Bryce,” Colleen said, earning a smile from his cousin.
“He has a high pain tolerance,” Lucas murmured against the sweet spot just behind her ear. “Comes from being dropped on his head as a baby.”
“You know who else has a high pain tolerance?” she asked, still talking to Bryce. “Paulie Petrosinsky. She’s totally badass.”
“Oh, yeah?” Bryce said. “Did you know she can pick up a car?”
“I do know,” Colleen said. “That is hot, my friend.”
“Stop matchmaking,” Lucas whispered, his lips touching her soft little earlobe. Good enough to bite.
She turned her head a little. “Can you stop nuzzling me?” she whispered. “I realize you don’t get this close to many women, but it’s getting pervy. You, me, the Brussels sprouts, Team Menopause watching.”
He nuzzled her again, smiling as her breath hitched.
Mrs. Johnson wrapped up Bryce’s hand in gauze. “Is your tetanus shot up to date?” she asked. “You don’t want to come down with lockjaw.”
Actually, Lucas wouldn’t mind Bryce coming down with lockjaw. His cousin had not once paused for breath this entire day. Reluctantly, he disentangled himself from Colleen and stood up, then offered his hand and pulled her to her feet. “You good?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said. Her cheeks were pink.
“Eat something,” he said. “Come on, Bryce, let me take you to the doctor. I’ll be back tomorrow, Mrs. O’Rourke.”
“Jeanette,” she said, rubbing an ice cube on her chest. “Bye, boys.”
Colleen walked them to the front door, the Brussels sprouts still in place. “See you, Coll!” Bryce said happily, loping to the pickup truck.
Lucas turned to Colleen. “See you around, hotshot.”
“Don’t play with me, Lucas,” she said tightly.
His smile evaporated.
“You’re not back in Manningsport for me, and I’m betting that as soon as Joe dies, you’ll be back to your life in Chicago. And that’s fine. But the kissing and the flirting and the nuzzling...it has to stop. I don’t have a problem with you, I really don’t. You’re a good guy. I know that. You’re very welcome at O’Rourke’s. You’re welcome at my mom’s house. But you left me.”
“Actually, you left me, mía.”
“Yeah, right. I didn’t marry someone two months after our first fight. And don’t call me mía.” She seemed to realize she still had the bag of vegetables on her head and lowered her arm. “You broke my heart, Lucas,” she said. “It was a long time ago. But I’m not dumb enough to let history repeat itself. So don’t mess with me. Are we clear?”
He looked at her a long minute, the noise of the chattering women in the background, the birds twittering in the bushes outside. And as much as he would’ve liked to tell her yes, sure, he’d leave her alone, he couldn’t.
Colleen had a pull on him. That same sense he had when he first laid eyes on her in that classroom so long ago, that locked-in feeling, as if he’d waited all his life to see her...that still pulsed between them.
She felt it, too. She licked her lips, and the pink stained her cheeks again. He could swear he heard her heart beating.
“What seems clear,” he murmured, stepping a little closer so that they were almost touching, “is that this is going to happen. You and me. It’s just a question of when.”
She looked at him a long minute. Then she pressed her forefinger into the hollow at the base of his throat, gently, forcing him to take a step back.
Closed the door in his face. Didn’t slam it; just closed it.
Lucas found he was smiling all the way to the truck.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IN THE THREE weeks he’d been in Manningsport, Lucas had had no success in pinning Bryce down on his hopes and aspirations, careerwise. Nope. That was a black hole. Lucas, on the other hand, was acting as project manager for the public safety building, had been asked to consult on a new wing for the senior citizen community and was putting on a new room for Colleen’s mother. A couple had asked him about building a superdeluxe chicken coop for their free-range chickens, and while Lucas didn’t particularly want to be building that sort of structure, he’d sketched out a plan for them nonetheless.
It had always been that way. Work found him.
Work cowered from Bryce. And his cousin, let’s be honest, excelled at laziness. Bryce had been rather thrilled with his injury, and while it had been a little on the gruesome side, it really was something that he could’ve taken care of with a couple of Band-Aids, rather than the wad of gauze he was currently sporting.
Since construction was clearly not going to work (Bryce had knocked a pallet of shingles off the roof, lost his hammer seven times and dropped his phone into the roofing tar before mishandling the nail gun), Lucas had talked to a few people, studied Craigslist and had gone over to Didi’s to rouse Bryce out of bed for a little swing through town.
First stop, the firehouse.
Lucas had become friendly with Gerard Chartier, winning the man’s loyalty when he agreed that fire services outranked the other two. (Lucas had also told Levi that police services were the most important, and agreed with Kelly Matthews that EMS clearly came first. Hey. It made everyone happy.) At any rate, Gerard told Lucas they were hiring five new people; apparently there’d been a big house fire up at Blue Heron, and the good people of Manningsport had agreed to fund a paid department.
Perfect job for Bryce’s type. Bryce was in great shape, liked people and...and...well, maybe he’d make a good firefighter.
Bryce seemed suitably awed as Gerard gave him the talk, staring in childlike wonder at the fire trucks. Lucas felt the same way. Every little boy wanted to be a firefighter, after all.
“This would be awesome,” Bryce said. “Not to brag, but I have already saved someone. Lucas? Remember? When I saved you?”
“Yep.” At Gerard’s questioning look, he added, “I got my foot caught in the train tracks, and Bryce knocked me free.”
“In the nick of time, too,” Bryce said happily. “So what do you have to do to qualify?”
“There’s twelve weeks at the fire academy,” Gerard began. “Firefighter I, Firefighter II—”
“Whoa. There’s school?”
“Yeah. You learn about hazardous materials and how to contain them, incident command system, blood-borne pathogens. Oh, and you have to be an EMT, too, but that’s easy. Just a six-week class.”
“Bummer. That’s really not my thing.” Lucas’s head jerked back a little. “But thanks for your time, Gerard!” Bryce shook the firefighter’s hand vigorously. “See you at O’Rourke’s!”
“Bryce,” Lucas said as they crossed the green, “what’s the problem here? Is it fire academy? Twelve weeks will go by like that.”
“I’m not going back to school,” he said.
“It’d be fun,” Lucas said.
“Yeah. I mean, jumping out of windows and rescuing dogs and stuff? That would be fun. Hazardous material containment? No way.”
“You’re not stupid, Bryce,” he said, though he did sometimes fear that his cousin had taken a sharp blow to the head. “You could pass, I’m sure.” Especially if Lucas tutored him.
“You’re probably right,” his cousin said blithely. “I’m just not interested. Plus, it might interfere with my work at the shelter.”
“You’d have health benefits, vacation...”
“You know, the more I think about it, the less I want to do it. I mean, what if I got hurt on the job? I could be disabled for life.”
“Or not.”
“No, it’s a good thing I thought this through. Kinda dodged a bullet there.”
Lucas closed his eyes briefly. Once Bryce made up his mind, there was no talking him down.
