Protecting What's Mine(59)

Russell was right, she thought with a wince. Shame didn’t help.

She’d fucked up. Now she’d own up to it. And if he wasn’t interested in getting naked with her now, it was his loss. She was excellent in bed.

“You all want some help with the bags?” Kelly offered.

“No thanks,” Mack said, adjusting her grip on her own. “We’ve got ’em.”

Freida looked disappointed. “You’re still going to make them take their shirts off, though, right?” she whispered as they mounted the steps.

The stairway opened up into a common room with a kitchen shoved into the corner and a semi-circle of recliners facing a billboard-sized TV. In another section, there was a pool table and a couple of couches and tables. Squished between the TV area and the pool area was a folding table in front of two makeshift exam spaces that looked more like blanket forts.

“Doc, Freida,” Brody Lighthorse approached from the hallway, a cup of coffee in his hand.

“That better be black, and you all better be fasted for the blood draw,” Mack said, eyeing the mug.

“Not our first rodeo. And just so you know, everyone’s already bitching about being hungry.” There was just the slightest edge to his tone. But Mack had been programmed from birth to pick up on subtle cues.

“Let’s do the blood draws first, then circle back to the physicals,” she decided.

“Good enough,” he said. He gave her a long, quiet look.

It gave her the distinct impression that Linc may have mentioned her asshole snitfit from the night before. They probably all knew. That familiar, ugly shame curled again in her belly.

“I’ll round up the guys,” he said and disappeared down the stairs. Mack ignored the bad vibes, the nerves, and helped Freida set up the blood draw station. A minute later, Brody’s voice crackled through the speakers in the building.

“BFD crew, please report to the second floor for physicals.”

She could hear the groans from all corners of the building.

It was going to be a hell of a day.





Linc, Mack noted, purposely got into Freida’s line for his blood draw. But he was too polite to completely avoid her.

“Nice to see you, doc,” he said. His tone was light, friendly even. But it was missing that undercurrent of “you know you want me.” The intimacy that had been there since the first conversation had been snuffed out. By something she’d done.

“Ow!” The short, stocky firefighter with what looked like a well-waxed handlebar mustache whimpered when she jabbed the needle into the vein.

“Don’t be such a wuss,” Skyler, Russell’s daughter, snorted at him from the other end of the table.

“I’m not a wuss! You’re a wuss.” He pouted, then twirled the end of his mustache.

“Children,” Mack threatened calmly.

“Sorry, doc.”

Linc disappeared shortly after his needle stick, and Mack moved on to the physical exams. “I hope you all are wearing underwear today because I’ll need to you to strip down once you’re behind the screens. Got it?”

“Why wait?” One of the burly, potentially farty firefighters yanked his t-shirt over his head and whirled it around with the enthusiasm, if not the skill, of an exotic dancer. Catcalls and cheers rang out. Within thirty seconds, the first dozen patients had stripped down to their unmentionables. Some smartass started blaring “Pony” by Ginuwine. It was raining articles of clothing.

Zane and Skyler were bumping butts to the beat. One of the larger, older firefighters was using his discarded pants as butt floss. A younger volunteer jumped onto the pool table and started doing push-ups while a couple other guys and Freida threw dollar bills at him.

It was the most ridiculous, entertaining thing she’d ever witnessed on the clock.

“Try not to get your heart rates too jacked up,” Mack yelled over the music. A firefighter with half a mustache and only one eyebrow sauntered her way, crooking his finger at her.

She shook her head, but he was insistent, pulling her into a gimpy tango.

“I love firefighter physical day,” Freida shouted, switching over to five-dollar bills.





Mack was good and tired by the time Chief Reed strolled into her exam room. They’d thoughtfully provided one of the mechanic’s wheeled stools for her to scoot around, saving her from gimping back and forth between exam spaces. But after thirty-two physicals, she was burnt, hungry, and grumpy.

“We don’t have any green tea, but you’re welcome to the coffee,” he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the kitchen.

Even cool and detached, Linc was still polite. And it made her feel like a steaming shit sandwich.

“Thanks. I’m almost done,” she said. “Have a seat.”

He pulled his t-shirt over his head in that one-handed move that hot guys all seemed to have mastered and took the chair next to her.

Her mouth went dry. And her carefully crafted apology vanished from her brain.

She was muscle drunk.

“We’ll start with temperature and blood pressure,” she croaked, then cleared her throat. He held out an arm for the cuff. She secured it around his bicep, trying hard not to touch bare skin or stare too long at his naked torso.

When the thermometer was in place between his delicious lips, she swallowed back nerves and took the plunge.