Page 25 of Single Mom's Firefighter SEALs
The next day, I split so many logs, the maul’s handle leaves a hot spot on my palm. I stack the firewood under the overhang, clean out the shed, sweep off the back porch, and tighten a bracket on the porch light.
My body is tired in the way I need it to be, but my mind never fully settles.
I spent years learning how to stay useful. Breathe, segment, reorder, focus on the task at hand. I learned how to use my body to drag my mind where it needs to go, and it had been working well enough that people probably thought the problem was gone.
Turns out it was not gone. It had been waiting.
I think about my buddies and how they were direct about my old damage without pushing. No sympathy or pity. Only facts and solutions.
None of it made the problem any smaller, but our conversation made it seem more manageable.
Buck drilled response until it started to stick, until words and phrases likepossible entrapment, victims, active fire,andoccupants still insidelost some of their edge. Not all of it, but enough for me to keep moving without losing time.
Maybe that’s all I can hope for until the situation with Elena settles down.
If it settles down.
Really, there are three situations with Elena. The one where she’s in danger, the one where I can’t be of any use to her if the shit in my head gets any worse, and the one where I have no fucking right to think about her as much as I do.
It’s that last one that’s spinning through my mind for most of my time off.
The problem is when I first saw her around town, I had no idea who she was. I didn’t recognize her, but I sure as fucknoticedher. Her body got my attention. The way she carried herself kept it.
I clocked her mouth, her eyes, and the shape of her curves, and then I made the mistake of looking too long.
It was a visceral reaction. I saw her and I wanted her.
But even before I knew who she was, I was never going to act on it. I saw her with her kid and figured she was married. Even if she wasn’t married,I wasn’t going to involve myself in anything complicated, not for my sake, but for hers.
Turns out, the situation is far more complicated than I thought, and despite everything, I’m getting more drawn in every day.
That problem follows me into the station for my Sunday shift.
Weston and I usually work the same shifts, but he’s off today. Buck is off, too, and even though the roster’s full, the space feels larger without them in it. It’s too quiet, and all the ordinary noises are louder than they should be.
I tell myself the unease is about the routine being off, but there’s more to it. I can’t decide whether keeping Elena safe means getting closer or staying the hell away from her.
Buck can handle the home security concerns. I can let Weston do the drive-bys and check in at the school, while I keep my attention where it belongs and let the attraction burn itself out.
That would be the smart thing to do.
Instead, I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours picturing the way her eyes soften when she talks about her son and the controlled way she handles stress, like she can keep her world upright through willpower alone. The curve of her mouth haunts me, no matter how hard I work my body, and I can’t stop thinking about wrapping her thick braid around my fist and finding out what kind of sound she’d make when my mouth closes over her neck.
As if none of that is wrong enough on its own, the protective instinct keeps pulling me in deeper, and the more Ithink about keeping her safe, the less I can convince myself that distance is the right thing.
It’s a problem that gets ten times worse that evening when I’m in the open bay breaking down boxes, and a small SUV pulls into the lot. I know immediately who it is, though I have no idea why she’s here.
My shoulders ease slightly when Elena gets out and has a neutral expression on her face. Whatever this is, it isn’t an emergency.
I force myself to keep my eyes on her face as she walks toward me, but I can see she’s wearing jeans, boots, and a dark blue coat. The lights in the lot catch in her hair and pick out her face against the dark.
She lifts a hand to greet me, and I start toward her.
“What are you doing here?”
She gives me a look. “Nice to see you, too.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
