Jamie concentrated on drying a plate, rubbing the towel over it several times so she wouldn’t have to look at her sister. She didn’t want to admit to anything, not after the promise she’d made, and certainly not after spotting Smith cavorting with that cat woman.
“Something going on with him?” Diane elbowed her.
“No.”
She stared at her. “Honestly?”
“No,” she said, but she didn’t like lying to her sister. She sighed, then managed some of the truth. “Okay, we kissed at the kickoff party. That was all.”
“You like him?”
“Yes,” she admitted grudgingly, though the word was hard to get out because she’d never planned on feeling this way. “But who doesn’t?”
“He’s gorgeous. Be careful, though. You know what happened to me when I got involved with a friend.”
“Don’t worry. Nothing more is going to happen,” she said, and that was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Though her heart hurt for the first time at the thought of nothing more.
“Why?” Diane asked, tilting her head and looking curiously at her sister.
“Why what?”
“Why is nothing more going to happen? You kissed him. You just said you liked him. I still think you need to be cautious, but that gets even harder when you like someone.”
Like. Sure, she liked Smith. As a friend, as a buddy, as a friend with benefits, and he’d been giving her lots of benefits the last few days and nights. That man was masterful with her body and she found herself craving more and more of his naughty mouth. Truth be told, she’d enjoyed their chats after sex too—the conversations had been just as good as when they were friends-without-benefits. That was the trouble—she’d always been able to talk to him easily. They were starting to develop more of a connection—he made her laugh, he cared about her feelings, and he seemed to genuinely not want to hurt her.
But that was all, wasn’t it? Jamie shrugged as if it were no big deal.
“Oh no. That’s not how we do it,” Diane said, poking her sister in the arm. “Do. You. Like Him? As more than friends?”
Jamie drew a deep breath, letting the air fill her body, hoping it would bring answers too. “Maybe?” she offered. “But I worry he’s going to be like you-know-who.”
“Listen, I’m not going to pretend to tell you that you can always trust someone forever and ever. But I know this much. Cara told me he was always nice to her when they went out. A total gentleman, and they’re even still friends, but she broke up with him because she thought he always had eyes for someone else.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t say. But maybe the woman he really wanted is you, Jamie.”
Her heart dared to skip a beat, and this time it wasn’t just from lust. It was from hope.
Chapter Eight
Her cat was stuck in the tree.
The message glared at her when she turned her cell phone on as she got in her car. She jammed the key into the ignition, wanting desperately to believe him but knowing the risks and feeling duped nonetheless.
As she turned on the car her phone flashed again.
She glanced at it and did a double take. Meow—I really was in a tree. -Tiger.
She fought back a silly grin with no success. She wanted to be angry, to curse him, but the text cracked her up. She grabbed the phone and called him back as she drove. Maybe Diane was right.
“Is anything on fire?”
“Nothing but my muscles and they’re burning from working out hard,” he said.
She laughed. “Are you at the gym?”
“Just finished,” he said, and he sounded weary. “But now I’m home and about to crash. Long day. Long shift. Twenty-four hour shifts do that to you.”
“I can imagine. So the cat was in a tree? For real?” she asked, her voice still laced with skepticism. But it was a skepticism she wanted to shed.
“Swear on my life.”
“You know that’s the classic fireman cliché.”
“But it’s true.”
She rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see her as she drove. “Look, I know this is no-strings-attached, but I need to know for sure that you aren’t messing around with anyone else this week.”
“I’m not, I promise,” he said, and she could hear the earnestness in his tone, but she could also feel it, as if she were holding it in her grasp. “I wouldn’t do that. I swear on my men, on all my guys at the firehouse. I swear on the way I’d protect them and run into burning houses to save a kid, a family, a dog, even a cat, that I was only there on a work call.”
“You swear?” she asked, her voice trembling. At some point she was going to have to decide whether to let go of her fears. But she knew the word of the fireman was a true one.
“I swear. She had a bottle of wine, and she tried to get me to stay, but I left. I’m not interested in her. I am only interested in the gorgeous, smart, fiery woman I bought a book of poems for. Besides, you have to know me well enough by now to know that I’m not that kind of a guy. When I’m with a woman I’m with that woman, and you might have declared this ‘no-strings attached’ and that’s fine for now, but my string is only attached to you.”
Her heart thumped wildly, and she gripped the steering wheel so she could focus on the road. The sentiment was so sweet that it made her long for him. Besides, the truth was she did know him. And while he’d had a long line of ladies, maybe she’d been judging him simply for being lucky in love. She’d assumed that meant he strayed. But you could be lucky in love and be faithful. She decided right then and there to let go of all her lingering jealousy. She might not ever want more from him, but she wanted this thing they had—this fling—to be just between them. And part of that meant she needed to say good-bye to her worries about other women. Because they were just that—her worries. Nothing more.