A Time for Us - By Amy Knupp Page 0,32

realized he was turned on, as well, when she’d felt his hardness against her... She’d been shameless in that instant. And now she was overpowered by shame.

Her sister’s fiancé. The man her sister would have been married to at this very second. The man her sister had died loving.

She couldn’t even fathom how she’d made Cale feel by throwing herself at him.

Never again.

Cale was going to be in her life because of the ties between them—the committee she’d committed to, the hospital and, yes, his position as the man who’d planned to spend his life with her sister. Avoiding him would be cowardly, but she wasn’t going to seek him out. Wouldn’t be calling him and asking him for ice cream again. And she sure as hell wouldn’t be touching him and kissing him as if she had a right to.

* * *

WHAT CALE REALLY NEEDED was a nice three-alarm fire to occupy his mind. An explosion rocking a deserted factory, maybe, or a mainland warehouse burning to the ground. Something huge that required all his concentration.

As he sat on one of the loungers on the fire station’s beachside patio and stared out at an oil tanker light on the dark, indistinguishable horizon, the silence of the fire department’s alarm system seemed to mock him.

He’d spent the past twenty-four hours beating himself up for the freak thing that had happened last night with Rachel, and he had yet to work through anything so that it was okay in his mind. There was no way to make any of it—kissing Rachel and liking every last second of it, letting her walk away embarrassed—okay.

He glanced through the wall of windows to the station’s common area and realized the baseball game the rest of the crew had been watching must have ended. The TV had been turned off and the room was deserted except for Clay Marlow, who sat on one of the ugly plaid sofas studying for his hazmat certification test. It was after midnight. Most likely, the rest of the guys had retired to their rooms to try to get some shut-eye since it’d been a slow night so far. It was Cale’s chance to slip inside without having to talk to anyone.

He went in and headed across the station toward the sleeping quarters without looking in Clay’s direction. As he passed the kitchen, though, Dylan’s voice reached him from within.

“Rangers won, dude.”

Cale grunted an unintelligible response and continued on his way. His colleagues had likely gotten used to his antisocial ways after Noelle’s death, but in the past few months, he’d made an effort to come out of it, to be more social. He’d started going out for burgers or beer when he was invited and had been told by his painfully honest sister that he was more pleasant to be around in general. Tonight they probably all thought he was having a relapse of grief and grumpiness...and maybe that was exactly what it was.

He went into his tiny private room in the officers’ section and closed the door without turning on the light. He pulled his shirt over his head and hung it on the doorknob so he could find it easily should an alarm come in. Lined his shoes up right by the door and draped his pants at the foot of the bed. Though he was doubtful he’d sleep, he lay on the single bed on his back, not bothering to pull the blankets back over him.

He should never have let Rachel kiss him. A part of him had known that at the time, but that part had been easily crushed by the desire the very first touch of her had awakened in him. By allowing the kiss to go on, by touching her the way he had, by being so undeniably into the moment, he’d led Rachel on. Big-time. He couldn’t blame her for being shocked and puzzled when he’d pulled away from her, and then what had he done? Had he tried to explain himself or even assuage her feelings? Oh, hell no. He’d acted like a prick and let her walk away thinking he’d hated every second of it.

He hadn’t hated it. At all. Until that moment when he’d realized what he was doing—kissing Noelle’s twin sister.

What a weak bastard he was. He hadn’t so much as thought about kissing a woman since he’d lost Noelle, not even on the two dates he’d been on, and here he was letting Rachel climb all over