Playing With Fire Read Free Page B

cups he was handing her. “A regular Randy Johnson at the plate.” She hid the sexual jolt zinging through her by placing the coffee cups in the top rack of the dishwasher. “But it was for a good cause and we raised a lot of money."
    "Your nose is pink. I told you to use sunscreen.” He moved sideways, reaching for a stack of plates on the far end of the counter.
    Their hips bumped.
    Lindsay gritted her teeth.
    In the field, she was a pro and acted accordingly without fail. But working alongside Matt at the fire station always put her on edge. The inadvertent brushing of various body parts during seemingly mundane chores sent her system into overdrive, leaving her flushed, breathless, and highly agitated by the time they were finished.
    "And you were right. It'll probably peel.” Lindsay ignored the TV blaring in the other room and focused all her energy on making small talk with Matt. She wouldn't let him know how much he affected her for anything in the world.
    Why didn't Joey's proximity do funny things to her voice and wreak havoc with her system? She sighed softly. He was certainly nice looking, and his muscular physique set plenty of female hearts aflutter. Just not Lindsay's. She did like him. A lot. They'd been friends since she, he, and Matt attended the training academy together. But they'd only been dating the last three months. Lindsay kept hoping for sparks to fly between them, but so far, zip.
    Maybe if she could just quit thinking about Matt all the time...
    "I'm heading to Tucson later this morning to visit my parents and won't be back until tomorrow,” he said, using the scouring pad to shove food scraps into the garbage disposal.
    "Special occasion?"
    "No. Family emergency. My mother called last night,” he said with lack of concern.
    "Is everything okay?” Lindsay suffered a small stab of guilt. Here she'd been totally absorbed with herself and all the while, Matt was dealing with a crisis.
    He shrugged. “Dad's having chest pains and refuses to see a doctor. Mom's worried, so she's calling in reinforcements, namely me and my sister. I don't know what she thinks we can do."
    As he talked, he rinsed dishes and passed them to her for loading into the dishwasher. Another man with Matt's towering height and rugged build might have looked silly scraping food from plates, but not Matt. He handled a kitchen faucet water sprayer with the same skill he did a one and three-quarter inch fog nozzle.
    Chores at the fire station were customarily divvied up among the crew. Emilio Chavez, the veteran among them, had cooked breakfast. While Matt and Lindsay cleared the table and washed the dishes, Dennis Bigelow tidied the common rooms. Cleaning of the bedrooms was left to each individual. Cleaning of the community bathrooms was shared.
    In another thirty minutes, crew members from the next shift would begin arriving. Shortly thereafter, they'd be debriefed by the outgoing crew. At precisely eight a.m., the fire station would officially change hands.
    "Why won't he see a doctor?” Lindsay talked as she unplugged the coffee maker and emptied the basket of used grounds.
    Matt scowled and shook his head. Steam from the running hot water mingled with his perspiration and dampened the front of his uniform shirt. “He's too busy."
    "Too busy to take care of his health?"
    "Too busy for anything except work."
    Lindsay thought she saw a flicker of pain cross Matt's face. If so, it was gone in the next instant. “If your mother asked you to come down for a visit, it must be serious."
    "Maybe.” He gave her a crooked grin which more closely resembled a frown. “Or maybe it's a ploy to assemble the family. With both kids out of the house and Dad working sixty plus hours a week, Mom's alone a lot."
    "Would she really do that?"
    Lindsay didn't know Matt's parents. Occasionally, he discussed his family life, and she had the distinct impression the Callahans weren't close knit by any stretch of the imagination.
    She