The Firefighter Who Rescues Me

Chapter 14 ♚ In Trouble

These were the things I noticed when I woke up: first, I was buck naked. So was Pace and he was deliciously warm against me. Second, outside of the cocoon of our bodies, it was chilly as fuck. Third, and this was the most concerning of all, was that none of those things were what woke me up, but the bright beam of light pointed directly at my face.

In the back of my mind, I registered this as problematic but I still needed another nudge.

"Oh, shit."

That did it.

Pace and I jolted awake and scrambled to sit upright. It seemed more important to protect my eyes from the painful stab of the light in the middle of the night, than to cover my modesty.

"Pace Leblanc and Cora Diaz, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" A familiar voice asked. "Actually, don't answer the question. It's pretty obvious what you were doing."

"Hunter," Pace said more as a groan than anything else.

That was when my brain finally started functioning. I felt around, looking for my clothes and instead coming up with Pace's first. He had the same issue and for a tense moment all we could do was volley our clothes at each other. I would've laughed if this were happening to someone else and I were in Hunter's place. But the Sheriff didn't laugh and going by Pace's expression, he was as embarrassed as I was.

He was first to finish dressing up, not only because he didn't have to deal with a bra but also because he was trained to be ready in seconds. I was still struggling with pulling my jeans up when Pace vaulted from the side of the truck and onto the ground. At the last moment he turned back, catching me in the middle of buckling my jeans on.

He cleared his throat and said, "Don't worry, I'll deal with this."

"Wait-"

But he didn't. I peeked over the side of the trunk and watched him head over to where Hunter stood, waiting beside his cruiser at a good distance.

We'd behaved like randy teenagers and now were in trouble. Worse, in the course of twenty four hours, I'd gone from never imagining I'd ever get naked for another guy in my life, to actually being seen in the buff by two—one of whom I would've preferred to never have shared this with. Lena Lee would probably kill me when she found out.

The only thing I knew was that I couldn't let Pace take the fall alone, especially considering he was a public servant. More than anything, I regretted putting him in this position, even if the five or so previous positions had been worth chucking common sense out the window. If only I could find my one missing boot.

Now fully dressed, I stood on the bed of the trunk and looked all around, finally spotting the last shoe outside on the dirt. I jumped out, so I'd land on my boot-clad foot and hasted with putting the other one on to go join the men. Both of them spoke in hushed tones designed specifically to keep me out of the loop and I wasn't gonna have it.

"Never in my life did I think you'd do something crazy like this," the Sheriff was saying to his friend, who stood at attention as though he were a soldier. Meanwhile, Hunter paced in front of him, waving the lantern at everything and nothing. "What were you thinking? This isn't like you at all."

"I wasn't," Pace admitted, just like that. No excuses. I wanted to hug him with the same passion as I wanted to smack him up the head.

"Is he in trouble?" I asked once I joined them. Both of them turned to me like they were seeing a ghost.

"He?" Hunter asked, eyes wide and blinking owlishly. "What about you?"

I shrugged and ran my hands up and down the goosebumps crawling up my arms. "I'm not the one whose reputation matters the most here."