One addiction was bad enough to battle. I sure as shit didn’t need two.
Chapter Two
KAYLEE
I stood and watched the smoke from the burn pile turn to pitch black. It raced up into the air and covered the picture-perfect blue sky. I couldn’t even see the snow-covered mountains on the other side of the burn pile anymore. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Oh shit,” I whispered as I looked at the old tractor tire I had thrown into the fire. “That might not have been the best idea.”
The sound of a truck pulling up had me waving my hand in the air to clear out the smoke. Hopefully it wasn’t the fire department again. The last time they were here, I had set fire to a pan filled with grease in my sink. Who would have known how easily grease fires started?
Walking toward the gravel drive, I felt my heartbeat pick up. God help me. It was worse than the fire department . . . it was Ty.
“Perfect, as if this day couldn’t possibly get any worse.”
I was covered in dirt, smoke, and Lord only knows what else, and Ty Shaw was walking toward me, looking as handsome as ever, which made my heart race a little bit more. The man was too good looking for his own good, and what made him even more attractive was he didn’t act like he knew it.
“What is it with you and fires, Kaylee?” Ty asked, a sexy-as-sin smirk on his face as he walked over to me.
Lord, that smile. Dark-brown hair and eyes the color of the Montana sky. Not to mention the smoking-hot body.
I chuckled to myself at the irony of the “smoking-hot” reference, with my huge fire going behind me.
With a half shrug and a wink, I replied, “What can I say, I have weird fetishes.”
Ty’s eyes darkened with a sexual look that left my lower stomach pulling with desire. We constantly danced around the fact that we were sexually attracted to each other. Or maybe I just secretly wanted him to want me, because truth be told, I wanted this man like no other. My poor overworked vibrator could back up that claim.
“Is that so? Fire?”
“Don’t worry,” I egged him on. “I keep it out of the bedroom.”
Ty stared at me for the longest time before he turned to the fire. “What in the hell did you put in there? It looks like you’re burning rubber. Smells like it too.”
I cleared my throat. “Um, well. There were these old tractor tires, and I rolled one into the fire and—”
Ty spun around and gaped at me. “You burned tires? Kaylee, it’s against the law to burn tires.”
My eyes widened, and my heart raced like a hummingbird’s wings. “What? No one told me that!”
“Why in the hell would anyone have to tell you that? We need to get away from this fire.”
Ty grabbed my hand, making my breath catch in my throat simply from his touch; then he dragged me away from the fire.
“Why?”
“The toxins from the rubber are dangerous.”
I looked back over my shoulder at the puffs of black smoke. “Good thing I only put one tire in, I guess, right?” Then I laughed, because what else was I supposed to do?
Ty shot me a look that said he was either going to smack me or kiss me. The man was very confusing with the mixed signals he’d been sending since the first day I’d met him.
“Honestly, I think it’s going to be fine, Ty.”
But even in my lust-filled mind, I knew it wasn’t going to be fine, because I heard sirens in the distance.
Closing my eyes, I pulled in a deep breath—then started coughing. The smoke was bad. Really bad.
When I opened my eyes, Ty was looking at me. A slight smile on his face and a hint of something in those baby blues. What exactly it was, I had no idea, but it made my lady parts tingle. No one had made me feel like this since John, and even this feeling was different. More intense. Or maybe I just secretly wanted him to want me.
A part of me felt guilty because I was ready to move on from John; another part of me hated that I was hung up on this guy standing in front of me who had no interest in me. He had made that clear after our first kiss.
I smiled while trying to contain another coughing spell, which caused him to smile even bigger; then that morphed into a sarcastic roll of his eyes. “You’re going to be the first person I know who gets kicked out of Hamilton, Kaylee.”
When he took my hand again, I tried really hard to ignore the butterflies in my stomach. Really, really hard. “Maybe, but history only remembers those who broke the rules, right?”
Before he could admonish me again, and just as the trucks—yes, I said trucks—pulled up, Ty let go of my hand. The zap of disappointment surprised me. Why, I wasn’t sure.
At first, I’d thought all I wanted was a good romp in the sack. It had been a long time since I’d been with a man, after all, and one good night of sex was a cure for anyone’s ills. But after we’d kissed that first night in the Blue Moose, Ty immediately changed. It was as if a switch had flipped, and the simple sight of me left him uneasy.
For the longest time, I’d thought his reaction was due to the natural-deodorant phase I was going through. Maybe I smelled bad? But it wasn’t that. Ty had simply pushed me away.
I got over it quickly, or at least I told myself that every time I saw him and he took my breath away. It was painfully obvious, though, that Ty didn’t share those feelings. Sure, every now and then he would do something that made me think he might want something more than friendship, but then he would distance himself all over again. It drove me mad. So instead I focused on the chaos in front of me right now.
The fire trucks came to a stop, and I prepared for the worst. Channing Harrell was the first out of the truck. He looked my way and smiled, a knowing smile that spoke volumes. Like a what-the-hell-did-I-get-myself-into-again kind of smile. I couldn’t help but grin back at him. He was handsome. Dark-blond hair with stunning hazel eyes. I’d run into him a few times since the grease-fire incident.
“Kaylee, if you want to see us, just invite us over for a cookout or something. After all, it’s not necessary to call out the big guns to see us whenever you want,” Channing said.
I laughed. Ty, on the other hand, folded his arms over his chest and looked at me as he would a two-year-old who just got caught doing something naughty.
“She threw a tractor tire into the fire,” he said, as if I’d committed a crime. Well, I guess in a way I had.
Channing simply tsked my way and moved closer to me. “That is a punishable crime.”
The way he was staring at me, with a heated look in his eyes, left me feeling slightly lightheaded. It was nice to have a man give me attention like that. I hadn’t really realized how lonely I’d truly been until I saw the fire in Channing’s eyes, and it wasn’t a reflection of the blaze burning behind me.
Lifting my brow, I replied, “Is that so? What is the punishment for such an offense?”
“Are we really doing this right now?” Ty snapped.
Channing and I both ignored him. Channing, because he was too busy letting his gaze look my body over from top to bottom—thanks to the slightly warmer weather, I had on a pair of yoga pants that showcased my ass nicely and a sweater that accented my curves in all the right ways—and me, because I knew it annoyed Ty when I ignored him completely.