Amalie Berlin - Rescued By Her Rival

“You’re getting worked up because the schedule is different than you expected.”

She cleared her throat, waved her hand again and finished off her coffee. “I’m fine with it.”

Bull.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if the pack run was this morning’s PT.” He let her off the hook, but then they quieted to listen as Treadwell announced they’d be doing a body carry around the track this morning.

“Or not.”

The chief asked if there were preferences for partners, and he glanced over just in time to see her hand shoot up and point to him once and then at herself.

“Ellison and Autry.” The chief marked their names on the list.

“You want me to carry you?”

“No. I’m going to carry your grumpy butt,” she answered without pause. “Your neck and your night in a trunk would make it hard for you to carry anyone.”

“I don’t need to be carried.”

“Shut up, Beck.”

She used his first name, and rather than annoying him he found himself smiling.

“You’re pushy, Lauren.”

“Damned right I am. I grew up in a fire family who still don’t want me to serve. Dad’s chief in our house, and my three big brothers are also all in the same station. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

“You’re the one who’s been obsessed with me the past two years.”

She paled then and in response shoved him with one hand, just hard enough for him to sway a little. “Shut up. I wasn’t obsessed. I just remembered. And then your name was everywhere, like the universe was gloating at me.”

“I see. I don’t know what you mean about my name being everywhere, but whatever you say.” He didn’t usually tease people. Or play. Or flirt. Crap, he was flirting. What was even being talked about before he started down this alien path?

Her family at the fire station...

“Why would I know about your family?” he asked, but Treadwell blew his whistle, calling everyone to the track.

“Autry’s kind of a legendary name in the fire service. Maybe in the forest service, it’s not.”

He didn’t pay attention to that kind of thing, which he almost regretted now. It sounded like they’d paid no small part in turning her into a tight little ball of competitive energy.

Which he hoped didn’t mean she’d over-extended herself by volunteering to carry him.

“I’m heavier than I look, you know.”

“You look like you’re made of lead.” She finished her coffee and held out her hand for the empty cup he was also holding. “See if you can make it to the track, iron man. I’ll meet you there.”

“You know if you drop me or crap out, we’re both in the muck.”

She turned around, shoulders popping up. “Trust me.”

Easier said than done. But the truth was, she’d be the one getting a strike if she couldn’t do it, he was already in. If anything, Treadwell would look upon him allowing her to carry him as a mark of his team spirit, especially as it was the most undignified position. Especially when she was almost a foot shorter than he was, and at least sixty pounds lighter.

Regardless, they were soon both at the track, Treadwell saying, “Once around, Ellison. Don’t drop her.”

“I’m carrying,” Autry corrected, making the chief pause and look her up and down once, then shift the same measuring but obviously tired look to him.

“I told her I was heavy.”

“And I told him to trust me,” she countered, and then slowly turned to look across the track, three lanes in, where two of the guys were snickering, and he remembered the name of neither of them. It took her turning for him to pick up that they were laughing at her. At the idea of her carrying him.

This was it. This was what she’d been talking about last night.

They weren’t snickering out of concern, it was a joke to them. They didn’t think she could do it.

He felt a whiff of shame as the next thought crystallized: he’d questioned whether she could do it too, even after she’d said it. Still questioned it, had only made a decision to trust her, which was something he’d never do with the bozos, now doing the far more obnoxious version of what he and Treadwell had just done.

After his offer, he couldn’t let it stand, regardless of the state of his neck.

Beck surged forward, ignoring the stiff, pinching pain in his neck, and didn’t stop until he was chest to chest with the one who had laughed the loudest. “Problem?”

The man stood up straighter, meeting his gaze and holding it, a challenge there. Briefly, then he took a step back, not saying anything in response.

It was always a gamble in a crowd of tough guys, going straight for the most aggressive maneuver, but whether it was Beck’s seniority or the amount of disgust dripping off him, the man backed down.

“She’s really small,” he said. “If she can carry you around the track, I’ll buy her a case of beer.”

“Yeah, she’s shorter than you, and she’s probably tougher,” Beck replied, not backing off yet but not escalating things. “Don’t bet against someone on your team, jackass.”

“All right, you two.” Treadwell sounded weary, but the chief’s words were enough to bring them back to their corners, which was when he noticed Lauren looking at him strangely. Like she either couldn’t believe what she’d just seen or didn’t want to.

“Runners, pick up your wounded. Once around the track,” Treadwell called, and then added to Lauren, “Don’t drop him, no matter how annoying he gets.”

“Yes, Chief.”

Was she annoyed? He’d told her he’d have her back if someone started giving her grief.

He didn’t have time to ask, or even to suss it out. She grabbed one of his wrists to control the lift, planted her shoulder a little roughly right in his middle to fold him over, and slowly began to lift.

It didn’t take more than a second for his density to become apparent. There was a moment where it seemed she wouldn’t be able to straighten her knees, but with a grunt and a wobble made it fully up.

His natural reaction was to make sure she really wanted to do this, but even thinking the words made him feel like the jerk who’d been laughing.

There was nothing funny about this. Her butt was perched right there in front of his face because of the way his longer torso hung over her shoulder, and he got a really good view of it, up close and personal.

She’d chosen gray gym shorts that were loose enough to allow free movement—not exactly baggy but not tight either. Short enough for active freedom but not indecent. They were perfectly ordinary cotton shorts, but up close they might as well have been a bikini. He could do nothing but look, because talking had been hard enough when they’d just been running through the woods, but now with her carrying his heavy weight? The best thing he could do for her would be to shut up.

And the best thing he could do for himself was ignore the way her bum jiggled as she began to walk. To walk too fast.

“Not a race,” he reminded her rear end.

“You’re heavy, need to hurry.”

Her voice showed strain, but she still kept going, and any thoughts for his own dignity faded against the jiggling reminder of her femininity taking up much of his vision.

There was a mole at the top of her left thigh, just below the hem of her shorts. The tingling resumed in his...

Damn it.

He closed his eyes to picture less pleasant things. Moldy bread. The smell of roadkill...

They needed to make it around the track once, the regular track. One quarter mile. But by the first bend she shook with the effort and he’d grown tense all over, trying very hard not to let his body show how pleasant he found hers.