Amy Fetzer - The Re-Enlisted Groom

She threw the truck into gear and drove off.

Maybe he wouldn’t be needed. Maybe enough of the crew was well enough to work. Maybe the storm predictions were wrong, and he would just disappear again. Yeah, right, a voice pestered. And maybe everything would fall apart just when you got the glue to stick.

Maxie drove, blinking back the tears she refused to shed for him.

Please go away, she prayed as his helicopter passed overhead. Because it was only going to get worse. Worse when he discovered that not only did she leave him at the altar, but he had a six-year-old daughter with a woman he loathed.

Two

In the rescue station, Kyle stared at the men and women relaxing in the worn leather sofas and chairs arranged around a couple of coffee tables.

“Okay, so what are you guys not telling me?” he said after another crew member refused to trade sleeping arrangements with him. He was willing to sleep anywhere if it meant he didn’t have to look at Maxie before coffee. Unfortunately no one was cooperating.

“Parrish is a lousy cook,” a man finally admitted, sinking back into the body-molding leather chair.

“You know this for a fact?” The idea that half of these men knew Maxie’s cooking soured his mood even further.

A few exchanged knowing glances. “Reputations have a way of escalating.”

“So don’t eat at her place.”

“I could say the same to you, Hayden,” his temporary boss, Jackson Temple, said on a laugh as he passed the cluster of personnel.

Kyle made a frustrated sound. “Look, I’ll make switching worth it.” He reached into his back pocket for his wallet.

Hoots and whistles sounded seconds later. Kyle didn’t have the sense to be embarrassed. Seeing Maxie on a regular basis was too unpleasant to even consider.

“Watch out, folks, he’s desperate,” someone said.

A black-haired man frowned curiously. “How much we talking here, Hayden?”

“A hundred?” Good Lord, he sounded pathetic, Kyle thought.

“Food mean that much to you, flyboy?” came from another team member.

“No,” he muttered, fisting cash. His sanity did.

“Then why?”

Jackson Temple cleared his throat, then nodded slightly at the doors.

The conversation died a quick, painful death as Kyle looked up, his gaze colliding with a pair of green eyes so aloof he couldn’t begin to speculate on what she was thinking. He only knew that she’d heard. Everything.

Then she crossed to the office and murmured smugly, “Bet the back seat of that chopper’s looking real good right now,” as she passed him.

Kyle closed his eyes briefly, feeling like a heel. He didn’t know if it was the smirk on her face she tried to pass off as a smile or the way she brushed aside the discussion he was a jackass for even starting with people he’d just met, but these were her friends. He didn’t want to embarrass her. What went on between them had nothing to do with the life she’d made for herself here.

Kyle jammed his cash into his pocket and waved off a crewman who looked guilty enough to concede. He looked up as she shut the office door, closing Jackson in with her. Through the glass, she met his gaze, her expression unreadable. It was hard to believe she was the same woman who’d turned to liquid heat in his arms a couple hours ago, and just the memory, the taste of her still on his lips, made his body tighten. Then she closed the blinds, shutting him out. Nothing new there, he thought, moving to a soda machine and dropping change into the slot, nearly knocking the thing over when he punched his selection. He had to get out of this somehow, he thought, pulling the tab and tipping it to his lips. He drained the soda, trying not to look at the office door, to the room where she was hiding from him. Again.

Inside the office, Maxie paced, not even bothering to take off her parka. On the way over, she’d radioed Jackson and without revealing why, she’d told him she didn’t want Kyle at her place. Jackson wasn’t cooperating.

“I thought you were my friend, Jackson. Move him to a hotel.”

The team chief chuckled, his chair creaking as he leaned back and watched her eat the carpet with her strides. “You’ve had boarders before, Parrish, what’s the deal?” She paused and leveled him a dark look, and the older man cringed dramatically, throwing his hands up. “Okay, okay, I won’t pry. Not that you’d ever give details.”

“You made the assignment.” She slapped her hands down on the desk and loomed. “Change it.”

“I can’t. There was no other choice.” He waved to the charts.

“There has to be.” Maxie already recognized the danger of being in the same state with Kyle, let alone seeing him every day, all day until his contract with the rescue team was finished.

“Not for a chopper. Fuel is too expensive to have him land anywhere else. Your ranch is the best place to set one down. Close. Low wind, lots of unobstructed area. You know that.” Her expression pleaded for a little understanding, and Jackson frowned. “I’ve never seen you like this, Maxine. He’s got you scared.”

She blinked, straightening. Scared? Of Kyle? She peeled off her jacket and tossed it aside before she plopped onto the sofa. Bracing her boots on the scarred table, she folded her arms over her middle and stared at nothing. She was not afraid of him. Just of him touching her. Her mind went blank when he did. And she couldn’t afford a single incoherent thought, for her daughter’s sake. Mimi depended on her mom keeping it together.

For the ride over here, for the time it took to feed and water the horses and mules on loan here, she’d done nothing but brood and stomp around, having herself a real nice pity party. She was glad Mimi was at her grandma’s for the next couple of days or she would be deflecting questions instead of old feelings. Mimi had a talent for seeing to the center of a problem and pestering till she had the entire truth. Or telling Maxie what she believed to be the truth, whether her mother wanted to hear it or not. It was one of the things Maxie liked best about her daughter, her candidness.

“I like him,” Jackson said.

Only her gaze shifted. “You would.”

“Apparently you did, too, at one time.”

She looked away. Yes, she’d loved him, or thought she had. Her timing was lousy when she’d wised up and realized it was mostly lust. Good lust, but not enough to base a lifetime on. Yet it was the immature way she’d left him that still haunted her.

Jackson’s words came back to her. Kyle had her running scared. She wouldn’t, not this time. She’d vanished on her wedding day, only to discover three weeks later that she’d jilted the father of her child. By then he was in Saudi with a broken heart and didn’t need to hear from her; he needed to think about staying alive. She had refused to run to him just because she was pregnant, yet knew he had a right to know about Mimi. As soon as his unit had returned, she’d called, left a message and got a terse reply via his big brother: “Don’t call back, he doesn’t want to see you again.”

She’d written him anyway, the hardest letter she’d ever had to pen. And it came back to her, unopened. The message was painfully clear.

But now he was here, and her daughter’s happiness was in jeopardy. Mimi was her first and only concern. She’d suffered the “almost my dad” attachment once too often, and Maxie would endure anything, even Kyle’s cruel remarks and glares, before she would allow her daughter to be hurt by her mistakes again. Suddenly she lurched off the couch and grabbed her jacket, donning it as she headed to the door.

“Maxine?”

“You need him to move the chopper, right?”

“Yeah,” Jackson said, eyeing her warily.