Wildfire Unicorn Read online

Candice didn’t look like someone who was concerned for his sanity. There was a strange tenderness to her expression, a kind of gentle warmth that he’d previously only seen her direct at creatures with four legs.

  “You talk to her like she’s a person,” she said—and then seemed to shake herself, the wariness hardening in her eyes again. “It’s kinda cute. Wystan, I’m really sorry, but I don’t think this is a good idea after all. Flash doesn’t seem to like being left on her own.”

  Ah ha. I was right. Wystan couldn’t help feeling a little smug. Given Candice’s level of devotion to the animals under her care, he’d suspected that she might cancel their date at the last minute, and for this very reason.

  Fortunately, he had a secret weapon.

  Wystan stood up. “I agree. But I might be able to offer a solution.”

  He reached out with his mind as he spoke. He’d barely reached the end of the sentence before there was an eager whine from outside the trailer.

  Candice whipped around, professional reflexes evidently triggered. “Did you hear that? It sounded like a dog!”

  “It was.” Smiling, Wystan opened the door. “Candice, allow me to introduce one of my colleagues. This is Fenrir.”

  Her reaction was everything he’d hoped. Sheer delight glowed from her face. She let out a gasp of pure glee.

  “He’s a service dog? On your hotshot team?” Her eyes shone as she knelt to fling her arms around Fenrir’s shaggy black neck. “Oh, he’s gorgeous! Who’s a good boy? Who’s the best boy? Yes, it’s you! You are!”

  The hellhound’s pink tongue lolled out. His amused copper eyes met Wystan’s over the top of Candice’s head.

  *Has good taste, this one,* Fenrir informed him, mental tone dripping with smugness. *Likes me best.*

  Perhaps Candice’s reaction was a little bit more than he’d hoped.

  He wrestled down his unicorn’s seething desire to toss the hellhound out the door like a farmer pitching hay. “I thought Fenrir could keep Flash company. He’ll let us know if she needs anything.”

  Candice seemed to come down a bit from her dog-induced high. She sat back on her heels, looking Fenrir over more critically.

  “Are you sure?” Somewhat absently, she ran her hands over the hellhound’s broad chest and thick legs, as though automatically checking him for injuries. “He’s a big boy. I’m sure he means well, but he might scare her.”

  Wystan tilted his head in the direction of the unicorn, whose ears had pricked up. “Look, she’s not in the slightest bit worried. He’ll take good care of her. I assure you, he’s very well trained.”

  Fenrir wrinkled his muzzle. *Have you very well trained, Icehorse.*

  *I beg you, help me out here,* he sent back telepathically. *I’m on thin ice with Candice as it is.*

  *Good.* Fenrir’s mental tone was matter-of-fact. *Too much ice around you.*

  That was Fenrir. Wystan was never quite sure whether the hellhound took things too literally, or not literally enough. Sometimes he suspected that both were true.

  *Oh, very well. Will help.* With a rather human roll of his eyes, Fenrir got up, casting a glance at Candice as he did so. *Watch, Sun Bitch.*

  Sun Bitch? It took all Wystan’s control to keep a straight face. He wondered what on earth had prompted the hellhound to come up with that nickname. He was also very glad Candice was deaf to the hellhound’s telepathy.

  Fenrir padded over to Wystan’s side. The hellhound gazed up at him with an exaggerated expression of canine adoration. Wystan could only pray that it didn’t look as sarcastic to Candice as it did to him.

  “Well, he’s certainly obedient,” Candice said, sounding a little uncertain.

  “He’s very intelligent,” Wystan said, scratching Fenrir behind one ear. “He won’t let Flash leave the trailer, and he’ll do everything he can to keep her calm. He has excellent judgement.”

  Candice bit her lip. “I don’t know…”

  *Is you she is not sure about trusting, Icehorse,* Fenrir growled in his mind. *Not me. Told you, shouldn’t have offered her stupid dead plants. What strength shown by that? Should have caught her a squirrel.*

  He had to admit that the hellhound was probably right. Based on the sum total of evidence so far, he was fairly certain Candice would have preferred to be presented with a squirrel. As long as it was a live one.

  “You can trust him.” On pure instinct, he reached out, skimming his fingertips down her spine to settle on the small of her back. He felt her suck in her breath, but she didn’t move away. “Trust me. Please.”

  Fenrir cocked his head, looking at Candice thoughtfully. *Understand your doubt, Sun Bitch. Icehorse is hard to scent, behind his frozen walls. But has good hands. Good heart. Trust him.*

  “Okay,” Candice said, as though she had been able to hear Fenrir’s comment. Her tongue darted out, wetting her lips in a way that sent an electric jolt through his blood. “Your tent or mine?”

  If only he could. It was torture to keep his touch light on her back rather than pulling her close. All he wanted to do was seize her, bury himself in her, and never, ever let go.

  But he couldn’t. Not yet. And somehow, he had to find the right way to explain that…without making her think he wasn’t interested after all.

  Delay. I have to delay her.

  “Actually,” he said as he steered her out, “I was hoping to take you out to dinner.”

  Chapter 9

  Lost in a lust-fueled daze, it took Candice a moment to process his words. “Dinner? You’re kidding, right?”

  He still had his hand on the small of her back. It was only the lightest touch, but she might as well have been glued to his fingers. Just thinking of pulling away was impossible. She couldn’t resist as he guided her away from the trailer.

  “When did you last eat?” he asked.

  “Uh.” Candice had to think about that one. “I had some trail mix for lunch.”

  Wystan raised an eyebrow at her.

  “All right, breakfast,” she admitted.

  He shook his head, that wicked smile tugging at his mouth once more. “Then, as a medical professional, I prescribe dinner. To be taken immediately. Much as I would like to make you swoon, I’d rather it wasn’t from low blood sugar.”

  “I’m an emergency responder. I can run for days on coffee and adrenaline.” Still, now that she’d stopped working, she was aware that she was hungry. And Wystan had probably been working all day too. It was only practical to get some food before satisfying other appetites.

  It wasn’t like it was a date, after all.

  The animal rescue site was set back a little from the main body of the camp, away from the heavily trafficked areas. No fire camp ever truly slept. With the sun setting behind the smoke-shrouded hills, the towering floodlights were switching on, powered by emergency generators so that people could keep working through the night. Even now, commanders and senior staff would be poring over maps and reports, planning the next battle in the war against the fire.

  They had to stop to let a short convoy of trucks rumble past, headlights staring through the dark. A squad of firefighters slumped in the backs of the dirty vehicles, many asleep despite the bone-rattling ride. No doubt they would be up again at dawn, making the long, hard trek back out to the fireline.

  Wystan, she realized, didn’t have that grimy air of bone-deep exhaustion. “You haven’t been on the job long, have you?” she asked him as they picked their way across the rutted dirt track.

  He took her arm to steady her, as gallant as if escorting her across a ballroom. His mouth quirked ruefully. “Is it that obvious? No, this is my first season.”

  “I meant here, actually.” She waved a hand at the encampment. “Working this fire.”

  “Oh.” He shook his head. “No, they only started pulling in the interagency crews this week. Up until now it’s been local state fire departments handling things, but it just got too big. My squad arrived yesterday. What about you?”

  “We�
�ve been here since the start. I go to all the big wildfires across the state. Kinda my specialty, especially when there are horses to evacuate. Unfortunately, I’ve had a lot of practice. Seems like there’s more wildfires every year.”

  His jaw tightened. “Wildfires have been getting worse in a lot of states.”

  “Climate change, I guess. Lot of dry tinder around these days.”

  “And lightning,” he murmured, strangely. Before she could ask what he meant, he continued, “So this is just a boring typical day at work for you?”

  She snorted. “Hardly. This fire is a real monster. They’ve had to evacuate whole communities for this one. We’re working flat-out to save the animals left behind.”

  He gazed up at the hazy night sky, fogged with reddish smoke even though the fire camp was well back from the front. “I never imagined anything of this scale. This blaze is bigger than my entire home county.”

  “That’s back in England, right? What are you doing all the way out here?” she asked, curious. “No offense, but you aren’t exactly the usual sort I meet at these things.”

  “Ah.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I was ambulance crew, back home. To cut a long story short, my meagre skills weren’t up to the job. A career change seemed like the best move.”

  “Taking up firefighting on the other side of the world is a heck of a move. What on earth prompted that?”

  His expression shifted, shadows chased away by something else. She shivered as he swept her with that slow, heated look.

  “Perhaps it was fate,” he said.

  The rough catch to his voice was pure liquid sex. She was acutely aware of every point of contact between their bodies.

  She rapped her knuckles against his forearm. “Turning it up to eleven again there, bud.”

  He let out his breath, looking away. “Sorry.”

  “I’m not exactly complaining. Just that you were the one insisting that we get some food.” She bumped her hip against his, shooting him a playful mock-glare. “If we’re going to make it as far as the food trucks without me climbing you like a tree, you’ll need to take it down a notch.”

  It was hard to tell in the harsh glare of the floodlights, but she was pretty sure he was blushing. For a man who was a walking incitement to public indecency, he sure was shy about dirty talk. Even the mildest innuendo made his pale skin flush. It was oddly endearing, as well as just plain odd.

  Well, he’s English, she reminded herself. Maybe they really are all weird about sex over there.

  They’d reached the dining area—a wide, square clearing set with ranks of folding tables and chairs and well-lit by floodlights. Enormous catering trailers lined two sides of the square, hatches thrown open for the dinner service. From inside came the clatter and harassed shouts of line cooks feverishly grilling and boiling. A line of firefighters shuffled forward, clutching trays. Most were still in turn out gear, soot streaking their tired faces.

  They joined the end of the line, taking trays and cutlery from the stack. The cooks were on fire tonight, dishing out chicken cutlets and fries with machine gun speed. It only took a few minutes to receive their meal.

  “Thank you,” Wystan said to the server as the stone-faced man dumped a pile of steaming green beans onto his plate. “This looks marvelous. Truly impressive teamwork, to do all this so quickly.”

  The server grunted noncommittally, but the faintest hint of pleasure tugged at his sour mouth. He added a second scoop of beans to Wystan’s plate before passing it over.

  “That’s more a punishment than a thank you,” Candice muttered to Wystan as they headed for a free table. “Those canned beans are awful. Maybe he thought you were being sarcastic.”

  “I wasn’t,” Wystan replied, smiling. “As far as I’m concerned, any food that doesn’t come out of a self-heating packet is gourmet cuisine. Usually my crew is eating whatever we’ve managed to carry up to the fireline. Having an actual encampment to return to at night is a luxury for us.”

  “My tent is going to blow your mind, then,” Candice said, returning the grin. “I have a pillow. If you’re very good, I might even let you sleep on it.”

  Wystan’s expression flickered a little, his gaze sliding away. He held out a chair, which momentarily confused Candice until she realized he was offering it to her. He seated her as if he was a waiter in a fancy restaurant before taking his own place opposite.

  Why has he suddenly clammed up? Candice wondered. She shoved chicken in her mouth to fill the weird awkward moment. What did I say?

  After a second, it came to her. Crap. I implied that I wanted him to spend the night.

  She swallowed hastily, clearing her mouth. “I mean, you’re welcome to crash at my tent overnight if you want to, but it’s no big deal. I don’t care either way. I meant what I said, earlier. No strings, no expectations.” She tried a smile, in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Other than really hot sex, of course.”

  “Indeed.” Wystan cleared his throat. She had the impression his own smile was a bit forced as well. “Moving swiftly to other topics, how is your wrist?”

  “My what?” It took her a second to remember the bite. “Oh, that. It’s fine. I’ve had much worse.”

  His gaze flicked back to her face, and the evidence written there in stark red scars.

  “From animals,” she clarified, before he could ask her about them. That was definitely not a story she wanted to get into tonight. “Getting bitten is kind of a hazard of the job.”

  He chuckled under his breath, looking more relaxed. “At least my patients never tried to take a chunk out of me.”

  “Yeah, but I can put mine in cages when they’re rude.”

  “I have to admit, there have been times in my career when that would have been a tempting prospect.”

  “Well, there you go.” She nudged him under the table with her foot. “You should have trained as a vet, not a paramedic. Humans are awful. Give me animals any day.”

  He looked sidelong at her, his expression turning more thoughtful. “You must have encountered some of the darker sides of humanity, in your work.”

  “Oh boy. Could I tell you some horror stories. Not that I’m going to.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “How did we get onto this? We’re supposed to be having fun, not discussing how much people suck. You don’t want to hear all about my job.”

  “But I do,” he said softly. His gaze still held that intent focus, as though she was the most fascinating woman in the world. “I want to know everything about you.”

  Uh oh. She hoped it was a line, because otherwise she had massive alarm bells going off in her head.

  “You’ve pretty much already seen it all.” She deliberately adopted a casual, carefree tone. “I rescue animals from disaster zones. I have a habit of answering the door with wildlife hanging off various parts of my anatomy. I’m here, willing, and available. Nothing more you need to know.”

  His eyebrows drew down. He looked at her in silence for an unnervingly long moment, fork frozen in midair. He had the expression of a Scrabble player with a handful of Qs, who had just realized there wasn’t a single U anywhere on the board.

  “For a woman who has invited me into her bed,” he said slowly, “you are very determined to keep me at arm’s length.”

  “My bed, my rules, bud.” She stabbed at her fries. “We don’t need to know each other’s life stories to have a good time.”

  “Wouldn’t it make things better if we did, though?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, foreplay doesn’t involve using your mouth to talk.” She waved a fry at him. “Look, you can cut the seduction crap. I hate the whole fake romantic thing, where we pretend that we aren’t simply two thirsty grown-ass adults looking to get laid. Let’s just eat so we can get down to business, okay?”

  Wystan laid his fork down across his barely-touched plate. “I’m not pretending, Candice.”

  “Oh boy,” Candice muttered. By now so many alarm bells were ringing in her
mind, she half-expected one of the nearby firefighter squads to leap up and dig a fireline around her. “Wystan. You do realize this is a one night stand, not a date, right?”

  His green eyes were shadowed and unreadable. “Does it have to be?”

  “Yes,” Candice said firmly. “I told you, I don’t do relationships.”

  “In general?” His voice dropped a little. “Or just with me?”

  “In general. Though if I was on the market, I gotta say your chances would have just gone down the toilet.” She put her palms flat on the table, pushing herself up. “Look, bud. I was really clear about what I was offering. You told me that you wanted the same. The one thing I won’t stand is dishonesty.”

  He jolted upright too, every muscle tense as though he was poised to physically tackle her to the ground. “I’m a virgin.”

  It was so far from anything she’d expected him to say, for a moment she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “What?”

  “I’m a virgin,” he repeated. For once he wasn’t blushing. He held her gaze steadily. “I wasn’t lying. I can’t tell you how much I would like to take you to bed. But this is my first time. I need it to mean as much to you as it does to me.”

  “Are you kidding me?” she said incredulously. “You expect me to believe that…that…seriously?”

  “I was waiting for the right person,” he said quietly. “I was waiting for you.”

  It was either the most spectacular, bare-faced lie she’d ever heard…or, even worse, it was the truth.

  Either way, there was only one thing to do.

  “Right.” Candice held up her hands. “And we’re done here. I’m out.”

  “Sorry,” said a deep, unfamiliar voice from right behind her. “But we can’t let you do that.”

  Chapter 10

  Candice whipped around, and found herself nose-to-nipple with an impressive set of pectorals. The chest barred her way like a solid rock cliff. Yellow letters stretched across the front of a straining black t-shirt: THUNDER MOUNTAIN HOTSHOTS.

  The owner of the chest stepped back, his rugged face and broad smile coming into her field of view. He was a big, tough-looking man, with tawny hair and startling amber eyes. He held out a broad, dirt-streaked hand.