Scorch by Dani Collins Page B

the way she wanted him.
    He hissed in a breath, mouth tightening, shoulders tensing as he recoiled a half step, muttering a curse under his breath.
    She looked away, crushed, unwilling to watch his expression turn to rejection. Would she never learn?
    “We’re fine.” She swallowed a lump that seemed to lodge in her chest like a sharp rock, jagged point pressing into her heart. “It’s fine if you don’t feel the same.”
    From the corner of her eye, she could see his hand gripping the doorjamb.
    She set a toilet roll on end and tried to sound blasé, but she was incinerating with embarrassment, heart scorched. “Really. I’ve been this route before. I’ll survive.”
    “Jacqui.” His tone was so hard yet helpless she had to look at him. He took up all the space in the doorway, like he was holding himself back from plunging into the closet after her. “Don’t think I’m not tempted. We can’t. That’s all I was saying the other night. We can’t .”
    Tingles of preternatural reaction washed over her. Her breathing changed and she tightened her hand on whatever she was holding, but she’d forgotten what it was. She strained her ears, praying no one would suddenly decide to head for a coffee and overhear them.
    Because she was about to be very stupid and put herself out there. She needed him to know.
    “You’re wrong about this being seasonal. I’m not…” She flicked her hand to indicate the building beyond this dimly lit room. “I don’t feel like this about anyone else.”
    She might as well have stood there naked before his raking, disbelieving gaze.
    She had lied to him. She might not survive this. The first time she had set her feelings on display, she’d been young and romantic enough to invent the return of regard. Now she was an adult with a far better ability to see reality.
    She did not read receptiveness in him.
    Please don’t reject me .
    “Don’t,” he muttered. “Don’t make me think—”
    “Kingston.” Sam’s voice from across the far side of the common room made her startle violently.
    Her pen clattered to the floor and she bent to retrieve it.
    Vin turned his back on her and said, “Right here.”
    “Timber company is asking if we can throw a helipad together today. It’d be a good exercise for some rookies. Wings in, boots out. Two nights, maybe three.”
    “I’ll tell ’em to suit up.”
    Vin disappeared into Sam’s office for the details while she stood there forcing herself to breathe evenly, gathering her composure.
    Don’t make me think …what? He’d looked like he was being drawn and quartered.
    With a compression in her heart, she headed back to her desk as Vin left Sam’s office without glancing back.
    Sam met her at her desk. He was no dummy. The weight of his gaze was waiting for hers when she came back from gazing after Vin. His eyes were filled with knowledge.
    Kill. Me. Now .
    “Who is he taking?” she asked, trying to act as normal as possible. “How am I coding their hours?” She reached for her sticky pad, peeled off a sheet, then set the pad back on the rim of her coffee cup.
    “Why do you always do that?” Sam pointed his pen at her coffee. “Leave the pad on your cup like that?”
    “Do I?” She looked at the cup with its little yellow square topper and chuckled weakly. “I didn’t even realize. Russ used to steal my coffee. He’d steal anyone’s. Not on purpose, just picking it up absentmindedly while he was talking, thinking it was his. I got used to doing that so he wouldn’t take mine.”
    Sam’s expression twisted like he understood all too well how those old reminders could ambush you. She genuinely couldn’t have a more understanding boss. Sam was reticent about his own grief, but he was patient and always willing to hear her out if he was making a change, but she wanted to explain first the rationale behind why Russ or Hugh had done things a certain way. If he caught her blowing her nose, he always veered away and gave