The Fireman's Son. Tara Taylor Quinn

in his office, with the door shut, he asked, “Does she know you set the fire?”

      “Uh-uh.”

      Still perplexed as to why he was getting this call, Reese asked, “Are you ready to tell me your name?”

      “Can my mom not be in trouble?”

      “Why would she be in trouble?”

      “Um...’cause you’re her boss and all.”

      Reese sat down. Hard.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      “I DON’T KNOW what’s wrong with me...” Leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, hands clasped together, Faye sat on Sara’s couch and looked at the other woman. Sara’s shoulder-length blond hair framed her face and pretty blue eyes in a way that made Faye feel like she was talking to an angel.

      Or her personal rendition of one.

      Maybe it was just that she needed a guardian angel right then.

      “Nothing’s wrong with you,” said The Lemonade Stand’s full-time counselor.

      Faye wasn’t seeing Sara on an official basis. Faye had a weekly appointment with Dr. Bloom Larson for her own counseling. She’d just dropped off Elliott and found herself in Sara’s office.

      “Oh...something’s wrong,” Faye said now.

      Sara, leaning back against her desk, smiled at her. And shook her head.

      “You’re alive, Faye,” she said. “Feeling sexual desire is a normal part of life.”

      “Not for me it isn’t. Not since...”

      She stopped. Thought of the previous night’s dream, with feelings that were so mixed up. Glorious and panic-inducing at the same time.

      Wonderful mixed with devastating.

      “What Frank did to you...it’s had an effect on you, Faye. You know that.”

      She did. She’d been through counseling. “I thought I’d never feel sexual desire again.” Mostly, she’d been fine with the prognosis. She had no intention of having another man in her life, so sex was pretty much a nonissue to her.

      “You might not. Not in the way you think...”

      “But last night...”

      “Was showing you that your ability to feel sexual desire is not completely dead.”

      “Why now?” The words hurt her throat. But she had to know. For the rest of her life, there would be no more hiding. She’d promised Elliott.

      And herself.

      “My guess?” Sara asked.

      Faye nodded.

      “Reese takes you back to a time before Frank. To a time when you were on fire with desire.”

      She stared.

      “Am I wrong?”

      Faye wanted to jump up and leave the room. Laugh the whole thing off. She just shook her head.

      “It doesn’t mean that you’d feel those same feelings now,” Sara said, a warning note to her voice. “If he were to touch you, I mean.”

      Okay. The tightening in her chest subsided a bit. She drew in a complete—and calming—breath.

      “It’s just a trigger from the past. Not an indication of current—”

      “What are you asking me?”

      “The dream,” Faye said. “It doesn’t have to mean I’m still in love with him, right? Just that seeing him sparked a ‘muscle memory’ kind of response from my psyche in terms of sex.”

      “Exactly.”

      Well, thank God.

      “I woke up crying.”

      “That’s what you said.”

      “Elliott was there. Awake.”

      “Yes.”

      “So...you’ll talk to him today?” Because she didn’t know how to help her own son. She had to rely on professionals.

      “Just like every day.”

      “Thank you.” She stood.

      “Faye?”

      “Yeah?”

      “Be careful.”

      She nodded. Then turned back to her. “Why do you say it like that?” Like she was really concerned.

      Sara wasn’t smiling anymore. “Because you’re vulnerable. And I don’t think you’re letting yourself see that. These feelings for Reese—whether they’re real or just regression—feel real. And he’s right here. In your life.”

      “You think I’ll fall prey and sleep with him?” If only Sara knew how far from possible that was. Reese hadn’t so much as met her eye in the two days they’d been around the station together. He hadn’t been on any of their rescue calls. And when he’d come into the training room and seen her there, he’d made an excuse and turned around and left.

      “I think that you could find yourself in a situation where you think what you’re feeling is real and make love with him...”

      “Not going to happen.”

      “The more you deny the possibility, the more at risk you are.”

      “I’m not denying the possibility of my own feelings going haywire. I’m not planning to trust them to guide me.” She didn’t do that even on a good day anymore. Except when she was working.

      The paramedic, she trusted implicitly. The woman, not at all.

      “I just know that Reese isn’t going to let us get even close to a near encounter.”

      “And what if he does?” Sara asked.

      Faye knew the answer to that one. “I’m grabbing Elliott and running for the hills.”

      She wasn’t going down the man road again. Particularly not until her son was man enough to watch out for himself.

      * * *

      HE’D TOLD HER to stay the hell out of his life. So why in the hell was Reese standing around in a too-small conference room, watching his palms sweat, while he waited to meet the kid who should have been his?

      No. The one who should have been his had been his, at least for the few weeks his wife had been pregnant. Even if he hadn’t known about it.

      Faye’s child had not been meant to be his. Her defection had told him that. You’d think, after almost ten years, he’d have gotten that one down straight.

      He was meeting the kid alone. Whether or not the boy’s mother knew about it was none of his concern. Lila McDaniels—managing director of The Lemonade Stand—had set the whole thing up. Reese had called the Stand as soon as he’d recovered from talking to the boy.

      Faye had said Elliott had problems and that he spent his days at the Stand. And now here was Reese, through no wish of his own, having agreed to meet with the boy and hear what he had to say.

      Someone thought it was best for Elliott.

      Reese damn sure knew it wasn’t best for him.

      Meeting Faye’s kid was about the last thing he wanted to do, right down there with having his toenails pulled off one by one without anesthetic.

      Maybe one below that.

      At the moment, physical pain, in any amount, seemed preferable to—

      He turned sharply as the door opened.