Ignite (Firefighters of Montana Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

flustering him a little bit, and she really liked that.
    Yes, she’d given him a couple truths she hadn’t really meant to give him, but it didn’t matter because, by giving him the truth, she felt like less of a fake, and less of a liar and manipulator. Which made everything more enjoyable because those were two things she really didn’t want to be.
    “So, are you going to tell me, or do I need to go ask someone else?”
    He shifted in his seat, as if he wasn’t quite comfortable. Yeah, she didn’t mind that at all.
    “What do you want to know?” he finally said.
    “Let’s start with why—no, that’s too philosophical.” She tapped her chin, not missing the way his eyes dropped to her mouth. Definitely not missing the little flip her stomach did. “Let’s start with how you got interested in fighting fire. What made you even know this was a job let alone one that you wanted to do?”
    “That’s kind of a long story.” He nodded at the bartender, who slid him a bottle of beer.
    Which Lina took as an excellent sign. She took another dainty sip of her drink and gave him another flirtatious smile. “I have all night,” she offered.
    And she was damn well going to enjoy it.
    *
    Ace really had no idea how it happened, but somehow an hour had passed and he had spent it enjoyably talking to Lina McArthur.
    She didn’t just to ask about smokejumping—she was interested . He could tell she was paying attention by the questions she asked, by the comments that she made. A lot of times when people asked about his job they wanted to hear the near-death experiences, the danger and he loved that. He loved making people think he did something crazy and amazing and life-threatening every day.
    But the reality of the situation was this was a job dictated by seasons and waiting. Some days were doing not much of anything and sometimes putting himself in that kind of danger was downright scary.
    While he didn’t admit to being scared to Lina, she did ask about the more nitty-gritty things. She didn’t want to just know the heroics, she wanted to know the ins and outs. He found the more she talked to him about this thing he’d grown to love, the more he liked her.
    She was… Different. There wasn’t a lot of softness to her, and yet he thought that was why he was attracted to her. Because she gave the impression she was this impenetrable rock, and he couldn’t possibly do any damage here.
    It was probably unfair to think so. Probably wrong to think she couldn’t be hurt, and yet here he was, still doing nothing more than talking.
    Craziest of all, he was enjoying himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he talked to a woman for an hour without thinking of getting into her pants and enjoying himself horizontally.
    Well, not that there weren’t a few times his gaze had dropped to the way the ridiculous turtleneck hugged her breasts and his thoughts had wandered. She was uncommonly beautiful. Nothing classic or in-your-face, but something more in the way her personality seemed to match her appearance. There was a sharpness to her features, and a…solidity. She was tough rather than pretty perfumes. She was this austere thing and, for him, it worked.
    More, there was something about her blue eyes that made it feel as though she could see through him, and he found it being her somehow didn’t bother him as much as it normally would have.
    She didn’t ask any more about his childhood, so he had to think she believed him about not being Dean. Which…somehow made him feel like a jerk. Which was stupid. Insane, considering he didn’t have any real connection to her. He couldn’t let his weird feelings for a stranger derail his life’s mission since he’d finally escaped foster care.
    Stay the hell out of Jess’s way. She deserved a life without him.
    So, of course, he’d sidled up to someone she knew, probably quite well, and was enjoying the hell out of his evening with her.
    Well, he’d never claimed to be a