“I don’t want to go to New York.” She was really having a hard time keeping it together. “I want to stay here and I want to take that firefighter job. The battalion has an opening and the chief offered it to me. To me!” She stabbed herself with her thumb. “It’s what I’ve been aiming for all this time. Besides, you’ll be gone half the time on assignment.”
“I told you I wouldn’t be traveling all the time. I’d be home between assignments. By the time we decided to have a family I’d hardly be traveling at all.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right. I know you, remember? You’ve got it in your blood, just like my desire to be a firefighter is in mine. Are you saying you won’t get the job unless you move? What happened to the digital world and airplane travel?”
“New York is where it’s happening right now,” he told her. “It’s a place for me to make contacts for stories, for sources for the things I need.”
She shook her head. “This is getting us noplace fast.”
“So you’re saying if I really love you I’ll give up my career for you?” he asked.
“Aren’t you asking the same of me?” she demanded.
Noah didn’t answer. Instead he threw back the rumpled sheet and climbed out of bed, stalking over to the window. They’d left the curtains open and the moonlight slanting in outlined his finely honed body and scattered glints of light on his disheveled. He wasn’t handsome so much as ruggedly good looking, with a square-jawed face, dark eyebrows, and eyes a brown almost as deep as the hair on his head. They’d taken one look at each other and it had been lust at first sight. That lust had morphed over time to a deep friendship ad unexpectedly into love. Randi had dreamed of a future together, a family, building memories through the years.
Who knew he’d be so adamant about her dream job? So unbending. At first when she brought it up he hadn’t said much. Probably because it was just a maybe at the time. There had been no openings in the San Antonio Fire Department at the time and she thought now he’d been thinking there never would be. She hadn’t rained on his parade. Why did he want to rain on hers?
He stood there without speaking for so long Randi couldn’t stand it.
“Noah? Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“Like what? My opinion hasn’t changed and neither has the situation. You know how important this is to me.”
“Same goes,” she reminded him, trying to speak over the stabbing pain in her heart.
“Really.” His tone was flat, uninflected, a sure sign that he was dealing with a lot of anger over this.
“Okay, let’s talk about my job for a minute. What if I went to New York with you and was able to get hired on as a firefighter there. Would that make this work?”
“Did you hear what I’ve been saying?” He practically vibrated with anger. “This is not a job for a woman no matter where we live, especially one who says she wants to get married and have a family.”
She scrambled off the bed and went to stand beside him. “There are plenty of men who are firefighters. They have strong marriages and great family lives. And I’m sure their wives worry about them, but they accept it, because it’s part of the men they love.”
“That’s different.”
“Different? Different how?” Anger suddenly shot through her. “Wait a minute. Is this because I’m a woman and you don’t think women should be firefighters?”
“It’s not…exactly like that,” he protested. But he still didn’t turn to look at her.
“Then what exactly is it? Because I have to tell you, that’s how it looks from here.” She dropped her hand and took a step away. “Holy crap, Noah, I never took you for such a chauvinist.”
“I’m not.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “ You know that, babe.”
“Yeah? Just exactly how do I know that?” She stamped her bare foot. “And don’t call me babe.”
At last he turned to her, his naked body so glorious it took her breath away as always and nearly distracted her from the conversation. He put is warm hands on her shoulders and gave her a penetrating look.
“You think I’m a bad person because I think the work is too hard, too demanding and too dangerous for someone your size?” he asked. “Because I would be afraid for your life every single minute you were on the job, no matter where we lived?”
“Firefighters work together and take care of each other.” She was trying not to be irrational about this. That wouldn’t win her any points. “Besides, what does my size have to do with it? I’m not exactly a skinny Minnie and I’m in damn good shape. Plus they put the trainees through grueling courses. ” She looked directly into his eyes, catching them in the moonlight. “There’s always the chance I could wash out, you know. But at least I’d have tried.”
“If you went for it I don’t think you’d fail.”
They were getting nowhere here. And her temper was sizzling through her no matter how much she tried to tamp it down.
“Somehow I don’t think you mean that as a compliment,” she snapped and turned away from him. “Well, fuck, Noah. Just fuck.”
“That seems to be your favorite word lately,” he told her.
“It fits just about any situation. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” She glared at him, her hands fisted on her hips. She tried not to think how ridiculous she might look in the semidarkness, naked, cursing at Noah.
“Randi,” he began.
