Flirting With Danger Read Online Free Page A

intimate. And if there was one thing she never
     intended to feel with Aaron, it was intimate.

    Inside the car, Aaron’s fingers brushed hers as he helped her to load her bag of clothes
     into the space behind the passenger seat of his two-seater car. She avoided his eyes,
     pretending it hadn’t happened as she dropped her purse into the footwell and settled
     back in her seat. She hadn’t bothered to change into her casual clothes, but had draped
     a tracksuit jacket around her shoulders against the cooling night air.
    Aaron started the engine and steered the car down the winding driveway to the road.
     “So, you’re sure my pick-up lines wouldn’t work on you, then?”
    “Not a chance.” She’d have preferred him to have a larger car; then his hand on the
     gearstick wouldn’t have been so close to her knee. “Even if I didn’t know you.”
    He laughed. “I haven’t heard you talk about a boyfriend.”
    “That would be because I don’t have one. Don’t you think I would have brought him
     to the wedding if I had?” The words had come out a little snappier than she’d meant
     them to. It was all this talk about her love life, or lack of one, today. Did weddings
     always have this effect on people?
    Shrugging, he glanced across at her. “He might have been working. Why don’t you have
     one?”
    She sighed. “Let’s just say I’m more discerning than you, okay?”
    They traveled some way in silence, his headlights picking out the ghostly white trunks
     of gum trees along the road’s edge. “What you said about Sasha…is the same true for
     you?”
    She had to think for a moment, recalling her words. “You mean, am I looking for marriage?”
     At his nod, she said, “Not actively, no.”
    “What does that mean?”
    It meant she’d seen the sham that was her parents’ marriage. She’d seen her father’s
     love die in front of her eyes, and she’d watched her mother prove that wedding vows
     meant nothing. She looked out of the window in time to see the lights of the city
     of Adelaide across the blackness of the valley they were skirting.
    “It means that I don’t think it’s for me. I hope, for Leanne’s sake, that it’s possible
     for a marriage to be happy, but I haven’t seen any evidence of it myself.”
    “So, you and I have something in common after all.”
    “No, we don’t. I’m nothing like you.” She certainly wasn’t interested in dating one
     man after another the way he dated women. “In fact, we’re complete opposites.”
    “Hmm.” He concentrated on the road for a few moments, then said, “Why did you become
     a firefighter?”
    “It was my dream job. It was all I ever wanted to do.”
    “Even as a child?”
    “Oh, yeah. I liked the big red truck.”
    He laughed. “Well, that’s understandable. Don’t all kids?”
    “I have four brothers, so I didn’t grow out of that phase. I’ve always preferred vehicles
     with grunt. Not like this wussy little car.”
    “Hey, I love this car.”
    She watched him stroke the dash with one large hand as if attempting to soothe the
     hurt feelings of the little Mazda, then forced herself to swallow.
    “Your most meaningful relationship, I assume?”
    He grinned. “All my relationships are meaningful—they mean I’ve still got what it
     takes.”
    She tutted. After a pause, she said in a more serious tone, “When I was a child, about
     six or seven years old, there was a fire on our street. We were all out there, watching.
     My dad and some of the neighbors were using garden hoses, but they weren’t getting
     anywhere. It was terrifying, and then the fire trucks arrived. The firefighters had
     a reassuring presence. They created some semblance of order out of the chaos, and
     they saved all of the people who were sleeping in that house. And the dog.”
    “Of course. There’s always a dog in the best stories. So, you wanted to save people
     like they did?”
    “Yes, I wanted to help people, but in a way that