Yeah. She was going to turn this around. Time was on her side.

DUSTIN’S UNIT was run ragged for the rest of the day, one call after another. So it was inevitable that one of his calls would bump up against one of Cristina’s. He’d been brooding all damn day, and braced for the awkwardness of seeing her, given that she kept sleeping with him and then breaking his heart. But if she felt weird, she didn’t let on. In fact, she smiled at him.

Dazzled the brood right out of him.

She was working a small fire caused by a toaster while Dustin treated the young woman who’d attempted to put it out by herself only to fall on her butt, knocking the air out of her.

“I can’t be in a cast for Christmas,” she wailed, holding her bottom in both hands. “Not this year.”

“I don’t think they cast your ass,” Cristina said helpfully from where she stood near the toaster. She winked at Dustin.

Winked.

“I can’t have any bandages, either, my boyfriend’s coming to town.” The woman tried to get up and gasped in pain. “Ouch, ouch, ouch…Do you think it’s broken?” As she asked this question, she turned and yanked down her pants, revealing a quite perfect tightly toned ass. “Anything?”

Dustin stared at it, then lifted his gaze to find Cristina looking at him, eyes amused, brows raised. Oddly enough, given that he’d been pouting all morning, the air crackled between them. “I don’t think it’s broken.” He cleared his throat. “You look…fine.”

“Fine,” Cristina mouthed, and rolled her eyes.

Afterward, outside, she sidled up to him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he said, and to keep that crackle at bay, he went light. “Need me to look and see if your ass is broken?”

She flashed a smile and almost blinded him. “You just want to see my ass.”

True enough. After all, it was world-class.

“Little tip, ace.” She patted his chest, voluntarily touching him outside of sex. “Next time a woman pulls her pants down for you, find a better description than fine.”

“I’ll work on my adjectives,” he said, hoping despite himself that it was her ass he saw next.

“Um, Dustin? You want to have a picnic sometime?”

He stared at her. “Huh?”

“You have a hearing problem? I asked if you wanted to have a picnic.”

“Like a date picnic?”

“Yeah. A date picnic.”

“A date,” he repeated. He wouldn’t have been more shocked if she’d asked him to marry her.

“Well, if it’s that stupid-” She started to turn away but he grabbed her hand and pulled her back around.

“I’m sorry. You surprised me, that’s all. I’ve asked you out before and been shut down.”

“You know what? Forget it. Forget I said anything about anything.”

“Cristina…” He shook his head. “You drive me crazy.”

“I realize I tend to have that effect on people.” Again she tried to pull away and again he held her.

She looked at his hand and then up into his eyes. Something was happening between them, the same odd phenomenon that always happened between them, and it was heat, pure heat.

“Mostly it’s in a good way,” he said a little thickly. “The driving-me-crazy part.”

“Mostly?” Her voice was husky, too.

“Yeah. Well, you do have your moments.”

She stared at him for a long beat. “You say the nicest things.” A small smile flashed. “And you’re funny.”

“I’m a keeper.”

She paused, suddenly looking as though she’d been struck, then touched his chest. “I know.”

The air felt changed, his heart too full. “Cristina-”

“But I’m not,” she whispered. “A keeper.”

And with that, she turned away.

“Cristina.”

She kept walking.

“So…no picnic I’m guessing?”

Still walking…

Okay. Shit. Once again he’d gotten his hopes up but no more. He couldn’t do it again. This had to be it, he had to be done bashing his head into a wall. He wanted her, more than he’d ever wanted anything, but it wasn’t healthy. Shaking his head, he pulled out his cell and called Jason. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

He let out a shaky breath. “Let’s sell. Go big.”

“You’re outta there then? You’ll give the new project the time it’ll need?”

He leaned back against the wall and nodded, until he realized that his brother couldn’t see him. “Yes and yes.”

“Hot damn. I have a real estate agent on hold right this minute who says she can sell the house, and already has a list of properties for us to look at.”

“Good. I’ll meet you after work.” Dustin shut the phone and turned, nearly running into Cristina.

She slapped his clipboard against his chest. “You left this inside. What are you selling?”

“My house.”

“Why?”

“Because the time’s right.”

“You mean, the market?”

“That, too.” And then, for the first time ever, he walked away from her.

THEIR PATHS crossed again later, at a duplex fire in an older part of town. The building had been undergoing renovation; now flames were taking care of the reno, and at least fifteen construction workers were unaccounted for.

Cristina and Blake were on scene, as well as Aidan and Zach and the others, putting their own lives on the line.

That was their job.

Dustin knew it as he stared at the inferno, his gut pinched, but he never got used to it, never, so he concentrated on the victims as they were pulled out, rather than wonder exactly where Cristina was and if she was safe.

He had to believe she was safe.

Eddie and Sam came barreling out of the fire, a big guy between them, hunched over. Dustin ran toward them, meeting them just beyond the porch and barely out of the smoke from the fire. The guy slumped to the ground just as above them they heard screaming.

“I’ve got him,” Dustin told them. “Go!” He dropped to his knees next to the victim, who was over six foot four and close to three hundred pounds.

And out cold.

The heat was overwhelming. Only a moment ago Dustin hadn’t been able to see the flames from here, but now the entire front wall of the duplex had started to burn, and just to his right, one of the windows exploded.

He dropped over the victim, protecting him. Above him, flames leapt out of the huge gaping hole where the glass had just been, enraged by the new burst of oxygen. As he watched, horrified, the flames coalesced in a ball, heading right for him, and he thought, ah hell, I’m done. Toast, burnt toast-

But he didn’t die, so he opened his eyes and realized the flames had been abruptly held back by a long line of water, coming from a hose-

In Cristina’s hands. “Get back!” she yelled.

In the movies, their gazes would have met and in hers Dustin would have seen love and fear for him, but she didn’t take her gaze off the fire. Dustin got behind his unconscious victim, sliding his hands beneath the guy’s arms, and tugged, hard, not looking back.

He didn’t have to. He didn’t need the movie stare to know Cristina had his back, she always would. He could trust that.

But in spite of their chemistry, he couldn’t trust her with his heart. That had finally settled in his head. It was why he was getting out, cutting his losses. For self-preservation, he had no choice.

He and James left the scene with two of the victims in their rig, heading to the hospital. By the time they got back to the station, the shift had ended and Cristina was gone.

He showered and changed before heading out to look at houses with Jason. Afterward, he drove to Cristina’s place…to say goodbye.

She opened the door and looked at him in surprised relief, and also anticipation.

That hummed through him, so instead of saying goodbye, he decided to show her how he felt. He stepped over the threshold, pushing his way in past her.

“What-”

That was all she got out before he got his hands on her, spun her around, and pinned her to the door.

“Dustin-”

“I can’t do this anymore.”

“Can’t do what?”

“This.” And he kissed them both stupid.

7

CRISTINA PULLED BACK to stare into Dustin’s unbearably familiar face because she had to see him. She’d been standing in her living room, worked up at how he’d put his life on the line today.

If she hadn’t been right there with her hose-

But she had been and he was okay, she told herself. But her? Not so okay. She’d been wondering what the hell was wrong with her that she couldn’t just go for what she wanted, when the one thing she wanted had knocked at her door.

And then he’d said he couldn’t do this anymore. They should discuss that, but this was not her mild-mannered EMT geek. This was a pissed-off, frustrated, on-the-edge Dustin, tough and implacable in his resolve.

He’d stepped all over her personal space and was kissing every single brain cell out of her head. “If you’d gotten hurt today,” she murmured, “I’d have killed you.”

“You really are the most annoying woman on the planet.”

“I think it’s time that we start annoying other people.”

“Later.”

“I mean it, Dustin.”

“I believe you.” His eyes darkened. “It’s why I’m here. Saying goodbye.”

Her heart caught. “Oh. I…see.”

“I’ve got to, Cristina. You’re killing me.”

Right. She knew that. He was killing her, too. As was her own inability to figure out what to do about that. “I don’t want to kill you. I like you alive.”

“You just don’t like me close.” He was still holding her against the door, her hands held in his on either side of her face. Eyes narrowed, mouth grim and tight, he stared down into her face with an expression that said I’m pissed, frustrated and worked up. And I want to take you right now, right this very minute.