Burning Up (2 page)

“L
OVE THE GETUP,”
Macy’s cousin Janna commented dryly. “But I can’t believe you wore it all the way from wherever you spent last night.”

Macy paused, glancing from the closet where she was unpacking to her cousin, who sat in a chintz chair in the study of their family’s boardinghouse. Her leg was encased in plaster from knee to crotch, a pair of crutches propped within easy reach.

“Medford,” she replied, naming the Oregon town six hours away. “And please. Of course I didn’t wear it the entire way. Do I look crazy to you?”

“That’s probably not the question you wanna ask when you’re wearing the wet-dream version of a sailor suit.”

Macy grinned. “Let me rephrase it then. Have you ever known me to be a martyr? No, you haven’t,” she hastily asserted when she saw her cousin open her mouth and just knew it was to bring up That Night.

But she wasn’t going there—it had all happened too long ago to rehash at this late date. “I changed in Wenatchee, baby. Hey, I could hardly arrive in town looking halfway normal and deprive the good
folks of Sugarville of yet another chance to be scandalized.”

Janna rolled her eyes. “Yeah, heaven forbid people should have nothing to talk about.”

“Damn straight. Life as we know it would cease to exist.” She reached for a hanger in the closet. Whipping it beneath the skinny straps of a gauzy summer dress, she shook out the garment with a snap, then hung it on the rod above the tangle of shoes she’d already dumped onto the closet floor. “They gave me the name. The least I can do is have a little fun playing the game.”

“Right. Because you’re so tough.”

“Yes.” Looking up, she caught Janna’s who-are you-trying-to-kid expression. “Don’t give me that look—I am. You, on the other hand—” her voice softened with concern as she took in the other woman’s pale face “—look like a harsh word could knock you on your butt, let alone the proverbial puff of wind.”

“I’m okay.” Belying her assertion, Janna shifted uncomfortably. “It’s just hard to find a position that doesn’t hurt. The doctor told me to try to keep my leg elevated as much as possible, but—”

Contrition hit Macy like a freight train. “Oh, crap, Janna, why didn’t you say something?” She shifted the suitcase that she’d crammed with clothes two nights before in L.A. onto the floor and shoved the ottoman it had been sitting on toward her cousin. Easing it into position, she winced in sympathy when
pain clouded Janna’s expression during the moment it took to lift her cast-encased leg onto it.

Dammit, Janna was the closest thing she had to a sister, and seeing her hurt made Macy want to wrap her in yards of warm chenille and ply her with cup after cup of hot tea. This, despite the fact that it must be ninety degrees outside.

Janna sighed. “I hate being an invalid, so I tend to overdo. Which is why Mom wants you here—when
you
ride herd on me I don’t get all defensive.” Spearing her fingers through her normally shiny but currently dull ear-length chestnut bob, she flashed a tired smile. “Thanks for dropping everything and coming so fast.”

“Are you kidding me?” She sank to her haunches in front of the other woman and, picking up Janna’s hand, held it gently between her own. “Where else would I be—you’re family. Do you have any idea how much I loved this town before all the crap began? And it was all because of you and Uncle Bud and Auntie Lenore. Not to take anything away from Mom or anything, but living with you guys? That was the first time in my life I felt as if I had a real home.”

“I thought it was so cool when you got to come here.”

Embarrassed by the sentimental tears that rose in her eyes, Macy looked around the room. Even with all the regular furniture moved out, there wasn’t much space to spare with the addition of two beds and two dressers. “Are you sure you want me to bunk in here
with you?” she asked. “I can easily make do with the Closet.”

“It’s not available,” Janna said. “We had to do some switching around in February to accommodate a new boarder, and we moved Tyler in there. Wait until you meet—”

“Tyler got shoved out of his room and ended up in the
Closet?
” she interrupted indignantly. “Janna, that’s just wrong!”

Her cousin laughed. “Not in Ty’s eyes, it isn’t. He actually loves it. He likes pretending it’s a nuclear-class submarine and he’s the master spy. It doesn’t hurt that his best friend, Charlie, thinks it’s beyond cool, either.” Her mouth crooked in a wry smile.

“Only a nine-year-old,” Macy said, shaking her head at the notion of anyone thinking that sweatbox of a six-by-ten-foot room was “beyond cool.” “Then how about our old room?” They’d shared an upstairs room for several years as teens. “Auntie Lenore said they’re keeping it open for when you can navigate the stairs again, and I’d be out of your way but still close enough to help.”

“Uh, the thing is, I can’t use these crutches and carry anything bigger than a pair of undies at the same time. So I need help with the fetching and toting. I’m sorry, Macy, I know it’s cramped in here and not what you’re used to—”

“No, no, no, no, no!” She shook her head in vigorous denial. “I didn’t mean it that way at all!” The action made her realize she still had on the sailor hat
and she reached up to lift it off. Tossing it onto the bed Janna had assigned for her use, she tugged free the blond wig she’d worn beneath it. “I was afraid I’d be crowding
you,
not the other way around!”

“Then we’re talking apples and oranges and don’t have a problem. Here. Fork that over.” Janna crooked “gimme” fingers at the wig. “I always wondered what I’d look like as a blonde.”

Macy tossed it to her, then ran her fingers through her own super-straight hair, which was more caramel colored than the do-me-daddy platinum of her wig. She rubbed her scalp to lift the roots and sighed as a breeze ruffled through the white curtains, combing cool fingers through the freed strands and setting them to dancing against her collarbones. Toeing off her Cuban heels, she kicked them aside, then breathed a long, attenuated “Ahhh,” and wiggled her toes. “Lovely.”

“I’m glad one of us is,” Janna murmured, making a face as she tugged at the wig and a pale blond strand flopped over her eye.

“It’s hard being adept in the beauty department without a mirror.” Macy crossed to her cousin and shifted the hairpiece into proper position, then finessed the curls into a sassy style. Standing back, she surveyed her handiwork.

“You need a little makeup.” Grabbing her purse, she upended it over her bed and picked her cosmetic case out of the resulting jumble. Handing a tube of lipstick to Janna with instructions to dab some on, she
applied a pale rose blusher to her cousin’s poreless cheeks, then mixed brown eye shadow into a daub of Vaseline she’d smeared on the back of her hand. She applied the concoction over Janna’s eyelids with a deftness gained through years spent taking mental notes while makeup artists got her camera-ready for this, that or the other video shoot. After smoothing the gleaming eye shadow to just above the crease in Jenna’s eyelid to give her cousin a thirties silent-movie-star look, she finished it off with a coat of mascara, then leaned back to inspect her work. “
Now
you look like the coz I remember.” Twisting around, she reached behind her for the hand mirror atop Janna’s dresser and turned back to extend it to her. “Here. Check it out.”

Janna stared at her reflection for several silent seconds. Then, the hand holding the mirror dropping to her lap, she looked up, a slow well of tears pooling in her eyes.

Remorse slammed through Macy. “Oh, my God, Janny, I’m sorry! I’ll take it off!” She snatched several tissues from the box on the dresser where she’d gotten the mirror. “Don’t cry, it’ll only take me a second to remove it!”

“No! Don’t you dare.” A choked sound rose from Janna’s throat and she dashed the sides of her hands beneath her eyes. Then she let out a watery laugh. “Well, don’t I feel like an idiot. It’s just…I look like a woman again. For the first time since that car hit me and took off—no, since even before that, when Sean
walked out—I look like an honest-to-gawd woman instead of somebody’s patient or a woman whose husband dumped her for a twenty-year-old or, I don’t know, whatever it is I’ve been these past six months. Jeez,” she said. “Can you say
overreaction?
” Bringing the mirror up to study her reflection again, she turned her head this way and that to take in the full effect.

And smiled. “I make a pretty hot blonde, if I do say so myself.”

“Yes, you do. And it’s my fervent hope that the bastard who put you in the hospital
and
that little prick Sean contract a raging case of the—”

Janna brought her hands together in a single loud clap. And wiggled her eyebrows.

Macy laughed. “Precisely.”

Her cousin sighed. “What is it about men, anyway? You can’t live with ’em and the law frowns on neutering them. It’s not exactly a win-win situation.”

For no good reason, an image of Gabe Donovan popped into her mind. With his big body and near-black hair. Those gray eyes. His strong nose, strong chin, strong…well, everything—or at least that was how it had appeared to her.

Damn. She hadn’t even realized she’d been paying such close attention, but here she was with warm blood rushing to places it had no business going and her heart beating much too rapidly. And all because of an unbidden mental slide show featuring a man she’d met for all of maybe two minutes.

Well, get a grip, girl!
She slammed a lid on the images. She had zero time for this.

As if on cue, the door banged open, bouncing off the wall with a crash and creating a welcome diversion. “Mom, can Charlie stay for dinner—hey!” Macy’s nephew, Tyler, spotted her and his entire face lit up. “You’re here!”

“Hey, pard!” She closed the distance between them, but rocked to a halt in front of Tyler, uncertain how to greet him. What she wanted was to haul him into her arms. But she was afraid that, at nine, he might have reached the age where he’d rather stick needles in his eyes than have a relative hug him in front of his friends.

Or not,
she thought with a big smile as Tyler hurled himself at her, wrapping matchstick arms around her waist and squeezing with surprising strength. Then, without relinquishing his hold, he leaned back and grinned up at her. “I’m glad you’re here. Mom’s been either in the hospital or that rehabib, rehabibl—that nursing place—for
ever
and she still can’t get around very good. But she says you’re gonna stay with us and take me to my practices and games and stuff ’til she’s better. Dintja, Mom?” He turned his head to get Janna’s endorsement—and did a double take.

His jaw sagging, he dropped his arms from Macy’s waist. “
Mom?
Is that—? Wow. You look…uh, you look really—” He blinked at her.

“Pretty,” said the little redheaded boy who had followed Tyler into the room.

“Yeah.” Tyler nodded and, once in motion, his head continued to bob like a marionette’s in the hands of a mad puppeteer. “Did you use one of them boxes the ladies buy at Sheppard Drugs to change their hair color?”

“No, it’s a wig of Aunt Macy’s.”

“Can you wear it again at my Little League game?”

“Oh, honey, I don’t know about tha—”

“Is that my baby girl’s car I see parked out back?” a feminine voice bawled from the kitchen. “Macy O’James, you get your tush in here this minute and give your Auntie a hug!”

Laughing, Macy left Tyler and Janna to their discussion, whirled on her bare heel and raced from the room. Long-legged strides carried her down the hallway and into the kitchen, where she embraced the woman who had just dumped an armload of grocery bags onto the counter.

Warm, plump arms wrapped around her in return and when she bent her head to bring them to a more equitable level, Macy was enveloped in Lenore’s signature scent: a combination of comfort food and sugar cookies. This,
this,
was the reason she braved the condemnation of this town. Because of Aunt Lenore and Uncle Bud and Janna and Ty, this was home.
They
were her home.

“Let me look at you.” Stepping back, Lenore held Macy at arm’s length. A wry smile tipped up the
corner of her lips. “You get separated from the cast of
42nd Street?
”

She laughed. “You should have seen the full effect before I took off my wig, shoes and sailor cap.”

“That’s my Macy.” Her aunt reached out an age-spotted hand and brushed Macy’s bangs out of her eyes. “It’s good to have you home, girl.”

“I’m sorry I don’t get back here more often, Auntie Lenore. It’s just—”

“Difficult. I know. I still want to skin that Mayfield boy alive every time I clap eyes on him. If it wasn’t for him and his lies—”

“I brought along some wickedly hot outfits.” Macy grinned, but avoided Lenore’s eagle-eyed gaze so her aunt wouldn’t see the lack of humor in her own. “I plan on giving him and all his sycophants an eat-your-heart-out eyeful while I’m here.”

“I don’t suppose you could just let it go.”

Her stomach clenched at the thought of disappointing her aunt any more than she already had over the years, but she looked Lenore in the eye. “No. I won’t go looking for trouble, but I won’t step away from it, either.” Then honesty compelled her to amend her statement. “Okay, I suppose I do look for it, in a way, with the clothes I choose to wear to town.”

She rubbed her temples, looking at her aunt from beneath the bridge formed by her thumb and fingers. “I know you probably think I lie awake nights plotting ways to make people squirm, but I truly don’t. I rarely even think about this stuff when I’m away
from here. But the minute I cross the county line, something happens to me. And I’m sorry, Auntie, I know it would make things so much easier on the family if I could just be less problematic, but—”

“You can stop right there, Macy Joleen—no one here wants or expects you to be anything but exactly what you are. I do believe, however, that
you
would be a lot happier if you could walk away from it.” Lenore patted Macy’s cheek. “But you’re gonna do what you gotta do until you no longer gotta do it.”