Burning Up (22 page)

“Sorry,” he breathed against her hair. “Didn’t mean to crush you. Somebody stole my bones.”

“Tell me about it.” Her hands slid from his shoulders and flopped to the mattress on either side of her head. “Bastards took mine, too. Least I think they did.” She drew in a long, slow breath, then let it unhurriedly escape. “Are my pinkies working?”

With great effort, he raised his head far enough to see her lift both gently curled little fingers a centimeter off the bed. They immediately fell back into line with their sister digits, whereupon his neck lost the little strength he’d managed to dredge up, his face dropping back into the warm, scented hair pooling in the curve where her neck met her shoulder.

“Okay, that was pathetic,” she murmured, and he felt her turn her head and press a soft-lipped kiss against his ear. “I guess it’s official. I’m jellyfish girl.”

Love, in a wave so strong it threatened to swamp him, swelled in his chest. Why something so silly should be the thing to tip him over into a full-fledged case of want-you-in-my-life-forever, he couldn’t say. But it had, and because he was a straightforward kind of guy he opened his mouth to tell her how he felt. Before he could say a word, however, a gusty sigh escaped her.

“When we get our strength back,” she said, “I’m gonna need your help. This reunion thing tonight’s got me spinning my wheels. I want to go, I don’t want to go. I think attending is a good plan, I think it’s the worst idea I’ve ever had. So it’s crucial that I wear the right thing.”

“Seriously?” he mumbled into her neck. “You want my input? I’m a guy, honey. What do I know from fashion?”

“You know what you like, don’tcha? And I brought visual aids.”

He had a feeling this was a bad idea but also suspected if he said so, she’d blow it all out of proportion the way women could sometimes do. So he did the next best thing and kept his mouth shut.

She pinched him.

“Ouch! All right, okay. I’ll take a look. But you really should’ve asked Janna’s or Grace’s opinion,
because you know I’m just gonna pick the one that shows the most cleavage or showcases your butt, which in case I haven’t told you, is definitely four-star.”

“Aw, you sweet-talker.” Her boneless moment clearly over, she shoved at his shoulder. “Get up. Time’s a’wasting.”

“We’ve got three hours before we pick up Janna!”

“I know. I don’t know how on earth I’m going to get everything done.”

“Jesus,” he grumbled, rolling off of her and sitting up on the side of the bed to dispose of the condom. “You sure as hell know how to take the shine off the postcoital glow.”

“We’re coming back here after the reunion, aren’t we?” she demanded, climbing from the bed and crossing to the chair where she’d left her armful of clothing. “I thought the plan was to sleep over for once.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Then we have the entire night to glow.” Scooping up the apparel, she headed for the door. “I’ll go try on the first one. Keep in mind that I didn’t bring shoes or accessories, and that my hair and makeup will have to be done.”

“Yeah, I was real worried about that,” he muttered as she sashayed from the room. He could feel his mellow mood deteriorating back into the stressed-out, low-grade anger that had defined his frame of
mind before Macy arrived, and he tried to rein it in. Because it wasn’t her fault the past two weeks had been a fricking washout when it came to moving this case forward.

Deep breath here, bud.
He had to remember that while clothes meant dick-all to him, chicks seemed to find the subject endlessly fascinating. So, big deal. He’d help her select her outfit for the reunion, then maybe they could go back to bed for a while.

That idea cheered him right up. But when Macy strolled back into the room a few minutes later, his cheer took a header. He stared at the little blue satin tap pants she’d had on the first day they’d met. They left a yard of bare skin exposed from her thighs to her toes. Instead of the sailor shirt she’d worn then, it was paired with a formfitting little white lace blouse whose collar points were clusters of pearls.

“I know it looks kind of plain right now,” she said. “But you have to visualize the right shoes and a forties-style do, or maybe a wig.”

The frustration that had been building over his inability to figure out this damn arson business erupted into the mother of all bad tempers. “Oh, for cri’sake!” he snapped in disgust.

Okay, probably the wrong thing to say. But in for a penny, in for a fricking five spot. And if he’d already gone and shot himself in the foot anyway…

“When the
hell
are you going to quit with the costumes, already?”

M
ACY TOOK
G
ABE’S
reaction on the chin. But inwardly she reeled. How could he switch so fast from making her feel desirable, safe,
special,
to that slap-in-the-face disapproving tone?

She forced a careless smile, however, and murmured, “O-kay. I’ll take that as a big fat negative for this outfit.” But her feisty inner fighter, which had been her only advocate in too many new-kid-on-the-block situations to count, still lurked beneath her skin.

She turned her back to him before it could burst out of her like some special-effects alien and go straight for his throat. She’d really rather not do something she’d regret.

Not that she was sure she
would
regret it right this minute. Still, she mostly wanted to step back and grab a sec to get her emotions in check before she let the situation escalate to a place where one of them might end up saying something they couldn’t take back.

As it turned out, that train had apparently already left the station. Because, in sync with her swiveling away from him, he demanded, “What the hell
is
it with you and playing dress-up, anyway? You wore
regular clothes when we went into Wenatchee last week. You’re freaking beautiful! So why do you keep going back to the blue wigs, fake tattoos and theme clothing and shit?” The
freaking beautiful
thing warmed her for all of two seconds before his disdain lashed her like a verbal whip, making her shoulders hunch up around her ears. She quickly corrected the giveaway posture, since self-preservation was a lesson she’d learned young and learned well.

Never
let them see they have the power to bug you, hurt you or piss you off.

“Because I look so good in them, sugar,” she said, maintaining her back-to-his-face pose. For, while she could keep her voice insouciant, she couldn’t seem to stem the fast rise of tears in her eyes—and she was damned if she’d let him see that his judgment had reduced her to a great big crybaby. She blinked rapidly in an attempt to hold back the flood.

“Don’t do that!” he snapped, his voice coming closer. “Don’t call me sugar like I’m the enemy. You think I haven’t noticed the way you use that to hold people at bay? I thought you and I had gotten past that.” His hand, large and warm, started to wrap around the cap of her shoulder.

She whirled, knocking it loose before his fingers could curl into a grip, her tears evaporating beneath the heat of a temper that she’d taught herself years ago never to lose. “And
I
thought that maybe—
maybe!
—you might actually understand a thing or
two about me by now. You want to know why I wore
regular
clothes when we had our date? I didn’t think I had to play that game with you—that it was safe to just be regular ol’ small-town Macy. Because, guess what, honey, I don’t feel like that with everyone—especially in this town. So I wear my wigs, my tattoos and my costumes because they say I don’t give a shit if you, or you or
you—
” she jabbed her index finger as if pointing out her various detractors “—don’t like that I’m different.”

“Yeah? Well, guess what, yourself?” Spearing his fingers through his hair, he gave her a narrow-eyed, intent stare. “The things you accomplished after you blew this town say that loud and clear for you already! You left here with—what?—a high school education and maybe a couple hundred bucks in your pocket? Honey, you came back a celebrity. You don’t need crazy clothes to—”

She gave him a straight shot to the chest. It didn’t budge him an inch, and that made the temper she couldn’t seem to get a grasp on flare hotter. “The hell I don’t! I need
exactly
that to let the small minds of this small town know that I won’t allow them to treat me like I’ve got no worth, to act like they object to the fact that I
breathe
.”

To her horror her voice cracked on the last word, but she thrust her chin up, daring him to even
think
about considering her weak because of it. “I thought you liked me just as I am, though. I thought maybe I meant something more to you than the occasional roll
in the hay. I didn’t realize that my clothing choices—and by extension me—were something you held in such contempt.” She felt those damn tears starting to rise again and whirled away again before he could see them.

“You don’t like my wardrobe choices?” She strode for the door. “Problem solved. You don’t have to look at them or be embarrassed by association or whatever the hell it is that bothers you so much. I’ll just remove myself from the picture.” She dashed away another trickle of tears and, with no further attempt at lightness, added, “Oh, and PS, Donovan. You’re off the hook. Janna and I will go to the reunion on our own.”
Unless, of course, you try to talk me out of it.

“You’re just gonna pack up your marbles and go home? Oh, that’s great. I sure as hell didn’t have you pegged as a quitter.”

Wrong response.
Gaze straight ahead, back stiff, she reached for the doorknob.

“Macy!” Exasperation colored his voice. “Will you just wait a damn minute?”

But she wasn’t waiting. Not waiting for excuses, for explanations, for further criticism. She wasn’t waiting for her damn heart to be broken. He’d made her feel good about herself for a while, but apparently she wasn’t quite good enough—and wasn’t
that
the damn story of her life in this town?

To the sound track of his curses, she slammed out of the room.

“Dammit, Mace,” she heard him roar from the other side of the door. “Give me a chance to get my pants on! Let’s talk about this.”

“Let’s not,” she shot back, the damn tears turning from a trickle to a torrent. Pausing only long enough to grab the rest of her clothing from the back of the bathroom door, she sprinted up the stairs and across the great room to the front door, where she slowed down only long enough to let herself out.

She was backing her Corvette in a tight, fast U when Gabe burst out onto the porch, looking somehow more naked in a pair of unzipped jeans that rode dangerously low on his hips than if he’d been wearing just his own skin. His hair stuck up from where first she, then he, had run their hands through it, giving him a sleepy, rumpled look. But his dark brows were gathered over his nose and his mouth clamped at a slant that looked grim and determined.

In no mood to deal with
his
mood, she slammed the stick shift into First gear before he could clear the steps. Popping the clutch, she hit the gas. The car fishtailed before its tires found purchase on the dusty ground that would eventually be his lawn. Find purchase, however, they finally did.

And pointing the hood ornament down his drive, she roared out of his yard.

“
G
OD
DAMN.
Son
of a.
Bitch!
” Stopping short at the base of his stairs, Gabe punched his fist in the air. Then he locked his fingers together behind the rigid
muscles cording the back of his neck and, elbows jutting skyward, scowled at the attenuated dust contrail that hovered above his someday yard. What the fuck had just happened here?

Yes, Macy’s costumes bugged the crap out of him. They were a freaking wall she put up between Real Macy and the world. And even though he’d convinced himself he was okay with that, clearly he wasn’t. But it was just that…

The real Macy was sweet and loyal and caring. She loved big when it came to her family, laughed from her belly, talked in a voice that was free of cynicism.

Threw herself with stop-your-heart enthusiasm into making love with him.

God.
The real Macy
shined
with a sort of passion for life, as if she had her own personal Energizer Bunny thumping its drum and running its perpetual battery in order to light her up from the inside out.

And it bugged the crap out of him to watch her hide that light behind a phony facade.

He sure as hell hadn’t meant to make her cry, though. His gut clenched tight. Because she hadn’t been fast enough to turn away, and the sight of those tears had damn near brought him to his knees. They’d slowed him down for the crucial moment that meant the difference between catching up with her and letting her get away.

Damn.
Macy didn’t cry. At least he’d never seen her do so, and face it, he’d been in place to witness
all kinds of shit raining down on her head since she’d first rolled into town.

So congratulations, Sparky,
he thought bitterly.
Many have tried, but only you have made it come to pass.
“Give the man a cigar,” he muttered.

Then he snapped erect. Dropped his hands to his sides and squared his shoulders. Because
damned
if he intended to give up. He’d allow her a little time to cool down, then he’d call her. Or maybe it would be better to just show up at the prearranged time to pick her and Janna up for the reunion. Act as if nothing had happened.

Uh-huh. How do you imagine
that’s
gonna work out for you, Einstein?
He wracked his brain to remember the last time he’d seen Macy ignore or shy away from a confrontation, the last time he’d watched her turn the other cheek. And that would be…oh—

Goddamn never.

All right, then. New plan. He’d show up at the arranged time and—
deep breath here, Chief
—apologize.

He winced. Saying the
S
word wasn’t something he had a helluva lot of experience with and he expected it would probably sting like a bitch. Still, that seemed like a fair exchange, considering it was pretty obvious he had hurt her.

He also had a hunch that in addition to the apology, the event probably called for a fistful of flowers. Or maybe one of those wrist-corsage things for her and Janna. Knowing Macy, if anything would turn
the tide in his favor, it would be including her cousin in the grovel. Couldn’t hurt, anyhow.

He loped toward his SUV.

It wasn’t until the soles of his feet hit gravel that he remembered not only was he keyless, but he had on neither shoes nor shirt. He looked down at himself and grimaced.

Christ. He used to be so self-contained. A rock. An effin’
island
—or at least a guy who’d taught him self to make damn few wrong moves once he’d left his teens behind. Then he’d had to go collide with a mouthy blonde—hell, not even a blonde, really, but sort of a beer blonde—

Okay, not the point.
That
came in the form of a single question, which was: how could one not-quite-blonde take a guy who’d worked as hard as he had to get his shit together and reduce him to a pathetic specimen dancing barefoot in the gravel?

Jesus. His goddamn fly wasn’t even zipped up.

“M
ACY, WHY ARE YOU
lying down? I thought for sure you’d be in the middle of elaborate preps for the reunion.” Janna strode across the room they shared to the window, where she snapped up the shade Macy had drawn. Her voice suddenly lost its cheer. “Hey,” she said softly. “Are you okay?”

Knowing there was no way she’d be able to hide the less-than-pretty results of her half-hour-long pity party, Macy rolled over onto her back on the bed.
She looked up at her cousin through swollen eyes. “Noooo.”

Tears started to trickle again and she pinched the bridge of her nose between her eyes to stanch the flow. “God! I’m such an idiot.”

The mattress depressed as Janna sat next to her hip. “You’re gonna have to tell me why you think so. Because
I
think you’re probably the least idiotic person I know.”

“Maybe once upon a time. Before I went and fell in love with Gabriel Rat Bastard Donovan.” It had T-boned her on the drive home. God.
This
was the reason she felt so horrid. Ordinarily, she could give a rip what men thought of her. And she sure as hell wasn’t the type to fall apart over a little criticism. But somehow he had snuck under her guard during the past weeks, had made her feel smart and pretty and exceptional. And in the process he’d sunk his ownership deep.

She moaned and dug the heels of her hands into her burning eyes. “I am so screwed.”

“Why? It’s clear he’s crazy about you, too.”

A bitter laugh escaped her. “I wish. Unfortunately, he just thinks I’m crazy.” An old schoolyard taunt popped into her head. “Apparently I’m ugly and my mama dresses me funny.”

“You’re—?” Janna’s slender eyebrows furrowed. “What on earth happened between you two today?”

Macy told her.

Her cousin jolted upright, bristling with indignation. “That bastard! That no-good, two-faced,
sanc
timonious—
God
, I hate men sometimes! What the hell’s the matter with them that they’re never happy until they’ve either changed you or cheated on you?”

Macy expected to feel vindicated by Janna’s unfaltering defense, to wallow in her cousin’s steadfast attack on Gabe’s moral fiber. Yet for some reason it irritated her instead.
She
got to assassinate Gabriel’s character, but damned if anyone else did. Sitting up, she grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the nightstand, then scooted to brace her back against the headboard. She wiped her face and blew her nose.

Leaning to toss the used tissues into the wastebasket, she said reluctantly, because she had no desire to defend Gabe, but with confidence, since she knew this much was true, “He’s nothing like Sean, Janny.”

“You think not?” Her cousin snorted. “Let me see. He plays fashion police—hmm, that sounds like my ex to me. He stomps on your self-confidence in a town that’s already all over your case.”

“Actually,” she said slowly, thinking back on the conversation with an impartiality she’d been incapable of while the argument had been ongoing, “he said that I didn’t need crazy clothes to prove myself. That what I’d accomplished since leaving Sugarville had proved it already.”

“Oh.” Janna’s scowl faded and her shoulders
lost some of their rigidity. “That’s different. That’s actually kinda…cool.”

“It actually kind of is. At the time I just felt under attack, so I failed to appreciate exactly how cool. But maybe he
wasn’t
attacking everything that makes me me.