Fueling Her Fire (8 page)

She laughed and decided she hoped it was true. It was a nice
feeling thinking there was barn wood somewhere in the city, maybe Dalton Run
barn wood. And Dylan probably helped put it there.
What a great company.

He took another bite of chili—his bowl was almost empty—and
looked back up at her with a genuine smile. “This is delicious, Kip. Do you
mind if I get more? I’m starving.”

“No, please, have all you want!” she said, embarrassed at
her lack of hostessing skills. “It’s my grandmother’s recipe. Sorry, I should
have offered to get you more.”

“No, no, it’s just so good!” he said, jumping up to go back
to the kitchen.

She watched him go. He was wearing a red plaid flannel shirt
and worn jeans. The outfit was perfect for Christmas and he looked gut-achingly
masculine in it. None of the guys she worked with at the law firm looked like
that. His shoulders were broad and though she was sure the shirt was strictly
work-wear, it was exactly the look those expensive outdoorsman catalogs went
for, only better because it was authentically worn in a way their machines
couldn’t duplicate. And his jeans…

Wow,
does he have a nice butt.

He turned to the stove and ladled chili into his bowl.
Moving her eyes up to admire his profile, she found him looking back at her and
her stomach twisted. Had he caught her staring at his butt? She looked away,
but not so fast that she missed the pleased smile that spread across his face.
Damn.

She spoke quickly, trying to hide her embarrassment and
cover up the moment. “Sorry the meal’s so simple. I wasn’t expecting company.”

“Sorry? It’s perfect! Best meal I’ve had in a long time. I
don’t cook much for myself.” He sat back down and concentrated on stirring his
chili to release the heat, adding softly, “Having a home-cooked meal sure feels
like Christmas to me.” He looked up and caught her eye. “Thanks, Kip, really,
for the food and the company,” he said sincerely. She felt herself blush.

He nodded toward her. “I figured you weren’t expecting
company, considering the outfit.” She looked down and realized her sweater was
open again, her obviously braless breasts leaving little to the imagination
under the thin tank. She pulled the sweater back across her chest, cursing its
modern style with no buttons or belt. It would be too embarrassing to go put a
bra on now, like admitting she’d known her breasts had been on show.

He was silent until she looked up. His eyes were on hers and
then they travelled slowly and deliberately down to her breasts, now more fully
covered, and then along the length of her bare legs and back up to her eyes.
Her breath caught. He had raked his eyes so blatantly over her that she felt as
though he’d just touched her in all those places…and she had let him. She felt
a warming between her legs that had nothing to do with the chili in her lap and
she looked away, stifling a strong urge to look down at his jeans to see if
she’d had the same effect on him. But she was
not
going to risk him
catching her looking at his crotch too. That would be too embarrassing.

He spoke and his voice sounded a little husky. “I never
thought this would be how I’d be spending Christmas Eve this year, but I’m glad
to be here.”

She was desperate to find something to talk about to clear
the tension. She thought about his original plans to have dinner at his
friend’s house. “Is your dad not around anymore?”

“No, he passed away last year. His heart,” Dylan said,
looking at his food. “I don’t have any other family in the area. I have some
cousins in Pennsylvania, but I don’t know them real well.”

“I’m sorry.” She had liked his dad. “So you never married?”
She asked the question out of sheer curiosity and was instantly sorry she’d
asked. Why did she care?

He answered quietly, “Nah, just…I guess I just haven’t
gotten it right yet.” He looked at her and she felt as if his vivid blue eyes
went right through her.

“I always figured you’d marry Jackie,” she said, referring
to his on-again, off-again cheerleader girlfriend. The one Kip had been so
jealous of…

“No.” He laughed derisively but offered no further
explanation. They sat in awkward silence for a moment.

“So you’re a lawyer in Chicago now?” he stood up, taking
both of their empty bowls to the kitchen. When he returned, he was carrying the
opened wine bottle. He poured more in their glasses and placed the bottle
between them. “I always knew you’d do big things.” He looked up at her shyly
through his eyelashes.

“I do okay, I guess.”

“I knew you wouldn’t stick around. You had that scholarship
to that big school out of state.” He shook his head. “Man, there were a lot of
guys sorry to see you go.” She almost spit out the sip of wine she was taking.

“What? What are you talking about? No one liked me!”

Dylan stared at her, disbelief evident on his face. “Kip.”
He spoke to her like she was a child who was deliberately misunderstanding,
“You could have had any guy in school.” She made a scoffing noise, sure he was
teasing her. He narrowed his eyes at her. “You can’t tell me you didn’t know
that.”

“That’s so not true! I was, you know,” she looked down,
embarrassed, “plain. The smart one. I wasn’t the kind of girl boys liked.”

“I liked you.” His voice was soft and held some note of
emotion she couldn’t pinpoint. She looked up at him, maybe to read his eyes,
but he was staring down at his wineglass. She thought of arguing with him, but
he went on, “
You’re
the one who didn’t like anyone. You were so…snobby.
You never talked to anyone.”

Her mouth dropped open. “
Snobby?
I was not snobby!
People were hardly falling all over themselves to be my friend, so I
just…didn’t talk to them either. Especially the boys. No one ever asked me out
on a date.”

He looked up and narrowed his eyes at her, trying to discern
if her surprise was genuine. “Kip, you were pretty and smart and you had a
beautiful smile. You weren’t like a lot of the other girls, all shallow and
full of drama. You were
real
—you could talk about stuff. And your body,
goddamn.” He shook his head and took a sip of his wine.

She furrowed her brow at him. “My
body
?” she asked,
not bothering to hide her incredulity.

He threw his hand up. “Kip, c’mon! Your body was amazing.
You had curves. Your ass…and your breasts! You had
breasts
!” he said
dreamily. “There wasn’t a guy in school who didn’t dream of touching them.”

He stopped talking and looked away. She knew he was thinking
about when
he
had touched her breasts back then. So was she. They sat in
silence for a minute. He toyed with his wineglass, seemingly lost in his
thoughts.

She was blown away. She thought no one had liked her. She
thought she had been the school nerd.
Could reality really have been that
different?
Her mind starting flicking through her memories…her interactions
with people. Could it really have been the way Dylan said it was? She had been
so sure she was unpopular, unappealing to the guys. Had she just been so
insecure that she’d never allowed the possibility, too afraid she’d be
rejected?

Until Dylan…

“So,” she asked hesitantly. “So you liked me?”

“
Liked
you?” Dylan’s eyes were wide. “Liked you? Kip,
what was it you thought we were doing?” His voice had an edge of anger to it.
“I was thrilled to have the chance to spend time with you. And when we were
studying you
talked
to me—I was able to get to know you.” He looked at
her quizzically. “You didn’t like
me
.”

She gasped. She wasn’t sure the conversation could get any
more surreal. “Didn’t like you? Of
course
I liked you! I wouldn’t have
done…that…otherwise.” She looked down, embarrassed.

They both sipped at their wine, Kip entangled in her
memories, and the silence between them grew heavy. She wondered how it was
possible that two people could remember the same situation with such obvious
disparity. But why dwell on it now? The past couldn’t be changed.

“Why stick around here?” she finally asked, purposely
changing the subject. “If you don’t have family here, why do you stay in this
little town?”

“Because I love it here. It’s a great town and it’s home.”
His voice had an edge. “I know it’s not a flashy, exciting city, but there are
a lot of reasons to want to be here. They might not be obvious to you, but that
doesn’t mean they’re not here.”

Whoa.
She raised her eyebrows at his jab, not
understanding the nerve she’d touched.

His voice softened and he ran his hand through his hair.
“I’m sorry. I’m just…I’m glad to see you, Kip. I missed you.” He looked up to
meet her eyes. “It’s been a long time. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I
thought about looking you up a few times, but I didn’t figure you’d want to
hear from me. You had your new friends, your new life. I was just some guy you
knew back in high school.”

She was surprised at his revelation. He’d thought of looking
her up? She felt dumbfounded by the revelation. In the last thirty minutes he’d
convinced her that her well-remembered high-school memories were nothing but
distortions of the truth. And Dylan had missed her. That thought created
butterflies in Kip’s stomach, and she wondered how it might have gone if he’d
acted on the thought.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry I’m putting you out tonight,
but honestly I’m thankful that tree fell. I’d hate to have you out here by
yourself all night in this kind of weather.” He stood up and came around the ottoman
to sit on the couch next to her. She stiffened. She was
not
going to be
Dylan’s one-night romp again. Her defenses overwhelmed her politeness.

“Oh yeah,” she said with sarcasm, “thank god you’re here to
keep me safe.” She scooted away from him, pinning herself to her side of the
couch. He looked down at her body language, his mouth set in a grim line.

“That’s not what I meant, Kip,” he said dryly.

What was wrong with her? She didn’t know why she was so on
edge. Consciously, she worked to soften her face, hoping she might look
apologetic. A look would have to do, because she couldn’t manage to voice an
apology to him. She was still angry at Dylan. All the nice stuff he’d just said
didn’t erase the fact that he’d humiliated her back in high school.

He was silent for a minute. “You really didn’t know?”

She thought about it but couldn’t follow. According to the
stuff Dylan had just told her, there was obviously a lot she hadn’t known.
“Which part?” she asked.

“All of it.”

“No.” Then she added softly, “especially the part about the
guys liking me. That was really true?” But she only wanted to hear about one
guy in particular.

A wicked smile crossed his face and he looked down at his
wineglass to try to hide it. “Oh yeah. It was always a running commentary in
the locker room at football practice—what they’d do to you if they had the
chance, who was going to be the one to finally get to touch your boobs, who was
finally going to get you in bed.” He chuckled, smiling widely over what he
clearly thought was an amusing memory.

But her face had gone blank.

Chapter Six

Kip’s anger boiled over and she shot out of her seat,
glaring down at Dylan. This was a conversation she hadn’t planned to have, but
there was no stopping it now.

“Was that why?” She spat the words at him. “Was that why you
told the
whole school
?” Her voice had grown high-pitched.

He looked up at her, confusion obvious on his face. “What
did I—?” But he didn’t finish the question. His face grew horrified.

“No! No, Kip, no!” He grabbed her arm in his effort to
persuade her to sit back down next to him. She wrenched away from him and fled
toward the door. When she reached it, she whirled to find him not far behind
her. Her eyes smarted with tears but she would not let him see her cry over
something he did to her eight years before. She channeled those feelings toward
her anger, toward her determination to throw him out—and she didn’t care if
Santa himself had to give him a ride home.

She was livid. “How did the story go? That you’d screwed
me
or that you’d screwed a
virgin
? Or both?” Her voice had definitely
crossed over to the I’m-a-little-hysterical category.

“No Kip.” He came toward her, his hands held up in front of
him in a placating gesture. “None of those! I didn’t tell anyone! I promise
you!” He looked down at her and she realized her chest was heaving in anger.
Her sweater was open again and she was sure her nipples were hard and visible,
and she didn’t care. She only cared about getting him out of the cabin.

He tried to put his hands on her shoulders but she stopped
him, her voice seething, “Don’t touch me. Get out. I want you to leave. You are
not
staying here tonight. Do you have any idea how humiliating it was
for me to be called a whore? What we did
meant
something to me. It was
something private and you turned it into something for everyone in school to
laugh at me about.”

“Kip, no, I didn’t tell
anyone.
” He looked intently
at her, his eyes pleading. “That’s what I tried to tell you all those years
ago, but you wouldn’t listen to me. I didn’t tell.” He said the last words
slowly, deliberately.

“Liar. You’re lying.” She shook her head, her eyes narrowed
at him.

“I’m not lying, Kip! That day at school Jackie cornered me
about getting back together. I told her no—oh god, I was so happy to tell her
no! I told her I was interested in
you—
that I was going to ask you to be
my girlfriend.” He stared into her eyes, seemingly willing her to believe him.

Kip allowed him to put his hands on her shoulders in her
shock. She was standing with her mouth open. She couldn’t process what he’d
just said. He squeezed her shoulders with his strong hands, as if he was trying
to force her to believe the truth in what he was saying.