Never Too Hot (6 page)

“Follow me.” Walking over toward some trees, he pointed to the ground. “First, you’ve got to find the perfect stick. Not too fat, not too thin, not too short, not too long. And it needs to have a narrow tip so that you can slide the marshmallow on to it.”

She picked up a stick. “What about this one?”

He looked at it and grinned. “Talk about beginner’s luck. It’s perfect.”

She blushed at his compliment. “Thanks. Now what?”

“Now we start a fire.”

He’d been building campfires his whole life and liked the pyramid technique best. Minutes later, the fire was blazing. He quickly grabbed a stick of his own.

“Pretty much the most important part of a s’more is how you cook the marshmallow. It should be crispy and golden brown on the outside, but completely gooey and melted on the inside. That way the chocolate melts on contact. The worst thing is to accidentally light your marshmallow on fire because it only chars the outside, but the rest is still raw.” He made a face. “Little kids tend to do it like that a lot.”

“Wow,” she said, “this sounds sort of complicated. Maybe you should just make me one.”

“Nah,” he said with a shrug, “it’s pretty easy. Once you get a feel for the fire, you’ll be a total pro.”

Popping a marshmallow on the end of each of their sticks, he squatted down on the outside of the large bonfire. “It’s best to slow roast it by the coals. Takes a little longer, but it’s worth it.”

As Hannah knelt down beside him, he felt his stomach unclench. They roasted in silence until their marshmallows had hit that perfect brown, bubbly look on the outside.

“I think we’re good to go,” he said. They walked back over to the tray of graham crackers and chocolate. Breaking a cracker in half, he put a block of chocolate on it and said, “Here’s how you put it all together. Hold out your stick.”

Using the graham cracker halves, he slowly pulled her marshmallow off her stick, being careful not to drop the chocolate. “Go ahead, try it.”

He watched carefully as she took a bite. Her eyes closed and she had a look of complete ecstasy on her face. He’d never felt this way about a girl before. Never wanted to see the pleasure on her face as she did something totally boring like eat a s’more. But he could have sat there and watched Hannah forever.

“How is it?” he asked, his words coming out a little scratchy.

She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Totally amazing.”

And then, just as he was trying to figure out if he should try to kiss her, she said, “I can’t believe you’ve always grown up here. You’re so lucky. And it’s great that your mom owns the diner. You must know everyone.”

“Ugh. That’s what I like about the city. Total anonymity. Not like here, when every time I go to the post office Mrs. Hendricks asks me if I’ve grown some more.”

Hannah giggled. “Have you?”

“A couple of inches maybe.” She laughed again. “But seriously, it’s so boring here.”

She stopped laughing and he quickly said, “I mean, not with you or anything. It’s just I’ve done the lake thing for so long. And my mom is constantly on me.”

“Me and my parents ate at the diner when we were looking at buying a camp here and your mom came out and talked to us for a while about what it’s like to live here. She was really cool. Really nice to us.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, she’s all right, I guess.”

“Does she have a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Really? But she’s really pretty. Does she date at least?”

He thought about it, tried to see his mom in any other light than as his mother. “Nope. She doesn’t date.”

Maybe that was the problem. His mom had no life of her own. No wonder she had to get all up in his business and was always asking him to go out in the rowboat or for a hike.

The fire was starting to go out when Hannah’s mom called to her from their porch. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Thanks for the s’mores lesson.”

As he walked down the beach back to where he’d left his bike that afternoon, he walked past a couple of shady looking guys. “Got fireworks?”

He almost kept walking and ignored them, but then he stopped. Hannah would be seriously impressed if he invited her over on the Fourth and he had his own personal stash of fireworks. Pulling out his wallet, he handed over a wad of the money his father had given him.

AFTER GRABBING his bag from the Inn and leaving a short note for Stu, Connor headed back to Poplar Cove. A part of him felt bad about letting Ginger think he was going to have to ship all the way off to Piseco when Stu’s couch was his for the taking. But he quickly quashed that.

Poplar Cove was his. He belonged here, not crammed onto a couch at the Inn.

He stood on the porch looking out at the dark water for several minutes. After twelve years in Lake Tahoe he hadn’t expected Poplar Cove to feel so much like home. Maybe it was that he could feel his grandparents’ presence all around him.

The chair covers his grandmother had made, the way she’d freak if he or Sam got mud on them. The bookshelves he’d built with his grandfather when he was ten, the same year his grandfather had finally let him use the electric table saw. Somehow he’d managed to keep all of his fingers.

His gaze moved to Ginger’s painting, half-finished on the easel on the far end of the porch. He’d never been a museum kind of guy, never had the urge to capture a scene for posterity, not when he’d rather be out in trees and dirt and water. And yet, something in the painting resonated within him.

Heading up to the second floor, he automatically turned into the first door on the left, the room that had always been his.

Her scent hit him first, the faint hint of vanilla mixed with something earthy, sexy. Color barreled into him next. Bright clothes were hanging from the pegs on the wall and vivid canvases were crowding each other for space on all four walls. The top of the antique pine dresser was covered with bottles and jewelry and postcards propped up against the mirror.

His old bedroom had been transformed into a vibrant rainbow and the energy was palpable. The bed, now covered with a bright printed quilt rather than the serviceable blue denim he’d had forever, was unmade. Just looking at the rumpled sheets stirred him as if she were there in the room with him, naked and beckoning.

His grandparents’ old bedroom was the farthest away, at the end of the hall. But he didn’t feel right taking their room. Instead he moved to the guest room, which shared a wall with Ginger’s.

He needed to get outside, grab a kayak, get out on the lake and paddle hard against the driving wind. Running his body into the ground would be his only chance for sleep … and the only way to up the odds that he’d sleep hard enough to hold back his nightmares while he and Ginger shared the same roof.

At ten, Ginger untied her apron and hung it up in her locker. She’d already spent far longer cleaning up than she usually did. Most weeknights, after the dinner shift, she was home by now. Tonight, she’d tried to work off her careening thoughts with a mop and sponge.

Isabel emerged from the office where she’d been working on the computer and looked at the gleaming floors and stainless steel counters.

“Wow. These could be photographed for a magazine.” She shot Ginger a look. “Having second thoughts about letting Connor stay at your house for a couple of nights?”

Ginger sighed. The log cabin really did feel like home. Which was exactly her problem. Somewhere along the way she’d forgotten that Poplar Cove was only a temporary respite from her normal life. As much as she wanted to pretend that the log cabin was hers—and that she could live there in blissful peace forever without having to face life’s usual stresses—it wasn’t.

“When my lease is up, he’ll probably want the cabin back.”

“Is that what’s really bothering you? That you’re going to have to look for a new place to live in a few months? I’m sure you could find another lakefront cabin to rent by then.”

“You’re right,” Ginger admitted. “It’s just that …” She tried to figure out how to put her feelings into words. “This might sound weird, but for the first time in my life I felt like I could be myself.”

Her parents weren’t here telling her how to behave. Her ex-husband wasn’t here criticizing her. She’d found a place where people were getting to know her for her and not because of who her father was or how much money she had.

“And in so many ways Connor reminds me of my ex-husband.”

There was that same initial attraction. That same alpha-male-coming-to-take-what’s-mine act.

“Having Connor in the cabin, I’ll have to watch how I look. What I wear. What I say.”

It had already started. Look at her, doing anything she could think of to avoid going home.

“Why do you think you need to do any of that?” Isabel argued. “Why can’t you just go on exactly as you have been and if he doesn’t like it, who cares? You’ve really come into your own here. I find it hard to believe that one guy could make you forget that.”

“You know what?” Ginger said slowly, as Isabel’s words seeped in. “I think you’re right. It’ll be fine.”

If there was one thing she’d learned during the past eight months, it was that she needed to live a life that made her happy. Wear whatever she wanted. Do whatever she wanted. Say whatever she wanted.

So Connor was going to be moving in and out of her space over the next few weeks, so he was going to be sleeping in one of the empty bedrooms for a couple of nights. So what?

The wind was blowing even harder as Ginger went out to her car. As she drove back to the cabin, Isabel’s words ran on repeat in her head, working to set her straight right when she’d been about to veer off course.

Getting out of the car behind the log cabin, she crossed over the patch of grass beside the house onto the beach. Standing under the huge clump of old poplar trees that shaded the house most of the day, she stretched out her arms to let the frenzied wind whip her hair and clothes around.

She loved it here, loved the raw and wild weather that blew in and out almost at random. Living in the log cabin made her feel the same way, as if she were constantly surrounded by a forest rather than four walls.

All of a sudden there was a loud screeching sound right above her head. Connor’s warnings about how unsafe the cabin was shot through her brain just as she heard an ear-splitting crack. She tried to move, to run, but she didn’t know which way to go, could barely seem to pick up her feet.

Suddenly, strong hands and arms came around her rib cage, picking her up and throwing her across the sand.

Connor.

She landed hard on her side a split second before he leaped onto her, covering her with his body.

She felt it then, the force of something hitting them hard. Her stomach lurched like she was in an elevator on a free fall, and the back of her arm behind her elbow stung, but even as her brain worked to process the last thirty seconds, she knew it was Connor who had taken the brunt of … whatever had just hit them.

“What just happened?” she rasped against his collarbone.

Connor’s breathing was just as ragged as hers. She could feel every beat of his heart as it thumped hard against hers.

He didn’t answer her question, just ground out a rough, “Are you hurt?”

In the dark, his fingers ran across her face, from her forehead, to her cheekbones, down to her mouth as if he needed to check for himself that everything was still intact.

“No,” she said, shivering at his touch even as she asked again, “What hit us?”

His words rumbled from his chest to hers as he told her, “It was a widow maker. It almost fell right on you. Almost crushed you.”

“A widow maker?”

He shifted them slightly, but still kept her cradled in his arms. No one had ever held her like that, like he would protect her with his last breath. Not even the man she’d married.

Despite the cold wind, the press of Connor’s hard muscles against her had heat pooling at her breasts. Between her legs.

She’d known he would be hard, but she didn’t realize just how small she’d feel pressed up against him, that her curves would almost melt into his strength.

Her head, her insides spun and swirled as he pointed up to the large grove of poplar trees. “A widow maker is a dead branch or limb resting on live ones. Every year hundreds of people die beneath them when they fall.”

In the dim moonlight peeking out between the clouds, she saw an enormous limb lying on the beach not more than a foot away from them. At its biggest point it was at least a foot thick. She could only guess how much it weighed, how close she had been to becoming another casualty.

“If you hadn’t seen it, if you hadn’t moved so quickly—” She started shaking at the realization of what might have happened if not for Connor. “Thank you for saving my life.”

“I saw it this afternoon. I should have taken it down right away.” He cursed, drew her closer. “What the hell was I waiting for?”

Wait a minute, was he blaming himself for this?

“It was an accident.”

“You could have been hurt. So badly.”

“I swear, I wasn’t. Just a scratch, that’s all,” she said, showing him her arm, wanting him to know it wasn’t his fault.

She wasn’t prepared for his fingers to move to her elbow, for him to gently stroke her bruised skin.

“Where else does it hurt?”

She found herself saying, “My knee,” even though it was barely throbbing, simply because she wanted him to tend to her again. And when he did, when he gently caressed her leg, she couldn’t repress a low moan of pleasure.

His hand stilled on her knee. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Her arms and legs were fine. It was every other part of her that ached. For more of him.

She said, “Yes, I’m okay,” and then the next thing she knew he was hauling her to her feet and moving away. The wind rushed between them as he said, “What were you doing out here so late?”

Thrown by his abrupt question, and by the loss of his heat and rock-hard strength against her limbs, her mind went blank for a moment.

“Sometimes I’m wound up after working the dinner shift.” Especially tonight after going several rounds with him across the counter. “And I love the lake on nights like this when a storm is rolling in.”

It hit her, how had he been there to save her at all? “Why were you outside? How did you see me?”

“I was in the kayak, paddling back to shore when I saw you walk out on the beach and stop under the tree. That was when I heard the limb shift.”

“You were kayaking at night? Why?”

He took another step away from her. “I haven’t been back here in twelve years. I wanted to get out on the water.”

“You couldn’t wait until morning?” was her first question and when he didn’t answer she asked another, “Twelve years is a long time to stay away. Did you come to the lake a lot before then? As a kid?”

“Every summer.”

It didn’t add up. “It’s so beautiful here. How could you have stayed away for so long?”

“Fighting fire was more important.”

A puzzle piece clicked into place. “That’s how you got burned, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer, then, just backed completely out of the moonlight so that his face went into shadows.

“Good night, Ginger.”

Great. She’d done it again. Let curiosity get the best of her, about his scars. He probably thought they were the only thing she’d noticed about him.

She walked back into the cabin and went upstairs, took a shower to clean the smell of grease from her hair and skin, brushed her teeth and slid into bed. But all the while, she could still feel the heavy beat of his heart against her chest, the way he’d run his fingers so gently over her face and her limbs when he thought she’d been hurt.

After ten years as a hotshot, Connor knew his limits. He’d pushed himself hard today, harder than he usually did and his muscles were screaming for rest, for a few hours to rebuild what he’d broken down.

But it was hell trying to sleep one wall away from Ginger. Especially now that he knew how it felt to hold her.

He couldn’t stop replaying the scene in his head. Watching Ginger stop under the trees. Hearing the shifting and cracking of the limb, knowing it was going to crush her. Jumping out of his kayak and running through the water praying he’d get to her in time.

Sweating again at the thought of how close it had been, he kicked off the thin blanket covering his naked body. Finally, as the wind blew rain hard on the roof, Connor slept.

Ginger was wrapped deep in a dark and swirling dream where she was running through a forest full of falling widow makers when a cross between a scream and a roar woke her. Sitting up in bed, her hand on her heart, it took only a second to realize it was coming from Connor’s room.

Her stomach clenched with fear as she threw on a flimsy robe and shot out of her room. My God, what could possibly be happening to him? She shoved his door open.

From the dim light in the hall she could see that he wasn’t on the bed, but on his feet now, swinging at the air like a tortured beast, his eyes closed, his beautiful face taken over by rage. And deep, deep pain. His fists were closed so tightly the scars on his knuckles stood in out sharp relief and her heart broke into a million pieces as she watched this big, strong man fighting like hell against some demon in his head.

A voice in the back of her mind told her to leave him. That she should let him fight his battles alone. That he would probably break her in two if she got involved and he didn’t wake up.