Scorch (9 page)

“It’s been all I could do to take care of myself since Russ died,” she said wistfully. “If I was pregnant, I’d be about to give birth right now instead of going back to work. I can’t imagine that. Can you?” She turned her attention from her window to him.

“All too vividly,” he said dryly. “I caught a baby once. You wanna talk about something that imprints on the brain…”

She chuckled, knocked out of her maudlin thoughts into curiosity, wanting to ask more about that, but he flashed her a look halfway between empathy and a scold.

“Being glad you weren’t pregnant doesn’t make you a bad person, Jac.”

“I wasn’t glad.” Her heavy thoughts returned, pressing down on her so she bowed her head. “But I was kind of relieved,” she admitted with chagrin, fiddling with the tassel on the wine bag. “At the same time, I knew Russ’s parents would be devastated and… I just couldn’t take giving them more bad news and having everyone pity me, especially when there was a part of me that was okay with it. That’s why I left for Florida. I got my period and it hit me that—”

She had to clear her throat and take a cleansing breath. Lifting her head, she looked out the window again, but didn’t know what she saw beyond the hard, cold truth.

“Everything I thought I had with Russ was gone.”

Maybe it had never been there. Maybe it was a blessing that she hadn’t had a child to keep that one-sided romance alive in her. Maybe it was time to grow up.

That was the bitter thought she had bolted to Florida to avoid.

She dug in her purse for a tissue and pushed it under her congested nose.

“You want me to take a turn around the block?” he asked gently.

“No, I’m okay. Look.” She showed him her dry cheeks. “I only cried twice today,” she said with mock pride.

“Good work, champ,” he said with a wry grin, pulling up to Rhonda’s curb. “Is that why you wanted me to come here with you? You figured Russ’s parents would be less likely to bring up the lack of a baby if I’m here?”

“I’m using you again. I’m sorry.” She wrinkled her nose.

“I don’t mind. But listen.” He closed one eye in a wince as he turned off the engine. “I know that you and I are grown up enough to share a house without any hanky-panky.” He tilted a self-deprecating look at her. “I consulted your antique dictionary for that one. But, you know, small town, small minds. We shouldn’t be seen going out together too much. People will talk.”

Jacqui stared at him for a couple of heartbeats, waiting for his deadpan look to break.

It didn’t.

“You’re serious?”

He frowned. “Yeah,” he spoke cautiously, like he couldn’t hear everything that was wrong with what he had just said.

“People talk about everybody. They talk about you and Tori. I heard yesterday she’s seeing the mechanic who took over the quick lube place on the other side of town.”

“He’s her cousin. She told him about the opportunity, which is why he moved here. She’s not dating him.”

“Exactly my point. People talk and get it wrong. Who cares?”

“This is different.”

“How?” She was growing really prickly with that old feeling of having all of her actions watched and weighed.

Vin sighed like explaining himself was a chore, which got her back up even further.

“Having a new captain has been a tough sell,” he said, sounding more like the man who kept the rookies in line than the man who’d been her friend all these months. “No one is ready to see anyone move in on Russ’s wife, especially the guy who’s supposed to be looking out for her.”

“Is that what you are? The designated widow-nanny?” Her heart lurched.

“No! No, Jac.” He gave her the “
you’re being unreasonable”
look men loved to give women. He was one suicidal mistake away from asking her if she was on her period
now
.

“I thought we were friends.” Were they? She felt like her lungs were being crushed. She needed his friendship! Had she ruined things in that moment in her kitchen? Did he think she was after him and was warning her off? Oh, yay, more rejection of an involuntary infatuation. Her favorite thing.

Her stupid eyes teared up.

“Yes. Jac, yes. We’re friends. Shit. Don’t cry!”

“I’m not crying!” She sat forward, eyes burning, arms folded, taking measured, hissing breaths through her nose.

“I’m just saying we have to be aware of how it looks. I’m living in your house with you. You’ve hardly talked to anyone else here all winter. People are starting to turn that into more than it is.”

Was
she
turning it into more? No. She would not go down that road again. He was her
friend
. She was allowed to have friends who weren’t women. They
weren’t
living in nineteen-oh-two.

“If we know the truth, it doesn’t matter what other people think,” she muttered.

“Yeah, it does. I need the respect of the crew when lives are on the line. I won’t have it if they think I’m acting like a douchebag, moving in on the captain’s wife.”

“Because that’s all I am? The captain’s wife? I’m not a grown-up woman capable of deciding if I want to see someone?” She swung her head around to challenge him with a hard stare.

“You’re not
ready
to start dating.” Something in the sharp blue of his gaze gave her heart a zing, heightening the intensity of this confrontation.

“Am I not? Men are such arrogant jackasses sometimes! You don’t know what I feel. Let me tell you what
you
feel.
You’re
the one who’s not ready.” Her pulse battered her arteries like an out of control rally car. “You stupid men with your pigeon holes where you’ve filed me as ‘Russ’s widow’ and how dare I be ‘Jacqui.’”

“Fine. Yeah.
We’re
not ready. Our job cost you your
husband
, Jac. We’re all feeling really damned protective of you. Me most of all. I would be really worried about you getting hurt if you started dating right now.”

“Fine.” She bit out, pronouncing with exaggerated patience. “Concern noted. It doesn’t mean I can’t be seen speaking to you or any other man. It doesn’t mean I can’t move on if
I
feel like I’m ready. Do you have any idea how tired I am of this town owning my sexuality?
You love Russ
.” She mocked. “
You’re saving yourself for Russ. When are you going to have Russ’s baby?
Now I’m supposed to stay true to Russ even though he’s
dead
? Fuck that noise!”

She gathered her purse and the bottle of wine she’d brought. As she threw herself out of the truck, she muttered, “I should have slept with that guy in Florida.”

“What?!” Vin’s door slammed even harder than hers, rocking the pickup on its oversized chassis. “
What guy
?”

“My dad’s neighbor’s son,” she said over her shoulder as she started across the lawn. “He was very romantic. Used a ‘back on the bike’ reference.”
Gag
.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Vin came alongside her in a couple of strides.

“That is very much my line.” She informed darkly, climbing the steps to Rhonda’s front door. “Are you kidding me, telling me you’ll let me know when
I’m
ready to see other men? How exactly do you see that unfolding, by the way? The prospect will submit a medical exam,
obviously.
” She jabbed the doorbell. “Maybe you should print me a requirement sheet so I know how many pull-ups he has to complete before I can fu—”

“Hi!” Rhonda pulled open the door and threw her arms around Jacqui, stopping Jacqui’s tirade with a warm, sisterly embrace. “Welcome back!”

*

Vin’s head was
spinning, but he had to shift gears and accept a brief hug from Russ’s older sister. She had Russ’s smile and red-gold hair and was warm as ever, but seemed to have aged since the accident.

“Look at you!” Rhonda said as she forced Jacqui to pivot so she could take in her chopped hair.

“Come on, Jac,” Rhonda’s husband, Cliff, bemoaned as helped her remove her coat. “What am I gonna pull now when I want to get a rise out of you?”

“My leg?” Jacqui suggested, glancing in the small mirror in the foyer and giving her short strands a quick finger-comb. “Vin says I look like a Japanese anime character first thing in the morning, when it’s standing every which-way, but I like it. Super easy to take care of.”

She flicked him a snippy look with her reflection.
Yes, I know how that sounds. Bite me
.

He met the look without reaction, but she had to know Cliff and Rhonda’s antennae went up as she set that intimate tone.

Cliff definitely hammered him with an unspoken
“what exactly do you think you’re doing?”
when he shook Vin’s hand.

Vin might have paraphrased what he’d said to the crew earlier about the house purchase, but they all made their way into the front room. Russ’s parents eagerly rose to greet Jacquie.

Another couple, strangers Vin didn’t know, also rose. The woman was mid-twenties and halfway through a pregnancy. There was a pink mark on her cheek that might have been a birthmark or a scar. Everyone ignored it so he did, too. The man was about Vin’s age and height and had an outdoorsy look about him, but the West Coast kind, where the climate wasn’t as harsh. Surf, not snow.

“This is Piper and Sebastian Bloom,” Rhonda said, introducing them as Jacqui broke from hugging Russ’s parents.

“I feel like we’re intruding on your family time,” Piper said, anxiously holding onto Jacqui’s hand after they shook. “We organized this weeks ago. We’re on a small road trip and once I realized we’d be coming through here, I called Cliff to see if he had time for a catch up.”

“I actually forgot that’s why I invited Mom and Dad to dinner,” Rhonda said with a sheepish roll of her eyes.

“I met Russ and Cliff—eek, has it been fifteen years?” Piper glanced at Cliff then turned back to Jacqui. “They stayed at our house in Marietta for a weekend one July. My dad picked them up when their car broke down.”

“Oh! Are you the Christmas card from the Tierneys? From when the boys got lost on their way to the music festival?” Jacqui asked.

“That’s right.” Piper nodded.

“We were exploring the frontier,” Cliff defended indignantly.

“You were both too cheap to buy a map,” Rhonda interjected. “The festival was a hundred miles south!”

Everyone chuckled, then Piper sobered as she turned back to Jacqui. “When I read about the accident, I was so upset. My parents, too. I couldn’t drive through without at least calling Cliff to express my condolences.”

Vin had to stop himself reaching out, instinctively wanting to be in contact with Jacqui, to brace her as she faced yet one more onslaught of sympathy.

Fortunately, Rhonda kept the bereavement train from leaving the station. “Piper brought photos.”

“I did,” Piper said, returning to her seat on the sofa and picking up an old-fashioned photo album. “This is Mom’s scrapbook. Dad was always picking up hitchhikers and bringing them home and Mom always took a photo and tried to keep in touch with their families. Bastian calls it my hit list because he thinks he’s hilarious, but I never dated any of these guys. I was
eleven
when Russ and Cliff stayed with us. I’m surprised Cliff remembers me, to be honest. Although I did think Russ was terribly cute.” She confided to Jacqui.

“Hey,” Bastian said with a mock scowl.

“Yeah,” Cliff said. “Hey.”

“Eleven.” Piper reminded, grinning as she opened the book. Jacqui and Russ’s mother leaned in.

The rest of the evening was amiable. Despite the fancy name and a doctorate in political science, Sebastian—“Call me Bastian”—was down to earth and sharp-witted. He and his wife were headed to Calgary where he was presenting at a symposium on corporate environmental policy.

“Don’t fake looking impressed on my account,” Bastian said after telling Vin that.

Vin had to chuckle. “Remind me not to play poker with you.”

They wound up talking about the effects of climate change on the wildfire season, particularly in Alaska. They’d both been there for different reasons, but each had a run in with a grizzly story. Sebastian dropped a few names from a crew of smokejumpers Vin had worked with in California, mentioning his parents had had a close call with some fires near their house. They were thinking of moving to Montana to be closer to the grandchildren there. Apparently, his older sister had a new baby with a rancher in Marietta.

Rhonda seated Vin next to Jacqui when she called them to the table. His housemate hadn’t spoken directly to him since they’d arrived, but he’d caught her glancing his way when she thought he wouldn’t notice.

He noticed. He was locked into her frequency, wanting the name of that asshat in Florida who’d made the “back on the bike” remark. Was she really thinking of sleeping with other men? Why? Pain relief? That was precisely why he was standing guard, hoping to catch her before she went down any self-destructive back alleys.

“Oh, man, I’m sorry,” he muttered when his pocket buzzed as Russ’s father finished up saying grace. “I’m on call.”

“A fire?” Russ’s mother asked anxiously. “That’s early.”

“Search and rescue. Misplaced snowboarder,” he said with a quick glance at the text. “Lucky me, I get some free night skiing,” he said, trying to keep it light as he read the worried looks around him. “I’m really sorry, Rhonda. It smells fantastic. Jac—”