Into the Fire

by Anne Stuart

  The tarp was still half hanging off his old car, and he covered it carefully, so that none of the dust and paint flying through the air would harm it. It had been his first car, and he loved it like a mother. Not that his mother had been much to love. A car, even an old one prone to breakdowns, was still a hell of a lot more reliable than most people.

  Jamie had dropped something on the cement floor—he could see it glistening in the dim light. He picked it up, turning it in his hand. An earring, and it could have belonged to no one else. For the simple fact that despite what he’d told her, no woman ever had the nerve to come into his garage uninvited, and he’d never invited them.

  Trust Jamie to ignore the hidden warnings. She always did have a habit of storming into a situation without thinking first. That was one of the things that got her into trouble that night twelve years ago.

  He looked down at the piece of gold in his hand. Of course it was gold—only the best for the Kincaids. It was a unicorn—that was typical of Jamie, as well. She’d be the kind to have an affinity for mystical beasts who only came to virgins. But Jamie wasn’t a virgin—he knew that for a fact. And while she might want to live in a fantasyland, in her safe girls’ school, by coming here she’d walked into the dragon’s den. Into the fire. And she was likely to get burned to a cinder.

  He crossed the room to the workbench, reaching underneath and unlocking the small combination safe he kept there. He set the gold earring on top of her purse. And then locked the door again.

  Jamie’s hands were shaking. Why was she surprised? She’d been trapped in Dillon’s garage for less than twenty-four hours and already she was remembering, reliving things she hadn’t wanted to ever think about again. There was no escaping it, and she was someone who’d take any escape she could find. If every time she turned around she was going to find herself remembering, then her only defense was to face it, squarely, instead of trying to hide from it.

  Except that right now she didn’t feel like facing anything. She glanced out the grimy window at the bleak street beyond. The snow should have blanketed things with a romantic shroud, but instead it only seemed to make things look more depressing. The snow was still falling lightly, but the fresh layer on the ground was already dusted with grit. She could see rusting cars parked haphazardly along the side of the building—clearly junkers unworthy of Dillon’s magic touch. There were no people around. This was the back end of beyond, though how that could be the case in a city was beyond Jamie’s comprehension. If she could just find decent boots and a couple of layers of sweaters she could take off and look for help. Someone around here would be of more assistance than Dillon Gaynor. Anyone would.

  Mouser was her best bet. He wasn’t moved by Dillon’s bad temper, and he wouldn’t be too intimidated to help her. At least she could ask.

  The only problem was finding him. She was pretty sure he’d walked to wherever he was going—there was no sign of fresh tire tracks in the gritty snow, and he’d been dusted with snow when he’d appeared in the kitchen like an angel bearing coffee. Or maybe he just walked from the coffee shop. It didn’t matter—she couldn’t just sit around in Dillon’s abandoned kitchen and fight off all the memories that kept hammering at her. She needed to get home, away from Dillon and the past and old memories. Away from that damned yellow Cadillac.

  If she knew where the hell her car was she could find the raincoat she had tucked in the back, but nothing on this earth could get her to go back into the warehouse to ask Dillon. She was wearing jeans and a light sweater, but she’d already discovered that was little defense against the biting Wisconsin wind. And there was nothing else in her pitiful suitcase.

  There was, however, a row of hooks by the back door where Dillon had flung the dead rodent. The heavy sweater seemed the most innocuous of her choices, and she pulled it over her head. It smelled like engine grease and gasoline, and it came down to her knees, but it was warm and bulky. And better, it smelled more of old cars than of Dillon.

  Except that she’d always associated the scent of engine grease and motor oil with Dillon. Mixed with the taste of cigarettes.

  Hell, it was lucky he hadn’t blown himself to kingdom come long ago. Or unlucky. If Nate hadn’t come here he’d probably still be alive. And she wouldn’t be trapped in a living nightmare, remembering things she thought she’d dealt with long ago.

  The air was even colder when she stepped outside this time, and the earlier sunshine had vanished, leaving the sky gray and threatening as the snowflakes filtered down. She walked down the alleyway between Dillon’s warehouse and the next, but there was no sign of life. No cars except for the abandoned ones, no voices in the muffled silence.

  The main road wasn’t any better. Now that she could get a good look at her surroundings she was even more depressed. Everything around Dillon’s warehouse was deserted. If this had once been part of a thriving city, that city had abandoned this area, spreading out in more congenial directions. Maybe times would change and gentrification would hit Cooperstown, Wisconsin. Someone would snap up the deserted warehouses and turn them into loft apartments, someone would buy the empty storefronts and turn them into pricey boutiques.

  There were footprints in the snow. Considering how abandoned that area of the city seemed to be, there were a surprising number of different tracks. The small ones were probably Mouser’s. She could see the scratching marks left by the rat’s brothers and sisters, and she shivered lightly. And there was another set of footprints, probably male. Narrow feet, not too big, almost graceful. The tracks couldn’t belong to Dillon. He had big feet. When she’d been an impressionable teenager she’d noticed them, and she and her girlfriends had speculated about what else might be oversize about Dillon Gaynor, giggling at the salacious thought.

  She wasn’t giggling now, and she didn’t want to think about it. Those feet were more like Nate’s. Narrow, aristocratic feet, while she had always bemoaned her own wide peasant ones.

  There was no traffic, no taxi she could hail, even if she had the money to pay for it. No one she could even hitch a ride with. She stood still in the deserted street and closed her eyes for a moment.

  And then opened them again. Someone was watching her. She turned, slowly, but there was no one. She looked up at Dillon’s ramshackle garage, up to the windows on the second and third floor, and for a moment she thought she saw movement behind the frosted glass. She blinked, but then there was no one, and she shook her head. There was no one in that garage but Dillon and her, more’s the pity. Unless the rats had made their home on the third floor and had taken to spying on the human inhabitants of the place.

  But she hadn’t heard the scrabbling sounds of rodent feet last night. Granted, she’d been exhausted, but she’d been edgy enough to be freaked by any unlikely noise. If the building was infested with rats then they all kept regular hours.

  She must have imagined the movement at the window. The narrow footprints disappeared into the scuffed snow, and she told herself she was letting her imagination run wild with her. Not enough sleep, not enough food, and the shocking effect of seeing Dillon Gaynor again had managed to make her even more neurotic than usual. She never would have thought seeing him would have such an effect on her. After all, it was ancient history, she’d moved on, and one bad night shouldn’t have the ability to color her entire life. It hadn’t. Until she looked up into Dillon Gaynor’s cool blue eyes, and suddenly she was sixteen again.

  But she wasn’t. She was twenty-eight, with a master’s degree, a good job, a loving mother and a sense of satisfaction in her life. While she wasn’t in a relationship at the moment, that didn’t mean she couldn’t be if she wanted one. She’d had offers. She just wasn’t ready. Besides, she was secure enough that she didn’t need a man to make her feel complete.

  There was no sign of Dillon when she walked back into the warm kitchen. Her borrowed sweater was covered with snow, and she shook it out all over the cracked linoleum floor before hanging it back up on the peg. It was pro
bably the first water that floor had seen in twenty years, she thought wryly. But surprisingly enough, on a closer look, the floor didn’t even need sweeping. Someone must look after Dillon.

  For some reason the notion came as a complete shock. It had simply never occurred to her that there’d be a woman in Dillon’s life. And how idiotic of her—there’d never not been a woman in Dillon’s life.

  The type of women Dillon had been involved with had never seemed the type to be interested in housework, but twelve years could make a lot of changes. Not that much in a unregenerate bad boy like Dillon, but maybe enough to appreciate someone who’d sleep with him and clean his house at the same time.

  No, not Dillon. He’d never be that practical. He’d always chosen girls by the size of their breasts, the bigger the better. It was a good thing that Jamie was still a meager 34B. Not that Dillon was a serious threat to her.

  He was trying to intimidate her with his suggestive comments. It would shock the hell out of him if she called his bluff. He had no interest in her, and never really had. That night so long ago had been a fluke. He’d been drunk, and bored, and mischievous, but the moment he could he’d handed her off to someone else.

  She wasn’t going to think about that. Ever again. She was going to grab that box of soggy crackers and head back upstairs. She was going to sit in her room and try to figure out what the hell she was going to do. And try not to worry about whether there were rats crawling up the curtains in the room above her. Or ghosts.

  She didn’t believe in ghosts. If it had been up to her she wouldn’t believe in rats, either, and if she’d never had to see Dillon again she probably wouldn’t have had to deal with an oversize rodent.

  It wasn’t fair that she was stuck here, with the last person in the world she’d ever wanted to see again. She’d done it for her mother, thinking she could dash in and out without ever having to look Dillon in the eye. She hadn’t counted on her car giving out. Or her purse being stolen.

  And she hadn’t counted on the fact that when she looked up into Dillon Gaynor’s cool blue eyes she’d feel like a vulnerable sixteen-year-old once more. Just as frightened. Just as wary.

  And just as fascinated.

  7

  There was no sign of Jamie when Dillon finally strolled back into the kitchen. It was already dark outside, and he was starving. He opened his refrigerator and stared at it for a long moment, as if looking for the answers that had eluded him all his life. A six-pack of beer that Mouser had brought over with the donuts. Diet Coke and a soggy head of lettuce, a half dozen eggs that were probably ready to hatch, and some moldy cheese.

  He shouldn’t be surprised—food had never been one of his priorities. If he wanted to eat he went out and found something. Otherwise he didn’t bother. Mouser was trying to reform him, but then, Mouser was trying to reform everyone. They were playing poker again tonight—he’d probably show up with another armful of groceries. Dillon could wait that long.

  There was no sound from upstairs. Maybe Jamie was asleep again. He liked watching her when she was asleep—it reminded him of when she was sixteen and so innocent it made him ache with the memory of it. Her innocence was long gone, her defenses were in full flower, but when she slept he could stand there and look at her and pretend it was twelve years ago, a lifetime ago, when he still had choices.

  He was turning into a sentimental asshole in his old age. Next thing he knew he’d be turning up at reunions of a high school he never bothered to graduate from. He could even drop in on the Duchess and express his sympathy for the loss of her beloved Nate. She’d always had a blind spot where her nephew had been concerned. The Duchess believed in what she wanted, and her priorities had always been clear. Her daughter had been a distant second, no matter how Jamie tried to deny it.

  It was no wonder she’d come here, the last place on earth she’d want to be, to see him, the last person on earth she’d want to be with, all because of the Duchess’s whim. She should have learned by now it was a waste of time trying to win the old bitch’s favor. But Jamie had never been a quitter. Maybe she thought with Nate dead there’d be room for her in the old lady’s flintlike heart. She was going to find out the hard way.

  It was no business of his. Jamie Kincaid had come back into his life unexpectedly, and she’d be gone just as fast. As soon as he was ready to let her go, that is. In the meantime he had every intention of enjoying himself.

  She’d had a crush on him when she was sixteen. She thought he didn’t know, but he had. For some reason it pissed Nate off—he liked Jamie being his own personal fan club—but there was nothing he could do about it. Dillon knew because she blushed when he walked into the house, and looked anywhere but at him. He knew because she always found some reason to come into the room where he and Nate were smoking. He knew because he saw her looking at him one day, with those wide gray eyes that were an affront to his unregenerate nature.

  He’d had every intention of leaving her strictly alone. For one thing, Nate was oddly protective. For another, the Duchess scared the shit out of him. And then there was the fact that he liked fast girls, bad girls, not honor students. If it had been up to him he never would have gone near Jamie Kincaid.

  But it hadn’t been up to him. He’d had no more than a taste, a long time ago. And a taste could build up a powerful appetite.

  He sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. What would Nate think if he could see what was going on? He’d be pissed as hell—he’d never wanted Dillon anywhere near Jamie, and he’d made sure that had never happened. But Nate was dead, and there was no one to stop Dillon from doing exactly what he wanted with his unwilling houseguest. Maybe it was time to find out just how badly she wanted to go home. Nate was no longer here to stop him. No one was.

  Except his own tarnished sense of honor. Or even better, maybe it was just self-preservation. For all his gut telling him he could have her, his common sense was screaming no. And maybe, for once in his life, he’d let his brain run his body, instead of his hunger.

  Jamie woke up with a start, the flash of neon outside the only light in the barren little room. She’d been sleeping too much since she’d been there, which was crazy, when sleep was usually the most elusive thing in her life. Maybe the answer had always been boredom. She had nothing else to do but wait, and she wasn’t even sure what she was waiting for. And so she slept.

  She sat up and groped for the switch on the dim light. Her book lay discarded on the mattress—it was no wonder she’d fallen asleep. In the best of times Charles Dickens was a tedious bore. In the worst of times he was unbearable. Maybe when she got back to Rhode Island she’d forgo the yearly ordeal of teaching David Copperfield and switch to A Christmas Carol instead. For one thing, it was a hell of a lot shorter. For another, it was a better story. And not so many simpering female characters.

  She shoved a hand through her hair. She was hungry, of course. She’d come upstairs planning to just sleep the rest of the day away, but luck wasn’t with her this time. It was dark, she’d had nothing but three cinnamon buns earlier in the day, and it didn’t look as if Dillon had any intention of feeding her. The sound of male voices drifted upward—they must be playing poker again, and if she had any sense she’d resign herself to David Copperfield and ignore them.

  And then she smelled the pizza. It was like a siren call, one she didn’t even try to resist. It didn’t matter that it was late—the other voices assured her she wouldn’t be alone with Dillon, and for the sake of food she was willing to risk a lot. She went in search of pizza.

  She was right, they were playing poker. The kitchen was filled with cigarette smoke and the yeasty smell of beer, and the pizza boxes lay open on the littered kitchen counter.

  “Hi, there, Jamie!” Mouser greeted her cheerfully. “I wondered when you were going to show up. Killer said you’d gone to bed for the night, but I figured with us down here making all this noise you’d be bound to emerge sooner or later.”

  She smiled at him. Ther
e was another man there, as well, looking at her in shock, and behind the veil of smoke sat Dillon, a cigarette in his mouth, a glass of dark amber liquid by his side, a pile of poker chips in front of him.

  “I was hungry,” she said, drifting toward the pizza.

  “Help yourself,” said Mouser. “The one on the left’s got pepperoni and mushrooms, the one on the right’s got sausage and green peppers.”

  As if fate hadn’t been cruel enough, she thought. “I don’t suppose you have any plain cheese?” she asked, trying not to sound plaintive.

  “Picky, aren’t you?” Dillon commented, not bothering to look at her.

  “I’m a vegetarian.”

  That got his full attention. He looked at her, a smile curving his mouth, and for a brief moment she remembered that mouth. “Of course you are,” he said. “I bet you don’t smoke or drink or gamble, either.”

  “I drink. Occasionally. Responsibly. And I play poker very well,” she said, defiant.

  “Get the woman a beer, Henry. And a chair. Looks like we don’t have to make do with the three of us, after all.” He stubbed out his cigarette and rose, moving in her direction.

  She scuttled quickly out of his way. The man named Henry dragged another heavy oak kitchen chair up to the round table, opened a bottle of Corona and set it in front of her place. “What are we playing, Killer?” It was the first time she heard him speak, but his slow, deep voice matched his looks.

  “Lady’s choice,” Dillon said. “Sit down, Jamie.”

  “I don’t want—”

  “Sit down.”

  Jamie sat. A moment later a paper plate appeared in front of her, pizza with the sausage removed. She could have protested, but it would have been a waste of time. And, besides, she was too hungry. “I can’t gamble with you,” she said. “I have no money.”

  “I’ll stake you,” Mouser said, shoving a pile of chips in her direction. He was drinking Diet Coke—a strange choice for a night of poker.