No Damaged Goods

by Snow, Nicole

  Not when I turn my head toward him, my entire body pulsing with the feel of him, and my cheek brushes his.

  Blake goes oddly quiet, still, his heavy breaths silencing, slowing.

  He pushes himself up on his arms.

  God, I can’t stand feeling even the slightest bit of that delicious weight lifting, but...

  When he looks down at me, snow in his messy hair and dusted all over his coat, eyes razor-blue and hot, leverage bringing his hips tight against mine, I’m so done.

  Utterly breathless.

  I just feel sparks all over, thrumming in my blood, lighting up bright and burning over and over and over again in little rushes.

  Licking my lips, my mouth aches for the taste of him, the feel of him, the need for him.

  It wouldn’t be hard.

  I could spread my legs so easy, let his narrow hips sink down between my thighs, shudder with his molten friction. If he’d just let me.

  If that animal look in his eyes, something smoldering-dark, is an answer to the call of desire rushing through me. Raw heat strums between my legs. Focused. Brutal.

  No lie, I could writhe on him and get off in under a minute just by rubbing my body against his.

  I want to.

  This roughed up tree trunk of a man makes me shameless.

  But before I can move, before I can do anything, he parts his lips to speak—

  Only for both of us to go stiff. A deafening roar sounds from up the hill.

  Over his shoulder, I catch a pillar of flame shooting toward the sky.

  Mega-crud.

  “Shit.” Blake jerks up, looking over his shoulder sharply, staring at that orange and gold plume for half a second before he thrusts himself off me and surges up the hill on powerful strides that churn through the snow, leaving me behind.

  I lie there for a dazed moment, staring at the sky.

  All the stars are laughing at me tonight.

  Damn it all.

  So close.

  So close, but so far.

  I drag myself to my feet with a wince.

  Now that Blake’s not on top of me, I feel the bruises from bouncing and tumbling around, not to mention the chill crawling over my skin.

  Shivering, I dust myself off, then climb the hill in his wake, trudging up after him in the path he so helpfully cleared through the snow.

  It’s not hard to figure out where he went, judging by the thick coiling smoke rising over the field.

  Everyone out working stares in that direction.

  I follow the painfully obvious clues until I catch up with his broad back.

  He’s standing head and shoulders above a group of teenagers—including Andrea and the tall, gangly boy dressed in black that I think I recognize as Clark, Andrea’s crush.

  He’s a shaggy thing, all throwback emo style and piercings. Just the kind of kid I’d have been crazy for at her age, and it’s not hard to see she’s protective of him.

  Considering she’s positioned herself between her father and Clark, glaring up at him while Blake’s eyes drill right back.

  “The hell do you think you’re doing?” Blake growls.

  Andrea starts, “It’s just part of the—”

  Clark shakes his head, brushing his hand against her arm.

  “It’s okay, Ana,” he says, then looks at Blake with a frankness beyond his years. “I was testing out a new launcher, and one of the fireworks cartridges had loose gunpowder. Wasn’t packed properly. No one got hurt. We made sure to test it in a clear space, all the grass pulled, snow piled up to put out any sparks.” He sighs. “I know what I’m doing, Mr. Silverton. Accidents happen.”

  “Accidents have nearly burned this damn town down too many times,” Blake growls back.

  My heartbeat goes to ten.

  He’s firm, clearly angry, but Clark’s calm ownership of what he did seems to have knocked some of the protective rage out of him, leaving pure cold authority.

  It’s another thing I like about Blake. Even when his temper snaps, he gets it under control fast without turning into a stomping dick. “Your uncle’s the licensed fireworks tech. He should be doing controlled tests. Not you, Clark.”

  “Shit came up with Uncle Rog today. He gave me permission,” Clark answers evenly, but there’s an edge there, defensive. “And if he’d done the test, it still would’ve flared. It was a packing issue, not me. I’m trained in this. Everything’s fine.”

  “Everything is not fine. What you’re doing is technically illegal.” Blake works his jaw. “Leave it. This is over, for your own good—before you get in any more trouble or I haul you up in front of Sheriff Langley. All of you, get home.” His gaze darts to Andrea. “Including you. Come on.”

  Andrea stares at him in total horror. I’m pretty sure the pink spots on her cheeks are pure rage, not the cold air.

  “Oh my God, Dad,” she nearly whispers, so strained it’s like she can barely get her voice out. Her gaze darts to me for a second, pleading, but I’m just a helpless bystander.

  It’s not my place to intervene. When I offer a confused grimace, she just turns her glare on her father again. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I’ll find my own way home.”

  “Andrea—”

  He reaches a hand out, but she’s already turning and stalking off, putting another girl between herself and her father as the group starts to trail away. Clark stops, though, glancing back with a resentful look.

  “For someone who says he knows what he’s doing,” he murmurs, “you sure fuck up with her a lot. She doesn’t want to hate you, you know.”

  Before he, too, turns and walks away.

  Blake just stands there, staring, his eyes angry black and blue seas. Then his hand falls limply to his side before he curses and drags it through his hair, shaking out a bit of half-melted snow. “Goddamn. Now I got kids telling me how to raise my kid?”

  I step closer to him, trying to offer support. “He’s her friend. She’d tell him things she might not tell you.”

  “Maybe so. Doesn’t mean I like it.”

  He looks so defeated.

  So exhausted.

  Honestly, I’m worried how it’s going to affect his leg. Stress can cause tons of flare-ups with chronic pain issues.

  But he looks down at me after a moment, sighing. “We’re done here. Need a ride home?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  It’s not what I really want to say. But I feel like what I want to get out won’t be welcome.

  The ride back to Charming Inn is quiet, Blake locked up and brooding in his own head, and I don’t want to interrupt his thoughts.

  I’m also a little distracted myself.

  Considering I’m still shivering half to death from melted snow soaked into my clothes, I’m focused on getting as close to the heater vents as possible to dry off.

  As he pulls up along the lane near my cabin, engine idling, I bite my lip and take a risk, reaching over to rest my fingertips on his forearm. He’s rock-hard under my touch, so tense.

  “Blake,” I say. “It’ll be okay. She’s young and emotional. Everything makes her mad right now. She’ll come around.”

  Whatever I’m expecting, it’s not the cold, forbidding word he spits out.

  “Stop.”

  Just one word, but it’s enough to punch the breath from my lungs.

  He stares straight ahead, not looking at me, his face a fixed mask.

  “I’m sorry?” I say faintly.

  “Just fucking stop,” he repeats—low, grim, the voice that seduces me so much now feeling like a granite wall between us. “I get it. You just want to help, Peace, and I’m grateful. But I don’t need it. I don’t need therapy. I just need to get the hell on with my life.” His fingers tighten on the steering wheel so hard I can hear the leather groan. “So how about we stick to you doing your radio spot, and leave the rest alone?”

  That shouldn’t hurt so much.

  But it stings deep, stings hard, like needles at the corners of
my eyes.

  They prick with more than just the sharp, cold air. I shove the passenger door open and take several deep breaths of night, trying to choke down the lump in my throat.

  “Sorry,” I say numbly, my voice sounding dead, empty, remote even to me. “I didn’t mean to intrude or...or to upset you. Thanks for the ride.”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  Doesn’t even look at me.

  So I just turn and walk away, all messed up inside, and remind myself that every risk has its price.

  Sometimes it’s pleasure.

  Sometimes it’s nothing but pain.

  I took a gamble and lost.

  8

  Rhythm and Tone (Blake)

  I know.

  I’m such an asshole.

  That’s all I’ve been able to think ever since the other night.

  That I’m pure defensive scum for the way I talked to Peace.

  It’s like some switch flipped inside me when we were sitting in my Jeep. Her by the moonlight and the stars reflecting off the snow. All I could remember was how small and fragile and sweet she felt under me. And all I could feel was a strong dose of fear warning me not to fuck her up.

  She’s too young.

  Too kind.

  Too gentle.

  She wants to give too much of herself.

  And me? I ain’t good at accepting that kind of thing.

  Hell, I can’t even let my brother give me money that’s rightfully mine from Ma’s inheritance.

  How am I supposed to accept this sweet as pie girl who keeps wanting to support me like she can carry all my weight on her shoulders?

  I glare down at the steel struts I’m working, just a mess of dark bars and hazy sparks through my welding mask. Day job. That kind of shit.

  There’s always something needing to be rebuilt around Heart’s Edge, especially with the fire damage from that blowout back around Halloween. I’m usually not short on work.

  But thinking about that just leaves me more pissed off, a reminder of how Holt’s moving in on the town construction biz, too.

  I’ve had to see him a few too many times over the last few days.

  From a distance, sure, while he’s organizing the crew of locals he hired to start rebuilding the public structures that took shrapnel damage from the big kaboom.

  At least he’s not signing my checks.

  I hired on with a crew from here in town for that.

  I don’t think I could stand taking money I earned from my brother.

  Tell you what, though, right now is the wrong damn time for my phone to be ringing.

  I shut off the blowtorch, grimacing as the bastard phone quivers against my back pocket, then set the torch down, lift my mask, and pull off my gloves.

  When I see the name on the caller ID, I go cold inside—which is a feat when I’m standing in a hot-ass room over superheated metal.

  It’s Rich. And he’d only be calling me for one reason.

  I stand, swiping the call and shoving my phone to my ear. “Update me.”

  “Nothing major,” Rich says. “It’s already over. Just a grease fire at the diner. Didn’t need a full response, but I wanted to keep you in the loop, Chief.”

  There’s something he’s not saying.

  It’s in the unsteadiness in his voice, in the strangeness of the way he pronounces his words.

  I frown, glancing over my shoulder at the construction crew. I hadn’t even noticed them going on their lunch break, sitting around the tarp-covered stacks of supplies and eating out of paper bags from the one or two lonely fast food joints in town.

  Then I step away, ducking into the hall of the temporary warehouse that’s been erected to protect the supplies from winter.

  “Talk,” I say. “What are you not telling me?”

  Rich hesitates. “I...shit. I wasn’t alone on the response.”

  “Justin?” I ask. There’s not many other people it could be. With a volunteer crew, you tend to have tiers of people—your regulars, and then folks you only call in when things are too much for the main crew to handle.

  Justin’s one of the regulars.

  I’ve got a sinking feeling in my gut before Rich says, “Well, Chief, he kind of bugged out.”

  “Describe ‘bugged out.’”

  “It wasn’t a big fire. Like, it hadn’t even jumped from one burner, but you know how grease fires are. Justin, he just stopped. Froze up, went blank, nothing there behind his eyes. And he was just staring at it instead of helping me with the extinguisher. I had to say his name like five or six times to get him to snap out of it.”

  I drag a hand over my face, rubbing my temples. “Aw, shit. I was afraid of something like this.”

  Rich sounds worried. “I don’t follow.”

  I sigh. Damn, I feel bad talking about Justin’s private crap like this, but there’s no way around it now.

  “You know he’s carrying a lot of trauma from the Paradise fire,” I say. “Seems like he’s been going through a lot lately. I’ve been meaning to ask him about teaching a safety course at the carnival for the kids to take his mind off of it.”

  I just haven’t gotten around to it.

  Never got around to telling Rich and Justin about what Leo found, either, and that we might have an arsonist in town—one who’s been laying low since the incident at the clothing shop, but I don’t think they’ve given up yet.

  Maybe that’s why I’ve been so tense.

  Or maybe it’s that my daughter keeps crushing on a pyromaniac punk who’s been the cause of a few too many fires of his own.

  Everything’s got me on edge lately.

  I shouldn’t have taken it out on Peace like that.

  Goddammit.

  I can’t be thinking about her right now with Rich still silent on the line.

  “Keep an eye on him. Report in if he has another incident, okay? Listen...was there anything else weird about the fire?”

  “Nope. Looked like one of the younger kids in the kitchen wasn’t doing the work with cleaning up the grease drippings, so they just caught.” Rich sounds like he knows what I’m going to say already, though, when he asks, “Why? Something up?”

  “Because.” I hesitate. “That fire at Farley’s Fashion. It looks like it might’ve been set.”

  I don’t want to say anything about the note.

  If this is Leo’s past coming back to haunt us, even with everyone in town knowing about the Galentron company and their shenanigans now, I don’t want it leaking and scaring people.

  “Thought so,” Rich says without even missing a beat. “Those blast patterns weren’t right at the shop. Nothing goes up like that and creates those kinds of scorch patterns without a rapid combusting accelerant.”

  “Yep,” I say. “Maybe it was a one-time thing. Some random asshole with a grudge or something. Leo’s practically a national celebrity now. Maybe it makes some folks jealous. But let me know if you run across anything suspicious, yeah?”

  “Will do, Chief.” Rich pauses, then asks, “You told Langley about your suspicions?”

  “Not yet. I don’t want to get the sheriff worried and bumbling around if it’s nothing. I want to take another look at the scene first.”

  If I’m honest, I don’t want to pull Langley into it at all.

  This feels too personal.

  The sheriff’s a good man. He’s just not cut out for the fuckery that’s been going down here lately. Every time I see the man, I swear his hair has gone greyer.

  “Listen,” I add. “I gotta get back to work. But keep an eye out for me, would you?”

  “Sure,” Rich says. “I’ll let you know if anything turns up. You want me to do a workup at the shop? Save you the trouble?”

  “You’re a lifesaver.”

  “It’s what I’m here for. And besides, my three kids are less of a handful than your one. Get some sleep, Blake. You’ve been looking like hell lately.”

  “Thanks. Later,” I mutter dryly, but I can’t he
lp but laugh before I hang up.

  He’s not wrong.

  I’ve been feeling like hell, too.

  Including my bum leg, ever since I chewed Broccoli’s head off over nothing.

  Worst part is, I don’t even know where to start with apologizing.

  Or if she’d even want to hear it.

  * * *

  By the time I get off work, I think I’d say anything to ease the agony ripping up my thigh.

  It’s like I took a hot-welded strut of steel rebar, still glowing at the tip from the blowtorch, and jammed it right into my flesh.

  I barely get into the house after driving home in jerky fits and starts before my leg gives out under me, pitching me onto the sofa.

  Sonofa...

  I don’t know how long I’m damn-near paralyzed there.

  Just glad Andrea’s not home right now.

  As much as I love and trust my daughter, even when she’s a handful, she doesn’t need to see her old man stumbling around like this.

  In a haze, I just keep massaging at my thigh till the dull, horrible throb of fire starts to fade.

  I need a beer, not Vicodin.

  I hate the fucking painkillers, hate how they haze me up, hate the potential for getting hooked. I’m so dull when that medicine kicks in.

  Sure, beer gets me fuzzy, but I’m clearer and know it’ll wear off in thirty minutes instead of six hours.

  I can’t be out of commission for six hours.

  Not when someone might call with an emergency, and I can’t let them down because I’m drugged out of my mind.

  I roll over, thump myself off the couch, onto the floor, hitting my hands and knees before sheer pride shoves me to my feet.

  Might feel like hell, but I ain’t fucking crawling to the kitchen.

  Zombie lurching isn’t much better, but at least I’m standing on my two legs.

  The first beer tastes like a sip of salvation. It goes down quick, cold pouring through me. The shock of drinking something that frigid so quickly actually distracts me from the anguish in my leg as chill spears shoot through my chest, leaving me gasping.

  But it’s exactly the liquid looseness I want when the booze gets in my bloodstream and makes my body go lax.