Putting Out Old Flames

by Allyson Charles

  She poked him in the arm with her spoon. “And you’re grateful that you don’t have to hire a nanny, right?”

  He kept stirring.

  “Right?!”

  Laughing, he leaned over and mussed her hair. “Of course, goober. We’re lucky to have you.”

  “Dad, look at my castle!”

  Chance put his elbows on the counter and looked over the blue, green, and yellow cube, giving it the attention and admiration of a tourist at Notre-Dame Cathedral. “That looks fantastic. Fit for a king.”

  “No, it’s for a knight,” Josh said, making a green plastic horse gallop around the structure.

  “Can you put your knight’s castle into the living room, buddy? We’re going to be eating soon.” Chance watched as Josh carefully picked up the cardboard square he had been building on, his small hands unsure with their bundle, and shuffled out of the kitchen.

  His heart clenched. Josh was the best part of him. He couldn’t lose him. Turning back to the stove, he told his sister, “Annette says she’s going to sue for custody. That since she’s getting married she’ll have a better chance of getting him.”

  He waited for Katie to laugh at that idea. When she remained quiet, he turned to face her.

  She chewed her lip. “Some judges might take that into account.”

  “Over the fact that she’s a gambling addict who brought criminals into her son’s life?” His gut still twisted every time he thought about that day he’d come home from work and found the strange tatted-up man kneeling on the front lawn talking to his son. It had taken all his self-control not to rip the guy’s head off when the bookie had told Chance who he was. If Josh hadn’t been watching, he didn’t know that he wouldn’t have.

  “I don’t know, Chance.” Tapping the spoon against the counter, she shook her head. “If some doctor says she’s better? And don’t judges still think a child should be with his mother? I don’t think this is something you should take lightly.”

  He added the cooked meatballs to the sauce and put the garlic bread in the oven. “I don’t take anything having to do with Josh’s safety lightly. That’s why I moved back to Michigan.”

  Nose wrinkled, Katie asked, “I know Annette was less crazy in college”—Chance shot her a look—“but if it hadn’t been for Josh, would you have married her?”

  Checking that Josh was still in the living room, he sighed. “Annette was exciting, fun, and very supportive of my dream to become a doctor.” She had been one hell of a study partner, doing unspeakable things as encouragement when he’d get the answers right. “But no. We wouldn’t have married.”

  Katie nodded. “Good. I can respect that a lot more. I was fifteen when you brought her home to meet the family, and I thought you were a typical man, an idiot letting a piece of hot tail lead him around by the nose.”

  “Thanks, I guess.” Josh raced back into the room, this time clutching a toy plane in his hand and making a noise that was supposed to sound like an engine. “Josh, I need you to set the table. There’s going to be four of us tonight. Your mom’s coming over.”

  “Mom’s coming! Cool.”

  Katie slid off the stool. “I’ll help. Come on, big guy.”

  Chance watched his son lay out the silverware, half of the pieces upside down. He smiled. No, he wouldn’t have married Annette if they hadn’t gotten pregnant. But he was damn glad she did.

  Draining the noodles, he couldn’t help but wonder how his life would be different if he’d been a little more discriminating over whom he had a child with. Running into Jane again, it was only natural. She’d be a great mother, he had no doubt.

  Katie pulled out salad ingredients and brought down a large bamboo bowl from over the refrigerator. “I’ve got it! The solution to your”—she bobbed her head at Josh—“problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You need to get married, too,” she crowed, as though that were the most obvious answer in the world.

  “Is someone going to buy you as a husband at the ox-chin, Dad?” Josh crawled up onto the barstool.

  “What are you talking about, buddy?” Chance mixed the spaghetti and sauce together and checked his watch. Annette was late. Why wasn’t he surprised?

  “The batch ox-chin.” Josh swiped his hand under his nose. “Miss Edith told me about it. The firemen are getting sold to women.”

  Katie hooted. “That. Is. Awesome.”

  Chance’s jaw hung open. Katie elbowed him in the side. “I think he meant a bachelor auction featuring you and your brothers.”

  “That’s what I said. Batch ox-chin.”

  No. No way in hell. Jane would have told him . . . He bit back a curse. No, Jane wouldn’t have told him. She would have thought it was funny as hell that he was left in the dark. Well, he wasn’t going to do it. Being cochair of the fundraising committee was enough of a good deed.

  “I’m not getting married,” he told his sister. Raising an eyebrow at his son, he said, “And I’m not letting a woman buy me.” He wiped at a smudge of God-only-knew-what on Josh’s cheek. “Go wash up for dinner,” he told his son.

  Chance didn’t know what to be more pissed about: Annette with her threats, or Jane trying to put one over on him with that stupid auction. “‘Items for the auction,’ my ass,” he muttered, now understanding why she’d flushed such a pretty pink at their meeting. Like firemen were items.

  He blew out a big breath, ignoring his sister’s smirk. Okay, those problems were pretty easy to prioritize. Jane was irritating. Everything about her, from the way her eyes scrunched up every time she saw him, to her tight jeans, to the grudge she just wouldn’t let go.

  She was like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Annoying, but he could live with it.

  Annette was a threat. He couldn’t live without Josh. Between Jane and Annette, it was like comparing a sparkler to a stick of TNT.

  The doorbell rang, and Josh ran shrieking to the door, eager to see his mother. Chance tried to get his shoulders to relax as he joined his son. Time to face his dynamite.

  * * *

  Jane held Cyclops clutched tightly to her chest. She didn’t know whether it was to protect the ginger cat or to use him as a shield. Probably a little bit of both.

  “It’ll be okay, Cy. He’s more afraid of us than we are of him.”

  Cy’s disdainful snarl told her he didn’t believe it. Neither did she. One black hairy leg twitched before the spider raced up the wainscoting in her apartment. At the hip-level ledge, it paused, its thick body bobbing up and down, like it was doing its own version of push-ups.

  “Gaaa!” Jane took another step back. That was the biggest spider she’d ever seen. She’d been sitting on her couch, calling around to the shops in town, trying to line up an item for the silent auction after one she’d been counting on had fallen through.

  When she’d first felt the soft little brush against her toe, she’d thought it was Cyclops, playing around.

  A shudder wracked her body, and she gripped the cat tighter. Just remembering those long legs prodding at her foot made her want to take a bath. In bleach. Cy hissed at the grip she had on him. It would have made a wide receiver proud. But the cat made no attempt to leap down. Coming across an insect half the size of his own head had turned even her bully of a cat into a coward.

  The spider stopped its calisthenics and seemed to settle in place for a nap. Perfect. Just one more thing to make this day great. It was Sunday, supposed to be her day to lounge on a couch and read. Instead, she’d woken up to an apologetic phone call from the hot air ballooning company outside of town saying due to insurance concerns, they couldn’t offer a free ride for the silent auction after all.

  Chance had left two more angry text messages demanding she contact him about the bachelor auction.

  And now she was being held hostage in her apartment by the Godzilla of spiders. She risked a glance toward her open kitchen window. The spider hadn’t seemed amenable to her attempts to herd him outside using a greeting card
as a prod.

  The card in her hand was slightly crumpled, pressed as it was between her hand and Cy’s haunch. It had seen worse. Over the nine years since she’d found it lying on her front porch, it had been jammed halfway down a garbage disposal before she’d changed her mind on its destruction, had come an inch away from a hot flame multiple times, and had more tear stains dotting its surface than craters littered the moon.

  Her mother would have been appalled to know she still kept Chance’s breakup card. It was rather pathetic. But she held on to it as a reminder. Even the guys who seemed so trustworthy could let you down. The card, with its sad clown face on the front and its printed message on the inside—So sad, my bad, but this isn’t going to work. Life moves on, we must be strong, and quit while we’re ahead—had clearly not been produced by Hallmark.

  For reasons even Jane couldn’t explain, her teenage self had searched, in a near frenzy, for the store that would sell such a card. She’d found it at a novelty store in downtown Lansing. It was part of a collection. There was even a card to end your marriage.

  Jane hoped that one was merely a gag, that no one would be low enough to use it.

  Chance, in his nearly indecipherable handwriting, had added his own message at the bottom. Sorry Jane, but I’m going to college in California. Have a good life.

  Not even a “Love, Chance” to soften the blow.

  Finding that horrible card on her porch that day, that day of all days, had devastated her eighteen-year-old heart. She and Chance had planned a summer road trip before driving to the University of Michigan and settling in. She’d been up half the night packing, so excited for two weeks alone with Chance. Her mom had given her a box of condoms and a ziplock bag full of homemade granola for the trip. She’d expected to find adventure, romance, and some good stories they could tell their future grandchildren.

  She’d found the card on the doormat instead. For the most part, it had stayed tucked away in a shoe box along with photos of her and Chance. It was something she only pulled out when she needed a reminder not to raise her hopes. Since Chance had walked back into her life, all cut muscle and playful smiles, she’d needed that reminder so often the card had remained out of its box.

  That card had been a big part of her life for the past decade.

  But it was still too small, didn’t give her fingers nearly enough buffer room to get that spider out of her apartment. Maybe it was time to move.

  Someone pounded at her door. Sidling around an end chair to give the spider a wide berth, Jane sidestepped to the front door and flung it open, not taking her eyes off the hairy interloper.

  “Why the hell aren’t you answering your phone? Or responding to my texts?” Chance’s angry voice was enough to drag her gaze off the wall. The chest beneath the faded AC/DC T-shirt was heaving and a tinge of red flushed his cheekbones. Both signs that he’d lost his temper.

  She knew why he was ticked. His voicemails, accusing her of hiding the bachelor auction from him, had explained that very clearly. She’d hoped to avoid him until his wrath had calmed. But here he was, on her doorstep. She glanced at the spider, still unmoving on her wall, and back at the big firefighter filling her doorway.

  Maybe she wouldn’t have to move after all.

  Cy wriggled in her grasp, and she let him jump down. He batted his paw in the air in Chance’s direction, hissed his displeasure, and leaped onto the couch. Kneading the cushion, Cy glanced at the wall, remembered they had an intruder, and raced for the open kitchen window, yowling all the way.

  “Your cat is nuts,” Chance said, pushing past her into her living room.

  Closing the door, Jane realized she still held the card, and shoved it down the back of her yoga pants, pulling the hem of her tank top down to cover the top of it. “It’s so nice to see you. How’ve you been?” She circled around, keeping the couch between her and the spider.

  “Cut the crap. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days.” He rubbed a big hand up and down the back of his head, ruffling his hair. “Just so you know, I’m not doing it.”

  “Doing what?” she asked, distracted. The spider had crawled two more inches up the wall.

  Chance shot her a disgusted look. “I’m not going to be sold like a piece of meat,” he said, spelling it out for her. “I’m helping out as cochair. I’m not going to be a beefcake bachelor, too.”

  She snorted. “Beefcake bachelor? Nice alliteration.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Chief came up with that one. It’s accurate, isn’t it?”

  The spider zipped to the ceiling. Crap, how did it run so fast with those little legs?

  “Sure, of course,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to.” Jane shot him a sweet smile. “Chance, I don’t suppose—”

  His eyebrows lowered. “Why didn’t you expect that?” He glanced down his body. “I might not be the best-looking guy in the department, but I could probably still raise some money.”

  She forced her eyes to remain unrolled. Did all men have such delicate egos? “I’m sure you’d make us a lot of money. More than anyone else. But Chance—”

  “So you do think I should do it.” He rested his hands on his denim-clad hips. “The other single guys keep razzing me to do it, and I want to help raise money—”

  “But you’re not single, are you?” The spider was momentarily forgotten as that old hurt clawed its way out.

  “I’m legally separated, soon to be divorced. Single enough to be auctioned off at a charity ball.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Wait. So are you arguing to be one of the bachelors or not? I’m confused.”

  Chance blew out a sigh, flopped down on the sofa. Staring at the ceiling, he muttered, “Join the club.”

  His throat was exposed, with his head leaning back on the cushion of the couch. He used to love it when she nibbled at his Adam’s apple, and it took all her self-restraint not to straddle his hips and press kisses to his neck. She shifted, and the press of the card at her back brought her up short. As always, it was a good reminder.

  Chance lifted an eyebrow. “Did you know there’s a tarantula above your head?”

  With a shriek, Jane flew to the door of her bedroom. She shook her head back and forth, hoping to dislodge the creepy insect in case it had decided to take up residence in her hair. Chance raised an eyebrow and pointed. She spotted the spider, still clinging to the ceiling.

  She gulped down some breaths. “Can you get rid of it for me?”

  “Maybe.” Chance eyed her speculatively.

  “It’s not a tarantula,” she told him, hoping that demoting the bug would encourage him to get rid of it for her.

  “No. Close to the size, though.” He threaded his fingers together behind his head and settled into the couch.

  “Well?” She cocked a hip. “How do I get your maybe to a yes?”

  He grinned. “Now that sounds like something I used to say to you.” His gaze made a slow perusal of her body, and the comfy clothes she wore suddenly felt as revealing as a bikini. “It was never very hard to convince you.”

  “Forget it. I’ll just call an exterminator.”

  “For one spider.” Shaking his head, Chance rose to his feet. Moving to the kitchen, he said over his shoulder, “I’m doing this as a favor. Which means, when I want a favor from you, you reciprocate.”

  She watched as he walked back in with a paper towel in his hand. “What kind of favor?”

  “Don’t know yet.” Reaching up, he quickly disposed of the spider. Not wanting to see its demise, Jane looked down, caught sight of the strip of skin exposed between his shirt and jeans when he raised his hand to the ceiling. His bronzed waist spoke of topless outdoor activities, and those chiseled indents that sat above the waistband of his Calvins made her mouth water. She’d never realized she had such a fondness for that part of the male anatomy, but whenever Chance raised his arms, her eyes were drawn to the spot.

  Maybe she’d never realized it because none
of the men she’d seen naked had that part of the male anatomy. None of them were as cut as Chance.

  “There.” He strode to the trash can. “The big bad spider is all gone.”

  She wanted to shoot back a snide response, wipe that patronizing look right off his face. But considering the fact that she didn’t even want the dead spider in her trash can and was considering asking Chance to take it out for her, she kept her mouth shut.

  “Now,” he said. “About this auction.”

  “Look, if you want to be part of it, fine.” Picking up an empty soda can and her Sunday paper, Jane tossed them in the trash. Maybe if she put enough on top of the smooshed bug, it would be okay. “If you don’t, no problem. Just let me know before I set up the photographer.”

  “Photographer?”

  “Yeah, a photography student from the community college is taking pictures of all the bachelors to go up on the website.” She smiled. “I think some of the guys are even coming up with stripper names for themselves. Not,” she added, “that there will be any stripping. This is supposed to be a classy event. Though what the guys decide to do on their dates is their own business.”

  Someone knocked at her front door. Chance raised an eyebrow. “Speaking of dates . . . you expecting someone?”

  “No.” She headed to the door, then slapped her palm on her forehead. “Crap on a cracker, it’s Sunday.”

  “Is that supposed to mean something?” Chance asked.

  Jane ignored him and opened the door. “Hi, Leon. Come on in.”

  The bailiff followed her into the living room. “Hey, you just about ready? Oh.” He spotted Chance. “Hi. McGovern, isn’t it?”

  The men shook hands. “Call me Chance. You here to take our Jane out?”

  She bristled at the use of the word “our.”

  “Yep.” Leon rubbed his hands together. “It’s game night.”

  “Leon”—she waved her hands up and down her body—“I forgot and I’m not dressed. Why don’t we just do it next week?”

  His brow drew down. “But it’s game night. Tonight.” Leon looked at her expectantly.

  “Yeah, Jane.” Chance smirked. “It’s game night.” His mocking voice scraped across her nerves. “Hop to it and get ready.”