Sweet Burn

by Anne Marsh

  “Excuse me?” She sounded pissy again, but at least the tears were gone. She thunked her head back against his chest and glared up at him for good measure.

  “You’re not staying alone tonight.” See? He sounded patient. He deserved some kind of medal. A ribbon. Fuck, he’d take a gold star from this woman.

  “Newsflash. This is my place, my life and—” her voice dropped—“last time I checked, we weren’t reenacting medieval times. I decide where I go.” Her pretty eyes snapped at him. Mimi had to be the prickliest woman he’d ever met. Maybe she preferred guys who treated her like shit because, hell, she acted like he’d offered to spit-roast her puppy. He, on the other hand, was a Louisiana boy at heart. In the small bayou town where he’d grown up, folks looked out for each other. After a night like this one, she’d have been swimming in casseroles, not sitting alone in her apartment. The people who lived in Strong weren’t an unfriendly bunch, so he suspected she’d done her best to keep that distance between herself and others.

  That wasn’t going to work with him.

  “Stay safe, okay? If you don’t want to do it for yourself, you do it for me.”

  She opened her mouth. Closed it. Maybe she was as bad at words as he was.

  “You’d better go to bed.” She looked like she was ready to pass out on her feet.

  “You’re unbelievable,” she said and retreated to the bedroom alone. She might have slammed the door on her way in, but she’d listened. That was something.

  Chapter Seven

  Mimi woke up—alone, damn Mack—and wandered out to her kitchen. God help him if he stood between her and her coffee. She didn’t care if sixty gang members had laced the grounds with arsenic, because it was time to hit the brew button and pray her coffee creamer hadn’t curdled. No matter how good his intentions, Mack didn’t get to dictate how she lived her life. He also didn’t get to lay down the law or spell out rules she’d have to break. No way. When she banged into the room, however, he didn’t look concerned with any behavioral edicts she might be issuing. Nope. He was sitting at her itty-bitty kitchen table, working his way through a bowl of Cheerios.

  Her Cheerios.

  As soon as she staggered in, he reached over and punched the start button on her Mr. Coffee. A slow smile creased his face as he set down his spoon. Before she could say anything (although, really, what was she going to do? Complain that he’d hogged all her slightly stale cereal?), he tugged her into his lap.

  She was still half-asleep. That was the only reason why she went.

  She wasn’t a morning person. Her hair stood up on end, all rebellious waves and cowlicks until she pressed it into obedience. She had pillow creases on her cheek and she needed to brush her teeth. But he looked at her like she was wearing something far more than a pair of shorty pajamas. The way he eyed the worn-out cotton, with its blue and green stripes, she could have been peeling Agent Provocateur off her body.

  He brushed a kiss behind her ear and heat shot through her.

  “Morning, sunshine.” His voice was gruff and hoarse, which set off another heated avalanche inside her girl parts. To pay him back, she wiggled, making herself comfortable. Since she had five minutes until Mr. Coffee finished his work, she hijacked his cereal bowl and crunched away.

  “About last night…” His rough whisper gave her goose bumps in unmentionable places. Although, when she risked a downward glance, some places were perfectly obvious. Her nipples unmistakably poked the front of her pajama top. Would he mention what they’d gotten up to on the bar? She’d been certain he would finish what he’d started, but then he’d given her a kiss goodnight and sent her off to bed alone. Because he was saving himself, or so he said. She’d heard plenty of excuses, but that was a new one for her. Mack Johnson was holding out for a ring on his finger. He could have just gone with the tried-and-true Don’t call me, I’ll call you or It’s not you—it’s me.

  “Talking’s overrated,” she warned.

  He grunted—amusement or agreement. Maybe both. Mack wasn’t exactly talkative. “You got someone you should call about the fire?”

  She spooned up some more Cheerios. “I put in an online claim with the insurance guys. They’ll be out later today and then I can start the cleanup. Hopefully, I’ll have Ma’s back up and running by the weekend.”

  Hopefully didn’t begin to cover it. She had bills to pay and a two-digit balance in her bank account.

  “You have family you can call?” he asked, circling back around like a dog with a bone. “Someone who isn’t paid to give a damn?”

  “Why would I call them?” She scraped the last spoonful of milk out of the bowl. That was the best one, the one that was more sugar than milk.

  “Because that’s what family is for,” he growled. Funny how she could touch him all over and not shock him, but not calling her family punched all his buttons.

  “Not mine.” She shoved the bowl away and contemplated going for round two. In fact, her family had been plenty glad to see the back of her when she was nineteen. After four years of raising hell in high school and one disastrous year at Brown University, their relief made more sense. Now that she looked back—older, wiser, and all that crap—she’d been nothing but trouble.

  “Why not?” His arms tightened around her waist when she tried to slide off his lap. Mr. Coffee gurgled cheerfully, finishing its brew cycle. “You don’t have family?”

  “I wasn’t an immaculate conception,” she grumbled. “We just don’t see eye to eye.”

  “You don’t think they’d want to know someone tried to kill you last night?”

  “We don’t know that,” she protested. Although it certainly seemed like a possibility, given the shooting that had prompted her to take refuge in the art gallery.

  “That wasn’t the Strong welcome wagon, either. Someone wants you dead scared, at the very least. That’s the kind of stuff family should know about.”

  Clearly, he’d had a very different kind of family than she had.

  “You got folks, you should call them,” he continued.

  “They won’t care.”

  That was the God’s honest truth.

  “You sure about that?” he asked finally.

  “I’m not discussing my family.” Or giving him a laundry list of her inadequacies. He’d figure out the truth all on his own.

  “Uh-huh.” He scooped her up and stood, setting her back down on the chair he’d just vacated. It wasn’t as much fun sitting on her kitchen chair alone. Mack’s lap was way better. “How do you like your coffee?”

  Him waiting on her was silly. On the other hand, her kitchen was tiny enough that she’d just bump hips with him if she tried to do for herself.

  “It’s coffee, Mimi.” There was no missing the slow curl of amusement in his voice. “Not a lifetime commitment.”

  “There’s half-and-half in the fridge. Sugar’s on the counter.”

  He poured two cups, splashing cream into both, then brought them back one-handed, swiping her cute little pink-and-green sugar bowl from the counter on his return trip. She dumped in a tablespoon, mentally daring him to protest.

  Of course he didn’t leave his question alone. He was like a dog with a meaty bone, and unfortunately she was the focus of his attention. “You and your family don’t talk?”

  She met his gaze. So what if she and her family didn’t do any talking or exchange Christmas cards? That wasn’t something she had to make excuses for.

  “No. We cut our ties a long time ago.” So much for not discussing things.

  “You didn’t grow up around here.” He reached over and slid the sugar bowl neatly back into its place and then lifted her up and set her back on his lap. Apparently they weren’t done with this morning closeness thing. She ignored the little curl of warmth that inspired.

  “Chicago,” she admitted. His hand came around her, grabbing for his mug.

  “You’re a long ways from home.”

  Most days, two thousand miles didn’t seem like e
nough space. Growing up, she hadn’t realized how good they’d had it, at least financially. Money hadn’t been something she had to worry about then. Her female cousins had had Chicago debutante balls, while the guys had acquired golf club memberships. She squelched the little pulse of something. Relief, regret, or indigestion—it didn’t matter. She’d had her chance at that life and decided it didn’t suit.

  “I inherited a bar,” she said, glossing over the details.

  “Your family run a lot of bars?”

  She snorted. “Hardly. They’re lawyers and professionals. No Hart before me ever earned less than a cool quarter million a year. Auntie Belle was the exception and clearly I follow in her footsteps.”

  He set his mug back on the table. “Auntie Belle was the original Ma?”

  His knowing her aunt wasn’t surprising. Plenty of people in Strong had known her aunt and the woman had been colorful. Once you met her, you didn’t forget her.

  “Yeah. She was also the black sheep extraordinaire in our family. My parents didn’t talk much about her. She’d send postcards from wherever she was and I used to sneak them out of the mail.”

  “She traveled a lot?”

  “She loved it. You saw the stuff in the living room. She went everywhere for years, until one day she decided to stay put in Strong.”

  “It’s a good place.”

  Maybe. She wasn’t sure she could explain to him how the good places never called her. She seemed at her best when she was in the bad places. “I never considered myself a staying put kind of person.”

  “You travel much?”

  She’d started at Brown then dropped out after one year. She’d driven across the country in a Volkswagen Bug until she ran out of road and ended up in San Francisco in the Haight District. It had been a one-way trip.

  “Not out of the country,” she admitted. “Not yet.”

  International travel took cash she didn’t have.

  “You’ve got plenty of time,” he allowed.

  Maybe. Sometimes, here in Strong, it felt like time practically stood still. And then some days it flew. She’d wake up and find herself forty one week and fifty the next. There was nothing wrong with those numbers, but she had so much more living she wanted to do before she hit those milestones. San Francisco had been a good start, making models for the opera and sharing a one-bedroom apartment with five other girls. They’d danced in the rain, drank too much. Good times, although she couldn’t imagine doing it again. Those days were water under the bridge now.

  “Are you planning on staying in Strong forever?” She knew the reputation the smoke jumpers had. They were summer’s bad boys, here one month and gone the next. They spent more time out in the field, jumping and fighting fires on the front line. It wasn’t a get-rich-quick occupation and the teams traveled wherever the fires were. Even if Donovan Brothers had set up a base camp and command center here in Strong, she didn’t think he could stay forever. Eventually, the team would ship out somewhere, to fight more fires, and maybe then he wouldn’t come back. She’d seen it happen in the last year as older team members drifted away and new ones joined.

  “I don’t know,” he said. Mack was always honest. “I could.”

  “Or you could go.”

  “True.” He was silent for a minute. “What do you want? Seeing as how I asked you to marry me last night, I think what you want counts for a whole lot.”

  “I didn’t say yes,” she pointed out.

  “I’ll just have to work on making sure you do.”

  ***

  Mimi had no idea how she’d ended up in the sheriff’s office, because she’d already overshared, but Mack had marched her butt over here just as soon as she’d gotten dressed. Despite their early arrive, the good sheriff still looked impatient, gesturing for them to come in with a brusque wave of her hand.

  “I’ve got the Oakland D.A. on a speakerphone,” she said, point to a phone that was mostly buried beneath a mountain of paperwork. “Ms. Hart just joined us,” she added for the benefit of the caller on the line as Mimi took a chair. Mack moved to stand behind her.

  “Sheriff Hernandez has filled us in on what’s been happening in Strong. It seems not unlikely that Sol Herring may be in the area. We can put you in protective custody,” the voice on the line offered like it was a simple choice. Red wine or white?

  “Absolutely not.” She hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “Alternatively, if Sheriff Hernandez has the resources, we could ask her group to have an officer keep an eye on you.”

  “Like a tail?” She tried—and failed—to imagine that one. As far as she knew, the entire Strong police force consisted of Sheriff Hernandez and two part-time deputies. While she was sure Sheriff Hernandez was a perfectly lovely person when off-duty, she didn’t need the woman glued to her backside.

  The Oakland guy droned on, explaining how this hypothetical police officer could watch her house. Watch her. Imagining Sheriff Hernandez forced to camp out in her bar was amusing, but hardly good for business.

  “Not happening,” she said, interrupting the flow of explanations.

  Just possibly, Mercedes Hernandez looked relieved. The Oakland DA signed off, leaving them to it.

  “So what are our other options?” Mack slouched in the seat beside her. Sheriff Hernandez hadn’t questioned his presence. Unfortunately, that probably meant the rest of Strong had also decided she and Mack were a couple. Wow. If only they knew. They’d laugh themselves sick if she told them about last night’s conversation in her living room and Mack’s proposal.

  It might not have been her first, but it had definitely been her shortest.

  And her sweetest.

  “Do you have family you could go to?” The way Sheriff Hernandez looked down and then back up, Mimi was betting that the good sheriff already knew the answer to that.

  “You tell me,” she said, more calmly than she felt. That was the problem with playing the star witness in a murder trial. Even though she hadn’t done anything wrong, her personal life had still been dissected and recorded for all posterity in some DA’s dusty files.

  “You’re from Illinois.” The sheriff tapped the file in front of her. “You moved out to California when you were twenty and show no signs of leaving. You must like it here.”

  “Or I’m broke and don’t have the plane fare to go somewhere else,” she suggested sweetly.

  “Can you go back to Chicago?”

  Mack’s hands found a knot in her neck and rubbed. Who knew the quickie proposal came with spa benefits?

  “I’ve lived in California since I was twenty,” she said. “I think it’s pretty clear that I can’t, not in the sense you’re suggesting.”

  “You can’t celebrate Christmas early?”

  She held the other woman’s gaze. “I don’t go back for Christmas, Thanksgiving, or any other holiday, major or minor. I haven’t seen or spoken with any of my Chicago relatives since Auntie Belle’s funeral. You do the math.”

  Mercedes Hernandez looked pained. She probably celebrated all of the major holidays with dozens and dozens of relatives. Mimi had had those kinds of numbers, although she sincerely doubted her extended family had ever been closer. Maybe it was upbringing. Maybe it was genetic makeup. Whatever the reason, the night she’d eloped with her second cousin, the cheerful façade of family togetherness had come crashing down. She and Eddie had gotten married in an Elvis chapel. They’d shared a wild, crazy car ride back to Brown and she’d failed to sneak him into her dorm. The family had found out and all hell had broken loose. Eddie had a trust fund. She hadn’t signed a pre-nup agreement—and her branch of the family tree was apparently one of the poorer ones.

  Too fucking bad. She hadn’t wanted a dime of Eddie’s money. She’d only wanted Eddie. And she’d had him—for four whole days until Eddie’s parents had lawyered up.

  “Don’t or can’t?”

  “I won’t. Anything else is my business, not yours.”

  “Right.” The sh
eriff closed her eyes briefly like she was counting to ten. Or one hundred. Mimi knew she had that effect on people.

  “So what do we do with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  She meant it too.

  “It’s not your job to make decisions about me. I’ll be just fine on my own, like I always have been. Now that I know Sol might be in the area, looking to stir up trouble, I’ll keep my eyes open. Believe it or not, but I have vested interest in not dying. I’ll do my best to keep it that way.”

  “But you won’t relocate, you won’t go into protective custody, and you won’t accept an armed guard.”

  “She’ll accept me,” Mack growled.

  ***

  It being early April, fire season hadn’t officially started yet. But winter had been dry and they’d already had one bad fire in January that had threatened the state’s water reservoirs. He and the jump team were already on call. In all likelihood, he’d be jumping in weeks if not in days. He couldn’t promise to stick by her side twenty four/seven because, when Jack’s call came in, he’d go up.

  That was his job.

  And yet the words came out anyhow.

  “She’ll move in with me.”

  The dead silence that met his claim was frustrating. Dropping into the chair next to Mimi, he reached out and threaded his fingers through hers. She could be as prickly as she wanted, but he wanted her safe. Moving her somewhere new would get her off the gang’s radar for a bit. Chicago would be better, but his place would also do.

  “No,” Mimi shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. We hardly know each other. I’m not moving in with you.”

  She could damn well get to know him. He was looking forward to it.