Sweet Burn

by Anne Marsh

  Katie winced dramatically. “Ouch. Since you wouldn’t come and talk to us, we had to come over here. What kind of customer service is that?”

  “The kind you get here.”

  They probably had baby shower stuff to pass on. She should be nice. She thought about it for a moment, but her feet hurt too much and Delia was waving frantically down the bar, clearly intent on dropping off another round of drink orders. Mimi took care of Delia’s alcoholic wishlist, wondering when Strong’s usually beer-drinking, blue collar crowd had switched to wine by the glass and fancy cocktail creations that took far too long to create.

  When she came back to the girls’ end of the bar, they were waiting for her. It looked like they’d made a decision while she’d been busy.

  Abbie grinned at her. “What kind of margaritas do you make?”

  “We need a pitcherful,” Laura Jo ordered. “A big one.”

  She rummaged under the counter and unearthed an ancient bottle of mixer. “Pink.”

  “That’s a color, not a flavor.”

  Katie was right, but Mimi didn’t care. “And it’s all I’ve got.”

  While the girls bickered over the relative merits of pink versus not-pink, Mimi got on the drink order. Her poor blender was going to expire from the work out. Most of her patrons were beer men, or liked the simple stuff like Jack and Coke or tequila shooters. When she checked the expiration date on the mixer bottle, the mixer wasn’t precisely fresh. Still, one week shouldn’t kill anybody.

  “Yes to pink margaritas? It’s a limited time offer,” she said, when no one said anything. “Take it or leave it. The beer’s cold.”

  Abbie slapped a twenty down on the bar. “As long as it’s also got tequila, I’m good.”

  The younger woman looked tired. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, her brown hair falling around her face. Defensive posture 101—Mimi was an expert at that. What she couldn’t tell, however, was if Abbie wanted to talk about whatever it was that was bothering her. Sometimes, all a patron wanted was some space, some ice, and a big hit of booze. Other times, drinking took backseat to babbling. Mimi had learned on day one at Ma’s that the bartender was also expected to be a therapist, best friend, and confessional.

  She took a shot. “Long day or a bad day?”

  “Both. Will’s hotshot team got called out.”

  Bingo. Abbie was a talker, not a brooder. As the younger woman described the fire burning two hundred miles southeast of, Mimi could imagine the scene all too well. The landscape would be scrubby and dry, ready to flare up in seconds. There would be a couple of Indian casinos right off the highway and a whole lot of bedroom communities. It was the kind of place you moved out to if your paycheck only stretched so far, but you wanted the house and the man and the kids. Mimi would bet the last dollars in her checking account that Abbie and her Will would pick up and move to one of those communities all too soon.

  “You worry about him.” She squeezed the words in in a break between blending ice and mix. Consulting the back of the bottle, she half-listened to Abbie, while she tried to figure out the proper tequila to pink stuff ratio. To hell with it. She dumped the remainder of the Patron into the blender. Abbie’s day definitely had earned her a late night buzz.

  “He’ll be fine.” Laura gently shoulder-bumped her friend. “He always has been.”

  Katie nodded solemnly. “He’s got a good team. He’ll be okay.”

  Abbie grasped the margarita like it was a lifeline. “But there’s a first time for everything.”

  There was. Mimi was having lots of firsts herself, including the little hop her head made when she spotted Mack walking through the bar’s front door.

  “Mimi?”

  “Yeah?” She tracked Mack’s progress toward the bar, until he was waylaid by a group of line-dancing firefighters.

  “What do you think?” Abbie slurped at her drink, then set it down.

  “He’s a trained professional. Fighting fires is his job.”

  “See? That’s what I’ve been telling you.” Katie tried her drink. “Wow. What did you put in here?”

  “Tequila. Pink stuff. Ice. Drink up, ladies, because those drinks are costing you five bucks apiece.”

  “Damn. We should serve these at the baby shower.”

  Katie glanced over to where Rio Donovan and Gia were tearing up the dance floor, Gia’s baby bump leading the way from beneath the loose fire station T-shirt she wore. “You think she knows?”

  Abbie shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. She’ll pretend to be surprised.”

  “An open secret?”

  “Something like that.” Laura Jo knocked back an impressive swallow of margarita. “Kind of like you and Mack.”

  “There’s nothing going on between Mack and me,” she said, not losing a beat. She rolled her eyes and started rinsing out the blender.

  “Denial,” Katie said to Laura.

  “Or she’s a really pathetic liar.” Laura lifted her margarita and toasted Mimi.

  Actually, Mimi was a really good liar.

  “Come on.” Katie leaned over the bar. “You can tell us anything. We’ll even share our margaritas with you.”

  “Sure, but why would I?”

  Katie looked baffled. “Because we’re all girls? And we’re friends?”

  Friends. That was a new one. She stared at the three faces smiling back at her. Maybe it was true though. Just because she hadn’t grown up with a clutch of girlfriends didn’t mean she couldn’t acquire a few now. Not, of course, that she knew much (anything) about being friends with other women. She’d spent all her time hanging with the guys.

  “I’d like to be,” Katie added.

  “The next planned activity for tonight is hair braiding, followed by friendship bracelets,” Laura deadpanned. “Pass.”

  Katie elbowed her. “I’ll start the sentence. You finish it. Mack and I are…”

  “There’s nothing happening.”

  Abbie snorted. “He just helps out here because he loves bartending and wants a backup career for his post-smoke jumping days? At the very least, he wants into your pants.”

  “Crass,” Laura said admiringly. “That was really low class, Donegan.”

  Mimi was new to this friendship business, but she knew when an intervention was warranted.

  “Hey, don’t diss my job. It keeps the lights on.” Barely. She should probably start stockpiling candles.

  “He’s here every day,” Katie pointed out.

  “And then he goes to your place or you go to his.” Abbie grinned, looking more cheerful. “You guys could practically be married.”

  “Or going at it like bunny rabbits.” Laura eyed her critically. “Except then he’s probably no good in bed because you’re lacking a certain glow that Abbie here has.”

  “Wow.” She set the pitcher back in place. “You don’t believe in privacy, do you?”

  “Small town,” Laura Jo explained cheerfully. “It’s probably posted on the bottom of the Welcome to Strong sign.”

  “In invisible ink.” The public interest in her love life was…uncomfortable. She wondered how Mack felt about it.

  “We like him. He’s one of the boys. Why wouldn’t you want to keep him?”

  For a million reasons, starting with the obvious one. She wasn’t a particularly nice person and she had no intention of staying put in Strong. Eventually—and eventually was definitely more sooner than later—she’d pack up and move out. So she wasn’t sure where that left them.

  Or if there really was a them.

  She went for deflection. “Do I look like the kind of woman who goes steady with a guy?”

  Laura tossed a peanut in her direction. “You look like you, and I’m not stupid enough to make a guess like that. All I want to know is if you want him.”

  Deflect more. She mimed blowing air kisses and then lobbed the peanut back when Laura was distracted. “He is gorgeous.”

  Even a blind woman could tell th
at much. Lies needed to be believable.

  Katie smiled slowly. “So that’s a definite maybe?”

  She didn’t know how they did it, but she found herself wanting to own up to the truth. Maybe it was some secret girlfriend voodoo. She’d have to see if it worked on them, because right now she felt like spilling all of her darkest secrets and seeing what they had to say then.

  Instead, she admitted the truth. “I don’t know.”

  And…speak of the devil. Mack prowled out of the crowd on the dance floor, making for the bar. And her. He looked tired. That was the first thing she noticed. His work week had been from hell and, from what Abbie had said, it was probably going to get worse. He should be home, resting up. Relaxing. Doing whatever it was he did when she wasn’t monopolizing his time. She should really let him go. Tell him not to bother coming around anymore. But his steel-toes really did it for her, as did the fire department T-shirt that bared his forearms. He looked hot, even if he was sporting a new patch of gauze on his right arm. Her girly parts started yelling a heated hello of their own and damned if her heart wasn’t beating just a little faster. Shit. When had that happened?

  Laura’s mouth curled up. “Your boy’s here.”

  “He sure is.” She wondered what he’d do if she hopped the counter and planted one on his mouth.

  “Told you so,” Katie said with unmistakable satisfaction.

  The jukebox was playing one of those slow, sweet country songs with a beat that made her want to sing and dance, even though she’d never had any pretensions to public performing in her life. Whatever. She tossed her towel to Delia. “I’m taking ten.”

  Laura reached over the bar and snagged the tequila bottle. “That’s not all she’s taking.”

  ***

  Mack had never been much of a dancer. He liked music as much as the next guy, but he’d been at the end of the line the day God had passed out dancing abilities. He had two left feet on the dance floor and absolutely no sense of rhythm. Usually, that didn’t matter. Mimi had spotted him, though, and was making her way through the crowd toward him. He wanted to pull her into his arms and execute some complicated, suave dance move. The kind of advanced tango thing that involved a rose in his mouth and maybe two inches of space between them.

  The familiar awareness snaked through his body as parts of him woke up and said hello. She’d pulled her long blonde hair back in a sleek ponytail. The tight T-shirt advertising Ma’s outlined her breasts in the best possible way, although he liked her in his T-shirt even better. She looked beautiful and in control, unlike the slightly frazzled waitress behind her who was desperately shoveling glasses onto an overloaded tray and swatting at her hair.

  “Hey,” she said and gave him a small smile. Ka-ching.

  “You’re busy,” he said. He didn’t want to push her (okay, he totally did, but he wasn’t going to), so he came to a stop in front of her, rather than pulling her into his arms.

  “Thanks.” She grinned at him.

  “For your new dance floor?” He looked down at the dark hardwood. Laying the boards had been satisfying. He was fixing up the farmhouse, but it had been a while since he’d worked with his tools. It had felt good to get back to it.

  “Yeah.” She paused, then reached out and took his hands. “But there’s a crowd of people here and I’m pretty sure you had something to do with it.”

  He might have sent a few texts and mentioned a grand re-opening, one hell of a party, and get your ass over there. He didn’t have to admit it though.

  “People like Ma’s,” he said noncommittally.

  “Uh-huh.” A new song started up on the jukebox, something happy and cheerful. Her hands pulled him close, until his front was happily bumping up against hers. “Dance with me?”

  “You bet.” As a cowboy sang about a late night walk with a pretty girl in a sundress, he spun her in circles. For the first minute or two, it was all laughter and awkwardness as he figured out where to put his hands and found her rhythm. Shit, Mimi could dance, moving in perfect time to the music, her hips swinging in a sexy grind he could have watched all night. But sitting this dance out wasn’t an option, so he put it all out there for her. Plus, dancing gave him the perfect opportunity to cup her ass in public. No way was he passing that chance up.

  “I wasn’t planning on getting into a relationship,” she said, and he heard her loud and clear over the beat of the country song. She paused, then added, “Ever.”

  Not being stupid, he’d figured that out.

  “Burned once?”

  “Something like that.” Her eyes darkened. “But you’re a different kind of problem.”

  He was pretty sure he liked the sound of that. “I’m like a bad penny,” he agreed. “I keep turning up.”

  “The sex was amazing.” He had no idea how she made that sound like a complaint.

  “I’d rather be thinking in the present tense.” There was a God, because the jukebox switched to a slow song, guitars twanging. The floor emptied out, because the male to female ratio in Strong didn’t favor the guys. It was pretty much just the married couples now. Gia was wrapped around Rio and Faye swayed back and forth in Evan’s arms. There were some surprises. Ben Cortez, the fire chief, was dancing with Mary Ellen Donovan, and Mack wasn’t sure the guy had any intention of letting go when the song finished up. Laura was also dancing with—he counted quickly—three guys, apparently in the interest of playing fair.

  He looked down at the woman he held in his arms. There was a pink flush on her cheeks that hadn’t been there before. He hoped she was remembering how good they’d been together. Turning her down had just about killed him. It was damned hard to remember why he’d done that, but he was playing a long game and he wanted more than another night or two.

  “Okay,” she said gruffly and he stepped on her foot.

  “Sorry?” From the way she glared at him, he’d said the wrong thing.

  “Are you taking it back?”

  He spun in a smaller circle, her legs brushing his as she turned.

  “Absolutely not,” he said. She could have whatever she wanted, even if he had no idea what they were discussing.

  “Good.” Her hands cupped his ass and squeezed. Right there in the bar, where everyone could see them. Well… hell. “Because I’ve decided we can try.”

  “Try what?” Jesus. His mind was happy to supply a long list of possible sex acts, but he wasn’t sure that was where Mimi was going.

  “A relationship,” she announced. “We’ll try it. The getting married thing, however, is completely off the table.”

  “Uh-huh.” His mouth curled up in a smile. Damn, she was bossy and he loved it. Loved her.

  “We should probably establish some rules.” She looked serious, but her fingers were doing a very naughty dance over his backside.

  “If you grope the goods in public,” he warned, “we’re leaving and going back to my place. I just think you should know that.”

  “Good to know.” A small smile teased the corners of her mouth, so he had to lean down and brush a kiss over her lips as the song came to an end.

  “Break’s over,” she said gently. Reaching up, she patted him on the cheek. The move was nowhere near close to a real kiss and he sure as hell wasn’t getting tongue on the dance floor but… yeah, he was grinning like a first class moron. She might as well have announced their coupledom to the rest of Strong in blinking neon lights.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mack’s day at work had been shit. While the fire hadn’t been a big one, it had been tough to access. The terrain was thickly forested and the local access roads couldn’t get the teams on the ground close enough so the local hotshots team had to pack in ten miles. Their landing zone was a scrap of empty space hemmed in by tall ponderosa pines. He’d hung up and had to cut himself free, but at least he hadn’t plummeted thirty feet to the ground.

  Worse, they hadn’t gotten the fire under control. At all. The fire had hopped the line and come far too clo
se to a housing development that butted up against the wildland space. One guy had burns. Nothing bad, but again: something that shouldn’t have happened. The team had hiked out, knowing they’d lost this one. The mood in the trucks was somber and pissed off.

  Mimi was in the bedroom when he finally made it home, flicking on the TV real low so he didn’t wake her up. After a little channel hopping, he settled on a zombie show, because watching the news right now would be a mistake. He knew what he’d see: living Technicolor proof of his failure. The zombies had taken down one of the good guys when she came out of the bedroom. She nudged him forward, so she could sit down behind him on the couch, wrapping her legs around his waist loosely.

  “Hey,” she said quietly. She was wearing that shorty pajama thing he liked so much, the thin cotton cupping her ass and the straps slipping down her arms. When she leaned into him, her breasts pressed against his back. “You coming to bed?”

  “Soon.” He was still too wound up to sleep. A drink might fix that, but he’d sworn off alcohol as medicine when he’d come home from his last military tour, and so he’d have to wait for nature to take its course.

  She rubbed his shoulders, her thumbs digging into the sore spots and rubbing away the tension. And, thank God, she didn’t want to talk about his day. She was clear on the no trespassing sign he’d thrown up and respected it.

  On screen, one of the good guys bit it in a spectacular spray of gore.

  “He should run faster.”

  “You bet,” he answered, wondering if he could have dug faster. If he could have done anything differently out there in the field that would have made a difference. Probably not, but there was no way to know for sure unless there was a parallel universe out there somewhere where his doppelgänger had made other, better decisions.

  When the show finally wound down (all Mimi said as the zombies overran the compound and the good guys achieved a spectacularly unhappy ending was “God, that’s gross.”), he felt marginally more human. Maybe it was the comparison with the small screen. Mimi slipped out from behind him and curled up next to him.