Smoke and Fire

by Julie Cannon

  Nicole stumbled and moved her head back to look Brady in the eyes. Brady didn’t flinch or blink, just cocked her head as if to say, “Yeah, I figured it out.”

  Nicole stared at her for several seconds, and Brady wondered how much longer they could stand there in the middle of the dance floor without drawing more attention to themselves than they already were. Nicole was searching for something in her eyes. She didn’t move but let Nicole find it. Finally, Brady felt her relax and step back into her arms.

  “You’ve been practicing,” Brady said after they’d been dancing a few minutes.

  Nicole put a little space between them and looked up at her. “Very funny.”

  “No, honest,” Brady replied, relieved to see the tension in Nicole start to dissipate.

  “That’s the second time tonight you’ve lied to me.”

  Brady was confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “Telling me I’m a good dancer.”

  “You are, and if that’s the second time, when was the first?”

  “When you said I was beautiful.’

  Brady cocked her head again. “I wasn’t lying.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Brady swung her around so the women at the table were at Nicole’s back. “I wasn’t lying,” she said firmly

  “So you make that judgment based on the little of me that you see.”

  “No, I make that judgment on what I see about you, the person, not how you look. How kind you are to people, how thoughtful, how smart.”

  “And that makes me beautiful?”

  “Yes, Nicole, it does.”

  “But you haven’t seen what I look like under my clothes.”

  “Is that an invitation?”

  “No. You’ll think differently then.”

  “No, Nicole, I won’t.”

  “How can you say that? You have no idea.”

  “No, I don’t, and I don’t need to. Your skin or the shape of your body doesn’t make you a beautiful woman.”

  “You say that so simply.”

  “It is that simple.”

  “No, Brady, it’s not that simple. I had third-degree burns over sixty percent of my body. I will never be beautiful. I will never have skin that’s soft to the touch. I’ll always be puckered and rippled and scarred.”

  “So what?” Brady replied. “I don’t care. Do you think my body’s perfect? I have scars. Not like yours, but I do. I can’t even imagine what you went through, and I won’t even pretend I can understand what you think or what you see when you look in the mirror. But I can tell you what I see when I look at you, and that is beautiful. I’ve been with a lot of physically beautiful women who were very unattractive inside. And that woman over there,” Brady said, tipping her head in the direction of the women at the table, “she’s an idiot if she let you go. Because fifty years from now, her outside isn’t going to be pretty, and then where’s she going to be?”

  “Thank you,” Nicole said, so quietly Brady wasn’t sure she’d said it at all. She put a little distance between her and Nicole.

  “Nothing to thank me for. I just spoke the truth. I wanted to dance with you again.”

  Nicole’s eyes narrowed as if she was looking for any sign of lying in her eyes. Not sure if Nicole was satisfied, Brady pulled her tighter, their feet barely moving, Brady making sure the women were behind Nicole’s back where she couldn’t see them. But Brady could. And she didn’t like what she saw. She didn’t know which one of them had hurt Nicole. But it didn’t matter. She certainly didn’t know the extent of the betrayal, but anyone could hazard a guess and probably be pretty damn close. How anyone could do something so cruel to a woman like Nicole was beyond her.

  Brady didn’t know if it was the first, the fifth, or the tenth song that ended when Nicole stepped out of her arms. She didn’t look at her.

  “Would you take me back to the office now?”

  Brady searched Nicole’s face and saw she wasn’t as upset as when they’d started dancing but still in no mood for an argument. “Certainly.” She took Nicole’s hand and walked off the dance floor and back to their table.

  The bill had arrived while they were dancing, and Brady quickly put five twenty-dollar bills in the pad, keeping one eye on Nicole. Nicole was doing a good job keeping her eyes focused on something on the table, and Brady suspected she was struggling with an inner battle not to look over at the women again.

  “Shall we?” Brady asked, moving to block Nicole’s view of the women. She held out her hand again, and this time Nicole took it without hesitation. Nicole’s hand tightened in hers as they walked out of the restaurant. They had to pass the women’s table, but at the risk of looking like a jigsaw puzzle, Brady took a circuitous route between the tables and out the front door.

  Neither one of them spoke as they walked to Brady’s car, the chirp of the security alarm breaking the sound of the still evening.

  Nicole reached for the handle of the door at the same time Brady did, trapping her hand on the handle. Brady was close behind her and Nicole felt the heat radiating off her body. She was tempted to lean back into those warm, strong arms that had saved her from complete humiliation and given her the strength to see the evening through to its natural end. Brady’s arms were strong and confident when they held her, and Nicole inhaled sharply when she realized she wanted them to hold her again. This time, all night.

  “I meant what I said. You are very beautiful,” Brady whispered in her ear.

  A shiver of excitement ran down Nicole’s spine. She felt her mouth open and close a few times, no words coming out. She couldn’t have said anything even if she’d wanted to. No one had called her beautiful since the accident except her parents, and they didn’t count.

  “Someday you’ll believe me when I say that,” Brady said.

  Brady pulled on the door handle, and the dome light inside the BMW was shockingly harsh. As she slid into the car for the second time that night, Nicole told herself to calm down and this time get a tighter grip on what was happening. No way could she lose control with a woman, especially one as compelling as Brady.

  They drove back to Nicole’s office in silence, for which Nicole was grateful. First she’d invited Brady to dinner and enjoyed herself thoroughly. Then Gina walked in, and everything Nicole had worked for and rebuilt in the past six years had come crashing down around her. All her thoughts about the past had shot across her mind again as if on a teleprompter. All the feelings she’d gone through had been magnified, all because Gina had walked in on the arm of a half-naked beautiful woman.

  And then Brady had rescued her. Had asked her to dance. Had taken her mind and eyes off the women behind them. Brady had whispered in her ear that she was beautiful. And she had said it again just before they got in the car.

  Nicole looked at her hands clasped in her lap. The sleeves of her blouse came down and covered her wrists. She never rolled them up. To do so would be to expose what she kept carefully hidden beneath. If she hated what she saw, others would as well. And she wouldn’t subject them to it.

  “Four dollars for your thoughts,” Brady said.

  “Four dollars?”

  “Yeah. Inflation, you know.”

  “You mean I’m not worth five dollars? No, don’t answer that. I’m not fishing for a compliment.”

  Brady chuckled softly and Nicole’s stomach jumped a little.

  “Don’t worry about it. I don’t bite.”

  Nicole couldn’t help but smile at Brady’s quick wit. She had a way of breaking through the tension and setting Nicole at ease, of making her feel like she was just an ordinary person.

  Nicole’s office building came into view, and she didn’t know if she was relieved to be able to escape the small confines of the car with Brady or sorry that she had to.

  “Where are you parked?”

  “In the garage. You can just let me off here.”

  Brady’s head snapped around as if she’d just uttered the eleventh commandment. “Ar
e you nuts? I’m not leaving you here to walk to your car by yourself.”

  “I need to go back upstairs and get my briefcase.”

  Brady glanced at the clock on the dashboard, then back to her. “It’s ten thirty. You don’t need to do any work. You need to get in your car and go home. Do you have your keys?”

  Nicole nodded and realized just how exhausted she really was. It had been an incredibly emotional day. She rummaged around in her purse and pulled out her card key and handed it to Brady. Their fingers touched as Brady took the piece of plastic no bigger than a credit card. A surge of something Nicole didn’t want to identify shot through her.

  Brady maintained contact with her fingers for longer than necessary before she pulled the card from her fingers, then rolled down the window and waved the white card in front of the reader and the red-striped arm of the security gate rose silently.

  Brady didn’t immediately return the card but kept it in her hand as they pulled into the garage.

  “Still driving the big blue truck?” Brady glanced over at her.

  “Yes, I’m on the third floor.”

  “What? No reserved parking space?”

  “Nope, ’fraid not.”

  “Well, you need to talk to your boss about that.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because you work late. All the time, if what you said earlier was true. You should have a parking spot close to the door. It’s a safety feature, for crying out loud, and McMillan is very safety conscious. You tell her I said so.”

  “I’ll do that,” Nicole replied as the headlights of Brady’s car illuminated her truck. When Brady pulled into the space next to her, Nicole said, “Thank you for dinner.”

  Brady turned off the engine and Nicole’s heart sped up. She didn’t know what Brady was going to do. Anyone else would have dropped her off at her truck and driven away. But Brady was different.

  Brady unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to face her. “My pleasure. I had a great time.” Brady’s voice was strong and smooth.

  Nicole’s heart beat even faster because she thought Brady might lean over and kiss her. What the fuck would she do then? She wanted to kiss her back, but that couldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let that happen. She reached for the door handle to make her escape, but Brady was faster and covered her trembling hand with hers.

  “Don’t move,” Brady said, her voice husky.

  Like she could with Brady this close to her. Brady’s mouth was mere inches from hers, and if Nicole turned her head just slightly they’d be in the perfect position to kiss. And God, she wanted to kiss Brady. She wanted to feel the thrill and rush of desire. She couldn’t help how her body reacted as she looked at Brady’s mouth. Her breath stuck somewhere in her throat when Brady’s tongue snaked out and wet her lips.

  “My daddy taught me to never let a woman open her own door,” Brady said, her breath fanning across Nicole’s face.

  “Far be it from me to get you into trouble,” Nicole managed to squeak out. She hoped her voice didn’t betray the jumble of emotions bouncing through her.

  “I knew you were more than just a pretty face,” Brady said just before she opened her door and hustled around to open hers. Nicole admired the graceful, smooth movements of Brady’s stride as she rounded the front of the car.

  Before she had a chance to react, Brady’s hand was palm up in front of her, offering assistance. Of course she had to take it. It would be rude not to. When she stood, she was just as close to Brady as they’d been on the dance floor. Nicole’s nipples tightened, her breathing became shallow, and her fingers longed to touch the taut body in front of her.

  It had been a long time since Nicole had felt like this. The nerves under her skin were firing on all cylinders, and she was scared to death. She sensed Brady was holding herself back, and for that she was grateful. If Brady had made one move, one slight tip of her head, Nicole would be in her arms. But she couldn’t do that. If that dam were to burst she wouldn’t be able to turn back. And like a wooden shack downstream she’d be destroyed in the aftermath. She’d worked too hard to put her life back together again to have it come crashing down around her in the arms of Brady Stewart.

  Nicole stepped to the side before her body overruled her brain. “Thank you for seeing me safely to my truck.” She choked out the words as she dug her keys out of her bag. “Your daddy would be very proud.”

  Brady chuckled. “No, he’d box my ears and say I was stupid for not kissing you when I had the chance.”

  Nicole dropped her keys, her hands shaking again. She knew Brady had wanted to kiss her, but to hear her verbalize it so honestly was almost more than she could bear.

  Brady bent down, picked up her keys, then held them by the tip of one key, allowing Nicole to retrieve them without their fingers touching. Thank God. She didn’t know what she’d have done if their skin had touched again.

  “Good night,” Brady said, dropping the garage entrance card key into her open palm.

  Nicole unlocked her truck and climbed in. Brady backed out of the space far enough for Nicole to do the same and exit the garage. She fumbled with her keys, dropping them to the floor twice before she was able to get them in the ignition.

  The halogen blue of Brady’s headlights filled her rearview mirror, giving Nicole a sense of security she hadn’t felt in some time as she drove out of the garage. She wasn’t afraid for her life or of getting mugged, but she always felt exposed.

  *

  Brady drove home, a string of obscenities flowing freely out of her mouth. What in the fuck were you doing? For God’s sake, Brady, get your shit together. You made a pass at your boss, for Christ sake. A variety of other self-deprecating comments filled the interior of the car.

  She did congratulate herself for not following through on what her body was very clearly telling her to. She wanted to kiss Nicole. Hell, she wanted do more than kiss her, and Nicole wouldn’t have stopped her, but she wasn’t ready. This wasn’t the time or the place and certainly not the circumstances for their first kiss. And she wasn’t going to take advantage of her weakened defenses just to steal a kiss or cop a feel.

  Nicole had been through a lot. The burn Brady had suffered while rescuing that idiot Steckman had been excruciating, and that was nothing compared to what Nicole must have experienced.

  The scuttlebutt in the field was that Nicole wasn’t the woman she was before the accident. Brady had always thought that was one of the stupidest things she’d ever heard. Those kinds of injuries would change anyone. Everyone would have lingering scars, not only physically but emotionally. And based on Nicole’s reaction to the woman in the restaurant, they were deeper than most.

  What had the sex life of Nicole and the woman in the restaurant been like before her accident? What was it like after? Some women had difficulty baring their bodies while performing one of the most intimate acts two people could do. However, Brady believed baring your soul was more intimate than standing naked in front of someone.

  What had happened between them? Had the woman been repulsed by Nicole’s body? Had Nicole herself not been able to make love with her again? It could have been any number of things, but if Brady were Nicole’s lover, she wouldn’t have turned her back on her whatever the reason.

  Whether Nicole liked it or not, her body had reacted when they were together. It had surged against her when they danced, and she had felt Nicole’s restraint by her truck in the parking lot.

  How would she react if she saw Nicole’s body? She truly did believe that what was inside a woman made her beautiful and that Nicole’s scars wouldn’t bother her. But Brady was honest with herself. She really didn’t know how she’d react, what she’d do, and to be completely honest, she was scared shitless that she would do or say the wrong thing.

  “Brady, is that you?” Mrs. C’s voice interrupted her thoughts as she locked the car door.

  “Yes, Mrs. C. It’s me.”

  “Well, come in out of the cold, girl. Have some cof
fee and some breakfast.”

  “I’m really not up for it, Mrs. C.” She’d pulled off in a rest stop sometime during her three-hour drive back to Moss Bluff and caught a quick nap before she finished her drive. It was close to six when she parked the BMW behind her truck and turned off the engine.

  “Nonsense, don’t be ridiculous. Come on in. You need to put some meat on your bones.”

  Brady knew Mrs. C wouldn’t take no for an answer, so she retraced her steps down the driveway and followed her inside.

  With a heavy sigh Brady sat down at the kitchen table as Mrs. C filled the cup in front of her and started to crack some eggs.

  “So tell me about your evening,” Mrs. C asked.

  “Nothing special. Just went out to dinner.”

  “With who?” Mrs. C whipped the eggs in a glass bowl.

  Nothing would make her happier than for Brady to find a good woman and settle down, and she’d voiced that opinion on more than one occasion.

  “Nobody special,” Brady replied in her “don’t get your hopes up” tone.

  “A woman?”

  “Yes.” Brady answered before she took a swallow of the hot coffee.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Nicole.”

  “What does she do?”

  Brady couldn’t help but smile. The twenty questions had begun. Actually it would probably be more like forty before Brady could manage to change the subject. She was tired and wanted to go to bed so she told Mrs. C about her evening with Nicole.

  After Brady finished eating, Mrs. C sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her ample bosom. Mrs. C didn’t have breasts. She was one of those women who had a bosom.

  “Sounds pretty special to me.”

  “Mrs. C. It was dinner. That’s all.”

  “So you say. But you obviously stayed out all night with her. You’re just now coming in.”