Close To The Fire

by Suzanne Ferrell

  * * * * *

  Memories hit Libby the moment she stepped onto the edge of the running track that encircled the football field.

  Years ago, she used to sneak onto the field in the mornings to watch Deke do his warmups and the first practice of the day. If anyone asked, she would’ve said it was because she wanted to be close to her boyfriend. The truth was she liked watching him work out. The way his gym shorts clung to his buttocks as he stretched and ran, the way the T-shirt rode up to show glimpses of his abdomen and ribs as he reached for a pass. The sweat glistening on his tanned skin.

  Watching the young Adonis that was Deacon Reynolds had sent her teenage body into such a frenzy she often had to remind herself to breathe. Was it any wonder that her heart fell so hard and fast for him? And how thrilling it had been to know she was the only one who could touch that body so intimately?

  And now?

  Damn if he didn’t still make her heart race. Gone was the lean body of a young man, replaced with the more mature, firmer body of a man. A man who worked regularly to keep his body fit for duty. And damn if the shorts still didn’t mold themselves to his still-firm ass.

  “Doc Clint must be losing his skills.”

  Libby jumped and turned to see Lorna and Rachel standing just behind her, both of them watching the field.

  “Harriett said he cleared Kyle to come play ball,” she said turning back to watch the practice, concentrating on finding Kyle’s form and off Deke’s backside.

  “Harriett ain’t any happier about it than I am. She’s going to be giving the doc hell for days over this, you can bet on it.”

  Libby tried not to grin at the suffering the nurse would cause her boss. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be up at the Peaches ’N Cream for morning service?”

  “Got up early. Had a hankering to make pecan cinnamon rolls today before checking on the boy over at the clinic before bringing breakfast out here for the team. Pete and the girls can handle the morning rush for a little while. Didn’t think I’d be wanting to smack Clint, Gage and Deacon’s heads together for letting Kyle get hurt worse.”

  “Look, there he is.”

  Rachel pointed to the pair running towards them as the ball sailed through the air. Just as the ball got near them, Kyle twisted into the other player, knocking him down and snatching the ball before it hit the ground where they both lay for a minute. Kyle moved first. Slowly, guarding his side with the arm holding the ball. Then he held out a hand to the taller player still on the ground. The receiver hesitated a moment before putting his hand in Kyle’s. He rose and the morning sun picked that moment to shine on the pair.

  Libby sucked in her breath.

  He had a black eye nearly as bad as the one on Kyle’s face.

  Deke had been right. The members of Kyle’s own team had been behind the attack on him last night. She clenched her hands into fists, wanting to march out there and give the boy a piece of her mind. They could’ve injured Kyle much worse, or even killed him. For what? Some male macho-ism or slighted egos?

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Lorna said beside her as they watched the other kid pat Kyle on the back and say something. The pair grinned at each other and ran back to the main part of the team.

  “Guys,” muttered Rachel, shaking her head at what had just occurred. “One minute they’re beating the snot out of each other, the next they’re laughing like best friends.”

  “Yep. They’re haven’t got much sense until they hit twenty-five, and even then it’s still questionable. Time to get their breakfast out.” Lorna said, turning to leave, Rachel on her heels.

  Libby smiled at the pair. With Lorna as a mother, she doubted Rachel had one impractical romantic bone in her body. Maybe she’d be lucky and wait to fall in love until she was old enough to handle the heartbreak.

  Did one ever handle heartbreak well? What was the alternative? Never trust someone with your heart again? Shut yourself up from love? Live in loneliness and fear of being hurt again? Been there. Done that for an entire decade. It sucked.

  Looking back at the field, she saw Deke had his players gathered around him, holding up a tablet and pointing at it, then back at a couple of his players. He was a good teacher. She could tell that by the way the players listened to him. He was patient and she knew he cared about the boys, especially for Kyle. She’d seen it last night and the way he’d talked with him the night of the fire.

  He was coming out of his own isolation. He wanted to reconnect with her, but would he still want to when he learned what she’d kept from him all these years?

  She inhaled and exhaled, willing the ache in her chest to ease. Her mother hadn’t raised her to be a coward. She’d hidden from this long enough. Tonight, no matter what, she’d be telling him what they’d both lost.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Shrugging on his T-shirt, Kyle hurried to dress at his locker. Even though the other guys were walking around in their boxers and some of them naked from the shower, he’d learned early on to be ready to book it out of a building if trouble started.

  “So, what, our colors going to be black and blue now?” one of the linemen joked, looking at his, Brett’s and Tanner’s black eyes.

  “Maybe, want one to match?” Redheaded Conner Riley said, getting in the guy’s face.

  The lineman threw up his hands, palms out. “Hey, no offense. I mean, kinda looks cool because you’re tough guys.”

  “Yeah, besides,” Cohn said, coming over to drape one arm around Riley’s shoulder. “In a few days our colors are going to be purple, green and yellow.”

  The locker room filled with laughter.

  Kyle smiled, then sat on the bench to tie his shoelaces. He had to be at the café in fifteen minutes for his first shift to start. Lorna had him working mornings after practice and again in the evening. He’d seen her, Rachel and Ms. Wilson standing on the edge of the field earlier and serving breakfast to the guys after practice ended. If she knew he was well enough to make it to practice, then she’d expect him to make it to work. And for some reason, people in this town seemed to care about him enough to make him want to live up to their expectations.

  He toweled off his hair and ran his fingers through it real quick. Picking up the towel and his backpack, he slammed his locker door. He tossed the towel in the hamper with the other wet ones and headed out the locker room door, stopping short when he saw Tanner and Brett Howard standing on the sidewalk smoking and blocking his exit.

  “Good practice,” Brett said, exhaling smoke.

  “Thanks,” he said, approaching them slowly, he was ready this time. They attacked and he was making like a train straight out of there.

  Tanner stepped towards him, holding out the pack of cigarettes. “Want one?”

  Kyle shook his head. “No, thanks. Those things killed my parents.” Literally.

  “Yeah, the big C,” the quarterback said. “My dad keeps telling me about it, even when he’s lighting up.” He took another drag on the cancer stick. “Sorry about last night. Coach is right, we need to keep our attitude for just the other team.”

  “Yeah.” Where the hell was this leading? Just a peace offering, or were they setting him up for something worse?

  “Besides, if I have to work that hard to keep you from taking the ball, just think how easy I’ll have it against the other teams’ sorry defenses,” Tanner said and grinned.

  Kyle nodded, lifting one corner of his mouth in response. Maybe it was what it looked like, teammates accepting him. Not as a best bud, but as at least a member of the team.

  The door behind him opened and the other pair of his attackers approached. Out of habit, he moved to the side, keeping all of them where he could see them.

  “Coach Justice sees you guys with those things and he’ll bench you before the season starts,” Riley said, coming up to take a drag off the one Tanner offered him. “Especially after Coach Reynolds’ talk on fire safety yesterday.”

  Deke had started out the ev
ening practice last night with a lecture on responsibility, looking out for neighbors, including the Amish community, the dry season and fire safety. At first Kyle had thought yeah, this guy is just doing his job. But as the coach kept talking, he knew he believed what he preached, that it was everyone’s duty to protect their community from fires, smoldering cigarettes apparently a problem out in the rural areas. It wasn’t just his words that said he respected the dangers of fire. The scars on the man’s neck and jaw spoke that he’d been in at least one fire—a bad one.

  Kyle’s stomach clenched. Every time he got a look at those scars, he wondered, had his old man been the cause of the fire that injured the chief? Was it the one he’d been at? The one he’d watched the old man start? The one when he learned just what a monster his father was?

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got water to put it out,” Tanner said, holding up a bottle of water.

  An alarm sounded and Kyle grabbed the cell phone Colbert House had provided him as a new resident. Shit. He had ten minutes to get across town to the café.

  “What’s up?” Cohn asked, the others looking at him.

  “Gotta go. Work in ten minutes.” He started down the sidewalk at a trot.

  “Hey, wait up,” someone called from behind him.

  He turned to see Mike Cohn, his linebacker and squad captain, jogging his way. “You’re gonna have to run like hell to get there. Let me give you a ride.”

  Kyle stopped and studied the other guy. Seemed to be in earnest.

  Might as well take a chance and get the ride. Deke’s words from the night before sounded in his head. Sometimes you just got to take the chance and trust people.

  * * * * *

  The Dye Right was hopping when Libby entered at lunchtime. Aretha Franklin played overhead. Blow dryers and stand dryers were running full force. Above it all could be heard the chatter and laughter of women enjoying each other’s company.

  “Hey, Libby,” Twylla called as she came around the corner carrying a load of clean towels. “What can we do for you today?”

  “Hey, Twylla. I was hoping I could get a pedicure today. My toes are a mess.”

  Twylla nodded to an empty chair up front. “Have a seat and let me see if Sylvie has some time open. Want a foot massage to go with the pretty toes?”

  “That sound wonderful, if she has time.”

  As the shop owner strode down the center of the shop handing out towels to her stylists, Libby took the empty chair and picked up the gossip magazine on the table next to it. She felt rather frivolous taking her lunch hour to come get her toenails done. Rarely did she spoil herself with pedicures at the salon. Her frugal self couldn’t justify the expense, so she usually took care of it herself at home. But while she’d been working on case file reports something her mother used to say kept playing over and over in her head.

  A good pedicure could give a woman confidence and confidence gives you courage. Courage to do anything. That’s something men will never understand.

  Courage. That’s what she needed.

  Facing Deacon tonight to tell him her secret would take all the extra courage she could muster. So here she was, waiting to get her toes colored blood-red. A foot massage would relax her and help build up more courage, right?

  “If you can give her about ten minutes, Sylvie says she’ll have time to take you,” Twylla said, standing behind the reception desk and flipping through the old-fashioned paper schedule.

  Libby smiled as she flipped through the pages of the magazine. Computers were making their way into Westen. PCs and laptops in the homes and businesses, especially over at the courthouse. Teens with their smartphones. Tablets everywhere. But some things would never change. Lorna’s antique cash register over at the Peaches ’N Cream. Twylla’s paper appointment book. And that was what she loved about Westen. The old and the new mixing together.

  “And he came home with a black eye,” a high-pitched voice carried over the noise.

  Libby peered over the top of her magazine in the direction of the voice. Yep. Tiffany Howard, the DA’s socialite-wannabe wife.

  “What happened?” the little brunette stylist, Cara, asked.

  Just the opening Tiffany was looking for.

  “I was sure someone had beaten poor Brett,” she said a little louder so her audience would grow, “but Kent said it was probably nothing more than a football injury. Seriously, I know Brett is the best quarterback ever in this town, but I worry about him getting injured.”

  “Aren’t the sheriff and fire chief the coaches this year?” the stylist asked as she took the straight iron to the fake blonde’s unruly curls.

  “Well, yes. And you’d think they’d be more careful with our children, but honestly, they aren’t really trained coaches, are they?”

  Libby saw red. She knew the truth. The woman’s son had tried to bully a new team member who’d stood up for himself, not gotten injured in practice and certainly not under Deke and Gage’s watch. Slowly, she closed the magazine, sharpening her focus on the other woman.

  Tiffany let out a long, dramatic sigh. “And I can’t believe they have Cleetus as one of their assistants. I mean, seriously. What could that man possibly teach our children?”

  Out of nowhere, Sylvie came barreling up the aisle, knocking Cara’s arm and causing her to jerk on the flat iron.

  “Oww!” Tiffany yelled as her head was jerked sideways.

  “I’m so sorry,” Cara said, quickly removing the flat iron and looking ready to panic.

  “Oh, no,” Sylvie said, dramatically, feigning surprise at her actions, her Appalachian accent getting a little thicker. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Howard. I just don’t know what got into me. I’m such a klutz, sometimes. Not like you, you’re always so graceful and beautiful.”

  Libby quickly opened the magazine and hid her smile behind it hoping no one could see it tremble as she laughed.

  “Oh, well. No real harm done Sylvie.” Tiffany said, her voice softening as she suddenly realized everyone in the room was watching to see what she was going to say. Her husband was a public figure and it was her job to keep him in the community’s good graces.

  “How about a nice glass of sweet tea,” Twylla said, coming up with a crystal goblet full of her special tea and getting between Tiffany and Sylvie.

  “Why thank you, Twylla. You know just how to soothe a client’s nerves.”

  While Tiffany took the glass Cara exchanged an eye-roll with Sylvie then went back to work on the curls.

  “Hey, Miss Libby,” Sylvie said as she approached, her eyes twinkling and her cheeks pink. “Let’s get you right back to the nail area.”

  Libby swallowed her own mirth and set aside the magazine to follow the pixie stylist to the back of the salon. “I hope my sudden need for a pedicure didn’t make you rush too much, Sylvie,” she said just as they passed Cara’s station and the now-much-more-subdued DA’s wife.

  “Well, I was in a hurry to get you going, you being on a lunch break and all,” Sylvie said over her shoulder with a wink.

  She opened the door to the nail room and waited for Libby to enter first. Tywlla had wanted this to be a restful spot for her clients, separated from the rest of the salon by glass walls. The door closed and only the sound of peaceful jazz music could be heard.

  “I hope your run-in with Cara wasn’t really caused by my adding to your workload,” Libby said as she sat in one of the three leather pedicure chairs and took off her dress sandals.

  “Oh, no. I did that very intentionally,” Sylvie said, her cheeks getting pinker and her lips tightening. “That woman was saying the worst things about the sheriff, Chief Reynolds and Cleetus. Someone just had to get her to stop and poor Cara couldn’t afford to say anything. So I just thought I’d step in.”

  Libby distinctly heard the little woman’s voice soften over Cleetus’ name. She’d seen them together the night of the fire, eating pie in the café. Apparently Sylvie had a soft spot for the big deputy. Wasn’t that interesting?


  “And besides, for all her highfalutin’ ways, she’s a lousy tipper.”

  Libby snorted a laugh and made a mental note to be a good tipper where Sylvie was concerned.

  “Besides, you’ll be my last appointment today. I’m going house hunting this afternoon,” Sylvie said as she set a bowl of warm water at Libby’s feet. Gently she picked up Libby’s feet and set them into the water one at a time.

  “Ah.” Libby couldn’t help the sigh as the warm, soapy water encased her feet. “That feel heavenly.”

  “Just wait until I start the massage, you’re gonna love it.”

  She bet she would. “So what has you out looking for houses?”

  Sylvie sat on a rolling stool and slipped up close. “Well, I’ve been staying over at the Tumbolt sisters’ boarding house, but I’d really like a little place of my own. They’re sweet and all, but a girl needs her privacy, you know? Especially after taking care of other women all day long.”

  Libby could imagine. Ida and Lucy Tumbolt were in their seventies and had been running the boarding house two blocks north of Main Street and the heart of Westen for nearly fifty years. She stopped by monthly for a spot of tea and to check on the ladies. They did love to chat and poor Sylvie probably wanted nothing more than peace and quiet after a day at the noisy salon.

  “Any place you’re looking at in particular?” she asked, resisting the urge to purr as Sylvie massaged her left foot. The firm strokes and organic lavender cream making her almost melt into the chair.

  “There’s a few rental places around town. I need something close by. Not too far a walk to here. That’s important since I don’t have a car yet.”

  Twylla had told Libby that Sylvie had stepped off the bus outside town, walked to the Dye Right with her suitcase in hand and promptly asked for a job. The salon owner had liked her spunk, not to mention her orange, yellow and red spiked hair, hiring on the spot. Libby like her, too.

  An idea hit her.

  “You know Chief Reynolds’ mother moved to a seniors’ center down in South Carolina last spring. I believe her little house is up for rent.”