Blazing Midsummer Nights (Harlequin Blaze)

by Leslie Kelly

  It had caught fire today and burned brightly, if too briefly. Soon enough they’d start an inferno that wouldn’t be doused until they’d done everything two consenting adults could do together. It was as given as the fact that the sun would rise and set tomorrow.

  Sunrise. Sunset. And Mimi Burdette in his bed. They were the three most inevitable things in his life right now.

  He was very curious to find out which would come first.

  Deep down, he was betting on Mimi.

  7

  MIMI LOVED HER FAMILY—her parents, her aunts, uncles and cousins. But she also loved her privacy and her independence. That was one reason she’d insisted on moving into a small apartment and not into a large house of her own—she didn’t want to have a place big enough for guests. She liked having a small sliver of life that didn’t include anyone from her regular world. She liked stepping away from the Burdettes, away from the money, out from under the weight of social expectation. When she was here, with Anna and Obi-Wan and the others, she felt like she could be herself.

  So while she was not churlish enough to be upset that her father had thought to stop by to say hello, she couldn’t say she was thrilled about it, either. Especially because the timing had been beyond bad.

  She wasn’t sure whether to curse the interruption, or wish it had come ten minutes sooner.

  Or ten minutes later.

  Lots of things could have happened in ten minutes.

  Despite having impromptu guests who showed no signs of wanting to leave, now that they’d settled in with some of Anna’s famous sweet tea, she couldn’t stop thinking about the crazy, shocking interlude she’d shared with Xander in the woods.

  It wasn’t just physical pleasure that caused her to dwell on every moment they’d spent together. The truth was, whenever she thought of the encounters she’d had with Xander so far, a smile came to her face and her heart started thudding in her chest like it had never thudded over Dimitri. That thudding was there whether she thought about him catching her as she fell off the ladder, or sharing a beer on a hot summer day.

  Or kneeling at her feet, licking her into a serious case of temporary insanity.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I brought your dad here,” Dimitri said, his voice low. “I did try to call to warn you. Guess you were already…outside.”

  She smiled in appreciation. Dimitri was a true Southern gentleman and he liked the niceties. Stopping by without an invitation was probably anathema to him.

  So was asking why she’d been emerging from the woods, hand-in-hand with her new neighbor, when he’d arrived.

  He’d seen them. Of that she had no doubt.

  “It’s okay. At least he has Anna and Obi-Wan on the same side for a change,” she said, wishing her heart were as light as her faked tone.

  They were sitting at the outside table, and her father, a prince of Wall Street, had engaged in a spirited political discussion with Mimi’s landlords. That could only end badly; talk about the 1 percent versus the 99 percent.

  Fortunately, her dad wasn’t too much of a snob—he was just pushy. Then again, he hadn’t come up against a force as implacable and stubborn as the flower-power duo of Athens, Georgia, who, for once, weren’t sniping at each other and were instead standing their tree-hugging ground.

  She half wished Xander would come back, because she sensed he could cut through the B.S. and rhetoric and have everyone laughing over a beer in a very short time. He had already proved how good he was at putting people at ease last weekend.

  Then again, he wouldn’t be dealing with just Anna, Obi-Wan and the house’s other residents this time. Dimitri already had a chip on his shoulder about him, and her father would if he so much as suspected Mimi’s attention had drifted away from Dimitri.

  God, what a mess.

  Though she stayed out of the debate, disagreeing with her dad on a lot of points but not really caring enough to argue them, she noted that Dimitri did not. He quietly interjected support of her father where he could. Whether because he felt the same way, or just wanted to stick by the boss, she didn’t know. She’d never pegged him for a suck-up; he was just a lot like the rest of her family in attitude and demeanor.

  Why wasn’t she?

  She didn’t know. Oh, sure, she had a few expensive tastes she occasionally indulged, like for good shoes. But for the most part, she far preferred drinking a beer and picnicking with her neighbors to attending some fancy party or country club formal. And she knew she’d had a much better time climbing or falling out of trees with Xander this week than she’d had when she’d gone out to dinner at an exclusive restaurant with Dimitri.

  Maybe because drinking beer and climbing or falling out of trees had felt like the Mimi she was supposed to be. And being with Dimitri had felt like the Mimi everyone else expected her to be.

  “Look who’s finally back,” Anna said, leaping up from her seat and hurrying over to the gate.

  Mimi followed her gaze and saw the back gate opening and a very attractive, thirtyish woman enter the yard. The woman had short, curly brown hair and a broad smile that looked like Anna’s, and was accompanied by a familiar little boy who owned an adventure-loving cat.

  She’d met Tuck earlier, when he’d come looking for help to find Buster, but hadn’t yet been introduced to his mom, Anna’s daughter, Helen. They’d apparently been moving into 2B much of the day, but had gone out to pick up a few groceries and supplies after the great cat caper in the woods.

  “Good God,” she heard Dimitri mutter. He sounded stunned. “Helen?” His eyes were huge and something that looked like genuine pleasure crossed them for the briefest second.

  Surprised, Mimi asked, “You know her?”

  That was a coincidence, especially since Anna had told Mimi her daughter and grandson were moving from out of town and hadn’t lived in Athens for years.

  He didn’t have to answer. The look of pleasure quickly disappeared, replaced by one of guilty shock. Not only did he know her, but he also wasn’t exactly thrilled to see her, though whether that was dislike or embarrassment making his jaw clench, Mimi couldn’t say. That first, honest, unguarded expression on his face sure hadn’t looked like dislike.

  Mimi rose from her chair as Anna led her daughter over and made introductions. Shaking Helen’s hand, she in turn went on to introduce her father. But as she gestured toward Dimitri, she fell silent, wanting to see how the pretty woman reacted.

  Strongly. The moment she saw him, her smile faded and her lips parted in a small gasp. “Dimitri?”

  His smile forced, he said, “Good to see you again.”

  She froze, her stare moving over him from head to toe, as if she needed to double-check to make sure she could trust her eyes. Meanwhile everyone else stopped talking, stumbling into the awkward silence that had descended between two people who had some past connection nobody else knew anything about. If it wasn’t a romantic one, Mimi would eat her one-and-only Coach bag.

  She evaluated how she felt about it, waiting for some spark of jealousy or avid curiosity. Something that would indicate that, at least somewhere deep inside, a part of her felt some kind of claim on Dimitri. That was probably a little selfish, since she’d already acknowledged, at least to herself, that her thoughts, mind and body were totally engaged elsewhere. Still, she couldn’t help wondering, since she had been dating the man, if her subconscious thought he was hers.

  As it turned out, all she felt was curious.

  And that was probably enough to answer the questions that had been plaguing her even before she’d met her hot new neighbor and started wondering what might have happened had he tripped six inches closer to her and landed a little bit higher.

  Now she knew. Oh, Lordy, did she ever.

  Nice to meet you, mouth, come and visit anytime.

  “So, how do you two know each other?” Obi-Wan finally asked, his eyes slightly narrowed.

  “We met in Atlanta last fall,” Dimitri said. “Before I moved here.”
<
br />   “I didn’t even know you left the city,” Helen said, her voice soft, a hint of hurt in her eyes.

  Meaning the relationship had meant more to her than to him.

  “New job,” he told her.

  Beside him, Mimi’s father finally caught the undercurrents and frowned. Mimi might not worry about a very attractive ex-girlfriend showing up to throw a wrench into the works, considering she was already trying to figure out how to let Dimitri know she didn’t want to date him anymore, but her dad did. He’d cast Dimitri in the role of son-in-law, and had been waiting for Mimi to get with the program. Somebody else mucking things up was not part of his plan.

  “Dimitri, if you’re ready, we should be going.” He pressed a kiss on Mimi’s cheek. “Your mother’s expecting me home.”

  “Give her my love and tell her we’re on for lunch Wednesday.” She and her mom had a standing weekly lunch date—it was always one of the highlights of her work week. Her mom couldn’t be more different than her father when it came to the business, and Mimi always really enjoyed the social hour filled with talk about music, clothes and movies. Not bulk prices on toilet paper and close-out brands of vegetables. “Thanks for stopping by. It was nice.”

  Surprisingly, she meant it. She might have meant it more if he’d been alone, really just stopping by for a father-daughter visit. But he’d dragged Dimitri along. She wondered if Dimitri had said something over golf to make her father worry that his matchmaking plan was going awry.

  “Uh, there’s something I need to get from Mimi’s place,” Dimitri said, casting her an urgent glance. He obviously wanted a minute alone with her, probably to offer an explanation.

  Though he didn’t owe her one, she said, “Sure, come on in.” Then, turning to her new neighbor, she smiled and added, “Helen, it’s so nice to meet you. I’ve been looking forward to your arrival—it’ll be great to have a kid around.”

  Right now, that kid was hanging upside down from the fence and he offered her a wave and a big grin. Next time his cat ran away, maybe the little monkey should climb the tree himself.

  “You, too,” Helen said. She cleared her throat and touched Dimitri’s arm. “It was nice running into you.”

  “Yes. Good luck with your move,” he said, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. His hands were shoved in his pants pockets and he looked decidedly less sure of himself than usual.

  Her father thanked Anna and Obi-Wan for the tea and the conversation, then left, saying he’d wait in the car. Leading the way, Mimi took Dimitri into her apartment. She had no sooner shut the door behind them when he launched into his story.

  “I had no idea Helen was related to your landlords. We dated months ago. It was nothing.”

  She raised a brow. “I don’t think she thought so.”

  “Mimi, I swear to you, we went out for a few weeks, max. She was in the middle of her divorce, nowhere near ready to be seeing anyone, and was an emotional mess. So I broke it off.”

  Dimitri wasn’t the type who liked emotional scenes, she knew that much, so she could see why he wouldn’t stick around for too much of somebody else’s drama. Still, he wasn’t an unkind person, and she couldn’t see him intentionally kicking someone when they were down.

  As if seeing her skepticism, he clarified, “Those were her words, by the way. Not mine. She’s the one who said she was an emotional wreck, still half in love with her husband. So I bowed out.”

  That made more sense. Doing the right thing, “bowing out” sounded very Dimitri-like. She only wondered if that was why he’d had that look of happiness-mixed-with-pain on his face when he’d first seen Helen. Whatever the case, judging by the reactions of both of them, she would suspect things were a lot more complicated between Dimitri and Helen than he’d let on. But she didn’t press him on it.

  “Look, it’s fine, really.” Glancing out the window to where her father sat in Dimitri’s car, probably already tapping his fingers in impatience, she added, “You don’t owe me any explanations, Dimitri, it’s none of my business how you feel about her. I mean, we’re not…”

  “Not what?”

  Not in love, that was for sure. Not in a relationship. Not heading for marriage and happily-ever-after… How could they be if she couldn’t stop thinking about—craving—another man?

  “We’re not serious,” she told him, starting there. “We’ve gone out a couple of times, that’s all.”

  He hesitated, opening his mouth to say something, then closing it again. She waited for him to argue, waited for him to ask if she wanted to be, even waited for him to express some relief, since, somewhere deep down, he had to feel the same lack of chemistry she did.

  Instead, he just said, “I should probably go or your father will start beeping the horn. Can we talk about this later?”

  Hmm. Not exactly the acknowledgment she’d been going for. But it wasn’t an argument, either. As usual, she had no idea what he was thinking. Damn, this strong-and-silent thing was getting on her nerves. She didn’t know why she’d ever found it attractive in the first place.

  Maybe because, until she’d met Xander, she hadn’t really understood the appeal of a man who said exactly what he thought, and damn the consequences.

  “Dimitri, I…”

  The horn beeped. Good grief.

  He actually rolled his eyes, which was about as close to annoyed as she’d ever seen him get with her father.

  This was a conversation they needed to have. But knowing they couldn’t get into anything serious with a honk underscoring every other sentence, she resigned herself to having to have it later. So when he murmured goodbye and brushed a kiss on her cheek, she smiled and let him go.

  Once he was gone, she considered going back outside for the cookout, but Anna hadn’t mentioned it since last weekend, and she didn’t want to intrude on the family reunion. Nor did she want to do anything to make Helen unhappy on her first night back. If the woman was upset, thinking Dimitri had moved on and was dating Mimi, she might not appreciate the reminder.

  In the end, she ended up eating a frozen dinner and watching a scary movie on TV. Which was probably a bad idea, because when it came time to go to bed, the Salisbury steak was sitting in her stomach like a cement block, and she was looking for shadows around every corner, certain every gleam of light was the reflection off a shiny knife.

  She had just gotten changed into a lightweight summer nightgown when the thought of shiny knives made something else pop into her mind. “Damn. The scissors!”

  This afternoon, when Tuck had come running, begging for help finding his erstwhile cat, Mimi had been in the backyard, carefully cutting some newly bloomed magnolias—from a low-hanging branch. She’d been using a pair of long, sharp shears, and, when she’d raced off into the woods after the boy, had left them lying at the base of the tree. When she’d come back to the house, she’d been so flustered by what had happened in the woods and by the arrival of her father and Dimitri, she’d completely forgotten to retrieve them.

  They were large for scissors, but might not be easily visible to someone who wasn’t on the lookout for them. In fact, they could lying there just waiting to be stumbled across by a rambunctious little boy. If Tuck went running around in the yard in the morning, wanting to explore his new home, he could either fall over them, or find them and decide to play with them. Either way, bad news.

  She couldn’t risk it. So, grabbing her robe and dragging it on over her baby-doll nightie, she slipped into her closet and felt her way along the back wall to the secret door. Thinking of the way Xander had come through here one week ago, she had to smile. And to wonder what kind of clothes were in the man’s wardrobe if he had mistaken her silky blouses and dresses for anything he might have hanging in his own.

  Outside, all was quiet. It was after midnight and everyone had likely gone inside hours ago. They’d turned off the backyard lights, which couldn’t be accessed from her closet. While the starry, moonlit sky was bright enough, here inside the screen porch i
t was inky and black.

  Twisted shadows, shapes and sounds from the movie crawled into her consciousness, making her tread carefully, wishing she’d thought to bring a flashlight. Not that she expected to stumble over an ax-wielding maniac on the patio, but hey, better safe than sorry.

  Her hands out in front of her, she felt her way through the dark porch, trying to remember exactly where the outdoor furniture stood. She remembered too late that everything had been repositioned for the party last weekend and several extra chairs had been set up in here. She found one with her shin, banging into the edge of what felt like wrought iron.

  “Ow,” she said with a grunt, immediately bending down to cover the aching spot with her hand.

  Which made her bump her shoulder into a portable bar Obi-Wan had bought and had decided to leave up for the summer.