Burn It Up

by Cara McKenna

  Not forever. Someday she’d know security. Someday she’d be with a man who treated her as good as Casey did, for all the right reasons—go to bed with him for all the right reasons—and be the one contributing now and then, instead of the one always in need of bailing out.

  She followed in his wake, stacking barstools on the wiped tables, trying not to look at his butt. Failing. She could have had him, last summer. He’d wanted her, and she’d wanted him right back. But she’d been so mixed-up from the pregnancy and all the ugliness that had preceded it, she’d kept him at a distance. Now, though, a selfish bit of her wished she’d gone there. To know what he’d have been like in bed, if nothing else. For the memories.

  All that left her with were theories. She watched his arm again, letting one hatch, feeling a flush creeping up her neck.

  “Deposit ready?” he asked.

  “Locked in the register.” Duncan liked to review each night’s receipts, then go to the bank himself. How had Casey put it? The man had a hard-on for accounting.

  “Then let’s get you home.”

  She pulled her jacket from the cubby under the counter. “Seems silly that you’re bothering to crash at the ranch—you’ll only be there for, like, four hours by the time the sun’s up.”

  “Probably.” He pulled his sweater over his head. “But tomorrow’s a big deal. You think I’m leaving your side the first day your ex is loose?”

  “He can’t know I’m staying at the ranch yet.”

  “But why take chances?” Casey zipped his hoodie.

  “Duncan’s not working three to two all by himself tomorrow, is he?”

  “No, Raina agreed to come down and close—almost every night this week, in fact.”

  Abilene’s neck warmed at that, some weird mix of shame and gratitude. Her former boss was more than happy to have retired from bartending. “That’s awful good of her.”

  “I bet part of her secretly misses it. Must get boring, busting only Duncan’s balls all the time.”

  She laughed. “Still, it’s insane how nice you’ve all been, bending over backwards to look after me and Mercy.”

  Casey shrugged as he headed for the fuse box, then switched all but the security lights off. “That’s what you get for ever going to my brother for help in the first place, honey. Now you’re stuck with the whole goddamn bunch of us . . . Though the irony of it is, he helped you to begin with because you were carrying his old prison buddy’s baby. Now he’s trying to help protect you from the guy. Kind of fucked-up, but hey, it’s Fortuity.”

  “Effed up or not, I’m really grateful for everything. And I hope it doesn’t go on for too long.”

  “Me neither. For your sake, that is.” He headed for the back and she followed. They grabbed their helmets by the door.

  The temperature had dropped, way down to freezing to judge by how their breath fogged the night air.

  Having already survived one trip on the bike, Abilene clambered aboard behind Casey with passable confidence. She was pooped, looking forward to bed, and hoping the baby was having what Christine called a “merciful night.” But the moment the engine started up between her legs, all that fatigue rattled away in the brisk February breeze. She squeezed Casey tight and had to remind herself not to confuse vibration with arousal.

  It didn’t help. The noise and the wind swallowed her, left her feeling alive and awake in a way unique to being on a motorcycle. Suddenly it made sense, why people would want to live their waking lives on these things. So much freedom, without any windows standing between you and the world. All those stars overhead, no roof to hide a single one.

  And a warm, strong man in your arms, she thought, hugging Casey’s middle. Did he get pleasure from feeling her at his back, as anything more than a reprieve from the winter air? She hoped so. She was a mom now, and his employee—thoroughly unsexy roles, but she hoped some shadow of his old crush had lingered.

  Yeah, right. Not after he’d seen her give birth, seen her grouchy and frustrated at two a.m. She knew, from hearing Miah and Christine talk about him, Casey wasn’t historically a guy who stuck around and did the right thing. He was kind of like Abilene in that way—always adrift—except it sounded like he’d been in control of where he wound up. In addition to his record, he’d been a card counter in Las Vegas for a while, which struck her as the shadiest thing you could probably do for a living without actually breaking the law.

  The wind found her hands through her knitted mittens, and she inched them into the pockets of his hoodie. He felt good against her. Warm, strong, and big. Big enough to make a girl feel feminine and protected, but not so big that it was intimidating.

  As she held on to him, she wondered how it’d feel, being in his lap. Her thighs around his hips, his excitement right there, against hers. His hands on her waist. Just to feel a man like that again, right there against her . . .

  Not just any man. Your boss.

  What had James said to her, back when they’d been together? If you’d ever gone to college, you’d have lost a good professor his tenure. He’d been teasing, and at the time she’d laughed. She knew she had a type—you could only make the same mistake so many times before you had to admit it was more than a coincidence. But it wasn’t funny anymore. Not now that she had Mercy to think about.

  The scattered lights of Fortuity fell away behind them, the bike’s headlamp the only glow to be seen until the lit gate of Three C appeared as the highway curved. This was her last night like this—closing up late, riding home out in the open, be it in a car or on this motorcycle. Tomorrow, she had to start watching her back. She tried to soak up every second that was left, but in a blink, Casey was parking by the fence.

  He helped her down after he cut the engine. “Not so bad, right?”

  “It was fun. Worth the frostbite.” The automatic porch light came on when they neared. Abilene dug her keys out of her purse as they mounted the steps and let them both inside.

  “Man, we missed some good dinner,” Casey said, shutting the door behind them. “What do you think? Meat loaf? Pot roast?” The house was warm and smelled impossibly good, like gravy and rosemary. Someday Abilene would have a little home that offered Mercy this experience—comfort and hot meals and nice smells. A fireplace, holiday traditions.

  “Bet you there’s leftovers,” she said, hanging up her coat.

  “Bet you they’ll taste real good around four o’clock, when your daughter decides to wake us up.”

  They walked to the den, where Casey would be making his bed once more. It was a comfy enough couch—a big old tan leather behemoth, probably as old as Abilene—but he had to be missing his apartment. And his freedom. And his privacy.

  “I better head up and check on Mercy,” she said.

  He nodded as he sat and unlaced his boots. “See you in the morning, hopefully. Though if you need any help, you know how to wake me.”

  She smiled. “One good poke to the forehead. Night.”

  “Night, Abilene.”

  “Thanks again for the ride,” she said, and her smile felt shy when she offered it. She headed for the steps.

  The door to her room was open, and she found Mercy sleeping peacefully in the crib. She switched off the baby monitor, officially relieving Christine of her duties. She changed into her pajamas and scrubbed her face in the guest bathroom, shut the door, climbed into bed.

  Sleep while you can, she ordered herself. The peace could be over at any moment, shattered by that noise that filled her so wholly with both dread and maternal urgency—the first tentative coo that inevitably snowballed into a squall.

  But sleep wasn’t coming. She lay in the darkness, trying to deep breathe, trying to think relaxing thoughts. But with the chaos of the bar gone and the distraction of the ride over, all that passed through her head were the what-ifs that surrounded tomorrow.

  Today, she corrected. James would be released around ten in the morning.

  The prison was ninety miles away. He could be in Fortuit
y by noon if he wanted to be. If he had his truck waiting for him and enough money for gas. How long would he need to find her? How long would it take to run into somebody who said, yeah, they’d seen a young brunette around, didn’t she just have a baby? Heard she was staying up at the ranch out east, they might say, and just like that . . .

  Poof. Poof went her security. Poof went her secrets, if James saw fit to tell Vince or the Churches or Casey or anybody else about the way they’d met. Poof went custody of her child, maybe.

  Maybe. Only maybe. She wasn’t that girl James had first met. She was good now. Wasn’t she? Better, at least. She was trying to be good. She worked hard, hadn’t had so much as a sip of beer since the moment she’d found out she was pregnant. It was almost impossible for a mother to lose custody to a father.

  He couldn’t get her child taken away.

  Could he?

  Chapter 5

  With sleep eluding her and lying in the dark producing nothing but waking nightmares, after twenty minutes, Abilene abandoned the covers and poked her head out the door.

  A lamp was on in the den, and she crept onto the landing. Casey was lounging on the couch, tapping on his lit-up phone. He never failed to make her feel competent and secure when she needed those sensations most, and right now she craved reassurance like a fish craved water. She went back into her room and put on a bra and socks, left the door open in case Mercy woke, and padded to the steps.

  Casey sat up as she reached his periphery. He glanced at his phone, then switched it off, screen going dark. “Thought you’d be out like a light in five minutes flat.”

  He spoke softly, as all the Churches were sleeping. She loved when he did that. Normally he was a loud, brash man, not strong on the volume control, but she adored how his voice sounded in late-night moments like these. So close to a whisper. Soft in every way.

  She shook her head. “Can’t sleep. Too much on my mind. Were you about to turn in?”

  “Don’t have to. Hey, how about I start a fire? It’s kinda chilly down here.”

  A fire did sound nice. She got settled on one end of the couch and pulled an afghan over her lap, watching Casey assembling wood and balled-up newspaper pages in the big stone hearth. His back flexed where his sweater pulled tight across his shoulders, leaving her warmer by a degree.

  His lighter snicked, and as yellow flames licked at the wood, he joined her, peeling off his sweater and tossing it over the couch arm.

  “How you feeling about tomorrow?” He kept the lighter in hand, running his thumb along its smooth silver corners, worrying the lid. He toyed with the thing on boring nights at the bar, too, and when he was trapped with the sleeping baby on his lap.

  “A little scared,” she said. “To be honest, I’m trying not to think about it.”

  Studying this man’s handsome face was certainly a welcome diversion. It was more than mere gratitude drawing her to him, she realized. There was a very real chance that once James was out, her past would follow suit. Everyone believed they were protecting her welfare—and they were. But James could hurt her worse by talking than by hitting her, and she bet he knew it.

  Depending on how pissed James was, in a week or a month or who knew how long, Casey might know the truth about Abilene, and that would just about destroy her.

  She knew she couldn’t ever be with this man. But she still felt for him—worse than ever, in fact. Going forward, she’d make better choices. Find herself a man as sweet as this one, minus the criminal record and all the secrets. But she couldn’t deny she still wanted him.

  She eyed his mouth. And I don’t want much. Just a taste. Just a kiss. A farewell kiss, to say good-bye to her old habits, once and for all.

  He smirked, seeming to realize she was staring. “What?”

  “Nothing. Just in my head.”

  “If we weren’t on baby patrol, I’d take you out back and make you smoke a joint.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “I’m not much for drugs.”

  “Pot doesn’t count.”

  “Pot also never solved anybody’s problems.”

  “Nah, but it’ll shut your brain up real good.” He pocketed his lighter. “Damn, that sounds perfect, actually. Smoke a bowl, stare at the fireplace . . . Hardly anything better in the world than that. Not with your clothes on, anyhow.”

  She laughed. “Sounds fun, I’ll admit.” The exact kind of fun she’d missed out on in her teenage years.

  “Being a grown-up is such a drag sometimes.” Casey sighed.

  “Tell me about it.” Again, she couldn’t help but imagine some different world, one in which she and Casey were the same age and had met in high school. Some world in which he’d maybe taken her virginity, been her date to prom, horrified her parents in ways that looked downright innocent, compared to reality . . .

  Would he stop me, if I tried? Tried to kiss him? Tried to touch him? This felt like her last chance. Her last reckless mistake . . . Did that old crush still live inside him someplace, strong enough for him to maybe forget the baby and the danger and the fact that she was his employee, just for a little while? Make her feel like a sexual person again, remind her how good wanting someone could feel, and being wanted right back?

  Heart pounding, she turned, bending her legs so her knees rested atop his thigh. She laid her arm along the couch, and her cheek on her shoulder, leaning a bit closer.

  Casey seemed to take the move for exhaustion or vulnerability, and wrapped his own arm around her shoulders, giving her a little squeeze. It had been a long time since he’d touched her with this kind of casual ease. It reminded her of her final weeks of pregnancy, the nights they’d closed the bar together and he’d sometimes rub her aching back when there was a lull in orders. Not sexual, but friendly and familiar. Comforting.

  Though tonight she wanted something more than comfort.

  “Everything’s going to turn out okay,” he told her in that soft, fascinating, un-Casey-like voice. “Right now, this will probably be the worst of it. The waiting.”

  “I wasn’t even thinking about tomorrow.”

  “No?”

  “I was thinking about how much things have changed, since last summer. Since I first met you.”

  “No fucking kidding, huh?”

  “You used to flirt with me,” she said, making sure he’d hear the smile in her tone, and know it wasn’t a complaint. “Shamelessly.”

  “And you must have turned me down, like, eighty times.”

  “I miss those days, sometimes.”

  He sat up straighter, took his arm back, and met her eyes. “I still think you’re real pretty, you know. If things weren’t so different, I’d still be hitting on you, every chance I got. Wait—did that count as hitting on you? Don’t sue me for sexual harassment.”

  She poked him in the side and let her hand linger there. A tiny but bold move, and something spiked in her blood, something hot and nearly forgotten. Nostalgic, a touch dark. Innately natural.

  Do what you always did best, a mischievous voice whispered. And to heck with tomorrow.

  • • •

  Casey swallowed and glanced at the fire, trying to blame it for how hot the room seemed to have grown. It couldn’t be the contact, right? This was just friendly, innocent touching. Like friends might do, if they got along real good.

  Like, real good, he thought, feeling the heat of Abilene’s palm through his tee, warming his ribs. He couldn’t seem to make sense of that hand.

  “What do you want most, Casey?” She asked it quietly, but there was a strength in those words—a fierce and curious charge.

  “What do I want?” He used to know the answer to that. He could’ve replied with a single word, without thought. Money. But things had changed since he’d moved back to Fortuity, and now the answer wasn’t so obvious. He’d come home after that long, frivolous absence to find his mother a decade deeper into her mental illness, a childhood friend dead, and his hometown in the grips of scandal and tragedy. He’d agreed
to stay as a promise to his brother, but more was holding him here now—he could feel it. Something stronger than his word, stronger than guilt. Duty. Pride, even. Foreign sensations, both. “I want . . . I want the bar to succeed, first and foremost. And for you to find your way through this messy situation with your ex.”

  “No, I mean, what do you want most in life? Like, some people want a family. Some people want to be successful. Some people want . . . I dunno, they want to be singers or actors, or to travel the world.”

  I want to be somebody, to the people I care about. That was what came echoing back from his subconscious, though he couldn’t say if that was exactly true. He wanted to want that. He wanted to be capable of it. But he also felt lost half the time, and his future was foggy in ways he couldn’t begin to explain to her, and all of that made the wanting a dangerous luxury. The girl had enough worries. No need to burden her with the news that he was due to lose his marbles in five or ten years, like his mother.

  “I guess I’m not sure anymore,” he said. “What about you? What do you want? Aside from a white house with a white fence, red shutters, and a red mailbox?”

  A long pause. “I think what I used to want was security. I was on my own, from the time I was pretty young, and that was what I wanted. What I missed. But that’s more a need than a want. I think what I want most in the world now is to be a good mother.”

  “You’re already that.”

  “I dunno. I mess stuff up every single day.”

  “So do all parents. You should meet mine.”

  “Maybe . . . But whether I’m there or not, that’s what I want now. I want to be a good mama, and to make a safe, stable home for Mercy.”

  “Did you have that yourself, when you were a kid?”

  “I thought I did,” she said, sounding far away. “But it wasn’t quite what it seemed.”