by Alyssa Day
Sean pretended he didn’t notice that Brynn was ready to bolt, and he kept walking and chatting about nothing. Canadian bacon versus American, ham versus sausage, the best way to cook eggs. Sean was in the middle of mentioning that he liked his eggs scrambled with cheese, when it occurred to him that he was talking to a woman who turned into a swan about eating eggs.
Crap. He was a complete moron. He stopped walking, even though they were still about a half-block away from the diner.
“I’m an idiot. Eggs. I can’t believe I was talking about—”
She looked bewildered, but then her eyes widened as she reached the conclusion before he had to admit to it out loud. She laughed, surprising him.
“No. It’s okay. I mean, I’m not actually a swan. I don’t lay eggs or fly or do anything that real swans do. I just take on swan form every third night and sing until nearly dawn, and then I’m back to being me.” She laughed a little and pushed her hair away from her delicate cheekbones and out of her eyes.
He blew out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. That conversation was about to get seriously creepy.”
“Well, I know this keeps coming up, but it is Bordertown. You can’t live in a place where the most powerful ley lines in the world intersect without a little weird.” She shrugged and smiled up at him—this time a full-on, dazzling smile—and he almost forgot how to talk.
Damn, but she was beautiful.
“Bacon?” She tilted her head toward the gleaming silver, red, and white exterior of the renovated but grounded airship that housed the diner.
“Bacon would be great.”
He followed her into the diner, trying really, really hard not to watch her lovely round ass as it moved in those snug jeans, and failing completely. When they walked in to the brightly lit diner, he discovered that her dark mass of curls was actually a deep auburn color, and he almost groaned. Great ass and she was a redhead. He’d always been drawn to redheads; his family teased him that it was the Irish in him. He must have made a funny noise, because Brynn gave him a questioning look.
“Just enjoying the delicious aromas of coffee and fried everything,” he said, relieved when she smiled and nodded instead of accusing him of staring at her butt.
Olaf greeted Brynn like an old friend and then scowled at Sean like he’d never met him before and yet suspected him of vast and nefarious wrongdoing. The cook was maybe five feet tall, almost as round as he was tall, and would be practically blind without his enormous glasses. His gleaming bald head, its skin darker than the French roast he served, was always visible as he stood on a box behind his counter and surveyed his domain.
“You be careful of those crazy O’Malleys, you hear me, Brynn? You’re a good girl. You don’t need that kind of bad boy,” the cook scolded loudly, banging two of his skillets together for emphasis.
All the other patrons at the counter, and the few at booths this early in the morning, looked up with interest. Brynn’s face flushed such a hot pink that Sean almost wondered if she might be part fire demon herself. In the light, he could finally see that her eyes were blue, a pale gray-blue like wintry clouds reflected in a frozen pond. He suddenly wanted to pull her into his arms and warm her up, match his fire with her ice.
Maybe Olaf was right to warn her about him. He was clearly losing it.
The cook pointed a spatula at him. “You hurt my girl, I hurt your face.”
Sean stifled a smile. He knew the little demon wouldn’t take well to being mocked.
“I just want to buy her a good breakfast, Olaf. Feed her up a little,” he protested, trying to project wounded innocence.
Brynn was standing, mortified, only about two feet away, but nobody needed to know that the clean rain-and-grass scent of her hair was giving Sean all sorts of thoughts, few of which were entirely innocent.
“Okay, that’s enough from both of you,” she said, making a break for the booth the farthest from Olaf’s window.
She dropped her backpack on the red leather seat and started to slide in next to it, but Sean touched her arm to stop her.
“I’m sorry, but I need to sit on that side,” he said, indicating the seat and the wall behind it. “Unless you want to sit next to me?”
“But why—oh. Can’t have your back to the door?” She bit her lip, but then she nodded and took the other seat.
He’d expected it, but still found himself a little disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to feel the warmth of her body next to him, her legs stretched out next to his.
“Is that a firefighter thing?”
He was watching her seductive lips move as she spoke, and it took him a beat to catch up with what she’d actually said.
“No, it’s an O’Malley thing. My dad drummed it into us from the time we could walk. ‘Me boyos, you always scan the room for danger and protect the women and children.’ I asked him once, wasn’t I the child in the room?” He shook his head at the memory.
She leaned forward a little, resting her folded arms on the spotless Formica tabletop. “What did he say?”
Sean laughed. “He knocked me down and told me to stop asking him stupid questions. Then my four brothers jumped on me and pounded on me for a while.”
Brynn tilted her head, watching him as if he were a strange, rare specimen of animal at a zoo. Which was almost funny, considering she’d been the one swimming around in a fountain wearing nothing but feathers, but he could see her point. A lot of people reacted like that when he told them anything about his rather boisterous childhood. That’s why he’d quit doing it years and years ago.
So why was he suddenly telling tales about his family to a woman he’d only known for an hour?
Loneliness.
The word popped up, unbidden, from deep inside him, the place where he shoved words like that. Words like regret and isolation and sorrow. He’d been surrounded by beautiful, tempting women from the day he’d turned sixteen and started working in the bar, but even in a crowd, he’d always felt alone. There’d been plenty, male and female, human and not, who’d wanted to play with one of the O’Malley boys, but there’d never been anyone who wanted him for himself. His mom had always said that the perfect woman for him would come along, but now his mom was dying slowly from an enemy Sean couldn’t battle, leaving him with no faith in miracles. He swallowed hard and pushed the anger and bitterness away, yet again.
“You were the only one, weren’t you?” Her blue eyes held understanding and something else. Something he hoped wasn’t pity. He damn sure didn’t want pity from her.
“The only one who questioned the orders? The others wouldn’t have pounded on you, otherwise,” she continued, and he realized what that glimmer of emotion was in her eyes.
Not pity. Compassion.
A dizzying wave of heat swirled through him, and he looked down in case the demon glow made an appearance in his eyes. The sensation put him on guard at the same time as it threw him off balance. Rage was the emotion that catalyzed him into heat mode. Fear—terror—could do it, too. But a gentler emotion never had before, and yet he could feel his skin temperature rising way too high.
Brynn might be dangerous to him, he realized, and the thought only made him want to get closer. A lot closer.
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I was the only one who ever questioned, at least until after Dad died. We were O’Malleys, so we would grow up in the pub, work in the pub, and take over the pub. Liam, Blake, Oscar, and Yeats—they all mostly followed the party line. Me? Not so much.”
“Order up, O’Malley,” Olaf shouted, banging a metal spoon against a pot.
“We didn’t even order yet,” Sean said, startled.
Brynn laughed. “Sometimes he’s like that. You get what he feels like cooking for you. Trust me, it’s always good.”
Sean walked back to the counter to pick up the tray, which included a mountain of food, two mugs of steaming hot coffee, a carafe of more of the same, and, luckily for his rising temp, two glasses of ice water. Olaf refrained from thre
atening him again, but he did wag his finger in the vicinity of Sean’s chest.
“I understand why you want to protect her, Olaf. She’s definitely someone to be cherished,” Sean said, not even knowing where the words were coming from, but knowing that he meant them.
The little demon’s face relaxed out of its scowl, which was an improvement, at least, and Sean headed back to their table with enough food to feed an army of shapeshifters.
“Ooh, pancakes,” Brynn said, all but moaning.
She proceeded to take both plates of pancakes, consolidate them into one enormous pile, and slather them with butter and enough syrup to put out a small fire, while Sean watched in awed disbelief.
“You’re going to eat all that?”
“And bacon,” she said, snatching a crispy piece from the platter. “Hey, I worked up an appetite swimming around in the cold and singing. We can ask for more if you want some. So, you’re all named after Irish poets?”
“What else? Yeats had it the worst. People always want to call him Yeets when they see it written, instead of pronouncing it Yates. Drives him nuts.”
Brynn raised an eyebrow. “And Oscar didn’t get hot-dog jokes?”
“How’d you guess? He pretty much pounded everybody who tried, but O-S-C-A-R followed him around a lot when he was a kid,” Sean said, grinning at the memory. “We’d all jump in and help, of course. Not too many wanted to take on the O’Malley boys.”
“No sisters?”
Sean’s smile faded as he remembered the time he’d come across his mother kneeling in the attic next to a large trunk, tears running down her face. She’d been folding a tiny pink lace nightgown. He’d been a kid then, afraid to intrude on his mom’s privacy. Since he’d grown, he’d wondered sometimes if she’d miscarried the daughter she’d always wanted, but he hadn’t known how to ask. Hadn’t wanted to resurrect her sorrow.
“No sister,” he said abruptly. “You? Brothers or sisters?”
“No. My mother didn’t even want to have me,” she said, frowning. “She was trying to break the curse. No daughters means no daughters have to turn feathery.”
Sean took a long sip of his coffee, wondering how to ask the obvious question. Finally, he settled on the simplest way.
“Why? How?”
Brynn’s face lost its happy glow, and he bitterly regretted mentioning it. “Forget it. None of my business. Let’s eat, and we can talk about anything but fires or swans.”
Her smile was the best reward he could have gotten. “Yes. I agree.”
She took a big bite of pancake and closed her eyes in bliss. “Mmmmm.”
She was absolutely glorious. Desire sparked in Sean like tinder to a blaze, and he suddenly wanted to lick maple syrup off her body, or at least spend the next month doing nothing but eating breakfast with her and watching her smile.
He lived his life surrounded by people, and yet he was always so alone. For the first time in forever, he felt a connection, and he had no intention of letting her get away before they could explore it.
“After we finish the pancakes and bacon, we can have waffles,” she said, grinning like a child at Christmas, and he smiled right back at her, basking in the warmth of her obvious enjoyment.
They talked and laughed and worked their way through most of the food and several cups of coffee, and a good hour and a half had gone by before it even occurred to Sean to wonder why it was so easy for him to talk to her. They had an ease between them that felt more like the connection between good friends than the awkward getting-to-know-you stage between strangers.
Brynn picked up the last piece of toast, sighed, and put it back down. “I’d better not. I already feel like I won’t want to eat again for a week.”
He suddenly remembered something and looked around. “Isn’t there usually a waitress here?”
Brynn pushed her plate back, apparently full at last, and nodded. “Ethel. She does synchronized swimming three mornings a week, so it’s serve yourself on those days.”
Sean thought about the old movies his grandmother had liked to watch, and decided Brynn must be putting him on. “Her name is Ethel, and she’s a synchronized swimmer?”
“Yes, why?”
He shook his head. “Never mind.”
The diner’s door banged open, and Zach strode in, followed by a couple of the guys from the crew. The last thing Sean wanted to do was share Brynn with them, and he knew the moment they caught sight of him they’d come barging over.
“Hey, we might want to head out,” he told her. “It’s about to get pretty noisy in here.”
She glanced back over her shoulder at the group just inside the door, and he could have sworn she flinched a little. “Yes, time for me to go. Breakfast was . . . nice.”
She put a hand in her pocket, but he shook his head. “My treat.”
“But—okay. Thank you.” With that, she was up and out of the booth almost before he could react, but he couldn’t let her go like that. “Wait. Brynn, how do I reach you? I’d like to do this again, or dinner, maybe, as soon as we can figure out a time.”
Brynn started shaking her head before he’d even finished the sentence. By the time she replied, his heart was already sinking into his gut.
“Oh, no, you don’t understand. We can never see each other again.”
Before he could protest, she slipped through a door that said Employees Only, and she was gone.
Zach’s booming voice penetrated Sean’s stunned disbelief. “O’Malley, there you are. The chief wants to see you. Something about reporters and obeying orders.”
Sean stood up and met Zach in the aisle. “Forget it. I’m off duty. Tell him to go talk to a mirror, like he usually does.”
Zach didn’t smile at the admittedly lame joke. “You’re going, and I’m going with you. We’ve finally got a lead on the freak who’s setting these fires.”
Sean glanced back at the door through which Brynn had disappeared, but then made himself shake it off. No time to worry about mysterious women right now.
“Let’s go get the bastard,” Sean said grimly. He pulled out his wallet and left money on the cash register counter for Olaf.
“Go get him for all of us,” the little cook said, and the murmurs of agreement from everyone in the diner followed them out the door.
FOUR
Sean sat in the uncomfortable metal chair in the conference room and amused himself by imagining all the ways he could crush Bordertown Fire Chief Arvin Ledbetter like the pompous little cockroach he was. He didn’t know how many asses the new chief had kissed to get the job, but the windbag was clearly good at his work.
The ass-kissing part of his work. Not the fire chief part.
Zach and the guys had brought takeout breakfast for everyone, because they were all just too damn tired to cook. Nobody had said much until they’d devoured Olaf’s cooking down to the crumbs. Now they were ready to listen, even though most of them looked ready to drop any minute. The shift change had come and gone, and the fresh day crew sat and leaned against the clutter of safety notices and posters lining the walls of the room, including one that Zach had artistically altered.
Sean doubted that Smokey Bear had ever performed such a lewd act on a goat.
Shift change hadn’t meant a thing today. Not a single one of Sean’s crew had made a move to go home. They all wanted to catch the arsonist before he could strike a fifth time.
“As I was saying, we suspect that this is the fourth fire the same perpetrator set in Bordertown,” Ledbetter said, positioning himself in front of the whiteboard.
Sean groaned. “We know that. Same accelerant, same signature, same guy. Do we have any new evidence or not?”
The chief glared at him, and Sean could almost see the word insubordinate form in the jerk’s brain. “Yes, if you’d have a little patience, O’Malley. We believe the fires are the work of a disgruntled ex-Bordertown city official who was fired from the parks and—”
“No,” Sean interrupted, earni
ng himself a death glare. “We already checked him out. Wagner, Waggoner, something like that?”
Zach nodded. “Yeah. Wagner. He had an alibi for the second fire.”
“Alibis can be faked,” Ledbetter pointed out.
“You’re right,” Sean admitted. “But that’s not why it isn’t him. Wagner is pure vanilla human. The arsonist used magic for the accelerant.”
Sharply inhaled breaths and low, vicious cursing filled the room from every firefighter in it. They all knew how much harder it was to combat a magically enhanced blaze.
“He could have had a partner,” Sue Newman pointed out, but she didn’t sound convinced. Her short, blond hair stood up in spikes, and dark smudges under her eyes testified to her exhaustion. She’d been on the same shifts as Sean for the past several days.
They were all working too hard, but they didn’t have a choice because, so far, the arsonist was working harder. Or smarter. Either way, the madman was at least one step ahead of them, and this time he’d almost claimed his first human victims.
Sean was pretty sure the man wasn’t working with a partner, though. Arsonists were almost always loners—at least the true crazies and the ones who considered themselves experts were—and no amateur was behind this string of fires.
Ledbetter made a croaking harrumph sound. “What evidence do you have that magic was used? We found no proof of that.”
Sean had been hoping the question wouldn’t come up, because he couldn’t explain it without revealing his fire demon heritage. As far as he knew, only fire demons and black magic practitioners could see the complete spectrum of colors in a fire and instantly know which were caused by magic, and there was no way in hell he was giving anybody cause to think he was either. He’d sworn an oath to his father—all the O’Malley boys had.
So he deflected. “You called us here because you had new evidence, Zach said, and since our witch was helping put out the fire, I just figured—”
The chief scowled, which unfortunately made his piggy little eyes squint and his puffy little jowls puff out even further. Sean made the mistake of glancing at Zach, who was clearly thinking the same thing, and he had to fight back the grin. It was neither the time nor the place for it, and there was damn sure nothing funny about the situation, but the man looked ridiculous when he tried to act important.