by Bella Andre
They lay together in silence for several minutes as sunlight streamed in through his window. To say that Ginger had rocked his world wasn’t even cutting into the surface. Still, a warning light went off behind his breastbone, one he wanted to ignore but couldn’t.
He’d promised himself that he’d keep his distance. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. Instead, not only had he been all over her last night, but they’d been in such a hurry all three times, they hadn’t used a condom. Hadn’t done a single thing to prevent diseases. Or pregnancy.
“Ginger, we need to talk.”
She scooted away from him slightly, pulled the sheet up to cover her gorgeous curves. “I knew you were going to say that.”
That was when he saw the faint scar on her shoulder. “Right there,” he said, running two fingers over the slightly discolored skin, from her collarbone all the way to the underside of her left breast. “That’s where you were burned.”
She nodded and he leaned closer to run kisses down her skin. “I’m sorry you had to feel that.”
Her fingers threaded into his hair. “I’m okay now,” she said. “Perfectly okay.”
The taste of her still on his tongue, somehow he managed, “We didn’t use anything. I haven’t been with a woman in a while. But the last time the fire station tested us, I was clean.”
“Me too.”
“What about—”
Jesus, he was breaking out in a sweat just thinking about the odds of becoming a father like this. All because he couldn’t keep his hands off her.
“Is this the right time of the month for—”
But she was already shaking her head and saying, “No. I don’t think I’m ovulating.”
She hadn’t blushed when she’d been taking him into her mouth, but now that they were talking about the repercussions of the mind-blowing sex they’d just had, both of them were uncomfortable.
“My cycle is pretty wonky, but I seriously doubt we’re in danger of anything like that.”
Relief shot through him and he finally let himself smile. “Good.”
“Yeah,” she said, even though she wasn’t smiling back. “It’s great.”
“We’ll have to be more careful next time.”
Her eyes flew to his. “Next time?”
“I told myself I was going to stay the hell away from you, but it was a lie, Ginger. Every last thing about you blows my mind. I don’t think I could keep my hands off you if I tried.”
She shivered, reached for him. “I don’t want you to.”
God, he hated the need to lay it all out like this. But there was no other way. Because if they were going to go forward, he had to make absolutely sure they were on the same page.
“You know I’m going back to Lake Tahoe after the summer to rejoin my crew, right?”
“Of course you will. They’re going to be lucky to have you back.”
She was so damn sweet, it seemed that she almost wanted his career as a hotshot back for him as much as he did. The warning light behind his breastbone shifted as it was shoved to the side by something else entirely.
Something he couldn’t possibly acknowledge.
He knew he shouldn’t reach for her until they were done talking, but he couldn’t help himself and slid her onto his lap anyway.
“Could we enjoy each other for the summer and agree to stay friends when we both go our separate ways?”
She didn’t say anything for several moments, confirming that he was asking for too much. Ginger should be saving herself for a good man, for someone who could give her a future.
Not wasting time on a dead end.
But then, when she smiled at him and said, “It sounds perfect,” he was so glad that he lifted her up and carried her into the bathroom to seal the deal, barely remembering at the last minute to reach into his dresser to grab a condom.
Turning on the shower with his free hand, he ran his hands over her hips, her waist, her breasts.
She reached over his shoulder. “How about I soap you up?”
She moved around behind him and started running the soap between his shoulder blades, down his back, along his arms. Sure, they’d made love repeatedly. She’d held his hands, stroked them, but to take the time to run a bar of soap over the parts of him that were so damaged, well, he wouldn’t ask that of anyone. Especially not when he knew damn well how sickened other women had been doing far less.
“You don’t have to do that.”
Her hands stilled. “Why wouldn’t I want to, Connor?”
His throat tightened, making it hard to say, “I know what my skin looks like. How bad it is.”
She moved back around the front of him. “How bad do you think it is?”
“It’s a mess,” he rasped out. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. What we’ve done is already enough.”
It had to be.
But she didn’t seem to be listening, because she had already dropped the soap to the floor and was lifting both of his hands to her lips. She kissed his knuckles and then the silvery gray skin where they’d stitched it together, the raised and bumpy patches where it had simply pulled away with his melted gloves.
And then she was putting his scarred hands against her chest, pressing his palms flat so that he could feel her heart beat beneath her breastbone.
“Don’t you dare try to tell me what I shouldn’t do, Connor. I’m a big girl. And I’m not scared of you. Not one single thing about you. Even if you think I should be.”
He kissed her then, and as he took her one more time, he couldn’t help but wonder where a woman this incredible could have come from.
And just what the hell he was going to do about her when it came time to head back to California. Without her.
Ginger couldn’t remember ever feeling this exhausted. Or this exhilarated.
Connor was her fantasy lover come to life. Big and strong, almost ruthless in his passion. She’d come violently every single time, and even when she hadn’t thought it could get better, it had.
He was wrapping a towel around her, his mouth on her neck, sending thrill bumps running across the surface of her body, when she realized the phone was ringing. Whoever it was, she’d just ignore it. Whatever they wanted, she’d deal with it later.
But instead of stopping, the phone kept ringing and ringing. Over and over until Connor finally lifted his head from that spot right between her breasts where he could run his tongue over both at once.
“Sounds like you’d better get that.”
More than a little irritated by the interruption, she tucked the towel under her arms and headed into her bedroom to pick up the cordless.
“Hello.”
An unfamiliar male voice greeted her on the other end. “Hi. Sorry to bother you, but this is Sam MacKenzie. Any chance my brother is there?”
Connor was just walking past her door to his bedroom, a towel slung low around his narrow hips. “Yes, he is. I’ll put him right on.” To Connor she said, “It’s Sam.”
Connor lifted an eyebrow in surprise as he took the phone. “What’s up?”
She couldn’t hear what Sam was saying, but as she watched Connor’s expression change back into that ice-cold rock she’d seen more than once, her concern morphed into full-on fear.
“Got it,” he finally said. “Nope. It’s fine. Talk to you later.”
“Connor?” She moved closer. “Did something happen?”
He didn’t say anything for quite a while, just stood there. His face was turned away from her so she couldn’t get a read on him as he said, “The Forest Service has been trying to get hold of me. They called Thursday, left a couple of messages at my house and on my cell. When they didn’t hear back, a friend of ours called Sam to make sure I was handling the news okay.”
Oh God, she knew what he was going to say. “What was the news?”
“I’m out. For good.”
His fingertips were numb as he dialed his voice mail to listen to the Forest Service director�
��s message.
“After reviewing your case again the Forest Service has decided not to put you back out in the field. And, as I’m sure you’re aware, you are at the end of the appeal process. A member of our reorganization program will be contacting you in a few days to discuss your new options within the Forest Service family. Again, we hope you’ll decide to stay on with the Forest Service in some capacity. You have been a great asset to our organization during the past decade and we are confident that you will be just as great of an asset in the future in whatever new role you take.”
New options?
Future?
From the day he’d graduated high school, Connor had been up in the mountains chasing wildfires. What the hell was he supposed to do with himself now? Teach from a book for the rest of his life? Wear a suit and get a paunch and tell the same stories over and over again about the “good old days” to the rookies?
He felt the bomb that had been building inside of him during the past two years start to detonate, slowly but surely. Blackness was swirling up from deep in his gut—a blackness that he hadn’t wanted to face, not even in the darkest days of his burns and skin grafts—like thick ink soaking straight into his cells.
Two years ago, everything had happened so fast he hadn’t had a chance to brace himself for the hit. Whereas this loss of everything he was, his world falling literally off its axis, was almost coming in slow motion.
But at the same time that the agony was prolonged, it gave him time to try to find something to hold on to, anything, just as long as it would keep his head above water for a little while longer.
Ginger’s arms came around him, then, and as she murmured how sorry she was, he realized the answer was right here.
As long as he could keep losing himself in Ginger, he might be able to keep the demons at bay.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
GINGER HAD never felt the need to comfort someone as much as she did in that moment after Connor heard the bad news. She tried to think what she would want him to do if their positions were reversed, if an all-controlling organization took her paints and canvases away for good. She would have wanted to bury herself in his warmth, let her tears pour down onto his chest while he stroked her and told her everything was going to be all right.
So she’d taken one step and then another toward him and put her arms around him. Tears pricked at her eyes as she held him and although his arms came around her too, even though he didn’t push her away, after a few moments she realized he wasn’t letting loose at all, wasn’t giving in to the inner turmoil that had to be ripping him apart.
He probably just needed some time to digest the news was what she told herself as they went about their day. She drew sketches for some new paintings out on the porch; he worked on the cabin. By noon the storm had blown out of town, leaving behind brilliant blue skies and blinding sparkles across the surface of the water. But the underlying tension in the cabin was suffocating.
Even after lunch, when he’d said it was time for dessert and then lifted her up on the indoor dining table and made love to her, while the pleasure was just as intense as it had been all night long and into the morning, she couldn’t help but feel like what was between them had changed.
On the one hand, it was obvious that he needed her more than ever. His constant caresses and kisses in the hours after the phone call were testament to that. But at the same time, she felt that he’d begun to hold pieces of himself back.
She tried to tell herself that she’d only known him five days, but no matter how she spun it, any way she looked at it, his behavior didn’t make sense.
He should be yelling. Lashing out.
She still remembered how she felt that night at the auction when Jeremy had said those horrible things, how she’d finally let go of everything she’d been holding back for so long. Her smiles gave way to rage. And, oh, it had felt so good to just let it all come spilling out. Not to worry about the mess she left behind, because she was already gone. Already starting over.
And it was because Connor’s situation felt so similar—and because she already cared so deeply for him—that she wanted to call him on it, wanted to force him to grieve, to truly face what had happened, to start to come to terms with his new future.
Whatever that future held.
There had to be plenty of other people hurting for him today. His brother obviously was. And his parents, when they finally found out, would probably be devastated as well.
Thinking of Connor’s parents made her finally remember.
The love letters.
Everything had happened so fast after they’d left the workshop the night before. The kids lighting fireworks. Kissing Connor in the rain. Thoughts of him had used up every last brain cell until now.
She needed to see Isabel. Give the stack of letters to her friend. And maybe, while she was gone, Connor might start to come to terms with the about-face his life had taken and he might be more ready to talk to her about it when she got back.
Thankfully she’d stashed the letters back in the dresser in the workshop. If she’d had them with her when they left the workshop they would have gotten soaked.
Connor saw her grab her keys and purse. “Heading out?”
“I just remembered an errand I’ve got to run.”
It almost felt like lying, not telling him that she was going to give Isabel the letters, but she didn’t think mentioning those right now would make his day any better and, at least for today, it seemed more important to protect him from any further pain.
“Come here first.”
The command in his voice, along with the sensual promise in his eyes, had her walking over to him in a semi-daze. And then, when she was barely within reaching distance, he pulled her into his arms, his fingers threading into her hair, his mouth coming down over hers. His kiss consumed her and she felt herself falling, heading further and further beneath his spell.
Finally, he let her up for air. “You sure your errand can’t wait?”
And even though a voice in her head told her that making love with him again was only helping him hide out from everything he needed to face, she couldn’t walk away. Not only because giving herself to him like this was the best—and only—way she could think of right now to provide the comfort he desperately needed.
But, on a less altruistic note, because stealing every hour that she possibly could with him was what she most wanted for herself.
By the time Ginger walked into the diner, the old letters safe in her large purse, Isabel was just turning the sign to CLOSED.
“This is a nice surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here today. Hungry?”
“No. I’ve already had lunch.” And then some.
“What’s up?” Isabel stopped fiddling with the blinds on the windows, looked more carefully at Ginger’s face. “Is it Connor? Did something else happen since I last saw you?”
Ginger hadn’t come here to talk about Connor, but now that her friend was asking she just couldn’t hold it in. “We … he … and then …”
Isabel grabbed her arm, pulled her over to a bar stool. “Coffee. That’s what you need. And then you can tell me everything.”
“But what about how you said I should stay away from him?”
“I’m not sure that’s exactly what I said, but you were right. Just because I have a past with his father, doesn’t mean I have anything against Connor. If you say he’s great, I’m sure he is.” She put a cup down in front of Ginger. “So how great is he?”
Ginger blushed, tried to buy herself time by taking a sip.
“Never mind. I think I get the gist of it already, just looking at you.”
But Ginger wanted to try to put what she was feeling into words. Maybe then she’d understand it better.
“It’s like something in him just pulls at me. And every second we’re together, I just …” She put her hand over her heart. “Right here. I feel him here.”
Isabel came around the counter, sat down next t
o Ginger. “You’re in deep already, aren’t you?”
There was no point in lying to herself about it. “Yes. And I don’t know how to stop it.”
“That only matters if you want to stop it.”
“It’s just a summer fling.” It was all they’d agreed on.
“No reason summer can’t turn to fall,” Isabel suggested.
Suddenly, Ginger realized they’d made that agreement when they thought he was going to be heading back to work for the Forest Service in California. But now that everything had changed for him, she realized that every day she spent with Connor was going to start and end with her hoping for one more day. For more of him.
Even after he’d told her flat-out that he had nothing to give.
“You’re scared, aren’t you?”
Ginger looked at her friend, saw love and concern in her eyes, and knew she could confess, “More scared than I’ve ever been. And at the same time, I’m so incredibly happy. Almost as if I could burst from it.”
Isabel leaned her head on Ginger’s shoulder, two friends sitting in an empty diner, sharing confidences. “I wish I knew the right thing to say to you. The perfect advice to give to make it less confusing. But I’m afraid you’re talking to someone who doesn’t know the first thing about making relationships work.”
Damn it, Ginger thought. She’d forgotten about the letters again.
“Actually, I came here to give you something.” Ginger reached into her purse and pulled them out. “I found these stuck behind one of my dresser drawers.”
Isabel’s face went white with shock. “My letters to Andrew.” She rubbed her fingers over the papers. “He kept them.”
“Isabel, I’m sorry,” Ginger blurted, “but one fell open and then once I started reading, I couldn’t help myself.”
But Isabel didn’t seem to hear her. “I was so young,” she said so quietly it was almost a whisper. “Sitting here, just like you are now. So in love with him that I could hardly see straight.”
Isabel’s words nearly knocked Ginger off of her stool. She didn’t think Isabel had even heard what she’d just said, she was so wrapped up in poring through the letters. But now that it was there—love, oh God, could that be what this pull was?—Ginger couldn’t look away from it.