Burning Up

by Susan Andersen

  It wasn’t the least bit casual.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EVERYTHING WILL BE DANDY, if I just keep this…whatever it is with Gabriel…casual. But as Macy headed for the boardinghouse kitchen, she was less than thrilled with her plan. The main problem was that she and Gabe had gotten together an additional four times since last week’s encounter—and making love with him hadn’t felt casual. Intense, amazing, connective, yes. Casual, not so much.

  Still, there was no rule saying she couldn’t be more guylike and just take it one red-hot session at a time, was there? That was undoubtedly what Gabe was doing. It remained to be seen whether she could pull it off, but hey, if he could, she should be able to, as well.

  Spotting her aunt at the worktable as she entered the kitchen, she shoved everything else aside and joined the older woman. “I got Ty off with the Brand X grandparents,” she said, pulling out a chair across the table and taking a seat. “And George delivered the mail so I brought it in.” She slid the stack over to Lenore. “Need some help snapping those beans?”

  “You bet—I never turn down help.” Lenore moved the large pottery bowl of string beans to the middle of the table and picked up the mail to quickly sort through it. She stopped at a letter midway through the pile. “Oh, dear.” With a sympathetic grimace, she handed it back to Macy.

  She looked at the letter she’d written her mother before leaving Redondo Beach. Given the thickness of the long, skinny labels along the envelope’s bottom edge, it had been forwarded two or three times before some postal employee had finally stamped it with a telltale purple hand pointing its Return to Sender finger. “Well, this is par for the course. My personal best getting a letter through before Mom moves again is one in three—and since the last one, or maybe it was the one before, reached her…”

  “I’m sorry, baby girl.”

  “Nah, don’t be.” She hitched a shoulder. “You’ll notice I put your return address on it instead of my own—and I mailed the thing before I left to come up here. I sometimes feel like I’m wasting my time writing, but having my mail miss or chase Mom sure beats those years I spent living with her when we pulled up stakes once or twice a month. And she calls every few months.”

  Lenore looked less than convinced, so Macy flashed her an extra-sunny smile. “It really is okay, Auntie.” Reaching into the pottery bowl, she pulled out a fistful of green beans and began systematically snapping off the ends. If there was maybe the tiniest niggling in her stomach, well, she knew from experience it would pass—and probably sooner rather than later, as that seemed to be truer the farther away from childhood she moved.

  She and the woman who in her heart of hearts she considered her real mother drank iced tea and exchanged comfortable conversation as they snapped their way through the big bowl of beans. Drawing a deep breath, she said, “I think maybe I’ll go to our ten-year reunion after all, if Janna feels up to attending.”

  “Good for you,” Lenore approved. “I’m tickled to hear it.”

  Macy swallowed her immediate desire to take it back and dedicated herself to the beans for a minute or two to avoid telegraphing her doubts. When she looked up again, it was to catch her aunt studying her braided hair and makeup-free face. Oh, she had on lip balm and mascara, but as far as she was concerned that was the same thing.

  Lenore gave her a fond smile. “You look about sixteen years old.”

  “I feel kind of naked. But I told Gabriel I’d help him paint his basement.” She snorted. “That’s prettying it up—painting was the price he demanded, the bastard, for letting me select a nice neutral color instead of the boring white he was leaning toward.” She waved the digression away with impatient fingers. “Anyway, it seemed sorta pointless to get all gussied up when I’ll probably just end up splattered with paint.”

  She glanced at the old schoolhouse clock on the wall. “He had some work to do this morning but said he’d be back to pick me up around noon.”

  “So.” Lenore smiled. “You and Gabe, huh?”

  “Oh, no, it’s not like—we’re not a couple or anything!”

  Her aunt merely looked at her and Macy squirmed. “That is—” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Oh, hell. I don’t know what we are.” She took an inordinate amount of time getting the next bean snapped just right. “When I’m with him,” she admitted in a low voice. “It feels kinda—right. No. More than kind of. Right right, y’know? But the minute I’m on my own again, I start picking it to pieces.”

  She looked up. “I’ve never had a relationship with a guy that’s lasted more than a couple of months. And in truth, Auntie? I don’t think I have what it takes to stick with anyone for the long haul. I’m not even sure I know how to love.”

  “What hogwash,” Lenore said. “You have the biggest heart of anyone I know.” She reached across to wrap her work-worn fingers around Macy’s and squeeze. “You think someone lacking the ability to love would just drop everything to come running the minute we asked for help?”

  Macy waved the bean in her free hand. “That’s family love. It’s the romantic kind I’m afraid I don’t have the chops to sustain.”

  “Trust me, you’ve got love to spare for that, as well. Honey, Bud isn’t your blood relative, but have you ever considered him anything other than your family?”

  “Of course not! But he’s been part of my life for as long as I can remember.”

  “All right, then take Jack. I’ve watched the two of you, and you couldn’t treat him more like a brother if he was one. The point is, baby girl, most people create their families as they go along. Love in any guise boils down to trust. And communication. So you take some time today to get to know Gabe in ways other than just the sexual. Talk to the boy.” Releasing Macy’s hand, she sat back and gave her a lopsided smile. “You might be surprised what you discover.”

  LENORE’S WORDS PLAYED through Macy’s head as she and Gabriel rolled out of his air bed an hour or so later and got serious about arranging their painting gear. Because her aunt was right: they’d been using great sex to avoid actually talking to each other for the past week.

  Okay, she had been more so than Gabriel. He’d tried several times to start a conversation that had more depth than their usual banter, but except for that once when she’d told him a little of how she got into music videos, she’d changed the subject or used sex to divert his attention. Much as she hated to admit it, she’d let insecurity over her ability to sustain a relationship and fear of failure should she turn out to be every bit as lousy at it as she suspected she’d be keep her from even trying.

  She opened her mouth now to initiate a conversation but allowed the busywork of laying tarps and getting out rollers, paint trays and brushes to sidetrack her. Finally she said, “It must have taken forever to tape all this woodwork.”

  That wasn’t so stinkin’ hard. And while it was a long poke from deep, it was a start.

  “No shit, it took up all my free time last night.” He squatted in front of the hearth where he’d spread out newspapers and opened a can of paint. “Hey,” he said. “This is nice.”

  She gave him a droll look. “Should I be insulted that you sound so surprised?”

  “No, it’s just…” Glancing up at her, he shrugged. “You kept saying the place needed a nice earth tone, but I didn’t have a clue what that meant, since it could be anything from grass green to sunset orange. I like this. It’s a color, but not a set-the-wall-to-screaming one.” His brows furrowed as he read the lid. “Huh. This says Bennington Gray, but it looks more like one of those fancy steamed-milk and whipped-cream drinks at Starbucks.”

  They discussed color names and who came up with them as Gabe used a brush to cut in paint from the ceiling molding. The topic ran its course about the time he finished across the top and squatted to begin the same process in from the floorboards. Macy picked up her roller, climbed the ladder he’d set up for her and started filling the gap between the two. But after they’d been silent for a while, she took a d
eep breath, quietly blew it out—and finally brought up the subject she’d been avoiding all week. Closely watching her color blend into the paint he’d cut in, she said casually, “So, have you heard the news about Jack and Grace?”

  She felt rather than saw him look up at her. “What about them?”

  “They’re having a fling. Well, it might actually be more than a fling—at least on Jack’s part. He seems to think he could be in love with her.”

  “Yeah? Are you okay with that?”

  “Me?” Roller halting midapplication, she stared down at him. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m not the one who’s been acting—” Uh, probably not a good idea to go there, Mace.

  “How have I been acting? That is your implication, I take it. That I’ve been acting out in some way?”

  She declined to answer and he rose to his feet. Came up to where she perched on the stepladder, his hands on his lean hips as he gave her a slow once-over. “How have I been acting, Macy?” It was a low-voiced demand, but a demand all the same.

  “Jealous,” she snapped. “Okay? Every time you’ve seen Jack and Grace together, you’ve acted crazy jealous.”

  He stared at her with his mouth ajar for a moment…then burst out laughing.

  Her eyebrows snapped together. “What’s so damn funny?”

  “I wasn’t jealous of Grace with Jack, you twit. I wanted to rip his head from his shoulders over you.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. If I’ve been acting jealous around him—and I object to the crazy portion of that claim—it’s because I thought he and you had a thing going.”

  “Are you crazy? Jack’s like the brother I never had.”

  “I’m happy to hear it—not to mention totally get the concept. Because no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise when we were dating, Grace always felt too much like a sister to me. So as long as Jack’s not using her simply to amuse himself while he’s in town, I’m good with whatever Grace chooses to do.”

  “He’s not like that, Gabe. But that’s fair enough.” She leaned down, pressed a kiss on his lips, then straightened to give him a quirky smile. “So you were jealous over me, huh?”

  “Maybe a little.” He smacked her on the butt and went back to his painting. “But I wouldn’t plan on thinking that means you’re gonna get your way from here on out if I were you.”

  Macy turned her attention back to the job, but she was aware of a happy sort of warmth infusing her.

  A while later she said, “I never hear you talk about your family.”

  He stilled for a moment, then rolled his wide shoulders. “That’s because there’s not much to say. I’m an only child of an only child, so I don’t have much in the way of relatives.”

  “Are your parents gone, then?”

  “Damned if I know. I never met my old man, so I have no idea if he’s dead or alive. As for my mother, well, given her lifestyle she may well be six feet under. She was still kicking when I turned eighteen and left foster care, but I haven’t actually seen or heard from her in the twenty years since she decided I was cramping her style and dumped me in the system.”

  If he was thirty-five, that would have made him—“Your mother abandoned you when you were fourteen?” Macy didn’t know why she received the news like a body blow, but she wanted to hug him, to cover him in kisses. And she wanted to track down his mother if the woman was still alive and bitch-slap her into next Tuesday. Instinctively knowing he wouldn’t welcome anything he’d construe as pity, however, she forced herself to say in a matter-of-fact tone, “Well, that sucks big-time.”

  His big shoulders rolled. “It did at the time. I don’t really care anymore. But what’s your story?”

  “Mine?”

  “I know you’re close to Bud and Lenore, but what about your parents?”

  This was supposed to be her getting to know him—she didn’t want to talk about her.

  But even as the thought struck, she could see how one-sided it was. She blew out a soft breath. “I didn’t know my dad, either. My folks were married, but he died when I was too young to remember. My mother, though? Well, Mom isn’t Mother of the Year material, either. She dragged me from town to town until my biggest dream was a stable place to call home.”

  “Why’d she move so often?”

  “You got me.” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but felt a twinge of her old unhappy frustration over the fact that her mom would never discuss it. She’d simply packed them up with an aggravating cheerfulness and hit the road again despite knowing how much Macy hated it. “I guess she was looking for something. She never found it, apparently, because she still is.” Her shoulder hitched. “I don’t know, I hardly ever hear from her.” She shook off the touch of unease this topic gave her and told Gabriel the definitive thing that made it all okay. “But I had Auntie Lenore and Uncle Bud.”

  “You were lucky there.”

  “No foolin’. Having them for role models is like holding the winning ticket in the Mega Millions lottery. They made all the difference in how I turned out. Well, the good parts of me, anyhow. I take full blame for the rest.”

  Once again she turned her attention to her paint job, but now that the lines of communication had been breached, she found herself wild to learn more. “So,” she demanded as she climbed down to move her ladder along the wall a couple of feet, “what first got you interested in firefighting?”

  GREAT DAY. Gabe knotted a towel around his hips, whistling off-key as he leaned into the big mirror of the boardinghouse’s upstairs bathroom and used his inner forearm to wipe a clear space in the steamy surface before reaching for the shave gel. Squirting a blob into his palm, he used his fingers to spank it into foam, then spread it on his face. Picking up his razor, he cut a smooth swath through the shaving cream and turned on the faucet to rinse the blade clean.

  Even though Macy had spent a decent amount of time with him this past week, he’d had the feeling she was, if not actively avoiding him any longer, still holding back. But today—well, today she’d really opened up for the first time. She’d talked. Asked questions and answered his. And he’d liked it. He’d liked it big-time.

  On top of which they’d painted the entire rec room. It was pretty much a red-letter day.

  Tonight they were going out on a date. Well, not just the two of them, but still their first official date. It was to be a double date, apparently, something he could honestly say he’d never been on. But Macy wanted them to go out with Grace and Jack—and what the hell, since the only option for a night out in this town was pretty much the Red Dog unless there was a special event at the grange hall, they would’ve been surrounded by a crowd anyhow.

  Still, it should prove interesting. His ex dating her ex while he and Macy bore witness. Weird, but interesting.

  Jack’s like the brother I never had.

  He grinned, and seeing as it tightened his face, tipped his chin up and shaved up his neck and beneath his chin. Jack wasn’t her ex, as it turned out. And if that made Gabe a tad smug, too effin’ bad. He’d earned it in the sweat equity he’d put into thinking the rocker had been her lover.

  Someone banged on the door. “Get a move on, sonny,” Mr. Grandview groused from the other side. “I’m an old man. My bowels don’t work as good as they useta.”

  Gabe vacated the bathroom moments later. “It’s all yours,” he said to the elderly man, who hustled in with his newspaper in hand.

  He strode down the hallway to his room. His good mood persisted as he selected a navy T-shirt, his newest pair of jeans and a rust-colored, short-sleeved, loose-weave shirt that he’d leave open over the T-shirt to dress things up. He pulled a brush through his hair, recited, “Testicles, spectacles, wallet and watch,” in the age-old checklist a counselor at the Creighton Boy’s Home had taught him for making sure a guy had all the essentials before leaving home and exited the room. He was whistling again as he loped down the stairs.

  That came to a ragged halt a few minutes lat
er when Macy strolled down the hallway in yet another of her getups.

  For Christ sake. Couldn’t she just once go out in public without the frigging camouflage?

  Then guilt stabbed him as an image of her the last time she had worn regular clothes in Sugarville—at the clinic after the fire—flashed through his mind. And, hell, it wasn’t as if tonight’s outfit was all that outrageous—she had a kind of film-noir femme fatale look going with that little formfitting, pin-tucked, white satin blouse tucked into a skintight black skirt and those retro blue peep-toed, Cuban-heeled shoes she’d worn the first time he’d seen her. She had parted her hair on the left and must have pinned her bangs to the side, because a glossy wave fell over her right eye. Her left was made up with dramatic eye stuff, including lashes so long they had to be fake, and her lips were a moist red. She looked sexy and a little dangerous, but he couldn’t help it: he much preferred the fresh-faced approachable Macy of this afternoon to Theatrical Macy. Hell, she was a video queen, and everybody and his brother knew it. She didn’t need a damn costume to cement the fact.

  But it wasn’t up to him to tell her how to dress. And if watching her hide behind clothing that—no matter how striking—was nothing more than protective covering set his teeth on edge, he’d just have to suck it up. Tonight’s agenda was to have a good time.

  A big smile spread across her face when she spotted him, erasing his lingering dissatisfaction. She sashayed up the hallway as fast as her pencil-slim skirt permitted.

  “Don’t you look handsome,” she said, then lowered her voice as she came up to him. “I hope you don’t mind, but I invited Janna along. I know it sorta takes the date out of the date, but Ty’s spending the night with his other grandparents and she’s had precious little fun since she was hit by that car.” Her hand on his arm, she rose onto her toes, pressed a soft kiss on his mouth, then settled back onto her heels. “I’ll make it up to you, though. I’ll take you out for dinner and a movie in Wenatchee any evening that works for you. Heck, I’ll even let you pick out one of those blow-’em-up flicks.”