Set the Night on Fire

by Jennifer Bernard

  “Half the time? You’re doing better than I am. I only know what I’m talking about ten percent of the time, on a good day. The rest is pretty much babble.”

  “Good to know.”

  In the parking lot, Sean blinked at the deep, nearly purple night sky. “Didn’t realize it was so late.”

  “That’s what happens when you ignore the world.”

  “I’m not ignoring, I’m just—” Sean sighed. Maybe he was ignoring the world. Between the burnover accusations, the crash reopening, and the constant bullshit of Brad White, the world wasn’t much fun right now. The news that the investigation into the Marcus crash had been reopened had just hit the papers. And his old boss at the Fighting Scorpions had called, warning him that this new federal investigator was hell bent on finding some kind of wrongdoing.

  Why the fuck had he come back to Jupiter Point? For a town that prided itself on its peace and quiet, it had given him nothing but trouble so far.

  They loaded into the pickup and Josh steered them off the base.

  “Gotta warn you,” Sean told his friend, “I may not be the most popular person in Jupiter Point right now.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Josh took a corner at about twice the speed limit. “That’s why I’m dragging you out tonight. The worst thing you can do is hide out at the base. You have to get out there. Mix it up.”

  “I’m not hiding out. I’ve been working.”

  “I know that, but to the town, it probably looks like you don’t want to show your face.” Josh shrugged. “Any good politician will tell you that you have to go brass balls with this sort of thing.”

  “You’re talking like I did something wrong. I didn’t.”

  “And it’s about time we corrected that.”

  “Is that why you’re speeding? You think I haven’t spent enough time at the police station?” Sean gripped the strap above the window and hung on through another rubber-laying curve.

  “Tip of the iceberg, Magneto. We’re just getting started.”

  “If I end up married to another stripper, I’m suing.”

  Josh just laughed and amped up their speed another notch. Dark pine trees and telephone poles whipped past, and Sean decided maybe he’d been working too hard. A beer wouldn’t kill him.

  Walking into Barstow’s felt like stepping back into senior year in high school. The place felt more like home than Jupiter Point High ever did. It still had the same horseshoe-shaped bar with the brown vinyl bumper adorned with brass studs. The grooves in the floor’s wide oak planks were worn even deeper by thirteen years’ worth of feet. The dusty bottles of liquor behind the bar might even be the exact same ones from his last visit here. At Barstow’s, customers drank beer on tap and the occasional shot of rum or tequila. It wasn’t the kind of place where the glowing green Midori liqueur went very fast.

  When Josh and Sean walked in, the buzz of conversation took a brief pause. Sean saw the bartender snap to attention. The bartenders at Barstow’s were always braced for trouble, which was wise. Sean had caused more than his share back in the old days.

  Josh jumped into the temporary lull. “Howdy.” He gave a cowboy salute to the crowd. Since he’d actually grown up on a ranch down south, he could pull it off. “We heard this is the best place to drink away your troubles.”

  “Come on in, hotshots,” someone called out to them. Sean couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be mocking or not.

  As they passed through the crowd, Sean exchanged some low-fives with a few people he recognized, though couldn’t name. To his relief, he didn’t catch any nasty glances from anyone. Maybe they were too afraid to mess with him to his face. Maybe they didn’t care about the dirt Brad was spreading. Maybe they just wanted to have a drink. Maybe Josh had been right and Sean had been hiding out at the base.

  Maybe it was time for a drink, and he didn’t usually say that. But if ever a man deserved to get a little buzzed, this was probably the time.

  Josh ordered them both a beer and a tequila chaser. It went down so easy that Sean ordered the next round. Once they were nice and loosened up, they found themselves in a game of darts against members of the local fire department.

  “See, here’s the thing,” one of the firemen kept drunkenly telling Sean as he put holes in the wall next to the dartboard. “We gotta work together. Fires don’t care what kind of firefighter you are, know what I mean? Forest fire comes, you call us. We need help, we call you. We’re all firefighters under here.” He pounded his chest, then wagged his finger at Sean. “And we gotta stick together against the cops, am I right?”

  The firefighters roared and slapped Sean and Josh on the back. Sean and Josh grinned at each other and tossed back more shots. Nothing bonded a group of firefighters like ragging on the local police department. Considering that he’d spent an hour with Chief Becker feeling like a delinquent facing the school principal, Sean went with it.

  After the game of darts, they played pool with a couple of nurses from the urgent care clinic. One of them flirted madly with Josh, but sadly, it was one of the males in the group. Always good-natured, Josh played along. The other nurse, a striking redhead in her forties, kept excusing herself to smoke, which Sean always found strange in a medical professional.

  They ordered another round, and things started getting fuzzy. The firefighters joined the pool game and started telling Sean Marcus stories.

  “Didn’t you run through here naked once?”

  “Yeah, it was a dare,” the one called Rabbit chimed in. “You and Hunter dared each other. You did so much crazy shit. Remember when you raced down Constellation on pogo sticks?”

  “Or when you rigged the water fountain at school so the water came out red?”

  Josh doubled over with laughter. “Man, I wish I’d known you back then, Magneto.”

  Sean just laughed and hid behind his beer. Yeah, he’d had some fun back then. But mostly he’d been releasing energy in whatever way he could.

  The next time she went for a smoke, the redheaded nurse dragged him out back with her. “Just gotta tell you, we’re not getting married,” he warned her, slurring the words. “Bad track record on that.”

  “Dream on, buddy. I got a twenty-year-old kid.”

  “That’s cool. Really cool.”

  She dragged on her cigarette, then launched into a long, confusing story about her daughter and the callous older man who had broken her heart. Sean tried to focus on it, but he was worried about her lit cigarette and the scrub grass behind Barstow’s.

  “The most fucked-up part is that she volunteers at his office.” The nurse dropped the cigarette into the grass. Sean jumped on it and ground it out with his boot heel. “She doesn’t care what I say.”

  “Kids. They never listen.” Sean knew from experience, since he never had.

  “Well, the thing is, he has money. And he’s got the looks. He’s going places, for sure. Every time I see one of his bumper stickers, I want to rear end someone.”

  Sean squinted at her. Bumper stickers? He started to ask her who the man was, but Josh pushed open the door just then and yanked him back inside.

  “Emergency,” he hissed.

  “What’s going on? Streaker? Tequila shortage?”

  “No. Much worse. Suzanne’s here. Evie’s cousin. We have to talk to her and she scares me.”

  Sean allowed his friend to drag him back to the bar area. Someone had put a country song on the jukebox and a line dance was forming. How could so many drunken people manage to boot kick in unison? Suzanne, her hair as bright as lemon sorbet, stood near the bar chatting with two other girls.

  She lit up at the sight of them. “Sean Marcus, back where it all started. Barstow’s is like your native habitat, right? I’ve heard all the stories, and then some. You’re planning something big and crazy, aren’t you?”

  “See what I mean?” Josh whispered to Sean. “She makes me nervous.”

  “Say something,” Sean whispered back. “I’m blanking.”

  Jos
h rolled his eyes and turned to Suzanne. “Not so much, Evie’s cousin. We’re just letting off some steam.”

  “Steam?” She waved her hand in front of her face. “More like fumes, Sean’s friend.”

  “Well, this is a bar, last I checked.” Josh tucked his thumbs in his front pockets. “Where do you hang out, the Tight-Ass Saloon?”

  Sean snorted, which earned him a betrayed look from Suzanne. “How’s Evie doing?” she asked him.

  “Evie’s…uh, busy. She’s at a meeting.”

  “You haven’t heard? The meeting’s over. Those jerks wanted to fire her.”

  Sean shook his head to clear it. It didn’t work. “She’s the president. Presidents don’t get fired.”

  “Nixon did,” Josh said wisely. “Clinton nearly did.”

  “No,” Suzanne corrected him. “Nixon resigned. Don’t firemen have to study American history?”

  Josh shoved his hands in his pockets and scowled at her. “He only resigned because he was about to—”

  “Can we get back to Evie here?” Sean felt like his head was about to explode. Suzanne and Josh seemed to really like needling each other. “What happened at the meeting?”

  “She walked in and they told her to take a hike, but not in those exact words. So she told them to shove it, again, not in those exact words. She used McGraw language, you know. I understand the language, being related to them, but I’m not a McGraw myself and therefore have avoided the McGraw family communication problems.”

  “Too bad,” said Josh with a smirk. “A little less communication goes a long way sometimes.”

  Suzanne stamped her foot at him. “Look, Mr. Hotshot, I don’t know who gave you the right to make comments about—”

  “Give me the keys, Josh,” Sean interrupted. “Gotta go find Evie.”

  Josh put a hand on his shoulder. “Bro, no way are you driving.”

  “Of course you’re not driving,” Suzanne said. “In this one instance, Josh is right.”

  “I’ll drive,” Josh announced, digging in his pocket.

  “You will not!” Suzanne lunged for the truck keys, which snagged on the edge of his jeans pocket, half in, half out. She tugged at them, trying to free them.

  “Why, you little minx.” Josh spread open his arms in a “come and get me” move. “I didn’t know you were interested. All you had to do is say so.”

  “Moron,” she hissed, abandoning her quest to grab the keys. Instead, she whipped her phone from her pocket. “Fine, drive if you want. I’m calling the cops right now and telling them there’s a drunken fireman on the road. I bet they’d love to hear that.”

  Josh and Sean looked at each other. “Damn, she’s good,” Sean admitted.

  “Pains me to say this, but you’re right.”

  “I’ll drive.” She held out her hand for the keys. “But first, you guys are buying me coffee.”

  23

  Ten minutes later, they were working their way through a pot of coffee at the pancake house on Route 5.

  “It’s because of me, isn’t it?” Sean couldn’t get over the news about Evie resigning. “I should never have come back to Jupiter Point. I’ve ruined everything for Evie.”

  “That’s not true,” Suzanne said impatiently. “My cousin’s a lot happier since you got here. Regular sex will do that for you.”

  Josh snorted coffee through his nose, then clapped a hand to his face with a moan of agony. “You should really warn a guy before tossing the word ‘sex’ out there.”

  “Sorry, big guy. I’ll be more careful with your delicate sensibilities from now on,” Suzanne teased.

  Josh just blinked at her.

  Wow—Sean couldn’t remember the last time a woman had rendered Josh speechless. His estimation of Suzanne went way up. He propped his elbows on the table and rubbed his forehead. “I didn’t come here to mess around with Evie’s life.”

  “You know something, Sean Marcus? I’ve been wondering just why you did come back.”

  Josh bristled at Suzanne’s tart tone. “He came here to save your starry-eyed butts from wildfires.”

  Suzanne made a face at the tall man slouched next to her in the booth. “He can be a hero anywhere. Why did he decide to come here?”

  “Why are you riding him about it? Despite the way you prance around, this town doesn’t actually belong to you.”

  “Prance around? You haven’t been here long enough to see me prance. When I prance, it will be down the aisle with my fiancé.”

  “And I’ll be there doing the slow clap for the poor man.”

  “Stop it, both of you.” Sean couldn’t stand their bantering a second longer. “I came back because—” He broke off. Suddenly it felt strange to be saying this at two in the morning in an empty diner at a table sticky with boysenberry syrup. “I came back—”

  “You don’t have to explain it.” Josh stepped in when he still couldn’t spit it out. “Suzanne’s just being a busybody. Ignore her. I have a feeling that’s the best way to handle her in most circumstances.”

  Suzanne’s nostrils flared. Sean reached for the cup of coffee in her hand before she could fling it in Josh’s face. “I already told you I came back because I don’t want this town thinking I’m a piece of shit.”

  They both turned their attention to him. Josh straightened up with an outraged expression. “Who here thinks you’re a piece of shit? Give me names. I’ll open a frickin’ truckload of whoop-ass on them.”

  “Right, that’s the solution. Go all macho.” Suzanne rolled her eyes at Josh then gentled her voice. “Sean, no one thinks that about you. If anything, they feel bad for you because of the crash.”

  “No.” He shook his head, pushing his coffee cup in circles on the laminate surface of the table. “I know how people looked at us. The fucked-up Marcus family. The hippie planning to smuggle drugs into town.”

  “But that was your father, not you. Sean, don’t you realize half the girls in Jupiter Point had a crush on you? I…might have, too, a little bit.”

  Josh lifted an eyebrow at her, shaking his head. “That’s Magneto for you. What is it, the dark good looks? The ripped physique? The lone-wolf act?”

  Sean ignored the entire tangent. He’d just realized there was another reason he’d come back to Jupiter Point. “Here’s the thing. This town was good to me. I’d lived in fifteen different states before we came to Jupiter Point. After the crash, this place took care of me. I don’t mean just the McGraws. Everyone watched out for me. My teachers did, the guys on the basketball team, Hunter, the bartenders at Barstow’s. I remember I got drunk one night at Stargazer Beach and a cop car came. I thought I was done for, but the officer bought me a coffee, let me cry in the backseat of the car, then took me back to the McGraws’ house.”

  Josh and Suzanne had forgotten their quarrel and were watching him with differing degrees of sympathy and alertness.

  “Leaving the way I did, skulking out of town after a night in fucking jail, I’ve always regretted it.” He met Josh’s eyes. “I thought of it during the burnover. I wanted to come back here and show everyone I wasn’t a fuckup. I don’t want to be the piece of shit who took everything this town gave me and threw it in their faces. I want to do something good for Jupiter Point.”

  The passion in his own voice shocked him. He hadn’t even known he felt this way until just now. Suzanne and Josh exchanged a look.

  “Holy fuck.” He downed the rest of his coffee. “I must sound like an idiot.”

  “You don’t,” Josh assured him. “You’re actually making sense, for a drunk guy.”

  Sean gave a snort. “At least I haven’t married a stranger this time.”

  “Notice the joke.” While addressing himself to Suzanne, Josh indicated Sean. “A time-tested way to avoid honest emotion.”

  “I’m not trying to avoid anything. If I was, I wouldn’t have come near this town. I want to prove something. So far, it’s going pretty frickin’ well, don’t you think? The police have reopened the cr
ash investigation and I’m being accused of fucking up the Big Canyon fire. I should have stayed in Colorado.”

  “But then you wouldn’t have seen Evie again,” Suzanne pointed out. “Maybe it’s destiny. Written in the stars.” She made a scribbling gesture in the air over his head.

  “Exactly. I wouldn’t have seen Evie again. I’ve been nothing but trouble for her.” He pulled out his wallet to pay the bill.

  “I don’t believe that,” said Suzanne. “I know my cousin, and she’s so much happier now. She’s been in such a rut, I was seriously worried about her. Now she smiles and laughs and wears clothes in colors other than neutral.”

  “And there we have it.” Josh sat back with a lazy grin. “Our work here is complete, Sean. Evie doesn’t wear neutrals anymore.”

  Suzanne swatted him on the upper arm. “Moron. Besides, Sean Marcus, think about this. If you hadn’t come back, I wouldn’t have met Josh.” An evil grin spread across her face. “And I so look forward to making his life hell.”

  Josh shot Sean a panicked look and tried to hide under the table.

  Sean laughed at their clowning, but a heavy weight had settled somewhere around his heart. He tossed a twenty on the table and stood up to go. No matter what Suzanne said, if he was ruining things for Evie in any way, he should do something about it. Like leave Jupiter Point. But he couldn’t leave; he’d committed to this job. He couldn’t leave until the hotshot crew was up and running.

  But—he could do something else. He could step away from Evie’s life.

  24

  Evie had a tried-and-true method for recovering from a tough day of “peopling,” as she called it. Although she loved people, especially her friends and family, her naturally introverted nature required a certain amount of solitude. That was why she lived alone, and why she loved the time she spent roaming the terrain around Jupiter Point shooting photos for her mother.

  In her experience, there was little that a long bubble bath, hot chocolate spiked with rum, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s couldn’t improve. Add in some Netflix, and life definitely started looking up.