Feel the Heat

by Lorie O'Clare

  Thorne watched the woman. Her tight green face didn’t give much away, but the way her gaze darted around told him she was having issues with his suggestion. That was okay. Frankly, he was having a little trouble wrapping his brain around what his impulsive mouth had just said.

  “It’s not much,” he felt compelled to tell her. “My grandparents ran a little beach motel. They left it to me. I don’t use it as a motel, so there’s plenty of room for you. And your dog.” He shrugged. “It’s nothing fancy, but the price is right.” Swallowing his misgivings, he flashed what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you run it as a motel?”

  “It’s not my thing, for one. For another, it’s not in any condition for business. I doubt I could get the permits required to rent to guests.” Another shrug. “Not sure I’d want to, anyway.”

  “How much?” When he didn’t respond, she stepped closer. “You said the price was right. How much are you planning to charge me?”

  “What? Nothing. I just told you it’s not fit for paying customers. You said you would have a problem finding a place that would allow pets. I have more than enough room and don’t give a damn if you have a whole zoo as long as you take care of them and pick up any, um, droppings. Now, are you going to take me up on my offer or not?”

  When she continued staring, he turned and walked toward his truck. He wasn’t going to beg her. Damn it all, he was just trying to be a nice guy.

  “Wait!” She caught up to him, her hand on his arm halting his steps. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. But I also can’t stay with you without paying. If you won’t accept my money, what will you accept? Services?” Her eyes widened at her statement. “I mean, like helping clean up, not, well, you know.”

  He scanned her slight form. Well, what he could see of it in the hideous garb she wore. He’d have to be pretty damn hard up to lust after that. He wasn’t that hard up. Yet. “No, I don’t know. You’re going to have to spell it out for me.”

  Her slender throat worked convulsively a few times before she finally said the words. “Sex. I’m willing to offer my services—”

  Swallowing a laugh, he decided he didn’t want to make things easy for her, for some reason. With exaggerated slowness, he dragged his gaze up her body again. “Thanks, but I’m not interested.”

  “W-hat? No! I wasn’t offering sex! I—”

  “Sure sounded like it to me, lady,” he said, resuming his trek to his truck.

  “Will you stop turning your back on me?” She yanked his arm none too gently. “Let’s try this again. I will work for my room, but not on my back.”

  “I don’t recall asking.” Jaw clamped, he shook her off and opened his door.

  “Crap! I’m sorry! I jumped to the wrong conclusion.” Her shoulders slumped beneath the loud print. “Big surprise.” Her eyes met his and he realized they were more a deep blue than turquoise. Or maybe the color was enhanced by the green goop on her face. “Can we start over?”

  Why didn’t he just get in his truck and drive away? The surf would still be up for the next hour or so. He glanced down at the creature with the green face, the wild print pup tent she wore flapping in the Gulf breeze, and felt his resolve slip. What was it about this woman that caused him to throw caution to the wind and want to ride to her rescue?

  It was unsettling.

  It was stupid and totally uncharacteristic.

  It was … oh, son of a bitch, no! His gram’s words echoed through his memory, telling him how one day he’d meet the one. The person who was his destiny. His other half.

  Dread curled in his gut. Could his destiny possibly have frizzy, smoke-filled hair and a green face?

  Her dog chose that moment to latch onto the leg of his jeans and growl. Just his luck.

  Destiny came with a dog.

  7

  Summer shifted her gaze, horrified to realize Lola had attached herself to the poor man’s pant leg. “Lola!” She could not afford to buy new clothes for herself and Thorne. “I’m sorry. She’s really a very nice dog.” Summer bent and tugged at Lola’s little vibrating body in a useless attempt to get doggy teeth out of denim. “Lola! Cut it out!”

  Thorne glanced at Summer and her dog and bit back a smile.

  “Are you all right, honey?” The cluster of three gray-haired ladies he’d seen hovering across the street approached in a knot of bony Bermuda short–covered legs and white walking shoes. Their rotund torsos were clothed in matching Hawaiian print shirts, he noticed, each a different color.

  “I’m fine,” Summer said, rising to her full height and tapping her green cheek. “Or at least I will be once I get this mess washed off.”

  He took that as his cue to grab the gallon water jug from behind his seat and a clean beach towel. “Here,” he said, handing the towel to her after he’d thoroughly wet it. “Maybe this will help.”

  “What a nice young man,” the geriatric ringleader in the screaming yellow print shirt said, her bright red lips curving into a smile. “Is this your new beau, Summer?”

  8

  “Miss Laura, you’re such a tease!” The combination of the sun beating down on her and the fierce glare of the firefighter made Summer sweat. “This is one of the firemen who helped today. Thorne Paxton. Thorne, this is Laura Davis. And the other two ladies are her sisters, Flora and Cora.”

  Thorne’s lips twitched. “Sisters, huh? Pleased to meet you.”

  “Triplets, actually,” Summer supplied. “Miss Flora,” she indicated the woman in the hot pink print shirt, “was my second-grade teacher, and Miss Cora,” she pointed to the remaining triplet, dressed in a lime green print, “was my junior high phys ed teacher.”

  “Were you a teacher, too, Miss Laura?” Thorne asked politely.

  “Damn straight,” Laura replied, her chest puffed out. “I taught English, mostly accelerated classes, at the high school for almost fifty years.” She patted Summer’s arm. “This young lady was my star pupil.” Laura shook her head, a sad look on her wrinkled face. “We had such high hopes for her. She could have been a Pulitzer Prize winner or at the very least Katie Couric’s replacement.” Laura’s sisters nodded their agreement.

  Summer stood, her back stiff, in silence, Thorne noticed. Obviously she didn’t agree with her former teachers’ high opinions. Why was that?

  Summer scrubbed at her face with his wet beach towel. Too bad she couldn’t make herself disappear right along with her facial mask, she thought. She continued rubbing long after her raw skin told her the facial mask was gone.

  A warm hand on her arm halted her scrubbing. Knowing it was futile to continue hiding under the wet towel, she peeked out at Laura’s kind face.

  “That’s enough,” Summer’s former teacher told her. “You’re apt to rub all your skin off if you keep that up. Now, please tell us what happened. We’ve been eaten up with curiosity!”

  With a sigh, Summer handed the towel back to its owner. “I’m not really sure. I heard a loud bang, like an explosion; then Lola flew through the doggy door. Within seconds, it happened again. I was knocked out and don’t really remember much until I woke up next to the ambulance.”

  “You poor thing,” Flora said, her sisters nodding in agreement. “What are your plans? We heard the other gentleman say you couldn’t stay in your house for a while.”

  “Right.” Summer nodded and glanced at the fireman leaning against his truck door, arms crossed over his broad chest. The bulky jacket was gone now and the gray fabric of his T-shirt stretched taut across his broad shoulders. Beneath the tight sleeves, his biceps bulged. She swallowed, wishing she had another choice about her accommodations.

  “We’d offer to let you stay with us, but we’re all staying in one room while the house is being repainted.” Laura shrugged. “I’m so sorry, we just haven’t any spare room.”

  “No problem,” Thorne said, pushing away from the truck and reaching for Summer’s bag. Before she could protest, he tosse
d it and her purse behind the seat. “Summer’s staying with me.”

  All three older women gasped. Summer could identify. She had almost gasped, too.

  “But where will you be, Summer?” Laura cast a critical eye at Thorne. “What if we need to get in touch with you?”

  “She’ll be at the Sea Breeze Motel, out on Route Three.” Thorne gripped Summer’s elbow, gently guiding her to the passenger door.

  “Bill and Edna’s? I thought they retired to Florida.”

  “Yep. I own it now. They’re my grandparents,” he explained.

  When he’d settled Summer into her seat, she hissed under her breath, “You said your grandparents left the motel to you. I thought they were dead!”

  Thorne tsked and shook his head before grinning at her. “That’s what you get for thinking. I never said they were dead, just that they left the place to me. It’s not my fault you jumped to conclusions.”

  “You have my cell number,” Summer called to the sisters, who all nodded. “If you need to get in touch with me, just call.” She gave a finger-wiggle wave as Thorne fired up the powerful engine and dropped the truck in gear.

  “Was it really necessary to blab about my lodging arrangements?” She glared at Thorne, who was grinning as he pulled onto the highway.

  “You don’t strike me as the kind of girl who worries too much about public opinion.” He reached across the seat and tugged at her housecoat. “Case in point.”

  “Give me a break! I wasn’t planning to leave my house. How was I to know a stupid fire would happen?”

  She had a point, but he found he liked teasing her. The way her cheeks darkened to a becoming shade of pink fascinated him.

  Her dog escaped her arms and walked across the seat to stand on her hind legs, forefeet against his shoulder, while she sniffed his ear.

  He swallowed a laugh and hunched his shoulder, but the little dog would not take a hint. “Tell your dog I don’t let females stick their tongue in my ear until the second date.”

  “Lola!” Summer dragged the rigid dog back to her side of the car. “Behave,” she warned in a low whisper.

  Thorne flipped on his left turn signal and turned into a gravel parking lot. At least she assumed it used to be gravel. The tires crunched, throwing up a plume of gray dust in the truck’s wake. They rolled to a stop in front of a little frame building with a steeply sloping faded pink roof. The white paint hung in precarious peeling sheets, the bare wood exposed in more places than paint covered. Above a door with a window crisscrossed with duct tape, a dusty sign flashed.

  “ ‘Off-pen-vac’ ?” She really didn’t mean to snicker, but the place was even worse than she’d expected.

  “Don’t laugh. It’s paid for. And it hasn’t burned down.” He turned off the ignition and stared at the flashing sign. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have the sign fixed.” He glanced her way. “It’s supposed to say: ‘Office, Open, Vacancy.’ ”

  “But it’s not an office, you’re not open, and there is no vacancy because it’s no longer a motel. Right? Why bother fixing the sign?”

  “Because it looks stupid flashing partial words.”

  “Why don’t you just turn it off?”

  “Can’t.” He reached for her things, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

  “Why can’t you?” She gathered Lola in her arms and reached for the door handle.

  “It’s a long story.” He hopped out of the truck and hurried around to help her and Lola down.

  “We’ve got time.” She nuzzled her dog’s warm head. “Don’t we, Lola?”

  Thorne heaved a sigh. “Gramps fancied himself a handyman. It may have been true when he was younger, but, well, in later years, he did some weird stuff.” Thorne dug in his pocket, then shoved a key into the lock on the office door.

  “Oh?” She watched him wiggle the key and jerk on the door. “Do you need help with that?”

  “Hmm? Oh, no. It’s just a little tricky. Takes a few tries to open.” The door swung open on rusty hinges. Thorne flipped on a fan as he headed to a large scuffed front desk. “Anyway, Gramps fixed a lot of stuff around the motel himself. Including the electricity. Somehow he managed to wire it all together. If I want lights or air, I have to have the sign on, too.”

  “Can’t an electrician fix that?” She set Lola down to sniff around the front office, then smiled when the dog sniffed a dusty fake plant and sneezed.

  “One would think. Dave, the only electrician in town, has been too busy to do more than look at it and tell me what to do until he can get out here to fix it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “ ‘Sleep with the lights on.’ ”

  9

  The Davis sisters watched the truck turn onto the highway.

  “Do you think it was a good idea, allowing that young man to drive off with our Summer?” Cora asked, scratching the bridge of her nose.

  “We had no choice,” Laura assured her. “Summer is not a child anymore and, alas, we’re not her mother.”

  “I should say not!” Flora made her way to the street. “Good Lord, Laura, we’re old enough to be her grandmother.” She looked both ways and proceeded to cross the hot asphalt.

  “Hah,” Laura harrumphed as she followed her sisters. “Speak for yourself.”

  Flora stopped and turned to glare at her sister. “Laura, we’re all the same age. Give it up.”

  “Well, I just don’t think it looks proper for a young man and woman to cohabit without benefit of matrimony. Summer just met him. We know nothing about him,” she argued, hurrying behind her sisters as they made their way home.

  “I thought he said he was Bill and Edna’s grandson,” Cora said, stepping up onto the wrap-around porch of the old Victorian home the sisters shared.

  “Exactly my point, Cora! He said. We have no idea if what he said is, in fact, true or false, do we?”

  They entered the house and paused as they always did in the entry hall.

  “Well, damn it, Laura, if you have something to say, say it.” Hands on hips, Flora glared.

  “I think the Snoop Sisters need to revitalize their business. At least one more time.”

  “You know we’re not really the Snoop Sisters, don’t you? You realize it’s just our way of referring to ourselves on occasion?”

  Laura strode to a round table in the parlor and lifted the side of the embroidered tablecloth to open the minifridge hidden beneath. “Of course I realize that! I’m not senile! I’m going to have a beer. Anyone else want one?” She handed an amber longneck to each sister, then twisted the top off hers and took a long swig. “Okay. Let’s sit down and come up with a plan.”

  “A plan?” her sisters said in unison, their eyes wide.

  “Don’t look so shocked. Of course we’ll need a plan. We need, number one, to make sure Summer and Lola are safe. We need to check out their accommodations.”

  Flora nodded and took a sip of her beer. “I think we also need to find out more about her young man and what his intentions are toward Summer.”

  Cora agreed. “It wouldn’t hurt to check out the sleeping arrangements, if you get my drift. After all, we all know men are after only one thing.”

  10

  Thorne grabbed a fistful of keys and rounded the desk. “There are eight cabins, not including mine and the one my grandparents used for storage. I don’t know which key is which, since they’re not labeled. I thought we’d check out the cabins before it gets dark and I’d let you choose the best one.”

  She paused by the door. “Why does it matter if it gets dark?” She hoped the niggling feeling she had was wrong.

  “I’m not exactly sure if they have lights or even electricity.”

  “I thought you owned the place. How could you not know something like that?”

  He braced his fists on his lean hips, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Because I had no intention of renting it out. It didn’t matter. I’m staying in Gram and Gramps’s unit. It has air, lights, and water. That�
�s all I needed to know.”

  “Do the cabins have TVs?” She hurried to keep up with him as he headed across the dusty parking lot toward what she could only assume was the first cabin. It looked more like a garden shed.

  “I don’t know, I guess. Maybe. I’m not holding anything back here.” He flashed a quick grin. “But without electricity, what does it matter?”

  He tried three keys before the door swung open.

  They recoiled at the stench, Summer gagging.

  “What is that smell?” she asked through the hand shielding her nose and mouth.

  “I have no idea, and I’m not sure I want to know.” He slammed the door and moved her along the little path to the next cabin.

  “Is that the ocean I hear?” She paused, listening intently.

  “Yep. Well, the Gulf.” He waved his arm. “It’s just on the other side of that berm of sea grass.”

  “Is there a beach?”

  “Yeah, not much of one, but I guess you could call it a beach.”

  She sighed. “I love the beach.”

  He grinned as he unlocked door number two. She loved the beach. What do you know. Things might just work out.

  “Well, at least it doesn’t smell.” He flipped the light switch, but nothing happened. “Looks like this one has no power.”

  “It also has no room.” She glanced around at the stacks of dusty broken furniture. “There’s not even room for Lola in here.”

  “Let’s go see what’s behind door number three.” He locked the door and continued down the path to the curve. “As I recall, the units on this end have two bedrooms and kind of a little kitchen. Maybe you’d be more comfortable here.”

  “Is that a fireplace?” She stepped cautiously into the darkened cabin.

  “Damn. No, it’s a hole in the wall. Something could be living in here. Let’s try the next one.”

  “Define ‘something.’ ” She frowned at Thorne’s back, noticing the little sweat marks darkening the light gray fabric. Maybe whatever it was would necessitate Thorne spending the night. In her bed. In her arms. Strictly for the practical purpose of protecting her, of course. Forcing her eyes from his firm backside, she trudged behind him. She needed to concentrate on something other than the possibility of who or what could be living in the last cabin. Whatever it was, she hoped it would be safe to stay in close proximity. In her arms, Lola squirmed. They were both ready to rest.