Feel the Heat

by Lorie O'Clare

  Laura snorted. “And you accuse me of having too many beers! I just—oh my Lord!”

  Her sisters looked toward where her shaking finger pointed.

  “Fire!”

  15

  Summer took a sip of her vanilla malt and gave a satisfied sigh. “That was so good. Thanks for dinner, by the way. But I wish you’d let me at least repay you for the hamburger I ordered for Lola.”

  Thorne’s smile flashed in the darkness while he waited for the light to change. “I can afford to buy your dog a burger. Don’t worry about it.”

  The sound of sirens split the night. Within seconds, a fire truck blasted through the intersection in front of them.

  Thorne frowned and pulled his cell from the holster. “That’s weird.”

  “What?”

  “That was the vehicle from my station.” He held up the phone. “And I didn’t get a call.”

  “You told me it was your day off. Maybe that was the reason?”

  The light changed. Thorne punched it, the powerful truck laying rubber as he made the turn. “We’re about to find out. They’re heading in the same direction we’re headed.”

  Flashing lights bathed the little courtyard of the Sea Breeze Motel.

  Summer gasped at the sight. “Oh no! Lola!”

  Thorne grabbed her arm, preventing her from jumping from the truck as he pulled into his parking place. “Wait! I’m sure she’s fine. But even if she’s not, there’s nothing to be gained by you charging over there now. You’ll just be in the way.”

  Summer tugged, but he held firm. “Let go! I have to find out if she’s hurt or, or—” She broke off on a sob.

  “Summer,” he murmured, pulling her across the seat to hold her close. “Everything’s going to be okay, sweetheart. You just need to give the crew time to do their job. Okay? Can you do that?”

  She nodded and sniffed against his shirt.

  A tap on the driver’s side window startled them.

  Thorne buzzed down the window. Chris Martinez stood grinning at him.

  “Damn, Pax, you near gave me a stroke when this call came in!” Chris wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm. “Where the hell have you been? We were fixin’ to do a body sweep for your sorry ass.” He grinned. “Lucky for you that you turned up—saved us some work.”

  “What happened?” Thorne stepped down from the truck and turned to help Summer.

  “A fire,” Chris supplied.

  “No shit. I want to know where and how.”

  Chris shrugged. “Near as I can tell, it started by the old air conditioner unit under the window.”

  “My dog—” Summer tried to push past the men, but Thorne held her back.

  “Little beagle?” Chris asked. Summer nodded. “Dog’s fine. She’s with the old ladies over yonder.”

  “You’d better go see about her and find out what the triplets are doing here,” Thorne told her. “Maybe there’s a problem at your house.”

  They watched Summer scurry across the parking lot while the crew packed up the vehicle. Behind the nose of the fire truck, the remains of Summer’s temporary home smoldered.

  “You gettin’ any of that?” Chris turned to stare at Summer. Thorne knew exactly where his friend’s eyes were trained because his were ogling the same area.

  And he didn’t like it one damn bit.

  “Shut up, Martinez. Don’t you need to get on the vehicle?”

  “So that’s a negatory?” Chris shook his head in mock resignation. “You’re getting old. There was a time you’d have—”

  “I said, ‘Shut up’!” Without waiting for a response, he stomped across the lot to talk to the sergeant.

  Summer held a wiggling Lola close, avoiding most of the sloppy doggy kisses as she observed the guilty looks on the Davis sisters. Her eyes narrowed. “Tell me again why you all came here tonight?”

  Laura straightened from the rolling cooler behind them as she uncapped another beer and took a healthy swig. After she swallowed, she looked at her silent sisters, then at Summer. “Ah, hell, looks like the cat’s got their tongues.” Burp. “ ’Scuse me. Well, we were worried about you. After all, none of us really know your young man and—”

  “Miss Laura, he’s not my young man.”

  Laura waved a wrinkled hand. “Regardless. As we’ve often told you, we consider you the niece we never had. My goodness, we were only looking out for your welfare, young lady, and now you’re acting as though we’re intruding!”

  Her sisters nodded solemnly.

  Immediately chastised, Summer put her hands on the stooped shoulders of Flora and Cora and pulled Laura into the group hug. “And I appreciate it; really I do. I’m sorry if I sounded ungrateful or angry. Gosh, you saved Lola’s life! I owe you.” Laura burped again and Summer realized she smelled beer on the other two women as well. “How much have y’all had to drink?”

  “I dunno.” Cora picked up the lid of the cooler and peered inside. “Mercy! There was nigh unto two cases in here when we started.”

  “How many are left now?” Summer craned her neck to see into the cooler.

  “Three!” Flora sounded scandalized … and slightly buzzed. “How’d that happen, d’you think?” Hiccup.

  Worried, Summer glanced around the empty parking lot. “How did you ladies get here?”

  Laura straightened, shoulders thrown back. “We are not such old fools that we’d consider drinking and driving, my dear.” Burp. “ ’Scuse me.”

  “Well?” Summer glanced over and saw Thorne making his way toward them. “How the heck did you get here?” she whispered.

  Laura pointed to her dusty white walking shoes. “We walked, of course. We’re mall walkers, after all. We’ve logged many miles since we retired. Why, the trek here was less than half our usual.”

  “Do you usually carry along a cooler full of beer?”

  “Of course not! But today has been, well, an unusual day. Besides the obvious unsettling incident at your house, we’re still in a severe drought, you know. Why, we simply brought along our own refreshments to prevent becoming dehydrated on our journey.”

  “Plus, we weren’t entirely sure we remembered the direction of the motel correctly,” Cora added.

  “Ladies.” Thorne walked up and winked at the women. “Were you, by chance, here when the fire started?”

  The women were quiet for a moment.

  “Well,” Laura said, “we may have been. We were trying to find Summer when we heard little Lola barking. I don’t recall seeing any flames or smelling smoke at that point, do you?” Her sisters shook their heads. “It was while we were trying to figure out how to retrieve Lola that we first noticed the smoke smell, followed immediately by the flames in the window. Why are you questioning us? We’ve already talked to that nice young man from the fire department.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I know. I was just wondering.” He looked at Summer and squeezed her shoulder. “Good thing they were here. I had to whack the old air conditioner to get it going earlier, remember? I should have known better. You and Lola can stay in my unit tonight. Until I get someone out here to take a look at all the units, in fact.”

  “Your unit?” all three women and Summer said.

  “It’s the only one I know is safe at the moment, so yeah, my unit.” He crossed his arms and waited.

  “Thorne?” Summer touched his arm while she clutched her dog to her chest. “Could I talk to you, alone, please?”

  “You tell him, Summer!” Cora said in a stage whisper.

  “You go, girl!” Flora’s comment ended on another hiccup.

  Summer glanced over her shoulder at the women, then whispered, “I don’t think they should be alone tonight. They’ve had a lot to drink.”

  His first impulse was to point out the women were on foot, not driving, but one look at her concerned face told him there was no point in beginning an argument he was bound to lose. “I have plenty of room here, but I worry about the safety of the other cabins now.”


  “Is there enough room for them in your place?”

  Maybe it was a better idea to have three senior citizen chaperones than to be alone, all night, with Summer.

  But, damn, he’d had high hopes for the evening ending in a much different scenario.

  “I guess we could make room,” he finally said. “The couch makes a bed and one of them could sleep on my recliner.” He grinned. “Of course, that means you and I will have to share a bed.”

  “In your dreams!” Hers too, she suspected, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Horny. She was just horny. It had, after all, been a very long dry spell, sexually speaking.

  “We couldn’t help but overhear.” Laura and her sisters stood right behind them now. “And while we appreciate the offer, I’m afraid we can’t stay.” Burp. “ ’Scuse me.”

  Summer turned panicked eyes to Thorne. “Make. Them. Stay,” she enunciated through clenched teeth.

  “Now don’t go getting your knickers in a wad,” Cora chimed in. “Laura means we cannot agree to the sleeping suggestions.”

  Before Thorne could tell them he’d been kidding about him and Summer sharing a bed, Laura began talking again.

  “Yes, I’m afraid I’m something of a restless sleeper. Have been most of my life, I’m told, which makes it a good thing I never married. You see, I can’t abide sleeping with anyone. And my back precludes me sleeping on your recliner. I’m afraid none of us can sleep there, since we all have a touch of osteoporosis. And dear Summer is much too tall to comfortably sleep there, as well.”

  They all looked expectantly up at Thorne, who gave an inward sigh. “Okay. Here’s the deal. You ladies bunk in my cabin and Summer and I will take the dog and go to my beach house.”

  “What beach house?” Summer hefted the dog higher. Lola bared her teeth at Thorne as though she too doubted his motive.

  “I have a place out past the highway. I’m fixing it up. That’s why I’ve been staying at the motel. It has a single bed and a couch,” he told Summer. “So you can choose to sleep wherever you want. What do you say?”

  “I say go for it!” Flora sang out. “It sounds like a hoot. You need more fun in your life, Summer.”

  “I absolutely agree,” Laura said. Cora nodded her agreement.

  “Fine. Let me grab some of my stuff.”

  “Ooh!” Cora said as they all trooped behind Thorne and Summer. “This is going to be an adventure! I just love adventures; don’t you?”

  Thorne glanced at Summer. He knew she wasn’t wearing any underwear. He also knew how easy it would be to rid her of the baggy sweat suit once they were alone.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he told Cora as he held the door for the women, “I surely do.”

  16

  Thorne unlocked the door of his beach house and looked down at Summer as she lagged behind. Was she planning on making a run for it? And, if so, where the hell did she think she would go? Besides, the dog would slow her down.

  “Does she need to do her business before you come in?” Why not give her an excuse, since she was obviously hesitant?

  “No, she just went before we left the motel. Thanks, anyway.” Summer made slow progress coming up the stairs but eventually stood at his front door, clutching her ornery dog as she visually scanned the weathered house. “How long have you lived here?”

  “I bought it when I made the decision to transfer from Houston.” He glanced around the crowded living room and knew it looked less than habitable. “I always wanted a place on the beach, and when I saw this was for sale and in my price range I grabbed it.” He shrugged. “I figured I could stay at the motel while I fixed it up. Only problem was it had a lot more fixing up than I’d counted on. I figured it would take a month, two tops.”

  Summer eyed the drywall leaning against the wall. “How long has it been?”

  “Counting today? About six months, give or take a week.”

  Summer returned his smile. Polite conversation was a good thing. It kept things informal but not so much so that she would be tempted to strip him bare and lick him all over.

  Not that she was tempted; she was just saying …

  When Summer released Lola she growled low in her throat and latched onto the lace of Thorne’s running shoe, thrashing her head from side to side.

  “Lola! Cut it out!” Summer knelt and tried to disengage her dog’s sharp little teeth from the shoelace. “I’m so sorry. She doesn’t usually act like this, really. I don’t know what’s gotten into her. Maybe she’s stressed from the fire or something.” She tugged at her dog again.

  “Or maybe she just took an instant dislike to me.” He watched the little dog chew furiously on his lace.

  “What? Don’t be silly. She barely knows you. There, she stopped. I—oh no! Lola, no!”

  She watched in horror as her dog squatted on the other side of the crowded living room. A large dark spot immediately spread on the carpet. What was Lola thinking? She never did stuff like that.

  “Lola!” Summer lunged for the dog, but Lola was faster, running and hiding behind the stacked drywall. And the way she was acting, it probably wouldn’t stay dry for long.

  “I’m so sorry! Bad dog, Lola!” Summer finally touched the dog’s collar and dragged her into her arms. “If you’ll give me a second to lock her in the bathroom, I’ll clean this up.”

  “Don’t worry about it; I planned to trash the carpet, anyway. Who puts carpet in a beach house?” He turned her to face a little hallway. “The bathroom is at the end of the hall.”

  Lola whined when Summer sat her on the shining gray marble-tiled bathroom floor. “Behave! What’s gotten into you, Lola-belle?” She scratched the dog’s ears and placed a kiss on the shiny black fur on top of her head. “Thorne is trying to help, and if you keep attacking him and wetting on his floor he will kick us out. So be good, okay?”

  “The bathroom looks great,” Summer said as she made her way down the hall. “Was it like that or did you redo it?” She stopped and blinked. “Wow, you’ve been busy!” Thorne had already cleared most of the furniture from the room and was standing by the telltale wet spot. “What can I do to help?”

  “If you could grab the other end of the drywall, I’d appreciate it. I’ll do most of the lifting; you just need to balance your end and steer.”

  Obediently squatting and gripping the top and bottom of the wallboard, she said, “No problem. Where are we putting it?”

  He inclined his head. “Over on the other side, against the far wall of the kitchen.”

  It took a few trips, but eventually they moved all of the drywall to the kitchen.

  “Now what?” Summer swiped at the sweat trickling down the side of her face. “Whew! Is your air on?”

  “Nope. There is no air. Yet. It’s next on my list.” His laugh boomed in the small space. “Don’t look so worried. There’s a decent breeze off the Gulf at night and the house has the perfect east-west exposure. It’s really not too bad.”

  “If you say so.” She looked at the piles of furniture stacked in the kitchen. “Where am I going to sleep?”

  “Since there’s only one bedroom, you can have it or the couch. I’ve slept either place, so I don’t mind.”

  “Um, Thorne? Exactly where is the couch?”

  “It’s in there … somewhere. I want to get the wet carpet out of here before I drag it back in.”

  “May I help?” She followed him to the far side of the living room.

  “I’m planning on it. I’ll start ripping it up off the tacks and you hold it as I roll. Then we’ll carry it out and toss it down to the beach. I’ll cart it off tomorrow.”

  Ripping out carpeting sounded a lot easier than it was in reality. Balancing the discarded carpet roll, she watched the muscles in Thorne’s arms flex and bulge with each section he removed.

  Finally, the last of the carpet separated from its tack strip. Grunting, they dragged the now huge roll of stained, smelly carpeting onto the balcony. It took a few tries before they successful
ly hoisted it above the rail. It fell to the sand below with a muffled thud. The disintegrating pad soon followed.

  Remembering Summer’s shower earlier, Thorne had no problem accepting when she offered to let him shower first. The big problem was he remembered her sounds during her shower too well and found the stinging cold water did nothing to calm him down.

  Throwing on a pair of pajama pants for modesty, he returned to the living room. Maybe he could work off his major boner by moving heavy furniture while Summer showered. He swallowed a groan at the thought of Summer, naked, again, in his shower.

  Baseball. Think of baseball.

  “Towels are under the sink,” he told her, absently shaking his leg to dislodge her dog from his pajama leg. “Oh, and your dog left her calling card in the corner.”

  “Lola! Let go.” Cheeks heating, Summer glanced at Thorne through her lashes. Lordy, he looked good, all tan and lean, the smooth skin of his bare chest gleaming in the indirect light from the kitchen. Wait. What did he say? “She pottied in there, too?”

  He nodded. “I flushed her other gift but figured I’d let you have some of the fun. You can mop the floor. Mop and bucket are in the broom closet just inside the kitchen. Pine-Sol is under the sink.” He turned his broad back to her and began pulling at the stack of boxes.

  Mortified, she grabbed the mop and bucket and made her way to the bathroom, Lola trotting at her heels. “Lola, you’re lucky you’re so cute. It’s the only thing keeping you safe right now.”

  Thorne finished rinsing his face and torso in the kitchen sink and unrolled a wad of paper towels. While he dried off, he surveyed his handiwork. With most of the furniture still stacked in the kitchen, along with the boxes, the living room didn’t look too shabby.

  The tile revealed by the carpet had cleaned up decently. It would have to be replaced, but at least it was moderately clean and much better than the ratty old carpet.

  The old sofa bed held a prominent place in the room, its faded dark red upholstery looking almost inviting. He’d agonized over whether he should open it and make the bed up for Summer or leave it folded for a while. It would be less obvious if he left it folded.