Too Hot to Handle

by Jennifer Bernard

  On a barstool at Barstow’s about ten minutes ago… “I guess I was just in the right place at the right time.”

  “When it’s right, it’s right,” Kevin added. That thumb was driving her crazy. But she didn’t move for fear he would stop. It just felt so good. “Doesn’t take long once you find the right one.”

  “Well, you have no idea how lucky you are,” said Deirdre. “I’m genuinely happy for you.”

  Cassie scrutinized her face, but saw nothing other than an honest smile. Weird. Deirdre had never wished her well in the past.

  “So, what do you do?” Deirdre looked from one to the other again, somewhat wistfully. Cassie couldn’t tell if she meant her or Kevin, and in her own case, it was a complicated question. She’d had many jobs over the years, most of them unskilled. But recently she’d completed her training to become a licensed auto mechanic. That was the job she was the most proud of, so why not show it off?

  “I’m a mechanic,” she said, at the same time that Kevin said the exact same words.

  She must have imagined it.

  “Mechanic,” she repeated.

  “Airplane mechanic,” he said at the same time.

  “You’re both mechanics? Well, isn’t that a romance for the ages? I’d love to hear the story behind that.”

  Cassie turned around to stare at Kevin, completely forgetting about their half-assed charade. “Wait, wha—?”

  Eyes gleaming, either with warning or amusement, he put his finger on her lips.

  For a moment she stared at him, taking in all kinds of new details. The laugh lines fanning from his eyes, the slight shadows under them, the bump in his nose where it might have gotten broken.

  Then a ghost of a wink brought her back to the mission. Get Deirdre off her back.

  She turned back to face her old nemesis and nestled herself against the big warm body behind her. “It’s definitely quite a story. You probably wouldn’t believe it if we told it, but that’s all ancient history now. Good running into you, Deirdre. Maybe we’ll see you around.”

  In a dismissive move, she turned back toward Kevin just as his arm came around her. Hopefully Deirdre would get the message that they wanted to be alone.

  He bent his head and whispered in her ear. “She’s not leaving yet. Looks like she still has something to say.”

  What the heck? What would it take to get rid of the woman?

  Time for extreme measures.

  She slid her hands up Kevin’s chest and tilted her head. With her back now entirely turned toward Deirdre, she mouthed a message to him. Kiss me?

  His eyes widened as he took in her meaning. He wouldn’t mind, would he? Kissing a strange woman wouldn’t be a chore, would it? He’d spoken to her first, after all.

  Unless he was married. She hadn’t noticed a wedding ring. But he could have a girlfriend. Or be gay.

  Yeah, this was stupid. She could handle this on her own. She could face Deirdre without a human crutch.

  Just as Kevin was moving in for the kiss, his sexy, stubble-framed lips hovering above hers, she spun her stool around. “Sorry about that, Deirdre. We get a little carried away with the PDAs sometimes, you know how it is. I’ll call you about lunch.”

  2

  Okay then. So much for obliging a damsel in distress. Kevin wondered just how stupid he looked hanging over Cassie, his lips formed for a kiss, ready and willing. More than willing.

  He sat back and grabbed his beer bottle. Maybe it would hide his red face.

  The other woman said goodbye and left, wending her way through the crowd. Cassie spun the stool back to face him. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have put you in that position, and I realized it at the last minute, and you’re a champ for going along with it as far as you did. Buy you a beer?”

  She twisted her face in an expression of abject, almost comical apology. Something about her really tickled his funny bone. Even though she was pretty, with long strawberry-blond hair tucked behind her ears, sunny blue eyes, a tomboyish quality and a killer body, he’d been drawn to her by something else. A wry, feisty attitude, with a hint of loneliness. The contrast intrigued him.

  Or maybe she just seemed like good company to pass the time with until he had to pick up Holly.

  “No thanks on the beer. One’s my limit.”

  Instead of mocking him for that non-chest-beating kind of statement, she cocked her head at him. “Me too. I never drink more than one.”

  “Looks like we really are soul mates. Jalapeños don’t lie.” He dragged a tortilla through melted cheese, then topped it with a few peppers. The combination set his mouth on fire. If he couldn’t kiss Cassie, he’d have to make do with nachos. “So what’s the story with you and your friend?”

  “Not a friend. Believe me. She…” Cassie looked away and took a swig from her beer. “If you’ve ever seen Mean Girls, you got the basics. She hated me in high school. Stole the guy I liked. Broke my heart.”

  “Ouch. Baby’s first heartbreak. No fun. We’ve all been there.” He tilted his bottle against hers for a sympathetic clink. “Here’s to broken hearts. May they make us better humans.”

  She crinkled her forehead at him. “You’re a very unusual guy.”

  “No, I’m not. Haven’t you listened to any country music lately? Without broken hearts there wouldn’t be much to sing about.”

  “Okay, so who broke your heart?”

  Oh no. He wasn’t about to get too personal too quickly. She’d just left him hanging in mid-almost-kiss. “Whoa there, Nellie. I thought we were just contemporaneously drinking here.”

  “That was before.” She popped another jalapeño onto her tongue, not even bothering with the cheese to temper it. He had to admit he was impressed.

  “Before I came to your rescue? You’re welcome, by the way. Not that I minded. I’m a rescuer at heart. You can count on me for any future rescues from awkward situations, especially if they involve kissing. Or almost-kissing.”

  She laughed. It had an amazing effect on her face, that laugh, as if someone had just turned on a light inside her.

  He’d considered her attractive before, but under the full force of that smile, his heart stuttered, like a plane hitting an air pocket. He wouldn’t mind seeing that smile and hearing that laugh again. And again.

  “You’re a great almost-kisser, by the way,” she told him. “I think that was the best almost-kiss I’ve ever experienced.”

  “Just scratching the surface, lady. The almost version ain’t nothing compared to the real thing.” He winked at her. “I know why you stopped, by the way.”

  “Um, because I didn’t want to take advantage of a stranger in a bar? Or maybe I didn’t want to kiss someone I’d only met ten minutes earlier?”

  He squinted at her and reached for another sliced jalapeño. “While those are very good, logical reasons, I’m not buying it. You stopped because us kissing would have been just like this pepper. Too hot to handle.”

  She arched one eyebrow, then plucked the jalapeño from his fingers and tossed it into her mouth. Cool as an ocean breeze, she swallowed it down. “I guess we’ll never know, will we?”

  Damn. This girl was trouble.

  His cell buzzed. Must be Holly, finally ready for her pickup from the movies. Just when things were getting interesting, too.

  He dug out his phone and looked at his daughter’s message. Movie’s done, but can I hang out a little more?

  “Excuse me,” he said to Cassie as he composed his answer. She shrugged and turned away. The bartender appeared and said something to her that Kevin couldn’t hear. She glanced over her shoulder at the crowd, then nodded and pulled out her wallet.

  Crap, she was going to disappear. He didn’t want her to disappear. He wanted her to stay next to him on that barstool and smile some more.

  His phone rang. Holly, calling to reinforce her request. He answered with a, “Hang on a sec, Holly.”

  Then he turned to Cassie, who was in the midst of putting a twenty-dollar
bill on the bar. “Are you leaving?”

  “No, that’s the whole point, I don’t want to leave! Can I stay a little more?” asked Holly, in her best ‘I’m fifteen and my dad’s an idiot’ voice.

  “Will you just give me a second?” he answered, still looking at Cassie.

  She gave him a perplexed frown. “Okay. What’s up?”

  “How can I find you?”

  “I’m at the movie theater!” Holly said in his ear. “Right where you dropped me off! Jeez, Dad, what’s wrong with you?”

  “Stop answering my questions,” he told Holly.

  Cassie laughed and gave him a little wave. “I’ll leave you to your phone call. Hey, maybe I’ll see you around. It’s a small town.”

  She slid off the stool, and for the first time he noticed what she was wearing. Jean short-shorts hugged her ass, while patterned leggings clung to her long legs. She was somewhere between tomboy and bombshell—casual, sexy, and hot as hell. His moment of silence while he soaked in the sight of her cost him. She was a few steps away before he could ask her for more specifics, like a phone number or some other way to find her.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  “Dad. Do we need to set up another swear jar?” Holly laughed on the other end of the phone.

  Giving up on his efforts with Cassie, he turned back to the bar and focused on his daughter.

  “So this hanging out you’re talking about…what exactly does it mean?” Their neighbor’s teenage daughter had invited Holly to join her pack of friends at the movies. Holly had jumped at the offer, since moving to a new town just before the end of the school year was tough.

  “It means we’re going to walk two blocks to the Milky Way Ice Cream Parlor and order a fudge sundae, right after we knock over an ATM for some extra cash.”

  “You’re hilarious. Fine. I’ll pick you up at the Milky Way in half an hour. It’s still a school night, remember.”

  Holly muttered something and hung up. Even though he didn’t like being grumbled at, he usually let it slide. He didn’t see any upside in getting upset about the little stuff, especially as a single parent. In the old days, when Sylvie was still around, they could pull a bad cop-good cop routine. Now that it was just him, he picked his battles a lot more carefully.

  God knew he was a flawed parent. He’d basically missed the first eight years of Holly’s life. Now his only mission was basically not to screw things up even more. If he could manage to give his kid a decent childhood, despite everything working against her, he’d consider himself a big success.

  As he finished his beer, he casually listened in on the conversations taking place around him. Normal small-town stuff. Plans for a fishing trip. Discussion of the new steakhouse that had just opened. Speculation about the movie star Savannah St. James, who had just moved back to town.

  Then he heard another name—Cassie. His ears perked up.

  His Cassie? The Cassie he’d almost kissed?

  He strained to hear the rest of the conversation. He caught the word “murder” and the phrase “went off the deep end.”

  Uh-oh. That was definitely not what he was expecting.

  Maybe it would better if he didn’t run into Cassie again after all.

  He finished his beer as slowly as he could, then paid and made his way toward the exit. He thought he caught a glimpse of long strawberry-blond hair out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked that way, all he saw were the Knight brothers, Tobias and Ben—his new bosses. Tobias caught his eye and lifted his beer in greeting. He nodded in response, but didn’t stop to say hello. He didn’t want to be late to pick up Holly, and he’d be seeing plenty of the Knight brothers in the near future.

  In his 1969 Lamborghini Islero—the one indulgence he’d kept from his freewheeling stunt pilot days—he drove to the historic downtown area of Jupiter Point, soaking in the tranquility and charm of the town. This was what he wanted for Holly. A nice, stable life in a town where people looked out for each other. Obviously no town was perfect—he had no illusions about that. But surely a coastal town that catered to honeymooners and whose motto was “Remember to Look Up at the Stars” would be a step up from a military base.

  Outside the Milky Way Ice Cream Parlor, Holly stood with a small group of girls who all seemed to be talking and laughing at once. She caught sight of his car and said something to the others, then ran toward him. Once inside, she settled her little backpack on her lap.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  So, apparently he was playing chauffeur tonight. “Did you have fun?”

  “Yeah. They’re nice. They said I should sit with them at lunch tomorrow.” She fiddled with her shell bracelet, which she’d gotten on their first post-Sylvie trip to Hawaii. “It felt like an outtake of Mean Girls. ‘On Wednesdays, we wear pink.’”

  Huh. Second time tonight that movie had gotten a mention. He flashed on the image of Cassie, her face tilted under his, her pink lips parted, awaiting his kiss. Damn, now he was going to be tormented with curiosity about the kiss that could have been.

  “Maybe it’s from a sequel called Nice Girls.”

  “Yeah, no, Dad. Don’t even try with the jokes. Why do fathers think they’re funny?”

  “The real question is, why don’t their daughters?”

  She made a sassy face at him and searched through her backpack for her phone. Lately she’d been disappearing into her ear buds for hours at a time. He missed talking to her, although he wanted to respect her desire for alone time.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Posting about the movie.”

  “Of course. The sacred ritual. Unless you post about it, it doesn’t count.”

  “What did I just say about the jokes?” But her smile took the edge off her jibe. Puberty sucked, he reminded himself. So did being the new kid in town. So did being abandoned by your mother. So many things in Holly’s life were difficult, and it was hard not to blame himself for everything except the puberty part.

  In just a few minutes, they’d reached the waterfront, where their new apartment was located. He’d left the final choice of home up to Holly. She’d passed on the sweet little suburban bungalow and chosen a loft in a converted warehouse. Ornery girl. But at least it had a covered parking garage for his Lamborghini.

  Inside the loft, they both went right to the kitchen and he pulled out the makings for her favorite snack, cheese quesadillas. Lately, she was always hungry, so he was anticipating another growth spurt. It was unnerving how fast she was maturing.

  “So you liked the girls, you have someone to sit with tomorrow at lunch, what other big news is there?”

  “Well, I’m considering becoming a Goth.”

  “Huh.”

  Don’t be too quick to criticize your teenager’s wardrobe choices. Accept that they might want to explore parts of their identity. Don’t overreact. The pan sizzled as he flipped the tortilla and sprinkled grated cheese on top.

  “I’m just kidding. I’m really not sure that look would work for me. Besides, makeup makes my skin break out, thanks to Mom’s super-sensitive Asian skin that she just had to pass on.”

  “Any look would work for you,” he said loyally. “Not that I’m rooting for Goth, unless that’s really what you want, in which case, hey, sounds fun.” He slid the quesadilla over to her.

  “Nice try. I did think about it, just because I get tired of people telling me to smile. If you’re a Goth, you’re not expected to smile. That’s the whole point. You’re angsty and morose, and you’re constantly thinking deep thoughts and processing trauma or something. You’d never dare tell a Goth to smile, would you?”

  “Nope. I might tell her to eat her quesadilla though.”

  She grabbed the hot sauce they kept prominently on their kitchen table—which of course made him think of Cassie and her love for jalapeños. He hadn’t even gotten her last name, but chatting with her had been the highlight of his brief time in Jupiter Point so far. She’d made him laugh, she’d gotten
under his skin, she’d gotten him hot under the collar. Who was she and where could he find her again?

  That is, if she wasn’t involved in murder and going off the deep end.

  “Dad.” Holly was snapping her fingers at him. “Let me guess. You met someone while I was at the movies.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because every time I’m not with you, some woman comes onto you. Like clockwork. It’s so predictable.”

  “That’s not true, but if it were, who can blame them?” He preened, striking a goofy male model pose.

  She rolled her eyes. “Get over yourself. Besides, you promised.”

  “I did. And I keep my promises. How old are you again?”

  “Fifteen. Only three more years to go.” She grinned at him and picked up her quesadilla. With her plate in one hand, phone in the other, she wandered out of the kitchen.

  Three more years He could make that work, right? For Holly, he could do it.

  Since he and Sylvie had split, Holly had watched a trail of her mom’s boyfriends come and go. When she’d first come to live with him, after he’d left the Air Force for good, she used to wake up from nightmares about being abandoned in a warehouse, or in an underground tunnel system, or in the middle of the ocean. The settings changed, but the feeling remained the same. Loneliness, terror, abandonment.

  So when he gained sole custody, he’d promised Holly that he would put her first in his life. No matter what. That meant no serious relationships. Not until Holly turned eighteen.

  That didn’t rule out sex, fortunately. He found his ways. “Relationships” didn’t have to be part of the picture. Plenty of women were fine with casual companionship and hot times between the sheets. As long as both parties were on board with the plan, it wasn’t a problem.

  So far he’d had no trouble keeping his promise to Holly. He hadn’t been tempted to do anything beyond casual sex.

  He picked up the bottle of Tabasco and put a drop on his tongue. Had Cassie really downed an entire half bottle of this stuff? On a dare from her brothers?