“You’re so calm. I never would’ve been able to move that fast, let alone think of using baking soda,” Ava said, biting her lip. She was clearly calculating her thoughts by the second, and Brennan’s defenses snapped back into place at Mach 2.
“You shouldn’t use water in a kitchen fire in case there’s grease involved. And baking soda is less messy than a fire extinguisher for flare-ups.” He shrugged, but the tension knotting his shoulders made the gesture feel as clumsy as it probably looked.
Ava’s brows winged upward as she pointed to his barren kitchen counters. “You barely have pots and pans, but you have a fire extinguisher?”
Crap. “Well, yeah. Better safe, you know.”
“Sure, I guess.” Ava paused, her expression becoming hesitant to match his. “Listen, about . . . what happened before the alarm. I want—”
“You don’t have to say anything.” Okay, so Brennan knew that interrupting her was rude as hell, but he had to cut this conversation off at the knees before it went any further. “In fact, it’s probably better if we forget it happened.”
“Forget it happened,” Ava echoed, taking a step back even though her face was unreadable. But he’d given up every ounce of the composure he damn well needed the second he’d put his mouth back on hers. She made him impulsive—crazy—and losing that much control, especially to the point of vulnerability, simply couldn’t happen.
Not again. Not after his recklessness had cost his best friend’s life.
“Yeah. We got caught up in the past there, but what’s done is done. Right now I owe you an interview. So if you want, we can get to business.”
A ripple of something Brennan couldn’t quite label moved over her face. For a second, he thought she’d argue in that trademark jump-right-in way of hers, and damn it, kissing Ava had been ridiculously stupid, because now all he wanted was to taste her again.
But then she stepped back, and the damage was done.
“Right. The story.” Ava dropped one last gaze at the photograph on the counter before she opened the drawer to trade it for a handful of paper napkins. “I’m ready if you are.”
She shut the drawer with a firm snick, heading toward her seat at the table without looking back.
Chapter Ten
Ava surveyed her absolute minefield of a desk, wondering how on earth she could have so much information without an actual story anywhere in sight.
Unless you counted the fact that twenty-four hours post-interview, she still had an absolute ruckus going on between her thighs every time she thought of the source of her nonstory, and it was only getting stronger by the second. Now that was pretty damned newsworthy. Stupid, hot, toe-curling, impulsive kiss.
Oh God, it had been so. Freaking. Hot.
“Good morning, sunshine.” The sound of Layla’s voice at the entryway to her microchip-sized cubicle made Ava jump, her heart giving her sternum a good, hard thwack back to reality.
“Jeez!” Ava blurted, unable to cage her surprise, and Layla’s blue eyes narrowed in confusion.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you, but I’ve got a bunch of proofs from the fire. Since you interviewed the hero guy and the piece is running tomorrow, I thought you’d want to help choose a shot so we can get this article to bed ASAP.”
“Oh, right. Sure,” Ava said, squashing the prickle of heat brewing at the base of her spine. If she had any prayer of actually finishing this story without spontaneously combusting, she was going to have to figure out a way to douse the fire threatening to ignite in her drawers at every mention of Nick Brennan.
Although when she remembered how quickly he’d shut down and rebuffed her after their scorching-hot kiss, and how perfunctory their following interview had been despite all her efforts to engage him with her questions, his rejection on both fronts should really have done the trick. After all, she’d opened up her emotional floodgates about why she’d left Sapphire Island, and while the truth about their past had been a long time coming, he’d still slammed the door on returning the favor.
Too bad for him, Ava didn’t believe a word of either his personal brush-off or his just-the-facts-ma’am story. She’d felt that kiss in every cell of her body, and despite the seven years that had passed between them, she knew from his expression he’d felt the deeply hot pull of the encounter too. He hadn’t saved that picture of her by accident. And with those overly starched one-word answers to every interview question, no way was the whole business-only thing authentic.
Brennan was hiding something about his past, and Ava was damn well going to find out what it was.
Sighing, Ava gave her laptop one last frown before unfolding herself from behind her desk. She scooped up the blue, fabric-bound book where she kept all her notes and story ideas, following Layla down the hall and placing it on the table with a soft thump as her friend closed the conference room door behind them.
“Okay, what gives?” Layla’s expression went from casual to curious before her butt even hit the seat across from Ava. “And before you even think of insulting me by saying nothing, let me remind you that nearly everyone in this building is at lunch, we’re behind closed doors, and as one of your closest friends and the person who’s working this story with you, you are morally obligated to dish.”
Whoa. “Let’s not get crazy,” Ava said in an effort to wrangle a little time. “I don’t think there’s anything to dish on.”
Layla’s snort was borderline unladylike. “You’re manipulating the conversation like a true reporter, you know that? You’ve been making your irritated face all morning, and now you’re dodging the question and hoping I won’t notice. Pardon me while I fly the bullshit flag with your name stitched to the side.”
“Remind me to take you on my next difficult interview,” Ava muttered. Her chances at keeping this mess close to the vest fell somewhere between snowball and chance in hell. She wasn’t keen on blabbing about her past, and the impulsive kiss she’d shared with Brennan definitely fractured the rules of propriety. But Layla was savvy as sin. No way was her friend going to let her slide with a garden-variety I’m fine.
Ava sighed in defeat. “Okay. So I’m having a little trouble with this article.”
“You are having trouble with a breakout article.” Layla’s expression clearly outlined her doubt. “You’re the most dedicated reporter at the Daily, you nailed an exclusive on Pine Mountain’s biggest news event, and you’ve been dying for a personal interest story like this for the last five years. What’s the problem?”
Ava picked at an imaginary thread on the sleeve of her shirt. “The problem is my source.”
“The bar manager?” Layla asked, and Ava’s thread-picking intensified.
“Yeah. It’s possible that I, ah, have met Brennan before this week.”
Layla’s jaw unhinged. “You know the hometown hero guy?”
Lord, did she know him. Dark, sexy smile, mouth parted over the sensitive skin on her neck, kissing lower and lower . . .
Ava swallowed hard. Yesterday’s kiss, though unplanned and obviously mutual, had still been a conflict of interest for Ava. Brennan was her source, at least for the next twenty-four hours. Gary might not care so much about blurred ethical lines, but Ava still needed to be careful about divulging anything that would put Layla in a bad position disclosure-wise.
Even if Ava had no intention of repeating yesterday’s hotly impulsive kissing session with Nick Brennan. It was over and done, get your parting gifts at the door.
“Brennan and I . . . worked together right after college.”
One look at Layla’s crossed arms and sky-high brows told Ava she had no chance of easing into this share-fest slowly, and her friend’s response knocked the sentiment home.
“You’re a total barracuda when it comes to work. No way just being simple acquaintances in the past would mess with your ability to write a story.”
“That’s a lovely analogy. Thank you.” Ava gave the words an extra coating of sarcasm, tossing a cru
mpled-up page of blank paper at her friend.
It missed by about three feet. “You’re welcome. Now spill it.”
Blowing out a breath of defeat, Ava forked over a basically clean and definitely condensed version of the summer she’d spent with Brennan, sticking with a vague summer-fling-separate-ways explanation of their parting. Seven years had passed since anyone had pitied her upbringing, and revisiting that reality made Ava’s stomach pinch beneath her gray dress pants.
“Wow. I can’t believe you had a summer fling with Mr. Rescue!” Layla said, swiveling her gaze to the photo proofs on the table. “Although kudos to you, because really, he’s not hard to look at.”
“Focus, Layla.” Ava frowned, although she purposely kept her eyes forward. It was hard enough keeping her mental images of Brennan in check. An actual, God’s honest photograph might send her overeager libido around the freaking bend, and she had an article to finish. “I’ve been over my notes a thousand times, and I’m telling you, something about this story is too neat.”
“But you’ve got a lot of facts, right? Enough to write the article you promised Gary?”
“Brennan told me what happened, yes, and I wrote up a preliminary piece based on that.” Ava reached for her notebook, the spine giving a timeworn creak as she propped it open. “But the man is the master of the two-word answer. If I strung together every last syllable he gave up about that fire, I’d have half a page’s worth of words, max. Plus, there’s barely a trace of the guy on the Internet, so all I’ve got is what little he was willing to tell.”
“Yikes.” Layla leaned in to look at Ava’s notes, which were still slathered in question marks of various shapes and sizes. “Your exclusive doesn’t sound very . . . well, exclusive.”
“Exactly.” Ava snapped the book shut, trying to keep her frustration from bubbling over. “Gary wants a showstopper here. A rundown of the facts will be nice, but he’s on the go-sell-newspapers warpath. I promised him the impact story of the year, and I swore to him that I could work a source. Nice isn’t going to save my bacon.”
“Hmm. It is a little weird that Brennan’s being so secretive, even if you guys did have a thing once. But maybe he’s just a good guy who’s kind of private and got lucky rescuing a kid.”
“He’s definitely a good guy,” Ava said automatically. “And the facts back up his right-place-right-time story. But my gut is telling me he’s a good guy who was in the right place at the right time . . . who’s also hiding something.”
“Well, let’s see here.” Layla sifted through the proof shots littered over the table between them, plucking a glossy eight-by-ten from the pile. She studied the photograph for a minute, squinting her eyes behind the frames of her stylish glasses. “Wait a sec. You said he went to the fire academy in his hometown, right?”
“He was definitely planning on attending right after the summer we were together. And as far as I can tell, he enrolled,” Ava said, flipping through her scribbled notes. “I had to dig pretty deep, but I found a public record in the Fairview City database with his name listed as a recruit. The file doesn’t say whether or not he ever became a firefighter, though, and when I got anywhere close to the subject during the interview, he totally clammed up.”
“I’m not sure you need a public record in order to figure out whether Brennan was ever a firefighter.” Layla passed the photo she’d been studying across the table. “Take a look at this and tell me what you see.”
The image of Nick, four steps from the burst-open doors at Joe’s Grocery, greeted her with a scalpel-sharp pang. His face was smudged with soot and bent in ironclad determination, showing a grimace that looked oddly like pain. Matthew Wilson lay balanced across his back, and although the little boy’s face was turned to the side, Brennan carried him with clear confidence, his hands locked tight over the child’s wrist and arm as he lunged forward.
Ava scooped in a breath. “I see Brennan rescuing Matty Wilson.”
“Right,” Layla led. “Now look really closely.”
She dropped her eyes to the picture again, forcing herself to be objective, to gather information, to soak in every detail. The solid set of Brennan’s torso as he shouldered Matthew’s weight, the sense of surety dominating his dark features, the pull of his muscles over the grip on Matthew’s much smaller body.
The pieces snapped together in one holy-crap instant. “He’s got him in a fireman’s carry.”
“It’s textbook,” Layla said. “My brother’s a marine, and he used to practice it on me all the time. Firefighters use the same maneuver.”
“Okay.” Ava paused, trying like mad to remain calm and unbiased despite the full-throttle I-knew-it! ricocheting through her gut. Following her instincts was her first rule of thumb when it came to uncovering a story, but she’d learned the hard way that assumptions were a bad idea unless she had the facts to back them up.
And if she botched this story, her job would be in the toilet, and the only thing she’d be writing would be obituaries. Starting with the one for her French-fried career.
“It’s still not enough.”
Layla pulled back in surprise. “But you said—”
“I know what I said, and I know what I think,” Ava cut in, with more resignation than heat. “But the last time I let my gut do the talking for an article, the paper almost got sued and I damn near got fired. As much as I want a kick-ass story, I can’t print what I can’t prove.”
“So what are you going to do?” Layla asked, and only then did Ava realize she’d grabbed her notebook to head for the door.
“Writing this story with what I’ve got is better than printing a bunch of sensationalist conjecture that I can’t back up, no matter how loud my instincts are screaming. I’m going to write up my article with the facts I’ve got and turn it in to make my deadline. I don’t have a choice.”
Hand on the doorknob, she paused just long enough to shoot a look of sheer determination over her shoulder.
“And once I put this article to bed, I’m going to get the real damn story on Nick Brennan.”
Ava squared off with the Double Shot for the third time in a week, but strangely, the punch of being at a bar didn’t rankle as much as it had that first night. Yes, the harsh, invasive smell of liquor still put her gag reflex to the test, but the atmosphere was actually pretty fun, and the cheeseburger she’d ordered the other night had practically given her a foodgasm right there on her bar stool.
Plus, there were answers behind that bar. Answers Ava wanted. Almost as bad as she wanted the man who held them.
Kissing Brennan yesterday might’ve been utterly reckless, but she couldn’t deny the truth. Ava had sure as hell meant it when she’d said she didn’t want to stop. Despite her job as a reporter and the apparent secrets in his past, Nick Brennan still turned her on like stadium lights at the Super Bowl.
Ava’s heels tapped a staccato beat over the time-polished floorboards as she crossed the Double Shot’s dining room and walked over to the bar. The place was busy for a Tuesday, but not nearly as packed as it had been over the weekend. Most of the tables were already occupied with people in various stages of drinking and dining, and if she had to guess, she’d peg nearly all of them as locals.
The atmosphere was casual and comfortable, and Ava sent up a silent prayer of thanks that she’d gone home to trade her work clothes in for a pair of jeans and a gauzy white peasant blouse. The four-inch heels she’d chosen to round out her look might be pushing the limits of casual, but if Brennan got to have that sexy, deceptively soft kiss-me stubble, then by God, Ava could rock a pair of strappy heels in her own defense.
“Hey! Looks like we might make a regular out of you, huh?” Teagan’s voice rose above the din of the restaurant, bringing Ava back down to the present tense.
“So far, so good. Looks like things are settling down a little around here,” she said, glancing around one last time as she slid into her seat at the end of the bar. She opened her mouth to ask for an Arnold Palme
r, but Teagan had the pint glass half full of ice and the lemonade in her hand before Ava could get the words out.
“Quiet is kind of relative when you’re running a bar and grill, but yes. This is more our normal speed around the holidays.” Teagan grinned, jutting her chin at the bar area. “How’s your sternum?” she asked, but the question was so nonchalant that Ava didn’t think twice.
“It’s a festive shade of faded green, but otherwise, it’s fabulous.” She capped her sarcasm with a self-deprecating smile. As embarrassing as it was to have been shoved over by Mike-the-jackass-Trotter, Ava had survived worse.
Teagan chuckled softly as she uncapped a beer for a guy sitting a few seats down the bar. “Most people get pretty rattled at being knocked down like that.”
Ava took in the veiled compliment with surprise. “I guess. But getting upset wouldn’t have changed anything. The only thing I could control was whether or not I got up, so I did.”
Teagan placed the iced-tea-and-lemonade-filled pint glass on a bar napkin in front of Ava, her laugh growing. “Lord, this is going to get good,” she murmured under her breath, following immediately with, “I’ll tell Brennan you’re here.”
“What makes you think I’m here to see Brennan?”
One reddish brow arched. “I’m just shooting rubber bands at the night sky here, but I’m pretty sure no woman in the history of the XX chromosome ever wore four-inch heels in December for fun.”
Shit. “Fair enough,” Ava admitted. “I’ve got the mock-up of the article I wrote on the fire. I thought he might like to see it before it runs in tomorrow’s Daily.”
“Sure.” Teagan shifted toward the door leading back to the kitchen, but at the last minute, she turned to float a glance over one shoulder. “And Ava? Nice pick on the shoes. Definitely cute.”
Ava put the nervous energy zapping through her veins to good work, reaching into the bag she’d slung over the ladder back of her bar stool to unearth her copy of the article. Although it was way lighter on emotion than Ava would’ve liked—and Gary was expecting—she had to admit, the piece in her hands was a solid account of the fire. Ava had managed to add a dash of optimism by detailing the way Pine Mountain’s community had rallied around the effort to rebuild Joe’s Grocery. All in all, the piece was solid, professional, and thorough.
All Wrapped Up (A Pine Mountain Novel) Page 11