All Wrapped Up (A Pine Mountain Novel)

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “See? I told you it was relaxing.” Brennan pressed his palms together in front of his sternum, bending his knees into a half squat over his worn blue mat. The hard, lean angle of his shoulders flexed snugly beneath his T-shirt, muscles rippling against the cotton, and Ava bit her lip in concentration as she tried to keep her focus in check.

  “You also told me I’d sweat,” she said, mimicking his movements, only more deeply. She adjusted her bare feet on the floor, triumphant. Yoga wasn’t so bad. In fact, she could do this all day, as long as he kept his sexy shoulders and unfair-advantage stubble out of her line of sight.

  “Don’t be so competitive.” Brennan stepped to the front of his mat, gesturing for her to stay in place as he grabbed a bottle of water from the small side table next to the couch. “And if you want to sweat, hang on to that pose for another thirty seconds.”

  “I’m always competitive,” Ava snorted, even though her legs were suddenly starting to feel as if they belonged in a Jell-O mold. “Another thirty seconds is a piece of cake.”

  She tightened her belly and pulled in a shallow breath. At the five-second mark, her legs gave a twinge and tingle, and she shifted just slightly to offset the growing burn. At fifteen seconds, her lower body started to quake in earnest, screaming at her to ease up. The muscles in her thighs gripped her bones like survivors on a life raft, and she locked her molars with a determined clack. Brennan had thrown down the thirty-second gauntlet, and she couldn’t just leave the challenge dangling in the breeze. Ava was tough enough to manage thirty seconds of anything, and even though her legs were starting to visibly shake, surely she could—

  Brennan’s hands closed around her waist, fingers tightening into her rib cage in the most merciless tickle on the planet.

  “Oh my God!” Ava’s shriek of laughter paved the way for her head-to-toe flail, and she threw both arms around Brennan’s shoulders. For a split second, he froze to his spot in front of her, both palms locked into place over her thin cotton tank top. But then he slipped his arms all the way around her torso, shifting her back a step to help steady her feet.

  “Sorry,” he said, his chuckle vibrating against her chest as he set her back into place on her mat. “But I told you, these poses aren’t competitive. Keeping score isn’t really conducive to positive yoga.”

  “Oh, but tickling me is?” Ava pulled back, fully intending to nail Brennan with a high-level frown—she’d had that pose in the bag! But the unfiltered honesty in his half smile stopped her cold.

  “You helped me relax. I just wanted to return the favor.”

  “I helped you relax?” The question flew out of her mouth, as unchecked as her shock. She’d unleashed her no-nonsense bedside manner on him when he probably could’ve used some good, old-fashioned sympathy, then bumbled through a bunch of yoga poses at his side. If anything, Ava would’ve thought she’d been more destructive than constructive, but Brennan didn’t let up.

  “Yeah. My family and my physical therapist kind of dance around me when my back acts up. I know they mean well, but . . . it was just kind of nice to have someone be cool about it. Like it’s not that big of a deal.”

  Ava had felt the scar tissue the minute she’d put her hands on Brennan’s back, even through his T-shirt, and the severity had sent shivers all the way down her own spine. No way was she buying that his injury was anything less than an extremely big deal. Still . . .

  “It’s tough to field all that sympathy sometimes, even when it’s well meant,” she agreed. Lord knew that was familiar territory from her past. “I’m just glad I could help.”

  “You did help. Thanks.” His fingers tightened around the bend of her elbow, the friction of skin on skin sending a spray of goose bumps over Ava’s arm. Something hot and sweet and deeply good broke free in her belly, and as much as she wanted to downplay the sensation, she couldn’t.

  Helping him relax, even though it had meant revealing things she normally kept hidden, had felt deliciously good, just like the laughter he’d coaxed out of her.

  And Ava wanted more.

  “You’re welcome. But next time, it’s my turn. Meet me on the pier at Big Gap Lake at noon on Sunday. I won’t even make you sweat.”

  Ava slipped past the glass doors to the Riverside Daily with her gym bag on her shoulder and about sixteen seconds to spare. Normally, she’d never even dream of cutting her lunch hour so close, but with her article on the fire sitting pretty on page three of today’s paper and Gary having been mysteriously absent from work all morning, Ava had figured what the hell.

  She’d earned a good, relaxing lunch break. One with a stare as sinful as triple-layer chocolate cake . . . and a mouth just full enough to provoke some really wicked thoughts . . . and a sliver of leanly cut abs, just visible in those arms-overhead yoga poses, that showcased a dusting of dark hair leading all the way down to—

  “Oh my God, you had sex!”

  Ava jumped about a mile and a half off the commercial-grade carpet lining the main hallway to the newsroom, blushing all the way to the tips of her fingers as she shushed her friend with a hiss.

  “Jeez, Layla!” She swiveled a covert glance over both shoulders, relief spiraling through her rib cage at the sight of the empty hallway behind her. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “No, but you clearly are, and not in the bad way.” Layla’s perfectly arched light blond eyebrows breached the narrow rims of her glasses, and she fell into step next to Ava with a grin. “Nobody walks around with that goofy little blush-face unless they’re getting laid. It’s a proven fact.”

  “I think you need to check the validity of your source,” Ava whispered, ducking into her cubicle while trying to keep her dignity intact.

  If Layla had busted her with the I-had-sex face when all she’d been doing was thinking about having sex, then it had been waaaaay too long since Ava’s bedroom had been used for anything other than catching zzzs.

  “Sell stupid somewhere else, sweetheart.” Layla slipped into the creaky second chair in Ava’s cubicle, propping her elbows on her desk with a knowing stare. “You’re lit up like the seventy-foot Norway spruce going up this week in Rockefeller Center. At the very least, your lunch with Captain America was more than just business.”

  Ava sent one last look around the open-air space of the news floor to make sure no one was within eavesdropping distance. With the long hours logged by most reporters, lunch breaks tended to come later than usual, and today’s appeared to still be in full swing. In fact, the only other person Ava could see was Ian, and his sandy brown head was half covered in the same kind of earphones Ava favored when searching the scanners for a story.

  “My lunch was more than business, but not the way you’re thinking.” Finally confident they wouldn’t be overheard, she slid into her ancient desk chair and leaned toward her friend. No way was Layla going to let this drop, and clandestine sexual tension aside, Ava’s thoughts were whirring now more than ever. “Remember when I told you I thought there was more to Brennan’s past than he was letting on?”

  Layla’s expression went from teasing to thoughtful in less than a blink. “Of course.”

  “Well, it turns out, I was right.” She recounted the events of the lunch break she’d spent with Brennan, glossing over her sappy admission of the graham cracker story but detailing their exchange and his injury.

  “Holy crap.” Layla blew out a breath as soft as her murmur. “So do you think he was a firefighter after all, and maybe he got hurt on the job?”

  “It makes sense. I mean, I’m not an expert, but according to that record, he definitely went to the fire academy, and even he said his injury had been severe. It had to have happened under extreme circumstances, and you and I both saw firsthand that fires definitely qualify.” Ava paused, even though her gut screeched that she wasn’t wrong. “But I can’t be one hundred percent sure. He also could’ve been hurt in something like a car accident.”

  “You don’t believe that, though.”

&nbs
p; “No, I don’t. I get that most guys are kind of touchy about being injured, especially badly, but Brennan’s too secretive. About his injury and his past.” Ava would bet the bank that if she hadn’t walked in on him midspasm, Brennan wouldn’t have even forked over the fact that he’d been hurt in the first place. “Plus, he knew way too much about how to get Matthew Wilson out of that grocery store, not to mention he’s a virtual ghost on the Internet, like something’s been covered up. I’m telling you, he has a story. A big one. But it looks like the only way I’m going to uncover it is if Brennan tells me.”

  “It definitely sounds like he’s hiding something. Now more than ever,” Layla agreed.

  Ava gestured to the copy of the Daily sitting on the corner of her desk, frustration welling in her chest. “I know. I just can’t prove it.” Maybe Gary was right. Maybe she didn’t have what it took to work a source and break a really big story.

  “Ava, don’t.” Layla shook her head, adamant. “You landed an exclusive no one else in the Blue Ridge could manage, and your article is a strong account of the facts. It’s good, clean coverage of an impressive story.”

  “Sounds to me like today’s article was just the beginning.”

  Ava whipped around, thoroughly startled by the cold, masculine voice shooting over her cubicle from the narrow entryway. Gary folded his arms over his chest, the buttons on his rumpled oxford shirt straining at the movement.

  “Ex-excuse me?” Ava stammered, too taken aback to do anything else. Gary was legendary for having his eyes and ears all over the newsroom. She knew better than to get that caught up in out-loud thought.

  Oh hell . . . how much had he overheard?

  “In my office, Mancuso. Right now.” Gary jerked his thinning comb-over toward the glass-lined space at the head of the newsroom before sending a pointed frown at Layla. “Ellis, I’m sure you have work to do.”

  Layla darted a startled glance in Ava’s direction, but Ava returned it with just the slightest shake of her head. She’d dealt with Gary’s disdain by the truckload, and even though she stood by her story on the fire, a part of her had known he’d find fault with the fact-laden article. She followed Gary to his office, noting with a cringe that while he made quite a show of shutting the door, he chose to leave the blinds over the floor-to-ceiling view of the newsroom wide open. Everyone coming back from lunch would bear witness to Gary’s obvious disappointment, with only their imaginations as the soundtrack.

  He didn’t even make it to his desk before he pounced. “It seems you’ve got an angle on this fire story after all. You know this hometown hero guy?”

  “I did,” she corrected, proceeding with her caution flags on high alert. “When the story broke, I hadn’t spoken to him in seven years.”

  Gary’s face bent into a dangerous frown. “And you didn’t share this little nugget because . . . ?”

  “I didn’t think he’d talk to me.” The truth burned a path out of Ava’s mouth, but she kept to it all the same. “And I didn’t want the assignment because I knew him. I wanted it because I was the best reporter for the job.”

  “Yet even with an in, you couldn’t seal the deal.”

  A hard flush of warmth stole over Ava’s face as she stood stiffly across from her boss. “I got the story as an exclusive, just like you asked.”

  “Sounds to me like you got half the story,” he said, pressing his palms into his giant monstrosity of a desk to lean in and peg her with a beady stare. “The boring half, that is. You landed the exclusive scoop on Pine Mountain’s biggest news event in God knows how long, with a source you know personally, and all you managed to scrape together were a bunch of watered-down factoids.”

  “You had final approval before the story ran.” Ava clamped down on her impetuous tongue, channeling all her effort into smoothing her words. “If you had an issue with my article, I’d have been happy to hear your feedback last night.” Not that she could’ve changed anything, because every shred of what Brennan had reluctantly given up had gone into the piece she’d written. Damn it!

  Gary gave an ungracious snort. “You’re kidding, right? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not here for a tea party. It’s our job to sell papers, Mancuso, and I can’t do that with dead space. Do you want to know where I’ve been all morning?”

  Ava waited, certain she was going to find out regardless of her answer, and Gary didn’t disappoint. “I’ve been sitting in Royce’s office, listening to how our quarterly sales numbers so far have sucked more wind than an F5 tornado.”

  Shock lanced through Ava’s gut. “Mick Royce?”

  She’d met the eccentric owner of the Riverside Daily a mere handful of times. The only thing that overshadowed the man’s odd personality was his reputation as a shrewd and savvy businessman.

  “Yes, Mick Royce.” Aggravation painted Gary’s features, twisting his thin mouth into an ever thinner line as he pushed off from his desk. “He wants to know why we’re consistently being outsold by the Bealetown Bugle, and when I look at articles like yours, I’ve gotta admit, I don’t have a good answer.”

  “My story on the fire is the truth.” Ava might be on precarious ground, but damn it, she was going to stand that ground. “I know it’s not as flashy as you wanted, but—”

  “But nothing. According to you, it was just the appetizer. Now you’re going to get the four-course meal.”

  Ava gasped at the demand, certain she’d misunderstood. “I don’t even know that there’s anything more to tell. Not for sure, anyway.”

  “That’s not what I just heard you saying to Ellis in your little pajama party out there. Looks to me like you weren’t good enough to get the whole story from this guy the first time around, and halfway doesn’t cut it,” Gary said.

  And of course Ava couldn’t argue. She believed in the article she’d written, but she also couldn’t deny that her big-story instincts had been howling from the minute she’d laid eyes on Brennan outside Joe’s Grocery.

  “Okay, yes,” she admitted, fiddling with the hem of her sweater. “It does seem like there might be a pretty compelling human interest story beneath the surface. One that I didn’t cover in my article. But Brennan wasn’t willing to tell it, Gary, and you can believe me when I say that not only did I try my best to engage him, but there are no other leads.”

  “Well, you’d better be prepared to find some.” Gary’s sweat-laced brow creased, his beefy face pinched tight with disdain. “You’re swimming in different waters now that Royce is on the warpath, and it’s about time you finally learned how to work a source to get a story that’ll sell, no matter what.”

  Ava’s gut pitched with unease, but she had no choice but to go for full disclosure. “I know Brennan. Personally.”

  The implication hung in the air like laundry on the line, but Gary just looked at her with extreme impatience. “Please. I don’t care if you run off to Vegas to marry the guy. A story’s a story. As long as it’s true, I don’t give a shit how you get your information. And trust me, you need all the intel you can get on this guy.”

  Her spine snapped to its full height. “I’m sorry?”

  “You asked for the big time, Mancuso. Now you’ve got to step up to the plate. Clearly, you’ve got an in with this guy now, and it sounds like there’s a hell of a story somewhere in your hometown hero’s past. Judging by how much he hates the spotlight, I’d say it might even be a scandal.”

  No way. There might be a story there, one worth telling even, but Brennan couldn’t possibly be tangled up in anything nefarious. He’d risked life and limb to save a kid from a burning building, for God’s sake.

  “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?” Ava asked, in a last-ditch effort to dissuade her clearly delusional boss.

  But his rat-like eyes just narrowed further as he zeroed in on her.

  “What I think is that you need to do better than the utterly forgettable article that ran in today’s paper. You wanted a blockbuster story—this story—and now it’s
time to deliver. I’m not getting shit-canned before you, and Royce is looking for heads to roll. Either you come up with something better than this before those year-end sales numbers come out in three weeks”—Gary paused to whip a copy of today’s paper from the cluttered surface of his desk—“or you can find a job being a substandard reporter somewhere else. The choice is yours.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ava slumped into the plush cushions of her favorite oversized chair in the Sweet Life, desperate for comfort that didn’t come. Four days had passed since her showdown with Gary, and though he’d steered pretty clear of her after issuing his nasty ultimatum, the sly side glances he shot in her direction were reminder enough.

  Get a massive story on Brennan—for real this time—or get packing. With a résumé that would read I’m not even good enough to cut it at a small-town newspaper.

  But Brennan wasn’t talking, and what’s more, Ava wouldn’t pressure him to. Steamy feelings aside, she’d never believed in shady journalism, and even in the face of Gary’s threats, she wasn’t about to start now. She had nothing to go on other than her gut, and as desperate as she was for a story, Ava couldn’t make one up out of ballsy determination and thin air. She’d just have to find a different story, something else worth telling, to get Gary off her back and her name on the front page.

  Even if the most exciting thing she’d been able to turn up all week was the Riverside annual fruitcake chucking contest.

  “No offense, but you look like someone just stole your puppy.” Her brother’s voice threaded past Ava’s grim thoughts as he leaned in to top off the holly-printed coffee mug sitting on the side table between them.