Turn Up the Heat

by Kimberly Kincaid

  Bellamy pressed her lips into a tight line. “There’s no dirt. I’m dirtless, dirt-free, utterly devoid of dirt of any kind. Clean as a whistle.” She tried to keep her face neutral as she flicked her phone to life.

  Wait . . . how could there possibly be eleven unread texts and four voice mails on her phone leftover from a Saturday while she was on vacation? Nobody liked her that much.

  “Hey, was there some kind of weird crisis last night that I don’t know about? I have a ton of . . .” Realization hit Bellamy when she saw the caller history screen, making her heart take a swan dive toward her perfectly pedicured toes. How were all of these messages from her boss? She dropped her head into her hands and hoped that nine thirty wasn’t too early to drink.

  “What?” Jenna asked with a furrowed brow.

  “Bosszilla is on the warpath.”

  Bellamy pressed the phone to her ear. She had a sinking feeling that unless she figured out how to alter the time-space continuum to manage being in two places at once, she was definitely going to have to head home and figure out a way to come back for the Miata on Friday. Her boss was bound to flip into the stratosphere at the idea of Bellamy waiting in the mountains for her car to be fixed.

  “Seriously? That witch needs a hobby,” Holly said, thankfully letting Bellamy slide in the naughty gossip department.

  Jenna gave a humorless smile and nursed her coffee, leaning against the narrow counter dividing the kitchenette from the common room. “I think making Bellamy’s life a living hell is her hobby.”

  “Well, she’s getting really good at it,” Holly quipped.

  Bellamy jerked the phone away from her ear, her boss’s recorded voice so grating and awful that the harping would be perfectly audible even if she laid the thing on the counter.

  “Bellamy, I understand you’re away until Tuesday.” The words away until Tuesday dripped with so much disdain that Bellamy cringed. God forbid she try to have a life on her days off. “But I absolutely need that Anderson contract on my desk first thing when you get back to the office.”

  Bellamy swallowed. The Anderson contract, a.k.a. the Doorstop, was sitting, half done, on Bellamy’s desk at work, and her boss had told her she had at least a week to finish the research. How was she possibly going to pull this off?

  The voice mail droned on. “Oh, and another thing. We’ve moved up the deadline for the research on the project you’ve been working on with Cooper, and I’m going to need all of those figures no later than midweek.”

  The message continued until the time limit for voice mail cut off, but far be it for a little thing like that to stop ol’ Bosszilla. She’d just called back and left her litany in installments. By the time Bellamy got to Mission Impossible, The Final Chapter, she was exhausted just from listening. Meeting these new deadlines would be difficult even if she was back in the city. There was no way she could pull it off while being stranded in the mountains with no car and the paperwork a hundred miles away.

  “I don’t think I can handle this.” She propped her elbows on the counter and dropped her head into her hands. “You know, when I finished my MBA two years ago, this is so not what I had in mind.”

  “Oh, honey. You had no way of knowing you’d get stuck working for such a heinous troll. Can you move within the company? Maybe there’s an opening for an analyst on another team,” Holly said, giving Bellamy’s back a gentle rub.

  Man, she must be toeing the line of pretty pathetic to garner the sympathy-pat before breakfast. Bellamy sighed, peeking out from the thick tendrils of hair draped over her fingers. “Yeah, but you know what? That might just be a quick fix for a slow problem.”

  Jenna drew her brows inward, leaning toward Bellamy from the other side of the counter. “What do you mean? When Bosszilla’s not hounding you—which, granted, is half the day—you’re great at your job.”

  Bellamy managed a tiny smile. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “I’m not stroking your ego just for the hell of it. That’s the truth.” Jenna’s voice was straightforward as her eyes focused in on Bellamy’s over their coffee mugs. “You graduated twelfth in your class at the most prestigious freaking business school in the country. Come on, admit it. You don’t exactly suck.”

  “Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you love it, though. It’s just not what I thought it would be, that’s all.” Bellamy thought of all the hours she spent holed up in her office, meticulously researching contracts and negotiating deals for clients. The overwhelming majority of those hours had been spent wishing she were somewhere else. Somehow, all of her hard work and accomplishments just didn’t seem to outweigh the negatives.

  Holly’s eyes went wide. “Are you saying you want to quit?”

  “No!” Was Holly nuts? “I’m just bitching about my job, is all. I can’t quit! I busted my ass to get a degree. I just took the boards last year, for God’s sake! What else would I do?” Wow. Her job sucked and all, but there was no need to jump on the crazy train. She hadn’t fought her way through UPenn to toss it all away when the going got tough.

  “What else would you want to do?” Jenna’s question threw Bellamy off-kilter, and it stopped her halfway between the counter and the cabinet over the mini-fridge, where she’d stashed the homemade muffins from the bakery at Joe’s.

  “What do you mean, what do I want to do? I want to come up with a pain-free way to get my ass home tomorrow night so I can work on the stupid Anderson contract until daybreak and get Bosszilla off my back. Can I just ride with you guys?” She’d simply have to suck it up and have the Miata towed back to the city once Shane fixed it. Not ideal, but there were no other choices on the table.

  “No. I mean, if you could do something you really love, what would you do?” Jenna asked, point-blank.

  Bellamy grabbed the bag of muffins and gave one to both Jenna and Holly before shrugging. “I don’t know. I guess I could go into marketing.” She took a bite of her muffin, savoring it. At least someone knew how to get the whole blueberries-to-batter ratio right.

  “That’s the best you can come up with?” Jenna smirked.

  “Hey!” Holly protested around a mouth full of cakey goodness. “I’m in marketing, you know. And oh my God are these good. But not as good as yours,” she amended, nodding at Bellamy.

  “Exactly my point. You’re in marketing because you love it.” Jenna acknowledged Holly with a nod, then flicked her gaze back to where Bellamy had just parked herself on a bar stool at the counter. “But not everybody loves her job, obviously.”

  “You’re forgetting the fact that I spent years going to school for this. Everyone expects me to have a business-oriented career. Plus, not to pat myself on the back or anything, but I am pretty good at it,” Bellamy replied, brushing the crumbs from her muffin into a tidy little pile.

  “Oh please. Everyone who? Your parents? Sweetie, you’re twenty-seven. It’s time to cut the strings,” Jenna said.

  “Not when the strings have owned a very successful realty business together for over twenty years and supported me while I went to grad school full-time. It’s no secret that they’re expecting me to join their company as soon as I get enough experience. Sure, they love me, but it would be kind of tough to swallow if I waltzed in and said I suddenly hated big business. Plus, what the hell would I do? Sitting around resting on my laurels isn’t going to pay the bills.”

  Jenna cranked out a grin. “Your answer’s right in front of you, you know.”

  Holly frowned and pulled back. “I don’t get it.”

  “You just said it yourself. Who makes the best blueberry muffins you’ve ever had?” Jenna’s eyes lasered in on Bellamy, and her implication hit like a crate full of cannonballs.

  “Oh, come on, Jenna. You can’t be serious. You think I should sell muffins for a living?”

  “No, dumbass. But becoming a chef wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”

  Bellamy barked out an involuntary laugh as shock ricocheted through her vei
ns. “Please! Whipping up a batch of goodies for you guys here and there is one thing; trying to make a living of it when you have no experience and no training whatsoever is quite another. Culinary school takes years, and even then I’d only make peanuts for my troubles.”

  That’s why they called it a dream job, right? Because clearly, Bellamy would be dreaming if she thought someone would pay her to cook for a living.

  “You know what, B? Your being a chef isn’t a half-bad idea.” Holly looked at her with a sheepish nod.

  Great. Now they were both crazy. Bellamy made a mental note not to bitch about her job quite so loudly anymore. “It’s insane. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to figure out this mess before that yoga-pilates fusion class that’s supposed to leave me stress-free and give me a butt you can bounce a quarter off of.”

  Jenna shook her head with a soft chuckle. “Okay. But I’m telling you. You should think about it.”

  Right, Bellamy thought as she scrolled through her phone to access her e-mail. Like anything more unlikely could happen than her blazing off on a new career path.

  It made the whole impulsive evening making out under the stars with Mr. It’s-Not-You look rational in comparison.

  Shane lay flat on his back, looking up into the belly of the Mach 1 and thinking he’d be a billionaire if he could come up with a cure-all for being a complete jackass.

  Oh, that and he wouldn’t feel like shit over how his night with Bellamy had ended.

  He replayed the whole thing in his mind for the nth time, picturing her green eyes glaring at him up on the Ridge. He hated that he’d been unable to meet those pretty yet pissed-off eyes before she walked away with nothing more than a clipped good night and her head held high. Man, how come doing the right thing felt so crappy?

  Maybe because if he’d been smart in the first place, he’d have stayed the hell away from her.

  “Shane? You in here?”

  Shane’s face creased in confusion as he pushed himself out from under the car with a booted heel. “Grady? What’re you doing here on a Sunday?” Even from his vantage point on the floor, Shane could see the concern on the old man’s face as he walked into the garage.

  “Lookin’ for you,” he said, his gravelly voice going all matter-of-fact.

  “You found me. Is everything okay?” Shane sat up, nursing a twinge of concern.

  Grady gave a singular, solid nod in the affirmative and looked around the garage. Shane winced as Grady’s gaze swept over Bellamy’s Miata. It was obvious not only that Shane had pulled out the old tranny to make way for the new one, but that Grady knew Shane had done it without him. The last thing he wanted was to overstep his bounds.

  “Been busy, I see.”

  Shane would’ve rather heard anger than the recognition that went with Grady’s words, as if he’d pegged exactly why Shane had been spending so much time in the garage.

  “Yeah, sorry. I was bored. I just figured I’d keep my mind straight by starting on it.” He nodded over at Bellamy’s car, trying not to let his thoughts slip to its driver.

  “Jackson help you muscle the old one outta there?”

  Guilt washed over Shane in the silence that followed. He should’ve waited for Grady, or at least called him to tell him he was going to pull the transmission. Shit.

  Grady continued. “You’re good, but I got a feeling that tranny was locked up tighter than Fort Knox. It probably gave the two of you a run for your money, yeah?”

  Hell if the old man didn’t miss a trick. It had taken all the muscle Shane and Jackson had to pull the fried transmission out of that Miata.

  “Yup. It was a nightmare. Be glad you missed it.” The consolation didn’t work for a second, not that Shane really expected it to.

  “You want to tell me what’s goin’ on here? I know you need the cash,” Grady rasped. “But all of this workin’ feels like somethin’ else.”

  Shane stood up slowly. He knew he owed Grady more than a bunch of double speak and canned excuses, but his iron-clad defenses wouldn’t let the real reason past his lips.

  “I’ve, ah, had a lot on my mind. Working just helps. I didn’t mean to step on your toes, though.” God knew this was the truth. Nothing else calmed Shane like working on cars, even the grunt work like oil changes and tune-ups, but he wasn’t about to disrespect Grady in order to right his head.

  Grady measured Shane with a knowing, steel-gray stare. “You can’t hide from this forever, you know.” It wasn’t an accusation, just a simple statement of fact. And one that deep down, Shane knew.

  “I’m not hiding. This is who I am.”

  The words made Grady chuckle. “Oh, no denyin’ that. You are who you are. But you got some loose ends to tie up, and they’re gettin’ pretty tangled while they wait for you.”

  Damn it. Grady was nothing if not right to the point. “You don’t cut any corners, do you?”

  “’Fraid not. You work as much as you need to, Shane, if it’ll get your head right. Just don’t let it get in the way of what matters.”

  Shane frowned, looking around the garage. “This is what matters.”

  Grady’s laugh was long and loud. “Boy, you got a lot to learn. Good thing you don’t have to do it all in one day.” His eyes glinted over Shane’s in a knowing glance that told Shane not to argue. Still, the look told him that Grady was onto him, which made his stomach ache with unease.

  The expression lasted for only a second longer before it busted into a silvery-stubbled grin. “Now pop the hood on this thing and let an old fart see what’cha been doing with all your time, would you?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Surpriiiiiiise!”

  Jenna and Holly could barely contain their excitement as they held up a cream-colored envelope, both grinning like total lunatics.

  “Okay, you’re freaking me out. What did you do?” Bellamy eyed her friends from where she sat on her bed with pages of scribbled notes in her lap and her cell phone glued to her hand. She’d spent three hours piecing together what she could from various e-mails, trying to make heads or tails of the impossible task in front of her. Without the contract in-hand, the research was spotty at best. Not even taking a break for that yoga class had calmed her, even though the yogi had been very male and oh-so limber. Of course, no matter how enticing the view of his Downward Facing Dog was, men were still on Bellamy’s shit list.

  “Well, when you were—” Jenna paused to clear her throat. “Out last night, we cozied up to one of the resort managers.”

  Holly interrupted with a snort. “And by ‘cozied up to,’ she means ‘flirted mercilessly with.’” Bellamy’s brows popped, prompting Holly to raise her hands in an I-didn’t-do-it gesture. “Her, not me. I don’t share.”

  “Anyway,” Jenna interrupted right back. “He told us all about this little event the resort is hosting this evening. It’s a very small, very exclusive and very hush-hush thing, but of course . . .”

  Holly picked up where Jenna left off. “We, and by ‘we’ I mean ‘she,’” Holly pointed at a devilishly beaming Jenna. “Just happened to run into the manager again after breakfast while you were getting your om on . . .”

  Jenna took the baton and ran. “. . . and he mentioned that he might be able to snag three tickets to this little shindig . . .” Her eyes shone like runway lights, and her grin was a perfect match.

  “. . . and since we knew you were having a really bad day and could use some cheering up, she made out with him so he’d fork the tickets over!” Holly squealed in the gossip-girl’s version of a grand finale.

  It took Bellamy a full minute to process the verbal tennis match. “Wait a second, let me get this straight. You made out with a random guy to get us tickets for some top-secret exclusive event?” Helluva way to take one for the team.

  “First of all, Chase isn’t some random shmo. He’s Pine Mountain’s events coordinator. And he’s a very nice guy who’s taking me out for drinks later because, as much as I love you, you’re not the only
reason I kissed him.” Jenna held the envelope out. “Here. Open it.”

  A current of excitement rippled up Bellamy’s spine as she took the envelope with the Pine Mountain Resort crest stamped in the corner, and by the time she’d opened the flap, she was laughing right along with Jenna and Holly. She felt like an idiot, but at least she was a getting-happier idiot. A girl could only handle so much drama before going off the deep end.

  “Seriously, you guys, what could you possibly . . .” Bellamy’s voice trailed off as she read, then re-read, the square of card stock that slid out of the envelope. “Wait.” Her heart went from zero to oh-my-freaking-God in about three seconds.

  No. Way. Her brain was malfunctioning. Had to be.

  “This can’t be right. This says that . . .”

  “Chef Carly di Matisse, direct from New York City, is doing a one-night-only menu tasting for an intimate crowd of people and we’re going?” Holly supplied with an ear-to-ear grin.

  Holy shit, her brain was working properly!

  “Do you guys know who Carly di Matisse is? I mean, do you know who she is?” Bellamy released the breath she’d only just realized had been pasted to her lungs, the paper starting to flutter in her hands.

  Jenna laughed, nudging Holly. “Told you she’d do this. She gets all fan-girl freaky for those cable-channel chefs. And that’s not even the Food Network.”

  “You bet me she’d hyperventilate. You haven’t won until she asks for a paper bag,” Holly pointed out with a wry smile.

  Bellamy ignored their teasing and pressed on. “Carly di Matisse is only the most awe-inspiring human being on the planet, that’s all! Her show, Couples in the Kitchen is where I got all of the ideas for my parents’ anniversary dinner.” She stopped to take a breath, but it was a quick one. “There wasn’t a peep of publicity about this on her show, although come to think of it, they’ve been doing a lot of reruns lately. Still, how the hell did I not know she’d be here this weekend?” She sank to the bed, trying to get a handle on the part of her brain that dealt out rational thought.