by Grace Conley
“Okay Mister Injured Firefighter Hero! You’re only here because you’re – well, obviously -- broken! And I am not co-chairing the Holiday Hearts Ball with you. My family set this whole thing up. So it’s my responsibility, not yours.”
“Okay, well, I will politely set you straight. I’ve been asked to do this by my work.”
Chiara straightened and raised her chin so she could look him in the eye. In her boots, she made it all the way up to his shoulder.
Cute.
Inexplicably, Ben found he wanted to kiss her.
“Oh, no,” she said. “There is no way that is right. You are going to back out, not me. My Great Aunt Chi Chi may have set this up, and I may be frustrated because I was blindsided, but DeLuca’s are family, and they help their communities. And I am going to do this.”
“Well, I’m off on J’s,” started Ben.
“English, please.”
“Sorry, firefighter slang. I’m on leave, broke my arm,” explained Ben. “And I’m on light-duty for a few weeks until it heals fully. The Chief has me helping out with a bunch of stuff around the station, and I got signed up for the co-chair deal. It’s good for the Fire Department to be involved in the community. So, I need to do this. It’s my job.”
“Uh-uh.”
He looked at her a moment, and continued. “And it’s pretty amazing that Mrs. DeLuca is sponsoring both of us for salary coverage, because it will save the department all that money. Adam – uh, I mean my Battalion Chief – is already planning to use the money to re-do our kitchen at station. Us guys kind of spend a lot of time there, so it’s pretty cool.”
“Well, I thank you for your service to the City of St. Helena,” Chiara cut in. “How did you break it, anyway? Your ladder fall down while you were rescuing the cat of a cheerleader-turned-stripper-bunny?”
Something flashed across Ben’s face. Regret? Recognition?
“You’re still mad,” he observed.
“You’re brilliant, you.”
“It was a stupid prank,” Ben said. “I didn’t know it would cause so much trouble. And you didn’t have to cover for me, you know.”
“I did, actually. You would have been arrested. Even though I’m from out of town, I’m a DeLuca. It was better for me to take the fall, believe me. My family is well known here.”
But the family permanently labeled her the DeLuca Daredevil as a result of the episode. Chiara was cast as the complete and utter opposite to her older Cousin Abby, the family favorite who was known as the DeLuca Darling growing up.
Her chin wobbled, and went higher.
He really wanted to kiss her now. But he didn’t.
“You’re right, Cheech,” Ben conceded.
Her skin prickled at Ben’s use of her childhood nickname. “Don’t call me that.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Think about it. All that ruckus was over stealing a fake reindeer statue. It’s not like it hasn’t been stolen a million times before. You didn’t really need to do that for me. It kept me from getting suspended, and missing the big game.”
He looked down at her, “I’ve heard crazy things about that reindeer.”
Chiara stayed silent. Recent DeLuca family lore included a story of her oldest cousin and his then-future wife and a stolen Randolph, but to her knowledge, no one outside of the family knew about it. She certainly wasn’t going to rat out Gabe and Regan, especially since…the fiberglass critter had clearly played Cupid and helped get one of her favorite couples together.
Ben fought the urge to cup her cheek in his hand. That determined chin was killing him. She wore her heart on a string, she just couldn’t see that he knew.
Ben cleared his throat instead. “Come and work with me. It will be just a few weeks. And it will be fun.”
“Nah, I couldn’t deprive the village of its’ idiot for that long.” She felt waspish and mean, and instantly regretted saying that.
“You’re going to have to do better than that, Cheech,” he said. “I work in a fire house all day. I can sling insults with the best of them.”
“Speaking of slings, what did you do to yourself?”
“My job is what I did. There was an old house on the outskirts of St. Helena, a rental property, that went up a couple week’s ago. We got everyone out,” he hastened to say.
“So, what happened?”
“There was a kid trapped on the second story, a five-year-old boy. I went up the ladder to get him, and the roof started coming down. I had to take it kind of fast, get him out. It’s not that big a deal. I got off-balance when we were almost to the bottom of the ladder, and I fell, broke it.”
“And the little boy?”
“He’s fine, he’s really good. Other than needing a new roof over their heads. The Red Cross has been helping them. I went to see his family and check on them the other day.”
Chiara looked down at her feet, and then back up at Ben.
“Good,” she started in a quiet voice. “And about the ball, I guess I’ll – well, no I will. I’ll work with you.” She shivered.
Ben hauled off and cupped her cheek with his one good hand and kissed her.
She didn’t get to say anything else, because he kissed her again. A hot flicker of lust spread at her core, threatening to explode into full-blown desire.
Ooh. She hadn’t felt anything resembling this with Frank. Chiara drowned in the kiss for a long while, her sense alert turned to Fire Danger: High.
He was kissing her. What was that for?
Oh, wow. He smelled like yummy aftershave and tasted like pumpkin spice something-or-other. Chiara didn’t know quite what the ‘other’ was, but it was the best kiss she had ever had. Some part of her felt like it would be the Best Christmas Ever, like she’d won the kiss lottery, with Ben’s sweet, funny, sexy-hot surprise fireman kiss.
While the rest of him was super-sized firefighter tough, his lips were surprisingly soft. She leaned into the kiss, so amazing, so perfect. The whole time, his hand didn’t move. He just cupped her face, tipping it towards his and stroking her jaw lightly with his thumb.
Ben pulled back and looked at her, slanting his blue eyes to gaze at her lips. She rasped in a breath, looking back at him.
Curious.
Sure of himself.
And a little disheveled, adorably so.
Ben shifted his good arm in a slow arc, brushing her cheek, her neck, her back, finally curving his hand protectively – and seductively -- at her waist.
Chiara threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back. She nipped at his lips, and he nearly lost it.
Suddenly, they were locked in a hot, no-holds-barred, furnace-hot open-mouthed kiss. The kind of kiss that said ancient believers scorched by sacrificial flames.
Spontaneous combustion.
Ben cinched his arm tighter for a moment, then released her gently, stroking her waist as he let go.
They were both breathing heavily.
“Fire,” he murmured, brushing his lips to her temple.
“Yes, we’re on fire,” she whispered, agreeing.
“No, a real fire,” he said, giving a quick, hard kiss to the top of her head as he pulled away. Ben shrugged a vibrating pager out of his pocket and glanced down at it.
“You still carry one of those things?”
“Yup, we’re a small town, and they work. So we use them. Gotta go,” he said, plopping it back in his pocket. “The other guys will go out on the engine. I’m needed to cover the phones while they’re out of the station.”
“See you later, Cheech,” he said. “I’ll come by the Napa Grand for our meeting tomorrow.”
And with that, he ran, leaving her wondering.
How did HE know they had a meeting about the ball tomorrow, when she didn’t?
What had her charming-but-meddling family have in store for her?
And how on earth, after she’d been left at the altar, publicly humiliated, and generally used-to-get-to-her-family’s-land by Frank, after she’d swo
rn off men forever, did she feel some small spark starting up in her heart for this hometown fireman?
Chiara thought to herself on the kiss, and how she felt with Ben’s arm around her and his mouth…everywhere.
It wasn’t a spark, she thought. It was a torch.
A torch she’d carried for him since she was a young teenager visiting Great Aunt Chi Chi and her family the winter that her older brother had died. When the sweet, wild boy from the farm down the road from the DeLuca vineyard got her to sneak out and pull pranks with him.
She was caught saving his tail when she ‘borrowed’ Cousin Nate’s convertible -- without a license, since she was only thirteen -- in a vain effort to quietly return the purloined Randolph statue to his rightful place in the town Christmas display.
Chi Chi was so disappointed in her, which broke Chiara’s heart. Her parents agreed at a distance for her to be grounded, which hurt everyone in the family because they all knew she was acting out due to loss.
Her beautiful, perfect Cousin Abby had traded places with her and was discreetly staying in Portland just then, getting ready for her wedding to – who knew at the time? – a smooth-talking guy who would end up cheating on her and dramatically ruining her life, until years later she turned things around and ended up with a hunky NFL legend who went on to a second career as a hunky construction expert.
So, it was left to her male DeLuca cousins, all adorkably cute, hot-blooded Italian-American boys, to figure out what to do with the teary, acting-out Chiara.
They put their dark-haired heads together. Humor was the best remedy, they decided.
So, Gabe, Nate, Marco, and Trey rallied around their young cousin, teasing and taunting and generally treating her like one of the boys. Completely the opposite of what they would do if it were Abby, but they didn’t know what else to do.
They started calling her the DeLuca Daredevil. And she decided to own that title.
Especially because a DeLuca Daredevil wouldn’t care when she opened up the newspaper the day after the Randolph debacle, to see a photograph of a happy-go-lucky small-town Ben Archer after he scored the winning touchdown in the big game.
He was kissing some nameless cheerleader.
Chiara looked at the photo of the perky girl with the put-together flippy outfit and the perfect hair, and looked down at her own lived-in blue jeans and flannel shirt.
And she decided then that the DeLuca Daredevil would never date some small town guy.
Like the grapes from the DeLuca Vineyards, Chiara was crushed.
CHAPTER 3
Chiara was working her list and checking it twice, collecting donations for the Silent Auction baskets for the St. Helena’s Inaugural Holiday Hearts Ball. It was a crisp, sunny Winter morning exactly one week after her ill-fated Long Kiss Good-gosh with Ben at the corner of Main and Hunt in Downtown St. Helena, and the town was still atwitter.
I guess it’s a slow news week, she thought, pulling her funky kaleidoscope of a hand-knitted scarf tighter around her neck.
“I heard you’re engaged to Ben Archer,” breathed Ida Beamon, as she pressed a big box of dark chocolate-dipped strawberries into Chiara’s hands along with a gift certificate for something called an “Evening of Decadence” at the Cork’d & Dipped wine and chocolate bar. “You take this gift certificate to help the scholarships at the Academy. And the berries are for you and Hottie Firepants Ben!”
“No, no, no!” Chiara found herself automatically sing-songing to everyone, and now to Ida.
In a higher and higher voice.
Ida Beamon looked at her knowingly. “Dark chocolate is Ben’s favorite. A bit of one of these and you can change that to ‘yes, yes, YES!’”
Chiara just grinned and tucked the box of chocolate-dipped-amazingness into her giant tote bag to savor for herself later. What Ben didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him!
“Say hi to Ben!” called Ida after Chiara’s retreating back. “The ladies at the senior center miss seeing him on the daily run!”
Chiara continued collecting at the next couple of businesses. Even though it was a chilly morning, she found herself warm from the brisk walk. She caught a look at her reflection in the store windows on Main Street as she scored certificates for a personal styling session at The Fashion Flower, a Boudoir With Wow! Winter lingerie package from The Boulder Holder, and a Primp Your Pet Full-Day Special at the Paws and Claws Day Spa. Her cheeks were flushed, and the t-shirt that she wore as an underlayer to the custom-sequined Randolph the Reindeer sweater that Great Aunt Chi Chi had sent over for her and Ben to wear when doing their co-chair work was plastered to her chest and back. She cursed that stupid reindeer every time she glimpsed herself.
“You with me for the Napa Grand?” asked a gravelly, sexy, hot fireman’s voice as Ben jogged up beside her, pulling a wagon.
“Well, I’m not WITH you, but I’m headed there for the wine donation,” retorted Chiara. Her cousins Frankie and Nate had called the night before, telling her to stop by the sommelier’s office in the basement of the Grand and pick up a rare vintage of Red Steel, the landmark wine that put Frankie on the map with the international wine industry.
“Me, too!” Ben canted his head, indicating the wagon. “It’s a whole case, you won’t be able to lift it.”
Chiara stopped, took in the red wagon, then his cast covered in tiny fire engines, then the wagon again. She arched two perfect brows and grinned. They hadn’t spoken about the kiss since the next morning, when they both reported to their shared desk at the fire station. They staked out spots on either end of a big old-fashioned wood executive desk, stared at each other, shook heads wildly, and both exclaimed, “No! No really. No need to talk about it.”
“No.” In frickin’ unison.
Chiara squinted up at him now.
“Oh, are you out playing big boy at the fire station today with your wagon? It may be a little mom-and-pop one in Oregon, but I was raised on a vineyard, Ben. I think I can heft a measly case of wine.”
“It has to go over to the warehouse for storage. Wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me. And I didn’t mean to slight you.”
“All right, come on then,” said Chiara. “And thanks, that’s nice of you.”
“I can be nice.”
“Well.”
He waited until her eyes met his. “So, everything good with you?”
She thought a moment. Sure, Frank had finally responded to her Facebook private messages this morning. She was amazed at how quickly “yours, mine and ours” turned into “united we stand, divided we bank.”
“No, not really.” She shifted her gaze back down, feeling she needed to talk with someone, and how unexpected that she could feel so comfortable with Ben. She looked down at his giant sturdy fireman boots, and looked back up at him.
“Steel-toed boots, huh?” she observed.
Ben’s eyes crinkled up at the edges as he smiled. “Yeah, no way your little platforms would have done anything to me that day.”
“Huh.”
“You’re beating around the bush. I’m asking how you are, really.”
For someone who was so wrongly branded the DeLuca Daredevil, she felt like taking a risk. With the truth. And with Ben.
Since the wedding debacle, she’d have panic attacks, breathing in stops and starts. She needed to take a risk and talk with someone, in order to feel like she could start breathing again.
“Honestly? I’ve never felt so amazingly stupid. I met Frank while I was still at U.C. Davis. I worked waiting tables while I was studying for my major in viticulture and oenology. I am a DeLuca after all.”
“You’re a hard-working DeLuca, is what you are. Just maybe a bit naive.”
She shrugged a wool-and-sequin covered shoulder, nodded in agreement. “Well, in hindsight, I’m wondering if Frank may have followed me in to work that day with a specific agenda. He’s thorough…with his research.” She paused, thinking back through all the actions and reactions and ramifications that had been hamme
ring like a hailstorm through her brain for the past few weeks.
“What do you mean?”
“Well. Frank is a lot older than me. He was a visiting professor in the department, on loan from Cornell out East. He came into the restaurant one day, asked to be seated in my section. He said he saw me through the window and recognized me.”
“Ben. You can’t tell Aunt Chi Chi or my cousins about this next part.”
Ben nodded once, never taking his blue eyes off hers. For a glimmer of a second, she thought she could get lost in his steady, deep gaze. He had crystal-clear blue eyes, the same azure as her family’s heirloom Murano vase that came over with her great-great-grandmother from Italy many generations ago.
“So, he fed my whole family a good line, that he was family-oriented and of course, was educated in the field. To me, he was everything my family from our homey Willamette Valley was not – suave, worldly. He’d travelled, was smart, knew our industry and had opinions – lots of opinions – on how to improve it.”
“Right, because he’s the expert.” Ben wondered what kind of a number this asshole Frank had pulled on her. What a dirtbag.
“Well, he invested in us. Heavily. We’d had a couple of drought years, and we’re just the one vineyard – not like the St. Helena DeLuca’s, who have multiple vineyards in both California and Italy. We’re a lot more – mom and pop.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Chiara paused, reflected. “I guess I always kind of thought it was a bad thing, you know? Growing up, we’d come and visit the cousins down here and it just seemed so glamorous.”
“Glamorous small-town California.”
“Now you’re making fun of me. I mean it! Come on, it’s the Napa Valley! Now, I was pretty young when they lost their parents – they would have been teenagers – but my memory is always of Abby, so beautiful and sweet and elegant, and Gabe, Nate, Marco, and Trey were all these wild gorgeous guys that were running all over the place and involved in things.”
“And that was glamorous.”