Black Ember

by Ruby Laska

  The dirty little secret of both the entertainment industry and the world of high fashion was that they ran, not on glamour as everyone assumed, but on insecurity. Take her stepfather, for example, Randall hadn’t left Georgia because there was anything especially wrong with their marriage, but because his fiftieth birthday was looming and he was plagued with the sorts of self-doubts that a much younger woman could solve, at least for a while.

  Or consider the girls who modeled Caryn’s collections. They were among the most physically perfect humans in the world, but they spent all their time worrying about what they ate and wore and looked like in the mirror. Even Nathanial—who’d risen to the top of his investment bank by being willing to crush the competition—used to drive Caryn crazy with his incessant checking and rechecking and checking again of the stock market, because despite his wealth he never felt rich enough.

  “Enough,” Caryn repeated out loud, not meaning too. Because that was Zane in a nutshell. He was a contented man, a man who was enough just as he was, and she wanted nothing more than to slide her tired hands around his waist, feeling the smooth finish of the cotton shirt, the warmth of his skin, his breath on her neck. In his truck, earlier, she’d given in to temptation, just for a second, and it had thrown her for the rest of the day. She had to be stronger.

  Zane kept his eyes on her as he picked up a chair and upended it on a table with a clatter.

  “Hey, easy there, boss,” Turk called.

  Zane ignored him and picked up a second chair, his gaze smoldering so that Caryn wondered if he was going to throw it across the room. She swallowed, hard.

  But he set it down with care, as though it was a delicate china cup. She didn’t miss the way the jacket strained against his muscles.

  “You heard the lady,” Zane growled. “Sooner we clean up, sooner you and I can get out of here. Thought I’d buy you a drink.”

  “But I thought—I mean, aren’t you supposed to be at the dinner? With the rest of the bridal party?”

  “The bridal party,” Zane said, biting off the words as though they pained him, “is currently practicing walking. As though we haven’t all been doing it since we were two years old. Deneen’s got Matthew’s construction lights rigged up outside and she’s making us practice, even though we had the whole thing down perfect the first time we rehearsed.”

  A smile tugged at the corner of Caryn’s mouth. She’d been a bridesmaid nineteen times—for some of the most elaborate weddings in the country—and she was intimately aware of the challenge that the step-pause-step posed for many people. Especially men. Especially, one might imagine, men who worked with their hands, who were accustomed to working in environments fraught with dangers of the most harrowing and physical nature—not the admiring eyes of a bevy of wedding guests.

  “Deneen wasn’t satisfied with you, I take it?” she said.

  “Not hardly. She said I lurch.” Zane sounded outraged. “What do you think, Carrie, do I lurch?”

  “Let’s see you strut your stuff,” Opal called. “Let me decide.”

  Zane glared at her. But Opal had gotten Turk’s attention. “Yeah, boy, let’s see what you got. Barracuda, you just act like a lady for a second and let him escort you up the aisle.”

  “There’s no aisle here,” Zane protested.

  “This’ll do fine,” Opal said, pointing to the cleared space between tables. “You can just walk from one end of the bar to the other. Pretend the stage is the altar, and start by the restrooms, like you’re coming out of the back of the church.”

  “Here, hang on a sec,” Turk said, ducking down behind the bar. In a moment, the opening notes of Brad Paisley singing “We Danced” came on the sound system.

  Caryn turned to Zane, both horrified and entranced by the idea of holding his arm and walking together down a pretend aisle. He glowered at Opal.

  “The whole reason I’m here was to escape that craziness,” he protested. “Isn’t it enough that I have to walk the plank tomorrow with Ashley?”

  “Ashley’s a nice girl,” Opal chided.

  “Yes, ordinarily she is very nice. But ever since she had that baby she’s turned into a hormonal mess. Last time she was at the bunkhouse for book club, she cried the whole time and bit my head off for drinking the last root beer.”

  “Guess that means you and she probably aren’t hooking up,” Turk said. “Tough break, man. Any of the other bridesmaids hot?”

  “Well, I guess, but since Regina’s practically engaged to Chase and Roan can’t put a sentence together when Cal’s in the room, I don’t think I’ll have much of a shot. And oh, then there’s Deneen, but pardon me for saying I think I’d sooner slit my wrists than sign up to fold more napkins for that crazy ball-busting lunatic.”

  “Jimmy doesn’t seem to mind,” Caryn murmured, secretly delighted that all of the bridesmaids were taken. Which made about as much sense as being relieved that it was a good year for avocados, since she was deadly allergic to them. Not that she was allergic to Zane, exactly, but it might actually make things less complicated if she were since he was proving very distracting to her plan to get in, get a glimpse of her bio-dad, and get the heck out of town.

  “All right, you crazy lovebirds,” Turk said. “You got music, you got an aisle—let’s see your stuff.”

  “But I can’t walk with her,” Zane said, poking a thumb in Caryn’s direction and sounding more like a petulant eight-year-old than a grown man.

  “Why, she got cooties?” Opal asked. “You ask me, the two of you look nice together. I mean, in a boy-meets-streetwalker kind of way.”

  “Hey,” Caryn said, tugging self-consciously at the straps of the pink bra, which more than one customer had commented on. The outfit had been a judgment error: An especially bold—or especially drunk—man in a wife-beater had tried to poke a quarter through one of the holes of her mesh top. “I’m just trying to increase my tips.”

  “And yet I’m still out-earning you two to one,” Opal said. “And I don’t even have to put my wares on display for the whole world to see. Not that I’m judging you or nothing, but I think you need a new strategy.”

  Caryn felt her face flaming. The thrill of being Carrie had faded as the night wore on, along with her eye makeup. But she wasn’t about to stand there and be insulted by a woman with a beehive hairdo and a man with “OPEN ROAD” tattooed on his knuckles.

  She grabbed Zane’s arm and yanked him toward the restrooms.

  “Hey,” he protested. “I’ve already put in my practice time.”

  “And I’ve put in my whole shift, but we might as well give these two a thrill before you kidnap me.”

  “I’m not kidnapping you! I’m just…avoiding an unpleasant chore.”

  “And using me to get back at some very nice people who have gone out of their way to help me,” Caryn sniffed. She executed a perfect turn and assumed the position—the bridesmaid position, that is, hand tucked around Zane’s arm, chin up, brittle smile fixed in place, eyes focused ahead.

  “And…step,” she hissed, waiting for the count.

  Zane stepped.

  Brad sang.

  She held on tighter.

  The first two steps were a little stiff, but then something happened. Her body naturally found Zane’s rhythm, and they moved together as though they were one person rather than two, picking out the beats from the lovely song. Caryn had done this so many times before; she’d learned to smile as though she were seeing angels rather than the stiff, sprayed hair of the bridesmaid in front of her, while pretending the dignitaries and celebrities packing the pews weren’t focused on her.

  But this time was different. Zane covered her hand with his own and gave her a funny little smile before returning his attention to the empty stage where a single spotlight shone forlornly on a battered stool.

  “You do this well,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “No one would ever guess you were on the run from the law.”

  “No one would ever notice that
you’ve got grease under your nails and you smell like old tires,” Caryn shot back, though the truth was that other than his calluses and muscles, there was nothing about his appearance to indicate he’d just finished a three-week stint on the rigs.

  Zane chuckled softly and pulled her a little closer to him, nearly causing her to break stride.

  The walk was both endless and over too quickly. Over Brad’s crooning, she could hear Opal saying “awwww” and Turk cackling, but she tuned them out and let her eyes go fuzzy, so that it was possible to imagine that the stool was actually a minister waiting to say their vows, and the stage was an altar festooned with flowers.

  “Watch your skirt,” Zane said gravely when they reached the rickety wooden steps up to the stage. “Wouldn't want you to step on your hem.”

  The only way Caryn would be stepping on the hem of her skirt would be if it spontaneously fell off her hips and slid to the floor, but she pretended to sweep an imaginary dress out of the way as she stepped daintily up. Just as they reached the center of the stage, and Zane gently turned her so that she was staring up into his eyes, the song ended.

  For a moment, the bar was perfectly silent. The spotlight shone behind Zane, blotting everything out from view except his amused grin and his beautiful eyes. She moved her hands to his, brushing against his sleeves and feeling the heavy cuff links underneath. His hands enveloped hers, their warmth too delicious to let go of.

  “Y’all look like it ought to be the two of you getting hitched,” Turk said, apparently unable to come up with a suitable wisecrack.

  “You better kiss her quick!” Opal crowed. “Come on, Zane, make an honest woman of Carrie!”

  Before she could decide if she wanted him to or not, Zane bent down and kissed her—not on the lips, but on the cheek, close enough to her ear that she could feel his breath tickling her lobe. In the history of kisses, it was at the short end of the spectrum, but that didn’t prevent Caryn’s heart from skipping a beat or two before returning to do the job at double its usual speed. If Zane hadn’t disentangled her hands and stepped away to give her a brief mocking bow, she might have stood there for hours, wondering what the heck had hit her.

  But he’d already turned away from her, standing at the edge of the stage with his fists on his hips. “I trust that convinced you?” he demanded. “That I don’t have to report back to Major-General Deneen Burgess again tonight?”

  “Yeah, I guess so, boy,” Turk said, giving him a mock salute. “You’re on shore leave. Make the most of it.”

  “Be here bright and early Sunday, Carrie!” Opal called. “Folks’ll be looking to get their party on after we deny them their Saturday night entertainment!”

  Caryn leapt lightly down from the stage, trying to cover the emotions surging from Zane’s kiss. “I’ll be here,” she said. “And since I’m doubling my tips on every shift, I’ll bet I’ll earn more than you, too.”

  “I’ll take that bet,” Opal said. “Loser cleans the fridge.”

  “Game on!” Turk shouted. “Now get out of here before I decide to put you to work changing kegs, Zane.”

  Zane didn’t need to be asked twice. He slapped Caryn lightly on the hip and hustled her to the door.

  “Time’s a-wasting,” he said.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Outside, the air was cooler, hitting Caryn with a shock through her well-ventilated top. The moon was obscured with dense white clouds, and the breeze smelled like it was ushering in a storm.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “What if it rains tomorrow?”

  “I’m sure Deneen’s got a backup plan,” Zane said. “Probably two or three of ’em.”

  “How many guests is she expecting?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “But—what if the field gets too muddy to park cars in?”

  “No idea.”

  “The barn would probably work, I suppose, as long as there’s electricity—do you know if it’s structurally sound?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “But what about the music? The caterers? Refrigeration?”

  “You’re acting like you’re the one getting married tomorrow,” Zane said, steering her toward the passenger door as a flash of lightning cracked over a distant field.

  “Oh!” Caryn said, startled. “I’ve—I’ve never liked lightning.”

  “Tough girl like you?” Zane said, and then—maybe noticing that she really meant it, he slung an arm around her shoulders. Caryn could feel the smooth lining of his jacket on her skin through the knotted top. He pulled her closer against him, and she went—gladly. “You know that lightning’s a good mile or two away. There’s no danger.”

  “I guess,” Caryn said in a small voice. “It’s not really a logical fear.”

  But it was an old one, stemming from a night when she was twelve years old and had promised her mother that she was plenty old enough to stay by herself for a few hours. Randall was taking her to a fancy restaurant with his co-stars in a new film, and her regular sitter had the mumps—but the real draw of the evening was that she would be allowed to stay up in her mother and Randall’s bed with a bowl of popcorn and the television tuned to anything she wanted. Which had been fine, until a summer storm slammed into the house, rattling the windows and lighting up the sky outside with lightning. The thunder seemed closer and closer, until it seemed as though the house itself would split in two. It was before cell phones were common, but Caryn called the phone number her mother left over and over—later, Georgia remorsefully would explain that the restaurant had been so packed that no one had been able to find her—and finally retreated to the damp, musty basement of their big Hollywood house where she waited out the storm on top of the washing machine.

  It had been one of the scariest, and loneliest, nights of her life.

  Zane opened the door to the truck, but before she could get in, he pulled her gently back. “Are you okay…really?”

  “I am,” Caryn said, nodding. And she was. Here, in surroundings as unfamiliar as any she’d ever found herself in, she was pulling off a scam and lying to the innocent bystanders who’d offered a helping hand, and so far she hadn’t even caught a glimpse of the man she’d traveled all this distance to meet. But Zane somehow made all the difference. Which was silly, because he hadn’t exactly come to the bar to rescue her. He was no knight in shining armor, just a guy trying to get out of an unpleasant duty. He was using her.

  But she didn’t mind being used. She kind of liked it.

  “You don’t seem okay,” he said skeptically, running his hands—and oh, those rough calluses—along her arm. “You’re trembling.”

  She wasn’t about to admit that the cause of her tremors wasn’t the impending storm but the touch of the first man to pay attention to her since Nathanial. Or that no man—not even Nathanial—had ever made her feel quite as inexplicably safe but also turned on as Zane did.

  “I’m just a little cold.”

  “Ah,” Zane said, but he didn’t stop rubbing her arm. He stared into her eyes with concern and something else, something deeper and darker.

  For a moment, Caryn was certain he was about to kiss her. And she was ready for it, wanted it, was turning her face toward his, when another clap of thunder sounded, this one seeming much closer.

  “Okay,” Zane laughed. “Guess we’d better get a move on before we get drenched. But I’ve got an idea.”

  He waited until she was in the car before carefully closing her door, then jogged around to the driver’s seat. Another bolt of lightning illuminated him as he moved, and she felt a rush of relief when he slid into the seat.

  “So, where are you taking me?” she said as he turned the key and the big truck roared to life.

  “It’s a surprise. No questions.”

  They drove in silence, taking the turn toward town. After a while, the country lane joined up with the busier route toward town. Even at this hour, and in this weather, a cavalcade of flat-bed trucks and tankers made their way into and out of town, ca
rrying the supplies and equipment that kept the rigs running.

  “Poor Deneen,” Caryn said as they reached the edge of town. “She’s probably wondering if she’s going to have to come up with an extra groomsman to replace you.”

  “Matthew’s got plenty,” Zane groused. “I doubt he’d even miss me.”

  They passed the stores and hotels and bars and restaurants that Caryn had seen just yesterday when she arrived in town, but they looked different at night. Neon sparkled in the windows, and people strolled along the sidewalk. Parking lots were choked with cars and the smell of food cooking carried into the car. Friday night in a boomtown was, apparently, a happening time.

  It took only a few moments to drive the entire length of town. When they emerged from the other end, the houses gave way to sprawling ranches and Caryn could see the orange glow of the rigs far in the distance.

  Zane turned onto a country road and slowed as the truck bounced over the uneven surface. Up ahead a radio tower loomed suddenly in the dark, its single light warning off low-flying aircraft, the rest of it looking abandoned.

  Zane pulled up in front of it and cut the engine. “KDAK,” he said. “Or, it used to be anyway, before the station got bought out by one of the big media conglomerates. Now we get all our news out of Minot, and this thing’s just sitting out here rotting. Best view in town, though.”

  “You can’t possibly think I’m going to climb that thing with you,” Caryn said.

  “What’s the matter, Barracuda? You’re not scared, are you?”

  “Of course not,” Caryn snapped. And she was halfway to thinking up a reasonable excuse when Zane reached over the console between them and ran his fingers through her short, chopped hair. He separated a few strands that had clumped together before smoothing the whole mess back behind her ear. When his fingertips touched the sensitive skin behind her ear, she thought she might jump out of her skin.

  “You’re quite the big talker, aren’t you?” he murmured, his tone faintly mocking and way too dangerous. “You’re working so hard to seem tough, with your crazy hair and your silly makeup and those…clothes. But I think that underneath it all, you’re someone entirely different. Someone you’re too afraid to let anyone see.”