Love Burns

by Babette James

  The bumping left turn into the long gravel driveway jolted her from her rumination. Familiar welcoming lights shone from the weathered two-story wood building perched on pilings nestled between tall old palms and beds overgrown with hibiscus, bamboo, bougainvillea, bananas, and croton. Taking a steadying breath of warm, salty air, she maneuvered her bags up the wooden ramp to the front entrance. Peppino, the concrete pelican, still perched on his piling stump, molting flakes of paint.

  Leaving Peppino to watch her luggage, she firmed her shoulders and pushed through the heavy glass doors into a rush of air-conditioning and the buzz of conversation. Her throat tightened at the feeling of homecoming. The same old scarred, worn wooden furniture, blue plaid tablecloths, and campy nautical bric-a-brac filled the place, and ancient trophy fish and schools of ceramic tropical fish swam over the cypress-plank walls.

  Behind the shining mahogany bar, completing her disjointed sense of time, Uncle Jake. Age and illness had stooped the big man, and his love of good food and wine padded him with a belly that would do Santa proud, but muscles corded his forearms under weathered, sun-browned skin and a thick shock of white hair curled over his ears.

  Warm delight filled his brown eyes under bushy white eyebrows, and he broke into a wide grin. “Hey, baby girl. This is the best surprise.”

  Olivia choked down the surging tears. “Uncle Jake, I need…help.”

  ****

  The rope slithered from Dave’s hand, and the mountain fell away.

  Falling.

  Over and over. The motorcycle rocketed out of control up the sharp crown of the hill and launched him airborne, or the chute tangled and the earth raced toward him. Unending freefall and stunning pain.

  He was dreaming, damn it, fucked-up nightmares he couldn’t escape, and he really needed to wake the hell up.

  Falling and falling.

  Slamming impact—each time into crazy sick pain or trippy numb confusion.

  Just…wake…up…damn…it.

  Falling—

  “Interception!” Nate’s triumphant cheer jarred Dave.

  “No way. Get him, get him, don’t stand there! Aw, damn!” Lloyd growled.

  “I told you. Super Bowl this year. They’re going all the way.”

  Why was he flat on his back at a football game? Dave’s gluey eyelids weighed like lead, but he pried them open. Hazy, achy, drunken comprehension trickled in. Okay. Nate. Lloyd. Football game on the television on the wall, but not at a bar. He was in bed? Motel? Weird. He couldn’t move or focus on the score or decipher who was playing…

  Maybe this was just another screwy dream.

  Wait—

  Varied sharp pains, dull aches, and nagging miseries filtered through the haze, drawing his attention to the tangle of IV lines, ECG leads, bandages, and hardware snaring him to a hospital bed. His heart leapt and brain scrambled.

  No clue.

  Lloyd snorted. “No way. It ain’t over ’til it’s over, pal. Five minutes left on the clock.”

  “Nate.” That rusty whisper snagged in his dry throat. So thirsty. He swallowed, fighting to work up some spit. His mouth tasted like crap. “Nate?”

  Nate whipped around. “Dave? Lloyd, he said something. His eyes are open.”

  Nate’s anxious tone spiked Dave’s own anxiety through the roof. Everything felt wrong. Body was all fucked up.

  Nate’s haggard face loomed into clear focus. “Dave, you waking up for real this time?” Lloyd, hovering behind him, looked just as rough.

  This time? “What…happened?” His dry throat garbled his croaked question.

  Nate paused, wincing like he was swallowing bile. “There was an accident.”

  An accident? Dave drew a blank. Cold shards of his nightmares showered through him. Slamming… Falling…

  “Bad dreams. Fell. I fell, I think.” His words slurred drunkenly. He was woozy, exhausted, and way too damned confused. He tugged at possible reasons for the two consistent pieces of nightmare from the sticky, sluggish morass that was his brain: the pain and the falling. Got hung up and fell? Hit a stob? Those sharp branch stumps were a real hazard. Caught down air? Maybe he’d crashed the truck? Couldn’t remember. He struggled to sit up.

  Couldn’t move.

  Sickening, icy panic ripped through him, jolting his sluggish body. He tried again. Nothing. Horror rose. “Chute fail?” Why couldn’t he move? “Can’t move. Can’t move,” he croaked, even as he hazily noted through the crazy panic he was sort of moving and felt everything down to his toes—a trapped, disconnected feeling telling him a whole fucking lot was seriously wrong.

  “I’ll get somebody.” Lloyd charged from the room.

  Nate caught his hand and pressed a hand to Dave’s shoulder. “Take it easy. You’re okay here.”

  Dave clenched Nate’s hand against the sick spin. Okay here? Stuck in a hospital bed, can’t move, don’t know why, and that was okay?

  The room got busy with different nurses and doctors checking him over, each confusing him with explanations, details, reassurances, and ambiguities. A good number of days passed before his battered brain reliably kept things straight between facts and nightmares.

  The bad news: his plane had crashed on route to a fire, he’d lost three friends, and he and the others were busted up.

  The good news: well, he was still working on that.

  Chapter Three

  Dave caught his first glimpse of the campsite roasting under the intense July sun and groaned. Oh, great, a welcoming committee.

  What’s your problem? They’ve all visited you since the accident last October, most more than once. Chill out and pretend nothing’s different from any other year.

  Crushing the urge to turn the boat around, Dave nailed his grin in place and waved to the gang cheering and shouting hello from the beach. He needed to get out of this seat and stretch his leg. He needed a beer. He needed this step back to normal.

  He eased off on the throttle and let the ski boat drift past the other boats onto the shore of Spider Camp, a wedge of sand and gravel cut into the stark desert shoulders of Lake Mohave. Cholla and other cacti, brittlebush, and creosote bushes scattered the rocky slopes above, while willow and tamarisk added their spindly shadows to the shade cast by assorted tarps.

  Nate loped over and grabbed the beach anchor and line. “Hey, pal, you’re late.”

  “Crosstown traffic, you know,” Dave drawled, genuinely glad to see Nate, despite his inner grousing.

  A laugh burst from Nate as his sharp, concerned photographer’s eyes swept Dave. “You’re looking good. How have you been doing?” He secured the anchor in the sand.

  “Better than dead. Worse than winning the lottery.” He looked a few steps above shit and Nate knew it, but yeah, he’d been a hell of a lot worse last October and shitty was better than dead.

  “Good then.”

  “Hell, yeah. Still wearing that hamster on your face.”

  Nate grinned and stroked the tidy beard he’d taken to wearing. “What can I say? Kay likes it. Let’s get you unloaded, then break out the beer.” Nate waded out, and Lloyd, Christopher, and Mark followed.

  Dave briefly considered arguing he could manage by himself, thank you very much, but hell, he needed to chill. They’d do the same for anyone. Friends pitch in to help friends.

  Remember, coming to Mohave is one more step back to normal, so act normal.

  He grabbed the first bag and started handing off the gear he needed on land.

  Next: get overboard without looking helpless. He hoisted himself from the seat, stiff and creaky. For a miserable moment, he swore he felt every last screw, plate, and rod holding him together. Just call me Humpty Dumpty.

  We can rebuild him. We have the technology…He snickered. Yeah, right.

  “Hello, Dave.” Olivia’s voice rang out from above, warm and smooth as whisky, scorching right through him, heart to the balls.

  Oh, hell, why was she here?

  He drew a sharp breath and looked u
p to the hillside trail. The former Mrs. R.J. Harper herself. Olivia.

  He shot a glance at Lloyd and Nate, who’d omitted this detail from their vacation planning chitchat. Thanks, guys, you might have mentioned she’d be here. They didn’t know about his mess with her in Vegas. His stomach turned. Unless she’d told them.

  He was taking far too long standing there, with all eyes watching him watch Olivia. He tipped her a cocky salute. “Hey there, Florida.”

  He sighed, inanely wishing he’d chosen jeans to hide his wrecked leg. Gritting his mental teeth, he eased over the gunwale into the warm, shallow water. He staggered, hanging on tight to the bobbing boat’s unsteady support.

  Easy does it. They’re your friends, and they know you’re busted up. Simple is far better than trying to be cool and landing on your ass.

  Right. Tired leg and body, sandy, uneven ground—pride in this instance might guarantee a fast fall. He grabbed the cane and firmly planted the stick in the sand and gravel shallows for more reasons than his bad leg and limped onshore. Too late to turn around.

  So? Suck it up. Act normal.

  Okay. He aimed straight for Kay, caught her around the waist, and kissed her. “Hey, Kay, ready to run off to Bora Bora with me?”

  Kay’s laughter pealed and, as she hugged him tight with an emotional sniffle, he kissed her again just to annoy the shit out of Nate. He’d never seen Kay look better. Nate was so good for her.

  With a smirk at Nate, he released Kay and hugged JoAnn next, who was holding eight-month-old Daisy Elizabeth. “Hi, Jo.” Dave stroked the baby’s soft cheek. “Hey, munchkin. Nice to meet you in person.”

  Daisy grinned at him from under her floppy sunflower sunhat with the same cheerful blue eyes as her mom and enthusiastically gnawed his finger. He’d seen tons of pictures, but seeing her for real sent an amazing pang through his chest. JoAnn’s beautiful miracle.

  “Wow, she’s getting so big. Sorry again I missed the christening. Pictures were great.”

  “Aw, Dave.” JoAnn got damp-eyed and hugged him hard enough to choke him up.

  The rest swarmed him with hugs and claps on the back and swept him into the blur of talk: Scott and Patti, Mike, Terry and Karen, Rich, Margie, Chuck and Pippa.

  Then Olivia.

  The should-have-been-simple handshake with her instead blasted him with that stolen kiss, leaving his body tight, his head dazed, and the guilt a squirming, bitter lump in his gut. Luckily, the hug assaults from Scott and Patti’s twin five-year-old boys, Ryan and Sam, jolted him free.

  Nate shoved a beer into his hand, and they let him sit.

  Hell. He slouched in the chair and slowly inhaled, wrestling for some control.

  Nate kicked back in the chair beside him.

  Lloyd raised his beer. “To friends.”

  “To friends!” As all their voices chimed in, Dave looked around at the faces he’d come too damned close to never seeing again, and his many doubts over coming on this trip faded as he added a silent heartfelt, Thank you, God.

  Dave took a long draw on his beer, and his gaze inexorably settled on Olivia. Now that the shock had eased, he really saw her.

  She wore her hair loose, and breeze-mussed wisps of glossy black silk drifted every which way, drawing the attention to those big brown doe eyes and those soft lips. She’d lost that hunted, pinched look, and her white tank top and turquoise shorts showed off some nice new curves to her slender body. Ditching R.J. had done her good. She’d been beautiful last year, now…

  Dave sucked in his breath. Well, shit, one way or another, he was in trouble.

  ****

  Olivia glanced at Dave, only to catch him scowling at her. She ducked her head with a shiver and sipped her drink. The man was still rude and cocky, but oh, those eyes, hot amber-brown irises, the gleaming gold of whisky, encircled by a ring of dark brown, glittering under thick black lashes and sharp black brows. They haunted her even a year later. His kisses remaining seared in her mind didn’t help. Was it crazy she still felt his touch on her lips? And elsewhere?

  Be brave, bold, and honest with herself. That’s the plan, right? She’d returned to Mohave for herself, because Kay had invited her, not because of Dave, not because of Vegas.

  As for Vegas…

  What happened in Vegas may have technically stayed in Vegas, but the memories firmly haunted her dreams and followed her back to Mohave.

  At a passing glance, Dave appeared mostly unchanged as he lounged in his camp chair, trading wisecracks with his friends. A day or two of beard shadowed his strong jaw. His hair had grown out from his former military-short buzz cut, and the hot breeze tugged glossy black strands untidily over his forehead.

  Second, third, and more stolen glances revealed the exhaustion, tension, and discomfort he masked by his joking around. He’d lost weight, and new lines engraved his face by mouth and eyes. Scars marked his outstretched left leg, but the long baggy board shorts hid the worst of the damage. Knowing what she did of the injuries he’d overcome, she had immense respect for his strength of will.

  Olivia dragged her attention back to the conversation with Kay and JoAnn and played with Daisy to cover her confusion.

  Like last year, she’d flown into Las Vegas and driven a rental car to the marina, where she’d met Lloyd, JoAnn, Daisy, and Mark and joined them on the laden boat.

  Like last year, the others arrived, boat by boat, and everyone had done a quick camp set up. Mark and she had automatically claimed their space at High Water before she considered the accompanying crush of hurtful memories, but working with the cheerful, talkative Mark to organize their campsite and erect her tent drove off the shadows. Troubles with R.J. might have come to a head in High Water, but she’d also found peaceful moments here.

  Unlike last year, they’d settled into antsy chatter, tiptoeing around last year’s events as they waited for Dave, worries masked under sharing memories, drinking, and snacking.

  The shocking news of Dave’s plane crash had finished what R.J.’s betrayal had begun, knocked her to her knees, and woken her up.

  Dave had hung on and beaten the odds and every prognostication as to his recovery.

  So had she. Since October, she’d pulled herself together, faced her altered future, and successfully accomplished three things that made her happier: an astonishingly quick divorce, she’d quit smoking, and she’d entered into a business partnership with Uncle Jake.

  As the months had passed by, Kay, JoAnn, and Margie had kept close by phone and on-line while she kept busy divorcing R.J. and rebuilding her life.

  Whatever spurred R.J.’s abrupt cooperation in the speedy divorce remained a mystery, but she was thankful for the fast conclusion. Maybe R.J.’s longsuffering attorney convinced him that her settlement offer was far cheaper than her pursuing all she legally could receive. The one smart thing she’d done in the whole marriage was listen to her attorney’s insistence on amendments to the prenuptial R.J. had required. R.J. had been arrogant enough to believe she’d be her submissive mouse self and never follow through. Thanks to Dixon, she had, and was free from the philandering bastard with a comfortable nest egg allowing her to buy into the business with Uncle Jake.

  Olivia fussed with her camera. She planned to journal her days in photos to show Uncle Jake. Last fall, lost and missing her new friends, she’d found pictures Nate had posted online, and she’d copied them for herself. The photos had brought pleasure and sorrow. She’d been shocked to see how awful she’d looked. Even Nate’s talented camera work couldn’t disguise her misery. A tender photo of Lloyd caressing JoAnn’s baby belly had crushed her into tears. The shot of Dave sitting laughing on the bow of his boat and Nate and Kay’s Vegas wedding pictures gave her smiles—and lingering shivers from that indelible encounter with Dave.

  Pippa breezed into the seat beside her, sending her curls bouncing, still the fluffy, bubbly blonde. “So, what have you been up to, Livie? I love the new haircut. You look fantastic.”

  Olivia raked her f
ingers through her hair. “Thank you. I’m working at my Uncle Jake’s bar.”

  “Oh, where?”

  “About an hour north of West Palm Beach. I get fresh air, delicious food, and a beautiful view of the St. Lucie River.”

  Between Uncle Jake feeding her every time she turned around, the not-smoking, and her daily swims, she was almost up to a healthy weight. Her desperate flight to her uncle last October had proved the best decision she’d made in years.

  “Sounds lovely. I thought you’d return to nursing.”

  “I’ve been away for a while. Not ready to jump back immediately, you know?”

  Olivia sipped at her vodka and tonic. She was not returning to nursing. Ever. However, saying she was taking her time was easier than answering the shocked variations on, “Why on earth are you wasting your life and education working in a bar?” She had enough guilt from her parents’ calls, with Mama sweetly worrying and Daddy gently, but firmly, pressuring her into returning home to Savannah. If only she had a sibling or two to dilute her parents’ intense hovering.

  After supper, like last year, the singing and dancing to the mix of music from Lloyd’s playlist picked up. Dave sat on the farthest end of the semi-circle of chairs, outside the reach of the lantern light.

  Last year, strangely, for all the sexual energy he’d radiated, Dave had never joined the dancing. Instead, he’d be found sitting back with his guitar, playing along in clever accompaniment and sometimes singing. His rough voice turned mellow and rich when he sang.

  This year his guitar was missing, he wasn’t singing, and these changes disturbed her more than his surliness.

  Pondering possible reasons, Olivia accidentally met eyes with Dave. The angry scowl he snapped her way jolted her with a rush of sorrow, anger, and shame. Blinking away the pricking hurt, she stretched in her camp chair, gazing into the dark, star-shot sky.

  Stop. You’re not responsible for his feelings. You’ve done nothing wrong.

  Rich caught her hand at the first notes of “Mambo Number Five” and spun her up laughing to join the dancing. Yes. She was free to begin her life anew. She’d begin by allowing herself to have fun. That meant dancing, laughing, and embracing the future—