Hot Under the Collar

by Roxanne St Claire

  “Hey, Braden.” Her voice came out thick through a dry, tight throat, and she could have kicked herself for not keeping it light and calling him by the proper nickname.

  “We were just talking about you,” Yiayia said in that singsong voice she must think made her sound nicer. “Cassie’s so excited about helping you with the fundraiser.”

  He looked at her, a question in his eyes. “Is she?”

  “She is,” Cassie said softly.

  “Oh, when she talks about herself in third person?” Braden’s smile grew. “She means business.”

  “Yes, she does.” Taking a deep breath, Cassie stepped closer to Braden and very deliberately slid her arm around his waist, looking up at him. “How’s my gorgeous boyfriend?”

  His eyes flickered for a millisecond, then lit like a Christmas tree. “Depends. How’s my gorgeous girlfriend?”

  “She’s…yours.”

  Cassie turned back to the others, expecting shell-shocked reactions. But Daniel’s expression was bemused, and her mother appeared strangely satisfied. But Yiayia? She looked positively rapturous.

  Oh no. Was this whole thing going to backfire and blow up in Cassie’s face?

  * * *

  “You’re just in time to take Jelly Bean for a walk.” Braden secured his arm around Cassie just in case she suddenly threw her head back and yelled, Just kidding!

  “A walk sounds great. Is there time before dinner, Daniel?”

  “There’s time!” Yiayia answered for him, coming closer to them to wave them off the porch. “Alex is making lamb kleftiko, and it’s taking forever. Go, you two. Walk. Take your time.”

  “Jelly Bean’s in the pen with all the other dogs. Come on.” Braden finally released his hold, but snagged Cassie’s hand as she dropped her purse on a wicker chair and gave a quick wave to the audience of three.

  “Sorry if I blindsided you,” Cassie said under her breath as they walked down the stairs and crossed the drive and lawn toward the penned-in area where all family dogs played on good-weather Sundays.

  “Not a bit. I thought your timing was perfect, and your delivery?” He gave her hand a squeeze and leaned close to her ear. “Hell, for a minute there, I believed you.”

  She looked up at him, silent.

  “Don’t tell me,” he whispered. “Is that a yes?”

  “A temporary, qualified, provisional, highly controlled, full-of-restrictions yes.”

  He couldn’t help laughing.

  “It’s not funny,” she said.

  “No, but you are. Relax, Cass.” He put his arm around her again and tucked her into his side, loving the warmth of her against him. “Controlling a fire is my specialty.”

  “I just couldn’t lie, so…” She let out a little grunt of regret.

  “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “Now we don’t have to lie. We can just hang out together until you head off into the sunset. No strings, no broken promises, no disappointments. Come on, let’s tell Jelly Bean.”

  They reached the edge of the main training pen, which was full of an array of family dogs, including three pitties, a tan border collie, one crazy boxer, an old setter and the golden who never left his side, and several more.

  Cassie leaned on a wooden slat of the wire fencing, staring at Jelly Bean, who made his way dutifully through the sea of cousin dogs toward Braden, but slowed to a stop when he spotted who was next to him.

  “Uh oh,” Cassie joked. “You brought the neighborhood oregano pusher, and he doesn’t like it.”

  Braden signaled the dog to come closer. “Too bad. I like it.” He opened the gate and bent over to greet Jelly Bean, who accepted the affection, but didn’t stop staring down Cassie.

  After Braden told the dog they were going for a walk, Jelly Bean did a little circle of joy, which made Cassie laugh.

  “You do know he speaks English?” he asked.

  “Oh, he does?” She gave a skeptical chuckle.

  “Go ahead, doubt. You’ll find out the truth soon enough.” They headed off toward the path that led to the lake where Braden had spent about a thousand hours of his youth fishing with his cousins and brothers.

  He and Cassie followed, quiet at first, the only sounds the distant barking from the pen, the occasional hoot of laughter from the house, and some birds calling back and forth.

  Then he felt her gaze on him. “Can I ask you a personal question, Braden?”

  “Of course.”

  “If you wanted a girlfriend so much, why did you break up with Simone?”

  Did he want a girlfriend “so much”? Or did he just want Cassie and this was the perfect chance to have her for a short time, which was all he could offer.

  He thought about that, not answering while they rounded a cluster of trees to reach the lake, surrounded by a wide expanse of spring-green grass broken by swaths of purple patches and massive oak trees.

  “She really wanted something I wasn’t able to give her,” he finally said.

  “But everyone said you were upset about it.”

  “I was unhappy about the inevitability of the breakup, which has happened to me more than once.”

  “Why?”

  He led her to a smooth rock he knew well, where she could sit and not get grass stains on her white jeans. “Because I have some deep-seated beliefs about how I should live my life.”

  She settled on the stone, stretching out her legs, giving him a glimpse of turquoise-painted toes in white sandals. “That’s what you meant yesterday when you said someone in your job doesn’t get permanent?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Lots of firefighters are in permanent relationships,” she said. “It sounds to me like an excuse that suits a commitment-phobe.”

  He laughed and reached down, plucking one of the flowers that grew next to the stone. “What are these called?” he asked, handing it to her.

  “I think that’s a common violet. Also known as a weed.”

  “It’s pretty for a weed. They’re all over this area in the summer. I used to bring them home to my mom after I was fishing here with my cousins and brothers.”

  “Mmm. Way to change the subject and talk about flowers.”

  “I wasn’t. I was about to explain why I don’t do permanent relationships.”

  “By telling me about flowers for your mom?”

  “By telling you why I brought my mom flowers.”

  She looked up at him, reacting to his serious tone. “Because you love her?”

  “Because I knew she’d spent the day crying.”

  Drawing back, she looked down at the flower in her fingers as a frown tugged. “Because of your dad?”

  “When I was thirteen, he died fighting a fire.”

  “I heard that.” She let out a sad sigh. “I’m sorry for you. For your whole family.”

  He nodded, because even to this very day, the pain of how his father died burned at a hole that never seemed to leave his heart. Braden had been sound asleep when Joe Mahoney had left for that twenty-four-hour shift and had never said goodbye. Twenty years later, that still stung.

  She put a hand on his forearm, adding some gentle pressure. “And I’ve been around here long enough to know he was a great husband and father.”

  “Yep.”

  “Not that it’s anything the same, but I know how it feels to lose a father. Of course, we knew it was happening and I was an adult, not a kid, but…” Her voice trailed off, letting her touch do the sympathizing.

  He stared out at the water, thinking of that kid, turning fourteen right after Dad died. He could smell the pot roast his mom would be making when Aunt Annie dropped them off at home after he’d spent a summer day at Waterford Farm. Braden would present those flowers the very minute he walked into the house that his mother worked so hard to keep normal when things were anything but that summer.

  “She’d take the flowers and make a big fuss,” he said. “She’d always put them in a little jar that she used for making jelly. And she’d say, ‘It�
��s okay, Braden. I knew what I was getting into when I married a fireman.’”

  He heard Cassie’s soft moan. “I can’t imagine how that affected your family.”

  “All of us handled it differently. I escaped into books. Declan grew up in a big fat hurry and became the father, at least in his eyes. Connor went off the deep end and rebelled like a classic sixteen-year-old. And Ella ran away.”

  “She ran away from home?”

  “Repeatedly, but she always came back. When she was old enough, she started traveling a lot, always taking off somewhere, lots of times with Darcy. But us boys? We all had to be firefighters. We all had to follow in his footsteps, because that’s what he wanted.”

  “It’s a lot safer now, isn’t it? Don’t you have better equipment and more technology?”

  Safer was a relative term. “I still have to go through fire, Cassie. I still have to suit up and get in the truck and go on every call, without knowing for sure that I’ll come back. Now I don’t live in fear, and a lot of the time, I don’t even think about it. The crew is amazing, and we know what we’re doing. The real danger is rare, but real, and I never forget that.”

  She nodded, too smart to argue that fact. “I remember a few years ago when this whole area had terrible forest fires.”

  “I fought a lot of them, and yes, they’re mighty. They’re big. They’re deadly.” He turned to her, taking her hands. “I don’t particularly like living alone or not having a plan for a future with someone and for kids of my own. And like I told you, most women want that. You don’t.”

  “Oh, I do, someday. I just want the experience of living a different way for a while.”

  “That makes you perfect.”

  “Really? And here I thought it was my quick wit.”

  “You mean that thing you haul out when someone tries to get close to you? That wit?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “That should be off-limits, too.”

  “What? Wit?”

  “Getting close. Analyzing each other. Getting…connected.”

  He studied her for a long time, feeling himself drawing closer, aching to kiss her and seal this deal.

  “One more inch, Einstein, and all bets are off.”

  He lifted her chin with his fingertip. “What are we betting on?”

  “That we can actually spend time alone, be six inches apart, and keep our hands off each other. Pretty sure we’ll lose that bet.”

  He didn’t move. “I could do it. Not sure I want to, but I could.”

  “Mmm.” She flicked her tongue over the very spot on her lip he wanted to taste. “Side dishes cost too much.”

  “How much?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “They cost intimacy and heartache and regret and probably a whole change of plan.”

  He tipped his head, a little surprised by the fierceness in her response. “They don’t have to, but I promise that’s not my end goal here.”

  “Oh, really? You merely want to have a girlfriend stamped with an expiration date and no sex?”

  Of course he didn’t, but he wanted Cassie around more than he wanted to get laid. “Look, I wouldn’t sleep with you on the first date if I’d just met you on the street and asked you out. It’s not my style, and you’re too special for that. I would, however, kiss you.”

  “Then we’d never stop.”

  “I have self-control, Cassie.”

  “Go you. I, on the other hand, might not have a shred of it.”

  He laughed and leaned back. “Okay. Your rules. Your temporary, qualified, provisional, highly controlled, full-of-restrictions rules. I’m in as far as you’ll let me and give you my word that I’ll do nothing but blow a kiss in your general direction when you’re ready to leave.”

  Before she could answer, Jelly Bean barked from across the field, his paws at the water’s edge. With a quick whistle, Braden called him back, both of them watching the dog trot toward them.

  “Your uncle is really worried his scent problems are not temporary or trainable,” she said softly. “I hope he’s wrong.”

  “He’s wrong,” Braden said, believing the words as he said them.

  “Then let’s prove it.” She pushed up and brushed off. “Let’s raise money so he can be trained and prove everyone wrong.”

  He smiled as he stood next to her. “My woman of action,” he said, sliding both arms around her.

  She stiffened. “I’m not your woman.”

  “For a little while, you are.” The very first tendril of wishing it were more than that threaded its way up his chest, but he managed to cut it down and ignore it, as he planned to do for a little while.

  She eased out of his arms to offer the flower he’d given her. “Want to take this to your mom?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” Bending over, he snagged a few more. “She’d like that.”

  “Oh man,” Cassie muttered as she started walking away.

  “What? Oh man, what?” No doubt she’d sling back with You’re so mushy, Einstein.

  But when she turned to him, she wasn’t smiling. The breeze blew her black hair over her face and almost hid her eyes, but he could see the fierceness there when she pointed at him.

  “Do not make me like you, Braden Mahoney. Do not.”

  He just laughed and brushed her nose with the little flowers. “We both know it’s too late for that, Cass.”

  Chapter Eight

  Sunday afternoon with their families had unfolded with barely a sideways glance, sly smile, or any needling from the sharpest in the clans. Not only did no one seem very surprised by this “relationship,” Yiayia seemed downright giddy. And, like most Sundays, Braden and Cassie sat next to each other at the table and were partners in the Mario Kart tournament.

  In some ways, it was like any other Sunday, except Cassie managed to gracefully fend off a private chat with her mom. She wasn’t ready to be hit with a barrage of questions about Braden. It was all too new. Still not real no matter how she defined that. But Mom settled for an extra hug at the end of the evening, whispering, “You look happy, honey,” when they said goodbye.

  But the questions would start now, Cassie knew, as she walked down the steps of the town hall with her approved proposal for Lost and Hound under her arm and a confirmed date for the event on June twenty-ninth as part of Paws for a Cause. From here, she had a meeting scheduled with Ella to go over the Pawsbury Bake-Off details, and then they had a conference call with their contact at Family First Pet Foods.

  She crossed the square and turned the corner on Ambrose Avenue, pausing to let a lady and a massive Saint Bernard out of the door of Bone Appetit before stepping inside the little shop.

  Sure enough, Colleen was behind the counter, checking out a customer with three lively little white puppers all getting tangled in their leashes. The store wasn’t big, but Ella and Colleen had made it one of the most warm and welcoming places in Bitter Bark. They modeled it after an old-fashioned candy store by using bright, cheery pastels and printed wallpaper, and two long glass counters full of gourmet treats. There were more packaged goods for sale in a retail area and a large penned-in play area for four-legged shoppers and guests.

  An open doorway led right into Friends With Dogs, where the clipping, snipping, and “beauty” took place. The dual businesses were perfect for Darcy and Ella, who Cassie knew had been inseparable their whole lives.

  “Hi, Cassie,” Colleen called after she gave freebie treats to the three little dogs, finished with the customer, and then came around the corner. “Ella’s on the phone in the office, but she told me to send you back when you got here.”

  As always, Colleen’s long hair, nearly to her waist, was pulled off her face with a simple gold clip. She never wore a spec of makeup and didn’t seem too concerned about the fact that her hair was more gray than brown. But instead of seeing a plain, middle-aged woman, Cassie suddenly imagined Colleen twenty years ago, with four kids and a husband who didn’t come home from work one day.

  The idea softened
Cassie’s heart, making her reach for Colleen and add a hug in greeting that really wasn’t necessary but felt right.

  “Yes, we need hugs today,” Colleen said, returning a light embrace. “Ella’s doing her conference call with Family First.”

  “What?” Cassie checked her watch with a soft intake of breath. “It wasn’t supposed to start for half an hour.”

  “New guy, new rules,” Colleen said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She got an email an hour ago that the company contact had changed, and he moved up the call time.”

  “Oh, did I miss a call or email about that?”

  Colleen shook her head as if that hadn’t even been considered. “You were at the town hall getting Braden’s event approved. That’s just as important, and we know it.”

  “I would have rescheduled that to help Ella. I know the corporate calls can stress her out. Who’s the new guy?”

  “Apparently, he’s the just-named head of public relations for Family First Pet Foods, and he’s all over this whole event,” Colleen said. “Not just our Bake-Off, but all of Paws for a Cause.”

  “Well, they are underwriting most of it.” She started walking toward the back office, and Colleen stayed with her.

  “And I think he thinks that means he can call the shots.”

  “Call, yes? Change at this late in the game? I hope not.” Cassie added a reassuring pat to Colleen’s shoulder. “And the Pawsbury Bake-Off is going to be amazing.”

  “Oh yeah. He’s changing that name. Too close to Pillsbury.”

  Cassie gave her a look. “Seriously? We have flyers and ads created already.”

  She shrugged and gave her a nudge to the door. “Go and listen. She’s got the call on speaker.”

  “On it.” Cassie tapped the door to the back office, wincing at the sight of Ella pacing and stabbing her fingers through her spiky-short hair, the desk covered with papers, her cell phone on speaker in the middle of it all. From it, a man’s voice boomed.

  “Hey,” Cassie whispered, making Ella whip around to give her a horrified look and mouth, “Oh my God, help me!”

  “These entrants have to be serious bakers with legitimate products, Ms. Mahoney,” Boomy Voice continued. “We’re not going to splash this all over the trades and media only to have a second-rate winner.”