Burning Up

Janna stared at her reflection for several silent seconds. Then, the hand holding the mirror dropping to her lap, she looked up, a slow well of tears pooling in her eyes.

Remorse slammed through Macy. “Oh, my God, Janny, I’m sorry! I’ll take it off!” She snatched several tissues from the box on the dresser where she’d gotten the mirror. “Don’t cry, it’ll only take me a second to remove it!”

“No! Don’t you dare.” A choked sound rose from Janna’s throat and she dashed the sides of her hands beneath her eyes. Then she let out a watery laugh. “Well, don’t I feel like an idiot. It’s just…I look like a woman again. For the first time since that car hit me and took off—no, since even before that, when Sean walked out—I look like an honest-to-gawd woman instead of somebody’s patient or a woman whose husband dumped her for a twenty-year-old or, I don’t know, whatever it is I’ve been these past six months. Jeez,” she said. “Can you say overreaction?” Bringing the mirror up to study her reflection again, she turned her head this way and that to take in the full effect.

And smiled. “I make a pretty hot blonde, if I do say so myself.”

“Yes, you do. And it’s my fervent hope that the bastard who put you in the hospital and that little prick Sean contract a raging case of the—”

Janna brought her hands together in a single loud clap. And wiggled her eyebrows.

Macy laughed. “Precisely.”

Her cousin sighed. “What is it about men, anyway? You can’t live with ’em and the law frowns on neutering them. It’s not exactly a win-win situation.”

For no good reason, an image of Gabe Donovan popped into her mind. With his big body and near-black hair. Those gray eyes. His strong nose, strong chin, strong…well, everything—or at least that was how it had appeared to her.

Damn. She hadn’t even realized she’d been paying such close attention, but here she was with warm blood rushing to places it had no business going and her heart beating much too rapidly. And all because of an unbidden mental slide show featuring a man she’d met for all of maybe two minutes.

Well, get a grip, girl! She slammed a lid on the images. She had zero time for this.

As if on cue, the door banged open, bouncing off the wall with a crash and creating a welcome diversion. “Mom, can Charlie stay for dinner—hey!” Macy’s nephew, Tyler, spotted her and his entire face lit up. “You’re here!”

“Hey, pard!” She closed the distance between them, but rocked to a halt in front of Tyler, uncertain how to greet him. What she wanted was to haul him into her arms. But she was afraid that, at nine, he might have reached the age where he’d rather stick needles in his eyes than have a relative hug him in front of his friends.

Or not, she thought with a big smile as Tyler hurled himself at her, wrapping matchstick arms around her waist and squeezing with surprising strength. Then, without relinquishing his hold, he leaned back and grinned up at her. “I’m glad you’re here. Mom’s been either in the hospital or that rehabib, rehabibl—that nursing place—forever and she still can’t get around very good. But she says you’re gonna stay with us and take me to my practices and games and stuff ’til she’s better. Dintja, Mom?” He turned his head to get Janna’s endorsement—and did a double take.

His jaw sagging, he dropped his arms from Macy’s waist. “Mom? Is that—? Wow. You look…uh, you look really—” He blinked at her.

“Pretty,” said the little redheaded boy who had followed Tyler into the room.

“Yeah.” Tyler nodded and, once in motion, his head continued to bob like a marionette’s in the hands of a mad puppeteer. “Did you use one of them boxes the ladies buy at Sheppard Drugs to change their hair color?”

“No, it’s a wig of Aunt Macy’s.”

“Can you wear it again at my Little League game?”

“Oh, honey, I don’t know about tha—”

“Is that my baby girl’s car I see parked out back?” a feminine voice bawled from the kitchen. “Macy O’James, you get your tush in here this minute and give your Auntie a hug!”

Laughing, Macy left Tyler and Janna to their discussion, whirled on her bare heel and raced from the room. Long-legged strides carried her down the hallway and into the kitchen, where she embraced the woman who had just dumped an armload of grocery bags onto the counter.

Warm, plump arms wrapped around her in return and when she bent her head to bring them to a more equitable level, Macy was enveloped in Lenore’s signature scent: a combination of comfort food and sugar cookies. This, this, was the reason she braved the condemnation of this town. Because of Aunt Lenore and Uncle Bud and Janna and Ty, this was home. They were her home.

“Let me look at you.” Stepping back, Lenore held Macy at arm’s length. A wry smile tipped up the corner of her lips. “You get separated from the cast of 42nd Street?”

She laughed. “You should have seen the full effect before I took off my wig, shoes and sailor cap.”

“That’s my Macy.” Her aunt reached out an age-spotted hand and brushed Macy’s bangs out of her eyes. “It’s good to have you home, girl.”

“I’m sorry I don’t get back here more often, Auntie Lenore. It’s just—”

“Difficult. I know. I still want to skin that Mayfield boy alive every time I clap eyes on him. If it wasn’t for him and his lies—”

“I brought along some wickedly hot outfits.” Macy grinned, but avoided Lenore’s eagle-eyed gaze so her aunt wouldn’t see the lack of humor in her own. “I plan on giving him and all his sycophants an eat-your-heart-out eyeful while I’m here.”

“I don’t suppose you could just let it go.”

Her stomach clenched at the thought of disappointing her aunt any more than she already had over the years, but she looked Lenore in the eye. “No. I won’t go looking for trouble, but I won’t step away from it, either.” Then honesty compelled her to amend her statement. “Okay, I suppose I do look for it, in a way, with the clothes I choose to wear to town.”

She rubbed her temples, looking at her aunt from beneath the bridge formed by her thumb and fingers. “I know you probably think I lie awake nights plotting ways to make people squirm, but I truly don’t. I rarely even think about this stuff when I’m away from here. But the minute I cross the county line, something happens to me. And I’m sorry, Auntie, I know it would make things so much easier on the family if I could just be less problematic, but—”

“You can stop right there, Macy Joleen—no one here wants or expects you to be anything but exactly what you are. I do believe, however, that you would be a lot happier if you could walk away from it.” Lenore patted Macy’s cheek. “But you’re gonna do what you gotta do until you no longer gotta do it.”

Stepping back, she added briskly, “But not today. Today, you’re all mine. Stick around while I put the groceries away and get the pork chops going. Have you seen your Uncle Bud yet?”

“No. Janna said he went in to pick something up at the Feed and Seed.” She cocked her eyebrows at her aunt. “You two ever considered carpooling?”

“Aren’t you the smart-mouthed little missy!”

“A smart-mouth, maybe, but hardly little. I’m way bigger than you are, Madam Short Stuff.” Stepping close, she wrapped an arm around her aunt to showcase the disparity between her five-eight and Lenore’s five-four, then had to hide a frown when she realized her aunt had lost weight since she’d seen her at the hospital in Spokane just five weeks ago after Janna’s encounter with a hit-and-run driver. The new frailness suggested an even greater discrepancy between their heights now—and she was barefoot while her aunt wore her usual sturdy clogs.

Lenore was almost seventeen years older than Macy’s mother. But she’d had Janna just a month before Macy was born. She and Uncle Bud had always been closer to grandparent age than that of a parent, but Macy had never invested much thought in the difference between them and her classmates’ folks when she was a kid. Her aunt and uncle had provided her a stable place to escape her mother’s perpetual wanderlust and had been, in her estimation, simply the best parents any kid could hope to have.

She rubbed her aunt’s upper arm. “What can I do to help?”

“Just what you came here for, sweetheart. Help Janna all she’ll let you and take the burden of worry off her by looking out for Ty.”

“I meant right now, for you,” she said with a laugh. “But I’m definitely here for Janna. How is she doing, Auntie? She looks so pale.”

“She’s improving. You already know what a rough go she had of it at first, and she certainly didn’t love rehab in that interim nursing home after they sprung her from the hospital. But she’s home now and improving a little every day. The doctor expects her recovery to pick up its pace once she starts physical therapy.”

“Good. I was so excited to see you when you got home that I kind of raced off and left her. Let me just run down the hall to see if she has everything she needs, then I’ll come back and peel potatoes or do whatever other KP you need. You want me to set the table in the dining room first?”

“No, that’s Ty’s job, but I think I just heard him thunder up the stairs. Dinner’s not until six, as usual, but if you wouldn’t mind going up and asking him to come down and do it now I’d appreciate it. And tell Charlie if he’s eating here he can lend a hand, as well.” She shook her head. “Those two,” she said gruffly. “I swear they’re permanently joined at the hip.” But Macy saw the smile that curved her lips as her aunt turned away.

She went up and passed on the message to Ty and his friend, smiling when the boys complained loudly, yet immediately clattered down the stairs to do as they were bid. Sauntering behind them, she paused for a second outside her and Janna’s old room. Then she turned the knob and let herself in.

The two twin beds they’d slept in had been replaced by a queen with a sleigh headboard she remembered from Old Mrs. Matheson’s room. But the illusion curtains the breeze blew into the room were the same, as was were the dotted swiss tiebacks that framed them. And it smelled the same in here—a combination of floor wax, fresh linens and a hint of the cheap girlish cologne they’d applied so lavishly it must be imbedded in the very walls. There was a world of memories associated with this room, both of the good and the bad variety.

Mostly, though, they were good.

Her cousin was asleep sitting up in the chair when she let herself into the converted study several minutes later, and Macy debated waking her to get her into bed where she’d be more comfortable. Deciding the pain of the move probably wouldn’t be worth what Janna would gain in exchange, she left her where she was. Gently, however, she straightened Janna’s head and propped a pillow alongside it to keep her cousin from getting a nasty crick in her neck on top of everything else. Then she grabbed an ancient pair of jeans out of the suitcase she’d yet to finish unpacking and exchanged her tap pants for them before going back to lend a hand to Aunt Lenore.

Her uncle got home a short while later, and they sat at the worktable catching up as she shucked peas into a bowl. At a quarter to six, she went back to the study and found Janna leaning on one crutch, peering into the mirror as she tried to fluff up the wig where it had flattened on one side. Fixing it for her, she then handed her cousin the lipstick to refresh her makeup and ushered her in baby steps down the hall.

Voices could be heard coming from the dining room, along with the sound of chairs scraping back from the table as her relatives’ boarders gathered for dinner. Macy smiled to herself at the discovery that she was still every bit as curious and fascinated to see what the dynamics would be of the current group Lenore and Bud had taken in as she’d been as a kid.

But when she reached the doorway she stopped in her tracks, causing Janna to bump her crutch’s rubber tip against her heel. “Seriously?” she demanded incredulously.

Because there, seated midtable, his big shoulders taking up a small person’s worth of space on either side of him, a slight smile on his face as he placed a napkin on his lap and listened to a young man she didn’t recognize, sat the very last man she expected to see.

Freaking Fire Chief Gabriel Donovan.

CHAPTER THREE

GABE HEARD MACY’S VOICE and for a second everything stilled.

Then the planet recommenced its rotation, platters clattered onto the table as Lenore transferred them from the cart and he got his game face on before turning away from Mike Schwab, one of the three boarders studying farming methods at AAE, the experimental agricultural project outside of town. Because what the hell? Women didn’t stop his world. Not to mention it didn’t say a helluva lot for his deductive abilities to be caught flat-footed at finding O’James here. He knew she was the Watsons’ niece; this was the only logical place for her to be.

But, observant wonder boy that he was, he looked across the table and didn’t even recognize her at first. His gaze went straight to that sassy blond hair, only to realize it didn’t jibe with the face of the wearer. Janna’s full-leg cast probably should have been his first clue, and he looked away from her to the woman holding Janna’s crutches while she eased onto a chair.

Heat promptly streaked down his spine.

He ignored it by focusing on the reasons he hadn’t copped to Macy being Macy right away, because, face it, she wasn’t exactly a woman who was easy to ignore. Yet except for the sailor shirt she still wore, nothing about her looked the way it had out on the road.

Her hair was a different shade of blond—actually more the amber-brown of good ale—and its long style and blunt-cut bangs emphasized her cheekbones while the short platinum wig had been all about her eyes. Which, he saw in the early-evening sunshine pouring through the windows, were hazel, not green. Well, part of her irises were a clear green, but they were ringed in a darker shade and striated with amber near the pupils. As for her clothing, she’d ditched the shorts for worn, snug jeans and was currently barefoot. She looked more farmer’s daughter than forties pinup. Same woman, different fantasy.

Maybe that was why she did so well on all those music videos—she was a chameleon, able to change her look at will without losing her ability to remain the average guy’s dream girl.

“Hey there, Mr. Grandview,” the dream girl said in her throaty voice, looking at the old man two seats down from him as if he were God’s gift. “It’s so nice to see you again. You still breaking hearts right and left?”

For God’s sake, Gabe thought in disgust, the man was eighty-five if he was a day. Apparently O’James’s sole requirement for flirting was a pulse.

Not that Grandview appeared to object. “Yes, ma’am.” He agreed with a chuckle. “Come senior afternoons down at the grange hall, I got wimmen buzzing around me like bees on mint.”

She flashed him a smile of admiration. “You always were a devil with the ladies.”

Lenore handed a big bowl of peas to Dawson on her left and took her seat. “Let’s get my food passed around before it gets cold, people. Everyone, this is my niece, Macy O’James. Macy, this here is Brian Dawson,” she said of the man with the bowl. “He and Mike Schwab and Jim Holstrom—” she indicated the men as she introduced them “—are studying farming methods at the Experimental. The lovebirds there,” she continued, nodding to a young couple whispering and exchanging surreptitious touches at the far end of the table, “are Justin and Tiffany McMann.”

“Newlyweds?” Macy asked them, accepting the platter of pork chops from Tyler and spearing one onto her plate. She turned to her cousin. “You want to split one of these?”

“Sure,” Janna agreed, taking the platter and passing it on. “Just don’t expect me to relinquish my share of the potatoes.”

Macy turned back to the couple. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to ask a question, then not listen to the answer.” But tumbling to what the rest of them already knew—that the just-wed teens paid attention to no one but each other—her lips crooked in a wry smile. “O-kay. Who says talking’s required to get a straight answer?”

Lenore snorted. Pointing to Gabe as he speared two pork chops onto his plate, she said, “The big boy across from you is Gabriel Donovan. Our new fire chief.”

He half expected Macy to pretend this was the first time they’d seen each other. But she merely gave him a brief nod before turning her attention on her aunt. “We actually met out on the highway,” she said. “Johnny Angelini pulled me over for driving ten above the limit and Fire Chief Donovan was with him. I didn’t know he was living here, though.”

“I’m in the process of building a house,” he said with the aloof courtesy that was his default manner with anyone he didn’t know, then shot Lenore a smile. “I’m not sure how I’m going to tear myself away from your cooking, though, when the place is finished.” Turning his attention back to Macy, he invited perfunctorily, “Call me Gabe.”

When Brian, Mike and Jim tripped all over themselves inviting her to call them by their first names as well, he shook his head. Not that he had a problem with them seconding his invitation. But Jesus. You’d think three grown men would have more pride than to tumble all over themselves like a litter of eager puppies.

He transferred his attention to Janna, absorbing the change in her appearance. “You sure look nice tonight.”

Color touched her cheeks. “Thank you. Macy dolled me up.”

“Mom looks really pretty, doesn’t she?” Tyler piped up. “And she didn’t even hafta dye her hair from one of those boxes.”

“Yeah,” Charlie agreed around a mouthful of sweet potato fries. “That’s a wig of Ty’s Aunt Macy’s.”

Resisting an unusual urge to check out Aunt Macy sans her wig in more microscopic detail than he’d already done, he kept his focus determinedly on Janna. “It looks good on you.”

“Doesn’t it?” Lenore agreed. “And it’s sure nice to see some color in her cheeks.”

“Johnny slap you with a ticket, sweetheart?” Bud asked Macy in a low voice, promptly diverting Gabe’s attention. He looked across the table at her, wondering if she’d invest the story of being pulled over with the same hint of attitude he’d sensed when it had been happening.

But she merely shrugged. “Nah. Johnny’s always been a pretty decent guy. He just gave me a warning.”

Charlie leaned forward to look around Janna’s boy at Macy. “My sister says you’re, like, a movie star, or something.”

Tyler rolled his eyes. “I’ve tol’ him and tol’ him you ain’t.”

“You’ve told him she’s not,” his mother corrected.

“I know! But his sister Amy keeps insistin’ she is.”

Macy gave the boys a crooked smile. “Tyler’s right, Charlie. I’ve made a name for myself in the music-video industry, but movie star–wise I’m not even a little fish in a big pond. I’m more like a minnow in the ocean.” She indicated the basket next to his elbow. “Pass me those rolls, will you?”

The basket was handed to her, and holding it in both hands, she brought it up to her nose and inhaled deeply, her lips quirking up and her eyes sliding closed in appreciation.

But her eyelids promptly reopened and she gazed straight at Gabe, catching him watching her. He felt that look like fingers running down his chest. Then her tongue commenced a slow glide across her full bottom lip and his balls tightened.

Damn. He didn’t understand why those eyes and that voice and, hell, every goddamn thing about her kept having such an impact on him. Women didn’t usually get under his skin. He didn’t allow it.

Yet here he sat, waiting to see how outrageous she’d be in the company of her aunt and uncle.

“You’re right to worry about who’ll do the cooking when you move into your new house,” she murmured. “Because Auntie Lenore is, hands down, the greatest cook in the world.”

And as fast as she’d locked gazes with him, she turned her attention to selecting a roll and passing the basket to Janna.

Leaving him irritated as hell that he felt…let down.

And itching for something he couldn’t even name.

MACY HAD JUST GOTTEN Janna settled in the over-stuffed chair in their room when her cousin swore and started levering herself out of it again.

“Whoa!” Macy put a hand on her shoulder. “Sit. Stay. What do you need?”

“Me, nothing. But I forgot all about Ty’s uniform for tomorrow’s Little League game. Dammit, I meant to check earlier to make sure it was clean and not moldering under his bed since the last game.” She planted her hands on the arms of the chair as if preparing to push herself back onto her feet.

“Plant your butt,” Macy ordered. When Janna narrowed her eyes at her, she snapped, “Don’t give me that look. This is exactly the kind of thing you wanted me here for. So take a deep breath. I’ll run up and see if he has it. And if it is under the bed, I’ll make him fish it out and we’ll bring it down and run a load of laundry. You know that’s no biggie. There’s always something needs washing in this house.”

“Okay.” Blowing out a breath, her cousin sagged against the cushions. “Thank you.” She scrubbed a hand over her mouth. “God, I hate this. Every little molehill turns into frigging Mount Everest.”

“I know. But that’s what you’ve got me for—I’m your designated mountain climber. So prop that leg up. Grab your book. Or I can turn on Wheel, if you prefer. You always were better at that game than me. You want anything from the kitchen?”

“God, no. I’m still stuffed from dinner.”

She grinned. “Yeah. I wasn’t kidding when I told the fire chief your mom puts on one dynamite spread.”

But the last thing she wanted to think about was Gabriel Donovan. She hated the fact she was so aware of the man while he was all cool-eyed disinterest when he looked at her.

“All right, then,” she said briskly. “I’ll go find out the status of Ty’s uniform.”

She took the stairs two at a time up to the second floor and strode down the hall to the Closet, where she rapped on the door.

“Who is it?” Tyler’s muffled voice demanded.

“Emissary from your commanding officer, Seaman Purcell. Open up.”

The door whipped open. “I’m not a seaman, Aunt Macy—I’m captain of the sub!”

“My mistake, Cap’n. So, you all ready for tomorrow’s game? You have your uniform in tiptop shape?”

“Yep. Grandma washed it up for me and it’s in my closet. On a hanger and everything.”

“Excellent. How ’bout your shoes, mitt, all that sorta thing? They ready, too?”

“Uh-huh.” He gave a long-suffering sigh. “Can me and Charlie get back to our game now?”

Over his shoulder she saw Charlie twist around to stare at her and hooked her elbow around Tyler’s neck to haul him in for a noogie. “Yes, you may,” she said, turning him loose. “As you were—”

He shut the door in her face.

“—men.” A huff of laughter escaped her. “Am I racking up the points with the under-twenty crowd tonight, or what?”

She was smiling when she turned around, but yelped in surprise as she smacked into someone. Reaching out a hand to steady herself, she jerked it back when it touched the abdomen of whatshisname, one of the guys studying at the Experimental.

“Steady there.” His hands grasped her upper arms.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.” She stepped back, breathing easier when the man’s hands dropped away. Jeez, girl, get a grip. This was a shy young man, not Jack the Ripper. “Um, Brian, right?”

“Yeah. Hey, at dinner, I didn’t get a chance to say how much I enjoy your videos. That Aussie Kiss one, Burn, Baby, Burn? Man, you smoked in that!”

A corner of her mouth ticked up. “Mr. Dawson, are you punning me?”

“Huh?” Then he chuckled. “Oh. I guess I did make a pun. Not on purpose, though. I just can’t believe I’m meeting you and want you to know how hot I thought you were in that video.”

Because he didn’t leer at her as he said it, she swallowed a sigh. But, God, she was tired of being told how hot she was and so glad to know that her career had recently shifted from being on-camera to working behind the scenes. All the same, because the guy was perfectly sincere and he hadn’t leered, she slapped on some sass and ramped up the appreciation factor. “Aren’t you a doll? I’m so gratified you enjoyed it.”