Burning Up

Which wasn’t to say he hadn’t heard her laughing and flirting up a storm with the AAE boys. The chick was a freaking magnetar—a powerful force drawing anything that even approached her orbit. Hell, she’d even gotten the honeymoon kids to occasionally come up for air and interact with her.

It wasn’t as if he’d assumed she wouldn’t be here today. She was actually pretty attentive to her cousin’s needs—he’d give her that—so he’d figured she might bring Janna to Tyler’s game. But he sure as hell hadn’t expected to find Grace sharing a blanket with her.

As if she could read his thoughts, the brunette schoolteacher turned to him and smiled. “Isn’t this fun?”

“Yeah. Great. I sort of expected to spend the time with just you, but either way, it’s good to have some time together.”

“This is like an unexpected party, though, don’t you think? Did I tell you what Macy said about her nephew Tyler having me as his teacher this fall?”

“I don’t think the kid is actually her nephew.” Okay, he was being a boor, but he couldn’t seem to help it. He’d been looking forward to having a relaxing hour or two with Grace and here Macy was. Butting in. Getting in the way of his absorbing some of the teacher’s serenity. Making his heart rate spike.

“Oh, I know,” Grace agreed in her sweet-natured way. “I guess he’d be her second cousin. Still, that’s what she calls him. And apparently he calls her Aunt. Anyway—” She launched into a tale of what-Macy-said.

The woman under discussion suddenly shrieked Tyler’s name and shot up onto her knees. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” she and Janna, who’d leaned forward in her chair, chanted with almost perfect synchronism.

Gabe’s gaze flew to the field and homed in on Ty, and he sat up with a jerk. Number eleven on the visiting team had hit a long pop-up and was racing for first base, slinging his bat to the side as he ran. Ty, his eyes narrowed in fierce concentration, had his hands overhead, his mitt cupped toward the descending ball, as he backpedaled…danced several steps to the left…then corrected by taking a short step back toward center. He was positioned under the ball when it came down, hit the tip of his mitt, balanced for one breathless moment—

Then bobbled over the edge and fell into the space between his raised arms and his body.

“Nooooooo,” Janna and Macy groaned.

Tyler slapped his mitt and free hand at his narrow little chest, his stomach, his groin, his thighs, hunching in on himself as he chased the ball rolling down his torso. Then he suddenly straightened.

And held the ball high.

“Oh, my,” Grace whispered as Janna, Macy and Shannon screamed their approval along with several parents on the bleachers. Macy executed an impromptu little upper-body dance, then exchanged high fives with her cousin and Shannon. Knee-walking around the big redhead, she held out her hand in low-five position to Grace. “Gimme fiiive.”

Grace laughed and slapped palms, then Macy leaned around her to offer the same to him.

He saw the instant she thought better of the idea, but he knew that for once this had nothing to do with that playful, sexually aware teasing she excelled at. This was sheer exuberance over Ty’s triumph—and he reached out to slap hands.

Hers was supple and cool, and instead of giving it the quick spank-and-snatch he’d intended, he executed the former but found his fingers developing a life of their own as they slid slowly away, brushing from her palm to her fingertips. The contrast between the hard-edged Goth look she sported today and the softness of her skin made his brows furrow, and when her eyes widened and she curled her fingers in as if to hang on to the same sensation sparking in him, he dropped back onto his elbows. He couldn’t figure her out at all.

It was almost a relief when some guy showed up a short while later and Macy started flirting with him, sliding effortlessly back into a niche Gabe understood.

At least it was for a while. Then the verbal slap and tickle between the two started getting on his nerves. Sitting up again, he leaned around Grace to look at the guy squatting in front of Macy. “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said. “I’m Gabe Donovan.”

The guy barely spared him a glance. “Adam Westler. My son, Zach, plays on the team.”

“No kidding? Huh. I stop by pretty often to catch at least part of the games. I don’t remember ever seeing you here before.”

The man shrugged. “Guy’s gotta work.”

But apparently not once word got out that Macy O’James is in town.

Before he could make an issue of it, however—or even figure out why he would want to—Lenore and Bud arrived, carrying folding camp chairs. “Sorry we’re late,” the older lady said cheerfully. “Bud insisted on weeding the vegetable garden, then didn’t want to leave the job half-done.”

“In this heat?” Macy demanded, jumping to her feet and taking the chair from her aunt. She unfolded it and set it on the other side of Gabe while Bud set up his own next to it. For a moment, Gabe was as mesmerized as a pubescent boy by the straight shot up her yard-long legs to a glimpse of schoolgirl-white panties that his position on the ground afforded him.

Then, he gave himself a mental head slap and looked away. What was he, twelve?

“Auntie,” he heard Macy say with a low-voiced intensity that snapped his gaze to her face. “Didn’t you receive the check I sent last month? You were supposed to hire some help with it.”

“Oh, we put that away for a rainy day. Along with all the others you’ve sent.” Reaching out, she patted Macy’s hand. “Don’t fret, sweetheart. Your uncle’s been gardening since he was old enough to pick up a hoe. Pulling a few weeds in the heat’s not gonna do him in.”

“Me big strong man,” Bud agreed with a grin.

“I know you are,” Macy circled her aunt and stooped to plant a kiss on his bald, sun-spotted head. “The biggest, strongest man it’s my privilege to know. I just don’t want you overdoing.”

“Not gonna happen, baby girl. So, how’s the game gone so far?”

“Oh!” Her face alight with enthusiasm, she turned to her cousin. “Janna! Tell your folks about Ty’s fly ball.”

The Sentinels ended up losing by two points, but Tyler and Charlie were so pumped over Ty’s save that the loss didn’t seem to faze them. With great drama and exaggerated staggering, they performed a reenactment of the play.

Laughing at their antics, Lenore said, “Well, this is just too much fun to break up. I think everyone should come back to the boardinghouse and have dinner with us. Call your husband, Shannon, and tell him to grab Amy and come on over.” She turned to Westler and looked pointedly at the pale band of white Gabe hadn’t even noticed encircling the other man’s ring finger. “And your wife is welcome, too, of course.”

Westler gave her a wry smile. “I’m divorced, ma’am. That’s my ex over there with my son, Zach.” He indicated a plump, sandy-haired woman stepping off the bottom riser of the bleachers and reaching out to haul a dejected-looking kid into her arms for a hug.

“Then I guess you’ll have to come on your own. Or maybe Zach would like to join us.”

“He’s pretty mad at me over the divorce right now, so I doubt it. But let me go ask.”

Watching the interaction between father and son at the far end of the bleachers, Gabe didn’t need to hear their exchange to know Westler would be joining them stag. The sullen expression on the kid’s face said it all.

He blew out a quiet, irritated breath. Great. That’s what they needed around the dinner table tonight, another contender for the always-happenin’ Flirt-a-rama.

But Grace was clearly pleased by the prospect of the get-together continuing. So, sucking it up, he rose and extended a hand to pull her to her feet.

“DIDN’T YOU DATE my niece one time in high school?” Bud suddenly asked Adam over Lenore’s taco salad and homemade rolls.

Damn, Macy thought at the same time Adam agreed, “I did.”

Fork suspended halfway to his mouth, her uncle gave the younger man a level stare and demanded in a low voice, “You one of those fools who took her out because you believed Mayfield’s lies?” Damn, damn, damn. Her heart sank as Gabe’s head snapped around from his tête-à-tête with Grace on the other side of Bud.

Color bloomed in Adam’s cheeks. “Uh—”

“How’s he supposed to answer that, Uncle Bud?” she demanded in a voice as quiet as her uncle’s had been. Turning to the Experimental boys, she said in a more conversational tone, “I’m not sure if Adam mentioned this, but he works at AAE.” She gave the American Agricultural Experiment, which most folks in Sugarville simply called the Experimental, its proper acronym. “Have any of you had a chance to work with him yet?”

Jim Holstrom said that he had, which started the conversational ball rolling when the remaining Experimental grant holders told Adam where they were currently studying within the project. Ignoring the intent gaze that Gabriel was drilling into her temporal lobe, Macy rearranged her salad on her plate. She hated that her aunt and uncle knew about that time in her life. She’d done her best to keep them from learning of it, but somehow they’d found out anyway. They’d never said exactly how.

The whole screwed-up mess had started because she’d forgotten the first rule of self-preservation. Growing up, she’d been dragged from pillar to post by her mother, the queen of Moving On. Macy had been the perpetual new kid in school—all twenty-three of them—and was savvy about not setting herself up for disappointment. She simply avoided getting attached to anyone, because she knew that sooner rather than later, Mom would get that restless look in her eye again and Macy would be shaken awake in the dead of night or greeted at the door when she came in from school by her mother’s gratingly cheerful, “Pack your bags, kiddo. We’re off on a big adventure.” It wasn’t until she’d hit high school age and Auntie Lenore talked her mom into letting her stay with them that she’d spent an entire year at one school.

And man, she’d adored it. She’d loved the continuity, the regular-kid home life with her relatives, the having a dresser of her own and half a closet in the room she and Janna shared so her clothes had a permanent spot. She’d really loved putting her suitcase in the attic instead of having to keep it handy because after a couple of months—or sometimes even weeks—it would be time to hit the road again.

It hadn’t been utopian, of course. Small schools had the most rigid cliques in the world and were notoriously slow at welcoming outsiders. Still, she’d figured that for once in her life she had time to carve out a spot for herself. And she’d deemed life good.

Then she’d gone and developed a huge crush on Drew Mayfield and everything had turned to shit.

“You gonna just push that around your plate, or are you actually going to eat the damn thing?”

Macy jerked her head up and found Gabe shooting her an irritated look from across the table. “Excuse me?”

“I asked if you’re going to eat your aunt’s salad.” His gray-eyed gaze traveled her long, lean body before raising to meet her own. “Or are you one of those Hollywood anorexics?”

“Jesus, Donovan,” Adam said at the same time that Grace emitted a shocked, “Gabe!”

“Well, look at her plate. She hasn’t eaten more than three bites.”

“What are you, the dinner police?” She looked him in the eye, the easy charm she’d worked to make her default mode on temporary hiatus. “Considering you’ve been at a lot of the meals I’ve scarfed down this week, for all you know I could simply have something on my mind.”

He merely raised a thick, beautifully curved eyebrow at her.

Causing her to expel an impatient breath. “Fine. Here.” Holding his gaze, she shoveled a huge bite into her mouth and chewed. Not as adequately as she should have before she swallowed, maybe, but what the hell. “Happy?” But her taste buds tingled with delight at the textures and flavors and the hint of heat in her aunt’s secret Thousand Island dressing recipe.

“Ooh. That’s good.” She forked up a more reasonably sized bite, but turned to Adam before carrying it to her lips. “Could you pass the rolls?” Then she popped it in her mouth and ate two additional bites before the basket made its way down the table.

Licking a dab of the dressing off the corner of her lips, she shot Gabe a grin as she broke open her roll. Then she turned to Adam to do what she did best when she wanted to keep someone at arm’s length without appearing unfriendly: flirted. Because Gabriel was right about one thing. Pushing her food around her plate while she brooded was a prodigious waste of time.

She wished Aunt Lenore hadn’t invited Adam for dinner, but at least the guy had been one of her few nice dates in high school. Unlike so many other boys in her class, he’d never asked her out expecting her to drop her drawers in the backseat of his car in exchange for a second-run movie at the Majestic and a burger basket at Smokey’s—then regaled his buddies with what a hot number she was after she declined to put out.

The legend of her so-called sexual prowess began with Andrew “Drew” Mayfield, the object of her fervent first crush. He’d been golden to her then-impressionable eyes, everything her young heart considered desirable. Reasonably tall, which meant a guy she wouldn’t be afraid to wear heels with, and fit, he was an athlete revered for his prowess on the football field, confident in the way only a young man with money, looks and outstanding physical ability can be. But she didn’t understand that until later. At the time she took the fact that he rarely laughed for intelligence, and it was the confidence that truly sucked her in, for it had made him stand apart from the usual high school boys.

God, she’d been excited when he’d asked her out. She’d carried a torch for the football star since her first week as a sophomore at Sugarville High, and to have him suddenly focus his attention on her midway through her junior year had thrilled her no end.

The thrill had waned considerably after their date, when he’d driven her to Buzzard Canyon, one of the more popular partying and make-out areas along the wooded draw climbing up from Wenatchee. Not that she’d objected to necking with a guy she’d wanted to kiss for what seemed like forever. But he had quickly pushed for far more than she was willing to give. And for the first time since coming to Sugarville, she’d refused to rein in her time-honored defense against being an outsider—her zero tolerance for taking crap. Instead, she’d fought her way upright and put a halt to the make-out session in no uncertain terms. He’d taken it like a gent, though, and driven her home, so she’d assumed that was the end of it.

Until the following Monday, when sniggers had followed her down the hallways of Sugarville High and she’d discovered her once-idol had told all his friends she was a pushover in the backseat of his car.

And the rush to date her began.

She’d known better than to think anyone would believe her over a guy who was the high school equivalent of royalty. So, except with Janna, she hadn’t even tried to set the record straight. What was the point? Once an outsider, always an outsider.

But enough with the trip down memory lane. Impatient with herself, she joined in the conversations swirling around her. It had been a long day, however, and given a choice when dinner ended she would have retired to her room in a heartbeat. But Adam was there. Not feeling like dealing with him, however, she quickly offered to help with the dishes. Hey, a girl could always hope Inconvenient Guy would take off if she just stayed busy long enough.

Her aunt dashed that dream by waving her off and her nebulous alternate plan to invite her cousin to hang out with them vanished when Janna said she ached after her afternoon out. Macy didn’t have any real hope Adam would disappear while she helped settle her cousin in their room, and sure enough, he was still lounging against the library/game room doorjamb when she came out a short while later. Sighing, she decided only the direct approach would do and walked up to him.

In the rec room behind him she saw Gabe bending over Grace as he showed her how to line up a shot on the pool table and got a funny pang in her chest.

Irritated, she shoved it aside and, pulling her gaze away from the couple, looked at Adam. “What do you say we go out on the porch?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

On the covered porch that wrapped around two sides of the house, he moved in on her, bending his head with the clear intention of stealing a kiss.

She stepped back. “Not gonna happen, pal.”

He straightened up. “I suppose I didn’t really expect it would. Still, a guy’s gotta try.” He studied her in the dappled light filtering through the wisteria leaves. “You’ve changed a lot since high school.”

“I certainly hope so. It’s been ten years.”

“I think it goes deeper than that, though. And has to do with more than your MTV success. You seem…happier.”

She blinked at his insight, surprised in no small part because she hadn’t expected any from a guy who’d go to his son’s game and flirt with another woman in front of the kid’s mom—a situation she would’ve had no part of, had she realized up front that’s what was going on. But she shrugged. “That happens when you remove yourself from a place where people either hate your guts or treat you like a slut.”

After her reputation went down the loo with a big, resounding whoosh, she’d decided if you can’t beat ’em, give ’em what they expect. She’d discovered the protective covering of a really good costume and in-your-face flirting. She’d also put herself out there on the dating front for a while, hoping that more guys would tell the truth about their so-called experiences with her than the ones who’d lied through their teeth.

That latter thing hadn’t panned out so great. But it’d taught her a lesson that she retained to this day: keep your relationships brief and fun, then move along before they can bite you in the butt.

She shot Adam a genuine smile. “You didn’t.” He raised an inquiring brow and she added, “On our one and only date, you were one of the few who didn’t treat me like a slut.”

“Yeah, well, I had a fairly strict upbringing.” He shot her a wry smile. “I sort of hoped you’d turn out to be one, though.”

The belly laugh exploding out of her felt good, and she was still laughing when Grace and Gabe came out of the house. Wiping tears of mirth from her eyes, she turned to the teacher. “Are you leaving?”

The other woman tended toward quiet and had a refined, good-girl air about her. But she possessed a sweet smile and a good sense of humor and had been ingenuously open about getting a kick out of hanging with her and Janna.

“Yes.” Grace came over and took Macy’s hands in her own. “Thank you so much for including me in your party this afternoon. I had a blast.”

“It was fun, wasn’t it? I really enjoyed getting to know you a little. We’ll have to do it again sometime.”

Gabe jingled his keys in his pocket and she gave the teacher a nudge. “It looks like your date is getting impatient. He must have a hot necking session planned down at Buzzard Canyon.” Mentioning the spot, however, dimmed her humor considerably.

It resurrected when Grace turned pink and stuttered, “Oh, no, I don’t think—” while Gabe shot her a look.

“You’ll have to cut Ms. O’James some slack, Grace,” he said coolly. “She has sex on the brain. Must be the L.A. influence.”

“Only with you, sugar,” she said, and Grace and Adam laughed, obviously believing it was just another example of her flirty ways. But she admitted to herself that there was more than a grain of truth to the matter. It had been a fairly long dry spell since she’d thought of having sex with anyone. But every time she clapped eyes on the big fire chief it seemed to be the first thing that popped to mind.

Well, she’d just have to do something about that. One, because she didn’t poach on other women’s turf, and two, the guy was far from a lighthearted player, which was her usual type.

And face it. Being back in Sugarville is challenge enough.

Wasn’t that the damn truth. A challenge, squared. The last thing she needed was some sparks in the dark sexual chemistry with a man she suspected just might burn her alive.

When it came to Gabriel Donovan she intended to keep her distance…and then some.

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