Reviewers love New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author
Susan Andersen

“Andersen creates a sexy, feel-good contemporary romance…Palpable escalating sexual tension between the pair, a dangerous criminal on the loose and a cast of well-developed secondary characters make this a winner.”

—Publishers Weekly on Bending the Rules

“This start of Andersen’s new series has fun and interesting characters, solid action and a hot and sexy romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on Cutting Loose

“Snappy and sexy…Upbeat and fun, with a touch of danger and passion, this is a great summer read.”

—RT Book Reviews on Coming Undone

“Lovers of romance, passion and laughs should go all in for this one.”

—Publishers Weekly on Just for Kicks

“Andersen again injects magic into a story that would be clichéd in another’s hands, delivering warm, vulnerable characters in a touching yet suspenseful read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Skintight

“A classic plot line receives a fresh, fun treatment…well-developed secondary characters add depth to this zesty novel, placing it a level beyond most of its competition.”

—Publishers Weekly on Hot & Bothered

“Sassy, snappy and sizzling hot!”

—New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich on Baby, I’m Yours

“Lively and fun!”

—New York Times bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips on Be My Baby

Dear Reader,

The past year has been kind of taxing, so when I started this book I only had one criteria: to have fun. To that end my imagination presented me with MTV queen Macy O’James—a one-time small-town girl with a big, bad reputation and a penchant for in-your-face clothing. The minute the ink on her high school diploma dried, she kicked the dust of farming community Sugarville, Washington, from her boots. But now she’s back, and if the citizens of S’ville don’t like it—and she fully expects many of them to be vocal in their displeasure—well, she’s prepared to live with that.

What she’s not prepared for is her unwelcome response to Sugarville’s new fire chief, Gabriel Donovan.

Gabe left a career as a big-city arson investigator to simplify and de-stress his life. But things aren’t turning out according to plan. This placid little town is suddenly plagued by a raft of fires. Those, he knows how to handle. The infamous woman he heard reams about even before she came home is another story. He was prepared to discount the gossip, but up close and personal, Macy threatens the even-keeled existence he’s carved for himself. She’s trouble, and that’s the last thing he’s looking for. After a hardscrabble childhood and a wild adolescence, there is no way Gabe’s falling for a too-hot-to-handle firecracker like Macy O’James.

Still, that up-close-and-personal thing is pretty hard to resist.

I had a ball writing Macy and Gabe’s story. I hope, hope, hope you have even more fun reading it.

Susan

But wait! There’s more! (Yeah, I know, I’ve gotta cut back on watching infomercials.) As an extra added treat, be sure to check out Auntie Lenore’s recipes in the back of the book.

Burning Up
Susan Andersen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This is dedicated, with love,

to

Joey Zderic Gaviglio

For

Long walks, lotsa laughs and non-stop conversations.

I’m so tickled we reconnected after all these years.

Thanks for all the shared goodies and recipes—not to mention turning me on to some great walking shoes and sandals.

I always look forward to Wednesdays.

—Susie

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I also owe a huge thank-you to the firefighters who took time to help me with the technical aspects of this book. My gratitude to King County Fire Marshall Gary Owens, Assistant Fire Chief Robert Young of Mountain View Fire and Rescue, and Doug Napoli of the Tualatin Valley, Oregon, fire district. You guys rock; any and all mistakes I may have made in the use of the information you gave me are mine alone.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

EPILOGUE

AUNTIE LENORE’S OLD-FASHIONED BUTTERMILK FRIED CHICKEN

AUNTIE LENORE’S (AND SUE BELL’S) SUGAR COOKIE RECIPE

CHAPTER ONE

GABRIEL DONOVAN KNEW Macy O’James was trouble the minute she rolled into town.

Hell, he knew it before she even hit the city limits. He and Johnny Angelini were sitting in Johnny’s police cruiser out near the county line, shooting the bull and discussing ways to improve workplace efficiency, when he had his first Macy O’James sighting.

Not that he knew it was her at that moment. Despite old Sheriff Baxter’s objection to what he considered the newfangled notion of interdepartmental information sharing between Johnny, Sugarville’s sole deputy, and Gabe, the town’s fire chief, the two men liked putting their heads together every now and then to talk out problems they felt had crossover potential. And that particular hot July afternoon, Gabe had just finished recounting why he thought Johnny should check out a ramshackle trailer out near Leavenston that he suspected might be a meth lab, when a candy-apple-red, drop-top Corvette roared by, trailing screaming rock and roll in its wake.

The two men exchanged a look. “Not going that much above the limit,” Gabe commented laconically.

“True.” Johnny nodded. “Ten over hardly seems worth the time to write up a ticket.”

“That was my thought.”

“Still,” Johnny said. “Hot car, hotter driver, man. Blonde. Could be my future bride.”

“There is that,” he agreed, although how his friend could state the driver’s hair color, much less her hotness factor, from the one quick glimpse they’d gotten as she’d blown past was beyond him. He didn’t, however, doubt it was true. Johnny had eyes like a raptor when it came to the female portion of the human race.

The deputy scratched a thumbnail across his jaw. “And it is a hot day. Be a real mess if Myerson chose now to let his cows cross the road.”

“Little car, big cattle,” he granted.

“My civic duty to do my job. It’s not like they pay me the big bucks for sitting under the trees. So.” He raised an eyebrow. “You in?”

Gabe considered. Common sense dictated he get out of the cruiser, get back in his rig and go about his business. He had no real reason or even desire to check out Johnny’s “future bride.” Beyond the fact he was currently dating a nice woman, he was nowhere close to being the hound with the babes that Johnny was.

Not anymore.

On the other hand, it was pretty much the male code not to let your friends have too much fun if there was any chance you could throw a wrench in their good times. “S’pose I better,” he said dryly. “When she files the sexual harassment suit, she’s gonna need a witness.”

Grinning, the deputy started up the Ford Ranger. He eased the cruiser out from beneath a stand of Douglas firs and alders that had done a decent job of shielding their cars from passing traffic, bumped over the uneven turf and onto the highway, then hit the siren at the same time he punched the gas.

They caught up with the Corvette moments later and watched as it first slowed, then pulled to the side of the road. The blaring music cut off midnote.

Two suitcases sticking up from behind the car seats blocked the driver from view. But her door opened in the sudden silence and a long, bare leg appeared, a blue peep-toed, platform-soled, Cuban-heel-shod foot stretching for the ground.

“You can wait here,” Johnny said, reaching for the door handle. “This is clearly a job for a trained professional.”

Gabe snorted. “Not a chance. What kind of bud would I be if I didn’t have your back?” Climbing from the cruiser, he looked at Johnny over its top. “For all we know, the woman’s armed and dangerous.”

“Yeah, I’m worried about that. Might have to pat her down for weapons.”

That would be the day. Johnny loved flirting up females, but he also had an appreciation and bedrock respect for them. Besides, he wasn’t the type to abuse his authority any more than Gabe was.

By the time he’d cleared the hood, the woman had eased out of the low-slung car and risen to stand hip-shot on the highway beside it. She relaxed her rump back against the driver-side door as she watched them approach, the heels of her hands braced on either side of her hips.

“Holy shit,” he muttered, because she looked for all the world like one of those World War II pinup girls, dressed as she was in a white sailor shirt trimmed in blue, those retro shoes and even more retro little blue tap pants that showcased yard-long legs.

Hell, she was even wearing a white sailor cap, its wide turned-up brim tilted rakishly off-kilter atop a froth of curls that clung in wisps to its brim and her cheekbones.

And sure enough, she was a blonde. Shooting his friend a sideways glance, he shook his head. “I don’t know how you do it, man.”

“It’s a gift,” Johnny said over his shoulder as Gabe stopped and leaned against the cruiser’s hood. Continuing to the Corvette, the deputy raised his voice to address its driver, saying easily, “Hey, sailor. New in town?”

“No newer than you, Angelini,” the woman replied in a low, husky voice that ruffled Gabe’s nerve endings. “Considering you and I moved here around the same time.” Her shoulder hitched lazily. “’Course, I’ve moved on, while you…well, here you still are.” Her gaze cut to Gabe and she gave him a leisurely up-and-down examination that, to his disgust, elicited a down-and-dirty level of sexual awareness he thought he’d left in the dust long ago. “I’d say the honor of new in town probably goes to your friend there.”

Johnny came to attention. “Macy?” he said incredulously. “Macy O’James?”

Hearing the name, Gabe’s own interest was piqued, and he gave the woman a closer inspection. They’d never met, but he’d sure as hell heard of her. Macy O’James, Sugarville’s own wild child, heartbreaker—and ultimate pariah. From his first day in this little eastern Washington prairie town, he’d been inundated with tales of Macy, a girl whose morals were no better than they should be and who had left a trail of wreckage in her wake when she’d blown town for L.A., where she’d starred in a series of music videos. Steamy videos, it was always amended. Depending on who was relating a story to Gabe, she was Sugarville’s version of Pamela Anderson/Carmen Electra/Paris Hilton. Except—and this was always grudgingly admitted—Macy mostly kept her clothes on.

All of which he had supposed was marginally titillating. It was a helluva lot more so now. Because, looking at her lounging provocatively against her red convertible, the sun shining on the creamy expanse of those long legs and limning the curves of pink lips that were currently crooked in a sardonic smile, it was easy to understand the town’s preoccupation with her exploits. Once upon a time, he, too, had allowed girls like her—sexual girls with magnetism to spare, too pretty and knowing for their own good—to consume too many of his waking hours.

Well, hey, that was then. This was now. No skin off his ass what she did. He believed in live and let live, in allowing people to be who and what they were. While he had a self-acknowledged issue or two with good-time girls, having been, loosely speaking, raised by one, he’d do his best to accord O’James the same courtesy he’d show anyone else.

Settling more firmly against the hood, he crossed his arms over his chest, watching as she gave his friend a sultry smile.

“Hello, Johnny,” she murmured to the deputy. “Long time no see.” She raised a slender brow. “You planning on writing me a ticket for going a few miles over the speed limit?”

Her tone was negligent, but even as Johnny appeared to consider the question, the hint of dare-ya attitude beneath her casualness rubbed at Gabe’s edges, abrading the Zen calm he prided himself on. The realization was surprising, and more than a little annoying. Yet even so, he couldn’t stop himself from watching her.

As if sensing it, she turned to him and slowly slid her sunglasses down her slender nose. Her eyes were big and green. Or possibly hazel; it was hard to tell for sure with the sun hitting her from that angle.

Whatever the color, they were set for stun when she trained them on him. And it bugged the bejesus out of him that if he were any other man, he’d find the ploy’s effectiveness factor off the charts.

“Well, you’re certainly taking in the scenery,” she said. “Here. Let me give you the nickel tour.” And, her elbows bent close to her waist and slender-fingered hands held palms up in the air, she spread her arms and slowly pivoted to display first the view from the left, then the back, then the right.

And they all looked good.

Turning face-front once again, she gazed at him from up under her lashes. “Like the view, sugar?”

He shrugged. “Not bad.”

One corner of her mouth curved up. “To say the least.”

But inside Macy wasn’t smiling. That was the trouble with this burg—you couldn’t live down your reputation no matter how long you’d been away or what you had accomplished in your absence.

But she’d had years of practice slapping on an insouciant expression and she did so now as she considered Johnny’s sidekick.

My God, he was huge. The guy was six-six if he was an inch and must weigh in at about two-thirty.

Nary an ounce of which was fat. Unexpected heat scalded her veins, and her heartbeat performed a quick pitty-pat. In a knee-jerk attempt to negate the awareness she felt, she consciously bumped up the wattage on her bimbo meter. Slicking her tongue over her bottom lip was inadvertent. But the aren’t-you-just-so-big-and-strong look she gave him was definitely deliberate. “And you are…?”

“This is Gabe Donovan, Macy,” Johnny said. “Sugarville’s fire chief. Gabe, this is Macy O’James.”

“Sugarville’s celebrity tramp,” she murmured.

Johnny, bless him, winced. While he’d always been hot for anything in skirts back in high school, he’d still been a fairly decent guy.

Fire Chief Donovan, on the other hand, merely gave her a clipped nod as if he wasn’t the least bit surprised. And for some reason that stung. For a nanosecond when she had met the guy’s intense gray eyes, looked at his big, hard body, she’d felt…something. Something that made losing it in almost the next heartbeat a crying shame. It was clear, however, that whatever-it-had-been had zero chance of going anywhere now that he knew who she was.

But that felt a bit too boo-hoo, I’m-just-a-poor-misunderstood-waif for a woman who had learned young that life was messy, life was unfair, but you sucked it up and dealt with it. Her shoulders squared. Well, guess what, pal? I’m not wild about you, either.

And she wasn’t, whether the guy was a big hot number with pretty, cool eyes or no. Not when he’d taken one look at her and embraced the role assigned her by the good people of Sugarville without even bothering to find out if there was any validity to it.

Not when he made her feel like that girl the town loved to hate.

As if, she reminded herself, I give a great big rip. She was what she was. She had no regrets.

None.

But she did know she’d had enough of this. Tilting her chin up, she looked at Johnny. “So,” she said. “What’s it gonna be? Yes or no on the ticket?”

“I’ll give you a pass this time.”

“That’s my preferred option,” she agreed, opening the car door and sliding inside. She started up the car with a roar and slid it into first gear. “See you around, boys.”

And without sparing either man another glance, she eased her Corvette off the shoulder and headed down the road toward home.

CHAPTER TWO

“LOVE THE GETUP,” Macy’s cousin Janna commented dryly. “But I can’t believe you wore it all the way from wherever you spent last night.”

Macy paused, glancing from the closet where she was unpacking to her cousin, who sat in a chintz chair in the study of their family’s boardinghouse. Her leg was encased in plaster from knee to crotch, a pair of crutches propped within easy reach.

“Medford,” she replied, naming the Oregon town six hours away. “And please. Of course I didn’t wear it the entire way. Do I look crazy to you?”

“That’s probably not the question you wanna ask when you’re wearing the wet-dream version of a sailor suit.”

Macy grinned. “Let me rephrase it then. Have you ever known me to be a martyr? No, you haven’t,” she hastily asserted when she saw her cousin open her mouth and just knew it was to bring up That Night.

But she wasn’t going there—it had all happened too long ago to rehash at this late date. “I changed in Wenatchee, baby. Hey, I could hardly arrive in town looking halfway normal and deprive the good folks of Sugarville of yet another chance to be scandalized.”

Janna rolled her eyes. “Yeah, heaven forbid people should have nothing to talk about.”

“Damn straight. Life as we know it would cease to exist.” She reached for a hanger in the closet. Whipping it beneath the skinny straps of a gauzy summer dress, she shook out the garment with a snap, then hung it on the rod above the tangle of shoes she’d already dumped onto the closet floor. “They gave me the name. The least I can do is have a little fun playing the game.”

“Right. Because you’re so tough.”

“Yes.” Looking up, she caught Janna’s who-are you-trying-to-kid expression. “Don’t give me that look—I am. You, on the other hand—” her voice softened with concern as she took in the other woman’s pale face “—look like a harsh word could knock you on your butt, let alone the proverbial puff of wind.”

“I’m okay.” Belying her assertion, Janna shifted uncomfortably. “It’s just hard to find a position that doesn’t hurt. The doctor told me to try to keep my leg elevated as much as possible, but—”

Contrition hit Macy like a freight train. “Oh, crap, Janna, why didn’t you say something?” She shifted the suitcase that she’d crammed with clothes two nights before in L.A. onto the floor and shoved the ottoman it had been sitting on toward her cousin. Easing it into position, she winced in sympathy when pain clouded Janna’s expression during the moment it took to lift her cast-encased leg onto it.

Dammit, Janna was the closest thing she had to a sister, and seeing her hurt made Macy want to wrap her in yards of warm chenille and ply her with cup after cup of hot tea. This, despite the fact that it must be ninety degrees outside.

Janna sighed. “I hate being an invalid, so I tend to overdo. Which is why Mom wants you here—when you ride herd on me I don’t get all defensive.” Spearing her fingers through her normally shiny but currently dull ear-length chestnut bob, she flashed a tired smile. “Thanks for dropping everything and coming so fast.”

“Are you kidding me?” She sank to her haunches in front of the other woman and, picking up Janna’s hand, held it gently between her own. “Where else would I be—you’re family. Do you have any idea how much I loved this town before all the crap began? And it was all because of you and Uncle Bud and Auntie Lenore. Not to take anything away from Mom or anything, but living with you guys? That was the first time in my life I felt as if I had a real home.”

“I thought it was so cool when you got to come here.”

Embarrassed by the sentimental tears that rose in her eyes, Macy looked around the room. Even with all the regular furniture moved out, there wasn’t much space to spare with the addition of two beds and two dressers. “Are you sure you want me to bunk in here with you?” she asked. “I can easily make do with the Closet.”

“It’s not available,” Janna said. “We had to do some switching around in February to accommodate a new boarder, and we moved Tyler in there. Wait until you meet—”

“Tyler got shoved out of his room and ended up in the Closet?” she interrupted indignantly. “Janna, that’s just wrong!”

Her cousin laughed. “Not in Ty’s eyes, it isn’t. He actually loves it. He likes pretending it’s a nuclear-class submarine and he’s the master spy. It doesn’t hurt that his best friend, Charlie, thinks it’s beyond cool, either.” Her mouth crooked in a wry smile.

“Only a nine-year-old,” Macy said, shaking her head at the notion of anyone thinking that sweatbox of a six-by-ten-foot room was “beyond cool.” “Then how about our old room?” They’d shared an upstairs room for several years as teens. “Auntie Lenore said they’re keeping it open for when you can navigate the stairs again, and I’d be out of your way but still close enough to help.”

“Uh, the thing is, I can’t use these crutches and carry anything bigger than a pair of undies at the same time. So I need help with the fetching and toting. I’m sorry, Macy, I know it’s cramped in here and not what you’re used to—”

“No, no, no, no, no!” She shook her head in vigorous denial. “I didn’t mean it that way at all!” The action made her realize she still had on the sailor hat and she reached up to lift it off. Tossing it onto the bed Janna had assigned for her use, she tugged free the blond wig she’d worn beneath it. “I was afraid I’d be crowding you, not the other way around!”

“Then we’re talking apples and oranges and don’t have a problem. Here. Fork that over.” Janna crooked “gimme” fingers at the wig. “I always wondered what I’d look like as a blonde.”

Macy tossed it to her, then ran her fingers through her own super-straight hair, which was more caramel colored than the do-me-daddy platinum of her wig. She rubbed her scalp to lift the roots and sighed as a breeze ruffled through the white curtains, combing cool fingers through the freed strands and setting them to dancing against her collarbones. Toeing off her Cuban heels, she kicked them aside, then breathed a long, attenuated “Ahhh,” and wiggled her toes. “Lovely.”

“I’m glad one of us is,” Janna murmured, making a face as she tugged at the wig and a pale blond strand flopped over her eye.

“It’s hard being adept in the beauty department without a mirror.” Macy crossed to her cousin and shifted the hairpiece into proper position, then finessed the curls into a sassy style. Standing back, she surveyed her handiwork.

“You need a little makeup.” Grabbing her purse, she upended it over her bed and picked her cosmetic case out of the resulting jumble. Handing a tube of lipstick to Janna with instructions to dab some on, she applied a pale rose blusher to her cousin’s poreless cheeks, then mixed brown eye shadow into a daub of Vaseline she’d smeared on the back of her hand. She applied the concoction over Janna’s eyelids with a deftness gained through years spent taking mental notes while makeup artists got her camera-ready for this, that or the other video shoot. After smoothing the gleaming eye shadow to just above the crease in Jenna’s eyelid to give her cousin a thirties silent-movie-star look, she finished it off with a coat of mascara, then leaned back to inspect her work. “Now you look like the coz I remember.” Twisting around, she reached behind her for the hand mirror atop Janna’s dresser and turned back to extend it to her. “Here. Check it out.”

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.”

“Oh, man, I really did. I liked all of them, but especially that—” he cut himself off as the bathroom door opened behind her and shampoo-scented steam rolled out into the hallway. “Oh. Hey, Gabe.”

Damn.

“I was just telling Macy here how much I enjoyed her in Burn, Baby, Burn.”

“Isn’t he just the sweetest?” Bracing herself, she turned around—and nearly swallowed her tongue when she saw Gabe clad in nothing but two towels, one wrapped low around his hips and the other slung around his strong neck. Skin warming, she forced herself to give him a cool once-over from the top of his damp hair, to the large hands grasping the ends of the neck towel, to his long bare feet. “Well, aren’t you the picture of big and strong. Do you always walk around half naked, Fire Chief Call-me-Gabe?”

“Difficult to shower with your clothes on.”

“And yet so easy to dry off and dress in the bathroom.”

“I think we all got used to it being the Boy’s Club up here,” Brian said edging away. “Well, uh, hey. I better get going. Nice talking to you, Macy.”

“You, too, cupcake.” She swiveled back to face him. “I’m sure we’ll run into each other regularly.” Watching as he backed down the hall, she gave him a friendly finger wiggle when he stopped in front of the Green Room.

Ducking his head, he smiled shyly, then entered the room. She drew a deep breath and turned back to Gabe.

Only to find that he’d taken a giant silent step forward while her back was turned and her nose was practically touching the hard curve of his lightly furred chest.

“Hel-lo!” Surrounded by his soap-and-shaving-cream scent, she took a nonchalant step back and looked up at him, taking in the gleam of the freshly shaven skin on his cheeks and jaw. “Sneaky son of a gun, aren’t you.” Against her will, her gaze was drawn back to the fine cloud of black hair covering his pectorals.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

A bead of water slid down his tan neck and rolled over his clavicle, heading for the fan of hair. I will not lick it, I will not lick it. She forced her gaze back to his face. “Excuse me?” Her mind replayed his question and she straightened. “Can’t help myself from what?”

“Flirting. It’s like breathing to you, isn’t it? Wet-behind-the-ears boys, old duffers with one foot in the grave—is there no one you won’t flirt up?”

“I don’t recall flirting with you. Is that what’s got your boxers in a twist, sugar—you don’t like being left out?” She had a pretty strong hunch this wasn’t a man to mess with and felt her heart gallop. But she’d learned young never to back down, and knew she was going to mess with him anyway.

Reversing the backward step she’d taken, she touched her fingertip to the drop of water now clinging to his chest hair.

She wasn’t prepared for the shock such simple contact sent skittering along her nerve endings. Praying its impact didn’t show, she raised the now damp finger to her lips.

His hand shot out and captured her wrist before she could lick the smear of water from it. Bringing it to his own lips, he slid her finger into his mouth. Slick, moist heat promptly pulled forth a like condition in every tissue in her body capable of producing it. He wrapped his lips around her finger and sucked hard as he slowly pulled the digit free, and that secret entrance deep between her thighs clenched like the mouth of a drawstring purse.

In the next heartbeat he’d set her loose. “I’m neither a boy nor an old man,” he said in a low, even voice. “And you might want to rethink making me any offers, implicit or otherwise, if you’re not prepared to follow through on them.” He stepped past her, spreading warmth along her entire left side when the bare skin of his arm brushed her.

Her heart threatened to hammer its way out of her chest as she turned to watch him, all wide shoulders, long back and longer legs, stalking down the hallway. Yes, she thought hazily, clasping her damp finger with her other hand. I probably oughtta do that. Because, holy shit.

Holy, holy shit. It had been a simple little suck on one lousy finger, for pity’s sake. He hadn’t dropped his towel, pressed her up against the nearest wall and had his wicked way with her.

Yet here she stood, rattled so hard that for perhaps the first time in her life not a single comeback popped to mind.

Because she had a bad feeling she would’ve really liked it if he had.

CHAPTER FOUR

GABE GENTLY CLOSED his room door behind him, then ripped the towel from around his neck and flung it at the nearest wall.

It fell far short, drifting harmlessly to the old hard-wood floor.

“Hell.” Covering the distance to the crumpled terry in a single long stride, he bent and swept it up.

Only to have the towel around his waist come untucked and slide down his legs to take its place. “Son of a fucking bitch!”

He swept that one up, as well. Breathing heavily, he stood clutching both linens in white-knuckled fists as he stared blindly at the wall.

Then he gave a sharp shake of his head and got a grip. He sucked in deep, measured inhalations and slowly exhaled them until his breathing was regulated again. Jesus. What was this? He never had to struggle for control, because he never lost it in the first place.

Not since he was sixteen, at any rate. For a couple of years there, he’d been monkey wild. Fighting anything in pants. Screwing anything in skirts.

But that was a long time ago. The man he was now was deliberate. In control. Master of his rare way ward impulse.

So what had he been doing out in the hallway with the music-video princess? What the holy hell had he been thinking?

He snorted. Yeah, right. Like thought had been a big part of the equation. He’d simply acted on instinct. Because he’d known in his gut that he couldn’t watch her close that soft, pink, smart-ass mouth around her finger. Still, he could have, should have just released her hand and walked away.

Tossing his towels aside, he strode for the dresser. Yeah, well, you didn’t, so get over it. The deed was done. He thought of the series of garbage-can fires around town that he’d been dealing with for the past few weeks. That was what he should be concentrating on, tracking down the reason for those, not wasting his time rewriting a here-and-gone run-in with the new resident flirt. Either that or…

“Shit!” Grace. How the hell had he forgotten his date with Grace, even if only for a few minutes? Guilt crawled down his spine. This was the second time he’d gotten so caught up in Macy’s sexual pull that it had blown every single thought of the woman he was actually dating clean out of his mind.

Yanking open the second drawer, he collected a clean pair of jeans, then strode to the closet and ripped a cotton shirt from its hanger.

As he dressed, however, he found that merely thinking of the teacher he was scheduled to take out for a glass of wine smoothed over the minor irritations of his day. Because Grace was aptly named. She was quiet. Restful. Nice.

All of which were attributes he appreciated more than he could say considering his early life with his tumultuous party-girl mom, the fury years after she’d abdicated her responsibilities by dumping him on the system, and his time in the Detroit FD, the last six years of which he’d spent as an arson investigator forever juggling too many fires and not enough hours in the day. Taking this county fire-chief job had been the first step in alleviating the overload of stress he’d lived with for too long. Being with Grace, absorbing the tranquility she radiated, felt like the next.

A little peace was something he’d been in search of for a long time. He’d had enough craziness and tension to last a lifetime. So, hell, yeah. Given even the prospect of a little serenity injected into his life?

He’d be a fool not to latch on to Grace.

MACY STRODE INTO the kitchen where her aunt was washing up the pans from breakfast. “Hey, Auntie Lenore,” she said, grabbing an apple out of the bowl on the counter and polishing it on her shirt. “Janna’s settled in our room for a while and Tyler’s over at Charlie’s. Charlie’s mom said she’d get the boys to their game, so I sent along everything I thought he might need.” She bit into the apple. Seeing her aunt in her natural milieu gave her a surge of pleasure every bit as strong as her first glimpse had last week.

Lenore turned off the faucet and turned to face her, taking in Macy’s severe ponytail, bloodred lipstick and Goth eye makeup. “Let me guess,” she said dryly. “You’re heading into town.”

Macy took another bite as her aunt inventoried her short pin-striped pleated skirt and stretchy black U-neck girl-T. The older woman’s gaze lingered for a moment on her black spiked dog collar before moving on to—

“Oh, honey, no. You got a tattoo?”

“Nah.” She smiled at the pained expression her aunt couldn’t hide, then glanced down at the flame-winged skull on her inner forearm. “Though I may be one of the few of my generation who hasn’t—at least in L.A. This is just for fun, a press-on/wash-off. And yeah, if it’s okay with you, I am gonna run into town. I won’t be gone long. I have a check I need to cash. I should have done it earlier in the week but I enjoyed just hanging around and catching up with you guys. Don’t worry, though, I’ll be back in plenty of time to get Janna ready for Tyler’s game. Do you need anything while I’m there?”

“No, sweetheart, thanks. I’m good for a while.” Lenore flashed a crooked smile. “I actually remembered my shopping list the other day. It’s amazing what a difference that makes.”

Macy laughed and slung an arm around her aunt, stooping to press a kiss on her cheek before heading out the back door.

It was only a couple of miles to town, and within minutes she was whipping her Corvette into a parking space a few doors down from Sterling Savings and Trust. But then she simply sat in her car, staring at the gold lettering on the plate glass window of Smokey’s Grill.

She’d reached the turnoff to Bud and Lenore’s boardinghouse the other day before the highway passed through Sugarville, so this was her first time in town in… Wow. More than a couple of years now.

Not that anything had changed. It still looked like a town caught in a time capsule, with its lack of fast-food chains and its two-story-maximum historic brick or stone buildings that comprised the three blocks of Commerce Street. For the same reasons, it was an exceptionally pretty town.

And despite her trying junior and senior years in high school or the fact that she’d barely flipped her tassel to the other side of her mortarboard before blowing town, there had been times she’d missed it dreadfully.

But mostly, she acknowledged, leaving had been the best present she’d ever given herself.

Sitting here patting herself on the back over it wasn’t getting her check cashed, however, and impatient with her procrastination, she snatched her purse off the passenger seat and climbed from the car. She sauntered to the bank on the corner, feeling as if prying eyes were watching her every move but knowing she was likely being paranoid.

Air-conditioning pebbled her nearly bare arms as she stepped into the oak-walled, marble-floored lobby a moment later. Digging her check from her purse, she crossed to the nearest old-fashioned, iron-barred teller’s window. “Hello—” smiling at the maybe-twenty brunette manning it, she read the girl’s name plate “—Lucy. Can you cash this for me?”

She signed the back of the check and slipped it beneath the iron grill, then pulled her wallet from her bag to root for the identification that, given the size of the check, she was sure to need. But as she withdrew her driver’s license she realized the girl hadn’t responded and, raising her head, discovered the brunette staring at her.

“Omigawd,” the young woman breathed. “I can’t believe it. It is you. You’re That Girl.”

Damn. She would’ve thought the teller was too young to remember her, but apparently her fricking reputation back in high school had filtered down even to the elementary level.

“You’re that girl in all the videos—Jack Savage’s girlfriend.”

Ah. It wasn’t her old rep the brunette was talking about but rather her newer claim to fame. Some of the tension went out of her shoulders. “Jack and I are just friends,” she said cheerfully. “We’re not—and never have been—lovers.”

“No kidding? Wait ’til I tell my friends I got the inside scoop straight from the horse’s mouth! This is ginormous!”

“I’m happy to help you one-up.” She inched the check farther beneath the grill with her fingertips. “Would you mind cashing my check?”

“Oh! Sure.” But when the teller looked at it, she frowned. “Oh,” she said, glancing back at Macy. “This isn’t drawn on us. Do you have an account here?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. O’James,” she said with patent regret, “but this is something I have to have approved. Let me just get our manager, Mrs. Thorensen.”

The young woman let herself out of the teller’s cage and Macy turned to watch her cross the lobby to a woman in a black suit presiding over an ornate desk in the corner. The manager glanced across the room at her, then rose to her feet and came over.

Extending a hand, she said, “Macy? You probably don’t remember me, but I’m—”

“Kelly Sherman,” she supplied, recognizing the Sugarville High class treasurer in the slightly plumper, ten-years-older woman standing before her.

The bank manager gave her a surprisingly friendly smile for someone Macy remembered as perpetually desperate back in the day to please Liz Picket.

Liz, who had hated Macy’s guts.

“It’s Kelly Thorensen now. Why don’t you come over to my desk and we’ll see what we can do about getting you your money.”

When they’d settled themselves across from each other, Kelly looked at her and said, “Are you in town for a while?”

“Yes. You may have heard that my cousin, Janna, was hit by a car a while back. I’m here to lend a hand until she gets back on her feet.”

“Yes, I did hear that, and I’m so sorry. The main reason I asked, though, is we can’t cash a check of this size for a noncustomer.”

And there was the knife in the ribs she’d expected upon recognizing the banker. She had to hand it to Kelly, though, the woman managed not to let her satisfaction show. She was clearly worlds more sophisticated than she’d been in high school.

But then the banker grimaced with genuine regret and said, “I truly am sorry, Macy. If you’re going to be in town for a while, though, perhaps you’d like to open a savings account with us. We still have to wait for the check to clear, but the balance will of course accrue interest from today’s date.”

“That sounds fair,” she agreed slowly. She’d run into this situation a time or two; she’d simply forgotten about them because most of her employment checks were drawn on the bank where she had her account. She blew out a breath. “I meant to take care of this before I left home, but I forgot in my rush to pack and get on the road.”

Kelly opened a form on her computer and started keying in information Macy supplied in answer to the manager’s questions. Within minutes, she’d sent it to the printer. Sitting back in her chair, she smiled at Macy. “What a glamorous life you must lead in L.A.”

“I don’t know about glamorous,” Macy replied, because mostly the work she did was work. And there was a phoniness prevalent in the industry that often wore thin. “But it’s satisfying work.” Especially now that she was in the creative end of producing music videos rather than acting in someone else’s vision of a song.

“You going to our ten-year reunion next month?”

God, no. “Oh. Wow. Has it been ten years already? A reunion, huh? This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Well, you should come. It’ll be fun.”

Uh-huh. Because I had so many friends in high school. “I’ll keep it in mind, but so much depends on how well Janna’s leg improves. Did I tell you she’s starting physical therapy next week?”

They exchanged a few more pleasantries before she headed back to the car. All things considered, she thought in bemusement as she climbed in, that hadn’t gone half badly.

When she said as much to Janna a short while later, after recounting her experience, her cousin gave her a wry smile. “So maybe the good citizens of Sugarville have moved on more than you’ve given them credit for.” Then she teased, “I mean, I know you think it’s all about you—”

“You mean it’s not? What’s with that?” But she wasn’t up to kidding about this, and rubbing her forehead, she stared at her cousin. “You know, I never gave it much thought, since I was only here for a few days at a time to see you and the rest of the family. But I guess I’ve sort of been braced for the whole hornet’s nest response to my return,” she admitted soberly, “and I’m grateful as can be that Kelly was professional and gracious instead. But I doubt it’s realistic to expect that everyone will be so nice.” She shook her head. “I just wonder how not nice they’re going to be.”

Janna nodded, her expression troubled. “Yeah. That’s the million-dollar question.”

“IS THAT MACY O’JAMES?”

“I heard she was back in town.”

“She’s got some nerve showing her face after all the heartache she’s caused!”

“Hey, you know what they say. No-class white trash then, no-class white trash now.”

The voices carried clearly in the hot summer air as Macy unfolded a lawn chair under the spreading oak trees next to the bleachers and helped her cousin settle into it. “Well, I guess that answers that big-bucks question,” she murmured and made a moue of distaste. “Apparently Kelly was a fluke.”

“Oh, I imagine there’s more people like Kelly than you think.” Janna cautiously propped the heel of her cast on the plastic bucket Macy upended in front of her. “There are always going to be idiots in this town, though. So do as I do, sweetie. Ignore ’em.”

“I intend to.” Knowing better than to expect an offer from the people on the bleachers nearest Janna to make room so she could sit next to her cousin, she snapped open the blanket she’d brought along for this precise contingency and spread it on the ground on Janna’s other side. Careful to keep her knees together in deference to the shortness of her pin-striped skirt, she lowered herself upon it.

And swallowed a snort. Because wouldn’t that be just what she needed to round out this outing—to flash the young players warming up on the field? As if she didn’t have a bad enough name in this town as it was.

It would have been smarter to wear a nice conservative pair of shorts, she knew, but she was glad she hadn’t changed her clothes. For a short while, in the wake of her better-than-expected encounter with Kelly, she’d considered it. But in the end, she’d decided that a girl could simply never predict when her armor might come in handy in this town. Outrageous clothing was her armor of choice. And it was coming in handy now.

Then Janna’s words sank in, and she scooted closer to her cousin, leaning in to ask in a low voice, “What do you mean, do as you do?”

Janna shrugged. “When Sean and I divorced, I lost most of my social circle,” she answered with matter-of-fact equanimity.

Macy stared. “He screwed around on you with a barely legal bimbo and your friends took his side?”

“Except for one or two of them, they were never really my friends, anyhow. Sean is a Purcell—I married up in their eyes.”

“Are you kidding?” An incredulous laugh escaped her. “Someone actually said that?”

“Nah, it wasn’t that blatant. But the cliques in this town continue long after high school.” She gave an impatient shake of her head. “No. That makes it sound like it’s a Sugarville thing, and it’s not. This sort of social maneuvering goes on everywhere. Everyone was friendly while Sean and I were married—and a few of them I’ve remained friends with. But for the most part, when he dumped me, so did the group we socialized with.”

Macy blew out a quiet breath. “I’m sorry, Janny. That must have been rough.”

Janna shrugged again. “Shit happens. You know that better than most.”

“She’s wearing a damn dog collar,” a woman on the bleachers said loudly. “I’ve never seen anything so stupid.”

Twisting around, Macy located the speaker and gave her a slow appraisal. “Interesting fashion criticism, sugar, coming from a woman who wears burgundy lip liner with pink lipstick.”

Angry color scalded the woman’s cheeks. “Bitch.”

“Yes. I am. Hence the collar.”

She heard a muffled laugh and turned back around. Charlie’s mother, Shannon, stood nearby with another woman, but if the snicker she’d heard came from either of them she saw no evidence of it now.

“Hey, ladies.” Shannon greeted them with easy cheer, flashing the ready smile Macy had noticed when she’d dropped the boys off at Charlie’s house earlier. She was a big woman with a big laugh and the same orangy-red hair as her son’s. “Mind if we join you?”

“Please do.” She patted the blanket next to her.

“Thanks. You’ve got a primo spot here.” The women settled on the blanket next to her, then Shan non leaned back so Macy could see the quietly pretty brunette on her other side. “Grace, this is Macy O’James. Macy, Grace Burdette.”

“Hi, nice to meet you.” She reached around Shannon to offer her hand, but froze midshake after the woman accepted it. “Wait. You’re Miss Burdette? As in the fourth-grade teacher?”

“You’ve heard of me?”

“I’ll say.” Belatedly, she released the other woman’s hand. And grinned. “My nephew Tyler’s going to be in your class this fall and he talks about it as if he won the lottery in the teacher sweepstakes.”

Grace’s face pinked up. “Isn’t that nice? Not to mention flattering.” She smiled crookedly. “I mean, it’s not like I’m a famous MTV video star.”

“No, you’re a teacher with serious word-of-mouth buzz going for her. That’s much cooler.”

Grace smiled in pleasure, then the game started and their attention focused on the Sugarville Sentinels who, as home team, fielded first.

Uncle Bud had given Macy the skinny on this league. Apparently, Little League sanctioned teams played in the spring, which tended to be a busy time in the farming communities. So several towns in the county had banded together to form a youth league of its own. The junior and high schools played teams from all over the state, so they had to adhere to the regular schedule. But the younger kids drew their competition from a smaller pool, which gave the parents more leeway to work around planting and harvesting schedules.

Not that it would have ever occurred to her to question the timing if Uncle Bud hadn’t told her about it last night.

Watching Tyler, who was out in right field, his baseball mitt atop his cap as he alternated gazing up at the sky and kicking tufts of grass, she grinned. She poked Janna. “I’m thinking Ty gets his attention span from the Purcell side of the family.”

Janna laughed.

Denser shade than that provided by the leafy trees suddenly blocked her light, and expecting to see rain clouds had blown in, she tipped her head back.

Only it wasn’t clouds. Instead, she found herself looking up at Gabe. His dark brows pleated over the strong thrust of his nose, he stared back down at her.

Her heart beat double time. Because as their gazes locked, an electric current seemed to pulse between them.

Then Grace leaned forward and Macy saw her smile up at him. “There you are,” the teacher said.

And gave the blanket next to her hip a sit-next-tome pat.

CHAPTER FIVE

LOUNGING BACK ON his elbows next to Grace, Gabe watched Macy’s animated gestures as she laughed and talked with Janna, Shannon and his date. Jesus. Was there no escaping this woman? It just went to show it didn’t pay to get too complacent. Because Macy O’James was not a restful female to be around, and more than once since that night in the hall he’d mentally congratulated himself on the wide berth he’d managed to give her. Yes, they had to share the dinner table. But he’d avoided being in any other common room she might occupy.

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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