Burn (Elemental Series Book 4)

by Rose Wulf

  She smiled and stepped forward until she was standing just a little inside his personal space, and then she paused to look into his eyes and ask, “You’re okay, right?” It hadn’t been her intention to ask the question, but she was only slightly embarrassed by the admission that she’d been concerned. At the very least, she could defend it as common decency. She hoped.

  Dean smiled, his eyes softening in a way that threatened to warm her more thoroughly than the best heater, and quietly replied, “I’m fine. They just had a little more on their plates than people who could chew it.”

  She rolled her eyes at his corny food analogy, all the while fighting a smile and the urge to reach for his nearest hand. Instead, she merely said, “Good,” and continued into the house. She would not succumb to the temptation of him in his parents’ house. But she couldn’t ignore the steady, radiating heat of him following behind her as they made their way to the car. They paused to bid farewell to Angela, Lillian, and Christopher, and Arianna couldn’t help feeling a little jealous as they finally settled back into the Camaro. He has a great family. She’d never officially met Nate or Logan, but she didn’t need to. She couldn’t imagine they’d be so drastically different from the rest of their family as to prove her wrong.

  “I guess we have to take a rain check on hitting up the shooting range,” Dean commented as he pulled onto the road.

  Arianna let herself relax in the passenger seat and teased, “Don’t worry, I won’t call you out on running scared of being shown up by a girl.”

  “Ha!” Dean exclaimed, sliding a smirk toward her. “You only wish.”

  She smiled and let her gaze linger on the passing streetlights. “Well, whenever you decide you’re ready to put your money where your mouth is, just give me a call.” Her words hung in the air for a minute, and she had just enough time to process that they seemed to be moving slower than he’d been driving earlier, before Dean finally responded with just about the last thing she’d expected to hear.

  “How’s Thursday work for you?”

  Her heart stumbled in her chest and her eyes went wide. Did he just…? She wasn’t sure, and she didn’t want to look like an idiot by asking. Instead she swallowed, searching for her voice, and belatedly replied, “I work until three.”

  “So I should pick you up around four?” Dean asked, a grin in his voice.

  Yes. “If you think you’re man enough,” Arianna returned, gathering herself enough to resume their banter.

  “Better be careful what you ask for, Ari,” Dean teased.

  Rolling her head to the side so she could see his profile, Arianna declared, “I think that eighteen-year-old poser was scarier than you.”

  Dean winced exaggeratedly, briefly glancing toward her again, and said, “Oh, that hurts. Kick a man in his pride, why don’t you.”

  “I just say it like it is,” Arianna assured him, nodding her head for emphasis.

  The car slowed, drawing her attention away from her companion, and one glance out the window told her she was practically home. She really didn’t want to be home already. A sigh escaped her lips before she could catch it as Dean came to a stop at the curb again. Georgia’s car was parked beside Arianna’s now, and she could see a light on in the living room window, but Georgia’s wasn’t the company she was interested in.

  “Are you okay?” Dean asked, all traces of laughter gone from his voice in favor of careful concern. He shifted, turning to face her and rest an arm over the top of the steering wheel, waiting patiently.

  She looked back at him and smiled. “I’m fine,” she promised. She held his gaze for a second longer before reaching down to lift her purse from the floor beside her feet. But she wasn’t paying enough attention, because she only caught one strap and it fell open, dumping two envelopes and her wallet before she managed to catch it. She drew a deep breath and held it for several seconds. “Is it too late to change my answer?”

  Dean chuckled and reached down to grab the envelope that had practically fallen in his lap, and it wasn’t until she was shoving the other items back into her purse that she finally remembered what had come alongside her phone bill. “Here you go,” Dean offered helpfully, holding out the item in question.

  Arianna’s stare fell to the object and she hesitated. Sometimes she didn’t understand why she didn’t just tear them up without even opening them.

  “Ari?” Dean asked, clearly noticing her hesitancy. Or maybe her face was showing something aside from minor frustration.

  She scrunched her face in resignation and she reached out, reluctantly taking the letter back. “Thanks,” she said as she studied the scrawled handwriting. I’m going to have to read it. And as soon as she did she knew her day would take an immediate one-eighty.

  “What is it?” Dean asked carefully.

  His question broke her odd trance and she looked up, blinking at him. She hadn’t meant to let the frustration kick in in front of him. “What?”

  Gesturing toward the envelope, Dean clarified, “That. What is it? Bad news?”

  She opened her mouth, automatically intending to tell him not to worry about it, but again she hesitated. He’d been so open with her, right from the start. It was only fair that she reciprocated a little. She swallowed and slumped a bit in her seat. “It’ll be a letter,” she admitted softly. “And probably a check. From my father.”

  Dean frowned, obviously confused. “I thought you said you weren’t close…?”

  “I’m not,” Arianna asserted, her hand tightening a little over the envelope. “I don’t think a single-page letter and guilt money a couple of times a year counts as close.”

  He was silent for several seconds, and she assumed he was attempting to find the right way to phrase his next question, so she waited. And contemplated asking him to just burn the thing in her hands.

  “Is that the only time you hear from him?” Dean finally asked. This tone was different. She couldn’t read it. Something about it intrigued her.

  Arianna nodded as she pulled in another breath. “It is. And this will go exactly like it always goes. I’ll read the letter and feel guilty all over again, thinking maybe this time it means something, so I’ll write back. I’ll give him my new address, since the Post Office down in L.A. isn’t likely to keep forwarding my mail, and the next time I hear from him it’ll be a different calendar year.”

  It was Dean’s turn to take a deep breath, and his fist clenched over the steering wheel as he asked, “What about the rest of your family? You mentioned a brother earlier….”

  Her eyes closed as Gianni’s smiling face flashed across her mind’s eye. She swallowed and whispered, “My brother, Gianni, was killed almost five years ago. My mother took it as a sign that America was evil and decided to move back to Italy. But I never knew Italy. I was born here. So I decided to stay. I was nineteen, and the more she told me to go back with them the more I insisted on staying.”

  “Damn,” Dean mumbled. “Arianna … I’m sorry.”

  She managed a smile and shook her head, simultaneously shoving the letter back into her purse. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. Everyone has a history, right?”

  “Yeah,” Dean allowed slowly, still frowning. “But … I don’t get why that has to mean you never hear from them.”

  Her throat threatened to swell in accordance with the faint stinging behind her eyes as Arianna found herself transported back to that last day. The last time she’d seen her mother or heard her mother’s voice. It was early November, two days after the worst birthday Arianna had ever had. Three days after her older brother’s funeral. There had been yelling, crying, and pleading on all sides. Even then they had all known it was a fight no one could win.

  Gianna Carosella had tears running down her face, but she was not sobbing. Her expression was simultaneously hard and tired, and the more her eyes narrowed, the less forgiveness shone out of them. As with all other emotions, her raw grief brought her native Italian accent to the surface, until Arianna c
ould no longer be entirely sure which language her mother was speaking. “How could you do this to us, Arianna? Are we not your family? Does Gianni’s death mean so little to you?”

  Arianna, barely nineteen and scarcely able to breathe past the ache in her heart, recoiled from her mother’s words. “This isn’t about you, Mamma! America is my home. My friends are here, I’m going to school here, I’m planning a future here!” She sucked in as much of a breath as she could, lowered her voice in an effort to plead with her mother, and said, “Gianni wouldn’t want to go, either.” She knew it was true. Her brother had told her numerous times that the only thing he remembered about Italy was that he’d been glad to leave it behind.

  But Gianna wouldn’t hear it. She straightened her shoulders, narrowed her brown eyes a little more, and lifted her chin defiantly. One last tear rolled down her cheek. “Don’t you dare speak his name. If you can so easily turn your back on your own family in this time, then you’ve no right to claim that family. You’re worse than a disappointment, Arianna. You’re a disgrace.”

  That was it. That was the last thing her mother had ever said to her, in any form. Her father had tried to talk to her shortly after, trying the sympathetic approach to get her to give in to her mother’s demands. But she was too much like her mother to give in, so she’d bid her father a tearful farewell and watched from a window as their car backed out of the driveway. She’d hated them both for months, until her father’s first letter arrived in the mail one day. The full page of kind, apologetic words had filled her with hope, and she’d put the five hundred dollar check straight into the bank, hoping to use the money to fly her parents out for a visit. She’d written back and waited on pins and needles for a response that never came.

  His second letter, accompanied by a smaller check, arrived seven months later. There was only a single sentence in response to her letter, and not a word about coming to see her or even asking her to come see them.

  Arianna sighed, eyes squeezed shut, and dragged herself out of her wandering memories. This was why she hated his letters. Why she did her best to simply not think about her family. But after spending the afternoon with Dean’s parents and sister, she couldn’t not think about the family she’d lost. Even if he weren’t asking about her past.

  “I’m sorry,” Dean said, reminding her that he was, in fact, still right beside her in the cab of the car. “It’s not any of my business.”

  She shook her head and managed another smile as she met his gaze again. “No,” she began, “I’m sorry. I got lost for a second.” She pulled in a breath, and added, “I never hear from them because my mother saw me staying in America as an unforgivable betrayal. They left for Italy on the third night after his funeral and haven’t been back since.”

  Dean released a breath and looked away, but she didn’t need to see his face to guess his mood. The temperature in the car had kicked up several degrees on his exhale.

  Swallowing against a rise of turbulent, confusing emotions, Arianna shifted and covered his nearest hand with hers. The warmth of his skin soothed her a bit, so she curled her fingers around his palm and swept her thumb over the back of his hand. When his widened eyes snapped back to hers, her smile was easier. “It’s still upsetting,” she admitted, “but I’ve learned to put it behind me. You don’t need to be upset for me.”

  He snorted and replied, “Like hell. I know grief can tear even close families apart, but it’s a stupid ass reason.” He paused, swallowed, and grumbled, “How the hell did they expect you survive alone at nineteen?”

  “She didn’t care,” Arianna replied with a shake of her head.

  “And your father?” Dean asked even as he caught her hand in his, wrapping more of his warm touch over her skin.

  She took a deep breath, fighting the contrasting emotions swirling in her gut, and said, “He’s always just been along for the ride. I think his way of trying to make things right is to send me these letters.” And it might have worked, if he’d ever acknowledged even one of the dozens of questions she’d asked in her responses.

  Dean exhaled again and tightened his hand around hers. “Listen,” he began after several weighted seconds, “if you ever need a shoulder, or an ear, or someone to help you blow off steam….”

  Arianna smiled, her heart fluttering again at his offer. She pulled on his hand even as she leaned in, and she brushed her lips over his cheek as she whispered, “I already have you on speed-dial.”

  Chapter Seven

  Dean was still reeling from the story Arianna had told him when he met up with his brothers at Mimi’s Café for lunch the following day. They were gathering for a small, informal congratulations celebration in honor of Logan’s engagement, and Dean wasn’t lost enough in his thoughts to not be reminded of how much he suddenly felt like the odd man out. He was the only brother left who hadn’t found his other half. The irony, of course, was that he would almost certainly have beaten them all down the aisle if things had gone the way he’d once planned. But that was ancient history now, and for the first time he couldn’t bring himself to dwell on it. Not in light of the tragedy he’d learned about the night before.

  He couldn’t imagine losing one of his siblings, let alone having the rest of his family turn their backs on him immediately afterward. His family was everything to him. They were all he truly had. He wasn’t so sure he’d recover as well as Arianna seemed to have if he’d been in her position. She was an amazing woman.

  “Earth to Dean?” Nate called, leaning across the table and snapping his fingers in Dean’s face. When Dean tuned back in to his surroundings, silently kicking himself for zoning out so blatantly, Nate sat back and grinned, adding, “Well, you know….”

  Dean rolled his eyes and grunted, “Hilarious.”

  “You okay?” Logan asked, turning a raised eyebrow over at him.

  Blake watched silently, the same question shining in his eyes, and Dean kicked himself a little harder.

  “Yeah,” Dean promised, gesturing vaguely. “Just got some stuff on my mind, sorry.”

  “Anything important?” Blake asked quietly. He didn’t say more, but Dean heard the point of the question loud and clear. Their feud with the Matthews’ was never far from any of their minds these days.

  “No,” Dean replied with a shake of his head. “Something else. Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

  Nate leaned forward again, resting his elbows on the table, and teased, “It’s about your new girlfriend, isn’t it?”

  All eyes snapped to Nate. Dean stared openly at Nate, briefly struck speechless, even as Blake’s and Logan’s attentions returned to him. Dean pulled in a deep breath, did his best to hide his oddly self-conscious reaction, and demanded, “My what?” He was sure he knew who Nate was referring to—there weren’t exactly many candidates for that joke—but he hadn’t been at all prepared for the comment.

  Nate’s grin broadened and he declared, “I heard all about how you brought Arianna home for dinner with Mom and Dad yesterday.”

  Faint incredulity in his voice, Blake asked, “You’re dating my coworker? At a time like this?”

  Instantly frustrated, Dean turned narrowed eyes on Blake and replied, “First off, I’m not dating anybody. I got called in to work. I wasn’t even there for dinner last night.” He paused, held Blake’s gaze, and added, “And, more importantly, if I wanted to date someone ‘at a time like this’ not a damned one of you would have room to lecture me about it.”

  “Don’t get defensive,” Blake said, his voice infuriatingly calm. “If you’re not dating her then why did you bring her to Mom and Dad’s in the first place?”

  Dean ground his teeth. He hated when someone tried to tell him not to be upset about something. “You know what,” he started, deciding this wasn’t somewhere he needed to be. But he cut himself off when his phone began ringing in his pocket. It had been a while since he’d been so grateful to hear the Firehouse’s ringtone. He extracted the device and put it to his ear. “Yeah?”r />
  He wasn’t surprised to hear Amelia Bradford, Chief Bradford’s daughter and the Firehouse receptionist, on the other end of the line. “I know it’s early,” she began, “but we need you to come in. Half the crew just got deployed to help out with that wildfire in Trinity County.”

  “It’s fine,” Dean assured her. “I’ll be there in twenty.” Amelia thanked him and disconnected as the waiter set the first plate of food on the table. Instead of addressing his siblings, Dean held out his hand and said, “I’m actually gonna need mine to go.” And that was fine with him.

  ****

  Arianna was infinitely glad Blake was replacing her that afternoon. It was Jay’s turn for a long day and that meant she’d already had to deal with him for the past several hours. He’d had nothing but questions—some far less subtle than others—about her and Dean. She had been horrendously tempted to play into it, just to see if that would shut him up. But she knew it would get back to Dean if she did and she didn’t want him thinking she was spreading rumors. She liked whatever it was she was building with Dean and she didn’t want to mess it up over something so stupid. So she’d locked her teeth around her tongue and counted the seconds until her morning shift was over. Two o’clock hadn’t come fast enough, and when it did finally roll around she was a little amazed she hadn’t gone full-on running from the beach.

  “Why must you always run away from your problems?” As always, it was her mother’s faintly disapproving voice in her head. Even before Gianni’s death she and her mother had had a strained relationship. The first time her mother had accused her of running away from her problems had been in junior high school. It had had something to do with a class she’d realized too late she couldn’t pass, but it was an argument that slowly escalated over the next several years. Once, the day after that dreaded birthday, her mother had gone so far as to tell her running was the only thing she was good at.