Sweet Burn

by Anne Marsh

  “Where’s Abbie?” he asked gruffly.

  It would have been nice if he’d greeted her. They were—temporarily—married.

  “Hello to you too.” Wait. She was supposed to be nice. She was turning over a new leaf. Convincing Mack that maybe he should take a second chance on them. In the spirit of acting nicer, she reached up and brushed a kiss over his cheek. “Honey.”

  He looks briefly amused, but then his eyes darkened. Shit. Whatever had brought him here, it wasn’t good.

  “I need to find Abbie,” he said. “Where is she?”

  Oh, hell.

  “She just ducked into the bathroom.”

  “Good to know.” Mack turned, clearly prepared to head in there after her.

  Rio gently bodychecked him. “What’s up?”

  “A call just came in over the radio. The Big Bear Rogues were the hotshot team trapped in the fire that blew over Last Chance Casino.”

  “That was over twenty-four hours ago.” The expression on Mack’s face said he knew that—and that it didn’t matter. Whatever he’d come here to say, it wasn’t good.

  “They had to deploy their shelters,” he continued. “They were cut off. They lost their radio equipment. Shit, I don’t know what happened, except that clearly everything went wrong. There was some confusion as to which teams were trapped.”

  Rio cursed. “What happened?”

  Mack shook his head. “Most of the team made it into a canyon and deployed their shelters.”

  “Most?” Rio asked the question they were both thinking.

  “Find Abbie,” Mack said. “Please.”

  Mimi looked over at the happy group of present-opening, laughing women. It had to be bad if Mack had come here now. “I’ll get her,” she said.

  She didn’t want to do this, but someone had to. The bathroom was empty, but there were feet beneath one of the two stalls. “Abbie?”

  “Here.” The toilet flushed, the door banged, and Abbie came out, all cheerful and babbling about how she already had to pee every hour on the hour, but there was no nausea yet, but she’d stacked up on crackers and… Oh. God. Somehow, Mimi had to shut her up and get her back outside to Mack.

  Who was going to give Abbie some really, really bad news.

  In the end, Mimi didn’t have to say much of anything at all. The flow of words stopped as Abbie caught sight of Mimi’s face.

  Mimi tucked an arm around her. “Mack’s here. He has some news about Will’s team.”

  ***

  Will was dead.

  The coroner—Christ, the coroner—needed dental records to be sure, but the wedding ring was right and there was only one hotshot missing from the Big Bear Rogues.

  Will.

  The bar had emptied out fast. Abbie hadn’t been loud, but she’d kind of collapsed in on herself and Mimi had marshaled Laura and Katie to take her to the hospital and make some phone calls. They were headed down to the hospital now. The reports from the field were imperfect, and there had been some confusion as to which hotshots were injured—and which were dead. Since Will hadn’t called Abbie (or answered any of the dozen texts she’d fired off), Mack was pretty damned certain which category Will fell into.

  It wasn’t fair.

  He fell into the familiar routine of helping Mimi close up. Different from their Friday nights because this had been a baby shower, but he’s wiping down the counter and manning the broom. He suspected they were both on autopilot.

  “What if that had been you?” she asked. The words came out sudden, but she’d clearly been thinking them over.

  “It wasn’t.” He stared at her, not knowing what to say.

  “Every time you go up,” she said and waved a hand. “It’s a possibility, isn’t it?”

  Of course it was. He ran a hand over his head, looking for the right words. They had so much to work out between them. They didn’t need this, too. “There’s danger in any job,” he said gruffly.

  “You jump out of a plane. Into the middle of forest fires.” She ticked her concerns off on her fingers. “Then you stay there, with no easy way out.”

  “That’s all true.” It was.

  “We could have died at Last Chance.”

  “We didn’t.”

  “No,” she agreed. “Instead, we got married.”

  “Or not.”

  Right. That was the part that left him feeling gobsmacked, like he’d jumped from the plane and was heading down towards his L.Z, right on target, when an unexpected wind hit him. “Mimi—”

  “I made a mistake,” she announced and grabbed a paper bag overflowing with pretty bows and crumpled paper. She clearly didn’t have the heart to sort through it right now. “I should have told you—the first time you asked—about Eddie. I didn’t. I don’t like thinking about it and I’ve put that time behind me.”

  He wasn’t so sure she had.

  “I’m going to take this out,” she said, gesturing with the bag.

  He didn’t blame her.

  “We could look into it,” she said over her shoulder as she headed for the door. “Together.”

  ***

  She propped the side door open like she always did. The damn thing locked automatically when it swung shut, so she wasn’t running the risk of getting locked out. Since Mack was there, her lack of a key wouldn’t be insurmountable—he’d probably open the front door for her—but she’d feel stupid. That emotion ranked high on her list of things not to repeat. She’d already done far too much of that.

  She stepped outside, holding the bag carefully away from her legs. Going back inside smelling like day-old bar slop wouldn’t up the romance factor any. Fortunately, the dumpster was just behind the bar, tucked away in a concrete block enclosure to keep any roaming wildlife from picnicking on what she threw away. When she looked backwards (because, hey, maybe part of was hoping that Mack would read between the lines of her last comment and come running after her), Mack was propped up against the bar, watching her. She had a feeling that he appreciated the clear line of sight because he still felt like he needed to keep an eye on her.

  Too bad, so sad. She popped the latch on the gate and stepped inside. Something swung her around, hard and fast, the bag hitting the ground as her palms slammed into the metal container with a sharp slap. Adrenaline pumped through her because, God, she wasn’t alone. The barrel of the gun pressed against her forehead was her first clue.

  “You’re a tough nut to crack, chica.” She didn’t recognize the rough voice in her ear or the hard arm dragging her up against a male body. It didn’t matter. She was an expert on trouble and she was ass-deep in it. She froze. She should run, should scream. Turn and knee the man in the balls. Instead, she did nothing, panting shallowly, because she had a gun pointed at her head and apparently that was her breaking point.

  “Sol?” She took the not-so-random guess.

  “None of your business,” he growled, but she knew she was right. Sol had apparently decided to get hands-on. Since his drive-by attempts hadn’t worked, he was here to finish the job personally.

  “You shouldn’t have testified,” he continued. “So I guess you and I do have business after all. I got friends who are real unhappy about what you had to say to our D.A.”

  “That’s water under the bridge.” She was afraid to breath too deeply. How easy was it to set a gun off accidentally?

  “Not so much.” She felt Sol’s shrug. “Maybe they re-open the case and it goes better if you’re not there to testify. Maybe your death don’t matter much at all, except for making me feel better, if you get what I mean.”

  He wanted her dead?

  Not scared or running, but dead.

  Sol didn’t say anything for a moment, just pressed the gun harder into her temple. She wished a bruise or a headache was all she had to worry about.

  “You don’t want to beg? Scream for help?”

  “I—” Was that croak her voice? Because right now, God, she’d do whatever it took to make it out of her d
umpster alive.

  “She doesn’t need to. She has me.” Mack exploded through the open gate, clocking Sol hard with the baseball bat she kept under the bar as his palm swung up, slapping the gun away from her head. The crack of his fist followed up his words with a one-two punch to the jaw. Sol’s head snapped back, slamming in to the metal side of the dumpster. Everything got mixed up for the next couple of seconds as Sol collapsed slowly toward the ground and she got into the action, kneeing him in the balls. Just to make sure.

  “Jesus.” Mack ran a hand over his head, staring down at the man lying on the ground at their feet. “You are such trouble.”

  He opened his arms and she fell into his embrace.

  Chapter Twenty

  It seemed to take far too long for Sheriff Hernandez to make her appearance and haul Sol Herring away. Mimi sat on the bench outside Ma’s and tried not to count the minutes she could have spent doing something else. Being somewhere else. The red-and-blue lights of the police cruiser flashed off Ma’s window, making the police presence at her place hard to miss. She’d be the star of Strong’s evening gossip yet again, but strangely she didn’t care one way or another. She’d spent a lifetime trying to make people talk, but right now all she felt was an enormous sense of relief. Maybe that chapter of her life was finally closed.

  She just hoped the chapter with Mack’s name all over it wasn’t.

  She looked over at him. He was doing his Grim Reaper impression, arms crossed over his chest while he stared after the police cruiser. She definitely got the feeling that he wished his fight with Sol had gone on for far longer than it had. That was his fault, she decided, for handling Sol as efficiently as he did everything else. Two quick, hard rights and her assailant had been out for the count on the pavement. And, if she’d kicked the guy in the ribs (not hard enough to break anything, but just enough to make herself feel like she’d contributed), well, that was their secret. Some things, Sheriff Hernandez did not need to know.

  “It’s over,” she said, when the silence had stretched on too long between them. When he didn’t say anything, she tried again.

  “He’ll go back to prison. No more parole for him.”

  “You’re free to get on with your life.” He didn’t sound happy about it. In fact, he sounded downright grumpy. Huh. The note of irritation in his voice had possibilities. He didn’t sound like he was jonesing to hit the road.

  “I get it,” he continued as the good sheriff pulled out. “You don’t need me to keep an eye out for you. You’re done playing sleepover and I can go away now.”

  Wow.

  That was so not what she’d had in mind.

  “Apparently we have really different definitions of marriage,” she said.

  “Absolutely,” he agreed promptly. “Mine doesn’t include bigamy.”

  “We don’t know that I committed bigamy,” she grumbled.

  “But there’s apparently a possibility,” he pointed out ruthlessly.

  “Well, yes.” She stared up at him, wondering what her next step should be. He didn’t look thrilled at the possibility that they were actually married. That observation started a little frisson of anger uncurling in her. He’d asked her to marry him. In fact, he’d been downright insistent. She looked down at her rings, pointed the right way out. The stones flashed in the light.

  Too bad for him if he’d come down with a case of cold feet now.

  Eddie had gotten cold feet, once they’d driven back to Chicago and he’d gotten an earful from his family about the kind of person Mimi was. He’d been perfectly happy to throw in the towel on their three-day-old marriage and walk away. No harm, no foul, he’d said to her and she’d agreed because, really, what else was she supposed to say? Stay with me and give us a chance?

  In retrospect, that probably would have been the better choice.

  She hadn’t fought for Eddie. She’d let him tell her what the future of their relationship was. They’d been young. Maybe, the marriage would have ended anyhow. Or not. Until someone invented a time machine, there was simply no way to know. It didn’t matter any more, she realized with some surprise. Eddie was her past. Mack…he could be her future. She snuck another peek at his face. Nope. His face was carved in stern lines, his whole body radiating aloofness.

  No surprise.

  She’d fucked up. She’d pushed him away. So… now it was up to her to do the right thing and make the first move. It would probably involve groveling. Begging. And an apology. Damn it.

  He turned his head and looked at her when she huffed. She hated apologizing. “Problem?” he asked.

  Only if he wasn’t accepting apologies today. “You coming up?” She hesitated, with a foot on the bottom of the stairs leading up to her apartment.

  He didn’t move. “Is that an invitation?”

  “Yeah.” She started up the stairs, feeling his eyes on her butt, her back. He hadn’t said yes, but he also hadn’t said no, either. She could work with that. As soon as they were inside and the door closed, she considered her next move. Not having much experience with apologies, she had no idea what the best venue was. Should she sit him down on the couch? At the kitchen table? Taking him to bed seemed like the most fun, but she had a feeling that then she wouldn’t be doing much apologizing. Just a whole lot of kissing and moaning. Those were good things—and she had every intention of getting there with this man—but she owed him the truth first.

  “Mimi—” He stopped in the middle of the living room, so she took that as her cue. No bedroom for her yet.

  She waited a beat, but he didn’t say anything more. Her turn. “I screwed up.”

  She tilted her head back to watch his face. She felt like she had four pairs of arms, a dozen hands and no idea where to put any of them. The three feet between her and Mack yawned as deep as that abyss thingie on the ocean floor. She was also more than a little afraid of falling in and never coming back up. But for a chance at Mack… she was going to give it a shot. It would help, though, if he cracked a smile or opened his arms for her or did anything but stare back at her.

  “Uh-huh,” he said levelly. “And?”

  Damn it. He was going to make her work for it.

  “I should have told you about Eddie and being married. You wanted to get married and—” She stopped.

  “And what?” He was definitely not feeling cooperative.

  “I wanted you to have what you wanted.” She shrugged.

  “Jesus.” He closed his eyes briefly. “You married me to throw me a bone? To make me happy? How on earth did you think that was going to work out?”

  She sighed. “That’s part of the problem. Is there any chance you could hold me now?”

  She could feel his sigh, despite the oceanic trench separating them. “Come here.”

  He didn’t move, but he opened his arms. She fell into them. She probably should have given him sexy sashay or held his eyes as she crossed the distance towards him, but all she could think about was getting where she wanted to be. Where she needed to be.

  “I’m holding you,” he prompted, his arms closing around her as she buried her face in his chest. He smelled so good. “Tell me about this problem.”

  “I don’t think so much when I’m around you.” She swallowed. Shit. Maybe they could do all their talking tonight and just live in blissful silence for the next ten years or do. “All I do is feel. I love you.”

  His arms tightened more and that was when she knew it was going to be okay. His cheek brushed the top of her head and she burrowed deeper. “That’s why you married me?”

  She had to be honest with him, she reminded herself. “Yes, but I didn’t know that. My first marriage—it was more disaster than not. We were young and stupid.”

  “And in love,” he said and she nodded her head. That had been true, too.

  “We were,” she agreed, “but it wasn’t enough. We weren’t prepared to work at the being married part or to do much of anything once we were out of bed.”

  “I’m
fairly certain I have zero interest in hearing about your sex life with the man you loved.” She could hear the smile in his voice.

  “My family was pissed as hell. I’d always been the wild child and that was the final straw for them. I was selfish and emotional and determined to upset the family apple cart. That meant that I needed to go. They didn’t want me around anymore.”

  “They said that?” Now he sounded pissed and that made her happy. It was going to be the two of them taking on the world, for better or for worse and all that crap. And, she had a feeling that she’d be giving Mack plenty of crap in the years to come.

  “I failed them. I was no poster child.”

  “They failed you too.” He sounded certain. “If we have a daughter some day, she’ll always be able to come home. We’re going to do plenty of yelling and crying, but we’re going to do it with love.”

  Definitely certain. God, she really did love him.

  “Can we be done talking now? Unless perhaps you want to tell me you love me? Because I’m out of words and I’ve got a perfectly good bed going to waste in the other room.”

  He grinned. “I love you. Should we have a code word?”

  The only code words she knew were from a mercifully brief experiment with bondage. That had so not been her thing.

  “Eager to get in touch with your kinky side?”

  “A code word for a hug.” He smoothed his hands over her hair. “In case you feel too vulnerable.”

  She liked that idea. Plus, Mack looked like he’d rather have his fingernails pulled off than keep on discussing their feelings. Knowing he found this as uncomfortable as she did was somehow immensely cheering. They were a good fit for each other.

  “I love you,” she said again. She’d probably be saying those three words at least once a day for the next fifty years or so.