by Nicole Snow
That, I think, suits the Landon I know.
He wouldn’t be able to live in a dark, closed house that made him feel caged.
The kitchen itself is all white marble, granite, and pale honey wood tones. I tentatively slide myself onto a high bar-style kitchen chair in unvarnished pinewood, leaning my arms on the cool surface of the kitchen island.
“Listen,” I start, swallowing against my thick, fumbling tongue. “I...I don’t know what happened. I never touched anything. I made a pot of tea, but I know I turned off the burner before I left. I should've just...I should've –”
“Stop.” He cuts me off with the single cold, clipped, forbidding word.
My words dry up, my tongue rooting itself somewhere in the back of my throat. He braces his hands against the edge of the counter, leaning on them hard, staring down at the thick granite slab with his eyes stark. Strange. Intense.
He grinds his jaw back and forth, then bites off, “You’ve got the job, Kenna.”
I blink. “Pardon?”
He shoots me a glare bordering on resentful. “I said you’ve got the damn job. You don’t have to leave.”
“Oh.”
“That’s all you have to say? Oh?”
“I – sorry, I’m...” I’m fumbling. Cursing myself in my head.
Whatever happened to my vow to not be afraid of him? Damn it, damn it, damn it.
I take a deep breath, soothing my nerves, wishing my heart would stop flitting around like a butterfly in a glass jar. “I’m still trying to process all this. That's all. When I left, you wanted me gone. When I came back the beach house was on fire and now you want me to stay. It’s a lot to take in.”
“I’m stuck,” he admits grudgingly. “And this little fiasco just drove home how stuck I am. I’m heading out to Sonoma for the weekend soon. Big job. Imagine if that fire happened here in the main house, and no one was around to call 9-11.”
I don't want to. Clearing my throat, I look at him, promising I won't look away.
“You’ve got a security system,” I point out, then mentally kick myself for undermining my own case. I don’t know when I started wanting to stay here, but I’m not helping myself right now.
He shoots me a fiercer glower. “And the security team won’t get here fast enough for them.”
He jerks his chin toward the windowsill – toward the two near-identical slate gray, velvet-furred cats sprawled there, both staring attentively out the window at the small, distant figures of the firefighters still working around the beach house.
Now, I get it, and I kind of wish I didn’t.
Landon could be a hero in one of my books.
Snarly asshole with a soft spot for his pets.
And just like one of my heroines, I’m going all wibbly inside over it. Sometimes, it's the clichés that get a girl when she isn't looking.
Damn, I know this trope. I write it. I should know better than to fall prey to it.
Hell, I make my heroines smarter than this, don't I? And I’m smarter than my characters!
Then again, old history and dangerous men have a way of making a girl weak, too. Pair them up with a bad cliché, and it's a drama cocktail on the rocks.
I keep my eyes on the cats. Not on him. I feel like if I look at him, he’ll be able to tell all the weird stuff going through my head. “Well,” I say neutrally. “I mean, taking care of the cats isn’t a huge problem, I guess.”
“Good.” It’s harsh and tight like he’s back in the military and I’m one of his soldiers, and he’s just finished detailing a mission. “You’ll stay in the guest room. Don’t get me wrong, Kenna, this is a trial run. Just for the weekend. We’ll see how you do.”
Right. Trial run.
Because the Landon who screamed my name while tearing himself up to get to me is gone, and cold, angry, hateful Landon is back.
And cold, angry, hateful Landon can’t be caught dead actually giving ground. Especially not to me.
I close my eyes. “Trial run,” I repeat, trying to force the words around the knot in my throat. “Got it. Promise I won’t let you down.”
“I don’t want your promises. Just feed and water the cats, and try not to let this house catch fire.”
I wince. I know he’s not deliberately trying to say it’s my fault, but right now, everything hurts way more than it should. Even if I wasn’t in the fire, the whole thing is catching up to me in a rush of trauma. Cold shock.
My emotions are all poisoned on one raw nerve, and he’s scraping on it just by breathing in my space. Which is why I shouldn’t say anything else. Just accept it, and try to hunker down for some sleep.
I already know it’s a bad idea to open my mouth, and yet I do anyway, asking, “Since when do you have cats?”
Silence. It’s an innocent question, one that shouldn’t mean anything, but I can feel the tension bristling.
I risk a glance at him, and there’s nothing there. I see flesh, I see the shape of a man, I see a hard, forbidding stare, but there’s nothing there to make him a person anymore. It’s all walled away inside, completely shut down, and the only thing I get from him is a sense of expectation that says he doesn’t want me to be here.
Fine. I slide off the barstool, turning my back on him. “I’ll go. Better see if my stuff survived the fire, and get my other things from the car.”
“Guest room’s the second door to the right off the stairs. I’ll be gone by tomorrow afternoon,” he grinds out.
I start to answer, but there’s a sudden rattle, a hard slam. I look up in time to see the chair he’d crashed into toppling back into place, and his back as it disappears through the open arched doorway into the rest of the house.
How does this situation just keep getting worse and worse?
I stand there in the kitchen for long moments, heartsick and heartsore, then drift over to the cats and let them sniff my fingers. “Hey, little guys.” I offer a weak smile. “Guess we’re spending the weekend together. Maybe at least you’ll like me.”
One of them meows. Loudly.
As in, so loud it almost hurts, but there’s something about it that startles a laugh from me, especially when the loud one butts up against my hand, followed by the other swarming in for attention.
Suddenly I’m super busy. Two hands, two cats, and if there was a third, I’d be in trouble because they want all the love right now. I spend a few minutes finding soft spots under their jaws. Then that little sweetness right behind their ears that makes them melt.
When Landon’s willing to speak to me again, I’ll have to ask their names.
Thinking of Landon, though, sobers me up. Reminds me I should get moving. I don’t want to piss him off more by coming back to the house late enough to wake him when he’s probably got a busy morning ahead.
I let myself out through the kitchen door and head down the path to the beach house. The flames are completely gone, but the firemen are still moving in and out of the house, probably checking for structural damage. I hope it’s safe to go inside. Doesn’t look like the bedroom or living room where I’d left my things took too much of a hit, though I hope my stuff doesn’t reek like smoke.
My heart sinks just looking at it, even though it isn't mine. The whole place will need big repairs.
I’m trying to figure out who I should talk to for permission to go in, when I overhear two of the firefighters talking.
“Anything we should note on the report?” one of them asks, glancing at his partner, a woman with soot smeared down her cheeks and dotted on her baggy, oversized fire-retardant uniform.
“Nothing important,” she says. “Looks like the fire was started by some brush nearby. Probably another rich asshole who didn’t get the bulletin about clear-cutting with the weather this dry.”
Part of me wants to jump in to defend Landon. He’s not an idiot.
He wouldn’t be so careless. He'd know California is such a wildfire haven, even this close to the ocean. One little spark and a pile of dry leaves
is all it takes to burn down half a county. But I keep my mouth shut, duck my head, and slink toward the door.
Why bother? Why do I want to defend a man who hates me, anyway?
If the situation were reversed, he’d throw me to the wolves.
And maybe he'd be justified.
6
Like Pulling a Cat's Tail (Landon)
In the words of my esteemed and late father, “This is some bullshit.”
I don’t know what’s pissing me off more. This entire situation, or the fact that I have multiple options to choose from when defining what, exactly, is pure and utter bullshit that I don’t have time for right now.
Kenna. In my goddamned house. I don’t want her there. I don’t want her alone with the possibility that, no matter what the firefighters or police say, there’s someone prowling around trying to get cute by playing arsonist.
I don’t want the weird feeling that got all knotted and crazy in my chest when I started to come back into the kitchen, watched her getting cozy with Velvet and Mews, and hung back like a soppy idiot. Just staring with her completely oblivious while the cats crawled over her like I’m starting to want to.
No. Fuck no.
I’m not a cat. I don’t need those pretty little hands petting me. Or doing anything else.
And I sure as hell don’t need to be out here at the crack of midnight, kicking through the debris, all that’s left of half my goddamn beach house.
I’m going to need to put some kind of protective covering up. Not that it ever rains a ton this time of year, but there’s still wind, sand, animals, little rich kid shits who like to play with lighters.
I just don’t quite believe the official verdict: no foul play.
Mainly because I keep my turf clean, and there weren’t any bushes planted close enough to the house to cause a fire. With the house half-on, half-off the sandy beach, there’s nothing but grass ringing the backside.
If there was enough loose brush to set a fire, could someone have put it there?
Maybe drunk kids would be that stupid, especially after I’ve chased them away more than once. But something doesn’t feel right.
This might be more than just kids.
Which makes the idea of leaving Kenna here alone even worse.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I’ll brief her. Fill her in on my thoughts, let her know what to do in the event she feels unsafe. Hell, I might not even take my whole team with me to Sonoma.
Maybe it’ll be a good idea to leave one of my guys behind on call. Milah Holly’s not the only one who needs protection.
And if I’m willing to admit it to myself, I care a hell of a lot more about Kenna’s safety than Milah’s.
Whatever happened between us, she’s still Steve’s little sister. And even if I want to murder Steve right now, I'd never let anything happen to Kenna.
I glance back toward the main house. The light’s still on in the upstairs guest bedroom, but I know her. I know her better than I want to admit, and I’d bet she fell asleep with the lights on, probably still fully dressed, a book half over her face.
I see I’m ninety percent right, once I go back to the house and head upstairs. The guest bedroom door hangs open as I pass. I can't not peek inside.
She’s sprawled sideways on the bed on top of the covers, her shorts riding up to expose the slender smoothness of a pale, soft thigh, her shirt twisted in clinging layers against her waist. The overhead lights are on, bright as day. But the book’s not over her face.
It’s underneath her cheek, and I think she just might be drooling on it and ruining the ink.
That weird feeling is back in my chest again. I don’t like it.
I hate it because it comes with the world's worst case of blue balls. I haven't had a woman in months. Too busy. And I can't remember the last time I shoved my raging dick between the legs of a woman worth the fuck.
I whip my eyes off her shorts before I wish they'd burn right through them. Having Kenna Burke a few rooms away is already torture.
It'll be a special kind of hell if I start thinking too hard about my hands on her body, tearing off her panties, taking those pert, teasing tits in both my hands until she whines real sweet.
Fuck!
Sighing, I shift my pants and then lean into the room, just enough to flip the lights off. Then I quietly shut the door and hate-march myself to my bed.
* * *
I’m up again before the dawn.
Too much trouble sleeping all the way through the night, and my head always seems clearest in the dark hours before the sun comes up.
My morning swim helps. I slip into the cool dark waters, ignoring the throb of my bruised shoulder, pouring everything in my bones into it. I do this every morning it’s warm enough; it’s why I built my house on the beach, so close to the sand.
I feel more at home in the ocean than I do on land. Fighting the strong pull of the currents keeps me in shape, and suspended underneath the waves with the world submerged into the crash and call of the sea I can feel like...
Like I’m weightless.
Like the insane stress and worry my life has become is gone, and I can just float until my mind clears and my thoughts buckle and I can start the day with a clean slate.
I feel a little less like destroying everything in my path by the time I pull myself out of the waves, towel off on the sand, and head up to the house. The sun is just breaking over the horizon, turning the pale grays and whites of my home into a multicolored canvas of pinks and blues and purples and golds.
I’m not expecting company when I let myself in through the kitchen door.
And I’m certainly not expecting Kenna, sitting right there at the kitchen island, her legs crossed primly in another pair of those damnably short shorts, her fingers busy with a pen, scratching across the pages of a little black book in scribbled dashes of ink.
I hadn’t realized she was an early riser, too. Also didn't know, last night, the implications of giving her free run of the house while I’m still in it.
She’s so completely focused she doesn’t even realize I’m there, though she’s got a hand free for Velvet in her lap. The cat shamelessly prostrates himself for her idly stroking hand. Mews prowls around the legs of the barstool, pushing himself up to rub against her little bare feet, occasionally being rewarded by a distracted scrunch of her toes between his ears.
Little traitors.
All it takes is one soft touch, and they’re fraternizing with the enemy.
If she keeps being nice to my cats, it'll be that much damn harder to tell her to fuck off and leave once I come back from Sonoma.
I linger in the doorway, but as I step inside Velvet perks up, jumping from her lap and trotting toward me, Mews on his heels. I’ve suddenly got two lumps of fur twined around my ankles, plus a pair of wide, startled green eyes watching me, looking so lost it’s not hard to tell she hadn’t even realized I was here.
Tearing my gaze from hers, I bend to stroke between the cats’ ears and down their backs, up to the tip of their tails. When I look back she’s watching me with a sort of quiet fondness.
Something I really don't need right now.
Especially because the last time I saw her with a little black book in her hands, she was prying where she didn’t belong.
Everything inside me hardens, the tension I’d sloughed off in the pool cutting through me again to leave me bristling. She blinks at me, then falters, her head bowing, a shamefaced flush across her cheeks.
She remembers, too. She doesn’t need to say it. The guilt in every line of her body speaks for her.
She remembers what she did. I made sure she'd never forget.
“Sorry,” she mumbles. “I haven’t had much inspiration for a while, and it just hit this morning. I didn’t realize you’d be here.”
I don’t want to talk to her, all of a sudden. But I need to.
It's business. And I need to keep it strictly business, yet there’s a hard knot in the pit of my sto
mach that’s thinking of anything but keeping professional as I close in, watching how her hair falls across her face.
She’s never been able to keep it wholly in a ponytail, soft chestnut strands always slipping free like they just can’t keep themselves from touching her irresistible lips and playing against her cheeks. Those tumbling sweeps of hair shadow her downswept eyes, now, and there’s an itching in my fingers that wants to brush her hair back, skim it across her brow, lift her chin until she looks at me with those eyes that always seem so innocent no matter what happens to her.
She’s not innocent, I remind myself sharply. There’s nothing innocent about her.
I clear my throat, shifting to lean against the counter, looking for that perfect neutral distance between too close and too far. Hell, even being in the same house with her is too close, but I can deal until I ship out for the gig. I rest my elbows on the counter and tell her, “We need to talk.”
Her head flies up. Her eyes widen. She’s so damned transparent, so guileless, that I can tell what she thinks I mean. That I want to talk about what happened back then, years ago.
She's flat out wrong. If the day ever comes when I'm ready to talk about that, shoot me first.
Before she opens her mouth, I cut her off. “About the fire,” I clarify. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
Her brows knit together. “What do you mean?”
I don’t say anything for several moments. I don’t know how to say this without either panicking her or sounding like a paranoid asshole, and I’m already in bona fide grumpy old man territory with my temper seething every time I have to chase those goddamn kids off my lawn.
Finally, “This isn’t the first incident,” I force out grudgingly. “It’s just been little things. People fucking with my shit. I wrote it off, blamed those rich brats screwing around on the beach, but this was dangerous. This fire could’ve hurt someone. That, to me, says foul play. And motive.”
