Fire Me Up

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “God damn it.” He shifted his weight to bend down and go for a repeat performance with the finicky door, but Carly knelt down like nothing doing to scoop up the keys.

  “I’ve got it.” She maneuvered them into the lock with effortless finesse and a tiny smile. “Come on, let’s get you situated. Your arm must hurt.”

  “It’s fine.” Sure. As long as fine was synonymous with this sucks out loud, Adrian was absolutely stellar.

  “Mmm.” Carly nudged her way into his apartment, eyeing the stark walls and lack of furniture. “You’re supposed to take those pain meds with food. Why don’t I throw something together and we’ll talk?”

  “I don’t really need the medicine. Why don’t we go back to the restaurant? You’re cutting it close for dinner prep, and I’m sure I can . . . do something,” he finished lamely. Christ, he should be up to his elbows in mise en place right now, giving their pastry chef, Bellamy, a hard time and barking orders at the line cooks. Had that really only been yesterday?

  “Bellamy and Gavin have dinner prep under control for now. You and I need to talk.”

  Adrian nodded. As much as he wanted to avoid yapping about what was already done, they really did need to come up with a plan. Just because he wasn’t cleared for the kitchen didn’t mean he couldn’t work.

  He lowered himself onto the time-battered stool at the breakfast bar separating his tiny kitchen from the tiny rest of the place. “So I’ve been thinking. What if I help run payroll and kitchen inventory for the next couple of weeks?”

  Carly’s brows arced skyward. “With a broken arm?”

  “I know it’s not ideal, but at least it’s something. And now that the garden is starting to bear more produce, I can oversee that, too.”

  The project had been Carly’s brainchild last year, and a brilliant one at that. The resort’s two-acre on-site garden had already reduced their costs and allowed produce to go from plot to plate in hours rather than days or weeks. He might not be able to do any of the manual labor, but they had a gardener and landscapers for that stuff anyway. Maybe they could use his help somewhere out there.

  Carly leaned against the thin expanse of Formica counter space between them, putting on a wistful smile. “Are you going to accomplish all that with one hand tied behind your back?”

  Adrian shrugged out of instinct, and his shoulder and arm ganged up on him in an epic game of we hate you. He sucked in a breath, but steadied his voice over the echoing pain. “I’ve done worse.”

  “I know, gnoccone. But we have a lot to consider. Things are different now.”

  “Different how?” It was just a broken arm, for Chrissake. Six weeks and he’d be good as new.

  Carly paused, her voice going quiet and uncharacteristically soft. “For starters, I’m pregnant.”

  Adrian felt his jaw unhinge, and all the breath left his lungs on a hard whoosh. “You’re . . . what?”

  “I was going to tell you when you got back to the restaurant tonight. I’m due in October.” Her hands went from the aging counter to the lower section of her chef’s whites, right between the twin rows of buttons.

  His gut gave a healthy combination of twist-and-yank. “Holy shit. Are you . . . are you okay? I mean, you’re happy, right?” Damn, he was doing a spectacular job of botching this. They were supposed to be best friends! But the only stuff he knew about making babies was how not to. Since when had she wanted a kid?

  But Carly simply laughed, waving off his verbal bumbling. “Yes, I’m happy.”

  “Wait a second.” The math filtered past the shock and into his brain. “You’re due in October? That’s only six months from now. How long have you known about this?”

  She dropped her gaze to her hands, but he’d be willing to bet it wasn’t because they were suddenly interesting. “I wanted to wait until the second trimester to tell anybody, to be sure the baby was healthy.”

  “So nobody knows?”

  “Almost nobody.” Carly fiddled with a loose button on her chef’s jacket, rolling it between her pinched fingers. “Obviously Jackson knows. And Bellamy guessed when I spent those couple of days throwing up last month.”

  Adrian froze to his seat, toeing the line between confused and frustrated. “I thought that was food poisoning.” He’d even triple-checked all their food-handling procedures because of it to make sure no one else got sick.

  “I didn’t know what else to say, Ade, and I was scared. I swear to God, expectant mothers shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. The medical jargon alone is terrifying.”

  Her wide-eyed expression showed her words for the truth, and it stemmed his frustration. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just surprised.”

  She’d never mentioned wanting a baby before, let alone trying to actively have one. While he wasn’t exactly a talkabout-your-feelings-by-the-campfire kind of guy, they were still best friends. At the very least, something this major deserved a mention.

  “I know, and my timing sucks.” She gestured to his arm. “But this baby is going to mean big changes. For all of us.”

  Despite the smile blooming over Carly’s face, her words peppered holes in Adrian’s chest. “You need me in the kitchen now more than ever.”

  She shook her head and moved around the breakfast bar to look him right in the eye. “For now, I’m going to ask Bellamy to move back up to the line. She knows the menu from before she switched to pastry, and she’s got great experience as a savory chef.”

  “Who’s going to be your pastry chef?” Adrian asked, hating the sting in his tone. Was he really so easily replaced?

  “I have to talk to management, but I think we can set up a short-term contract with The Sweet Life, down on Main Street, and have them supply us with pastries from their bakery. Bellamy should be able to supplement with our specialty items, and one of the line cooks might be able to move to garde manger to fill in the gaps. It’ll take a little doing, but we’ll work it out.”

  “Okay, but I could still do something,” Adrian argued, digging his heels in hard. “You shouldn’t be working doubles. That can’t be good for you, right?” He dropped his eyes to her midsection, which looked the same as it always did. But holy crap, there was a kid in there.

  The normalcy of yesterday hurtled even further away.

  Carly smiled reassuringly. “My doctor says I’m fine to work for now, and now that the morning sickness is gone, I feel pretty good. I think you’re the one who needs to rest.”

  He bit back an exasperated breath. No way was he going to let her down now. There had to be something he could do, for both their sakes. “I get that working the line is out for a little while. But in a few days when this sling comes off, who knows, maybe—”

  “No.” Carly’s tone brooked no argument. “I’m not talking about resting for a couple of days or weeks for your body to heal, although you need that, too. I’m talking about this.” She reached out, gently flipping his uninjured palm up to reveal the dark lettering tattooed on his right forearm, and Adrian’s hand tightened in hers. “You made a promise to your nonna that you’re not making good on, Adrian. It’s time you started.”

  His heart punched in his chest. “Carly, don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” Her eyes glittered over his, but she’d never been one to hold back. “Look, I’m grateful as hell that you ran La Dolce Vita while I was gone, but you were clearly on ten this morning, and that was before this even happened.” She nodded down at the sling hugging his body, and fuck, the thing suddenly felt like a noose. “So do you want to tell me what’s really going on with you?”

  “What’s going on with me?” he repeated, stiffening against the scuffed wood of the bar stool.

  But Carly didn’t let up. “You’re working nonstop seventy-hour weeks, you nearly cleaned my clock this morning before checking to see who I was, and you don’t even want to take six hours off after breaking your arm. What are you trying to hide from?”

  “Nothing. I just needed a little sleep this morning, like
you said,” he argued, hating where this was going with every fiber in his worn-out body.

  “And what about last week, or last month? This go-hard routine isn’t going to get rid of your ghosts, Ade. I’m going on an extended leave of absence next year, but before I do, I need to know you’re straight. And right now . . .”

  Adrian’s head snapped up. “I can run the kitchen just fine.”

  Her expression softened, and damn it, he’d rather she cuss him up one side and down the other than give him the sympathy eyes. “I know you can. It’s the rest of you I’m worried about. For the last couple of months, you haven’t been you. Damn it, Adrian, we’ve been in Pine Mountain for over a year now and you don’t even have furniture. It’s like you’re here, but you’re empty. You’re not keeping your promise.”

  Fear, frustration, and anger merged into a trifecta of crappy emotions in his chest. “I’m doing exactly what I said I’d do. I belong in the kitchen. It’s all I have.”

  “No, it’s not. You can’t live without regrets if you never leave the kitchen, no matter how much you think you need to be there.” Carly leaned in, squeezing his good arm right over his thickly lettered tattoo before moving toward the door. “Look, you’ve been through a lot today. Try to get some rest. I’ll come back tomorrow to check on you and bring you some food. We can talk some more then if you want.”

  But Adrian knew better. “You’re not going to let me back into the restaurant, are you?”

  “No, gnoccone. Not until you heal. Both your arm and the rest of you.”

  Teagan made her way through the front door at the Double Shot just in time to catch a thick string of curse words flowing from behind the bar. Despite the exhaustion threatening the rest of her, a smile poked at the corners of her mouth. Her father’s Irish accent was deceptively melodic, even as it curled around the harsh profanity directed at the case of beer in front of him.

  “Trouble in paradise, Da?” Teagan’s purposeful stride made quick work of the dining room’s battle-tested hardwood floor. She slipped behind the mahogany bar lining the entire back wall, dodging a half keg of Budweiser and a rolling cart full of clean pint glasses. Her father’s russet hair was graying more at the temples with each passing day, but his troubled scowl brightened to a smile as she approached.

  “Ah! There’s my pretty girl. I was just wrestlin’ with these boxes, gettin’ ready for the night before I prep the kitchen. Don’t pay me no mind.” He turned to let her plant a peck on his weathered cheek, and her gut twisted hard at the deep shadows painted under his eyes. A sheen of exertion seeded his brow, and his slower-than-usual movements weren’t lost on her.

  “This is a lot of work. Why don’t you let Tommy do the heavy lifting?” Teagan’s gaze roamed over the cases of beer stacked in a haphazard tower by the cooler at midbar, hating every inch of how hard her father had to work. Sure, this season had been slow out of the gate, but with decent traffic from college kids skiing on the weekends and a healthy cast of regulars from town, the place was successful enough. And all those late nights added up after a while.

  Especially when you’d been at them for twenty-five years, and single-parented a daughter on top of that.

  “Can’t,” her father grunted, thrusting two longneck bottles into the cooler hard enough to send ice skittering onto the rubber mat beneath his feet. “I gave Tommy the night off.”

  “You want to do a Friday night with no barback?” Her brows popped toward her hairline. Tommy was the only runner they had on payroll right now, and even though their Friday nights had been leaner than usual lately, it was still a long way to last call. Hauling your own barware and beer gave those nonstop hours on your feet a whole new level of ugh, busy or not.

  Her father mopped his brow with a flannel sleeve. “Brennan’ll be at the door. He can help out when things get quiet.”

  Well, at least they weren’t going without a bouncer, too. Teagan plucked a clean bar towel off the stack in front of her, snapping it at her father before putting it to good use on the time-buffed wood. “You need to stop being so nice. Next time Tommy asks for a weekend night off, tell him no.” She scrubbed at a particularly difficult spot on the bar for a minute before the silence revealed her father’s stare. “What?” she asked, staring back.

  A slow beat passed before he returned his attention to the beer cooler with a wistful smile. “You’re a stubborn one, just like . . .” He trailed off, the smile disappearing. “Well. You draw more flies with honey than vinegar, love.”

  Teagan froze at her father’s unspoken déjà vu, but she checked her feelings in favor of some good, old-fashioned cynicism. He was nice enough to give a stranger the shirt right off his back. Never mind that he’d only end up cold for his trouble.

  “I don’t know. Last time I checked, vinegar gets the job done, and without the mess, too.” Okay, so maybe she was a little rough around the edges, while her father had more inherent charm. Still, she managed to get by, and without being a doormat on top of it. She didn’t need to be all touchy-feely to take care of business, so honestly, what good would it do to change her colors?

  Her father’s low chuckle cut through her thoughts. “One day, someone will have you singing a different tune. Wait and see.”

  Teagan’s thoughts zeroed in on a pair of stormy hazel eyes, and her hand flew to her lips before she could pull back on the thought or the sizzling hot bolt of attraction that went with it.

  Oh yeah, no. The memory of Adrian’s ill-fated kiss, along with the ridiculous ice-cream craving she’d been having all damned day, could take a freaking hike. The last thing she needed was someone to change her tune. The one and only time she’d let anyone take care of her had ended in disaster, and it wasn’t something she was eager to repeat.

  Ever.

  Teagan took another swipe at the bar, the towel knotted around her fingers tight enough to make them smart. “I don’t think so, Da. Honey’s not exactly my thing.” She paused just long enough to snare the word with air quotes. “And anyway, I’m happy here, working the bar with you.”

  Her father stood abruptly from his crouched position behind the bar, turning to put the last of the beer in the cooler. “You know, about that. I think it’s time we—”

  But the rest of his response fell prey to the sound of the bottle tumbling from his hand, smashing into bits as it hit the lip of the chill chest on its way to the floor.

  “Da!” Adrenaline skidded through Teagan’s veins, and she deftly maneuvered around the tower of boxes to arrive at her father’s side. He sagged against the bar, his breath rattling like an old storm door as he tried—unsuccessfully—to wave her off.

  “I’m fine,” he rumbled, but his wince betrayed the lie. Damn it, had he been this pale a few minutes ago? “Musta found my feet too quickly. Just let it pass.”

  “I don’t think so.” Teagan hammered her focus into place despite the fact that her heartbeat had gone haywire, dropping down to brace an arm around her father. Thankfully, he stopped trying to fight her, and she lowered him to sit on the floorboards by the cash register, outside the circumference of broken glass and spattered beer foam.

  “Here. Look at me.” Teagan mashed down the cold fear spearing through her chest, wrapping her fingers around her father’s wrist. Jeez, when did he get so thin? “Do you have any pain in your chest or your arm?” She flipped her free wrist upward, counting meticulously, not pleased with the thready staccato of his pulse.

  “You’re not gettin’ rid of me just yet, darlin’,” he wheezed out, mustering a weak smile. “There’s nothing wrong with my chest. My ticker’s right as rain.”

  She snapped up his left hand, unconvinced. “Squeeze.”

  He did, with enough pressure that she was momentarily satisfied. “Told you. Fine.”

  “You almost passed out just standing still. That hardly counts as fine.” Teagan ran through the checklist of possibilities in her head. “Numbness? Any tingling or weakness on this side?”

  “It’
s a little dizzy spell. Give an old man a break.”

  She didn’t budge a fraction of an inch, checking his pupils as best she could in the low light. “When was the last time you ate something?”

  Her father paused, guilt flashing in his amber eyes. “I don’t remember.”

  She shifted to her feet, watching him the whole way as she grabbed a carton of orange juice from the cooler next to the beer fridge. After a few sips, his pulse evened out a little, but Teagan’s mind was made up.

  “I’m calling the station. I want you to go to Riverside for a workup.” Nick Brennan, their bouncer and backup bartender, would be here in a few minutes. He and Lou could at least get the rest of the afternoon prep done and call Tommy in while she got her father squared away.

  “I’m not goin’ back ta Riverside.” Her father clipped out each word, precise and hard. “I don’t need any more tests.”

  Teagan stared, her movements grinding to a graceless halt. “What did you say?”

  Her father frowned, but didn’t stand down. “I don’t need any more tests. I’ve already been poked, prodded, and turned into a pincushion a coupla months ago.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” It wasn’t like forgetting to deliver a phone message or blanking on which days he’d scheduled her to work. This was huge, and he’d kept it from her on purpose.

  “I’m in good hands. I’ve got a pretty lady doctor in charge of me now, Dr. Riley.”

  “I know her.” Teagan’s knees shook and threatened to give way, so she parked it next to her father on the floor behind the bar. Michelle Riley was an endocrinologist at Riverside. They called her down from time to time for consults on patients who’d been brought in with complications from things like Type 2 diabetes and renal failure.

  Oh God.

  Teagan grabbed her father’s hand, hating with all her might how hers trembled. She was supposed to be taking care of him, for Chrissake. How could she have missed something so utterly major?