Light My Fire

by Christie Ridgway

  Shit.

  Shoving that thought from his head, he turned in a circle, taking in the pool and tennis court in the distance as well as the three homes where he and the other rock royalty had grown up. At seventy-five yards away, Bean's place was closest. Western-styled, with a shake-shingle exterior and a front door sporting a steer skull, it looked the same as when Ren had lived there. Beyond it was where Mad Dog Maddox had built a rock-faced castle-type abode, with a Rapunzel tower which Ren remembered had been a particular refuge for little Priscilla. The third member of the band, Hop Hopkins, had a severe glass-and-chrome two-story home where Beck, Walsh, and Reed had grown up.

  His mind snagging on the missing member of that family, Ren pulled his phone from his jeans pocket and pressed a speed dial number.

  "Yo," a male voice answered. "Isn't it like the middle of the night wherever you are?"

  "I thought when you went home everything was supposed to seem smaller," Ren said to his half-brother Payne, by way of answering. "It's all so...so." So sun-drenched. So lush. So bright with flowers and birds and colors.

  The arresting blue of Cilla's eyes.

  There was a small silence. "Are you telling me you're at the compound?"

  "Yeah. I needed a break." When he said it, Ren realized it was true. He'd been on a grueling schedule for months, years, maybe, and if he told the complete truth, learning of Gwen's death had thrown him a little. "And Bean put the pressure on me to personally ensure the place was doing okay in the Lemons' absence."

  "That's bullshit. A gardener comes by. The pool guy. Seven of the nine of us live within an hour's drive if traffic isn't jammed. We'd look in if asked."

  "Well, I'm in California now." And not resenting the arm-twisting so much. He did need a breather. Then his brother's words sank in, seven of the nine, and he remembered his purpose for calling. "Why the hell didn't you call and tell me that Beck is missing?"

  "I didn't know you'd care."

  That rankled. Ren paused as he started up the path that led toward the fruit orchard planted on the hillside behind the pool. "Way to make me feel like an asshole."

  "I didn't mean to," Payne responded mildly. "We all live pretty independently."

  "Shit," Ren muttered under his breath. "Give me a Cami report," he ordered, referring to their younger half-sister, Campbell. "And I don't want to hear that—surprise!—she's married with a passel of children."

  "As if any of the Lemon progeny are eager for that state," Payne said, "given that not one of us knows what a normal, healthy relationship looks like."

  Ren grunted. His brother had that right. "So, she's what...?" Not much would surprise him, not after he'd realized that little Priss—Cilla—had actually grown up and now had a career.

  "She runs one of my wrecking yards by day," Payne said. "Getting gigs to sing by night."

  "Hmm." Ren ran his fingertips over the yellow skin of a lemon as he breathed in the scent of their blossoms. That's what Cilla had smelled like this morning, he realized. Citrus blossoms. He remembered that Gwen used to rinse the little girls' hair with water infused with the tiny flowers and he wondered if Cilla continued the practice. "The wrecking yards doing okay?"

  "I'm in my element."

  Ren knew that was true. His brother had been crazy for cars—and totaled a few—before he'd even had a driver's license. They'd all learned to drive a golf cart around the seven-acre compound as soon as they could reach the pedals. Payne had convinced a handyman to strap blocks on them so he could crash and burn earlier than the rest.

  "So how long are you staying?" Payne asked now.

  "I don't know that I am," Ren said, grimacing. As much as a vacation sounded like an appealing idea, there was the issue of Cilla to consider. Finding her sharing the pillows had been a surprise, and a bigger shock came when he realized she'd gone from the coltish adolescent he remembered to a lovely, blue-eyed blonde with a tight body and an adorable tendency to blush.

  It scared the hell out of him.

  No, scratch that. His reaction to the succulent small package that was Cilla Maddox was what alarmed him. And the intensity of that alarm was only further alarming.

  Shit.

  She was too sweet for a man like him. Too good for what he'd wanted to do to her, with her, the minute he'd put his eyes on her. But her bare legs and the touch of her pink tongue to her lush upper lip had made him ache like a raw nerve. As much as he found her worry about seemliness amusing, she had a point.

  Two single people, one a man, one a woman, sharing close quarters...

  Too bad it sounded so damn tempting.

  A crackling noise came over the line from Payne's end. Likely the sound of him breaking into a package of his favorite breakfast of strawberry Pop-Tarts with sprinkles. "You came all this way just to take off again?" his brother asked around a mouthful of unhealthiness.

  "Cilla's here."

  "Yeah?" Payne munched again. "Cami ran into her at a club where she was playing a couple months back. She's into costume design or something."

  "Mmm." Ren swung around to glance at the cottage and his gaze instantly found the woman in question. She'd wandered out of the cottage too, and stood in a shaft of sunshine. It caught all the gold in her cap of wavy, bouncy hair. A pair of cropped jeans hugged her curvy hips. The outside seam on each side of light denim was embroidered in a dark blue pattern that was repeated on the straps of the sleeveless, peasant-y top she wore. The hippie-chic style suited her. A dozen narrow bracelets circled one wrist and he remembered that each of her fingernails had been painted a different color.

  The Byrds T-shirt had looked damn good on her too, the logo of five swirly letters in red and yellow on black cotton draping her high breasts.

  "She had a boyfriend with her," Payne added.

  Ren went instantly alert. "What?" Maybe that was why Cilla wanted to get rid of him. She was at the canyon for nookie-time with the man in her life.

  "They broke up, though. Cami and Cilla made a date for coffee and when that day came, Cilla said the guy was history. Cami figured she'd really decided to move on because she'd also lost her long mane of hair."

  Something about that story sent a cold finger down Ren's spine. He shrugged the uneasiness away and ran his palm over his clean-shaven cheek. "She's not a big fan of being at the compound with me."

  "What's the big deal? You're practically a brother to her."

  Except Ren wasn't, he thought, closing his eyes. He was seven years older and back in the day, he'd had little contact with her. And no man who was practically a brother to a woman would be experiencing this unsettling and powerful surge of raw horniness every time he looked at her.

  Maybe he should have gotten laid more often in Moscow.

  What warned him next, he couldn't say. But he opened his eyes in time to see a couple of scruffy young men summiting the ten-foot wall that separated Gwen's cottage from the narrow, one-lane road that led to the compound. Cilla still remained in her ray of sun, unaware of the strangers invading her bucolic moment right behind her back.

  A wave of protectiveness welled in Ren's chest and he started toward her at a run. "Gotta go, Payne," he told his brother. "But just so you know, Cilla's no sister to me."

  Chapter 2

  Cilla passed a long fence board into Ren's waiting hand. He took hold of it without looking at her, fitted the piece against the rail, then pounded nails into it with angry vigor, as if he was using the hammer on the heads of the two strangers he'd thrown off the property an hour before.

  "I think they were harmless," she said.

  He paused to send her a disbelieving glance over his shoulder. "They reeked of weed. God knows what else they had in their systems."

  After he'd dealt with them, he'd gone on a mission to inspect the perimeter of the compound. At the discovery of a damaged section of fencing in the northeast corner, he'd appointed himself chief mender. She'd tagged along to provide assistance.

  His hand stretched back for another boar
d in silent request. She slipped him a piece of the wood stacked in the wheelbarrow they'd brought along. Both had been found in the storage shed at another corner of the compound. "You may have scared them straight," she said. "As a matter of fact, you might have scared me a little."

  He grunted, then continued hammering.

  "That's a pretty menacing mask you're able to pull out of your back pocket," she mused. When he'd confronted the strangers, his face had gone furious and his body predatory. Truth to tell, she'd experienced an embarrassing, almost sexual thrill in the pit of her belly as he'd bumped chests with the first man who'd made a brief show of blustering bravado.

  Ren turned to her. "Cilla, it's not a mask. I'm not a gentle guy."

  "Oh." She waved her hand like she was batting the idea away.

  A short sigh blew out of him. "No joke. I knew how to deal with those guys today because I've been just like them. Drugs, too much booze, that was my scene too. I pulled myself free of it, then went to work as a bouncer in a bar where I handled people hopped up like that all the time."

  "Oh," she said again. He'd been into drugs and booze?

  "And concert security? I've had to use my fists more times than I can count." He spread the fingers of his free hand. "See the scars on my knuckles? Those aren't from beating on a computer keyboard, though I've been tempted to do that a time or three too."

  Looking down as instructed, her stomach tightened on another illicit trill. But it wasn't thinking about how he could use the appendage to hurt anyone that caused the low vibration. Instead, she was contemplating how the backs of his fingers, crisscrossed with marks of violence, would feel tracing the curve of her cheek. The slope of her breast. The span of flesh between her hipbones. Shivering, she realized that now, now, she really was a little scared.

  Of how easily he affected her.

  Turning toward the fence, Ren reached behind him and yanked off his T-shirt. "Getting damn hot," he muttered.

  Me, too, Cilla thought, staring at his naked back. There were a thousand muscles moving beneath his smooth, golden skin. As he shifted, so did they, the sun catching a ripple here, a smooth bunch of power there. The valley of his spine called out for her fingertip. She wanted to press her palms against the heavy wings of his scapulas. Her mouth practically itched to touch the bulge of a tricep.

  As if sensing her turmoil, Ren glanced back. His green eyes narrowed and she took a quick step away. One dark brow rose. "You're really afraid of me, Cilla?"

  Yes, yes, yes. She shook her head. "I'm, uh, just thinking again it would be best if you leave the compound. You know, because we really don't know each other well..."

  And I want to get to know you, oh-so-bad, up close and very personal. That was scary. She wasn't good with men, particularly in that arena. Tad Kersley had made that clear. It had been clear to her before then too, when in the privacy of her own head she'd had to acknowledge that kisses, tongues, and touches never took her anywhere close to the paradise promised by books and porn movies.

  Yes, she'd watched a few, trying to find out where and how it always went wrong for her.

  "What the hell is going through that brain of yours?" Ren asked.

  Not answering that truthfully. "I'm just saying I'll be fine here alone."

  Turning to face her fully again, he crossed his arms over his chest. Oh my, more smooth skin and fascinating masculine contours. "Baby," Ren said, "after what happened today you think I'd let you stay here by yourself?"

  "They were looking for the Lemons," she protested. "Their favorite band."

  His brows rose. "And what do you suppose might happen when the next set of impromptu visitors are disappointed to find them away from home?"

  "They would go on their way."

  "Like those dudes were so happy to do today? I had to get in their faces, Cilla. I don't think the outcome would be the same if a beautiful woman insisted they take their leave."

  Ren thought she was beautiful? Or was that just an automatic turn of phrase?

  Before she could decide, his back was presented to her again and he returned to pounding nails. "I've got a couple weeks for you," he said over the hammering.

  Two weeks alone with Ren. Two weeks of torture in his presence. Not just because she'd be tormented by being near someone she suddenly, viscerally wanted so bad, but also because she'd surely give away her stupid fascination with him. She'd trip, she'd stammer, she'd blush, surely she would (she already had!), and he'd guess her secret.

  Then pity her.

  Backing away from him, she tried thinking of other arguments. Other options. Maybe she'd pack up Gwen's costumes and return with them to her own small place near the beach. Her fingers slid into her pants pocket to grip the key to the storage room built behind the older woman's cottage. Though she'd examined the pieces displayed in the main part of the house, Cilla had yet to take a look at the full collection.

  If she was going to escape forced seclusion with Ren, she had to figure out her next move.

  Leaving him to finish the fence repair, she set off for the storeroom alone. Inside the windowless, 15 x 30-foot space, the air was cool and smelled like lavender and lemon, scents Cilla immediately identified with Gwen. She stood in the dimness and breathed it in, thinking of the woman who had brushed her hair when she was small, who had explained the mysteries of pimples and periods as she grew, who had encouraged Cilla to explore her interest in fashion design.

  Leaving the door propped open, she flipped on the light and approached the rolling racks of clothes that were stacked against three of the walls. On the fourth, the one with the entry opening, floor-to-ceiling shelves displayed footwear: white patent leather go-go boots and outrageous sequined platform shoes. Knee-length, lace-up moccasins and spike-heeled stretches of black suede that would reach a woman's crotch. Most of Gwen's collection was women's clothing, but adjacent to the shelving was a short rack of striped bellbottoms, billowing poet shirts, and velvet jackets with epaulets, gold stitching, and brass buttons that had belonged to male performers.

  There was a fawn-colored suede vest from which swung beaded and feathered fringe that she remembered her dad, Mad Dog Maddox, had worn during a Grammy performance.

  Cilla ran her fingers through the long strings of leather, a smile on her face. She loved these vintage pieces. Thank you, Gwen, she said, ignoring the little sting at the corners of her eyes. Thank you for these costumes and everything else you gave me.

  She drifted toward a selection of dresses. There were three white pleather minis likely worn by the back-up singers of some Sixties band. They would have been hell to wear (and sweat beneath) under stage lights. Nearby hung a halter maxi dress made of Stevie Nicks-styled lace and filmy layers. As her hand brushed over it, a long, matching scarf fell to the carpeted floor. Cilla snatched it up and on a whim, flung it around her shoulders and over her head, for a moment channeling her inner music diva.

  Closing her eyes, she whirled and dipped, again Stevie-style, humming a song in an old game of pretend that she'd entertained herself with as a lonely little rock princess (influenced by Gwen who'd been a huge Fleetwood Mac fan, naturally). With her arms overhead, wrists crossed, Cilla swayed her hips and twirled to a rhythm playing in her head as she lost herself in dance. A throat cleared (not her own), freezing her mid-swoop-and-turn. Oh, damn.

  Dropping her arms, she yanked off the scarf and let it trail to the ground. Her gaze flicked to Ren's face. "If you tell a soul..." she said in a low, menacing voice.

  He was grinning. "I think there's a lot about you I don't know, Cilla."

  "Well, you're not going to get a chance to find out exactly what that all is," she grumbled, walking to the rack of dresses to drape the fabric over a hanger, her jerky movements causing the whole wheeled contraption to slide sideways.

  "What do you mea—" he started, then broke off as his gaze widened.

  Cilla glanced behind her, and saw what had caught his eye. There was something behind the clothes, something larg
e and colorful, and then Ren was shifting some of the metal contraptions to the middle of the room so they had an unencumbered view.

  It was a photo, blown to life-size proportions and hung on the plaster surface. In the middle of the shot, wearing one of her long calico dresses, Gwen sat cross-legged. Her elbow-length graying curls framed her happy grin and sparkling eyes. Gathered around her were the nine Lemon kids, ranging in age from ten (Cilla) to eighteen (Beck). Silent, she and Ren stared at the image.

  The day was sunny. They were gathered on the grass beside the tennis court. She couldn't remember how or why Gwen had managed to corral all of them together. Despite being raised at the same compound with fathers in the same band, they'd never been like one big family. Cilla wasn't even that close to her own siblings, maybe because twins Brody and Bing were six years older and always perfectly partnered with each other.

  The photographer had caught the two of them mid-wrestle, their long bangs flopping over their sixteen-year-old foreheads. Dark-haired Beck looked off into the distance, likely already thinking of the wide world he was eager to explore. His brothers Walsh and Reed mugged for the camera, bookending the group on either side. Cami and Cilla sat next to Gwen in poses that mimicked hers. Both of them had a hand on one of the woman's knees. Behind Cami, Payne stared coolly at the lens, a smudge of motor grease on his cheek. Ren slouched in his place behind Cilla, striking an insolent pose in a leather jacket over a white T-shirt. His hair was messy, a silver cross dangled from one pierced ear, and he had a cigarette clamped in the corner of his sulky mouth. A quick tremor snaked down Cilla's spine.

  No wonder she'd developed a crush on him. It was so clear now.

  He'd been the ultimate bad boy.

  Now Ren made some sound she couldn't interpret. She glanced over at him. His gaze was still trained on the photo. Though he'd grown into a man, she could still see some of the brooding half-grown adolescent behind the silver-green of his eyes. Maybe it was the Stevie Nicks moment she'd just indulged in, but she thought suddenly of Stevie's solo song, "Edge of Seventeen." Ren would have been just that age—on the brink of so much. He could have fallen into real danger, she knew, recalling his confession about drugs and booze.