Fiona's Flame

by Rachael Herron

  But Tommy just stood still, as though his boots had turned to concrete, looking for all the world as if he had taken a sucker punch. For one strange second, Abe felt sorry for him – that was real pain on the man’s face. Then he remembered Tommy was the one who was cheating.

  Abe gestured to the dance floor. ‘Looks like your wife needs a dance partner.’

  And Abe strode off, three pink drinks in his hands. The spiked punch was what was making them all act like they were high-schoolers. Whoever had said those were the best years of your life – that’s who deserved to be smacked right in the kisser.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Never be ashamed of what you’ve made. – E. C.

  Fiona of the future was brazen.

  Maybe that’s what flirting was? Letting the sexual feelings – and boy, she had them – burble up to the surface, letting them spill over.

  While she and Abe danced, she tried putting the thoughts she was having into her gaze – thoughts about him naked, above her, of him keeping her from breathing with the pressure of his kiss. She tried to make it a brazen look. A sexual look.

  Abe said, ‘You okay? Looks like you have a headache.’

  Darn. ‘Fine,’ she said and let Abe twirl her under his arm again. She was obviously better at dancing than seduction.

  It didn’t stop her from thinking about it, though. The way his hands would feel against her skin, if he reached back and unzipped her dress … Abe brought her in close after another spin. She didn’t even have to think about her feet. Fiona gasped as she felt him, as she realized that he was, perhaps, a little turned on, too. In that last full-body contact before he’d spun her out again, she’d felt his hardness under his jeans.

  ‘Isn’t it … uncomfortable to dance like that?’ Fiona said without thinking.

  Abe’s blue eyes widened and he stopped dancing. He just stopped right there in the middle of the song, in the middle of the dance floor, so he could bend forward and laugh so loud other people lost their steps, too. He straightened, slapping his thigh with his hand. ‘God, girl! Yes! It is! So damn uncomfortable. I don’t think a woman alive has ever asked a man that question, though.’

  Fiona shrugged. ‘I just wondered.’ If only he knew what else she was thinking …

  Abe reached for her again, folding her hand into his, placing his other hand at her waist. ‘I’d apologize but I’m not actually sorry at all. A little embarrassed, sure. But not sorry.’ He drew her in close again, and Fiona wondered if he could hear her heart.

  Abe’s arms tightened around her. ‘You’re blushing.’

  ‘Oh!’ Fiona felt herself blush harder. ‘Just … hot in here, isn’t it?’

  ‘Some people still have their coats on. It’s not warm.’

  ‘Huh. Maybe I should …’

  ‘Let’s get off the dance floor,’ said Abe, guiding her off the old wood planks.

  ‘Can we go someplace quiet?’ Nerves danced down Fiona’s spine.

  Abe looked at her carefully. ‘Sure.’ He pointed. ‘Over there. Away from the crowd.’

  He led Fiona to the back of the barn, past the bar and down a narrow hallway. Through the dimness – no sparkly lights back here – he led her to a hay bale set in a tiny, unused stall. They were only sharing the space with a wall-full of old tack and the smell of wool. ‘Here. Sit. Take a deep breath. No one can see us in here, so take your time cooling off.’

  No one can see us. Fiona giggled.

  ‘What?’ Abe asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ She giggled harder. God, she was losing it. How do you pull it together when the object of your every lust is right in front of you? Fiona couldn’t stop thinking about the bulge she’d felt on the dance floor.

  And what she could do with it. How she could fix it.

  ‘I’m a fixer,’ she said. ‘I like to make things better.’

  ‘What?’

  She laughed again, this time harder. Abe, balancing on the balls of his feet, grinned as if he was ready to go along with the joke, but oh, God, what made it so damn funny was that it wasn’t a joke, and Fiona realized that she wanted to sleep with this man like she wanted to draw breath. It was impossible to stop.

  She stood. She moved fast. Maybe a little too fast – she’d knock him …

  But he was moving as fast as she was. They slammed against each other and then Abe pressed her up against the wood, catching her arms just as she’d imagined, lifting them over her head, pinning them there against the wall with one hand. His mouth was heavy on hers, dragging his kiss over her lips, her cheeks, scraping his teeth along the curve of her neck, and then back to her gasping mouth. They went from zero to a hundred in the space of four seconds. Fiona couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, could only feel – feel his tongue rasping against hers, feel his body, huge and hard, holding her up.

  She worked one hand free and reached down, pressing her palm against the front of his jeans. There. There it was again. Abe groaned and loosed her other hand, propping himself up against the wooden wall. ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ he warned against her mouth.

  ‘Why?’ she whispered, plucking at his belt.

  ‘Shit, woman! Are you trying to kill me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s what I’m trying to do.’ She undid the first few buttons of his fly, just far enough that she could sneak her hand in. And yeah, he was exactly what she’d imagined.

  Only bigger. And harder.

  She gasped. ‘Holy …’

  Abe bucked against her and then groaned, catching her by the back of the neck, drawing her up to him for another kiss. His mouth told her everything she wanted to hear – his lips were insistent. Demanding.

  And Future-Fiona, brazen Fiona, could be the same way. ‘I want you,’ she said into his ear as he bit her neck softly.

  This time it was Abe who gasped. ‘Snowflake, damn.’

  She was still touching him, rubbing his cock, loving the terrified flip she felt in the pit of her stomach when she imagined him inside her. Fiona needed to fix this longing. Maybe if they fixed it really well, the need wouldn’t come back. She’d finally get over this guy who had such a hold on her mind, and apparently her body.

  ‘We can’t do this.’ Abe pulled backward, lifting his mouth from hers. He pushed gently at her hand, giving a light moan as she released him. ‘Not that I don’t want to. Because I do. Jesus, do I.’

  ‘Then why wait?’ She could fix both their urges. Right here. Right now. Just because she’d never done anything like this before didn’t mean she couldn’t start.

  Voices suddenly rang outside, and the rising sound of laughter. It came from nowhere, filling the old stall before Fiona could even rearrange her expression, before she could dry her lips from his kiss. The wooden door of the stall banged open and a light bulb hanging on a chain snapped on overhead.

  Fiona blinked in the light.

  Abe jumped away from her, buckling his belt.

  Cade MacArthur finished his sentence, ‘… and this is the stall I’m going to put the new goats in, as soon as I …’ His voice trailed to a stop. Fiona couldn’t tell who was giggling behind him, but she thought it might have been Cade’s wife, Abigail.

  Rayna, though, wasn’t laughing. Fiona could see that – it would have been obvious from outer space. The look on Rayna’s face wasn’t disappointment or even anger. Instead, it was confusion.

  That hurt.

  Rayna didn’t even see Fiona as someone who could seduce her ex. She was confused by it.

  ‘Pardon the intrusion, you two,’ Cade managed. ‘Go right ahead and … ahem.’ He snapped the light back out, and under cover of darkness, the little crowd he was leading tumbled laughing down the barn’s hallway.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Fiona. She sat down on the hay bale and smoothed her hair. ‘Damn it.’

  ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘You’re embarrassed,’ Fiona said. He was ashamed he’d been caught
with her. In front of Rayna. Goddammit.

  ‘Hell, yes, I am. Aren’t you? We just got caught having a literal roll in the hay.’

  ‘So?’ Fiona was pushing. She couldn’t help it. His reaction hurt. ‘We’re both adults.’

  ‘I don’t like people seeing what I don’t want them to see,’ he growled.

  ‘Wow. Must be nice to be able to control that.’

  Abe moved to the door of the stall. ‘I’m sorry. I wish that hadn’t happened.’

  That hurt worst of all. He regretted the whole thing.

  ‘Yeah, let’s go.’ Fiona straightened her dress and flicked off an errant piece of alfalfa. Then she followed him out.

  Being ashamed of herself was exhausting.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Hold the yarn lightly. It doesn’t need you to tell you what it is already. – E. C.

  The party was still in full swing when Abe reached the main floor of the barn again. Fiona passed by his elbow, and he could feel the heat of her as she moved in front of him. Her ass looked like heaven in that dress, and his eyes traced her strong calves to where they disappeared into her shiny black cowboy boots. She went right over to Daisy and smiled down at her, crouching so they could chat.

  Abe could not read Fiona. And he desperately wanted to. He wanted to skip to the end, read her like one of his mysteries, unlock the puzzle so that he could just sit back and enjoy the book, knowing the author would end up solving all the problems for him. But life didn’t work like that. And that sucked.

  Looked like Paul Dunbar had tied a couple too many on – he was wearing a bra on his head and whooping about a hockey game he apparently had quite a lot of money on. His wife, who didn’t come close to needing a bra that size, was leading him out by the elbow – and by the looks of it, if he didn’t cooperate soon, she’d drag him out by his ear. Mayor Finley was dancing off to the side, watching her husband play a guest spot with the band. Everyone knew he was sick, but the Finleys didn’t talk about it much. He’d not only made it to the party, but he’d made it up on stage with his fiddle, and the mayor looked like she was about to cry.

  Zeke ran up to Abe, his long arms swinging at his sides. Sometimes Zeke reminded him of nothing more than an overly large child. ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey.’ There was no way gossip about him and Fiona could have blazed past him in the hallway and beat him out here. Was there? He motioned for Zeke to follow him to the bar.

  Once there, Zeke said mischievously, ‘So, Fiona?’

  Of course. ‘You know what, I think she’s embarrassed we got caught, so do me a favor and just squash whatever rumor you hear, okay? Damn this town sometimes.’ Abe drove the toe of his boot into the base of a wooden barstool.

  Zeke nodded. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. I got your back, though. But hey, I was just going to say, you know her friend Daisy?’

  ‘Yeah. From the salon.’

  ‘She asked me out. I think. I mean, maybe. I’m not quite sure. I think she was asking me out.’

  Abe signaled to Jonas for another shot of rye, and the bartender pushed it down the bar to him. ‘You think?’

  ‘She said she wants me to take her out for dinner.’

  ‘That’s a date.’

  ‘But I’m all freaked out now.’

  ‘Why?’

  Zeke stared at him as if it should be obvious. ‘Because I don’t have room in my car for a wheelchair.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘How would that work?’ Zeke looked frantic.

  ‘Do you want to date her?’

  ‘Have you seen her? Of course I do!’

  ‘Then meet her at the restaurant.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘She’s got a car of her own, right?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  ‘Then she meets you. It’s not the law that you have to pick her up. I thought a college degree came with that football scholarship.’

  Zeke’s face wreathed in a smile. ‘It also came with sixteen concussions over the course of four years. And that was before I turned pro.’

  ‘Let’s blame it on that.’

  ‘So, where’s Fiona now?’

  ‘Not with me.’ That was the only thing Abe knew for sure. The rye burned going down, a clean fire.

  ‘There they both are, look!’ Zeke pointed and before Abe could signal him – hiss at him or kick him, something, anything – Zeke waved. ‘They want us to go over.’

  It was true, Daisy was smiling. Fiona, on the other hand, looked as if the only thing keeping her from running away as the men approached was Daisy’s hand, which was clenched around Fiona’s wrist.

  ‘Ladies.’ Zeke bobbed up and down on his toes, looking like a kid again in his eagerness.

  Daisy said, ‘Your haircut looks good, Abe.’

  ‘Fabio always does a good job.’ So this was how people made small talk. Words just slid out of your mouth while you thought about the one thing you shouldn’t. At the moment, that one thing happened to be the shape of Fiona’s mouth and how her bottom lip had tasted just like sugar.

  That same mouth was twisted now. ‘I really should go,’ said Fiona. ‘I just remembered … a bumper … I promised I’d get it done …’

  Abe imagined Fiona sliding under a car wearing that shimmery blue dress. How the hell was that image so sexy?

  ‘Let’s go, then,’ he said.

  ‘Know what? I think I’ll walk,’ Fiona said. ‘But thank you.’

  ‘Didn’t you come with Abe?’ Daisy frowned. ‘It’s miles back into town.’

  ‘I feel like a walk.’ Fiona glanced down at her dress. ‘These boots are comfy.’

  ‘I brought you – I’d like to take you home.’ Abe was trying to be polite about it but he wasn’t actually planning on arguing. He was taking her home. Period.

  ‘Fine,’ said Fiona.

  Daisy said, ‘What happened back there?’

  Fiona said, ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

  Zeke said, ‘So … Daisy, about that dinner …’

  Fiona gave a small, unhappy wave. ‘Night, darlin’,’ she said. ‘Don’t eat this guy alive, okay?’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Daisy, smiling winningly at Zeke.

  Zeke said, ‘Oh!’ again.

  Abe followed Fiona out of the party. She left a small wake as she passed, people happy to see her, arms that touched, cheeks that were kissed. He took a larger step forward and put his hand on the small of her back. He was glad that she let him.

  They exited the barn into the dark as a couple, waving together at the Wildwoods and the Brooks.

  It felt bizarre. Jarring.

  Perfect.

  Like what he’d been waiting for without knowing it.

  Now he just had to get her to talk to him again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The holes in lace hide a multitude of sins. – E. C.

  The drive back to town in Abe’s International was quiet, aside from the roar of its V8. Fiona didn’t mind – she was pretty damn sure if she opened her mouth one more time today she’d only end up saying something else she’d regret for a long time.

  The best thing that could happen would be if Abe dropped her off, and from that moment on they pretended they didn’t know each other. They could go back to the way they’d been before. He’d come and buy gas, and she wouldn’t go out to help him. They’d see each other at city council meetings – damn. That was only two days away.

  ‘You can just drop me in front of the filling station,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t lying, I really do have a car to work on.’ Of course, Joan Quandt didn’t expect her Lexus back for another three days, but it would be a nice surprise for her to get it back early.

  ‘You can’t crawl under a car wearing that.’ Abe reached out as if he was going to touch one of the beads on her shoulder strap but his hand stopped moving before he reached her.

  Fiona looked down at herself. She hadn’t considered that. ‘Well …’ Also, it was none of his damn business
.

  ‘I’ll walk you inside. Then you can decide what to do.’

  She gave a short nod.

  What did he mean by that? Then she could decide … what? Did he think she was going to sleep with him? Okay, even though she’d given him every impression that’s what she wanted, up to and including telling him so … ‘I don’t want – I mean, I’m not sure …’

  Abe smiled. ‘I know. We had a moment. A crazy second. That’s all.’ He got out of the truck.

  Fiona opened her door and slipped down off the high seat, landing awkwardly on the gravel.

  ‘Hey, I was going to do that for you.’

  ‘What? Open my car door?’ Fiona laughed – she couldn’t help it.

  Abe looked abashed, his smile crooked. ‘Sorry. I guess you’re probably better at opening car doors than I am.’

  ‘I get a lot of practice.’ Fiona paused as she replayed to herself how that could be taken. ‘Not like, on dates … I meant inside the shop. You know …’

  Laughing, Abe took her by the hand. ‘Just walking you to your door. Come on.’

  They threaded their way through the overgrown garden between the shop and her small house. ‘Sorry. I keep meaning to get out here and prune some of this jungle back, but I haven’t had time.’

  ‘It’s nice,’ Abe said.

  He was wrong. The way it was overgrown was actually embarrassing. She could make this yard look gorgeous if she just had a little more time. ‘No, I know exactly what I’m going to do. See the side wall there?’

  Abe nodded.

  The motion-sensor yard light flipped on, bathing them in its yellow glow. A moth threw its heavy body at the light almost immediately.

  ‘I have an old, glass-paned door. I’m going to paint the wood black and the glass rainbow colors and then prop it against the wall.’ Fiona looked at the yellow flaking paint on the wall, noticing the spider webs. The whole place could use a new coat, yet another thing to add to her list. ‘Then I’m going to set low shelves in front of it, and let geraniums tumble down. I love geraniums.’