by Bonnie Dee
“Sorry. I didn’t see one,” Mason mumbled.
“No one’s laying blame here,” the fireman said. “It was obviously an accident.”
“Be sure that gets in the official report,” Deb said. “I’m not having my insurance premium go up over this.”
The guy held up his hands in surrender and headed toward the fire truck.
After the fire crew was gone and the last of the customers had cleared out, the Cozy’s staff returned to work. There was plenty to do to get the kitchen cleaned up and in working order again before the lunch crowd arrived to check out the damage.
Mason kept his head down and his hands busy, ignoring the rest of them recalling the incident for Deb’s benefit. When she came over to thank him for his quick thinking in dousing the fire, Mason smiled and nodded.
“Don’t know exactly how that flared up. I’ve worked in kitchens most of my life and never had a grease fire,” Nash said. “Anyway, you saved my bacon. Thanks, kid.”
“No problem.” Mason went back to work on the range with his scouring pad. He looked up, and Nash was watching him, a frown between his bushy eyebrows.
Mason glanced toward the dining area, which he could see through the delivery window. Ava looked up from wiping down tables, and her gaze met his. For a moment some fine invisible filament connected them right across the diner. The hair on the back of Mason’s neck lifted as if a pulse of electrical voltage had shot through him. Then Ava’s eyes returned to her work, and the connection was broken. The static blinked out.
It was the second time he’d felt something inexplicable pass between them—once when he’d touched her arm, now, without even physically connecting. Once might have been a fluke, but twice was the beginning of a curious pattern.
After a lifetime of possessing weird powers, Mason knew there were paranormal currents simmering just under the surface of the physical world. What this particular current between him and Ava meant, he wasn’t sure, but it was as intriguing as hell.
Chapter Seven
Ava knew what she’d seen and couldn’t let it go. There was a spooked look in Nash’s eyes that told her there was more to the story than he’d let on, but also something deep inside her refused to shut up about the incident. Everyone else seemed to have agreed to accept it as a fluke or a miracle that Nash had survived without any burns, but Ava needed to know more. There was something to uncover. Something…
In her heart, she believed Mason had some part in it. She’d seen him touch Nash, and then Nash had looked down at his body with a shocked expression.
As she worked in the dining room, Ava snuck looks at Mason scrubbing away soot above the kitchen stove. When their gazes met, it was like touching an electrical outlet with a wet finger. The jolt set her heart hammering and hair rising. It lasted maybe two seconds before the intensity made her break off the exchange. She sucked in a breath and tried to calm her racing pulse as she stared down at the familiar Formica tabletop and striped dishrag.
Crazy imagination. She liked Mason, and they’d shared some truly great kisses yesterday at the fair. There was some serious chemistry between them, but she must be imagining that palpable shock from a mere look, and she was completely nuts if she thought he’d had anything to do with Nash’s baby-smooth skin. Ava tried to focus on her work, and Frannie was a welcome distraction as she chattered away.
After the morning’s excitement, the lunch crowd came in full force, since gossip about the bit of excitement in the diner’s kitchen had spread through the community like wildfire.
Nash called his contractor cousin to come inspect the damage, while Mason kept scrubbing at scorch marks between his regular tasks. Ava didn’t have a chance to talk to him until late afternoon when she was leaving for the day and he was taking a break.
“Double shift again?” she asked as she paused by the picnic table beside the building where Mason sat. The shade of a pine tree barely cooled them. It was another hot Indian summer day. Sweat trickled down Ava’s back, sticking her shirt to her skin. Mason’s T-shirt did the same, damp and molded to his chest. It was hard not to stare.
“Yeah. Ralph called in sick—again—so I’m helping Deb this evening.” Mason shrugged. He never seemed to mind working and then working some more. He moved methodically through whatever tasks Nash assigned him and never appeared annoyed or disgusted as Ralph did, or that last dishwasher, Melvin, had.
“Good luck. Deb’s in a terrible mood.”
“Just a bit. I’m fully aware of where the fire extinguisher is now. Wouldn’t be surprised if she has us all drill on how to use it.” He smiled up at Ava, the sunlight making his dark eyes shine, and suddenly the sticky humidity seemed bearable. A cool breeze lightened her grubby mood, and a bubbling joy flowed with it.
Shyness, her usual reaction to any strong emotion, tied her tongue. “It’s been quite a day.”
“Yeah.” Mason drummed his fingers on the table, and Ava noticed he was looking through a Popular Mechanics magazine.
A semi roared by a quarter mile away on the state route, and a crow flew overhead, cawing a warning or maybe just singing a harsh song of joy. Ava could think of absolutely nothing to say. It had been so easy talking with Mason at the fair. Why was she speechless now?
“We should do something later this week.” Mason broke the silence. “Show me around your favorite hiking spots like we talked about.”
“Yeah, I’d like that,” she said overeagerly. “What’s your schedule like?”
“Pretty much constant. But since I’m filling in for Ralph tonight—and since I did sort of save her restaurant—Deb owes me. I’ll talk her into giving me a shift off that matches one of yours.”
They decided on Wednesday afternoon, and then Ava said, “I’d better go. I have to pick up Bryan from school.”
“Isn’t it kind of late for school to be letting out?”
“He joined the newspaper. I told him he had to pick at least one extracurricular. I sure hope he finds his niche, because so far middle school has sucked for him.”
“Losing a best friend to the girl he has a crush on is pretty tough,” Mason agreed. “But I imagine he’ll find somebody else to hang out with.”
“I hope so.” Now that they were talking easily again, Ava didn’t want to leave. If she lingered long enough, would they share another kiss or two? Probably better not to here at work where prying eyes were never far away.
“Well…good-bye.”
She walked away, feeling his gaze on her rear, and she wondered if her ass looked big. She muffled the self-deprecating voice and gave a little sway to her hips. Frannie wasn’t the only one who could put on the sexy.
But when she glanced over her shoulder, Mason had already gone inside. Her ego deflated, and she trudged the rest of the way home.
*
Over the next few days, Ava saw surprisingly little of Mason, considering they worked at the same diner. Deb had him on the late shift, and Ralph was working days. Ava usually requested as many day shifts as possible so she could be available for Bryan in the evenings. Deb did her best to accommodate when scheduling, but neither Stella Mae nor Frannie cared for the closing shift either, and there were only the three of them. A shoestring staff of waitresses made for a lot of work hours a week, but also pretty good money.
While she anticipated Wednesday, Ava kept thinking about Mason and the weird incident in the kitchen. She couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something extraordinary had happened, but she couldn’t commit to believing in the suspicion that flirted at the edge of her consciousness.
Who was Mason Reed, and what was his story? And why the hell didn’t he have a cell phone so they could communicate like any normal modern couple? A little pre-date conversation and fact gathering would go some way toward making her feel more at ease about him. Instead, Ava had to wait until she swung by to pick him up for their hike.
Mason was waiting for her in the parking lot outside his motel room, leaning against a post. She co
uldn’t remember why she’d thought he was average looking. He looked totally hot, standing there in his faded jean shorts and T-shirt. He pushed off the post and walked over to her car, smiling. Her stomach gave a Tilt-o-Whirl spin.
He slid into the car seat beside her. “Hey! How are you?”
“Good. It’s been a long week.” Even though it had only been a couple of days since they’d last talked.
“For me too. I’ve really been looking forward to this.” He held up a Clayton’s sack. “Brought a towel for swimming like you said to, and a six-pack, though I don’t know how cold the beer will be without a cooler.”
“There’s a stream to keep it chilled while we swim in the pool. On a school day like this, we should have the place all to ourselves. In summer, the teens tend to make the hot springs their hangout.”
Mason smiled at her. “That what you did in high school? Were you one of the cool kids?”
“In a school with so few kids, everybody’s kind of forced to interact, so you don’t see the same social gap you would at a big-city school. But I guess I was kind of a loner back then, and still am. I like peace and quiet better than gabbing with a bunch of people.” She shrugged, shy at talking about herself. “What about you? What were you like as a kid?”
Mason didn’t answer right away. When she glanced over, he had a faraway look in his eyes as if reviewing his life. “Like you, kind of a loner. Replace the foothills with desert, and it was the same sort of isolated environment. Not a lot of opportunity to hang with other kids. I played with my sisters until they got too old to want a kid brother tagging after. But I also spent a lot of time alone, hiking in the desert, searching for fossils, and I’d stay out nights with my telescope, learning about the stars.”
Ava pictured a scrawny boy with eyes too big for his face, something a little otherworldly about him as he went his solitary way. They would have gotten along well as kids. Her head had always been lost in the worlds inside books or in her own imagination, a welcome escape from a stressful home.
“I’d like to see the desert,” she said. “I’ve never had a chance to travel to other parts of the country.”
“I’ve crisscrossed back and forth across the US, so I can tell you there’s no piece of land much prettier than this,” Mason said. “As for the cities… You’re not missing much.”
Ava imagined him hitching down highways and back roads, seeing all sorts of sights she’d only seen on TV. “What’s it like to not know when you get up in the morning where you’ll be at night?”
His face was so expressive she could almost see various emotions scudding over it like clouds. “Good.” He paused. “It’s mostly good. Kind of freeing to just go where the day takes you. No limits.”
“I can imagine.” She was truly happy living in Waller, but the idea of simply taking off with no responsibilities to tie her down was appealing on some primal level.
“But it’s a little lonely too,” he admitted.
She could relate to that even more. The idea of not having Bryan to take care of was inconceivable. She wouldn’t give up her little brother, both his good and bad moods, for anything. Her mom, on the other hand… Ava wouldn’t miss dragging her to bed when she’d passed out on the floor, or cleaning up her sick when she couldn’t hold all the liquor she’d drunk.
“If you could go anywhere, where would you go?” Mason asked.
Ava smiled. “I know its pretty cliché, but Paris. Isn’t that the city every small-town girl wants to see?”
“I don’t know. I’m no expert on small-town girls.”
“Oh, I bet you are. A travelin’ man like you.” And though she teased, she also felt a pang of displeasure at the idea of a string of women trailing in Mason’s wake.
“No.” His tone was more serious than hers. “I’m not like that. I tend to keep to myself. It doesn’t seem right to get too involved when I know I’m going to be moving on.”
What did that say about the possibility of them as a couple? Did he consider Ava an involvement, and would he break it off before things got too deep? Or would she, for that matter? She couldn’t afford to care too much about a guy who’d be hitting the road soon.
As the car bumped onto a dirt track leading to the hot springs, Ava changed the subject from a topic she didn’t want to think too hard about. “Almost there. Only locals know about this place. No tourists get this far off the main road, and it’s not as if we advertise. Though I suppose someone could make a bundle if they built a resort out here.”
She parked in an open area at the end of the trail. “We have to walk from here.”
Entering the hush of a green tunnel of trees arching over the path, Ava fell silent so Mason could fully appreciate the beauty of the place as they entered the heart of the hollow. A brook snaked alongside the path, and water dripped from the mossy rock walls of the ravine. A carpet of leaves deadened their footsteps as they passed through knee-high ferns. Do you see? Can you feel it? She looked at Mason, anxious to know if he would feel the same as her—as if he’d entered some sacred space. His solemn eyes absorbing the woods around him assured her he found this spot as magical as she did.
As they reached the back of the ravine, the rush of water grew louder. From a ledge high above above, water flowed in a thin stream to hit the surface of a pool with a musical splash. Steam rose from the water, heated deep underground by volcanic forces.
Mason stared awestruck at the natural beauty. “This is unreal.”
“The pool is caused by an underground hot spring, but the water falling from the stream up there cools it a little,” she explained.
Even the local kids respected this place. There was no graffiti on the rocks, although Ava spotted a few empty beer cans and fast food bags. She picked up the litter and stuffed it in an extra bag she’d brought, then placed Mason’s six-pack in the stream by the path to chill.
When she looked over at Mason, he already had his shirt off. His shoulders and arms were knotted with muscle, and his belly was flat with an intriguing trail of hair that went from his navel to the waistband of his shorts. He dipped a foot into the water and pulled it back with a hiss. “Damn, that’s hotter than I expected.”
No, you are! Ava dragged her eyes away from his lean form, the muscles wrapped around bone without a hint of fat as if everything extraneous had been burned away. She was too aware of the bit of extra padding she carried on her own stomach and hips.
“You’ll get used to it,” she said. “When you’re done soaking, take a dip in the stream to cool down or stand under the waterfall.”
Suppressing her body issues, she stripped to her swimsuit and waded into the steaming water. Mud squelched between her toes at first, but the bottom got firmer farther away from the edge. She caught her breath as heat enveloped her calves, her thighs, her hips and pussy. By the time she reached her waist, Mason was already submerged to just below his chest, which was as deep as the pool got, and wading under the waterfall.
Glittering droplets rained down on his head, plastering his dark hair to his skull. He held up his arms as if to embrace the water and turned his face into it, letting out a sputtering cry of exhilaration from the cold. He looked like an ad for some tropical getaway Ava could never afford—except he was right here in her own backyard.
Ava blew a breath through her parted lips. Lips that burned in anticipation of kisses she’d have before this afternoon was over. Her body warmed from more than the hot springs, and her pussy throbbed in low pulses of desire. She crossed her arms over her tender breasts and tingling nipples and waded toward Mason.
He turned toward her and grinned. “This is awesome!”
No, you are! her mind insisted again. Ava returned his smile and joined him under the waterfall.
Chapter Eight
Chilled by the water splashing from above and heated by the volcanic pool, Mason felt as if he were at a luxury spa, pampered and indulged. Tension oozed from every muscle, leaving his body limp and more relaxed than h
e could remember being for a long time.
Then he looked at Ava, and another sort of tension began to coil inside him.
Her bathing suit was a modest one piece, but it left little to the imagination as it molded to the cushiony curves underneath. Memories of how that body had felt in his arms when he kissed her teased at him, and he wanted to kiss her some more. Screw any complications getting involved might cause. They both knew where this afternoon was headed.
Ava moved closer to him, and he focused on her lush lips and wide smoky eyes, the water droplets that clung to her eyelashes like teardrops as she smiled at him. He reached to touch her cheek, warm flesh beneath a cool sheen of water.
“Thanks for bringing me here.” He put his hands on her waist and drew her closer until her wet suit rubbed his bare torso.
“Thank you for coming.” Her hands curled at the back of his neck and her soft body pressed hard into his, the swells of her breasts mashed against his chest. Her face tipped up, and he could see nothing but her parted lips, so enticing, so wet. Water poured over both of them in a baptism as he framed her face with his hands and bent to kiss her, slow and deep and long.
It felt so good to be close to another person without any expectations other than mutual pleasure. He didn’t need to heal or help her, or give anything of himself other than whatever joy she got from his kisses.
Too long without physical contact, Mason grasped for more, desperate for a lot more than just making out. It was a toss-up whether the warmth of the water lapping around him or the heat bubbling up inside him was greater. His thick and throbbing erection pushed against Ava’s belly, seeking its home. A pair of ragged jean shorts wasn’t going to contain it for long. Mason stroked his hands down her back, cupping her bottom as he rubbed against her. Ava gave a soft little moan of pleasure that ratcheted his desire up another notch.
Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him into an even deeper kiss, and every part of her seemed to mold around him, welcoming him. It made it so easy to sink into her. His hips thrust instinctively, but rubbing his cock against her only made him want more. Maybe too much. Just because he’d assumed they were on the same page as far as where things were headed, maybe Ava felt differently. Maybe he should pull back and…
