Wicked Burn

by BETH KERY

  Not that he could necessarily blame Donny. Niall looked as fresh and pretty as a daisy, wearing a short-sleeved white cotton blouse with her golden hair falling in shiny waves to an inch above her shoulders. He’d rarely seen her dressed so casually. Vic remembered how soft her hair felt between his fingers all too well, just as he recalled the way her skin flowed like silk beneath his hands. Her complexion glowed with health . . . and perhaps an awareness of his anger at her uninvited presence on the farm. With the light sprinkling of freckles on her nose and her lack of makeup or jewelry, she looked about twenty years old. Vic’s frown deepened when he noticed that not only Donny stared at her with a slack-jawed expression of awe but that Andy kept throwing calf-eyed glances at her as well.

  When Vic realized he was staring just like every other male at the table, his frown deepened and he transferred his attention to eating his breakfast. Still, he couldn’t shut out the impact of Niall’s low, husky voice, much as he wished he could.

  “What would make you think it’s not art?” she asked Donny seriously. “There are some very fine artists in the ranks of cartoonists. Look at the power you’ve managed to convey here”—she brushed her fingertip across the page—“the inherent movement, the forward-surging energy in his body. That’s some very fine artwork. And your writing for the story line is very good, as well. What’s your character’s name?”

  Donny glanced up between his too-long bangs to see if anybody was listening, flushing slightly with embarrassment. Vic turned his eyes back to his plate.

  “Stealth Judge,” Donny mumbled almost unintelligibly.

  “Thank you, Meg,” Niall said warmly when Meg handed her a plate of scrambled eggs. “Let’s close your book, Donny. I don’t want to get anything on your artwork. You know, we did an exhibit at the museum a few years back of Marvel comics. I don’t suppose you came to it?” Niall asked as she reached for a piece of toast.

  Donny shook his shaggy head. “Nah, I’ve never been to Chicago.” He sat up straighter in his chair. “You actually showed stuff about comics in a museum?”

  Niall laughed, the sound making Vic cock his head slightly, as if trying to catch it fully in his ear. When he realized what he was doing, he determinedly shoveled the rest of his eggs in his mouth in one bite and pushed back his chair. Niall glanced up uncertainly at the loud scraping of his chair.

  “Art isn’t as stuffy and boring as you’re making it out to be, Donny,” she assured the boy as soon as she recovered. “Art reflects life, so that means it can be just about anything. It’s the power and message of the reflection that make it art. I brought the book that we published for the Marvel exhibit. I’ll show it to you later. It was amazing. I got to meet Stan Lee.”

  Vic looked over his shoulder from where he was standing at the sink with his plate in time to see Donny’s jaw drop a mile.

  “You met Stan Lee?” he croaked in disbelief.

  Niall nodded, her hazel eyes gleaming with excitement. “He was really nice. Did you know that his real name is Stanley Martin Lieber and . . .”

  “He changed his name to Stan Lee by splitting his first name in half?” Donny finished for her breathlessly. Meg threw Tim and Vic an amused look before she handed Donny a plate. Donny distractedly accepted it before he turned back to Niall. “Who’s your favorite Marvel character?”

  “The Silver Surfer, hands down. He’s so mysterious.”

  Vic was a little surprised when Niall answered so quickly, but he supposed that there were lots of things he hadn’t known about her. Like that she was married for instance, he thought as he opened the dishwasher door with a bang.

  Donny stared at Niall like he was witnessing a miracle. “You like the Silver Surfer? He’s my favorite, too. By far . . .” The boy’s words trailed off as he continued to gape at Niall.

  “Beginning to reconsider taking Niall’s class this summer, Donny?” Meg chuckled as she sat down with her own plate.

  “Yeah, maybe it would be cool,” Donny said slowly. “But only if Vic said I could . . . with work and all.”

  Vic paused in the action of putting his plate in the dishwasher when the room went silent. With a quick sweep of his eyes, he took in Meg’s triumphant grin, Donny’s hopeful look, and Niall’s wary expression. His gaze lingered on Niall as he slowly straightened. Fury rose in him like steam scalding his throat when he recognized the subtle trap.

  “You know that the agreement from the very beginning was that school always comes first,” Vic finally managed to get out. What else could he say?

  “Yeah, but this is just an extracurricular class. And it’s only for art,” Donny waffled.

  “What’d ya mean only for art?”

  Donny looked a little taken aback. “Nothing . . . I mean . . .”

  “Art always put bread on my table,” Vic told Donny in a more restrained voice. He stood and slammed the dishwasher door shut. “Take the class. It’ll do you good and keep you outta trouble, besides. I’ll meet you two out in the barn,” he told his brother-in-law and Andy stiffly before he walked out the door.

  Niall glanced uncertainly at Meg before she followed Vic a few seconds later.

  “Niall, let it go for now . . .” she heard Meg say warningly, but she plunged out the screen door and onto the back porch anyway. Dawn made the eastern sky a vibrant landscape of pale gold and pink. The air felt cool and pleasant on her skin as she raced down the painted wood stairs. The luminescent promise of the June morning, combined with the soft, calm breeze, seemed to stand in direct contrast with Vic’s tense posture and angry, gravel-scattering footsteps.

  “Vic, wait,” she called out once she’d jogged up several feet behind him. She had to force herself not to take several steps backward when he spun around to face her. His handsome face was livid with fury. She lost whatever composure she possessed at the sight.

  “I . . . I . . . don’t want you to think . . .” She stumbled over her words anxiously. “I didn’t plan for that to happen just now . . . with Donny, I mean.”

  “And I should believe you . . . why, exactly?” Vic asked with brutal sarcasm.

  Niall’s cheeks flushed hot at his reference to her past dishonesty. “I’m telling the truth, Vic. I had no way of knowing about the boy. I couldn’t have planned that. I wouldn’t have,” she added under her breath.

  He stepped closer. She inhaled the familiar scent of his skin mixing with the spicy, clean smell of his soap. Longing swamped her awareness, the feeling so overwhelmingly powerful that it made her eyes burn. She saw his nostrils flare slightly, as though he’d caught her scent as well. That, combined with the anger that almost seemed to roll off his big body like waves of heat, caused her heart to beat wildly in her chest.

  “I wouldn’t put anything past you and Meg at this point,” he stated in a low growl. Niall started when he encircled her upper arm with his hand and pulled her closer. “What the hell are you up to? Why did you come here?”

  Niall tried to inhale slowly to calm herself. It wasn’t an easy thing to do while she looked up into his stormy gray eyes. Her gaze lingered for a moment on his mouth . . . on that slightly crooked, sinfully sexy front tooth.

  “I came because I was ready, Vic.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She raised her jaw stubbornly, stung by his relentless contempt. “It means that I wasn’t ready before, and now I am,” she replied. She saw the subtle change that her answer wrought on his rigid features.

  The screen door slammed shut behind her, signaling Tim and Andy’s exit from the house. Vic blinked at the sound before he leaned closer to her face, his thigh brushing her own, his eyes spearing into her.

  “I don’t care what the fuck you’re ready for, Niall. You may have finagled your way into Meg’s life, but you better stay clear of mine. Understood?” he asked in an ominous, quiet tone before he shook her arm slightly for emphasis.

  “It’s you who doesn’t understand, Vic.”

  “Is that right?” he asked
with an ugly twist of his shapely mouth. Tim’s and Andy’s footsteps crunched on the gravel thirty feet behind them. “Well, I’m real happy in my ignorance.”

  “You don’t look very happy,” she countered softly.

  She felt the tension leap into his muscles, saw the flash of potent anger in his light eyes. For a second Niall thought he looked furious enough to strangle her. Instead, he released her and stepped back abruptly, as if he’d suddenly realized he was holding an intimate conversation with a poisonous snake.

  “I don’t care what you think I look like. Just stay away from me,” he ordered before he turned and headed toward the path that led to the barn.

  Niall felt her determination flagging in the face of Vic’s harsh dismissal. She’d known rationally that he was going to be angered by her presence on the farm. But logic couldn’t have prepared her for the impact of his boiling fury. As she and Meg spent a relaxing morning puttering around Meg’s garden and then preparing lunch together, Meg assured her on several occasions that Vic’s temper at her being there was a good signal, not a bad one.

  Meg hadn’t stood in the face of Vic’s rage, however. Niall was far from confident that Vic would ever give her the opportunity even to voice her explanation for her actions last fall, let alone that he would listen with a compassionate ear to her apology.

  But her sole mission on coming to the farm hadn’t just been to reclaim Vic. She looked forward to teaching the art history class this summer, no matter what the circumstances. Being exposed to Donny’s raw talent and having him agree to take the class made her even more excited to teach this summer. She spent an hour that morning finalizing her lesson plans and organizing the materials she planned to use for her first week.

  Vic refused to eat the lunch that she and Meg had prepared when the men returned from the fields. Instead, he barked at Donny from the driveway that he was taking him home and that they’d grab lunch in El Paso. Donny looked slightly disgruntled by the change of plans but rallied quickly enough.

  “Uh . . . I guess I’ll see you . . . uh . . . at school then,” he said awkwardly to Niall after he’d grabbed his sketchbook off the table and shuffled toward the back door.

  Niall noticed the look of longing the teenager gave the platter of fried chicken she’d just placed on the table. “I’m glad you’ll be there, Donny. Here. Take a piece with you,” she offered, handing him a napkin and nodding at the plate. He’d come from the stables about ten minutes ago and had already asked at least five times how long it was until they’d eat.

  “I’ll get you registered, Donny. You just make sure you show up on Monday on time,” Meg added for emphasis before the boy bolted out the screen door with a napkin-wrapped drumstick in one hand and his sketchbook in the other.

  Niall watched as he talked animatedly to Vic through bites of chicken as they walked to Vic’s truck. Vic’s head tilted slightly as he listened, his manner reminding her poignantly of the silent, stoic man with whom she’d fallen in love.

  “They seem like they’re really close,” Niall said wistfully.

  Meg glanced around from the counter. “They are. Eerily so. You’d never guess that they first met only half a year ago,” she said with a small laugh. “Vic thinks that I suggested he hire Donny on solely for the boy’s sake. Donny had been ditching school back in November, and then he got caught by the police with beer and pot in his car several weeks later. He was headed down a path that was bound to end up with him bunking with one of his brothers at the county jail—or worse, in Pontiac or Joliet Prison. Donny deserves better. You see how bright he is. I have to admit I’ve grown really fond of the kid. I’ve gotten to know him pretty well. I should have, considering how much time he spent in my office his freshman and sophomore years,” Meg joked as she placed the bowl of potato salad on the table.

  “But I asked Vic to hire him on to help out in the stables as much for Vic as for Donny. Vic was so withdrawn after Christmas. I thought he needed something to pull him out of himself,” Meg continued. She glanced out the door thoughtfully as Vic backed his truck skillfully out the long drive. “And you know, I think I did a pretty good job of things. Donny needed a strong male role model, and Vic needed . . .”

  Niall looked over at Meg sharply when she paused.

  “He needed someone to need him,” Meg finished softly.

  Niall’s heart felt like it skipped a beat. Had Vic’s depression originated from the fact that he’d fallen in love with her, just as Niall had with him? Or was his melancholy more based on the fact that he’d cautiously allowed someone else into his life after Jenny, only to believe that Niall had betrayed him just as callously? The expression on Meg’s face made Niall cringe inwardly with guilt.

  “I’m sorry I hurt him, Meg,” she said softly. “No matter what happens between Vic and me, I want you to know that I appreciate you giving me this chance.”

  Meg’s faraway look faded as she focused on Niall. “I like you, Niall. Mom and I were so bummed when you canceled your visit at Christmas, and you know how thrilled I am about having you here now. But I’m mostly doing this for Vic . . . and the kids at school, of course. Don’t think I don’t know that El Paso High is very lucky to get someone of your caliber as an instructor,” she added as an aside before she sighed. “I know Vic’s a stubborn ass at times, but I love him.”

  “I do, too,” Niall said quietly.

  “And it’s a good thing,” Meg stated with a wry grin as Tim and Andy came up the steps. “Because it looks like my little brother is bound and determined to prove that he couldn’t care less about you, Niall.”

  The first three weeks of Niall’s stay on the farm passed much more smoothly than she would have ever expected or perhaps hoped for, given that the easy going was mostly because Vic almost completely ignored her presence. His avoidance of her was compounded by the fact that he spent several days a week in Chicago, overseeing his play and running the Hesse Theater. She sometimes wondered if she would have had a better chance of running into Vic on a Chicago street than she would on his farm. At least the Hesse would be closed during July, and the chances were that he would spend less time in the city.

  She hoped anyway, if his determination to stay away from her didn’t make the city seem more and more tempting to him. Maybe he and Eileen Moore were busy sharing dinners together at The Art after performances of Alias X, as well as Vic’s bed at the Riverview Towers—

  Just the thought acted like a poison to Niall’s system, making nausea sweep through her like a wave.

  June—perhaps one of the most changeable months in central Illinois—segued from a crisp, refreshing spring to a humid, sweltering summer with amazing rapidity. She enjoyed her class and found her twelve students a joy to teach. The class was held three days a week for two-hour sessions, however, so she found herself having a lot of time on her hands. She and Meg grew closer as they took on several projects on the farm—expanding Meg’s already extensive garden, refinishing the farmhouse’s enormous antique front porch swing, or taking shopping trips to Bloomington for bulk food items or art supplies. They also took long walks on the horse paths that cut through the large property, meandering by a wooded area and a small lake in addition to the vast acreage of the fields. Sometimes they’d see Tim or one of the men in the distance on a tractor, and they’d wave.

  Niall felt invigorated by country living. She’d always been an early riser, finding early morning to be the best time to do her yoga routine. Lately she’d shifted her time for her workout to the evening, since she was often busy helping with the breakfast the men ate before they left for the fields. She enjoyed her solitary workout in the empty, spacious living room that Meg had decorated, like the rest of the farmhouse, in the arts and craft style. Last Monday night she’d sensed eyes on her while she was collapsed on the floor in a stretch, only to look up and see Vic. He seemed unbelievably tall from her position right next to the floor, the top of his head coming within less than a foot from the entry archway. The sigh
t of him struck her as compelling . . . even impressive . . . in its unexpectedness.

  Their gazes met and held. Niall eventually sat up slowly and struggled for something to say. But before she could, his eyes flickered over her. His nostrils flared. Desire bloomed in her lower belly and spread, making her sex ache with a dull throbbing pain when she realized her legs were completely spread while she faced him. She knew how much she hungered for him, but in that moment the magnitude of her primitive need felt overwhelming in its intensity.

  His eyes skated back up to her face.

  Niall wondered what she wouldn’t have given at that moment to have Vic kiss her once again, touch her, thrust his cock deep inside her to apply friction to that elemental ache. The last time they made love seemed like a distant, longed-for memory that she grasped at so frequently nowadays that it had started to take on the quality of a dream.

  He seemed to hesitate for several seconds, as if he wanted to say something . . . as if he wanted to do something. But then he’d inhaled sharply and turned away.

  And even that poignant, brief encounter had become nothing but a memory.

  Niall began to cook more and more frequently for the family and farmhands once she had convinced Meg that she actually enjoyed it and wasn’t just being polite. She’d always been a good cook, and missed it sorely while she’d lived in Riverview Towers. She couldn’t help but be flattered by Tim, Andy, and Tony’s eager faces and exuberant praise over her cooking, or the fact that Donny planned his visits and work schedule in the stables to coincide with the meals that she prepared.

  The few times that Vic did put in an appearance at the large oak table in the farmhouse kitchen, he remained silent while everyone else gushed about her homemade biscuits and sausage gravy, her marinated roast chicken and potatoes, or some other dish. But Niall couldn’t help but take some satisfaction from the fact that Vic always ate everything on his plate and, more often than not, fought Tim or Andy or Meg for seconds. She was glad when Meg or Tim questioned him about how things were going at the theater or about his writing, because she felt too self-conscious about doing it when everyone sitting at the table knew that Vic disapproved of her presence there.