Into the Flames (Jupiter Point Book 3)

by Jennifer Bernard

  Pining was overstating it. Really, it was more that Merry represented everything Rollington Wareham III couldn't have. He put a hand over his heart. "Direct hit."

  At first she looked triumphant, but then her expression faded to sympathy. "I don't know, Rollo. You could have picked someone more…I don't know."

  "What?"

  "Possible, I guess."

  He winced. Well, that was Brianna for you. Blunt. Tactless, you might even say.

  "Merry's very focused on her job," Brianna was explaining softly. "I really don't think she dates much, if ever. She's very particular. I wish I could say it wasn't hopeless, but it might be in this case."

  "You're not telling me anything new," he grumbled. "I asked her out, she shot me down, we never spoke of it again."

  "She was embedded with the hotshots for a little while, right?"

  "Yeah."

  Merry was a reporter with the Mercury News-Gazette, and she'd spent two weeks with the Jupiter Point Hotshots, observing as they battled a huge wildfire in Montana. He'd watched over her the entire time, kept her Thermos filled with coffee, sacrificed his favorite pillow when she kept getting neck cramps from camping out. He'd offered her the last of his bug dope, even though he wound up covered with welts because he was extra sensitive to mosquito bites.

  And…nothing. All of Merry's fierce, focused intelligence stayed squarely on her job. She observed, she took notes, she asked questions, she never got in the way, she never complained. She was perfect. And gorgeous, with her light brown skin and dark curls. Her warm maple-brown eyes never looked on him with anything other than friendliness.

  Brianna was watching him with sympathy. "The unrequited thing sucks, doesn't it?"

  He shrugged. " So, you and…just guessing here…Finn."

  Her face turned bright red instantly, as if she were choking on something. "You know?"

  "I told you I knew."

  It was hard to miss the way she clammed up and acted so awkward when Finn Abrams was around. He'd jumped to the obvious conclusion.

  "Who else knows?" she managed.

  He shrugged. "No idea. It's never come up. Everyone's exhausted at the end of the fire season. Sean and Josh are all sappy and in love. I wouldn't worry about it."

  "Does he know?"

  "Nah. I doubt it. Finn is…well, he's going through a rough time. He's got a lot on his mind."

  "I know. It's so tragic, with the fire and his burns and all." She sighed, a long, wistful sound, and gazed off into the distance, over the terrace ironwork railings to the Pacific Ocean. The red glow from the tall propane heater on the terrace gave her a flushed look.

  Or maybe the thought of Finn did that to her.

  "He's so…he's so…" She set her chin on her cupped hand and sighed again. Her eyes went all dreamy and unfocused. And despite himself, he felt kind of jealous that someone as cool as Brianna was pining over his friend.

  "Brianna?"

  She didn't answer, completely lost in her Finn fantasy. It must be a good one, to make her blush like that…

  3

  Brianna would never forget the first moment she ran into Finn Abrams. It was an accident—literally. She'd been doing her annual fall cleanup of the gardens at the Goodnight Moon B&B. She'd been trundling a wheelbarrow of wood chips down the path toward the bed of hydrangeas that needed an extra layer of mulch. The most handsome man in the world had stepped onto the winding brickwork path.

  He was so romantic-looking, with dark curls tumbling over his forehead and his lean, brooding face, with those hollows under his cheekbones and shadowed, troubled eyes. Instantly, she wanted to brush his hair away from his face and pepper kisses on those full, unsmiling lips. Chase all the darkness from his expression.

  She'd tripped over a brick, or maybe it was her own tongue, and lost control of the wheelbarrow. The next thing she knew, she was dumping wood chips all over his shoes. And his legs, which were bare below his khaki shorts. And then he lost his balance and she had to drop the wheelbarrow, which hit him in the bare shin. Then she rushed around to help him up, wading through the pile of wood chips to get to him.

  When she reached him, he turned his face her way, and that was when she lost her balance and wound up on her butt in a pile of mulch. One side of his face was perfect, the other a red, angry, raised mass of burns.

  "I…I'm so sorry," she'd stammered. "You surprised me. I mean, not because of your face…I mean, yes, because of your face but not that side of your face, I didn't even see it at first, and oh God, that's not even what I mean…" She buried her face in her hands and inhaled wood dust. Started coughing. Couldn't stop.

  Finally the man extracted himself from the pile of wood chips and stood up. He was actually smiling—she thought, although the film of dust clogging her vision made it hard to tell.

  "Thank you," he said sincerely. "Getting knocked over by a wheelbarrow is turning out to be the highlight of my day. Are you okay?"

  "Yes." She coughed up some dust. "Are you? What about your shin?"

  She watched with hopeless lust as he bent down to check out the red mark on his leg. He was movie-star handsome, even with the burn scars on his face.

  "It's nothing," he told her, offering his hand to help her up. "Let me help you with your load here."

  "No, no, I couldn't let you do that. You're staying here, right?"

  "Yes, I'm Finn Abrams." He shook her hand once she'd made it to an upright position.

  "Brianna Gallagher. I'm really sorry, again. I don't usually mow down the guests at the Goodnight Moon."

  He brushed a wood chip off her shoulder and gave her a half-smile. "They don’t know what they’re missing."

  Just then a woman sauntered toward them. At first Brianna thought she was Gwyneth Paltrow, she was so tall, her hair so blond and perfectly windblown. Later, she found out it was Annika Poole, actress and rising star. "Finn? Is everything okay?"

  She reached the two of them and took Finn's arm and surveyed the scene with a vaguely perplexed expression. Brianna felt paralyzed under her distant scrutiny, as if she were a garden gnome. She wanted to explain, but had no idea where to start. The sight of your boyfriend made me lose all muscle control and dump a load of mulch on his boots?

  No, definitely not.

  "I'll…uh, clean this up," she said instead. "I just have to get my spade. Please don't worry about this mess, it'll be gone before you know it."

  "It'd be a lot quicker with two of us." Finn frowned. But the willowy blond whispered something in his ear, and he made a face. "Sorry. I forgot we're already late for something."

  "Really, I'm fine. Don't even worry about it."

  The stunningly gorgeous pair turned to go, while she got busy picking wood chips out of her bra. Sadly, Finn chose the worst possible moment to turn back and caught her with her hand down her shirt. He pretended not to notice, but by the speed with which he steered the blond down the path, she knew he had.

  Yeah, not the best first impression.

  "Brianna!"

  She jumped. Finally, Rollo's voice broke through her trance. "Sorry. What were you saying? I was a little…distracted."

  "Look, Bri. The thing about Finn is—"

  "I know I don't have a chance with Finn!" she cried. "I'm like…" She picked up a bit of potato from her plate. "A potato. And he's…I don't know…arugula."

  "What?"

  "Okay, maybe watercress."

  He half-closed one eye and tilted his head. Then he scratched at his jaw, as if he was trying to mask a laugh. "This vegetable analogy is not really working for me. I have no idea what you're getting at."

  "Okay, I'll spell it out. I'm ordinary. I don't have one ounce of glamour in me. But Finn is…romantic and tortured and brooding."

  "Like watercress?"

  She flounced back in her seat. That was the problem with spending all your time in the plant world. You thought of everything in botanical terms. "Fine, pick some other vegetable."

  Finally he lost
it and started laughing, the deep rumbles rolling from his huge chest, creases fanning from his eyes. "You're priceless, Brianna. If Finn had any sense, he'd be begging you to go out with him."

  "Well, he's not. He's a little busy with his supermodel-movie star girlfriend."

  Rollo made a face, shrugging that off with a flick of his endlessly broad shoulders. "Girlfriend is stretching it."

  "Not helping."

  "Will it help if I point out that everyone loves potatoes? What about French fries? Scalloped potatoes? Hash browns?"

  "No." She looked at her hands, which she was twisting in her lap. Now she felt like crying. The whole thing with Finn was so hopeless. She'd tried to shake it off, but so far nothing had worked. None of these dates—blind or otherwise—made her forget about him. "I think the problem is me. I have no…game. No moves. No mojo. At least not when it comes to men. I'm always the friend. And that's fine, but…"

  Once, just once, she'd like to be adored. She'd like a man to look at her the way Sean looked at Evie, the way Josh looked at Suzanne. As if she was beautiful and essential.

  She lifted her eyes to meet Rollo's. Genuine kindness shone from their blue depths. She hoped to God it wasn't actually pity, because she didn't want that. Not for a second. She'd rather dive into a vat of wood chips than suffer through someone feeling sorry for her.

  "Maybe…" Rollo paused, stroking his beard. Not all guys could pull off a beard like his, but it suited his bear-like build and thick head of walnut hair. "Maybe we can help each other."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I know Finn well. He's a good friend from our Fighting Scorpion days back in Colorado. He's actually staying with me for a few months. He's working on the screenplay for the Big Canyon movie. He claims he's going to help me fix up my house."

  "Fix up your—oh, right. I forgot that you bought that house up on the cliffs. The Harringtons’."

  "Yup. Escrow just closed and I'm moving in. Finn's taking over the guesthouse. The place doesn't need much, but he swears he's going to help out. Anyway, I think that if Finn spent time with you, he'd start to see what an outstanding person you are."

  "Well, that's nice…" She actually felt her face heating from his compliment. Rollo was such a good guy. A really great friend.

  "The one thing really missing at the house is some decent landscaping. I'm thinking about a koi pond."

  "Are you really?"

  "Fuck no. Never saw the point of koi. But I'll do it, if that helps you out. You need a reason to be around. Like I said, Finn's going through some heavy stuff. The burnover was tough on all of us, but it was the worst for him."

  "Didn't you break your leg in three places?"

  "Yes." He moved quickly past that, like someone who didn't like anyone feeling bad for him. "Point is, he's hurting right now. And he's under a lot of pressure. He could use a cute little Peter Pan-Tinkerbell type to make him smile. And I think if you were around, he'd start to see your true magnificence."

  She snorted. Magnificence? Yeah right. "And what about your crush?"

  "Eh, forget it." He scrubbed one big hand through his hair. "She doesn't want to get tangled up with me."

  "Quid pro quo. If you're going to do a koi pond for me, I have to hold up my end."

  "It's pointless. She's not interested and I have…a lot going on."

  Somehow she got the impression he wasn't telling her everything.

  "Once she knows you more, she'll love you just like the rest of us." Brianna couldn't actually remember a single time Merry had even mentioned Rollo. But Suzanne loved him, because he'd carried Josh out of a wildfire. And Evie loved him because he always, always had Sean's back. Everyone who knew Rollo loved him.

  Why not Merry?

  "We just have to figure out the way to her heart." She pondered, already relishing the challenge.

  "How?"

  She shrugged. "I'll just ask. Everyone knows how tactless I am." She grinned at the big man across the table from her. "Piece of cake."

  "That easy, huh?"

  "No, I was thinking we should have some cake. Have you ever tried their Chocolate Magma Cake?"

  One great thing—among many—about Rollo was that she didn't have to hide her appetite around him. There was something to be said for a guy who was always up for dessert.

  4

  A little over a year ago, Rollo and the rest of his team of hotshots had been trapped in a burnover in Big Canyon. A ferocious wildfire, moving faster than seemed possible, had simply run over them. For fifteen minutes the crew of nineteen hotshots—minus Finn, who'd taken off on his own instead of deploying his shelter—huddled inside their thin aluminum tents. The sounds of the firestorm outside—a tree exploding, the hiss of sap boiling, the fire-generated wind currents—warned Rollo there was a strong chance he'd die.

  His life had done the proverbial flash-before-your-eyes routine. All of his twenty-nine years had unscrolled in his mind as if he was saying goodbye to it all. And in his heart, he was. Sean, the team leader, had tried some black humor to keep the panic at bay. It turned into a game of "if we make it out of this alive." Rollo had joked that if he survived, he'd get a job as a CPA. Safer, right? Funny, haha. Except that in those howling fiery winds, he heard his real doom.

  If he made it out alive, his family would jump at the chance to make him quit firefighting. His days of freedom would be over. Goodbye hotshots, hello boardroom.

  Members of the Wareham family didn't risk their lives in the wilderness. They didn't camp out on the fire lines until they stank of smoke and sweat. They didn't grow beards. No, they enjoyed their trust funds while they made more money for the Wareham Group. They attended top-tier social events and married other Mayflower descendants. That was his destiny, and he'd only managed to avoid that soul-crushing existence because he'd made an agreement.

  He could live his own life until he turned thirty. Then the bill would come due.

  Last month, he'd passed that landmark. He'd celebrated his thirtieth birthday getting drunk at Barstow's Brews with the guys. He told no one it was his birthday. He didn't tell anyone what it meant. He got wasted and told firefighting stories and soaked up every second of his last moments of freedom. He also wound up in a lengthy, fuzzy conversation with Craig Harrington, who was trying to unload his house.

  Oops.

  The next morning, the first email from his mother came.

  When are you coming home, Rollington? Shall I have tickets booked for you?

  Not yet. There's a hitch. I seem to have bought a house.

  His phone rang immediately, but he stuck to email. You can pull your matchmaker act long distance, can't you?

  You can't back out of this.

  I'm not backing out. I'm quitting the hotshots. I'm giving you free rein to find someone eligible. But I'm staying in Jupiter Point. Nothing in the agreement says I can't.

  She didn't like it, but she adapted pretty quickly. Ever since then, she'd been introducing him to likely candidates by email.

  Lately, every morning he woke up to an email from Cornelia Nesmith. She was the first prospect who seemed halfway compatible with him.

  On the morning after his non-date with Brianna, Rollo checked his email and saw that Cornelia had sent him a photo of herself jogging with her golden retriever in Central Park. She had a dog—that counted for a lot in his book. She also had thick honey-blond hair and a perky figure. A guy could do worse, he supposed.

  He sent her back a quick note, then read an email from his brother, Brent. Lucky for Rollo, Brent had gone to business school and loved everything about the world of high finance. Rollo got copied on all the important board meetings and votes, but he was happy to leave the business side of things to his brother. The guy was a champ when it came to that stuff.

  When he'd finished with his emails, he pulled on his running gear and ambled through his new house.

  It still seemed strange that he owned a house. It was even stranger that a house he'd bought sight unseen w
hile drunk on his thirtieth birthday would be so perfect for him. But it was.

  It was an open, airy structure with vaulted ceilings, almost like a barn. With his height, he needed high ceilings, and these soared far over his head. The big picture windows looked out on a sloping lawn that dipped toward a retaining wall at the edge of a bluff. Just below, the ocean churned against a wall of rock.

  Rollo got some coffee going and stared for a while out the window. This early in the morning, the sky over the Pacific glowed a gentle shade of lilac. He loved looking out over the ocean—possibly because it faced west, away from the Wareham clan.

  A few minutes later, he knocked on the door of the guesthouse where Finn was staying. After a few curses and thumps, his friend cracked open the door. Rollo thrust a giant mug of coffee at him. The fragrant steam floated through the air, making Finn's bleary eyes brighten.

  "Dude. You're a lifesaver."

  "Late night?"

  "Yeah. This screenwriting gig is for shit." He opened the door farther, letting Rollo come inside.

  The guesthouse was so small he had to duck and turn sideways to enter. All the furniture had been left by the previous owners, who seemed to have had an obsession with flowery prints. He settled into a wingback armchair with an antique rose print and slung his feet onto the coffee table.

  Finn, dressed in sweats and a t-shirt that read, "We find them hot and leave them wet," shoved aside the sleeping bag on the couch and sat down to put on his running shoes.

  For a moment, Rollo wondered what about Finn got Brianna so dreamy. To him, Finn was just a guy. A good guy, hard worker and competent fireman. And sure, maybe better-looking than the average dude. Rumor had it he'd done a few commercials before he got into wildland firefighting. And before his face got scarred in the burnover.

  Something had gone wrong during the burnover. He'd panicked and split. He'd survived on his own by taking shelter in a gravel streambed. No one really knew why he'd taken off, and some of the guys still hadn't forgiven him. Sean, for instance.