Long Slow Burn

by Isabel Sharpe

  Wine bought, he strode briskly back toward home, carrying the four bottles. His cell rang; he fumbled in his pocket, shifting the wine to his hip. It was Kent, who’d probably punch him if he knew the thoughts Nathan had regularly about his sister.

  “Hey, Kent.”

  “How’d it go this morning? Did you make it out of bed?”

  “Barely. You?”

  “Barely. I was nearly late to a meeting.” Kent chuckled. “John will remember that party for the rest of his life. Those women were incredible.”

  “They were.” If you were sexually attracted to Barbie.

  “Any of them would make me very happy for at least an hour. Maybe two. Poor John’s given up that chance forever.” Kent laughed harshly. “Same woman, day after day, for the rest of his life. He’s had it.”

  Nathan chuckled dutifully. He was used to Kent’s bluster, not unlike the talk Nathan’s four older brothers and father indulged in. Lately, though, he wondered how much of it was really Kent and how much was sour grapes after his New York girlfriend dumped him.

  “Oof, I need more coffee.” Kent yawned loudly. “Anyway, here’s the deal. Kim’s friend Marie called. She’s throwing Kim a thirtieth-birthday surprise party and wants us to help.”

  He liked that idea. Kim needed more fun in her life. “How?”

  “You’ll have to ask her. From me she wants childhood memories and all that.” His voice shifted into a caricature of a fussy female. “Let’s put together a super fun-filled scrapbook!”

  “No way.”

  “I got her number and told her you’d call her. Ready?”

  “Hang on.” Nathan put the bottles down on the sidewalk, found a pen in his jacket but no paper so he scrawled Marie’s number on the liquor store bag. “Got it, thanks.”

  “Basketball Sunday?”

  “I’m there.” He hung up, tore the edge off the bag and dialed Marie. “Hey, this is Kim’s roommate, Nathan. Kent called me.…”

  “Wow, that was fast.” The voice was rich and friendly. “What did he tell you?”

  “That you need my help with Kim’s party.”

  “We do, we do. I haven’t yet met with my partner in crime, Candy, but we’ve talked a little. We’ll need information about Kim so we can come up with the party’s theme.”

  Nathan winced. Theme? All you needed for a party was people, a room and a keg. “Okay.”

  “We’ll pick Kent’s brain for her friends and stories, but there might be one or two personal items you can find or steal, since you’ll have the most access to her. Maybe stories you can coax out of her. Are you willing to do that?”

  Scrapbooking couldn’t be far behind. But Nathan would be happy for any excuse to interact with Kim. As long as nothing involved him using glitter. “Sure.”

  “Terrific. Is this the best number to reach you at?”

  “This is my cell, yeah.”

  “Excellent. Thanks for getting back to me so fast, Nathan. This will be great to do for Kim. She’s such a sweetheart.”

  He agreed with that and hung up, not sure how he felt about stealing personal items—like what?—but hearing about Kim’s life and memories was part of his plan for getting to know her better, anyway. He turned—nearly forgetting the wine—and started back toward home. Parties meant presents. This would be a great opportunity to do something really special for her. Something she’d notice and appreciate, and be touched by. Something to make her think of him in a new light.

  What that could be he had no idea, but he had time.

  Five minutes later he’d carried the bottles safely into the house and unloaded the reds, put the whites in the refrigerator. Kim was sitting at the Shaker-style natural-finish table, scooping balls of dough onto a baking sheet.

  “Can I help with anything?”

  “No, thanks, Nathan.” She smiled tightly. “I’ve got it.”

  “C’mon, there must be something.” He lifted his hands to show them empty and willing, anxious to make up for his earlier bungling. “I’m no chef, but I’m not inept, either.”

  She considered him. “How are you at putting snacks into bowls?”

  “Expert.”

  “Without eating them all?”

  “Oh.” He made himself look pained. “I can try.”

  “Good enough.” She smiled, pointing to a can of nuts, bags of chips and pretzels, and bowls, all on a tray on the counter.

  Nathan pulled up a chair opposite and started his task, glancing at Kim once in a while. She was definitely on edge, her expression inward and thoughtful. She was too serious, too reserved. He loved goosing her into life, making her laugh. She needed someone like him around.

  He poured pretzels into the last bowl. “I’m done here. What else can I help with? And don’t say you have it all covered. I’ve got time and there’s more to do.”

  “Okay.” She pushed a third baking sheet toward him. “You can help make the cookies.”

  “Sure.” He imitated her motions, scooping up dough with a teaspoon and pushing the blob onto a cookie sheet lined with a silicone mat. Homemade cookies in his childhood had meant store-bought slice-and-bake dough from the supermarket, so this was new to him. “You do realize what I’m sacrificing here, Kim.”

  “I can guess. Making cookies isn’t manly, either?” She shot him a look. “Is anything manly that doesn’t involve drunken oblivion or getting laid?”

  “Of course.” Nathan paused his cookie spooning. “Yelling obscenities at referees and umpires counts, too.”

  Kim let go with a good giggle that time, the one he loved best, the one that turned her cheeks pink and softened her features. “What else?”

  “Let’s see. Crushing beer cans on your head. Belches that wake the dead. More intimacy with the TV than with your girlfriend…”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s a miracle marriage ever happens.”

  “No, no, there are other, serious parts to the Man’s Guide that females can appreciate.”

  “Like?”

  “Like…” Nathan leaned toward her across the table, taking his first chance. “A Manly Man always swears to love, support and protect his woman for his whole life.”

  “Huh?” Kim did not look impressed. “Support? Protect? Your woman? That sounds more like cavemanly.”

  Hmm. That did not go the way Nathan had envisioned. Her eyes hadn’t gotten misty, nor had infatuation lit them up. She hadn’t sighed and said, Oh, Nathan, that is so romantic.

  The seduction of Kim Charlotte Horton would take trial and error. Growing up with four older brothers and a chauvinist father hadn’t prepared Nathan for approaching a smart, independent woman like her. He wouldn’t give up, though. Hell, he’d just started trying.

  She took her sheet to the oven, opened the door and put the cookies in. He didn’t mean to pay close attention when she bent over, but while he respected the very ground she walked on, to deny himself the pleasure of that sight would be pure masochism.

  Why had this woman hit him so hard and never let go? First time he’d seen her he’d been following Kent into his house their freshman year in high school, Kim’s senior. Their family had just moved to Milwaukee from somewhere in Ohio. She’d been standing framed by the doorway between the living room and dining room, arguing with her mother, her face flushed, her eyes snapping blue heat. Nathan, all of fifteen, had literally stopped in his tracks. She wasn’t the kind of woman whose beauty struck you right off the bat, but something had sure struck him like a boulder between the eyes. Kent finally had to yank on his arm to get him to move. That’s how it had been right from the beginning. And the years hadn’t changed those feelings, or replicated them, no matter how many other women Nathan had tried to find them with. Now his goal was to figure out this crazy fantasy or turn it into reality.

  She came back to the table, pulled the next baking sheet toward her and settled into her seat with a defeated plop. Something was definitely not right. His instinct was to tell her more jokes, but his instinct wh
en it came to Kim was usually wrong. Maybe his best bet going forward would be to do the opposite of whatever came naturally.

  He cleared his throat, feeling as if he were about to audition for a part he wasn’t right for. “How was your day? Did you get a lot done on the Carter proposal?”

  “Another dead end.” She made a silly face, trying to hide her disappointment. “I like some things about the current design. It’s balanced, good colors, chic feel, but it just doesn’t pop.”

  He wished he could come up with the perfect solution to take the frown off her face. He’d offer to look, but had already learned she was intensely private about her work in progress. “It’s a solid start, though?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” She looked miserably down at the perfect mounds of cookie dough on her baking sheet.

  Was that all that was bothering her? “Something will come to you. You’re very talented.”

  “Thanks, Nathan.” A real smile then. “It’s just nerve-racking with the deadline looming, both for the bid and for Charlotte’s Web. What about your day?”

  “My day.” He rubbed the back of his neck, wishing he hadn’t had that fifth drink at 3:00 a.m. “It started late last night, ended early this morning. In between was some very good tequila and some very bad judgment.”

  She laughed. “Sounds like a typical night.”

  That was the problem. To her that did seem typical. She didn’t understand that this self-destructive part of him wasn’t all there was. He was trapped right now in a cycle he didn’t understand how to get out of. Yet. Though he knew he would. In the meantime there was more of him to show her: that he was a good listener, a loyal friend and that he cared about her more than she knew. Probably more than was rational or reasonable.

  The timer went off and she jumped to extract the first sheet of perfectly browned cookies. He lifted his nose like a puppy. “Mmm, those smell good.”

  “Don’t they?” Kim sniffed rapturously. “Mom’s sugar oatmeal. Plain, but wonderful.”

  She stood there, sparking uncharacteristically edgy energy. Nathan’s instinct was to go with the cookie conversation. Therefore he’d do the opposite. “Something’s up besides the website issues. Want to tell me?”

  She stared down at the hot baking sheet, looking serious and shy and even more delicious than the cookies. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure.” He found himself gripping the spoon hard enough to bend it. “But something is different about you the past few days.”

  “You’re very perceptive.” She said it as if it was a surprise. She took the cookies to the counter and started sliding them onto a cooling rack, her back to him. “I went to see Marie on Friday.”

  Was this about the party? “You had lunch with her?”

  “No, I went to the Milwaukeedates.com office.”

  Small alarm bell. He pushed another ball of dough onto the sheet. “Why?”

  “I’m going to start dating.”

  “No.” He realized how that sounded when she turned, startled. “No…way, really?”

  “I know, shock, right?” She made a wry face before she went back to the cookies. “Little mouse-girl wants herself a man.”

  “That’s not what I was thinking.” This was bad. Nathan had a negative image to overcome with her; his only hope was to take things slowly. If Kim met some guy right away and was hot for him from the beginning… “You’re not a mouse. More like a sleepy lioness.”

  “Hmph.” She flushed with pleasure even as she sent him a scowl. “I don’t think so.”

  “I do.” He dipped the spoon into the bowl, trying to act casual. “Any good prospects?”

  “A couple.”

  “Sounds promising.” Sounds horrible. “What are they like?”

  Kim left the baking sheet on the stove, ran water over the silicone mat, wiping it down carefully. “One is an author and computer geek.”

  He wanted to groan. The guy sounded ideal for her. “Good things.”

  “I don’t know.…”

  “No?” He tried not to sound hopeful. “Why not?”

  “He’s absolutely gorgeous.”

  Oh, just effing great. “This is a problem?”

  “I don’t like guys like that.”

  Nathan managed to unfreeze his face. “Yeah, we absolutely gorgeous guys can be real jerks.”

  She laughed, flicking water at him.

  “What?” He blinked innocently, scraping up the last of the dough from the bowl. “What about the other one?”

  “Dale? He seems pretty great.”

  No. Dale was not pretty great. Dale sucked. Nathan was absolutely sure of that. “Yeah? What’s his deal?”

  “He’s some kind of consultant. Travels a lot. I wrote to him already. He wrote back right away.” She came over to pick up Nathan’s filled sheet; he could smell her flowery scent under the sugary vanilla aroma in the kitchen and wanted to devour her. “He’s vacationing. In Jamaica.”

  Jamaica. This was bad. Nathan couldn’t afford to take Kim to Jamaica. Nathan could barely afford to take Kim to Applebees. “He’s probably there buying drugs.”

  “Nathan!” She swept his baking sheet over to the oven.

  “Who goes to Jamaica alone for any other reason? Or no, I’ve got it.” He pushed back his chair, turned it to face her. “He’s there with his wife. Or his fourteen-year-old girlfriend. Or both.”

  “You are a hopeless cynic.” The timer went off. Kim took out the second cookie sheet and put his batch in.

  Yeah, a hopeless cynic, who happened to be struck dumb by his first sight of this woman over ten years earlier. A woman who still hadn’t looked back. “I know how men think because I am one.”

  “You’re not all of them.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “I’m going out with Kent and Steve tomorrow tonight. Want to come?”

  “Watch you all get shit-faced and try to get laid? No thanks.”

  “Kim.” He stood up, wanting some advantage, any advantage, even something that seemed like advantage. The invitation had come out of his mouth in desperation. Because he was desperate. “I haven’t ‘gotten laid’ like that in quite a while.”

  “Not for lack of trying.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I hear from Kent.”

  Nathan gestured in frustration. Kent exaggerated. Her brother never used to be so swaggering until he’d come back from New York and started hanging around with Steve, the Master Swaggerer. “That’s not all I’m about. I’ve never tried with you.”

  She gave him a withering look. “Like you would.”

  “Why not?”

  She laughed, then saw he was serious; her laughter died and she glanced at him uneasily. “I’m not exactly your type.”

  “No?” They were going to bust at least this part of the myth right now. “What is my type?”

  “Bubbly with big boobs and a bent for blow jobs.”

  Instinct told him to take the joke further. So instead he caught a stray piece of her hair, stroking its soft length between his thumb and index finger, hoping she’d experience an unexpected and highly sensual shiver. “What if I told you my type was blond and shy with hidden passion waiting to be—”

  “Hidden passion?” She yanked her hair back as if he were about to set it on fire.

  Crap. She was not experiencing anything like an unexpected sensual shiver. “Someone else said that. There’s no way I would say anything so stupid.”

  “Geez, Nathan.” She wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t, either.

  “You’re selling me short. There have been many women I’ve dated who aren’t bubbly and who don’t have big boobs. Many.” He gazed at her earnestly. She started looking cornered, folded her arms across her chest and stepped away from him. Oh, no. Scaring her was not what he wanted to do at all. He frowned. “Well…one, anyway. Maybe.”

  She laughed in nervous relief and he grinned, cursing under his breath, wishing he had the guts to stay serious with her, wishing he had
the nerve to set her straight. But it was still too soon. He needed time to win her. He thought he’d have plenty. But if she was going to start dating, he’d need to regroup, find a way to get her to think differently about him much sooner than planned.

  Because otherwise, he could lose even the hope of her, and after ten years of wasted time, he just wasn’t willing to do that.

  3

  MARIE WENT DOWN THE stairs from Roots Restaurant to the Cellar bar. Quinn Peters would be waiting there for their usual Friday night “meeting.” She’d call it a date, but she’d promised herself to keep any and all romantic thoughts about Quinn firmly under control, under wraps, underground. No point being a masochist by indulging in such fantasies.

  She was late tonight. Ten minutes before she was due to leave, her delightful ex-husband, Grant, had called. He rarely did, but whenever his number showed up on caller ID, it was a guarantee Marie had some teeth-clenching time ahead of her. Tonight had been no exception. The louse had the nerve to ask if she’d consider returning the ruby-and-diamond channel-set ring he’d given her for their tenth and final anniversary, the one Marie called the Guilt Ring because Grant had already been having an affair with Lizzy, a woman nearly half his age.

  Part of Marie wanted to give the ring back, preferably by jamming it down his throat. She wasn’t, and might never be, at a place where she could happily wear it again, so why not let it shine on someone else’s finger?

  Because the other part of her, maybe not the most mature and gracious part, didn’t want to give him anything he wanted. Ever. Because he’d taken from her a good chunk of self-confidence, and though she’d come a long way, she was still struggling to get the rest of it back.

  After she’d hung up the phone it had taken her half an hour to calm down to the point where she’d be able to face Quinn calmly and cheerfully.

  Her stomach did a little flip. There he was, sitting at the long wooden bar, one empty seat beside him in the otherwise crowded room. Temperatures had flirted with fifty degrees that day; everyone seemed to be emerging from winter hibernation, restless for spring.