One Hot Summer

by Melissa Cutler

  That was the plan. “Gotta go, Mom. I love you.”

  Remedy turned to scan the resort for another sign of Micah’s truck but jumped at the sight of Alex and Emily, grinning like fools.

  “Congratulations,” Emily said. “You and Micah, hmm?”

  Congratulations? So much for the third degree she’d been expecting. “Micah and I were just grabbing dinner together last night. As friends.”

  “And kissing. As friends, right?”

  Remedy cringed. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

  Looking annoyed, Alex folded his arms over his chest. “I was afraid this might happen.”

  “Why? Does Micah go around seducing every new resort executive with cheeseburgers? Is that his big move?”

  “Micah? No way. He has a policy against any firefighters fraternizing with the resort’s staff. But at last week’s wedding you two couldn’t tear your eyes off each other.”

  “That’s because we were arguing over Polynesian fire dancers. Nothing’s happening with us.” That was her story and she was sticking to it.

  “Are you sure?” Emily asked. “Because it would be really good for the resort if it were. Maybe you can help him take that stick out of his ass. You know, butter him up. Keep him happy.”

  Again, that was not the reaction Remedy had expected. “Um…”

  She chanced another look at Micah’s truck and found him walking through the grass in their direction. “You guys better wipe those grins off your faces. He’s almost here. Do not ruin this for me.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Emily said, though her Cheshire-cat grin did not inspire trust.

  Alex threw his hands up. “I’m staying out it. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

  He marched up the hill toward the resort’s main building.

  Micah was dressed in a navy blue crewneck T-shirt embroidered with the RCFD logo identical to the one he’d donned last night when the radio call came in. He’d tucked the shirt into khaki slacks, belted at the waist—and not with one of the audacious belt buckles her mom might have expected from a gun-toting Republican. New to the ensemble were dusty black boots and a black cowboy hat. His barbed-wire tattoo cuffed his upper arm. No firearm and no toothpick, but just enough bad-boy attitude to command Remedy’s full attention.

  When he reached the bench he nodded first at Emily, then at Remedy. “Ms. Ford, Ms. Lane, good afternoon.”

  The man was all business, exactly as he and Remedy had agreed to be at work. “Chief Garrity, good to see you.”

  Emily started giggling.

  “Don’t you have some salmon to bake or something?” Remedy said.

  “There’s always time for awkward morning-after talk.”

  Terrific. Thanks, Emily.

  Micah’s lips twitched. He raised an eyebrow at Remedy.

  Remedy gave him a small shake of her head. “She meant the morning after two friends enjoyed burgers at Hog Heaven. Right, Emily?”

  If anything, Emily laughed harder. “I’ll give you two lovebirds some privacy, but first”—she pulled a paper from her arm and handed it to Micah—“I happen to have a safety permit here for the Firefighters’ Charity Ball that I’m going to need you to sign off on. I’ll be serving Baked Alaska for dessert, delivered table-side.”

  Remedy rolled her eyes so hard at Emily’s not-so-subtle transition that it was a wonder she didn’t tear something in her eye sockets.

  Micah frowned down at the document. “As in delivered table-side while on fire? You’re pushing your luck with that plan.”

  “Surely there’s some wiggle room for us to negotiate,” Emily said. “After all, I’m doing you both a favor by keeping your affair a secret from Ty Briscoe. I can only imagine how he’d use that information to manipulate the situation.”

  What the frack, Emily? “Not so hard to imagine. It’s probably a lot like how you’re trying to manipulate the situation,” Remedy said.

  Emily shrugged, her palms up, the picture of sweet innocence. “What can I say? The culinary world is cutthroat. And for women? It’s Darwinism all the way. Survival of the fittest.”

  Micah was not amused. “The safety of the people at the ball and in this hotel isn’t negotiable—ever.”

  “You’re blowing this out of proportion,” Emily said. “It’s an ice-cream dessert. The flames won’t be active for more than thirty seconds, a minute tops. It’ll be perfectly safe.”

  Micah glowered at Emily. “You do realize that this hotel is made almost entirely of wood, right? Old wood.”

  Emily yawned. “So you’ve mentioned.”

  With a sigh, Micah skimmed the permit. “This does look within the scope of the county’s fire safety regulations, but I’ll need a diagram of the layout first. Too many tables too close together could spell disaster if your staff’s pushing trays loaded down with flaming desserts through the room. I won’t risk it.”

  Emily handed him another sheet of paper. “I’ve got the diagram right here.”

  She must have lifted that right off the file on Remedy’s desk. Emily wasn’t using the principles of Darwinism; her tactics were Machiavellian all the way.

  “I’ll take this with me to the ballroom for today’s inspection and give it some thought,” Micah told Emily.

  Emily seemed satisfied with that. “Deal, and you won’t be sorry. My Baked Alaska is the best you’ll ever taste. Guaranteed.”

  “Now that I do believe,” Micah said.

  “Smooth,” Emily said.

  “I have my moments.”

  Emily clapped Remedy’s shoulder. “I think this is the start of a beautiful relationship with the three of us.” With that, she bounded down the hill toward the resort.

  “This wasn’t a calculated business decision!” Remedy hollered to her retreating form.

  When Remedy looked at Micah again, his cheek muscle twitched, then a smile broke out on his face. He raised an eyebrow. “A calculated business decision?”

  “Emily shouldn’t have cornered you like that. It doesn’t matter if she tells Ty Briscoe that you and I slept together, because there are no rules against it. Emily’s just trying to get under our skin. There was a reason I didn’t want her seeing us at Hog Heaven. I told you she’s been trying to sabotage my job.”

  “You called it.”

  “Are small towns always like this?” Remedy said. “With everybody in everybody’s business? I thought that was a cliché.”

  “Nope. No cliché. Welcome to Dulcet.” His expression softened, turned intimate. “How are you this morning?”

  “Awkward morning-after talk aside, I’m doing great.” Except for the fact that she kinda wanted to drag him behind the chapel and see if he was as good a kisser as she recalled. If only she weren’t in the throes of the wedding from hell with a missing photographer crisis to deal with. “But we should get busy. This wedding tonight has a lot of moving parts and I need to stay on my A game.”

  “Understood. But I’m not leaving here today without getting your number, something I was remiss in not doing last night.”

  “I think I can manage that.”

  He reached out and stroked her arm, his eyes all heat and intimacy, then wrangled his expression back into a neutral business face. Clearing his throat, he brandished a ballpoint pen that he’d pulled from his shirt pocket and made a show of clicking the end. “Let’s start with the ballroom, shall we? You have the diagram of the layout for me?”

  “Right here.” She handed him a paper from her bag. While he looked it over, she dashed off her cell phone number on a sticky note and stuck it to the diagram.

  He peeled it off and slipped it into his pocket, a private smile on his lips that was gone as fast as it’d appeared.

  They took a golf cart around to the back of the resort where the grand ballroom’s direct entrance was. The curved outer wall of the ballroom was entirely made of windows that looked across the resort’s vast spread of land, which included the golf course and the lake beyond i
t. “The layout for tonight’s wedding is standard,” Remedy said as she drove. “The exits are easy to get to and the room is a hundred people under capacity, you’ll be happy to know. The only fire element at all is the candles in the centerpieces, and I learned my lesson from last weekend. You’ll see that they’re in votive holders that are tall enough to contain the flames according to fire marshal regulations.”

  They were nearly to the ballroom’s entrance when Remedy caught a swath of white in a tree. Those darned homing pigeons again. Remedy let out a curse that Gwyneth the elephant would’ve approved of.

  “What’s wrong?” Micah said.

  “They’re stalking me.”

  “Who?”

  She swerved right, planning to hide the golf cart behind a tall hedge while she called Skeeter to come get his damned vermin already. “The pigeons.”

  “Those look like doves.”

  “I know, but they’re really pigeons in disguise, and they’re plotting against me.” She pulled her phone from her bag as she navigated.

  “I don’t think their brains are large enough to plot against you.”

  “Doesn’t matter. The beady-eyed bastards,” she muttered.

  “Remedy!” He jerked the wheel from her, but it was too late. The golf cart slammed into a low cinder block and stucco wall protecting a knot of irrigation pipes and valves. Micah and Remedy pitched off their seats into the dashboard. Remedy’s head knocked against the steering wheel, but none of that compared to the feeling of mortification that was sinking like a stone in her belly.

  Micah’s hands roved over her back, her arm, her hair, testing, searching like a doctor might. “You okay? Does it hurt anywhere?”

  “I’m fine. I just—” She sat back in her seat and lowered her head to the steering wheel. “Not another golf cart accident.”

  His assessing hands stilled. “Exactly how many golf carts have you destroyed?” Amusement crowded out his tone of concern.

  “Destroyed might be an exaggeration.” At his raised eyebrow, she smoothed the fabric of her skirt and lifted her chin as though she had nothing to be ashamed of. Yeah, right. “Only three.”

  “Ever consider upgrading to an ATV?” Micah said. “Something sturdy and used to being roughed up. Something Remedy proof. Might save the resort a lot of money.”

  She gave his shoulder a shove. “What happened to Mister Big Town Hero, worried about everyone’s safety?”

  He had the audacity to chuckle. “Seems to me, this town needs more protecting from you than the other way around.”

  “Chivalry is dead.”

  “I am being chivalrous. I’ll have you know that, out of respect for you, I’m refraining from wiping that cute-as-hell grimace off your face by laying a big, fat kiss on you because you’re at work and we’re about to be surrounded by your coworkers.”

  Remedy twisted to look behind them. Sure enough, maintenance and landscape workers were rushing their way.

  With his clipboard out and ready, all business again, Micah slid out of the cart and dusted imaginary debris off his pants. Then he walked around to the driver’s side and helped Remedy out.

  Her body didn’t feel sore, which was the first thing that’d gone her way all day.

  “You sure you’re all right?” Micah said.

  “Fit as a fiddle.”

  “Good.” He handed Remedy the ballroom diagram as well as Emily’s safety permit, his signature of approval on both. “Diagrams look fine. I’m going to trust that you’re not going to try to sneak Tito’s fire dancers into the building or anything stupid like that from now on.”

  That was an unnecessary dig. Then again, he was backing off on his inspection, so who was she to complain? In fact, maybe a little sugaring up was in order. “I would never, because this place is a pile of tinder waiting to explode into flames.”

  He winked at her. “I’m glad we’re seeing eye-to-eye on that.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve heard the town’s Alpha Bubba is not a man to be crossed.”

  He touched her shoulder, letting his hand linger there a shade too long to be professional. “Glad we’re starting to see eye-to-eye on that, too.” He eyed the growing crowd of resort employees working around the golf cart and inspecting the irrigation lines, then tipped his hat to her. “My work here is done.”

  She indulged in her desire to study the way his backside moved while he walked all the way back to his truck across the grounds, figuring she deserved the visual holiday given that she was just in a minor accident. He was nearly to the parking lot when Remedy’s cell phone chimed with a text from a number she didn’t recognize.

  Is Sunday your day off?

  Micah. At the top of Chapel Hill, he turned her way. Though acres of lawn and garden paths separated them, she held his gaze as she typed her answer. Yes.

  Pick you up at six for dinner?

  Her heart did one of those flip-flop flutters. An actual bona fide date with Mister Big Town Hero Alpha Bubba. Burgers again?

  I might change it up. Alpha’s prerogative.

  She shook her head at him, though she couldn’t get the smile to wipe off her face. As long as I get the same dessert as last night …

  It was hard to tell from so far away, but he looked to be grinning as big as she was.

  Chapter Nine

  Sunday morning, Micah stifled a yawn as he pulled into the dirt parking lot beneath the carved wooden sign announcing the Ravel County Rifle Range in bright red letters, a hill country landmark that had grown to popularity long before Micah’s dad had brought him there to teach him how to use the birding shotgun he’d been given for his eighth birthday.

  Xavier’s car was already in the lot. Micah backed his truck into the spot next to it, then sat blinking into the sun, finishing the last of his coffee and trying to wake up.

  Probably he had no business shooting a gun at all that morning, seeing as how he’d been up all night chasing down three small fires across the county. A brush fire outside Dulcet city limits that seemed to be the result of a lit cigarette being thrown from a car, a trash-can fire thanks to improper disposal of a firework leftover from Independence Day, and a house fire started by a bottle rocket that crashed through a living room window and ignited the upholstery. Good times.

  Given the meager rainfalls the previous winter and the higher than average temperatures forecasted for the rest of the summer, the county land commissioner was hinting that a countywide burn ban was coming through the courts that would include fireworks, sparklers, and bottle rockets until at least October and even stricter bans in the backcountry on edgers, lawn mowers, and other heavy equipment that had the potential to spark a blaze.

  Micah was all for that. Fire season had already ravaged sections of West Texas, and even though hill country wasn’t directly affected yet, the risk remained high. Ever since fireworks had gone on sale during the weeks before Independence Day, his fire response radio had been chirping nonstop with reports of blazes across the state. It was like people couldn’t celebrate their country without trying to burn it down.

  After a night like he’d had, Micah wasn’t prepared for the sight of Ty Briscoe stepping out of the driver’s seat in the parking spot closest to the entrance. He was a scrappy, bald bulldog of a man who hadn’t seemed to age a day since Micah had known him. The king of Ravel County—more like the bane of Micah’s existence.

  Ty looked right at Micah, as though he’d been anticipating Micah’s arrival. He pulled a long black gun bag from the backseat of his truck, set it on the ground, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned back, waiting. Just terrific. Micah’s only way into the shooting range was going to be through his mortal enemy. So be it.

  Stalling, he floated a fresh toothpick between his lips and dialed Xavier’s cell phone number. He picked up on the second ring.

  “Don’t tell me you’re not coming,” Xavier said in lieu of a greeting.

  “Naw, I’m here in the parking lot. Just one question: Why are we up so dang e
arly on our morning off? I’m tired. Long night.”

  Xavier snickered. “Join the club. And we’re here so early because it’ll probably be pushing a hundred degrees on the range by mid-morning. Stop whining and get your ass in here. My Remington and I are ready to show you up.”

  Micah looked again at Ty Briscoe, who was now polishing an invisible smudge off a long black sniper rifle, a wad of chew under his lip and an arsenal of deadly weapons in a bag at his feet.

  Micah supposed the rifle was to intimidate him. That was a cute theory.

  Micah ambled out of his truck, nice and slow, then took his time strapping a holster around his waist. He snapped a full cartridge into his Taurus, loaded the chamber, and slid it to rest against his right hip. Grabbing his gun bag from the truck bed, he double-checked that his expression was full of bored confidence, then infused his walk to Ty with a loose-limbed swagger. Full Alpha Bubba mode, as Remedy probably would’ve called it.

  Ty spit on the ground between them. “You look like hell, boy.”

  Every man was a boy or son to Ty Briscoe. Didn’t matter that Micah stood a half head taller than him and had the law on his side, because Briscoe honestly believed he was above said law—which, to Micah’s way of thinking, made him one of the most dangerous men in Texas.

  “Look at you, slumming at a public range. Aren’t you afraid our working-class values will pollute your delusions of grandeur?”

  Briscoe pushed off his truck and squared up to face Micah. “Knew I’d find you here. I need a word.”

  My ass. “A word? Aw, come on. I know you didn’t come here to chat me up and I hope you’re not here trying to bribe me. I’d like to think you’ve figured out by now that you can’t own me or my department like you do the rest of the county. Which only leaves one option. You’re here to threaten me. Go on, then. Spit it out. I don’t have time to wade through your bullshit.”

  A hard smile spread on Briscoe’s lips. “You giving my new event planner hell yet?”

  It was a turn of the conversation Micah hadn’t seen coming. Micah’s instincts sounded an alarm. Whatever Ty had cookin’, if it involved Remedy there’d be hell to pay. “No more’n I usually give ’em.”