Fire and Glass

by Linda Seed

  “It was freaking amazing.” Lacy lowered her voice so only Kate could hear. She couldn’t help grinning as the memory of the kiss flooded her with fresh, new lust.

  “Oh! Oh, good!” Kate clapped her hands happily and bounced a few times on her toes. “So, what now? I mean, what’s next for you two?”

  “I don’t know.” Lacy sighed. “I mean, yeah, I want to go out with him. But we don’t have a date set or anything. I keep waiting for him to text. Because, you know, I’m basically twelve.” Lacy scowled at herself.

  “Oh!” Kate held up a finger as she suddenly remembered something. “Speaking of setting dates, Rose wants to have her baby shower on the tenth of December. Will that work?”

  Lacy thought for a moment. It was early November now, with Thanksgiving looming. It might be hard to pull together a shower with all of the various holiday preparations that had to be considered. On the other hand, Rose’s baby wasn’t going to wait just because it was the holiday season. And if they put the shower off any longer, they were either going to conflict with Christmas, or they would end up waiting too long, and the baby would be attending as a guest.

  “Sure,” Lacy said, after mulling it over. “December tenth it is.”

  “Great.” Kate picked up her coffee, slipped a cardboard sleeve onto the cup, and got ready to head back to the bookstore. “We’ll get together to talk about themes, food, stupid party games, all that.”

  “Does Rose even want stupid party games?” Lacy wondered.

  “Rose actually insisted on stupid party games. She said, and I quote, ‘As God is my witness, somebody at that party is going to wear a diaper.’ End quote.”

  “Ah. Well. Maybe it’ll be her mother.”

  Kate snickered. “Now, there’s an image.” She tapped her knuckles once on the counter. “I gotta go. Text me when you hear from Daniel!”

  “I will.”

  But, in fact, she probably wouldn’t have to. Kate could just hear it from Whitney, who heard it from Cassie.

  Families.

  “Hey, there, Lacy. Can I get a large coffee?”

  Lacy turned to see Hank Lawson, an elderly gentleman, standing at the counter.

  “Oh. Sure, Hank. Coming right up.”

  “I heard about you and that Daniel Reed,” Hank said, leering a little from under his John Deere cap as she rang up his purchase. “Be still my heart.”

  “Just drink your damned coffee, Hank,” Lacy barked at him, shoving a full cup across the counter.

  It occurred to her that she and Daniel might as well have just gone for it on the floor.

  That was the way people were going to retell it, anyway.

  Daniel and Lacy had their first date a couple of days later. They danced around it a little—where they would go, and what they would do, and when—and then settled on dinner at Neptune.

  Dinner at a nice restaurant—it was a classic for a reason.

  Lacy didn’t have anything to wear, other than the one standard black dress her sisters had rejected for the engagement party, and the engagement party dress itself. Obviously, both of those were out. So, Whitney came over with an armload of clothes from her own closet for Lacy to try. Not only was Whitney the most fashionable of Lacy’s sisters, she was also the one closest to Lacy in height and build.

  When Whitney got there and plunked the clothes she’d brought onto the bed in Lacy’s trailer, she looked around her and scowled.

  “I don’t know why we can’t do this in the house. This place isn’t big enough to spread out. And do you even have a full-length mirror?”

  “I’ve got one in the bathroom,” Lacy told her. “And you know why I can’t do it in the house. Mom would grill me about why I was going out with someone new so soon after Brandon, and why I broke up with Brandon in the first place, and how she could call him and smooth things over …”

  “That’s true,” Whitney admitted thoughtfully. “But she does have a point.”

  Lacy stopped browsing through the clothes and looked at Whitney. “About which part?”

  “Both. I mean, just a month ago you were at your engagement party, all happy and looking forward to being married. And then this Daniel Reed comes along …”

  “First of all, I wasn’t happy,” Lacy said, sitting on the edge of the bed beside the pile of dresses, skirts, and blouses. “I only thought I was. And second, the breakup didn’t have anything to do with Daniel.”

  “Well … okay.” Whitney tossed her hands up in confusion. “Fine. But he did step into the void pretty quickly, didn’t he? And Cassie said the kiss at Jitters wasn’t even that good!”

  Lacy could have corrected Whitney and told her how the kiss had practically melted her nether regions, but she didn’t see the point. Instead, she said, “You don’t really like Daniel, do you?”

  “I don’t know him that well,” Whitney said, deflecting the question.

  “Uh-huh. But?” Lacy prompted her.

  “But, one of my friends from high school dated him a couple of years ago, and he broke her heart.”

  “Well … how? How did he break her heart? I mean, was it one of those things where she fell for him and it just didn’t work out? Or did he do something mean, or …?” Lacy felt the strong need to defend him, even without knowing any of the details.

  Whitney shrugged. “I don’t know. She didn’t give me a blow by blow. It’s just …”

  “It’s just what, Whitney?”

  Whitney gathered herself, faced Lacy, and spoke with new conviction. “It’s just that a guy who looks like he does probably thinks he can use women however he wants. And you should be careful.”

  “He’s not like that,” Lacy said, stung a little on Daniel’s behalf.

  “Okay, whatever you say.” Whitney’s face was set in her nobody ever listens to me pout. “Just, be careful.”

  Lacy settled on an emerald green halter dress with a flowing, midlength skirt. She didn’t have any shoes to go with it, but Whitney had thought of that and had brought a selection. The only problem was that Whitney’s feet were half a size smaller than Lacy’s. As a result, Lacy hobbled to the trailer door when Daniel came to pick her up.

  “You look gorgeous,” Daniel said when Lacy opened the door. He blinked a few times as though acclimating himself to a too-bright light.

  “It’s Whitney’s. The dress, I mean,” Lacy said. “And the shoes. I didn’t have any nice shoes, except the ones I wore to the engagement party, and I figured, the less to remind us of that, the better, so …”

  She was babbling. She knew it, but couldn’t seem to stop herself. And she also had reminded them both of her engagement, even while commenting that she didn’t want to remind them of it. Shut up, Lacy, she told herself.

  “Do you want to come in for a minute?” she asked, figuring that, at least, was safe territory, conversation-wise. Though it might not be safe in other ways.

  He climbed up the steps and into the trailer, peering around with interest.

  “You live here full-time?” he asked. “This place is great.” He poked around with no self-consciousness about the fact that he was in someone else’s home, looking at all of their stuff. He peeked into the bathroom, into the tiny closet. He opened a kitchen cabinet or two, marveling at the ingenious use of space. “Do you leave it parked here all the time, or do you ever take it camping? There are some good RV parks near Yosemite.”

  Lacy was, for a moment, speechless. Nobody had ever loved her Airstream the way she did. Her mother was eager to get her married off so she could have a “real” home. Brandon had refused to even come inside. And Whitney fretted over the lack of closet space, bemoaning the sorry state of Lacy’s wardrobe, considering how few belongings she could fit into the trailer. Nobody really saw it the way she did: the simplicity. The efficiency. The feeling of being inside a safe and warm burrow, a cozy cocoon.

  Now, here was Daniel marveling at the place in pure glee.

  “I … uh … yeah. We’ve taken it to Yosemite,”
Lacy said, recovering herself. “I bought this place from my mom and dad. They got it when I was about fourteen, for family road trips. We went to Sequoia, Kings Canyon. The Grand Canyon. Yellowstone, one time.”

  “Wow.” Daniel peered into the storage area under the bed, which was where Lacy kept her shoes all lined up in a neat row. “Do you still travel with it?”

  “Not for a while.” Lacy sat down on the bed and watched him, amused and charmed by his boyish enthusiasm. What was it with men and vehicles—or things that you pulled behind vehicles? “The road trips were more of a family thing—Mom and Dad, my brother and my sisters. Now that we’re all grown and my parents can’t force us to go on vacation together, we don’t really do it anymore. Kind of a shame,” she said as an afterthought.

  “Wait. There are, what? Five kids in your family? How did you fit everybody in here?”

  “We didn’t. The trailer was kind of a headquarters, for showering and cooking. Everybody slept in tents and sleeping bags. Except for Whitney—she got the bed. I think she came out of the womb too prissy for camping.” Lacy smiled fondly at the memory.

  “Man. I wish we’d had one of these when we were doing our quest to visit all fifty states,” Daniel said. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his dress pants, his face aglow with enthusiasm. “I think I’ve stayed in every Motel 6 in the continental United States.”

  They both fell quiet, and something in the air between them changed, subtly but noticeably, as they both realized they were alone in a place with a bed. The way he was looking at her made her feel hot suddenly. She stood up on the too-tight heels, intending to tell him that they should get going, thinking that she should get him out of the trailer and into public before she was tempted to strip naked and offer herself to him like an early Christmas present.

  She knew what she was supposed to say: Well, should we get going? But instead of saying that, she stepped a little closer to him. She could see his Adam’s apple working as he swallowed. Then, he reached out one hand and ran it gently down her arm.

  The effect was immediate and profound. His touch sent a wave of tingling warmth through her body, and she let out an involuntary sigh.

  He moved in as if to kiss her, and she breathed in his smell—shaving cream and some kind of minty mouthwash, and a warm and musky scent that was just him.

  Sleeping with him on the first date would show an appalling lack of self-control. How much worse would it be if she slept with him before the date even happened?

  He was just inches from her now, just a breath away.

  “Dinner?” she said, and her voice cracked.

  “Huh?” He looked as though he were entirely unfamiliar with the word.

  “We … uh … shall we go? To dinner?”

  She could almost see him turning his brain back on, coming fully back into consciousness.

  “Oh. Right.” He held out his hand to her, and she took it in hers. “Shall we?”

  They had thought to go to Neptune, where Jackson was the head chef, because the atmosphere was nice and the food was even better. But they were halfway between Lacy’s place and the restaurant—a distance of less than a mile—when Daniel’s cell phone rang, and he answered it through the Bluetooth in his SUV.

  “Daniel?” the voice said. “This is Earlene Drummond.”

  Earlene Drummond was the closest thing Daniel had to a neighbor; her place was down the road from his in the hills south of Cambria.

  “Oh. Hey, Earlene. How are you?” he said.

  “Well, I have your little dog. He is yours, right? I didn’t think you had a dog, but I see your number on his collar.”

  What the hell? Zzyzx had been in the house when Daniel had left to get Lacy. How had he gotten out?

  “Uh … yeah, I’ve only had him a little while. Where’d you find him?”

  “He was wandering down the road in front of my place. He looked lost.” As an afterthought, she added, “He certainly is … interesting looking.”

  “Ah, shit. Oh. Sorry, Earlene. Excuse the language.” Earlene was in her seventies, and it occurred to him that his mother wouldn’t approve of him swearing to her.

  “I’ve got him in my kitchen, and I don’t have a fenced yard …”

  Earlene sounded somewhat distressed about the situation. He glanced over at Lacy, looking lovely in her green dress. She gave him a wry smile.

  “Okay, Earlene. I’ll be right out. Just sit tight.”

  He disconnected the call and pulled the SUV over to the curb on Main Street a couple of blocks from the restaurant.

  “Lacy, I—”

  “It’s okay. We can go get him,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Sure. He’s kind of my dog, too, when you think about it. We can’t just leave him there.”

  “All right. Thanks. I’m going to wring his furry little neck when I get him. I don’t even know how he got out of the house. Probably stood on a chair and turned the knob.”

  Zzyzx was proving to be surprisingly smart for a dog. If he wanted out, and there was a way, Daniel wasn’t surprised that he’d found it. Z didn’t like it when Daniel left the house; his whines, accompanied by the sound of his little claws scratching at the door, struck guilt into Daniel’s heart whenever he tried to go anywhere these days.

  He pulled the SUV back out onto Main Street and headed toward Highway 1, then drove south in the direction of Harmony. It didn’t seem quite fair that he’d saved Z’s life, and this was how the dog was repaying him.

  If Z ruined his chances with Lacy, the mutt was never going to lay eyes on another Milk-Bone as long as he lived.

  Chapter Twenty

  They picked up Z from Earlene’s, and when the dog saw Lacy, he went into a hysterical display of pleasure, jumping and spinning and whining as though she were his long lost mother. She scooped him up and held him to her chest, and he squirmed in delight, licking her face with his little pink tongue.

  “Oh, you’re both so dressed up,” Earlene remarked. “I hope I didn’t ruin your evening.”

  As a matter of fact, Daniel thought. But instead of saying that, he just thanked her, and they bundled the errant dog into the car for the drive home.

  In the SUV, Z continued to whine with pleasure, gazing at Lacy in pure, worshipful love.

  “I’m the one who feeds him,” Daniel grumbled as they drove toward his place. “I’m the one who cleans up his pee when he goes in the house. It’s like I don’t even exist.”

  “Aww. You’re jealous,” Lacy said as Z looked up at her with adoring eyes.

  “A little.” He grinned in the glow of the dashboard lights. “I get it, though. If I had the chance to curl up in your lap, I’d sure as hell take it.”

  “Maybe later,” Lacy remarked. “We’ll have to see how the evening goes.”

  It turned out that Z had climbed onto a table and squeezed through a window that Daniel had left partially open. The dog hair on the tabletop was a dead giveaway.

  They let him run around the yard to pee, then put him inside the house, closed the window, checked his food and water bowls to make sure he was adequately provisioned, and then left the house to give their date another try. But with Lacy’s presence, his drama over being left was even more heartrending than usual. He whined, howled, yelped, scratched at the door, and did everything short of hiring a skywriter to ask them not to go.

  They didn’t even make it all the way to the SUV before Lacy cracked.

  “We can’t just leave him.” She looked at Daniel apologetically. “He’s sad.”

  “He’s always sad when I leave,” Daniel remarked. “Am I supposed to just stay in my house for the rest of his life, having groceries delivered and chatting with women on the Internet?”

  “It kind of seems like he’d like that,” she said. The sound of Z’s moaning and sobbing—or the canine equivalent, anyway—came through the door to where they stood beside the car.

  They both waited there indecisively for a minute, listening t
o the pitiful racket on the other side of the door.

  “Let’s just go,” Daniel said finally, moving in the direction of Lacy’s door, intending to open it for her. “He’ll settle down.”

  Lacy looked at the house, then at Daniel, then at the house.

  “Now, listen,” Daniel said, his face stern. “He’s gonna have to learn. He’ll live. He’s not gonna die of loneliness.” But even as he said it, he already knew he’d lost.

  Z continued to whine in abject misery.

  “Maybe we could just stay with him for a little while?” Lacy suggested. “He sounds so sad.”

  “Oh, for—” Daniel took his keys out of his pocket and headed back toward the house. “Come on,” he said to Lacy. “I think I have some pizza in the freezer.”

  He did have a pizza, and also the makings for a salad. As he was moving around the kitchen with Zzyzx at his feet, getting the food ready, he noticed that Lacy was having a little trouble with her shoes, so he suggested that she take them off.

  Her sigh of ecstasy when her feet were freed made him think of other ways he might make her sigh, under other, infinitely nicer, circumstances.

  And that was how he almost set the kitchen on fire.

  He was so distracted by the sigh, and by the associations it created in his mind, that he accidentally hit the dial for the front right burner on the stove, rather than the dial for the oven. It just so happened that there was a dishcloth sitting right there, and before either of them knew what was happening, flames were licking at the corner of the cloth, and the smoke alarm overhead started screaming in distress.

  “Oh, God,” Lacy exclaimed, jumping back from where she’d been leaning against the kitchen counter.

  Fortunately, Daniel dealt with fire every day, so a minor dishcloth incident was no cause for panic. Cursing to himself, he grabbed the end of the cloth that wasn’t on fire, dropped the cloth in the sink, and turned on the tap, putting out the flames.

  That still left the problem of the smoke alarm—and the problem of Z, who was so frightened by the noise that he was howling a high-pitched, musical wail to accompany the blaring scream.