Controlled Burn

by Shannon Stacey

  Following Rick into the kitchen, she listened to them all talk about the barbecue. The conversation mostly consisted of news about a lot of people Jessica didn’t know, so it was tempting to grab her laptop and go upstairs. It had been several hours since she checked her email and that might have been a record for her.

  But she liked the easy rhythm of their interactions. They even seemed to have their own individual spots for talking. Joe sat at the table, with his word search book open in front of him. Marie puttered around the kitchen, getting ready to make dinner. And Rick, as usual, leaned against the counter.

  Because it seemed the logical thing to do, Jessica had sat in the chair she’d been using since she arrived on Wednesday. While Joe, Marie and Rick were almost a family unit, it made her feel almost as if she belonged to have a usual spot, too.

  But she jumped in her chair when her phone, still sitting on the table next to her laptop, rang. It was her father’s ringtone, and his name flashed on the screen. The others looked at it, since it was hard to ignore the sound, and she realized Marie could see the name when her body stiffened.

  “Sorry,” Jessica said softly, tapping the option to send his call to voice mail, and then flipping the switch to silence her phone in case he called again. He almost certainly would.

  “You can answer that, you know,” Joe said. “It could be important business.”

  “It’s nothing that can’t wait.” It would be too awkward to talk to him while they were in the room. “It’s not like Rick’s job, which is literally life-and-death.”

  “And cats in trees,” he added, making Joe and Marie laugh.

  The bubble of tension popped, and Jessica smiled. “Can’t forget the cats.”

  “I should head upstairs,” Rick said a few minutes later. “I left laundry in the washer and I hate when I forget it’s in there and have to wash it again.”

  “You’ll come down and eat supper with us, won’t you?” Marie asked.

  Jessica saw him hesitate as his gaze met hers. Then he looked away with a sigh. “You don’t need me underfoot. And besides the laundry, I’ve got a list of other stuff waiting to get done.”

  “You took care of my bushes today. And I’m making stuffed manicotti.”

  He groaned. “You know I’m a sucker for any of your pasta dishes.”

  “Come back down in about two hours, then.”

  Jessica watched him go, and then snatched her phone off the table when it vibrated loudly against the wood. She should have anticipated that. After rejecting her father’s second call, she cradled the phone in her hands under the table where it wouldn’t be as noticeable if it went off again.

  “I’m going to go watch some television, I think,” Joe said, pushing himself up off his chair. He winced a little as his knees straightened, but he gave Jessica a wink. “I get nervous when I’m the only man in the kitchen.”

  Marie snorted. “You should be. And Jessica probably needs to go upstairs and deal with work stuff, anyway.”

  Yes, she needed to. But after a few seconds, she shook her head. Then she powered off her phone completely and tossed it on top of her laptop. “Actually, I’ve never made stuffed manicotti. If you don’t mind teaching as you go along, I’d love to help.”

  The smile that lit up her grandmother’s face made Jessica’s heart ache, and she knew she’d made the right choice. She’d probably still regret it when she finally had to return to her father’s phone call, but for right now, she was going to hang out in the kitchen and cook a meal with her grandmother.

  After the men vacated the kitchen, they got to work. Jessica wasn’t surprised Marie didn’t have to pull out a recipe card or cookbook, though she did promise to write it down for Jessica after dinner if she liked it.

  “This was one of your dad’s favorite meals growing up,” her grandmother said.

  “It still is, actually. I probably would have made it before now, except when we dine together, it usually doubles as a business meeting. It’s a lot easier to do that in a restaurant.”

  “Do you cook at home for yourself, though?”

  “Sometimes, but definitely nothing like stuffed manicotti. I have an indoor grill I love and I’ll toss a quick salad to go with whatever meat I grilled for dinner. I’m not very creative, I’m afraid.”

  “And none of your stepmothers taught you how to cook?”

  Jess sighed. “Most of them haven’t been very fond of me, I guess. I’m a big part of my father’s life and he would defer to me a lot even for household decisions.”

  “Why haven’t you ever married?” Marie said, popping the lid off of a tub of ricotta cheese. “If you don’t mind my asking. I’m being very nosy, I guess.”

  “Confession time. I don’t really care how to make stuffed manicotti. I just wanted to spend time getting to know you and the kitchen seems like a good place, so nosy is kind of the point. I found out from Rick that you taught math in high school and I can’t believe I hadn’t already asked you that.”

  Marie laughed. “I think I’ve been hogging all the questions. But I’d really rather hear about your love life than my teaching career, that’s for sure.”

  Jess snorted and shook her head. “I wouldn’t call it a love life. I date, of course. But for some reason, most of the men I’ve gone out with have been younger than I am, maybe because they’re not beating the time to start a family drum.”

  “And you’re not ready for that yet?”

  “I think I’m getting there, but not quite yet. And besides the age issue, there’s my father. The men I’ve dated have either wanted a chance to work with my father or they’ve been scared spitless of him. It’s really annoying, so I haven’t dated much at all lately.”

  “You’d be surprised how many friends I have with grandsons that would be perfect for you.”

  Jess side-eyed Marie, who laughed at her. “I have enough on my plate right now.”

  “Oh, but let me tell you about this one young man. Well, young meaning forty-five or so.”

  Two hours of blind date dodging and a lot of laughter later, Jessica found out why Rick had been willing to forego doing his own chores to come back downstairs for dinner. Even though the ones Jessica had stuffed looked a little messy, the manicotti tasted amazing and she ate until she couldn’t bear to put another bite in her mouth.

  Then she leaned back in her chair with a groan. “I can’t keep eating like this. I swear my jeans are already getting too tight and I have a closet full of pencil skirts. Those are not forgiving.”

  “What’s a pencil skirt?” Rick asked from across the table.

  “They’re long, like midcalf length, and they hug your...let’s just say they’re somewhat form-fitting.” When he raised an eyebrow, she tried not to blush. “They’re flattering, but they won’t be for long if I keep having seconds of everything Marie cooks.”

  “You have a beautiful figure,” her grandmother said, and Jessica didn’t miss the slight nod of Rick’s head before he quickly turned his attention back to his plate.

  “Not for much longer. Our office building has a fitness center in it, so I usually work out at the end of the day. Only for half an hour or so, but I can gather my thoughts and sweat out any frustrations before heading home. And it keeps my jeans from getting too tight, I guess.”

  “Rick, you belong to a gym, don’t you?” Marie asked. “Even though she doesn’t need it as far as I can tell, you should take her to work out with you if it makes her feel better.”

  Jessica’s imagination coughed up an image of a shirtless, sweaty Rick and the instant hot flash made her feel anything but better.

  * * *

  Rick had just put a big chunk of stuffed manicotti into his mouth and he took his time chewing it. He didn’t need a flashing neon arrow to see what direction Marie was going with that question, b
ut he had a suspicion the place he had a membership to and the San Diego office building “fitness center” Jessica used were on totally opposite ends of the gym spectrum.

  “Sometimes,” he said once he couldn’t put off swallowing his food any longer. “We have some workout equipment at the station, so I don’t really get to the gym very often. I probably talk about it a lot more often then I actually see the inside of it.”

  Marie set her fork down and took a sip of her drink before turning her laser focus on him. “There aren’t any of those gyms just for women nearby, I don’t think, and I don’t want Jessica running around the city trying to find one. But I don’t want her going to your gym with a bunch of strange men all by herself, either.”

  “It’s honestly okay, Marie,” Jessica said, but Rick knew it was a lost cause. “I don’t think I’ll actually outgrow my jeans before I get back to San Diego.”

  “But you use it to clear your mind, too, and it’s probably stressful being out here while you have a business to run all the way across the country.”

  The obvious answer would be for Jessica to go back across the country and just run her business, but Rick wisely kept that suggestion to himself. “I can take you to the gym. You want to go tomorrow?”

  “I...” She gave him a look across the table that clearly said she wasn’t sure she wanted to at all, but she was getting the hint that Marie wasn’t going to give up on the idea. “Okay.”

  “How’s ten o’clock? It’s not far. Down the street and around the corner, so we can walk. And there’s no place to change, so wear what you want to work out in.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “That’s settled, then.” Looking very satisfied with herself, Marie picked up her fork again. “Since you’re going to the gym tomorrow, do you want another manicotti?”

  Once they were done eating and the kitchen had been cleaned up, Rick made his second escape of the day. They’d invited him to watch television with them, but he’d reminded them he had stuff he needed to get done.

  It wasn’t entirely true. He didn’t have much of a to-do list other than the laundry and some light housekeeping, but he’d pretty much had his fill of Broussards for the day. They were exhausting, really. He’d been worried about Joe and Marie for so long, he should have been relieved to have Jess there to take up some of the slack. But he couldn’t help but wonder if it had been a coincidence that they were meeting with the doctor on a Tuesday, when they knew he’d be at the station.

  And then there was Jessica. He found it difficult to concentrate around her and, when he wasn’t around, he found himself looking forward to seeing her again. That was a disaster in the making. If she was anybody but Joe and Marie’s granddaughter, he’d probably have asked her out to dinner already. He’d get to know her and maybe, if the attraction was mutual, do something about the growing ache that intensified every time he was around her. But the last thing this situation needed was the two of them getting entangled in any kind of a relationship. He wasn’t sure how Joe and Marie would feel about it but, good or bad, it would change everything.

  After finishing his laundry and doing some other chores, Rick stretched out on his couch and did some channel surfing. Nothing caught his interest, so he stopped flipping on an action movie he’d seen at least a dozen times and tossed the remote onto the coffee table.

  He woke up just before six the next morning with a stiff neck and groaned. A nice king-sized bed in the next room, and he slept on the damn couch. Being able to sleep anywhere, in almost any position, made his job easier, but it sure sucked when he did it at home.

  Before jumping in the shower, Rick made himself a coffee and walked to the window. The snow hadn’t amounted to much and it would probably melt off on its own by noon. He’d sweep off the ramp and throw some sand down before Joe and Marie left for their traditional Sunday brunch at the senior center, but he could ignore the rest.

  He scrambled a few eggs and dropped a couple of slices of American cheese on top to melt while he toasted an English muffin. Then he showered and threw on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt that was so old the Boston Red Sox logo was almost worn away. If he was taking Jessica to the gym, he may as well get a workout in, too. It wasn’t as if he could stand around and watch her, whether he wanted to or not.

  At nine-thirty, he pulled on a hoodie and went down the back stairs to take care of the ramp. That didn’t kill enough time, so he swept off the vehicles while he was at it. And, when the back door finally opened and Jessica stepped out, he laughed.

  She stopped halfway down the ramp and scowled at him before looking down at the parka that covered her from neck to knee. “There’s snow. Snow means cold, so Marie lent me one of her coats.”

  That was a February kind of coat, but she was a California girl, so he just grinned. “As long as you’re comfortable. You ready?”

  They walked in silence for a few minutes while Jessica looked around the old neighborhood. It was a nice neighborhood, if a little shabby in places, and geared toward families. There were no plazas or big box stores in sight, but there was a market on almost every corner and a lot of small shops along the main street.

  “Since you have to work on Tuesday, is there anything in particular you’d like for me to ask the doctor?” she asked as they rounded the corner onto a side street.

  “At this point, not really. Mostly I’d just like to know if he has any specific concerns, you know what I mean?” As far as he knew, the appointment was mostly a formality. A follow-up for Joe’s fall and to replace Davey with Jessica on their paperwork. “If there’s something serious going on they’re not telling me about, I’d like to know.”

  She was quiet for a moment, and then he caught the sharp nod of her head from the corner of his eye, as if she’d made a decision. “If there’s something going on, I’ll make them tell you.”

  Rick didn’t miss the phrasing. She wasn’t going to tell him herself, maybe not wanting to break their confidence. It annoyed him a little that she’d be in the loop but he wouldn’t be, but he also had to respect the fact she was taking this—and her newfound loyalty to her grandparents—seriously.

  He stopped in front of a metal door with chipped blue paint and the gym’s logo. It was dimly lit and smelled like sweaty socks, and there were a few guys already working out. Jessica didn’t hesitate. She simply looked around as he led her to a long bench that had hooks hung over it. They only had one locker room and it looked like a science project gone bad, so Rick never used it. He stripped off the hoodie and hung it on a hook before looking at her.

  “You ready to sweat?” he asked.

  She nodded, but didn’t meet his gaze, which he found amusing. Then she unzipped the parka and shrugged it off.

  Jess in gym clothes wasn’t something he’d really given a lot of thought to. Now he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else for a long damn time.

  No baggy sweats and shapeless T-shirt for her. She had on tight black leggings that hugged every single curve. Her calves. Her thighs. Her hips. And, when she turned slightly, her ass. Most definitely her ass. And she was wearing a similarly body-hugging tank top with a scooped neck that showed a hint of cleavage. Her arms were bare and toned, and still tanned whereas most of New England’s citizens were already losing their summer color for the winter.

  Whatever she did in her fancy executive fitness center, it was definitely working for her.

  “I ran to the store after supper last night and picked up a few things.” She scowled, looking down at the new clothes. “When I go home, I’ll either have to buy and check a second suitcase or mail a box back to San Diego.”

  Rick could tell by the silence that he wasn’t the only man in the room appreciating Jessica’s choice of workout gear, but he forced himself not to turn around and glare at anybody. “As you can see, we don’t have a lot of fancy stuff.
Weights. There are a few speed bags and a couple of heavy bags if you want to hit things. There are two bikes over in the corner. And more weights.”

  “I think I’ll just spin for a while.”

  He frowned. “Spin?”

  “The bikes. I’ll just ride the bike for some cardio.”

  “Ah, okay. I’ll probably lift some weights for a while.”

  “Hey, Gullotti, you got any tickets for the game on you?” a guy called from across the gym.

  “Not on me, but if you stop by the station, any of the guys can hook you up.”

  “What game?” Jess asked after the other guy had nodded his thanks.

  “Charity hockey game,” he explained. “Fire versus police.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard of those. They’re a big deal.”

  Rick smiled. “Yeah. This isn’t the big battle of the badges game. Just a smaller neighborhood game to raise money for Toys 4 Tots. And most of the people not only buy the tickets, but they bring toys, too. It’s a tradition and the turnout’s always good.”

  “Is it soon?”

  “Next Saturday.”

  “Oh.” She looked thoughtful for a few seconds. “Do Joe and Marie go?”

  “Every year. I can get you a ticket if you think you’ll still be around,” he offered, even though he was pretty sure she’d head west once the doctor appointment was out of the way. She didn’t need to be there for the lawyer, and Joe and Marie weren’t anywhere near ready to consider a real estate agent yet. If at all.

  “I haven’t taken a vacation in years,” she said. “I’d like to see a hockey game, I think. Especially with Joe and Marie. I’ll stay that long.”

  Even though she sounded sure of the decision, he could see the worry in her eyes and the set of her mouth. Her old man was not going to be happy with her. “I’ll save you a ticket, then. Joe and Marie will love having you there.”