Never Too Hot

by Bella Andre

  She'd wanted a baby for so long, and now, entirely by accident, she'd managed to get pregnant.

  No more watching new mothers try to jam their strollers into the diner's narrow front door and wishing it was her. No more looking into the future and wondering when, if ever, having kids was going to happen for her.

  But then, it hit her, had it really been an accident? If she'd slept with anyone but Connor, wouldn't she have been more careful? Had she fallen in love so fast, so hard, that she'd secretly wanted to get pregnant with Connor's baby every single time they came together?

  Isabel knocked on the door. "You okay in there?"

  Ginger walked out of the bathroom only able to say one word.

  "Pregnant."

  Isabel screamed, threw her arms around her, hugged her hard.

  "I'm so happy for you," came first, before, "It's going to be okay, whatever happens."

  "I need to go tell him. Right now."

  Isabel nodded. "Do you want me to come with you?"

  "No."

  This was between her and Connor, no one else.

  Joy and fear knocked into each other again and again as she made her way across Isabel's beach to Poplar Cove. And then she saw him standing on the beach and her legs almost failed her.

  It's going to be okay, she repeated several times in her head, before taking a deep breath and heading toward him.

  It was time to tell Connor he was going to be a daddy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CONNOR'S HEART jumped when he saw Ginger walking across the beach to him.

  He'd thought the stronger path was to walk away from her, to deal with his demons on his own. In his world, a hotshot never gave up, never admitted weakness. But was that because they were all so tough? Or was it because they knew there were nineteen other guys backing them up on the mountain? A skilled crew of friends and family who would pull their ass up out of the flames if they ever needed it?

  A sudden thought hit him hard in the solar plexus: Ginger was his crew.

  How had he not seen it before? She'd supported him, understood him, had risked her life for him. She'd given herself up to him completely. And instead of doing the same for her, he'd run.

  A thousand times he'd faced physical threats, but this was the first time his heart had ever been on the line. This was the first time he'd fallen in love, harder and deeper than he'd known was possible.

  His father was right. All of his reasons to give up Ginger were just excuses. Just as she'd always been there for him, he wanted to be there for her. To hold her hand when she was hurting. To celebrate her successes.

  To love her no matter what the future held. And to let her love him back without doubt.

  He wasn't going to run scared anymore. And he'd do whatever it took to get her back.

  As he moved toward her it was almost as if everything was moving in slow motion. He could feel the grains of sand beneath his bare feet, the sun hot on his shoulders, hear the loons calling to each other across the lake. Finally she was standing right in front of him.

  He drank in the sight of her. She looked tired. Like she'd been crying. But radiant all the same.

  "I've missed you, Ginger."

  He watched her start in surprise at his words, then look down at the sand, close her eyes and take a deep breath.

  "I need to tell you something, Connor."

  "Ginger, please. Just let me say something first."

  "No," she insisted. "I need to say this." She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin. "I'm pregnant."

  The sun emerged from behind a tree and he was momentarily blinded.

  "Say that again."

  "I'm going to have a baby." Her voice was shaking now. "Our baby."

  "You're pregnant." He needed a second to process the shocking news.

  "It must have happened the fir--" She stumbled over the word. "The first night. Or that next morning. The timing works out right."

  He braced himself, wondered if the walls were going to start closing in. A baby meant his life as he knew it was forever over now.

  Instead, he was blindsided by relief.

  And pure joy.

  He took her hands in his, threaded his fingers through hers. "I love you."

  She looked down at their hands, then up at him, her eyebrows furrowed in a deep frown. And then, she abruptly pulled her fingers from his. Took a step back.

  "Don't say that now, just because--"

  He reached for her again, but this time he pulled her against him. "Damn it, Ginger. I just told you I love you. You're the first woman I've ever said that to."

  "I'd also bet I'm the first woman you've gotten pregnant."

  What the hell was happening here? He'd just confessed his true feelings to her and she was throwing them back in his face?

  "I don't get it. I thought this was everything you wanted. A baby. A man who loves you."

  "I don't see any wildflowers."

  "What the hell do wildflowers have to do with anything?"

  "I already asked you for everything," she yelled. "And you already said no. So don't you dare tell me you love me now and expect me to believe you."

  Her chest was falling and rising and her face was flushed. Visibly working to calm down, she said, "This doesn't have to change anything. You'll be going back to California soon. We can figure something out that makes sense. I know this is your child, too, and I'll make sure you get plenty of time with him or her."

  "Like hell this doesn't change anything. Everything is different now. You're going to have a child. My child. And no kid of mine is growing up without a father."

  "If you say the M word I'll deck you."

  "You're right, marriage doesn't necessarily make sense. But what if my wanting to marry you has nothing to do with having a child? What if I want to marry you because I can't imagine a life without you?"

  Her mouth opened in a small "o" of surprise a split-second before irritation took over.

  "I don't have amnesia. Four days ago you were stepping aside," she put the words in air quotes, "giving me the chance to find Mr. Right. Now you're trying to step inside his shoes."

  His hands tightened on her shoulders. "They're my shoes, damn it!"

  How had it come to this? The two of them standing here on the beach yelling at each other? He worked like hell to calm down.

  "How many times am I going to have to tell you I love you before you believe it?"

  "I don't know, Connor. I just don't know." She put a hand over her stomach. "This is all too much for me today. All of it. I need some time to think things through."

  "How much time?"

  And how the hell was he going to keep it together until she decided?

  "I don't know. All I know is that I can't talk to you right now."

  Their positions had just reversed. This time he was the one asking for everything ... and she was the one leaving him without it.

  Josh waited until he heard his mom leave the house to call his father. "Hey Josh," his father said, "didn't expect to hear from you. Especially not this early."

  He looked at the clock, realized it was only 7:30 am. But he'd waited as long as he could.

  "I want to come live with you."

  There was silence on the line. "You mean you want to come out for a visit again?"

  "No. I want to live with you full-time."

  "Have you talked to your mother about this?"

  "No, but she'll probably be happy to have me out of the way so that she and that guy can finish what they were doing on the hood of that car."

  "There's a guy? On the hood of a car?"

  "She was making out with some dickhead she said she used to be in love with."

  "Andrew."

  "Yeah," Josh said, getting more and more frustrated with this conversation. Why wasn't his father telling him to pack his bags already? "So it's cool for me to move in, right?"

  "Hey kid, you k
now I'd love to have you but I'm going to be in Asia most of next month."

  "I can hang on my own," Josh said, but just then he heard a girl's voice and then his father answering, "It's just my son, honey. I'll be right back."

  Just his son.

  The message couldn't have come in clearer. Both of his parents were too busy fucking around to give a rat's ass about him.

  "Forget it," Josh said right before slamming down the phone.

  Isabel had just walked into the diner when Scott handed her the phone. "It's Brian."

  It just got better and better. First Andrew. Then Josh. Now Brian. All the men in her life ganging up on her.

  "What's up?"

  "I knew he'd come back for you."

  "Who? What are you talking about?"

  "I just got off the phone with our son. He told me Andrew's back."

  How was it that after ten years, whenever the subject of Andrew came up, her ex still managed to sound wounded by it?

  And she still managed to feel guilty.

  But Andrew was none of Brian's business. "Why did Josh call?"

  "He wants to move in with me. Full-time."

  "No."

  "Don't worry," he said quickly, "I already told him it wouldn't work."

  "Jesus, Brian. Is that how you said it? Did you give one second's thought to how that would make him feel?"

  "How about you? When you were on the hood of the car with long-lost Andrew, were you thinking about your son then?"

  Fuck you warred with touche on the tip of her tongue.

  "Thanks for the warning," was what she finally managed. "I'll have a talk with Josh this afternoon."

  She hung up the phone, her heart heavy for Josh, for how hard fifteen was treating him.

  At the same time, though, her heart was heavy for herself.

  It didn't matter if she ever got beyond forgiveness with Andrew, if she ever learned to trust him again. Because there was no way her son would ever accept him.

  Maybe if Josh hadn't seen them in the parking lot, maybe if she hadn't admitted to him that Andrew was one of the big reasons her marriage hadn't worked, then things could be different.

  But they weren't different.

  And never would be.

  *

  Josh fingered the half-empty pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He'd swiped them from the new dishwasher's stash a few days ago, told himself the guy wouldn't miss the last few in the box. It had been a long time since he'd stolen anything, when he was five years old and had pocketed the water pistol his mother wouldn't buy him at the grocery store. He hadn't gotten caught, but just as he had then, he felt guilty.

  Pushing out the back door of his house, he headed through the trees, to the wood pile between his property and Poplar Cove.

  The house that fuckhead who'd been boning his mom grew up in.

  Josh hated feeling guilty for stealing the cigarettes. Just as much as he hated feeling like nothing he did was right anymore, that no matter where he was, he didn't fit in.

  He'd tried to call Hannah but she kept letting it go through to voice mail. And the worst part of it was, he knew it was his fault, that she had been disgusted by the way he blew up at his mom.

  'Cause that was the thing, there were times when he could see it all so clear, when he could see that his mom was doing her best and that he was the one fucking up. But then, other times, he couldn't get a hold on his anger, his frustration.

  The cigarettes and pack of matches bounced around in his pocket and he took them out, held them in his sweating palm. He wasn't really feeling it now, but only a loser would walk away without at least smoking one, right?

  Popping one out of the pack the way he'd seen people do in movies, he lit a match and held it to the cigarette. Hopefully he'd lit the correct end of it, he thought as he put the other side between his lips.

  Standing in the woods, a lit cigarette in his mouth, for a second he felt completely badass. Like he was finally in control of his own destiny.

  And then he took a puff.

  The cigarette went flying out of his mouth into the dry leaves as he coughed and choked. Shit, that was the most disgusting thing he'd ever tasted. How could people actually smoke those on purpose?

  Smoke whipped up around his feet, the dry leaves quickly burning up near the rubber soles of his tennis shoes, and when his eyes stopped watering he realized the leaves were catching on fire, all of his stupid childhood fantasies going up in smoke too.

  Doing a panicked rain dance on top of the leaves and dirt, feeling like a bigger idiot that he ever had, all he wanted was to go to his mom's diner, sit at the counter with a comic book, and have her make him a triple thick chocolate milkshake. Just like she had when he was a kid.

  Finally, when he'd stamped the small fire entirely out, he went home and he buried the pack of cigarettes and matches in the bottom of the kitchen garbage before heading into the bathroom to shower off the smell of smoke.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THANK GOD, Ginger thought as she worked quickly on the final touches of her painting. She might be as emotionally confused as she'd ever been, but at least she hadn't lost her mojo. All she wanted was to focus on her art instead of all the crazy things Connor had said to her out on the beach.

  I love you.

  What if I want to marry you because I can't imagine a life without you?

  Didn't he know she'd already written him off? That he couldn't just up and do an about-face about everything and expect her not to question him?

  She put down her paintbrush. She was lying to herself. She wasn't in the zone at all. How could she be when her entire future was hanging in the balance? When Connor was waiting for her answer?

  Her first big art show was in less than a week, a show she'd been eagerly anticipating for months. By God, she needed to make the most of it. With or without the man she loved by her side.

  She was reaching for her paintbrush again when she noticed the smell of smoke wafting by. Strange. Why would someone have lit a campfire in the middle of a sunny day?

  And then, in a flash, it hit her. She wasn't smelling a campfire: something was on fire.

  Her hand immediately went to her stomach. Working to remain calm, she slipped her feet into tennis shoes before running out on the beach to try to figure out what was burning.

  Her hand went to her mouth when she stood at the water's edge and looked up. The trees behind Poplar Cove were smoking and every few seconds a new orange burst of flames popped up over the roofline.

  Her first thought, her only thought, was about Connor. About how upset he'd be if the cabin burned. He'd poured his heart into renovating it, but more than that, his summer home had been such a happy place for him as a child, and held the best of his memories inside its log walls.

  She couldn't let it burn.

  She ran toward the house, searching for a hose and a ladder, even though she knew what Connor would tell her if he were here. "Get away from the building. Get as far away from the fire as you can and stay safe."

  And she would. But first she needed to do what she could to save his family's cabin.

  She'd just propped the ladder up against the side wall, just turned on the hose full blast, when Josh came running across the beach, obviously drawn by the smoke.

  "Go back home and call 911," she yelled. "Call your mother. And call Connor and his father."

  The boy's eyes were wide with fear as he yelled, "Okay," and ran back to his house to make the calls.

  It was the strangest thing, but even though the fire was close enough that she could feel its heat, she wasn't afraid of getting on the roof while lugging a heavy hose. Not when she had such a clear purpose.

  I need to save Poplar Cove. For Connor.

  She didn't know how long she'd been up there, but it was quickly getting hotter and smokier as the fire made its way down the mountain to the cabin, jumping trees one after the other like tinder. />
  The Adirondacks were known for their flash rainstorms, for the huge amount of water that could, abruptly, fall from the sky with no warning for fifteen minutes and then disappear just as quickly. But since the storm that had tipped over Connor's sailboat it had been hot and dry, with temperatures almost in the triple digits.

  Oh, how she wished one of those storms would decide to roll in right now to give them all a good dousing. But when she looked up at the sky, behind the layer of smoke and ash all she could see were blue skies, not a cloud in sight.

  She didn't have to be a firefighter to know that it was the perfect day for a wildfire.

  Moving as quickly as she could, she wet down the entire roof. She hadn't yet heard sirens, and didn't have any idea how far away the volunteer firefighters were. She'd stay as long as she could, but make sure to get down before she was in any real danger.

  When she heard yelling, she looked down to see Andrew climbing the ladder up to the roof. She was on the back edge of the building, so close to the trees she could practically grab one and jump on.

  "Ginger!" Andrew's face was a picture of panic. "You need to get off the roof. Now!"

  She opened her mouth to answer him, to tell him that she was still okay, when she felt a sharp, unexpected whoosh of wind at her back.

  But the breeze had never been this hot, this thick. The fire had moved faster, come closer than she'd calculated.

  "Drop the hose and run," Andrew yelled over the crackle of flames and she was just about to drop the hose when she saw a thick spark of flames jump over her head. It looked like one of those small firecrackers the kids were playing with on the beach July Fourth.

  Despite her efforts to keep the roof wet, the sparks caught and lit on the wooden tiles, a wall of flames separating her from Andrew or any way to get down.

  As the flames danced before her, she could only think one thing: She was going to die without ever finishing her conversation with Connor.

  She'd thought she'd had plenty of time to think things over, to chew on everything he'd said, to weigh both sides.

  She'd thought she deserved at least a handful of hours to be mad, to make him suffer the way he'd made her suffer.

  But the fire had come on so fast.

  And now she thought, as she started coughing and couldn't seem to stop, it looked like she might be all out of time.

  Unless Connor found a way to her before the flames did.

  Yes, Connor understood that Ginger had needed time, but that didn't mean he'd agreed to sit back and wait.