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  A little stunned at her touch, more than a little stunned at the way he wanted to hold her hands against him so that she could never stop, he blinked at her. “Rosa…”

  “Si?”

  “Don’t be alarmed, but…”

  “You want to kiss me?”

  Unable to speak, he just stared at her.

  “Oh, Tom.” She let out a soft smile. “How come in all this time, you’ve never thought of this before?”

  He blinked again, slow as an owl. “Thought of what, exactly?”

  Her fingers slid into his long hair, restrained by a length of string. Her body shifted just a little bit closer.

  His reacted.

  “That,” she whispered. Her mouth curved sensuously as she pulled away. “Think of it sometime, will you? I’m tired of waiting.” Smiling into his surprised face, she turned him around and shooed him out of her kitchen.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Lyndie stood up from the bank of the creek and picked up the cat. “I’m hungry.” And led by her growling stomach, she walked inside the inn. She entered the side door, which led her to the courtyard, then stopped in shocked surprise at the crowd there among the flowers and stone benches. Colorful streamers zigzagged overhead, and there was food everywhere, while Mexican fiesta music blared, courtesy of four men in the corner and their makeshift band.

  She recognized them as men she’d seen that day at the fire; she recognized lots of others, too, and was immediately swallowed up by people who wanted to thank her, hug her, talk to her. “What is this?” she asked Rosa, who handed her a drink in exchange for Lucifer. “A celebration for the fire being contained?”

  Rosa smiled and kissed Lyndie’s right cheek, and then the left. “It’s a celebration of life, querida.”

  Over Rosa’s shoulder, Lyndie caught sight of an equally baffled-looking Griffin entering the courtyard. Tom handed him a drink as well, and slapped him on the back.

  Griffin took the bottle of beer and smiled at Tom, and then his gaze scanned the room, stopping only when it collided with hers.

  Time seemed to stop, and so did her heart. And then he was working his way through the people, still holding her gaze prisoner, stopping right before her. “You do all this?” he asked her.

  “Ha! My querida here does not know how to boil water.” Rosa hugged him. “This is my thank you.”

  “But…the fire isn’t out yet.”

  “It will be. Everyone say how hard you work. Without Lyndie’s help, without your help, God only knows what would happen to San Puebla. To our casas. To Lyndie’s inn.”

  Griffin looked at Lyndie. “Your inn?”

  Damn it. “Well—”

  “She owns this place,” Rosa said proudly. “She bought it when the previous owner went to prison three years ago. That man, my boss…horrible, very mean. One day Lyndie came here with a doctor for the kids, and she stay. She like. She save me, she save my job. Sweet, si?”

  “Very sweet.” Griffin’s eyes never left Lyndie’s. “I thought you said your only home was the sky. That you liked being as free as a bird, no ties, no strings attached.”

  Rosa beamed. “Oh, no. Lyndie has many ties.” She leaned in close, talking in a conspirator’s whisper. “She just doesn’t like to admit it.”

  “Hello,” Lyndie said, waving. “I’m in the room.”

  Rosa merely hugged her. “Such a generous boss, you let me do whatever I want.”

  “Let you—” Lyndie shook her head, and had to laugh. “Like anyone ‘lets’ you do anything you don’t want to do.”

  Rosa just smiled.

  But Griffin hadn’t been able to get past this new information. “This place is yours,” he repeated. “The Rio Vista Inn is Lyndie Anderson’s.”

  “Yes,” Rosa said, tapping her foot to the music, swiveling her hips. “She is so beautiful, inside and out. You think?”

  Lyndie set down her drink and shot a wry glance at Rosa. “Okay, you. Stop.”

  “Stop what?” Rosa lifted her hands in innocence. “I am just standing here.”

  “Yeah, you’re just standing there. I’m on to you.” Lyndie pointed a finger at her. “And it’s not going to work. Griffin and I are grown-ups. We don’t need you interfering in our lives.”

  “Yes, well, if you would get on with your own life, I would not be forced to interfere.”

  Lyndie let out a helpless laugh, then looked around her, at the people partying, celebrating, so happy and full of life. “I need some fresh air.”

  “Fresher than this?” Griffin shook his head. “You’re not going to get it until the fire is all the way out.”

  “Then I need space.” She’d made it through the courtyard and out the side door before she realized he followed her.

  “Maybe I needed space, too.” He leaned against a tree and took a long pull of his beer, watching her over the bottle. He licked a drop off his upper lip, probably without a clue that she’d been yearning to do just that with her tongue.

  “So,” he said. “This air any fresher than in the courtyard?”

  “Rosa’s matchmaking.”

  “Matchmaking. You mean…you and me?”

  Lyndie had to laugh at his surprise. “You’re not that clueless.” She laughed again at his blank expression. “I guess you are. It’s ridiculous, right? I mean, the two of us—” She swallowed her words at the heat that came into his eyes. “We…” She drew a breath. “We don’t have a chance in hell. Not a single one.”

  He just looked at her.

  “Do we?” she whispered with a horrifyingly needy voice.

  “Lyndie—”

  “Look, I don’t even want a chance,” she assured him, her heart pitter-pattering with the first lie she could remember uttering. “All I want is a good night’s sleep before tomorrow’s action. Night.” Whirling, she made her way back into the kitchen and managed to get upstairs and into her bedroom without being interrupted.

  Somehow Lucifer followed her. Maybe he thought he was a dog, she didn’t know, but he climbed up the blanket to the top of the bed. His eyes glowed like the very devil in the light as he waited to be petted.

  “Sorry,” she said, anything but. “You should have latched on to someone who cared.”

  Lucifer blinked, and, feeling like a jerk, she moved closer to pet him. “All right, I care. Damn it. But only a little.”

  The windows rattled with the laughter and music below, but she figured she was just exhausted enough that nothing could keep her awake. She flopped to the mattress to begin the pity party she didn’t want.

  As she did, her bedroom door opened, then slammed shut.

  Griffin stood there in his dark jeans and dark T-shirt and matching dark expression. “It’s not that I don’t want a chance,” he said grimly. “It’s that I don’t know how to…I don’t—” He shoved his fingers through his hair, looking uncharacteristically flustered and frustrated. “Ah, hell.”

  She sat up. “Griffin—”

  “No, let me say this.”

  But he stalked to the window and leaned on the sill, dropping his forehead to the glass as he looked out at the night. There wasn’t much to see with the low, sliver of a moon nearly covered by the long, drifting fingers of smoke.

  But whatever he saw, his broad shoulders seemed to carry the weight of the world. “I lost a lot in that last fire.”

  “I know.” Her entire heart softened. “Griffin, I know.” It seemed she could feel her heart cracking in two. How was it possible to want to ease his pain with every fiber of her being?

  He closed his eyes, then turned and looked at her. “I lost my nerve.”

  She got off the bed. “Maybe temporarily. Anyone would have.”

  “And yet today I managed just fine.”

  “Because you’re adapting.”

  “I hated it. I felt ashamed at my ability to forget, so much so that I forced myself to remember Idaho just to torture myself. All the way back here tonight, I felt so hollow and destroyed, I j