White Heat Read online

  “SDFD? You mean the San Diego Fire Department?” She looked so thrilled for him it hurt to look at her. “You’re ready?”

  He lifted a shoulder.

  “Oh, Griffin. I’m so glad. I didn’t think—I mean, you still haven’t really opened up about Idaho—”

  “And I’m still not.”

  She was still for a long moment. “I hope it works out for you.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed at both the memory of the interview, and at the surprising compassion and deeply ingrained memories Jake had burning in his eyes as well.

  Respecting his silence, which he appreciated more than she could know, Lyndie began pacing again.

  “I don’t know how I came to this,” she muttered to herself a few minutes later. “So many strings: San Puebla, Nina, this damn cat.” She stopped and looked at him. “You.”

  “Is this a list of things you’re attached to,” he wondered, “or pissed at?”

  She rolled her eyes and started pacing again.

  “Maybe you’re just a big softie.”

  She stopped short. “That’s the biggest insult anyone’s ever given me.”

  He tossed his head back and laughed. “I meant that as a compliment. Stop wearing out your shoes and come over here.”

  “Fine.” She plopped down into the seat next to him.

  He reached out for her hand, just lifting a brow when she smacked his away. “You know, I just realized something about you. Something quite fascinating, really.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “You really do think you’re all alone, that all these so-called strings on your heart are only one way.”

  “Oh, no, Ace,” she said on a laugh. “Don’t turn this around. This was about you.” She tapped him lightly on the nose with her finger.

  “It always is when you don’t want it to be about you.” He tapped her back. “This is going to terrify you, I’m sure, but we’re all just as attached to you as you are to us.”

  Her gaze flew to his, and he could see the uncertainty, the heartbreaking need to believe in what he’d just said. Cupping her face again, he leaned in and put his forehead to hers. “What do you think about that?”

  “That it’s nothing a good pair of scissors wouldn’t take care of. Just one snip—” She made the motion of cutting with her hand. “And presto, we’re all set free.”

  “And what would the fun be in that?”

  “Fun? Fun?” She got to her feet again and tossed her hands in the air. “You think all this yo-yoing on the heartstrings is fun? You’ve been through hell and back, and you can still say that?”

  Hell, yes, he opened his mouth to say, but the vet poked her head out and smiled. “Lucifer?”

  27

  Driving out of San Diego Junior College, Brody reached over and squeezed Nina’s hand. The green hills around them were in bloom with flowers of all shapes and hues, bobbing gently in the afternoon ocean breeze, and he felt damn good. “Happy?”

  “Beyond.” She looked down at the receipt for tuition paid, tuition that was much cheaper than at the university. “Now we just need to find that address they gave me, for the inexpensive housing.”

  “About that…” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm, eyeing her over their joined fingers, wondering how she would take this. “I was thinking…

  “Ooh, thinking were you?” she teased, and leaning in, kissed him on the throat. “I like it when you do that.”

  “There’s a house for rent right near where my brother—”

  “Yes, but you know I cannot afford a house.”

  “—which is extremely close to the university—”

  “—where I am not going yet,” Nina pointed out.

  “No.” He took a deep breath. Smiled. “But I am.”

  “What?” She stared at him. “Brody—”

  “I have my degree, but I need to get certified. For teaching. I could do that at the university. Then I could get a teaching job, too.”

  “Pull over.”

  Dread filled him. He’d screwed up, and now she wanted to run away. “Nina—”

  “Pull over. Please,” she added, and when he did, she gripped his face, looking deeply into his eyes. “What is this?”

  “I don’t like worrying,” he said. “About Griffin, about you—”

  “I never asked you to worry about me.”

  “I know that.” He kissed her to make sure she would be quiet. “I don’t like worrying,” he repeated, “and I’m not crazy about the ridiculous yearning I have to get off my ass and teach. But it’s there.”

  “You really want to teach?”

  “I always meant to. At first because I thought it would be easy, but later because I liked people. It just turns out I liked being lazy more. But now…my family is looking at me as if I’m all grown up, and you know what?” He shook his head, then grinned. He kissed her again simply because he could. “I like that they’re looking at me that way. I like it a lot. I want to be that man everyone thinks I am. I want to be that man you seem to, by some miracle, have fallen for…the man who’s fallen for you in return.”

  Her eyes narrowed. The crystal bracelets on her wrist jangled when she pointed a finger at him. “If you are messing with me, I’ll—”

  He caught her finger. “You think I’m messing with you?”

  “Yes. You’re…how do you say…sweet-talking. So I’ll sleep with you.” Looking baffled, she shook her head. “But I’ve slept with you, and I liked it. I know I will want to sleep with you again, so—”

  “I am not…sweet-talking you,” he said, appalled.

  “So you’ve never sweet-talked a woman before?”

  “No. Yes. But that was before you,” he said, more confused than ever. “Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I feel as if I’ve known you forever. I just want to be with you, Nina.”

  She was still eyeing him with a little mistrust as traffic whizzed by them. “If that’s true, you’d have no problem coming home with me to see my father, to explain to him what I’ve done about getting set up here to live.”

  “Yes,” he said so quickly she blinked.

  “Really? You’ll…face Tom?”

  “Absolutely.” He kissed her, then pulled back. “I’m just so glad you’re here, Nina. With me. I’m so sorry I let you come here alone. You’ll never have to be alone again.”

  “That’s quite a promise.”

  “It’s one I can keep.”

  Her smile went soft and dreamy and genuine, and his heart, already snagged, tipped right on its side.

  * * *

  Two hours after finding Lucifer with a coating of flour all over him, Lyndie was back at her little guest-house in Del Mar, opening the door for the man carrying her kitten with the splinted paw. “Here, I’ll take him.”

  But when she reached out her hands for the sleepy kitten—who’d made a huge pest out of himself at the hospital, requiring drugs before he’d let the doctor wrap his foreleg—Griffin Moore, wildland firefighter, onetime hotshot and all-around shockingly sexy man eyed her with amusement as he shook his head. “No way,” he said. “If I give you this cat now, you’ll shut the door on me.”

  “Well, I do have a broken kitten to look after.”

  “Lucifer is going to sleep.” Gently he nudged Lyndie into her own front door, kicked it shut behind them, and set the cat down on her couch.

  Then he turned to Lyndie. “So. You asked me about being ready for this.”

  She stared at him, then let out a little laugh. “You don’t seem to ever dance into a subject with subtleness do you?”

  “I’m not much of a dancer.” He looked into her eyes. “I didn’t think I was ready for this, not after losing so much.”

  An arrow to her heart. “I know. Look…you’ve loved before. You’ve been loved before.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah. But…I haven’t. I don’t know if I even can.”

  “It’s not something you think about or decide.”