Can't Take the Heat (12 page)

“You watch
Mythbusters
?” Her tone was dubious. His idea of good TV was sports—especially hockey—and not much else.

He laughed. “Sometimes it’s on the TV in the gym when I’m working out. Anyway, all I’m saying is maybe everything that’s happened this past week made him reassess his life. Realize he’s not going to live forever, and there’s only so much money he can make. Maybe he’s finally decided it’s time to stop making money and start enjoying the fact that he has it.”

Delaney settled her head in the cradle between Wes’s shoulder and his chest. “You know what he told me?”

Wes shook his head.

“That his heart must have grown three sizes.”

“The Grinch?” Wes blinked. “Hell, I didn’t think he even knew the story.” Although, when he thought about it, perhaps he had a vague memory of his father reading to him when he was very young. Before Chelsea was born. So long ago it might just as easily have been a dream as something that had actually happened. “But that sounds about right.”

He traced his fingers along her bare arm, marveling at the contrast between the taut solidity of her bicep and the silkiness of her skin. Delaney had always been very fit and strong, but becoming a firefighter had altered her body in subtle ways, making her leaner in some places and bulkier in others. One of those bulkier spots was her arms, which were far more muscular than before, and he wouldn’t bet on himself in an arm wrestling match with her now. Some men might find that intimidating. Wes found it sexy as hell.

“He said something else while we were talking that surprised me.”

“Oh?”

“He let it slip that our breakup had something to do with my job.”

Uh oh
. And just when he was starting to feel benevolent toward his father…

“As soon as he said it, he realized he shouldn’t have, and he refused to tell me any more when I asked.”

Wes closed his eyes, memorizing the sensation of her body snuggled against his and the cinnamony scent of her hair. Just in case. “Do you want me to tell you?”

There was a long pause, during which he could almost hear her thinking.

Finally, she said, “No. I mean, yes, I want to know. I’m going crazy without something to do and not knowing what I do for a living is beyond frustrating. Not knowing why we can’t be together is even worse. But if you tell me, I think it will be just one more piece of information that doesn’t make any sense to me. If I don’t remember on my own before then, I’m okay with waiting until Friday. I want my memories to be my own.”

He stopped holding his breath. Something he seemed to do with increasing regularity these days. As much as he loved having her back in his life, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could live with the constant uncertainty. Not knowing what to expect one minute to the next—whether she would be there when he got home, whether her next text message would be “the one,” whether their next conversation would be “the time”—was driving him slowly, inexorably mad. He doubted the situation was any better for her. They both needed a diversion.

Fortunately, he had one.

And if they didn’t get their asses in gear, they’d miss the opening curtain.

When Wes announced we were going out for dinner and a show, I wasn’t too thrilled about the idea. I mean, we could be out of time together at any moment, and I want to spend every possible second with him. Just the two of us. I’m storing up memories, banking these days against a future that might not include him.

But now that we’re here, I have to admit a night out was probably a good idea. For the first time since I lost my memory, I’m not constantly thinking about having lost my memory. Or wondering and worrying about what will happen when I remember.

Wes was very secretive about the subject matter of the show before we arrived because he wanted to know what I thought of it going in cold. Apparently, Aaron Castro wants him to book this act in place of one that’s already on the Grand’s calendar. Cancelling one show for another isn’t something Wes has ever done before, and I can tell he’s wary of the consequences. Three quarters of the way through
Mystique
, however, I can see he’s warming up to the idea.

Or maybe I should say he’s warming up to the star performer.

And I can’t blame him. M, as the magician calls herself, is one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever laid eyes on. I may have gasped when she first appeared on the stage. She’s that stunning.

Her hair is that shade of red right between strawberry and auburn, golden-red without the orange tinge that can look too brassy. I’m fairly certain it’s her natural hair color, too, because she has the almost translucent skin tone that’s common in redheads and very pale blue eyes; thanks to the small theater and our proximity to the stage, I’m able to spot such details. She also has the kind of figure that’s essential to a female Vegas performer—full breasts, tiny waist, perfect hips and shapely legs. If she weren’t a magician, she could easily be a stripper in any of the most exclusive clubs in town and make a mint at it.

But she is a magician, and a damned good one. Maybe the best I’ve ever seen.

What I love even more than her technical proficiency, however, is the way almost everything she does pokes at the inherent sexism of old-school magic shows. For example, instead of an attractive, scantily clad female assistant, M has not one but two attractive, scantily clad male assistants she introduced as X and Y. Throughout the course of the evening, she’s made both of them disappear and reappear, made one of them float and the other sink—yes, right through the floor of the stage—and in what may be my favorite trick so far, put them into two boxes, sawed them in pieces, and reassembled them in a mix-and-match fashion before making them whole again.

It’s not that she doesn’t play up her own sexuality, of course. She does…and how. Between every major trick she performs, there’s a shimmer and a sparkle and her costume changes before our eyes. With each change, there’s a little more skin on display. In some ways, this performance is as much an elaborate striptease as it is a magic show, with each illusion followed by a collective intake of breath as the entire audience waits to see what she won’t be wearing next. But it’s an elegant, enthralling striptease, and M owns her sexuality so completely that there’s nothing cheap or vulgar or exploitive about it.

“What do you think?” Wes whispers next to my ear in the middle of what must be M’s last costume change. She’s already down to so few scraps of clothing, the next step after this one has to be nudity.

Not that I think she won’t go there.

“Incredible,” I whisper back.

“So should I do it?” He means should he cancel a show that’s already on the schedule to book
Mystique
in its place.

I haven’t seen the other show, so I can’t base my judgment on any sort of comparison, but one thing I’m sure of is that this woman is going to be a star. A big one. And if the Barrows Grand is the venue that launches her into the stratosphere, it will be a feather in Wes’s cap.

“I think you’d be crazy not to.”

He nods. “I think you’re right,” he says with a sigh, then points toward the stage. “Look.”

M is now clad in a sheer, blue-tinged body suit that leaves very little to the imagination. X and Y are rolling a large contraption onto the stage for what must be the final illusion of the show. As they bring it out, I see it’s a pool of sorts, about five feet deep and perhaps 20 feet long. There are stairs on each end of the pool, which is itself made of clear plexiglass so you can clearly see what’s inside it. Right now, the only thing inside appears to be water.

“I will complete this evening’s show,” M announces, “by performing a feat not witnessed for nearly two thousand years.” She gestures dramatically toward the pool. “Specifically, I will walk on water. But before I do so, to assure you that this pool contains liquid and not some solid substance that merely resembles water, X will dive in and swim two laps.”

X strips off the low-slung shorts he’s been wearing throughout the performance, revealing a Speedo-style swimsuit beneath. Dutifully mounting the stairs, he performs a shallow racing dive into the end nearest to M, producing a small but noticeable splash, and swims to the other side, does a flip-turn worthy of Michael Phelps, and swims back. He then climbs out, dripping water as he makes his way back down to the stage.

Satisfied that her audience is satisfied with the “watery-ness” of the pool’s contents, M climbs the stairs and extends one foot. She dips several toes experimentally into the water, and we all see them beneath the water line. I can almost feel the shoulders of the entire audience tighten with anticipation and concern. Is that what’s supposed to happen? Can she pull it off or has something gone wrong?

With a frown of concern, she pulls back the foot. It’s all theatrics, and we all know it, but everyone in the room is captivated as she straightens her shoulders, composes her expression and looking straight ahead, steps out onto the water.

And doesn’t sink.

Applause bursts in the room like thunder. Some people jump to their feet, clapping wildly.

Ignoring the accolades, M continues to walk until she reaches the center of the pool, where she turns to face us. “You may be asking yourselves what I do for an encore. The answer is…this.”

She raises her arms…and bursts into flames.

Flames. Fire. Smoke.
I smell smoke.

Oh, God, I remember. I remember everything.

I’m a firefighter. It’s what I do for a living. And it’s the reason Wes and I broke up. Because he didn’t want to go through what he’s been through with me this week, and I wouldn’t—couldn’t—give up on what I had realized is my calling.

I never had any aspirations to being a firefighter. It never crossed my mind until the day Brody and I were called to the scene of an apartment fire to transport a victim to the hospital. The unconscious woman was being carried out of the front door of her apartment when we arrived with the stretcher.

The memory floods back to me with such force, it’s as thought it’s happening all over again.

As the fireman lays her onto the stretcher, I get a clear view into the apartment. From the walkway, I see toys strewn across the floor of the smoke-filled living room. They’re toys appropriate to a two-year-old—blocks, plastic pots and pans, a plastic dollhouse and car with chubby plastic people scattered around it.

The back of my neck prickles, hairs standing on end. I look at the woman being placed on the stretcher. I’m expecting to see someone elderly or otherwise frail, but this woman is about my age, mid-twenties, and appears to be physically fit. As Brody slips an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose, I see that her light brown hair is pulled back in a hasty ponytail and she has dark circles under her eyes.

A mother.

“
Where’s the child?” I ask the fireman.

Looking like some kind of alien warrior, he glares at me through his respirator. “She was the only person in the apartment.”

I point to the toys. “She’s got a kid. A toddler.”

He shakes his head. “Not in there. Maybe at preschool or something.”

Those hairs on the back of my neck vibrate, and goose bumps pop up on my arms. I know apartment buildings like this one. My mother and lived in a few when I was little, before she got her dance studio off the ground. They’re not places where the kind of people who can afford to send their kids to preschool while they stay home live. They’re places for folks on public assistance who are on waiting lists for housing vouchers so they can move to a nicer place. Folks whose toddlers stay home all day.