Feeding the Fire (4 page)

Grant feigned a hurt expression. “You mean you’re not going to bid on me? I’m disappointed.”

“Grant, I wouldn’t bid on you if I was a millionaire in desperate need of a tax deduction.”

At that, Grant laughed and took a few steps back. All the while his eyes were on her, focused with a heat that reminded her of soft sheets and sweaty skin. “I’ll see you soon, hot stuff.”

Pepper watched him jog across the street to the lot where his motorcycle was parked. He fired up the engine and roared past her, blowing a kiss her way before disappearing down Magnolia Way with a loud rumble of mechanical thunder.

She had no doubt that someone would be paying good money for Grant’s company at the charity auction. A bad boy with good hands was worth every penny. It just wouldn’t be her pennies. Her house came first.

And even if it were in pristine condition and she had cash to burn . . . she was certain a bid on a Chamberlain would make for more trouble than it was worth.

Chapter Three

“Look who’s back in town!”

Grant looked up from his beer when he heard the bartender, Emmett, announce the arrival of their hometown celebrity, Ivy. Outside of Rosewood, she was an international rock star. But when she was in Rosewood, she was just his brother’s fiancée. An amusing fact, considering that for a good part of the last six years, she was his brother’s mortal enemy. Such a fine line between love and hate. That’s what he liked to tell himself whenever Pepper insulted him. The night they spent together left no question in his mind that their animosity could be channeled into an explosive passion. He just wasn’t sure why she was so resistant to it.

He was hoping Pepper would come tonight with Ivy. They were friends. Spending a couple of hours in each other’s company where they had to be relatively polite might do them good. But so far, no Pepper.

Ivy strolled in on Blake’s arm, looking as radiant and chic as she did on television, in a red leather motorcycle jacket. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail that showcased her silver lightning bolt earrings. She certainly hadn’t picked up any of that around town.

Grant slipped off his barstool to welcome them. “Welcome home, Ivy,” he said giving her a big hug.

“Thanks. How are you, Grant? Off rescuing kittens from trees and saving damsels in distress from burning towers?”

“Eh,” he shrugged. “Not really. Small-town firemen have a lot of downtime.” He glanced over his shoulder and pointed to the seating area beyond the small dance floor. “There’s a booth in the corner that’s open if you all want to sit over there.”

“Sure,” Blake said, tugging Ivy in that direction.

Grant followed, scooping up his beer and settling into the seat opposite them. “Blake tells me that you accepting his proposal has made him ineligible for the bachelor auction. Are you sure you want to marry him? If you guys broke up for just a month, it would be for a good cause.”

“Hey now!” Blake warned his brother, but Ivy just laughed.

“Sorry, Grant, but I’m sticking it out,” Ivy said. “I’m sure there will be a lot of sad ladies in town, but they already had their chance to land Blake while I was gone. I hear you and Simon are on the auction block, though. Sounds like there’s plenty of Chamberlain meat to fight over.”

Grant snorted. “If you say so.”

The ladies of Rosewood would be very disappointed if they bought Simon expecting a virile, romantic specimen from the Chamberlain family. He seemed afraid of his own shadow sometimes, and considering he was a cop . . . Grant just didn’t get it. He wasn’t much older than Simon, but the gap may as well have been decades.

“Here’s the people I’ve been”—Pepper said brightly as she approached the table, then spied Grant sitting there—“looking for,” she finished, her voice flat.

Grant threw out his most charming smile and slid over in the booth. He gave the empty leather a friendly pat. “Have a seat, Pepper.”

She gave a glowering look to Ivy and then reluctantly settled down in the seat. “Hey, Grant,” she said. “I didn’t know you were going to be here tonight.”

“It must be your lucky night.”

“As long as it’s not yours,” she quipped.

Emmett arrived a moment later, saving them all with an interruption while they ordered drinks. It didn’t last nearly long enough. Before Grant could respond to Pepper, the conversation moved on.

“So, tell us about the new tour,” Pepper suggested.

Ivy started talking, but Grant didn’t pay much attention to what she said. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested, it was just hard to focus with Pepper so close to him.

She looked amazing tonight. She had straightened her red curls so the fanlike splay of hair fell in a long, shiny sheet of red around her face. Around Christmas, she’d cut her hair to about shoulder length, but when it was straight, it seemed a lot longer. The bright red was stunning against the flawless creamy complexion of her pale skin.

Grant didn’t know much about makeup. He couldn’t tell eyeliner from blush, but he knew he liked Pepper’s handiwork. She had a smoky cat eye tonight with a shimmer of copper that pulled out the golden highlights in her dark brown eyes.

Pepper caught his gaze for a moment, a pale pink coming to her cheeks. She immediately moved to slip out of her light brown leather jacket. “I think Emmett’s got the heat up a little high for folks that are drinking. Is it hot in here to y’all?” she asked.

“No, it’s just me,” Grant said with a wide grin. She rolled her eyes, but that didn’t stop him from reaching out and helping her with her coat. Her top was sleeveless, he discovered as his fingertips brushed along the bare length of her upper arm. The touch was charged, like static electricity that buzzed along his skin and sent a bolt of awareness up his arm.

Pepper felt it, too, he could tell. She hesitated for a moment, a soft hitch in her breathing. An instant later she shook off the reaction, along with her coat, and pretended like nothing had happened. “Thank you,” she said reluctantly, without meeting his eyes.

Grant knew that her eyes would give her away, but he couldn’t really press the issue with his brother and future sister-in-law across the table. Playful banter was one thing, serious seduction was another. “You’re welcome,” he said instead.

“You’re wearing the scarf I got you for Christmas!” Ivy said to Pepper; her declaration like a bunch of neutrons spilling into the space and negating the charged environment around them.

Pepper beamed as she adjusted the beige-and-brown-plaid scarf around her neck. “Yes, I love it. The fabric is light, and yet it’s so warm. The winter has been brutal this year.”

“I’m glad you like it. When I saw it, I just knew it was perfect for you.”

“It looks nice on you. It has the same colors in it as your eyes.” Grant’s statement slipped through his lips without him fully thinking it through.

Blake narrowed his gaze at him across the table. “Have you been spending a lot of time gazing lovingly into Pepper’s eyes, Grant?”

“No,” he said, with a dismissive snort. “She won’t hold still long enough.”

“That’s right,” Pepper chimed in.

“I just happened to notice while she was sitting here now.” Grant stopped himself from continuing on. He was protesting too much. He wanted to spend time gazing into her eyes, but he’d told the truth before. She was like a hummingbird, zipping around so he couldn’t get a good enough look.

Fortunately, Emmett arrived at the perfect moment with drinks and pretzels. After that, Pepper deflected the conversation by steering it toward Ivy and Blake’s upcoming wedding plans. From what Grant could gather, the answer was that they didn’t have anything planned and they were waiting at least another year before they got married, and yet the girls chatted on the subject long enough for Grant to finish his beer and start to get antsy.

“You wanna play pinball?” he finally asked Blake.

Although he had a vested interest in the discussion, he, too, seemed interested in escaping. “Sure.”

They excused themselves, got some quarters from Emmett, and went to the pinball machine to play a few rounds. Grant had beaten his older brother’s score the last two out of three rounds. He was about to gloat when Blake beat him to it.

“So when did you and Pepper start sleeping together?”

“Sleeping together?” Grant said a little too loudly. He glanced around, hoping Pepper hadn’t noticed. She was still chatting animatedly with Ivy, thank goodness. “We are not sleeping together.” And that was true. They slept together. Once. Past tense.

Blake gave him a stern look that reminded him of their father when he was interrogating Grant for staying out after curfew or “borrowing” his car to take out a girl. He knew well enough how to get answers out of Grant. “Did you or did you not have sex with Pepper Anthony?”

Blake was even starting to sound like their dad, lawyer speak and all. Grant twisted his lips in thought and considered his answer. “That’s an entirely different question. And the answer to it is yes, I did.”

“When?” Blake pressed.

“Last Halloween.” Grant stepped aside to let Blake have his turn at the game. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. His gaze traveled back to where Pepper and Ivy were talking. “We met up at a costume party here and really seemed to hit it off. Might’ve been the Jell-O shots.”

“Did she know it was you or did you have on a mask?”

“She knew it was me. I was lazy and dressed as a fireman. Doesn’t matter, though. It was just a onetime thing, so I didn’t mention it to anyone.”

“Was that your decision or hers? I would’ve thought you’d move on after you guys finally hooked up.”

So did Grant. “It was her choice. Honestly, she couldn’t get out of my place fast enough. I woke up and she was gone. Wouldn’t you know that one of the only times I was interested enough in a woman to see her again, she blew me off?”

Blake watched the silver pinball bounce under the plexiglass as he spoke. “Sounds like karma to me—payback for every woman you ran out on over the years. What did you expect to happen? Her family and ours don’t exactly get along. Her brother, Logan, and I got into it a couple of times in high school. I can’t imagine he’d be happy to find out that you’d tapped his baby sister.”

“Baby sister? She’s older than I am.”

The last of the pinballs sank between the flippers and Blake cussed. Turning to look at Grant he asked, “That doesn’t matter to Logan. So, are you wanting to see her again? Maybe I can get Ivy to put in a good word for you.”

Grant laughed bitterly. Both women had turned to watch them with mischievous twinkles in their eyes. He didn’t like the look of it. “I do want to see her again, but I doubt that would work.”

Glancing around, Grant noticed the bar had gotten pretty busy. Almost all of the tables were occupied and there were even a few couples on the dance floor. The floor itself was a holdover from the line-dancing craze of the early nineties. Woody’s was more of a cowboy bar back then, and folks came from all around to stand in line and dance together like robots. Grant was glad to have been in diapers back then.

But today it was just a wide spot in the bar, though every now and then, a few folks would dance. Tonight was one of those nights. Guys seemed to be stepping up their game in anticipation of the Valentine’s holiday coming up. Grant didn’t dance. Ever. Well, at least not unless he thought it would lead to sex.

“Wonder why they’re looking at us like that,” Blake said. The girls got up from the table and made their way over to where they were standing.

“Dance with me?” Ivy asked.

Blake nodded and led Ivy out onto the dance floor, leaving Grant and Pepper alone by the pinball machine. They stood there awkwardly for a moment. “I would ask if you wanted to dance, but I didn’t figure you’d want me touching you.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind. It beats standing around.”

He’d stepped into that one. “Okay.” They joined the ten or so other people on the dance floor and did the clumsy shuffle as they tried to figure out how to position themselves together. They settled on a classic ballroom pose, one the chaperones at school would’ve been proud of, they were so far apart.

“I don’t understand you,” Grant said after they swayed back and forth a few times to the ballad booming from the jukebox in the corner.

Pepper looked surprised by his statement. “What don’t you understand?”

“You’re like a broken traffic light. Nothing but mixed signals. I don’t know whether I should stop or go with you.”

Pepper frowned. “You should probably just go. Go far away and leave me alone.”

Even as she said the words, he could sense she didn’t mean them. She was conflicted and he didn’t know why. Grant lowered his arm to wrap it around Pepper’s waist and pull their bodies flush together. She gasped as they collided, her soft curves against his hard muscles. Her glossy lips parted and her dark brown eyes were wide as she looked up at him.

“You can feel this, can’t you?”

“I can feel something,” she said, recovering with a sly smile.

“I’m not talking about that, damn it. I mean this connection between us. You feel it. I know you do. I don’t know why you insist on ignoring it.”

“Maybe it’s because you’ve ‘connected’ with half the women in this town. Did you ever think that I’m not so keen on being added to the long roster of Grant’s conquests?”

“To be blunt, you’ve already been conquered. If that was all I wanted, I could’ve moved on by now.”

“Then what do you want from me, Grant?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I want you back in my bed. Sometimes I want you to look at me in public like I didn’t have a social disease. Other times, I just want you to be willing to acknowledge that we had an amazing night together. You act like it was nothing. It wasn’t nothing. Tell me why you don’t want anyone to know we were together. Are you ashamed of being with me?”

“No, I’m ashamed that I’m so weak that I finally gave in to you. There are four men in this town I’ve sworn to avoid. One is off in med school, one is engaged to my friend, and one is afraid of me. That just left you. All I had to do was stay away from you. And I couldn’t do it.”

“You know, most people in town think the Chamberlain family is great. Dating one of us is supposed to be a big deal. But your family acts like we clawed our way out of the cesspool. Why?” he pressed.

Pepper avoided his gaze and shook her head. “I think I’ve had enough dancing for one night.” She dropped her arms at her side and backed away. “Ivy, I’m going to head home. I’ve had a long day.”

“Okay. Good night,” Ivy said, pulling away from Blake to give Pepper a hug. “Text me when you get home.”

Pepper nodded and gathered up her things from the booth before she headed for the door. Grant waited until the others were distracted and slipped outside behind her. She was standing just beyond the door, tugging her jacket back on, when he approached her.

Grant scanned the parking lot and frowned. “Where’s your car?”

Pepper looked up with a pinched expression when he spoke. “I didn’t bring my car. Since it’s only a few blocks and I wanted to have a couple of drinks, I walked.” She slung her purse onto her shoulder and stepped down into the gravel of the parking lot.