Heating Up (4 page)

Dana had pleaded with her parents to sell, take the money and move away. Away from the river and the memories and this house, once the happiest of places, now a mausoleum.

“Aren't you going to ask about my meeting . . . where I'll live?”

Her mother had returned to the chair and unmuted the sound on the TV. “Of course, dear.”

Dana grabbed the remote and turned the television off. “The contractors say it'll take a year to rebuild. But they also have some wonderful ideas of how I can add a second story and reconfigure the main floor to have a bigger kitchen and a great room. It'll really increase the resale value.”

“That's certainly something positive.” Betty gazed out the window into the distance.

“In the meantime, I'm sharing a house with a local firefighter,” Dana said, but her mother was no longer listening. She'd slipped into Never-never Land.

Dana presumed that wherever that was, Paul was there too. Her father at least pretended to be present. She supposed he had to emerge from the grief that gripped both her parents like a fist long enough each day to run his company. He'd been the one she'd called the night of the fire, hoping he'd come get her from the Lumber Baron. But he'd simply told her to sleep tight and things would be better in the morning. Sometimes she wondered whether her parents would even have shown up to claim her body if she had died in the fire.

“I'm taking a swim,” Dana said. It was ninety degrees in Reno.

She climbed the long staircase to her old bedroom and pawed through her chest of drawers, looking for a swimsuit, planning to take one back with her to Nugget, along with whatever clothing she found that still fit her. Most of it was stuff from high school that she'd left behind when she'd gone to USC. Like everything else in the nearly nine-thousand-square-foot brick behemoth, nothing had been touched since Paul's death. Her room looked exactly the same as when she'd left it. Thank God Sally still came every day or the place would be covered in dust and cobwebs, like Satis House in
Great Expectations
.

At the back of one of the drawers, she found a one-piece, stripped, and shimmied into it. It was snug, the bottom wedging up her butt, but no one would see her. Jogging back down the stairs, she went through the sunroom, threw the doors open, and closed the screens. The house needed light and fresh air. From the casita she grabbed a fluffy towel, threw it on a deck chair, and did a high dive from the board into the water, staying under for as long as she could hold her breath. It felt so cool that she wished she could stay beneath the surface forever.

After running around Reno most of the afternoon, buying a new phone, mattress, clothes, makeup, and other necessities she'd lost in the fire, she'd been ready to collapse from heat exhaustion. She would've stayed the night here, in her old bed, and headed back to Nugget first thing in the morning, but the oppressiveness squeezed her like a vice. Watching her mother, a woman once so alive, sit in front of the television, catatonic . . . it was too much.

She swam a few laps, got out, and toweled off. Instead of going in the house with her wet suit on, she took it off in the casita, hung it on a hook to dry, wrapped herself in the towel, and went back to her room to dress. She rummaged through her closet and found a couple of pairs of old pants and shirts she could at least use for painting and hanging around the house. In the drawers she found a few nightshirts and a silky robe she'd forgotten about. Now that she'd be living with Aidan, her sleepwear would need to be modest. It wasn't that she walked around in the buff, but nothing like the see-through nightgown she'd had on the previous night when he'd seen her underwear and God knew what else.

Her face flushed just thinking about it. It was ridiculous, but Dana felt twice as embarrassed because Aidan was so insanely good-looking. She wondered what his ex was like and why they'd broken up. Clearly it had been serious if they'd been living together.

Dana pulled down a duffel from the top of her closet, packed the clothes she planned to take, and carried it down the stairs.

“Are you leaving, Dana?” Her mother came into the hallway.

“Yes. I have a forty-five-minute drive and want to get to Nugget before it's dark.”

“What do you have there?” Betty eyed the duffel bag.

“Just some old clothes I found to hold me over until I can replace everything I lost in the fire.”

“Nothing of Paul's, right?”

“No, Mom, nothing of Paul's.”

“Okay, dear, have a good trip home.”

Dana didn't bother to remind her that she no longer had a home. “I love you, Mom. Tell Dad I'm sorry I missed seeing him.”

But she had already drifted back into the den, probably to watch her programs.

Dana loaded the single piece of luggage into the back of her Outback and drove past the Riverwalk, where a smattering of people were taking advantage of the fading daylight on the beach. It was all so picturesque, with the old buildings in the foreground and the newer restaurants, boutiques, and gazebos that dotted the river's edge. She still remembered that day fifteen years ago as vividly as she saw it now. It hadn't had the glitzy businesses back then, but the beach was just as crowded. Paul hadn't died there—that had come later—but it was where it had all started.

She tried to shove the memories away, maneuvered a few city streets before hopping on the highway to Nugget. Moving to the small railroad town had been a fortuitous accident. After college she'd relocated to Lake Tahoe, close enough to her parents to check in on them yet far enough so she wouldn't be consumed by their dejection. She got her real estate license, started selling homes, and fell hard for a local developer, who later jilted her for the wife of his partner, a woman he'd secretly loved for more than a decade and had conveniently forgotten to tell Dana about.

As an antidote, she buried herself in work. One of her clients, frustrated by Tahoe's exorbitant prices, had seen an ad for Sierra Heights and wanted to know more about Nugget. The town was only a forty-minute drive from Tahoe and had its own lakes, rivers, and plenty of outdoor recreation. What it didn't have was high-end casinos, fancy shops, and trendy restaurants. The homes in Nugget, though, were half the price. She wound up selling the client a house in Sierra Heights, meeting Carol, and agreeing to become her partner at Nugget Realty and Associates. Carol, a broker, owned the agency but wanted to spend more time with her family. Dana needed a fresh start and saw Nugget as a burgeoning real-estate market with the perfect opportunity to make her mark—and her fortune.

And to prove it had been the right decision, Griffin had given her all the listings for the homes in Sierra Heights, a development he'd bought out of bankruptcy as an investment. They'd begun mixing business with pleasure, and this time she thought Griffin could be the real deal, only to find out he was obsessed with Lina. As far as breaking up with her, Griff had been a lot more of a gentleman than Tim, who'd unceremoniously dumped her as soon as the other woman had become available.

That was when Dana started examining her life and saw a disturbing pattern. Since her childhood, she'd always been second runner-up. To her parents, Paul had always come first. And after he'd died, she'd moved from second place in their eyes to nonexistent. The same had happened with Tim and Griffin as soon as they could be with the women they really wanted. Even in college, she'd been repeatedly passed over by men, by teachers, by employers, by opportunities that came her way and inevitably landed in someone else's lap.

She'd responded to the epiphany by applying herself even harder to her career—the one place where she could come in first. In Plumas County she ranked number one in sales as compared to the other agents, and if this year's numbers surpassed last year's, she'd continue to lead. She might not be rich, but she'd at least found an area of her life where she could finish on top.

By the time she pulled into the Lumber Baron parking lot, the sun had fallen behind the mountains and her stomach was growling. She probably should've grabbed something in Reno. She glanced across the square to the Ponderosa with reservations. The bottom line: She didn't like eating alone in restaurants. Intellectually, she knew it was silly. Lots of people—male and female, single and married—went to cafés, movies, even bars alone. Just not her.

But if she didn't want to go hungry she had no choice. The inn didn't have room service, only breakfast and wine and cheese in the afternoon, which she'd already missed. She decided to leave her things in the car and stroll over to the restaurant, which also had a bar and, of all things, a bowling alley. The dining room was quite nice and the food decent. She'd taken many a client there for lunch and dinner.

It wasn't until she was seated that she noticed Griffin and Lina in a booth toward the back and silently groaned. They waved to her and she wanted to disappear through the floorboards. To make matters worse, Griffin motioned for her to come join them. As if that was going to happen. Uh-uh, no way. She pretended to take a call on her new phone, hoping he'd think she was doing business or meeting someone. But no such luck. He got up and loitered next to her table until she finished her fake call.

Dana plastered on as pleasant a smile as she could muster. Griffin was still her most important client, after all. “Hi.”

“Lina and I want you to come sit with us.” He may as well have said,
Lina and I think you're pitiful.

“Actually, I'm—”

“Hey,” a deep voice rumbled behind her, and the next thing she knew, Aidan was pulling out the chair across from her.

If he hadn't just saved her from telling a mondo lie, she would have thought he was damned presumptuous for helping himself to her table. Correction: She still thought Aidan was damned presumptuous but was inordinately thankful that he'd gotten her out of a jam. The last thing she wanted to do was break bread with Lina Shepard.

“I didn't realize you had company.” Griffin smiled like he thought she and Aidan were on a date. Fine, let him think what he wanted.

“Have you met Aidan?” She knew he had, but it made her feel less gawky to pretend he hadn't.

“Yeah, of course. How you doing, Aidan? How's the new job?”

“All good.” Aidan got up and shook Griff's hand.

“I gotta get back.” He nudged his head toward his table, and Dana watched Aidan follow Griff's direction and give Lina a long, appreciative look.
Great
.

After Griff left, Aidan buried his face in the menu. “What are you getting? Maybe we should share a few things.”

She didn't know yet what she wanted to order. But for him, she highly recommended the humble pie.

C
rap. Maybe he'd interrupted something he shouldn't have. But by the time Aidan saw Griffin, it had been too late. He had already started toward Dana's table. When he'd come in, the restaurant had been crowded, and he hadn't wanted to sit at the bar. And there was Dana with a whole table to herself.

He gazed at her over the top of his menu. She really was very pretty. Different from Sue, with her compact body, dark hair, and amber eyes. Sue was tall and voluptuous with auburn hair—and great legs that went on forever.

“You finish your errands?”

“Mm-hmm.” She had her eyes glued to the menu, like it held the secrets of life.

“In Reno?”

She put the menu down. “I got a phone at Costco and paint for the house at the hardware store.”

Aidan eyed her new phone. “Give me your number.” Pulling out his, he programmed in her digits. “Here's mine.”

“Uh . . . okay . . . I guess it would be prudent in case of an emergency.” She plugged in the numbers he gave her.

A waitress came to take their orders and both of them put their phones away. Dana got a salad and Aidan went for a steak with all the fixings, a side of onion rings, and a plate of nachos for the table.

Dana lifted her brows. “You must be hungry.”

“I didn't eat much today. The nachos are for both of us to share,” he said defensively. “Tell me about yourself.”

“Like what? You already know I'm a real estate agent and that my house burned down.”

“Like are you from here, what are your hobbies, your favorite TV shows? It's called a conversation.”

“I'm from Reno and I don't have any hobbies or favorite TV shows. How about you?”

Who didn't have hobbies or favorite shows?
Fine, he'd break the ice. “I'm from Chicago, where I was a firefighter and an arson investigator. I like football and baseball and just about any other sport you can think of.”

“Why did you leave Chicago?”

Their drinks came and he took a swig of his beer. Some kind of microbrew from around here. Good stuff. “I came to visit my sister in February and fell in love with the place. All the wide-open spaces, the mountains, the fresh air. A job opened up with Cal Fire and my sister put in a good word for me. Here I am.” It wasn't the whole truth but close enough.

“You must be tight with Sloane.”

“I am with all my siblings.”

“How many more do you have?” She sipped her iced tea. Nice lips, he noted.

“Two brothers. I'm the oldest, Sloane's the baby. My brothers and dad are also firefighters. How about you? Sisters? Brothers?”

“I had a younger brother . . . Paul. He died when I was fifteen.”

“I'm sorry, Dana. That's tough. Was he sick?”

“No, he drowned . . . well, sort of.”

He waited for her to finish.

“It's called ‘secondary drowning.'” She paused, like she was trying to come up with the best way to explain it.

“I know what it is.” He'd never actually had a case but had been warned about it in training. “How did it happen?”

“We were tubing in the Truckee River, near where we lived. Paul went out farther than he should have and his tube got caught up on a rock. He wiggled out of the tube to pry it loose and got caught up in the current, which dragged him under. Luckily, another tuber pulled him out and got him to shore, where he coughed up a lot of water. After a short rest he seemed fine, even went back in the river for a little while.”

Aidan signaled for the waitress to refill Dana's iced tea. “Is that when it happened?”

“No, we made it home. Paul went upstairs, said he wanted to take a nap. We figured he was knocked out from spending the day in the sun. My mother checked on him a couple of hours later and he had white foam around his mouth and blue lips. She called 9-1-1, but Paul never made it to the hospital. He died en route.”

“Did the medical examiner find water in his lungs?” Aidan knew that was typically the case.

She nodded. “They said he died from asphyxiation from drowning.”

“Ah, jeez. How old was he?” Having seen many deaths in his line of work, Aidan knew it was the worst when the tragedy involved a child.

“Thirteen.”

“That's rough.” He reached out and grasped her hand. “I'm really sorry, Dana.”

She gazed out over the restaurant, growing distant. “Thank you. It was a long time ago.”

The server came with all their food at once and the conversation changed to the weather.

“Is it always this hot here?” Aidan pushed the nachos closer to her.

“Hot in the summer and cold in the winter. But even so, it's been unseasonably warm. And the drought hasn't helped things.”

He nodded, stuffing his face with steak. The beef here was phenomenal. “What else did you do in Reno?”

“Got a bed.” She turned red and quickly deflected by adding, “And some suits for work.”

Clearly the attraction thing wasn't one-sided, he mused. Yet there would be no beds involved between them. Nope, that would be a colossally bad idea.

“I guess it'll take you a while to reacquire all the things you lost,” he said. “Was any of it irreplaceable?”

“Tins from my family's candy company. I collect them. Some of the ones I lost were antiques.” She shrugged and tried to put on a good face. “Hey, it could've been worse, right?”

He wished all fire survivors saw it that way. “What kind of candy company?”

“Calloway Confections.” When she saw the name didn't register with him, she said, “You'd know it if you were from California or Nevada. Chocolates, caramels, toffee.”

Aidan grinned. “You gonna bring home samples?”

And just like that Dana lit up. He'd seen her phony smiles in the real estate office this morning, but holy hell, a real Dana Calloway smile was something to behold. It was as if she shined from the inside out.

“You like candy?” she asked.

“I've been known to have a sweet tooth.”

“Then I'll bring some home.”

“So why didn't you work in the family business?” From the time he'd been a boy he'd known that, like his father, he'd be a firefighter. Same with his brothers. Sloane had been the only one to go in a different direction.

“I like real estate,” she said, but something in her demeanor told him there was more to the story. But he'd leave his investigative skills to the job; she was entitled to her privacy.

“Yeah? Is it pretty good in Nugget?”

“It's getting there. Originally, I was in Tahoe. You can't touch anything there for under a million dollars and the competition among agents was fierce. Here, I feel a little like the prospectors who founded this town . . . like there's going to be a gold rush.”

“I thought Nugget was founded first by loggers and then the railroad.”

“Yep. But the Gold Rush helped feed this town. A lot of the first merchants made their fortunes from the miners.”

“Pretty interesting stuff. So you came to make your fortune?”

“Carol offered me a good opportunity, and I like the idea that her agency isn't a national chain. Mom-and-pop, just like my family's business.”

Tawny Wade and Lucky Rodriguez took the table next to theirs and Aidan waved. He only knew Tawny from the house and Lucky not at all, but the couple was pretty tight with his sister and Brady. They waved back and Tawny got up and came over.

“I heard from Carol that you two are sharing the house.” Wow, news traveled fast here. “I'm so sorry about the fire, Dana. What a terrible thing. Do they know how it started?”

“I left a candle burning,” she said, and looked down at her plate.

Aidan gave her credit for coming clean. “One of the most common causes of house fires,” he added.

“Are you planning to rebuild? Because that's such a nice neighborhood.” Tawny glanced over at Lucky, who appeared to be ordering.

“As soon as Pat and Colin are done with your new house, they'll start on mine.”

“That's good. They're doing the finish work on ours now, hallelujah. We've been living in a construction zone these past few weeks. But we needed to be on the property for the cowboy camp . . . and for planning the wedding. I should get back, but I'm glad two good people are living in my old house.”

When she left, Aidan asked, “You going to their wedding?”

“I don't know them very well and wasn't invited. I think Carol is going.”

He'd gotten the sense from Brady, who was catering the reception, that everyone in town, including him, was invited. Provided that he didn't have to work, he planned to go because he'd never been to a wedding in a barn before. That was where they were holding it. It would've been nice to know someone there besides his sister and her fiancé.

They made random conversation while they ate, and when the bill came Aidan took it.

“What are you doing? Let's split it down the middle,” Dana said.

“Nah, you only got a salad and I hijacked your table.”

“I ate your nachos.”

“They were for both of us. Don't worry about it. You'll get me next time. Plus, you're supplying us with candy.” He put his credit card on the table and saw her glance over at Griffin and his girlfriend's booth.

Aidan wondered what that was about. Maybe she was still hung up on the guy. The girl he was with was gorgeous, but she looked young. He figured Dana was in her late twenties—also young.

“When are you moving in?” he asked her.

“I'll probably bring my toothbrush over tomorrow or during the weekend.” She laughed, and he thought she had a good attitude. Most people would still be crying over all they'd lost in the fire.

“They delivering your bed soon?”

“Tomorrow,” she said.

The waitress took the card. “Then I'll probably see you tomorrow. I'm not on until Monday.”

After the bill got squared away, he walked her to the inn and helped her unload a few of her packages, then he went to Sloane and Brady's.

“You want some dinner? There are leftovers in the fridge,” Sloane said. She was doing laundry to pack for her and Brady's trip to San Francisco in the morning.

“I ate at the Ponderosa.”

She stopped what she was doing to look at him. “You dealing with this Sue thing?”

“What's to deal with? I'm not sending a gift, if that's what you mean.”

“Aid, don't be such a guy. I know you; you're dying inside.”

“I screwed up . . . not much I can do about it now.” He'd tried—just not hard enough.

“Why did you screw up? That's the question. You think you're one of those guys who's afraid of marriage?”

“I don't know.” He lifted his shoulder.

“Well, don't you think you should try to figure it out?”

“Yeah, I'll get right on that.” The last thing he wanted to discuss with his sister was whether he had a commitment phobia. The sorry truth was he didn't know. His parents had been married for close to forty years and still made out in the kitchen. So it wasn't like he didn't have good role models. Family had always been important to him and kids, yeah, he wanted them. Yet, with Sue, every time she'd brought up marriage his blood had run cold and his muscles tightened. The question was moot anyway; Sue was getting married this weekend.

He went up into the loft and turned on the TV. As far as Aidan was concerned, it was the best room in the house. Giant flat-screen, wet bar, big leather sofas. The rest of the house, except for the kitchen, was filled with flowery, slipcover crap. Poor Brady had to check his dick at the door.

Tomorrow would probably be his last night here. He'd use the weekend to unpack his stuff and get settled in at the new place before reporting to work. It would be interesting living with Dana. She was wound tighter than he usually rolled. He got the impression from earlier that she was the type to tack chore charts and bathroom schedules to the refrigerator. Hey, he'd been the one to suggest being roommates, and now he had to stick to it. At least her half of the rent would come in handy until he sold his condo and no longer had a mortgage to pay.

The problem was he'd never lived with a woman he wasn't sleeping with, and Dana could become a temptation. In most cases, he wasn't against doing what felt good as long as everyone knew the ground rules. But Dana didn't strike him as the bootie-call roommate type. And he wasn't ready for another relationship. He was too busy trying to figure out where the last one went wrong.

* * *

The next morning, Dana crammed herself into another pair of tight jeans compliments of the Millers. Ordinarily, she didn't dress this casually to meet with clients, but today she was reshowing ranch property to a couple who'd recently sold their ten-acre spread in Sonoma County for a mint and were looking to relocate their sheep and alpaca farm to Plumas County.

She pulled on the new cowboy boots, thinking they would be perfect for walking through the thick brush during snake season. Last time she'd shown them the place, she'd worn high heels and felt like an idiot. Since then, she'd learned that looking professional meant dressing appropriately for the situation. You didn't wear sweats to show a four-million-dollar mansion or Givenchy to sell a hog farm. For the final touch, she threw a lightweight blazer, a Macy's purchase during her Reno foray, over a T-shirt. At least it was supposed to be cooler today.

Before leaving, she let her eyes roam around the lovely room. This would be her last night at the Lumber Baron. Tomorrow, she planned to move into the house. With Aidan. After last night's dinner she was even more conflicted about the living situation. Not because she didn't trust him—all concerns about him being a serial killer had vanished. But the man was too damned sure of himself. She could tell he thought he could get any woman he lay his eyes on. And the truth was he probably could. Although he wasn't as classically handsome as Griffin, who reminded her of a young Matthew McConaughey, Aidan had the whole tall, dark, and rough thing going for him. The swarthy skin, slightly crooked nose, deep-set blue eyes, and angular face—very piratical. And he was strapping. More than two hundred pounds if Dana had to guess. All of it muscle.