Playing With Fire: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 2) (7 page)

Or most recently, a letter from his grandfather, delivering such news as a rise in his PSA levels. The cancer was back.

Yeah, Conner could use a little of Liza’s sunshine.

Graham came up, added tents to a compartment on the side of the buggy. “We’re nearly packed up,” he said. “But Jed said we aren’t leaving until later tonight.”

Conner cast a glance at Jed, who offered him a slight nod.

“Pick me up at the VFW on your way out,” he said to Jed and jogged toward a couple of locals pulling out of camp.

He didn’t think beyond right now. Just hitching a ride.

You bring me out of my darkness.

He didn’t know why he’d said that. Maybe because he’d so desperately wanted to kiss her at that moment. Just reach out, touch her perfect, beautiful skin, rub his work-hewn hand against her cheek, lean in, and brush her lips with his.

Just a taste of all that sweetness, the compassion, the light that was Liza.

Nearly had, the words just a hint of what he was feeling.

And then...

Then he woke up. Realized just how close he’d come to hurting her. And him.

They had no future, and he didn’t want to give her anything—especially a kiss—that might promise something he couldn’t deliver.

It wasn’t like she would uproot her life, come out to Montana. And he spent six months out of the year sleeping in the woods.

They could never be anything more than friends.

But he needed his friend tonight.

Two local teenagers—Tucker Newman, who had the makings of a smokejumper someday with his go-to attitude, and his buddy Kirby Hueston—dropped Conner off outside Liza’s bungalow.

The house was dark, but he knocked anyway. Waited, tried not to let his hopes fall.

Just as he was turning— “Conner.”

Liza stood on the path the led from the porch to the back of the house. She wore a pair of baggy overalls, a T-shirt, and an apron covered in paint. But her eyes lit, and she smiled, and something warm and dangerous crested through his body.

“I thought you left town.” She held a rag, used it to wipe her hands as she came toward him. “I heard the doorbell and thought it might be the UPS man.”

“Sorry—”

“Don’t be silly. I’m thrilled to see you.”

Thrilled.
And for a second, she looked like she might hug him.

He still had memories of that last hug and the feelings it raked up inside him, her curves against his chest, the smell of her as she held him.

He could have held on much,
much
longer.

Maybe that wouldn’t have been the best of ideas if he hoped to keep their relationship platonic.

Which, right at this moment... “I’m not leaving for a few hours, so...I thought maybe you’d want to get a bite to eat. I heard the local VFW has amazing hamburgers. I could pay you back for breakfast?”

“You don’t have to pay me back, Conner.” But she didn’t hate the idea, evidenced by the smile, the delight on her face.

“Are you working?” He gestured to the apron. “Can I see your studio?”

“Are you saying you want that demonstration?”

Um.
Sure
. “Yeah.”

“C’mon.” She led him around back along the trail, past the garage to another house, a shed, really. A stove pipe jutted out from the side of the house. “It’s getting a little tight—I probably need to find a new location in the near future. But for now this works.”

She opened the door. Conner didn’t know what he expected, but not the shelves and shelves of finished, glistening plates, bowls, and pitchers. Liza walked over to a display of dark gray bowls. “These are drying, waiting to be fired.”

Liza gestured to two stainless steel ovens on the floor. “I do all my firing here in my electric kilns. I learned on a wood kiln, but these are easier. Then they go here, waiting to be glazed.” She walked over to yet another rack, this one filled with more bowls, plates, saucers, cups, all a light bisque color. “I paint each one by hand.”

In the center of the room sat what looked like a tub with an electric foot pedal and a metal wheel. “And here’s where I throw my bowls.”

“You what?”

She laughed. “Do you want to try it?”

He had this sudden image of a
Ghost
replay, her hands on his as they formed a pot, and heat flushed to his face. He shook his head.

“It’s fun.”

He had no doubt. “You made all these?” He walked over to the painted bowls, picked one off the shelf. Painted orange at the base, a black ribbon ran around the rim, with a white trail etched along the edge. And along it, words.
He can do more than you ask or imagine.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a verse. It’s my new line. I used to only etch a fish in the bottom. But now I’ve decided to create each unique piece with its own verse on the rim. I’m basing my new line on John 10:10. ‘I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’”

Oh, how he liked her. And not just her smile, her beautiful espresso-brown eyes, that long sable hair, but everything inside, how she knew how to say the words that filled him up, softened the raw edges in his life.

Nourished his sometimes fragile faith.

“How did you come to be a potter?”

“After my dad died, my mother went to work as an artist-in-residence at a camp. We did everything from watercolor painting to oils to weaving to papier-mâché—she taught every age and believed that art was the outward expression of the soul. Someday, I’d like to be a teacher too. Maybe work at a camp, try and pass along the idea of God as the source of our creativity. Maybe inspire, like my mom did.”

He wanted to comment that maybe she already was.

She walked over to a sink, began to put away the brushes drying there. “I went to an all-girls private high school, and I was a bit...well, different from everyone else. I didn’t make friends easily, and I think the art teacher took pity on me. She asked me to work with her in the pottery studio, and something about the quiet, the gentle shaping of a bowl or a plate or a vase gave me focus. My favorite part, however, is the painting. I don’t plan out my designs...I just let them happen and wait for God to surprise me. No expectations, just a trust that His grace will show up, make something beautiful.”

No expectations. Just trust.

He’d like to live that way, just once.

She finished putting the brushes away, came back to him, put her hand on the bowl he still held. “When I throw a pot, every nuance of it is formed by my hands, the lip, the little grooves, the shape. Even the purpose of it—my design. But you have to be gentle with a pot—too much pressure will cave it in. It takes a deft hand, a deliberate hand.”

She took it out of his grip, examining it. “I love the fact that we are clay pots—fragile, yes, but designed perfectly by God to be filled with His good, His heavenly purposes. I like knowing His hands are on my life, shaping me. And that every moment is guided by His love for me.”

She took the bowl over to her table, pulled out a long sheet of paper from a roll affixed to the edges. Began to wrap it.

“What are you doing?”

“Giving you this bowl.”

“What—no, Liza—”

“Yes, Conner.” She taped it up, then wrapped it in Bubble Wrap, put it in a box. Tied it with twine, and handed it to him. “For you.”

“Seriously—”

“Yep. And now, when you see this bowl, you can remember that God is in your life. His compassions not only never fail, but He can do more than you can possibly dream.”

She smiled at him, and he wanted to simply reach out, taste all that joy radiating from her. Weave his hands into her silky hair, touch her beautiful face.

Taste what it might be like to kiss her.

Oh, his selfishness could knock him right over. Because then what? He couldn’t—no,
wouldn’t
—make her any promises.

But everything hurt with the thought of saying good-bye.

So he stood there stupidly, holding his box.

But maybe—and before his courage could wane, he said, “Could I call you?”

She just blinked at him, and he thought for a second what a silly—

“I’d love that.”

Really? But he tempered his voice, mostly for himself. “I mean, I can’t promise anything—I don’t get good cell reception when I’m out in the field—”

She stepped closer to him, touched his hand, curling hers around his, meeting his eyes. “Hey. No promises, I know. But call anytime. I mean that.”

Good thing there was a box between them full of breakable pottery, because he wanted to drop it and pull her to himself. Instead, he managed a shuddering breath. “Okay.”

“But...” She let go and worked her apron over her head. “Can you tell me—why won’t you make a promise?”

She was braiding her hair, her fingers deft. He watched, caught her in movements.

“Because they never work out. And it only leads to hurt feelings and eventually failure.”

She turned to him, frowning. “Really?”

“I promised my grandfather I would find my brother’s murderer. But my grandfather has cancer again and—”

And shoot, he hadn’t meant to unload all that right here, right now.

Although he didn’t mind so much when she turned to him. “Oh, Conner.”

She came up to him, took the box out of his hands, set it on the table.

Then, without a pause, as if she always belonged there, she stepped up and slid her hands around his waist.

And held him. Just pressing her head against his chest. Sweetly. Like a friend might.

Despite the fact that he might have appreciated a different kind of comfort, he needed this. The sweet surrender into her arms. The smell of her hair, something floral, and the feel of her body tight against his, holding him together.

He closed his eyes.

“Conner,” she said softly. “Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”

And for the first time in years—maybe since he’d sat on the side of a highway watching his life in flames, he believed her words.

“Aunt Liza, you got a letter. It’s from that art colony in Arizona.”

Liza didn’t need her niece, Raina, to add the sing-song tone for Liza’s pulse to jerk, for her to grab a towel, wipe her hands, and leave her lunch dishes in the sink.

Raina came in, dressed in her workout clothes, and dropped the letter onto the antique rolltop desk, along with Liza’s other letters and bills. A younger version of Liza with her long dark hair and brown eyes, Raina had come into her life just a couple of months ago, drifting, grieving the loss of her father, alone.

Empty.

And Liza took it as a God-opportunity to fill the girl up with as much love as she could. “I made lunch—egg salad sandwiches and chips.”

“Thanks. I woke up feeling a little sick, didn’t want to eat breakfast. I should have eaten more last night. And then I had dragon boat practice.”

“Are you ready for the festival?”

“Casper has us all practiced up. He thinks the Evergreen boat will take the win this year.”

“They’ve won almost every year with Darek as their coach. Casper has a lot riding on his shoulders.” Liza had to admit that, despite her concerns about Raina making friends with Casper—the middle brother in the Christiansen clan—he’d ended up being good for Raina. Maybe he’d stopped being the town Casanova, although he always possessed, from Liza’s view, a love-’em-and-leave-’em personality, off to his next great adventure.

She dearly hoped he didn’t break Raina’s heart as she was already fragile enough.

Liza knew from experience that one broken heart could derail your entire life.

“Apparently they didn’t race last year because of the forest fire,” Raina said.

The forest fire. Which only whisked up the memory of meeting Conner.

“A lot of things changed after the fire last year,” Liza said. “How is the resort rebuild going?”