White Heat (22 page)

S
am called Lyndie every day after her return from San Puebla, wanting her to fly for him, but she said no, claiming exhaustion.

What she really had were two pains in her ass—the cat and Nina. She couldn’t just leave either of them and fly for days on end.

But she wanted to. And this morning, the third morning, was the day. She had a flight to Baja, and she was going. She showered, then stood in front of her closet with a towel wrapped around her, wishing she’d done laundry at some point since she’d been back.

Nina had offered, but Lyndie didn’t need a keeper. And neither, it turned out, did Nina. She’d spent her time researching her college options and looking for a job, being surprisingly self-sufficient.

“Mew.”

She glanced at the cat sitting on her bare, wet feet. “What do you want?”

Lucifer dropped and rolled to his back, exposing his belly.

“Yeah, yeah.” But she sighed and bent down to scratch the thing. “And how is Dead Kitty Walking today?”

“Mew.”

“Uh huh.” Surging to her feet, she dropped the towel and pulled on a bra and panties. “Problem is, you’re always hungry. And anyway, tell me this. How does a woman all by herself end up with two extra mouths to feed?”

“I told you,” Nina said, coming into the one and only small bedroom of Lyndie’s house, looking perfectly put together as always in a crisp, bright Mexican sundress and fancy sandals. “I have my own money. Some, anyway.” Silhouetted in front of the bedroom window, with the ocean behind her, she lifted a stack of papers. “And I have college applications right here. Soon I will be getting my teaching credentials, thank you very much.”

On the pile closest to her bed, Lyndie found a pair of pants, but had no such luck finding a clean blouse. Turning around in a circle, she searched the room. “There’s got to be…ah.” She headed toward a pile of clothes on the chair by her window. “A college degree is going to take you years.”

“Yes, maybe, but in the meantime, I’ve got a lead on a job at a senior center—”

“Doing what, cleaning? No.”

Nina looked regal when she lifted a brow. “No?”

“It’s not good enough, not for you. You cleaned in Mexico, you might as well have stayed—” She broke off when the phone on the nightstand rang. “I’m nearly ready, Sam,” she promised in lieu of a greeting. “I just—”

“It’s Griffin.”

As if she hadn’t already registered the low, husky, unbearably familiar voice by the sudden leap in her pulse rate and her weakened knees. “Oh.”

“We need to talk.”

She let out a low laugh. “Conversations that start with those four words never turn out good in my experience.”

“What’s not good is how we left things.”

She sank to her bed because she was shaking.
Shaking.
“I think we left things just fine.”

“Because you like to stick your head in the sand. That doesn’t work for me.”

She sputtered. “I do not stick my head in the sand.”

“Yes, you do,” said Nina helpfully, lifting a shoulder when Lyndie glared at her.

“I want to see you,” Griffin said in that same voice he’d used at the fire, when his natural leader instincts had kicked in and he was in control of everyone and everything around him.

Too bad he wasn’t in control of her. With Nina looking at her, her hands on her hips, Lyndie closed her eyes. “Now’s a bad time to discuss this.”

Nina sighed. “Give up, Griffin,” she called out.

Lyndie turned her back on her. “A really bad time.”

Griffin was silent for a moment. Going over his options, no doubt. Making a plan. “Then tell me when,” he finally said.

When? When she could look at him without wanting to melt in a boneless heap. When she could tell herself it had been just lust and believe it. “Later.”

“Lyndie—”

“I’ve got to go, Griffin.”

“Wait. Please, wait.”

At the unexpected
please,
she hesitated.

“Look,” he said softly. “I’m scaring you. I know—”

“Nothing scares me.”

“Stop it. Stop with the Supergirl act. Yeah, you’re strong as hell, and tougher than just about anyone I know, but when it comes to you and me, you’re running scared.”

“As
you
should be. You’re not interested in just sex, remember? And yet you don’t want more.”

“Says who?”

“Says the woman who knows you’re still not ready for any of this.”

He was silent for a single beat. “I’m coming over. Now.”

“You can’t. I have a flight. Bye, Griffin.” Heart inexplicably pounding, she disconnected, then stared at the phone for a long moment, wondering what the hell she was supposed to do with all the emotion and drama and anticipation racing through her.

Why did he have to call?

Why did he have to sound so absolutely fierce—and so unbearably sexy?

“Well, done, Lyndie,” Nina said, clapping. “Once again you’ve cleared yourself of any…what did we call it?
Attachments.
” She stood there so smug. “Oh, and I won’t be cleaning at the senior center, as you were worried about. I will be reading and teaching the seniors to speak Spanish. It’s a job to be proud of.”

Lyndie could hardly follow the conversation for remembering how Griffin’s voice had sounded in her ear. “It must be some rich senior center.”

“It is. They said they were looking to add ‘culture’ to their list of activities.” Nina watched Lyndie pull out a wrinkled blouse from the bottom of the pile and shake it out. “Tell me you’re not going to wear that today.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.” She slipped it on and started buttoning it up. What would Griffin do now? Would he back off?

Would he ever call her again?

“
Dios Mio,
at least iron it. Let
me
iron it.”

Lyndie frowned and looked the clothing over. “And what in our history together suggests to you that I even own an iron? So tell me, what did Tom say when you called him?”

“Didn’t you say you were late for a flight?”

Lyndie went very still. “Nina. Tell me you called him when I told you to two days ago.”

“Sure, I could tell you that.”

“But it would be a lie?” Lyndie let out a noise of disgust when Nina just lifted a cool brow. “Damn it.
Damn it,
he’s probably worried sick.” Stalking back over to her telephone, she yanked up the receiver and started punching numbers.

“If he’s worried sick, it’s because he didn’t read my note,” said Nina with a derisive sniff. “But I doubt you will find him surprised.”

Lyndie glared at her while she waited for Tom to pick up his phone.

He didn’t.

“Damn it all to hell,” she muttered while his machine clicked on.

Tsking
at Lyndie’s use of the language, Nina started folding the clothes she’d just tossed aside, and came up with a blouse slightly cleaner than the one Lyndie had on. “Switch,” she demanded.

“This one is fine.”

“You have a stain on your breast, you look like a slob. Switch.”

Lyndie started unbuttoning and leaving a message for Tom at the same time. “Tom, look, your errant daughter took it upon herself to stowaway on my plane. I thought she’d have called you by now, but I should have known better, as the girl—”

“Woman,” Nina corrected.

Lyndie glared at her. “As she does whatever the hell she wants. Call me.”

Just as she hung up the phone, someone knocked on her door. “Grand Frigging Central Station.” Lyndie stalked to the door. “I’m five little minutes late and the man can’t give me a break. “Look,” she called back to Nina, “I’m going to be gone until late, late tonight, it can’t be helped. Stay out of trouble.”

“Are you talking to me or the cat?” Nina asked.

“Both of you.”

“I will be out of your hair by this afternoon.” Nina turned her back, her thin shoulders stiff and distant.

And Lyndie felt like slime. “Come on, don’t get like that.”

“I know how inconvenient it is, having me here.”

“I never said—”

“And I know how much of a loner you are—”

“Well, I’m not—”

“I am very sorry I bothered you.”

“Nina, damn it, would you listen—”

The knock at the door came again, louder and more impatient this time. Lyndie pointed at Nina. “Don’t move.”

Nina crossed her arms. Lyndie recognized the stance all too well. “I mean it.” She hauled open the door. “Jeez, Sam, I have my hands full here, and—”

“Let me guess how you have your hands full.” Brody Moore, gorgeous as ever and looking quite tense, stepped over the threshold. “Where is she?”

Lyndie blinked. “How did you know where I live?” She tried to see the street from her porch—Had Griffin come with him?—but couldn’t see anything past Sam’s huge mansion.

“Just tell me you’ve got her,” Brody said. “I talked to Tom, and he said I’d probably locate her here—”

“Her who?” Nina moved into the room and eyed Brody with a cool smile. “Her me?”

“Thank God.” He reached her in less than two strides, hauling her against him, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “
Jesus,
you give me gray hair.”

Nina rumpled his already rumpled hair with her long fingers. “Stop it. There’s not a gray in the mix.
Men.
Always exaggerating.”

But she encircled him with her arms and hugged him back, closing her eyes, inhaling him in, a look of such rapture on her face that Lyndie found herself staring.

It took her back—the sigh factor she hadn’t expected, the dreamy sense of something going so right between two people she cared about. It took her back, and also left her just a little unsettled because, once again, here she stood on the outside looking in. Always slightly detached.

Her own fault, but she didn’t know how to change it. She seemed to be missing the get-attached gene. “I have a flight,” she said.

But they were kissing now, and not just a how-do-you-do kiss either, but a holding each other’s faces, eyes open, I’m-going-to-gobble-you-up kiss that did something funny to her knees. “So, uh, I guess we’ll talk later.”

No answer, just more sucky-face noises. “Really,” she said, fingers tapping on the opened front door. “I have to go.”

Behind Brody’s back, Nina waved a hand at her.
Go.

Lyndie started to walk out, then stopped. “Don’t let Dummy Kitty out, okay? I don’t want the coyotes to get him.” Why she was worried about such a thing happening, when it would only save her from buying cat food, she had no idea.

But Brody and Nina were really getting into it now, complete with sounds that made her wish for ear plugs. She wondered if Griffin looked like that when he kissed her, with his entire heart in his eyes, if it showed in every touch and whisper.

She’d never looked at him while he’d kissed her, but now she wished she had.

And yet wishes were for someone who harbored regrets, something Lyndie never did. She lived her life for the here and now, forget the past, don’t think about the future.

With that in mind, she slammed the door behind her and headed toward her day.

L
yndie ended up staying over in Cabo to get some maintenance done on her plane, and no matter how often she tried to call her place, Nina didn’t pick up the phone.

She had no way of calling Brody—hell she didn’t even have a way to contact Griffin—but she did try Tom again.

And had to leave another message. Odd since it was eight at night now, and typically Tom’s bedtime, as he got up with the sun.

On the beach in Cabo, stuck waiting for her plane, watching a bunch of half-naked kids dodge the waves in the dusk, she called Rosa.

“You coming back to me?” Rosa asked, Tallulah yipping at something in the background. “Because I just make some fresh corn tortilla—”

“Have you seen or talked to Tom?”

“He is right here,
querida.
Want me to tell him something for you?”

Lyndie glanced at her watch again. Still eight. “What’s he doing there?”

“Now do I ask you such a thing when you have that gorgeous firefighter in
your
bedroom?”

“I—” She broke off, unsure of which had her more baffled, that Rosa had known she and Griffin had slept together, or that Rosa and Tom were possibly doing the same. She pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. “You know what? Never mind. Just tell him Nina’s at my place. Or she was. Tell him not to worry, she’s fine, but she has no plans on coming back anytime soon.”

“That is what he suspected.” Rosa sighed and passed the news to Tom before saying to Lyndie, “Well, the girl deserves a shot at her own dreams. I’ve been trying to tell him that for years.”

She heard Tom grumble at that, and then he must have grabbed the phone because then he was in her ear demanding, “Is she driving you crazy?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Look, I know I have no right to ask, but…” He blew out a frustrated breath. “Keep an eye on her, okay?”

Lyndie thought of how she’d left Nina, in the arms of a man who looked as if maybe he wasn’t going to ever let her go. “Well—”

“I just worry about her falling for the first man who smiles at her.”

Lyndie thought more than likely it would be the other way around, as Brody had seemed pretty smitten himself.

“Because really, for all her bravado, she’s naive as hell,” Tom said.

Naive wasn’t exactly the word Lyndie would have used for the savvy, streetwise Nina, but she kept her tongue. And her head. “Tom, I’m gone more than half the time, and the other half I’m lucky I manage to feed myself—”

“I’ll send money.”

“I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about responsibility—”

“You’re kidding me. Honey, you’re the most responsible woman I know.”

“Tom—”

“Please.” His voice was soft, devastated. “I can’t make her come back, this is the best I can do. Just watch out for her.”

She let out a breath. “I’ll do what I can.” She hung up, calling herself every kind of fool for even caring in the first place.

That caring thing went a whole lot deeper than Lyndie ever intended. When she finally got back to San Diego the next day, she found her place empty except for one little kitty sleeping on the floor, who lifted his head and glared at her when she came in the front door.

“Nina?” She tossed down her keys and glanced at Lucifer. “Well, what’s your problem? You have a kitty box. A huge bowl of food. I was only gone overnight—” She broke off because he looked quite different. Instead of his usual dirty white, he looked like he’d just been through a washer with bleach. Upon closer inspection, he had a white powder all over him. “What the hell—”

It took only one glance in the kitchen. “Bingo.” Her tin canisters were sprawled out on the counter. The biggest one, which had been filled with flour, now sat sideways and open on the kitchen floor, along with the entire five pounds of white flour she’d never used because she had no idea how to cook. “You just had to play hockey with the canisters. You couldn’t lie around the house and be lazy like all the other cats in the universe.”

He came toward her, the usually careless little thing very meticulously not using his front left paw. “Mew.” He sat there, with his one little paw lifted, looking beyond pathetic. She picked him up—generating a cloud of flour in the process—and he carefully held his paw out. When she touched it, he hissed, then licked her hand in a gesture that broke her heart. “Oh, you poor little idiot.”

She set him down and waited for him to walk correctly, maybe even smirking at her over his shoulder to prove he’d gotten her and gotten her good.

Instead, he limped a few feet away from her and sat.

Another cloud of flour arose.

Then he very gingerly lifted his paw and looked at her.

“Shit.”
The pain and suffering in those light blue eyes slayed her. “Let me look.” But when she sat on the floor next to him and pulled him onto her lap to see, he pulled the paw free and hissed at her again.

“Fine.” Hands on her hips, still on the floor, she watched him walk—limp—away. “Suffer. See if I care.”

But she did care. She cared so much it hurt. No question, she needed help with this one. Grabbing her phone, she called Sam.

“You’re back,” he said before she could say anything but his name. “Great. When do you want to fly next, because I have this entire haul that has to go to Alaska, plus two dentists who are willing to freeze their asses off for the rest of their summer vacation and pay heavily for the pleasure.”

“I need Griffin Moore’s address.”

“What?”

“I need—”

“I heard you.” He switched from work to playful mode. “You want the address for the guy you’re not admitting you have a thing for. The guy you won’t kiss and tell about.”

“Do you have it in your records or not?”

“I believe I do. So you’re really going back for seconds, huh? That sounds extremely unlike you—”

“Just give me the address,” she said through her teeth. She pulled Lucifer closer, getting her blue pants covered in flour for her efforts. The little kitten mewled softly and held his paw up, looking so unexpectedly young and pathetic that her throat tightened. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to him. Her fault. He was far too young to have been left alone. She should never have taken him home in the first place, clearly she wasn’t cut out to have anything or anyone counting on her—

“Here we go…”

She heard the whir of Sam’s fingers over his computer keyboard. “By the way, this isn’t exactly professional of me,” he said. “Giving out an address like this.”

Lucifer whined again, and her heart caved in. “Like you’ve ever worried about your professionalism. Hurry up, Sam.”

“Hey, I worry about
you.
” He gave her the address of a place at Ocean Beach. “Are you going to tell me why you sound like you’re an inch away from tears?”

Lucifer began licking his paw, and just the sight of him looking so tiny and defenseless tore at her. “I’m not crying.”
Liar, liar.
“It’s just that Lucifer has something wrong with his paw, and—”

“Lucifer? Who’s Lucifer?”

He’d told her no pets years ago.

“Mew.”

“You don’t have a pet,” he said. “
Lyndie
? Tell me you don’t have a pet in my guesthouse.”

“Uh…”

“Mew,” Lucifer said again.

“A cat? Is that a cat? Named…Lucifer?”

“Lucifer is a figment of our joint imagination—”

“Lyndie—”

“Gotta run, Sam. Thank you—” Disconnecting, she surged to her feet, still holding Lucifer. Grabbing her keys, she headed out the door, and drove to the address she’d gotten off Sam.

Lucifer did not enjoy his drive. He curled up on the passenger seat of her truck, loudly letting her know how much he hated every minute of the adventure. When he wasn’t caterwauling, he licked his paw, looking so miserable, Lyndie felt even worse. By the time she pulled up to Griffin’s house, she was a wreck.

His place was a small light blue house with white trim, sitting on the bluffs overlooking the beach. The shutters were dark blue and open to the afternoon sun. So was the front door.

It seemed almost overwhelmingly inviting.

Grabbing the kitten, who’d gone silent the moment she turned off the engine, she headed up the walk. “It’ll be okay,” she promised rashly. “He’ll fix you right up.”

She hoped. She knocked, and from within, she heard bare feet padding their way toward her.

Griffin had just gotten back from his interview with Jake Rawlins of the San Diego Fire Department when the knock came. The city work would be a world away from the wildland firefighting in his past, but that was the appeal. He needed a change.

Only the interview hadn’t gone as planned, which was his own fault. He’d opened the meeting by admitting he felt he should have been able to prevent the twelve deaths in Idaho. Stupid, but true.

Now he’d planned on stripping down and standing in the shower until the day was nothing but a distant memory of bad judgment.

What the hell had come over him, thinking he could do it all over again? That he could actually start over at a new place, with a new crew, day in and day out, season after season, putting it all on the line, never knowing if
this
would be the fire that finally destroyed him?

Again.

At least he’d come to his senses and realized it. As he walked to the front door instead of stripping, he glanced at his red bag filled with his gear, shoved in a corner, and a pang of longing welled through him.

So he’d suffered some losses—big ones. He was still here, wasn’t he? Here and capable. He’d proven that in Mexico two weeks running. So why did he have to give it all up? He rubbed his eyes, tired of himself, tired of thinking too much, of the indecision…

And now someone had come to his door.

Brody was the only one who knew where to find him, and that worked out just fine, because Griffin was spoiling for a fight and he knew his brother would give it to him.

Only it wasn’t his brother standing on his doorstep at all, but Lyndie, cradling Lucifer against her chest. The soft, short layers of her fiery hair were everywhere, and he might have hauled her in close and kissed them both to oblivion, if it hadn’t been for the look of pure misery on her face.

“He’s hurt, he’s limping—” She gulped in some air, and hugged the kitten tighter. “I left him at home all alone.”

“Cats are fine alone.”

“Not this stupid cat. He took himself for a joy run along my counters and I think he fell off. I think he broke his paw. I think—”

Her voice cracked, and he looked from Lucifer back to Lyndie, shocked to his toes to see her green eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “Oh, baby,” he breathed.

“I know. I’m a terrible mom. I—”

“Shh.” He took Lucifer from her arms and settled him against his chest. Then he looked the cat over, frowning at the paw, which appeared unusually swollen. “I’m afraid we’ll need an X-ray for this.”

“An X-ray?”

“Come on.” He took her hand and led her back to her truck, opening the passenger side for her. He put Lucifer on her lap.

He’d walked back around, had started the engine and pulled onto the street before he glanced at her. “You’re really shaken if you’re letting me drive without an argument.”

“I never…” She let out a mirthless laugh. “I never even thought about a vet.” She stared at him. “I deal with emergencies for a living, and I got so panicked over the damn cat that isn’t even mine…I just came to you thinking you could fix it. The stupid cat
likes
you. I just drove straight over here without thinking—”

“I’m glad you came to me.”

She let out a sound that managed to perfectly convey her confusion. “I’m glad someone’s glad.”

The vet clinic was only down the road. When he pulled in and parked, he leaned toward her. “You came because some part of you wanted to see me.”

Her eyes never left his. “Maybe.”

His fingers stroked her jaw, sank into her wild hair. God, what he’d give for another night with her. “I know how much it costs you to ask for help.” He put his mouth to the spot beneath her ear, enjoying her quick and shallow breathing. “So I won’t ask you to admit it out loud.”

She laughed, but it backed up in her throat when he cupped her face and looked into her eyes. “And when we’re done here,” he said, “we talk. About what’s going on in your head, between us, everything.”

“Oh.” She tried to pull back. “Well, I don’t—”

“It’s time,” he said. “Past time.”

They went inside the clinic. In the waiting room, Lyndie paced while Griffin held the unhappy Lucifer.

“I should have come alone,” she muttered. “You probably had something much more important to do—”

“Nope.” He smiled without much mirth. “I’d already blown the interview with the SDFD today, and was pretty much just feeling stupid when you came knocking.”

“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.”