Never Too Hot (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #3)(13)
Author: Bella Andre

Maybe that was the problem. His mom had no life of her own. No wonder she had to get all up in his business and was always asking him to go out in the rowboat or for a hike.

The fire was starting to go out when Hannah’s mom called to her from their porch. “I’ve got to go,” she said.

“Thanks for the s’mores lesson.”

As he walked down the beach back to where he’d left his bike that afternoon, he walked past a couple of shady looking guys. “Got fireworks?”

He almost kept walking and ignored them, but then he stopped. Hannah would be seriously impressed if he invited her over on the Fourth and he had his own personal stash of fireworks. Pulling out his wallet, he handed over a wad of the money his father had given him.

Chapter Five

AFTER GRABBING his bag from the Inn and leaving a short note for Stu, Connor headed back to Poplar Cove. A part of him felt bad about letting Ginger think he was going to have to ship all the way off to Piseco when Stu’s couch was his for the taking. But he quickly quashed that.

Poplar Cove was his. He belonged here, not crammed onto a couch at the Inn.

He stood on the porch looking out at the dark water for several minutes. After twelve years in Lake Tahoe he hadn’t expected Poplar Cove to feel so much like home. Maybe it was that he could feel his grandparents’ presence all around him.

The chair covers his grandmother had made, the way she’d freak if he or Sam got mud on them. The bookshelves he’d built with his grandfather when he was ten, the same year his grandfather had finally let him use the electric table saw. Somehow he’d managed to keep all of his fingers.

His gaze moved to Ginger’s painting, half-finished on the easel on the far end of the porch. He’d never been a museum kind of guy, never had the urge to capture a scene for posterity, not when he’d rather be out in trees and dirt and water. And yet, something in the painting resonated within him.

Heading up to the second floor, he automatically turned into the first door on the left, the room that had always been his.

Her scent hit him first, the faint hint of vanilla mixed with something earthy, sexy. Color barreled into him next. Bright clothes were hanging from the pegs on the wall and vivid canvases were crowding each other for space on all four walls. The top of the antique pine dresser was covered with bottles and jewelry and postcards propped up against the mirror.

His old bedroom had been transformed into a vibrant rainbow and the energy was palpable. The bed, now covered with a bright printed quilt rather than the serviceable blue denim he’d had forever, was unmade. Just looking at the rumpled sheets stirred him as if she were there in the room with him, naked and beckoning.

His grandparents’ old bedroom was the farthest away, at the end of the hall. But he didn’t feel right taking their room. Instead he moved to the guest room, which shared a wall with Ginger’s.

He needed to get outside, grab a kayak, get out on the lake and paddle hard against the driving wind. Running his body into the ground would be his only chance for sleep… and the only way to up the odds that he’d sleep hard enough to hold back his nightmares while he and Ginger shared the same roof.

At ten, Ginger untied her apron and hung it up in her locker. She’d already spent far longer cleaning up than she usually did. Most weeknights, after the dinner shift, she was home by now. Tonight, she’d tried to work off her careening thoughts with a mop and sponge.

Isabel emerged from the office where she’d been working on the computer and looked at the gleaming floors and stainless steel counters.

“Wow. These could be photographed for a magazine.” She shot Ginger a look. “Having second thoughts about letting Connor stay at your house for a couple of nights?”

Ginger sighed. The log cabin really did feel like home. Which was exactly her problem. Somewhere along the way she’d forgotten that Poplar Cove was only a temporary respite from her normal life. As much as she wanted to pretend that the log cabin was hers — and that she could live there in blissful peace forever without having to face life’s usual stresses — it wasn’t.

“When my lease is up, he’ll probably want the cabin back.”

“Is that what’s really bothering you? That you’re going to have to look for a new place to live in a few months?

I’m sure you could find another lakefront cabin to rent by then.”

“You’re right,” Ginger admitted. “It’s just that…” She tried to figure out how to put her feelings into words.

“This might sound weird, but for the first time in my life I felt like I could be myself.”

Her parents weren’t here telling her how to behave. Her ex-husband wasn’t here criticizing her. She’d found a place where people were getting to know her for her and not because of who her father was or how much money she had.

“And in so many ways Connor reminds me of my ex-husband.”

There was that same initial attraction. That same alpha-male-coming-to-take-what’s-mine act.

“Having Connor in the cabin, I’ll have to watch how I look. What I wear. What I say.”

It had already started. Look at her, doing anything she could think of to avoid going home.

“Why do you think you need to do any of that?” Isabel argued. “Why can’t you just go on exactly as you have been and if he doesn’t like it, who cares? You’ve really come into your own here. I find it hard to believe that one guy could make you forget that.”

“You know what?” Ginger said slowly, as Isabel’s words seeped in. “I think you’re right. It’ll be fine.”

If there was one thing she’d learned during the past eight months, it was that she needed to live a life that made her happy. Wear whatever she wanted. Do whatever she wanted. Say whatever she wanted.

So Connor was going to be moving in and out of her space over the next few weeks, so he was going to be sleeping in one of the empty bedrooms for a couple of nights. So what?

The wind was blowing even harder as Ginger went out to her car. As she drove back to the cabin, Isabel’s words ran on repeat in her head, working to set her straight right when she’d been about to veer off course.

Getting out of the car behind the log cabin, she crossed over the patch of grass beside the house onto the beach. Standing under the huge clump of old poplar trees that shaded the house most of the day, she stretched out her arms to let the frenzied wind whip her hair and clothes around.

She loved it here, loved the raw and wild weather that blew in and out almost at random. Living in the log cabin made her feel the same way, as if she were constantly surrounded by a forest rather than four walls.

All of a sudden there was a loud screeching sound right above her head. Connor’s warnings about how unsafe the cabin was shot through her brain just as she heard an ear-splitting crack. She tried to move, to run, but she didn’t know which way to go, could barely seem to pick up her feet.