Janet Evanovich - Love in a Nutshell

Kate smiled at the crowd and said her thanks. Then she caught Matt looking at her with an intensity she’d never gotten from any other man. Not even from Richard. She felt as though the stage was rocking and rolling beneath her feet. It wasn’t the not-so-grandma punch, though. This was a punch of another kind, one of sheer hunger and absolute sexual certainty.

Matt wasn’t messing around.

Now Kate got why women trailed after him as though they’d lost their favorite plaything. Still, she refused to fall for him, no matter how hot that landing might be. Without even looking at the scorecards the judges now held aloft, Kate escaped the stage while her legs could still carry her.

MATT WAS a goner. He was ready to serve himself up to Kate however she wanted him. Preferably naked. And even more preferably, tonight.

Matt listened to a damn fine version of “My Wild Irish Rose” by Junior and an equally scary rendition of “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” by Deena. But all of that was second to wondering how he could get Kate alone. He really liked her. Ironically, that made things more complicated. Not that he was going to let that stop him. Or even slow him down.

Marcie stepped onstage, aligned the microphone to her satisfaction, and announced the second round finalists. Kate had made the cut.

Starflower leaned over to speak to Matt. “We get a ten-minute reprieve before they start the next round.”

“You mean a break?” Matt asked.

“No. Definitely a reprieve,” she said. “I’m stepping outside to meditate and make myself one with the evening peace.”

Or peace pipe .

As for Matt, he planned to meditate on how to make progress with Kate.

THE OVERPROOF rum had kicked in and was burning through Kate like jet fuel. She didn’t feel buzzed so much as energized. Sometime around midnight, when both the alcohol and the sugar had wreaked their havoc, she knew she’d be parched and cranky. And no doubt still sleepless. Too late for regrets, though. She looked out at the people gathered behind the judges, and Kate the Performer took over. It was round two of the Great Karaoke Olympics, and Kate was into it.

“Marvin Gaye’s ‘Sexual Healing,’” she said into the microphone.

KATE RIPPED into the song, enjoying her time in the spotlight, loving the lyrics, loving the music, thinking that life was full of moments just like this. Unexpected, surprising moments. And Kate realized that unless you put yourself out there, you could very easily miss them. Maybe it was time to take some more risks with her life.

A low howl drifted into the room from somewhere outside. The sound slowly raised in both pitch and volume, and people began to turn and head toward the door. Kate knew her voice wasn’t chasing them off. She’d witnessed this scene before at Bagger’s Tavern. The place could go from full to empty in sixty seconds flat when the town’s volunteer firefighters heard the alarm sound.

“Fire,” Ella mouthed from the base of the stage. She pointed toward the door, and Kate nodded in acknowledgment. Ella was one of the handful of women who served on the town’s fire department.

More people filed out, but Kate kept singing. Now she knew how the band on the Titanic had felt. A woman who looked kind of like Matt leaned over his shoulder and said something to him. He stood. Kate didn’t like the grim look on his face. She finished, skipped her bow, and made a moderately graceful jump from the low stage.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s a fire at the brewery,” Matt said. “Could you come with me?”

“Of course,” she said, because she’d decided not to let herself lust after Matt Culhane, but she darned well liked him.

MATT LOOKED at the crowd Sat ght=”1em”gathered in his parking lot. In Keene’s Harbor, the only thing that drew a bigger crowd than a Friday night fund-raiser was a good, old-fashioned Dumpster fire. There was such a weirdly festive atmosphere that he half expected to see the spectators pull out marshmallows and start toasting them. Of course, the spectators would have to fight their way through the most massive contingent of first responders that Matt had seen since the Independence Day fireworks debacle of ’90. Since he’d been intimately involved in the accidental early start to that annual celebration, he’d watched that group from afar.

“Is the whole town here?” Kate asked.

“More or less.”

He found a spot for his truck, and immediately noticed an ambulance parked at the brewery’s employee door. The vehicle’s back door was open and the interior was lit. Inside, a familiar figure lay on a stretcher.

Matt sprinted over to the ambulance. He’d barely reached it when Kate joined him. For a little thing, she had a long stride.

“Give me a second,” he said to her.

“I’ll be right here.”

Matt didn’t recognize the two paramedics working on Laila. All the same, he climbed into the back of the ambulance.

One of the paramedics was inflating some sort of air cast around Laila’s ankle. “You’ll have to get out, sir,” she said.

Laila tried to prop herself up on her elbows, despite the paramedics’ orders to stay still. “He’ll stay right where he is. Work around him.”

“What happened?” Matt asked.

“Twisted it hard.” She winced as she tried to settle more comfortably on the stretcher. “I had stepped outside for a second to use my phone when I saw the fire. I called 911, but the fencing around the Dumpster was already burning. I tried to run a hose from the loading dock door. The hose ran me, instead, I guess. Broke my phone when I went down, too.”

“Don’t worry about the phone. I’ll get you another one,” Matt said. “Let’s work on getting you fixed, okay?”

Laila had been with him since the day he’d started serving food. Yeah, she could be a little bossy, but he’d learned more from her than he could have from any number of highly paid consultants. She was family, plain and simple. And he felt sick that she had been hurt trying to help him.

“We’re ready to roll,” the larger of the paramedics said.

Matt touched Laila gently on her shoulder. “Can I do anything for you?”

“Get ahold of my son, Joe. Tell him where I am and that someone’s going to need to come get my car.”

“No problem. And I’ll be over to the emergency room in just a while. Sa woin1D;

“Don’t you dare. You’ve got enough to deal with right here. Clete already shut you down for the night.”

At that news, Matt bit back on a couple of his favorite curse words.

“The Dumpster was too far from the building for a spark to fly. And even if one did, the roof’s metal,” he said.

“I know,” Laila replied. “But you know Clete. And Steve went to look for Jerry to argue the closing, but Jerry was nowhere to be found.”

“Don’t worry,” Matt said. “Just focus on getting yourself better and let me deal with the rest of this, okay?”

“I will.”

He gave her hand a squeeze, which was about all the affection Laila would accept

“Hang in there,” he said before climbing out.

Kate still stood watching the firefighters spray down the smoking Dumpster and fence.

“Arson is a definite buzzkill,” she said without looking his way.

She’d voiced what Matt had been thinking since they’d pulled into the parking lot. If not for all the other incidents, Matt would have attributed it to Steve sneaking a cigarette by the trash. Matt had snagged him doing that countless times.

“It is. And I know I’m lucky it wasn’t worse. Laila’s fall was bad enough.”