Нора Робертс - Chasing Fire

“I have heroic taste. Hold out the glass, Rowan.” He filled it, then his own. “To wilderness picnics.”

“All right.” She tapped, sipped. “Jesus, this is not cheap tequila at Get a Rope. I see why 007 goes for it. How’d you get this?”

“They carry it in town.”

“You’ve been into town today? What time did you get up?”

“About eight. I never made it to the shower last night, and smelled bad enough to wake myself up this morning.”

He opened one of the containers, and after breaking off a chunk of the baguette, spread it with soft, buttery cheese. Offered it. “I’m not especially rich, I don’t think.”

She studied him as flavors danced on her tongue. Caught in a pretty breeze, his hair danced around his face in an appealing tangle of brown and sun-struck gold.

“I want to know. But I don’t want bad memories to screw your picnic.”

“That’s about it for the bad. I’m not sure I’d remember them, or more than vaguely, if it wasn’t for my aunt and uncle. My mother’s sister,” he explained. “My parents named them as my legal guardians in their wills. They came and got me, took me up north, raised me.”

He took out plates, flatware as he spoke, while she gave him room for the story.

“They talked about my parents all the time, showed me pictures. They were tight, the four of them, and my aunt and uncle wanted me to keep the good memories. I have them.”

“You were lucky. After something horrible, you were lucky.”

His gaze met hers. “Really lucky. They didn’t just take me in. I was theirs, and I always felt that.”

“The difference between being an obligation, even a well-tended one, and belonging.”

“I never had to learn how wide that difference is. My cousins—one’s a year older, one’s a year younger—never made me feel like an outsider.”

That played a part in the balance of him, she decided, in the ease and confidence.

“They sound like great people.”

“They are. When I graduated from college, I had a trust fund, pretty big chunk. The money from my parents’ estate, the insurance, all that. They’d never used a penny, but invested it for me.”

“And you bought an arcade.”

He lifted his champagne. “I like arcades. The best ones are about families. Anyway, my younger cousin mostly runs it, and Jared—the older one—he’s a lawyer, and takes care of that sort of thing. My aunt supervises and helps plan events, and for the last couple years my uncle’s handled the PR.”

“For families by family. It’s a good thing.”

“It works for us.”

“How do they feel about your summers?”

“They’re okay with it. I guess they worry, but they don’t weigh me down with that. You grew up with a smoke jumper.” They added chicken and salad to plates. “How’d you handle it?”

“By thinking he was invincible. Talk about superheroes. Mmm,” she added when she bit through crisp skin to tender meat. “God bless Marg. I really considered him immortal,” Rowan added. “I never worried about him. I was never afraid for him, or myself. He was... Iron Man.”

Gull poured two more glasses. “I’ll definitely drink to Iron Man Tripp. He’s why we’re both here.”

“Weird, but true.” She ate, relaxed in the moment and felt easier with him, she realized, than she’d expected to be. “I don’t know how much of the story you’ve heard. About my parents.”

“Some.”

“A lot of some’s glossed over. My father—you’ve probably seen pictures—he was, still is, pretty wow.”

“He passed the wow down to you.”

“In a Valkyrie kind of way.”

“You’re not the sort who decides to die in the battle.”

“You know your Norse mythology.”

“I have many pockets of strange, inexplicable knowledge.”

“So I’ve noticed. In any case, a man who looks like Iron Man, does what he does... women flock.”

“I have the same problem. It’s a burden.”

She snorted, ate some potato salad. “But he wasn’t one for coming off a fire, or out of the season, and looking for the handy bang.”

She arched a brow as Gull merely grinned. “It’s not his way. Like me, he’s lived here all his life. If he’d had that kind of rep, it would’ve stuck. He met my mother when she came to Missoula, picked up work as a waitress. She was looking for adventure. She was beautiful, a little on the wild side. Anyway, they hooked up, and oops, she got knocked up. They got married. They met in early July, and by the middle of September they’re married. Stupid, from a rational point of view, but I have to be grateful seeing as I’m sitting here telling the tale.”

He’d known he’d been wanted, all of his life. How much did it change the angles when you, as she did, considered yourself an oops?

“We’ll both be grateful.”

“I think it must’ve been exciting for her.” Rowan popped a fat blackberry into her mouth as she spoke. “Here’s this gorgeous man who wore a flight suit like some movie star, one of the elite, one at the top of his game, and he picks her. At the same time, she’s rebelling against a pretty strict, stuffy upbringing. She was nearly ten years younger than Dad, and probably enjoyed the idea of playing house with him. Over the winter, he’s starting up his business, but he’s around. My grandparents are, too, and she’s carrying the child of their only son. She’s the center. Her parents have cut her off, just severed all ties.”

“How do people do that? How do they justify that, live with that?”

“They think they’re right. And I think that added to the excitement for her. And in the spring, there I am, so she’s got a new baby to show off. Doting grandparents—a husband who’s besotted, and still around.”

She chose another berry, let it lie on her tongue a moment, sweet and firm. “Then a month later, the season starts, and he’s not around every day. Now it’s about changing diapers, and walking a squalling baby in the middle of the night. It’s not such an adventure now, or so exciting.”

She reached for another piece of chicken. “He’s never, not once, said a word against her to me. What I know of that time I got from reading letters he’d locked up, riffling through papers, eavesdropping—or occasionally catching my grandmother when she was pissed off and her tongue was just loose enough.”

“You wanted to know,” Gull said simply.

“Yeah, I wanted to know. She left when I was five months old. Just took me over to my grandparents, asked if they’d watch me while she ran some errands, and never came back.”

“Cold.” He couldn’t quite get his mind around that kind of cold, or what that kind of cold would do to the child left behind. “And clueless,” he added. “It says she decided this isn’t what I want after all, so I’ll just run away.”

“That sums it. My dad tracked her down, a couple of times. Made phone calls, wrote letters. Her line, because I saw the letters she wrote back, was it was all his fault. He was the cold and selfish one, had wrecked her emotionally. The least he could do was send her some money while she was trying to recover. She’d promise to come back once she had, claimed she missed me and all that.”

“Did she come back?”

“Once, on my tenth birthday. She walks into my party, all smiles and tears, loaded down with presents. It’s not my birthday party anymore.”

“No, it’s her Big Return, putting her in the center again.”

Rowan stared at him for a long moment. “That’s exactly it. I hated her at that moment, the way a ten-year-old can. When she tried to hug me, I pushed her away. I told her to get out, to go to hell.”

“Sounds to me that at ten you had a good bullshit detector. How’d she handle it?”