Susan Andersen - Burning Up

“Hey there, Mr. Grandview,” the dream girl said in her throaty voice, looking at the old man two seats down from him as if he were God’s gift. “It’s so nice to see you again. You still breaking hearts right and left?”

For God’s sake, Gabe thought in disgust, the man was eighty-five if he was a day. Apparently O’James’s sole requirement for flirting was a pulse.

Not that Grandview appeared to object. “Yes, ma’am.” He agreed with a chuckle. “Come senior afternoons down at the grange hall, I got wimmen buzzing around me like bees on mint.”

She flashed him a smile of admiration. “You always were a devil with the ladies.”

Lenore handed a big bowl of peas to Dawson on her left and took her seat. “Let’s get my food passed around before it gets cold, people. Everyone, this is my niece, Macy O’James. Macy, this here is Brian Dawson,” she said of the man with the bowl. “He and Mike Schwab and Jim Holstrom—” she indicated the men as she introduced them “—are studying farming methods at the Experimental. The lovebirds there,” she continued, nodding to a young couple whispering and exchanging surreptitious touches at the far end of the table, “are Justin and Tiffany McMann.”

“Newlyweds?” Macy asked them, accepting the platter of pork chops from Tyler and spearing one onto her plate. She turned to her cousin. “You want to split one of these?”

“Sure,” Janna agreed, taking the platter and passing it on. “Just don’t expect me to relinquish my share of the potatoes.”

Macy turned back to the couple. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to ask a question, then not listen to the answer.” But tumbling to what the rest of them already knew—that the just-wed teens paid attention to no one but each other—her lips crooked in a wry smile. “O-kay. Who says talking’s required to get a straight answer?”

Lenore snorted. Pointing to Gabe as he speared two pork chops onto his plate, she said, “The big boy across from you is Gabriel Donovan. Our new fire chief.”

He half expected Macy to pretend this was the first time they’d seen each other. But she merely gave him a brief nod before turning her attention on her aunt. “We actually met out on the highway,” she said. “Johnny Angelini pulled me over for driving ten above the limit and Fire Chief Donovan was with him. I didn’t know he was living here, though.”

“I’m in the process of building a house,” he said with the aloof courtesy that was his default manner with anyone he didn’t know, then shot Lenore a smile. “I’m not sure how I’m going to tear myself away from your cooking, though, when the place is finished.” Turning his attention back to Macy, he invited perfunctorily, “Call me Gabe.”

When Brian, Mike and Jim tripped all over themselves inviting her to call them by their first names as well, he shook his head. Not that he had a problem with them seconding his invitation. But Jesus. You’d think three grown men would have more pride than to tumble all over themselves like a litter of eager puppies.

He transferred his attention to Janna, absorbing the change in her appearance. “You sure look nice tonight.”

Color touched her cheeks. “Thank you. Macy dolled me up.”

“Mom looks really pretty, doesn’t she?” Tyler piped up. “And she didn’t even hafta dye her hair from one of those boxes.”

“Yeah,” Charlie agreed around a mouthful of sweet potato fries. “That’s a wig of Ty’s Aunt Macy’s.”

Resisting an unusual urge to check out Aunt Macy sans her wig in more microscopic detail than he’d already done, he kept his focus determinedly on Janna. “It looks good on you.”

“Doesn’t it?” Lenore agreed. “And it’s sure nice to see some color in her cheeks.”

“Johnny slap you with a ticket, sweetheart?” Bud asked Macy in a low voice, promptly diverting Gabe’s attention. He looked across the table at her, wondering if she’d invest the story of being pulled over with the same hint of attitude he’d sensed when it had been happening.

But she merely shrugged. “Nah. Johnny’s always been a pretty decent guy. He just gave me a warning.”

Charlie leaned forward to look around Janna’s boy at Macy. “My sister says you’re, like, a movie star, or something.”

Tyler rolled his eyes. “I’ve tol’ him and tol’ him you ain’t.”

“You’ve told him she’s not,” his mother corrected.

“I know! But his sister Amy keeps insistin’ she is.”

Macy gave the boys a crooked smile. “Tyler’s right, Charlie. I’ve made a name for myself in the music-video industry, but movie star–wise I’m not even a little fish in a big pond. I’m more like a minnow in the ocean.” She indicated the basket next to his elbow. “Pass me those rolls, will you?”

The basket was handed to her, and holding it in both hands, she brought it up to her nose and inhaled deeply, her lips quirking up and her eyes sliding closed in appreciation.

But her eyelids promptly reopened and she gazed straight at Gabe, catching him watching her. He felt that look like fingers running down his chest. Then her tongue commenced a slow glide across her full bottom lip and his balls tightened.

Damn. He didn’t understand why those eyes and that voice and, hell, every goddamn thing about her kept having such an impact on him. Women didn’t usually get under his skin. He didn’t allow it.

Yet here he sat, waiting to see how outrageous she’d be in the company of her aunt and uncle.

“You’re right to worry about who’ll do the cooking when you move into your new house,” she murmured. “Because Auntie Lenore is, hands down, the greatest cook in the world.”

And as fast as she’d locked gazes with him, she turned her attention to selecting a roll and passing the basket to Janna.

Leaving him irritated as hell that he felt…let down.

And itching for something he couldn’t even name.

MACY HAD JUST GOTTEN Janna settled in the over-stuffed chair in their room when her cousin swore and started levering herself out of it again.

“Whoa!” Macy put a hand on her shoulder. “Sit. Stay. What do you need?”

“Me, nothing. But I forgot all about Ty’s uniform for tomorrow’s Little League game. Dammit, I meant to check earlier to make sure it was clean and not moldering under his bed since the last game.” She planted her hands on the arms of the chair as if preparing to push herself back onto her feet.

“Plant your butt,” Macy ordered. When Janna narrowed her eyes at her, she snapped, “Don’t give me that look. This is exactly the kind of thing you wanted me here for. So take a deep breath. I’ll run up and see if he has it. And if it is under the bed, I’ll make him fish it out and we’ll bring it down and run a load of laundry. You know that’s no biggie. There’s always something needs washing in this house.”

“Okay.” Blowing out a breath, her cousin sagged against the cushions. “Thank you.” She scrubbed a hand over her mouth. “God, I hate this. Every little molehill turns into frigging Mount Everest.”

“I know. But that’s what you’ve got me for—I’m your designated mountain climber. So prop that leg up. Grab your book. Or I can turn on Wheel, if you prefer. You always were better at that game than me. You want anything from the kitchen?”

“God, no. I’m still stuffed from dinner.”

She grinned. “Yeah. I wasn’t kidding when I told the fire chief your mom puts on one dynamite spread.”

But the last thing she wanted to think about was Gabriel Donovan. She hated the fact she was so aware of the man while he was all cool-eyed disinterest when he looked at her.

“All right, then,” she said briskly. “I’ll go find out the status of Ty’s uniform.”