All Wrapped Up (A Pine Mountain Novel) (11 page)

“Quiet is kind of relative when you’re running a bar and grill, but yes. This is more our normal speed around the holidays.” Teagan grinned, jutting her chin at the bar area. “How’s your sternum?” she asked, but the question was so nonchalant that Ava didn’t
think twice.

“It’s a festive shade of faded green, but otherwise, it’s fabulous.” She capped her sarcasm with a self-deprecating smile. As embarrassing as it was to have been shoved over by Mike-the-jackass-Trotter, Ava had survived worse.

Teagan chuckled softly as she uncapped a beer for a guy sitting a few seats down the bar. “Most people get pretty rattled at being knocked down like that.”

Ava took in the veiled compliment with surprise. “I guess. But getting upset wouldn’t have changed anything. The only thing I could control was whether or not I got up, so I did.”

Teagan placed the iced-tea-and-lemonade-filled pint glass on a bar napkin in front of Ava, her laugh growing. “Lord, this is going to get good,” she murmured under her breath, following immediately with, “I’ll tell
Brennan you’re here.”

“What makes you think I’m here to see Brennan?”

One reddish brow arched. “I’m just shooting rubber bands at the night sky here, but I’m pretty sure no woman in the history of the XX chromosome ever wore four-inch heels in December for fun.”

Shit. “Fair enough,” Ava admitted. “I’ve got the mock-up of the article I wrote on the fire. I thought he might like to see it
before it runs in tomorrow’s
Daily
.”

“Sure.” Teagan shifted toward the door leading back to the kitchen, but at the last minute, she turned to float a glance over one shoulder. “And Ava? Nice pick on the shoes. Definitely cute.”

Ava put the nervous energy zapping through her veins to good work, reaching into the bag she’d slung over the ladder back of her bar stool to unearth her copy of the
article. Although it was way lighter on emotion than Ava would’ve liked—and Gary was expecting—she had to admit, the piece in her hands was a solid account of the fire. Ava had managed to add a dash of optimism by detailing the way Pine Mountain’s community had rallied around the effort to rebuild Joe’s Grocery. All in all, the piece was solid, professional, and thorough.

And despite knowing
she’d done the safe thing—the smart thing—in writing the story as it was, Ava
still
couldn’t shake the gut-deep notion that she’d barely scratched the dark and brooding surface of Nick Brennan’s story.

“I’m surprised you’re here.” Brennan’s voice reached her from a few paces away, where he’d stopped short behind the bar to stare at her with an expression that backed up his words.

“It takes
more than a gruff attitude and a serious face to scare me away,” Ava said over a tart smile. Okay, so she hadn’t meant to tease him, but the startled laugh he gave in response made her glad that her sassy instincts had a mind of their own.

“I’m not trying to scare you away. And I’m not
that
serious.”

Ava couldn’t help it. She scoffed. “You do own a mirror, right?” She swung an index finger
around her face in a circular motion before adding, “Not that being serious is a bad thing. You could probably win a mint in Vegas with a poker face like that.”

“So you think I need to loosen up.” Brennan moved closer, crossing his arms over the front of his dark blue T-shirt. God, it was an epically bad plan to flirt with him, especially given her recent tendency to kiss first and ask questions
later. But the dark-edged smirk tilting the corners of his mouth short-circuited her common sense.

“You said it, not me. But for the record, a little relaxing never hurt anybody.”

“Says the woman who’s married to her job.”

Ava raised his smirk and went all in. “To the man who reinvented the workaholic.”

Brennan opened his mouth, then closed it as he folded, still smiling. “Nothing wrong
with being dedicated to your job.”

“I couldn’t agree more. It’s actually why I’m here.” Ava swung her legs a quarter turn on her bar stool, sliding the mock-up of their interview from her bag. “Here’s your article. I turned in the final copy before I left work, but I thought you might like to read it before tomorrow’s paper hits the stands.”

Brennan eyed the two sheets of paper as if they’d
detonate on contact with his fingers. “I didn’t know it was customary to share an article before it runs in the paper.”

Ava placed the pages on the bar, splitting the distance between herself and Brennan on the glossy wood. “It’s not.”

“Then why did you bring this out here?” he asked, his nearly black eyes flaring in surprise.

The truth danced on Ava’s tongue, and ah, to hell with it. The
piece was done, and as hot as it burned, her curiosity about Brennan’s past wasn’t the only thing that had led her to the Double Shot tonight. “Personal courtesy. You seemed pretty reluctant during our interview, so I thought maybe reading the article before it runs would put your mind at ease.”

“Oh.” He paused, but then moved forward to pick up the pages from the bar. “Thanks.” A few minutes
of quiet passed between them, marked only by the comfortable din of clinking cutlery and the muted twang of the overhead music while Brennan read. Finally, he lifted his gaze. “This is just the facts. All you did was tell the story.”

“That’s my job,” Ava said, gripping the rounded edge of the bar in front of her. “I mean, yes, I also interviewed an eyewitness and incorporated her account to
fill in the events that occurred before you got there, and I pulled from the press release from the fire department for some of the technical aspects as well as talking to Joe, but . . .”

Brennan waved her off, stepping in until only two feet of mahogany and her fading-by-the-second willpower kept them from touching. “No, no. I didn’t mean that as a bad thing. In fact, the story is good. Great.”

Ava’s lips parted, her shocked breath heating the sliver of space between them. “You think the article is great?” Granted, she’d worked her butt off to squeeze every last drop of emotion out of the straight-up time line he’d given her, but still . . .

“You got all the facts just right, and you didn’t make the story overblown or dramatic. You told it exactly the way it happened. So yeah, I do.”
He rocked back on his heels, but only far enough to give the pages he’d placed back on the bar a tap with his fingers. “How come you think you’re not a good reporter?”

“Aside from my boss’s daily reminders that I can’t handle the job, you mean?”

Crap! Now was so
not
the time for her brain-to-mouth filter to completely malfunction. Ava scrambled for something—anything—to smooth over her impetuous
admission, but of course Brennan was quicker on the verbal draw.

“Looks like you handle being a reporter just fine to me.” He reached out to return the copy of the article to her hands, and she slid the papers back into her bag on a shrug.

“Thanks. But my boss is more of a style over substance kind of guy.” She wouldn’t be shocked if Gary had emerged from the womb on the hunt for a way to
increase his bottom line, the splashier the better.

“No disrespect,” Brennan said, kicking his jeans-clad legs into a casual lean against the counter facing both her and the bar. “But your boss sounds like an ass.”

Ava paused. She’d already whipped the lid off this conversation. No sense holding back now. “Well, he’s an ass who signs my paychecks, and reporting jobs don’t exactly grow on trees.
It’s a small price to pay, and he doesn’t break any rules even though his ethics are a tad questionable.”

“I don’t mean to be thick, but you’re from a pretty big city. Doesn’t the news in Philly blow Riverside’s current events out of the water?”

“Yeah.” She propped an elbow on the bar top, twisting the corner of her cocktail napkin around her index finger. God, her memories of Philadelphia
stung, but it wasn’t as if she hadn’t already told Brennan the worst of them. Plus, even when she’d spilled the details of her nasty past, he hadn’t treated her like fragile goods. As crushing as it was, that past had made her stronger. She could handle this.

Ava lifted her chin, looking right into Brennan’s black-coffee eyes. “The jobs in Philadelphia are better, sure. But twenty-plus years
of crappy memories kind of made relocating a no-brainer for me. I only stayed in the city for four days after I got back from Sapphire Island. Within a week, Nadine and I were living in a loft apartment up the road from my place now.”

“In Riverside?” Brennan’s gaze flashed with curiosity in the spill of the multicolored Christmas lights strung behind the bar. “I thought she was from Uniondale.”

“She is, sort of.” Ava waited for Brennan to pop the tops off a handful of beers and send them on their way down the bar before leaning in toward him. “Her parents run the restaurant on Sapphire Island in the summer, so they live most of the year in Uniondale, since it’s so close. But her mom’s side of the family is huge, and they’re all from Riverside. Nadine and her parents and sisters come
up to ski and spend the holidays at Pine Mountain Resort every year.”

He straightened. “So you came to Riverside for a fresh start.”

“It seemed as good a place as any, and it was close enough to my brother to work out,” she said. “Of course he moved from Philadelphia to Pine Mountain after that anyway. Old habits, I guess.”

“It’s cool that you guys are close. I wish . . .” Brennan stopped
short, but damn, his expression was as unreadable as ancient Sanskrit. “So, ah, is Nadine still in Riverside?”

Ava shook her head, the change in subject scooping up her full attention. “No. She got married last year. She and her husband moved to Phoenix for his job. We still e-mail a few times a year though.” Her mind shifted, curiosity taking over. “How about you and Mason? Do you still keep
in touch?”

“No.” Brennan’s movements halted so completely that Ava didn’t press for more. She understood all too keenly how friends could drift apart, and her relationship with Nadine was living proof. Truth was, even though they weren’t nearly as close as they’d once been, Ava still owed Nadine’s family a massive debt of gratitude. They’d always included her at holiday gatherings and family
get-togethers without question, and even though she’d never quite felt that she seamlessly belonged there because Nadine’s family was just so massive, that surrogate support had served as a constant reminder of why sticking close to Pete was so vital.

He was the only family she’d ever have. Staying in the Blue Ridge wasn’t just a want for Ava.

It was an absolute necessity.

“Anyway.” She
chased the word with a swallow of her drink, the lemonade tart on her tongue. “To answer your original question, I’ve got nearly five years of seniority at the
Daily
, and even though my boss can be difficult, writing stories like yours is what I’m made for. Even if it means putting up with tough hours and tougher criticism.”

A look Ava couldn’t pin with a name flickered across Brennan’s face,
his expression going blank before he said, “Looks like I’m not the only one who could loosen up around here.”

“Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. I don’t really have time for loosening up.” She gestured to her bag, which was currently crammed with enough work to send her on an all-night word bender. Just because she’d turned in the story on the fire didn’t mean she was off the hook for everything
else Gary usually dump-trucked onto her desk.

“So tell me something.” Brennan stopped to fill another drink order before satisfying Ava’s ramped-up curiosity. “Does your ass of a boss give you a lunch break?”

“Yeah,” Ava said, but it came out way more question than definitive fact. “Although I’m pretty sure the cold PB and J I scarf down over the sink in the break room doesn’t count as relaxing.”

He shuddered slightly before following up with a half smile. “I’m going to have to agree with you there. I’ve got something different in mind if you want to blow off some steam, but it’s a little unorthodox. You game?”

Realization hit her with all the subtlety of a Mack truck on a downhill grade. “Are you asking me to lunch?”

“I’m asking if you want to do something relaxing on your lunch
break,” Brennan corrected. “Since according to you, I could use a little loosening up anyway. Plus”—he paused, sinking a thumb through one of the belt loops on his flawlessly worn jeans—“I was kind of gruff yesterday during our interview. It wasn’t on purpose.” Another pause, and his words arrowed right to Ava’s belly. “But I’d like to make it up to you.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, sure.” The
answer vaulted right past her lips, but she belatedly added, “You’re not going to ask me to do anything totally weird, are you?” One of these days, she was going to have to do something about her complete reversal of the look-before-you-leap strategy.

But today was not that day, because the unvarnished truth was—potential weird factor notwithstanding—now that she’d turned in her story, Ava really
wanted to see Brennan again.

And much to her surprise, it looked as if the feeling was mutual.

“I guess that depends on your definition of weird,” he said, following up the words with nothing more than that infernally sexy, stubble-laced smile.

She should’ve guessed. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“Not a chance.”

“Give me a hint,” came her bold counter, but Brennan just leaned
in close enough to fill her senses with the fresh ocean-air scent of his skin.

“No.” His smile morphed into a grin, teasing every cell in Ava’s body as it traveled all the way to her core.

“Be at my place at noon tomorrow. Wear comfortable clothes, and be prepared to sweat.”

Chapter Eleven

Brennan stood in the dead center of his living room, surveying his apartment for obvious dust bunnies and trying to keep his back from going into full spasm. But between the stress of the fire last week and the grueling PT session he’d gutted through this morning, he doubted if he’d have much luck. When Brennan had arrived in the Blue Ridge just under two years ago, his orthopedist
at Riverside Hospital had given him a standing prescription for muscle relaxers, which he’d never filled, and another one for painkillers, which he’d torn up before he’d even left the clinic. He’d told his physical therapist in their very first session that the strongest pharmaceutical assistance that would pass his lips would be the over-the-counter variety, and the rest was up to her.

And
bless her torturous Zenmaster heart, Kat had manhandled him with alternative therapy ever since. Not that Brennan could knock it, because damn, her approach actually worked.

To varying degrees, anyway.

Satisfied that his apartment was free of any flagrant dirt or disarray, Brennan scanned his T-shirt and gym shorts to make sure they also passed muster. Okay, so what he had planned for his
lunch break with Ava hardly qualified as date material, but he was still pretty sure he wouldn’t impress her with workout gear that could stunt-double as a dust rag.

Not that he was trying to impress her
or
ask her on a date. She’d done a decent thing by bringing him the article she’d written before it was printed, and he was just returning the being-nice favor. Plus, despite her teasing delivery
last night, Ava wasn’t wrong. Brennan had endured a hell of a week, and both his back and his brain had let him know it in no uncertain terms. He really could stand to come down a notch.

And from the look on Ava’s face as she’d talked about her workload, he wasn’t the only one. Their interview was over and done, and his past was staying exactly where it belonged. He’d even dodged the land mine
of her question about Mason last night, although the calm required for the job had taken every last scrap of his effort.

Now they had nowhere to go but forward. What could it hurt to spend an hour with her, blowing off steam they could both stand to lose?

Brennan’s cell phone clamored for attention from down the hall, and he moved to the kitchen to scoop it from the counter. The caller ID
had him both smiling and tightening up, but he tapped the icon bearing his sister’s pixie face and answered all the same.

“Don’t tell me. You and the Murphy guy eloped to Vegas.”

Ellie’s drawn-out sigh was tinged with just enough laughter to mark her happiness. “Are you kidding? We’re supposed to get married in front of God and most of the universe in two and a half weeks. I’m pretty sure
an elopement would make the whole you-may-now-kiss-the-bride thing a little awkward. Anyway, Dad would have a cow and three chickens if Josh and I blew off this wedding so we could tie the knot at the Elvis Chapel o’ Love.”

Hell of a point. “So I take it the planning rages on.”

“Mmm-hmm. You know. Busy, busy.” There was just enough vague hesitation in Ellie’s answer to make it a non-answer,
and Brennan’s senses launched into full alert.

“What’s the matter, Ellie?” He leaned against the sturdy length of counter space at his hip, splaying his free hand over the cool surface as he braced for impact.

His sister’s hesitation became a full-blown hitch. “I didn’t want to say anything about this until I was sure,” she said, bookending the words with an audible wince. “But you need to
know. Alex Donovan and Cole Everett are going to be at the wedding. And so is Captain Westin.”

Brennan’s blood went subzero in his veins. “What?”

“This wasn’t my idea, Nick.
Believe
me, I know what it means—”

“You don’t,” Brennan bit out, but Christ, he couldn’t finish. Because finishing meant telling Ellie exactly what it was like to hear those three names again, unearthed from the place
he’d stuffed them on the day Mason had died.

“Look, Josh’s firm has played Station Eight in the Fairview softball tournament finals for the last two years. You know that league is the
Who’s Who
of the entire city. Josh cocaptained last year’s team. He knows everyone in the house, right down to the paramedics.” The apology clung to Ellie’s voice, ripping further into Brennan’s belly, but he didn’t
stop her from talking. “I wanted to tell him no, but then he’d ask me why. And we’re inviting everyone else in freaking Fairview, so I have no excuse.”

Her words trickled in, hitting him one drop at a time. “You never told Josh what happened?”

“No, Nick.” Ellie’s hesitation disappeared. “Josh is my fiancé, and he works downtown, so he’s not oblivious to the facts. But you firefighters are
like Fort Knox when it comes to details about your own, and regardless of how you left it with them, Alex and Cole are no exception. Josh only knows what everyone else knows. There was a fire, and you got hurt badly enough to warrant a career change. That’s all.”

Pressure climbed the plumb line of Brennan’s spine, intensifying with each upward grab. Hell, he needed to get off the phone. He needed
to pack all this shit back into its ugly, broken, fucked-up box so he could get rid of it.

Right now.

“Okay. Thanks for calling me, Ells. I know this isn’t your fault.”

“Don’t do this,” Ellie warned, but Brennan was already shaking his head, modulating his voice to betray no emotion.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You can’t keep hiding!” Barely a beat of chagrined silence passed before his
sister added, “What happened in that fire was an accident. Harboring all this blame is going to ruin you.”

Inhale. Exhale. Find control.
“I’m fine. Really. Love you.”

Two things happened simultaneously as Brennan lowered the phone back to the kitchen counter. A soul-sucking pain claimed all the space from his tailbone to both hips.

And Ava Mancuso knocked on his front door.

Brennan stood at his kitchen counter, paralyzed by both the irony of his situation and the raging pain playing epic-battle Twister with every last one of his nerve endings. But he knew all too well that the way through a full-blown back spasm was to combine gentle pressure with gentler movement. Sitting still would only give the pain a chance to dig its teeth in deeper.

Even if moving hurt
badly enough to bitch-slap the breath from his lungs.

“Coming!” Brennan unwound his death grip from the edge of the tan Formica, sliding his fingers over his lower back to locate the pressure point the way Kat had taught him. Pain shot jagged lines across his field of vision, but he forced his legs to move across the kitchen floor, one and then the other. Spasms like this were few and far between
for him now, and though they were meaner than most hardened criminals, their sentence was usually pretty short.

Brennan finally managed to get a decent breath in on step four, and by the time he’d hauled his carcass to the front door of his apartment, he was 98 percent sure he’d live through the pain.

Until he caught sight of a wide-eyed Ava on his doorstep, wearing a cute little fleece hoodie
with her dark hair tied into two low-slung pigtails, and then he was pretty sure he was already a goner and she was his last wish.

“Oh!” She took a half step backward, her running shoe scraping the brick in a gruff whisper of surprise. “You’re here.”

“I invited you over,” Brennan reminded her, his focus slipping from the pain to her face. Two tiny, crescent-shaped indents marked the curve
of her lower lip, and she smoothed an index finger over the worried crease between her brows.

“I know. I just thought you might have . . . Are you okay?”

The crease returned in all its glory, and hell, he should’ve known better than to think Ava wouldn’t notice he was in pain. She was a reporter, for God’s sake. She was trained to notice the tiniest details.

Not to mention that her bullshit
detector was very likely concrete reinforced and triple-wrapped in high-grade Kevlar.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Brennan said, although it was a lie. Christ, how had he thought he’d be able to lie low at a five-hundred-person wedding? Ellie’s fiancé practiced civil law, but still. He worked for the biggest damn firm in the city, and the courthouse was seven blocks from Station Eight. Firefighters, cops,
attorneys . . . Pine Mountain wasn’t the only place with a hell of a grapevine.

All the unspoken firefighter codes on the planet weren’t going to keep Alex and Cole’s hatred from being broadcast loud and freaking clear if the three of them clapped eyes on each other.

The pain in Brennan’s back sliced through to both hips, and he crammed down the thought of his former squad mates. Right now
he needed to control his pain, or it was going to control him. He focused on Ava, lasering in on the thin silver necklace barely visible at the divot of her throat, and yeah, that would work. “Come on in.”

The step he took to gesture her inside sent his muscles right back into lockdown, though, and Ava turned toward him with a frown.

“You look pale.” She lifted a hand in an automatic motion,
skimming it halfway over his forearm before she seemed to realize the contact. “Oh my God, you’re shaking. Brennan, what’s going on?”

Her touch unraveled the words from his mouth like a landslide, and he stood there helpless while they spilled out. “I hurt my back. Not recently, but sometimes it acts up. The pain’s not usually so bad.”

“Except for now,” Ava said, not a question in sight. “So
do you have any medicine? Painkillers or something I can—”

“No.” Shit, that came out louder than he’d intended. He cleared his throat. “I mean, the alternative stuff actually works better for me. I just need a little pressure on it and a stretch or two. It’ll be fine.”

“You’re so full of crap.”

Surprise replaced the bone-deep ache slamming through Brennan’s veins. “What?”

Only a handful
of people knew about his injury, but whenever his pain reared its ugly head, every last one of them responded with varying degrees of poor-you concern. Even Kat, who talked a tough game, got a softhearted sympathy flicker in her eyes whenever his therapy got rough.

But Ava just leveled him with a bright green stare that said she meant business. “You say
fine
, and all I hear is the other F word.
I’m assuming it would help to get you off your feet, yes?” Without waiting for him to answer, she slipped a shoulder beneath his arm to guide him to the couch.

“Thanks.” Brennan sank to the brown leather cushions with a graceless
plunk,
but man, his vertebrae did a touchdown dance at the decrease in gravity. “I’m really sorry. We were supposed to spend your lunch hour relaxing.”

“I made it
out of the office. That’s really half the battle.” Ava sat down next to him, flipping her palms in a
what’s next
gesture. “You said something about pressure?”

The question was so straight up and devoid of pretense that his answer was automatic. “Yeah. It helps.” He rotated his body in an effort to get some leverage from his palm to his lower back, but she interrupted the movement midreach.

“Wait.” In one deft maneuver, she’d repositioned herself on his other side, turning her knees toward his back so they were both sitting sideways on the couch.

“What are you doing?” Brennan twisted to look at her over his shoulder. Having anyone behind him, even someone he knew, sent his hackles into high alert.

But Ava put her hands on his shoulders to gently turn him back around. “Just winging
it here, but I can’t imagine twisting yourself up like a human corkscrew feels too relaxing.”

He bit down on the urge to face her again anyway. “It’s not a big deal.”

She sighed, but without seeing her face, Brennan couldn’t discern whether she was giving in or buckling down. “Are you going to tell me how to do this or not? I really don’t want to hurt you by accident.”

Right. He should’ve
known better than to think she’d cave. “The pain’s in my lower back,” he conceded, the couch cushions rustling as he angled away from her fully, abandoning control of his most dominant sense. “On either side of my spine.”

“Here?” Ava paused for a second, the word arriving before the whisper-soft connection of her fingers on his back, below his kidneys.

“A little closer in, right around the
vertebrae, but yeah.”

Despite her light touch, Brennan tensed at the brush of Ava’s hands moving over his T-shirt. Not being able to see her, to read her face or even her body language, was bad enough. But her fingers were less than a breath from the scar tissue that spiderwebbed out from his spine, crisscrossing the expanse of his lower back in a gruesome relief map of rods and pins that he’d
carry around for the rest of his life.

Except when her hands landed over his scars, the damage obvious to the touch even through the barrier of his shirt, Ava didn’t even flinch.