Every Little Kiss (12 page)

“Up at the White Pine Retirement Village. My dad…” He trailed off, his Adam's apple working.

“Is he okay?” Casey asked. Pain flashed across Abe's face.

“His memory is going,” Abe said, staring down the street, his jawline hard. “It's slow. It's relentless. A tough combo.”

A wave of compassion crashed over her. “Oh, I'm so sorry, Abe.” She squeezed his hand. “That must be so difficult.”

He nodded, his mouth grim. “They call it the long good-bye for a reason. He has good days, though. Lots of them. And he still tries to paint. The fact that he even wants to pick up a brush is great. He's got that, got my mom. So it's not as bad as it could be.”

Casey wished she could wrap her arms around Abe and pull him close. His pain was so raw, like an open wound. “And there's no cure? Nothing the doctors can do?”

From the parade came the sound of sleigh bells and singing. It was too happy, suddenly, too festive.

“No, there's no cure. There have been advancements recently, but by the time they figure something out, it will be too late for my dad.”

Casey used the hand Abe wasn't holding to touch his face. She wanted to pull him close, to kiss the worry away from his eyes.

Her brain fired a warning, reminding her that feeling too much with Abe wasn't what she was looking for. She didn't want to learn all this, did she?

“All right, enough,” Abe said, as if her thoughts were spelled out on her forehead. He pulled away from the hand that was cupping his face. Casey shoved it back into her coat pocket. “I can't be the only one sharing things here. What about you? What about your folks?”

Let the sad tales continue
, Casey thought. “My parents died when my sister and I were young. My aunt Lodi raised us, but she moved to Arizona when we went to college. She passed away a few years back.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

Casey nodded. “She never wanted kids, and when two young girls landed in her lap, I'm not sure she knew what do to.”

Abe studied her. “So you had to grow up fast and shoulder what she couldn't.”

Casey felt like he was staring straight into her heart. “It's practically a Lifetime movie,” she said, trying to lighten the moment. Because the loss still stung—so much so that there were days Casey wondered if the pain would ever go away. She would do anything to never feel such a deep hurt again.

“You should feel proud,” Abe said, his eyes serious. “Audrey is settled and happy. Christ, I feel proud and I had jack shit to do with the fact that Stu is just fine. He's a good kid.”

“Kid? What's the age difference between you guys?”

“Isn't it impolite to ask someone their age?” Abe asked.

“I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

A smattering of candy canes landed at their feet. “I'll be forty this spring. You?”

“I'm thirty-four.”

“This is quite an age gap.”

“Do we need to get you home in time for
Matlock
?”

“If we go home, it won't be to watch television.” There was a dark edge to his voice that had her pulse pounding. He turned her around, then pulled her to him, so her back was against his chest. His arms encircled her torso. She felt warm and wildly alive. From the outside, to any prying eyes, they probably looked like they were simply watching the parade. But to Casey, the air between them was crackling. His breath was deliciously hot on her skin. He leaned down.

“Here comes Santa,” he murmured into her ear. “But I know I'm not getting anything this year.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I've been very, very bad.” He pressed the hard length of himself against her backside. She sucked in breath.

God, there was so much of him. It had been years and years since Miles, and she wondered if her anatomy would be able to…accommodate it all. If they ever got that far. If she let herself tell him about the list.

A picture of him towering over her in bed flashed into her mind. Hot skin. Twisted sheets. Loud cries.

She had to battle back the urge to grind against him in public. Instead, she pulled away slightly, leaving a whisper of space between their two bodies.

“Is it something I said?” he asked.

“There are families here. And possibly more firefighters. I'd hate to give them the impression this parade was NC-Seventeen.”

“Is that as bad as you think I can get?” he asked, low and gravelly. “That's barely above R.”

“I hadn't given it much thought,” she lied.

“In this case, thinking might be overrated.”

Her eyes were on his lips again. “What's the alternative?”

“There's action, for one. Taking it.
Giving
it.”

The very center of her was about to melt. Good grief, he was going to undo her while they were standing in front of the whole darn town.

The part of her that didn't mind the idea was getting bigger by the minute.
A fling with Abe Cameron.
She rolled the idea around in her head until she was dizzy with it.

But they were enveloped in the crowd at present. Firefighters or no, they'd be the talk of the town if they didn't put some space between each other.

“How about the fire at Robot Lit?” she asked, desperate to move the conversation away from how much she wanted him at that very moment. “Have you given any
thought
to that?”

She could feel him stiffen, but not from desire. From something else. Nervousness, perhaps. Or concern.

“I've got the inspector on it.” She could hear a note of frustration in his voice, and she wondered if he was as perplexed about the blaze as she was. She turned around to face him.

“Kind of weird, overturning a box of paper if you're an arsonist,” she said, testing him out on the subject. “Wouldn't you—I don't know—soak some rags in gasoline or something?”

Abe's golden-green eyes tracked across her face. “I was thinking the same thing. Accelerants can leave a pretty big footprint, though. They're easier to detect. So I can see why an arsonist might not use them. Or maybe it wasn't arson at all. It could have just been a fluke.”

“But I was down there the day before, installing the fire alarms and the extinguisher. And there were no random papers in a pile. I would have cleaned them up.”

“So why light a blaze if you know it might not be successful?” Abe asked, more to himself.

“You'd be doing it for some reason other than to set a building on fire.”

“But that makes no sense.”

“Not yet,” Casey agreed, “but I could always go check things out tomorrow when I'm back at work. Have a look around and see what I find.”

Abe shook his head. “We secured that scene. It's technically under investigation. Ty Brady is lead, and you shouldn't go anywhere near it.”

Casey frowned. She was aware that the spectators all around them were breaking up. The parade was over. It was time to head down the block for the tree lighting. Only she and Abe didn't move.

“It's my place of work,” she insisted. “Surely I can poke around a bit.”

“That's like saying you should be allowed into a crime scene investigation because you walk your dog on the same street every day.”

“It's just that the idea that anyone would try to burn that place down makes me crazy.”

Abe nodded. “True. But we have to let the professionals do their jobs.”

Casey exhaled with frustration. “This is the first job I've ever had that actually, you know, makes a difference. I can't stand the idea of someone trying to undo all that good work.”

Abe moved his gloved hand to her face. He traced the outline of her cheekbone with his thumb. “Neither of us gets to fix this, even though we both want to.”

His touch made her shiver. His words were a punch to her heart.

“Then what's left to do?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“I can think of at least one thing.”

He kissed her then, just as the White Pine holiday tree down the block blazed to life.

An hour later, Casey was back in Abe's Jeep, sweat collecting at the base of her spine as her body overheated with nervous energy. She should ask Abe inside when he dropped her off. She should tell him she wanted him.

The thought was ludicrous. And thrilling. She twisted in her seat.

“You doing okay over there?” Abe glanced at her as he steered his Jeep past the parade traffic, taking side streets away from the congested downtown.

“Oh, fine,” she lied, forcing a smile.
It's just that I'm trying to figure out how to ask you to sleep with me.
“Just remembering how wonderful the parade was.”

Abe gave her a wink, and she nearly put her head in her hands. What was she playing at? There was no way she could do this. There was no way to open up her mouth and tell Abe she wanted him, no strings attached—just a night of fun because, dammit, she was a fun-loving girl.

She wondered if every fun-loving girl felt as nervous as she did right then. She wondered if she was getting sick.

Her house was so close now. She took a breath, working up the energy to ask him to come inside, but then realized she hadn't even worn anything sexy underneath her jeans and sweater. Just her plain cream-colored bra and her normal cotton panties. Fine, sure, but not fling worthy. What would Abe think when he peeled off her clothes? He'd probably stare at her boring old underthings on her boring old body and burst into laughter.

Casey swallowed. No, the way to do this wasn't to just invite Abe inside spontaneously. She'd have to think about this, have to plan it out more. She'd need to set rules and get organized and ponder how to execute it perfectly.

Except that's the opposite of a fling
, a small voice inside chided.

Oh, but she wanted black lacy underwear and fuck-me red lipstick and stilettos as long and sharp as carpenter's nails. She should at least try for those elements so she didn't screw this up. She needed to plot it all out perfectly, to reduce the risk of failure.

She clenched her hands, wondering if she was the only woman in the world who calculated a fling.

Her mind was so consumed with how to get Abe Cameron into her bed that she barely registered that the Jeep had pulled into her driveway. How long had they been sitting there? She turned her head from the window, only to find Abe staring at her.

“Everything all right?” he asked. His brows were drawn together with concern.

“Never better,” she said, forcing a smile that felt as fake as flashy tinsel. “I had a wonderful time. Thank you.”

She knew she sounded hollow.
It's just because I'm trying to figure out how to sleep with you
, she imagined blurting. Instead she stayed silent, her posture as rigid as molded plastic.

Abe's fingers twitched, and Casey wondered if he might reach out and twine a piece of her auburn hair in his fingers. Or maybe he'd put his hands on her shoulders again, and pull her close. But he did neither of those things, and Casey couldn't force herself to bend to him. Her brain was muddled and she felt sticky with sweat. Desire was undoing her—and undoing their romantic evening.

It was the height of irony.

“I—this was so fun,” she stammered. “Let's do it. Again, I mean. Let's do this kind of thing at a subsequent time that we arrange…” She trailed off, horrified and unable to finish the imploding sentence.

Abe smiled then, and some of the tension drained out of the Jeep. His eyes flickered over her lips, her neck. “We can arrange a subsequent time, sure,” he said, low and impossibly sexy.

He leaned closer, and Casey could feel his hunger for another kiss. Hell, she could feel her own hunger for a delicious make-out session that steamed up the windows.

Except she wasn't sure she could trust herself to
just
make out. She wanted more, dammit. Lots more, starting with Abe in her bedroom, fucking her until she couldn't see straight. But she couldn't go there tonight. Not with her stupid bra and her boring panties and—God, her sheets had stars on them, since the only set she'd unpacked so far was her oldest, most threadbare set.

Wasn't this the whole point, though? To do something risky when the conditions weren't completely ideal?

Oh, she wanted to. She wanted to throw her arms around him and drag him through the front door and do unspeakable things until they both collapsed.

But she had to make it right, first.
Exactly, precisely right.

She swallowed, realizing that in trying to have a fling, she was actually creating more rules. More boundaries and more parameters. She was her own worst enemy, doing the opposite of what she'd set out to do.

But when her heart slammed against her ribs, she knew there was more to it than that.

She needed Abe to say yes to
everything
on the list. Not just one thing, but
all five things
. She required more than one night with him. If he fucked her and never saw her again, she would never complete her list.

She needed to ensure total, complete success. It was calculated, yes. But it was also better than a quick lay and an empty bed the next morning. She didn't need Abe Cameron to stick around forever, but she needed him for more than just one night.

And in order to achieve that, she could not ask Abe in. Not yet. Even though her muscles were twitching and her lips were ready to press themselves against his, she had to steel her resolve and back away. Heat surged through her, and she knew she was going to lose it if she didn't exit stage left. Pronto.

“See you soon,” she said too brightly, opening the Jeep door and hopping out.

If she saw Abe's eyes darken with confusion, she ignored it. If she saw his hand reach for her, she twisted away.

And before she could change her mind, she was racing to the front door, not looking back.