Fahrenheit (3 page)

“I guess dinner’s out.”

“Yeah, tonight anyway. They’ll be gone by morning.”

“No we won’t.” Gavin and Thomas said concurrently.

“Well whether they are or they aren’t we can still do dinner tomorrow night if you want.”

“I want,” he agreed. “Well, I’ll leave you to your…uh…family.”

She nearly laughed. He was probably thinking what she was thinking, that he would leave her to her problem. She loved her brothers, but she hated their meddling in her affairs.

“Goodnight, Eve.”

“Goodnight, Adam,” she smiled as he left her room. He didn’t pull her in for a hug, or even reach out to touch her hand. Clearly he understood big brothers enough to know that they didn’t take well to men who were interested in their baby sisters. She had lost count of how many times boys had been afraid to date her in high school because of the McGregor men. The first guy who had actually showed up to pick her up for a date had gotten the third, fourth and fifth degree from Gavin while he was home on leave. Chris Michaels, she remembered that night well because he picked her up at six for the movies, and had her home by eight thirty. He didn’t even stay for the closing credits. He was so afraid of Gavin he rushed to get her home. And he never asked her out again. Of course, why would he? Seeing Gavin standing there, full uniform, since he had just gotten home, was enough to scare most boys away. But when Gavin told him he knew exactly how long it took to get to and from the movie, that he also knew the movie was exactly one hour and forty minutes long, and that he expected him to have her home accordingly, she thought Chris was going to wet his pants. It took fifteen minutes to get to the theater. The movie started at six thirty, post previews. She knew the time because she and Chris had decided they could get to the theater a little later and skip the previews. Chris had been so nervous he kept checking his watch throughout the entire movie. The woman on the row behind them kept complaining about the glow from the light on his watch, and he kept checking the time anyway. Every few minutes he was checking his watch. Gosh, she wouldn’t have asked herself out either after that kind of date.

“Go home, guys.” She said to them. “I’m fine. I’m going to be working anyway, and you really have other things to do other than hang out here with me. Especially poor Drake. Taking him away from Geneva like this.”

Drake shook his head. “Don’t drag me into it. When I told Geneva what happened she nearly pushed me out the door to come check on you.”

She rolled her eyes again. Were all the women against her? Traitors! They were definitely traitors. “Well you can tell her you checked. I’m fine. You can all go home now.”

“You can’t fault us for being concerned, Eve.” Gavin was always the voice of reason, and sometimes she hated that.

“It’s not your concern I fault. It’s your overprotective, craziness that I fault. I’ve covered riots in Egypt, I was in Libya—for all of a minute.” She thought about how quickly the paper had pulled her and Mitch out of the danger zone. She was surprised they had, but she guessed after what happened in Egypt they weren’t willing to take any chances. She still hadn’t given her brothers the full details of that trip, and she wouldn’t—not ever, if she could help it.

“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. In fact, I’d be covering the riots in London right now if this arsonist wasn’t the bigger story here. People are really worried about him, or her,” she shrugged.

“First,” Thomas snapped. “You are not going to London.”  She started to protest because he had no right to tell her where she could and couldn’t go. He narrowed his gaze at her in the way he always did when he meant business and he kept talking, ignoring her adamant refusal of his meddling ways. “Second, what’s going on with this arsonist?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you. You might not ever leave.” She rolled her eyes at him. Her big brothers were crazy and annoying, but way too lovable to stay mad at forever. “He, or she,” she did like to be an equal opportunity person, “is getting worse. Each fire is always bigger than the one before it, and it’s a different accelerant each time. The last one got a little too close to the homes in the W section and there was a brief evacuation. Everybody is back home now, but the fire is still burning. Adding more fuel to the fire is the fact that we haven’t had rain in nearly a month. Our monsoon season is starting, though so maybe if we’re lucky we’ll get some rain—or a hurricane, that would help.” Living on the coast, she never thought she would be wishing for a hurricane, but here she was wishing they could get some weather relief to help put out all the fires.

“So you think this guy, or girl,” Drake stressed his words as if trying to appease her sense of equal opportunity arsonist theory, “switched from fires to bombs.”

“I,” she stressed, “don’t think anything of the sort. I said the cops thought so.” She saw the curve of all three men’s lips and she knew she had messed up.

“So you agree that it’s not the arsonist and something else is going on.” A statement, and not a question, meant Drake was sure he had just won the battle of logics.

“That’s not what I said, Drake. Stop twisting my words.” She exhaled sharply. Good Lord these men could drive a sane person crazy.

“Don’t worry guys. Geneva and I will be in the Keys for a few weeks. I can keep an eye on her from there. If something happens, I’ll be here.”

“Thanks, Drake. This means a lot to us.”

Eve tossed her hands up in the air. “I don’t know why I even bother with you two. You never listen to me.”

“We listen,” Thomas said.

“We just don’t agree,” Gavin finished Thomas’ sentence. Tag teamed, that’s what they had just done. That’s what they were good at. Being the baby made it worse. Alyssa didn’t escape the McGregor men’s overprotective nature either, but she didn’t get it nearly as bad; Eve was sure of that. Being the baby sucked; it totally sucked.

“Eve, we love you. We just need to know you’re safe. Humor us.”

How could she resist that plea? She should have, but saying no to Thomas was always her weak point. It wasn’t that she played favorites between her siblings, but she was closest to Thomas. She used to hang on to his leg when she was a child—literally. Her mother still had a picture of Thomas trying to walk with her clutching his leg tight. She loved him so much. “Fine,” she surrendered. “If something I can’t handle comes up, then I’ll call Drake.” Thomas frowned. He was quick—too quick. He had long ago become accustomed to listening to the words she said, and quickly realizing what she wasn’t saying.

“Why does that not sound reassuring?”

“Because she thinks she can handle everything,” Gavin’s dry tone told Eve he was not at all happy with her compromise.

“Within reason,” she said. “I’ll be reasonable. I promise.” She didn’t think she was Wonder Woman, but seriously, they had to know she was an adult. She had a dangerous job that sometimes took her a little too close to the fire—sometimes literally, and she could handle herself without their help. She just wanted them to see Eve the grown up and not Eve the little kid.

Thomas reached out and took her arm in his hand. “Come here, kid,” he pulled her close into an embrace. She wrapped her arms around him, needing the emotional connection, even if only briefly. She hadn’t lost everything today, but she almost had—if Adam hadn’t rescued her in time she could have lost her life.

“I love you,” she pulled back and looked up into his eyes. “But you all have to go.”

They laughed at her. “We will.”

“When?”

“Eventually,” Thomas assured her.

“They don’t even have any rooms left in town.”

“Taken care of already,” Thomas said. “Thena made arrangements as soon as we heard. We’re at the Holiday Inn.”

“I got a suite before it was gone, so we can all fit,” Thena smiled brightly. Eve could tell she was proud of her ability to help make things easier for Thomas.

She shrugged. She had things to do, one of which would be finding a new place to stay. She could rent a house, but they were all so ridiculously expensive. They weren’t worth the dirt they were built on, but the rent was jacked up high anyway. The cost just to move in was first, last, plus anywhere from one thousand to two thousand dollars in “security” deposit. It just wasn’t worth it. She didn’t want to buy. Realtors had told her now was the time to buy and that she should jump at the chance, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to make Palm Coast her permanent home. In fact, she was sure she wanted to leave someday.

She didn’t know where she would go. Maryland was an option if she got the Discovery gig, or New York if she got National Geographic, but in all honesty she wasn’t even sure she wanted either of those cities either. She thought about Hawaii. Now that was some place she could fall in love with. She had been once before, years ago, and she was sure it had changed significantly, but the thought of moving there still seemed like a good idea. Not only would she be in a tropical paradise, but she would be far away from the rest of the McGregor clan. As much as she wanted the distance, she wasn’t sure she would still want it once she had it. All she knew for sure was that she couldn’t stay in Palm Coast. She hated it there. She hated the racist attitudes. She hated the lack of having anything to do close by. She hated the city itself—and she was starting to feel stuck there. She thought about Daytona, but she hadn’t found a neighborhood that felt safe enough to call home. She almost laughed at her reasoning now. Safe, yeah right. Her apartment complex had just been blown up; how safe was that?

She sighed. “I’m tired guys. Can we just leave everything alone for tonight and discuss it in the morning?”

“Dinner,” Gavin said. “We’re taking you and you’re going to eat.”

She laughed. “Yes, sir.” She saluted him. “I’m only agreeing because I’m hungry, otherwise I’d tell you exactly where you could stick dinner.”

“Eve, that mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble one day.”

If only they knew; it already had. In Egypt she thought she might die—she was sure of it. Thankfully that hadn’t happened. Thankfully she had managed to keep it a secret from her brothers. If they knew what had happened to her over there they would probably lock her up in one of their homes and keep her there indefinitely. That’s not exactly the future she saw for herself…and not one she wanted either.

“Steak and Shake,” she grabbed her room key off the nightstand. She loved the Marriot here because it was newer, still clean, and the decoration was kind of funky modern. The nice shades of lime green and blue and even some orange made the rooms come alive—not literally of course, but it was a nice change to some of the standard rooms she had seen. They had good breakfast too, for a hotel that is. She had stayed there once before. That was when she first came down to find a place to live. She didn’t find one she could afford, but Mitch had a guesthouse in back of his place, right by the pool. When he offered her low rent prices to stay there she took him up on the offer. She left the hotel and moved into the guesthouse. That had been a mistake; one she hadn’t even seen coming. She wouldn’t tell her brothers about that either because they might just go kill Mitch.

Despite the craziness of what happened while she was living in his guesthouse, as a partner in the field Mitch was the best person to have on her side. He was forty-three years old, wise beyond his years, they all said. He had been in the field of reporting pretty much since he was a child. A local newspaper man of a small press took him under his wings at the age of eight and taught him how to get a story. When he got a little older they allowed him to learn the process of putting out the editions. And then in high school he was not only on the school paper, but he kept working with his mentor at the local paper. She didn’t think there was a time when Mitch ever expected to be anything other than a reporter.

He was phenomenal. He didn’t go to college. Instead, straight out of high school he landed a job at a major New York paper. He traveled the world, handled tough stories, and made a success out of his goals. He had bylines before he hit high school, but the ones he received after were prize winning pieces. How he landed in small town Ormond Beach at the paper was a bit of a mystery to her. She knew he still dabbled for the Times and CNN on occasion, but he seemed to be making this paper his home. She had asked him why once and he had hunched up his big shoulders, smiled at her, his stark white teeth contrasting beautifully with his ebony skin, and he said, “become a reporter and figure it out.” That was his way of telling her she would have to dig for the story if she really wanted it. He seemed to always be trying to get her to become a reporter. She figured he wanted her to do more than just take the pictures, to make sure she was marketable on every level, but she had no interest in reporting with words. She was a photographer, and that’s what she wanted to do—tell the story with pictures, show people what the world around them looked like—good, bad and indifferent, she wanted to capture it all. Mitch wrote, she shot pictures—that was enough for her.

It took seven days to get her brothers away from her, away from Florida, and back to their own homes—she didn’t care if they went home just so long as they left Florida. Both men were seriously cramping her space. Drake had already gone back to the Keys, but Thomas and Gavin had stuck around. She smiled just thinking about her brothers. Gavin insisted she eat while Thomas insisted she wear a sweater. It wasn’t cold outside, but it had been in each of the restaurants they had taken her to. “My brothers, protect and love,” she smiled. No matter how overprotective they seemed, she knew they loved her, would always love her, and would move heaven and hell to keep her safe. She found it comforting, but she wouldn’t tell them that. If she told them she even marginally approved of their protective spirit they would both take that as a sign of permission to be even more suffocatingly protective.