Firefly Mountain (20 page)

“Talked to Julianne today.” She sipped her beer and set it down, drumming her painted fingernails against the bottle.

“And?” Patrick chewed slowly, carefully.

“She asked about you.”

Patrick wiped his mouth with his napkin and picked up his beer. “What did she want to know?”

“If you’d been eaten by a bear yet.”

Patrick puffed out a breath. “She’s probably hoping for that.”

“Patrick, what happened when you left Rhode Island? Why is she so mad?” Raina pushed what remained of her dinner to the center of the table.

Patrick gazed out the windows at the shadowy mountains in the distance. A line of pink clouds stretched across the sky, kissing the mountaintops and promising sunshine for tomorrow. Sunshine for him, but what for Julianne?

“She didn’t want me to come here,” he finally said. “Thought I was running away.”

“Like me.” Raina folded her arms on the table.

“You didn’t run away.”

“I know that, and you know that, but Julianne thinks I’m a coward.”

“You came here for school and you liked it. Nothing cowardly about that. You were smart. I don’t know why Julianne and I hung around Rhode Island for so long.”

“Being in Vermont doesn’t make it disappear,” Raina said. “The memories are always right there, waiting.” A shiver rippled through her.

Patrick nodded and gestured between them. “It’s easier for us though, compared to Julianne.”

“Easiest for me,” Raina said. “I don’t have to be reminded of what we lost that night in the fire every time I look in a mirror. Not like you and Julianne.”

“Even I can hide that.” Patrick pulled at his T-shirt. “Julianne can’t hide it. Can’t escape it even for a minute.”

Patrick’s voice cracked, and Raina slid her hand across the table to grab his.

“It wasn’t your fault. I’ve told you this dozens of times, Patrick. You saved our lives.”

“But what kind of life is Julianne having. If I’d been a little bit quicker that night, we wouldn’t have still been in the house during that blast. We would have been clear of the roof collapsing, clear of the beam that hit Julianne’s spine, clear of her being paralyzed, wheelchair-bound, and clear of us both being burned.”

“Julianne doesn’t blame you.” Raina’s voice was soft as she squeezed Patrick’s hand.

“I blame me.”

“Then it’s you that has to forgive.” Raina released her grip on him. “Julianne won’t stay mad at you for coming here. I asked her to move here.”

“I did too.”

“She won’t budge?”

Patrick shook his head. “She likes where she lives. Lots of nice folks around to help her. Hell, she’s got more friends than we do.”

Raina managed a chuckle. “I don’t know. You seem to be popular in Vermont. Had that bunch over here, helping you demolish.”

Patrick shrugged. “Jonah, Haddy, and Mason are kind people. Easy to make friends with.”

“Yes.” Raina nodded and grinned. “It’s been
real
easy making friends with Mason. What about you?”

“What about me?” Patrick collected their trash and threw it in the garbage.

“You and Gini.”

“You too, Raina? Everyone’s insisting I feel something for Gini. You, of all people, know why that can’t be true.” He lifted his shirt and slapped at his scars. Raina and Julianne were the only two people he could do that in front of.

“You’re the one that’s decided no one can handle those scars, Patrick. You don’t know how Gini will react.”

“I can’t take the chance. I don’t want to.” He let his shirt drop and rubbed his stubbly chin.

“I just hate to see you alone, Patrick.”

“I’m not alone. You’re here.”

“You know what I mean. You have so much to offer a woman like Gini. And I’ll bet she has lots to offer you.”

Patrick shrugged and wiped the table down as Raina pushed in the chairs. As they walked out of the kitchen and through the master bedroom, Patrick was about to say something when Midas rushed to the front door.

“What’s he—” The doorbell cut Raina off. She looked to Patrick. “Expecting someone?”

“I wasn’t even expecting you.”

Raina opened the door before Patrick had a chance to sneak a peek out the window. He saw Gini standing there with a basket of…good God, were those blueberry muffins in her hands? He had two urges at once. The first was to scoop Gini up into his arms and cover every inch of her with kisses.

The second urge was to run.

Judging by the look on Patrick’s face, Gini was sure she shouldn’t have come. The man looked downright pale. At first anyway. Then a soft pinkness tinged his cheeks. Was he hot? Did he have a fever perhaps? Should she check his forehead? Boy, did she want to.

“Hi,” Gini said.

“Hi.” Raina pulled her inside by the wrist and took Gini’s evacuated spot on the landing outside. “I’ve got to go. See you all later.” She sashayed to her car, leaving Gini and Patrick standing in the foyer.

Midas nosed around at Gini’s shoes until she scratched between his ears. When she stopped, the dog whined and pawed at her hand.

“Midas,
couchez
,” Patrick said. The dog hesitated for a moment, then folded his legs beneath him, resting his chin on his front paws. “
Bon
.”

“I brought these.” Gini held up the basket. “As a peace offering.”

Patrick’s brow creased. “A peace offering? Why?”

“Heard my daddy drove you to the station. Was giving you a hard time at Jonah’s. I’m sorry.”

The half-smile that turned up the left side of Patrick’s mouth made Gini want to strip him down naked right there. She clutched the handle of the basket until the wicker crackled in her hands.

“He was fine,” Patrick said. “Threatened to kill me, but other than that, we had a lovely drive.”

Gini hung her head and let out a long breath. “I told him he had to stop doing that.”

“He’s protective of you.”

Gini nodded and loosened her grip on the basket when Patrick held his hands out for it.

“No harm done, but I’ll accept these all the same. Wouldn’t want to waste them.”

“Then Mama would be threatening to kill you.”

Gini loved how Patrick’s eyes scrunched closed when he laughed. Haddy must have been right about blueberries and the libido. Gini didn’t have to consume the berries to feel the starved woman buried inside her race to the surface. Race toward Patrick.

She focused on the great room behind him and stepped a little farther into the house. She hadn’t meant to exactly. After all, she was leaving in a moment. No sense in straying too far from the exit. Her feet, however, insisted she investigate.

Patrick didn’t try to stop her. Instead, he followed her into the great room and let her peruse his progress.

“Wow. You did so much.” Gini turned in a circle to take in the master bedroom wall and closets.

“Had some energy to burn.” Patrick shrugged.

Gini’s gaze fell on the bend of Patrick’s arm as he held the basket of muffins. She could still feel his hands in her hair, pressed to her back as they had kissed on her swing. She wanted those hands on her again. Goddess, forgive her, but she wanted him close, so close.

I have to go.
These were the words Gini knew should have come out of her mouth. “Need another set of hands to put up that wall?” she asked instead.

Patrick looked to the wall still resting on the floor then glanced at Gini. Definitely a conversation going on inside his head. Gini would have paid big bucks to hear it.

“If you’ve got a minute, sure.” He lifted the basket a few inches higher. “Let me put these in the kitchen.”

Gini nodded and set down her purse while Patrick disappeared through the master bedroom. She leaned against one of the huge floor-to-ceiling windows in the great room and stared out at the darkness. Not a hint of electricity for miles. Just blackness. Thick and secretive. Sexy.

Something flickered below the window outside, and Gini smiled at the fireflies that had come to call. Their tiny lights flashed codes only the fireflies understood. Attracting mates. Isn’t that what Patrick had said they were doing? Gini hoped it worked out for the insects. It wasn’t easy to find a perfect mate.

“What are you smiling about?” Patrick stood next to her at the window.

“You’ve got yourself a firefly mountain here. Look at all of them.” At that moment, dozens of glowing dots glimmered in the shadowy grass.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” His arm brushed up against hers, warm and solid.

Gini didn’t move over, didn’t put the necessary distance between herself and that coveted contact with Patrick’s skin. Instead, she closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the cool glass of the window. She was the one with the fever now. The one whose insides were melting into a red-hot pile of mush. If one of them didn’t move soon, she’d be reduced to a mere puddle of her former self.

But she couldn’t move. Couldn’t give up what she’d gone so long without—the touch of a potential lover. The touch of someone who could bring her pleasure, could set free that which had been locked away. She’d gone on dates, of course, but nothing that ever made her want to have a second date. Nothing that made her feel comfortable to share herself. Her whole self, freak abilities and all. She’d kept everyone who wasn’t family out of the loop, but she longed to have someone else know. Someone who didn’t have to love her because they were related. Someone who would love her even though she was dangerous.

Why did she want Patrick to be that someone?

“I’m going to plant that grass you gave me under this window. Maybe it’ll bring the fireflies closer.” Patrick shifted so that his arm wasn’t touching hers anymore. The spell had been broken, and she could think rationally again.

“That would be nice.” Gini looked over her shoulder at the wall. “Want to get that in place now?”

“Sure.”

Patrick walked to the foyer. He retrieved his safety glasses and earplugs from the windowsill and stopped at a toolbox for extra pairs of both for her. Gini watched the way his body moved as he walked away and came back. Everything worked as a unified whole. His long strides took him there and back in seconds with a liquid grace she hadn’t seen too often on men. He was like a large wolf, scruffy around the chin with eyes that held both wisdom and sadness. Gini wanted to siphon that sadness out of his forest eyes and put something happier there.

But she wasn’t the gal to do that. Patrick didn’t deserve to be saddled with someone like her. A monster really. A sideshow of paranormal nonsense fit for comic books, not real life.

“Grab that end,” Patrick instructed after giving her the safety glasses and earplugs, “and we’ll wiggle her into her new home.”

Grab? Wiggle?
Gini shook her head. She was acting like a sex-starved lunatic instead of the cautious pyrokinetic she was used to.

She hoisted the wall up with Patrick and helped him slide it onto the red chalk line he’d snapped on the weathered wooden floor. Gini held it while Patrick checked to see if the wall was level on his side. When he came to her end, he reached around her from behind to hold the level against the last stud. He was close enough that his breath tickled her neck.

“That look level to you?” he asked.

He might as well have said, “Let’s take a bath together,” because Gini’s pulse beat in her neck as if it were trying to claw its way through her skin. She managed to steady her eyes on the bubble trapped in yellow liquid on the level.

“Right on the mark,” Gini said.

“Okay, hold it still. I’m going to nail it.”

Yes, nail it. Nail me.
Gini cleared her throat and concentrated on keeping the wall in place.

One nail. Two. Three. Bam. Bam. Bam.

Patrick wielded that nail gun as if it were part of his hand. The compressor roared to life, and Gini jumped. Patrick laughed as he nudged Gini aside so he could drive some nails into her end of the wall. She leaned against the closet he’d framed and wondered if he had a smooth or hairy chest. She had a feeling she’d like either on him. She also had a feeling she wouldn’t ever know which was hiding under that T-shirt.

She needed to go. Now. Right away.

“All set?” she asked when Patrick stopped nailing. Gini set the safety glasses and earplugs on a sawhorse and edged toward her purse on the floor.

“She’s not going anywhere.” He blew on the tip of the nail gun as if blowing smoke from a pistol. That one movement of his lips was enough to set off a chain of images in Gini’s brain. Images of their bodies entangled, hands sliding along smooth flesh, mouths exploring curves and angles. She blinked several times, but the images remained.

“Think it’s time for a muffin break,” Patrick said. “C’mon.” He walked past her into the kitchen.

Gini looked to the front door and back to the door Patrick had gone through. Her head swayed from one to the other as if she were watching a tennis match. Beyond one door was her quiet farmhouse where only Saber, Nyx, and Moon waited for her return.

Beyond another was a man who built things with his capable hands, who was at this moment, fueling his libido with blueberry muffins.

****

Tea. He had water and tea bags. That would be enough to make it seem as if this house was in fact a home. Unfortunately, his mugs didn’t match. They never had to back in Rhode Island. When you only took one out at a time what difference did it make if they matched from day to day?

But now, it mattered. Women liked things that coordinated. Raina had once told him that it made her feel cozy when stuff matched. Staring at the two mugs now, one solid black, the other with a picture of a lighthouse on it and the words “Ocean State” spelled out in sea shells, Patrick knew cozy was a long way off.

He filled both mugs with water at the sink and opened the cupboard where he kept the tea. Patrick turned around to ask Gini if she preferred regular or green tea and found that he was alone in the kitchen.

She went home
. Well, at least one of them was thinking rationally. One of them knew they couldn’t be more than acquaintances. One of them didn’t want to be more.