Kiss of Fire (5 page)

Maybe the mermaid would watch over her instead of him.

She almost rolled her eyes at that uncharacteristic thought. Maybe she should get her nose out of the stock in her bookstore.

She held out the mermaid again, and this time, he accepted it from her. Sara watched Quinn's hands—long-fingered and strong, tanned, his nails cut blunt—as he examined the mermaid himself. He smiled that slow smile again, the one that was having a serious impact on her pulse, and slanted a glance at her. He had dark lashes, thick ones, that framed the blue of his eyes perfectly.

“Good pick. I like this one, too,” he said to her surprise. “There's something special about her.” He ran his finger down the length of the mermaid in admiration.

A bead of sweat slid down Sara's spine at exactly the same time. Sara shivered, imagining that strong finger sliding down her own length. His touch would be resolute but gentle; she was strangely sure of it. She could almost feel his caress, as if his finger were sliding over her skin instead of the little iron mermaid.

“She seemed to shape herself,” Quinn mused, “and the result was so perfect that I knew she had it right.” He brushed his thumb across her tail. “Maybe she'll watch out for you instead of me.”

Sara stared at him, surprised that he would echo her own whimsical thought. He smiled a little and she tried to think of something clever to say.

No luck.

He turned then, and wrapped the mermaid in yellow and orange tissue with surprising care. Sara tried to catch her breath and regain her composure while his attention was diverted. She didn't have a lot of luck with that, either. She felt hot, hotter than she knew she should have been.

Maybe it was the weather. She wasn't used to humidity like this.

Maybe it was the stillness of the air under his booth canopy, or the sunlight beaming through the canvas.

Maybe it was Quinn. She fought the urge to fan herself. He placed the mermaid in a sturdy bag made of kraft paper, then tucked a small plastic bag with four screws into the side. He added one of his business cards.

Sara gave him her credit card and their fingers brushed in the transaction. Was it her imagination or did that spark light between their fingers again? She almost jumped, but had no real desire to pull away.

Again, Quinn granted her that leisurely smile. He paused to look at her card and she assumed he was checking the company. But no. He slid his thumb over the raised letters of her name as if caressing them, and again, Sara had the urge to shiver in the sultry heat. Her mouth went dry.

“Sara,” he said and the sound of her own name warmed Sara to her toes. His next words were murmured so low that they seemed to resonate in Sara's bones. “Did you know that your name means ‘princess'?”

“Is that funny?”

He looked up, his gaze shimmering, and the breath left her lungs completely. She was snared, caught in a timeless moment. She couldn't do anything but look back at him, couldn't do anything other than stare into the blue heat of his eyes.

“No,” he murmured and she felt the word as much as she heard it. “It's just perfect.”

Sara blushed. She was hot, on fire from her hair to her toes, burning and yearning in a way that couldn't be natural yet felt exactly right.

Just perfect, in fact.

She couldn't look away from Quinn, couldn't control the desire that pushed everything else from her thoughts. She wanted to know how he felt against her, wanted to know how he would kiss and how he would caress. She wanted to feel his hands on her, wanted him to do more things slowly than just smile.

She thought about dipping him in chocolate and licking it all off. It was a wicked and playful thought, one that practical Sara Keegan shouldn't have had, but she couldn't push it out of her mind once she had it.

The chocolate would melt in this heat.

And she wouldn't care. She'd just smear it further.

It was official then: she was losing her mind. Sara tore her gaze away from his before she said something she'd regret, sipped her coffee, and nearly choked on it.

“Do you need help installing the knocker?” Quinn asked.

“No, I can do it myself, thanks,” Sara said quickly, then could have kicked herself for ensuring that she wouldn't see him again. “Actually, I have tools in the shop but if you had time to hang it during the show, that would be nice.”

Quinn's obvious pleasure made her warm all over again. “I will. I'd like to see her in her proper place. It's easier to let the special ones go if I know where they are.”

“I can understand that. It must be hard to part with your work, especially as she's so lovely.”

He shook his head slightly. “She's perfect. Just perfect.” He smiled, that languorous smile that brought the simmer in Sara to a raging boil. A twinkle lit in his eyes. “Maybe she shaped herself just for you.”

That was an idea Sara was accustomed to finding in the stock of Magda's shop, but not one she was used to finding so appealing.

“The Scrying Glass. It's just down there. I'll see you whenever you have time,” Sara said all in a rush, wishing she could have thought of something witty.

Quinn nodded agreement, then greeted another shopper entering his booth. Sara ducked out of the stall, her grip tight on the bag that contained her door knocker. It seemed that there was more air outside the booth and she took a shaking breath.

Nothing like a hot latte to make you sweat.

That wasn't it and Sara knew it. She looked back once and blushed to find his gaze lingering on her, even as he talked to another customer.

Quinn.
She didn't know five things about him, but she was going to see him again and that was enough to make her wildly happy.

Maybe it was just the spontaneity. Sara had spent the last decade planning every detail of her life, and it hadn't gotten her anywhere. She decided as she walked back to the shop that she would go with the flow, and just see where things went with Quinn.

Being in his company was already pretty interesting.

S
ara removed the
BACK IN FIVE MINUTES
sign on the inside of the door of The Scrying Glass. She unpacked the mermaid and laid the knocker on the counter, liking the shape of it even more than she had in Quinn's booth. She couldn't help but slide her fingers over its smooth, curved surface. She caught her breath, remembering the way Quinn had touched it and how she had almost felt his hand on her own back.

Sara forced herself to think about more practical things than how a particular blacksmith would look naked.

Or chocolate-dipped.

Instead, she turned her attention back to Magda's books for the shop. They might as well have needed a secret decoder ring, for all the sense they made, but Sara was determined to translate them and get the data entered into the new software she'd bought for the store. It was time that The Scrying Glass entered the twentieth century, especially as that century was over. Magda's tendency to scribble her records and receipts on napkins or stray pieces of paper didn't make Sara's job any easier, nor did the shoe box filing system of choice.

She wasn't an ace accountant for nothing, though, and she had a vested interest in making the shop run more efficiently. It was hers now, after all, and would be her primary source of income. She'd saved a lot of money from her highflying days in information technology, but nothing lasted forever.

Especially money.

The Scrying Glass looked as if it had been open since the dawn of time. It had always reminded Sara of used bookstores she'd visited in England, where you never quite knew what you'd find, and where your discovery could sometimes surprise even the proprietor. It was eccentric and intriguing and disorganized and full of character—just like Aunt Magda had been.

Sara had spent summers with her aunt Magda for as long as she could remember and the bookstore had been a central feature in those visits. Sara had done pretty much every job in the bookstore in those years. She'd sorted and shelved stock. She'd moved sections of books. She'd run the cash and gone to the bank. She'd unpacked boxes of new shiny books. That had always been Magda's favorite job and Sara still felt as if her aunt was looking over her shoulder each time she cracked open a shipment.

And they had read. There had been no rules at Aunt Magda's about what was suitable reading for a young girl, and Sara had spent summers reading voraciously. Summers in Ann Arbor were the one fixture of her childhood, given how often she and her parents had moved. Her aunt's house, with the mismatched teacups and batiks over the windows, the strange little collections of stones and shells, and the incense holders of every variety had been both exotic and the closest thing Sara had had to a permanent home.

The Scrying Glass hadn't really changed in thirty years.

The bookshelves were old wood, polished to a golden patina. The walls had been painted a rich burgundy at some distant point in time. The floors were laid with black-and-white checkerboard tiles, which looked to be stone, and there was a heavy crown molding around the perimeter of the shop at the ceiling. The windows were leaded glass and there was the most wonderful brass sign hanging over the door in the arcade.

When Magda had died in May, so close to so many other challenges, Sara had found that she couldn't sell the shop. Instead, she'd followed her heart and quit her job, moved into the apartment on the second floor of Magda's house, rented the main house, and become a bookshop owner. It had seemed like exactly the right thing to do.

Sara wasn't crazy about the shop's New Age specialty, but changing it would mean sacrificing that wonderful sign. There was also a good bit of established traffic, given how long Magda had owned the store. Sara was determined to serve her aunt's memory and was struggling to learn more about the stock.

She also wanted to make the shop her own. Sara tried to be proactive in making the world a better place—her bookstore now had the food bank donation box and the women's shelter donation box to show for it. She'd already added some used books to the store's selection, books she found at yard sales and thrift shops, and had a couple of regular browsers in that section who disliked the idea of books in landfill sites as much as she did.

The cash desk was beside the door of The Scrying Glass, a heavy oak counter with a beveled pane of glass set into its top. The new computerized cash register looked out of place, but Sara wasn't going to do everything by hand just for appearances. Magda couldn't have had a clue about the shop's finances, unless her tarot cards had kept her informed, and Sara had no idea how her aunt had done the taxes.

She'd get to that, once she had something resembling accounting books.

Sara pulled out the current bane of her existence, the inventory, and tried to make sense of the dates and titles on page three. Maybe she needed the eponymous scrying glass to figure them out. Maybe it was a good thing she'd gotten an extra large latte. She would get all of this sorted out and entered into her computer, even if it killed her.

Or drove her insane.

She wished that either scenario seemed a bit less likely than they often did.

The shop was muggy, but Sara wasn't ready to go another round with the temperamental air-conditioning unit just yet. She'd delayed using it for as long as possible, trying to save electricity, but with the duration of this heat wave, the shop had slowly filled with hot air. When a customer had left, complaining of the heat, Sara had surrendered and turned on the air-conditioning unit.

It hadn't worked.

Not until the fix-it guy had come from Malone's Appliance Repair and then it had worked perfectly. It must have started just as he started to walk down the arcade. It had run so flawlessly during his service call that he'd obviously thought Sara was nuts for calling for service. Sara didn't think he'd gotten back to his truck before the unit had died again.

They'd done this four times and she was tired of the game.

She opened the shoe box and grabbed a fistful of paper shards. Maybe she'd call Malone's later.

Sara didn't know how much time had passed when the brass bell over the door jingled.

“Good afternoon,” she said as a man stepped into the shop.

“Good afternoon.” He smiled in return and glanced about himself. His black hair was touched with a distinguished bit of silver at his temples. He wore jeans and boots, and a leather jacket that must have been hot in this weather. “What a unique shop.” His accent was faintly British.

“Thank you. We specialize in New Age books, the occult, mythology, and fantasy fiction.” Sara was always surprised to hear herself talking as if there were more people involved in running the bookstore. The word
we
just popped out of her mouth all the time. Maybe it was because the shop felt so strongly imbued with Magda's presence. Either way, she didn't feel alone here. “Can I help you find anything specific?”

“I'll just browse,” he said. “It looks as if I'll easily find something of interest.”

“Well, don't be afraid to ask.” Frowning slightly in concentration, Sara returned to the inventory as the man moved between the bookshelves.

There was something familiar about him, but Sara couldn't place him. She must have seen him somewhere….

But she couldn't put her finger on where or when.

Maybe she was wrong.

Just like the total value on the store inventory seemed to be wrong. She was sure there wasn't another shoe box anywhere. Sara pulled out a calculator and started to crunch the numbers for the umpteenth time.

“Where would I find books on mythology?” the man asked, peeking out from behind a shelf.

Sara pointed. “Back corner, about eye level on the right.”

“Thank you.”

He disappeared again. Sara looked back down to her records and something flashed in her peripheral vision.

It was the mermaid.

Sara glanced at the door knocker, then stared in wonder. The mermaid was gleaming like a coal left in the fire. She remained black, but her edges—the lip of her scales, the tips of her tail fins, the ends of her swirling hair—were orange.

As if she'd been touched by fire.

Or even made of fire.

But the door knocker wasn't painted. It had been all black when she bought it.

How strange. Sara reached to pick it up for a closer look.

“Ouch!” She dropped the mermaid when it burned her fingers. The glass top on the cash desk rattled when the wrought iron hit it.

How could the mermaid be hot to the touch? The color seemed to ebb and flow, and Sara had the strange sense that the door knocker was acting like a beacon.

The air-conditioning unit chose that moment to sputter and hum to life.

Sara was an analytical person and not one easily spooked. Door knockers did not broadcast messages. All the same, there was no obvious reason for the mermaid to be hot. It wasn't in the sun; it wasn't in a reflection; it wasn't on a hot surface.

But it
was
hot, all the same. She touched it with a cautious fingertip, just to be sure, and winced as her finger was singed.

“This is exactly what I was looking for,” the man said suddenly, interrupting her thoughts. He was right in front of Sara and had approached the counter without her hearing him.

She ignored the door knocker and smiled at him. “I'm glad to hear it.”

He put three books down on the counter. The bottom one was a large coffee-table book, slick with illustrations; the one on top of it was an older, leather-bound book that Sara hadn't seen before; and the third volume was a children's book.

“How interesting.” Sara touched the cover on the leather-bound one. “I didn't even realize this book was here.”

“You do have quite a good selection.”

Sara turned the book in her hands.
“The Habits and Habitats of Dragons: a Compleat Guide for
Slayer
s
.” She smiled. “It sounds like a whimsical volume, the treatise of one of those Victorian hobbyist scholars.”

Her customer didn't smile. In fact, he bristled. “I assure you that Sigmund Guthrie was quite serious about his so-called hobby.”

The slight emphasis he put on the last word and his scathing tone made Sara glance up. “Slaying dragons?”

“Exactly,” her customer said solemnly. “I've been looking for this volume for a long time.” He stared at Sara as if she should find this particularly meaningful, but she didn't.

Her mother had always said that it took all kinds of people to make a world. If this man wanted to believe that there were dragons to slay, and wanted to buy a book about that very activity, Sara would be glad to take his $189.99 plus tax.

That didn't mean that he was right.

She'd been meeting a lot of people with unusual perspectives in The Scrying Glass. The sooner she got used to it, the better.

She flicked the cover open again to confirm the price. “There must be other people looking for this one, as well.”

“That wouldn't surprise me. It's rare.” His smile turned rueful. “At least, I've had a difficult time finding a copy.”

Sara didn't want to ask whether he shared the author's hobby and was looking for tips.

She decided to change the subject. “The inventory number indicates it was bought for the store three years ago. Have you been in before?”

“No, I'm from Chicago. I came for other business and just stumbled across your store.” His smile broadened. “It's true that we find what we seek in the most unlikely of places.” He said this with an odd emphasis, as if it should also mean something to her.

As if it were a code phrase.

Sara looked at him then, really looked at him. There was something strange about him and it wasn't just his decision to wear a leather jacket when the sidewalks were melting. His voice was melodic. When she met his gaze, it looked almost as if there were green flames flickering in the depths of his eyes.

Then she blinked and he was looking back at her, his eyes as normal as could be.

Flames in people's eyes and door knockers that heated by themselves. Dragons and stalkers and women screaming for help who didn't really exist. Maybe Sara
was
losing it.

The coffee-table book was
Dragons Through Time, in Illustration and Story.
The cover showed an orange dragon breathing fire at a mounted knight, presumably Saint George, who seemed very small in comparison. The children's book was called
The Dragon Next Door.

“I sense a theme,” she said lightly.

The man shrugged. “Yes.” He tilted his head as if listening to something, but Sara couldn't hear anything. Whatever he thought he heard, it prompted him to nod slightly, as if in approval.

Sara focused on the mundane. She rang the books into the cash register and totaled it up. “It's $278.65 altogether.”