All Wrapped Up (A Pine Mountain Novel) (18 page)

Not that telling them would’ve been easy. Going for squad was a hell of a lot different from
making
squad. Even though he would’ve stayed in the same house, the news would’ve earned Brennan a healthy ration of shit from everyone on Engine Eight. Except for Mason.

Christ,
he needed to nail his trap shut. Some things were just too far gone to fix with a little bit of airtime and a whole lot of regret.

“So, ah, then I got hurt and it didn’t really matter. Injuries like mine are career enders either way, so I decided to relocate, and here I am.” Brennan picked up the laminated card boasting the daily specials, giving it a hard stare even though they’d already ordered.
A warm brush against his suddenly cold fingers snapped his gaze upward, and Ava curled her hand over his in a quick squeeze.

“And here you are.”

Her expression was so wide open, so wiped free of both judgment and pity, that Brennan nearly let the entire story break loose. But then their waitress swung by with two napkin-wrapped utensil rolls and their iced teas, and the impulse disappeared
like smoke in a windstorm.

“Your physical therapy is a bit different from the norm, huh?” Ava plucked the paper wrapper from her straw, taking a sip of her tea, and the swerve in subject matter kicked Brennan right back into gear.

“I take it you’ve done conventional PT before,” he said, repeating her process with his own straw as she nodded.

“I broke my wrist falling on a patch of ice a
couple years ago. But I did my physical therapy over at the hospital. This facility is new, right?”

“They moved over here last year, but I’ve been with Kat for the long haul.” Despite the crap he jokingly gave her, Kat had been the only therapist Brennan had been able to make any progress with. “She’s really open to alternative methods of therapy and pain management. It makes things easier.”

“It makes things easier,” Ava echoed, and hell if he wasn’t in for a penny now. But detox had taught him to own up to his need for alternative therapy, even if he kept the reasons that had landed him in PT locked up nice and tight.

“I had some issues with pain management after I got hurt.” Brennan inhaled, modulating his words with every ounce of control he could muster. “I started out taking
oxycodone for the pain post-surgery. Four months later, I was popping it the way most people do breath mints.”

Ava’s soft puff of breath was the only betrayal of her shock, but she battened it down with a frown as she pulled back against the leather booth cushion. “You had a substance abuse problem?”

Oh hell.
Hell.
How could he have forgotten she’d been raised by raging alcoholics? “Shit,
Ava, I’m sorry. I’ve gone a little over two years completely clean, but I didn’t mean to bring up a sore topic.”

“You didn’t.” The answer was automatic, and she shook her head as if to punctuate the assertion. “I’m not going to lie and say the subject doesn’t sting, because you’re not an idiot. You know that’s not true. But not everyone with substance abuse issues is like my parents. And you’ve
got two years clean. I’m sure you fought some demons to get there.”

“Yeah. It was”—
weak, hideous, well deserved—
“a rough time,” he finished. While he never would have lied about it—after all, part of successful rehab was knowing you’d really fucked up—Brennan had also never admitted his addiction to anyone who wasn’t a medical professional or a direct relation. But rather than getting all awkward
or gooey about it, Ava’s brows rose in question, and wasn’t that just par for the course.

“So what happened? To make you stop, I mean?”

“Ellie,” he said, and funny how the word was enough. “I was really distant, out of it most of the time, angry the rest. She’s a social worker, so she figured out pretty quick that I was abusing my meds. Once she called me on it, I agreed to get help.”

His
sister might be younger than him, but man, she was twice as tough. Brennan had entered a full-time rehab facility twelve hours after Ellie’s no-bullshit confrontation. Not that she’d really given him a choice, and he hadn’t cared enough about himself at that point to fight her.

“Twenty-eight days of detox will give you a hell of an attitude adjustment,” he continued. “But I vowed then and there
to do alternative therapy whenever possible. No narcotics. No exceptions. No matter how much it hurt.”

Ava studied him for the longest minute of his life, her expression soft but without pity. Finally she said, “Coming off a back injury and finishing rehab with no medication sounds awful. You must’ve been in a lot of pain.”

Understatement of the goddamn century.
“It wasn’t fun,” he agreed.
His addiction, as short lived as it was, had just traded four months of his life for the ability to be numb.

But even numb, you didn’t forget. And it was better to focus on the pain than the truth.

“So that’s why you do yoga?” Ava asked. Not even the gravity of the subject matter could put a damper on her curiosity, and damn, she really was a natural with the Q and A.

“Yes, although it’s
more for the breathing than the actual exercise. Don’t get me wrong—Kat’s not about to let me get away without physical exercise, and we do some traditional therapy from time to time. But my injury happened two and a half years ago. At this stage in the game, I only see her when I have pain I can’t manage on my own. She helps me work out the kinks so I can get back on track.”

“The kinks that
you got pulling Matty Wilson out of the fire at Joe’s.” Ava’s fingers tightened just slightly over his on the cool tabletop, as if she’d anticipated the acceleration in his pulse. “If you were in pain, I wish you’d told me. All that hitting the heavy bag yesterday couldn’t have been helpful.”

The same sensation that had elbowed its way past his hard-core need for control when Ava had walked
into the therapy center made an encore performance in his rib cage, pushing the words on a hot path out of Brennan’s mouth. “But it was. It
is
. Being with you yesterday was the most relaxed I’ve been in . . . I don’t even know how long. And sometimes that helps more than anything else.”

“So hanging out together, just doing stuff like
this, makes you feel better?”

Ava’s velvety lashes swept into a wide arc over her bright green stare, but the question was so straightforward that Brennan simply said, “Yeah. It does.”

The smile that broke over her face shot straight to his gut before nestling in for an extended stay. “Being with you makes me feel better too. So I guess that means we should stick together.”

Chapter Eighteen

Ava put the finishing touches on her article on the Riverside Elementary holiday pageant at a few minutes past seven
P.M
., triple checking the copy before clicking
SEND
on her laptop. Okay, so it wasn’t Pulitzer material, or hell, even locally groundbreaking, but she’d meant what she’d said to Brennan when he’d called to ask her to lunch. Writing a small article was better
than sitting at her desk, twiddling her thumbs.

Even if she still needed a groundbreaker in T minus two freaking weeks in order to keep her job.

Powering down her laptop for the night, Ava pulled her bag from the space beside her desk, popping it open to make room for the computer. Her fabric-covered story notebook fell out with a
clunk,
hitting the timeworn carpet with a sunny-side-up flutter
of pages.

“Damn it.” She knelt down low to scoop the book back to the confines of her leather tote when the words in front of her stopped her cold.

Ava’s pulse picked a fight with her breathing, both of them speeding up in her ears. The instinct that had drawn her to Brennan’s story in the first place had been spot-on,
and the more she unwittingly discovered, the more she realized the gut-wrenching truth.

Now more than ever, Brennan was still the story of the decade.

“Hey, Ava. You okay down there?” The masculine voice coming from the entryway of Ava’s cubicle startled her despite its gentle delivery, and her head whipped up as she slammed the cover of the book splayed beneath her fingers.

“What? Ow!”
Crap
, that had hurt. “Oh, Ian. You took me by surprise.”

“Sorry.” The sheepish pull of her coworker’s smile suggested he really meant the apology. “I didn’t know anyone was still here. I was actually just walking by on my way out. Are you working on a story?”

His eyes dipped to her notebook in a pointed glance, and her gut knotted in an instinctive response.

“Nothing solid, really. Just brainstorming.”

“Oh.” Ian’s face twitched in what looked suspiciously like disappointment, sending Ava’s hackles into get-up-and-go mode. “Well, can I give you a hand off the floor?”

Ian took a step closer, arm extended, but Ava jumped up and hugged her notes to her chest in a semiprotective hold.

“I’m all set, but thank you.” Of course, from his vantage point at the front of her cubicle, Ian couldn’t have
read the pages in her book any more than he’d have been able to read her mind, but still. As nice as Ian seemed, he
was
Gary’s golden boy. A girl couldn’t be too careful.

“Ah. Right, then.” Ian rocked back on the heels of his loafers as if turning to make his way through the deserted newsroom, but at the last second, he swung back toward her. “Hey, really nice work on that exclusive you did
last week, by the way. It was a great piece.”

Wait . . . what? “You read my article on the fire at Joe’s?”

“Sure.” Ian lifted his sandy brown brows in a nonverbal translation of
why wouldn’t I?
“I read everyone’s articles, actually. You know, just to be in the loop.”

“Oh.” Ava lifted her chin in surprise. She thought she was the only person on staff who read the paper cover to cover. “Well,
I’m glad you enjoyed the piece.”

“I did. I know I seemed kind of negative about it during our weekly meeting. To be honest, I didn’t think there was a story there, especially since the source seemed difficult. But you really uncovered a good one.”

Oh, Ian. If you only knew.
“Thank you,” she said, eking out a smile.

“You’re welcome.” Ian nodded, aiming a glance at Gary’s darkened office before
lowering his voice to a murmur. “Look, I know Gary can really give you a hard time.” He paused, as if the massive understatement had jabbed him in the mouth on the way out. “But you write some really compelling pieces, Ava.”

She proceeded with care even though Ian seemed clueless about Gary’s latest ultimatum. “That’s nice of you to say, but I’m not sure it’s the general consensus around here.
I mean, I just turned in an article on the Riverside Elementary holiday show.” Ava tacked a self-deprecating smile to the words, because truly, if she couldn’t laugh, she was going to cry. “As excited as the kids were to sing Christmas carols and recite Hanukkah poems, it’s hardly riveting stuff.”

“Yeah, but you still treat it as if it is. You respect the story no matter what.”

The shock of
Ian’s straight-up reply rebounded through her rib cage, and after her third attempt at a response, she finally made something stick.

“Well, sure, but that’s just part of the job.” She might not take her own achievements seriously, but she always gave her career—and the stories that went with the job—the respect it deserved. Come to think of it, so did Ian.

“I’m not sure that’s the general
consensus around here, either. But I can tell you’re a good reporter. And I just thought . . . well, that someone should tell you.” Ian stuffed his hands into the pockets of his work-creased khakis, examining the carpet in front of him as if it had suddenly become breaking news. “Anyway . . . have a good night.”

Ava stared after Ian for a full five minutes before stepping back to gather her
belongings, her thoughts caught in a rough churn. While she’d made strong storytelling her number one priority since the minute she’d started at the
Daily,
she couldn’t help but admit that her screwup nearly five years ago still haunted her more than she’d like it to. Not that Gary’s constant reminders were exactly conducive to moving up and moving on, but at this stage in the game, some wholehearted
trust in herself might not hurt.

But it might not help, either, because Ava needed the mother of all stories, and if she trusted her instincts, they’d lead her right smack to Brennan’s doorstep.

Again.

“No,” Ava whispered, shaking her head for emphasis even though no one could see her. She sat back down in her desk chair, nailing her decency back into place with each passing breath. Yes,
the rescue squad part of Brennan’s story had lit her curiosity like a twenty-pound bottle rocket, and okay, fine, it was possible the rescue squad hero angle would make a brilliant personal interest article, especially given Pine Mountain’s tight-knit community.

But Brennan was still clearly on team
no comment
with regard to the spotlight. He might have opened up about the job itself, and even
told her about the situation following his rehab, but he’d clearly still dodged the specifics of how he’d sustained such a devastating injury. Something really massive had to have gone down for him to be hurt so badly that he got hooked on painkillers in the aftermath.

Before the movement even registered, Ava had replanted herself in her desk chair, her heartbeat
pulsing to warp speed in her veins. She flipped her laptop open with a
snick
, pulling up the blank tab on her search engine.

“Come on, come on,” she whispered, biting her bottom lip in concentration as she tapped one finger against the edge of her keyboard. “I know you’re in here somewhere. Talk to me.”

A hundred and nineteen thousand results popped
over her screen, and excitement flared to life in Ava’s belly. But after ten minutes of intense scrolling and even more intense hoping, not one of those results yielded a scrap about her Nick Brennan.

“Damn it.” Okay, so it wasn’t entirely a shock, considering he’d barely made the rescue squad before getting hurt. But it was going to take a whole lot more than ten minutes of fruitless searching
to knock her off her game. This story was worthy of being told. If only she could
find
it.

“A-ha!” Ava’s cheeks prickled with triumphant heat. “Getting warmer.”

Except after a quick yet thorough scan of the archives of the local paper and the public records from the Fairview City database, the omission of names within each article became glaringly
apparent. Not entirely uncommon in news articles where either firefighters or police officers had been injured, but God—the details of each blaze and the injuries sustained by the men and women who fought them outlined in vivid detail just how dangerous being a firefighter really was.

And just how brave you had to be to make it not only your job, but your passion.

Ava sat back in her chair,
her thoughts moving nearly too fast to harness. The rescue squad had snagged her undiluted interest ever since the two words had passed Brennan’s lips at lunch today. The brand of high-level devotion, the extensive training, the pure intensity that had to go with the jobs those firefighters performed—all of it rattled and echoed and whispered in Ava’s mind.

Just because Brennan had been injured
and didn’t think he was a hero didn’t mean the rest of the world would agree. He’d saved a little boy’s life with limited regard for his own, and after what she’d uncovered today, Ava would bet the bank that the rescue at Joe’s was far from Brennan’s first. These rescue squad guys were trained to run into danger, headfirst and hesitation free, when no one else could help. Sometimes at the cost
of their careers, even their well-being.

The whole thing—with Brennan sitting front and center—had all the makings of a truly engaging, high-impact story. One that Ava knew all the way to her marrow she could tell with poignant respect. Just like it deserved.

If only she could convince Brennan that in spite of all he’d lost to his devastating injury, he was worthy of the airtime.

One hour,
seven Web sites, and sixteen handwritten pages of groundwork later, Ava’s cell phone sounded off from beneath a pile of printouts on her desk. After a swift excavation, she flipped the thing into her palm to check the caller ID.

Her full-face grin was as instant as it was involuntary, but she scaled it down to a flirtatious smile before tapping the icon to accept the call.

“I must say, you’re
taking this whole stuck-with-me thing very seriously, Mr. Brennan.”

A dark and sexy chuckle rumbled over the line, and Ava clasped the phone tighter in an effort to keep both the sound and the sentiment close. “As you so eloquently pointed out last week, I’m quite good at taking things seriously, Ms. Mancuso. I don’t see the purpose in half measures. If I’m going to do something, I’m going to
do it right.”

“I’m shocked to hear you say that,” Ava teased, her tone balancing out the lie. Everything about Brennan screamed
all in
, from his intensely decadent stares to his hotter than hellfire kisses.

Oh God. Ava wanted to be all in with him. Right now.

“Speaking of serious . . .” Brennan trailed off, his voice rich with suggestion that shot right between Ava’s thighs. “It’s way past
time for you to leave work, don’t you think?”

Her eyes flickered over her fabric-bound notebook, and she snapped it closed with a sweep of her hand. “What makes you think I’m still at work?”

“Aren’t you?” he asked, the question catching her point blank in the chest.

“Well . . . yeah.” She laughed in soft admission. “I guess I don’t see the purpose in half measures either.”

“Maybe you should
redirect all that seriousness into something else.”

Ava’s pulse thrummed with instant heat. “Like what?”

“Like me.”

She let out a breath full of desire and surprise, her eyes dropping to the notebook under her fingers. “Nick, I—”

“I miss you,” he said, and just like that, all her thoughts jostled to a halt.

“What?”

“Look, I’m not very good at this, so I’m just going to say it. For
seven years, I wondered what we could’ve had. Now that I have the chance to find out, I don’t want to screw it up by not being honest. I can’t make any promises about what will happen down the line, but right now I miss you. I want you to come over, and I want you to stay. Be with me, Ava. Tonight. Right now. Be with me.”

For a second, Ava couldn’t even think, let alone speak. But the truth
in his voice replaced her shock with realization.

Brennan might keep his feelings close to the vest, but he was a good man. A worthy man. A man she wanted right now more than her next breath.

And Ava needed to show him.

“Stay right where you are. I’m on my way.”

 

 

Ava pulled up to Brennan’s apartment building, her eyes zeroed in on his door from a hundred yards away. A bitter
wind whipped across the parking lot, nearly knocking the breath out of her chest as she strode over the concrete walkway, but Ava didn’t care. She didn’t waste a single step as her feet measured the distance along the cheerily decorated thresholds, her heart in her throat as she finally stopped to place a knock dead-center on Brennan’s door.

“Hey, that was . . . Jesus, Ava!” Brennan barked,
pulling the door wide. “Where’s your coat?”

She stepped inside the apartment, propelled by an unknown force she couldn’t fight even if she’d wanted to. “In my car.” Her arms flashed around Brennan’s shoulders, her mouth capturing his surprised laugh as it escaped.

“Are you out of your mind? It’s twenty degrees outside,” he murmured, the vibration of the words making her lips tingle.

She
kissed him again, long and deep. “Mmm-hmm. Coats take time.”

“You’re crazy.” The affirmation came out hushed and reverent, melting over her skin.

“Your fault. Come here.”

Ava slid her hands up the back of his neck, thrusting her fingers through the just-messy-enough fall of his hair to hold him close. Brennan’s body stilled against hers, nothing moving but the rapid rise and fall of his
chest, and oh God, even fully clothed, the contact sent her into a full-body buzz.