Blazing Midsummer Nights (Harlequin Blaze) (16 page)

“That’s also a blessing, isn’t it?” she asked. “That you had so much time with him?”

He nodded. It hadn’t felt like much of a blessing then, watching the once proud, strong, virile man—who’d also been a firefighter all his life—succumb to a disease that had eaten him from the inside out in a matter of weeks. Now, though, remembering the moments they’d had, the opportunity Xander had been given to thank his old man for all he’d done for him over the years, he knew Mimi was right.

He reached for the shampoo bottle and squeezed a dollop of gooey liquid into his hand. Her hair was so beautiful, and the idea of washing it so intimate. He just couldn’t resist, loving the way it glided through his fingers as he smoothed the shampoo over the long tresses.

“So you were looking for a change, a way to get away from the memories?”

He nodded, focused on her hair, but also let himself open up in a way he hadn’t expected to. “I was also looking to get away from the future I’d always imagined…but no longer had to look forward to.”

She gazed up at him, her lips trembling. “You have a future to look forward to,” she insisted.

“I know that. I just needed to make myself see the alternative one, instead of the one I’d always imagined. And I guess I felt like the only way I was going to stop feeling like crap about losing my entire family in the space of six months was to go far away. Create something new rather than trying to stay and rebuild on the ashes of what was gone.”

A tear spilled out of the corner of her eye.

He cleared his throat, uncomfortable. “I wasn’t playing the sympathy card.”

“I know that.” She took the soap from his hand, rolling it between hers, then lifting the suds to his chest. Washing him gently, she swayed closer, murmuring, “I’m sorry you went through everything you did. But I can’t deny I’m glad you ended up here.”

“Me, too.”

She leaned her head back, rinsing out her hair, then moved out of the way for him to do the same. He’d thought they were finished with their previous conversation, but she was apparently still curious.

“So tell me about your parents. What’s your best memory from childhood?”

“We always had two Christmases,” he told her, laughing softly, surprising even himself.

“Lucky!”

“My mom was Greek Orthodox, my dad Irish Catholic. Double holidays were a standard. And since I was an only kid…”

“Oh, I know those only-child Christmases,” she said with a laugh. “I’m pretty sure I have a couple thousand Beanie Babies boxed up in my parents’ attic to this day.”

Their laughter hit Xander right in the heart. The tight, painful squeeze he always felt when talking about his parents eased a bit, thanks to Mimi’s smile and her sweetness. Something seemed to open in him. He found himself remembering special moments and being able to laugh at them again. He also liked listening to her own stories of her rich, pushy father, and her sweet-natured mother, who apparently really ran the house but liked to let her husband think he did.

Sounded like the secret of all successful marriages; his parents’ had been the same.

By the time they’d finished showering, he felt almost buoyant, all trace of melancholy gone. Because of her.

“Ouch—eight-thirty,” he said spying the clock in his bedroom as they got out and dried off. “We’d better hurry.”

Mimi slipped into her robe. “Do you think I’ll have a better chance getting back into my place unseen if I go by way of your closet, to the patio, to my closet, or if I just dash across the hall between our front doors?”

He glanced out the window. It was a bright, sunny morning, and he’d already heard Mr. Leadfoot clomping around upstairs. If Tuck were at all like Xander had been at that age, he’d be outside exploring his new neighborhood.

“I’d go for the front hall. It’s quicker,” he told her. Then he eyed her wet hair, her damp face—beautiful without a drop of makeup—and asked, “This might be the worst question you can ask a woman, but can you be ready in fifteen minutes?”

She smirked. “You have no idea. I am the queen of oversleeping and racing out the door. Time me.”

Without another word, she spun around and hurried out of his bedroom. He followed her. “Want me to make sure the coast is clear?” he asked. Xander didn’t care who knew he was involved with Mimi, but he also knew she was very close to Anna and Obi-Wan. She might not want them knowing the truth of their relationship just yet. Whatever that relationship might be.

Good.
That was all he needed to know about it right now. It was good.

“Thanks,” she said, watching as he opened the door and stuck his head out.

He glanced up the stairs, down the hallway and out the front. “All clear,” he said once he’d made sure nobody was in sight.

“Here I go.”

She slipped out, her robe clutched tightly around her naked body, and darted the few steps to her door.

Only to get there, lift a hand to the knob, then drop it and turn around with a definite eye-roll. “I don’t have my keys.”

Snickering, he muttered, “Foiled again. Some supersleuth you are.”

“Don’t make fun of me or you’ll lose your date for the pancake breakfast.”

“Come on, you know you’re dying to taste my bacon.”

She wagged her eyebrows. “Or your sausage.”

“As long as you remember it’s thick kielbasa and not Vienna,” he retorted, laughing as she walked back to him, directly into his arms, as if she knew that’s where she belonged.

She opened her mouth to reply, but a noise from above distracted her. They both looked up, just in time to see a curly-haired brunette begin to descend the stairs from above. With her was Tuck, the cat-lover, who was saucer-eyeing them.

No wonder. Mimi had on a skimpy robe. Xander had a towel slung around his hips and nothing else. And they were embracing in the public hallway.

“Oh, sorry,” the woman whispered, immediately turning and trying to turn her son, as well.

The boy resisted, bouncing on his toes to try to look over his petite mother’s shoulder when she blocked him with her body.

Mimi’s face erupted in flames. “I locked myself out,” she said. She hadn’t lied…but she didn’t elaborate, either. Of course, considering the way they were dressed, and that she had been wrapped in his arms until a second ago, when she’d quickly stepped away from him before they scarred the six-year-old for life, the woman had to know the truth.

“Do you need me to get my father to bring you a spare key?” she asked.

“I bet I could pick the lock!” said Tuck, who was still trying to peek around at them.

“Uh, no, thank you,” Mimi said, edging closer to Xander’s open doorway. “I’m going to go through the screen porch to the secret door. I’ll be fine.”

The brunette smiled a little, and a twinkle appeared in her pretty eyes. “Are you sure your other door is unlocked?”

Mimi chewed a hole in her lip as she slowly nodded. “Pretty sure.”

“Okay then. Talk to you later,” she said. “Come on, Tuck, I forgot something.”

“What’d you forget?”

“My big bag of none’ya.”

“Aww, Mom…”

“It’s none’ya business, now let’s go.”

Mimi and Xander went back inside, both of them chuckling at how the young mother dealt with her inquisitive son.

“That was pretty embarrassing,” he said. “Thank goodness I remembered the towel.”

“And thank goodness I had the robe,” she replied with a sigh, already heading for his room, so she could make use of the secret exit. “Imagine if I’d tried to make a naked dash!”

“That was Anna and Obi-Wan’s daughter, right?”

“Yes, Helen, we met last night, after you’d left,” she said. Then she stopped, midstep. “Oh, wow, she’s going to think I’m a total skank-ho.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“She saw me with Dimitri last night, and I know she figured he was my…”

“But he’s not,” he interjected.

She didn’t look consoled. “As far as she knows, we could have be seriously involved.”

“But you aren’t.” He put his hands on her waist, squeezing tight. “Stop beating yourself up, all right? You and I know the truth about how nonserious you really were, and Dimitri knows it, too. You didn’t break any hearts when you broke up with him…and we
all
know that.”

She looked away, still obviously uncomfortable.

“It’ll be fine. I promise.”

She took a deep breath, then finally nodded. But instead of leaving right away, she tilted her head to the side, as if she’d just remembered something. “It was kind of kind of interesting last night when Helen arrived. Dimitri and my father were still here.”

She quickly told him about the way Plastic Man had reacted to seeing Helen. Sounded to him like Mr. Smooth had a few secrets in his past. “I’m sorry, I can’t picture him with someone like that. She’s so…sweet.”

“And I’m not?” she asked, not sounding at all offended. She liked being naughty—spicy—for him. And he liked indulging her naughtiness.

“You’re sweet, babe. You’re very sweet.”

“Oh…so you
can
picture him with me?” she asked, looking coy, as if trying to make him jealous.

It worked. Big-time. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her close. “Don’t even think about it.”

“I haven’t,” she promised, twining her arms around his neck. “Not since the night you fell out of my closet like the world’s biggest, hottest jack-in-the-box.”

“And you were the world’s sexiest pantiless home invader.”

“My home,” she reminded him again.

“Yeah, yeah.” Glancing at the clock, and seeing how little time they had left, he pushed her toward the closet. “Okay, wow me. You’ve got five minutes.”

“A lot can happen in five minutes,” she said suggestively.

“Like you maybe getting some clothes on?”

“If you insist,” she said.

Then, with another quick kiss on his lips and a smile that exuded happiness, she ducked into the closet and disappeared.

9

O
VER THE NEXT
few days, Mimi found herself balancing the pressure of her increasingly stressful job with the wonderfully exciting, happy moments to which she was able to escape at night. Not every night, unfortunately—Xander had a couple of double shifts when he’d had to stay at the station. But at least Monday night and Wednesday night she’d been able to go to sleep in his arms again, as she had Saturday. Each morning after, she had woken up to watch him sleeping beside her, once again amazed that she could have found him so suddenly and fallen for him so fast.

He was becoming an addiction.

Every minute she spent with him was both a gift and a revelation. For a man who insisted he was nothing special, just a regular guy, he always managed to surprise her. Each time they were together, he would invariably say something that shocked her, made her think or made her laugh. After she’d had a really crappy day on Monday, including a big fight with the manager of the printing company who did all the Burdette Foods sales circulars, he had insisted on rubbing her shoulders. He’d then gone out for pizza and had come back with a bouquet of flowers, probably purchased off the back of a roadside truck, but so pretty and genuine, she’d felt all blubbery.

There was really only one fly in the ointment, one thing that had kept her from diving headfirst into the bliss of this completely unexpected—and ever-so-welcome—love affair.

Dimitri.

She’d headed to work Monday knowing there were quite a lot of things on her to-do list. First was a weekly staff meeting with her employees. Then she had a conference call with some of her out-of-state counterparts. Then a lunch meeting. Then an evaluation of several bids from new printers they were considering using for their in-store circulars, since their current one had been slipping up a little too often lately.

And somewhere in there, she’d intended to find a minute with Dimitri to make sure he knew they were no longer dating.

She’d made it fairly clear Saturday evening. She’d come right out and said they were in no way serious, reiterating that they’d only gone out “a couple of times.” He should absolutely have been able to read between the lines. But the words
I don’t want to go out with you again
hadn’t actually left her mouth, and she’d feel a lot better once they did.

She hadn’t been lying to Xander Saturday night when she’d told him she wasn’t involved with Dimitri anymore, especially since she’d barely been involved with him to begin with. Because in her mind, she wasn’t involved, not in any way, emotionally or physically. That was absolutely without a doubt.

But she hadn’t really thought about the need to have the conversation until Xander said something that told her he assumed she already had. When he’d mentioned that she hadn’t broken Dimitri’s heart when she broke up with him—which would be the truth, she knew—she realized Xander believed she’d already had some kind of final scene with the other man.

Which was exactly what she’d wanted to have on Monday. Only, when she’d arrived at work, she’d learned there had literally been a fire at one of their stores down in Jacksonville, and Dimitri had left suddenly, going down there to put out the proverbial ones that had come after it. So she hadn’t seen him for three days.

It hadn’t seemed like a conversation to have over the phone, not that they’d spoken more than once, and that mostly about business. So the pressure had mounted. By now, Thursday, she just wanted to get it over with. Which was why she was so relieved when she got to work that morning and found out he was back and in a meeting with her father.

She dropped off her things at her desk, finished signing a few documents, returned a call, then prepared to go to her dad’s office and join them. She intended to ask Dimitri to lunch, fully expecting to clear the air. Then she could go home to Xander tonight without anything weighing on her mind, her heart or her conscience.

But before she could do anything, her office door opened, and her assistant, Lauren, popped her head in. “Hey, boss, got a sec?”

About Mimi’s age, Lauren was bright, quick-thinking, and was Mimi’s right-hand man. If not for the fact that Mimi was her supervisor, she suspected she and Lauren could be very good friends. As it was, they got along perfectly, and did as much as they could socially without crossing any boss/employee lines.

“Sure, how’s everything going?” Suddenly remembering her assistant’s request for some time off, she asked, “Wait, your high school reunion’s not this weekend, is it?”

Lauren waved a hand. “No, that’s not until next month. I wanted to talk to you about something else.”

“What’s up?” she asked, gesturing for the other woman to sit down.

Lauren dropped to a chair on the opposite side of Mimi’s desk. “God, I hate Thursdays. They’re so close to the weekend…but they always seem to go on forever.”

“I don’t know, I think Monday has it beat in terms of worst day,” she said with a chuckle. Monday had been particularly hard this week, since she’d had the kind of weekend she’d wanted to go on and on and on.

After the pancake breakfast, during which she’d met a lot of very friendly firefighters and their families, she and Xander had gone shopping to stock up his new apartment. She’d taken him to one of her stores, of course, bullying him into using her discount and making him buy more than boxed mac-and-cheese and peanut butter.

Then they’d gone home, unloaded everything…and gone back to bed. They’d gotten up to eat—peanut butter—and gone back to bed, not arising again until the next morning.

It had been the most erotic thirty-six hours of her life. There were things she’d already done with Xander that would have made her blush to even consider doing with anyone else. Things she’d done again Monday night. And last night.

And she wanted to do them again. Soon.

“I, uh…damn, this probably isn’t any of my business,” Lauren said, sounding uncomfortable.

Really curious, she leaned forward and said, “Tell me what’s going on.”

Lauren looked at her hands, which were clenched in her lap, then out the window, then down at her hands again.

“Would you spill it? You look like you did that time you had to tell me you’d come back in to work late one night and caught the janitors doing it in the break room.”

“Ha. I wish it were something that simple.”

Simple? The two janitors in question had both been in their sixties, both married and both men. There had been nothing simple about that situation.

To give her credit, Lauren had had the presence of mind—and the feisty temperament—to order them to get their clothes back on, and not to leave until they’d bleached down every surface in the break room. Despite that, neither Mimi nor Lauren had eaten a single lunch in there since.

She wondered if either of the men were still married. Or still hiding in their very clean closets.

Lauren’s next comment killed any curiosity Mimi might have about anybody else’s marital status.

“I think Dimitri’s going to propose to you.”

Her jaw fell and she sagged back in the chair.
“What?”

Though they hadn’t broadcast it, Lauren knew Mimi and Dimitri had been dating. She also knew—and had felt confident enough in her relationship with Mimi to comment about it—that they weren’t right for each other. Lauren called Dimitri the Stud Stick. Probably with good reason.

“Tell me you’re joking.”

“Nope, I’m not. Believe me, if I thought this was good news, that you wanted to hear it and would give even a minute’s thought to accepting, I would never have said a word. I’m not a proposal spoiler…that’s just mean.”

“You’re right. I don’t want to hear it, and I wouldn’t give a minute’s thought to it.” She swiped a hand through her hair, knocking it out of its bun but not caring. “I’d been planning to tell him today that I didn’t even want to go out with him anymore.”

“Obviously he thinks everything’s hunky-dory.” She shook her head woefully. “Lord, what fools these men can be.”

“How could he possibly think I’d be interested in a proposal? Hell, we’re not even involved, we’ve never…” She flushed, realizing she was saying too much.

“Oh, come on, it’s not like I don’t know you two haven’t done the nasty,” Lauren said with an eye-roll.

“It’s that obvious?”

“You can tell when two people have seen each other naked. And I’ve never seen a look on your face that says you’ve seen him wearing anything less than khakis and a J. Crew sweater…nor have you much looked like you cared.”

True. All true.

“Heck, I’ve never seen
anybody
who’s acted like they’ve even seen him with his shirt off.”

Hmm. Helen might have. But that wasn’t Mimi’s business.

“Why do you think he’s going to ask me to marry him?”

“Because I came in really early this morning and went to ask your dad a question. From outside his office, I heard him talking to Dimitri about getting your grandmother’s ring so it could be reset for you.”

That was serious. And wasn’t it just like her father to presume to not only talk to a man she was barely dating about his pending proposal, but to also demand he use a Burdette family heirloom, rather than picking out a damn ring himself?

There were times she loved her father and wanted only to get along with him.

There were other times when she came close to reaching for bleach to hide the bloodstains and a shovel to bury the body.

“I’m really sorry, boss,” Lauren said. “I know you don’t need to deal with this stress right now.”

Seeing the genuine concern on the other woman’s face, Mimi nodded her thanks.

“I should be used to it. But honestly, I can’t believe this is happening,” she said, rubbing at the corners of her eyes with the tips of her two fingers.

“Neither can I!” a male voice snapped.

She jerked her head up, shocked to see her father storming into her office. Dimitri was right behind him, and he shot her a look that was half commiserating, half scolding.

Lauren leapt to her feet. “Excuse me, I need to get back to work.”

Though he was usually very polite to all the staff, her father ignored the young woman as she scurried out of the office. Striding right over to Mimi’s desk, he slammed his hand—a hand that was holding a brightly colored sales circular—down on top of it.

Mimi stared at it in confusion. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean what’s wrong? Are you trying to say you weren’t just talking about this…this…
abomination?
”

A strong word for eight sheets of four-color newsprint.

Confused, she could only shake her head. “I honestly have no idea, Dad. Why don’t you calm down, take a seat and tell me what this is all about.”

“Her own department, and she has no idea,” he snapped, turning to Dimitri.

“Maybe we should fill her in,” Dimitri replied, calmly, which was good since her father, the CEO of Burdette Foods, looked ready to blow a gasket.

Whatever had happened, it was serious.

“I wish somebody would,” she said, trying to keep her temper in check. She did not like feeling like a kid called on the carpet before her father and judgmental older brother.

Hmm. An older brother. To be honest, when she thought about it, that’s kind of how she’d been thinking of Dimitri lately. She liked him, respected him…but sure didn’t want to make out with him, and God help the man if he ever actually proposed. She’d be saying no quicker than a sober virgin at a frat party.

Her father threw both hands up in the air and strode across the room to her corner window, which looked out over downtown Athens. She’d taken the smallest executive office just because of that pretty view. Now she kind of wished she could step out of that window and fly away.