Burned by a Kiss (16 page)

He couldn’t bear to think about it. Jenny blew in on a puff of cold air and two rambling, delighted dogs following her every step, until they remembered their water bowl. They descended on it, sloshing water over the sides in their enthusiasm.

“They’re getting better on the leash,” Jenny announced. “But they’re going to need a lot more work. And on that note, I’m going to make myself at home with a shower.”

Jenny went off, still looking a bit glum.

“What’s with her?” Santana asked.

Emma shook her head. “One of my lovebirds died while we were gone. It’s upset her. She feels as if she’s let me down.”

“Jenny’s pretty levelheaded. She knows nothing lasts forever.” He glanced toward the birdcage, seeing the lone bird. “She’s got a soft heart, though. Just like you.”

“I’m a vet, Santana, I know how fortunate I was to have my birds as long as I did.”

“Can I buy you another? No reason for a lovebird to be single. Kind of defeats the purpose of being a lovebird, I suppose.”

She smiled. “I’d like that.”

He felt something in his chest move, his heart giving him a strong kick, recognized that he was staring at the one thing that made him smile. “Have I ever told you how much I like your smile?”

Her eyes searched his, and it was like someone punched him. “I mean it. And I really like the way you listen. I know you hear me, and you don’t try to cheer me up, or give me false words of encouragement. You’re calm and steady, while everything else in my world right now is kind of a clusterfuck. FUBAR. Fucked up beyond all recognition.”

“I don’t know that I’m the port in the storm that you need, but I want to be here for you if you need me.”

How could he tell her everything he felt? “I’m sorry for going radio silent before. I can’t explain it.”

“I don’t need you to.”

She looked at him with those clear, beautiful eyes, and Santana knew she meant every word. “I’m not taking you for granted. That’s all I want you to know.”

“I know,” she said softly. “It’s okay. Clusterfuck and all.”

He smiled. “I’m going to call Cisco.”

She nodded. “I need to check that Jenny found towels and everything she needs, and make sure the dogs aren’t in the shower with her. They really like water.”

He watched her leave the room, her fanny swaying in her jeans. His mouth dried out, his gaze never leaving her. What was he doing? She was the opposite of him and his unique clan. Why wasn’t he locking her down?

• • •

“Why did you come back?” Santana asked his brothers after Cisco had picked him up and brought him home. “Why did you leave in the first place?”

Romero, Cisco, and Luke looked at him, studying him from various perches in the rental house. It was going to be cramped with the four of them here, but he still wished Sierra hadn’t left. She brought cheer and constant excitement, the kick in the pants they’d always needed.

Without her, the four of them weren’t exactly going to be a barrel of laughs.

“We left,” Cisco said, “because we were on a mission. We needed space and separation. Until we found out from Sierra that things weren’t exactly under control around here. Then we decided to return.”

“But just until after Christmas.” Romero had a cap mashed down on his bald head—why had his brother shaved his head? Santana wondered. He looked like a serious grapefruit. “Then we’re enlisting.”

“All three of you?” Santana realized he’d be the only Dark left here. And Mr. Fancy Pants Nick had left. He should have known that a man with so many more worlds to conquer couldn’t be satisfied in Star Canyon.

“You’re a SEAL,” Luke pointed out. “We’re just following in your combat boots.”

He couldn’t keep them here. But it was going to suck without his family. “So, Christmas.”

“Yeah.” Romero nodded. “Tell Sierra to get her ass home. It’ll be our last Christmas together for who knows how long.”

Santana got up to get himself a longneck. He stared around the dim rental house, cataloguing the three bedrooms, two baths, peeling wallpaper in the small kitchen, the squeaky wooden floorboards, and the leaking shower. The house wasn’t far from the Dark Ranch, but it felt like a world away. “Tell her yourself. Better yet, don’t tell her at all.” He peered into the rattling, ancient refrigerator that sounded like it was on its last few hours as a working appliance. “Sierra’s having a few adjustment issues. Same as you did.” He stood up, handing each of his brothers a beer. “It’s cheap brew, but it fits the budget.”

“What are you going to do?” Cisco asked. “What are we going to do?”

“Now that cousin Nick left us high and dry?” Santana shrugged. “Same thing I was. He can’t just go off and desert his place. A city dude like him doesn’t know that one just doesn’t drive off and leave a working ranch. I’ll get my paychecks out of him, no worries.” He hadn’t paid him yet, but he knew Nick would.

“He’s going to have to make up his mind,” Luke said. “He’s either with us, or he’ll sell the ranch.”

“We don’t want that,” Romero said quietly. “With Nick owning it, we still have a connection to our home.”

This was true, and maybe a shot to get it back. Somehow. Work it off over several years? Nick was a businessman, money mattered to him—and everything had a price, right? Santana mused. “So the battle plan is to get Nick to return.”

“And Sierra,” Cisco said. “I’m not pleased with her at all.”

“Oh, yeah? And where did you go during the two weeks you jaunted off?”

“Believe it or not,” Cisco said, “we went down to Mexico.”

“Mexico!” Santana glared at his brothers. “You took a vacation while everything was a mess here?”

“We went scuba diving in the Cenotes,” Romero said, kicking back with his longneck. “And we enjoyed the local
cervezas
and
mujeres
.”

Well, wasn’t that a kick in the pants. The trouble with being the eldest was that the good sense the family possessed had gotten watered down with each child born. By the time the last kid arrived, clearly the Darks were out of the common sense gene.

But that wasn’t possible. They shared no bloodline, no genes. Santana swallowed hard. “Part of the problem we’re having is that Dad kept a lot of stuff from us. And I don’t think he ever intended to tell us.” No paperwork had been left behind, no letters, nothing. Just the documents with the lawyers. No wonder Sierra had gone a little bit off the deep end. “Shit,” he muttered. “We need to figure this out.”

“It’s the same as it always was, Santana,” Cisco said. “Different house, different story, maybe. But we’re all the same. We’re brothers.”

Romero nodded. “Look, we don’t have to go. We can stay, help out with the ranch. If you need extra hands, we’re here for you.”

“And we can do some time at Star Canyon #1,” Luke said. “Captain says he can use us.”

“No,” Santana said sharply.

His brothers stared at him.

“We’ve got enough to do at our own place.” Santana got up, paced to the window. It was strange looking out at a front yard that wasn’t his. He was used to a wide-open vista meeting his vision from any window at the Dark ranch. “If you stay, that is. And you don’t have to.”

“You can’t do it on your own,” Luke said. “And who knows how long it will be before Mr. Country Club decides he’s not cut out for the working ranch life and decides to cut his losses?”

It was a plausible question. “All we can control is what happens on a day to day basis.”

“You think Dad knew he was leaving behind one massively screwed-up mess for us?” Luke asked. “Was he just avoiding responsibility by not telling us himself?”

“That’s what we just can’t get past.” Romero went and got four more longnecks from the fridge. “It just doesn’t seem like Dad to be irresponsible.”

And yet they hadn’t really known Sonny Dark, had they? “It doesn’t matter,” Santana finally said. “Dad’s decisions were his own. I’m sure he thought about his options with great care. He loved us. You all know that. And he was a good father. We lacked for nothing.”

He said it for his own sake as much as his brothers’.

A knock on the door caught their attention. “Come in,” Santana yelled. There was no need to stand on ceremony in a house that had fourteen hundred square feet to it. They were all of six feet from the door.

Captain Phil came in, lowering his head so he wouldn’t hit the cheap light fixture hanging in the foyer.

“Hello, Captain.” Santana got up to shake his hand, welcome him inside. Romero got him a longneck and they all settled onto the dingy sofas and chairs again. “What brings you out to see us?”

“Heard the boys were back.” Phil nodded at his brothers. “If you’re back for good, I’ve got a place for you at the station.”

“Not yet,” Santana said mildly, not acknowledging the flash of fear he felt every time the station was mentioned. Their father shouldn’t have died. He was an experienced firefighter with many saves. Did he have to lose brothers, too?

“Sierra called me,” Phil said, and Santana tried to remember what Emma had said about Sierra talking to Miss Sugar in Lightning Canyon. There’d been something, hadn’t there?

“She have something on her mind?”

“Yeah. As a matter of fact, she did.” Phil looked around at the four of them. “She said she and Joe are planning to be home the middle of January, most likely.”

“Joe!” He sprang to his feet, looking around. Joe’s food and water bowls were gone. His dog bed wasn’t in the corner. Leash gone from the wall. “Damn it! She took my dog!”

Only it wasn’t “his” dog. Sierra had gotten Joe for him on his return from deployment, saying he’d need the dog. And the dog needed him. But Joe had been Sierra’s dog first.

“Sierra said you didn’t have time to take care of him, not with everything you have to do. Said she needed him more than you do, and Emma agreed, apparently.” Captain nodded. “When she returns, Sierra says she’s going to firefighter school. She wants to join Star Canyon #1.” Phil looked at Santana with great sympathy. “She said to tell you that her mind’s made up, and to get all your fussing about it out of your system before she comes back because she doesn’t want to hear your endless bellyaching. She says she got some fever recently, and she had a vision that changed her life. I didn’t understand all that, but I got that she was serious as hell.”

That flash of fear Santana had experienced earlier was a full-sized sledgehammer now crushing his heart.

“I’m leaving,” Santana said suddenly. “You boys help yourselves to what’s left of the beer. Thanks for coming by, Cap’n.”

“Where are you going?” Cisco asked.

“Out. Carry on as usual.” He jostled into a jacket.

“Carry on? The situation is SNAFU. That’s why we’re talking. We have to fix it,” Cisco pointed out.

Santana smiled to himself at the acronym. Situation normal: all fucked up. Well, that was the new normal, and it wasn’t going to change by chatting over a few beers. At least not today.

But he could fix something.

“I’ll be back.”

Santana headed out into the cold, got into his truck, already missing Joe’s big furry body beside him, peering out the window. But he understood why Sierra had wanted Joe. She needed comfort, a connection—and God only knew she’d been the one anchor in the family for a long time.

He drove to Emma’s, and pounded on the door.

She answered, her hair up in a white towel, a blue robe wrapped around her. Her toes were bare, toenails painted blue. He swallowed hard. “Hi.”

Emma didn’t reply. She merely looked at his face and opened the door wide.

She closed the door, looking at him, waiting for him to speak. He couldn’t, his throat was closed up. His emotions were too near the surface.

She kissed him, and he lost it.

“I don’t have anything to offer you.”

“I didn’t know you were supposed to be offering me something,” Emma said, kissing him again. She slipped her hand along his side, just above his belt, and he couldn’t hold back his wall of reservation any longer.

He took her lips, hard instantly at the moan he drew from her. He knew she was bare underneath the robe, and it drove him mad. Still, he craved the invitation he wanted to hear only from Emma, so he framed her face with his hands, kissing her urgently, trying to tell her how much she meant to him. That she had somehow, inexplicably, become his new anchor.

“Bed,” Emma said, gasping against his mouth—and that was the invitation he’d been dying to hear. He scooped her into his arms, carrying her down the hall to her room. Miraculously the dogs didn’t complain when he closed the door with a boot, never letting go of Emma. He couldn’t get enough of her mouth. The freight train roaring through him was on fire.

“Bed,” Emma said again, and it finally registered that she wanted it hot and fast and sexy. She needed this as much as he did.

He lay her on the bed but she got up on her knees, undoing his shirt in a mad rush. He kissed her mouth, her neck, plundered her mouth again. She’d undone his belt buckle before he realized she had, scraping his jeans down urgently, reaching for him.

When she found him, she let out a gasp, and he wanted in her, right then.

But rushing heaven wasn’t what he wanted.

He pushed her back against the pillows, slowly undid the soft velour belt of her robe, gently pulled the towel from her head so that the red hair he loved was free. She touched her wet locks uncomfortably, suddenly shy, but he wasn’t having that. He drew open her robe, pushing the fabric to either side of her body so that he could look to his heart’s content as he tore off his boots and socks.

She pulled at him to hurry him, but he wasn’t hurrying. Her nipples had peaked in the cool air, hardening into tantalizing points on top of luscious mounds of white skin. He cupped a breast, one first and then the other, groaning when she gasped as he thumbed a nipple to hardness.

She reached for him again, but he caught her hand, kissing her fingertips. Captured her hand on the bed so that she couldn’t reach him. He didn’t dare let her touch him—he was far too ready for her, and if she wrapped that small, delicate hand around his shaft, he wasn’t going to last for what he really wanted.