Flirting With Fire (Hometown Heroes) (3 page)

I nodded, taking
in the view. This was my kind of room, with comfort clearly the intended
result. It was quiet here, all staff and clients already gone for the day. In
the far corner of the room, two large, overstuffed leather chairs in mocha hues
stood with pedicure soaking tubs at their bases. Closer to where we now stood
were four sparkling clean, sandy-toned manicure tables with two backless beige
leather stools on either side of each. The soothing aroma of eucalyptus begged
me to stop and stay awhile, and the subtle sounds of another water feature only
added to the allure.

Dawn, however,
tugged at my arm yet again, intent on bringing me to the third section. I made
a decision then and there to make my own appointment next week at this nail
heaven. How long had it been since I’d treated myself to a pedicure?

The answer was
easy: far too long. Probably because these last few boyfriends hadn’t even
lasted long enough for me to worry about showing them my neglected piggies. Mr.
Abs popped into my head suddenly, and my cheeks warmed like those of some silly
schoolgirl. For him, I’d drop everything and schedule a pedicure today…among
other things.

“And this,” Dawn
said, as we passed beneath the last divide, “is my baby.”

Here, warm earth
tones were replaced by a palette of cooler, calming colors. But instead of
making the décor seem colder, the hues seemed to tug at my senses, begging me
to take a seat on one of the slate-colored leather couches in what I assumed
was a waiting area. Across from us was a smaller doorway, hidden behind a
curtain of floor-to-ceiling iridescent silver beads.

The room, the
colors, the textures—it was everything Sally’s salon had lacked, and everything
I’d envisioned for my own place. I practically pranced in place with
anticipation of what the actual massage room must look like.

My gaze shifted
from the doorway to Dawn. “May I?”

“Please. After you.”

I parted the
wall of beads and ducked on through. The beads tinkled as they fell back together,
then parted once more as Dawn followed. We’d entered a small hallway, with two
slotted doors staggered on either side. The lighting was a ghost of what it had
been in the waiting area, and the whisper of ocean sounds greeted my ears.

“We have two
massage rooms, both equipped for either a table or chair massage. Xavier’s is
the room on the far right. Mine, now yours for the next few months, is on the
left.”

She reached out
and gave the doorknob a gentle twist. As the door glided open, my jaw fell
slack.

It was, in a
word, perfect. Like she’d somehow snuck into my dreams and taken detailed notes.

The walls were a
soothing, light slate blue, interrupted by varying sizes of black and white
photographs depicting various coastal scenes and waterfalls. Cut crystal bowls
filled with decorative black stones and white silk floral arrangements were
perched on small tables and shelves all around the room. A small black chair
sat next to one such table, and an expensive-looking massage chair stood tucked
into the far corner. But the pinnacle of the room was the object that stood
majestically at its center: a smooth, narrow massage table with sparkling white
linens peeking out from beneath a thin, slate blue blanket folded neatly back
from one end.

“Do you like
it?”

“Like it?” My
wide-eyed gaze reluctantly shifted from the workspace of my dreams to meet
hers. “I
love
it!”

She clasped her
hands before her chest. “Oh, thank you. That means so much to me to hear
another massage therapist appreciates my designs. Well, you know. Besides
Xavier, that is.”

“Won’t it be
hard?” I asked, starry-eyed. “To leave this all behind?”

“Not at first. I
mean, my poor, swollen feet and ankles sure won’t miss it.” She laughed. “And
I’m sure the baby will keep me plenty busy. But yeah, I’ll miss it here while
I’m on maternity leave.”

I started to nod
politely then froze. Wait,
maternity leave
?

“Six months
should be plenty, don’t you think?”

And just like
that, my new job high went up in a puff of smoke. Time to walk away, find
something that could actually sustain me and my dreams. “I think maybe—”

“Yeah, me too.
Promise me you’ll take good care of my clients while I’m gone?” Her dark brows
pulled into a soft V.

Crap. How could
I say no to her when she was looking at me like that, all hormonal with moist
eyes full of hope? And why did I always have to be such a freaking pushover?

I bit back my
pride and forced a smile onto my face. “Of course I will.”

CHAPTER
3

Friday night
found me in my usual spot: sitting at a barstool alongside Sarah’s beautiful
ceramic tile-topped kitchen island, watching her fuss over dinner preparations.
I’d given up offering to help years ago—she had mealtimes down to a science,
and I seemed to only get in her way. Tonight I’d set the table and collapsed
onto this seat, too preoccupied with the events of the day to feel my usual
sense of guilt for not being able to help more.

And a little bit
of that preoccupation included the memory of a certain set of rock-hard abs,
chocolate eyes, and a chin full of stubble…

“So let me get
this straight. You walked in on the middle of an argument between the owner and
his pregnant fiancée, they proceed to make out in front of you, and you somehow
feel
compelled
to help them out by taking a temp job?”

I shot Sarah a
warning look. After a day full of rejections and disappointment, the last thing
I wanted was a lecture. Besides, I didn’t need her snarky attitude to hammer
home the fact that I’d ended up with a less than ideal job situation—I’d come
to that conclusion all on my own.

Mitch, also a
Friday night regular at the Collins’s, gave my shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “Well,
I for one think it’s terrific news.”

“You do?” I
asked.

“Sure. If this
place is as fancy as you say it is, you’ll probably rake in some decent money
the next few months. By the time what’s-her-face returns from maternity leave,
you’ll have that nest egg of yours fully stocked. Then you can come back and
open your own place.”

Sarah’s eyes
narrowed, and guilt riddled through me. She knew I didn’t think Autumn Lake could support a massage-only business. So far, I’d kept that worry from Mitch. And
with him being my only vocal supporter in the room, I didn’t think now was the
time to correct him.

“Hooray for
Auntie Liz!” cried Mason, Ron and Sarah’s five-year-old. He trotted across the
room to offer me a congratulatory hug.

“Aw, thank you,
sweetheart.”

I pulled him in
close, gave his hair a loving rustle, then released him back into the wild. But
before he got too far, Mitch reached down, swiped Mason up, and tossed him over
one shoulder.

“Aargh, Matey, I
found ye bootie,” he said, giving Mason’s behind a friendly pat.

“Put me down,
put me down!”

I couldn’t help
but laugh at the sight. Mason all arms and legs flailing, an ear-to-ear grin on
his face, and Mitch lurching forward as if walking with a peg leg. Sarah,
however, looked none too pleased.

“Mitch, how many
times do I need to tell you not to be tossing the kids around right before we
eat?” She turned and peeked inside the oven once more. “Ronald! Get up here,
it’s dinner time!”

Mitch and I
exchanged a look as he lowered his wiggly catch to the floor. Mason sped away
to the living room, where his two sisters—Megan, eight, and Molly, two—were
stretched out before a rerun of SpongeBob. I hopped down from the barstool and
clapped my hands together. “Okay, kiddos. Time to get those hands washed before
Captain Mitch makes you all walk the plank.”

Three sets of
squeals erupted as the kids darted from the room. I followed them to the
nearest sink and supervised their hand washings, just as I had a hundred times
before. And, as always, I loved every second of the cleaning chaos.

“You’re the best
soap czar I know,” Mitch said, shaking his head as the kids went tearing out of
the room in their never-ending competition to be the first at everything.

“Why, thank
you.” I turned the faucet off and dried my own hands. “And you are hands down
the best pirate impersonator I know.”

A crooked grin
crept onto his face as he stepped back from the doorway. “After you, Landlubber
Liz.”

I made a mock half-curtsey,
then led the way back toward the kitchen. Sarah’s husband Ron had emerged from
his usual post-work hideaway (his basement man cave), and stood beside her with
a pizza cutter. He was a handsome guy, in a rugged sort of way, I guess. Lots
of muscles, a thick neck, cleft chin. His broad shoulders and barrel of a chest
made him look like a small Mac truck beside my slender BFF, who at this moment was
busy filling him in on my day. Well, her version of it, anyway.

“I mean, am I
the only one who thinks Liz just got hired by a man with a potentially serious
anger management problem? And he’s already had
relations
with at least
one employee, who’s now
pregnant
, I might add. He could be some kind of
sexual predator or something!”

 “They
are
engaged,” I cut in.

“Yes, but is it
because they’re in love or because they’re trying not to scare off their
clients? I mean, really, Liz, how can you sit there so calmly when you may have
just been hired by a serial rapist or something?”

Someone’s logic
had officially flown the coop. Oh, yeah. Definitely pregnant.

I took a deep
breath and tried like mad to keep a smirk off my face. “Okay, hang on. First of
all, I really don’t know much about these people yet, so I’m not all that
qualified to defend either of them. However, I’d like to point out that no one
had a gun in their hand, nor were either of them hitting, kicking, or clawing
at each other.”

Mitch faked a
cough to cover his grin.

“Plus, they
graciously offered me a
job
, which, in case you forgot, I am in
desperate need of at this time. So, if it’s all the same to everyone, I think
we should reserve judgment on them until I have time to develop a more educated
assessment.”

I ended with a
polite smile, then turned my attention to the children. “Now, who wants a piece
of pepperoni?”

“Me! Me! Me!”
chimed my surrogate nieces and nephew.

Mitch threw me a
wink and stepped forward to help pour Kool-Aid for the rug rats. Ron dragged a
hand across his weary face, then glanced upward with a
Lord help me
look
as he took his seat at the head of the table. Sarah, however, was not ready to
be dismissed or forgotten. She glided around the table and lowered herself into
the chair beside me.

“Always giving
everyone the benefit of the doubt,” she said in a low voice. “It’s exactly the
kind of naïveté that can get you into a world of hurt in the big city.”

As much as I
wanted to contest her allegation, I didn’t. I couldn’t, because it was true. I’d
been burned by my good nature before. And, if my knee-jerk decision to take the
temporary job at Spa del Sol was any indication, I’d likely get burned again because
of it someday.

But that was no
reason for me to stick my head in the sand and wait for the big scary world to
pass me by, either. No, I had an opportunity to get out and stretch my
traveler’s legs, and I’d be damned if I was going to back out. Besides, surely I’d
learned enough by now not to go blindly walking into some big city inferno.

* * * *

Mitch walked me
out to our vehicles after we’d said goodnight to Ron and Sarah. Their kids had
fallen asleep hours ago, allowing us adults a chance to play a few rounds of
Euchre. Now it was well past dark, the clear night sky looking like a backlit sheet
of black velvet with holes punched in it.

Black, and
fathomless. Like my love life.

I glanced back
at their house and sighed. “Don’t you ever get jealous of all that?”

“What,
toothpaste stuck in the carpet and spilled milk at every meal?”

For as much as
he loved on Sarah’s kids, Mitch had never expressed any interest in making a
batch of his own.

“No. Well, yes.
I mean, the whole deal: true love, happy family, yadda yadda yadda.” I tried to
imagine what it would be like to have a husband lying beside me each night, our
beautiful children dreaming about rainbows and butterflies down the hall…

“Uh, oh.
Someone’s feeling left out of the prego pool again.”

“Am not.” My
cheeks began to burn, and I was thankful for the dark. “So, you figured it out,
too, huh?”

“Yep, about half
a second after you did last night.”

We stopped
beside my car, and Mitch threw an arm over my shoulders.

Here we go…

“And I know you
too well, so don’t even waste your breath trying to tell me you aren’t feeling
the teensiest bit jealous.”

“I’m not. It’s
just…when will it be my turn?”

“It will, Liz,”
he said, his voice soft. “Though, last I checked, it takes two to tango. Guess
you better step up the baby daddy search. And stop tossing your beaux out on
the street.”

I jabbed Mitch in
the stomach. “I’m not on a baby daddy search, damn it. And Mr. Right
is
out there…he just wasn’t Finn.”

“Aw, man. I
thought you really had a chance with that kid.”

That kid
.
I couldn’t help but grimace. In a town this size, you run out of options your
own age pretty quickly. Small gene pool. So I’d gotten brave a while back and
tried to date a few of the younger guys. But the age gap between early twenties
and my lonely thirty had proven to be a bigger obstacle than I’d imagined. And
none of them seemed ready to settle down, let alone start a family.