Gold Fire (33 page)

“Not your kind of fantasy?” She stripped off her blazer, then tossed the blouse after it. One click and the bra was gone, too. “Better?”

He grinned. “A naked woman—the classic fantasy.”

She leaned forward, her hair making a curtain around them as she kissed him. “Just a simple man with simple needs, aren’t you?”

“Nothing simple about you, babe. And you’re what I need.” She pushed up, changing the angle, and he put his hands on her breasts. Heat flared in her eyes and she threw her head back, moving faster.

He let her set the pace, drinking in the vision of her moving above him. She closed her eyes, reaching for that peak again and he concentrated on holding back his own. Rapid breathing filled the night, and the slap of skin against skin. Cool air skimmed their bodies, but Zoe’s skin stayed hot beneath his hands, a sheen of sweat glistening in the light from the window.

If he’d ever had a juvenile fantasy about this, it couldn’t come near the reality. He might have imagined the adrenaline shot to his libido, because
there’d never been anything lacking in his fantasies. But he’d never imagined the delicious ache that went with it. Never experienced it with another woman, either. Watching Zoe lose herself in bliss, there was no mistaking the powerful tug on his heart.

It nearly pushed him over the edge. He was almost relieved when she panted out a helpless cry and braced herself on his shoulders. He gave a couple of hard thrusts and sent them both rocketing, riding the spasms until they faded and died. Drained, he closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her as she collapsed on top of him.

He held her for a minute until he felt her skin go cool and dry in the rising wind. The feel of rain came with it, the building storm sucking up the last of the day’s heat. He rubbed his hand over her back. “Cold?”

“Mmm.”

He supposed that passed as coherent conversation after the energetic end she’d just tacked on to an exhausting day. “Tired? Hungry?”

“All of the above,” she mumbled into his shoulder. She lifted her head, gave him a leisurely kiss, then blinked at her surroundings. “Jase, I’m naked on your front porch.”

“I noticed.” If he’d thought anyone could see, she wouldn’t be. It was dark, and his neighbors were several hundred feet away through the trees.

She looked worried. “This would go a long way toward shattering my carefully constructed good-girl image.”

“I think your image is safe, honey. No one can see us.” But something tightened inside him at the loaded words. It meant he was part of her bad-girl side, the
part she didn’t want others to see. He wished she didn’t feel the need to be one or the other, since both were part of who she was. But he couldn’t make those choices for her. If he was going to continue being part of her life, he’d have to be content to be the part she kept hidden.

He could do it. But not forever.

Chapter
Eighteen

A
s much as she loved being with Jase, they couldn’t be together all the time. She had her own life.

That’s what Zoe told herself as she had lunch with Sophie, talking about her sister’s research on mutant bugs while trying not to think about Jase. Then hanging out at Maggie’s store, helping uncrate the strange fossils Maggie sold to her high-end customers, again trying not to think about Jase. She was only partially successful.

The trouble was, she no longer had her own life. Without a job, she had no idea how to fill her days. The past four days since she’d quit had nearly driven her crazy.

Jase had other things to do. He hadn’t been specific, but had been excited enough about some new project he worked on in his garage that she knew she had to find something to do on her own. It probably had to do with trout lures; she didn’t care to ask for fear that she’d actually have to listen to the answer. Besides, it gave her a good opportunity to spend a few hours
researching lanolin and how to extract it from sheep wool. The commune’s sheep had sparked her interest, and even if she didn’t have time to develop the project herself, she could pass the information on to Gwen. She almost envied Eli’s wife the opportunities ahead of her.

Finally, having exhausted all other possibilities, she resorted to housework. Cleaning bathroom grout was one of her least favorite chores, and doing it required a desperate lack of options. Resigned, she got out the cleanser and a couple of old toothbrushes for the stubborn spots.

Kneeling in the bathtub, she sprayed a line of cleanser along the base of the tile where the wall met the tub. Fifteen minutes later, with the toothbrush bristles worn to stubs, the ring of her cell phone cut through the music from the radio beside the sink. She looked up, blew a loose strand of hair out of her eyes, and considered letting it go to voice mail. It probably wasn’t Jase or her sisters. But it was an excuse to stop scrubbing grout, and that was enough. Stripping off her latex gloves, she stepped out of the tub, turned off the radio, and looked at the display on her phone: the Greystone Lodge.

“Hi, Tammy.”

“Okay, girlfriend, give me the scoop.”

She sighed, knowing all the other resort managers and assistant managers would have heard the news. “Sounds like you already know it. I quit my job.”

“That’s not what I heard. I heard you were fired.”

It hadn’t taken long for the story to get distorted. The Larkin name probably made a scandal more believable. She set her jaw and tamped down her
irritation. “No, I wasn’t fired. I gave notice, and Matt Flemming showed me the door. I wouldn’t mind if you cleared that up with whoever gave you the news.”

“Um, I don’t think I can do that. I heard it from my general manager, who just got back from a long lunch with Matt.”

Her muscles went slack with shock and she met her own wide-eyed stare in the mirror. He’d twisted the story. Was he that threatened by the thought of her talking, or did he merely hate her?

Clamping her mouth shut, she got a tighter grip on the phone. “He’s spinning it, Tammy. I swear. I found out he was involved in some stuff that was unethical. Hell, it’s illegal. I couldn’t be part of it.”

“I figured it must have been something bad on his part if he was running you down like that.”

She gripped the counter edge and swallowed. “Like what?”

“He told Jerry you’d been assigned to some special project, something about them trying to buy out the Rusty Wire.”

“That’s true.”

“He said things started going wrong. You couldn’t close the deal and stuff happened.” Tammy paused. “Illegal stuff.”

“Also true, on the surface. But it was Matt who was involved with the illegal things, not me.”

“I didn’t think you’d do it,” Tammy said. “Especially when he claimed you were sleeping with the owner of the Rusty Wire and plotting against the Alpine Sky. I
knew
you’d never do either of those things.”

Oh, no. Oh, shit.

The edge of the tub was two steps away—too far.
She sank to the floor and leaned against the vanity drawers. In her chest, her heart jumped to marathon speed, banging against her ribs. “Tammy, I . . .” Shit, this wasn’t going to sound good, but since it was going to get out anyway, she might as well see how it was accepted by a friend first. “I swear I wasn’t involved in any of the things that happened to the Rusty Wire. But . . .” She drew in a deep breath, let it out. “I
am
seeing the owner. It has nothing to do with Matt trying to buy his land.”

She could feel Tammy’s disbelief in the long pause. “You’re involved with some guy who runs a low-class honky-tonk?
You?
” Her voice rose at the end, as if it was too incredible to believe.

She made an effort not to bristle. “It’s not low class. And his name’s Jase Garrett. He’s a good guy. The thing is, I kind of ditched Matt to be with him, so now he’s pissed.” And vindictive—she wished she’d seen that part coming. “He hates me, and he knows the things that have been happening at the saloon are going to get ugly and involve the police. He’s probably trying to make me look guilty so they won’t take a closer look at him.”

“He said the police already took you in for questioning.”

The caution in Tammy’s voice was more upsetting than what she said. She clearly didn’t want to believe Matt, but Zoe could already hear the skepticism. The facts were lining up with everything he’d said, making his accusations sound true.

“Zoe, he said you were the number one suspect in the fire at the Rusty Wire, that you and the owner conspired to burn it down to get the insurance money.
I didn’t believe it, but . . .” But obviously her opinion had changed. “He said he was just going to tear it down anyway, so you and the owner came up with a scheme to get a little extra money out of the deal.”

“No,” she said around the tightness in her throat.

“You’re saying the fire was just a coincidence?”

There it was—disbelief, coming through loud and clear. Zoe squeezed her eyes shut, letting the back of her head fall against the vanity. Matt’s spin was masterful. The only question was whether he’d come up with it on the spot, or had planned all along to let her take the fall if things went bad. No wonder he wasn’t upset that she chose Jase over him. It made his story even more believable.

The rumors would be swirling already. She knew how it would snowball, and the exact form it would take. Matt did, too. They’d say the Larkin girl had reverted to form, screwing up a promising career because she couldn’t stay out of some man’s bed, and couldn’t stay on the right side of the law.

Anyone left in Barringer’s Pass who believed she was a decent person would have to question it in the face of so many damaging facts. Including people like Tammy who worked at the other resorts. The places where she might try to get a job.

“Tammy, he’s lying.” She tried not to sound weak, but Matt’s offense was going to be pretty damn effective, and she had little defense against it. “He
needs
to get the Rusty Wire and its land, and Jase won’t sell, so Matt’s trying to pressure him into it. He has a big financial mess brewing over this scheme. When I found out, I quit. I haven’t done a thing to hurt the Alpine Sky. I never would.” Even though she hoped its owner rotted in hell.

“Well, Jerry believed him. He told me that if you approached us about a job, we weren’t interested. And, uh . . .” She hesitated, then spit it out. “I’d rather you didn’t use me as a personal reference.”

Shit, shit, shit. Anger burned in her chest, and the need to defend herself, but hopelessness was even stronger. It settled over her, smothering her anger under the knowledge that she could never win against an attack on her reputation. All those years of being seen in the right places, associating with the right people, trying to make
the Larkin girls
stand for something good . . . it all meant nothing. If people she considered friends doubted her this easily, she’d already lost.

The silence from the other end went on for too long. “There are other resorts, Zoe.”

In other words, cut and run. And never be able to hold her head up in Barringer’s Pass again.

A word of support would have been nice, some indication that Zoe’s side of it might be true. Apparently she wasn’t even going to get that much. “Thanks, Tammy. I’ll talk to you later.” They both knew it was unlikely. She ended the call.

Zoe stared at the wall three feet away, not seeing the nicked paint and plastic stick-on towel hook. Letting the knowledge sink in. It was happening again.

Curling up in a ball was tempting, but she’d never accepted defeat without a fight. She wouldn’t start now, even if all she had was her word against Matt’s. Even if people listened with poorly disguised doubt. She would at least deny his accusations.

But that was it. With surprise, she realized she had no desire to mount a campaign in her own defense and
plan ways to win back people’s trust. Matt had just proved how useless that would be. Her past would always be held against her whenever it was convenient.

So she’d do what Jase had suggested and be herself . . . whoever that turned out to be. She had no checklist for it. All she knew was that she couldn’t stay in Barringer’s Pass. She had no job, and no hope of getting one now that her name was once again mud. Wild behavior might be forgiven; arson and fraud would not. She’d have to go someplace where they’d never heard of the Larkin girls.

There was one glaring problem with that: Jase lived in B-Pass. He had a business here, a business he loved and was willing to fight to keep. She couldn’t expect him to leave it.

And she’d fallen for him so hard she wasn’t sure she’d ever get over it.

She sat on the floor, blinking at nothing. Trying to accept what she’d just realized. She loved Jase, and she couldn’t stay in Barringer’s Pass. No matter what plans she made for the future, they couldn’t include him.

•  •  •

Jase grinned when he saw Zoe. The day had gone well, and with her there, the evening promised to be even better.

“Zoe, over here.” He waved from the garage as he locked the side door. She turned and met him at the door.

“What are you doing out here?”

For a moment he considered taking her back inside to show her, to share his excitement and let her see that he still had a passion for accomplishing something, and that he was no longer locked inside his
self-imposed prison. But the new design was still on paper and there wasn’t anything to show yet except the work he’d done ten years ago. That didn’t say anything impressive, and he realized he
wanted
her to be impressed. In a few more days, when he finished the prototype, he might have something that qualified.

He took her hand and guided her toward the back door. “Just fooling around in my workshop. Tell me about your day.”

“There’s not much to tell. I saw my sisters and cleaned my house; just a normal day.”

Her disinterested tone made him take a closer look, noting the bored shrug and the way she evaded his gaze. Normal, his ass. That vague response might have been normal for Jennifer, but for Zoe it was downright depressed.

“What else happened?”

“Nothing important.”

“Uh-huh.” He held the kitchen door for her, then steered her toward the table. “Sit. I’ll pour us some iced tea, and you tell me whatever it is that happened that you’re not telling me.”