Playing with Fire (19 page)

Her body ached from her ordeal in the water the day before. Then she’d gotten only a few hours of sleep. And to wake up before the sun and face such a gargantuan screwup… She was running on autopilot, praying she’d make it through the drive.

The thought of staying here for another night, heck, even another hour, made her want to weep. She couldn’t stand to sleep in a bed that held so many memories. Every place on the island reminded her of Derek in some way. If she got sleepy on the drive home, she’d pull over and snooze for a few minutes.

“Hey, Macey.” Evan came down the stairs a few seconds after her.

“Hi.” She tried hard to sound normal.

“You’re leaving?” he asked.

She nodded, her throat tightening enough that speaking wasn’t advisable.

“I thought you were here for another week.”

She swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment. “I have to go now.”

“Let me open that.” He took her keys and unlocked the trunk of her car, then lifted her suitcase inside. She was also carrying her pillow, and held it tightly to her chest. “You’re okay from yesterday, though, right?”

Yesterday
. Yesterday was Derek. Macey looked up in question at Evan.

“Derek said you nearly drowned. Are you okay?”

“Oh.”
That
. “Yes. I’m fine.” Absolutely great.

“Where
is
Derek?” Evan looked toward Macey’s apartment door, then up and down the sidewalk lining the parking lot. She didn’t follow his gaze. She knew Derek was nowhere near.

“He’s… I don’t know. At home. At work.” She honestly couldn’t remember if he was scheduled today. All she knew was that Andie had taken Macey’s shift, for which she’d be eternally grateful.

Evan was staring too closely at her now. “What’s going on, Macey? Something happened between you two, didn’t it?”

The tears that had stalled out earlier were suddenly fighting to pour from her eyes. She nodded, studying the pavement in earnest.

“Did he do something to you?” Evan asked.

Macey quickly shook her head. “It’s okay. He didn’t do anything wrong.” She sucked in a breath. “
I
did.” She couldn’t look at Evan. She was too close to losing it completely.

He reached out and squeezed her forearm. “Sorry to hear that,” he said. “I would’ve put money on the two of you.”

That was the breaking point, and her shaking shoulders gave away her silent sobs.

“Macey. It’s okay….”

Evan didn’t seem like the type who would handle a bawling woman well if it was his mother or sister, let alone some crazy temporary neighbor he’d taken on one date, only to have her admit to caring about another guy.

She nodded and forced a smile. “I know. Everything’s okay.” But her next breath was raspy and she laughed uneasily. Borderline hysterically. “Sorry. I’m a mess.”

He drew her over to the parking lot curb and sat them both down. She pulled her pillow more snugly against her. The surrounding cars shielded them, so she no longer felt like a freak on display.

Macey bent over her pillow and hid her face in it, squinting her eyes and willing away the overwhelming need to cry some more. After a few seconds, she sucked in a slow, steadying breath and braced herself.

“Why would you think Derek and I would make it? We weren’t together.”

Evan shrugged. “Just got that vibe when I talked to him.”

“You talked to him?” She’d sensed the tension between the two men so many times, and wondered what kind of a scene she’d missed.

“He stopped by the station.”

“The fire station?”

“The fire station.”

“What for?” Macey knew her eyes were bulging, but at least they’d stopped watering. If Derek was thinking about going back to firefighting, that’d be the best news….

“Just stopped by. I showed him around. The captain told him he’d love to have him.”

“And Derek’s response?”

“Noncommittal.”

She refused to let that dampen her hope. Maybe he was making progress toward getting a life back. She’d have to call Andie periodically to check in and make sure he was okay, once she was back in Dallas. At this point it didn’t seem likely she’d be able to call him directly.

“This is a lot to ask, especially after I cried all over you, plus messed up our date….” Macey bowed her head and laughed. “You must hate me, actually.”

Evan laughed, too. “Strangely, no. What’s a lot to ask?”

“Could you keep trying to convince Derek to join the department?”

“He won’t listen to me.”

“It’d have to be subtle, of course. If he knows you have an agenda and it comes from me, he’ll just get mad.”

“He won’t be receptive to pressure. I’m not sure what all happened to him but I can tell it was heavy.”

“It was.” She nodded sadly, wishing there was a guaranteed way to lead Derek back to his career. “Maybe just…stop by the bar every once in a while? Even seeing you will force him to think about the fire department.”

“That’s a big favor you’re asking. Stopping by a bar on the beach? I don’t know….”

She hit his thigh, actually forgetting for a few seconds that her life had taken a turn for the worse. Then she checked her watch and realized it was later than she thought. “I need to go. Long drive ahead.”

“You going to be okay all the way to Dallas?” he asked. “You seem pretty wiped out.”

“I have to get away. I’ll be fine.”

“If I didn’t have to work in the morning I’d drive you up there.”

“Why are you so nice to me?”

He stared at her for several seconds. “No idea. Seems like the thing to do.”

He stood and she did the same, then opened the door of her car.

“Thanks for everything, Evan. Today and before.”

“It’s nothing. If you come back to the island, be sure to look me up to say hello.”

She nodded, tried to smile and got in the car. As she drove away, though, she was certain she wouldn’t have a single reason to come back here.

“Then I’m going out on a limb here and betting your mood is related to Macey’s leaving the island.”

“She doesn’t leave till Saturday.” Only a few days of avoiding her. It’d be a simple task if they didn’t work together nearly every day. “Why isn’t she working right now?” he asked, suddenly realizing Andie had opened in Macey’s place.

Andie stared at him with an odd look on her face, a sympathetic half grin. “You don’t know, do you?”

Derek wasn’t in the mood to play a guessing game so he turned to the prep area and wiped it clean. From the sound of it, he didn’t want to know whatever she was talking about.

“She’s leaving, if not gone already. She called me to take several of her shifts. Kevin took the others. Everything’s covered. Said you should mail her final paycheck to her mother’s house in Dallas. I wrote down the address if you need it.”

Derek had stopped scrubbing at the word
leaving.
Macey was leaving the island early? Without saying a word to him? The edginess that had been driving him all morning turned into full-out anger.

She couldn’t just take off. She had a job here. He didn’t care if she’d arranged to cover her shifts…. You didn’t just bolt without notice.

He snapped the towel into the bucket in the corner, causing the water to splash up. “I’m going to stop her.”

“You can’t, Derek.”

He glared at Andie. She didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.

“You’re the last person she wants to see.”

That stopped him cold. He slammed his fist down on the metal refrigerator unit that served as the prep area, and let out a stream of curses at the intense pain to his hand. Several customers looked his way but he ignored them. Barely noticed them.

“She’s probably already gone, anyway,” Andie continued. “Nothing you can do now.”

That was the truth, or part of it. The other part was that he
shouldn’t
do anything about Macey.

“Probably a good thing she left early,” he finally muttered.

“Ha. Keep telling yourself that.”

Andie wandered nonchalantly to the back room, which practically made steam come out of Derek’s ears. He wasn’t kidding himself about anything anymore. The only time he’d done that was while he was in Macey’s bed.

“Counter’s dirty.” Gus’s gruff voice coming from the vicinity of his usual stool did nothing to soothe Derek.

“Clean it yourself,” he retorted.

Instead of the bossy reply Derek expected, his uncle made his way behind the bar toward the bucket. Derek watched him pick up a towel and wring it out. It was a matter of minutes before Gus found out about Macey and laid into Derek for scaring her off.

“Hello, Andie-girl,” Gus called out to the back room.

“Hey, Gus. Need a burger?”

“Believe I do. And some whiskey.” The last bit he said to Derek, who thought he could use some hard stuff as well today.

Derek poured Gus’s drink as his uncle wiped down half the bar counter. Watching the old man try to work, Derek felt like a jerk. “Give me that. Not your job anymore.”

“I can still wipe down the bar,” Gus said, but he surrendered the towel to Derek and took his place on his stool.

“Where’s your woman?” Derek asked.

“Getting her hair cut and curled. Where’s yours?”

“She died in a fire.”

“Dammit, boy, I know about Julie and I’m sorry as hell.” He took a gulp of whiskey. “You know damn well I’m talking about Macey.”

“She’s not my woman and she went back to Dallas.”

“A bit early, isn’t it?”

“Yep. I scared her off.” He might as well confess—that was easier than hearing Gus spout off about how he’d messed up.

Gus studied him in uncharacteristic silence. Took another swallow. Then he nodded. “It’s difficult.”

“What’s difficult?”

“Letting go. Knowing when to let go.”

Derek moved to the bar and leaned on it, unwilling to have customers overhear their conversation.

“I know it’s not the same, but I had a hell of a time letting go of this bar and everything it stood for. My independence. Ability to earn a living. Life outside the jailhouse, as I used to call the old folks’ home.”

“Not the same thing at all.”

“Same thing, no. I already said that. But leaving one part of your life behind to move on to the next. Hate to tell you, but you do have to move on sometime, be it now or a year from now.”

Andie brought out a basket with a burger and fries, and set it in front of Gus. “No pickles. Extra cheese. Tread lightly, this guy’s in a black mood and I have to work with him all day.”

She went outside to clean tables before Derek could say anything. Two customers approached the bar and Derek took their order, handed over their bottles of beer and collected their money as Gus watched him closely. Derek took his sweet time cleaning, restocking, checking the trash. More customers ambled in and he and Andie spent a good half an hour waiting on everyone. When it had calmed down again, Gus gestured him over.

“Tell me one thing,” his uncle said. “Did things not work out between you and Macey because you don’t have the right kind of feelings for her, or because of Julie?”

“It’s only been six months since the fire.”

Gus nodded. “So you do care about Macey.”

“We’re done with this conversation,” Derek said, going to the ice machine to loosen the cubes from the sides.

“Might be, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re throwing away the possibility for a good future because you can’t let go of the past. Is that what Julie would want for you?”

“What time’s the bus picking you up today, Gus?”

Wouldn’t be soon enough.

It was the same old thing. Gus didn’t understand. He’d never lost someone as Derek had. Couldn’t understand that just flipping a switch and moving on wasn’t the way it worked.

He was sure it’d been hard for Gus to accept his new lifestyle, but losing the bar wasn’t remotely the same as losing a woman.