Rekindle the Flame (2 page)

Her friend flashed a toothy grin. “And you don’t want to use those pearls to flirt with a little rough? Come on, help this J.Crew–clad pleb out.”

“You know I only got trussed up like this so I wouldn’t scare Grams with my usual threads.” Actually, Grams would have taken Darcy’s biker chic threads and all they revealed in stride. Not so the rest of the Cochranes. The glare her father daggered her way a few hours ago was evidence enough that she was still a crushing disappointment to him. And as much as she would have loved to grace the shoot in ripped jeans and a tank, it would have smacked of a tad too much teenage rebellion for a twenty-five-year-old woman. Instead, she’d donned the designer twinset of boring to keep the peace.

“Just a half hour playing my wing girl,” Mel pleaded. “I can’t go in alone. What would that look like?”

Sighing, Darcy inched away from the car. In truth, she didn’t want the night to be over quite yet. With the
holidays just around the corner, her chances to hang with Mel were diminishing rapidly.

“Lead the way to bartender nirvana.”

Holding on to each other as they walked a couple of blocks, they managed to remain upright on the slippery walk, no mean feat for women sporting weather-inappropriate footwear.

They were laughing so hard at the sight of yet another drunken Santa lurching down the street, this one with a healthy serving of chalky butt cheek on display—“Shrinkage alert!” yelled Mel—that it took Darcy a moment to realize they’d turned a corner. This bite of Damen Avenue was hopping with a steady stream of bar crawlers, suburbanites, and friends meeting for preholiday drinks. It was also achingly familiar. With each crunch of hard-packed snow underfoot, icicles of dread jabbed Darcy’s chest.

“What’s the name of this bar, Mel?”

“I dunno. Something Irish, Dennehy’s or Donnelly’s.”

What was the likelihood there were two Irish bars on the same block?

Oh, balls.

“Dempsey’s,” Mel announced. The muted strains of the Pogues’ holiday classic “Fairytale of New York” pulsed against the bar’s heavy oak door.

Dempsey’s.
Darcy had driven by it a few times since her return, and on each pass she had floored it. Ridiculous, she knew. It was just a bar and he was just a boy. A man, now.

He might not work here.

It might be under new management.

But the kick of her heart to her ribs said nothing had changed. The Dempseys still ruled this little corner of green in Chicago just like the boy she once knew still took up valuable mental real estate. A spot that ignited whenever Darcy saw firefighters or boxers or Irishmen or . . .
damn
 . . . Suddenly curiosity overruled her dread. Benevolent gods would ensure he had grown into a potbellied troll with a receding hairline and bad skin from a diet of Portillo’s hot dogs and deep-dish pizza. A girl could hope, anyway.

Didn’t she owe it to herself to find out? If he was behind that door, didn’t she owe it to herself to show him what he had missed by walking away from her all those years ago?

Bring it on.

Letting determination flavored with old-fashioned payback fuel her steps, Darcy reached for the wrought-iron handle. But before she could get a grip, the door crashed open and
Bam!
a large red blur filled her vision—and dropped her on her ass. Her ankle twisted as she hit the cold, punishing street.

The blur—more of a sack, really—rolled off her leg.

Then it spoke.

“Christ, I’m sorry,” it slurred through a beer-stained slash of white cotton. “I didn’t mean to—”

Whatever it didn’t mean to do, she would never know. Red Sack was violently wrenched aside. Huge hands settled on her shoulders and pulled her to a sitting position.

Oh, God. Time and space contracted with her heart, bringing an onslaught of sensation in its wake. He smelled the same—a clean, male spice that made her light-headed. Seven years, and he still smelled like the boy she had held tight inside her soul all this time.

He spoke, the exact words inaudible above the beat of her silly heart. The timbre of his voice was deeper, huskier, but its power to ripple through her and set her quivering with need had in no way diminished. Or perhaps it was just the frigid temperatures. Yes, that had to be it. Her coat had fallen open except for one precariously fastened button; her wool skirt had ridden up to midthigh. She looked ridiculous, and not just because she was lying on a snowy street thanks to what she realized now was yet another wasted Santa. Seriously, there ought to be a law against that sort of thing.

With a bolstering breath, she lifted her eyelids to meet the gaze of Beck Rivera.

Who was not looking at her.

His unstinting focus was on her limbs, his sure hands tracing over her extremities, seeking out injuries. Weaknesses. Her heart cranked out a few more beats than were safe. Her mind scrambled for Zen. While it was startling to have him touching her so intimately, at least the moment gave her a chance to examine
him
unnoticed.

Scimitar-curved cheekbones, a nose broken several (more) times, and, mother of God, a scruffy lumberjack beard. That was so damn hot and not in the least bit troll like. He looked as serious as ever, but the gravity seemed more intensified on his twenty-six-year-old face. That
dark hair, formerly a wavy handful of sin she loved tunneling her fingers through, was now close-cropped and split, not by a parting, but by a scar. Recent, by the looks of its raw, pink anger. He had cracked open his skull.

Idiot.

“What an asshole!” Mel shot a death glare at the Santa who had fallen—or more likely, was pushed—on Darcy. A trio of men in red were hauling up the troublemaker as he muttered something about a lawsuit that’d “send your Mick bar back to the Stone Age.” Ignoring the threat, Beck kept up his thorough damage assessment, hot hands moving over soft knees and trembling thighs.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, now treating her to a full proton blast of the Beck Rivera gaze. More navy than blue, the shade used to shift often with his variable moods. But now those eyes registered distant, polite. Was she hurt? Not physically. Just incredibly pissed that the boy she had adored for two years in a previous lifetime had blocked her from his mind.

For God’s sake, the shit head didn’t recognize her!

“I don’t think so,” she said in a clipped tone.

“Can you stand?” He was already dragging her up with those arms as thick as her calves.

Agh!
Sharp pain lanced through her ankle. He caught her as she crumpled, sweeping her into his arms and moving toward the pub in one sinuous, catlike movement. She had no choice but to loop her hands around his neck, his body heat the perfect counterbalance to her freezing butt cheeks.

“Should we call an ambulance?” Mel asked, concern coloring her voice.

“No,” he said sternly. “Get the door.”

Mel jumped forward and pulled the handle. A gush of warmth, spiced with memories, escaped the bar, and Darcy realized that she really needed to speak up.

“Beck, it’s Darcy.” She mentally cringed at having to reintroduce herself after all they had meant to each other, or as was now becoming painfully obvious, all she had
not
meant to him. Her face heated despite her best efforts to stay chill. “Darcy Cochrane.”

Staring straight ahead, Beck’s lips twitched.

“I know,
princesa
.”

W
ith alarming ease, Beck plowed through the candy cane–colored haze to the far end of the bar, where he pointedly glared at the expansive backs of two men sitting on stools.

“McElroy,” Beck said impatiently.

The men turned, took one look at Beck, another at Darcy, and immediately stood.

“Here you go, miss,” one of them said deferentially, while the other made way for Mel.

“Oh, I’m quite all right. You don’t need to do that.”

Beck set her down on one of the vacated seats and popped the last hold-out button on her coat. It parted, almost indecently, and
ta da!
was whipped from her body like a magician’s tablecloth trick. He hung it on a convenient coat hook.

Whoa,
that was hot. Flushing at this potent
demonstration of his sharp movements and impressive reflexes, along with all the erotic memories they conjured, she caught Mel’s eye. Or her jaw, really, which was grazing the floor.

“Shut it,” Darcy muttered to her friend, who promptly closed her mouth and eyed the rather gorgeous African American hunk who had surrendered his seat. The logo of the Chicago Fire Department popped above a pec that rivaled The Rock’s.

“So, are you a firefighter?” Mel asked, eyelashes batting vehemently, all blond innocence.

CFD Beefcake opened his mouth, but Beck spoke first. “Lieutenant McElroy’s got fourteen years on the job, twelve of them blissfully married.”

A sheepish McElroy shrugged his broad shoulders. “Guilty.”

Mel sighed good-naturedly and climbed onto the next stool. “No worries, my hormones are invested elsewhere.” Once settled comfortably, she turned to Darcy. “Good seats, girl. How we doing?”

“Not bad. Think I just turned my ankle.”

“Do you mind if I look?” Beck asked in a low voice that made her uncomfortably warm.

“I’m sure it’s fine.” Beck’s version of “looking” would invariably involve touching, and she readily admitted that she had enjoyed the previews a little too much out on the street. Determined to prove her well-being, she placed her right foot on the floor with purpose.

Bad move. There was no hiding the grimace that screwed up her face.

“Stop being so brave and let him take a look,” Mel said, giving Beck an appreciative twice-over. “Qualified EMT along with those firefighter chops, I assume?”

“Uh-huh.”

Darcy chewed on her lower lip while Beck waited. He was good at waiting, always had been.

“If you don’t mind,” she said primly, channeling her grandmother.

He hunkered down and held her booted foot with astonishing reverence, as if trying to determine the best access point for a tricky rescue. Almost leisurely, he unzipped the soft suede and slipped it from her foot.
Zing!
Another sizzle of sensation snaked through her insides.

Opaque tights covered her legs and the evidence of how she had been spending her time all these years. He moved his hands knowledgeably over her ankle, testing with his thumbs, rolling the joint.

“Anything?” he asked, looking up with those serious blue eyes.

Could she plead the Fifth? The truth would be so damn incriminating. An acutely pleasurable ache settled between her thighs, accompanied by an acutely pleasurable dampness.

“It’s just a twinge.” Darcy’s gaze dropped to the top of Beck’s head, her heart throbbing as much as her ankle. That scar . . . what had he done?

“No swelling, from what I can see,” he murmured.

In the ankle area, no. Other areas, however, swelled like a tidal surge. Her breasts, the sensitive area between her legs as she tried not to squirm against the bar stool.

He stood, leaving her foot bootless and her chest strangely empty.

“Hands.”

“Excuse me?”

“Show me your hands.”

When she failed to react quickly enough to his order, he took her hands and examined the palms. They were raw from her fall but the skin was intact. However, instead of letting them go, he curled his long, sensuous fingers around hers and squeezed. Unexpected tears of surprise stung the backs of her eyelids at his gentle touch.

“Darcy.”

“Beck.”

“How do you want to do this?”

She fought a smile. Barely won. Beck had never been one to waste words. “Seven years in a hundred and forty characters or less? Let’s see. College in Boston, traveled the world, returned to Chicago when Grams had a stroke three months ago. She’s on the mend.”

His eyes softened. “Sorry to hear about your grandmother. She’s a nice lady.”

At Darcy’s eyebrow lift calling bullshit, Beck’s wicked lips shaded a hint of a smile. “Okay, she’s crazy as a loon with a tongue that could slice prune cans, but I always liked her. Do you still draw?”

The lie came easily. “No.”

“And the rest of the family?”

“My parents finally divorced, which was really for the best. Jack’s running my father’s empire in London.”
Unlike Darcy, her brother was never subjected to the same pressures to fulfill some grander role in the Cochrane dynasty. No need, when he was fast becoming a clone of her father.

Her turn. “How about you?”

“With CFD for seven years as of last September. That and this place keep me busy.”

So, barely a month after he dumped her, he got his wish and joined his brothers in the service. A small surge of jealousy pinched her. She wasn’t proud of it.

“Your family good?” With difficulty, she dragged her gaze away from his ruggedly compelling face to drink in the sausage fest behind the bar. Luke, with mink brown waves framing his handsome features, was not all that changed except for a slight hardness around his eyes. The tall blond must be Gage; he’d been barely sixteen when she saw him last at Sean and Logan’s funeral. Now he rocked a Hemsworth brother vibe as he impressed a gaggle of girls with a cocktail shaker at the other end of the bar. Mel’s Thor, Darcy assumed.