Sparking the Fire (10 page)

Which drew an even louder laugh from his future brother-in-law.

M
olly couldn't remember the last time she'd had this much fun: the Dempseys lived up to their billing and then some. Staunchly loyal, gloriously profane, a special bond that couldn't be faked. It took a singular woman to hold her own in this sea of testosterone and bash-you-over-the-head-Dempseyness, and both Kinsey and Darcy had the skills in spades.

Kinsey handed her a (second) Gage-a-rita and took a seat in the periwinkle-blue Adirondack chair beside her.

“They're a lot to take in all at once,” she said with a soothing smile. “Helps if they're naked.”

Because Molly was suave like that she choked on her drink. “Excuse me?”

“That's how I met Luke. Half naked in the locker room at his firehouse after he'd pissed me off by not returning my calls. But the sight of him in that low-slung towel, all steam-fresh from the shower . . .” Her wistful sigh accompanied a shiver of remembered appreciation. “Well, my mind definitely went there. And I can see your mind going there, oh, about every other second where Mr. TDB is concerned.”

“TDB?”

“Tall, Dark, and Brooding. Aka Wyatt.” Darcy had appeared out of nowhere and now took a seat on Molly's other side, resting a can of soda on her baby bump. “Kinsey's terrified of him.”

“I'm not!” Kinsey protested in a stage whisper. “Okay, maybe I was at first. It's just that I can usually read people really well, and Wyatt is a total cipher. It made for some awkward alone time, I'll tell ya. But the two of you . . .” She gave a crafty smile. “You seem to have a language all your own. He likes you.”

“He does?” Molly sought out Wyatt, who had not paid her one iota of quality attention since they arrived, never mind that he had just ravished her mouth with the Thigh Tickler a couple of hours ago. And yes, Thigh Tickler was aspirational. “What gave it away? The squinting off into the middle distance, the scowling when he accidentally looks my way, or the determination to ignore me at every turn?”

“So you don't want to be ignored?” Darcy asked, the epitome of coy.

Molly opened her mouth. Closed it immediately. Damn, they were observant, or she was tipsy. Probably both.

She tried again. “I understand he feels threatened and his family is his primary concern. With this movie, I want to honor the CFD, firefighters, strong women.” Herself. She wanted to restore the pride she used to feel in a job well done. “I can make a good movie without Alex's stamp of approval, but I can make a great one with it.”

“So what's the movie about?” Kinsey asked. “And don't you already have your script locked down?”

“Yes and no. It's about Kelly Flynn, a Chicago-Irish female firefighter”—she gestured to herself—“and her struggle for respect on the job. The current script has her falling for another firefighter played by Gideon Carter.”

“Dreamy,” Kinsey said approvingly.

“Yeah, he thinks so, too.” The women laughed softly while Molly bit her lip and glared at her Gage-a-rita.
No more tequila for you.
“The adapted script would include scenes of her run-in with bigot billionaire Sam Cochrane, who we'll rename for the movie and change enough to ensure we're not sued, and her developing relationship with the mayor of Chicago. Right now, those parts are smaller but can be enlarged if we get the go-ahead from Alex.”

Darcy's mouth hooked in a wicked curve.

“
Aaaand
I just remembered that you're Sam Cochrane's daughter,” Molly added.
Awk-ward.

The glowing woman smiled. “Yep. We fell out for a while, not helped by the hate-a-thon he was waging against Beck's family. But the idea of being a granddad has softened him up.” She rubbed her belly. “My little peacemaker.”

Hearing that warmed Molly's insides. Family was important, and she knew all too well the regret at leaving a promise of reconciliation to wither on the vine. Memories of Molly's own tricky relationship with her grandmother Ellie MacNeill, the woman largely responsible for raising her, gushed to the fore. Molly's parents, both doctors in Medicine without Borders, had usually been out of the country on humanitarian missions. After their deaths in a car crash in Zambia when Molly was fourteen, her grandparents had done the heavy lifting, seeing her through her inconsolable grief and troubled teenage years, a combination of nightmarish proportions.

Raised strictly and expected to follow her parents into medicine, Molly had shocked everyone back in New Haven, Missouri, with her decision to become an actor. Especially Gran. Even her relatively quick success (after six years of poorly paid theater gigs and one semi-lucrative tampon commercial) hadn't swayed her disapproving grandmother. No, only when Oscar came calling did Gran finally offer a grudging respect.

Which was immediately snatched back as soon as those photos went viral. By the time the divorce was final and the furor had died down, cancer had already eaten away at Ellie's insides. Too late for Molly to make amends. Too late to go home again.

The lively conversation continued around her, and Molly fought to find her place in it.

“You know, Alex is interested,” Kinsey was saying with a contemplative look toward where the guys stood around the grill, discussing meat char levels or something equally manly. “But Wyatt and Eli are the big naysayers. Not sure why they're so against it.”

“Well, she'd better say yes.” Gage paused in front of them on his way out from the kitchen with a plate of peach halves ready to be grilled. “This talent should not be going to waste.”

Kinsey groaned. “I created a monster. The day you called me saying you wanted in on that CFD calendar shoot, I should have shut you down.”

Darcy touched Kinsey's arm. “You gifted something special to Chicago, maybe the world. Let's not be greedy. Time to share.”

That drew Molly's laugh. “Who am I to get in the way of what the people want? Perhaps I can find a small part for you, Gage. We always need shirtless background candy.”

Gage's handsome face lit up. “Finally, someone who recognizes gym-given talent when she sees it.” And then his face crumpled as his gaze slid to the gable of the house. A hulk of a man stood there, sporting more tattoos than all the Dempseys combined, biceps fighting his sleeve hems, and a buzz cut that revealed harsh planes and raw scar tissue on his brutally compelling face.

“Brady,” Gage whispered in a voice filled with so much yearning that Molly's heart checked to hear it. He took a step, realized that his hands were full of fruit, and with a quick pivot, thrust the plate of peaches at Molly and made a beeline for the new arrival. The big guy dropped a duffel bag to the ground, freeing his arms for Gage's full-body embrace. They kissed lustily, with total abandon, and frankly it was the hottest thing Molly had seen in some time.

Or since Wyatt Fox's beard had zeroed in for that sexy kiss.

“Damn,” she said under her breath.

“I know,” Darcy said. “They're like the poster boys for hot alphas everywhere.”

Gage finally removed his suction cup of a mouth from Brady, picked up his duffel, and dragged him over.

“Brady, this is Molly. She's gonna put me in the movies.”

Brady nodded a not-unfriendly greeting at Molly and turned to Gage, grinning. “Your whole life is a movie, Golden.”

Gage's smile could have powered the city's grid. Not relinquishing his hold on Brady, he pulled the huge man toward the house. “You guys can manage here, right?”

“Aren't you going to even pretend you have something to show him inside?” Alex called out with an air quote on the word
show
.

“Nope. I haven't seen my man in three days and we're now going to have noisy, sweaty reunion sex. May I suggest you turn up the music or use earplugs?”

On a bubble of laughter, Gage and a flame-faced Brady practically fell over each other trying to get into the house. Shaking her head, Alex joined the women around the empty fire pit and gestured with a beer bottle to the men near the grill. “Watch this. Power vacuum.”

All eyes refocused on the yard's center of operations. Now that Gage had temporarily ceded his rule as grillmeister, the remaining players were eyeing the unattended grill with serious intent.

“My money's on the boxer,” Darcy said.

“I'll take that action,” Kinsey said. “Twenty bucks says the bare-knuckled bar brawler comes out on top.”

Alex laughed. “Eli's a lover—I mean, a lawyer—not a fighter.”

Molly was silently rooting for the Marine, but ten seconds and a little friendly elbow shoving later, Luke had installed himself as undisputed ruler. To seal the deal, he waved the grill spatula around like a scepter.

“
Game of Thrones
comes to a backyard cookout,” Kinsey said, clearly proud that her man had emerged victorious.

Molly's heart twanged at the easy authenticity around her. She tried to imagine Ryan at a gathering like this, but the image refused to form. Her ex-husband's parties were notorious for their opulence and grandiose pretentions. The swankiest food, the hippest DJs, the best people. No one wore board shorts or Who T-shirts (unless it was ironic). No one talked about anything but who had signed on to what movie, how much less that multi-honored actress got paid compared to her less talented male costar, which studio executive had called which diva a spoiled brat in a hacked email.

Molly didn't miss it. And she certainly didn't miss Ryan's personality change when the partygoers left.
That cheek kiss was about two seconds too long, Molly. Are you banging him?
Supposedly said in jest, but she knew better. Though anything was preferable to Ryan's suggestions on how to spice up their marriage, by inviting into their bed any one of the aspiring actress-singer-models LA vomited by the thousand. Ryan usually got what he wanted, but she had repeatedly shut down the threesome talk with a countersuggestion of her own, one she knew Ryan would never tolerate:
Maybe we should ask another guy?
What's good for the gander . . .

Sloughing off those noxious memories, she replaced them with something more pleasurable: a beard-enhanced kiss with a mountain man firefighter who took his sweet, sweet time.

Blame it on heated remembrance, the gentle ribbing of the Dempsey women, or her just-drained Gage-a-rita
,
but she couldn't help discreetly checking out Wyatt as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Eli. Both men were impressive in stature, though Wyatt sported a rough-hewn edge that appealed to her more than Eli's
GQ
handsomeness.

Eli was talking, but Wyatt's steel-blue gaze magnetized to her and locked on. At last. To be the focus of such intense regard was heady. Drugging.
Oh, think I can handle you, Marine.
She refused to break his visual hold on her until Wyatt's expression changed from sexy-stoic to one she hadn't encountered before.

Surprise—and it was not directed at her. Molly tracked his gaze over her shoulder to where a girl stood near the adjoining gate to the next backyard. In her midteens, with dark, purple-streaked hair and serious hardware in her ears, she projected a 'tude Molly could feel from twenty feet out.

Mischievous, surprisingly familiar blue-gray eyes were sealed on Wyatt.

“Hey, Daddy,” she said.

 CHAPTER SIX

D
addy?

That cheeky little minx.

Wyatt dipped his gaze to the ground and found it surprisingly intact. No giant rent in the fabric of the earth. No world-ending hell mouth beckoning. Hell was very much present and accounted for in his brother's backyard.

Roni, who must have thought her entrance would be hilarious, now looked like she might have misjudged the situation. A flicker of pain crossed her face. With her perpetually cynical view on everything, it was so easy to forget that she was just a teenager. Barely fifteen.

He moved forward, conscious of how his skin prickled with the heat of a thousand Dempsey stares.

“Daddy?” he heard Luke say behind him. Wyatt didn't dare look back, knowing his sibs were seeing exactly what he did every time he looked at her.

Roni was the spitting image of her father.

“What are you doing here, sweetheart?” He looked over her shoulder, waiting for the punch line. All he saw was her backpack. “Is your mom with you?”

“No, she's still in Seattle. Grams dropped me off. Sick of me, she said.” She drew in a shaky breath and blew it out to ruffle the dark, curly hair that curtained half her face.

Shit, this was not how it was supposed to happen. He had wanted to prepare the rest of them, but Roni's mother had pinned him between a rock of secrecy and a hard place of lies.

“Wyatt,” Luke said, closer now, his tone foreboding. “Somethin' you'd like to tell us?”

“Yeah.” He scrubbed his mouth, snatched a breath, and instantly sought out Molly. Not sure why, but there it was. Those big eyes watched him keenly. He saw calm there and took strength from it. “This is Roni.”