“Any progress on finding that arsonist? The business owners around here were talking about nothing else at lunchtime,” she said. “We’re all worried.”
“We’ll find him,” he promised grimly. “We’ll stop him.”
“Be careful,” she said, and he carried the words—and the concern that had been clear in her voice—with him for the rest of the day.
It was almost midnight before he remembered that, for once, he had a conflict in his schedule. He’d asked Brynn out for the same night as the one for which he and Liam had planned the family barbecue.
No problem. Surely Brynn wouldn’t consider meeting his entire family to be “getting involved,” right?
Zach shook his head when he caught Sean pounding his head against his locker. “Yeah, buddy, I’ve had days like that, too.”
* * *
Two long, quiet nights later, Sean left work almost as tired as if he’d been fighting fires nonstop. Sometimes, the slow nights were worse than the busy ones—especially when they were all on edge, waiting for an arsonist to strike again. He was hungry, exhausted, and on edge, but he wasn’t interested in food or sleep. He wanted to see Brynn. Needed to see her.
He started out walking, with no particular direction in mind, since he didn’t know where she lived and he was pretty sure her grooming business wasn’t open at six in the morning. Nobody was around at dawn except cops, firefighters, and people who’d been up misbehaving all night, like the thugs hanging out on the street corner about a dozen feet in front of him. He should sleep. He was going to see her that evening, if she hadn’t changed her mind. He abruptly stopped walking and scowled so fiercely at the thought, that a couple of juvenile delinquent goblins who’d started trash-talking about him wheeled around and headed the other way. The few remaining made a point of studiously looking down at the ground when he passed by, but he barely noticed them, because his mind was still on Brynn.
Please let her not have changed her mind.
She’d attracted him with her looks, but she’d captivated him with her spirit. He’d always had a different idea of beauty from most; he liked rounded figures, not model-thin ones. Interesting, intelligent faces rather than vapid, model-perfect ones. He was drawn to a sense of humor and a great laugh as much as he was to a pair of flashing eyes and a great ass.
Hey, he was a guy. He wasn’t going to deny, even to himself, that a great ass wasn’t a big draw.
But Brynn. Brynn. She was gorgeous, no doubt, with all that curly red hair and those winter-pale eyes. Her body, that he kept seeing over and over in his memory, was incredible. She was so much more than that, though. Somehow, in spite of the tough childhood she’d mentioned, and in spite of a curse that had hijacked fully a third of her life, she’d been tough enough to start and run her own business. She was compassionate enough to calm an angry cat and diagnose Barty’s fury as worry for Sean’s mom.
How could a woman like that still be alone, the curse be damned? If he ever got lucky enough to have the chance to be with her, he’d never—never what?
What did he think he could do? Tell her he was a fire demon and live with her happily ever after? Who was he kidding? Was it even possible for a worse combination to exist than fire and feathers? Just because something about Brynn touched the soul-deep loneliness he’d been living with for so long didn’t mean he had any chance with her, or even any right to try. He should call her and apologize, and then make a point to never see her again. That would be the right thing to do. The gentlemanly thing to do—an expression that his father had so often used.
“Screw that,” he snarled, and a banshee hunched on top of a nearby roof screeched and took flight.
“It’s only dinner,” he shouted after the creature, as it winged its way off into the sunrise.
She had to eat, right?
SEVEN
After Brynn closed the shop and took a quick shower in her private restroom in the back, she dried her hair, got dressed, and wondered what she thought she was doing. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, and an unfamiliar person stared back: a woman who wore eyeliner and mascara and even a little lipstick. A woman who’d dressed to impress a man whom she had no intention of keeping.
Did she?
Unnerved by her conflicting thoughts, she put the makeup bag down, figuring she’d done the best she could, and smoothed down the skirt of her one and only little black dress. She’d spent the past two days talking herself into and out of having dinner with Sean. It wasn’t the idea of the dinner date itself; she’d been out on dates before. She was a normal, healthy woman, after all. She liked men. She liked dinner. But this time was different.
Sean scared her to death.
It wasn’t just that he was unbelievably hot, although he was. Tall, dark, and delicious. The muscles, the hair, the amazing cheekbones, and those melting, chocolate-brown eyes were all bad enough, but when he smiled, she wanted to rip his clothes off with her teeth. It was a little late in the day to discover the latent sex fiend lurking inside her, so she figured that her extreme reaction was all about Sean.
She’d met plenty of great-looking men, though. This was Bordertown, after all. The Fae were almost always beautiful, even the men, and water demons were a little like self-servicing plastic surgeons—they could use their powers to enhance their looks whenever they wanted. So, sure, she’d seen hot guys before, but a lot of them were so arrogant and vain that she’d been turned off by the first words out of their mouths.
Sean, on the other hand—he was anything but charming or smooth. She smiled, remembering how he’d asked her to dinner in the first place, standing there with that “deer in the path of the Wild Hunt” expression, as if he’d been sure she’d turn him down. He’d raced out of the shop, clutching poor Barty, so fast that she hadn’t had a chance to get his phone number or give him hers, so she was guessing he’d show up here at the shop.
If he didn’t show, she’d probably be better off, anyway. She didn’t need complications.
She walked out into the shop, almost not sure which she was hoping for—that Sean would show up or that he wouldn’t—but ultimately she couldn’t lie to herself. She would be disappointed if he stood her up. Even a little bit devastated, maybe.
The realization scared her all over again. How had he become so important to her, so fast? What was she going to do about it?
The knock on the door jolted her out of her low-level panic, and she turned to find Sean standing there, darkly elegant in a white shirt and black pants, and all of her mental reservations fell away like dog fur beneath the shears. She wanted this. She wanted him.