Page 7 of Playing With Fire

Jodi steeled herself for the waiting chaos of the newspaper office. There were proofs to read, advertisers to schmooze, last-minute tweaks to the community calendar. Any new outraged letters from taxpayers could be squeezed in under the mayor’s message and between the ads for funeral homes.

She paused, hand on the door. Her brain was still racing.

Okay, maybe she was a soft touch who was pretty good at making excuses about why her life had stalled, but at least Jodi knew why she was still here in Temple Mountain.

But Ricky Sharp?

No way that man had come home just to chop wood and carry out the trash for his ailing parents. And he hadn’t put his dream job with the New York Fire Department on pause so he could be the dog control officer for the town council.

And Jodi was a journalist, she reminded herself. Acting Editor of the town newspaper. A news hound. The fearless breed who made presidents quail and CEOs nervous. And it wouldn’t hurt to find out a little more about why the best-looking man to arrive in town in living memory had really come back to his childhood home.

***

Ricky peeled off his shirt. He threw it into the corner with a mild curse. It was dog-shit brown, and the fabric felt like it was made from recycled plastic soaked in chemicals. Far more dangerous than any of the high-tech protective gear he had worn as a firefighter.

He flopped back on the single bed, closing his eyes to block out the scuffed bookshelves and the grubby tape marks on the walls—plus the unlovely view outside of an elderly neighbor’s clothesline flapping with saggy long johns.

Pushing twenty-seven years old and back in his old bedroom.

He inhaled slowly. Noted the familiar scents of furniture wax, long-vanished sweaty gym shoes, and the lingering smell of what he had imagined in his teens was a wildly irresistible cologne.

Not for the first time, his mind detoured back to Jodi. A thrum of excitement tightened his skin and sent his pulse sky-high. Did she still close her eyes when she kissed, make that tiny gasp of pleasure when a hand snaked around to the small of her back?

Ricky felt the first faint shivers of arousal.

My, Jodi, how you’ve grown.

Tall enough and strong enough to be described as statuesque. Curving out nicely into womanly hips, those long legs were firmly planted as she wound up her bag and stared down the boodle.

He chuckled. Not a woman to back down from a fight.

He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her...maybe a glimpse, a couple of Christmases back, sitting in the front row at church. Most eyes had been on her sister Jaylee, who had been there with her husband, everyone wondering whether the preacher’s younger granddaughter had finally settled down. Their little boy’s squalling had almost drowned out the wheezing organ.

Christmas with his parents. Another post-pandemic Christmas which was part joy, part sorrow, the congregation still reeling from the ugly years. Five, ten...how many years would it take to mend what was broken?

Rev. Bob Ruskin at the pulpit of course, preaching his heart out about goodwill among men.

And to be fair, thought Ricky, still staring at the ceiling, Bob was a fine preacher. Rev. Bob understood that a short sermon was a good sermon, bookended by a couple of familiar hymns so folks could raise the roof and start gathering their mittens and scarves and wondering whether the Sunday roast would stretch to feed the neighbors they had just invited to lunch.

Goodwill among men.

Ricky’s throat was suddenly raw. Chrissie had been a gentle soul. Had done no harm, meant no harm.

And this was how she ended up?

A truck rumbled down the street, followed by the throaty roar of a motorcycle, wrenching him back into the present. His eyes focused on the fine cracks in the ceiling paint. What had once looked like a map of New Zealand had widened and was in danger of joining up with Tasmania. Or was that Fiji?

Ricky rose, stripped off, and tucked a towel around his waist before heading down the hall. Had to be decent when you were sharing one bathroom with your parents.

The pipes grumbled under his feet as he turned on the shower, and he reminded himself to check the furnace.

His old man’s COVID-affected lungs weren’t up to crawling around in dank basement corners. And Ricky needed to get that patch of damp sorted before he left, before South America joined New Zealand and the plaster came down.

He stepped under the stream of water and began soaping away the grime of the day. Foam slid across his rock-hard torso, and he wondered how long until he lost that hard-won edge. No more daily workouts at the fire station or constant drills wrangling heavy equipment.

Maybe he could take up running in the park and keep an eye on the trash cans at the same time.

Ricky toweled off, scowling at his reflection in the misted mirror.

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