Raging Fires by Candace Camp
Chapter Thirty-Four
Stephanie and Neil Moran invited Kelli and Jake to their house for dinner one evening after OTAs ended. They ate on the back patio, where a misting fan kept the area cool, aided by the drop in temperature that always came with evening in the desert. The view from the patio was beautiful, the red and gold sunset fading into a night sky.
They lingered at the table for a while, but then Jake and Neil began to discuss football plays, and Stephanie stood up, saying to Kelli, “Want to go inside and talk? It’ll just get more boring from here.”
“Sure.” Kelli grinned and followed her into the house.
Stephanie led her through the large living area. “Why don’t we go back to my office? It’s cozier.”
Her office turned out to be about three times the size of Kelli’s little office in the Blue, but it did have a cozy feel to it. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and in addition to Stephanie’s desk, there was a conversational grouping of an armchair and love seat. Books and papers were scattered all over the room, and the desk was literally covered with them.
“Sorry for the mess,” Stephanie said as she picked up a stack of books from the armchair and set them next to another stack on the end table. “It’s always like this when I’m working. I can’t seem to get anything done unless I’ve got stuff spread out all over.”
“What are you working on?”
“It’s a book about Gabrielle Willoughby’s kidnapping. Have you heard of it?”
“No.” Kelli shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Most people haven’t. It happened about fifteen years ago. But it was a big deal at the time.” Stephanie’s eyes shone as she began to talk about her book. “The family got her back, and a man was convicted for it, but it turned out to be the wrong man. Gabrielle’s father built a fortress, really, outside Tucson. A huge amount of security—and they wouldn’t even let me see the most secure rooms. And Gabrielle has lived in that house ever since she was a kid, rarely leaving it and always with a guard.”
“That sounds like a weird life.”
“Doesn’t it?” Stephanie agreed. “She’s twenty-one now, and she was engaged to a man that sounded like about the only person her age she’d been around.”
“You interviewed her?”
“Yes. Neil managed to get me a meeting with her father, and he agreed to some interviews. I’ve talked to her several times. I really like Gabrielle. Considering how sheltered she’s been, she’s surprisingly normal. I think she’s feeling more and more stifled by her lifestyle. She moved back the wedding date another six months last week.” Stephanie shrugged. “But that’s enough about my work. Tell me what’s going on with you. You look all glow-y.”
Kelli laughed. “That’s a word?”
“It should be. That’s exactly how you look. I take it things are going better with you and Jake?”
“Yes.” Kelli could feel a slight blush blossoming in her cheeks. “You could say that. We’re getting along so well it’s kind of scary.”
“Scary?”
“Yeah—scary like what if it all falls apart suddenly? And what’s going to happen when the year is up?” Kelli sighed. “Jake doesn’t worry about things like that, but I can’t help it. I think I may be falling in love with him all over again. He’s so sweet, really, no matter how much he tries to hide it. And funny. And sexy.” Kelli smiled to herself. “It’s like we were before. Better, even.
“Jake’s not doing the things he did back then; he’s been reliable and steady. He hasn’t been acting like he’s God’s gift to the world. But how can I be sure he’ll continue to be that way? I’m afraid it will all come crashing down like it did before. I can’t bear the thought of feeling that way again. So lost and miserable. It’s so great when something’s filling up your life like that, but then if it stops, it’s horrible. I’m afraid that this time it will just destroy me.”
“Are you sure it’s going to stop?” Stephanie asked.
“No. But I know he’ll be leaving when his contract’s up if he can get a starting job somewhere.”
“Yeah.” Stephanie nodded. “They’re all so competitive. But that doesn’t mean you’ll have to split up.”
“I don’t know how he feels about me or whether he’d even want me to go with him. But I can’t do that. Not now. Before I was free to go anywhere, but now there’s the Blue. I can’t just shut it down or sell it. And what if this is just all about the sex? Because it’s really, really good. But that will die down after a while. I guess,” she added doubtfully.
“I don’t know.” Stephanie grinned. “If it does, Neil and I haven’t reached that point yet.”
Kelli laughed. At that moment Neil appeared in the doorway. Kelli and Stephanie glanced at each other and began to laugh harder.
“I think I’m missing something here,” Neil said.
Jake came up behind him. “Probably better not to ask.”
Neil shrugged. “I came to see you if ladies were up for a game.” He grinned and rubbed his hands together like a cartoon villain. “I got a new one in this week.”
“Madden Football?” Kelli asked apprehensively.
“No.” Neil laughed. “Board games.”
“Neil’s a board game nerd,” Stephanie explained to Kelli. “He’s the luckiest human alive when it comes to dice, but his strategy is always attack.”
“Sounds familiar,” Kelli said, standing up.
“You guys will probably have to roll to see which one gets to be the biggest baddest guy on the board,” Stephanie said.
Jake raised his hands as if surrendering. “Hey, I’ve never even played one of these.”
“I don’t always have to be the biggest baddest guy,” Neil protested. “Sometimes I’m the king.”
Stephanie sent Kelli a ‘See?’ look.
Neil laughed and reached out to take Stephanie’s hand and pull her to his side. He waggled his eyebrows at her. “There’s a seductress in this one.”
“You wish,” Stephanie retorted. “I want to be an archer.”
“What if there’s not an archer?”
“There’s always an archer. Or a thief. Thief’s fun.”
Jake took Kelli’s hand, their fingers interlacing, and they followed the other couple, still bickering amiably.
Three hours and two sieges later, Jake and Kelli started back home. “That was fun,” Kelli said as they drove away. “You know, you think that people like that, rich and famous, would be all sophisticated and doing things like going to art galleries or premieres. But they’re just regular people.”
“Hell, I was rich and famous, and you know I’ve never been sophisticated,” Jake replied.
“You went to some premieres.”
“Not art galleries,” he said in an appalled tone, and Kelli laughed. They continued for a while in silence down the winding road to the expressway. The city of Phoenix lay spread out before them, lights glittering like diamonds across the floor of the desert. “It’s nice up here.”
“Yeah, it’s beautiful,” Kelli agreed.
“Still, I don’t know that I’d want to live up here. There’s that great view, but it’s kind of far away from the Blue. And the stadium.”
Kelli glanced at him, surprised. Where was he going with this? “That’s true.”
“Maybe a condo closer to downtown would be better, but I’d sure like to have a pool,” he went on. “And it’d be great to have a fenced back yard for Toby.”
Kelli continued to stare at him. “Jake… what are you talking about? You want to buy a house?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. It’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”
“But we have to live behind the bar,” Kelli pointed out.
“Not forever. We’ve been there, what, 3 and a half months already? By the time the season starts, it’ll have been six months. Half the time. And, I mean, we’d want to start looking before the year was up, right, so we could move in as soon as we can get out of that tiny place.”
“I, um,” Kelli floundered, her heart suddenly pounding in his chest. “Are you talking about staying here? Living here?”
“Mhm,” he made a noncommittal noise. “Emma thinks I’ll be able to get a better deal somewhere else, but I don’t know about that. Even if I do, there’s the off-season, and, uh, Gran’s here. The Blue’s here. My career will only last so long; I’ve blown six years of it already. I’ve got to live somewhere after that.” He paused, and when Kelli made no reply, he said, “I mean, unless you’d rather not.”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean, I wasn’t sure you were talking about you and me. Us.”
“Of course. Who else would I be talking about?”
Kelli looked at him. She could see only his profile, his eyes on the road. It was so like Jake to start a conversation like this in the car, so she couldn’t read his face and he could busy himself with driving.
In the past, that kind of thing had bugged her—why couldn’t he just open up and talk straight out to her? But she understood it better now; she’d found herself doing the same sort of thing when she talked about their divorce. And, really, if this was the way he could express something that made him nervous, it was fine.
Carefully she said, “Are you saying we should stay married?”
His hands tightened on the wheel. “Um, yeah. If you want.”
“Jake…” Kelli’s voice was sharp with exasperation. “What do you want?”
His hand flexed. In a low voice he said, “I don’t want to lose you again.”
Kelli reached across to put her hand on his arm. “I don’t want to lose you again, either.”
Maybe this was all they could manage right now, both of them still too battered and too wary to commit. Maybe this was enough. She stroked his arm and sat back in her seat.
“Okay,” she said. “We can check out Zillow.”
Jake’s shoulders relaxed. “Sounds like a plan.” He set his arm on the console, turning his hand palm up. Kelli put her hand in his, and they drove on through the dark toward home.