Fanning The Flame (The Maricopa County Shifters Book 2) - Simone Beaudelaire

Fanning The Flame (The Maricopa County Shifters Book 2) by Simone Beaudelaire

Book excerpt

“Elisa?” A familiar voice cuts into my single-minded quest for vegetables.

I turn, towers of oranges and tomatoes flashing past my eyes until I see… a tall man with glasses and slightly graying brown hair. He looks ordinary except for the mischief twinkling in his brown eyes. Eyes that haunt my dreams.

Luke.

I freeze. It’s been so long since I saw him. Almost a year. It feels like an eternity.

It feels like not nearly long enough.

I plaster a smile on my lips and reach out a hand. “Hello, Luke. Long time.”

He hurries to me, clasping my hand in both of his as he chatters with excitement. “I thought it was you! How are you doing? You look great. Elisa, wow. I… how…”

I shake my head and my wooden smile widens to something almost real. His hands are warm. They feel good on my skin. “How have you been? I like your beard.” The personal comment slips out of my mouth and makes my stomach feel funny. My cheeks heat, but the thing is, I do like his beard. The neatly clipped medium brown hair draws attention to his lovely cheekbones and hides his rather uninspiring chin. He’s gotten new glasses, too. Gone are the big, square aviators he wore last year. The new frames are still black, but not as clunky, and the overall shape is smaller and rounder, which makes much of his unobtrusive nose.

His eyes twinkle as he scans my body from head to toe and back. And no wonder. The last time I saw him, I wasn’t in good health.

He blushes. “Thanks. I can’t believe you, though. You look great. How…?” He glances at my hands and then back up at my face. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

The funny feeling in my belly increases. I don’t know what to make of it, but I’m quite sure I don’t want my hands back. His are so warm—his fingers shorter than I would have expected on a hand so large—and the cold air conditioning in the grocery store makes me feel stupid. Or maybe it’s the hungry way he’s looking at me. I squeeze my eyes shut, acknowledging what I didn’t want to address.

“Where did you go?” he asks, and the normally jovial note in his voice has become serious and intense.

“I needed some space. Not from you particularly but from everyone. Healing… took a lot of effort.”

He tilts his head to one side. “I guess that makes sense. Are you better now, though? Will you be coming back to work soon? You mentioned you might be moving away.”

I squeeze his hands, thankful I have fingers again, however bizarre it might be. Humans don’t regenerate—but I did. I wonder what it means.

Shaking off the irrelevant question, I focus again on Luke. I’ve missed him, probably more than I should have. He’s the truest friend I’ve ever had, and I just pulled a disappearing act for the best part of a year. He does have some right to know what happened. I suck in a deep breath. “I’m not moving. Now that Alex and my mother are dead, it’s safe for me to stay. I realized that it was never this place and surely not my job that caused my problems. So, naturally, I spent the fall and winter in physical therapy, but I’ve been back to work since January. And since I was still healing, the college allowed me to teach online.”

“Oh.”

This hurts him. I can see it. “Luke, listen, I wasn’t trying to… I mean… I didn’t…”

He squeezes gently again. “I get it. You just needed space, right?”

I swallow hard, feeling the corners of my eyes burn. “I honestly did, but I swear it wasn’t because of anything you did wrong. You were wonderfully supportive while I was in the hospital, but… I had a lot of healing I had to do—both physical and mental—and I wasn’t fit for human company for quite a while.”

“And now?”

I spend a moment breathing through the waves of emotion I haven’t yet learned to control. A lifetime of pain requires more than a year of recovery. “Now, I have PTSD. It’s not fun, but I’m coping. Well enough to venture into the grocery store and… talk to a friend.” I smile.

He nods. His eyes have turned serious and sad. There’s something in their warm brown depths that seems to be pleading with me.

“Ahem, excuse me,” a nasal voice interjects, and I notice a stuffy-looking elderly man trying to maneuver his shopping cart through the aisle we’re currently blocking.

“Oh, sorry.” I try to step back, but Luke doesn’t let go. Instead, he pulls me gently toward him, out of the stream of traffic and close enough to his torso that I can feel the warmth of his body. It feels good. He smells good, too. Drawing closer has released a waft of mellow, sweet cologne and something else. Something deeper and more personal. It hits me in a sensitive part of my psyche.

“Don’t go yet,” he begs. “Don’t disappear.”

I shake my head. “I don’t plan to. I do, however, need to get some groceries and get them home. I have an appointment with my therapist soon.”

He frowns. “Okay. Can we get together sometime, though? Grab coffee or dinner? Catch up?”

I swallow again. It almost sounds like a date. I recall that the last conversation I had with Luke before my life went to utter shit was him asking me about the possibility of a romantic connection. He paired his request with the most delicious kiss I’ve ever received.

The memory sends a riot of tingles up my spine, down my arms and straight to my intimate flesh. It’s been a year since the man I was divorcing died. Surely, I’m allowed to consider this now, right?

“I… I don’t know. I…”

“Tell you what. Do you still have my number from when I gave it to you… you know, just before?”

I nod.

“Think about it. If you want to get together, call me. Let me know what you’d like.”

He releases my hand and reaches up, smoothing a strand of hair back into my ponytail. It’s longer now, my hair. Longer than he’s ever seen it before. And a good bit grayer. Pain and stress take a toll, whatever we’d like. So I look like I’m almost forty. Oh, well. I am.

Luke drops my hand and hustles to the door.

The loss of his warmth leaves me colder than before. Colder than I can ever remember feeling. I want to call him back. To climb all over him and soak in his tempting heat until every last snowflake in my soul is melted and gone.

“Well, shit,” I mutter, turning to the produce department and nearly knocking over a pile of avocados with the basket I've forgotten is hanging from my arm. “Dr. Williams is going to get an earful this afternoon. I hope she can help me think through it all.”