Ignite (Cloverleigh Farms #6)(32)

“It’s fine. No apology necessary.”

Which should have been my cue to shut up and move on, but it really fucking bothered me, how attracted I was to her. How badly I wanted to get my hands on her body. How I’d lain awake half the night thinking about all the things I wanted to do to her.

I had to make sure she didn’t want me the same way, or I was doomed. “I just didn’t want to give you the wrong idea.”

She turned her head to look at me, shading her eyes. “The wrong idea about what?”

I refused to look at her. “About me. I’m not, you know, interested in you like that.”

“I never thought you were.”

“Good. Because it was just a stupid mistake.”

She stared at me for another ten seconds, then dropped her arm and turned her face to the sun again. It had to be seventy-five degrees out here, but I swear I could feel an icy cold wind coming from her direction.

A minute later, she stood up, grabbed her things, and left without saying a word.

Stop her, you asshole, I told myself as she let herself out of the gate.

But I didn’t.

I watched her walk back to her place and disappear into her condo without a single backward glance.

And I breathed a sigh of relief.





“Mommy!” Hallie unbuckled her seatbelt and hopped out of the car.

“Hi, Halsy pal!” Naomi scooped Hallie into her arms and hugged her tight. “I missed you.”

“But you just saw me this morning.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Naomi rubbed noses with her. “I always miss you when you’re not with me. And oh my goodness, look at that sunburn.”

I helped Luna down from the back seat and opened up the back to get their things.

“You’re all pink too!” Naomi looked at me reproachfully as I set their things down on the driveway. “Dex, did you not put sunscreen on them?”

“Of course I did. But they were in the pool, and it was hard to keep getting them out to reapply.”

“And Winnie came swimming with us!” Luna said excitedly.

I flinched at her name.

“Who’s Winnie?” Naomi asked.

“Our neighbor with the cat,” replied Hallie. “Remember? I told you about her.”

“Oh, right. That’s nice.” But Naomi was distracted as she examined the girls’ faces. “We need to get some aloe on those cheeks and noses. I bet your shoulders are all burned too, huh?”

I bit my tongue.

“Say goodbye to your dad and go in the house. I’ll be in in a minute.”

One at a time, the girls came over and hugged me tight, their tiny arms wrapped around my neck. I held them close and pressed my lips to their damp, chlorine-scented hair.

“I love you, Daddy,” they each said.

“I love you too,” I told them. “I’ll call you this week and I’ll see you on Saturday, okay?”

“Okay.” They went into the house, and Naomi faced me, hands on her hips.

“Sorry they’re not showered,” I said. “They wanted to stay in the pool so long, we ran out of time.”

But she didn’t seem interested in bitching about that for once. “So how was the party last night?”

“Fine.”

“What’s Chip’s fiancée like?”

“She seems nice.”

“They got engaged fast, didn’t they?”

“I guess.”

“I heard she’s young.”

I ran a hand through my hair, impatient to leave. Naomi had always loved to gossip, and I hated it.

“Like ten years younger than him,” she prodded.

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Didn’t you meet her?”

“Yeah. But I didn’t card her or anything.”

She rolled her eyes. “Never mind. I don’t know why I bothered to ask.”

“And what difference does her age make anyway?” I pushed, suddenly in the mood to fight. “You and I are the same age. We knew each other forever before we got married, and our relationship still didn’t work.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Our relationship didn’t work because I was the only one in it.”

“I wasn’t here.”

“Even when you were here, you weren’t in it, Dex.” She backed away, holding her hands up. “You know what? I don’t want to have this argument again. And that’s the beauty of divorce—I don’t have to.”

She went into the house and shut the door, leaving me fuming in the driveway.

What the fuck was I doing? I didn’t want to have that argument either. I jumped into my car, threw it into reverse, and took off so fast my tires squealed.

The truth was, I wasn’t mad at Naomi, I was mad at myself. I’d hurt someone that didn’t deserve it, all because I didn’t trust myself to keep my goddamn pants zipped.

If it hadn’t been a work night, I might have found a dive bar and gotten good and drunk, maybe gone home with a hot cocktail waitress and gotten rid of this fucking pent-up aggression, but since I had to be at the station at seven a.m., I hit the drive-thru and went home alone.





I arrived at work the next morning by six forty-five, swapping places with the guy who had my position on the previous shift. Since I hadn’t slept all that well, I was tired and crankier than usual during all the chores we had to get done every morning—put out our turnout gear, check the radios and air packs, bring the apparatus outside, run the pump and emergency lighting, inventory each compartment for proper gear and equipment.