Too Hot to Handle (Romancing the Clarksons #1)(3)

Aaron shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “Fuck. Right?”

“Yep,” Rita said, swallowing hard.

Her politician brother did a scan of the dire scene, brain working overtime behind golden-brown eyes inherited by all the Clarksons. Except Belmont, whose eyes were a deep blue, on account of him having a different father. A fact that Rita forgot most of the time, since Belmont had been there—an unmovable presence—since the day she was born. Aaron had come later. The second coming.

“Are you all right?” Aaron asked her abruptly, a suspicious twinkle in his gaze. “You must have been in there a while with the smoke. The soot around your eyes—”

“Hilarious, dickhead.” Her heavy black eye makeup and general f*ck off appearance were a constant source of amusement for her clean-cut younger brother. “You have a funny way of showing concern.”

“Thank you. What do I need to handle?” Aaron adjusted the starched white collar of his shirt. “Did you make a statement yet or anything?”

Rita allowed the steel to leach from her spine. “I’ve been kind of busy just sitting here.”

“Right.” Aaron feigned surprise at finding Belmont on the sidewalk with them. “Jesus. I thought you were a statue.”

“Ha.”

“You smell like the ocean.”

“You smell like the blood of taxpayers,” Belmont returned.

“Well.” Rita finally found enough presence of mind to yank the smoky apron over her head, chucking it into the street. “I think I just remembered why we haven’t hung out since Mom died.”

Truthfully, even before that rainy afternoon, the time they’d spent together as a family had felt mandatory. Organized by their mother and fled from in almost comical haste.

“Oh. My. God.”

At the sound of their youngest sibling, Peggy’s, voice, all three of them cursed beneath their breath. Let the family reunion officially begin. It wasn’t that they didn’t love their baby sister. And in many ways, Peggy, a personal shopper to San Diego’s elite, was still a baby at twenty-five. Her big Coke-bottle curls and cheerleader appearance guaranteed that she got away with just about everything. Including neglecting to pay her cabdriver, if the irritated-looking man following her with a receipt clutched in his fist was any indication.

“How did this happen?” Peggy hiccupped, playing with the string of engagement rings dangling from her neck, as Belmont wordlessly paid the cabdriver. “I just had dinner here two weeks ago. Everything seemed fine.”

Rita battled the compulsion to lie down on the sidewalk in the fetal position. Oh God. Her mother had bequeathed her an award-winning restaurant and she’d burned it down. On Rita’s first day back.

Aaron was busy scrolling through his phone, the screen’s glow illuminating his perfectly tousled dark blond hair. “Look at the bright side, Rita. Now you can pursue your dream of being a Hot Topic register girl.”

Rita barely had the strength to flip him the bird. “Jump up my ass.”

When Peggy approached Rita couldn’t look her in the eye, so she focused on her younger sister’s toes, which were peeking out of strappy silver sandals. “Hey. I’m glad you’re okay.”

Rita’s throat went tight. “Thanks, Peggy.”

“I’m sorry about the restaurant, too. I know how much you loved it. How much Mom loved it.” Her youngest sibling nodded and cast a discreet glance over her shoulder, turning back with a charming half smile. A smile responsible for four marriage proposals over the past three years. “Mom probably would have wanted me to talk to those firefighters, though. Am I right?”

Rita groaned up at the sky.

Meet the f*cking Clarksons.





Chapter Two



Unable to stand the undercurrent of blame radiating from her siblings any longer, Rita came to her feet and walked toward what remained of Wayfare. She hesitated for the barest of seconds when she reached the yellow tape, but shrugged and ducked beneath it. Her Doc Martens crunched in the charred debris, which had cooled overnight as they sat across the street, watching the smoke dissipate. Even demolished, she knew which rooms she walked through, exactly which table numbers the black metal legs belonged to. She toed aside a burned piece of wood and spied the wrought-iron Bonjour! sign Miriam had brought back from Paris on one of her many trips.

Rita turned at the sound of footsteps behind her. Her siblings were wading into the restaurant’s remains with varying degrees of caution. Aaron followed behind Peggy, giving her a quick poke in the ribs then pretending he hadn’t done it when she whelped. Where Rita and Belmont had quiet understanding, Aaron and Peggy—the two youngest—made merry when together. They weren’t necessarily close, but they liked one another and had developed a way to show it without sliding into dreaded emotional territory. They made it look so effortless.

What must that be like?

Aaron’s usually smirking mouth moved into a grim line. “It’s safe to say rebuilding is off the table.”

Belmont drew even with Rita, kicking aside some splintered wood to pick up the Bonjour! sign. “Just tell me what you want. I’ll tell you if it’s possible to save it.”

“Right,” Rita said quietly. “This is what you do, salvage man.”

“Hmph.”