Read Burning Up for Free Online

fires and not enough hours in the day. Taking this county fire-chief job had been the first step in alleviating the overload of stress he’d lived with for too long. Being with Grace, absorbing the tranquility she radiated, felt like the next.
    A little peace was something he’d been in search of for a long time. He’d had enough craziness and tension to last a lifetime. So, hell, yeah. Given even the prospect of a little serenity injected into his life?
    He’d be a fool not to latch on to Grace.
     
    M ACY STRODE INTO the kitchen where her aunt was washing up the pans from breakfast. “Hey, Auntie Lenore,” she said, grabbing an apple out of the bowl on the counter and polishing it on her shirt. “Janna’s settled in our room for a while and Tyler’s over at Charlie’s. Charlie’s mom said she’d get the boys to their game, so I sent along everything I thought he might need.” She bit into the apple. Seeing her aunt inher natural milieu gave her a surge of pleasure every bit as strong as her first glimpse had last week.
    Lenore turned off the faucet and turned to face her, taking in Macy’s severe ponytail, bloodred lipstick and Goth eye makeup. “Let me guess,” she said dryly. “You’re heading into town.”
    Macy took another bite as her aunt inventoried her short pin-striped pleated skirt and stretchy black U-neck girl-T. The older woman’s gaze lingered for a moment on her black spiked dog collar before moving on to—
    “Oh, honey, no. You got a tattoo?”
    “Nah.” She smiled at the pained expression her aunt couldn’t hide, then glanced down at the flame-winged skull on her inner forearm. “Though I may be one of the few of my generation who hasn’t—at least in L.A. This is just for fun, a press-on/wash-off. And yeah, if it’s okay with you, I am gonna run into town. I won’t be gone long. I have a check I need to cash. I should have done it earlier in the week but I enjoyed just hanging around and catching up with you guys. Don’t worry, though, I’ll be back in plenty of time to get Janna ready for Tyler’s game. Do you need anything while I’m there?”
    “No, sweetheart, thanks. I’m good for a while.” Lenore flashed a crooked smile. “I actually remembered my shopping list the other day. It’s amazing what a difference that makes.”
    Macy laughed and slung an arm around her aunt,stooping to press a kiss on her cheek before heading out the back door.
    It was only a couple of miles to town, and within minutes she was whipping her Corvette into a parking space a few doors down from Sterling Savings and Trust. But then she simply sat in her car, staring at the gold lettering on the plate glass window of Smokey’s Grill.
    She’d reached the turnoff to Bud and Lenore’s boardinghouse the other day before the highway passed through Sugarville, so this was her first time in town in… Wow. More than a couple of years now.
    Not that anything had changed. It still looked like a town caught in a time capsule, with its lack of fast-food chains and its two-story-maximum historic brick or stone buildings that comprised the three blocks of Commerce Street. For the same reasons, it was an exceptionally pretty town.
    And despite her trying junior and senior years in high school or the fact that she’d barely flipped her tassel to the other side of her mortarboard before blowing town, there had been times she’d missed it dreadfully.
    But mostly, she acknowledged, leaving had been the best present she’d ever given herself.
    Sitting here patting herself on the back over it wasn’t getting her check cashed, however, and impatient with her procrastination, she snatched her purse off the passenger seat and climbed from thecar. She sauntered to the bank on the corner, feeling as if prying eyes were watching her every move but knowing she was likely being paranoid.
    Air-conditioning pebbled her nearly bare arms as she stepped into the oak-walled, marble-floored lobby a moment later.