Picture Me Dead

Nick’s niece. The redhead he’d bumped into that morning. Not small, but at best she was about five-six. He’d seen her before…but not often. Years ago she’d been around the place more, but she’d looked different back then, not much more than a kid. Gangly as a palm tree, a pile of flyaway hair, enormous green eyes, always running somewhere. Time had gone by; he hadn’t hung around Nick’s all that much lately. Not in almost five years, though he had applied for the new slip at the marina, the one he’d just moved into, almost a year ago now.

She’d changed. She wasn’t gangly anymore. She was curved in all the right places, and her flyaway hair was more like a sexual beacon now. Attractive, yes. But what he remembered was her voice. Her indignation. Cool, aloof, even in anger, those eyes able to sizzle into someone with total condemnation.

She was in the academy, Nick had told him.

So the kid was going to be on the force. Great.

With something about her that was so much like Nancy…

Shit. It felt as if he’d suddenly been wrapped in ice.

He hoped to hell she wasn’t too much like Nancy. A woman with too many ethics, too much determination—and not enough sense to be afraid.

He didn’t even know her. Her life was none of his damned business. And maybe she wasn’t that much like Nancy; maybe he had just made the association because it was Nancy’s birthday.

He felt a strong sense of sympathy for Brian.

He drained the last of the beer. He wanted another.

No, not a beer. A single-malt Scotch.

Hell, he wasn’t going anywhere tonight.

He went back into the kitchen, poured a shot, made it a double.

Somehow, he was damned well going to sleep that night.

Ashley, Karen and Jan had reached the hotel with no further trouble. They’d checked in and spent a few hours sipping piña coladas at the pool. After talking it over, they opted for the show that night and dancing the following evening.

The horses were magnificent, and the entire show was a lot of fun. Ashley found a message waiting on her phone when the show was over. Len had indeed decided to drive up with his firefighting friends. They would be at a late-night swing club.

“Fire guys?” Karen inquired.

“They’re not all incredibly buff and good-looking,” Jan warned.

“We could take a chance,” Karen said.

And so they did.

Len was there with two friends, as if he’d made an effort to round out the party. Len was tall and built like a rock himself. He had told Ashley that he had gotten into physical fitness when he’d applied for the force, then kept it up. He was sandy-haired, and green-eyed, with a few freckles, thirty-one years old, and a genuinely nice guy. She knew he wanted their relationship to go beyond friendship, but she didn’t. As nice as he was, she simply wasn’t attracted to him. She knew that she couldn’t say that, since nothing would be quite so devastating to a man with an ego, so she kept their relationship platonic by insisting that nothing was more important to her than getting onto the force and keeping up with a few art classes in between.

He seemed to have accepted that they were limited to friendship. Sometimes he even made her laugh, telling her about his disastrous dates, his quest for the right woman.

Both the men with him, Kyle Avery and Mario Menendez, perfectly fit the public’s idea of what a rugged young firefighter should look like.

“Ashley, you do know how to pick ’em,” Karen told her. “He’s to die for.”

“Which one?”

Karen was silent for a minute. “Actually, all of them. Especially your friend Len. I don’t understand why you don’t scoop him right up.”

“Because it isn’t there.”

“What isn’t there? He sure looks like he’s got everything to me.”

“Go for him, then,” Ashley said.

Karen shook her head. “Too awkward. He’s got the hots for you.”

“He’s a friend, Karen. If you make him happy, you’ll make me happy.”

“C’mon, you two. This is a dance club,” Jan interrupted. “Let’s dance, then we’ll sort out the psychology of it all, hmm?”

After a few hours of swing, changing partners frequently and dancing with others, as well, Karen claimed exhaustion. She, Jan and Ashley made for the ladies’ room while the men ordered drinks.

“Ashley, I’m flirting away with your buddy, making myself very happy and keeping you in the clear, but you’re not showing the least sign of interest in anyone,” Karen stated.

Ashley sighed. “I’m in the middle of the academy and trying to help Nick out now and then. I don’t want to be involved. And it’s getting late. I may opt out of the rest of the evening and head back.”

“It’s not that late. And you don’t have to get involved with anyone. Just have fun, Ashley. I’m a teacher. I spend my life with little kids. I do the ABCs and two plus two, and wash little hands and help blow little noses all day. It’s been almost a year since I had what you’d actually call a real boyfriend—and I don’t miss that creep! But I do miss…company. Okay, and sex. Don’t you ever just want to have sex?”

“Karen, sex is a great thing. But maybe you want to get to know him a little.”

“I don’t know,” Jan teased, checking her lipstick. “Sometimes guys are a lot better before you get to know them.”

“He lives in Miami. She should get to know him,” Ashley said.

“Mother Superior has spoken,” Karen acknowledged. “But let’s not call it quits already, huh? I gave him my phone number. And if he calls me once we’re home…great. Or he may start pining for you all over again.”

“Karen, we’re friends. That’s all.”

“I hope that’s true. I hope he does call. He has a respectable job. He’s nice as hell. He drinks, but not a lot, and he dances swing. Don’t you dare insist we leave right now. And be nice.”

“Be nice? He’s my friend. I’m always nice.”

Karen sighed, her chest heaving with impatience. “I mean, be nice to all of them. Please…Jan may not admit it, but she’s saving all her quality flirting for Kyle, so just be decent to Mario so we can try to keep their threesome together. With us.”

“I told you, I’ll be nice.”

“Ashley, you’re crazy. Have you ever really looked at your friend’s buns?”

“No, Karen, I haven’t actually stared at his butt, but if you say so, I’m sure his buns are great.”

Karen shook her head again. “She’s crazy,” she told Jan.

“No, I understand her perfectly,” Jan said. “It’s either there or not. I can’t really explain what ‘it’ is, chemistry or whatever, but if it isn’t there, it isn’t there. So quit feeling guilty and checking with Ashley to make sure she’s really not romantically interested. She isn’t. And we’re wasting time here, discussing this all in a bathroom.”

“Right, let’s get back there,” Karen said. “And you, Ashley, start talking to Mario. Talk shop if you have to.”