Black Flame Read online

  The poor guy had been almost alone in the world then. Now, he had no one at all. The holidays must be terrible for him.

  As eager as Deneen had been to get away from her parents this Christmas—not to mention her five aunts, four uncles, and eleven cousins who lived in Red Fork—it was only because she was going to be with her sister and Matthew. Family. And besides, after Deneen made her fortune and proved her brilliance up north, she assumed she’d make a triumphant return back to Arkansas, to be welcomed back into the bosom of the family home.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, sincerely. “I just wasn’t thinking. Well, look…it might be just you and me this evening and tomorrow, but we can…we can be festive together. Uh, did you happen to stock up on champagne?”

  “I don’t drink alcohol,” Jimmy said. “And why are you apologizing?”

  “Well, because…I mean, I’m sure it wouldn’t be your first choice to be here, alone, for Christmas.”

  “I’m not alone. My roommates Zane and Cal are here—they’ll be back tonight, in fact. And you’re here.”

  He said that last part as though it pained him, a fact that Deneen decided to ignore. “That’s the spirit! Friends are…good. They’re great! They’re really, really, great!”

  Oh no, she was doing it again. When Deneen was out of her comfort zone, she tended to talk too much, emote too much, overcompensate. Her mother had been pointing that out since she was six years old, at her very first Girl Scout Daisy meeting, when the troop leader finally told her that if she didn’t stop interrupting she would have to spend the rest of the meeting outside the clubhouse door.

  But all she was trying to do was brighten this poor man’s day. After all, what did he have going for him, besides a dirty, difficult job; a house full of male roommates (and her sister, who Deneen knew first hand could be very bossy); and apparently, some sort of social disorder.

  They had turned off the main road onto a quaint country lane. Snow was beginning to drift lazily down from the steely sky, just a flake here and there, but the burgeoning clouds promised more to come. “Well! It looks like we’ll have a white Christmas. How, er, do you plan to spend the holiday? Do you boys have any traditions?”

  “Traditions? A tradition is a practice in a group or society that has evolved over a long time,” Jimmy said, wrinkling his forehead in confusion. He had taken off his fleecy facemask, and Deneen could see now that he had a surprisingly nice profile. “While I suppose you could consider our cohabitation group a sort of society, since this is the first Christmas we are spending together, none of our practices could be considered traditional.”

  “Well, I realize that,” Deneen said, exasperated. “I just meant…did you decorate the house? Are you going to put out food for the reindeer? Leave cookies for Santa? You know, to get into the holiday spirit.”

  Jimmy gave her a sidelong glance. His expression was wary, as though he were still making up his mind about her. Deneen tried hard not to be offended, though the truth was that she wasn’t accustomed to having to work terribly hard to impress healthy heterosexual men. It was only her own family—well, and every boss she’d ever worked for and her teachers and that stupid Girl Scout leader—who generally found her lacking.

  “I assume that you are making a joke.” Jimmy turned on the turn signal and took a very slow, cautious turn onto an unmarked road. On second glance, it was little more than an unpaved lane, which was quickly becoming obscured with snow. “While reindeer do exist, mostly in Russia, they do not, in fact, visit populated areas, especially in North America. As for the cookies—”

  “Oh, forget it,” Deneen said. “Um, do you always drive this…uh, carefully?”

  Jimmy grimaced. “I had a recent accident. I, er, miscalculated the clearance necessary to drive into a parking garage.”

  “But this truck is practically brand new!”

  “I am aware of that.” Faint irritation edged Jimmy’s voice, and Deneen was perversely proud of having finally stirred up his unflappable calm. “I paid my insurance deductible before my first payment on the vehicle.”

  “Wow, that sucks.”

  There didn’t seem to be much more to say after that, though Deneen wanted to add that she was painfully familiar with that kind of bad luck: the kind that makes you want to scream at the top of your lungs that it wasn’t your fault, that it could have happened to anyone. She felt that way herself every time something happened to reverse the course of her life just as she finally thought she had it on track.

  Maybe she and weird Jimmy Mason had something in common after all.

  Before she could think of a polite change of subject, Jimmy pulled into a fenced yard and parked between a beautiful, old, boarded-up farmhouse and a long, low, outbuilding with a porch and smoke curling from the chimney.

  “Are we here? Is this the bunkhouse? Jayne has told me all about it!”

  Without waiting for a reply, she jumped out of the truck and ran to the front door. It was just as Jayne had described it. The weathered wood siding had been patched in several places—Matthew was planning to paint it in the spring. The porch steps squeaked, and there were several old rocking chairs pulled under the overhang, out of the elements. From the porch there was a view of the farmhouse—Jayne had told her the most romantic story about the girl who had once lived there, who was now dating Cal, the police officer who lived in the bunkhouse—and the stand of trees beyond. And there, that had to be the Tar Barn, as they had nicknamed the big old long-haul trailer in which they’d driven up from Arkansas, now parked for good. No sign of her sister’s rig, but she probably had to park it in an official trucker parking lot somewhere.

  She tried the door, and was disappointed to find it locked. Living in Red Fork, Arkansas, Deneen had been in the habit of leaving doors unlocked, yet another thing that drove her parents crazy. “Just because our community is small, it doesn’t mean there’s no danger of breakins,” her father nagged her. Deneen knew he was right, but she had still imagined walking into the bunkhouse as though she already lived there. As though it had been waiting just for her.

  “This might help,” Jimmy said, unlocking the door with a key. Deneen looked at him quickly. Was that an attempt at humor? Maybe he wasn’t hopeless after all.

  He opened the door and stood aside, holding her suitcases. Deneen walked inside—and immediately started coughing. The living room was just as pretty as Jayne had described it, with its newly painted walls and exposed beams and refinished floors, but the air was filled with smoke and the smell of something burning.

  “Did you leave the oven on?” she asked faintly, going to open a window.

  “I was, uh, trying to roast chestnuts,” Jimmy said. “It didn’t go that well.”

  “Ah.” Deneen moved through the house, admiring the big farmhouse kitchen with its open shelves full of crockery and cookware, the long wooden table, the old stove and gleaming modern refrigerator. The burnt smell was stronger there, and a pan full of small charred lumps sat on the stove, probably the product of the failed roasting experiment. The table was covered with some recipe in progress, one which seemed to involve half a dozen bowls as well as every spatula and spoon in the house. More flour had landed on the table than in the bowl, and broken eggshells sat dangerously close to an open cookbook.

  Deneen continued, reserving comment. Maybe Jimmy had been in a hurry, especially since her call had interrupted his work. Off the kitchen, down two steps, was the family room, just as Jayne had described. An enormous 70’s era console television shared space with plaid sofas and orange shag carpet.

  At the hallway, Deneen paused. Would it be rude of her to check out the bedrooms? Especially since there was the delicate matter of her own lodging, something that she had expected to discuss with her sister, not an almost-stranger.

  “Would you mind, er, showing me to the powder room?” she asked, figuring she could check out the bedrooms on her way back.

  “Do you mean the bathroom?”

  “W
ell, yes. I would like to freshen up. I mean, use the facilities and wash up,” she corrected herself. Jimmy was probably the most literal-minded man she had ever met; who knew if he’d understand “freshening up”?

  “You’ll have to use the one at the end of the hall. Matthew didn’t get the remodel of the other one quite finished before they left. The grout seal is still curing and there’s wet paint.”

  Jayne often talked—well, bragged might be a better word—about her fiancé’s carpentry skills. As the man in charge of cooking and cleaning for a household of six—and occasionally seven or eight, if Cal’s or Chase’s girlfriends were staying over—you would think that the Burgess family would look down on him. After all, Jayne and Deneen’s mother, Marjorie Burgess, was a fiercely committed feminist who spent her life decrying the gender politics of domestic labor. However, when a man did a domestic chore, it was apparently cause for celebration, not mockery. Which was perhaps why Jayne tended to focus on Matthew’s other job, which was renovating the bunkhouse for their landlady in exchange for a break in their rent.

  “No problem,” she said brightly, and walked down the hall, glancing into the rooms, whose doors all seemed to have been left open. Maybe the roommates really did get along as well as Jayne had described. There—that room must be Matthew and Jayne’s; Deneen recognized her sister’s prized Pendleton blanket on the bed, and a favorite family photo in pride of place on the dresser.

  A pang of sadness struck Deneen. That particular photo hung in her parents’ house as well; it had been taken at the party celebrating Jayne’s graduation from high school, at which she had given the valedictory speech. Deneen was ashamed to admit how jealous she had been that day. She herself was certainly no valedictorian, and though she was still a sophomore when her sister was a senior, it was pretty clear her academic record would never measure up.

  When Jayne had shocked the family by moving to North Dakota and becoming a trucker, Deneen had thought that finally the invisible halo over her sister’s head might dim, and her parents would have to concede that even Jayne was human. Instead, her mother had celebrated her eldest daughter breaking the barriers of traditionally-male employment. Since Marjorie prosecuted gender discrimination lawsuits for a living, Deneen supposed it made sense, but just once she’d like the chance to impress her parents.

  She peeked in the remodeled bathroom, inhaling the smell of wood shavings and fresh paint, and admiring the beautiful work Matthew had done. Then she found the other bathroom at the end of the hall.

  The sink, shelves, and cabinets were crammed full of six people’s toiletries and personal items. Deneen’s heart sank to see that there wasn’t an inch of storage space to spare. The top shelf contained Jayne’s familiar no-nonsense soap and lip balm and deodorant, her hair elastics and brush, her few cosmetics. Deneen’s own grooming products took up far more shelf space. She’d just have to improvise, storing her things in whatever guest quarters they put her in and shuttling them in and out of the bathroom.

  She washed up and returned to the kitchen, where Jimmy was pouring a suspiciously lumpy batter into a cake pan.

  “What are you making?”

  “Cake.”

  Deneen wondered if the recipe really called for the batter to come to the top edge of a single pan. “Um, that batter might rise,” she said diplomatically.

  “Yes, bicarbonate of soda contains carbon dioxide, which is released as a gas when heated, causing the batter to appear to expand. I will be serving this cake for Christmas dinner tomorrow night. You are, of course, welcome to join us.”

  He put the cake pan into the oven and fiddled with the dials. Deneen refrained from pointing out that usually one preheated the oven before putting the pan in, as Jimmy didn’t seem especially receptive to cooking advice. Besides, his method would probably work, even if it didn’t produce a perfect cake.

  Deneen put far too much emphasis on the way food looked—at least, that was what her last boyfriend had told her. “It’s all going to the same place,” he’d say, when she brought out her carefully garnished plates. Her family felt the same way; Marjorie never even used the serving pieces and colorful dishes Deneen had given her for Mother’s Day over the years, preferring her plain old CorningWare.

  “I would love to join you for Christmas dinner,” Deneen said formally. Now came the hard part. “I was, er, wondering if I could…maybe stay with you guys. For a few days.”

  Jimmy closed the oven door and turned to face her. “You mean, here? In the bunkhouse?”

  Deneen could feel her face beginning to get warm. “Yes? I mean, if…I can sleep on the sofa,” she said. “Or, maybe, um…”

  “How many days?”

  He was looking at her intently. He had a nice firm jaw, a very nicely formed nose. His eyes, well, those were just totally off the hook, with their navy blue depths and those thick, long eyelashes, and so it was just as well that he wore funky black-framed engineer glasses, to dim their wattage somewhat. Because otherwise, a girl might be forgiven for losing her place, just a little. Or forgetting that he was long on irritating remarks and short on intuition.

  Couldn’t he see that she was struggling here? Hadn’t he paid attention when Jayne complained about her ditzy younger sister? Jayne, who loved her dearly, nonetheless rarely passed up an opportunity to point out her shortcomings under the guise of elder-sister guidance. Or had he found the subject so incredibly uninteresting that he couldn't be bothered to remember that she was broke, under-employed (well, as of last week, unemployed), and homeless as well, unless you counted the bedroom she’d lived in since she was born?

  “A few,” she hedged.

  “A few like two or three, or a few like more than that? The reason I’m asking is that the household population is currently in flux, with some members being currently absent. Perhaps accommodations could be made on a temporary basis. I’m sure that Chase wouldn’t mind if you used his room, as he is visiting his girlfriend’s family in Tennessee for the holidays. And Regina has left some…girl stuff in there, that you might find, um, convenient.”

  Deneen was fascinated despite her mortification. “Girl stuff?”

  “Yes. Er. Like hangers covered in a slippery synthetic material which she says is better for her clothes—”

  “Padded hangers?”

  “—and various salves and unguents of a personal nature—”

  “Lotion? Moisturizer?”

  “—and a number of dresser drawers in which to keep—that is to say—her, uh, undergarments…”

  “I see,” Deneen said quickly. As amusing as it was to watch Jimmy Mason try to describe a woman’s intimates, she wasn’t about to make him say “bra drawer.” The poor man appeared to have no experience with women at all. How he had come to be a part of Matthew’s circle of friends, guys who’d been known for partying and boisterous pranks and a way with girls, was completely beyond her. As best she could remember, there had been rumors of one girl or another managing to snag his company for a party, a movie, a dance, but he’d never had a girlfriend.

  “Well, in that case, I’ll be glad to move my things in. When are they coming back?”

  “Not until after the new year. They’re going to stay in Nashville for three weeks.”

  “Three weeks?”

  “Yes, rig workers work three-week hitches. Twelve hour days, seven days a week, with time off in between. Didn’t your sister tell you anything about the oil industry?”

  “I, um…” As a matter of fact, Jayne had talked about the oil rigs quite a bit when she and Matthew had come home for a visit last fall. But it had been too boring. Or, if Deneen was truly honest, it had been too painful to see her parents and extended family fawn all over Jayne while she described hauling equipment and water to the rigs, and Deneen had tuned her out mostly out of jealousy. “So, which room is it? I should probably get settled before…before…um, what are you doing for the rest of the day, anyway?”

  Jimmy’s expression tightened and he began pi
cking broken eggshells up off the table and collecting them in a bowl. “I’m making the dressing. That, and baked goods, can be made ahead. I’ll prepare the rest of the holiday meal tomorrow, of course. I’ve got an errand to run, and then, well, I guess since you’re here you’ll want dinner, and I’ve got leftovers from last night. And then I’ll probably do some work in my workshop.”

  “Oh!” Deneen said, injecting as much enthusiasm as she could into her voice, considering that the man clearly was unhappy that she was here. “Your workshop? What sort of work do you do?”

  “I make things. Useful things. Although, this evening I’m just finishing preparations for tomorrow, when I will be taking part in a Christmas brunch for disadvantaged families, as part of an organization for which I volunteer.”

  Disregarding his confusing explanation of his workshop activities, Deneen saw a way to ingratiate herself. “Oh, I’ve done that! I help out at the food bank back home from time to time. I’d love to come along tomorrow and help.”

  “That’s very nice, but I’m to impersonate Santa Claus. As you can imagine, only one false Santa is needed, as additional impostors might confuse the children, who have been led to believe there is only one.”

  “But I can help cook or serve or watch the little ones. It’ll be fun!”

  “Well, I guess you could help me hand the presents out,” Jimmy conceded reluctantly. “I’ve got them wrapped and tagged with gender and age. Here, you can box them up, if you want, while I’m cleaning the kitchen.”

  Deneen felt her spirits lift as she followed him down the hall. At least she’d be celebrating with someone. Christmas—which had threatened to be a very un-festive affair this year—was looking a little more promising.

  “There’s Chase’s room; you can make yourself at home. And this is my room,” Jimmy said, opening the one door which had been shut.