Set the Night on Fire by Jennifer Bernard

Author:Jennifer Bernard
Language: eng
Format: epub

19

Usually after sex, Sean felt on top of the world. Clear-headed, carefree, ready to launch into the next thing. But driving back to Evie’s house, a whole different category of thoughts kept dive-bombing his brain.

Why did he and Evie have to get onto the topic of his family? It always made him edgy. It brought up all kinds of weird feelings. Not grief, so much. That had faded with time.

In Boulder, or any of the various hotshot or smoke-jumping bases where he’d worked, no one connected him with his family. The Marcus name meant nothing beyond what Sean gave to it. To his fellow firefighters, “Sean Marcus” meant skill, drive, intensity, good firefighter, smart risk-taker, reliable. To women, it meant short-term sex, hopefully good sex. It meant a fun time, some laughs, no strings, no expectations.

Here, in Jupiter Point, “Sean Marcus” had some other layers that kept springing at him like ghosts. “Marcus” meant fuckup, weirdo, maybe even crazy. “Sean Marcus” meant bad boy, rebel, underage drinker, hothead.

Those things didn’t seem to bother Evie. Maybe she liked them. Maybe that was why she’d picked him for her “mission.” Was he perfect for her “sexual reclaiming” because she didn’t have to take a member of the Marcus family seriously?

Not that he wanted “serious” in terms of a relationship. But maybe he wanted to be a contender. Or at least a potential contender. He remembered how she used to pine after Brad White when she was a kid. He was just as good as that fucking guy.

Speaking of Brad…he tuned back into Evie just as she was saying the dude’s name.

“What about Brad?”

Evie gave him a chiding look. “I was conveying the very important decision I just made, but if I had known you weren’t even listening…”

“I’m listening now. Anything to do with Brad, I want to be in the loop.”

“I don’t know if you’re going to like this.” She twisted her long hair back into a knot. “I realized that he just doesn’t matter to me at all.”

“He doesn’t matter?” The jackass had assaulted her. Sean’s knuckles actually itched with the urge to knock him out again now that he knew the whole story. “I don’t get it.”

“Well, I just feel different now that I’ve talked about it.” She aimed a sweet smile in his direction, but it didn’t work on him the way her smiles usually did. “I don’t have to hold on to any old grudges from the past. I can move on now. I’m free.”

Sean frowned as he turned onto Constellation Way. The little downtown area was snugged up tight for the night. The low-lumen streetlights created a golden-orange glow around the tidy storefronts and hand-carved signs. They passed the Goodnight Moon Bed and Breakfast, with its little turret perched on top. Night jasmine flowed in soft clouds over the iron-work fence around the Orbit’s outside patio.

Jupiter Point was a lovely little town, but that didn’t mean that everything or everyone in it was equally lovely.

Brad White being the prime example of that.

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