Irresistible Stranger by Jennifer Greene Page A

good. Or a whack upside the head if I goof this up. See? No risk.”
    She almost laughed at his words. Only, Griff wasn’t a fledgling, and he knew—awesomely, brilliantly, inventively—exactly what he was doing. She didn’t. Oxygen locked in her lungs when he dipped lower, scooped her legs in his arms, and sampled tastes and textures with his whiskery cheek and his lips and his tongue.
    She stopped thinking. Stopped breathing. Forgot her name. Forgot just about everything but that she was female, pure female, and Griff, damn him, was more man than she’d ever dreamed existed. She gulped in pleasure, greedily wanted more, needed more. Needed him. Yelped his name in her angriest tone, her bossy teacher tone. “ Now, Griff, and quit fooling around—”
    â€œOkay, okay, I’m coming up,” he promised her—only right then his landline rang.
    Then her cell phone did its bell tone thing.
    And then his cell phone did some kind of jubilant chime.
    The three noxious sounds struck her as a blast from planet Earth. For a little while—for an insane, wonderful, breathtaking little while—she’d forgotten about reality. Her fire. His fire. The way that past seemed to be strangely spilling over into the here and now.
    Maybe she’d been haunted all her life by fire. But she’d never been afraid…until coming home again.
    Now she tasted fear. And the upsetting flavor of guilt—because somehow, her history with fire had managed to hurt Griff.
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    â€œI got a proposition for you.”
    The only proposition Griff wanted was from Lily, but he turned around to face the new interruption. Debbie, from Debbie’s Diner, had straw-dry, big blond hair, boobs so big you wondered why she didn’t fall on her face just trying to walk and was decent to the core. She always chose the wrong men, made fried chicken so good it could make a rock salivate, never met a dog so ugly she wouldn’t take in. She was one of the best commerce neighbors on Main Street.
    She peered into the burned-out shell of Griff’s ice-cream parlor and clucked in sympathy. “I was thinking, Griff, I got spare freezer space. We could put your ice creams on the menu in the diner until your own place is up and running again. That way, you could use up theice cream so it’s not wasted, and I’d get more customers coming into the diner just for the ice cream. We’d both win.”
    Debbie had barely left before Manuel Brook showed up, tapping him on the shoulder. Manuel came from a family of farm workers, and had gotten a business started cleaning carpets. He barely reached five-four, had beady little eyes, and a wife—some claimed—who regularly slapped him around. “Hey, Griff. You got a big mess here. I clean up fire and water messes before. Once you get the debris out, you call me. I’ll do the cleaning, my own time, on me.”
    â€œThat’s not necessary.” Griff said immediately, but it had been the same story all morning. Neighbors and friends stopped by, didn’t waste time sympathizing, just dug straight in with offers of help.
    Margo, his insurance agent, had been on the site almost the minute he’d parked the car. “I know there are still questions as far as the investigation goes,” she told him. Margo was well over sixty, spare as a reed, hair the color of iron. “But I don’t want you worried about the claim. I sold you good coverage, and I’ll have a check to you as fast as we can get the details on paper and get it processed.”
    Every kid who’d ever worked for him showed up through the morning as well—the ones who’d been in jail, the ones who couldn’t stop fighting, the ones who’d been drinking hard liquor since fourth grade. Not a clean-cut kid in the lot. Yet all of them showed up, offering to help, offering to shoot whoever did this, offering tostand guard, offering to hang with