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“Luca, too.”
“Luca,” he said. The knife slipped and missed his thumb by an eighth of an inch. He could just picture guys named Matteo and Luca. Tall. Dark. Perfectly groomed. Lots of money. Lots of charm. No stinky sweat coming off them.
“My brothers.”
“Your brothers,” he said, very casually, and if the fucking knife slipped again, he’d be minus a finger.
“Uh-huh.” She poked at a couple of the feathersticks that had fallen too far from the little heap he’d created. “They were huge helps.”
“Matteo and Lucas,” he said, because maybe he’d misunderstood the first time.
“Luc-ah, not Lucas. Yes.” She gave a soft laugh. “They told me to buy those log things. You know, logs that aren’t really logs? You light a match, touch it to the paper and, whoosh, you have a fire.”
Tanner sheathed the knife and reached for the magnesium fire starter.
“No roommate around to build a fire for you?”
He said it lazily, as if it were the most unassuming question in the world, but a tension within him whispered that there was nothing unassuming about it.
“No.”
“No man in your life to phone and say, hey, come on over and build a fire for me?” His tone had grown even lazier, the tension inside him even stronger. Ridiculous, considering that this was just small talk and her answer wouldn’t mean a damn to him one way or the other. “What’s wrong with those New York dudes?” he said, trying to make the question sound light.
Alessandra shrugged. “Nothing’s wrong with them. I just haven’t found one who’s interesting enough to keep around.”
“Even to start fires?”
“Especially to start fires.”
Their eyes met.
Such simple words.
Except they weren’t simple at all. He knew it, and he was pretty sure she did too.
If they’d been in a bar back home, he’d have known precisely where to take this conversation.
The truth was, part of him knew where he wanted to take it now…
Whoosh.
A tiny flame shot up from the feathersticks. Tanner took a long, steadying breath, turned all his attention to coaxing the fire to burn.
“Great,” he said, as if he’d performed a minor miracle. “Fire’s going. Shelter’s next.” He stood. Too fast, too hard, and before he could think to prevent it, a hiss of pain slipped from between his lips.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No. I mean, what just happened?”
“I told you. Nothing.”
“Give me a break, Lieutenant. You stood up, you turned pale.”
“It’s the contrast of the flames and the camo on my face.” Tanner rubbed his hand over his jaw. “Once the water’s hot and I wash it off—”
She shot to her feet.. “I hate how you do that!”
