Raging Fires: An Enemies to Lovers Fake Marriage Standalone Read online

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Epilogue

  Raging Fires

  Candace Camp

  Anastasia Hopcus

  Copyright © 2021 by Candace Camp & Anastasia Hopcus

  All rights reserved.

  Clutch Books LLC Edition

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places, are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, or events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  Chapter One

  Phoenix. So here he was. After all that bright future, all the fame and money and the wasted potential, here he was back where he’d started. In Phoenix.

  Not that Phoenix was a bad place to live. Sure, it was hotter than hell, but at least you didn’t feel like you were sucking the hot air in through a straw, like in Miami. Or New Orleans. And anyway, that was better than freezing your butt off in Chicago or Minnesota. Damn, he’d lived in a lot of towns. Which is what happened when you were slipping down the quarterback ladder.

  The landscape wasn’t bad either. He’d grown up here, gone to college here, and Jake liked the flat land and the stark contrast of the hills, the cacti and sand. The green palms and turquoise pools.

  No, the problem with Phoenix was that it was where she lived. Where all his relatives—who had chosen her over him, by the way—lived. Old friends. Fans who remembered him from his days at ASU. All the people who knew that for him, returning to Phoenix was failure.

  He didn’t have to come back here. He’d thrown away a bunch of money, but he still had plenty left to live on. He could go live in any city he wanted and spend his time doing. . .something. But the thing was, football was all he knew. The one thing he was good at.

  Because he was still good. He could throw bombs and his reactions were just as quick; he still had his ‘football IQ.’ All he’d needed was to get his head on straight again, and he had done that. He was only a back-up guy with a bad rep, and it was just a $1.4 million/one year contract. But in this game, there was always a chance of getting to play. And Jake still had the hunger to win.

  As for Phoenix, well, the Pumas were the only team willing to sign him—and that had probably been because Asa had put in a good word for him. And Jake had needed to come back and repair his strained relationship with his grandfather.

  Of course, he’d been too late for that, too. Pops’ funeral mass was tomorrow.

  Jake hadn’t wanted anyone to pick him up at the airport. He wasn’t sure why—it wasn’t like he got swarmed by autograph seekers anymore. But ‘the less attention, the better’ was ingrained in him now. He picked up a rental car and made his way out of the parking lot. It looked different—had it really been almost three years since he was last here?

  Yeah, he guessed it had. That was after he got cut by Miami. When Pops had looked at him, then shook his head in disgust and disappointment and said, “I never thought you’d turn out this way. You’re not my Jake anymore.”

  He drove to Gran’s and Pops’ house. It hadn’t changed; hell, it hadn’t changed since he was ten and throwing footballs to Pops in the front yard. He stopped a couple of houses down. Their driveway was choked with cars, and more lined the street. The whole family would be there. Friends. Probably even some long-time patrons.

  Jake turned the SUV around and headed for the Blue Shack instead. He knew he was risking running into her. And Kelli was the last person he wanted to see. But he told himself she wouldn’t be there; she’d be back at the house, getting the visitors food and drinks, making everything work, like she always did.

  He pulled into the small parking lot in front of the bar. It hadn’t changed either. It looked suitably ramshackle to match its name, even though his grandfather had made sure it was solid underneath the flaking paint. Jake couldn’t count the number of hours he had sat at the scratched-up bar, talking football with Pops. Emotion tugged at his throat, but he swallowed it back and walked to the door. There was a small sign that said it was closed, but when he pulled on the handle, the door opened.

  He stepped into the room. And there she was, standing behind the scarred wooden bar, wiping it clean. She was wearing one of the bar’s blue t-shirts that said Blue Me on the front, and her honey-blonde hair was in braids. And she looked gorgeous. She looked like the girl you wanted to take home to meet your parents and the one you wanted to take to your bed and just lap her up. Nonstop. For hours. She looked like the Kelli he’d fallen hard for in college. The one he loved. . .before, you know, she became the Kelli that was an uptight, nagging, sanctimonious pain in the ass.

  No, he didn’t have any hard feelings at all.

  She raised her head at the sound of the door closing behind him. He had no idea what to say; he thought about just turning around and walking back out, but he never could stand backing down in front of Kelli. And she didn’t seem to have any problem.

  She just looked at him for a long moment, then tossed the rag onto the bar and said, “Of all the bars in all the world, and you walk into mine.”

  Chapter Two

  “I see you’ve been watching Humphrey Bogart movies with Pops.” Jake sauntered over to the bar.

  Kelli had known he was coming back. After all, Pops was his grandfather, and even Jake wouldn’t skip his funeral. So she really shouldn’t have been shocked to see her ex walk in. But knowing and seeing were apparently very different things. And the bar was her territory. She wasn’t sure what his territory was—the rest of the world maybe?

  He’d let his dark hair grow a little longer, and it looked good on him, even if he did look like he’d just rolled out of bed. Come to think of it, maybe that was the appeal. The scruffy boots and jeans could have been the same ones he’d been wearing the last time she’d seen him. That had been when he’d slammed the door behind her. There had been a look of blazing anger in those baby blue eyes then. At least the venom was missing now.

  He stopped about a foot from the bar. Kelli had a regrettable urge to take a step back. Not that he would get violent; Jake wasn’t like that, at least not with women. It was just that the force of his presence was sort of overwhelming. It was those blue eyes, she thought, so bright but shadowed by
the thickest black eyelashes ever. Or maybe it was the tendons that showed in his arms and the big quarterback hands. Or, really, his whole tanned, toned body. He’d always had a look about him like he was. . . not threatening or wired, but like he was coiled up inside, ready to spring if he needed. She’d always thought it was beyond sexy.

  So did every other woman in the world. ‘Jake, sign my boob,’ giggle, giggle, ‘Sign my ass’ tee-hee, ‘Write it on my stomach.’ Had they planned never to bathe again?

  “I’m surprised to see you here,” Jake said, sitting down on a bar stool. “I thought you’d be over at Gran’s house.”

  “Ah. So that’s why you came here instead.” That stung a little.

  She shouldn’t care; she’d been planning to avoid him if she could. Still. . .at one time he had hurried over to the bar so he could see her. Of course, that had been when she was nineteen and always taking care to look her best because he was going to see her. Now she was nine years older, and her face was bare of make-up, her eyes red from crying so much the past two days, and her hair almost a month overdue for its brightening highlight. Not to mention the fact that it was hung in careless braids fastened with only rubber bands; they weren’t even matching colors.

  Even Jake looked a little embarrassed at the import of his words, and he glanced away as he said, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just... didn’t want to go in the house. There are about a hundred people there.”

  He was lying; she could always tell. She was the person he didn’t want to face. But she didn’t call him on it. If he was going to be living in Phoenix now, she had to at least appear to get along with him. So she said instead, “Yeah. I figured Gran had plenty of help, and I have to get the Blue ready for, you know, the wake. Besides, this is where I feel closest to Pops.” Suddenly there was a lump in her throat, and she swallowed, fighting back the tears. She would not let Jake see her cry. She moved back, leaning against the opposite counter and crossing her arms.

  “Yeah.” He had his elbows on the bar, looking down at the narrow groove he was tracing with his finger. “The front yard does it for me. He’s the one who always tossed me the ball, not Dad.”

  “I guess a thoracic surgeon probably doesn’t play much football.”

  “No. Might hurt his hands.”

  There was a trace of bitterness in his voice. Kelli knew he’d never gotten along well with his father. No reason they would; they were pretty much opposites; his father was all about cold logic, organization, and fancy education, and Jake was a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants guy who’d never wanted to do anything but play football.

  Kelli didn’t know what to say—she was no longer the person who soothed his hurts—and an awkward silence fell. It was a welcome distraction when there was a crash in the kitchen, followed by the sound of metal rolling around on the floor.

  “There’s somebody else here?” Jake looked over at the door to the kitchen.

  Before she could reply, the door swung open and a heavyset man in biker gear stuck his head out. “Sorry, Kelli, I knocked over a stack of bowls, but they were all metal, so no damage.” He eyes went to Jake, and he opened the door farther and stepped out, looking suspiciously at Jake. “You having any problem out here?”

  “No, I’m fine. This is Pops’ grandson, Jake. Jake, this is Tiny.”

  “Of course it is,” Jake murmured, but he did that chin-tilting thing that guys did when they were too far away to bump fists and said, “Hey, how you doing?”

  “I’m sorry about your granddad,” Tiny told him. “Pops was a great guy.”

  “Yeah, he was. Thanks.” Tiny nodded and popped back into the kitchen. Jake turned to Kelli. “Your cook’s a biker?”

  “No.” Kelli smiled, glad that they’d gotten past the uncomfortable silence. “He’s just one of our customers, and he started helping out sometimes, and now he’s a bouncer. It helps a lot to have one of the bikers handling disputes.”

  Jake’s raised an eyebrow and said, “When did the Blue become a biker bar?”

  “It didn’t happen all of a sudden. The neighborhood’s changed some over the years. And two years ago, Pops booked this heavy metal band here one Saturday.” She nodded toward the small stage at one end of the room. “Turns out a lot of bikers like heavy metal.”

  “Pops hired a heavy metal band?” That brought both his eyebrows up this time.

  Kelli grinned, remembering. “I don’t think Pops realized it was heavy metal; it had some weird name that could have been anything. The lead singer stopped in here and Pops liked him—he called him ‘that nice kid with all the hardware in his face.’ Pops agreed to give his band a shot, and it was the best night the bar had had in a long time. There was such a big crowd that Pops kept bringing that band back, and gradually we had more music like that and more bikers came to hear them, and...” She shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt that a really good mechanic shop is down the street a couple of blocks.”

  “But you aren’t—” He frowned. “I mean, isn’t it kind of dangerous for you to work here?”

  “I’m fine. We have Tiny, and sometimes one of the linemen at ASU. I don’t know how tough they are, but they sure look imposing. And we have strict rules. No fights, no weapons, no colors. They start a fight or whatever, they’re banned for six months. Do it again, and they’re permanently out.”

  “Good to know. I thought maybe I was going to have to throw down with your boyfriend there. Figured I was faster, but he’s got me on size.”

  Kelli rolled her eyes. “Give me a break. Tiny is not my type.”

  “I know.”

  There was a gleam in his eye, a very familiar gleam, and Kelli felt a very familiar quiver inside. Irritated, she turned away and, just to have something to do, she picked up a mug and went to the tap. “You want a beer?”

  There was a little silence, and when she glanced over at him in question, the gleam was gone. “I’m shocked you offered me a beer,” Jake said, trying for lightness but landing on resentment. “Given the way you always bitched at me about it.”

  Kelli set the half-filled mug down on the bar with a thud. “I didn’t object to you drinking a beer, Jake. What I didn’t like was you going out with your ‘posse’ and getting wasted when you had a game to play the next day. It was unprofessional and it affected your play, and you were cheating your fans and your team.”

  “Ah, yes.” His mouth twisted. “Always worried about the team. Have to keep that salary coming in.”

  Anger surged in Kelli. She felt like climbing over the bar and smacking him. “Don’t!” She jabbed her index finger at him to punctuate her words. “Don’t you dare accuse me of being a gold-digger. It was never about the money, Jake, and you know it. I didn’t care about whatever million-dollar contract you signed. I never asked for the jewelry or the fancy car or any of those things you bought me, and you might have noticed that I left all that stuff behind when we split up. I didn’t take a cent from you in the divorce. What I cared about was you. But you sure took care of that, didn’t you?” Kelli realized too late the hurt she’d revealed with that last statement.

  But fortunately Jake sailed past that with his usual lack of emotional awareness and jumped up, his eyes hot with temper. “Yeah, and why the hell didn’t you ask for anything in the divorce? What were you trying to do, make me feel guilty? Or just show everyone what a saint you are? How bad I am? Whatever it was, it was pretty goddamn dumb of you.”

  “First you say I was after your money, and then you say I was stupid not to wring all I could from you in the divorce. Make up your mind. Which am I? Greedy or stupid?”

  “Can I pick ‘all of the above?’”

  “Get out of here, Jake.” She grabbed the mug and poured the beer down the sink. “I was hoping we might be able to be civil to one another, at least until Pops is in the ground. But clearly we can’t. Just stay away from me.”

  Chapter Three

  As Jake left, slamming the door behind him, Kelli sat down on the stool behind the bar
, deflating. He still knew how to push her buttons. She wished she hadn’t let him do it. She had hoped that after four years, she’d be completely over him, that he would seem like a stranger to her.

  But as soon as she saw him, she’d known that was a lost cause. All he had to do was walk in, and she’d immediately felt on edge and tingling. There were a few little differences in his hair and face, even in his demeanor—there was something a little weary about him now—but she knew that mouth, those eyes, that little scar on his chin. She knew how he smelled, how he tasted, how his breath felt against her cheek. She had unwrapped him like a gift and kissed her way down that toned body. And Kelli was honest enough to admit that as soon as she saw him, she’d wanted to do that again.

  No danger of that, though, since they couldn’t be in the same room with each other for five minutes without getting into an argument.

  The kitchen door opened, and Naomi, her assistant manager and friend, walked in. Naomi’s curly red hair was its usual cloud around her head, and she was wearing crazy long earrings and one of her vintage seventies dresses that looked like she should be floating through a meadow with a daisy chain crown on her head.

  “Who was that hot guy that was walking out of here when I drove up?”

  “That was Jake Riley.”

  “Oh...” Naomi’s eyes rounded. “Wow. It must have been hard to walk out on all that.”

  “Yes, it was. I cried the whole plane ride home. The guy in the seat next to me must have thought I was nuts.” Kelli sighed. “Unfortunately Jake’s not only still hot, he’s also still a jerk. Stupid me, I thought... I really thought that maybe we could get along now that he was back. Pops was so happy when he learned that Jake was going to sign with Phoenix; he hoped things would be like they used to be between them.”

  “Did they have a fight?” Naomi settled down on a bar stool near Kelli and crossed her arms on the bar.

  “I don’t know exactly. I’m sure Pops gave Jake his opinion about the way he was acting, but Pops never said a word to me about what happened. I just know that after the divorce, Jake didn’t come back here often. It was because of me, I’m sure. Jake didn’t like it that Pops gave me my job back when I left Miami. That he and Gran still treated me like I was part of the family. I guess he thought his grandparents should have taken his side in the divorce.”