Free Fire and Flame by Anya Breton Page A

too much of the breasts within her low collared dress. Brent took his fill of looking.
    It was the final straw. Sara burst through the door, attempting to breeze past them as if she hadn’t a care in the world. But she was far too angry to succeed. One of her shoe purchases smacked Brent. He grunted even as he scrambled up guiltily.
    “Sara,” he called after her exactly as he’d done outside the lawyer’s office. “We need to talk.”
    “Can’t talk.” Her voice echoed in the stairwell. Sara winced at the roughness she heard in the echo. “I’ve got to get ready to go out.”
    “You were just out.”
    She’d started this lie. She had no choice but to see it through. Attempting a flippant tone, she said, “No, I was gathering supplies to go out. Now I’m preparing to go out.” Sara bit down on the urge to snarl that he should go back to the bitch in the kitchen.
    Brent, however, was not one to control his urges. He snarled every bit as sourly as she’d tried to avoid. “Your father not in the ground two days and you’re already gallivanting around the city?”
    She faced him with a shaky swivel. Her loot was a satisfying barrier between them. But Brent ignored the bags—his piercing gaze fixed on her face as though nothing could shield her.
    “Daddy would have wanted me to be happy.” Sara inhaled a shaking breath upon recalling his final wish. Whirling back around, she ground out, “Final wish aside.”
    And then she slammed the door to her pink bedroom in his face.
    Sara dropped her bags where she stood. Dramatically she threw herself on her full sized bed, shoving her face into her pillow. She didn’t want to cry but there was no avoiding it.
    An inheritance contingent upon Brent hadn’t been bad enough. No, Brent had to invite the foulest witch in the entire region over for dinner the very same night.
    As if he had any room to criticize her!
    She pressed the pillow tightly to her eyes. Sara didn’t want to remember that kiss—the amazing, mind-scrambling kiss. But she’d been unable to get it out of her head. Why did it have to come from him?
    There was only one way to forget about a kiss like that. Find someone who kissed better.
    ****
    The whole kissing replacement scheme had been a good idea in practice. However, in execution Sara found her heart simply wasn’t in it.
    She was in mourning.
    The backbone of her existence was gone. What would become of her life without her father? Fintan had played a role in all of her hopes and dreams. He’d encouraged her in everything from the smallest whim right on up to her grand vision. And even though she’d intended to move to New York, she’d always known she would spend holidays back home. Now holidays would be empty without her family.
    Sara stared out the Lexus’s windshield at the lights of downtown. The brief trip to her favorite sports bar had been uneventful. She’d ordered a single beer then sipped it in silence as she’d watched the highlights of the day’s games. Two guys had tried to talk to her. She’d ignored them.
    It was Sunday, far too late to call up her school friends. They all had careers and real jobs that would start early in the morning. If life had continued on her prescribed course, she would have joined their ranks in a few weeks. Now she hadn’t the first idea what would happen next week, let alone in a month.
    Minutes past ten o’clock was a pathetic time to return to the house after a “night out”. Coffee at an all-night restaurant would kill some time.
    Perhaps she’d come to some sort of decision about where to go from here.
    She couldn’t focus her thoughts on anything but Brent. Irritated with her brain, Sara checked her email for news about the internship applications she’d submitted as she sipped from her coffee. She spent the remainder of her time scouring the Internet for information about new ones.
    Scrolling through descriptions of the different opportunities sent her thoughts in a whirl. Did she