Page 15 of Heating Up (Nugget)
“Ah, jeez. How old was he?” Having seen many deaths in his line of work, Aidan knew it was the worst when the tragedy involved a child.
“Thirteen.”
“That’s rough.” He reached out and grasped her hand. “I’m really sorry, Dana.”
She gazed out over the restaurant, growing distant. “Thank you. It was a long time ago.”
The server came with all their food at once and the conversation changed to the weather.
“Is it always this hot here?” Aidan pushed the nachos closer to her.
“Hot in the summer and cold in the winter. But even so, it’s been unseasonably warm. And the drought hasn’t helped things.”
He nodded, stuffing his face with steak. The beef here was phenomenal. “What else did you do in Reno?”
“Got a bed.” She turned red and quickly deflected by adding, “And some suits for work.”
Clearly the attraction thing wasn’t one-sided, he mused. Yet there would be no beds involved between them. Nope, that would be a colossally bad idea.
“I guess it’ll take you a while to reacquire all the things you lost,” he said. “Was any of it irreplaceable?”
“Tins from my family’s candy company. I collect them. Some of the ones I lost were antiques.” She shrugged and tried to put on a good face. “Hey, it could’ve been worse, right?”
He wished all fire survivors saw it that way. “What kind of candy company?”
“Calloway Confections.” When she saw the name didn’t register with him, she said, “You’d know it if you were from California or Nevada. Chocolates, caramels, toffee.”
Aidan grinned. “You gonna bring home samples?”
And just like that Dana lit up. He’d seen her phony smiles in the real estate office this morning, but holy hell, a real Dana Calloway smile was something to behold. It was as if she shined from the inside out.
“You like candy?” she asked.
“I’ve been known to have a sweet tooth.”
“Then I’ll bring some home.”
“So why didn’t you work in the family business?” From the time he’d been a boy he’d known that, like his father, he’d be a firefighter. Same with his brothers. Sloane had been the only one to go in a different direction.
“I like real estate,” she said, but something in her demeanor told him there was more to the story. But he’d leave his investigative skills to the job; she was entitled to her privacy.
“Yeah? Is it pretty good in Nugget?”
“It’s getting there. Originally, I was in Tahoe. You can’t touch anything there for under a million dollars and the competition among agents was fierce. Here, I feel a little like the prospectors who founded this town . . . like there’s going to be a gold rush.”
“I thought Nugget was founded first by loggers and then the railroad.”
“Yep. But the Gold Rush helped feed this town. A lot of the first merchants made their fortunes from the miners.”
“Pretty interesting stuff. So you came to make your fortune?”
“Carol offered me a good opportunity, and I like the idea that her agency isn’t a national chain. Mom-and-pop, just like my family’s business.”
Tawny Wade and Lucky Rodriguez took the table next to theirs and Aidan waved. He only knew Tawny from the house and Lucky not at all, but the couple was pretty tight with his sister and Brady. They waved back and Tawny got up and came over.
“I heard from Carol that you two are sharing the house.” Wow, news traveled fast here. “I’m so sorry about the fire, Dana. What a terrible thing. Do they know how it started?”
“I left a candle burning,” she said, and looked down at her plate.
