Flash and Fire by Marie Ferrarella

handed them to Amanda. His hands closed over hers.
    “I can be very forgiving.” The words seem to drip from his lips. Amanda heard the checker sigh. If Pierce heard, he gave no sign. His eyes were on Amanda’s face, watching her intently. “Given the right set of circumstances.”
    “You’re not going to be given any circumstances,” she said with finality, fervently hoping she could live up to her words. With anyone else, it would have been a foregone conclusion. Not so with Alexander. She knew who he was, what he was, but she was beginning to suspect that it wouldn’t make a difference in the long run.
    That it wouldn’t help to protect her from him.
    For the first time, Amanda felt afraid.
    The source of the problem, she realized, were his eyes. They made her forget things she needed to remember. Averting her eyes from his, Amanda thrust several bills at the checker.
    “Thank you for shopping at Baker’s,” the redhead mumbled, depositing change into Amanda’s hands, or where she judged them to be. She was too preoccupied with Pierce to be sure of her aim.
    Pierce was not above smiling at the checker in return. The woman visibly dissolved. The coins she was giving Amanda fell between them onto the metal scale.
    Good, work on her, not me, Amanda thought.
    She didn’t even bother to gather up the change. Instead, she quickly pushed her cart out as the redhead turned her brilliant smile on Pierce full force.
    Amanda’s getaway was aborted in the parking lot. By the time she had reached her car and opened her trunk, Pierce was bearing down on her from the rear.
    “You forgot your change.” He jingled it in his hand before reaching for hers.
    Amanda turned her back on him. “Keep it.”
    A smile played on his lips, curving his mouth slowly. “I never charge, Mandy.”
    Amanda felt a string of words forming that she refused to utter around Christopher. Frustrated, she ignored Pierce completely and unlocked her door while Christopher beat his heels against the cart.
    “Mandy, I get the distinct impression that you’re running away from me.”
    “So, you’re not as dense as I thought.” She shifted a sack from the cart into the trunk. “Alexander—“
    “Pierce.” He mouthed his name slowly, sensuously, as if he expected her to mimic him.
    His lips looked to be in excellent condition.
    “Alexander,” she repeated doggedly as she tossed two more sacks into the trunk, “get this straight. I am not in the market for whole wheat, whole grain, or whole superstud.” She poked him in the chest to emphasis each point and hated the flash of amusement in his eyes. “See you at the office.” One last sack followed and then she slammed the trunk with feeling.
    When she turned around to take Christopher out of the cart and place him into his car seat, he was no longer there.
    Oh God, now what?
    “Christo—“
    His name had hardly formed on her lips when she saw that Pierce was slipping her son into the car seat. Without any trouble.
    She cursed his interference as she rounded the back of the car. Christopher was letting Pierce buckle him in with only a minimum of fuss. He was usually all waving arms and legs when either she or Carla did it.
    “That’s a big boy,” Pierce commended soothingly. Christopher said something unintelligible in response and beamed.
    Maybe Pierce was good with children, Amanda thought grudgingly. That still didn’t mean she was going to greet him with open arms and let him into her life. That would be courting trouble. She was a grown woman. She knew trouble when she saw it.
    Pushing Pierce aside, Amanda tested each of the two belts that held Christopher in place to assure herself that they were secure.
    Pierce watched her hands: quick, soft, capable. He thought of those hands on him and anticipation stirred. “Not a very trusting soul, are you, Mandy?”
    Her eyes met his. Hers were cold, flat, and filled with memories.
    “No.”
    For the first time, Pierce began to wonder