Fire & Flesh

by Kerri Carr

  © Copyright 2017 by Kerri Carr

  All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person,

  living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  From the Author:

  44 Special Bonus Stories INSIDE!

  Thanks you for purchasing this book.

  Fire & Flesh

  A Firefighter Romance Story

  By: Kerri Carr

  Table of Contents

  Fire & Flesh

  Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Bonus Stories

  Going Full Circle

  Taken by An Extraterrestrial

  Laid, Lust & Lies

  Medieval Love

  The Double Tale

  A Taste of Her Pie

  Dimensional Love

  The Ranch of New Dreams

  KIKI Woods

  Her Highland Love

  Muse

  I Do…

  The Peace Treaty

  Hearts of Dust

  Sharing Seals

  Kiss of Tomorrow

  Aileen

  Endless Love

  Inextinguishable Love

  Immortal Souls

  WE WERE THREE

  The Rising Star

  Skin-Walker

  The Thrill

  Luck Out

  The New Normal

  Forever

  Shifters Mountain

  Happy Valley

  Strange and Beautiful

  Bound by the Bronco

  Seduced by the Countryside

  Kissing a Scoundrel

  Laws of Passion

  The Unbitten

  A Soldier’s Love

  The Kindergarten Teacher

  The Moonlit Guardians

  Interview with an Alien

  Werebear in the Woods

  When Gods Die

  Hunter in the Flight

  Egyptian Secrets

  Chronicles of Gar

  Fire & Flesh

  Description

  When her father dies, Samantha Reid leaves town, including her childhood friend, Robert Foster. Years later, she is reunited with Robert when she goes back to St. Louis to investigate a fire similar to the one that killed her father. She is shocked to find that Robert is no longer the chubby lad that she once knew when they were in school, but a hunk of a fireman that all women want to get their hands on. The only problem is that he doesn’t seem to have forgiven her for leaving him. Complicating things is the fact that she has a crush on Robert and yet she is someone else’s fiancée. Will their love overcome the challenges they are facing?

  Chapter 1

  Samantha Reid

  “You should have told me that you're going to the South, I would have come along with you,” Eddie said into the phone as Samantha made her way into the airport lounge, dragging her bags behind her on a luggage cart.

  “I'm not going to be there very long, and I didn’t want to disrupt your schedule,” she checked herself through the glass doors before making her way to the reception so that she could book her flight to St. Louis. “I just need to confirm if that is the same warehouse where my dad died.”

  “Well, okay then, but don’t take too long. If you need anything, let me know,” her fiancée replied, although she could sense the disappointment in his voice.

  “Don’t you worry, I'll be back before you know it,” she smiled into the phone. “I love you, and take care.”

  She hung up the call as she approached the gentleman at the counter.

  “I'd like one ticket to St. Louis,” she smiled at him as he punched a number of keys on his keyboard and looked up at her to take her details.

  It had been a long time since she had been to her hometown, the city where she had been born and raised. As a matter of fact, since that dreadful day that her father had died, she had made up her mind never to go back there. The place was filled with memories that Samantha would rather bury in the past, and she remembered everything as if it was yesterday, and yet it had already been a decade.

  It had all began one dreadful evening when there was a storm. Back then, she was just eighteen years old and had just graduated from high school. Her whole life revolved around St. Louis back then, all her friends, and particularly her best friend, Robert Foster. Yes, he was a boy that she had grown up with. Their homes were next to each other along the Mississippi and when they had been kids, Robert's father manhandled him constantly. Robert would come to her place, where they would hide away in her attic. She was his consolation, and at times she had wished that his dad would just vanish from the face of the earth.

  As she went to the waiting lounge and settled into one of the seats, memories of her childhood came flooding back. She and Robert had done everything together. He was a plump boy with chubby cheeks, always dressed clumsily but still her best friend. He had been like the brother that she never had, and at times she wondered what happened to him. When her father had died, she had collected her savings and fled the city as soon as they were done with the funeral.

  At times she had felt guilty for not looking for Robert, but Samantha knew that if she had looked for him, it would have brought back the painful memories. Robert had been a part of her life, just as much as her father had been, and she knew that she could never think of one of them without thinking of the other. Her mother had died when she was a little girl and the only memories that she had of her had been photographs. From the stories that her dad had told her, Samantha's mother had been one of the prettiest women in the world, and Samantha looked just like her.

  “Will the passengers flying to Lambert International Airport with AAA Airlines, kindly board the plane,” a voice crackled over the speakers, shaking her out of her thoughts as she quickly stood up and picked her hand luggage, walking slowly toward the exit along with the other passengers.

  She found a seat at the back of the plane, glad that there was nobody sitting next to hers. It wasn’t long before the plane finally took off. Samantha thought about the reason why she was going back to St. Louis. When she had left St. Louis, she had joined the police academy and was now a forensics investigator. She had been spurred by the fact that the people that had burned the warehouse where her father had died had never been found. Now she had made it her mandate to find people that committed murder.

  A day ago, it had come to her notice that the very same warehouse in which her father had died, had been burned again and there were people that had been injured. She had a feeling that this case was related his father, and her curiosity had been aroused. It could be the same person or people that had set the warehouse ablaze when her father had died, and she was intent on getting to the bottom of it.

  She closed her eyes as she waited for the forty-minute journey from Chicago to come to an end. She felt a little nervous since she wasn’t sure what she was going to find there. Did her old school friends still live there? She was sure that most of them had married, or were married. Samantha felt a little tense and anxious, at the same time. Would the ghosts that had haunted her for years come waltzing back into her life? It was time that she dealt with her demons once and for all, and the best way of doing that was to face
them head-on. This was probably something that she should have done a long time ago. Samantha felt a smile cracking on her face at the thought of meeting Robert again. She wondered if he still looked the same and if he had married by now. Who knows, he might have even moved out of St. Louis!

  Chapter 2

  Robert Foster

  “Make sure that the back is completely covered,” Robert shouted commands at his juniors.

  He was now the senior fire brigade officer in St. Louis, and being on this very site brought back painful memories. This was the very same place that he had tried to save Samantha's dad, Dean Reid, ten years ago. He was hiding in the warehouse when it burst into flames and he had managed to get out before it became bad. On realizing that Dean was in the building, Robert had tried to force his way back into the building but the flames were too fierce. He had stood outside listening to Dean's screams helplessly. Dean would have been saved, but the firefighters in the city were slow in responding to the alarms.

  He swallowed hard when he remembered the look on Samantha's face as the doctors told her that her father was dead. Dean had been the only family she had, and she had been broken. Robert had felt bad for her, but there was nothing that he could do about it, and that is why he had been more than hurt when she had left the city without telling anyone, not even him. At first, Robert had thought that Samantha had just gone for a short while, but as time went, he realized that she might never come back.

  This is the point that he realized that she meant more than just a friend and confidant to him. Robert had been in love with Samantha all his life. She was the one person who he could tell absolutely anything without her judging him. She had been there for him whenever his father had come home drunk and physically abused him. She had never judged him despite being overweight and always overeating. He had been in love with her from the time that her body started developing into that of a woman. He remembered the numerous times that he’d had wet dreams because of her, but it was too late. She was gone and was never coming back. Samantha was probably married, and with kids, by now.

  “Chief, I think that we have everything under control,” his assistant said, coming to a stop beside him as they assessed the damage from the top of one of the fire engines.

  “Great work, Shane, we better make sure that anyone who was inside has been evacuated and given medical care,” he patted his colleague on the back as they went down the ladder.

  “You looked a little-disoriented back there, everything okay?” Shane said.

  “Don’t you remember?” he looked at his former schoolmate quizzically.

  “Oh dammit, how could I forget,” Shane slapped his helmet on the forehead. “I'm really sorry about that. You never really got over that incident, did you?”

  “Well, you could say that I was doing great until this happened. I don’t understand how the same place could burn twice, something just doesn’t add up here,” Robert said thoughtfully as they entered the smoke-filled room, armed with smoke blankets.

  “Well, I guess you'll have to let the cops do their job—”

  “The cops are fucking inconsistent. God knows what they can get done right! They only know how to munch doughnuts,” Robert seemed to get more and more disappointed with the police in the city every day. “I think that what we need here is some fresh blood to handle cases like this.”

  “Maybe you're right. I just remembered one of the cops discussing a moment ago. It looks like there will be a new detective to handle this particular case. I hear that she is very passionate about these sorts of cases. Maybe that’s the sort of new blood that you're talking about,” Shane said as they looked around the room for anybody that could have been forgotten behind.

  “Well, let’s hope that she can get some justice done here, or else we’re in deep trouble and this is something that’ll keep recurring every couple of years.”

  Chapter 3

  Samantha Reid

  “Ma’am, if you'll please follow me, the chief would like to brief you on the incident,” one of the officers walked up to Samantha in the reception area of police headquarters.

  “Sure,” she said as she flipped her small mirror shut and put it back into her handbag, before standing up.

  Today she was dressed in a black sleeveless dress that hugged her body tightly. Samantha loved showing off her curves and her long slender legs, meaning that the dress came down midway to her thighs. As she stood up, she seemed to steal the attention of everyone in the room as men stared at her. This was one chauvinistic office since all the people seemed to be men, aside from some secretaries and receptionists. It was a good thing that Samantha was only here to handle this case and then go back to Chicago.

  “Miss Reid,” a bulky man that must be the chief said as they entered an office, moments later. “Good to have you here. I'm Chief Harris. Welcome to St. Louis.”

  He shook her hand firmly before he waved her into a visitor’s seat by his desk.

  “A pleasure meeting you,” she said politely, before sitting down as she watched him going through a file.

  “They say that you're interested in the arson case,” he studied the contents of the file. “I don’t think that there is really anything to investigate there, but you can have a go at it. You'll realize that you came all this way for nothing.”

  He tossed the file onto his desk and smirked at her. Samantha already disliked the guy, and she realized the reason why so many cases in St. Louis were unresolved. With that sort of attitude, nothing would ever be done about anything.

  “Well, I guess that it won't harm to take a look, you never know what I could find?” she said carefully. “What have your detectives found out so far?”

  “My detectives? Why would I let them waste their time there. I mean, fires like those are obviously caused by things like electrical faults. If I were the owner of the property, I would ask insurance to take it up with the electricity company,” he said, pulling a cigarette out of one of the drawers and bombing it as she looked at him in shock.

  “I think detectives should always take a look, no matter what the cause of the fire is. Anyway, not to worry, I'll go a take a look at the scene. I hope you put a security barrier around it so that people don’t tamper with it. Is it possible for me to meet the head of the firemen that went to put out the fire?” she said.

  “Of course we secured it out,” Chief Harry said as he picked up his phone and punched some numbers. “One moment, I'm pretty sure that the fireman can meet you at the scene.”

  He spoke into the phone before hanging up and slamming his phone down as if he had just made an achievement.

  “He will be glad to meet you at the scene in half an hour,” Harry said.

  “Well, thank you. Maybe I should get going already so that I don’t keep him waiting,” she said as she got up, noting with disgust at the way that he leered at her hungrily.

  “I will assign you an officer and a vehicle to take you around—”

  “Actually, I think just a vehicle will do. I can find my way around,” she interrupted him, not wanting to carry baggage around since she was used to working on her own.

  “Are you sure about that?” he raised his eyebrows as he also rose. “I guess that’s perfect. I didn’t want to waste another officer going there to chase after the wind.”

  Samantha breathed a sigh of relief as she finally found herself alongside the same constable that had taken her to the office, in an elevator heading to the basement parking. She wondered how anyone could work under such a jerk.

  “Quite an asshole, huh,” the young cop said to her, smiling as he looked at her before refocusing on the lift buttons.

  “You could say that again. He doesn’t seem eager to get anything done,” Samantha replied.

  “I’ve always suspected that something must have gone down, but nobody at headquarters wants anything to do with that case,” he said, looking around as if someone would hear him.

  “Really? I smell something fishy here, alth
ough I can't quite place my finger on it,” she turned to look at the young cop that looked like he was fresh out of the academy.

  “Why don’t you let me help you with the investigation?” he beamed at her. “I'm Donald, but you can call me Don.”

  Samantha figured that if she was working alone and everyone seemed to avoid this case, she could use a hand on the inside. A smile slowly broke over her face.

  “You know what, I think I could use your help,” she said to him.

  ****

  “You seem to know your way pretty well,” Don sat on the passenger seat as Samantha drove toward the warehouse.

  “This is where I grew up,” she said to him, her heart racing as she branched onto the gravel road that led to the warehouse that had once been her father’s office.

  “I figured that much,” Don said as the burned building came into view.

  “Looks like the fire department arrived on time,” she said to him as she studied the scene from afar.

  “Yes, it has a pretty effective team, the best in this part of the city. Robert is doing a pretty good job running the department,” Donald replied, the name Robert reminding her of her best friend.

  She had intended to look for him yesterday when she had arrived, but she had been exhausted and intended to find out his whereabouts today.

  “Back in the day, it was just as dead as your police department is right now. No wonder nobody died,” she said, killing the engines and stepping out of the car.

  It looked like the building had been rehabilitated before it burned down because it resembled the good old days. She was filled with nostalgia as she stepped over the red tape and walked toward the building. The smell of burning wood was fresh as they both entered the building. Very little had changed from the days when she was younger, aside from some of the burned furniture. Memories of this place came flooding back into her mind as they walked around the warehouse.

  Samantha had to hold back tears when she remembered that it was in this very building that her dad had lost his life. Despite her state, she carefully scanned everything, not wanting to miss out on anything. As if he sensed her need to be alone, Donald headed up the stairs. Samantha walked around the ground floor, studying everything she could. They had been in the building for almost twenty minutes when she heard a car pulling up outside, followed by footsteps walking over the tape and toward the building. She went down on one knee to study something on the floor as the footsteps walked into the building, coming in her direction and coming to a stop behind her.