by Jill Shalvis
“That makes it even stranger.”
“She’s young enough, and he’s old enough. Don’t worry about them.”
“I won’t, because I can’t concentrate on anything knowing we still have to do this.”
“Just keep breathing, slow and relaxed.”
She shot him a sideways glance. “How about another lesson in relaxing? The one you gave me last night is wearing off.”
“Red. I can’t talk about this on the job.”
“You’d rather talk about it tonight? On my living room floor? Okay, but I don’t remember having a lot of breath for talking last night.”
He kept his voice low and quiet with what looked like great effort. “Last night was a little more than just stress relief.”
She hadn’t expected him to give in and discuss it, but she should have known better than to bait him because he never backed down, not from anything. “You know what? I don’t want to get into this.”
“Right.” He let out a harsh laugh. “We only talk about things on your terms. Fine. Back to the fire then.”
“I really don’t want to get into that.”
“I bet.”
“In fact, I just remembered. I have to have my wisdom teeth pulled out, slowly, without Novocain.” She surged to her feet but he was quicker and gently took her arm.
“Red.”
She sat and sighed. “Yeah.”
His eyes were solemn, his voice quiet. Calm. “Who did you work with yesterday?”
“You have the schedule.” She pointed to the top sheet of his clipboard, where he’d pinned the schedule Tina had just given him.
“We both know the schedule changes on a whim at Creative Interiors.”
“I worked with Stella and Gregg in the morning. Chloe came in later with stock from Tina’s house. Braden was on his computer. Tina popped in and out. So did my mother.” She and Joe both looked over at Camille.
Camille still had on the little smile from before, but Summer could see the stress behind it. “Hang on.” She rose and walked over to them. “Mom? You okay?”
“Of course.” Camille began adding sugar to her tea. One teaspoon, two.
Oh boy.
“We’re talking about the fire,” Kenny said, watching Camille load him up with enough sugar to handle a whole pot of tea. “How she called you on your cell. When you were trapped.”
More sugar.
Kenny glanced worriedly at Summer.
“Um, Mom? Can I get you anything?”
“No, thank you.” Yet another teaspoon. “You should all join me, it’s ginseng. Good for your circulation. Helps oxygenation.”
“I’m good,” Kenny said, and stood. “You’ve been a huge help.”
“Oh!” Camille wasn’t able to hide her hopeful expression. “We’re all done then?”
“For now. Why don’t you let me drive you home?”
“Oh, I couldn’t let you do that. I don’t want to put you out.”
“It’s right on my way.” Kenny offered her his hand.
Camille shocked Summer and put her hand in the tall fire marshal’s, allowing him to pull her to her feet. “Are you on your motorcycle?”
Kenny shook his head. “I wouldn’t have asked you if I had been.”
“No.” Summer would have sworn she looked…disappointed? “Of course not.”
Kenny laughed. “When I have more questions, maybe tomorrow, I can come back on the bike.”
“With an extra helmet?”
“With an extra helmet,” he said.
“Mom, how do you even know he has a bike?”
Camille blushed. Blushed. “I don’t work tomorrow,” she said to Kenny.
He smiled. “At home then?”
Camille didn’t say yes but neither did she say no. Summer stared at her mother in shock as Kenny led her out the door. “What was that?” she asked Joe. “He’s flirting with her.”
“I think you have that backward,” Joe said, watching them go.
Summer frowned and dropped to a chair, nodding to his clipboard. “Okay, hit me.”
“Why don’t we—”
“Just do it, damn it.”
Just do it, Joe thought. Yeah, sure. He’d just tear her apart, no sweat. He kicked a chair around and straddled it, needing the back of steel and the table between them. “Who closed the shop yesterday?”
“I did,” Summer said.
“You were alone at that time?”
“Yes, I—” She paused. “No. I thought I was, and went around turning stuff off, and then Braden came out of the bathroom and startled me.”
Joe stopped in the middle of writing. This was new to him. “Startled you how?”
“I thought I was alone. He apologized for scaring me, and then left.” She bit her lower lip and stared at him, obviously seeing that she’d told him something new. “Look, I’m not saying that I think he had anything to do with—”
“I’m just putting the pieces together, Red. No assumptions, no jumping to conclusions.”
She tried to read his notes. “Do you really think it’s arson?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“But you know what you’re leaning toward.”
“Most fires are not arson, and I still have to ask these questions. What did you do after Braden left?”
She scrubbed a hand over her face. “There was a light on downstairs. Tina and my mom are pretty anal about that, so I went down there to turn it off. The room is—was—an employee rest area.” She looked down at her clasped fingers. “And I was tired. Really tired. I found a big purple beanbag down there, looking so comfortable—” She looked at him and he knew both of them were remembering how many times he’d slept on a bag just like it, and why.
“I fell asleep,” she murmured. “And when I woke up—” She paused. Her breathing changed, quickened, and she closed her eyes tight.
Ah, hell. Again he got out of his chair and crouched by hers, covering her hands with one of his. “Breathe, Red.”
“I am.” But she was breathing so quickly she was going to hyperventilate. “Last night I remembered something about the first warehouse fire. About—When my dad—” She gulped air and gripped his fingers hard.
“Slower. Come on now, in and out.” He showed her with his own breath. “Nice and slow, see?”
“Oh, damn, it’s bad.” She clutched at his hands when she couldn’t catch air into her lungs.
Gently he pushed her head down to her knees, staring helplessly over her head while she relived the nightmare. Because of him. “Just keep breathing.”
“I know—I’m trying—I’m mixing up the fires now. Old and new. God. I’m sorry. This is so stupid. I feel so stupid.”
“Think of it this way. You’re alive. How stupid is that?” Because he couldn’t help himself, he stroked a hand down her slim, shaking back. “Can you tell me what you remember?”
“I remember standing there between you and Danny, and seeing the smoke. I remember running up the steps, screaming for my dad, then opening the basement door—” She closed her eyes and hugged herself tight. “The flames. I could hear him—” She couldn’t possibly get herself into a tighter ball, though she tried. “That’s all. There’s more but I can’t seem to get to it.”
He gritted his teeth. “The beam came down and hit you.”
She pressed her face to her knees and nodded. “I know this isn’t the right fire. Go ahead and get this done. Ask me the rest of your questions.”
“Red.”
“Do it.”
He ran through the list as gently as possible, memorizing her answers to write down later because he wasn’t going to take his hands off her.
No, she hadn’t used the bathroom in the hours before the fire. No, she hadn’t heard anything while she was down in the basement. No, she hadn’t used gasoline in the shop.
And when he was done, she leapt up. “I have to get out of here.”
“Yeah.” He looked away from her, remembering he wasn’t
going to like it when she was gone again.
“No, I mean—I just need some air.”
He met her gaze, the woman who pretended not to need any emotional attachments, and realized he wasn’t ready to let her go. “How about some company?”
“I don’t know, what if you feel the urge to talk about sex?”
He caught the teasing light in her eyes and felt a profound release of the tension gripping his body. She was going to be okay. “I’ll try to restrain myself.”
“Don’t do so on my account.”
He shook his head and took her hand. “Come on you. I know just the thing to cheer you up.”
Chapter 13
A frozen yogurt?” Summer laughed, and it was the belly laugh Joe remembered.
He found himself smiling at her as he handed over the strawberry yogurt cone he’d just bought her.
They’d walked past the pier and out onto the beach. The early evening sun beat down on their heads, the sand blazing beneath their feet. A nice breeze washed over them with every wave that hit the shore, the sound and light spray both soothing and calming. Around them were a variety of surfers, raucous young couples, and tourists.
Summer, in her crepe camisole top and skirt and easy grin, looked right at home, unless one knew her and could see past the slightly shaky smile. She was still hurting. Even so, she dug into her dessert with typical gusto, then twirled around on the sand like a kid, her feet splashing in the water, making her skirt cling to her calves. “You’re right,” she said, coming to a stop and facing him. “This definitely hits the spot.”
Oh, yeah, it did, he thought as he slurped his own chocolate shake down his throat and watched her begin to shed her tension like an unwanted coat. God, for the ability to do that.
“Trade,” she said, and before he could blink, she thrust her cone at him and took his shake—an old habit. She slurped at his dessert for a moment. “Not nearly as healthy as mine, but good,” she said and switched back, happily resuming her cone. “Joe?”
“Hmm?”
“I have a confession.” She licked her lip to get every last drop, also an old habit, though it hadn’t used to make him hard.
“A confession?” he asked, his gaze locked on her wet tongue as it darted back into her mouth.
“Uh huh. And I’ll tell you what it is if you give me a secret back.”
“You first,” he said warily.
Her eyes held his prisoner. She spoke very solemnly. “I missed the beach.”
He stared at her. “That’s it? Your big confession? You missed the beach?”
“Yes.” Another torturous lick of her cone. “Now you.”
“Oh, no. That’s not good enough.”
She took yet another slow noisy lick of her yogurt, which made his eyes cross. “Okay, I’ll give you another,” she said. “Ready?”
Expecting another statement like “I missed the beach,” he relaxed. Even smiled. “Hit me.”
“I missed you. More than I missed the beach.”
He went still, then forced a smile. “Yeah, I noticed how much you missed me. All those letters cluttering up my mailbox.”
She dug her bare toes into the sand. Her crystal toe ring sparkled. “I wanted to write you. I must have started a hundred letters. Last year when I came home for Christmas, I even looked you up. I drove by your place. I didn’t expect it to be a sailboat in Mission Bay. It’s lovely.”
“I take care of it for the owner, who’s a fire chief in Los Angeles. Why didn’t you stop and see me?”
“Nope, that’s enough of me. Your turn now. A secret, Joe.”
He stared out at the five-footers and gave her his deepest, darkest one. “I lied when I said I never thought about you.”
She smiled, warm and bright, as if he’d just given her a gift.
“Want to know the truth about why I never came to see you?” she asked. “I was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Afraid we’d never find our way back to the way things were.” She lifted her head and pierced him with those jade eyes he’d never been able to resist. “Can we?” she whispered.
“I never look back.” He took another sip of his shake, then handed it to her. “Trade.”
She did but held on to his wrist before he turned away. “Joe.”
She wanted a better answer, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to share it. But he’d never been able to hold back with her. “I never look back because there’s not much for me there.” Except you. “I live for the here and now, Red. It’s good. It works for me.”
“Like last night. Last night worked for you.”
“Last night was…”
“Good,” she said softly.
More than, he thought, and since she’d wanted a confession, he offered a doozy. “One night wasn’t enough for me.”
Her smile slowly faded. “No?”
Hell, no. But then again, he’d known it wouldn’t be. “I can’t do this as casual as you’re looking for, and survive it.”
She nodded and played her toes in the sand for a moment. She still smelled like smoke. There was a cut visible on her ankle. Damn it. “Red.”
“I know. You don’t want to go back. You don’t want to go forward. I know.”
He sighed and opened his mouth. “Maybe we could start over from a new place. In the here and now.”
Her head whipped up. “Really?”
He was insane. A glutton for punishment. “As friends.”
Her eyes went bright with emotion and before he knew what she meant to do, she leaned in, pressing her mouth to his jaw in a kiss he was certain she thought was sweet but fired his engines like no simple little peck ever should.
“So,” she said. “Friend. What do you do in the here and now for fun? I know you run.”
He shuddered and made her laugh. “I don’t run for fun, but for necessity. There’s a huge difference.”
Her gaze ran over his body. “It works.”
“No.” He waggled a finger in her face. “None of that.”
“None of what?”
“That look.”
“What, I’m just standing here,” she said innocently, lifting her hands.
“Yeah, you’re just standing there. Looking at me like I’m a ten-course meal and you’re starving. Stop it.”
“Why?”
He shifted uncomfortably.
“Why, Joe?”
“It makes me hot.” You make me hot.
Her smile was slow, pure sin. “It’s supposed to.”
“Okay, clearly we need rules for this,” he decided, and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Lots of rules.”
“What, like friend rules?”
“Yeah. No funny looks. No—”
“Kissing?” she asked. “How about kissing?”
“Definitely no kissing. I can’t handle it, Red. I mean it. I can start over. I can be your friend. I can do anything you want except fall for you again and watch you walk away when it’s time.”
She sipped from his shake.
“Red?”
“I hear you,” she said softly.
He only hoped that was true.
Joe and Kenny met to exchange interview information. They sat in Kenny’s office over fast food, their files spread out in front of them.
They were taking a good, hard look at Braden. “He’s relatively new at Creative Interiors,” Joe said. “No one really knows him.”
“We’d better run him through the system,” Kenny said, making notes. “And then go talk to him.”
“And I think it’s time we take harder looks at some of the others as well. Stella and Gregg. Did you know they’d failed at their own shop?”
Kenny looked up. “How long ago?”
“Fifteen years. According to Summer, this came from Stella, and Gregg wasn’t happy about her telling the story.”
Kenny let out a low whistle and began writing again. “Interesting.”
“Very. And then there’s Ally.”
“Red mentioned seeing her a lot lately.” Joe read his notes. “She was at the opening party, and seen driving by the next morning as well. She has a definite grudge, though given she’s as successful as she is, it doesn’t make much sense.”
“If we’re talking grudges…Have you noticed any grudges against any one particular employee?”
“You’re talking about Red.” Joe’s stomach clenched. “And how they all seem a bit wary of her.”
“Yes.”
“That’s the past reaching out to bite her on the ass.”
“Relevant here?” Kenny asked.
“I want to say no,” Joe said slowly. “But…”
“Never say never.”
“At least not in this business.” Wearily Joe pushed to his feet. “Let’s go scour the site again.”
As the sun set, Joe and Kenny showed their badges to the patrol officer and entered the Creative Interior II fire site.
They’d already taken all the pictures they needed of the still wet, charred building. They’d investigated the point of origin. Now they needed to finish the tedious task of going through each room to see if there were any more clues or evidence.
They split up. Kenny worked the front room and Joe took the employee break room where Summer had ended up trapped. The actual fire destruction there had been minimal, mostly just smoke and water damage, but he went through it meticulously, including the purple beanbag that gave him more than a few bad flashbacks.
He climbed the stairs as Summer must have done, stood where she’d said she’d stood when her cell phone had gone off.
Camille had called her. If no one else but Joe thought that was strange, he wouldn’t back away from it. Camille and Summer were circling their way around their mother-daughter relationship. By Summer’s own words, Camille hadn’t yet made a real stand there. Any progress, any contact, had been made by Summer herself.
And yet Camille had called at a most interesting time…
“You done down there?” Kenny called.
“Yeah. You find anything?”
“Nothing. But I have more questions.”
“Me too.”
They moved outside, working their way around the perimeter of the building, searching for anything out of place. The parking lot was concrete. The Dumpster sat on a dirt pad off the concrete lot, and there in the dirt lay a cigarette butt. They stared at it, then Joe let out a breath and pointed just ahead.