Gold Fire

by Starr Ambrose

  Criticizing her image would have been more effective if she’d been wearing her ubiquitous blue suit and sensible shoes. But for once she wasn’t dressed for work. Her skimpy top tied in front, leaving several inches of skin between it and her low-slung jeans. If he didn’t dislike her so intensely he would be tempted to rest his hands on her bare skin just above the curve of her hips and pull her against him, then mold his palms against the curve of her ass . . .

  God, he was sick. Imagining foreplay at the same time he was verbally tearing her to shreds.

  She didn’t look like she cared to speak another word to him, but she managed to bite out, “I want to go home now.”

  “Fine.” Which meant he had to drive her. Shit. Well, the sooner he got her out of his hair, the better. “Let’s go,” he muttered.

  The truck keys were in his pocket, so he led her around the Rusty Wire to the parking lot. He wanted to take her hand, but was sure she’d punch him if he tried. She followed without a word, getting in and staring straight ahead into the night. She’d probably be happy to go the rest of her life without speaking to him. He started the truck and backed out, speaking without looking at her. “Where am I going?”

  “Eighty-four eleven Larkspur.”

  The town was small enough that he didn’t have to ask where Larkspur was. Neither of them said a word as he drove through the well-lit downtown, still busy with the Saturday-night restaurant crowd, then up the darker residential streets where houses huddled on the wooded slopes above Barringer’s Pass. She sat in stony silence, letting him navigate on his own. He spotted her house easily when he saw her red Escape parked under the sketchy shelter of a carport. He pulled up behind it. The house was small, easily eighty years old, and the carport wouldn’t be much protection against the snowdrifts of winter. He didn’t know what kind of money Zoe made, but it obviously wasn’t affording her a luxurious lifestyle.

  She was out of the truck without a thank-you or a good-bye, which he figured proved how furious she was. Proper behavior was so ingrained in everything she did, the snub had to be deliberate.

  He met her in front of the truck. She raised her cool stare to him. “I didn’t invite you in.”

  “I’m walking you to your door.”

  “Thank you, but I know the way.”

  He stared back in reply and held his arm out toward the house. She narrowed her eyes in a final glare and walked past him. He followed. A pissy attitude wouldn’t stop him from seeing a woman to her door when he brought her home alone at night.

  Her house was on a more level patch of ground than his, with only a small step up to the cracked slab of cement that passed for a front porch. He stood right behind her while she turned her key in the lock, questioning his own wisdom of being so close to her. He could have watched her enter from inside the truck if he was concerned about her safety. But no, he had to torture himself with the light, airy scent she wore and watch the porch light cast a shimmer of gold over her red hair.

  This was crazy. He wanted her. Zoe was obstinate, contrary, and perpetually irritating, yet he burned with the need to strip her naked and make her scream with desire. If she tugged him close right now and, with a husky whisper, invited him to her bedroom, he’d gladly go.

  She pushed the door open and turned to face him. He watched her hesitate the tiniest bit, her brows together and lower lip between her teeth, and his fantasies went on high alert. Then she stepped inside and slammed the door in his face.

  He walked back to the truck and backed out of the driveway, taking one last look at Zoe’s house. A flicker caught his eye. In the living room, a curtain peeked open, then whipped back in place.

  Despite his annoyance, a slow smile spread across his face. Something impossible to ignore lay between them, just below the surface, and he’d bet anything she felt it, too.

  • • •

  Zoe barely had time to stomp to the bedroom and throw her boots at the shoe rack when the phone rang. She snatched it up without even checking the caller ID, snapping out, “Hello.”

  “Hi, you got a minute?”

  Sophie. She sat on the bed. “Sure, what’s up?”

  “You can’t tell Mom we talked about this.”

  A prickle of concern slipped across the back of her neck; it had been too long since she’d been to the commune. “Why, is something wrong with her?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Sophie reassured her. “It’s kind of about you.”

  A sinking feeling hit her stomach. “She heard I was questioned by the police, didn’t she? Who told her?”

  “She was in town yesterday, at Maggie’s store. They went out to lunch, said hi to a few friends, the usual. It came up once or twice. Or more.”

  Great, now her mother would think her daughter had taken a dive off the deep end again. “I’ll call her first thing tomorrow. She needs to know I didn’t have anything to do with the fire.”

  “Don’t be silly, she knows that. But that’s the problem, she thinks someone needs to defend you against the establishment pigs.”

  “Oh, crap.” Her mother’s outrage was nothing to be taken lightly; no one could rally around a social injustice like a commune full of old hippies. “She’ll just call more attention to it.”

  “I think that’s the point. She wants people to realize you’re being unjustly persecuted, and you’d never do a single thing to hurt others.”

  “It’s a hard sell. I wasn’t exactly a Girl Scout, Soph. People remember.”

  “Then they don’t know you. All your rebellious acts were self-destructive. You’d never target someone else.”

  Zoe blinked at the insight. Drinking too much, sleeping around, skipping school . . . it had all been part of her personal war against rules, aimed at hurting all the authority figures in her life. In the end she’d hurt no one but herself.

  “You’re pretty smart, you know that?”

  She snorted. “Mom’s the one who said it. I think she’d like to say it to everyone in town, starting with the chief of police.”

  Zoe groaned. “I don’t want that kind of attention. If we leave it alone, it’ll blow over.” She wasn’t so sure about that, but knew it didn’t stand a chance of blowing over if the commune got involved. “I’ll call her tomorrow. Thanks for letting me know.”

  She hung up, pondering how she could keep her commune family out of it.

  The sudden chime of the doorbell jerked her out of her thoughts. Zoe’s gaze flew to the clock beside the bed—after 11, too late for anyone to be at her front door. Unless it was an emergency.

  Or unless Jase had come back.

  She jumped up and rushed down the hall, not daring to admit that she was hoping to see Jase’s slow smile and muscular body standing outside her door. She turned the lock and peered outside. No one.

  Opening the door wider, she stepped onto the porch. A prank? Lame, but there were a few kids down the road who might be bored enough to—

  She sucked in a gasp as she turned toward the side of the house. Flames leapt high into the night sky, coming from a large object in back of her car, just outside the carport. Acting on instinct, she ran across the grass in her bare feet, twisted on the faucet at the side of the house, and aimed the garden hose at the fire.

  A stream of water hit the fire with little effect. It pushed the flames aside enough for her to see the source of the pyre—one of her large plastic garbage cans blazed like a dry tree in a forest fire, tongues of flame licking higher than the roof of the carport. Even as she sprayed it with water she smelled the gasoline and knew water would be useless. Twisting the water off, she watched, waiting for the fire to burn itself out. Already the fuel was nearly gone, and the stench of burning plastic filled her nostrils. When she couldn’t take the noxious fumes any longer, she went in the side door, found the fire extinguisher under the kitchen sink, and took it outside, spraying the melted wreckage of her trash can. It hissed out under a blanket of white foam. A hunched mound of melted plastic remained, dark brown
topped with fluffy white foam, listing like a melted cupcake. She’d need a trash can for her trash can.

  Belatedly, she looked around. The nighttime neighborhood was quiet; even her brief inferno hadn’t drawn anyone’s attention. If anyone watched, it was from deep in the shadows of a neighbor’s yard. She suspected they did; kids would stick around to appreciate their handiwork. She didn’t discount that it could be connected to the fire and vandalism at the Rusty Wire, but if it was, she didn’t understand the message. She worked for the Alpine Sky, not the saloon. If someone thought she was too friendly with Jase Garrett, they really weren’t paying attention.

  Disgusted, she picked up the fire extinguisher and headed toward the front door. She wasn’t sure she’d closed it behind her in her initial panic.

  She had. But she hadn’t been looking at it when she slammed it behind her, or she would have stopped right there. Even in the faint glow from the streetlight down the block, black letters stood out against the faded white paint of the door. The fresh spray paint still dripped and ran, giving the words an eerie look, like the title of a horror movie.

  ONCE TRASH, ALWAYS TRASH

  Zoe’s chest constricted painfully, shallow breaths scraping her throat. She glanced at the ruined hulk of the trash can in her driveway, then back at the message on her door as she swallowed against the hard lump in her throat.

  Now she got it.

  Chapter

  Twelve

  Jase browsed through the new fishing lures at Marshall’s Hardware, selecting one called a Silver Flashing Wiggler. Dangling the bit of metal and plastic to catch the sunlight, he considered the likelihood of a trout mistaking it for a bug. Not much, he decided. Too much flash and not enough wiggle. Trout were selective, and it took just the right combination to catch their attention.

  A streak of red-gold touched the corner of his gaze, and he looked up to see a bouncy red ponytail cross the end of the aisle. His eyebrows shot up. Zoe?

  He walked to the end of the aisle and looked toward the front of the store. It was Zoe, heading for the checkout counter, hair swinging in rhythm with her hips. He turned quickly, looking past the bait and tackle aisle to make sure Marshall’s hadn’t added a cosmetics section between electrical and paint. They hadn’t. Since a hardware store was the last place he expected to see Zoe early on a Sunday morning, he followed her.

  He was no more than twenty feet behind her and about to call her name when she spotted a large, hairy man coming through the front door of the store. She stopped dead, staring. Jase winced, and hoped she didn’t make her revulsion obvious. The man’s ZZ Top beard and long gray ponytail looked clean, but decidedly unkempt, matching his ripped jeans and worn sandals, not up to snooty Alpine Sky standards, he was sure. Neither was the tie-dyed bandanna wrapped around the man’s head like a sweatband. He didn’t blame her for staring, but felt slightly embarrassed that she didn’t move politely aside. He had started forward to take her arm and forcibly move her out of her shocked stare when she gave a delighted squeal of “Pete!” and threw herself into the man’s arms.

  Zoe clung to the big man’s neck as he spun her in a circle, then set her down, both of them laughing. Jase watched, mesmerized, as they exchanged greetings like long-lost relatives. “Long lost” was an apt description for the hairy man, who looked like he might have been wandering the mountains for the past couple of years.

  He didn’t realize he was staring until Zoe saw him and stared in return. “Jase!”

  “Hi,” he said, his gaze moving from one to the other.

  She looked more off balance than he felt, so he stepped forward and held out his hand to the large man. “Jase Garrett. I’m a friend of Zoe’s.”

  “Far out.” The man gave him an engaging grin and shook his hand. “Pete Parnelli. I’m part of Zoe’s family.”

  It seemed like an odd way to say it, rather than Uncle Pete or Cousin Pete. Zoe must have sensed his confusion. “I grew up on a commune. Pete’s practically like a dad.”

  If the rest of the commune members looked like Pete, he imagined proper, well-dressed Zoe was the black sheep of the family. The idea amused him so much he had to bite back a grin. “I’d heard there was a commune up on Two Bears,” he told Pete. “Been there a long time, hasn’t it?” Stuck in a time warp from 1970, obviously.

  “That’s us. The People’s Free Earth Commune,” Pete said proudly. He nodded at Jase’s hand. “You fly-fish?”

  Jase realized he was still holding the Silver Flashing Wiggler. “When I can.”

  “Outasight. Ever tie your own lures?”

  Jase let the grin through, enjoying Pete’s open friendliness. “Wouldn’t be a true fisherman if I didn’t try. I’m not very good at it, though. You?”

  “I’ve had some luck with a few I made.”

  “Some luck?” Zoe gave his shoulder a friendly shove. “Aren’t you the modest one.” From the way she said it, Jase suspected the guy was a master.

  “You should have Zoe bring you up sometime. I’ll show you the secret to making a lure they can’t resist. Then we can try it out.”

  “Far out!” Jase purposely repeated the outdated slang while raising an amused eyebrow at Zoe. “Why don’t we do that, Zoe?”

  Zoe’s enthusiasm backed down a notch. “Um, work’s pretty hectic lately, but I’ll try to get up there soon,” she told Pete. Grabbing her shopping basket, she moved to the checkout. “Gotta run now, but it was great to see you. Tell Mom I said hi.”

  Pete flashed a peace sign, told Jase, “Later, man,” and sauntered off. Jase fell in behind Zoe as she handed a can to the clerk.

  “What are you doing, following me?” she hissed. “And quit sucking up to my family.”

  He smiled. “Rein in that ego, honey. It’s not all about you. I come here all the time.” He tried to see what she was buying, but the clerk was too fast getting it in a bag. It looked like turpentine. He tried to picture her in paint-stained clothes, brushing a new coat of latex on the walls, but couldn’t see it. “Pete seems like an interesting guy. I wouldn’t mind going up there to see how he makes his lures.”

  She scowled at the counter and didn’t respond. She was probably still mad from last night, but he suspected it was the invitation to visit the commune that really pissed her off. She stayed at a low boil as she swiped her credit card and signed, then grabbed the bag from the clerk. “See you around.”

  He watched her leave. The clerk looked at him, then pointedly at his hand. “You buying that?”

  Jase held up the Silver Flashing Wiggler, giving it one last consideration. “If you were a trout, would you eat that?”

  The kid gave him a bored look. Probably only responded to a Big Mac set directly in front of him. “Never mind, I don’t want it.” He set the lure aside. “Can you tell me what you just rang up for that lady?”

  The kid hesitated, as if trying to decide whether there was a reason not to do it. “Why?”

  “Because we were talking and she recommended the product, but I forgot the name.”

  “Oh. Mason and Hewett painter’s solvent.”

  “Huh. I wonder why she thought I needed that,” he mused out loud. When the kid didn’t respond, Jase gave him a helpless look to kick-start some customer service instincts.

  He shrugged with disinterest. “Most people use it to take off spray paint.”

  Jase frowned, not sure why she’d need that, but getting a bad feeling about it. Spray paint that had to be removed was generally where it shouldn’t be. Like graffiti. “I’ll have to come back later,” he told the clerk.

  “Whatever.”

  He didn’t see her car in the parking lot, but that didn’t matter now that he knew where she lived. Ten minutes later he pulled into the driveway of 8411 Larkspur just as she was dragging a new plastic garbage can out of the back of the Escort. He took it from her and set it inside the carport next to a blackened, half-melted piece of plastic. He studied the twisted mass. “You’re hard on garbage cans.”

&
nbsp; She shrugged and looked away. He took another look at the melted mass, sniffing. Then looked around. In front of his truck on the gravel drive he saw a large black smudge with a light center. He gave her a puzzled look. “You set it on fire?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  He didn’t buy it. Zoe had a temper, but it wasn’t like her to pull something so irresponsible. He strolled over to the blackened stones, pondering them as she retrieved her bag from the Escort. What had happened here? Spray paint remover, he remembered, and his gaze automatically went to the house. The pale yellow aluminum siding was faded, but clean. In fact, the whole front of the house was tidy and free of graffiti, which made the front door stand out—the center was covered with a large piece of cardboard. It hadn’t been there last night. Dread settled in his gut as he strode to the front door.

  She slammed the hatchback. “Hey! If you want to help, you could carry this for me.” When he didn’t stop, she ran around the corner of the house to intercept him. He was already ripping off the duct tape that held the cardboard to the door. “Jase, leave that alone. I told you, this is none of your business.”

  But the cardboard was already off.

  ONCE TRASH, ALWAYS TRASH. He’d known he wouldn’t like what he found, but the lurid letters were a kick in the gut. He could only imagine how they’d made her feel. Heart pounding with sudden fury, he turned. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he demanded.

  She stood straight, pale and tight lipped. “Because it’s none—”

  “It is my business, goddamnit! It’s because of me that someone did this to you, and you know it. I told you to get out because it was going to get rough, and now someone else is telling you, too. When are you going to listen?”

  “Never.” She hadn’t flinched when he yelled, and, tilting her chin up the way she did when her stubborn streak kicked in, she held her ground as he stepped close. “I make my own choices, and I fight my own battles. Besides, it’s just stupid graffiti.”