Love Under Fire

by Frances Housden

  Jo knew he couldn’t see what had happened. She was blocking his view, after all. But he could no more hide the alarm in his voice than she could stop her anxiety spilling over. Taking a calming breath, and feigning an insouciance she didn’t feel, she asked Rowan, “Did I ever get round to mentioning which part was missing from that calf?”

  Her two-fingered grip on the sack hadn’t loosened, and panic soon replaced nonchalance as she flapped it at the ferocious little followers. Anyone in their right mind would have dropped the sack, but sadly, her common sense had gone the way of the heart and hit rock bottom.

  Dry newsprint rustled as she was forced back another step. Her heel landed as Rowan caught her round the waist.

  “I’ve got you,” he said. She felt his head come around as he looked down. “And you got him.”

  She twisted, following his gaze. Bull’s-eye. The solid heel of her work shoe had landed dead center on Rocky’s face.

  Not only that, she’d pitched backward with all the grace of an inline skating newbie, lower half at 110 degrees and one foot in the air. Her head leaned into the curve of Rowan’s shoulder, his hands and arms circling her ribs. Two inches higher and her breasts would have been the recipient of all that raw power.

  This wasn’t the moment for wishing his aim had been better, or worse. She hadn’t time to ponder the possibilities right now. The question of whether he’d expect her to say “Thank you,” or “Will you please remove your hands,” uppermost in her mind.

  Then came the explosion.

  It didn’t come with a bang. It was more the sort of noise a barbecue starter makes when you throw in the match.

  Though the blast was big enough to send them both reeling as the floor lifted on a cushion of hot air and flames shot up the wall underneath the window.

  Rowan’s body was too hard to actually soften her fall as she landed on top of him, but it did break it, sending air from his lungs whooshing through her hair.

  It appeared every time she and Rowan got up close and personal, they were fated to roll around in a heap.

  This wasn’t good. It was either the beginning of the end of any hopes she’d nurtured, or it was the end of the beginning.

  Chapter 6

  “W ill you please drop the damn sack?”

  He’d imagined holding Jo, but it hadn’t been like this, with flames licking at their heels and every fly within a square mile dive-bombing the bloody paper sack in her hands.

  Lifting Jo, he let their recent discussion of Skelton’s escape route guide him through the smoke into the utility room.

  Her arms clung round his neck, but he refused to read anything into it. She was probably simply wary of being dropped. A smoky haze shadowed her eyes as if the fire were inside her instead of behind them, gobbling up portions of house it had missed before, like a starving priest after Lent.

  In these circumstances, lust ought to be the last item on his agenda. He just wished someone had informed his body. The female softness warming his chest warred with his emotions until he couldn’t tell if his heart raced from exertion or excitement at having achieved the ultimate. Being pressed against her lush curves combined his deepest desires with his worst-case scenario.

  Slipping his hand out from under her knees, he let her slide to the floor. He was the one who peeled her hands from his neck, yet as she turned her back on him and stepped away, it felt as if his secret fear had come to life by the heightened tension of the moment. Her walking away, and him letting her.

  As his father had done with his mother.

  Everything he knew would happen, coming true. It seemed a lifetime before he came to his senses to hear Jo saying, “Darn, I left the evidence behind.”

  Her hand gripped the door frame as if she might dash back into the foyer. He reached for her, his fingers tangling in her hair. “Don’t be a fool. You’ll fry out there.”

  They could barely see. Acrid smoke blocked the light that had once poured through the hole in the roof and at his back, the boarded-up door and window let nothing through. Grasping the door handle, he jerked it round with a sharp turn of his wrist. Pain ricocheted up his arm. The bitch was locked.

  The color drained from Jo’s face as he gave it another futile twist. Stinging tears filled her eyes as she started to cough. “Close the door, or the fumes will kill us before the flames.”

  He heard it shut with a snap as he sized up the exit. Luck hadn’t abandoned them completely. Whoever had boarded up the door had nailed the plywood to the outside of the frame. The theory being people were more likely to want to break in than break out.

  Jo pushed at his shoulder, swinging him back against the soot-blackened wall and if his shirt hadn’t been ruined before…

  “Stand back and let me kick it out,” she wheezed, running her hand down the plywood as if testing its strength.

  Her insult thundered in his ears. It always came back to his damn injury. Vexation almost choked him. “No need, I can manage.”

  In the thin whispers of daylight squeezing through the slits in the board, he felt rather than saw her gaze rest on his thigh, confirming Jo still hadn’t gotten over the horror of it.

  Damnation, he knew Jo hadn’t aimed to unman him. Call him supersensitive, but he had an overpowering urge to flex his muscles and did, feeling his shirt tighten around them as if he were the Incredible Hulk’s alter ego.

  No sense in taking deep breaths, even shallow ones hurt too much. His only option was to lead with his shoulder. The plywood shuddered but didn’t budge. A curse ripped from his lips in a mixture of pain and frustration. Skelton broke out with his hands tied behind his back. He’d be damned if the place would hold him.

  “I can hear flames on the other side of the door.” Her palm slid down the wood. “Oh, yeah, that’s hot. Real hot.”

  A glance over his shoulder was enough to harden his resolve. Her waistcoat was off, and she tucked it along the bottom of the door to block the smoke. On second glance, she shrank back into the corner, giving him room. One hand waved in front of her face, battling smoke and heat, and she loosened her shirt as the high temperature turned the confined space into a blast furnace.

  They had to get out or a lack of oxygen would suffocate them.

  Two kicks were enough. The barrier fell outward with a soughing and screeching of nails ripping from their sockets. Rowan turned to Jo, laughing on a surge of pure adrenaline, and swung her into his arms. Jo weighed almost nothing, a featherweight. With her clasped to his chest, he ducked his head and stepped sideways through the gap into the sunlight.

  God, life was great!

  And with that thought ringing in his head, he took the back steps in one bound, feeling no pain in his thigh or anywhere else for that matter. On the lawn, with his lungs heaving, he halted and watched the fire swallow up the room they’d fled from with less than a second to spare.

  Hallelujah! They’d escaped. Rowan threw back his head as relief ripped a huge bellow of glad-to-be alive laughter out of his throat. Jo’s fists beat against his shoulders but she didn’t join in. He held her away till he could see her face, amazed to find no sign of his own knee-jerk reaction of joy.

  Perspiration beaded her forehead and smoky trails of tears painted her cheeks. She’d never looked more beautiful. She was alive. They were alive. For once in his life he let his feelings take over and spun her around in circles.

  “Rowan,” Jo called his name, her hand tugging at the collar of his shirt. He slowed down, stopped, but the garden kept spinning.

  “Rowan…” Her lips seemed to tremble on his name. Her mouth, her beautiful mouth filled his vision. His head dipped to take her lips with his own. A kiss. One kiss. A hero’s kiss. He was entitled, and this time he could claim it.

  Could a person feel happy and mad at the same time? Happy to find she was able to feel mad, and mad because he was so happy about having rescued her again, when she could have just as easily have gotten out under her own steam.

  She felt his brea
th, tasted it as his face came nearer and put her in danger of discovering exactly how his moustache felt against her mouth, but even the anticipation of such a treat couldn’t put the flash of temper she experienced on hold. “Rowan. How do you think this will look on my record, you having to rescue me again?”

  His head shot back, all jutting chin and machismo, with no defense against the verbal right cross she landed.

  “The powers-that-be will think I can’t do my job.” Hands on his shoulders, she pushed and this time he let go. Her limbs didn’t feel as if they belonged to her, but at least she was on her feet looking up at him. The five inch difference in height had never seemed so great.

  “Well, pardon me for not wanting to watch you die.”

  God, she knew the feeling. She’d prayed harder the night Rowan was shot than she ever had in her life. With his blood on her hands, she’d made promises she couldn’t remember and could only hope she’d kept. But she couldn’t lie about her feelings. Already in Rowan’s debt, the interest rate was growing too steep.

  Drawing her dignity and herself up to full height, oblivious to her sooty appearance, she protested. “Look at me, Rowan.”

  He obeyed her peremptory command, yet the flat, glassy green gaze he inflicted on her made her flinch.

  “I’m a big girl. Hell’s teeth, I’m a cop. You have to let me fend for myself. So, maybe I couldn’t have kicked the door down, but sure as I’m six feet tall in my socks, I could have walked out of that house on my own two feet.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” he apologized stiffly, arms akimbo, his face as expressionless as an Easter Island statue. “I guess I got carried away with the buzz of escaping the flames.”

  Oh, oh. She’d done it again. “No, I was the one who got carried away.” Her smile was feeble, without life. It didn’t soften the blow of words regretted as soon as spoken. He hadn’t meant to put her down, or make her feel diminished. She’d achieved it herself.

  Her fingers rested on his forearm, curling around steel-banded muscles folded across their match. Had his tension lessened?

  Desperate to make amends, she sighed, a feminine ploy.

  His lips quirked, putting a kink in his moustache.

  She followed through. “I apologize, it’s not your fault. You just got caught in the backlash of my beef with the guys at work. Back in Auckland I was one of the team….”

  She swallowed quickly to release the tightness in her chest as she realized this could be the end of her plan, her dream. If the combination of this morning’s call out, and the trap they’d walked into were for real, it might force her to abandon an ambition she’d nursed since she was a teenager.

  “Down here on the East Coast I’m just the little lady.”

  He shook his head slowly and reached for her face. “I didn’t notice a plethora of men carrying white sticks.” Swiping his thumb across her cheekbone, he said, “The male population of Nicks Landing must be blind.” Then he held up his thumb and showed her a black smudge.

  “Guess I’m just lucky they’re not here today,” she whispered, past a larynx rough as sand. She covered his knuckles with her hand, rubbing her thumb sinuously against his larger one where his print was just right for the taking.

  And what about her? Was she ripe for the taking? Staring into his eyes, she looked past the shadows of old hurts, falling fathoms deep into his soul.

  A crash behind her broke the spell, and she turned to see the roof falling through what was left of the second floor, down onto the first.

  She shuddered. “We walked into a booby trap, didn’t we?” Rowan nodded and left it at that. It was impossible to figure out whether it had been meant for Rocky or them.

  Being an ex-cop, Rocky had known all the right buttons to push when he’d rushed into the station this morning. Maybe even been too convincing?

  Ever the optimist, she acknowledged she hadn’t given up. Never would. Her eyes narrowed, studying the thick black pall of smoke with Rowan’s arm bumping against hers. A reminder that they’d survived together. Again.

  As if the thin wail of a siren in the distance was a signal, they turned to each other. “Did you call them?” he asked.

  She raised her eyebrows. “No, you?”

  Rowan shook his head. “I was too busy being thankful we got out alive.”

  “And I was feeling ticked off. But you’re right, we were lucky to get out alive. I’d no business feeling that way. But you need to understand, I’m not in the market for a hero, but I’m wide open for a partner.”

  Rowan’s gaze clouded, hiding his thoughts. He never moved, yet she felt the distance between them widen.

  “Hey, don’t sweat it. I’m talking a week, seven days max. Not a commitment. Everyone knows you don’t play on the romance circuit.” She sweetened it with a smile, but it didn’t take, sliding off her lips when she could swear Rowan growled.

  He certainly had the haughty, king-of-the-beasts demeanor down pat. “Everyone?” he drawled.

  “Well, I don’t know about now…”

  “Or maybe you simply don’t want to know.”

  When had she given that impression? she wondered with more than an ounce of regret. Was it in the heat of the moment when his mouth had hovered close to hers? Had he actually wanted to kiss her? She’d never know now.

  The arrival of the fire engines ended any further soul-searching. They roared up Lonely Track Road as if the end of the world was nigh. Jo squared her shoulders, telling herself the job called.

  Then how come when she turned to Rowan, all she remembered was his lips descending toward hers?

  She fished in a pocket for her cell phone. “I’d better give Harry the news,” she explained, starting to dial. Silence. It was dead. “Blast, I think it broke when I fell.”

  “No, I’m sure it was me that broke.” He ran the palm of his hand over his ribs. “Yeah, it was me.”

  “Okay, so I’m no lightweight, but trying to keep my balance on that plank wasn’t easy. Lord, when that heart fell at my feet,” she chuckled. “It was so gross. Who’d think like that?”

  Icy fingers traced her spine as she replayed the moment.

  “I’m sure that heart came from the Rimu Downs calf. It will be roasted to a cinder now. If only I’d hung on to the sack, forensics might have made a match.” She shrugged away her regrets. “No point in crying over spilled blood.”

  “Once the fire cools get them to take a look for a pressure switch. If it wasn’t hidden under Skelton’s picture then my name’s not McQuaid.” Rowan made a choking noise.

  She thumped his back as he sucked in breath. “You’re right, it had to be a setup. But who was it meant for?” Who knew she’d like nothing more than to stomp on Rocky’s face? If she and Rowan had become targets it could mean spending more time together watching each other’s backs like the old days.

  A smile crept out of its own accord as she complimented him, “Good thinking, Batman. I guess I should bone up on the technical stuff. It just hasn’t seemed to matter since I moved away from the city. Guess I underestimated the local bad guys.” She began to move away. “C’mon, let’s go get my notebook. It’s in the car and I don’t want to forget anything.”

  “Talking about cars, we ought to move them out the way.”

  “Now there’s a thought. I would hate to see that Jag of yours with its nose put out of joint. At least, not before I’ve had a chance to drive it.”

  He punched her lightly as they marched toward the fence line, keeping their distance from the fire. “That’s one of the things I like about you, Jo. You don’t call a spade a shovel.”

  “It may sound like I’m caught in a time warp, but I still contend honesty is the best policy.” She stopped walking and squinted up at him. “While we’re on the subject, you have this smudge, right about here.” She stroked her fingers lightly across his cheekbone a few times more than necessary, simply for the pleasure of touching him. “There, all gone. How do I look?”

  He too
k her question seriously. “Just a few sooty tear stains.” A handkerchief appeared as if by sleight of hand and he held it up to her mouth. “Damp it, it’s clean.”

  When she’d obeyed, Rowan wiped her face. “That’s better, but if I were you, I’d button up your shirt. You wouldn’t want to take the fire team’s mind off their job.”

  Jo looked down and flushed. The view of her breasts curving up from the pink lace edging of her bra must be pretty good from Rowan’s angle. Quickly, she fastened her buttons, not so much worried about putting the firemen off their stride, as wondering why she hadn’t had the same effect on Rowan.

  “Thanks, I’m in your debt. Again.”

  A frown creased his brow and the angle of his jaw tensed. “I’m not keeping score, Jo. But if I was, at a guess we’d be even. I would have died if it wasn’t for the first aid you gave me at the vineyard. That’s what counted. We were miles away from a hospital and you know they say it’s the first hour that counts. The golden hour.”

  “There’s still today.”

  “Consider that one a freebie. Besides, it doesn’t count. As you said, you could have walked out yourself.”

  “Oh, no. I wouldn’t have been walking. I’d have been flat out running. I’m not stupid.”

  Rowan reached the front of what used to be Rocky’s house, when Jo’s shaky sighs finally caught up with her.

  She stopped abruptly, frozen to the spot.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Firemen were running out hoses and water cascaded onto the steaming remains that had tumbled into the basement, but Rowan’s attention was fixed on her.

  “Did you ever feel you were running up and down on the spot?” She gestured in the house’s direction. “All this work and we’re no farther forward. It still could have been Rocky…or not.”

  She rubbed her hand over the bridge of her nose, frowning. “When it comes to the bull calf, do you think he has enough guts to eviscerate an animal that big?”

  “I think he has guts enough for anything, except maybe standing up to his wife. But then again, if it was Skelton, who’s to say he didn’t have help?”