Cold Dawn

by Carla Neggers

  “Good night, Rose.”

  Thorne nodded curtly at Nick, returned to his cruiser and drove off.

  Rose sputtered at the retreating cruiser, then spun around and marched up the steps. Ranger waited for Nick and walked up with him. Once inside, the golden retriever yawned and flopped onto his bed by the woodstove.

  Rose peeled off her coat, hat and gloves and kicked off her boots. “I should wipe Ranger’s paws and brush him, but I’ll do it in the morning.”

  Nick kept his coat on, remained standing as she started a fire in the woodstove, her movements sure, automatic. As she added kindling, got it going, then laid on some small sticks, he could see her alone on her hilltop on quiet winter evenings.

  “You’re self-sufficient,” he said. “You don’t need anyone, do you?”

  “I manage.” She turned to him, her cheeks flushed from building the fire. “Any plans to quit as a smoke jumper?”

  “Not yet. I only work seasonally or when needed. I’ll keep it up as long as it makes sense to.”

  “You’ll know when it doesn’t make sense when—what, you fall out of a plane or catch your hair on fire?”

  “Already caught myself on fire.”

  She blanched. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay. It was a while ago. I did something stupid and paid for it with a few skin grafts. It could have been worse.” He smiled. “I haven’t fallen out of a plane yet.”

  “Do people think you’re reckless?”

  Jasper had asked Nick the same question. “My fellow smoke jumpers don’t think so,” he said, repeating the answer he’d given Jasper. “If they did, I wouldn’t last as one.”

  “Sean’s not reckless,” Rose said.

  The scars on Nick’s right arm and side suddenly felt as if they were still burning. “Sean’s as good as they come. I screwed up as a young smoke jumper and I paid for my mistake with a lot of pain and some permanent scars. Fortunately I was the only one who got hurt or was ever in danger that time.”

  She knelt down in front of her dog and stroked his golden fur. “Ranger can’t tell me when it’s time for him to retire. I have to tell him.”

  “You two have made a good team.”

  “He has a hard job, but he’s done it well.”

  “You both have,” Nick said.

  Ranger yawned and stretched, and Rose stood, looking down at him. “I’m as careful and as responsible as I can be, but sometimes I wonder if I asked him to do too much.”

  “Think he’d be happier if Bowie O’Rourke had adopted him?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’ve had a long day. You’re beating yourself up for no good reason.”

  She grabbed a log out of the woodbox, added it to the fire. She shut the lid on the woodstove and stared at the flames through the glass. “I have a hundred ‘what-ifs’ floating in my brain, Nick. Derek and I got together and broke up all before my father was killed. What if Derek was involved with this serial arsonist after all? What if everything that’s happened this past year ultimately leads back to him—to me? To something I did or didn’t do? What if I’m responsible for bringing this violence to Black Falls?” She turned to Nick, her eyes a blue-black in the shadows. “What if Lowell Whittaker chose Black Falls for his country home because of me, my work, Derek?”

  “You didn’t kill anyone or hurt anyone,” Nick said.

  “When did Jasper get on the trail of his guy?”

  “Rose.”

  She hesitated, then said softly, “I know I’m leaping ahead of the facts. Nick, what if my distractions helped lead to Jasper’s death? I was out there in the canyon—I was searching for the boy who’d wandered off. What if I missed something that could have saved Jasper?”

  “It wasn’t your job to save him. You know that. You’re not a firefighter, and Jasper was a man with a mission.”

  “And now you are,” Rose said.

  Nick forced a quick smile. “I’m always a man with a mission.”

  She gave him only the slightest smile.

  He unzipped his coat, the house quickly warming up with the fire. “Jasper was pursuing a firebug theory that every other professional considered far-fetched. He was trying to connect suspicious wildland fires, structural fires and explosions to the same arsonist. Different types of fires like that are rarely connected. He was convinced a serial arsonist was at work setting fires for his own pleasure and drama as well as hiring himself out as a contract killer.”

  “To Lowell.”

  “Possibly. Jasper died before anyone knew Lowell’s network existed.”

  “What if he got too close to Lowell?” Rose was very pale now. “My father did, and Lowell had him killed. Did Jasper give you anything, Nick, anything at all?”

  He stared at the flames through the woodstove’s glass doors. When he looked at Rose, she’d shifted just enough that fiery colors reflected in her eyes. “You and I were both in tough spots emotionally in June. We didn’t save Jasper. It was a bad fire. Everything was out of control.”

  “It’s okay, Nick,” she said. “I’m not holding you to any romantic entanglements. I didn’t then, I haven’t in the past eight months. I’m not now.”

  “No regrets, then?”

  “None.”

  “Good.” He grinned at her. “But that’s what I am? A romantic entanglement?”

  She almost smiled in return. “Go back to the lodge,” she said. “Relax, have a nice dinner and sleep well. I’ll be here. I’m fine.”

  He stepped closer to her and noticed her lick her plump lower lip. He remembered the taste of her mouth that hot, frantic night. He’d let his emotions get away from him. He’d been raging, out of control. He’d wanted Rose Cameron more than he’d ever wanted any woman.

  Sean’s sister. The forbidden woman.

  Except it was all so much more complicated than that.

  “Rose.” Nick said her name quietly, gently, and touched his thumb to the corner of her mouth. “I didn’t mean to hurt you then and I don’t want to hurt you now. But I do want to kiss you.”

  “You’re asking my permission?”

  “I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding.”

  She placed her hands on his shoulders and pressed her lips to his in a perfunctory kiss.

  Almost as if she were kissing a friend.

  She stood back and smiled. “There. All done.”

  Nick tilted his head back and studied her a moment. “Was that enough for you?”

  “For me? You’re the one who wanted to kiss me and asked permission.”

  “You make it sound as if you needed a permission slip to be excused from gym class.”

  “Well?”

  “We moved too fast before.”

  “We’re not moving at all now, are we? Nick, I’m okay. You don’t owe me. You don’t have to pretend I ever meant anything to you on a romantic level. Nothing will change now that Sean knows about our fling. I didn’t want him to find out, but he’ll never ask me for details.”

  “That doesn’t mean he won’t ask me.”

  “I’m not going to come between you and your friendship with Sean. You two have known each other longer than I’ve known you. I never should have allowed myself to get involved, even for one night, with my brother’s best friend. We’re all adults, but that notion is still tough, at least for a Cameron.”

  “Back up,” Nick said. “Fling?”

  “That’s what it was.”

  “Then that talk before about possibly having been attracted to me for a long time—”

  “Just talk.”

  “Ah. Just talk. Well, then this is just a kiss.”

  His mouth found hers. He was deliberate, giving her a chance to decide how she was going to react. He felt her take a step back, but she couldn’t go too far with the woodstove right there. She stumbled slightly, grabbed him by the hips, steadying herself. Nick wasn’t distracted. He relished the taste of her, the feel of her. She was strong and soft in all t
he right places.

  “Is this what you mean by romantic entanglement?” he asked, amused, even as he kissed her again, forcing himself to resist doing more—carrying her off to bed, for instance.

  She tightened her grip on him, and he wondered if she was doing the same—resisting, holding back.

  Finally he released her and stood back.

  She took a shallow breath. “I guess you had to get that out of your system. Maybe we both did. It’s good. The romantic entanglement stuff is behind us. Now we can be…” She considered a moment. “Friends and colleagues.”

  “Ah. That’s what I was thinking. Couldn’t you tell? Is that what you want, Rose, for us to be friends and colleagues?”

  “It’s what has to be.”

  “Not what I asked.”

  “I wanted that kiss,” she whispered.

  “Which kiss? The chaste one you gave me or the one I gave you?”

  “Chaste?” She laughed, her eyes sparking. “That’s not a word I expected from Nick Martini, submariner, smoke jumper and multimillionaire, ass-kicking businessman.”

  “What word would you use?”

  “Careful. Repressed.” She pushed both hands through her tangled hair. “I’m not good with emotion.”

  “You wanted more than a kiss,” he said, then added, “You do now. So do I.”

  Color rose in her cheeks.

  He decided he’d made his point. “It’s not a good idea for you to stay here, Rose.”

  She nodded. “I know. I’ll get my things. If you can grab Ranger’s food and dishes, I’ll pack.”

  Nick was already on the way to the kitchen.

  She took her Jeep. Nick understood. She wasn’t going to be stranded. She was independent, and she was afraid. Having her own transportation gave her confidence. He was unsettled himself as he walked into the lodge under the starlit sky, the unfamiliar landscape spread out around him. He could do snow and cold and all that, but Black Falls was a small New England town and new turf. He knew the players only from stories from Sean and trips west by various friends and family members.

  He’d met Rose several times but hadn’t considered sleeping with her until fate had thrown them together in June.

  At least in the lodge there was no question of sharing a bed or even a room.

  Maybe that was why she’d agreed to spend another night there.

  As soon as he arrived at the lodge, Nick went up to his room and checked the phone messages, but there was nothing new on Portia Martinez or the missing actor.

  He met Rose in the dining room. She wasn’t wearing a badly hand-knitted sweater tonight. Instead she wore a black knit dress with her hair up. She even wore makeup, her eyes smoky, her lips glossy and very pink.

  She could fit in anywhere—on a mountaintop, a wilderness rescue or at a Beverly Hills party.

  “We’re expecting snow tonight,” she said as she sat across from him. “Just a few inches.”

  “Great,” Nick replied with a wry smile.

  She ordered handmade wild mushroom ravioli and a salad. He ordered the same. The discovery in the guesthouse and the murder in California weren’t far from his mind, nor, he thought, hers, but both had experience compartmentalizing such things and pretending otherwise.

  Seventeen

  Beverly Hills, California

  Grit stood by Sean Cameron’s glistening pool and remembered his first days of SEAL training, with the Pacific Ocean glistening before him. He hadn’t considered he might fail. He’d entered the weeks of difficult training not with cockiness but with absolute certainty. He’d known he’d be a SEAL.

  That was over a decade ago. He’d had two whole legs back then, and he’d only imagined what combat was like.

  Hell, he’d only imagined what life outside the Florida Panhandle was like.

  Now he’d experienced both combat and life outside of his hometown and the Taylor world of tupelo honey. He wondered if he was certain about anything anymore.

  He settled for appreciating the sunshine and his pleasant surroundings.

  He was back to thinking of Beth Harper as a sister again. She and Hannah were doing laps in the azure water, their way, he suspected, of combating their fears and frustrations.

  Beth came up for air and hugged the side of the pool. She was in a tank suit two tones darker than her eyes. Grit figured Thorne was an idiot for getting into a snit and leaving her in California. “What did you and Trooper Thorne do while he was out here?” Grit asked. “You had a couple days together, right?”

  She glowered at him. “Scott’s not your firebug.”

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  “We hung out. He was preoccupied. We argued. He went home.”

  “Your firefighter brother?”

  She tilted her turquoise eyes up to him. “Don’t even go there.”

  “Just curious. He was here for a few days, too. Also went home.”

  “As planned,” Beth said. “We all hitched a ride out here on Sean’s plane. Zack and Scott flew back commercial coach. That’s it. No drama, no mystery.”

  “Your brother attracts the women, right? The Neal sisters have been to Black Falls. Maybe one or more of them has a crush on Firefighter Zack.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? Not that it’s true.”

  “I get on your nerves, don’t I, Beth?”

  She sighed. “Isn’t that your objective?”

  He truly had no idea what she was talking about. “My objective?”

  She scowled and kicked out her legs behind her, splashing water before going still again. “I didn’t mean ‘objective’ in the military sense.”

  Grit still didn’t have a clue and abandoned trying to figure out what she meant.

  Beth plunged backward into the water and swam a few yards to the end of the pool. She jumped out, grabbed a big towel off a lounge chair and wrapped it around her. “You should go for a swim.”

  “It’s not that warm out,” Grit said.

  “The pool’s heated, and like you care given the places you’ve had to swim.”

  Pure conjecture on her part. “You’ve got goose bumps. You’re missing Trooper Thorne, aren’t you?”

  “He’s not missing me,” she muttered, dropping onto the lounge chair.

  Grit eyed her from his position at the pool’s edge. Somehow she’d managed to sound objective, not whiny. “Things are happening again, Beth,” he said.

  She spread her towel over her legs and didn’t respond. Hannah continued swimming laps on the other side of the pool. Her brother Devin had stopped by after work at Cameron & Martini and had gone for a run, determined to stick to his training program. Grit recognized the kid’s enthusiasm and drive. Devin Shay was committed to becoming a smoke jumper.

  He hadn’t had that drive in Black Falls. He’d been haunted by the death of Drew Cameron, who had taken the orphaned teenager under his wing, and by his own brush with Lowell Whittaker’s killers.

  Grit was still figuring out the people of Black Falls, Vermont. The ones who’d stayed, the ones who’d left. He was sure Sean and Hannah would end up back there, at least on a part-time basis. Grit had no illusions he could live again in his hometown. His family would welcome him back, but he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.

  Not that he knew what to do with himself now.

  Beth grabbed a second towel off a pile next to her and arranged it over her torso. Grit smiled. “See? I said you had goose bumps.”

  She ignored him. “Did you see what you wanted at the canyon today with Sean?”

  “That must have been a hell of a wildfire last June. High winds, low humidity, dry brush and canyons. It was a fast-moving fire. Firefighters thought they had it out but there was a hot spot. No one knew. It flared up, and the flames jumped the line, trapping Jasper Vanderhorn.”

  “Nick and I didn’t miss anything,” Sean said as he came out of the house. “None of us did. It was arson. Someone set that fire.”

  His and Nick Mar
tini’s quick actions had saved other people, but Vanderhorn hadn’t stood a chance. Grit knew that Sean didn’t want or need to hear any platitudes. “It would have taken some skill as an arsonist to target Vanderhorn that way. Why not just wire his teakettle or put a bomb under his car seat?”

  “To prove he could do it. The drama.” Sean watched Hannah steadily swimming her laps. He was in jeans and a polo shirt, no swimming for him. “Jasper could have made a mistake and this bastard got lucky.”

  “Or he’s that good,” Beth said.

  “And you two were on the fire,” Grit said. “You and Martini. A couple of hotshot smoke jumpers. That’d only raise the stakes for a committed arsonist.”

  Sean and Beth both gave Grit a dark look, but his observation couldn’t have been anything they hadn’t considered. His cell phone rang. He saw Admiral Jenkins’s number on the screen and decided to answer. “Yes, sir, Taylor here.”

  “Where’s ‘here’?”

  “Southern California.”

  “You found a body this morning.”

  Grit didn’t respond because no question had been asked of him.

  “The Secret Service has already been in my office,” Jenkins said.

  “Jo Harper?”

  “Her boss, Mark Francona. I told you to be careful out there.”

  “I’m trying not to fall into the pool at the moment. No one’s shooting at me.”

  “I’m not worried if someone does.” Jenkins paused, as if debating whether to say the rest of what was on his mind. Finally he added, “I’m worried people who aren’t as straightforward as you are will end up throwing you under the bus.”

  In his weeks at the Pentagon, Grit had learned that Jenkins wasn’t big on people who weren’t straightforward. He was professional and did his job well, but he’d rather be thrown into a viper pit than attend a D.C. political cocktail party. He wouldn’t care that the Neals were a regular family except for Preston Neal being vice president. Jenkins would only care that Grit was in position to be the fall guy if there was any political blowback from Porita Martinez’s death.

  “Coronado,” Jenkins said. “Tomorrow. Be there, Petty Officer Taylor. Do your job.”