On Fire

by Carla Neggers

  Then she spotted the rusting back end and Maine license plate of Straker’s Subaru in her reserved space. Of all the nerve.

  “What’re you doing, quitting early?”

  His voice came out of nowhere, echoing amid the concrete. She was so startled she jumped, and suddenly he was behind her, like a mugger who’d been lurking in the shadows. He caught an arm around her middle, steadying her. “Whoa, don’t fall over.” He grinned, his eyes sparkling with self-satisfaction. “I didn’t know I’d have that effect on you. Riley St. Joe, gone weak at the knees.”

  “You snuck up on me.”

  “I was already here. Gossip in the shark tank had you sent home for the day. I turned my pail of fish over to one of my new buddies and came on up.” His arm lingered on her middle; she could feel his thick fingers on her side. “I figured it’d slip your mind I’d done the driving.”

  “Straker, you can let go of me now.”

  His arm didn’t move. She tried not to nestle into it, sink into him and let him absorb all her frustrations and fears. “You won’t faint and fall over?”

  “No.”

  “Throw up?”

  He was enjoying himself. His arm was warm across her back, strong, unexpectedly reassuring. She sucked in a breath. “No.”

  “You know,” he said close to her ear, his fingers digging just a little deeper into her side, “I think you’re the first human I’ve touched since I got out of the hospital. I’ve wrestled with a few lobsters and picked through the tide pools, but you’re the first woman—”

  “Are you comparing me to lobsters and blue mussels?”

  He grinned and patted her on the hip. “Nope. Not a chance. I kind of thought you’d have thorns. However, it turns out you don’t.” He laughed. “Oops, better let go. I can feel your blood starting to boil. Don’t want to burn myself.”

  “Straker…”

  He dug into his pocket for his car keys. “Relax. I meant boiling because you’re pissed, not boiling because you want me to do a little more than put my arm around you, although who knows.”

  “I know.”

  “Uh-huh.” He went around and opened the driver’s door first. “You get sent home for talking out of turn?”

  “Henry Armistead doesn’t think I’m neutral where Emile’s concerned. He thinks I’m on Emile’s side.”

  “Aren’t you? I am.”

  “You’re an FBI agent. You can’t take sides.”

  “I’m not here because I’m an FBI agent. I’m here because I’m Emile’s friend.”

  “And if I get in your way?” she asked.

  “You were born in my way.”

  He climbed in and reached over to unlock her door. She debated getting in. She could still take the T. But if she did, Straker would just beat her home. It would accomplish nothing, except perhaps confirm for him that she was out of her mind and out of control, willing, as the saying went, to cut off her nose to spite her face.

  Also, he’d assume he’d got to her with his ridiculous comments about boiling blood and that pat on her hip. Which he had, only because she’d had a hell of a day. Otherwise she’d be impervious.

  She settled into the passenger seat, her eyes pinned straight ahead. She could still feel the weight and warmth of his arm. Not a good indication of her mental state. She struggled to concentrate on his reason for being in Boston in the first place. Emile. “So you don’t think Emile had anything to do with Sam’s death?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “But if you’re on his side—”

  “That doesn’t mean I have an opinion about what he’s done or hasn’t done. He’s my friend.”

  “I guess you have your ‘priorities and obligations’ sorted out.”

  He glanced at her, a darkness coming into his eyes and penetrating right through her. “I do.”

  Sig painted until she was bleary-eyed and her hand was so cramped she couldn’t open her fingers. She stared at the watercolor paper taped to her big board. Splashes of gold, pumpkin, fiery red, muted burgundy on a full-body wash of autumnal blue. Beautiful. Inspiring. And one or two brushstrokes away from being mud.

  She collapsed onto the studio bed, the strain of standing pulling at her lower back. Her eyes burned. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. She tired more quickly. All those hormones.

  She didn’t want to think. She wouldn’t think. She would drag herself back to her feet and paint some more. Turn the damned thing into a raging mess. She didn’t care.

  The kitchen door cracked open, and her mother said, “Sig, I have work to do. I can’t keep him entertained forever. He’s not leaving until he talks to you.”

  “I know, I know. I’m sorry.” She flopped back against the cushions and groaned. “Okay. Send him out.”

  Mara started to speak, abandoned the effort and withdrew inside, where, somewhere, she had Matthew Granger waiting about as patiently as an angry, caged tiger. My husband, Sig thought with a pang. The son of a bitch thinks he’s the only one who has problems.

  She wrapped a plaid shawl over her shoulders and pulled a thick chenille throw up over her bulging stomach. It was cool enough out on her porch that Matt shouldn’t be suspicious, and he was suspicious by nature. She had no intention of bringing up her pregnancy, telling him she was having twins, when he’d popped in unannounced and uninvited, his only reason for being in Camden obvious. Sam Cassain was dead, and Emile was missing. Otherwise Matt wouldn’t have taken one step in her direction.

  The bastard, she thought. The single-minded, self-righteous, self-absorbed bastard.

  That’s two quarters for your mason jar, she reminded herself.

  “Sig.”

  That voice. She shut her eyes. It still could turn her to liquid. It had since she was fourteen, although it was years before she’d realized it wasn’t just his voice that drew her to him.

  She looked up as he walked onto the porch. Well, he hadn’t changed. He was handsome as hell and so goddamned rich he couldn’t hide it even when he wore jeans and a sweatshirt. He was fair-haired, blue-eyed, tall, lean and angular. This was the man she’d married. The man she’d loved. The man whose babies she carried.

  She summoned all her bravado and ability to lie through her teeth. “Hello, Matt. Excuse me for not getting up, but I’ve been on my feet since dawn. Mom made you tea?”

  “An entire pot, yes.”

  Good. If all else failed, he’d have to hit the bathroom. “What brings you to Camden?”

  She hated how awkward she sounded, how formal. She’d always been able to talk to Matt, even when they were kids and he and his father and sister would sail up to Emile’s from the big Granger house on Mount Desert Island.

  He crossed his arms on his chest. “You know what.”

  She stifled a surge of irritation. Smug bastard. If she weren’t so obviously pregnant, she’d jump up and uncross those arms, make him stop treating her like a recalcitrant nine-year-old. “Just tell me, Matt. Don’t tell me what I know and don’t know.”

  She could see the flash of anger, the tightening of the muscles in his arms. They knew exactly what buttons to push with each other, good, bad and indifferent. As if he were counting to ten to keep from exploding, he walked over to her board and eyed her painting. She wished she’d covered it, but the paint was still wet. He’d taken art history classes as an undergraduate at Harvard. He’d been to most of the world’s great museums. A damned art snob.

  He glanced back at her. “It’s nice to see you painting again.”

  Another gush of annoyance. She was in just the mood to take exception to everything he said. But if she let him get to her, she risked forgetting she was hiding twins. She’d end up throwing off her blanket and having at him, and he’d know. She had no idea how he’d react, and she didn’t want to find out. Not today. Not on his terms.

  “I’ve been up to Emile’s,” he said. “I’ve talked to the police. Sig, if you have any idea where he’s gone—”

  “I don’t.” She ha
dn’t seen her grandfather in months. She shared her mother’s concern he’d gone right off the deep end—but she refused to give Matt the satisfaction of driving the wedge between her and Emile even deeper. “If I did, I wouldn’t tell you. I’d tell the police. This is their problem, not yours. They’re not going to go off half-cocked and stick their nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  He spun around on his heels, eyes narrowed, thin, regal mouth clamped shut. He took a calming breath. Grangers didn’t lose control. “I didn’t come here to argue with you.”

  “Sam Cassain’s death isn’t your concern. Or mine. Let the police do their job.”

  “We were on Mount Desert Island last week. Caroline, Abigail, her kids, myself.” He moved closer, his gaze probing, as if he could see right through her blanket to the two babies growing inside her. “Armistead and your father were there, too. And your sister.”

  “I know. So what? It’s got nothing to do with me.”

  “Sam Cassain showed up.”

  “What?” She almost popped to her feet, but caught herself in time. “Why? What did he want? Did you see him? Riley didn’t say a word—”

  “She didn’t see him. My point is that the police understandably want to know how he ended up dead on Labreque Island.” Matt was silent a moment, all his churning emotions back in check, under tight Granger wrap. “He had the good sense to resign after the Encounter. It would have been easier on everyone if your father and sister had followed his lead, too.”

  “And quit their jobs? That’s absurd. They didn’t do anything wrong. For God’s sake, Riley nearly died.”

  “They were in the middle of a controversy. They still are. Honor would dictate—”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me about honor.” Sig tightened her grip on her shawl and throw. Her fingers were cold and stiff, the rest of her burning. Her head spun. “It’s not as if you’ve ever given a damn about the center.”

  His eyes flashed. He smiled nastily. “I know what I’ve given a damn about and what I haven’t.”

  She knew what he was saying. After three years of marriage, four years of loving him so hard at times she thought she’d die, she knew how to read between Matt Granger’s lines. He blamed her for leaving their house in Boston. He wanted to come and go as he pleased, talk to her when the mood struck, pace in silence when it didn’t. He wanted it all his way because his father was dead and her grandfather was responsible.

  “You’re not going to guilt-trip me, Matt. I didn’t walk out on you. You walked out on me. Maybe not physically, but emotionally you left long before I did.”

  “I asked you to understand that I needed time to sort things out. Goddamn it, Sig, if my father had been responsible for Emile’s death, what the hell do you think you’d do? What do you’d think I’d do?”

  Her stomach rolled over. She could feel every drop of blood draining from her head. Shit. She was going to pass out. The stress, the hours on her feet, the roiling hormones. Him.

  “Sig? What’s wrong?”

  She pushed her head down off the edge of the couch, careful not to expose her belly to his gaze. “I’m okay.”

  He made a move toward her.

  She held up a hand. “Matthew, I’m okay.”

  He went all rigid and composed blueblood. His half-closed eyes slanted down at her. “You should learn to pace yourself.”

  If she weren’t about to pass out, she’d have thrown something at him. Pace herself. The goddamned nerve. Instead she raised her head, which still spun, and croaked, “Anything else?”

  A mistake.

  She could see the lightbulb of suspicion click on. He took a step back and studied her, clinical, objective, sealing his fate. She wouldn’t tell him a thing. She’d be damned if she told him.

  “All right,” he said. “What’s going on here?”

  “What do you think’s going on? My grandfather’s missing, my sister found Sam Cassain dead and you have the audacity to come here and accost me just for having Labreque blood in my veins.”

  “I’ve hardly accosted you, Sig.”

  “Go back to Boston. Go sort out your goddamned ‘issues.’” She sank back against the pillows, drawing her throw up to her chin. She could feel a flutter of movement. Her babies. Their babies. “I don’t have anything to tell you.”

  He knotted his clenched hands into fists, inhaled and about-faced without another word.

  When she heard his expensive car screech down the street, Sig burst into tears and sobbed into a pillow so her mother wouldn’t hear. It was so obvious, so painful. Her husband thought her grandfather—her own flesh and blood—was not just capable of criminal negligence, but of murder.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, as if it would help block out the tumble of thoughts and the harshness of the reality she was facing. She was pregnant, she was alone and her family was in deep, deep trouble.

  After she couldn’t cry anymore, she stumbled over to her painting. Her lower back still ached; her head still swam. Her nose was stopped up. She brushed at her tears and tried to focus on the image before her. Something was trying to emerge. Something right. It wasn’t just blobs of color.

  Bullshit.

  Matt hadn’t commented on its quality because it stank.

  It was mud. Pure mud.

  She grabbed her mop brush, dipped it in water and soaked the entire paper until all the colors had bled together and what she had was just how she felt. An ugly mess, a mishmash that didn’t know what it was or wanted to be.

  Five

  Straker took a hot shower to rid himself of the smell of dead fish and the lingering sense he should have kissed Riley in the parking garage. He’d exercised powerful restraint. He wondered if she had any idea how close he’d come to cranking up the tension between them another notch or two.

  As it was, he couldn’t imagine wanting a woman any more than he did her. Circumstances, however, made him cautious. After months and months of celibacy, he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t simply reacting to her proximity, the intensity of the situation itself. He had never before in his life thought about kissing Riley St. Joe.

  Kissing her, hell. He wanted to take her to bed.

  He swore under his breath. What was wrong with him?

  “You’re a goddamn madman,” he muttered to himself.

  He washed quickly with an almond-scented soap. Like so much of Riley, her bathroom was a surprise, soft and pretty, with nary a regular bar of soap in sight. He’d had to pick through a basket of little soaps and gels with scents like rosewater, lavender, goat’s milk and strawberry. The shower curtain, the array of sponges, the pink razor, the shampoos and fragrant soaps and gels all served as tangible reminders that he was a man in a woman’s shower.

  He’d never been much on relationships. It wasn’t just the job. It was him. Sex with a woman was one thing. The give-and-take of a long-term relationship was another. He’d never been much good at give-and-take.

  He dried off with a fluffy towel, pulled on his clothes and banked down his physical frustration before he returned to the front room. Riley was different from most of the women he knew, it was true. She had no illusions about him—she’d know what she was getting into if she got into bed with him.

  No, he thought. She wouldn’t. She thought she was still playing games with the teenager he’d been.

  He found her sitting on the floor, lacing up a pair of battered running shoes. “I’m going for a run,” she said without looking up.

  If a shower was his way of restoring his equilibrium, maybe a run was hers. “Where?”

  “On the river. I won’t be long. I need to burn off some restless energy.”

  Likewise, he thought, but running wouldn’t do it for him. He made no comment.

  She glanced up at him, took a quick breath as if she could guess what he was thinking, and returned to her task. She finished with one shoe, started on the next. “I didn’t expect that body to be Sam Cassain.”

  Straker sat on the edge of the futon. �
��You want some company?”

  Her dark eyes met his. “No.”

  He grinned. “Think I’d be distracted by the sight of you in running shorts?”

  “That wouldn’t slow me down. That would slow you down. You’re the one who’s been sitting out on a deserted island the past six months. Not me.”

  “You’re saying you wouldn’t be distracted by the sight of me in running shorts?”

  “You don’t even own a pair of running shorts.”

  He was tweaking her and she knew it. “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  “I own shorts. I just don’t have any of those high-tech, flimsy things.” He leaned back, enjoying himself. “They don’t look as if they’d hold in everything they were supposed to hold in.”

  She jumped up. She had good muscle definition in her slim legs; probably elsewhere, too. “I don’t like where this conversation is going. You’re complicating things.”

  “There’s no man in your life, Riley. I’m not complicating anything.”

  “You’ve always complicated things, Straker. That’s why you ended up in the FBI.” She shot him a look. “And how do you know I don’t have a man in my life?”

  “A woman’s bathroom tells all.”

  “Bastard,” she muttered, and headed for the door.

  “Did you stretch?”

  “I’m fine.”

  No stretches. She wasn’t going to plop down in front of him and do toe touches. He liked that. It meant she knew she was getting under his skin and wasn’t too sure what to do about it. A run on the river was a start.

  After she left, he put on a pot of coffee and settled in at her cluttered kitchen table. Beyond the occasional urge to pelt each other with rocks, there’d never been anything physical between him and Riley, nothing even remotely sexual. If he could beam himself back in time and tell his sixteen-year-old self that eighteen years from now he’d want Riley St. Joe so bad it hurt, he’d probably fling himself off Schoodic Point.

  Of course, Riley wasn’t twelve anymore.

  He poured a cup of coffee and debated whether this new development—or this new twist in a very old development—would get in the way of finding Emile. Nah. Would it get in the way of getting his head sorted out after two bullets and six months alone on an island? Not if he didn’t turn stupid.