by Rachel Lee
She’d gone through life floating like a leaf on the rapids, moving swiftly, sometimes nearly submerging, but always bouncing back somehow until she couldn’t imagine living any other way.
She considered herself settled in Atlanta, but how could she be settled when she was almost never there? She hadn’t been kidding about her apartment. She might have been going home to it for the past five years when she wasn’t on the road, but it still felt like a way station in her life. It might have been a motel.
Now she was here, temporarily of course, and felt long-forgotten stirrings of a need to actually belong somewhere. To have a community, to settle in and put down those roots she probably could never grow.
She thought she’d made peace with the way she lived and who she was, but somehow this town, this fire chief, had unsettled her. The man was as rooted as they came, and she had felt twinges of envy. A home, a daughter, friends, a place in a community and doing a very important job.
Sitting with those firefighters yesterday afternoon, she’d felt a belonging she hadn’t felt since she’d been a volunteer. That community had wrapped around her once again, letting her know how much she had missed her brief sojourn in it.
But maybe she should be wary of that feeling. The instant her old department had wanted to put her on payroll, she had decided to resume her job with the insurance company. She’d fled.
Maybe she found some kind of security in moving all the time, although she couldn’t imagine what. Unless maybe she was avoiding pain by refusing to attach. Everything went away sooner or later.
Wayne’s divorce proved that. Rooted though he was, he’d suffered abandonment by his wife, and now his daughter was moving on. No escaping it.
But moments like these, moments where she felt cared for, came rarely when you kept moving on. She was living life the way she had always lived it, but for the first time she now questioned whether this was her choice or simply a habit. Some psychological thing that was working beneath the surface, always goading her.
If it was, maybe she needed to start living her own choices, not the choices she’d had no say about when she was growing up.
“You’re awake,” Wayne murmured.
“Did I disturb you?”
“You haven’t moved. I was listening to the changes in your breathing. Either you were awake or dreaming. You okay?”
“Yeah. I always am.” She always was, too. Eventually.
He stirred a little, lifting his head. “Just after four.”
“I thought it might be. I guess I’m still on Eastern Time. You go back to sleep. Maybe I’ll get up and make some coffee.”
“Not alone, you won’t.” His hand slid down her back, caressing her bottom briefly. “Ah, woman, the things you do to me.”
The things she did to him? How about the things he did to her? One sweeping touch and she felt like a torch.
She tilted her head instinctively, seeking his mouth with hers. She needed this contact, needed this man, and she didn’t care what it cost.
She felt the briefest moment of hesitation from him, then he rolled slightly, propping himself over her, taking her mouth in a kiss so deep it seemed to reach her soul.
Nerves that had been quietly humming suddenly started to sing. New aches welled in her body, calling her to transitory joy. Reaching up with her arms, she pulled him closer, hating the blankets, the clothing, between them, yet they hardly seemed an impediment to all that was blossoming inside her.
For the first time in forever, she felt a softening, an opening, a need for a man to love her, fill her, possess her. She was melting into a hot puddle of molten metal.
His tongue toyed with hers, each brush against sensitive nerves wakening her to an awareness of the moment with intense clarity, the clarity of passion.
He shifted again, sprinkling kisses on her face and throat. His hand found its way beneath blankets and stroked her breasts until her nipples grew so hard they ached. All of her ached. With each touch, she felt the yearning grow between her legs, a throbbing so strong it nearly hurt.
He lowered his head, finding her nipple with his teeth through her shirt, nipping gently. His hand swept lower until it cradled the nest between her legs. At first he just rubbed lightly, then he squeezed, a pressure she desperately needed. She arched into his touch, her entire body begging for more.
Then, slowly, he eased his hand away and lifted his head. Staring down into her eyes, he smiled. “Appetizer,” he said huskily. “I hope. But not yet.”
Disappointment crashed through her. “Why?” she whispered.
He leaned in to give her another kiss. “I want you more than I can say. But I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“But...”
He laid a finger across her lips. “Shh, before I forget my good intentions. Wait until last night really settles in. Please.”
A long sigh escaped her. Her frustrated body screamed once and then began to relax. Brain cells fired in response to reality, and she acknowledged the justice of his concern.
He cupped her face, sprinkled it with kisses. “I want a medal.”
A startled short laugh escaped her. “What?”
“I just did the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
He sat up, and she struggled against the covers until she could, too. “The hardest? Really?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Really. It’s easier to walk into a burning building than to walk away from a burning woman like you.”
She kind of liked that, and it eased her disappointment.
“I need to clean up. See you in the kitchen.”
Considering how close they’d come to making love last night when she’d sat naked on his lap, Charity wondered if she had blown her one chance with Chief Wayne Camden. Her withdrawal when Donna showed up at the door must have looked to him as if she was sealing herself behind concrete walls. Maybe he was still concerned that she’d back out. And maybe she would have. Last night she hadn’t behaved like herself, and he might be justifiably concerned that her reactions were arising from shock.
She swept hair from her face as she listened to the sounds issuing from the master bath. She guessed she had blown it, and wondered how many other good things she had blown by skipping away from them. Not just a couple of boyfriends, she was sure. She never really let anyone in.
She padded down the hallway to the other bath, pausing only to grab some clean clothes, then spent some time showering and brushing out her hair to dry it a bit. There was a blow-dryer nearby, but she didn’t like the way they made her hair more flyaway. Finally, she pinned the damp strands up and went out to make coffee.
Wayne had beat her to it. He had on his uniform pants and a white T-shirt, dark socks on his feet. She had chosen jeans and a blue button-down because he had said they needed to go out to the ranch today, before the bulldozers arrived.
He put a mug in front of her before opening the refrigerator. “Are you okay with eggs?”
“I love them every which way.”
He brought the carton out and set it on the counter. “Then you get one of my famous omelets.”
“Famous?”
“That’s what Lindy calls them. She always says it with a perfectly straight face.”
She studied him. He’d shaved, his dark hair was damp and he looked utterly scrumptious. “Why wouldn’t she?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just that sometimes when she says things like that I don’t know if she’s funning me. Certainly there’s nothing famous about this omelet. Promise you’ll let me know if it’s awful.”
She laughed quietly. “Want some help?”
“Thanks, but I’m a solitary cook. Just keep me company.” Cheese joined the eggs, what looked like some leftover ham and a green pepper. “If you see something you don’t
like, holler.”
“Everything looks good so far.”
He cleaned the green pepper, then paused to look at her. “How are you this morning? Really?”
“Fine.” She knew he was referring to last night, to the attempted murder, but this morning it seemed like a bad dream. Far away. As if it had happened to someone else. She wondered if that would wear off, or if she had assimilated it somehow. It seemed rather soon, yet the aura of unreality clung. It wasn’t as if she’d been hurt in some way. “The only thing that fits what happened last night with the arsonist is that he’s a coward.”
“Agreed. And if he’d succeeded, it sure wouldn’t have looked accidental when we investigated. So there wasn’t a hope of him trying to cover his crime.”
“No.” It most certainly wouldn’t have. The disabled carbon monoxide detectors ruled that out. If she’d been found lifeless this morning, those detectors would have been examined. She opened her computer to check her email. One from work caught her attention.
“Oh, hell,” she said.
“What?”
“My boss wants to know how I can be sure Fred Buell didn’t do this himself. He reminded me that a lot of people commit arson to get community support. And it’s true that sometimes poor people do it for specifically that reason. To get out of a lease they can’t afford, to get old furnishings replaced, to get donations.”
He had just finished dicing green pepper. Forgetting everything else, he joined her at the table. “What are you going to say?”
“What I’d like to know is how he found out about the barn raising tomorrow.”
Wayne arched a brow. “Why should that be a secret?”
“It’s not. I just didn’t tell him about it, but he mentions it here.”
He shook his head. “Why would someone be getting in your way? Or is he having you checked up on?”
“I don’t know.” Feeling suddenly frustrated, she slammed down the lid of her laptop. “There’s a barn raising, so? That’s not going to make up for the lost animals, the terrified family or anything else. These folks will be lucky to get enough out of the insurance to rebuild their house.”
“Is that what you’re going to tell him?”
“Among other things. I’ve been doing this for five years now, Wayne, and my record for sniffing out fraud is higher than most. He has no reason to be questioning me.”
“Unless someone planted a poison pill.”
Her head jerked a little. “Someone sure as hell wants me out of here. And the irony of it is, I can’t do one blessed thing to catch this creep. All I can do is make sure Mr. Buell and his family get what they deserve from their insurer.” She tapped her fingers impatiently on the table and put her chin in her hand. Anger steamed through her veins, hot and uncomfortable. “The murk is getting thicker.”
Then she rose and went to the bedroom she hadn’t used last night, grabbed her cell phone off the charger and dialed her boss as she returned to the kitchen.
“Alex? Charity. What the hell is this crap about the barn raising? No, I don’t care that you’re still at home. I’m in a different time zone. It’s four-thirty in the morning here, and I’m already working.”
Alex said impatiently, “I got an email suggesting that Buell might be defrauding us, that he’s going to get a brand new barn out of this for nothing.”
“Well, your informant is wrong, and I want a copy of that email. You know what the truth really is, Alex? This man not only lost a barn, he lost expensive livestock and his entire house. He almost lost his family. If we’d been doing our jobs, we would have raised his coverage over the years. But we didn’t bother. So guess what? This guy is seriously underinsured. Seriously. He won’t gain a dime from this. He’s losing. This ranch is the only thing he knows how to do, and he can’t support his family without it. No way.”
“But he could bankrupt his debts and...”
“A court would take every penny of the settlement we give him to cover that. What’s he supposed to live on? How’s he supposed to feed his kids?”
“The land...”
“What’s left of it after a court settlement of his debts, you mean? He might get a little cash if the court seizes it and they get a decent price at auction. How likely is that?”
This time Alex didn’t argue. Charity waited impatiently. Finally he said, “You’re sure about this?”
“So sure that I was sick when I looked at the assessor’s evaluation and compared it to his insurance coverage. So are you going to screw him even more because his friends want to help him out? Crap, Alex, they’re talking about living in the barn with the animals.”
“All right,” he said after another pause. “I thought it was kind of odd to get that email.”
“You better believe it’s odd. We’ve got a serious arsonist out here, and last night he tried to kill me. So please, put your suspicions away and let me do my job.”
Alex’s voice rose. “Tried to kill you?”
“You got that right. I’ll send you the police report when it’s available. If you don’t trust me to do my job right, then send someone else. I can have my resignation in your email box in the next thirty seconds.”
“No,” Alex said swiftly. “I don’t want that. I got that email late last night and it just raised questions. I’m not familiar with the whole situation. Charity? If someone’s trying to kill you, you need to come back.”
“I’m not leaving until this gets figured out. This is one dangerous arsonist. I’ll keep you informed, but after my last interview today, I’ll be sending you my report and a request that the check be issued. After that...well, I’m hanging around for a while. It got personal.”
Alex sighed heavily into the phone. “I can’t let you stay somewhere you’re unsafe.”
“No one is letting me do anything. I’ll seal this case and take some vacation days. You and the company will be off the hook. And send me that damn email. I’d like to know where it came from. Or maybe the sheriff would.”
“All right, all right. I’ll forward it. Just be careful.”
She disconnected and paced the kitchen a few times before settling. “How about that omelet?”
Wayne smiled. “Coming up. And I liked the way you handled that. But is it really personal? Maybe...”
“Don’t even say it. It’s personal, all right. And I’m the worm dangling on the hook for a very frightened arsonist. How about we dangle me some more when we go out there today?”
Chapter 9
Wayne made the omelet with practiced skill. It was one of Lindy’s favorite weekend breakfasts, topped only by cinnamon buns from the bakery.
Dangle her like a worm for the arsonist? He didn’t like that, but he honestly didn’t know how he was going to stop her short of asking Gage to throw her in a cell. She really had her dander up, not that he could blame her, and even though he feared for her, he admired her gumption and determination.
He spoke, aware that he might be igniting a firestorm. “You know that thing you said about not being able to commit?”
She looked at him over her cup of coffee. “Yes. Unfortunately. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about that.”
“Well, whether you know it or not, you just committed in a big way. The biggest. You’re willing to put your life on the line for this one.”
He waited for it, sure she was going to dismiss him, or tell him he didn’t know what he was talking about. But instead a small, slow smile dawned on her face.
“I guess I have,” she said finally.
“And what’s more, you committed every time you answered the call to a fire. Think about it, Charity. That’s all I’m asking. Maybe you just need the right things to make that commitment to.”
“Maybe. But I did run away when the fire department wanted to hire me full-tim
e.”
“Maybe it wasn’t running away. Maybe it was going back to what you believed was an important job.” He hesitated, then began scooping half the omelet onto each plate. “Sometimes things look one way, but if you turn them just a bit they can be very different. I somehow think that when the time is right, the reason is right, you’ll put down some kind of roots. And like I said, it doesn’t have to be in one place. There are other kinds of roots.”
He watched an array of emotions slide across her face, all of them unreadable to him. But in the end, they apparently didn’t trouble her, because she smiled faintly and began to eat.
“This is a famous omelet,” she announced after a mouthful. “Linda isn’t funning you.”
“Thank goodness. Considering she wants them every weekend, I’d hate to think she was pandering to my ego.”
“She’s not,” Charity announced, and continued eating with a healthy appetite. “I love the white cheddar, too.”
“Linda doesn’t like the orange stuff.”
“This beats it by a mile.” She cleaned more than half her plate before asking, “What’s the agenda today, Chief?”
“We’ll leave for the Buell place about six-thirty. The sun will be up by the time we get there. We should have a couple of hours before all the heavy equipment moves in...if we need that much time anyway. I doubt we’ll find anything new. Then we’ll come back and speak with Mrs. Buell. After that...” He shrugged.
“You need an arson dog, Wayne.”
He shook his head. “One was supposed to come with the missing state investigator. I wonder if he’s actually on leave or something.”
“You only have one?”
“There are more, but each has a district. Maybe I should’ve rattled some bars to get someone from another district, although at this point I’m not at all sure he’d find anything you and I haven’t.”
“There’s not a whole lot left to look at,” she agreed. “That’s the really mind-blowing part of this—nothing is left. I’ve been to so many arsons, and there’s usually a lot more to check out. What have we got except a heap of ash and plaster?”