Smoldering Heart_Fleming Brothers [Book 1]

by Jennifer Vester

  The back door shut behind me and I let out a startled gasp as I spun around.

  Owen was pulling a shirt over his head and had managed to get small white paint smudges all over the hem. When he finally swung his eyes my way, he had a frown on his face.

  “Sorry, what’s going on?” he asked, and moved to the sink to wash some paint off his hands.

  The front door shut.

  “There’s a fire. I guess big enough that dad has to go in for it. How did you know?”

  He gestured outside. “The guys said they had to take off.”

  I shot him a confused glance. “They’re off duty. They work in shifts, so they shouldn’t be going in.”

  He shrugged. “No clue. I think one of them got a call. They threw most of their stuff in the bed of their truck. I’m going to go clean my brush and I’ll be back.”

  He looked at the meat Dad had been prepping that was still in a couple of pans on the counter.

  Pointing to them he said, “Don’t put those up. I’ll go ahead and cook them, so we can eat when your dad gets back.”

  I barely opened my mouth before he was heading out the door again. He turned around suddenly and came back over to stand in front of me.

  I backed up against the counter, and he followed.

  His head bent down, and his lips grazed over my cheek. “Don’t worry, Maddie. He’ll be okay. Call some of your friends and find out what’s going on. I’m sure he’ll tell us when he gets back.”

  I nodded. His green eyes regarded me softly.

  He leaned in slowly, and very tenderly gave me a small kiss. When his lips touched mine, my tummy flipped. I closed my eyes and breathed his scent in as he lingered for a moment.

  He let out a low chuckle, and my eyes snapped open. “You’re sweet when you aren’t trying to kill someone with your flowerpots.”

  I pulled my head back and smirked. “I have a few around so don’t tempt me. And for the record, they’re vases.”

  He gave me another wink and smiled as he backed toward the door. “Vases, vaaases. If you want some meat tonight, then don’t kill the cook.”

  The way he said “meat” made my cheeks burn. I watched him slip out the back door laughing to himself.

  Had he just left I might not have thought anything of it. I would have chalked it up to my personal dirty thoughts and would have dismissed it. But that laugh. He was still laughing when he passed by the window.

  I let out a giggle before I caught myself.

  He was so dirty. And I liked it.

  Chapter Ten

  ~Owen~

  I washed the brush I'd been using in a large bucket that the guys had left behind. It was something tedious, but it took me away from the house for a moment.

  As much as I liked teasing Maddie, something kept bothering me. It wasn’t just about the fact that her dad, and the crew had all left.

  Something about fire.

  Why would the city pull off duty firefighters unless there was something huge going on?

  I knew the city was pretty small, and I got filled in on how many stations they had by the guys I'd met today. I didn’t understand the entire structure of how their department worked, but I did know that they had a lot of volunteers. There were the regular firefighters that worked full time, then they supplemented their resources with people either waiting for an opening fulltime, or people that did it in addition to holding other jobs.

  One of the guys on the crew was a volunteer but the other two were fulltime. And to call all of them? Odd.

  I looked into the distant sky around the house in several directions but the trees in the neighborhood blocked out quite a bit. The only view was from the front, and it faced a mountain some distance away.

  I washed my hands with Bill’s water hose and decided to get a better look.

  The ladder I'd been using was still leaning against the house when I walked over to it and started climbing. When I got to the top, I steadied a hand on the rung and looked around for a better vantage point.

  In the distance, I could see a lot of grey and black smoke rising up into the air. It looked like it was miles away but the amount of smoke that I saw was significant. If I had to take a guess, it wasn’t just a building on fire but possibly some land as well.

  When I climbed down, I stood by the ladder for a moment, thinking.

  I dug my phone out of my front pocket started moving toward the backyard as I dialed. The phone rang but no answer.

  Noah was obviously busy.

  Entering the back door, I found Maddie washing some dishes in the sink. It didn’t escape me how nice she looked in this setting. Domestic in a way. It was sexy, and my mind wandered to other scenarios.

  Her in a dress. Coming home to her. Eating dinner in our home. Pregnant with my kid in her belly, and a different ring on her finger.

  I shook my head. I just met the woman four days ago. What the fuck?

  Dating was one thing, but that?

  She looked back at me with those big beautiful eyes of hers that seemed to look right through me. They were soulful, curious and full of meaning that I couldn’t read.

  My gut clenched. Why wouldn’t I want that and more?

  I inhaled a huge breath that was filled with the smell of just her.

  I was fucked.

  My eyes slid down briefly to my phone, hitting the call button for the only other person who could help me with the questions rolling around in my head.

  I held the phone to my ear, still staring at her. She gave me a questioning look, but I just held her gaze.

  “Bored in Colorado?” I heard Brock ask as he picked up the phone.

  “I’m looking at the prettiest thing in Colorado so, no.”

  Maddie rolled her eyes, but I saw the blush on her cheeks before she turned back to the sink.

  That blush of hers. Give me a thousand of those any day.

  I sat down at the kitchen table, willing her to look at me again. I filled Brock in on the details of the last twenty-four hours. I left out the parts about my deal with Maddie, but I knew my genius brother could figure it out on his own.

  “So, can you look into Russell and Darren? For some reason it seems like I remember one of them being involved in a building fire. I just can’t remember the details and all of my paperwork is now at NCPD.”

  Maddie’s turned around to face me completely when I said it. Her expression was a mix of concern and fear.

  “Already on it. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be back in touch. When do we get to meet Madison?”

  “Not there yet, but very soon.”

  I heard my brother laugh. “Good luck. You’ll need it. If you need help—”

  “I’ll ask. Nothing crazy yet, but I may need some advice.”

  “Got it.”

  He hung up the phone and I grimaced. Knowing Brock, he would probably do two things. First, find out what I needed to know and second, find out everything I probably didn’t want to know about Madison Crawford.

  Sometimes a man liked to be surprised. Not Brock. He usually wanted to know far more than he should. My sister-in-law, Andi, had certainly given him a run for his money.

  “What was that about?”

  I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. It felt dirty from the day of cleaning and painting. I probably looked like hell.

  “I climbed up on the ladder outside. It looks like a big fire. For some reason it made me think of the shithead that was in your store. I just can’t think of why. They give us some basics of the criminals we chase, but some of the finer details I tend to skim over. Seems like there was something there, and I just can’t pinpoint it.”

  Her face went pale, and if I could kick my own ass I would have. I didn’t like to see her worried or be the cause of it.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  Her eyes flashed at me. “Nothing? That little detail could be why my dad and half the department skipped out of here. Shit. I’ll call downtown. I have a couple of friends th
at might tell me what’s happening.”

  She marched past me and toward the living room, then paused when she got to the door. She pointed at me, and I got the full glare of those icy eyes on my face. They were electrifying and could probably crystalize weaker men.

  “I swear, if this is because of your skip or whatever the hell you call him, I’ll murder you. Fires are no joke. People get killed!”

  “I didn’t bring them here, Maddie. I just chased them here.”

  “You should have called the police when you saw him!”

  “That’s not how this works, and I would have caught him if you hadn’t smashed a vase over my head.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “So, it’s my fault?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but clamped it shut when she turned around and left.

  Fuck. This is why I was single. I had the ability to piss women off on a frequent basis without trying too hard.

  Rather than getting my ass chewed, I decided to stay in the kitchen, and put the pans with the meat in the fridge. I had a funny feeling that dinner wasn’t going to happen tonight. Either from the news Brock might give me, or the slightly irritated female in the next room.

  I could hear her annoyed voice on the phone in the next room.

  My phone rang. Brock calling.

  “Yeah?”

  “Okay, bro, you’re not going to like this. What do you remember from the paperwork?”

  “Darren Alders. Skipped bail after a hearing involving burglary. On the run with his cousin. Not considered dangerous. Thought to have fled to Colorado because Russell’s mom lives in the area. An anonymous tip put him in Nolan Creek.”

  “Yeah, well burglary is the least of Darren’s offenses. The cousin is a boy scout compared to this guy. He has several arrests for assaults. One of which was a young woman at a convenience store in Tennessee which landed him jail for a stretch. He was caught in the act of trying to force her to a back room. I think we can both put that together.”

  My mind started racing. Why had Darren been near the flower shop? Had he been watching the shop? Two women alone. One woman normally.

  “Okay, what about the rest of it?”

  “Give me a second.”

  I could hear him tapping on his keyboard in the background.

  He stopped and said, “Okay, so for some reason your brain remembers seeing something about a fire. Apparently, you aren’t as dumb as you look.”

  “Get on with it,” I growled just as Maddie walked back in the door. She looked a lot calmer than when she had left.

  “Well, there was a fire. A few in fact. He was picked up on charges of criminal mischief involving fire twice in Tennessee and was never convicted. Looks like a slap on the hand thing. That was prior to assaulting the woman. Since then, he moved to Texas. Did some jail time for torching a few dumpsters. Nothing major, but according to the arrest records from the burglary, he had items in his trunk that indicated he might have been thinking about torching the place afterward. Or maybe he was there to torch the place and got curious.”

  “Where was he at?”

  “Good question. A residential house. The home of a woman he met at one of the outreach centers for reformed criminals. Non-profit organization. You know the type.”

  I cleared my throat and tried to phrase my next question delicately. “So, casing a place with an intended target isn’t out of his scope?”

  “Well, from what I know of arsonists, they like to watch things burn. Pretty obvious.”

  “Very. What’s your point?”

  “Well, it gives some of them a sexual thrill but mainly they’re the type that doesn’t want to get up close and personal in a crime. This guy? I don’t know what he his. Arsonist? Maybe a budding one. Definitely a criminal. But what’s disturbing is he’s getting up close and personal or at least trying to with a few of his crimes. To me, this guy has been practicing for the big day when he can assault someone and then burn the evidence. Just a guess, though.”

  I looked at Madison who could have been this asshole’s target.

  “Fuck. FUCK.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Get her to a safe place,” Brock said on the phone. “This guy seems like he’s gotten a little aggressive and you ruined his plans. He probably won’t try anything again. He might have moved on.”

  “But the fire—”

  “Yeah. He might not have. It doesn’t hurt to be careful at this point.”

  My eyes hadn’t left Maddie’s face. The thought of her being hurt made me sick.

  “Agreed.”

  “I’m going to send over what I have on Darren to the local law enforcement. Then I’ll send it on to a few other departments. I don’t know anyone up there personally, but I’ll make some calls and have someone talk to Nolan Creek PD at the very least.”

  “Thanks, brother.”

  “Of course. By the way, you need to ask about her fiancé.”

  “What?!” I barked into the phone. My jaw clenched as I looked away from Maddie’s clear blue eyes.

  “He died. Five years ago. I’ll let you figure it out.”

  The phone disconnected, but I held it to my ear a moment longer trying to process that news.

  Fiancé. Five years ago, and deceased.

  My first thought wasn’t nice. It wasn’t even kind. It was the type of thought that if I heard anyone else say it out loud, I would have punched them.

  I wasn’t exactly unhappy that the guy was out of the way. If I asked her about it, and she said he was a douchebag, then I wouldn’t feel bad about it at all. I knew I was being an asshole, but that was my first thought.

  This woman was mine. Every cell in my body rejected the fact that she might have been with someone else at any point, much less engaged to them.

  Those thoughts were ungrounded, though, because I didn’t know anything about the guy. What I did know, was that Bill Crawford wouldn’t have let his daughter date, much less get engaged to, any guy that wasn’t a nice guy. And Maddie seemed like the type of woman that wouldn’t date anyone that was a jerk.

  The thought hurt in a way.

  I stood up and stared into those beautiful blue eyes of hers. No, she wasn’t the type of woman that would get engaged to just anyone.

  He had probably been a great guy. Stable. Rational. Safe.

  I could read between the lines, and the conversations we’d had. Basically, she wanted someone that didn’t have a dangerous job, and travelled all over the place. Her fiancé had probably reached sainthood in her mind after five years.

  I was definitely not a saint. I was just the asshole standing in front of her that was grateful that he wasn’t around.

  Fuck. That news soured my stomach, and I felt it rumble.

  She'd been engaged and had lost that person. It explained a lot about our conversation in the park. Why she was hurting and hadn’t wanted to talk about it. She lost something and couldn’t get it back. Just seeing the sadness in her eyes that day, made me want to wrap her up and protect her from anything else that would ever cause her pain.

  “Uhm, do you—”

  My phone rang, and I looked down at it. NCPD.

  “Sorry, I have to take this. We need to put out the grill. We’re leaving.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, confusion sliding over her face.

  I punched the button to answer my phone as she moved toward the backdoor.

  “Hello?” I answered.

  Maddie walked out the door, but my eyes followed her.

  “Mr. Fleming?” a man asked.

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Sargent Biggs. We have authorization that just came over to release Russell Wilson to you for transport to Texas. Frankly, this is pretty unusual, and I don’t like it. Normally the county might handle this, but we’ve gotten some paperwork over that says he’s authorized to be picked up by you and transported back to Texas immediately.”

  Brock. He worked fast and for once I wish he hadn’t
. He must have pulled some strings with someone.

  There were a lot of unanswered questions where Maddie was concerned, and I wanted them resolved before I left. But time had run out.

  “Did you get the other information regarding his cousin, Darren?”

  “We did. It leans toward possible involvement in our current emergency out on the ridge. However, the fire out there today looks like it might have started at one of the mechanic shops. We’ve had a few other incidents out there and this one probably just got out of hand.”

  I frowned. “Okay, but how do you know that? It could have been Darren.”

  “Mr. Fleming, I’ve worked here for nearly thirty years. I know these people. With the exception of these two fugitives of yours, we don’t have a lot of criminal mischief here. I can assure you that the blaze today was likely due to faulty wiring. Something the owners knew about because they’ve had an issue before—”

  I growled into the phone. “I don’t think you’re really getting it Sargent. Biggs. Darren is dangerous, and there’s a reason he was hanging around the flower shop downtown.”

  “Other than trying to avoid you? Look, Mr. Fleming, I don’t give a shit what you think frankly. Leave the detective work to us. I appreciate the information, but none of my boys have seen this guy since yesterday. We’ve spoken with Russell’s mother. She doesn’t know a thing about Darren. Apparently, she told Russell that neither of your two skips were welcome to come visit. He’s gone.”

  I ground my teeth and tried not to crush my phone. As it was, I was ready to blow my top with this idiot, and I needed something from him.

  I took a deep breath through my nose and looked up at the ceiling. “Just look at the information again. I’m leaving with Russell as soon as I can. I’m asking that you put a patrolman on them for a while so that Darren doesn’t get any more ideas until he’s caught.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone. I just opened my mouth to let loose on the asshole when he responded.