by Julie Miller
Imagine, half a woman—unworthy of the attentions of even one man—having to deal with two men at once.
The memory of that lecherous pug of a man suddenly intruded, triggering a volatile, strengthening response in her veins. Her therapist had told her time and again that anger was a far healthier response than fear. Fighting off Pete’s image fueled the adrenaline in her blood. She broke the awkward silence herself.
“C’mon, guys. I feel like this is the playground at school and I’m the kickball.” She started the introductions and urged them to be civil. “John, have you met Gideon Taylor? He’s a captain with the fire investigation unit.”
“I’ve heard of him.” Nothing warm and fuzzy there.
She turned to Gideon, hoping he’d work with her to defuse the tension. “This is John Murdock. We’re a team at Station 16.”
He offered a curt nod. “Murdock.”
John eyed him as if he was trying to remember something. “You used to ride down at the Twenty-third. Did you know Luke Redding?”
Oh, my God. Meghan swung her gaze up to Gideon and watched him bristle. Not that the signs were obvious. But she recognized the thinning line of his mouth, the subtle swell of his shoulders. John had hit a major nerve. “I knew him.”
She recognized the desolation turning his dark eyes into opaque masks and wanted to comfort him. She’d known Luke, too. He’d been Gideon’s partner and best friend. The night Luke had died, she’d heard that Gideon had been taken to the hospital—that he’d been hurt badly enough to end his career.
She fought the need to go to him now, just as she had that night. Back then, she’d finally driven to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning. But his family was there—brothers, parents, his sister. He had more love and support than she could ever give him. So instead of the former girlfriend making an unwelcome appearance, she’d snuck out the way she’d come in, locked herself in her apartment with a pillow and a box of tissues and cried for all Gideon had lost.
But she was a stronger person now than she’d been then. She could be there for him now. Even in this small way. She could risk the protective feelings she couldn’t then. “Did you need something, John?”
Her partner seemed momentarily taken aback when she faced him, clearly allying herself with Gideon. But his stance quickly relaxed from over-the-top protector to good buddy once more. “We’re ready to pull out. But we’re off the clock. Most of us are heading down to Mack’s Bar for a beer to unwind. You wanna come?”
She laid a hand on John’s forearm. “I appreciate the invitation, but I’m beat. And I still want to spend some time with the boys at Dorie’s.” She gave him a gentle squeeze. “Tell the guys I’ll catch ’em next time.”
He looked down at her intently. “You’re sure? If this isn’t comfortable for you…”
She glanced back at Gideon. He said nothing to make her stay, but she read the undoctored pain in his eyes. It wasn’t much of a gift, but it was one she could give. She smiled at John. “I’m sure. Gideon’s an old friend. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
John eyeballed Gideon over her shoulder one last time, then nodded to Meghan. “Tomorrow, then.”
The tension left the room along with John and she breathed a little easier. But when she turned to Gideon, a different kind of tension hung in the humid air between them. It was a tingling essence of hyperawareness she couldn’t quite put a name to.
“Old friend, huh?” His eyes were awash in a turbulent emotion that belied the stillness of his posture and resonated deep inside her, unsettling her.
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and wondered at the pulsating rhythm of her body’s response to Gideon’s dark mood. “Sorry about that. He’s a little overprotective.”
“So am I.” He was back to hiding his left hand in his pocket again. Hiding parts of his body and personality he never had before. She wasn’t sure she understood this harder, darker version of the man she once loved. “He cares about you.”
“I never had a big brother before. John takes the role very seriously.”
His gaze caught hers, and the seriousness in his expression forestalled her effort to smile. “Are you sure his feelings are brotherly?”
“Of course they are.” She’d never thought of John in any other light. “Come on. Are you saying you’ve never gone all macho to protect your sister when you thought she was in trouble?” The few times she’d met Jessica Taylor, she’d struck Meghan as a creative, self-sufficient woman with a competitive edge and a laid-back sense of humor. She reckoned she’d have to be, to put up with six brothers who took their love and protective roles very seriously.
“There’s a difference. I’m actually related to Jessie.”
“Thanks for pointing out that I wasn’t blessed with any siblings.” Meghan clutched at her stomach in a habitual defensive gesture. How had she gone so quickly from offering compassion to wanting to throw something? “John knows that and he’s filling the role.”
“I’m not begrudging you the relationship. I know growing up for you was tough, that you wound up alone more often than not.” Gideon moved closer, his expression apologizing for touching on a sensitive topic and being such a downer. “I never kept you from anyone or anything.” When he reached out to cup her cheek, she flinched away. His hand curled into a fist and dropped to his side. “I just think you should be careful who you trust right now.”
“What are you saying? That John has some freaky idea that he’s in love with me?” She circled around him, heading deeper into the soot-coated maze of furniture, not wanting to even think what he was suggesting. “That he sent me the roses and made that call last night?” She spun around to face him. “And then he stood behind me, manning the same hose, while we put his fire out?”
Gideon stood utterly still, neither accepting nor denying the implausible scenario. “I wouldn’t trust anyone right now, Meg.”
“Not even you?”
She caught the quick glance down at his hands before he turned away and started sifting through the wreckage. “Especially not me.”
“What does that mean?” Gideon was a quiet man by nature, but his silences always meant something. A profound thought. A splendid surprise. A deep consideration of the best way to share bad news.
But he had no explanation for her this time. Maybe she should have gone with John.
But Gideon had needed her to stay. Or so she thought. Now she wasn’t sure. Her heart was all twisted up with care and regret, with fear and need. With love she should have kept a tighter rein on in the first place.
Maybe Uncle Pete was right. She could try to do the right thing a hundred times in a row and maybe get it right only once. This wasn’t that one time.
When she couldn’t stand the quietness any longer, she bent and picked up a battered picture frame. Water had seeped in through the cracked glass and damaged the photograph inside. But the main image was still visible. A team picture from a few years back. Probably the office coed softball team, judging by the matching T-shirts and ball caps. Smiling faces of men and women, arms hugged around each other, fingers veed-up in victory.
Something about the picture felt familiar. But maybe it was just the wish for what the photo represented that felt familiar.
It was a picture of people who shared a bond. People who could trust each other and work as a team. People who had done the job right. People whose past lives didn’t stand in the way of finding future happiness.
She broke the awkward silence herself, needing to hear something besides her own depressing thoughts. “That’s too bad. You’re the one person I do trust. The one person I know would never intentionally hurt me.” She reverently set the picture on a desk and picked up a trophy that must have sat beside it. “The one person I could never blame if you did hurt me.”
“It’s not about retribution, Meg. I’m not trying to control you or your friends or your life. I just want closure so I can move on and quit wondering how you could claim you love
me and yet not want a future with me.”
She laughed. One wry little sound that spoke of regret, not humor. “If all I had to do to make you happy was love you, I would have said yes.”
She wiped off the engraving at the base of the trophy and scanned the words before setting it next to the photo.
“Now who’s being cryptic?” His dark brown eyes met hers across the room, and the bond they’d shared instantly flared between them. Now? Did she tell him now how miserable they’d have been together?
An after-image of this morning’s message blipped into her brain. Meghan blinked and looked away. She was so consumed with giving Gideon the peace he wanted that the words almost hadn’t registered.
“Gideon.” The longing turned to quizzical in his gaze as she carried the trophy across the shell of the room to him. “This place is an accounting—” she corrected herself. “Was an accounting firm. Chadwick and Burlington.”
“Yeah?” He took the trophy and read the inscription. “C.B. Accounting. Inner-City Softball. First Place.’
He didn’t see it yet.
She pointed to the words. “Numbers. That note this morning said something about the numbers not adding up. Like at an accounting office.” Her lungs nearly constricted with the anticipation of making a connection. Of finally being able to have something from the past twenty-four hours make sense. “He was giving me a clue about where he was going to set this fire.”
“That card was too vague to connect the threat to a specific building. That message could apply to dozens of accounting firms and businesses.”
His rational response couldn’t douse the first glimmer of hope she’d had since that first rose had been placed on her coat. “There must be something specific about this office. He had to have it planned before he gave me the rose this morning.”
Gideon must have seen something important in the observation, too. He pushed the trophy back into her hands and punched a speed-dial number on his cell phone. She followed him as he headed to the front sidewalk for clearer reception.
“Who are you calling?” she asked.
“My brother Josh. I’m going to have him run the name of this place, see who owns it. Get a list of employees and clients.”
Meghan continued her impromptu cleanup while he made the call. “I should feel relieved that he finally left us a clue. Instead, I feel like a very large clock just started ticking down inside my head.” She looked to Gideon for agreement. “This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, isn’t it?”
He had no argument for that. Just an intense look that promised he’d stick with her. For now, at least. “Detective Josh Taylor, please,” he spoke into the phone. “His brother Gideon.”
Meghan righted a line of chairs that had sat by what was once the front window. “Do you think if we could have figured out his message sooner, we could have prevented the fire?”
Gideon shook his head. “Let’s not second-guess ourselves. He doesn’t want to give away too much information. He must be on a real power trip, toying with you like this. And since he was successful in setting the fire and getting you here, I’m sure he’ll try again.”
Providence. Just as Gideon said the words, something crunched beneath Meghan’s boot.
She froze in place, then slowly lifted her foot to inspect whatever had been damaged. Her breath whooshed from her lungs and she nearly fell over trying to move away. “Gideon.”
Half drowned in a deep puddle of water on the front sidewalk, its stem snapped in two, its vibrant colors dulled by a coating of muck and grime, lay a yellow rose.
Gideon swore, his damning words a forceful contrast to the bleak helplessness that threatened to overwhelm her momentary confidence. “I’ll call you back, Josh.”
She latched on to his forearm as he moved behind her and wrapped his arm around her chest, pulling her farther away from her stalker’s calling card. This time she made no pretense about not wanting Gideon’s sheltering touch. “He was here.”
While they’d been talking. In those few minutes between escaping the spotlight and the crowd dispersing. Unseen by the press or police or her fellow firefighters.
Had he dropped the rose before he could attach a note? Or was there some sinister symbolism to the trampled ruin of that delicate flower? Her blood thickened like ice in her veins, then raced in a feverish pace that left her feeling light-headed. She swayed into the unmoving wall of Gideon’s chest and held on for sanity’s sake.
“Enough of this game.” Gideon shifted positions so that he had her tucked to his side. His careworn gaze swept the bustle of the city street as it returned to normal. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until this thing is solved.”
It was a high-handed announcement that she normally would have railed against. She couldn’t handle day-in, day-out contact with Gideon and walk away from this investigation with her heart and conscience intact.
Funny thing was, even as he loaded her into his Suburban, she never uttered a single protest. And when he climbed in behind the wheel, she reached across the seat and clung to the reassuring grasp of his hand.
MEGHAN PAUSED on the back porch to watch the scenery.
It wasn’t the sun setting beyond the downtown Kansas City skyline. No, this scene was right here in Dorie Mesner’s backyard.
Lined up at varying heights along the garage wall. Four naked backs.
An intoxicating flood of hormones mingled with the happy serenity of honest labor on a muggy summer evening. Dorie’s garage needed painting. And while three of the four laborers were actually scraping the old paint and cleaning the surface, the fourth was equally busy with his dry paintbrush—sometimes dusting the side of the garage, sometimes dusting the dog who ran around their feet. Sometimes chasing the dog. Sometimes running between the legs of the grown man and laughing from down deep in his belly when the man scooped him up high into the air.
Gideon. Alex. Eddie. Mark.
Meghan felt a contented grin curve the corners of her mouth. She shifted the tray she carried to rest on her hip and simply watched, nourishing her lonely soul.
This was the break she’d needed to push aside the cloud of doom that had settled around her since finding the rose at the fire scene that afternoon. But she wouldn’t go as far as acknowledging the idea that this felt an awful lot like the blissful future Gideon had once envisioned for them. Home. Children. Security. Love.
“It’s just temporary,” she reminded herself with a whisper. Happiness had always been a temporary thing for her. She’d learned not to bank on it, but to appreciate it while she could. So, making the most of this brief interlude, she allowed herself to enjoy the view awhile longer.
One back in particular caught her eye. Long and lean, Gideon’s tanned, supple skin undulated over waves of muscles that started at his broad shoulders and tapered down to the waistband of faded jeans that softly cupped his tight, perfect butt with the familiarity of loving hands. The sheen of sweat glistening across all that bare skin was icing on the cake.
Meghan felt the high temperature and humidity seep in through her pores, matching the luxuriating warmth pooling inside her. Her lips parted, seeking a breath of cool air for a body that was slowly overheating.
For a man who shunned the spotlight almost as much as she did, Gideon Taylor was one beautiful piece of work, commanding the eye and begging for a touch.
The ice-filled glasses rattled on the tray in her hands as she fought her body’s instinctive reaction to the call of Gideon’s. Four heads turned at the betraying sound. Her idyll had ended.
“Hi, guys.” Her croaky voice betrayed the lingering tension she felt.
Fire bloomed on her cheeks as Gideon’s gaze questioned hers. She spied a lambent recognition of the hunger she must be projecting, felt the matching spark of pure, physical desire. But the glimpse of answering hunger that flared in his eyes was quickly lost behind the patter of thirsty boys and a charging puppy.
Fortunately, Gideon was a mercifu
l man. He offered her a dazzling smile and invited her to join them. “If that’s cold and wet, bring it on.”
She started down the steps. “Lemonade with plenty of ice. Will that do?”
“Sounds perfect.”
Tools were thrown to the ground as she sidestepped Crispy and met them halfway. For a few seconds she was inundated by thirsty boys and thank-yous and a hug around her legs.
“My lem-ade!” Mark grabbed the tray and tilted it down to his level.
“Whoa, there.” Gideon saw disaster coming the same time she did.
Meghan snatched the sipper cup with its lid and Gideon rescued the last two glasses before the tray clattered onto the patio. She pressed a hand to her chest and grinned in admiration. “Nice save, cowboy.” She thanked Gideon. She handed Mark his cup and palmed the top of his head. “Next time wait until I give you your drink. We almost spilled all this on top of you.” She shuffled her fingers through his downy hair and bent to press a kiss to his crown. “I just want you to be careful. Okay?”
His startled look changed to a wide-eyed smile. “’kay.”
Then he trotted off to join Eddie and Crispy on their romp through the yard. Alex had already downed his lemonade and returned to finish scraping the soffit under the eave of the garage roof.
That left her and Gideon, standing alone in a pocket of quiet where chaos had reigned a moment ago. She picked up the tray and Gideon handed her a glass. “Here. Great timing. We’re almost finished with this side and the back. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He tilted his head back and took a long drink. Meghan watched the long column of his throat with helpless fascination. That most innocent of actions had become a sensual experience for her. A stubble of dark brown beard shadowed his jaw and neck. And the utterly masculine contour of his Adam’s apple, riding up and down his neck with each swallow, made her lips tingle with the urge to catch it and kiss it.