by Julie Miller
He’d felt so damn guilty about using her to find solace from his never-ending nightmares. He hadn’t been able to sleep, worrying about repaying her generosity with an unplanned pregnancy.
“Gid?” Through the fog of self-recriminations, he finally heard Josh’s voice. “You okay, man?”
Gideon had to blink and look away when he realized he’d been staring at Meghan so long, he’d caught her attention, too.
When those honey-gold eyes narrowed to question him, he pushed his chair back a little too quickly, answered a little too loudly. “You got any coffee around this place?”
Josh raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He just pointed to the snack area behind Gideon.
No children. Not with you. Not ever.
When Meghan dropped that bombshell he’d been so damn mad that she’d never felt it was safe to tell him something like that, he hadn’t trusted himself to speak. It was an insult to the kindness he’d always shown her, clear evidence of how little faith she had in him. In them.
Then he’d wanted to make it right for her. Shield her from the hurt and disappointment she must surely feel at being denied what some women took for granted.
And finally he thought he understood her. He was proud of his family. He had talked a dozen times in the quiet after making love about having his own family one day. She knew what family meant to him. She knew his dreams and fears and wants and desires better than anyone.
I can’t give you that.
And so she’d walked away.
Two years ago, and again this morning, she’d walked away.
And Gideon had let her go.
If that damn call hadn’t come in, if Saundra Ames’s news report hadn’t taunted Meg’s stalker into promising to strike again, he’d have let her walk out the door. Without saying a word.
What was he supposed to say?
Could he picture himself forty years down the road without ever having had children of his own? Could he see his children with any mother besides Meghan?
Gideon sipped the fresh cup of coffee, nearly scalding his tongue in the process. But it was enough of a wake-up call to shake him out of his stupor. He’d have to sort out his feelings and rethink his future plans later. Right now he had a job to do. No matter how this turned out between them, he’d made a promise to Meghan. And he was nothing if not a man of his word.
“Hey, Gid.” Josh waved him over to his desk. “I think we’ve got something.” A. J. Rodriguez was already sitting at his computer, typing in search data. Josh had surrendered his chair to Meghan and was looking over her shoulder at the open book of pictures sitting in front of her on his desk.
Gideon dumped his coffee and rejoined them. “Did you see someone you recognized?” he asked, trying to keep both eagerness and sadness out of his voice.
She seemed small and alone sitting there. But then Josh was such a big man, standing right behind her. Maybe it was just a trick of optical illusion and had nothing to do with the tight press of her mouth or a downcast gaze that didn’t quite meet his. “He was in the crowd after the fire yesterday. He asked me for an autograph.”
Josh had no problem being direct. “Does the name Jack Quinton mean anything to you?”
Gideon turned inward and sped through an internal catalog of information until the name popped and a story came to mind. “Yeah. He was arrested for a string of arson fires—some kind of insurance scam—back in the mid-nineties. My unit worked a couple of them. Isn’t he in prison?”
A.J. shook his head, reading information off the computer screen. “He was released from Jefferson City earlier this year. Good behavior. I’ll have Sarge pull his file. Check with his parole officer. We’ll get a complete history on him.”
Gideon looked at the image on the computer screen, recognizing the bug-eyed man with the glasses from yesterday. “If I remember, Quinton had a degree in electrical engineering. He’d know how to put together the remote triggers I’ve been finding.”
Meghan leaned forward in her chair. She might be weary of it, but she was still in the fight. “Then how do you explain the gang signs? The man I saw was never any kind of warrior. Westside or otherwise.”
“It could just be a diversionary tactic to throw us off track,” Josh suggested. “We have been running alibis for Ezio Moscatelli and his known associates.”
Gideon shook his head. “Why leave the triggers behind if he wants to misdirect the police? A remote-controlled computer chip is a pretty distinct signature for an arsonist.”
“The man I saw looked like he was in his fifties, maybe sixty,” said Meghan. “Maybe he’s not working alone. Maybe he’s passing along his craft to someone else. Someone younger. Maybe he’s hired himself out to the Warriors.”
“That’s a lot of maybes.” A.J. turned his chair toward Meghan. Though Rodriguez projected an image of laid-back nonchalance, the probity of his questions last night and his patience this morning told Gideon the man was thorough. He’d partnered with Gideon’s brother Cole until he left the force. Now Josh was his partner. Gideon was relieved to sense that Meghan’s case was in good hands with the Hispanic detective. “We don’t even know if this is your guy yet,” he cautioned. “I’ll run down an address for him. Josh and I can pay him a visit. Maybe we’ll luck out and find he works in a florist’s shop, too.”
“If he is our man, you won’t find him.” Gideon was beginning to understand the way this guy operated. “He’ll be out today, looking for Meghan, preparing his next surprise for her.”
He couldn’t help but be concerned by the sudden pallor of her skin or her noiseless sigh. But it was Josh who closed his hands around her shoulders, offering support and massaging the tension there. Gideon recognized the possessive impulse to warn Josh to keep his hands to his own woman. But he quickly squelched the urge to circle the desks and pull her up into his arms for his comfort. His emotions were still too raw to predict what kind of comfort he’d actually be.
But he could still control his instinct and intellect.
Gideon directed his comment to the two detectives. “Your official interest and national press coverage are making this guy nervous. In his mind, he’s got a private relationship with Meg that he wants to get back to.”
“What if I just don’t go to work?” Meghan suggested. “If he knows I’m not there to fight it, maybe he won’t set another fire. I can call in sick. The chief would understand.”
Gideon shook his head. “I don’t think he works that way. He likes seeing you in action. That’s where the two of you connect—at the beginning and end of a fire. He’ll keep burning things down until you show up.”
“Then how do we stop him?” Josh’s frustration spoke for them all. “Do we have to set a trap?”
A beat of deadly silence closed in on the group. All eyes turned to Meghan.
No! Gideon wanted to shout. He could see what she was thinking. What Josh and A.J. were both thinking.
“Well.” She stood, throwing back her shoulders and lifting her beautiful chin with all the pride and fatalism of an innocent woman being led to her execution. “We all know I’m the only bait he’s interested in.”
No one liked it, but no one could argue the sense of her words.
A.J. was the first to move beyond the grim mood and put the half-formed plan into action. “I’ll write up a warrant request, get Captain Taylor to green-light it. I still want to check out Quinton’s place. Gideon, can you go with us to identify whether or not he’s got the materials on hand to create these fires?”
Gideon couldn’t look away from the bleak acceptance in her honey-brown eyes. “I have to stay with Meghan.”
“No, you don’t.” The serene calm of her voice dismissing him from his promise should have soothed his concern, not put his warning radar on full alert. “You can drop me off at the station. There are good men on my crew. I’ll make sure one of them’s always with me. And John Murdock watches my back closer than anybody when we’re on a call. When my shift’s done, I’
ll call Dorie to see if I can spend the night there. I won’t be alone.” She picked up her fanny pack and strapped it around her waist, as if volunteering to let Jack Quinton come after her was a done deal. “Quinton hurts property, not people. If I’m never alone, he can’t get to me. But you guys will be around to catch him trying, though.” Her inquiry included Josh and A.J. “Right?” A.J. nodded. “We’ll bug your phone and post a watch at your apartment. If it’s not me personally, I guarantee there will be someone you can trust watching you at all times.” His golden eyes narrowed to slits, and Meghan seemed to take courage in the dark-haired detective’s words. “We’ll get this guy if he contacts you again.”
“And the fire?” she asked, turning to Gideon for that assurance, at least.
“I’ll call your batallion chief and issue an alert. As soon as I’m done with A.J. and my research on the Grimes fire, I’ll be there with you, too.” She had to understand that he wasn’t abandoning her or her boys. Not while they still needed him, at any rate.
“Thank you for remembering Matthew. I’d be forever grateful if you can help him.” In the charged silence that followed, his world shrank to just Meghan and the regrets that hung between them. “I’m not holding you to any promises, Gideon. Do what you have to do.”
Did he hear an unspoken message in her words? Acceptance of wherever he decided to take their relationship from here? A goodbye?
“I’m all right,” she reassured him, trying to absolve him of guilt and take on his pain the way she had last night. Her body seemed to take on a newfound energy when she turned to A.J. and Josh. “I need to freshen up. Then I’ll be ready to leave whenever you are.”
A.J. excused himself to process the request for a search warrant and wire-tapping device, leaving Gideon staring hungrily after the subtle womanly sway of Meghan’s retreating backside.
Josh’s big hand, clamping around his shoulder, was the only thing that could tear him away from what felt like goodbye. “So what’s with you, Gid? You look like that day in the hospital when the doctor told you you couldn’t fight fires anymore. Are you and Meghan on again or off again or what?”
Gideon shook his head, then stepped away to face his brother. He felt old. Tired. Defeated. “I don’t know. I always thought she was the one. But now I’m not sure it will ever work out between us.”
“Why not? If you love her, you can find a way to get through anything.”
“Sometimes love isn’t enough.”
“You know, as far as words of wisdom go, those really suck.”
He had no idea. “You talk too much. Why don’t you go catch some bad guys or pick on your sister or something, instead of trying to give me advice.”
Smart aleck that he was, Josh ticked off the answers on his fingers. “I’m working on it, Jessie’s in Chicago, and you’re avoiding the question. Do you love Meghan?”
Gideon picked up his K.C.F.D. ball cap, smoothed back his hair and adjusted the cap on his head before answering. “Yeah. I fell hard a long time ago. But she’s not the person I thought she was. And I’m not the man I used to be.”
Josh considered the cryptic response before speaking. “I don’t know what went down, but don’t write her off, Gid. Not until all this blows over. I guarantee you, neither one of you needs to be making any major decisions right now.”
When had the baby of the family gotten to be so wise? “You always wanted to be the big brother, didn’t you?”
But Josh’s goofy grin was firmly back in place. “Nah. You’re the sage old man of the family. I’m happy being the spoiled-rotten cute one.”
For the first time that morning Gideon found it in himself to smile.
“I GAVE YOU a statement.”
Meghan sat on the edge of the pool table in the station’s rec room and crossed her arms defensively in front of her.
Saundra Ames wore a stunning suit of mauve silk today. But her flawless features were marred by an impatient frown. “I need you on camera. Your face is the one the public wants to see.”
“I’m sure they’re tired of looking at it.”
It was amazing, really, to see how quickly the men in her unit had rallied around her request for some friendly protection. The chief himself had given Saundra a tour of the station while others had found a way to detain her cameraman outside. Even now she wasn’t alone with the reporter. The men shooting pool and reading a book listened closely enough to make their presence known without interfering with any of Ms. Ames’s first amendment rights.
But she hadn’t gotten to be a local reporter about to break out in the national market without being relentless. Her rose-tinted lips smiled. “Don’t you see? That self-effacing modesty is one of the things they love about you.”
“No.”
“Then what about a voice-over with a still picture like the one we ran this morning? We used those with great success when I was doing that series of stories about the new prison in Jefferson City. We won regional and national awards with that series.”
“Congratulations.” Meghan smiled. “No.”
Didn’t this lady get it? Meghan wanted normalcy to return to her life. Hell. She was just now beginning to appreciate that the good-natured ribbing from the men she worked with was a form of acceptance, not exclusion. And the boys and Dorie offered her some responsibilities, people who would accept her caring.
She might never have the dream life of a family of her own, with Gideon Taylor at her side and in her heart, but she could create some sort of facsimile. She’d known things would change between them once she told him the truth. She’d hurt him deeply, letting him love her, letting him think they had a chance at a future together. If she hadn’t selfishly needed his strength and wisdom to feel safe—if she hadn’t needed his love to feel whole—she might have taken Uncle Pete’s final advice and gone off to live her life alone. Where she couldn’t screw anything up. Where she couldn’t hurt anyone else.
But she’d learned that she was human, that her feelings counted for something. If a noble man like Gideon hadn’t taught her that, she wouldn’t be here now. Defending her privacy, her freedom, her life. Protecting her community. Standing tall inside the uniform she was proud to wear.
Meghan clung to the idea that she could be part of a symbolic family, which was a hell of a lot closer to normalcy and happiness than she’d had growing up. She wouldn’t have love, but she’d have friendship. And that would have to be enough.
If one sick man and this determined woman would ever leave her alone.
“Don’t you feel you have a responsibility to the community, Miss Wright? If the arsonist is leaving you clues that could save lives and property, don’t you want to share that?”
Meghan bristled as if the woman had shoved the microphone in her face. “He doesn’t tell me where he’s going to set his fires.”
“So he has contacted you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Has he threatened you in any way?”
Meghan threw up her hands. “I’m not going to answer your questions.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Miss Wright.” Saundra leaned in as if she was an old girlfriend sharing a secret. “People will want to know if Kansas City’s Sweetheart is in danger.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Miss Wright—”
“I think she’s answered enough questions.” A big shoulder—one very big shoulder—inserted itself between Meghan and Saundra Ames.
John. Thank God. Partially hidden behind his back, Meghan allowed the stress to surface and breathed a sigh of relief. Big brother to the rescue again.
But she wasn’t the only one glad to see him. Stepping back to afford herself an assessing view, Saundra Ames slowly took in the novel tucked beneath the swelled biceps, and tilted her head to meet John’s downturned gaze. Meghan almost smiled at the reporter’s temporarily speechless state. Her rosy lips parted on a sigh. She was interested, but not necessarily on a professional level. If Meghan had been ha
ving a better day, she would have laughed out loud. So the high-class Ms. Ames liked her men big and brawny.
“Ulysses is an awfully big book.” Big? Smooth line.
“I’m a big boy.”
“I can see that.” Was John buying the reporter’s syrupy tone? “Are you a big friend of Miss Wright’s?”
“Yes,” came John’s pointed answer. “Are you?”
His tough-guy banter seemed to please Saundra. She must be thriving on the prospect of being challenged as both a woman and a reporter. “Does a man of your size and apparent enlightenment find it disruptive to work beside a woman of Meghan’s stature?”
Did she mean Meghan’s diminutive build? Or current media popularity? And was John really going to get sucked into this woman’s interrogation?
“She’s an equal member of the team, like everyone else.”
“Maybe it would be an interesting sidebar to get some feedback from her fellow firefighters.” Saundra linked her arm through John’s and turned him toward the door. Meghan was relieved to feel forgotten. “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions, Mr….?”
“John Murdock.” He turned and tossed Ulysses on top of the pool table. With his back to Saundra he winked and mouthed the words, Another one you owe me. Then he laid his hand over Saundra’s where it rested on his forearm. “It all depends on what you have to ask, Saundra. I can call you that, can’t I? Why don’t we talk outside?”
As the door closed behind them, the two rookies who’d been playing pool stopped their game. “What are we doing wrong, Joe?” Dean Murphy leaned on his cue stick and shook his head. “She’s practically drooling over the big guy.”
“How many times can you work the word ‘big’ into a conversation?” Joe Cutler raked his fingers through his blond hair.