Christmas Up in Flames

by Lisa Harris

  It might have been a long time since he last saw her, but he knew Claire couldn’t have changed that much. She’d always been the toughest person he’d ever known. She’d chosen a field that was difficult for men, and even harder for women. Requirements were the same no matter who you were. Lifting heavy equipment, climbing huge ladders and working long shifts, you had to be strong. Strong enough to keep up both physically and emotionally. And yet Claire had excelled, despite the fact that there were few women in her field. The road hadn’t always been easy, but her determinedness—and stubbornness—had pushed her toward the top. He wasn’t surprised at all she was now an investigator. That was what she’d always wanted.

  But something was definitely wrong.

  It was dark when he strode into the sheriff’s office where his brother Griffin was on duty at the front desk at half past five.

  “Hey...” Griffin got up out of his chair to greet his brother. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until dinner tonight at the ranch. Something wrong?”

  “It is, actually. You heard about the fire at the B&B?”

  “I did. Sounds like the damage is pretty severe, though I was told no one was hurt except for one guest who was trapped in her room and suffered from smoke inhalation.”

  Reid leaned against the front counter. “That someone was Claire Holiday.”

  Griffin’s eyes widened. “Your Claire Holiday?”

  “She’s not my Claire, but yes.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Yes, but it could have been a lot worse.”

  “What’s she doing here?”

  “Apparently there are some who believe that the fire at the Reynolds farm might be connected to the Rocky Mountain Arsonist.”

  “So an arson investigator comes to town and is trapped in a fire?” Griffin frowned. “I’m sorry, but that sounds extremely off to me.”

  “Yes, it does. I heard they think it might have been started by an electrical fire, but why couldn’t she get out? It doesn’t make sense. According to her, she was trapped in the room. I know Claire, or at least I used to, and she’s not the kind of person to panic in a situation like that. She’s trained to know exactly what to do. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “That does seem to be a pretty odd coincidence. Have you talked to her at all?”

  “I’m the one who pulled her out of the fire.”

  “But have you talked to her?”

  “Not really. Just to make sure she was okay.”

  “I know this has to be awkward for the two of you, but you’re probably going to be working with her.”

  “She’ll be working with the captain. Not me.”

  At least that was his plan.

  “I always liked her—”

  “Don’t even go there.” Reid pushed down the rising irritation, knowing exactly where his brother’s train of thought was heading. “Just because I’m the last of the O’Callaghan brothers to either be married or engaged, doesn’t mean that’s going to change.”

  “That’s not what you thought a few years ago.”

  Reid shoved his hands into his front pockets. “We were different people back then, and I’ll be the first to admit that I made a lot of mistakes. I tried to make things right after breaking up with her. She’s the one who never responded.”

  His mother would have called him the prodigal son. She’d told him once that she’d prayed night after night that he’d get his life together, hoping God was working even when she couldn’t see it.

  Eventually he’d done just that, and never turned back.

  “To be fair, you did break up with her,” Griffin said.

  “I think it’s time to drop the subject.”

  But it was a subject that was hard to forget.

  They’d spent their day off skiing in Loveland, then had driven down to Silverthorne where he’d planned a romantic evening at a cozy restaurant. But instead their perfect day had ended in a fight and subsequent break up. Maybe he should have seen it coming. She’d been hinting for weeks that she wanted more out of their relationship. That it was time for them to talk about settling down and getting married. But as much as he’d loved her, back then marriage had terrified him. He just wasn’t ready. So instead, he’d panicked and lost her.

  “I stopped by because I need your help with something,” Reid said, pulling his thoughts out of the past. “I need to listen to the 911 recording of her call.”

  “That can be arranged. What are you looking for?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m hoping I know when I hear it.”

  A minute later, Griffin had the audio of the call set up at an empty desk. Reid listened to the entire recording, then listened to it a second time.

  Ma’am... I’d like you to go try the door again.

  I told you it’s locked somehow. It won’t open.

  I understand, but I’d like you to try again. It’s easy to panic in a situation like this—

  I’m not panicking. It’s jammed.

  “I don’t know.” Reid pulled off the headset he’d been wearing, then turned back to his brother. “Something isn’t adding up. Claire insists that her door was jammed, as well as the window, and that she couldn’t get out. Normally, I’d say it was panic, but she’s trained as a firefighter, Griffin. We need to figure out what happened in there.”

  He didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but what if Claire had been targeted?

  TWO

  Claire hung up the call with her mom after insisting she was fine and making her mother promise not to tell Owen what had happened. An almost five-year-old didn’t need to know that his mom had come close to dying in a fire.

  She stared at the gray wall of the emergency room, anxious to leave. She hadn’t come to Timber Falls to sit around, and yet the doctor had insisted they observe her for a couple of hours while they checked her oxygen levels. She could feel the exhaustion settling over her body, but the experience had also left her with a sense of restlessness.

  She didn’t have time to be tired or stuck in an emergency room. She now had two fires to investigate and the sooner she determined exactly what had happened in both cases, the sooner she could get back to Denver.

  The fire, though, wasn’t the only thing that had shaken her. Reid O’Callaghan had managed to not just walk back into her life, but to save it. She drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t expected to see him or his family, because she’d known it was inevitable. Timber Falls was a small town—his hometown—and he was a fireman here. Thinking she could avoid him would have been ignorant. But that didn’t change the fact she’d hoped she could have.

  Her hands fisted tight on the examination table. The O’Callaghan family had always been the family she’d never had. They’d weathered storms like serious health issues and military deployments by drawing strength from both God and each other. Her own family had never been that way. Stress had pushed her parents apart, eventually leading to a nasty divorce and custody battle. In reality, she knew that no family was perfect, but the O’Callaghans were the family she’d always wanted.

  The family she knew now she’d never have.

  Reid had made it clear to her the day he broke up with her that he wasn’t ready for a wife and family. Forcing a ready-made family on him when she’d found out she was pregnant a few weeks later had been out of the question. Her decision might have kept a son and grandson from the O’Callaghan family, but she’d had no desire to put her son in a similar situation to what she’d been in growing up. Owen had been and always would be her one and only priority.

  The sound of footsteps on the tile shifted her attention. She sat up in the bed as Reid stepped through the opening in the curtain carrying a paper bag in his hand. Her heart fought against the reaction that seeing him brought, along with the flash flood of vivid memories. But her
relationship with Reid—and any lingering feelings—had been over years ago.

  “Hey...am I bothering you?” he asked.

  “Reid...no. I... I’m just waiting for the doctor to release me.”

  And stumbling like a dingbat in front of you.

  She sucked in a deep breath of air, willing her pulse to slow down. He still looked just as she remembered. Short, light-brown hair and just a hint of a beard across his face. Fit from working out regularly. She’d always teased him about how he could have made the cover of the firemen’s calendar and raised a ton of money for the fire department. He’d always hated the idea, but he was still just as cover-worthy. Today, he was wearing a plaid, fleece-lined jacket, jeans and boots, while looking at her with eyes that had always been able to see all the way inside her.

  Eyes that looked just like Owen’s.

  She tried to shove down the reminder, because Reid finding out the secret she’d kept for close to six years could be almost as devastating as the arsonist she was trying to stop.

  He set the bag he was carrying at the end of the bed, clearly feeling just as awkward as she did. “How are you doing?”

  “Ready to get out of here. But I’m fine. Nothing more than some smoke inhalation, thanks to you.”

  “I guess I am the last person you would have imagined coming to your rescue.”

  “I owe you my life. Thank you.”

  He shot her a dimpled smile. “You know I was always a sucker for a damsel in distress.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “I see you’ve still got your same sense of humor.”

  But while his one-liners had always been corny, he was good at his job and she knew it. She just wished he didn’t affect her the way he did simply by being in the room with her. After all these years apart, she’d convinced herself she was completely over him and that seeing him again wouldn’t matter.

  She’d clearly been wrong.

  Which meant she was going to have to work harder to ensure the wall around her heart stayed erect and that they didn’t spend any more time together than necessary. That shouldn’t be very hard, since she’d insist on working with the captain and getting all her information directly from him. All she needed was a couple of days to run her investigation and get evidence from both fires, then she’d go back to Denver. Reid O’Callaghan didn’t have to be a part of the equation.

  “I’m still trying to put together the pieces of what happened,” she said finally, needing to fill the pause between them.

  “I listened to your 911 call,” he said, “but I thought you could walk me through what happened while it’s fresh in your mind.”

  “Of course.” She pulled her legs up under her and tried to organize her thoughts. “I was asleep. I’d gone to bed early, planning to get up early and get to work. The fire alarm woke me. I went to the door, figuring it was just someone who’d gone down to the kitchen in the middle of the night and burnt some toast or something. But I couldn’t open the door.”

  “Like it was locked?” he asked.

  “Or jammed somehow. I should have been able to open it from the inside. The knob turned, but the door wouldn’t budge.”

  “Okay.”

  She cleared her throat. “It didn’t take long to realize that the house was on fire. Smoke was coming into my room, so I put a blanket across the threshold. Then I tried the window, but it wouldn’t open either. It still makes no sense.”

  “Panicking would be normal in a situation like that, Claire.”

  Except she knew that wasn’t what had happened.

  “You should know me better than that, Reid. I was scared, yes, but I wasn’t in a panic. I knew what to do, but the door wouldn’t open. The window wouldn’t open.” She worked to curb the anger in her voice. She needed him to believe her. “Which is why I need to go back now and try to figure out what happened.”

  “You don’t have to convince me. I agree there is something off about the situation.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.” His fingers grasped the metal rail at the end of the bed. “Especially considering the fact that you’re trained to be the one doing the rescuing. This time, you were the one trapped in the room—and in the middle of an arson investigation. It’s a connection we have to look at. What if the arsonist doesn’t want you looking into this?”

  “That’s exactly what we need to find out.” If someone had been behind this fire, that was going to change everything. “And thank you for not just assuming I imagined it.”

  He let out a low laugh. “You’re hardly imagining things. In the meantime, I guess congratulations are in order. I understand you’re the fire investigator sent here to check into a recent fire. I always knew you’d go far.”

  She smiled, thankful for the change in the subject. “I loved my work as a firefighter, but I love the investigative side even more.”

  “I’ve heard you’re good at what you do.”

  She stared up at him, wishing desperately that he didn’t still stir her heart like he used to, that she didn’t notice the dimple on his chin or the way his hair faded on the sides with a bit of volume on the top. Wishing he wasn’t trying to be so...so nice.

  “Listen...” She forced the memories aside. “I’ve been hoping that this won’t become...awkward between us.”

  “Of course not. That’s one reason I wanted to see you. First to check on you, but also to clear the air between us. You’re here to do a job, and my job is to help you. It won’t be a problem.”

  “Good.”

  “Just promise me you’ll be careful, Claire. No matter how things ended between us in the past, I don’t want anything happening to you.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that, but I’ll be fine.”

  His concern over her safety didn’t surprise her. Even after all that had gone on between them, she remembered that Reid had always been different. He’d opened doors for her and brought her flowers. He’d had this old-fashioned streak that she’d loved. They’d dated for a few months, then she’d met his parents at Christmas here in Timber Falls, always believing she’d marry him.

  But then everything had changed.

  He’d broken things off with her after a fight and moved back to Timber Falls. Then she’d found out she was pregnant.

  A sharp sigh escaped her lips. No. She couldn’t let thoughts of Reid interfere with why she was here. Not when she’d finally learned to forget him.

  Or, at least, she’d thought she had.

  But while he might be just as good-looking and nice as she’d remembered, that didn’t matter. Reid was a part of her past, not her future.

  * * *

  Reid shifted his weight at the foot of the bed, feeling awkward, because he’d yet to tell her the real reason he’d come the hospital to see her. And he knew she wasn’t going to like it.

  He cleared his throat, needing to focus on the situation at hand, prepared for her inevitable reaction. “I came to give you a ride. I can take you back to the B&B fire, but also if you need to go by the store and get anything...”

  “I planned on calling an Uber, but thanks. I can manage.”

  Reid’s fingers tightened around the end of the metal bedpost.

  “Am I missing something?” Claire asked.

  “Sort of.”

  She frowned. “That wasn’t suggestion, was it?”

  “The captain asked that I drive you around, just in case there’s a connection between the arson fires and what happened at the B&B. He’s worried—as I am—that you might have been targeted. At least until we find out what happened, he’d rather be safe than sorry.”

  He waited for her to argue again, knowing time with him wasn’t what she had in mind. She had to have known they were going to run into each other but had planned to make sure she saw him as little as possible. And now they were going to be stuck together�
�something neither of them wanted.

  “So...you’re going to be my bodyguard?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “That does sound better than a chauffeur, but don’t think of it as that. I was on the scene for both fires. If I can’t answer any of your questions, I will know who to ask.”

  “So a bodyguard, chauffer and Siri all rolled into one. I always knew you were talented.”

  He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Funny. You haven’t lost your sense of humor either.”

  She smiled “No, but seriously, I don’t need a bodyguard. I’ll take an Uber there and hopefully find the keys to my car.”

  “Humor me, will you? If you don’t let me drive you, the captain will be on my back. You don’t know how stubborn he can be. I’ll even throw in breakfast if you’re hungry.”

  She shot him a grin. “That’s quite an offer, but don’t think that your charm is going to get me to change my mind.”

  “Then what about my good looks?”

  “You always were incorrigible.”

  “So we’re good?”

  Claire let out a sharp sigh. “You can take me there, because you’re cheaper than an Uber, but after that, I can drive my own car.”

  “You’ll have to talk with the captain about that. He’s meeting us there.”

  He continued to work to shove the memories of Claire back into the compartment where he’d kept them all these years. Just out of reach, at the edges of his memory, making sure he pushed them back anytime there was a reminder. He’d see that she complied with the captain’s orders, then she’d be gone within a few days. And he’d never again have to see the woman who’d once stolen his heart.

  The doctor stepped around the curtain, breaking up the awkwardness between them. “Good news. I’m going to let you go home. But if you end up coughing, feeling any shortness of breath or a headache—anything, really, that you think that could have been caused by the fire—I want you to come back in.”