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Authors: Anne Marsh

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BOOK: Burning Up
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Every time he smelled like smoke, she remembered.
She was afraid. She could admit that to herself now. She'd been afraid when the first fires started, but they'd been little. Easily dismissed by everyone, so she'd ignored her instincts. Instincts that screamed:
run
. She should have listened to those instincts. What had happened had been far more than a trash can fire or a carelessly tossed cigarette. Now just the smell of smoke was enough to make her breath catch and her heart race. A hundred-plus miles and there still wasn't enough space between herself and San Francisco. Wasn't enough to make her forget the heart-stopping moment when she'd woken up.
 
The room was too warm. Maybe the AC had gone out, but some instinct told her no. This heat was different, a suffocating blanket weighing down the thick air. No light came through the curtains covering her bedroom window. All she heard was a rapid-fire crackle, a sound almost like sticks clattering together or water running. The sound was all wrong. That sound didn't belong in her home, any more than the high-pitched, regular ping of the fire alarm did.
Oh, God.
Dropping out of bed, she staggered to the kitchen and saw that the door was impassable. And then the horrifying sight of her books burning in the sink, the flames spreading throughout the kitchen. Back in the bedroom, she crawled helplessly to the window and the fire escape. For a long moment the window stuck, resisting her shaking hands, and then the sash shot up, and she tumbled out into the smoke-filled night air.
The red-and-blue pulse of police lights strobed through the night sky, the heavy rumble of the fire trucks greeting her. Help was coming. Clinging to the fire escape that ended twelve feet above the alley, she scrubbed her eyes with her hands, distantly startled to realize she was crying. It could have been the smoke making her eyes tear. Her hair and her skin, her clothes—the sharp, gunpowder tang of smoke permeated her to the very bone. This smoke wasn't the familiar scent of a just-struck match or the flicker of just-doused candlelight. Everything was unfamiliar. Acrid. She had to get away.
And then, the man down there, down in the alley behind her town house, made a noise. A harsh little noise of indescribable pleasure, and she looked. She couldn't see his face, concealed by the shadows, just the thick, jutting threat of his cock. He'd unzipped his chinos and stood there, legs spread, one hand on his cock and the other massaging his balls as he watched the fire eat up her home. Above them both, glass blew out of her kitchen window and rained down on the dark, flame-lit space.
She sucked air into her lungs, and she didn't know what to do. He was between her and the alley's exit. The fire was above her, and no one was coming. Then his head turned, really slowly, and he looked at her.
“Your fire's absolutely lovely, Lily,” he said, his voice a harsh, damaged creak of sound. His hand moved faster, slapping against his skin as he strained. “Don't you like my little present?”
He took a step toward her, the semen spurting from the end of that cock in a thick stream, and she found her voice and screamed and screamed.
Afterward, she'd come back to the place to walk through the damage with the insurance adjuster. The adjuster had been professional but sympathetic, commiserating with her on her loss and assuring her that she was in good hands. He'd had no idea. These were more than just things. This was her home.
Had been her home. Now
he'd
taken that home away from her.
The fire's heat had blistered the cabinets, scorching a deadly calling card on the wall separating the kitchen from her bedroom. There were holes where flame-heated nails had burst free, and everything still recognizable was wet and smoke-singed. Curling and blackened. The heat had warped the window frames, rendering them as molten as well-used candles, and all the glass had blown right out. The fire, the adjuster noted clinically, had been fast and hard.
But here she was. Alive. The adjuster promised to cut a check so she could get on with her life, rebuild when she was ready.
How could she ever be ready?
The fire had destroyed the kitchen—and so much more. She'd lost dishes and towels, pots and pans. It wasn't as if she was sentimental about the appliances, but Ben had given her the blue glassware vase that had belonged to his mother. “Something blue,” he'd teased in a parody of the wedding tradition when he'd handed her the vase to take with her to her new home. A little piece of Strong for her very own, because he didn't want to wait until the day she married to share their family pieces with her. The blue glassware was gone, consumed by the fire or overrun by the firefighters. It was silly to cry over something so minor, but those were
her
memories, damn it.
And that vase had been a reminder. She'd looked at the colored blue glass every morning, and she'd remembered the loving uncle she had, the place she'd come from.
When she'd paused, stricken, in the doorway, the insurance adjuster had simply assured her the smell would come out. Take it down to the studs and rebuild, he promised. Give the place new Sheetrock, electric, cabinets, and paint. Dry it all out. The fire would be a memory in three months. No one would ever know a terrible thing had happened here.
She, on the other hand, knew she'd never forget.
Least of all the man fisting his cock as he watched her home burning.
This fire hadn't been an accident. The most terrifying confirmation of that came long before the police report had identified the source as suspicious. She'd been staying with friends, but she'd received a package. An anonymous cardboard box with no return address that held her favorite coffee mug—a mug that had been sitting on the draining rack in her kitchen. The oversize pink ceramic cup with its cheerful kittens was kitschy. Fun. She'd had it since her college days, and it had held the four cups of coffee she made every morning.
I thought you'd want this,
the note had said.
What she'd
wanted
was to toss the box, the note, and the mug into the trash and pretend none of this had happened. Instead, she'd dutifully taken the mug and the box to the police station. She hadn't even liked having the package in her car. Her mind raced, creating end-of-the-world scenarios. And, after leaving the box at the station, she'd just kept on driving. Kept on driving until she hit Strong and realized she'd come home.
She'd used the adjuster's check for a down payment on her farm and cleaned out her 401K for the rest. The nightmares had dwindled, but they never disappeared. Just as she never quite managed to forget the scent of burned wood. Burned dreams.
Now here Jack was, stirring things up. Making her remember.
She let the thoughts and worries go, losing herself in the soothing rhythm of cutting and binding the fragrant stalks. She wasn't going to figure Jack Donovan out in a morning—or even a night or two.
He was summer romance, as sweet as the flowers surrounding her. She'd enjoy every moment, soak in the heat and splendor. When fall came and he went away, she'd put those memories away and move on with her life.
Chapter Nineteen
B
uying the old firehouse was the craziest thing Jack had ever done. He had no idea what had gotten into him.
“You sure you want to do this, boy?” Ben was watching him like he was committing the error of the millennium. That disbelieving gaze didn't help his nerves any, but this made sense. Felt right.
“Yeah. I do.” Before he could chicken out, he signed his name at the bottom of the stack of papers. And then again and again, initialing each page in the stack. Disclosures. Addendums. Dire warnings that the old firehouse wasn't the soundest structure in Strong.
Hell.
He probably should just set the place on fire and let the boys use it for practice.
One hundred forty thousand dollars. He could afford it, but this was more than money. He'd bought property before, but never in Strong. Never as more than an investment.
And no one—no one in his right mind—would consider the old firehouse an investment. Not unless there were oil wells gushing underneath the crumbling foundation or a streak of gold ore a mile wide. Which—he examined the last page—he apparently hadn't purchased the rights to anyhow. Anything valuable belowground belonged to the town, free and clear.
Hell.
He didn't know why he was doing this, but the Realtor was already gathering up the papers. “The title will be recorded this afternoon.” The Realtor hesitated, then stuck out his right hand. “Congratulations.”
“Best of luck, you mean,” Ben grumbled behind him. “This place will take a shitload of sweat equity. Any moment you're not fighting fire is gonna be spent right here, wrestling drywall and termites.”
The Realtor dropped the key into his hand. “No reason you can't move on in right now. She'll be yours as soon as I get back to the office.” Which was five buildings down the street.
Tilting his head back, he let his head rest against the peeling paint of the firehouse's porch as the Realtor scampered down the sagging steps with the check and the paperwork. “You think I'm not pressing you into service, Ben, you thought wrong.”
Ben snorted. “I figure I owe you that much, since I'm the reason you're here.”
Nonna had made the call on Ben's behalf, sure enough, but coming back hadn't been just for him. Or her. Sure, he'd wanted to help out an old friend and mentor, but he'd had business here. Personal business. He hadn't known it, but he wasn't hiding from the truth anymore.
“Part of the reason anyhow,” Jack said.
“Right.” Ben tested the wood of the balcony, and the paint flaked off in his hands. “Plenty to do here.”
Shoving away from the wall, Jack opened the door. The lock stuck and took a little finessing before the door finally opened up and let him in. An unexpected sense of possession filled him. He had himself his own little piece of Strong now.
A piece that smelled strongly of mildew.
The floors inside creaked with each step. The place wasn't so big that he didn't know where to head. He passed the two bays for fire trucks and skipped the upstairs loft for off-duty firemen. He poked his head into storerooms and a dressing room. Pegs for the guys to hang their jackets and drop their boots. In front of him was the old firehouse office. On a hunch, he realized there was something he wanted to check out. He'd bet no one had wanted to be the guy stuck behind the rusting metal desk that greeted him when he forced that warped door open. He'd have wanted to be out where the action was, first on the scene.
When he went inside, Ben was right on his heels. He beelined it to the metal filing cabinets rusting away against the back wall.
“What are you after?” Ben asked.
“Shut up,” he said, “and start looking, old man.” His own fingers were walking double-time through the nearest cabinet, myriad old fire calls condensed into reams of ancient logbooks that had been left behind, no longer considered useful. “Lily's stalker likes fire. He has to be a local. How much you want to bet he's set fires here before?”
Hell, Jack himself had been one of a handful of boys who'd loved the ride-along. Nothing unusual in getting a thrill from riding up on the fire truck, being first on the scene. It would have been more unusual if any of them
hadn't
gotten a thrill from riding out on the engine. They'd all come running when Ben had fired up the siren and gone to work. Maybe a half dozen other boys, besides him and Rio and Evan. What he wanted were those names.
Ben's gaze swept over the pages of call records. “What, exactly, are we looking for?”
“Names. Patterns.” He hadn't expected to spend hours combing through dusty old paper, but his gut told him it was important. This old firehouse held answers, and he was going to find them.
Lily was Ben's niece. Now she was Jack's lover.
Maybe he should have left her alone.
But he'd already walked away from her once, all those years ago. He'd regretted what he'd missed; somehow even then he'd known that Lily was a once-in-a-lifetime woman.
He knew he wasn't the kind of man she deserved. He'd known that from the moment they met. He was hard, and he was ruthless. He knew these things. On the streets, these were good things to be. The strong survived, and he'd never regretted or second-guessed his choices. Until now.
Lily was strong, too, but a different kind of strong—quiet, with the kind of backbone that was pure steel. You didn't notice until you pushed her, and damned if she didn't push right back. She didn't have to be loud to get her point across or to demand respect.
The pages of the logbooks were neat and tidy. Ben's handwriting reflected the man. Pages and pages of orderly entries marching up and down the columns in clear black and white.
“You always wrote our names down,” he said. “To make us feel special, I'm betting, but every time we rode out with you or we showed up at a scene to lend a hand, you gave us a line in the book. You treated us like we were real firefighters, even though we were just wannabe kids.”
“Whether you helped with handing out equipment or slung hose, you were helping to fight fires,” Ben said quietly. “Sure, you didn't have professional experience and I wasn't letting you too close to those flames, but you were all fighters, Jack. Hell, I don't think you or your brothers knew how
not
to fight. Every day, every fire was a new battle, and you'd charge on in. Head down, fists out. You were taking us all on. There's a lot to respect right there. You earned your place in that logbook.”
Each name brought the flash of a childhood memory. The truck. The adrenaline rush and the sense of danger. That moment when the truck pulled up to whatever fire needed fighting and he got his first eyeful of what they were facing. There'd been a sense of belonging riding that truck he hadn't found anywhere else. He'd always been bigger, taller, stronger than the other boys. It hadn't been long before he'd been slinging dirt and hauling hose with the adult members of the team. On the job, they were all part of that same team, joining forces because together they were far more than the sum of their parts. All that mattered was getting those flames put out.
There were more than a dozen names in the logs from those long-ago summers. Some of the boys were long gone, but some were still right here in Strong. He was on to something, and he knew it.
Grabbing a dusty pad of paper, he started listing names as he found them. “I'm ruling the three of us out,” he said tightly. “I know my brothers. They didn't do this thing.”
Ben gave a short nod. “Didn't think any of you did.”
Jack couldn't help thinking of Lily's vulnerability, his memory providing a detailed image of the way she'd looked in his arms. In his temporary bed. She'd been sweet and trusting and so damned hot. He wanted to taste her again, see what it would take to make those soft little cries for him fall from her lips once more.
Christ, he needed to leave her alone.
“This particular summer,” he said, stabbing his pen at a logbook and holding it out for Ben to see, because the hell of it was, he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Lily's uncle, and no way did he want the other man to guess the thoughts running through his head. Ben wasn't stupid. He knew what Jack had gotten up to the last couple of nights, but he wouldn't want the details. “You had a series of grass fires. Trash can fires, too.”
Beside him, Ben was nodding. “Garage fires, as well. I thought at the time it could be some kid up to mischief. We didn't find anything at the scenes, but maybe there were too many little fires for them all to be accidental.”
“What if whoever is going after Lily rode along on those calls? You think he'd want to see the effect of his handiwork? Maybe, just maybe, he'd have gotten off on setting those fires and then putting them out himself.”
“Or making us all run around.” Ben was nodding slowly again. “Like his own personal cleanup crew.”
“He likes power.” Jack pushed down his rage. Anger wasn't going to help Lily, not right now. He didn't like or understand these new emotions tearing him apart. He had never been possessive. Not about women. “With fire, he could be the one in charge. Starting things.”
“So who had that kind of itch all bottled up inside him?” Ben wondered aloud.
“A dead man,” Jack said grimly. Scanning the list, he marked a handful of names with pencil. Damning ticks. He needed Rio and his software know-how.
“We're all concerned about Lily,” Ben said.
“True.” He hadn't said otherwise, had he?
“So you don't have to do this all by yourself.” Ben looked at him pointedly. “You think I'm going to sit back and let whoever this is come after her? Hell, no. He's going through me first.”
“Fine,” Jack said tightly. Flipping the page, he made more marks. Seven of them, including his brothers, had gone out on calls that summer. Isaiah, Ethan, Eddie, Charlie Joe.
“Just how involved are you getting with Lily?”
“Don't push, Ben.” Charlie Joe—C.J.—Jack remembered, had left for a summer sleepaway camp after three weeks. And Isaiah had twisted his ankle at a fire and been out of commission for weeks.
“She's my niece,” Ben said. His voice was calm, but older man wasn't budging. “If you're seeing her, you tell me straight up.”
“Fine.” There had been more than twenty calls in July. July was typically hot and dry, which meant grass fires weren't out of the ordinary—but they'd ridden out on a dozen of those calls in one particular week. And all of those fires had started without an obvious cause. “These belong to our boy,” he decided.
“Are you seeing Lily?” Ben wasn't letting this one go. “Or did you sleep with her, Jack, and now you're moving on?” Maybe a deaf man would miss the unspoken warning in the other man's voice. If Jack hurt Lily, Ben would be coming after him.
That was good. He'd help the man himself. “Yes,” he said tightly. Lily deserved better. Question was: could he give it to her?
“Which one is it?” Ben's hand came down, covering the printed pages. Apparently their investigation was at an impasse until Ben had some answers to his questions. “You going to hurt my little girl, Jack? Because I'm not going to be okay with that. She may be all grown up, but she doesn't need the heartache. She's lost enough.”
“What do you want from me, Ben?” He never explained himself, but this was Ben. Lily's uncle. Ben had practically been a father to him, and he knew precisely how much Ben meant to Lily and vice versa. So he'd explain. As much as he could and no matter how uncomfortable it made him feel.
“I can't promise happily-ever-after and wedding bells,” he said carefully. “And I don't think that's what Lily wants. Not from me. I'm not the kind of man you should want sticking around for your little girl anyhow.” A tiger couldn't change its stripes, so he'd do what he'd always done, and he'd leave when summer was over. In the meantime, he'd see Lily, and he'd fix up the firehouse and turn it back over to the town.
He didn't want anything more from Lily Cortez, did he? So why did the thought of another man taking her into his arms, settling down with her in a little house in Strong, make him see red?
“Don't sell yourself short, Jack.” Ben shook his head. “You say those things long enough, maybe you'll start believing them.”
He'd spent a lifetime moving from one place to another, never stopping for long. That was who he was, part of what made him a damned fine firefighter. He'd never had a problem coming—or going. When that call came in, he just picked up and moved on to where he was needed. The urge to stay put—stay with this one particular woman—scared the hell out of him. He'd fought his battles, held the line in one firefight after another, but he'd never
cared
about whether or not the fire took more than Jack kept away from it.
BOOK: Burning Up
3.21Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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