Flirting With Fire (Hometown Heroes) (14 page)

“I’m fine,
really,” I lied. The urge to run had not yet passed. “Oh, hey—thanks again for
working Sarah into your schedule tonight.”

“Of course. And
thank you for working me into yours. My back feels so much better. Your hands
are worth their weight in gold.”

“I don’t know
about that, but I’ll take the compliment.”

He stopped
beside the table and scanned its top. “You think Sarah will show tonight?”

“Yeah, why
wouldn’t she?”

His right
shoulder rose and fell. “No reason.”

“She does leave
the confines of Autumn Lake on occasion, you know.” I watched as he bent over
the table and skimmed an index finger down my open appointment book. “What are
you looking for, anyway?”

“The catalyst
behind this cleaning frenzy of yours.” His finger stopped, tapped the page.
“Ah, that explains it.”

“Crimony! Can’t
a girl clean around here without being accused of anything?”

He looked up and
offered me a mock look of innocence. “Of course they can. Please, continue.”

“Thank you.” I
threw him a cool look, and turned back to the shelves behind me. “You really
think Sarah won’t come?”

“Oh, I don’t
know. We’ll see.” He crossed the room to come stand beside my ladder. “Did you
say anything to her yet about your new apartment?”

“I haven’t
decided whether I’m going to take it, Tony. And…no, I haven’t.”

“Just because
she isn’t cut out for city life, doesn’t automatically mean you aren’t, either.”

I said nothing,
but sighed. He was right, of course. The man always seemed to be right. And
yet, I still couldn’t quite convince myself that leaving Autumn Lake was the right choice, no matter how much I was loving Fort Wayne. A trigger I’d been
hesitant to pull, even with what sounded like an ideal offer from Xavier.

Tony reached up,
took my nearest hand, and gave it a little squeeze. “You do what your heart
tells you, Liz, not what you think will make everyone else happy.”

I gave him a
small nod, and he gave my hand one last squeeze before releasing it. “Well,
back to making the world a bit more beautiful, one face at a time.”

Tony took another
swig of his water, then headed for the door. But instead of pulling it open, he
paused. “Oh, and Elizabeth?”

“Yeah?”

His face turned back
toward mine, a wolfish grin upon it. “Enjoy your eleven-thirty.”

* * * *

After my next
appointment, I hit the break room for a quick, early lunch. Needed to get my
head on straight before Torrunn came in. There would be no mention of the whole
kiss ordeal from me, I decided at last, and if the topic did come up, I’d just
politely tell him to drop it. No sense leading the guy on, or allowing the same
to be done to me. But I didn’t want to piss him off, either. I’d made decent
money my two trips out to the fire station, and I hated to lose the extra
revenue.

Turns out, I
hadn’t needed to spend the morning cleaning or fretting or plotting
conversation strategies, because someone tripped the fire alarm. Again. Lucky
for Torrunn, he wasn’t already on the massage table this time. Which I guess
was unlucky for me, since I didn’t get to watch him dash around naked.

Hey, I said I
was going to play it cool, not stop enjoying the view.

Again, we all
crowded into the stairwell and moved to the parking lot across the street en
masse. People speculated on the cause—and a few cast their wary eyes my way—but
from what I could tell, no one had seen or smelled anything this time. A row
over from where I stood was Torrunn, with a panicked-looking Bunni clinging to
him yet again as if it were the end of the world. And just like last week, his
gaze scanned the lot and then settled on me.

But why? Surely
he wasn’t starting to think I was really to blame, was he?

The sound of
sirens soon cut through the thick, humid spring air. A fire truck came
barreling down Wayne Street and stopped in front of our building. Four men in
full gear jumped out, and a woman who worked on the floor above us rushed up to
them. Always nicely dressed, she usually walked with a calm strength about her.
Right now, she looked scared half to death as she gestured toward the west side
of the building. Two of the men trotted off in that direction while the others
continued to gather information from her.

“What’s going
on?” the man beside me asked no one in particular.

“Hey, isn’t that
Bev? Boy, she sure looks shaken up.”

“She works in
our office.”

Everyone within
earshot of this last speaker shifted their eager gazes to her.

“I heard her say
she saw someone outside, under the fire escape. And then something about a
flame.”

“No kidding?”
someone asked.

Our informant
shook her head. “Nope. She asked our boss what to do, and he said to call it
in. Better safe than sorry, especially after what happened last week.”

The volume of
the crowd’s murmuring rose as everyone offered their take on the situation, but
no one seemed to have any solid answers. What I couldn’t figure out was, why
this supposed firebug would keep setting fires over here? I mean, we were two
blocks over from the ball diamond. If this truly was someone ticked about
public money being spent on a new home for the baseball team, wouldn’t they be
setting fires over there?

As a truck
sporting one of the local news station’s logos arrived on the scene, a new
thought came to mind: what if the fires had nothing to do with baseball, and
everything to do with someone in our building? And worse yet, judging by the
fact that Torrunn’s gaze had yet to shift from me, what if
I
was that
someone?

* * * *

The fire
department quickly located and doused the so-called fire—which had been a
failed attempt by the bug to set a trash receptacle on the east side of our
building on fire. After a quick assessment of the rest of the building, they
allowed us to reoccupy the building within a fairly short period of time. Which
was a good thing, considering the fact that a few of our stylists had clients
getting color—we wouldn’t want anyone’s hair coming out strawberry red or
anything.

But the hurried
reentry into our building hadn’t given me much time to calm down from my crazy
revelation that the fires could be aimed at someone who worked here. And I
considered it crazy, because 1) none of the fires had been large enough to do
much damage to our brick building, and 2) I didn’t have anyone out to get me.
Well, not that I knew of. I mean, it wasn’t like I made a lot of enemies giving
massages. What would I have done to tick anyone off, miss a knot or something?

Ah, but there
was someone here who didn’t like me. Someone who did her best to glare at me,
and who’d even gone so far as to threaten me this morning. Could Bunni be that
desperate to get rid of me that she’d set fires around the building to try and
scare me off?

“Hey, Liz!”

I had made it as
far as the break room hallway when that voice stopped me in my tracks. Torrunn.
Reluctantly I turned in the direction of the sound. He was walking toward me,
his face serious.

“You alright?”

I peered around
him to find Bunni’s narrowed eyes on us. Vicious-looking, narrowed eyes. A
shiver ran down my spine, and I hugged myself in an attempt not to fall apart
right there in front of him.

“Um, yeah. Just
dandy.”

He nodded,
though I doubt he bought into the lie. “So, you still want to do me?”

My mouth went
dry.

“I know it’ll
have to be a quickie, but there’s still time, right?”

A quickie?
Reality finally butted fantasy aside, and I realized he meant for his massage
appointment.
Good Lord, Liz. Get it together.

“Sure.” I tried
to sneak another peek around his broad shoulders. Bunni was gone. “Why don’t
you head on back? I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

He had just
started to walk away when my cell phone rang. I snatched it out of my pocket
and sighed at the sight of who was on my caller ID.

“Hey, Sarah,
what’s up?”

“What’s up? Are
you even kidding me? Don’t think I didn’t just see your building all over the
noon news, Liz. Holy crap! Are you okay?”

“Calm down! I’m
fine.” I looked up to see Torrunn standing a few paces away, trying to read my
face. I waved him off, but he made no motion to leave. “It was just another
silly dumpster fire. No big deal.”

“No big deal?
Liz, they think there’s an arsonist on the loose. Another firebug! And you’re
in the middle of it. Literally! You need to get the hell out of there before
you get hurt.”

“I’m not in the
middle of anything, and I’m not going to get hurt.” Torrunn had still made no
move to leave, so I decided to use him to my benefit. “In fact, I am standing
beside one of the city’s firemen right now. There’s no reason for anyone to
panic yet, right?”

He grimaced.

“Nope, no reason,”
I told Sarah. “And you guys have several suspects you’ve identified now,
right?”

He ran a hand
through his short hair. Good enough.

“Yep, they’re
all over it. So, see? Nothing to worry about.” Torrunn waved his hands like an
umpire calling the runner safe at home plate. I ignored him. “Why, I bet
they’ll have the dumb kid responsible for these silly fires caught by sunset.”

He started to
say something, but I put a finger to my lips to shush him.

“Uh, huh. Well
until they do, I’m not going anywhere near Fort Wayne. Tell Tony I’m sorry, but
there’s no way I’m coming into town tonight. And call me when you get home. If
you’re smart, you’ll leave now.”

“Sarah, I—”

Too late, she’d
hung up. I stared at the silent phone in my hand, longing for simpler days.

“We’re not that
close to finding them, Liz,” Torrunn said after a moment. “Not anywhere near
that close.”

I looked up and
sighed. “Don’t worry. I didn’t fool anyone with that.”

Myself least of
all.

CHAPTER
13

Torrunn headed
off to the massage room, and I hit the bathroom to wash my hands and will
myself not to hyperventilate. Bunni was behind these fires, she had to be. But
how would I prove it? Maybe I didn’t need to—maybe Torrunn could prove it for
me.

I headed over to
my massage room, puzzling over how I could subtly steer him in that direction.
And it would need to be subtle, so it didn’t look like I was out to get his
girlfriend. A player or not, if he was a good man, he’d defend his woman. Well,
his
main
woman.

“Knock, knock.
You ready in there?”

“Yep.”

The tone in his
voice had me wary before I’d even opened the door. It said he was still in
serious mode. Maybe today wasn’t a good time to start in on the whole Bunni
thing after all.

“You sure you’re
okay?” he asked, face buried in the cradle.

“Oh, sure. All
these fire drills? It’s like being in grade school again. Practice makes
perfect, right?”

“Something like
that. It’s odd, though. Having this many fires in such a short period of time.
And so far, they all seem to be within a block of this very building.”

“Is that odd? I
mean, does this kind of thing not happen around here usually?”

Okay, so that
was a pretty stupid thing to say. But I couldn’t help it. My mind had become
trapped somewhere between work and ogling-land again.

“No. Does this
kind of thing happen often where you live?”

“Uh, no. But in
my hometown, three fires in less than two weeks would have the whole town on
alert. And since everyone sees everything around there, they’d have caught the
perp by now.” I reached up and slid the single sheet down to his waist,
exposing that glorious display of muscle and ink on his back. “Before we get
too much further, what am I working on today? Back? Legs?”

“Yes. All of
it.”

“Rough week?”

“Two weeks—I got
gipped out of my last appointment, if you’ll remember.”

“Oh. Right.”

I thought back
to the week prior, and that stellar view I’d had of him dashing off the table
to get his clothes on. He cleared his throat, and I about jumped out of my
skin. Time to get to work. I hit the massage oil pump at my hip, lathered up,
and dug into Operation Knot, Seek and Destroy.

“These fires
aren’t exactly helping any,” he said. “Between worrying about where the bug
might strike next, and Bunni’s constant worrying, I’m not getting a whole lot
of sleep.”

I tried not to
think about the two of them in bed, him wide awake staring up at the ceiling.
Her fast asleep, curled into his side. Probably with an evil grin on her face—

“Ow. Maybe a
little less pressure?”

“Sorry,” I
mumbled, and gave my mind a clean sweep. “So, do they have any leads yet on who
might be doing this?”

“No. So far, the
only person anyone’s seen in the area just before the fires was—”

“Me,” I
breathed. My hands came to a stop. “But not the other two times. No one saw me
near there then.”

“Where were you
when the other two started?”

What, now he was
going to interrogate me, too? “I told you—the first one was set just after I’d
left for home. And today I’ve been here all morning.”

“Did you go
outside at all today?”

“No, I—oh, wait.
Yeah, I did. I took some boxes out to the dumpster around ten-thirty.”

“The fire alarm
was pulled at ten-forty.”

My heart sank.
This wasn’t looking good. Not good at all.

My hands came to
a halt. “I didn’t set these fires, Torrunn. You have to believe me.”

He remained quiet
for a moment, and I broke out into a cold sweat. The guy could make or break me
with his captain and I knew it.

“See, that’s the
problem. I do believe you.”

“Why is that a
problem?” I asked, my voice small.