Wildfire (5 page)

The drive back to her house was done to the accompaniment of the car’s police band radio. The gravelly noise made her think she had inadvertently stumbled into a
Police Story
episode, and she fully expected it to be interrupted by a commercial at any moment. Brady pulled the car in front of her darkened house with a smoothness that denoted confident control. The porch light was on, illuminating the path up to the front entrance.

“You don’t have to escort me all the way to the door,” she protested as Brady unfastened his safety belt.

“I know I don’t have to, but I want to.”

Amanda knew what was coming before he stopped at the door and leaned his dark head toward her. Tension flooded over her, and defenses were automatically employed. Brady wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t noticed the change.

“Relax.” His reassuring voice was tinged with exasperation. “I’m not going to attack you, Mandy. Just kiss you good night.”

There was no way of explaining that it wasn’t him she was afraid of, but herself. Steeling herself to remain calm and impassive, Amanda prepared to coolly accept his kiss. Brady lowered his head with unhurried deliberation. His lips got as close as they could without actually touching hers. Amanda found the evocative proximity nerve-racking, and it required all her powers of resistance to stave off the trembling weakness of her limbs.

Just when she thought she couldn’t resist the temptation a moment longer, he slowly pulled away to place a chaste kiss on her forehead. Viewing her evident surprise, Brady accounted for his restraint. “Isn’t that how a librarian expects to be kissed?”

Nothing he
could have said would have angered her more or made her more determined to prove him wrong. Which is, of course, why he’d said it in the first place. Amanda, who had heard this approach before, decided to give Brady enough rope to hang himself.

“Librarians do not kiss any differently from other women,” she snapped, getting into her role of a woman insulted.

“Really?” Brady’s voice held just the right amount of calculated doubt.

“You sound unconvinced,” she purred.

He made matters worse by explaining, “It’s the cop in me. I only go on facts, not on wild claims.”

Really, Brady was asking for it, and Amanda considered herself woman enough to give it to him. “Would you consider an example as admissible evidence?”

“That’s all right, Mandy,” he excused with condescending generosity. “I realize it would be hard for you.”

“Let me worry about that,” she sweetly commanded, raising her arms to clasp them around his neck.

Brady stood before her, outwardly unmoved by the feel of her soft body pressed against his. But inside he was experiencing the first twinges of doubt about the wisdom of this little game. Amanda Richards had raised his blood pressure since the first time she’d placed her investigating fingers in his pants pocket searching for his ID.

Now that he’d spent some time with her, he knew that that first ember of attraction burned deep. But she was so damned stubborn at times that he couldn’t resist taunting her. At the moment though, his protective instincts were telling him that he was about to get more than he’d bargained for.

Amanda could discern none of those thoughts from Brady’s impassive expression. Stung by his apparent unresponsiveness, she sliced her fingers through the coiled strands of dark hair that curled over his collar, her nails lightly raking his scalp. Her hand then moved to cup his ear, amplifying the sound of his name on her lips. Soft puffs of her minty breath baited him, tying him in knots.

“This is how librarians kiss,” she murmured against his mouth.

Intent on having the last laugh, Amanda brought all her knowledge and a dash of imagination into play. Her tongue lightly surveyed the unfamiliar contour of his lips, which were surprisingly soft and firm. Unaccustomed to being the aggressor, she was unprepared for the heady sense of power that shot through her. Encouraged, she boldly pressed on, deepening the pressure of the kiss.

The initiative passed back and forth as Brady responded to her play. His mouth opened, releasing his own tongue, which was eager to mate with hers. One hand tunneled under her hair to hold her just so, the slanting angle of the contact ensuring maximum pleasure as he drank in the nectar of her essence.

His arms engulfed her slowly, binding her to him. Amanda found herself pressing against a masculine body that was as compactly powerful as she’d suspected. A coil of longing unfurled itself deep within her, laying her prey to its primal message. Her fingers registered his thermal warmth as they slipped around his waist and kneaded the muscles of his tapered back.

When Brady finally tore his mouth from hers it was to hoarsely mutter, “God, you’re wonderful!”

The lesson had gone further than she’d expected and her response had subsequently gone deeper. It took a concentrated effort to remember that it was all playacting. Or so it was supposed to be. Gathering her shattered composure, she unsteadily inquired, “Is that an admission that you’re a bad judge of character?”

“No. I knew…” he began, concentrating more on threading his fingers though the incredible softness of her hair than on the possible effects of his admission.

She felt his body tense in anticipation of her fury. But instead of throwing a fit, Amanda continued to confound him by huskily prompting, “Did you enjoy the kiss?”

Triumphant victory flashed across his face, coloring his voice. “I enjoyed it very much, Mandy,” he husked, reaching out to pull her closer.

Twisting out of his embrace, Amanda deployed her verbal assault with a tart, “I sincerely hope you did, because that’s the only one you’ll ever get from me.” She whirled to slam the door in Brady’s astonished face.

His taunting voice followed her upstairs. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Mandy.”

CHAPTER THREE

Amanda had spent a restless night, punching her pillow at assorted intervals, and wishing it could have been a certain impossible policeman she was attacking instead of the defenseless feathers. Her temper did not improve once she got to work and faced a barrage of questions from her curious coworkers.

The first one came before she’d even gotten to her office as the registrar stopped her on the front steps. “I hear you and a certain police detective were spotted mingling at a popular nightspot last night,” the other woman chirped in the tone of a Hollywood gossip columnist.

“If you would call listening to a classical concert mingling, and Mandell Hall as a popular nightspot, then I suppose what you heard was correct,” Amanda retorted before continuing on her way on up the stairs.

The next question came while Amanda was pouring herself a cup of coffee from the library’s community pot. “Did you have a nice time last night?” Helen asked with motherly concern.

Nice
was not the word Amanda would have used to describe her evening. Frustrating, infuriating, surprising, all came closer to the truth. So did enchanting. The kiss they’d shared was pure, unadulterated magic, a double-edged sword that was reason enough not to see Brady Gallagher again, but powerful enough to ensure that she would.

“Amanda?” Helen’s voice pulled her back to the present.

“Yes, Helen, I had a nice time,” she belatedly replied.

Surprisingly Beth remained silent, but that was merely because she planned on cornering Amanda at lunch. Since it was a perfect Indian summer day they spent their lunch hour down by the lake, sitting on one of the many benches dotting the grassy edges.

“All right, Amanda.” Beth paused to open up her lunch bag. “What gives?”

Popping the top of her Tupperware container, Amanda feigned ignorance. “What are you talking about?”

“Come on. What’s really going on between you and Brady Gallagher?”

“There’s nothing going on.” Amanda dismissed her question, taking a bite of her salad.

Beth was undeterred. “He sent you flowers last week and now he’s dating you.”

“We attended one concert together. That’s not dating.”

“How did you know that Brady would like classical music?” Beth asked, lifting the lid off her yogurt container.

“I didn’t,” Amanda let slip.

“But what if he hadn’t liked it?” One look at Amanda’s guilty expression confirmed Beth’s niggling suspicions. “I see.”

Amanda jabbed a piece of lettuce with her plastic fork, refusing to comment on her friend’s enlightenment.

“That wasn’t real bright, Amanda.”

“I know. He enjoyed the concert more than I did.”

“Serves you right.”

“Hey, whose side are you on?”

“Side? Now this is getting interesting. Sounds like a war.”

“Can we change the subject?” Amanda requested. Their conversation swung back to work and the ongoing complaints about the head librarian’s competence, or lack of it. “You know that report you completed on the material damaged in the fire. Would you believe Abbington had the gall to tell the dean that he had prepared that report himself?”

Amanda muttered something under her breath. She’d have to have another little talk with John, whose imminent retirement was the only thing that saved him from a more public exposure. As it was, the dean already knew that Amanda had written the report, since she’d spoken to him about it before turning it over to John, a safety precaution on her part. Amanda had worked hard to get where she was, and she had every intention of winning the appointment of head librarian once John left.

Amanda’s day didn’t improve, as the first person to greet her upon her return to the library was Guy Lox.

“Amanda, I’ve been waiting for you,” he rebuked impatiently, following her into her office.

“You should’ve left a message, Professor. I know how valuable your time is.”

Not hearing the veiled mockery in her voice, Guy preened under the compliment. “That’s true, but I wanted to know if that book on insect mutations has come in yet.”

“
No, it hasn’t.” The book had been
ordered against her better judgment, but she’d been overruled by John. “We’ll send you a memo when it arrives.”

“I hear you’re seeing a lot of our undercover detective.” Guy’s voice was heavy with disapproving innuendo.

“He’s not undercover,” Amanda denied, ignoring the sexual intent of Guy’s statement.

“That was a little joke,” Guy leaned closer to explain with a disgusting leer.

“Very little,” Brady volunteered from the threshold.

“I must be going,” Guy muttered, cautiously veering around the motionless, jean-clad menace of the detective before making a quick getaway.

Brady shook his head in laughing disbelief. “Who was that little man?”

“Professor Guy Lox, Natural Science Department,” Amanda briefly listed.

“Figures.”

“What can I do for you, Detective?”

Amanda’s voice was coolly professional; Brady’s response was not. “Nothing that can be done in this office.”

It wasn’t only what Brady said, but the way he said that was equally disturbing. “This suggestive banter may be your idea of a good time,” she shot back, “but I’ve got more important things to do.”

“Now, Mandy, don’t get on your high horse. I need to talk to you.”

“I think we pretty well covered everything last night, Detective Gallagher.”

“On the contrary. But that’s a different matter. Right now I’d like to talk to you about the fire.”

“Oh.” She felt rather foolish for assuming Brady had come to discuss last night, when in fact it was an official visit.

Brady pulled the visitor’s chair right up to her desk before sitting down. Suddenly the desk was transformed from a barrier to a working surface to be shared. He pulled a small notebook and a cassette recorder out of his vest pocket.

Amanda was beginning to know his clothes almost as well as she did her own. That vest was the same one that she’d fumbled under the first time she’d met him, his shirt in muted grays and blues the same one that he’d worn the day he’d shown her his “references,” and the jeans hugging the male symmetry of his body were identical to the ones he’d worn last night.

“Mandy?” His voice asked for her attention.

“Mmm?” She’d given up trying to talk him out of using that nickname. In fact, the way he said it, it sounded kind of nice—warm and special.
Wait a minute, what
’
s wrong with you?
she silently demanded.
This man is dangerous, he proved it last night
.

All he did was kiss you,
her sense of fair play contradicted.
He wanted you in his arms and he got you there. And you enjoyed it too, didn
’
t you?

“Amanda!” That did get her attention.

“I’m sorry. I was thinking about something.”

“Something, or someone?” he challenged. The conflict in her eyes hadn’t gone unnoticed by him. Brady caught that certain look and was willing to bet that a man had put it there. Had she been thinking about Bob Mason? The possibility irritated him.

What the hell was he worrying about it for anyway? He was here to discuss the fire. The past two weeks had turned up nothing in the way of clues about the arsonist’s identity. The lab report had come back with no conclusive results, except for the matter he’d come to discuss with Mandy.

“The day you discovered the fire, you told me you’d gone downstairs to get some material out of the storage room.”

“That’s correct.”

“What kind of material?”

“Duplicate books and periodicals. We participate in a duplicate exchange program with other libraries, trading our extra copies for things we need.”

“Okay, so what happened when you got downstairs?”

“Happened?”

Brady rephrased his question. “What did you see?”

“I didn’t see very much. As you know the lighting down there is not the best. I did smell smoke though, as I told you before.”

Brady checked his notebook where he’d outlined the critical points of their last taped conversation. “Go on,” he prompted.

“The smoke was coming from the storage room and I could see flames through the open door.”

This was what he’d been hoping for. “You’re sure the door was already open when you got downstairs?”