Burning Up (19 page)

“I can’t drink a whole Guinness, but I’d love a snort.”

He pulled a bottle from the cupboard, opened it and poured a shot into a teacup. The rest he upended into a beer mug and brought them both over. Handing her the dainty flowered cup, he slid into the dinette seat opposite her. “Tell me about the fire. How the bloody bollocks did you get trapped?”

She recounted her adventure, conscious that she didn’t have the same discomfort sharing the details with him that she’d had with her family. Jack didn’t exclaim or baby a person to death, and she tried to verbalize her appreciation. “One of the things I love about you is your laid-back approach. I gotta tell you I dreaded coming home this afternoon because I knew Auntie and Uncle’s first inclination would be to wrap me in cotton wool. Instead I talked Gabriel into taking me out to see the house he’s building.”

“Sounds like he was an all-around big help today, yeah?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she agreed, seeing too late the trap in having introduced the topic. Heat crawled up her throat and onto her cheeks.

Good grief. She’d blushed more since coming back to Sugarville than she had in the entire ten years she’d been gone.

His mug of ale suspended midway to his mouth, Jack stared at her. Then he slowly lowered it back to the table. “Feckin’ hell. You did the deed with Donovan.”

Her face burned hotter yet.

“What do they bleedin’ do, put Spanish fly in the town reservoir?”

“Okay,
that’s
an odd little segue,” she said, puzzled, as she searched his face. Then a lightbulb went off over her head and she slowly set her own cup on the table. “Oh. My. Gawd. Jack Savage, have you been getting busy with my nephew’s schoolteacher?”

His eyes went soft. “She’s amazing, Mace. I like her…
damn.
” He shook his head. “More than I have words to say.”

She didn’t know why it bothered her. It wasn’t the fact that he had a thing for Grace. She liked the teacher a lot and could actually visualize her with Jack, as Grace was just the nice-girl type he had always gone for. But his easy acceptance of his feelings—
that
made her uncomfortable. “Janna thinks I’m in love with Gabriel,” she blurted. Picking up her teacup, she tossed back the last sip, then blotted her lips with the back of her hand. “Isn’t that the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard?”

“Hell, no. Dumbest thing
I’ve
heard is any word out of that cod Mayfield’s mouth. You and Gabe, on the other hand—Jayzus, you’ve been strikin’ sparks off each other for as long as I’ve been here.”

“Okay, sure. But that’s just—you know—sex. Janna suddenly claiming I’m in love with the man is something entirely different. Jeez, Jack, I’ve known him for all of five minutes. I’m not about to fall head over heels for a guy I’m barely even acquainted with—”

He snorted. “I’d say you made a good piece of progress down that road today.”

Heat flared, deep and unbidden, as Jack’s words triggered a memory of Gabe’s hot mouth against her skin and the look that had been in his eyes as he slid deeply—

She slammed a door shut on the memory. “
As
I
was saying—” Essaying a coolness she didn’t feel, she lifted her chin. “The idea that I’m in love with a guy who I know well only in the Biblical sense…well, that’s about as logical as you deciding
you’re
in love with Grace.”

“Ah, well, now, here’s the thing, luv,” he said with a befuddled smile. “I think I may be.”

“No.”
Macy scratched her arms in an attempt to alleviate the sudden persistent itch just under her skin. “That doesn’t make sense. If I’ve known Gabriel five minutes, you’ve known Gracie three. That’s simply not long enough to fall in love.”

He shrugged. “Who’s to say what constitutes long enough?” Reaching across the table, he ruffled her hair. “Sometimes, Macy girl, the heart just decides on its own timetable.”

G
ABE STARED BLANKLY
at the slim stack of file folders in his lap. A hot, dry breeze plucked at his hair, rolling in through the open window of his SUV, which was parked beneath the stand of Douglas firs and alders out near the county line. It was the same spot where he and Johnny had gotten together the day Macy first rolled into town.

Maybe that was why every time he let his mind drift, hoping his subconscious would miraculously solve his arsonist case, he found himself thinking of her instead—and about the best-damn-sex-ever morning they’d shared two days ago.

He wanted more. He’d taken a stab at convincing himself that one session with Macy was enough, that the smart money was on backing off. But he didn’t buy it. She was sweet and fun and so giving with the people she cared about that it just knocked him on his butt.

The sudden funny pang in the region of his heart—almost as if he desired to be counted among that select group—caught him unprepared for a moment. Then he shook it off. Because that wasn’t what their relationship was about.

Still, that kind of sex didn’t just roll around every day of the week. So what if it wasn’t the greatest love match of their generation? Hell, with the increasing progress Janna was showing in her recovery, Macy probably wouldn’t even be around much longer.

They might as well explore the possibilities as long as she was.

It was a damn good idea—maybe even brilliant. The only drawback was that she clearly wasn’t on the same page of his game plan. Here they were, two people living in the same house, and his few glimpses of her since bringing her home the day before yesterday had been her shapely butt going out the door of whatever room he walked into.

He shifted in his seat. Then straightened in determination. Well, he’d just have to do something about that. Because damned if watching her run away was an option. Not now that he’d made up his mind to pursue this relationship—at least for the amount of time she was still here or until they tired of each other, whichever came first.

He looked up, his thoughts mercifully interrupted as a car pulled off the highway. Bumping over the uneven terrain, Johnny pulled the sheriff department’s Ford Ranger alongside Gabe’s SUV until their cabs were aligned, one facing in and the other out, and threw his vehicle into Park. His window rolled down with a quiet hum Gabe barely heard over the birds chattering up in the trees.

“Hey,” the deputy greeted him. “What are you doing clear out here?”

He shoved Macy out of his mind and brought his focus back where it should be. “Trying to figure out who the hell’s been setting all these fires.” He slid the folders onto the passenger seat. “How ’bout you?”

“I had a call over on Palouse Road that turned out to be a nonevent.”

“Given our businesses, nonevents are generally a good thing.”

“Yeah, it beats being faced with fighting spouses or a loaded gun. And of the two? I gotta tell ya, it’s a toss-up which I’d prefer.” He gave Gabe a closer look. “So, why are you out here when you’ve got a perfectly good station house to work in?”

Gabe blew out a breath as he realized he was about to admit what he’d been trying to deny ever since the unwelcome thought had first crept into his head. But it had burrowed in to take up residence and refused to leave. “Because I’ve got a bad feeling it may be someone on my crew.”

“What?” Johnny stared at him. “Get out.”

“Wish I could. But whoever’s setting these fires seems to know what he’s doing. He’s careful, he always uses a long timing device and the places are never all that far from town. They’re usually noticed and called in, at any rate, in time for us to reach them before they’re fully engaged.”

“Gabe. We’re talking about your crew, dude. They’re
firemen.
”

“Who unfortunately are responsible for setting more fires than you might imagine. Try searching Google for
firemen arson
sometime and you’ll get a shitload of hits, most of which are taken directly from the news. And every article seems to agree on one thing—that the majority of firefighters arrested for arson are volunteers.” A rough laugh escaped his throat. “Big frigging surprise, considering seventy-five percent of us
are
volunteers. Still, it’s a lot rarer for a professional to go renegade.”

He speared his fingers into his hair and ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. Then he dropped them to the steering wheel, staring at them as if they belonged to someone else. “Jesus,” he said wearily to the tan fingers flexing against the wheel. “I can’t tell you how much I hope I’m wrong. But I can’t ignore the possibility any longer that I’m not. Too many things fit.”

“
Why
would they do it?”

“Beats the hell outta me.” He looked at his friend. “The popular theory leans toward either money—as in volunteers only get paid if the truck goes out—and/or a thirst for excitement and public adulation. Shit, Johnny, the vast majority of firefighters would never dream of starting a fire. But of the small percentage that do for whatever reason, they’re often responsible for a large number of them. Once they set the first they tend to become serial fire starters.”

“So where do you start?”

“That’s what I’ve been sitting here trying to figure
out.” Johnny didn’t need to know that he’d been distracted by thoughts of Macy.

Then he gave himself a mental shake. Because neither did
he
need to think about that right now. “I tracked down the phone number for my predecessor in Florida—”

“Chief Stoller?”

“Yeah. And between what he told me and talking to Colin Atkins and Jake Kaufman again about the fires they set, I think we’ve probably had a problem longer than we thought.”

“That doesn’t sound good. Hang on.” Johnny climbed out of his rig and walked around to get in Gabe’s. He settled in the seat Gabe cleared for him. “Tell me.”

“Stoller said they had a couple of abandoned-car fires last fall and a tall grass fire that he was never sure if it had been deliberately set or was the result of someone throwing their cigarette out a car window. Both are classic fireman-set fires. So are the abandoned- or secluded-building fires that we’ve been dealing with.”

“Shit. And what was that about the teens?”

“I realized that since they’d copped to the non-building fires, we’d never gone over all the events one by one. So I sat them down and had them walk me through each one.” He gave Johnny a level look. “Turns out that while they set the four garbage-can fires, they didn’t start the first Dumpster fire we were
called out on. They only set the second one and the McFadden Dumpster where we caught them.”

“How can that be?” Johnny straightened. “I was there when you specifically stated you had them for X number of can and X number of Dumpster fires.”

“Right on top of which I told them I was an arson-forensics wizard. So, between knowing their prints were all over the first Dumpster, since they’d checked it out after the fire, and watching too much TV, they decided to spare themselves our skepticism and just let us lump it in with the ones they were responsible for.” He blew out a breath. “But the truth is, they got the idea to upgrade from their can fires after they saw the first Dumpster that someone else had set.” He shrugged. “Bigger flames, more fun, I guess.”

“Where do you go from here?”

“I wish I knew,” Gabe admitted, jerking a thumb at the folders he’d moved to the backseat. “I’ve gone through my crew’s employment records as far back as they’re available to me and came up with a big, fat zero. Not one frigging thing popped. So maybe I can pick your brain while I have you here. Can you tell me if any of my crew’s ever been arrested?”

“Not as far as I know, but I’ll run a check to see if anything crops up.”

“Any of them have a habit of disappearing occasionally, even if only for a day or a weekend? No one has since I’ve taken over, but maybe someone’s got a gambling habit or—” Frustration tightening
his fingers on the wheel, he gave it a sudden, violent jerk. “Fuck me if I know. Jesus, I’m reaching here. And yet—” He met the other man’s eyes. “Whoever set that fire the other day came too damn close to injuring Macy. I hope to God he didn’t know she was in there, but I can’t be sure of that. And that’s my problem in a nutshell. I’m just not sure of anything in this goddamn case. But I know this—I want to stop whoever it is before someone’s seriously injured or killed.”

He rubbed his eyes again, then looked back at the deputy. “Christ, this sucks. I’m not what you’d call particularly close to any of my crew, but lately I have been getting to know them better. Damn, Johnny, every single one of them has helped me with my house at one time or the other, and I don’t like the idea of
any
of them being responsible for this shit. So do me a favor, will you?”

“Name it,” Johnny promptly agreed.

“Help me prove my suspicions wrong.”

M
ACY HIGHTAILED IT
out of the dining room after dinner that evening, but not fast enough. Gabriel was hard on her heels, and banging through the screen door onto the porch in her wake, he whipped out a hand to grasp her upper arm. The next thing she knew, she was being whirled around.

Her body slapped up against his, and before she could say a word he was kissing her, all hot lips, strong tongue and an ineffable need that she might
not be able to put a name to but to which she sure as hell responded.

Clutching his shoulders, she kissed him back.

When he raised his head an instant—or maybe an aeon—later, he gave her a level gaze. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

She longed to tell him he was full of it, but of course he wasn’t. “Maybe.”

He stroked his thumb the length of her lower lip. “Come with me to my house.”

She shouldn’t. He’d made love to her the other day and her world had started moving at warp speed. She felt as if she was
still
running two days later, just trying to catch up—suffused with a twitchiness she’d be happy to go for the rest of her life without experiencing again. She was accustomed to being one jump ahead of the game, but that sure hadn’t been the case once they’d quit making love and returned to real life. The sex had been fantastic. The aftermath, however, with her inability to focus for more than a few minutes at a pop and her raft of self-protective coping mechanisms screaming warnings to stay away, to not do that again…? Not so much.

So, no: she really shouldn’t.

And yet the lovemaking
had
been…
Lord.
Amazing. Stupendous. Out of this world. And
that
she did want to experience again. Boy, did she want to!

But Macy O’James was nobody’s pushover. She raised her chin. “I’m not here for your entertainment,
Donovan. I’m here to help Janna and Auntie. And I’m probably needed inside right this minute.”

“Well, let’s find out.” He stepped back, opened the screen door and stuck his head in the house. “Lenore! Janna! You need Macy for anything tonight?”

“Nope,” Lenore called from the kitchen, and Janna said from her room, “Not me.”

“Then I’ll have her back in an hour or two.” He turned back to her. Moved close. Leaned down and growled in her ear, “Maybe I’m here for
your
entertainment—you ever consider that?”

Hell, no. But she had to admit she liked the idea. She particularly liked that he was making the first move for a change. “Oh. That’s okay, then.”

Gabe laughed and hustled her around the boardinghouse to his SUV.

She wondered on the short ride to his place if he’d heard the news about Jack and Grace. She almost opened her mouth to ask but kept the question to herself. Because now that she’d committed to this, she found herself unwilling to destroy the mood. And, face it, when it came to Grace, Gabriel had demonstrated jealousy of Jack in the past. Discovering his ex-girl was definitely having a fling with the rock star might put him off making love to
her
again.

Which after days of telling herself she’d be better off without, she was suddenly wild to experience. And clearly, and most satisfyingly, so was Gabriel. The instant they reached his house he hauled her inside and led her straight to the bedroom in the
basement, where he immediately peeled his T-shirt off over his head and reached for her.

Just like the first time they’d made love, contact proved explosive. One second she was on her feet, clinging to Gabe as he strung hot, wet, drugging kisses from her lips to her jaw and down her throat to her collarbone, all the while telling her things he intended to do to her that made her knees buckle. Then they were naked, on the bed. He was over her, inside of her, and, oh, God, she was arching from her heels to the back of her head as fiery sensations detonated one after another around that hard, talented source of pleasure thrusting in and out of her—until finally she melted bonelessly back onto the mattress, Gabriel’s weight collapsing atop her seconds later.

She probably should have felt smothered. Instead, she felt safe again, dammit. And although she knew it was just an illusion—and one that wouldn’t last, at that—for now she intended to enjoy herself, for she couldn’t deny the sheer pleasure of it.

“That,” she breathed, “was amazing.” She wiggled beneath him. “Let’s do it again.” Okay, the idea sounded good in theory. She was so relaxed, however, that she doubted she was physically up to the challenge. Still, it was fun to dare him.

And she could probably get with the program if
he
was up for it.

His soft snort fluttered her hair against her temple. “Whataya think I am, sixteen?”

“Hey, I’m only talking about a measly round two
here.” Grabbing a handful of his hair, she pulled his head back so he could see her sly smile. “When I know you’re good for three.” She let go, and his face promptly slumped back into the curve where her neck met her shoulder. She snapped her fingers next to his nonburied ear. “Chop, chop, Donovan! Grab another condom.”

“Jeez, you’re bossy. Think you can give me a minute to catch my breath first?” Pushing up onto his forearms, he looked down at her, then freed a hand to brush a strand of hair away from the corner of her lips. “Tell me how you got started in the music business. I would’ve thought, after the hard time this town gave you over your reputation, that sexy videos would be the last career you’d have chosen.”