Down in Flames (Wildfire Hearts Book 5)

by Savannah Kade

  He'd eaten the footlong sub in the car, thinking once again, that it looked amazing from the outside but it was definitely built for looks and not comfort. Then he went through the series of concerns that he was eating a footlong sub and not burning it off. He wasn't doing his daily workouts or rushing headlong into burning buildings with everyone else. And he couldn't do either of those things, the doctors had forbade it.

  He wasn't just in bad shape, he had to be getting worse—right when Tierney needed him at his best. He'd left the last part of the sandwich and chips, wadded up the trash, thrown it away, and pulled out his phone. Within a few minutes he'd learned that Elliot and Alder Vander clef had way too much money. Anything Tierney did to retaliate, no matter how justified, would likely land her in jail and not Elliot.

  Angry at what he'd found, Ronan peeled out of the lot and had taken the long way back across town, but he hadn't gotten any messages from Tierney or the Doyles. Not that Mom or Dad Doyle messaged him much, but they had his number. He arrived at Snafu and headed in the back door again, but still waited another half an hour before everyone was able to leave.

  "We'll go to our house." Ewan Doyle announced, as he finally grabbed his coat from the back hook. Ronan had barely taken his off, but he followed suit and grabbed his, too.

  "Probably not a good idea, Pop," Tierney told him.

  Whatever had happened ten years ago, Emily Gallagher had become real family with the Doyles. At least that much was good, and they loved Sean with everything they had. Thinking back, Ronan realized suddenly that none of that had changed when Paddy came along, even though he now knew that Paddy was their only biological grandchild.

  "We need to go somewhere else," Tierney added. Then her tone turned somber. "Elliot's here. He's going to know my place and your place. He probably has someone watching. They'll definitely see us having a meeting."

  "Lincoln," Ronan offered. "I know a place with a back room. We get something to eat and a private space."

  He didn't mention that he'd already eaten and that the last thing he needed was more food. The other three looked at each other and agreed. Before he knew what he was doing, he found Tierney in the car beside him. The drive wasn't long, but it wasn't short either.

  At first, she didn't speak. Then she said softly, "Thank you. You don't deserve any of this. And neither do they."

  Ronan shook his head at her, his hand automatically reaching out, his fingers lacing through hers. Despite the fact that probably every other human emotion had rocketed through his system that day, he was surprised by the rightness of the feeling.

  She squeezed back and he wondered if she knew what she was doing to him. Before he could ask anything, or even formulate the words if he wanted to, she turned in her seat to face him. He tried to keep his eyes on the road.

  "Did you do a search on Elliot?" she asked, but immediately added, "Don't search him."

  "Why?" Ronan asked.

  He'd found all of it. Alder Vander clef and Clef Industries, too. These guys made Midas look like a third-class citizen.

  "You did it?"

  He nodded and asked again. "Why shouldn't I have looked him up?"

  What was it about Elliot that she didn't want him to know?

  "All that money? They've got the best people on this. I wouldn't be surprised if they're monitoring who's searching him, especially from this area."

  Ronan hadn’t thought of that. For a moment he looked at his phone sitting on the little magnet on his dash and stared at it as if it might bite him. Hell, it might have already bitten him.

  Every time he talked to Tierney, things got more complicated.

  He'd heard about what had happened to the men in her past: bricks thrown through windows, car accidents ... Was his own accident coincidental? Ronan was suddenly wondering ...

  Still, he thought, he ran into burning buildings for a living. He would run headlong into this, too. The only other option was Tierney leaving ... or worse.

  So he squeezed her hand where it had stayed tucked in his, the warm heat of it radiating up his arm and through his system, all the way down to his toes. The thick, rich feeling warned him there was more here than he'd even admitted to himself.

  Maybe it was better now that he knew she wasn't actually Siorse's sister. But what was he thinking about that her being Siorse's sister was bad? Was he really ...?

  "Don't worry about me," he told her. "I'm not in any danger here. I'll be fine."

  But when Tierney didn't respond and just looked out the window, he had to wonder what else she hadn't told him ...

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  "I'll be fine," Tierney protested despite Ronan looking at her sideways. She knew she deserved that look. "I've got Mr. Kittens." She waved her hand toward the back of the house.

  Upon arriving to a series of small squeaky noises, she and Ronan had scoped the place out and arrived together in the laundry room where Mr. Kittens was hunkered down in the cardboard box. Beside him snuggled five of the tiniest mewling little kittens she'd ever seen.

  "Mr. Kittens is of no help," Ronan protested, seeming to hear his own voice as he said it. "Can we please stop calling him Mr. Kittens?"

  Just the question brought tears to Tierney's eyes. Sean had named the cat, and though she'd had the exact same thought, right now she couldn't deal with it. Ronan must have noticed because he simply let the question pass unanswered.

  "All right. Besides a very distracted new mother cat, what other weapons do you have?"

  She'd been thinking about it, though she wasn't fully ready for show and tell. Ronan was right, she had to be ready, and a second pair of eyes around her home would reveal things she didn't see. Heading first into the kitchen, she pulled her heftiest knife out of the block. Using one of Sean's chunky magnets from the fridge, she stuck it to the side. With one grab, she could yank it and wield it.

  "Handy."

  Ronan's praise meant too much and she tried to brush it off. Hopefully he didn't know the stupid thoughts running through her head. "That's the idea."

  Putting the knife back, she moved around him and headed toward the front door. The living room was tiny. She'd set up the couches and the chair to form a little walkway. Now she reached behind the couch and pulled out the Louisville Slugger.

  Ronan frowned at her. "You just got back from taking Sean when I found you and I've been with you ever since. When did you ...?"

  "It's always been there." She looked away. "I always knew he might find me one day. I'm trying to be grateful that I had ten good years."

  Then she motioned him out of the way again, letting him trail along into her bedroom where she crawled under the bed and pulled out the lockbox she stashed there. Quickly, she entered the push button code and opened the lid.

  "Nine millimeter," she told him as she held the box up for inspection.

  Ronan reached in and hefted the weapon. "Loaded?"

  "It has to be."

  "Tell me the code isn't Sean's birthday."

  "It's the random combo sent with my first credit card." At least that she could smile at. It had no relation to any number in her life.

  Nodding, Ronan took a deep breath, and his smile washed over her. She shouldn't let him have this kind of power over her emotions. But she couldn't control it and it was better than letting Elliot control her.

  "The lockbox is smart," Ronan told her as he handed the gun back to her, "especially with Sean in the house."

  She understood then where he was going. Sean was no longer in the house.

  "It might be better to keep it handy."

  She nodded. "Hold on."

  It took a few moments to rummage through the back of the closet where she put things she wasn't sure she'd use. But it wasn't there.

  She tried the top shelf of the closet. It was completely useless for someone of her size, except as storage for things she never needed. Reaching up as high as she could on tiptoe, her fingertips brushed the edge of an old printed cardboard box, but she coul
dn't grab it. This might be where she'd put it.

  She hadn't wanted it to look interesting to Sean at all. The green bean box had done it. As far as she knew, her son had no idea she had a gun in the house. But she pushed up a little higher and tipped a little as she lost her balance. Tierney felt Ronan's body right behind her. Her breath sucked in at his heat radiating into the cold that seemed to have seeped into her bones since last night.

  Without thinking anything of it—at least he didn't seem to think the same things she did—he reached up over her head, grabbed the box, and lowered it just enough for her to grab it. Then he stepped back. Air washed between them, bringing a shift of cold and a reminder that he wasn't hers at all. Even if she'd pretended so for half a moment.

  He was just being helpful. It shouldn't set her off like this. Maybe it was just the trauma of it all. That had to be it, she told herself.

  With the box now in her hands, Tierney turned around and set it on the bed as though the moment hadn't happened. Rummaging through, she pulled out a holster. "Good!"

  She handed it to him and closed the box as he looked it over. It had a slide clip to go into the waistband of jeans or some equally sturdy kind of pants. Maybe a pocket. And it had a holder specifically formed to her gun.

  "How are you with it?"

  She tipped her head and almost laughed. "Look at it."

  He turned it over but stared at her as though he had no idea what he was looking for.

  "It's basically brand new. I've practiced with the gun, but not the holster. Hence why I had to look two places for it."

  He handed it back. "Depending on how twitchy you are, put the loop over it or not?"

  She pushed the little bar up and then down. It was rectangular, shaped to flip up and over the edge of her gun, so she couldn't just grab it and yank it from the holster and wave it around willy nilly. But it was a good question: Just how twitchy was she?

  She pushed the gun down into the holster, adding pressure until she felt the little shift that let her know it had clicked into place. Then she lifted the edge of her shirt and slid the whole thing onto the waistband of her jeans. She tried lifting the shirt over it, but it was blazingly obvious she was carrying.

  That didn't seem to matter to Ronan though. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her toward him.

  "I want to stay."

  "It's not normal." she protested.

  "None of this is normal." What was he getting at? "Sean being gone isn't normal. You've already alerted whoever is watching you that you're onto it."

  Had she?

  Tierney felt that Sean being gone for a few days was perfectly normal. It was long enough to say he'd gotten a chance to go to a winter lodge with friends for a month. She thought it was perfectly believable. Though Ronan was right—believable or not, it wasn't normal.

  Ronan was still staring into her eyes, making his case. "If something happens, I want to be here."

  "If something happens, Alder Vander clef is going to try to make it disappear. And whoever acts out against Elliot is going to prison. You can't be that person. You have no case for it. I might. You can't stay here," she protested.

  It sank in then for the first time that it was entirely possible her son was going to spend the rest of his life with Raven and her family. Whether or not Elliot killed her, if he'd found out he had a child, he wouldn't stop looking. Everything was a possession to Elliot, and Sean would have no right to a life away from him.

  "I don't like this," Ronan told her.

  "Well, neither do I!" she snapped back, but she didn't really feel that she had other choices.

  At least he didn't seem offended by her awful response. "Okay. I can't promise you I'm going to stay away. But for now—"

  "For now, it's just dead rats on the doorstep and some emails. There's absolutely no evidence that anyone has gotten into my home. Honestly, he's more the kind for overarching emotional threats than doing anything physically to me."

  Ronan nodded again. "But if he does get in, and if he does threaten you—" he pointed to the gun bulging under her shirt at her hip, "—are you willing to use it?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  An uneasy feeling settled in Ronan's stomach as he headed home. Was it because of everything Tierney had told him? Everything he learned about Emily Gallagher? Was it because of the picture of Elliot Vander clef that he now had parked on his phone?

  Ronan had looked through a handful online and even shown them to Mom and Dad Doyle. It had been a relief when dad had pushed the phone away as if he didn't need it.

  "I know what the asshole looks like. And I always stay up to date when he gets a new haircut or something stupid like that. He's not walking into this bar without me knowing it."

  Ewan Doyle had said it low enough to keep the words away from Tierney and Ronan got the feeling he'd never told his daughter that he was checking up. Hell, Tierney hadn't even wanted Ronan doing a basic search on the man.

  As Ronan opened the door from the garage and headed through the laundry room, it hit him that the place felt stale and unused, even though they'd been here just a number of hours ago. Why did it feel that way? It felt like when he and Siorse would go on vacation and no one had been here for a week. But that wasn't it now.

  It was because Tierney wasn't here. He wanted her here.

  He wasn't going to sleep without knowing she was safe. Thank God he wasn't working shifts right now, because a firefighter running on no sleep was a menace. Heading into the back of the house, he aimed for his little-used office.

  It was one of the few rooms he'd changed since Siorse and Paddy had died. It had just hit him one day: the room was Siorse's “office” and she was never coming back. She was never going to need the pretty envelopes or crinkle cut scissors things. He didn't even know if he should worry if tissue paper could go moldy? Not to mention it was all a fire hazard.

  He'd been using his laptop on the kitchen table or a tv tray at night while he watched something. There was no need. There was no one to be offended by his taking the room apart. Besides, he hadn't touched their bedroom other than to buy new sheets, and he hadn't touched Paddy's room at all. Three years later, it was still set up for a toddler. Ronan glanced at it as he passed by, for the first time thinking he would have to dismantle it ... soon.

  His office was the smallest of the three bedrooms and now he used it for records and a place to keep a desktop model—a computer that was surely growing more out of date by the moment. Sitting down, he pulled out the small slip of paper and logged into Tierney's email. She'd given him her password, brushing him aside about interfering with her privacy.

  "You'll see what I got Mom and Dad Doyle for Christmas. And something I ordered for Sean. I don't think there's anything in there incriminating. It's the email I use when I sign up for book clubs or things like that."

  So he'd logged in as if he were her and started looking through her saved and deleted emails. It didn't take him long to find the first email sent to Emily three and a half weeks ago. The next one had come to Emmie. She’d said that was her spelling with an IE, at least that was the way Elliot had done it. The most recent had come to Emmie Baby just the day before, but he wasn’t finding more than what she'd already told him. All this did was allow him now to monitor the system and see that she had gotten a really great deal on the game she'd gotten for Sean.

  The kid had come in here waving it around like it was gold. Ronan had even played with him for a good bit. Sean had been a great distraction from long empty hours while he was healing up.

  But there wasn't anything else in the emails, and it all felt useless. He stood up, stretching. The skin no longer pulled where he had had his surgery and everything seemed to be functioning. He took the last of his antibiotics, grateful to have that finished and he chucked the container into the recycling with a satisfying thud. With nothing else to do, he got in some steps, pacing the small house twice before figuring out something else that might be useful.

  Sitt
ing down, he searched how to get a login record on Tierney's email.

  He'd logged in from his home and Tierney had logged in from her home, maybe several times from her phone, maybe in different spots around town, but Ronan wondered if there might be anything useful there.

  It took a while, he was no hacker. Luckily, her email provider was older than Sean and Ronan was pretty sure it was the same one she'd had since high school. So there were numerous websites and helpful tip lists walking him through what he wanted. Unfortunately, many of the explanations involved buttons that seemed to have gone out of date.

  It took an hour of sheer determination. He'd given up, frustrated, and headed into the kitchen where he opened a beer and took a long swig. That was all it took to realize he couldn't afford to not be functioning at his best should something happen. He poured the remainder down the sink and grabbed himself a soda. Back at the computer, he'd drunk the whole thing before, at last, the log popped up on the screen. He'd gotten there mostly by getting frustrated enough to click several buttons that look like they might be right.

  Holy shit. Six weeks ago, there had been a login from upstate New York.

  Ronan knew he shouldn't search the Vander clefs, but didn't he remember their location as upstate New York?

  He'd been smart enough to get screen grabs on a few of the articles he pulled. If anyone got his phone, it would be clear that he'd been researching Elliot Vander clef. Right now, he didn't care. Quickly, Ronan pulled up the article and scanned what he had saved.

  His memory was right. The Vander clefs absolutely did have a home in that area.

  Back in Tierney's login records, he checked further back. Another login had occurred from the same physical location about two months before that. Before the dead rats had started.