by Lori Wilde
Quietly he edged out of bed and crept into her bathroom, washed his face, slipped on his jeans that were almost dry, and padded barefoot downstairs. He hummed to himself as he took eggs and bacon from the fridge, and slapped an iron skillet onto the stove.
The bacon was just starting to sizzle when he heard a vehicle pull up into her driveway. Shit, had her family come home? Jesse moved to the window for a peek outside.
He froze when he saw Trainer getting out of his cruiser, and he knew at once what must have happened. Trainer had seen Flynn’s pickup broken down on the side of the road and he’d come to check up on her.
What Jesse did next was stupid as hell. Pure masculine ego, but he wasn’t going to hide and cower. Boldly he marched out the back door, barefooted, bare-chested, flaunting, taunting.
The screen door slammed shut behind him. He spied Trainer standing beside his Harley, hands on his hips.
Trainer raised his head, took in Jesse’s near nakedness. Bone-deep hatred flashed in his eyes. “Calloway.” He spat out Jesse’s name like it was a bad taste in his mouth.
“Trainer.” Jesse arched an eyebrow, balled his hands into fists, sauntered down the porch steps.
“You!”
“Me.”
“I’ll kill you.” Beau took a menacing step toward him.
“I’d love to fight you, man, I really would. We got a lot of old anger that needs expelling, but I’m not stupid enough to take the first swing at you. You’re just itching for any excuse to send me back to prison. I’m not jeopardizing my freedom.”
Beau rolled up his sleeves, stripped off his Stetson, shed his holster and gun, yanked off his badge. “Forget my position as sheriff. This is between you and me.” He put up his fists, circled like some half-assed boxer. “Let’s settle this thing once and for all. I give you my word I won’t arrest you.”
Jesse used both hands to motion him forward. “Come on, big man, I’m ready.”
And just like that, the bare-knuckled brawl was on.
Beau lowered his head, snorted like a bull, and barreled straight for Jesse’s solar plexus.
“That the best you got?” Jesse scoffed, lightly stepping aside and grabbing Beau by the back of his shirt as he charged past. Jesse spun him around and punched him a hard, short jab to the jaw.
Trainer bellowed, came back at him, fists wind-milling through the air. He clocked Jesse on the side of the temple.
Jesse’s vision blurred, his ears rang. He jumped on Trainer’s back, cinched him in a headlock.
Trainer spun around the yard, trying to buck him off.
A decade’s worth of anger came pouring out of them both. The veins in Jesse’s throat throbbed as hot blood rushed through his system. He drew air into his lungs in short, snorting gasps.
“Convict,” Beau wheezed, trying desperately to grab hold of Jesse.
“Crooked cop.”
“Bastard.”
“Fuck head.”
They slugged and pounded, lost their balance, fell in the flower bed, punching and kicking and rolling. First Jesse was on top, then Trainer, the scrap evenly matched. Trainer was bigger and heavier but Jesse was leaner and faster. Trainer knew precision military moves. Jesse had been schooled in down-and-dirty street fighting.
“Stop it! Stop it!”
At some point Jesse realized Flynn was screaming. The sound of her voice barely penetrated through his rage-soaked brain. He was mauling Trainer’s hand with his teeth as the sheriff attempted to gouge his eyes out with beefy fingers. They were both covered in dirt and bits of butchered daisies.
“Dammit, I said stop it! The both of you are acting like idiots.”
How could he stop? If he stopped, Trainer would get the upper hand, and he wasn’t about to let that happen. They tussled, wrestled, grunted, and swore.
It took the sound of a handgun blast to shake them from their death lock on each other.
They broke apart panting, Trainer falling to one side of the yard, Jesse to the other.
Flynn stood glaring at them, Trainer’s duty weapon pointed in the air. She wore a bathrobe and house slippers, her hair a wild, chaotic tumble of curls about her shoulders. Jesse grinned at her even as he felt his left eye swelling closed. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Beau,” she commanded. “Get up, get back to your job. Jesse, go put some clothes on. And both of you stop acting like children.”
“I can’t believe you fought him.” Flynn gave Jesse a package of frozen peas to put on his swollen eyes. Her heart was still galloping from the effects of their altercation. “He had every right to haul you off to jail for assaulting an officer of the law.”
“He attacked me first.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“He had it coming.” Jesse slouched in the kitchen chair. The smell of burned bacon hung in the air.
“Beau is jealous of you. There’s no need to rub his nose in the fact that you and I are—” She broke off without finishing the thought. What were she and Jesse? After last night she knew what she wanted from her side of the equation, but she didn’t know what Jesse wanted. Maybe his goal all along was to take her away from Beau. That thought had her plunking down in the kitchen chair across from him.
“You and I are together,” Jesse finished for her.
She met his gaze. “Are we?”
He reached across the table, took her hand. “After last night, do you really have to ask that question?”
Her heart fluttered with hope. So much hope. He was there right in front of her, wanting her, all she had to do was reach out and take his hand.
“I meant what I said to you last night, Flynn. I don’t say these words lightly. In fact, I’ve never said them to anyone other than my mother, but I love you.” He reached for her and pulled her into his lap.
She giggled and wrapped her arms around his neck. “So you’ve forgiven me for not standing up for you in front of the community and for accusing you of spiking the lemonade and—”
He slipped his palms up underneath her robe. “Dimples, when it comes to you, I simply can’t hold a grudge.”
“Hello? Anybody home?” Carrie called out as the back screen door creaked open.
Instantly Flynn leaped from Jesse’s lap. “You…you…you’re home early.”
“And while the cats were away the mice were gettin’ it on.” Carrie laughed, eyeing Jesse’s naked chest. “Oh hell, what happened to your eye, Jesse?”
Flynn waved a hand. “Long story. Dad and the boys?”
“Right behind me.”
Flynn didn’t even have time to groan over being caught in her bathrobe in the kitchen with a semi-naked Jesse, because her father and brothers bumped into the kitchen with their duffel bags and basketball gear. The twins had changed so much in the three months they’d been gone, their faces settling into the masculine lines of adulthood, but they were still horsing around like kids. It struck her then that Jesse had been their age when he’d been sent to the penitentiary.
She ran to them, hugged them. Taking turns they picked her up, spun her around the room, laughing and telling her she’d gotten shorter.
“Oh,” her father said. “We didn’t realize you had company.”
“Hello, Mr. MacGregor.” Jesse got to his feet, extended his hand. Flynn could tell he was trying hard not to look self-conscious.
“Jesse.” Floyd shook his hand.
“Hey,” Joel said. “Who are you?”
Noah puffed up his chest. “And what are you doing naked in the kitchen with our sister?” Noah looked at Flynn. “Does Beau know about this?”
“It’s a long story,” Flynn, Carrie, and Floyd all said at once.
Jesse was cool enough not to say anything. He motioned toward the stairway, indicating he was going to her room for his shoes and shirt.
“Who wants breakfast?” Flynn asked, rubbing her palms together.
“Me,” said Joel.
“Starvin’,” Noah chimed in.
“I’ll cook it,” Carrie offered. “You take care of your…guest.”
“Thanks.” Flynn flashed a smile.
Jesse came back downstairs. “I’m just gonna hit the road.”
Flynn took his hand, led him outside. “Not without a good-bye kiss you’re not.”
They walked over to his motorcycle. Jesse leaned against it, drew her into his arms. “I know you’ve got some catching up to do with your family.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “So I’ll leave you to it, even though I had plans of spending the day in bed with you.”
“Did you now?”
“I did, but that can wait. We’ve got all the time in the world.”
The sentiment warmed her up inside. “Okay.”
“See you tomorrow at work.” He gave her one last kiss, then strapped on his helmet and straddled the Harley.
She raised a hand, her bare feet growing cold on the damp ground.
“Don’t forget.” He smiled. “I love you.”
Flynn opened her mouth to tell him she loved him too, but she couldn’t say it. Not because she didn’t feel it, but because she felt it so strongly, she feared if she said the words he’d simply vanish and she’d never see him again.`
“Give me anutter whiskey, Earl,” Beau slurred and pushed his shot glass across the bar.
Earl puckered up his face like he’d bit down on a lemon. “That’s your sixth one tonight.”
“Izza any you bidness?” Beau swayed on the bar stool.
“I know you’re a big boy, but you don’t drink like this, Beau.”
“You sayin’ I can’t hold my likkor?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. What’s wrong?”
“Nothin’.”
“What are you so angry about?”
“I’m not angry.” He scowled. “I’m just tryin’ to get things right.”
“Okay.”
“I work hard to get things right, don’t I?”
“You do.” Earl picked up a towel and started wiping down the bar, but he didn’t pour Beau another shot of whiskey.
“What am I doin’ wrong? I try and I try and I try to do the right thing. Whizzit all going to hell in a handbasket, Earl?”
Earl shrugged.
Beau pointed a finger at him. “Eggsactly. You don’t know.”
“Nope.”
“Why does she like him better’n me? What’s he got that I ain’t got? Why do women like bad boys, Earl? Whazza appeal?”
“Dunno.”
“I’m upstanding, principled.” He puffed out his chest.
“You are.”
“Damn straight.”
“You push yourself too hard.”
“No.” Beau thumped the bar with his fist and pointed a finger at Earl. “No, sir, I do not. I don’t push myself hard enough. I have to do better. Be better. I won’t wanna be like him. I can’t be like him. I’m good.”
“Are you talking about Jesse Calloway?” Earl ventured. “Or your father?”
At the mention of his father, Beau’s stomach roiled and whiskey burned back up his throat. “I gotta stop this.”
Earl risked putting a hand on Beau’s arm. “Let me get someone to drive you home.” Beau flung his arm up, staggered off the bar stool. Earl stepped back. “Lemme alone.”
He stumbled outside into the darkness. His pulse pounded erratically in his ears. His shoulders were tense, his spine straight in spite of all the whiskey he’d downed. I’m good. I’m good. I’m good. It’s up to me to stop the bad guys. I can’t let this keep happening. I have to stop it. It’s up to me. I can’t trust anyone to get the job done.
One way or the other, he had to get rid of Calloway before he destroyed Flynn. He had to fix this thing. Now. Tonight. And for the very last time.
Something woke Flynn in the middle of the night. An uneasiness settled deep inside her bones. She couldn’t name it or explain it, but fingers of dread squeezed around her heart. And she had this one terrible thought.
Beau has done something to Jesse.
Gripped by a sudden desperate need to see Jesse, to touch his face, to kiss his lips, to hold him in her arms, Flynn swung out of bed at three-forty A.M. on Monday morning, tugged on her clothes, rushed downstairs.
I should have told him I love him. Why didn’t I tell him I loved him?
On her way out the door, she almost tripped over the duffel bags Noah and Joel had left tossed on the floor. Mumbling under her breath about inconsiderate little brothers, she padded outside to her father’s Ford sedan, started it up, and drove into Twilight. At this hour of the morning the roads lay empty. What was she doing out at this time of day? Why was she so anxious? Why was she letting her fears get the better of her?
Whatever it was, she couldn’t shake the feeling something bad had happened to Jesse.
By the time she reached the town square, she’d convinced herself she was worrying for nothing, that she was imagining things, borrowing trouble, or suffering from the remnants of a dream she didn’t remember.
She was about to turn the sedan around and head back home when an acrid smell filled her nose.
Smoke.
Her heart started a rapid thunder, rampaging in her chest like a caged bull. Bile rose in her throat.
Fire.
She saw it then, a column of gray-white moving up into the dark sky above the theater, confirming her worst fears. At once she knew where the dread had come from, what had pulled her from a deep sleep. She must have left one of the scented candles burning when she’d locked up on Saturday night. It had been burning for more than twenty-four hours.
The Yarn Barn and the motorcycle shop were ablaze!
Jesse was jogging around the lake. His mind had awakened him in the wee hours, worrying him with the thought that Flynn hadn’t told him she loved him after he’d bared his heart to her. Did she love him or not? If so, why hadn’t she said it? And if she didn’t love him…
Doubt churned his head, so that he barely noticed when he caught a whiff of smoke. His nose twitched. Who was burning a fire in August? He followed his nose, swiveling his head around until he spied the plume rising in the sky. It was so close. Had to be a building on the town square.
The motorcycle shop! The Yarn Barn!
He took off at a dead sprint. Shit, shit, shit, why hadn’t he brought his cell phone?
A minute later, he rounded Ruby Street just in time to see Flynn springing out of her father’s sedan. What was she doing there?
They reached the front of the motorcycle shop at exactly the same moment. Flynn had her cell phone to her ear. “Fire,” he heard her croak. “On the square.”
He could see the flames dancing in the window, leaping and jumping, spreading fast. Smoke wafted around them, billowing, building. Why was it spreading so fast? Was there an accelerant? Could this be arson?
“I caused it,” Flynn moaned as sirens wailed in the background. “It’s all my fault.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I left a candle burning in the Yarn Barn.” Her eyes rolled wildly, she wrung her hands. “It’s all my fault, it’s all my fault, I’ve ruined everything.”
Jesse took her by the shoulders, forced her to look at him. “That’s no candle. The fire started on the bottom floor. You didn’t leave a candle going. This is not your fault. This is arson.”
“Oh God,” she exclaimed, and plastered her palm over her mouth.
“What is it?”
“Miss Tabitha is in there!”
Flynn stood watching in horror as the building she and Jesse had lovingly poured their hearts and souls into was chewed up by flames. Already the fire was so blistering hot, she had to raise her arms to shield her face from the heat.
Tabitha. The gray tabby was in there. Poor little cat.
“She’s dead,” Flynn whispered. “She’s dying.”
“No she’s not.” Jesse pointed.
She raised her head, saw Miss Tabitha’s little face pressed against t
he upstairs window, her mouth opened in a yowl. Flynn let out a yowl of her own.
The next thing she knew, Jesse was kicking down the door.
She grabbed the sleeve of his shirt. “What are you doing? You can’t go in there. Wait for the firemen. They’re here.” She waved at the fire truck careening around the corner of Ruby Street.
“It’ll take too long. I can’t watch that cat die,” he said. “I’ve lost too many things in my life.” Then he pulled loose from her grasp and plunged into the burning building.
“No! Jesse!” she screamed, but he was already gone.
Jesse didn’t think. Just as he hadn’t stopped to think when he’d rushed in to save Josh Green. He simply reacted, plunging ahead even as every sensible bone in his body urged him to flee.
Smoke filled his lungs. But he just kept going, driven by a personal need more intense than the primal urge of self-preservation. He was a good guy and he was desperate to prove it. To the town, to Flynn, to himself.
And besides, he sort of loved that damn little cat.
Blindly he charged up the staircase, heard the old timbers pop and hiss, felt the heat on his skin.
Get out, get out, his body urged.
He thought of Flynn on the sidewalk.
How stupid would it be if you died over a cat just when you and Flynn are finally getting together? Turn back, turn back now.
But he was already at the head of the stairs. The floor trembled beneath his feet. Yarn was falling, bouncing from the shelves. He heard the cat mewling above the ominous crackling noises. He coughed against the choking smoke, pulled up the neckline of his T-shirt to cover his nose and mouth.
Smoke thickened, swirled. His lungs ached. His eyes burned. His blood pumped sluggishly. Jesse dropped to his knees, crawling as quickly as he could toward the window.
The terrified tabby hissed at him. But he understood. Fear could make you do strange and stupid things. He grabbed her up, ignoring the bite of sharp claws she sank into his skin. Clutching the wriggling cat to his chest, he staggered to his feet, but stayed bent over, keeping his head down, and rushed for the stairs.
