The Grayce Walters Romantic Suspense Series

by Jacki Delecki

  The Grayce Walters

  Romantic Suspense Series

  An Inner Fire

  Women Under Fire

  Men Under Fire

  Marriage Under Fire

  Jacki Delecki

  An Inner Fire

  Copyright © 2013 by Jacki Delecki

  Women Under Fire

  Copyright © 2014 by Jacki Delecki

  Men Under Fire

  Copyright © 2015 by Jacki Delecki

  Marriage Under Fire

  Copyright © 2015 by Jacki Delecki

  Bonus

  A Christmas Wedding Ceremony

  Copyright © 2015 by Jacki Delecki

  This is work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without expressed written permission from the author.

  The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products in this work of fiction, which has been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Doe Bay Publishing, Seattle, Washington.

  Cover Art by The Killion Group, Inc.

  Digital Formatting by Author E.M.S.

  An Inner Fire

  Book One in the

  Grayce Walters Romantic Suspense Series

  by

  Jacki Delecki

  Grayce Walters, animal acupuncturist, harbors a secret. She hides her intuitive gifts from the world until she becomes embroiled in arson on Seattle’s waterfront.

  As a key crime witness, Grayce must convince the attractive, logical, by-the-numbers fire investigator, Ewan Davis, that the fire she witnessed is part of a larger criminal conspiracy. Grayce embarks upon a mission to gather proof of the dangerous threat. She enlists the help of her cross-dressing best friend, her street-wise assistant, and Davis’ poodle, to conduct her own investigation.

  As her feelings for Davis shift between white hot passion and cold fear, Grayce must risk exposing her secrets to save Davis’ life. Davis must accept things, he can neither see, nor understand to solve the mystery and finally find the love he has stopped believing in.

  With nudges from the protective poodle, Grayce and Davis confront shocking betrayal and international crime on the rain soaked streets of Seattle.

  Chapter One

  Grayce Walters’ left hand twitched. Her instincts swirled. Her intuition flared.

  Earlier today, after a cranky feline gouged her, a sneaky dog had nipped her, and now, late for dinner with friends, the parking gods were messing with her.

  Something was coming. Something startling, shocking, and godawful.

  Her Subaru’s headlights probed the mist at the far side of the Seattle Fishermen’s Terminal, which seemed to be dissolving into the murk of Puget Sound fog. The beams shone on a yellow heap between stacks of crab traps…a dog lying on its side, barely visible in the shadow of a fishing shed.

  Stopping her car in the isolated industrial area, she grabbed a flashlight, glanced around quickly, and hurried into the mist toward the large canine. A horn blare from the Ballard Bridge made her jump and her racing heart rocket.

  She knelt on the damp cement next to the golden retriever and ran her trembling hand along the dog’s inert body, searching for injuries. Relieved to note the dog’s shallow respirations, she released a slow, shaky breath. Baxter was written in bold script on the dog’s red leather collar.

  Her cold fingers probed the crown of his head, locating an egg-sized lump on the back of his skull. “Your head hurting, Baxter?”

  The large retriever wagged his tail ever so slightly and then stilled again.

  She scanned the cluster of corrugated fishing sheds facing the deserted waterfront. The overhead lights on the docks cast an eerie halo on the boats bobbing in the black water while deep foreboding flooded her. “Baxter, I need to get us away from here.”

  Screeching hinges of a door opening in the next row of sheds raked her skin like dogs’ nails skittering across metal exam tables. Her already-wired nervous system ratcheted into high alert. Echoing in the night’s silence was the sound of heavy footsteps on the cement. The unnerving thuds grew distant, moving toward the water to be swallowed into the gloom.

  Under the dock lights, a beefy man wearing the slicker and boots of a commercial fisherman, a satchel slung over his shoulder, strode with energetic self-assurance toward the boats. As he moved in and out of the shadows, the overhead beams caught the top of his head. His hair shone a fiery red.

  The man turned suddenly and looked back in her direction.

  She threw herself forward to shield the dog and tightened her hold on the flashlight, ready to protect Baxter from the dark violence radiating off the man.

  Every sound boomed and thundered in her ears in the frightening silence. Despite Baxter’s warmth, a raw chill penetrated Grayce’s body.

  Baxter whined, breaking the tension. Nerves stretched taut, she sat up and twisted to look for the man. Nothing but Northwest fog and the sound of lapping water.

  She fumbled in her jeans pocket for her phone and hit favorites for James, her best friend, who was waiting for her at the restaurant.

  Damn! Voicemail.

  Peeling off her coat, she covered the dog. “You’re going to be all right, big guy.”

  “Baxter!” Thirty feet away, in the middle of the parking lot, an overweight woman stood next to her Volvo station wagon with the hatchback door open. “Come on, boy! Time to go home.”

  Baxter’s ears shot up. He bolted upright, gave a high-pitched yelp, shook several times, and loped in the direction of his owner.

  Grayce watched the dog jump effortlessly into the car. “That’s the fastest recovery I’ve ever seen,” she muttered. His large head was silhouetted in the rear window when he sped away with his owner.

  She bent and picked up her rain jacket. Definitely time to get away from the darkness and dangerous men.

  She had nearly reached her car when a massive blast shook the wharf. The cement swayed beneath her feet and forceful tremors travelled up her legs, throwing her off balance. The harsh blast reverberated in her ears. She whirled around, trying to locate the source of the explosion. Shock waves continued to pulsate throughout her body when she heard a slow hiss followed by a roar.

  Twenty-foot-high flames shot out of a shed less than a few car lengths away. Heat blazed across her face, hot enough to singe her eyebrows and eyelashes.

  Primitive fear took over, and she ran, ran as if the scorching flames chased her. The fire’s heat penetrated her sweater to her skin while she sprinted to the other side of the wharf, her feet and heart pounding.

  During the frenzy of noise, flashing lights, and the wail of sirens, she spotted the red-haired man crouched, half hidden, by an industrial dumpster. As if he sensed her looking for him, he straightened and vanished into the darkness.

  Chapter Two

  Grayce sat upright, uncomfortable on the cold metal chair in the fire investigator’s waiting room. The chair creaked each time she shifted her weight.

  Today was about facts and only facts.

  Lieutenant Davis had been clear on the phone. “I’ll take your statement. Nothing to worry about. Just routine.”

  Routine. There was nothing routine about last night’s explosion, and plenty f
or Grayce to worry about. She came to the lieutenant’s office because she didn’t want last night’s violence to disrupt her animal patients. She refused to allow that stress into her healing space.

  “Ma’am? Lieutenant Davis will see you now, third door on the right.”

  With the help of three inches from her Jimmy Choos, a birthday present from James, Grayce pulled herself up to a full five feet three.

  Why was she worried? She was doing a public service, acting as a witness who had seen a suspect on the wharf just before the blaze. Her certainty that this man had assaulted Baxter and started the shed fire wouldn’t be mentioned.

  She walked down a long white corridor. There was nothing creative about this workplace, although it was housed above an eminent art gallery in Pioneer Square. The energy in the building was contained and functional, just like the lieutenant. From his efficient manner on the phone, she suspected that Lieutenant Davis would have no patience with her intuition. Though—who was she kidding?—few people would. Her ability to read and heal energy states was hard to explain.

  The historic building smelled of years of rain and mold. With every step she took on the uneven floor, her pantyhose began to slip and sag. She resisted the urge to pull on the damn things—they’d likely be puddled at her knees and feet by the time she got to the lieutenant’s office. She hadn’t worn nylons since last year. She hated dressing up, and when she did, like now, she felt constricted, contained, and crabby.

  An exuberant mass of black fur, nails clicking, bounded toward her. Shocked to see a dog running free in the fire station, she didn’t notice a gap in the floorboards until her heel wedged solidly into the gap. The black lab tried to stop, but, unable to get traction on the wood floor, slid straight into Grayce’s legs. Grayce teetered, then tumbled backward. She looked up into a pair of warm dark eyes. Doggy breath wafted across her face.

  “Henny!” A loud voice reverberated in the narrow hallway.

  “Oh, you’re in trouble now.” Grayce rubbed the dog’s head, smiling into the soft eyes; then she tried to stand.

  The dog placed one of her enormous paws on Grayce’s shoulder and began to lick her face.

  “My God, get off,” a man shouted striding toward them. From her position on the floor, he looked to be at least seven feet tall. With his white shirt pulled taut across his broad chest and muscular arms, he looked like a man capable of carrying victims out of a burning building.

  Grayce locked eyes with the man who towered over her. His face was all angles and planes, like a model out of one of those edgy photo shoots in a Nordstrom catalogue. An electrifying shiver coursed through her. This man exuded the same controlled power as Samba, the Bengal tiger she had treated at the zoo.

  “Henny!”

  Both Henny and Grayce stiffened.

  He pulled the dog by her collar. “I’m sorry. She never disobeys.”

  “I seem to have that effect on dogs.” Grayce smiled and straightened her skirt, which had hiked up to mid-thigh. She couldn’t help noticing how his eyes trailed over her legs.

  “I apologize, ma’am. I’m Lieutenant Ewan Davis, the fire investigator you spoke with on the phone. And now you’ve met Henny, usually a well-behaved part of our crew, and our accelerant dog.”

  He grasped Grayce’s hand to help her up. His giant hand enveloped hers, sending an elemental surge through to her toes. His heat still radiated in her palm while she brushed off her skirt.

  “It wasn’t Henny. She’s great. It was my darn heels.”

  Lieutenant Davis’ gaze dropped to her shoes, then moved back up her legs. His powerful absorption with her body left her feeling exposed, as if he saw her as a woman, not a witness. And it wasn’t just her Jimmy Choos knocking her off balance.

  “Are you okay?” He stepped closer to her, as if he meant to touch her, his professional demeanor transformed to concern.

  Her heart leapt and gyrated against her chest. The heart palpations were in no way related to the lieutenant’s nearness. Her anxiety about the interview was causing her cardiac condition. She tried for humor and self-assurance. “Just proves why veterinarians shouldn’t wear high heels to work.”

  The lieutenant raised his eyebrows at her comment before he pointed his finger at Henny, who sat on alert next to Grayce. “Get on your bed.”

  The dog ignored the command.

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’m not her handler, but she usually obeys me.”

  Henny nudged Grayce’s leg with her wet, black nose.

  Grayce put one hand on the dog’s head and the other on the lieutenant’s muscled arm. “She just wants to help.”

  “What?”

  “She’s just trying to make me feel welcome. She senses I’m nervous. I’ve never been a witness before.”

  “Knocking you down is a strange way to help.”

  Henny’s tail thumped on the wood floor.

  Grayce laughed at Henny’s antics.

  Lieutenant Davis’s hard angles softened with a slow grin. She usually wasn’t distracted by outward appearances, but this man was more than the sum of his attractive parts, with his black, closely-cropped hair, wide shoulders, and bright eyes. His energy was vital, forceful, not at all what she had expected.

  “Guess you must like your job. You’re the only person I’ve met who would laugh after being knocked down.”

  Grayce hoped the heat moving up her neck into her face wasn’t noticeable.

  While they moved down the corridor to the lieutenant’s office, she kept a lookout for sneaky cracks in the floor and exuberant dogs.

  “Please come in, Dr. Walters.” He gestured to a nondescript white space.

  The office was empty except for his metal desk, two chairs, and a cabinet. Boxes were stacked against white walls.

  She sat on another cold metal chair, pulling her skirt to cover her knees. Henny curled up in a ball next to her feet. Grayce scanned the sparse office. One lonely picture hung on the blank walls, an official photograph of the lieutenant dressed in full regalia, holding a plaque. An older man with the same penetrating blue eyes and same angled cheekbones as the lieutenant stood beaming next to him.

  Lieutenant Davis settled behind his desk. “This won’t take too long.”

  He hit the digital voice recorder on his desk and spoke in a quiet professional tone. “This is Lieutenant Ewan Davis. Today is the ninth of October, 2015. The time is 9:28 am. I’m interviewing Dr. Grayce Walters concerning the fire incident on Fisherman’s Wharf on the night of October eighth. Can you please state and spell your name, Dr. Walters, for the record?”

  Grayce did so, then crossed her legs, trying to maintain a nonchalant posture.

  “All right, then. Let’s start at the beginning. Why were you in the commercial fishing area at night?” he asked.

  The muscles in her neck tightened and throat went dry. She cleared her throat. “I couldn’t find parking by Chinooks, so I drove to the back of the restaurant.”

  He gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  She uncrossed her legs, sat up straighter, and tried to remember what she had planned to say. She already knew Lieutenant Davis would reject the idea of intuition. “As I reached to turn off my headlights, I spotted an injured dog. I’m a vet, so naturally I went to help. And while I was examining the dog, a man emerged from a shed off to my right.”

  The same cold, raw dread as last night crept into her body when she mentioned the man.

  “Was there something suspicious about this man that kept you from asking him for help with the dog?”

  An icy chill skittered up and down her arms. How could she possibly tell the analytical lieutenant that she could feel the man’s fury pulsating across the wharf? Her sensitivity to animal and human energy wouldn’t fit into any of the investigator’s rational categories.

  “I was still evaluating the injured dog when the man came out of the shed. At that point, I had things under control.” She sat back and crossed h
er legs, trying to ignore the prickly shivers running up her spine.

  “Do you know what shed he came out of?”

  “I didn’t see him. I heard the door open and then heard him walking toward the water. I didn’t see him until he paused under the overhead light.”

  The lieutenant rubbed his hand back and forth on his chin. “So there’s a possibility the fisherman didn’t come out of a shed?”

  What could she say? She had experienced the man’s rage. She knew the man had hit Baxter on the head, had burned down the shed. She knew he was no fisherman. And she knew Lieutenant Davis would never believe her.

  “I heard a door open and close. Then he appeared. I assumed he came from a nearby shed.”

  “Fair enough. Can you describe the man?”

  She took a slow deep breath. “He was stocky…carried a duffel bag on his shoulder…and had bright red hair.” Her voice quivered on each word like a violin string suspended over each note.

  His hair had been dyed. Her heart leapt into her throat, making it hard to pull air into her tight chest.

  “Is something wrong? What did you just remember?” His eyes focused on her, revealing tiny creases at the corners. Someplace in the back of her mind, she realized she liked the little imperfections.

  Henny sat up and placed her head in Grayce’s lap.

  Grayce rubbed the solid head of the lab, avoiding eye contact. “His hair color wasn’t natural.” Her heart thumped against her chest like she had just sprinted across a finish line. “It was an unusual color. It had to be dyed.” Breathless, the rest of her words came out in a whisper, “His hair was the color of fire.”