Fearless

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “Oh my God.” She took a step forward, then another, until her hips pressed nearly flush with the range. The wall tiles between the cooktop and the oversized stainless-steel hood vent had been scorched by a handful of thin black lines, all of which led upward from the range’s rear burners. A thick layer of ash lay piled beneath the heavy black grates, almost as if . . . “Something was set here to burn.”

  Cole’s eyes went saucer-wide for just a split second before narrowing in concentration. “This whole place is covered in ash,” he argued slowly. “If the kitchen hadn’t been emptied of its inventory yet, there would’ve been plenty in here that could have burned after the fact.”

  “Yeah, but all the inventory would be over there, by the pantry. Not sitting here on the stove,” Savannah pointed out, her pulse hopscotching through her veins. “And anyway, if this restaurant was out of business, nothing could’ve gotten caught on these burners accidentally. No one would’ve been here.”

  Which meant that whatever had caught fire on this cooktop had to have been put there on purpose.

  “These burn patterns do suggest that something on this cooktop somehow caught fire and sparked upward,” Cole said, quickly tacking on, “But there’s no way of knowing if this was the point of origin or just another thing that got torched after the grease fire started and added to the blaze.”

  “Something had to spark this hood.” No way could this just be coincidence.

  The edges of Cole’s mouth tightened beneath the sand-colored stubble covering his face. “Something did. It’s just hard to say exactly what.”

  “Is any of this in Oz’s report?” Savannah pointed to the ashes, nearly an inch thick over the range’s three back burners.

  Cole’s jaw locked down to match his mouth. “No. Just the electrical and the grease fire.”

  A noise burst past Savannah’s lips, frustration joining the other emotions tag-teaming their way through her rib cage. “Come on, Cole. You have to admit this doesn’t add up. There’s a chance that someone started both of these fires on purpose.”

  “That’s a hell of a leap to make from a couple of discrepancies,” he said. His face took on the same impenetrable expression that it always did in the face of rising tension, as if the hotter emotions ran, the calmer he’d become.

  Well, fine. Savannah had enough heat for both of them. “These aren’t discrepancies,” she started, but Cole stepped in, curling a palm over her shoulder.

  “Right now, yes, they are.” The solid weight of his hand caught her attention, his eyes serious enough to stay her argument and make her listen. “Look, I’m not saying everything’s aboveboard here. We both know it’s not. But you can’t just wing accusations around about something this major.”

  “My brother is on the arson investigation unit. I could just ask—”

  “No.” Cole’s fingers squeezed harder against the cotton of her T-shirt. He moved closer, the intensity on his face and the proximity of his body kicking her heat index even higher. “You can’t. Not without raising suspicion. Look”—he broke off for a long draw of breath—“we have to be smart about this. Accusing Oz of screwing up these reports and calling these fires arson isn’t just borrowing trouble. It’s buying it wholesale.”

  “Why are you so eager to defend him?” Savannah’s cheeks prickled. She and Cole had worked together for less than a month and been sleeping together for less than a day. Of course he wouldn’t trust her enough to—

  “I’m not defending Oz, Savannah. I’m trying to defend you.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  His chest lifted on an inhale, and following his motion, she breathed in, too. “I get that you want to act on this,” Cole said. “But you’re talking about leveling some top-shelf accusations. If you do that without hard evidence and you’re wrong, a quick ‘sorry about that’ isn’t going to fix it. You’ll lose your placement at Eight, and your reputation will be shot full of holes.”

  Damn it, he was right. “Okay, but we can’t just sit on this, or worse yet, forget it.”

  “What we need is a plan, starting with concrete facts.”

  He let go of her shoulder, sending a careful gaze around the kitchen. “Arson is extremely hard to prove once, let alone twice. And while I’ll admit these cases do have a few things in common, they’re also equally unconnected. The locations are on opposite sides of the city, one warehouse, one restaurant, not to mention that on the off chance Oz is somehow involved, he’s a firefighter. He’s got a complete lack of motive for wanting either place to burn down.”

  “That we know of,” Savannah countered, her instincts overflowing with things not right.

  Cole stopped, just shy of the range. “Fair enough. But even though I’m willing to admit that these two reports don’t pass the smell test, I’m also not ready to point the finger at Oz quite yet. He’s had the back of every firefighter at Eight for the last two decades, including mine for the last eight years. You can say what you want about him personally, but professionally, he’s still a damned good firefighter, innocent until proven otherwise.”

  She jammed her cross-trainers into the filthy kitchen tiles, her argument locked and loaded. But the look on Cole’s face, so calm and matter-of-fact, wedged the pushback in her throat.

  She’d fought for a judgment-free shot at Station Eight. If Oz was dirty, she’d prove it, the same way she’d proven herself for the last year straight.

  Cole had her back. They’d get this done.

  “Okay,” Savannah said slowly. “So what’s our first step?”

  “Let me talk to him tomorrow when we’re on shift so I can feel the situation out. In the meantime, we’ll read through both of these reports step by step for a closer look. Then we can go from there. Just do me a favor, would you, and try to behave yourself?”

  The corners of his mouth edged up in the barest suggestion of a smile, and despite the seriousness of the situation, Savannah found herself smiling right back.

  “I make no promises to behave, Everett—at work or otherwise. Now let’s go. We’ve got a lot on our plate today.”

  * * *

  Savannah had no sooner pulled into the narrow parking lot adjacent to Station Eight than her cell phone started mouthing off from the side pocket of her duffel bag.

  “What the hell?” At six twenty on a Thursday morning, whoever was on the other end of the line either had clumsy fingers or a death wish.

  At the sight of the caller ID, Savannah’s heart catapulted against her rib cage, and she pressed the phone to her ear, lickety-split. “Daddy? What’s the matter?”

  “Good morning to you, too, darlin’.” Her father’s warm baritone rumbled over the line. “Does somethin’ have to be the matter for me to call my girl?”

  She broke into a smile, relief spilling through her as she relaxed against the driver’s seat. “Of course not. But you’ve got to admit, your timing is a little unconventional.”

  “Your brother told me you were on shift today. Said he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of you for a couple’a days, and I’d been meaning to call you anyhow, so I thought I’d check in.”

  Ah, shit. Brad had been sawing logs by the time Savannah had finally dragged herself from Cole’s nice, comfortable bed (by way of his oh-so steamy shower, and then his living room one more time for good measure) last night. She’d texted Brad twice to tell him she was fine and staying with a friend, but . . . “Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of studying and stuff for work. I guess I keep missing him is all.”

  “And how are things going at Eight? Y’all catching any good fires down there?”

  Savannah bit back the irony welling up in her mind. “A few,” she said. She gave her father a quick rundown of her part in putting out last week’s restaurant fire, peppering in some more details from a few of their smaller calls. When she got to the duck story, her father let out a belly laugh as rich and warm as a shot of double-barrel bourbon, and Lord above, she missed her family.

  “Sounds as if you
’re fitting right in,” her father said, his voice sobering with what came next. “I’ll confess, I was a little worried. Bein’ a woman in the fire department can be a hell of an uphill battle, even for someone as fearless as you.”

  “There are a couple of things that are harder than I thought they’d be,” she admitted. Between learning how to pace herself and not chomping on the bait of Oz’s rude looks and ruder under-the-breath comments, she’d had her work cut out for her these last three weeks, for sure. “But most everybody here treats me like a candidate, plain and simple.”

  Her father let out a soft breath. “Well, I’m glad you landed at a house where they know what you’re worth, darlin’. You might be far from home, but your mama and I are still right proud.”

  Savannah’s throat knotted, and she flattened her palm over her breastbone in an effort to soothe the ache squeezing between her ribs. “Thanks, Daddy.”

  The phone call ended a few minutes later, with her promising to be as careful as she was fierce, and her father telling her not to take any crap from her brother. Savannah sat in her car for a few minutes, modulating her breath and sliding her focus into place more intently than ever.

  Her parents were proud of her. She didn’t just have a job to do fighting fires. She had a moral obligation to get to the bottom of this thing with Oz.

  Even if the man was guilty.

  Savannah slid out of her SUV, slinging her duffel over one shoulder and heading through the back door to the engine bay.

  “Hey, Nelson!” Donovan fell into step with her before she made it halfway across the boot-scuffed concrete, his all-American grin sending her hackles into high alert. Nobody should be so freaking happy on this side of roll call.

  “What?” Savannah slung a gaze around the engine bay, but the place looked just like it always did before shift change.

  For a split second, she froze. She and Cole had agreed not to tell anyone about the time they’d spent together off the clock, but he and Donovan were best friends.

  Nerves of steel. Nerves of steel.

  “What, what?” Donovan straightened, running a hand over the scattering of blond stubble covering his chin. “I was just saying good morning. Why, do I have something on my face?”

  “Oh.” Jeez, all those orgasms had scrambled her brain. “No. You just look like a mouthwash ad, that’s all. How many cups of coffee have you had?”

  “Me?” He pointed to himself with one hand, ushering her through the door to the house with the other. “I’m high on life, baby.”

  She arched a brow, totally unable to curb her laughter. “Three?”

  He nodded. “Okay, yeah. I’m high on life and half a pot of coffee. But seriously, I just wanted to make sure you’re feeling okay.”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I . . . ahhhh.” Cole’s fib from the other night clicked into place, two seconds too late. “Right. Bad sushi. Stomach bug. It passed pretty quickly.”

  Which was more than she could say for the scrutiny Donovan was suddenly winging in her direction. Crap, she needed a distraction. A smart-assed comeback. Something to save her from—

  “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who had to mind your shoes.”

  Savannah’s feet clattered to a stop at the far end of the locker room. Cole stood halfway down the middle row, just as calm and cool as normal, and she launched into a wry smile that felt as natural as inhale-exhale.

  “Gee, thanks, Everett. You really know how to make a girl feel special.”

  O’Keefe popped his head around the corner of the locker bay, serving her with a lopsided grin. “Come on, Nelson. Quit your bellyaching.”

  “Argh, really?” she groaned, although her laughter beat out her irritation two to one. Years’ worth of familial ribbing had taught her that fighting back only made things worse, and anyway, she’d had a hunch this was coming.

  Savannah walked to her locker, dropping her bag to the bench behind her and lifting up both hands. “Fine. Go ahead, you guys. Just get it over with.”

  “Aw, don’t let them give you shit for riding the regur-gitron, Nelson,” Rachel called from the opposite end of the room. “I know you’re gutsier than these guys are giving you credit for.”

  “You’re not nearly the first person I’ve seen blow their groceries over a little bad sushi,” O’Keefe speculated. “Although next time, maybe a gut check wouldn’t hurt.”

  “You are pretty tough, rookie,” Crews added, ambling around the corner to lean on the locker a few down from hers. “I’d bet it’s gonna take more than these preschoolers have got to make you go belly up.”

  Donovan waggled his blond brows, all brotherly affection. “Our candidate does have a whole lot of fire in her belly, doesn’t she,” he said, and finally, Savannah had to laugh.

  “If you guys don’t knock it off, I’m going to get butterflies in my stomach,” she warned, prompting a handful of ohs to echo off the tiled walls.

  “Coming from you, that’s just dangerous,” Cole said, tipping his head at the clock on the wall. “Roll call’s in ten. Guess we should leave you to it.”

  “Thanks.” Savannah turned toward her locker, a grin still on her lips. Okay, so it wasn’t a great big welcome with open arms, but hell if she’d know what to do with that anyway. She’d missed her brothers and cousins for over a year now. Weird as it was, the good-natured crap made her feel like maybe—just maybe—they felt she belonged at Eight.

  She popped her locker open, and no fewer than a hundred plastic emesis basins spilled out over her feet.

  “What the fu . . . I am going to murder you guys!” Savannah’s holler fell prey to deep peals of laughter, punctuated by a bright white flash from Donovan’s cell phone.

  “I truly think this is her best side, don’t you?” he asked Cole, holding up his phone for Everett’s inspection.

  “Donovan, don’t you dare—”

  “Annnnd Facebooked,” he said, tapping the screen with a flourish. He reached out, giving her head a ruffle. “Welcome to Eight, Tough Stuff.”

  Savannah dropped her gaze to the kidney-shaped basins littering the floor, and she couldn’t help it.

  She burst out laughing.

  “I’m going to remember this. Jackasses,” she tacked on for good measure, flashing a look at Cole. “Did you know about this?” she asked, enough under her breath that no one else heard over the laughter still floating around the locker room.

  Cole lifted both hands, although his smile was a dead giveaway. “I plead the fifth.”

  “That’s a yes.” Savannah shook her head, bending down to snap up one of the light blue plastic containers. “Exactly what am I supposed to do with all of these?”

  “Oh, save them for Jonesey!” Rachel said gleefully. “We’re doing his locker next.”

  All at once, Savannah realized that the firefighter was nowhere in sight. “Hey, where is he, anyway?”

  “Let’s just say you’re not the only one to evacuate all you ate. He spent half the Fireman’s Ball doing tequila shots with the guys from Station Four. One of the paramedics over there managed to help him get home safely, but hooo. Last I saw, he was liquidly exuberant.”

  “Seriously?” Cole’s light brown brows shot upward.

  O’Keefe leaned in, his nod solemn even though his expression was not. “Three words, my brother. After-party karaoke. He texted me last night to say he’d finally made it off the ginger ale and saltines diet, and that Jose Cuervo was—and I quote—‘a giant dick.’”

  Donovan’s bright blue eyes gleamed in the overhead fluorescents. “Holy shit, a two-fer. Rachel, quick! Go stall his ass. If we hurry up, we can get these barf bins into Jonesey’s locker before roll call.”

  Savannah got as close to a giggle as she ever would, but the sound still emerged just shy of a snort. She started to stack the emesis basins within her reach, turning to make a comment to match her laughter, when the gruff sound of a throat being cleared stopped the words cold in her mouth.

  “Fit
ting,” Oz said, flicking a frost-encrusted glance at the basins. “You do seem to make a mess wherever you go.”

  “It was just a joke.” She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough for it to smart. Throwing down with Oz before their day even started wouldn’t land her in a happy place. No matter how badly she wanted to go tornado alley on his ass. “I’ll have the mess cleaned up in a minute. Sir.”

  “Good. Because after that, Westin wants to see you in his office.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Cole pushed a hand through his hair and dribbled the basketball in his grip, his nerves already half-shredded even though it was still before lunch. While Westin had ended up only needing Savannah for a quick administrative thing, Oz’s intention to string her out with the ominous public delivery of the captain’s request had been cool-water clear. She’d handled it like a pro, not even fidgeting through the thirty minutes of roll call and shift assignments she’d had to sit through before she could make it to Westin’s office. But Oz’s mind fuck had sent something slithering through Cole that he hadn’t felt in years. Nine of them, to be exact.

  For just a split second, he’d been tempted to say sayonara to his keep-it-cool strategy in favor of the my-fist-in-your-face plan.

  “Everett.” Oz stepped onto the otherwise empty basketball court, a rough, gruff embodiment of speak of the devil. “Heard you wanted a word.”

  Okay, so floating his request for a talk with Oz by every member of squad instead of just cutting to the chase to find the guy hadn’t exactly been on Cole’s original agenda. But Oz’s stunt this morning had pissed him off enough to risk a little attitude.

  “Yeah.” Focus. Chippy or not at how Oz had treated Savannah, Cole needed to get to the bottom of these wonky reports, and that meant sticking to his plan of action. “Now that we’ve only got about two weeks to go before I move to squad, I’ve been trying to brush up on a few things. I was wondering if you could help me out.” He dribbled the ball a couple more times, his shoulders unusually stiff as he took a shot.