by Jill Shalvis
Summer nuzzled the soft fur. “So what’s an adorable thing like you doing with such a grump?”
“She’s not a grump,” Joe said.
Summer laughed. “And do you really think you’re so adorable?”
He looked down at his coveralls. “Not at the moment.”
But sitting next to her on the dirty floor, surrounded by chaos and soot and grime, his hair scruffy and untamed, his mouth curved in a slight grin, he was. Absolutely adorable. Reaching out, she ran her finger over his dimple. She wanted to run her finger over more of him. All of him.
As if he could read her thoughts, he got to his feet. Kept his distance. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“Yeah.” She stood, feeling awkward. Unwanted. “I know I’m keeping you from your work.”
“And my sleep, too, but since when has that bothered you?”
Her heart hitched. “I’m keeping you from sleep?”
“I thought that was your new mission in life.”
“Oh, it is.” She backed up a step and forced a smile. “Along with driving you wild.”
“Baby, that’s a given.” He put his hands on his hips. “You done making light of this?”
“Probably not.”
“Because it’s sure as hell easier than talking to me, right?”
“Is that what you think? That I don’t want to talk to you?”
“You tell me what I’m supposed to think. You come into town after years of silence, wanting to pick things up right where they were left. With benefits. Well, things change, Red. People change, damn it. I’m not that same idolizing, stupid, pathetic kid who would have rolled over like this puppy if you so much as smiled at me.”
She stared at him, as disconcerted by his self-derisive tone as by the words. “I never knew that’s how you saw yourself. I never saw you that way.”
“You never saw me at all.”
She searched his fathomless gaze, her heart melting when the puppy in his arms stretched to lick his jaw and he leaned into it, nuzzling the puppy’s face beneath his neck.
Summer wanted to be right there. She wanted to nuzzle that spot. Jealous of a puppy.
“You said being friends works for you,” he said. “But you still won’t open up to me about anything that matters—” He froze a moment, then scrubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus. I can’t believe I just said that.” Turning from her, he stared off into space. His broad shoulders were filthy and looked like he carried the weight of the world on them. She put her hands there, gently squeezed, woman enough to love the feel of the hard strength of him.
“Would you like to know why I usually get dumped by women?” he asked.
“Um, they’re farsighted?”
A low, harsh laugh escaped him. “Because I don’t open up. I don’t share myself.”
The implications of that, mixed with what he wanted from her, sank in. “Oh.”
“Yeah, how’s that for irony? I’m standing here hounding you for the very thing I’ve never given. I’m sorry for that.” He shook his head and still didn’t look at her. “Look, I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Joe—”
“And like I said, non-fire personnel aren’t allowed in here. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go.”
Right.
She had to go.
Story of her life. Her own fault, she’d written it herself.
Chapter 15
Joe named the puppy Ashes for her rather disgusting love of rubbing her nose in soot. A friend of Kenny’s was indeed an arson-dog trainer who agreed to begin working with Joe and the puppy. Given that Ashes fell asleep in the middle of their first session, Joe didn’t expect any miracles.
The next day, San Diego was hit by a hot, violent summer storm. Joe and Kenny set out in it to talk to the people involved with the Creative Interiors case again, going to Ally’s Treasures first. As they ran from the truck, getting drenched in the process, the unhappy Ashes began to howl from her perch behind the wheel.
“She could wake the dead,” Kenny yelled over a boom of thunder.
“I need a dog sitter!” Joe yelled back, eyeing the pathetic puppy face plastered to the window, woefully watching them run away. “Or someone to just shoot me.”
“I’ll shoot you later,” Kenny promised, and pulled him inside Ally’s Treasures.
Ally was a tall, lean, haughty beanpole, with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue, who clearly did not like dripping wet fire marshals. “I’m busy,” she said when they identified themselves.
“This will only take a minute,” Kenny promised, and smiled his charm-the-witness smile.
Immune, Ally frowned. “Make it quick.”
“How do you feel about Creative Interiors?” Joe asked.
She lifted a shoulder. “They have the better building and street visibility, but since I do a better business, I don’t lose sleep over it.”
“How do you know?” Kenny asked, looking at a shelf of seashells filled with sand, all marked with shockingly astronomical prices.
“How do I know what?” Her tone was holier-than-thou, her nose so high in the air she was in jeopardy of a nosebleed.
“That you do a better business,” Kenny said patiently.
“Because I snoop, if you want the truth. I go into their stores and check out their stock and what their customers are buying. There’s no law against that. Camille does it to me right back.”
“Camille spies on you?” Kenny asked.
“Of course she does. She sends one of the twins, the one who smokes, to buy a Cosmo off my magazine rack, then she presumably goes back and tells them everything. If I were Camille I’d be more concerned about how much more work she does than her spacey sister, or that seriously creepy bookkeeper she just hired, or even that wild and crazy roam-the-planet daughter of hers, but whatever. To each her own.”
Joe bit his tongue with effort. “One of the twins smokes?”
“Yes. Don’t know which one.”
“Have you ever been to their warehouse?” Joe asked.
“The one that burned?” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Have you?”
Her cool veneer slipped a moment. “I don’t like where this is going.”
“Yes or no.”
“No.”
“What about the new store site?” Kenny asked. “Creative Interiors II. Were you there at all?”
She paled and shook her head.
“Are you sure?” Joe asked.
“Once,” she admitted. “At the opening party. They had quick-serve hors d’oeuvres set out. Please.”
“What about the next day?” Joe asked. “Were you there at all on opening day?”
Some of the snide light and superiority drained out of her eyes. “I drove by,” she said quietly, finally taking them seriously. “Right at ten o’clock. Just to see how many people they had, that’s all. I never went in.”
“Where were you between the hours of six and ten that night?”
She straightened her shoulders and looked him right in the eye, all attitude gone. “I was here. I closed at six and spent the next few hours working on my books. I was alone. I have no one who can verify that, but I can tell you right now, you’ll find no evidence of my doing Creative Interiors any harm. I don’t need to, they do enough harm to themselves.”
Next up on the interview list was Braden. Joe and Kenny crossed the street from Ally’s Treasures to Creative Interiors, getting drenched all over again. Halfway across, Ashes saw them from the truck and resumed her howling.
Kenny laughed, and because of it, Joe made him go back and get the damn puppy.
Kenny ran and opened the truck, scooping the puppy against his shirt. “She’s shedding.”
“Bummer for you.” Joe no longer bothered to swipe the rain out of his eyes. It was six o’clock, closing time, and as they came up to the door of Creative Interiors, Braden walked out.
“You’re looking for me,” he said, and opened his umbrella, tucking himself a
nd his laptop neatly out of the way of the slashing rain.
Joe and Kenny, neither of whom had an umbrella, stood there with water running down their no longer repellent clothing. Ashes licked the rain off Kenny’s jaw.
“Make it quick.” Braden eyed them both with a cool gaze, not offering to share his umbrella or to go back inside. “Or do I need an attorney?”
Kenny squinted through the drops on his glasses. His blond hair was sleek to his head, his shirt clinging to him, and there was a squirming puppy in his arms shedding all over him. He was not a happy camper. “Can we take this inside?”
“Do I have a say in that decision?” Braden asked.
“What? Of course you have a say.” Kenny’s irritation was beginning to show, the way it always did when things weren’t neat and tidy. Or dry.
“Then no,” Braden said. “I don’t want to go inside. I’m perfectly comfortable out here.”
Kenny opened his mouth but Joe put a hand on his tense, wet arm. “We’d like to ask you a few questions,” he said calmly. “You don’t need a lawyer, unless you want one.”
Braden just looked at his watch.
“You don’t seem all that surprised to see us,” Joe noted.
“Look, I’m not stupid. I’m the new guy and I don’t talk much. Plus, I was there the night of the fire. I was alone in the room where the fire originated.”
“Were you?”
“You know I was.”
Joe sighed. “Can you elaborate? Tell us how you came to be alone there?”
“The whole staff was around, working. Then they left, and it was just Summer and me. I think I scared her.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t mean to. I thought she knew I was still there.”
“What were you doing?”
“In the bathroom?” He arched a dry brow.
Joe just waited, not at all bothered by the way his clothes had begun to stick to his entire body. He liked the rain, always had. But Kenny was a rare lit fuse. He was wet, wrinkled, holding a squirming puppy, and ready to blow.
Braden stayed rigid for a long moment, then caved when neither fire marshal moved. “I used the toilet,” he said. “And then the sink.”
“Anything else?” Kenny asked.
“Like…?”
“Did you have gasoline in there for any reason?”
“Christ. No.”
Joe looked down at Braden’s black boots, still dry on the tops—unlike his own soaked athletic shoes. “What size shoe do you wear?”
“Depends on the shoe.”
“Approximately,” Kenny said tautly.
“I don’t know. An eleven.”
“Do you smoke?”
“Used to.”
“What does that mean exactly?” Joe asked.
“It means I quit.”
“How long ago?”
“I’ve quit several times. The last was a few weeks ago.” Braden swiped his hand over his mouth. “Is that all?”
“For now, thanks,” Joe said, and they watched him go.
“He’s involved with Chloe.” Kenny set the puppy on the ground. “Heel,” he commanded with quiet authority.
“She has no idea what that means.” Joe rolled his eyes when Ashes plopped to her back on the wet concrete, waiting for someone to squat down and pat her belly. “They’re dating then?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Joe looked at the building and sighed. “They’re all connected.”
“And so are we.” Kenny smiled grimly when Joe closed his eyes at that. “Let’s finish this. Camille’s still inside.”
“She won’t thank you for this.”
“The job comes first,” Kenny said in a carefully even voice.
They stepped inside and stood by the door, not wanting to get anything wet. Kenny passed the puppy to Joe. “Your turn.”
Camille came out of the back and gasped. “A puppy!”
“A wet puppy,” Kenny warned as she scooped Ashes close.
“Oh, she’s adorable.” She lifted her smiling eyes. “You’re wet too. You’re all going to get sick.” She ushered them to the back and went directly to the teapot in the sink. “Let me make some hot tea.”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” Kenny said gently. “Why don’t you come sit down, Camille.”
“Oh. Okay.” She put Ashes down.
The puppy skidded her way toward Joe. He looked her right in the soft chocolate eyes and said, “Stay.”
Ashes set her butt to the floor, wriggled and panted, and shockers of all shockers, stayed.
Camille came close, sat in the chair Kenny pulled out for her and folded her hands. “You’ve found something.” She divided a gaze between them. “Tell me.”
“The accelerant in the bathroom of the store proved to be the same mix of gasoline found at the warehouse fire,” Kenny said.
Her eyes went wide. “But—Oh my God.”
“And you’re still certain gasoline isn’t something any of you would use?” Joe asked.
“I’m sure.”
“Do you or any of your employees smoke?” Joe asked.
She paused. “Is that relevant?”
They’d found two cigarette butts now. They were being tested for DNA, which wouldn’t help them unless they matched in their database with a convicted criminal. But both butts were the same brand, smoked down to the same length, and couldn’t be discounted.
Nothing when it came to this fire would be discounted, not now.
“It could be relevant, yes,” Kenny said.
“Well, no one smokes in the store, of course.”
“But what about outside? Anyone?”
For the first time, she looked away. Down at her clean, neat fingernails.
“Camille?” Kenny said.
“I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head.”
“Do any of your nieces smoke? Or your sister?”
“Oh, you know kids. They’re bound to try stupid things.”
Over her head, Joe exchanged a look with Kenny. She was holding back. Camille, holding back. He couldn’t believe it. “What made you call Summer on her cell phone the night of the fire?”
“I…she’s my daughter. We call.”
“But you don’t,” Kenny said very quietly. “You don’t call her.”
“I don’t want to bother her. But that night…she was leaving the next day. I wanted—I thought maybe—” She covered her mouth with a shaking hand.
“You thought what, Mom?”
Everyone turned in unison to see Summer standing in the doorway. Ashes, at the end of her restraint, leapt to her feet and bounded over to her.
Summer bent and scooped her up. She wore one of her long, loose, sleeveless sundresses with a tank top beneath, both in the color of a California poppy, which showed off bronzed, toned limbs and all that shiny fiery hair. Joe imagined he could smell her, some complicated mix of spring flowers and sexy woman. On her face there was a somber, unreadable expression, though her eyes lighted right on Joe’s. “Sorry,” she said, petting the puppy. “I’m eavesdropping.”
“I called to see if you were busy,” Camille said, tears in her voice. “On your last night in town.”
“I’d’ve liked to see you.” Summer came into the room. “I’d been feeling alone.”
The statement sliced right through Joe. He hadn’t gone to her that night out of self-protection, but he should have thought about her being alone, feeling as if she had no one to turn to, no reason to stick around. Some friend he’d made.
“So you’ve connected the two fires.” She sat heavily. “Which means, of course, you’ll be looking at that first fire again. And the one where my dad died.”
Camille gasped, and when everyone looked at her, she swallowed hard. “I hadn’t thought—Oh my God.”
Summer leveled Joe with those deep jade eyes. “Am I right?”
“Yes,” Joe said, sorrow filling him at the pain this was going to cause all of them. “You’re rig
ht.”
Camille abruptly pushed up from the chair and walked out of the room without looking back.
Summer sighed and got to her feet as well but Kenny stepped in front of her. “Let me,” he murmured.
“Do you think she’ll talk to you?”
“I do, yes.”
“She’s even more stressed than I imagined,” Summer said when Kenny was gone, staring at the door. She set Ashes down and hugged herself in a gesture Joe wasn’t even sure she realized she made.
Socks appeared in the doorway and glared at the specimen of puppy.
Ashes let out one hopeful, excited bark.
“Ashes, sit. Stay,” Joe said firmly. “Stay.”
Ashes didn’t sit but she did stay, her entire body quivering with the effort to hold herself back. One small whine escaped her.
“Stay,” Joe said again softly.
Socks, not being under any orders but her own, walked into the room and right past Ashes.
Ashes barked again, and leaned in and licked Socks’s face. That proved too much for the cat, who hissed, which invited Ashes to bound after her.
Socks leapt over the backs of two chairs, jumped onto the table and off again in a single graceful bound. Ashes became a frantically barking mass of excitement, chasing the cat around the table in circles. They both vanished beneath the table, from which emerged more wild barking and ferocious growling.
“Goddamnit.” Joe dove beneath the table, snagged the puppy, and came face to face with Summer, who’d dived under the table from the other side to grab Socks.
“Your puppy is short on manners,” Summer said with a smile.
“You’re telling me?” The puppy licked Joe’s chin. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Keep her, of course.” Summer was close enough that if they hadn’t had the puppy and the pissed off cat between them, he might have been able to lean in and do something stupid.
Ashes did it for him. She craned her neck and licked Socks again. Socks retaliated by lifting a paw and bitchslapping the puppy across the face. Ashes yelped and Joe jumped, cracking his head hard on the underside of the table.
He swore at the cat, at the puppy, at Summer who was laughing at him as he backed out from beneath the table. He sat right on the floor while the stars cleared from his vision. “I’m beginning to see why that dog was at the pound.”
