Burning Love

by Debra Cowan

  "Listen." Terra jerked her arm away from the woman's surprisingly strong grip. "I didn't know anything about that protective order until a couple of nights ago."

  But Harris's ex wasn't listening. Terra felt brittle inside, battered. She tried to realize that Cecily was in pain, just as she was, but she was in no mood for Cecily's accusations.

  "I still have friends."

  "What does that mean?" It sounded like a vague threat.

  "I can talk to Mayor Griffin. Do you think Harris's nephew will let you get away with treating me like this? I'm his widow and it doesn't matter how much you hate that fact. You can't change it. If you don't leave me alone, I'll make you sorry you started these lies."

  "I know you're having a horrid day, Cecily. This isn't easy for any of us."

  "Harris would never have left me if it hadn't been for you. His involvement with you got him killed. You might as well have set that fire yourself."

  Hurt and fury exploded through Terra, but before she could turn away, T. J. Coontz was there. The cameraman slipped between her and the other woman.

  "Ma'am," he said to Cecily. "May I please walk you to your car?"

  "Who are you?" She blinked at him, her voice indignant.

  Terra was a little surprised herself. Just then, a deep familiar voice chimed in over Terra's shoulder. "Mr. Coontz is right, Ms. Vaughn. Your family is waiting for you."

  Jack didn't even wait for Cecily to speak, just took her arm and escorted her over to where her brother and mother now looked on with concern.

  "Are you all right?" Worry darkened T.J.'s hazel eyes.

  "Yes." She patted his arm. "Thanks. I had no idea she was going to do that."

  "I saw her heading for you. She looked like trouble."

  Terra nodded, her gaze going over T.J.'s shoulder as she watched Jack firmly guiding Cecily toward a gray sedan.

  Dane Reynolds sauntered up, his smoothly pitched voice shrieking over Terra like nails on a chalkboard. "Was there about to be a catfight?"

  T.J. gave him a withering look.

  "Would you like to comment?" the reporter asked.

  "About what? That I was talking to Harris's ex-wife?" The wall she had managed to erect after finding Harris, the wall she'd needed so she could do her job, began to crumble.

  "You could make a statement."

  "Not one that's fit to be repeated on television."

  Robin and Meredith rushed up.

  "What happened, Terra?" Robin asked. "Are you okay?"

  She nodded, feeling a tremble start in her legs. She had to get away from here before she unraveled completely.

  Robin smiled at T.J. "Quick moves there."

  "I'm glad I could help."

  "Yes, thank you again, T.J.," Terra said. "Thank you so much."

  "You're welcome." The cameraman paused for a moment then said shyly, "I'm sorry for your loss, Investigator. I know Mr. Vaughn was a friend of yours."

  "Yeah, rough day," Reynolds added, eyeing her with a probing curiosity.

  Why was he looking at her that way? To see if she was in pain? Tears burned the back of her throat. She reached out and squeezed T.J.'s hand with another thank-you before he walked away with the reporter.

  Meredith looked hard into her eyes. "You're not in shock. You need a drink."

  Robin jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "I'm going to talk to that witch, Cecily."

  "No." Terra grabbed Robin's hand, then Meredith's. The self-protective fog that had enveloped her since arriving at the funeral was swept away on a sharp jab of pain and grief. She'd been trained to work around her emotions, but the funeral, combined with Cecily's verbal bullying, took its toll. "Just get me out of here. Now."

  Meredith slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Let's go."

  The three of them walked back toward the chapel and across the paved drive to Terra's Explorer. Panic nibbled at her. She felt fragile and empty and on the verge of breaking down. Her two friends were the only reason she didn't dissolve into a useless puddle.

  * * *

  Wondering what the hell Cecily Vaughn had said to Terra, Jack impatiently stuffed the woman into her brother's car with a terse warning that he'd be by to talk to her later. He tried to shrug off the wish that he'd gotten to Terra before the cameraman had.

  He stepped back onto the grass, intent on getting to her now and making sure she was all right, but as his gaze shot to the place where she'd been standing, he saw she was gone. He scanned the perimeter of the cemetery. No sign of her.

  Glancing around, he noted the news van carrying Reynolds and Coontz as it drove off slowly behind the other two local news channel vans. White limousines carrying the family pulled away from the chapel and down the black-topped drive. Terra's red Explorer was absent. She was most likely with her friends. She'd be fine.

  He believed that, but it didn't squelch the disappointment that he'd missed her. Or the growing sense of urgency he felt to check on her himself. A misplaced need if ever there'd been one.

  After the heated interest in her eyes that night at the gym, he'd told himself to forget her, told himself to think only about doing his job, but the case wasn't what he was thinking about. It was the stark pain in Terra's green eyes when he'd hustled Cecily away.

  The glint of self-satisfaction Jack had caught in Ms. Vaughn's eyes a few minutes ago had been too blatant for him to believe nothing explosive had gone on between the two women. He needed to focus on other things, but until he saw Terra, he knew he wouldn't. She'd shot out of here like a spooked rabbit. Even knowing he might not be welcome, he had to know she was okay.

  It wasn't so long ago that he'd experienced a suffocating sense of aloneness, the rippling shock of grief that grew until it froze out every other emotion. Those emotions had swamped him after the death of his wife. If the bleak grief he'd recognized in Terra's eyes earlier was any indication, she was feeling the same. And she'd been given the added bonus of dealing with Harris's ex.

  The desperate, almost defiant look he'd seen in her eyes told him Terra was struggling to keep her emotions under tight leash. He could talk to her tomorrow, let her know that he'd received word the fire scene videotape was ready to view. Jack told himself she needed time alone, but that nagging urgency pushed at him to call and check on her. When she didn't answer her cell phone, he said the hell with it and called dispatch for Robin Daly's cell phone number.

  The policewoman acted surprised to hear from him, but politely told him that Terra was no longer with her. She had gone to a small gathering in Harris's honor. If Jack couldn't reach Terra on her cell phone, she was at Hotshots with the other firefighters.

  He didn't know what Cecily Vaughn had said to her, but Jack did know the aching loss, the look of trapped desperation he'd seen in Terra's eyes. He'd felt it himself the day of his wife's funeral, trying to hold it together for everyone else. He could just imagine the hell it would've been if he'd had to investigate Lori's death as Terra was having to do for her close friend.

  He drove north from the cemetery, then turned east onto Tenth Street. He'd told himself at the service that he should be concerned with everyone but Terra. Yet she was the one his gaze kept finding, the one he kept wondering about. He'd watched both Cecily and Reynolds during the funeral service, and hadn't really noticed anything suspicious unless you counted the way Reynolds ogled Terra during the whole thing. For that, Jack wanted to haul the guy off and stuff him in the trunk of his unmarked police cruiser.

  He rolled his shoulders. The service must've affected him more than he'd realized. His emotions were seesawing all over the place, and most of them were about Terra August.

  Besides Reynolds's avid interest in Terra, the reporter's behavior had been insignificant. The only conclusion to be drawn from the reporter's presence at the funeral service was that he'd been assigned to cover the passing of a prominent city servant, the same conclusion Jack could draw about the other reporters in attendance.

  As for Cecily, Jack couldn't dismiss
her inaudible exchange with Terra. By the pain he'd recognized in Terra's green eyes and the tautness of her body, he'd bet his Oklahoma University football season tickets that Cecily hadn't been offering sympathy.

  Still sunny and mild, it was after three-thirty when Jack arrived at Hotshots. Trucks and cars packed the bar's parking lot. He spotted Terra's SUV next to a light pole and parked a few spaces down the row in the nearest spot. The flat-roofed brick building with red-trimmed eaves sat between a wooded lot and a self-serve carwash. Twin oversize hydrants flanked a short sidewalk leading up to a covered patio.

  A red neon sign flashed Hotshots over the double front doors. He stepped inside to a haze of cigarette smoke and the cracking of pool balls.

  The old brick building had once housed a paint company warehouse. Retired firefighter Dean Schulze had converted it and now ran the place. As far as bars went, the police made few calls here, so Jack figured Schulze was doing something right.

  A doorway separated the rectangular entry from the bar area. A collection of miniature fire engines lined a built-in shelf which ran high along the top of all four walls. Well-used firefighter's gear, including a scarred helmet and turnout coat bearing Schulze's name, hung on the wall next to the door. A pair of black rubber boots sat underneath in mock preparation for a fire call. The well-waxed bar, trimmed in brass with a matching foot rail and fitted with black leather stools, looked as if it measured at least thirty feet. Liquor bottles and glasses sparkled in the mirrored wall behind the counter.

  Jack stepped aside to make room for a couple coming arm-in-arm through the door behind him. His gaze scanned the haze of smoke, roaming over circular tables for four, booths, a grizzly-bear-size stuffed Dalmatian in the corner. He noticed scrawls on the rough wall and upon closer inspection saw that firefighters from each station house in town had signed their names.

  Finally Jack spotted a glint of red-gold hair in the far corner and headed that way. Upon confirming it was Terra, some of the urgency inside him eased. She stood next to the wall, surrounded by a group of about twenty firefighters—men and women. He recognized some of the faces from the funeral. As he made his way through the crowd toward her, he saw a big picture of Harris Vaughn, whom he recognized from photos at the funeral service, propped up on the table to her left.

  Vaughn hadn't been a handsome man, but his brown eyes were kind and mischievous, as if he always had a joke to tell. Jack watched Terra closely. She hadn't seen him yet. If it hadn't been for the way she white-knuckled the drink in her hand, he would've thought she was all right. As it was, she looked as if she might be on her last nerve. The whole day of Lori's funeral, Jack sure had been.

  "You go first, Ace." A male voice called out and Terra nodded.

  Ace? Jack would have to ask her about the nickname. Standing in the back of the crowd, he watched Terra and listened with only half an ear to a joke about a little girl who'd tied her fire wagon to a cat's testicles so she'd have a siren.

  Everyone laughed, but Jack's attention centered on the tightness of Terra's mouth, the strain around her eyes that belied the smile she gave at the end of the joke. Someone elbowed him in the ribs and he turned sharply as a guy built like a bulldog jostled his way through the crowd.

  Even if the man hadn't been carrying a full beer in one hand and a near-empty one in the other, Jack would've known he was drunk. He didn't slur his speech, but his gaze was unfocused and he teetered with each step.

  "I've got one." A red-haired fireman stepped to the front of the circle.

  "Go, Ferguson," someone in the crowd yelled.

  "A fireman came home from work one day and told his wife, 'You know, we have a wonderful system at the fire station. Bell One rings and we all put on our jackets. Bell Two rings and we all slide down the pole. Bell Three rings and we're on the fire truck ready to go. From now on when I say 'Bell One,' I want you to strip naked. When I say 'Bell Two,' I want you to jump in bed. And when I say 'Bell Three,' we're going to make love all night.'"

  Some in the audience snickered. Terra's mouth curved into a bare smile.

  "The next night, the fireman came home from work and yelled, 'Bell One!' The wife promptly took all her clothes off. When he yelled 'Bell Two!' the wife jumped into bed. When he yelled 'Bell Three!' they began making love.

  "After a few minutes, the wife yelled, 'Bell Four!' 'What the hell is Bell Four?' asked the husband? 'Roll out more hose,' she said. 'You're nowhere near the fire!'"

  Roars of laughter followed Ferguson's joke and Jack noted that even though Terra's smile widened, it was wobbly. He doubted she'd stay much longer. He'd say hello and ask how she was doing, then leave.

  The burly fireman who'd rammed into Jack a few minutes ago pushed his way to the front of the circle and glared over at Terra.

  "Don't start anything, LeBass." Ferguson reached out and clamped a hand on the bulldog's shoulder.

  "Shut up." LeBass shrugged off the man's hand and leaned toward Terra.

  There was enough malice in his voice that Jack took an involuntary step toward her.

  "Ya know, August, seems to me like it's taking you a long time to figure out who torched Harris. If I were the fire investigator, I'd already know. You might as well have torched him yourself for all the good you're doing."

  Even in the dim lighting, Jack saw Terra's face pale. He pressed his way between two men who were as tall as he was.

  "If you were worth anything as a fire cop, these serial arsons would already be solved and Harris would still be alive."

  "Hell, LeBass," said a man nearby.

  Her body rigid, Terra stared flatly at the red-faced fireman.

  Probably all of those in the intimate community of firefighters knew there was a serial arsonist out there. It wasn't LeBass's knowledge of the nonpublicized connections between the fires that had Jack's eyes narrowing. It was the hatred in his voice.

  "If I'd gotten that job instead of you," the man lashed out, "I would've already nailed this firebug."

  A heavy silence fell over the group.

  After a long, awkward moment, a petite, dark-haired woman stepped up. A firefighter, too? "Stick a sock in it, Don."

  "It's okay, Shelby." Terra's gaze didn't waver from LeBass.

  "Don't you have anything to say for yourself, August?" he taunted.

  She stared at him with no expression on her face, but Jack saw a slight tremor when she reached down to grip the edge of the table next to her.

  "What does the mayor say about how long it's taking you to find his uncle's killer?" LeBass yelled.

  "Shut the hell up, you idiot." Ferguson grabbed one of LeBass's arms. An older man Jack recognized from the Vaughn fire scene grabbed his other arm and together they hauled him through the crowd while he blustered more of the same.

  "Ignore him, Ace," someone advised. "He's drunk."

  "And an ass," someone else added.

  Terra nodded, her features composed. Coldly composed. Jack sensed she was tethering her emotions with everything she had left. He watched as she smiled emptily at those around her and calmly placed her still-full drink glass on the table. He tried to catch her eye, but she turned, wove her way through several people to a side exit, and disappeared.

  Throat tight, Jack followed. If Terra had indeed beat out Don LeBass for the fire investigator job, he could be setting the fires to make her look bad. The guy sure seemed to have enough hatred in him to do it. The fireman who so obviously resented Terra had put himself on Jack's suspect list; he'd be the next to check out.

  Jack found Terra outside at the far east corner of the building. She stood with her back to him, one shoulder braced against the brick wall. "Terra?"

  She jerked around, eyes wide. "What are you doing here?"

  "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you." He moved slowly, trying to show her he wouldn't crowd. "I didn't like how the Demented Widow cornered you earlier."

  "The Demented Widow? That's good." She gave a small laugh, brushing at her cheeks.

&nb
sp; Was she crying? She'd certainly taken her share of hits today, first with Cecily, then the firefighter inside. He eased closer. "Want to talk about it?"

  "Cecily made some threats, nothing physical. Just that she'd make me lose my job. She's mad that we've been asking questions about the V.P.O."

  "I meant, did you want to talk about Harris?" Jack asked quietly.

  Her eyes filled with tears and his heart clenched. She looked fragile and lost. But when she spoke, she jerked a thumb toward the bar and said dryly, "Don't you want to ask me about LeBass?"

  "Are you okay?"

  "Yes."

  "We can talk about him later."

  "Surely you have questions about Cecily."

  "I'm not all about work." He smiled into her eyes though what he wanted was to take her hand, touch her in some way.

  "I thought…shouldn't we talk about the case?" In the shade of the building, her eyes were dark and troubled.

  "I came to check on you. We can talk about whatever you want."

  Tears spilled onto her cheeks and she brushed at them angrily. "I can't believe Harris is gone. How can he be gone?"

  "I'm sorry."

  Her gaze, raw and vulnerable and lost, met his. The last of her composure slipped and she buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook violently.

  Jack wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him. He wasn't sure if he should. Hell, he wasn't sure of anything when he was near her.

  She stood stiffly in his embrace for a long moment, then her arms went around him, clutching at him as if he were the only thing holding her up. Hot tears burned through the shoulder of his suit jacket where her head rested.

  Sobs racked her body and he felt her tense up in an effort to stop them. "It's all right, sweetheart. You've been working nonstop on this case and haven't given yourself a break. Harris was your friend. It's okay to think of him that way."

  After Lori had died, Jack had reacted exactly the same way—throwing himself into work. Trying to remain professional.