Gold Fire

by Starr Ambrose

  It didn’t make her innocent. “You couldn’t know I wasn’t there. My truck was still at the repair shop.” He knew that hadn’t mattered, that Jennifer had told her he was gone, but he wanted to hear Zoe’s version. The time line mattered.

  “I didn’t need to see your truck.” She looked disgusted, as if he should have known this. “Your bartender was taking out trash when I pulled in, and came over to the car. She told me you’d gone fishing and she didn’t know when you’d be back, so I left.”

  “That’s it? That was the whole conversation?”

  “Of course not,” she said crossly. “I left out the hi, how are you stuff, nice weather, and that’s a cute blouse, where’d you get it and when is the sale over, and have a nice day. Stuff like that.” It was clear his stupidity tried her patience. “Sorry, I didn’t think you cared about the sale at Marlene’s Boutique.”

  But he did. It meant the conversation had taken longer than Jennifer said. “How long did you talk to her?”

  “I don’t know, a few minutes. What difference does it make?”

  Even though she’d been visibly shaken by his accusation, this didn’t seem like a bluff. Her big brown eyes hadn’t once broken contact with his. A sliver of doubt crept into his mind. “You talked for several minutes?”

  “What’s the matter, doesn’t that show on your security tape?”

  “No.” But it might explain the amount of time it took for her car to leave.

  “Well, I’m not lying. Ask Jennifer.”

  He had, but he’d ask again. Maybe Jennifer had underestimated the time. Or maybe Zoe was lying to save her skin. If it came down to believing one or the other, there was no contest. Jennifer had been his best friend’s wife. He’d known her for ten years, employed her for eight. She had nothing to gain by lying.

  Zoe did. In addition to wanting to keep her job, she’d just been threatened with prison. He hadn’t been kidding.

  He placed his hands on the arms of her chair, leaning in close enough to catch the flowery scent of her hair. She pushed back, stiff and wary, with no place to go as a blush rose to her neck.

  “I’ll check with Jennifer.” He ground out each word through clenched jaws. “If I find out you’re lying, that security video goes straight to the cops. And if you did lie, you’d better alert your boyfriend, because you’ll be under arrest before your shift is over.”

  She tightened her mouth, her eyes locked with his in a hard stare. “I’m not lying.”

  If she was, she was damn good at it. The spark in her eyes looked more like hate than fear, a silent message that he’d pushed her as far as she would allow. Anger hovered between them, hot and palpable.

  So did something else. It snapped and crackled like the fire that had devoured the shed, heating the space between them. Pulling him closer. For several long seconds he hung captive, memorizing the gold flecks in her eyes, the dusting of freckles across her cheekbones, the curve of her lips. His gaze lingered as her lips parted slightly, the full pink swell of them drawing him closer . . .

  Jase jerked backward, releasing her chair as if he’d been burned. Jesus, had he really been thinking about kissing her? The woman who’d probably set his saloon on fire? He needed to get out of here before his warped judgment led him to act on any more dangerous impulses, like unpinning that hair. He didn’t even like red hair. There was just something about the texture and the blond highlights that made him want to run his fingers through it.

  Without another word, he turned his back and left. Let her wonder what in the hell was wrong with him. He wondered, too.

  • • •

  Zoe stared at the open doorway, dazed, until she finally realized the desk phone was ringing. Without looking, she picked it up. “Zoe.”

  “You didn’t call me back.” Maggie’s accusation snapped her fully into the present. “You can’t ask about love and some hypothetical guy, then abruptly hang up. Unless that was Mr. Hypothetical you left me for?”

  She sighed. “I knew you’d jump to conclusions. And no, that was the guy who intends to charge me with arson.”

  “Arson! What the hell?”

  “There was a fire today at the Rusty Wire, and the owner thinks I set it.”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  It was nice to have someone jump to her defense without question, but the truth was, the charge wasn’t so ridiculous. Jase’s security video could go a long way toward proving her guilty, something she didn’t want to think about right now. “You’re right. Forget him. He’s not the one I was thinking of when I called you.”

  Maggie harrumphed again over the arson charge, but apparently couldn’t ignore her curiosity about Zoe’s possible love life. “Okay, so ask me about falling in love with this other guy.”

  The topic had lost its appeal, but Maggie wouldn’t be put off. Zoe sighed as she paused to gather her spinning thoughts. “First, let’s be clear—there’s nothing going on. He hasn’t even kissed me. We’ve danced together, that’s it. But he’s so . . . I mean, it’s possible he might . . .”

  “He has potential?”

  “Yes,” she said, relieved. “At least, I think he does.” She hesitated, then decided to go with the truth. “Frankly, he seems like the perfect guy.”

  “Mmm,” Maggie hummed appreciatively. “Good start.”

  “I know. He meets all the qualifications on the list, so I wondered if that was how you knew Cal was the right one for you, because he fit into your life so easily.”

  “Whoa, back up. Qualifications? I know you like your life to be organized, but you don’t actually have a list, do you?”

  “Well, not on paper.” At least, not as long as she didn’t print out the Word document on her computer.

  “Zoe! Love doesn’t come with a checklist!”

  “I know that.” No one understood her compulsion for organization. “But at some point you had to realize that Cal was the right man for you, and that you belonged together.”

  “Well, sure . . .”

  “How did you know that? Was it because he matched every important quality you ever wanted in a man? Like the two of you seemed to just . . . fit?”

  Maggie’s laugh verged on hysteria. “Are you kidding? Cal didn’t match anything I thought I wanted in a partner.”

  Zoe sighed in frustration. This was hard to put into words, and Maggie wasn’t making it any easier. She never should have brought it up in the first place, but it was too late to back out now. “Look, I know it was rocky for you guys at first, but after that mess with the tabloids was over, when it came down to just the two of you, did it seem like things fell into place? As if you suddenly realized Cal was the one you’d been looking for?”

  Maggie choked back another laugh. “Zoe, nothing fell into place. Cal lived and worked in another state. He had a messed-up family life, a lot of old baggage from a previous marriage, and a teenage sister who came along as part of a package deal. One who clashed with him on every issue, I might add. None of that would have been on my man-I-want-to-marry list.”

  She must not be saying it right. “But you must have known you shared the same values and priorities.”

  “Well, sure.”

  “See? That’s what I’m talking about. That kind of list.”

  “That’s not enough.”

  Her sister’s flat statement slapped her satisfied smile into a scowl. “Why not?”

  “Because it doesn’t help when you hit the rough patches, and every couple does sooner or later. Shared priorities are too easy to walk away from. You need tingles to make it work.”

  Zoe took a second to frown at the phone. “You want to be more specific?”

  “Tingles. You know, that funny feeling you get every time you’re together. Like . . .” Maggie searched for the right words. “Like a fluttery feeling in your chest when he touches you. Or a rush to your head when he whispers in your ear. Or a disoriented feeling when he walks into the room, like the world just mo
ved under your feet.”

  Zoe relaxed. Maggie was getting ahead of things. “I told you, he hasn’t even kissed me. We’re a long way from feeling the earth move.”

  “No you aren’t,” Maggie said. Zoe wished she would stop making annoying presumptions. “I’m talking about something that happens right from the beginning. Maybe right from the moment you see him. I’m not sure about that because I was pretty pissed off the first time I saw Cal, but certainly from the moment you start having rational conversations.”

  Zoe frowned. She’d had a few rational conversations with Matt, but couldn’t recall any tingling.

  “Are you sure this happens to everyone?”

  “No,” Maggie admitted. “But you asked about me. Let’s say the two of you are talking, and you notice how nice-looking he is. Or smart.”

  Now, that she could relate to.

  “It’s more than that,” Maggie continued, squashing her hopes. “You also notice little details that you don’t see in other people—the way his lips curve when he smiles, a tiny scar on his chin, the way he smells. It’s like your senses can’t get enough of this guy, and they register everything. And your body goes on overload, and your skin prickles all over, and you feel all squirmy inside.” She sighed happily. “You know what I mean?”

  Zoe blinked without seeing. “Maybe.” Oh, yes. She’d felt exactly like that not ten minutes ago. But there was obviously another reason for it. Didn’t they say hate was the emotion most similar to love? Apparently hating someone caused the same sensory overload. And it was getting in the way of her plans for love.

  Maybe she should do something about it, something that would let her move past her annoying interest in Jase so she could concentrate on Matt. No half measures, either; total immersion was the only way, until all the tingles were gone.

  She reached for the mouse pad as she thought, opening the document titled LIFE PLAN. Scanning the to-do list, she idly typed in Jase Garrett, then hesitated, reluctant to write the words that burned in her mind. Chickening out, she put in a question mark.

  “I hope that helps,” Maggie said. Hinting for more.

  “Yes, thanks,” Zoe told her, jerking back to the present. It hadn’t helped at all. Obviously love was different for different people. With tingles or without, Jase Garrett didn’t trust her farther than a fish could fly, and intended to have her arrested. Matt Flemming had truly admirable qualities, and was attracted to her. It wasn’t even a contest.

  She could forgo tingles.

  • • •

  Jase drove directly from the Alpine Sky to Jennifer’s house, but she wasn’t home. It looked like Zoe would get a day’s reprieve before he confirmed that she’d been alone in the parking lot for several minutes. He felt strangely relieved, which just pissed him off. He shouldn’t hesitate to turn in a criminal, especially one whose acts could easily have included murder. His libido wasn’t a reliable indicator of good character.

  Maybe he just needed to get laid. He hadn’t had sex since his brief fling with Carla, which had been . . . shit, way too long ago. As soon as the saloon opened again, he’d start paying closer attention to the customers. Surely there were plenty of attractive women who were both sexy and free of criminal tendencies.

  It was as good a reason as any to get moving on the repairs.

  • • •

  Jennifer and Russ showed up at the Rusty Wire the following morning to help assess damage and start the cleanup. Jase waited until Jennifer took a break to approach her, following her when she stepped outside the temporary door in the boarded-over back hallway.

  She stood with hands in her pockets, contemplating the blackened timbers that had once been Russ’s office. Half the room had been destroyed. The other half was scorched and water damaged, but standing. It would get ripped down later today when the reconstruction began.

  “Depressing, isn’t it?” Jase said, standing beside her.

  She wrinkled her nose. “It stinks.”

  He nodded; the acrid stench of wet ash made him want to sneeze. “The fire would have been a lot worse if you hadn’t discovered it so soon. Thanks, Jen. I owe you for that one.”

  She turned a contemplative gaze on him. For a moment he thought she was going to suggest a way to repay her, but she turned away. He could never tell what she was thinking. “Thank the fire department,” she said. “If they hadn’t been on their way back from a car fire, they might not have gotten here in time.”

  It was true; five more minutes and the old timbers of the main building would have gone up like matchsticks. They’d been lucky.

  “I wanted to ask you about something, Jen. Remember when you said you saw Zoe Larkin shortly before the fire?”

  “Yeah. I guess you saw her car on the security tape, huh?”

  He nodded. “She was here right when you said. You must have talked to her for a few minutes.”

  “Not really. I just answered her question, and went back inside.”

  The unexpected reply made him stop breathing. A cold feeling of dread slithered through his chest as he realized how much he’d wanted to believe Zoe. “Are you sure you didn’t talk to her longer than that, maybe chat about the weather or something?”

  “I know I didn’t. I didn’t see any reason to be friendly with someone who wants to tear down the Rusty Wire.” Jennifer slid a cautious look his way. “You mean she didn’t leave after I went inside?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, because he didn’t want to say she’d stayed in the parking lot alone for several minutes, doing who knew what.

  He didn’t have to say it. “She set the fire, didn’t she?” Jennifer asked.

  Shit. He didn’t want to think it, but her words buzzed like hornets in his ears, insisting he pay attention. If Jennifer was telling the truth, Zoe couldn’t have been talking to her the whole time she’d been out of view. He’d replayed the security video and noted how much time had elapsed between her car driving in and leaving—nearly six minutes. Plenty of time to talk about a sale at Marlene’s. Or to open the shed, douse some newspapers with gasoline, and strike a match.

  If it hadn’t been her, then someone had used a different approach. “Someone could have sneaked in from the woods without being seen,” he theorized aloud.

  Jennifer looked doubtful. “Who?”

  Anyone. Just so he didn’t have to feel this gut-twisting resignation that said Zoe had committed arson.

  “They’d get pretty scratched up that way,” Jennifer mused. “And they’d have to leave their car on the road where everyone could see it while they hiked in and out. If it was me, I’d just drive right in. Like Zoe did.”

  “If she did it.” He didn’t like hearing it stated as a certainty.

  Jennifer sighed with obvious impatience. “What’s that thing Russ always says about a razor?”

  Hell. “Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation is usually the right one.” He frowned in annoyance, and not just at her conclusion. It hadn’t taken Jennifer long to accept the idea that Zoe had started the fire. “You don’t like her much, do you?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know her. That makes it easy to be objective.”

  Implying that he wasn’t? “I’m objective,” he said, annoyed.

  Jennifer broke off a piece of charred drywall, rolling it in her hand and avoiding his gaze. “You seem distracted around her. Maybe she’s hitting on you.”

  He snorted. “Trust me, she’s not.”

  “She came here to see you, didn’t she?”

  “She’s trying to persuade me to sell.”

  “Maybe she’s doing that by pretending to be attracted to you.”

  “She hates me, no pretending about it.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then tossed the fragment of drywall into the soggy ashes. “I don’t know, Jase, I get a funny feeling from her. Like she’s up to something. Something secretive.”

  He got a funny feeling from her, too, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t the same one Jennifer got. �
��She’s up to something, but it’s no secret. She wants me to sell.”

  Jennifer tilted her head, watching him. “Or she just wants you, period.”

  Hot pressure settled in his groin at the thought of Zoe wanting him. He dismissed it with a touch of irritation. But this was a first—in all the years she’d worked for him, Jennifer never had a word to say about his love life. Admittedly, Zoe was pretty, and had a certain something that he found attractive—hell, nearly irresistible—but why Jennifer would care was beyond him. It wasn’t like . . .

  The thought that had sneaked into his brain tingled across his scalp, raising the fine hairs on his neck. He gave Jennifer a sidelong glance. Could she be jealous of Zoe?

  The idea made him so uncomfortable he turned away, looking at anything but her. Not Adam’s wife. Not the woman he’d known as a friend ever since Adam started dating her. The woman who’d been inconsolable at Adam’s death, and locked in a shell ever since. He knew how deeply she’d been hurt.

  With a small jolt he realized what he had no desire to acknowledge. If she were finally coming out of that self-imposed isolation, putting her wounded heart on the line, he would be the man most likely to understand her loss. The safest choice and the easiest to trust.

  Jase shuffled his feet nervously, kicking up unpleasant odors from the ash. It was possible in a sad, bittersweet way. Jennifer had never shown a hint of romantic interest in men since Adam’s death. She’d never shown any interest in Jase’s love life, either, never mentioning the women who had briefly become his lovers. Maybe that reserve had finally cracked, with her first, cautious feelings directed toward him.

  If so, he would have to be very careful. He cared very much about Jennifer, but not in a romantic way. He didn’t want to see her fragile feelings damaged. Fortunately, she didn’t have anything to worry about when it came to Zoe Larkin.

  “Whatever Zoe might have pretended to feel for me won’t matter after today. Not if I turn that video over to the police.”