A Marriage-Minded Man?

by Linda Turner

  But she hadn’t seen him since he’d told her he wouldn’t be seeing much of her anymore and she’d kissed him off. God, what had possessed her? She might as well have stamped it on her forehead that she cared. Not that that kiss or the way she felt had changed anything, she thought, pain squeezing her heart. Three days. It’d been three days since she’d seen that chiseled face of his, and she missed him. She hadn’t expected that. At the oddest times she found herself looking out the front window of the café for his car and listening for the sound of his footsteps on the back stairs to her apartment. But he hadn’t come and he wasn’t going to. Even when her grandparents died within six months of each other, she hadn’t felt this alone.

  She wouldn’t, however, cry. Because she was afraid that once she started, it might be a long time before she could stop. So when her eyes started to burn and tears clogged her throat, she turned over, punched her pillow and deliberately turned her thoughts to Saturday’s baking. She’d make something sweet to go along with the bread she usually donated to the local shelters. Maybe some double-chocolate-chip cookies.

  Lost in her thoughts, the sound of breaking glass in the living room was like an explosion. Startled, her heart jolting in her breast, she sprang up in bed, her eyes wide as she listened to a car tear off up the street. Had someone thrown a rock through the front window? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had a problem with some of the kids who lived in the projects on the south side of downtown, but they usually were content just to tag the Dumpster behind the café. They never actually broke anything.

  Frowning, she started to grab her robe, and then she heard it. A strange whoosh, like the burners in the oven of her commercial stove in the café when she lit them. At the thought her heart stopped dead.

  “No!”

  Fear choking her, she jumped from the bed and ran into the living room, only to gasp in horror at the sight of the flames racing up the curtains that hung at the front window. Smoke was already billowing into the room, thickening at an alarming rate, and as she watched, the braided rag rug on the floor, one her grandmother had made herself, ignited. Sobbing, Jennifer grabbed an afghan off the couch and ran forward to beat out the flame, never noticing the broken glass from the windowpane that cut into her bare feet as she swung the afghan again and again.

  Everything she owned, everything she had left of her family, was there in the apartment. Her grandmother’s favorite rocker, the trophy her grandfather had won at the state fair for his sourdough bread, keepsakes that had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, lose them!

  Abandoning the afghan, she ran into the kitchen and filled the largest bowl she could get her hands on with water, then sprinted back into the living room to throw it on the rug. Smoke engulfed her, burning her eyes and choking her. Coughing, tears streaming down her face, she ran back to the kitchen, this time with the afghan, and soaked it in the sink. When she dragged it back into the living room, the couch was on fire and the smoke was as thick as tar. Even as she watched through blurry eyes, the picture of her mother hanging on the wall went up in flames.

  “No, damn you! No!”

  Furious, she snatched it from the wall, uncaring that it burned her hands, and beat the flames out, while the fire snaked around her like a living thing. She had to get out. Now, while she still could, but first she had to save what she could. Grabbing the silver candlesticks that had been one of her grandparents’ wedding presents, the crackling of the fire loud in her ears, she never heard the pounding at the door that led to the outside stairs. Then an ax cut through it and with three mighty swings the door was reduced to nothing but kindling. Pushing it aside, a fireman in full protective gear stormed into the apartment like some kind of invader from outer space. Before she could do anything but gasp, he grabbed her around the waist and hauled her outside.

  It was the discordant blast of a firetruck’s horn as the vehicle ran a light at the corner that first woke Sam. Groaning, he fumbled for his pillow in the dark and slapped it over his head, but it didn’t help. The truck raced past the Lone Star Social Club at the speed of sound, its sirens screaming all the way down the block. Still lying in the same spot on the bed where he’d fallen an hour ago, Sam cursed in the darkness.

  God, he was tired. He’d been working like a madman, pushing himself to the limit, trying to forget the look in Jennifer’s eyes when he’d told her he wouldn’t be seeing her anymore, but so far, nothing had worked. She’d looked at him like he’d stabbed her in the heart, and all he’d been trying to do was protect her, dammit! She was too young for him, too innocent, too...otherworldly. She could see and hear things, which he had a hard time accepting, and that wasn’t ever going to change. For both their sakes it was better if they went their separate ways now, before somebody got hurt.

  But remembering the shattered look in her eyes, he knew he’d waited too long. Guilt ate at him, twisting in his gut like a snake. He’d checked out her background; he’d known there were no men in her life. She was a virgin—he knew it as surely as he knew she lit a fire in him the way no other woman ever had. She hadn’t had a clue how to protect herself from him, and he’d kissed her, anyway. Held her, anyway. Wanted her and made her want him. And now she was hurting because of him, and it sickened him.

  Another fire truck roared by outside, forcing its way into his thoughts. Frowning, he lifted his head abruptly, listening. A two-alarm. And it was close. For the first time he noticed that the truck had hardly turned the corner when it cut its siren. Rolling out of bed, he walked naked to the window in the dark and stared out across the river.

  He couldn’t see any flames, but the smoke was thick and gray and already climbing high into the night sky. And it appeared to be right over Jennifer’s café and apartment.

  For one frozen moment in time he just stood there staring blankly. Then it hit him, and with a hoarse cry he whirled and snatched up his clothes. Thirty seconds later, when he bolted out of his apartment and down the central stairs of the Lone Star, he had on his jeans and a pair of house shoes that kept slipping off his bare feet. Swearing, he kicked them off and sprinted barefoot through the back door and gardens. By the time he reached the wrought-iron gate that separated the grounds of the Lone Star from the rest of the River Walk, he was running flat out and daring anything to get in his way. Without bothering to check his speed, he vaulted the gate and kept on running.

  “Oh, God! Oh, God!” The words fell from his lips like a chant, echoing the rhythm of his pounding heart as he raced over the first bridge he came to, then took the stairs that led to street level. Over the roar of the blood in his ears, he heard another siren and nearly stumbled. An ambulance. Someone had called for an ambulance.

  No, dammit! She couldn’t be hurt. He wouldn’t allow it!

  Dread like a fist in his throat, his lungs straining, he saw the ambulance whiz past, its lights spinning, just as he reached West Commerce. And for the first time he got a good look at the small two-story building that housed Heavenly Scents and Jennifer’s small upstairs apartment. What he saw turned his blood to ice. Surrounded by emergency vehicles, smoke pouring from its upper windows, it looked as though it had been firebombed. And there was no sign of Jennifer anywhere.

  His mind numb, his legs moving like he was running in mud, he searched frantically for her in the crowd. There were firefighters everywhere, their hoses crisscrossing the street as they hosed the building down, and cops already erecting barriers to keep the curious back. A TV-news crew had arrived, and he thought he caught a glimpse of Jonathan Lake, but he didn’t spare the man a glance. His eyes searching the scene for one small golden-haired woman, he told himself she had to be there somewhere. The fire seemed to be upstairs at the front of the building—she would have been able to get out the back door and run down the stairs at the first hint of smoke. She couldn’t still be in there.

  Then, without warning, the sea of humanity blocking his path parted and there she was, not fifty
feet in front of him. Dressed in a gray flannel nightgown he suspected had been white earlier in the evening, her hair wet and dripping and her face streaked with black soot, she looked like a street urchin. A dirty, bedraggled, beautiful street urchin.

  His knees weak, his eyes stinging suspiciously, he saw nothing but her. He stepped over hoses and around firemen, heading straight for her. “Jennifer?”

  Locked in the hold of the burly fireman who’d pulled her from her apartment and was stubbornly trying to carry her out of the danger zone, she couldn’t hear anything but the grunts of her captor as she struggled to free herself. “Let me go, damn you!” she cried. “I’m all right. I just have to get my things!”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t let you do that. If you’d just calm down, you’d see—”

  “I am calm!”

  Her cry, high-pitched with hysteria, seemed to echo off the neigboring buildings, and then suddenly Sam was there, stepping out of the madness with a worried frown etching his rugged face. “Sam! Thank God you’re here!” Relieved, she tore herself free of the fireman and launched herself at him. “Make him get out of my way!” she pleaded frantically. “I have to get back inside. All my grandparents’ things are in there. Everything from my childhood. I can’t lose it. It’s all I have left of my family....”

  “She was trying to save stuff when I broke down the back door,” the fireman told Sam over her head. “There wasn’t any time to waste.”

  “I knew what I was doing,” she argued. “All I needed was five more minutes.” Her hands clutching at him, she said hoarsely, “My grandparents’ silver candlesticks are just inside the door. I dropped them when he grabbed me. Please, Sam, let me get them. That’s all I want. Please. Just that.”

  She was begging, and she didn’t care. She couldn’t just stand there and watch everything she owned go up in flames. Panic pulling at her, she searched his face in growing desperation, sure he would help her. But then his arms tightened around her and the regret she saw in his eyes broke her heart. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said thickly. “It’s just too risky. Your life’s worth more than a pair of silver candlesticks.”

  The fireman, relieved that she was no longer his problem, turned to rejoin the fight against the fire, then glanced back over his shoulder. “The lady should be checked out by one of the paramedics. She doesn’t appear to be suffering from smoke inhalation, but she was beating at the flames when I found her. In all the excitement, she could be burned and not even know it.”

  “I’m fine,” Jennifer protested, but Sam had already grabbed her hands. When he turned them over and spit out a curse, she said, “What? What is it? I’m telling you, Sam, there’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “The hell there isn’t! Look!”

  Feeling perfectly fine, she glanced down curiously at her palms—and sucked in a swift sharp breath. The skin was red and raw, blistered from her fingertips nearly to her wrists. “No,” she murmured. “How could they be burned? They don’t even hurt.”

  “You’re in shock, honey,” he told her gently, and swept her up into his arms. “Just hang on and the paramedics will have you feeling better in no time.”

  With long, sure strides, he carried her to the ambulance, then hovered protectively close while the paramedics worked over her. Numb, wrapped in a blanket as she lay back on a stretcher, she didn’t so much as flicker an eyelash when the cuts on her bare feet were discovered and Sam swore like a sailor. She should be hurting big time just about now. Somewhere in the hidden recesses of her brain, she knew that, but as she dazedly watched the firefighters put out the last of the fire and shoot what seemed like millions of gallons of water into her apartment and café, she couldn’t feel anything. Gone. It was all gone.

  She was too pale, too still, too damn calm, Sam thought worriedly. She’d just watched everything she owned and loved go up like a bonfire, and she was entitled to scream and rage about it. But once she’d realized she wasn’t going to save so much as a candlestick, all the fight just seemed to drain out of her. She just lay there on the stretcher, wrapped from her feet to her neck in a blanket, and stared at the water-logged smoking building, not an ounce of emotion in her green eyes.

  Frustrated, feeling as if he could chew glass, Sam wanted to shake her until her eyes lost their glazed expression, then carry her off to a place where nothing and no one could ever hurt her again. But she couldn’t leave. Not until they knew the fire was out completely and what had caused it. Standing around with his hands in his pockets had never been easy, however, especially when Jennifer seemed to draw more and more into herself. All he could do was take her to one of the patrol cars and let her sit there, out of the cold, while the firemen went over the building with a fine-tooth comb looking for the cause of the blaze. And all the while, she just sat in the back of the patrol car, hugging herself and staring off into space.

  When the fire inspector approached them fifteen minutes later, Sam lifted a brow in surprise. He’d expected them to have to wait at least another hour or two. “That was fast,” he told the inspector. “What. was it? A loose wire or something? This old building looks like it hasn’t been rewired in years. It’s a wonder it didn’t go up a long time ago.”

  His face grim, the older man shook his head. “No, sir, it wasn’t the wiring. Someone threw a Molotov cocktail through the front window. If Ms. Hart hadn’t taken steps to contain the fire until we got here, the whole place would have burned to the ground.”

  Chapter 8

  Encased in numbness, Jennifer stared at Sam blankly, trying to understand why he was suddenly cursing furiously and the fire inspector looked so somber. But her brain was mush, and the traumatic events of the evening were starting to catch up with her. A hammer pounded in her head and she was so tired all she wanted to do was lie down and close her eyes. But both men were waiting for some kind of response from her, and she didn’t for the life of her know what it was. Swallowing thickly, she said in a voice made raspy by too much smoke, “I don’t understand. Was someone trying to hurt me?”

  “We don’t know, sweetheart,” Sam said gently, his eyes hard, “but I’m going to find out. You stay here while I call for an evidence team, then I’ll be back to take you home.”

  He strode off into the night, disappearing from view before she could remind him that her home was the charred mess on the corner. Staring at the blackened ruin, she knew on some level of her consciousness that she should be worried. She had nothing but the clothes on her back, not even a pair of shoes, and nowhere to go for the rest of the night. But she couldn’t drag up the strength to be concerned.

  Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back against the headrest, and just that easily time lost all meaning. When Sam finally returned and slipped into the back seat of the patrol car with her, she couldn’t have said if two minutes had passed or sixty. Just opening her eyes was a struggle.

  “The evidence team is on its way,” he told her as a uniformed officer climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. “I’ll come back later and see what they found out, but right now, Officer Stevens is going to drive us to my place. You’re staying with me tonight.”

  He didn’t ask, he told her what she was going to do, and she didn’t offer a word of protest. That alone was enough to deepen the concern in his eyes as he slipped his arm around her shoulders and eased her against him, but she never noticed. Sighing, losing the fight to keep her eyes open, she melted against him trustingly and sank back into oblivion.

  She would have been content to stay that way the rest of the night, but all too soon, Officer Stevens was braking to a stop. Jennifer stirred, then frowned bleary-eyed at the familiar lines of the Lone Star Social Club. She’d never been inside the old Victorian mansion, but she’d fallen in love with it the first time she’d laid eyes on it and made a point to walk past it whenever she visited the River Walk.

  Still groggy, she glanced at Sam. “What are we doing here?”

  “I live here,” he said with
a smile. “Second floor at the back on the right.” Pushing open the car door on his side, he came around, opened hers for her and held out his hand. “C’mon. You need to get inside and change into something dry.”

  That sounded heavenly, but when she looked past him to the ten or more steps that led to the porch, she hesitated. Her feet had started to throb, and even though they were bandaged, she didn’t see how she could even think about climbing stairs. “Uh...we’ve got a problem,” she murmured.

  “What? The stairs? You won’t feel a thing,” he promised, and in one smooth motion, he leaned down and plucked her from the patrol car as if she weighed no more than a feather.

  Gasping, she clutched at him, but his arms were rock steady, his stride sure as he thanked the young rookie for the ride, then started up the steps, the blanket that still covered her trailing behind them on the walkway. In the time it took to blink, they’d reached the front door.

  “Can you punch in the security code, honey?” he growled softly. “It’s 6-5-8-1.”

  Her fingers were far from steady, but when he turned so she could reach the keypad, she managed to hit the right numbers. The lock clicked open, and he quietly shouldered the door open and stepped into the darkened front hall. Hushed silence surrounded them. Flipping on the light, he carefully started up the main staircase.

  At any other time she would have memorized every detail of the old house and asked him a dozen questions about it, but her brain still felt as if it was encased in smoke, and she couldn’t seem to think. Weary to the bone, she dropped her head to Sam’s shoulder and closed her eyes. At that moment he could have taken her to the moon for all the attention she paid to her surroundings. She was just too tired to care.

  His hands full of her, Sam felt the soft brush of a breast against his chest, the warmth of her breath against his neck as she sighed, and he clenched his teeth on a silent groan. She was hurt, he reminded himself grimly. And if not in shock, then damn close to it. She had to be or she’d have already remembered the last time they were together, when she had kissed him off. When tonight’s trauma faded and she was herself again, she wouldn’t be nearly so willing to accept his touch. He’d be lucky if she even spoke to him.