FIREBRAND

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  Oh Lord, the things I get myself into, Darcy thought as she dropped the hose and began working the suds into Bear's shaggy brown hair. The scent of jasmine enveloped her—along with the stronger odor of skunk.

  Bear howled and tried to shake off the cold, slippery suds. Darcy grabbed a handful of fur, keeping him from bolting. At the same time Betsy drew her attention to a bright red four-wheel drive wagon pulling into the spot behind her car.

  Grantley County F.D. was painted in gold letters on the wagon's door. A man in a blue uniform was driving.

  "It's Uncle Mike!" Betsy cried, recognizing the car.

  "No, sweetie. Uncle Mike's dead, remember? In the fire at the opera house."

  "But that's his truck."

  "Yes, but it belongs to the new chief now."

  For an instant her fingers relaxed their grip, and Bear jerked away. The bedraggled pup shook himself mightily, dousing both girls and Darcy with suds before making a beeline toward the lane.

  "Grab him!" Darcy cried, but it was too late. "Bear! Come back here, you mutt!"

  It was automatic—the streaking dog, the frantic cry for help, a thousand hours of training and experience. Judd calculated the animal's path and speed, took a flying leap and tackled the wet beast squarely around the belly.

  Both went down in a soggy heap, sending dust flying in a red cloud. Barking furiously, the wet pup rolled, taking Judd with him until both were covered with mud and, Judd realized suddenly, a terrible stench.

  "Son of a bitch!"

  Judd had just finished describing the pup's bloodlines and was launching into a creative encapsulation of his own stupidity when a muffled giggle stopped him in midsentence.

  He looked up to find two identical redheaded little girls peering down at him with Darcy's vivid blue eyes. For an instant he couldn't seem to get any air into his lungs.

  It was one thing to know that the girl he used to love was a mother now. It was another to come face-to-face with the children another man had given her.

  "Hi," said the more solemn of the two. The other was giggling too hard to say anything at all.

  "Hi yourself," he said as he managed to get to his feet without letting go of the pup's collar.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Darcy approaching. The afternoon was a rare spring scorcher and she was dressed in ragged cutoffs and a sleeveless cotton shirt wet enough to reveal the contours of her figure in all the right places. She was also barefoot, and her toes were painted bright red.

  He felt the first sting of sexual excitement and promptly told himself to forget it. She might have kissed him on a public street, but there hadn't been a scrap of sexual invitation in that quick brush of her mouth.

  "Uh, does this brute belong to you?" he asked, directing his attention to the more talkative twin. He wasn't avoiding Darcy, he told himself. Merely buying some time to let his blood cool.

  "Uh-huh," the sprite answered, bobbing her head. "To me 'n my sister. I'm Betsy 'n this is Angelica, only we call her Angel, even if she doesn't act like one."

  "Neither do you," retorted Betsy's sister between giggles.

  Betsy gave her sister a shove, only to have Angel shove back. Jostled, the pup squirmed, and Judd tightened his hold.

  "Tangled with a skunk, did he?" he said, playing peacemaker.

  "Uh-huh," Betsy replied.

  "It's the second time in three weeks—" Angel jumped in, only to be interrupted by her obviously persistent sibling.

  "And Mommy threatened to lock him in the shed if he did it again, so we were trying to give him a bath before she could find out, only she caught us."

  "Like always," Angel said with a disgusted look at her sister's soaked shirt.

  "Well, it's your fault for getting water in his eyes and making him howl," Betsy said, reading her sister's mind.

  "You were supposed to be watching so he didn't go into the canyon in the first place, and that's how come he's all icky now."

  Identical chins angled belligerently, and the two girls looked ready to square off again, spurring Judd to jump in with a quick change of subject. "So what's his name?"

  "Bear," Betsy confided earnestly, "'cause Mommy said he looks like one. Me 'n Angel think so, too, don't you?"

  "At the moment it's kinda hard to tell. Because he's so, er, icky."

  "Now you're all icky, too," Angel pointed out, wrinkling a small freckled nose remarkably like her mother's.

  Judd sniffed the air and had to agree. A week on the job and already his dignity was badly dented. Some great start he was making. The twins, however, didn't seem to care about his dignity or the good first impression he was trying so hard to make on the home folks.

  "Mommy bought Bear from the pound," Betsy began.

  "'Cause no one wanted him and they were going to put him to sleep," Angel interrupted.

  "But Mommy said he was going to make a terrific watchdog and gave the man ten dollars."

  "Twenty! You always forget the extra for the shots and the collar," Angel finished.

  "Watchdog, is it?" Judd looked into the animal's gentle brown eyes and mentally shook his head. Pampered lap baby was more like it. To the brute's credit, he now seemed resigned to his fate and kept twisting his head, trying to lick Judd's hand.

  "Your mom always was a sucker for strays," he said as he watched Darcy close the last few feet separating them.

  She stopped just out of range of Bear's shake radius and crossed her arms over the damp patch spreading from the tail of her T-shirt to the swell of her breasts.

  "Nice day, isn't it?" she said with a quick glance at Judd's mud-stained trousers.

  Judd stiffened, then found himself sucking in his gut and throwing back his shoulders the way he'd done when he'd been an insecure, trying-to-be-tough kid desperate to impress.

  Sucker, he thought. Here he was, a nigh on to middle-aged guy with a lot of living behind him, and he was still trying to play it cool in front of the adorable princess.

  "Used to be, anyway."

  "I see you've met Bear and the twins."

  "Sounds like one of those Saturday morning cartoons. 'The Wacky Adventures of Bear and the Twins.'"

  The twins looked at each other and grinned. "Do you watch cartoons?" one of them asked dubiously.

  "Fire fighters on duty watch anything that's on, including wrestling and cartoons and early morning exercise shows featuring terrifically endowed ladies in skimpy workout suits."

  "Like Mommy wears sometimes?"

  "Hmm, I'm not sure." He caught Darcy's eyes and grinned. "Care to comment, Mommy?"

  "No thanks."

  "Our Uncle Mike was a fireman, 'til he got burned up." The little girl said the words by rote. How could she possibly know what kind of pain that situation involved? But Judd knew. And so did Darcy.

  "Yes, I know. I have his office now."

  Both sets of blue eyes sparked. "Goody!"

  "Can we come and ride on the big truck with the ladder? Uncle Mike promised, only he was always too busy."

  "Sure, uh, if it's okay with your mom."

  "Can we, Mommy?" the girls chorused, jumping up and down so exuberantly that Bear began barking to keep them company.

  "Yeah, Mommy, can we, please?"

  "Yes, someday," she hedged.

  The twins exchanged looks of triumph, but Darcy was ready for them, "Not today, though. Today you two are going to de-stink Bear."

  Hearing his name, Bear squeezed between them, his tail slapping Judd's thigh furiously. Judd tightened his grip on the animal's thick fur while Darcy snatched a ribbon from her pony tail to use as a leash.

  As she tied the cord to his now sodden collar, Bear whined, trying his best to look puppy cuddly.

  "Nice try, you mutt, but it won't work," Darcy warned as she handed the end of the cord to Betsy and used her other hand to point toward the sudsy circle of grass near the back door.

  The twins suddenly wore looks of horror. "Aren't you gonna help?" Betsy asked plaintively.

/>   "Yeah, Mommy. Bear minds you best," Angel added with a smile that Judd figured could melt an iceberg in winter.

  "This I've got to see," he muttered, drawing a quick glare from Darcy before she ordered, "On your way, kiddos."

  With similar downcast—and, Judd decided, calculated—expressions, the girls trudged off, leading Bear behind them.

  "Cute kids. I assume they're yours?"

  Assume, hell, he thought with an inner scowl. There wasn't a chance in hell that those blue-eyed, flame-haired sprites belonged to anyone but her.

  "Yes, they're mine." Her voice took on a softer quality, and Judd felt something stir inside, like a deeply felt sigh. He hadn't felt that odd yearning sensation in years, and he sure as hell knew he didn't want to feel it now.

  "What happened to their father?"

  "Steve died in a rafting trip down the Rogue. One of those freak accidents that never should have happened."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Yes, so am I."

  "It must be rough, raising kids alone."

  Not as rough as it would have been without them in her life. "We manage, but you're right about one thing. Sometimes I think I'm living one of those cartoons."

  "How many kids do you have around here anyway?"

  "Four. The twins and two foster daughters, although I hope to add four more by Christmas. It's hard, though. All the paperwork, usually in triplicate. Sometimes I go to bed dreaming of forms and wake up still trying to figure them out."

  He gave a snort of laughter. "Sounds like the fire department."

  "How's it going?"

  The wind teased her hair into a wild frame around her face, and the sun brought out faint striations in her blue eyes. She smelled like flowers. Roses. And there was a faint blush of sunburn on her nose. If a man looked closely, he might also notice a thin sheen of moisture on her lower lip where her tongue had just made a quick, nervous trip.

  "About what I expected."

  "Which is?"

  One side of his mouth made a stab at a smile. "The guys who came up with Mike hate just about everything I do, the younger guys are reserving opinion, and the rookies don't know which way to bend."

  "Are you making that many changes?"

  "A fair number." He hesitated, then added almost apologetically. "I won't say Mike was old-fashioned in a lot of his ideas and training methods, but…" Shrugging, he left the statement unfinished.

  "No, but you could say he was bullheaded Irish stubborn about changing something that's already working just fine."

  His eyes narrowed a split second before he grinned. "That's about the size of it, yeah."

  Darcy nodded. It surprised her that she felt so comfortable talking with him like this, as though they'd been friends—and lovers—just yesterday instead of twenty years ago.

  "He used to accuse me of being a bleeding heart because I raise the salaries of everyone who works for me every year. It didn't even faze him when I explained that I did it for business reasons, just the same as he did when he recommended one of his men for a merit raise. He gave me this startled look and then asked very seriously, 'What raise?'"

  This time Judd laughed, deep in his throat as though the laughter had had to come from a long way down, where it had been stored.

  "No wonder I got a lot of glassy-eyed stares when I talked about belt tightening. They thought I meant salaries."

  "Didn't you?"

  "Naw, I was talking about all those beer guts peeking out between uniform buttons."

  Darcy's gaze lowered instinctively to the approximate vicinity of his belt buckle, then zoomed upward to lock for a long moment with his. In her mind she saw him without his shirt, leaning over her, those dark eyes smoldering with hunger. Now, however, they were a little distant, a little distracted.

  A feeling like loss drifted through her before she resolutely banished it to her mental scrap heap of unwanted feelings, which seemed to have gotten a lot higher in recent days.

  "Mommy! Bear won't stand still."

  "Looks like you're being paged."

  "Yes." Suddenly they were both aware of the still-damp material splotching her shirt.

  "I'll just put Mike's stuff on the porch, okay?"

  "What stuff?"

  "The stuff that was in his office. I thought you might want to go through it."

  Everything from extra underwear to a nearly empty quart of Irish whiskey. There were other things, too. Personal things, like a collection of knickknacks that he assumed had been made for their great-uncle by Darcy's twins.

  "Oh." Darcy blinked, then bit her lip. "I meant to take care of that before you took over, but I've been so busy … uh, the porch will be fine, thanks."

  "No problem."

  Turning away, he jerked open the tailgate and reached for the large cardboard box in the back.

  "I didn't go through it, just put it all in here. I would have waited for you to get around to coming for it, but I'm bunking in the chief's office until I can find a permanent place and there's not a lot of room."

  "This is fine, really."

  Judd carried the box across the lane and up the brick walk to the porch. He expected her to be right behind him, and she was. What he didn't expect was the lightning flash of déjà vu when he turned to toss her a quick goodbye.

  Somehow his gaze had gotten tangled with hers the way it used to when neither of them was quite sure what to do with feelings neither had any business feeling.

  The morning breeze playing with her tousled hair, the sun behind her flaming the auburn strands, the quick tightness of desire defying his good intentions—it was all so painfully familiar.

  Suddenly he was twenty and she was a fiery sixteen trying to drive him crazy with her quicksilver changes of mood and her newfound sex appeal.

  Instinct, the one that had saved his life more times than he could remember, ordered him to walk away, right now; but another feeling, one he didn't recognize, kept his boots planted firmly on the weathered boards.

  "Darcy, I don't want you to take this wrong, but I have something else of yours that I need to give back."

  "You do?"

  Very gently he framed her face with his hands and brushed his mouth over hers. "See you," he said before taking the steps two at a time.

  "Now that guy in the uniform was definitely hero material."

  Clucking her tongue, Paulina Prudence Plastino, known as Prudy to her friends, of which she had dozens, gave the vintage horse carriage a final swipe with the feather duster before glancing at Darcy across the newly upholstered seat.

  Sunlight from the open barn door striped the cement floor and warmed the pungent air. Looking up, Darcy was forced to squint.

  "Pru, honey, you think every man over twenty or taller than six-two is hero material."

  Prudy looked affronted, as only a teenager could. "That's not true at all. Since I turned sixteen, I've gotten much more discriminating."

  Not soon enough, though, Darcy almost blurted out, thinking of the baby that Prudy was carrying in her belly. Stubbornly, she had refused to name the father, but her social services caseworker suspected the boy she'd met in a shelter for the homeless in Portland.

  "Hand me that can of wax, will you please?"

  "Here, catch!"

  Even as Darcy scooped the can from the air, her hope of diverting any more questions was dashed when Prudy's hazel eyes took on a dreamy faraway look.

  "Speaking of which, did you see the shoulders on him, and the kind of stiff, sexy way he walked?"

  Darcy slathered wax on the shiny black fender and rubbed vigorously. "Actually I didn't notice."

  "Yeah, right! And I'm not six months pregnant," Prudy hooted.

  Unwilling to meet the teenager's sharp eyes, Darcy wiped one last spot from the newly waxed frame before stepping back to admire their handiwork.

  The first week in August had been Frontier Days in Grantley for as long as she could remember, and her great-grandfather Kerrigan's courting carriage was always
the highlight of the opening day parade. This year she would be driving instead of Mike.

  "Looks good." Darcy bundled the dirty rags into a bag before catching up the neatly folded tarp hanging over the railing of the end stall.

  "Here, let me help you with that."

  Prudy tossed aside the duster and grabbed a corner of the tarp. Together they covered every inch of the valuable relic. By parade time, however, it would need another going over, especially if the county didn't get some rain to help knock down the dust.

  "So when are you seeing him again?"

  "I'm not."

  "You'll be sorry. That guy is prime."

  "Oh yeah, I forgot. Last week you had me all but engaged to the guy who fixed the pump because he had 'gorgeous buns.'"

  "Well, he did! 'Course Chief Calhoun has terrific buns, too, although he could stand to bulk up some."

  "He did look skinny, didn't he? I wonder if he's been sick."

  "Maybe he needs a nurse to hold his hand, or something else more interesting!"

  "Prudy! That's enough."

  "Yes, ma'am." Prudy's eyes flashed with wicked satisfaction, and Darcy cursed the Irish complexion that turned pink at the slightest provocation.

  "Mommy, are you in there? Betsy took my doll and won't give it to me."

  "She said I could play with it."

  "Did not!"

  "Coming!" Darcy shouted before giving Prudy a sympathetic look. "Are you sure your doctor said twins?"

  "Yep. Only mine are boys," she said confidently. Prudy patted her belly with a cheerful smile. Abandoned by her parents when she was just a kid, she was still wrestling with the idea of giving her babies up for adoption.

  Darcy was trying to be objective, but her heart was breaking for her foster daughter. Whatever decision she made, her life would never be the same.

  Together they walked through the barn's cool interior toward the square of sunlight at one end. Strawberry, Darcy's four-year-old mare, stuck her head over the railing and nickered for a nose rub.

  Darcy stopped and dug into the pocket of her floppy shorts for the carrot she'd almost forgotten to bring with her.

  "Can't have that," she murmured to Berry as the mare wolfed down the treat. After her unsettling afternoon, Darcy found the early evening sounds and smells soothing.