"Yes, down by the gate, I think." Every night at eleven Sean-O locked the gate before retiring to his place near the river.
Darcy was sorely tempted to hop in the souped-up old car and drive hell-bent after the bastard. But that would mean leaving the kids alone with only Bridget to protect them.
"Do you think there was more than one person in the house?" Prudy whispered.
"I hope not, because if there was, he's probably still here." Darcy's head was beginning to ache, and her stomach had gone queasy.
"Whoever it was is my problem," she said firmly, steering Prudy toward the bottom step. "Right now, I want you and those babies tucked into bed where you belong."
"But, Darcy—"
"Enough with the buts, Pru. I'm sure the sheriff will want to question us both tomorrow and it won't help if you're too brain-dead to make sense."
Prudy frowned, but Darcy saw surrender in the girl's hazel eyes. "Okay, but—oh, Darcy, we forgot about the phone. You can't call anyone!"
"No, but Sean-O can, and as soon as he shows up for breakfast, I'll send him back to his place to use his phone. It's on a separate line, so I can't imagine that bast—er, idiot was smart enough to cut that one, too."
Mollified, Prudy gave Darcy a clumsy hug.
"Sweet dreams," Darcy called in a low tone as Prudy took hold of the banister and started the laborious climb. "And don't worry."
Turning, Darcy stumbled and would have fallen if the newel post hadn't been handy. Head down, she leaned against the solid Oregon walnut and waited for her head to stop swimming.
Please God, not a concussion, she entreated silently as she gingerly touched the goose egg already forming just about the nape of her neck.
It hurt!
Teeth gritted, she slowly lifted her head. So far so good, she thought as her vision slowly cleared. Forcing herself to take it slow and easy, she made it to her office without mishap.
At the door, she paused to let her heartbeat settle a bit, then reached inside with her left hand to flip on the overhead light.
Expecting disaster, she found nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was in place—the piles of papers and files on her desk, the books crammed into the shelves, the laundry basket of toys in the corner. Messy, but what the heck? That was normal for her.
So what—
"Uncle Mike's things!" she exclaimed as her pulse leapt and adrenaline flooded through her veins again. The box she'd hastily crammed in one corner of her closet was now empty. Papers, photos, beat-up old files, odds and ends littered the closet floor like confetti after a drunken bash.
Darcy sat on the settee and stared, her temper nudging toward fury. Bastard! she thought. Breaking into my house to go through an old man's things. Scaring us half to death. Nearly getting himself shot—if she'd had bullets, that is.
It didn't make sense, and it made her spitting mad. Someone could have gotten hurt, and for what? A few scraps of paper and some old photographs?
Teeth gritted and eyes flashing, she didn't realize for a moment that she was trembling. It took her less time than that, however, to realize, for the first time in her lifetime, the old house no longer seemed safe.
It was still drizzling on Sunday morning. Judd had planned to sleep in, but his body clock was still attuned to a twenty-four-hour shift that said fire fighters on duty rose at six, ate at six-thirty and were well on the way to a full day by seven.
"Sorry to disturb you, Chief, but there's someone here to see you."
Judd rinsed his razor in the sink, then glanced up to find Probationer Renny Glenn standing stiffly just inside the shower room door.
"Yeah, who?"
"Uh, she didn't give her name, sir. Just said to, er, roust you out of the john before she came in here and did it herself." Glenn glanced self-consciously over his shoulder. "I think she means it, sir."
Judd stopped the razor in midstroke. "She?"
"Yes, sir. Uh, she has two little girls with her. Twins, sir."
Judd lifted his chin and concentrated on the skin around the scar just above his Adam's apple. "Did she say what she wanted?" he asked when he was finished.
"No, but she don't look real happy, not so's a man with any sense would want to keep her waiting, anyway."
Glenn grinned, then looked stricken when he realized he wasn't bantering with one of the guys. "Sorry, Chief," he mumbled.
"It's okay, kid," Judd drawled, his gaze holding the probie's in the mirror. "Tell the ladies that I'll be with them in a minute."
"Right away, sir," Glenn snapped out before disappearing from sight.
Frowning, Judd scraped the last of his beard from his jaw and wiped his face with a clean towel. He'd left a mustache the color of wheat. It gave his face an old-fashioned look. Or hell, maybe just old, period.
Darcy was waiting in his office, impatiently tapping one scuffed sneaker on the dingy linoleum. She'd obviously run in through the rain, because her hair was busily twisting into frizzy little curls at the nape of her neck. The twins were seated side by side on his unmade bunk, looking ready to burst.
"Hi, Judd!" one exclaimed. Betsy, the talkative one, he thought, hoping his grin didn't look as uncomfortable as he felt.
"Hi, Judd!" echoed Angel, now busily bouncing up and down on the bunk. "You're not dressed yet."
"Only half," Betsy amplified.
Suddenly conscious of his bare chest and arms, Judd took a tighter grip on both ends of the towel looped around his neck.
"Good morning, ladies. Looks like you're going to get awfully wet if you're here for your ride on the truck."
The girls looked at each other then at Darcy, who shook her head. "Don't even ask. The chief's right."
The chief. It still sounded strange, especially when Darcy said it. "So, if it's not a ride, what are you doing out and about this early?"
"Sunday school," Betsy explained.
"And then lunch at Groler's after, just the three of us, 'cause Prudy doesn't go to church and Rosie Lee goes to a different church," Angel added.
"We do that lots of times."
"Oh, Bets, we do not," Angel told her with an impatient frown. "Only sometimes."
"Well, sometimes can mean lots." Betsy's chin came up and her small hands made fists.
Angel glared at her sister. "No, it can't. Can it, Judd?"
Two matching pairs of animated blue eyes fastened on his face, waiting. No, three. Darcy's gaze was still focused intently on his face.
"Depends."
He edged toward his locker, hoping to avoid the trap that the two pint-size replicas of their mother were so busily baiting.
"See, smarty-pants," Angel crowed to her sister.
"But—"
"Enough, you two," Darcy said, glancing sternly from one to the other. "Remember your manners, please."
"Angel started it."
"I did not!"
"Did, too!"
"Did not!" Betsy jumped to her feet, tripped over a blanket on the floor and pitched forward, crashing into Judd's knees.
"Whoa, there, hotshot," he said, laughing through the suddenly spiking pain. "I'm a little rusty when it comes to rescuing falling princesses."
"I'm not a princess, silly." Betsy's giggle was painfully familiar—her mother's face and her mother's laugh, he thought. Someday this little one and her sister were going to break hearts.
"Not a princess, huh. Then what are you?"
"A real test of her mother's patience," Darcy said with a warning look at her audacious daughter.
"Like mother, like daughters."
He directed the comment to all three, but his gaze had somehow gotten stuck on Darcy's face. On her mouth. It occurred to him that a woman who could use words like stinging nettles had no business having a mouth that tempting.
"You've shaved off your beard," she said, frowning.
"I figured it was time." Time he stopped hiding and faced the people who'd scorned him head-on.
She gave him a long, considering lo
ok. Trying to find a diplomatic way to tell him he wasn't going to make it as a matinee idol, no doubt. Which wasn't any news to him. The few women he'd taken the trouble to court and who'd wanted to please him in return called him rugged—to his face, anyway.
Others more honest described his looks as intimidating. One woman battalion chief he knew had called him "a real scary dude," especially when he was angry.
He'd accepted that the way he'd accepted most things from women—with moderate interest but no real emotional involvement.
So the fact that Darcy's scrutiny was making him self-conscious as a boy who'd shaved extra close for the first date had him scowling.
"Well? Do I pass?"
Darcy realized that she'd been staring and shifted her gaze to the tiny nick along the clean edge of his jaw. Without the beard to soften the harsh lines, his face had taken on a lived-in look and the lines angling from his mouth had deepened, but the wry set of his mouth was still far too appealing. And the sharp flare of his cheekbones was still too provocatively masculine.
"I'm not sure. You've never had a mustache before. Or have you?"
"Yeah, in the seventies all the guys had 'em. Beards, too, until we got new faceplates on the SCBAs. They didn't seal well over whiskers."
"SCBAs?"
"Breathing apparatus. Self-contained, like that one there on the filing cabinet," he said, pointing his finger.
"Mmm, I can see that that would be a problem."
"I think it makes you look sexy," Betsy piped up. The two adults stopped looking at each other and looked at her.
"Elizabeth Patricia!" Darcy scolded. "Where on earth did you hear that?"
"From Prudy. She says firemen are macho studs and m-mucho sexy." Betsy stumbled a little over the pronunciation of the words she'd memorized, bringing a twitch to Judd's mouth.
"I think I should meet Prudy," he muttered, drawing a reproving glance from the twins' mother.
"I think Miss Prudence needs a lesson in parenting."
He raised his eyebrows and asked very seriously, "Friend of yours, is she?"
"No, one of my foster daughters. The oldest, actually."
"And just how old is she?"
"Sixteen, going on forty-five."
"Prudy's going to have a baby," Betsy volunteered.
"In July," Angel added. "Twins like us."
"Only boys. Yuck!"
"Yeah, yuck!"
"What's wrong with boys?" Judd knew he shouldn't ask, but he found himself doing it anyway.
"They smell bad," Betsy offered.
"And they're always making stupid noises when Mommy's saying grace."
"Or in church," he threw in solemnly.
Darcy rolled her eyes. "Please! Don't remind me. Father Wagner was furious all those years ago."
"I told you I'd say all those Hail Marys he gave you as penance."
"Yeah, right. A lot of good that would do. You're not Catholic."
He'd forgotten how easy she was to tease. What he hadn't forgotten was how quickly she'd learned to give back as good as she got. Or the charge he'd gotten when he'd coaxed fire into her eyes and a saucy grin to her lips.
At first he'd done it for pure meanness, but later, when he'd come to view her mouth in a vastly different way, he'd done it as a prelude to a kiss. A kiss he very badly wanted at that moment.
Instead, he returned his attention to the twins. "I hate to bring this up, but this is not Saint Stephen's."
"We know, silly," Betsy proclaimed, and then looked up at Judd and wrinkled her brow. "Don't you go to church?"
"Not anymore."
"Why not?"
"Lots of reasons." He went when he couldn't get out of it. Weddings, christenings—funerals.
"But how do you talk to God if you don't go to church?"
"That's enough," Darcy interjected before he could answer. "Run outside and say hello to Lieutenant Monk, both of you."
"But, Mommy—"
"Do as I say, please. It's getting late, and I need to talk with the chief privately."
"No fair," Betsy muttered before she left the office.
Angel contented herself with an unhappy glower as she trailed after her sister.
To Judd's surprise, Darcy followed the twins to the door and closed it, shutting them out. Or, he realized, shutting the two of them in.
Life had its odd moments, he thought. Here he was, alone with a sexy lady in a cozy room with an unmade bed, and he was feeling trapped. Irritated at himself, he unhooked a clean shirt from his locker and shrugged into it.
"You're not on duty today?" she asked, watching him roll his shirtsleeve past a brawny forearm. His hands were tanned, his fingers callused, and there was a slash of shiny scar tissue just above the prominent knuckles.
"No, not today. I have an appointment with Ann Billings to look at the old parsonage."
"But that old place is a pit! The roof's eaten up by moss and the porch is about falling apart. Not to mention the front steps, which should have been condemned years ago."
"Been keeping up with the place, have you?"
"I've ridden by a few times when I've had Berry out for exercise, that's all."
"Well, pit or not, it's about all I can afford."
"Why not rent, then?"
He shrugged. "I figured it was time I put down some roots. Besides, fixing up the old place might just help me get rid of some ghosts."
"Yes, I know what you mean. I've done some work on my house, too."
As an awkward silence sliced between them, it occurred to him that he would rather be sitting at a table at Groler's with three redheaded ladies than trooping through ankle-deep mud looking at a house to live in alone.
"So, what can I do for you—if it's not a ride for the girls?"
The quick tightening of her mouth told him that his manners could use improving, but what the hell? Maybe it was better to get her back up again. He could handle her anger. It was her damn soft mouth and the laughter in her eyes that gave him trouble.
"Nothing, I'm afraid, but I thought you should know that someone broke into my house last night and went through Uncle Mike's things."
Judd stopped rolling the other sleeve and looked at her. "The things I brought you yesterday?"
"Yes. Prudy heard a noise and thought it was Rosie Lee walking in her sleep again. Only it wasn't, and when I went down to see who it was, this person came barreling out of my office, knocked me down and ran off. The jerk!"
Judd applied his attention to getting the cuff of his sleeve rolled just so. "Did you see the guy?"
"No, only his back, but I can tell you that it wasn't an ordinary burglar 'cause this guy was wearing a very expensive after-shave." Her tone told him that she was serious.
"Burglars don't wear after-shave, is that it?"
"Not professionals. I mean, that would be pretty dumb of a real burglar to leave that kind of a clue, wouldn't it?"
"You have a point," he said, careful to keep a smile from his eyes.
"Well, I just wanted you to know—"
"Have you told Sheriff Whitfield?"
"Of course. He was there until the girls and I had to leave for town just a little while ago."
"I thought you said this happened last night."
"It did. Well, actually around two."
"What the hell was Bob Whitfield doing at your place all that time?"
"He wasn't. I couldn't call him until seven when Sean-O showed up so I could send him back to his place to call because that jerk cut my phone line."
"Five hours? You waited five hours to call the cops?"
"I told you, my phone was out, and I couldn't just leave a house full of kids. Besides, I was just a little bit dizzy and—"
"Dizzy from what?"
"I have this sort of bump on my head."
Judd's big hand made a swift pass through his hair, leaving it flip-flopped over his forehead. "How old are you, Darcy?"
"What?"
"How old?"
Darcy's spine locked, and her heartbeat sped. No one had used that tone with her since she'd gone off to college. "If you can't remember—"
"Thirty-six, right? And the mother of two?"
"Four."
"You probably don't even lock your front door at night." Judd had always been intense, but now, looming over her with grit in his voice and turbulence in his eyes, he'd slipped past intense to downright dangerous.
Well, so was she when her dander was up. Her chin pushed closer to his chest and she forced some of the fire inside her into her voice.
"Of course I do." She couldn't quite hold his gaze, not with the memory of her wide open front door fresh in her memory. "When I remember, anyway."
"I want you to promise me you'll lock all the doors from now on—including the one to the root cellar."
"I think that's a little much. No one can get through those tiny vents into the cellar."
He grinned, and the now clean-shaven cheeks folded into long creases framing his mouth. Darcy felt her stomach suddenly swoop and tumble the way it had when she'd first seen that surprisingly sensual slant to his usually controlled mouth.
It was just a smile, Darcy told herself. Nothing to get hot and bothered about. Just a plain, garden variety grin. Only it was Judd's grin, and those were Judd's rich brown eyes smiling at her as though he'd just discovered something rare and precious after a long, exhausting search.
"Including the door to the root cellar."
His shirt smelled of citrus-scented starch, and his freshly shaved jaw still carried a faint scent of the soap he'd used. Clean scents. Not in the least provocative.
"Oh, all right. If that'll make you happy."
"And I want you to call me if you notice anything unusual around the place. Or even think you do. Anything that might have something to do with the break-in."
"Honestly, Judd. It was probably some kid looking for something to hock."
"Humor me, Darcy, okay?"
"Okay, if that'll make you happy."
"This isn't about happiness. It's about some sleaze breaking into your house. I don't like to think he'll do it again."
Rain was still trapped in her hair. Somehow his hand was brushing away the drops and then his fingers were buried in the silk and he was closing his eyes.
FIREBRAND Page 7
