Others were wily and cunning, taking hold in the dead of night or in the deepest cold of winter, when the chances of its survival were the best.
"According to the few hard facts I've scared up so far, Grantley County has had more than its statistical share of commercial losses by fire. We don't keep stats on insurance payouts, but my gut tells me the dollar amount coming into Grantley as a result of fire loss is a lot higher than it should be."
"Maybe, but remember, we have a lot of buildings on the historic register. Uncle Mike even mentioned once that he could have made a bundle if he'd bought up all those old places when he was a kid and just sat on them until the restoration craze hit in the seventies."
Judd felt the warning twinge of a cramp in his left thigh and slowly extended his leg until the tightness eased. Catching her worried look, he scowled.
"How do you know he didn't do just that?"
"Do what?"
He had the annoying feeling that her thoughts were off somewhere. Wishing she was sitting here with another guy? "Make a bundle."
"Well, for one thing, I'm his only heir and I know that his financial situation was, shall we say, not impressive. And for another, if I understand you right, you're talking about arson." Her throat worked, and her eyes clouded. "In case it's slipped your mind, Uncle Mike spent his life putting out fires, not starting them."
"I know that, Red. What I don't know is why someone would break into his office and then your house to get a look at the things he left behind. Or why someone would shoot his housekeeper and then go to a lot of trouble to find out if she left something behind."
Darcy rubbed her temple with three fingertips and gnawed on her lower lip while she tried to sort through the things he'd just laid on her.
"How do you know someone broke into Mike's office?"
"They didn't exactly break in, but a guy claiming to be an exterminator talked Monk into letting him in the day I was out here. Far as I can find out, no one called an exterminator."
"Was anything missing? From Mike's … from your office?"
"Nothing I know about."
"Meaning that someone else might?"
"Possibly. Which is why I want to go through Mike's things with you. Just in case you think of something that should be there that isn't."
"Like something from Carmen?"
Judd shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. But one thing I know, no one should have to die the way she did. Or the way Tom Billings's mother almost died."
Her mouth opened to a small O, then turned down in a frown. "Do you think that fire was set, too?"
"Could be."
"But doesn't the department investigate every fire?"
"Sure, but a pro can torch a building without leaving obvious evidence. At least, not the kind that can be discovered in the kind of cursory inspection given a fire that's considered routine, like those at the opera house and the hotel."
Darcy drew a slow breath. The air wafting through the open window was scented with perfume from the lilacs her own mother had planted during her first years here.
"The whole idea gives me the creeps. People sneaking around, setting fires—that's not supposed to happen in Grantley."
"Don't kid yourself, Darcy. Greed is greed and people are people, no matter where they are."
She nodded slowly, then slanted a look toward the door. "Uncle Mike's things are upstairs. If you're ready, we might as well get started."
* * *
Chapter 9
« ^ »
Darcy had moved her uncle's things to her bedroom because that was the only room in the house that was off-limits to everyone, even the twins, without her permission.
Not that there was room for many more than two inhabitants at any one time, Judd had decided a few seconds after he'd followed her in.
When this had been his room, it had had plenty of space. Now, however, it seemed to have shrunk. Even the floor space was limited by stacks of books and papers and winter sweaters waiting to be stored.
He found himself staring at the bed. It was the big brass one she'd always had. Instead of stuffed animals, it was now piled with pillows of all sizes and shapes and colors. It was also the only place to sit in the whole darn room.
"Looks a little crowded," he said with a sinking feeling in his gut. Spending a few hours alone with Darcy in her bedroom, on her bed, was something he hadn't anticipated.
"It's a little messy right now." A puzzled knot formed between her eyebrows. "It's on my list of things to organize, but…"
She sighed, then straightened her shoulders and gave him the kind of look no sane man would challenge. "We could always move Mike's things to my office, but as soon as school lets out, Prudy will be doing her homework there until four or so, and then the twins are scheduled to practice in there until five."
"Ballet? Or the high hurdles?"
"Uh, let's see. Today's Friday so it's karate."
Darcy shut the door and opened the curtains as wide as they would go. "I hope this is a waste of time," she said with her back to the bed and the big brooding man gingerly lowering himself to the side where Steve had slept for ten years.
"Humor me, okay?"
Darcy realized that her fingers had a death grip on the lace curtain and quickly dropped her hand. "Okay, but when we don't find anything, I hope that'll be the end of this cloak-and-dagger stuff."
"Scout's honor."
Turning, she gave him a long-suffering look. "You weren't a Scout."
"Sure I was. My old man insisted." So he'd faithfully donned the uniform, trudged into town to the Grange hall and signed in. As soon as the leader's back had been turned, however, he'd slipped out and gone fishing or hunted for frogs in the river or, when he was older, wiped out a six-pack or two that he'd swiped from old man Rivers's store.
Grinning, she pulled the box of Mike's things from under the bed and set it in the middle of the bed. "And you wore a uniform and learned craft stuff and all that?"
"Isn't that what Scouts do?"
"That's what makes me suspicious."
Judd slipped free of his loafers and stretched out on the bed with his back propped against four or five of the pillows and regarded her with raised eyebrows.
"You've turned into a cynic, Darlene Clancy Kerrigan-Fisher."
"About time, isn't it, Turner Judson Calhoun the third?" The lazy look left his eyes.
"Judd will do."
"Sorry, I forgot you hated your full name."
"Enough to have had it legally changed."
"I can't imagine ever hating my parents enough to do that."
"I thought you did, Mrs. Fisher."
"That's different. I did that out of respect and love for my husband."
Judd reached into the box between them and drew out a packet of letters. "Do you still miss him?"
She kicked off her shoes and settled cross-legged against the pillows before reaching into the box for a dog-eared envelope full of photographs of young men in old-fashioned blue uniforms.
"Sometimes, especially when the twins have done something really outrageous or adorable or puzzling, and I don't have anyone to share it with."
Judd glanced up.
"Was he a good lover?"
She let out a breath. Her cheeks burned, but she managed a calm smile. After all, she was pushing middle age. Talking about sex with a former lover shouldn't be a big deal, not big enough to have her throat going dry and her breasts tingling.
"I had no complaints."
She could see that he was amused, but he was also annoyed and trying hard not to show it. "Did you tell him about us?"
"No, why would I?"
He shrugged. "No reason. I was just curious."
"Did you tell your various partners about us?"
"I didn't have to." His voice was very dry, yet Darcy sensed that she was approaching one of his walls again.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You like puzzles. See if you can figure out this
one." Ignoring the perplexed look she was giving him, he opened another letter and took out the folded sheets.
Two hours later, half the contents of the carton were on the bed, Darcy had a mulish look on her face, and Judd was wishing for one of those damn pills the doctor had prescribed. So far, neither of them had found anything suspicious or even unusual in Mike's things.
"I think I'll get something cold to drink," she said, flexing her cramped shoulder muscles. "How about you?"
"Sure," he said without lifting his gaze from the scrap of paper he was studying. "Thanks."
She got to her feet and leaned forward to touch her toes a couple of times, a trick she'd learned from a harried social worker at Child Protective Services in Roseburg to relieve tension. Usually it worked like a charm. Today, however, her muscles were tight as bands and determined to stay that way.
"What would you like?"
"Whatever you're having."
"Two buttermilks coming right up."
His head came up and he frowned. "Don't tell me you still drink that stuff?"
"Absolutely, but I have stopped using it on my freckles."
As though programmed, his gaze zoomed to the spot just below the hollow of her throat where a ragged line of freckles disappeared into the V of her blouse.
"Too bad," he said, his voice as smoothly seductive as pear brandy. "Those freckles are dangerous."
So was the heated look in his eyes. Worse was the warmth spreading through her at the thought of his tongue once again tracing those freckles to the warm, secret spot between her breasts.
Still watching his eyes, she knew the moment he'd noticed the helpless hardening of her nipples against the summery fabric of her blouse. Just as she'd noticed the bulge behind his fly when he'd kissed her earlier.
For an instant, her mind entertained the possibility of an affair—except that there were a thousand reasons against it and only one for it. She wanted him, and he wanted her. It had been the same twenty years ago, and look what happened.
"I'll get you a beer," she muttered as she all but ran from the room.
Judd scowled at his reflection in the mirror over her dresser. What did she expect, anyway, reminding him of those damn freckles?
It was bad enough being in her bedroom, where everything reflected the taste of a very sensuous lady—the rosy color of her bedspread, the collection of perfume bottles arranged just so on the dresser to catch the light from the opposite window, the damn collection of frilly hats with ostrich plumes and flowers and sexy-as-hell lace.
Judd tugged at the already loosened knot of his tie and undid another button. He'd already rolled up his sleeves, but there wasn't much he could do about the tight feeling in his chest or the closeness of a room that had once seemed plenty big enough. Especially when he'd slept there alone, with Darcy securely tucked away at the other end of the hall. And with her father's room between them and Bridget's opposite, he'd been restricted to undressing her in his imagination.
"See, I told you he was here!"
"Did not. Mommy said."
"Yeah, but she told me first!"
Today the twins wore identical hot pink shirts with their names emblazoned in sparkly stuff, but one was wearing jeans with patched knees and a smear of grass on the seat while the other had donned a polka-dot skirt with ruffles.
He realized that he was glad to see them. "Hi, guys. Is school out already?"
"Oh, yes. We've already been to our ballet lesson and everything."
"Yeah, we go to Madame Julienne's twice a week. I'm better at plies than Angel, though. She always gets her feet wrong."
"Yeah, but I'm better at karate," her sister retorted with a triumphant look that had Betsy's small fists bunching.
"Are not!" Betsy's fists found her hips and she scowled a warning at her sister.
"Am, too!"
"Pooh on you anyway."
"Mommy! Betsy is being rude again."
Judd looked toward the door just as Darcy walked in. "Ladies, you promised to be on your best behavior if I let you come in to say hello."
Her expression turned stern—as stern as Darcy could get, anyway, Judd thought, waiting along with the twins for the next shoe to drop. "Bickering is not best behavior, is it?"
"No, Mommy," Betsy said with a chastened look.
"No, Mommy," Angel echoed, casting her eyes downward. Both girls had thick blond lashes that curled up at the tips like their mama's. And the same nose with just the tiniest bump at the bridge.
"I think you'd better get started on your chores before it's time to practice karate, don't you?" Darcy handed him a can of beer and set her buttermilk on the table by the bed.
The twins had clearly learned not to dispute their mother when she used that tone. "Bye, Judd," said the twin with Angel on her shirt.
"Take it easy, Bets."
Betsy's eyes widened in utter surprise. "How did you know me and Angel switched shirts?"
He cocked his head and gave them a smug male grin. "That's my secret."
"Pooh," Angel muttered, clearly crestfallen that he hadn't fallen for their favorite trick. "Nobody else figured it out 'cept Mommy, and she doesn't count."
"Out, you two!" Darcy ordered, her gaze meeting Judd's. "And close the door behind you."
Before their mother could give each of them the playful swat they deserved, they took off running. Betsy made the door first. A step behind, Angel just kept going, leaving Betsy to shut the door behind her.
"No fair!" she shouted as she slammed the door so hard it rattled the windows opposite.
"Sorry about that. For some reason, whenever you're around the girls seem to act more hyper than usual."
Judd managed a couple of swallows of the frosty beer, enough to be polite, but alcohol was the last thing his already wired system needed and he knew it, even if Darcy didn't.
"Guess they switch identities a lot, huh?"
"It's one of their favorite tricks."
She resumed her cross-legged perch in the middle of the bed and reached into the cardboard carton for another stack of letters bound with a rubber band.
"So how did you tell them apart?"
Judd shifted restlessly. "Betsy has a tiny scar on the back of her left hand."
Darcy looked impressed. "She caught it on a nail in the barn when she was four."
"Sounds like you and the barbed wire fence."
Darcy chuckled, then narrowed her gaze. "I can finish this downstairs. Why don't you stretch out and take a nap before I drive you back to town?"
"I'm fine."
"Of course you are. Your skin is naturally the color of fireplace ashes."
Ignoring his scowl, she slipped a rubber band from the letters and opened the one on top. A quick scanning of the neatly penned lines revealed nothing more than the bantering of an old army buddy of Mike's in Iowa.
"Judd, this is silly," she said as she tossed it aside. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to be looking for, and besides, going through Mike's private papers like this is just too ghoulish for me. It's like walking on his grave, and you know what that means."
"No, but I imagine you'll tell me."
The indulgent tone in his voice whipped her back twenty years, when he used to sit next to her on the porch swing and listen to her rattle on about anything and everything that came into her head.
"It means you'll be the next to die."
One of his eyebrows arched in the devilish way she remembered. "Me personally, or in general."
"In general, because that's the rule, and personally, if you don't stop laughing at me."
"Not me, Red. The last time I laughed at you I ended up with potato salad in my lap."
Darcy's eyes rounded as she searched her memory, and then she burst out laughing. "The church picnic. I'd forgotten all about that."
"You didn't spend the rest of the day with your sweatshirt tied around your waist like a damn apron, either."
His sandy eyebrows were all but welded together ov
er his nose, but his eyes had a wistful look that reminded her of another time, another place.
"You asked for it and you know it."
"Hey, all I did was suggest tactfully that a guy named Peanuts Rafferty probably wasn't as much of a stud as he claimed."
Darcy had already kicked off her shoes and now she pulled her legs to her chest and rested her cheek on one knee.
"He was a nice guy. Still is, as a matter of fact, and he goes by Arthur now."
"Yeah, I know. I ran into him when I opened an account at Grantley National Bank." Judd shook his head. "I still can't believe he has seven kids and four grandkids."
"Which only goes to prove that you were wrong about him."
"I was wrong about a lot of things in those days."
"Maybe we both were."
As Judd put aside the papers piled on his thigh and leaned back against the headboard, Darcy felt the brooding blackness in him again.
"Where's Sean-O? I need to talk to him before we head back to town."
Taking that as her cue that he'd run out of patience, with either her or their task or both, she slipped from the bed and looked around for her shoes.
"At the moment he should be crossing the Columbia River into Washington. He and two of the men who work for us are delivering our first crop to a fruit broker in Wenatchee."
Darcy found one shoe and slipped it on. The other, however, had disappeared.
She crouched by the bed and searched the floor behind the fringe of the bedspread. She found her long-lost hairbrush, three bobby pins and a chocolate bar she'd hidden from the girls and then forgotten. But no purple espadrille.
"Now where would I be if I were a shoe?" she muttered as she slowly stood up again. She spotted a flash of purple under the skirt of her mother's old-fashioned dressing table and pounced. "Aha! There you are."
"When will he be back?"
"Sunday night."
The word he used wasn't particularly polite. "We don't use that kind of language in this house, Calhoun."
"Get used to it, Red, because I'm moving in until Sean-O gets back."
She gave him a startled look. "That's impossible."
"Remember what your good buddy Armadi said? I should be in bed."
FIREBRAND Page 15
