Screaming until she could no long draw breath.
Reagan’s thrashing woke Jack from a sound sleep, but it was the wheezing that made him bolt upright in bed.
Her bed, he realized with a start, and it all came back to him, the way their passion had sparked, bursting into an emotion more powerful than anything he’d known before.
“Wake up, Reag.” He shook her shoulder and saw, when lightning flashed, that her eyes were wide already. In that split second he saw, too, that she looked both frightened and disoriented. Was it the asthma that upset her, or waking up with him?
He felt around, his clumsy movement tipping over the small lamp on the guest room’s nightstand. After catching and righting it, he switched it on, flooding the small room with warm, yellow light. Reagan was sitting up against the headboard, the sheet pulled up to hide her breasts. One long, lean leg was exposed, however, reminding him of the things they’d done—and bringing his body to attention.
But her wheezing had worsened, and she avoided meeting his gaze…as if the thought of what they’d shared embarrassed her.
“Sounds like you need your nebulizer,” he said, turning away to pull on his jeans. “Come on; I’ll help you set it up.”
She didn’t try to argue but crossed to the closet and took out an oversized fire-department T-shirt to hide her nakedness.
Something was wrong, he realized, and it wasn’t just her breathing. He wanted to ask about it, but first he needed to address the immediate problem of her wheezing.
Once more, lightning flickered, and he heard the first grumble of thunder closing in.
Fifteen minutes later, she was sitting on a barstool by the pass-through counter that looked into her kitchen. The nebulizer purred beside her, its medicated vapor curling from the plastic mask that fit over her nose and mouth.
Reagan lifted the mask to say, “I told you—you don’t have to fix that.”
Jack turned from the sink. Still shirtless, he held an Allen wrench in one hand and a pen-sized flashlight in the other. “Put that back on—right now.”
She’d frightened him at first, the way she couldn’t speak. Or simply didn’t for some reason, he thought uneasily.
“Damn bossy doctors,” she murmured and tugged the hem of her T-shirt to cover her bare leg.
He frowned, disconcerted by her newfound shyness, so at odds with their lovemaking only hours earlier. Though he wracked his memory, he could come up with no hint that something had been wrong. On the contrary, he broke out in a feverish sweat, remembering her body pulsing around his, not once but time after time, and her throaty murmur rising to a cry of what could only be pure pleasure.
Hellfire. His jeans were feeling far too tight.
He consoled himself with the thought that at least he knew she was now breathing well enough to speak. Still, she avoided his gaze, fidgeting with a ragged nail instead.
“What’s wrong, Reagan?” he burst out, though he knew he shouldn’t speak to her until she finished her treatment. “Having second thoughts about what happened? Is that it?”
She flinched, then gave her head a barely perceptible shake. Lifting the mask again, she said, “I had a nightmare, that’s all.”
Replacing the mask, she quickly returned to fiddling with her thumbnail. He thought he saw her shudder, as if with an unpleasant memory.
Did she always have so many bad dreams? Or did they only trouble her when he was staying over?
Unsure he wanted to know the answer, Jack turned back to the chore he’d taken on. Earlier, he had recalled what she’d said about the disposal being broken, and he’d gotten her to point out the drawer where she kept tools. Despite her protests, he’d started poking around in her sink, mainly to keep himself busy so he wouldn’t hover over her. Besides, he was fairly handy. Maybe he could save her the cost of a repairman, as well as another day wasted waiting for one to show up.
In the darkness outside, rain pattered against both the roof and the kitchen window, behind its row of potted herbs. Nearby, on the counter, two cups of herbal tea brewed and the sweet fragrance of chamomile perfumed the air. Maybe it was the afterglow of sex—a connection that had stunned him with its power—or maybe it was the warmth and light of the small kitchen against night’s overarching presence, the sight of the sleeping dog sprawled near his feet, and the feel of the worn old wood-handled tool he held, but he was overwhelmed with the sensation that he belonged here: not necessarily here, in this old house, but beside Reagan Hurley.
The same woman you’ve been giving nightmares.
The next peal of thunder was louder and closer than the ones before it. The sound curled around the small house with the sinuous menace of a huge snake strangling a rabbit.
Unhappy with the direction of his thoughts, Jack scrounged around for a new subject.
“You know, it’s possible the rain’s set off the mold spores,” he commented as he peered down the drain and used the Allen wrench to try to start the disposal spinning. “And they’re heavier at night anyway. If you’re allergic to them—”
“I thought you said you weren’t my doctor.” She must have lifted the mask again, because her voice was clearer.
Something was stuck down the disposal, he realized. Maneuvering the flashlight, he said, “That doesn’t mean I stop being a doctor when I’m with you. I was just thinking that if you get testing and find out mold’s the problem, maybe you can get things under control.”
There. He saw something sticking up, something that looked a hell of a lot like the corner of a Manila folder. But who in his right mind would shove cardboard down a drain?
He went back to the tool drawer and started digging. “Do you have a pair of tongs?”
When she didn’t answer, he glanced toward her, only to find her eyes glazed over as if she were lost in thought. Too late, he sensed he’d given her the idea that she could resume a career in firefighting. He thought of telling her it was a long shot. He could be wrong about the allergy, for one thing, or it might be one of many factors.
Yet he couldn’t bring himself to take away her hope, so instead, he repeated his question.
She gestured toward another drawer, where he found a pair of ice tongs. Sliding them into the drain, he grasped a corner of the folder, only to have it tear when he attempted to pull loose the wedged item.
The torn bit that came free told him he was wrong about the Manila folder. It was instead a heavy ivory paper, the sort of high-quality stock people used to print their resumes or formal invitations. Where was it he had last seen something similar?
He remembered. It had been the business card Sabrina McMillan had given him, not her own but the one belonging to the administrator of a trust. The Trust for Compassionate Service, that was it.
But the next scrap he worked loose from the disposal was no card. For one thing, it was too big. For another, some of the lettering was clearly visible.
Reagan cut off the nebulizer when a change in its hum signaled it was empty. “What’d you find?” she asked.
Though Jack strained his ears, he caught no sign of wheezing. Thank God, she was responsive to the medication.
“I’m pretty sure it’s your high-school diploma,” he said. “What’s left of it, at any rate. Why would anyone…you didn’t shove it down there, did you?”
“Of course not.”
The look she shot him was insulted. But at least she was looking at him again. Maybe it had been a simple nightmare troubling her and nothing at all to do with him.
He wanted to believe it so badly that he grasped on to the thought with all his might.
“I thought the authorities went over this place with a fine-tooth comb,” he said.
“Mostly they concentrated on the bedroom and the window where the—uh—the intruder climbed inside. I haven’t been home much, so I didn’t know the disposal was jammed until this morning. And I never figured it had anything to do with the break in. It’s not the first time I’ve had trouble with it.”
/> “Maybe we should call the cops or Special Agent What’s-His-Name—the FBI guy?”
“You mean Casper the Unfriendly Ghost? The ringbanger.”
Jack snapped his fingers, thinking of the pale man in the dark suit. “Lambert—that’s the one. And come to think of it, he does have a thing going with that damned ring.”
She shook her head. “I’m not letting them tear up the rest of my house. And besides…”
She paused, looking strained and thoughtful.
“Besides, what?” he prompted.
“Besides, I have an idea—about my diploma, that is. Think about it. Why would anyone care enough about that diploma—that one thing—to destroy it, especially like this?”
Surely there were more efficient ways, Jack thought. The culprit could have shredded it, burned it, or better yet, simply taken it if he had wanted to be certain it was ruined. But this…
“It’s almost like it was something personal against you,” Jack said. “Seems to me, whoever did this had to be someone local. Someone who knows you, more than likely. What we need to come up with is some kind of link, someone who would…What are you thinking, Reagan? Do you know?”
“I’m not—I’m not sure, but there is one connection. One I can’t quite dismiss.”
“Connection to what?” he asked.
“To…”
She clamped down on whatever she had been about to say so abruptly that he wondered if she was protecting someone.
“Are you thinking about Peaches?” he asked, his mind spinning back to the day Reagan had said something about her neighbor tripping circuit breakers by using too many of her appliances at once. Still, he couldn’t begin to imagine any reason the neighborly transsexual would destroy an easily replaced diploma, especially considering how friendly and helpful she’d appeared.
But Reagan’s head was shaking. “No way would Peaches do something so bizarre. I’m afraid I was thinking about Beau.”
“Beau? What possible connection could he have to your—”
“We graduated from the same high school. Joe Rozinski lived near there, and I was staying with him and his first wife then. Beau and I didn’t go at the same time—he’s a few years younger—but we used to talk about the things we both remembered. Teachers we’d had in common, classes we’d both hated, how it had felt to be on the outside. We had that in common, too. I came in as a junior and never really found my niche. And Beau might be a lot of women’s concept of eye candy, but he’s never really understood how to connect with people.”
Jack let the thought sink in for a few moments before saying, “I guess that makes sense, him destroying something that represented what the two of you shared. But when could he have done it? Are you—are you thinking he could have been the one—the one who broke in last week? The one who hurt my sister?”
The idea rolled over him with the force and fury of an eighteen-wheeler. Beau LaRouche had been enraged the morning after his captain’s death. Angry enough to threaten him, then use his fists on Reagan. And Beau had been here when Luz Maria came to get him.
“That son of a bitch,” he breathed. “I’ll kick his big, dumb ass all the way to—”
“We don’t know Beau did that,” Reagan said. “He could have broken in the next day, before I had the locks changed and the security system set up. There’s no way Beau could have been the one to—to hurt your sister.”
“Why not? He sure as hell showed no compunction when it came to hitting you.”
“Jack, Beau’s a firefi—”
“Beau’s in deep shit, that’s what he is, if I find him before the cops.” Jack thought of Paulo’s offer, how he had friends who could doubtless rearrange LaRouche’s pretty face. It would serve him right, too, a man who would beat up on women, who would set the walls ablaze with a bloody wash of hatred.
But in the back of his mind, Jack knew that calling in that kind of favor from Paulo would cost him dearly. Besides, as badly as Jack wanted vengeance at the moment, he knew that justice was the goal he should pursue.
“So which is it going to be?” he asked Reagan grimly. “Are we going to the authorities with this, or am I taking care of Beau myself?”
Chapter Twenty-four
Reagan had never taken well to ultimatums. At least, that was what she told herself when she asked Jack to leave.
“I’ll be sure and talk to Beau, though. Face to face.” As Reagan spoke, she avoided Jack’s eyes, which reminded her all too clearly of an evening in the boxing ring last winter. She still recalled the crowd’s gasp when she’d clocked Darcy Gordon with a left jab followed by a crushing uppercut. In the split second before she went down, Darcy had worn an expression of utter astonishment, even hurt, that a lesser boxer had popped off a lucky shot.
But surprised or not, Jack Montoya didn’t hit the mat. Instead, he put down the tool he’d used to repair her disposal and repeated, “You want me to go?”
She nodded, keeping her eyes on his instead of allowing her gaze to drop to his broad chest, with its sprinkling of coarse, dark hair. A memory of his muscles beneath her fingertips nearly stole her breath away. She wondered if he’d been an athlete, or if he spent a lot of his time off in a gym. Where else would he come by such a set of fine, hard muscles?
Ruthlessly she dragged her mind back on track by turning and stalking to the guest room to retrieve his shirt. But the damned bed was still rumpled, and the air was heavy with the unmistakable scent of sex.
Great sex. Sex that had touched her on levels so deep it scared her.
Swallowing hard, she hurried from the room and tossed him the T-shirt. She breathed a sigh of relief when he took the hint and pulled it on as he followed her into the living room.
“You need some time to calm down,” she said, “and think through all this stuff about Beau and your sister.”
“This guy tried to kick down your door today,” Jack argued. “And now you want to see him? No.”
Irritation made her close in on him, even though it put her far too close to his lips—and the memory of the things he knew how to do with them. “Did you just tell me no?”
“Seems to me I just told you I loved you, not two hours ago. I really meant it, Reag, and I’m not going to stand back and let you get hurt, or worse—”
“So you think you own me now? Is that what all this means? First you try to make your sister’s decisions for her, and now you want to make mine? Because if that’s the way it works when you love someone, then you can count me out.”
The pain flashing over his face made her realize she had hit below the belt. But before she could think of some way to backtrack, or at least soften what she’d said, Jack was heading toward the door.
Pausing, he glared back at her over his shoulder. “I’m starting to wonder, Reagan. Are you protecting Beau because he’s another firefighter? Or is there some reason he’s been jealous? Were you really sleeping with him first?”
“Do you honestly believe that?” she demanded. “Because if that’s what you think, you can—”
“No.” As he slowly turned back toward her, his gaze lingered on the photos on her bookcase.
“No, what?” she asked.
“No, I really don’t believe you’ve slept with Beau,” Jack said, “just the way I don’t believe your kicking me out has anything to do with what I said about him. You know what I really think? I think you’re frightened. Not so much about the break-in as about what’s happening between us.”
She tensed, feeling a stab of apprehension, perhaps a prescient warning of the blow to come.
“I think you’ve barricaded yourself behind a memory,” Jack continued, “and you’re scared to death to let anyone get past it—because you don’t want them to find out how sad and stunted a soul can be when it grows in the shadow of a tombstone.”
He was gone before she could recover, leaving her to realize that she might have gotten in a couple of bruising shots, but it was Jack Montoya who had scored the TKO.
&nb
sp; It took days for Reagan to make herself call Beau, days before she could do much of anything except survive the reverberations of her last conversation with Jack.
Oh, she went through the motions well enough. She took Frank Lee to the nursing home, where she passed out Halloween treats, and then to the dog park, where he disgraced his heritage by wallowing in a mudhole instead of running. She also returned to work after learning that her transfer had been expedited by the district chief. She even allowed a couple of old friends to talk her into a lunch date at their favorite little Guatemalan restaurant. But she was lousy company—lousy at everything but fantasizing about making love with Jack—and then kicking herself at the memory of how he’d wounded her.
But none of that lessened her need to confront Beau on the diploma issue, so after getting home from work one brilliantly sunny morning, she gave him a call. Though it was not yet seven A.M., she didn’t care if she woke him.
He picked up on the second ring, and she didn’t waste a second on false pleasantries. “I need to talk to you.”
He hesitated, but only for a moment. “I’m on my way.”
“No, Beau. We can talk about it on the…” Reagan let the words trail off. He had already hung up.
Great. Now she’d get to piss him off in person.
She grabbed a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from her closet, then decided to hold off on changing out of her uniform. If nothing else, it would serve to remind Beau that she might have moved back to an ambulance, but she was still very much a part of the department. A part of the department that could have his ass fired for hitting her.
She was having a cup of coffee on the bench in her back yard when his souped-up old Camaro pulled into the driveway. As soon as he climbed out of the silver coupe, she called for him to join her. Better that than going with him back inside the house.
From the branches of a live oak, a mockingbird sang a medley of greatest hits from other species, while high above, an airplane painted vapor trails across the sky. Sitting in a warm patch of sunshine and watching Beau walk toward her, smiling and dressed for a visit to the gym, Reagan could almost pretend the events of the past two weeks hadn’t happened.
Fade the Heat Page 24
