Burning Hearts

by Marci Bolden

  Countless.

  They hadn’t dated for years or a lifetime, but they’d been together long enough for him to know that he missed the intimacy they’d shared. Not the sex. Okay. Not just the sex. They had shared a deeper connection from the day they’d met. Sparks had been immediate, at least on his part. The first time she’d kissed him after a knife-throwing lesson, breath spicy and tongue tasting like chili from the dog she’d just finished, his body had sprung to life. Her kiss had turned him into a starving wolf on the hunt. He’d never been aggressive, but he’d been starved for her, and that moment had turned from sweet to heated in seconds.

  In an instant, they’d gone from friends hanging out to passionate lovers. All the excitement she’d shown rock climbing, and the silliness during their guitar lessons, and the natural grace when throwing knives had come together as she’d pulled him into her apartment and straight to her bed. They’d moved together in a harmony he’d never had with anyone else. They were connected in a way that he’d never been with anyone else.

  God, he missed that. He missed her. He missed them. Wrapping his arm around her, he pulled her tighter against him. He smiled as she wriggled a bit closer.

  Staring at the silver-blue shadows dancing across the ceiling, Josh considered the conversation he’d had with Alexa while cooking dinner. Jack had been right, as always. Alexa was the “nice” one of the HEARTS. Not that the rest of his friends weren’t; they just didn’t have the sisterly affection and patience Alexa did. All the women were laser-focused, which didn’t always allow for time to sit down and nurture his wounded soul.

  Alexa, however, had listened as he explained that he didn’t think Eva was weak; he was simply concerned for her safety and wanted her to avoid unnecessary risk. She sympathized with his concerns, as she tended to do, and then gave him a firm slap of reality, not the “Eva can take care of herself” lecture he was expecting. She understood that his mind didn’t work in shallow reassurances. He was too analytical.

  Instead, she broke down Eva’s training: a brown belt in Krav Maga required years of training with thousands of hours of learning techniques to protect herself, and she was a highly trained gun-owner as well—not to mention that she’d spent seven years as a beat cop before joining Holly and the other women to form HEARTS.

  Then she hit him with the zinger.

  Eva might be in more risky situations from day to day than other women, but she was aware of that. That awareness heightened her senses, making her far less likely to become a victim of crime or violence than the everyday woman who buried her head in her phone as she walked along, assuming nothing bad would ever happen. Eva wasn’t foolish or careless. She was smart and capable.

  Joshua was being paranoid. He always had been. He always saw the worst in every person and situation. He’d grown up being the outcast, the black sheep, seeing the uglier side of people, and felt the need to protect Eva from the hurt he knew existed in the world. But that was silly. She was perfectly aware of the hurt people could cause. She’d been dealing with it a long time, too.

  Even so, he pulled her closer. He couldn’t imagine what he’d do if anything ever happened to her. He’d be lost. Broken. Holding her hair in his fist, he closed his eyes and inhaled, committing her scent and heat and feel to his memory, wishing he could somehow shield her from the monsters they both knew hid in the shadows.

  4

  Eva listened intently while the woman on the other side of the table told her all about how their neighbor, Shane Tremant, was well known for being the building perv and that she would do well to avoid him.

  “If he comes into the pool while you’re there, just skedaddle. Don’t even try to avoid him. That’s pointless,” Melly said. She rolled her gray eyes. “He’ll be on you like a fly on honey. Trust me. I know. He accidentally grabbed my ass in the pool one day.” Her air quotes were paired with another roll of her eyes.

  “How do you know it wasn’t an accident?” Eva pushed.

  Melly pressed her plum-tinted lips together. Eva was tempted to ask what kind of lipstick she used that could hold up to the hot dog and baked beans she’d eaten but didn’t want to distract her. “Because,” she said, “if it’d been an accident, he wouldn’t have squeezed.”

  “No.” Eva took a breath to calm her fury. “He wouldn’t have.” Glancing toward the man in question, she caught him watching her. His intent stare, though unsettling, wasn’t what captured Eva’s attention. The oversize car key fob he held was of much more interest. He wasn’t toying with it in some nervous twitch. He held the fob deliberately, as if…aiming it at her and the other two women who had been hovering over the dessert table for the last ten minutes.

  Eva wasn’t about to give Josh an ego stroke, but none of the other desserts she’d sampled came close to his. She’d been using tongs to add a strawberry cheesecake mini muffin to her plate when Courtney and Melly had introduced themselves. They’d easily fallen into conversation about the sweet offerings before moving into a round of neighborly chatter. With Eva being new to the community, Melly felt it was their duty to warn her about some issues, and Eva was all ears, gently nudging for more information. Courtney nodded in agreement occasionally but tended to smile and bat her overly made-up eyes more than contribute verbally.

  Nothing was more valuable to a PI than a nosy neighbor with a taste for gossip, so Eva aimed most of her questions at Melly.

  While forcing a bright smile in the general direction of Shane Tremant, she kept her focus on his hand. Why did he have a car key at the community potluck? He wasn’t acting like he had someplace else to be. And who handled their keys like that? With such deliberate intent. That was suspicious as hell.

  Cameras could be hidden in all sorts of everyday things, including fake car key fobs like the one he was holding. She’d have to try to get her hands on that thing and examine it. She was eyeing the fob when she lifted her gaze, and Shane smirked at her, clearly taking her interest in his potential criminal behavior as something else. His smile sent a jolt through Eva. She’d met a lot of creeps in her time, but she usually wasn’t affected by them. Something sinister lurked behind that man’s smile and instantly landed him on her radar.

  She’d keep an extra-special eye on that asshole, only not in the way he apparently hoped.

  “His wife is insane, and she will blame you if she catches him,” Melly said, pulling Eva’s attention back to her. “And once Tiffany gets on your case, she’s harder to get rid of than her perverted husband.”

  “Did you report the assault to management?” Eva asked.

  Melly creased her brows. “The assault? Oh, you mean that jackass grabbing me? No. Our homeowner’s association is basically a popularity contest. Shane got pretty much the entire board elected.”

  Courtney agreed. “The only thing that sleazeball Neal Price has going for him is that Shane is his best friend.”

  Eva scanned the crowd until she found Price, the man who had hired her. He was standing next to a stiff brunette who had a smile stuck to her face. Well-practiced, no doubt, in the art of socializing, the woman elbowed the teen next to her until Cody stopped chewing her nails. Unlike the other day, Cody now wore shorts and a T-shirt. Both were black, but at least she appeared somewhat dressed for the occasion instead of for a skateboarder’s funeral. She, however, didn’t have the woman’s—Eva presumed her to be Cody’s mother—plastic smile.

  While at the HEARTS office, Price had said only a few people had access to the tenants’ private information. Shane Tremant’s name was not on that list, but maybe Price had chosen to omit it. Or maybe he foolishly trusted his BFF to not be a creepy sexual predator. Not to mention that if Tremant was a trusted confidant, he could have easily stolen information from Price without his knowledge.

  But that didn’t feel right to Eva. She had a nagging suspicion that if one of those men were guilty, they both were guilty. If she’d learned one thing as an investigator, it was to trust those gut checks. She believed what these wome
n were telling her, mostly because her initial impression of Neal Price was that he was a self-centered prick, but also because Shane Tremant put off an air of arrogance that was often found in sexual predators. Men like that could sweet-talk the panties off an eighty-year-old nun.

  “Neal is pretty much worthless,” Courtney continued. “If you have an issue, it’s best to handle it on your own. He’s only in the role of president for show.”

  “Good to know,” Eva said, scooping a larger than necessary helping of Josh’s peach cobbler onto her plate.

  “This is delicious,” Courtney moaned. “Your boyfriend made this?”

  Eva smiled, biting off the initial reaction to point out that Josh was not her boyfriend. “He sure did.”

  “Does he cook a lot?”

  “Yeah. We both do, but Josh is better at it,” she said honestly.

  “You are so lucky,” Melly offered. “My boyfriend doesn’t lift a finger.”

  “I don’t know why you put up with him,” Courtney stated. “Single is better. By far.”

  Eva glanced at Shane Tremant as the other two women debated the pros and cons of their respective relationship statuses. He was still watching them. Clearly something was rolling through his mind. His stare was piercing, his attention unwavering. Eva’s gut turned as he continued his scrutiny. Most voyeurs weren’t so blatant, but something about him was off, which sent him right to the top of Eva’s short list of suspects. Short list being one at the moment.

  Shane Tremant. She cemented his name to her memory so she could do a background check as soon as she and Josh got back to their condo.

  “I got this,” Josh muttered under his breath as he glanced around the men’s locker room. Rene had taught him what to look for when detecting spycams, and Eva had reinforced it a dozen times because she thought he was an idiot. Trying to act casual, he took much longer than necessary to tie his shoes, waiting for one of his neighbors to finish dressing and leave him alone. Two seconds. Eva told him over and over, he just needed two seconds. He’d know that quickly if the key fob Shane loved to hold so much was a camera.

  Look for a lens or a USB port.

  Eva had said that over and over, too. Her lack of faith in him was frustrating as hell. But well deserved. He got what he gave. However, he was working to change that. He’d done what Alexa had suggested and stood back, asking questions instead of going with his usual approach of trying to tell Eva how much he knew about whatever she was investigating. In his own defense, he kind of did that with everyone. Not just Eva. The curse of having an IQ of one thirty-nine was that he usually did know more than everyone else, and he wasn’t always the best at sharing his knowledge in a way that wasn’t condescending.

  He was working on that, too.

  Right now, though, he had to focus on inconspicuously picking up that fob and examining it without getting caught.

  Stretching as he stood, he paced back and forth, looking around him. On his third pass by the fob sitting on the bench, he scooped it up and looked at the edge—all four sides—but found no indicator of a lens. Pushing the button on the top left corner, he released the metal key and examined the space behind where it had been tucked inside the black plastic. Nothing. No sign of ports or a memory card or anything else that could be construed as suspicions. This was a key. Just a key.

  “Gonna steal my car?”

  Josh nearly dropped the fob. Feeling that damn adrenaline rush, he held the pocketknife-sized gadget up and forced a dumbfounded look to his face. “I’ve never seen something like this.”

  Shane screwed up his face in a way that let Josh know he didn’t believe him, one brow arched as he narrowed his eyes and held his hand out. “Really? These are pretty common nowadays.”

  “Uh… I drive…an old…Ford.” He stuttered out the words before dropping the fob into Shane’s giant palm. His hands were big enough that he could probably grab Josh by the head and toss him into a locker without much effort.

  “What kind?”

  Oh. Shit. Josh might be one percentage point away from joining Mensa, but that intelligence did not spread to motor vehicles. “Mustang.” He’d heard Jack and Rene talking about those before. She owned one that Jack had drooled over at one of the many get-togethers HEARTS had invited Josh to.

  “Year?”

  “Sixty-eight.”

  Eva had coached him to keep his lies, if he had to cover his ass like he was doing now, tied to truths so he could remember them. Rene’s car was a ’68.

  “Cool. Take me for a ride sometime?”

  Rene would cut his tongue out if he even suggested it. “Sure thing.”

  Shane’s monster hand landed on Josh’s shoulder as the man started for the door. “Enjoy your workout.”

  Pumping his fist in the air like he’d witnessed other men do, he said, “Yup. Will do. Take it easy, Shane.” Once alone, Josh exhaled and sat on the bench as the surge of chemicals in his bloodstream leveled and his muscles started to quiver.

  Eva did this crap for a living? Sneaking and lying and confronting? Gah. No thanks. He’d take working with the dead any day.

  Grabbing his bag, he left the locker room, looking as casual as he could, despite his hands and knees trembling from the fight-or-flight response he’d just experienced. In the elevator, he leaned back and closed his eyes, finally releasing some of the anxiety coursing through him. He wondered if Eva had these same reactions when staring down a potential bad guy.

  Well, of course she did. That was exactly how the human body—any human body—responded. Even those that belonged to the HEARTS. They had just been trained to deal with the surge so it didn’t control them. They controlled it. Just like Alexa told him. Eva had spent years training how to properly respond in moments just like that one.

  She always seemed so in command of her body and emotions. On some level, he’d attributed her cool-as-a-cucumber demeanor to being a little bit cocky about her role as a PI, but now he suspected there was more to it. She was in control, always aware of her body and emotions, because losing control was a hazard in her line of work. If he’d stumbled any more than he had in front of Shane, the man probably would have suspected something was off about Josh. Suspicion could ruin Eva’s case.

  Josh took a deep breath and moved through one of the tai chi poses he’d witnessed Eva do a hundred times before. He needed to have better control, quicker responses, so he didn’t draw attention to himself or Eva. He made a mental note to look into a studio to take classes. He’d like to have more regulation of his adrenaline rushes, too.

  Straightening up as the doors slid open, he took long steps toward the condo. Not running but certainly not walking either. He was eager to tell Eva what he’d found, or rather hadn’t found, in the key fob to see what their next step should be.

  “Well?” she demanded as soon as he closed the door behind him.

  He shook his head. “Nothing. It was just a key.”

  She narrowed her eyes a bit, as if she weren’t sure she believed him. “You looked for a lens?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you opened it to see if there were ports or an SD card?”

  “Yes. There was nothing. Just a key.”

  She dropped into a chair at the dining table so hard the square feet skidded an inch or two against the highly polished cement floor. “Damn it. I was so sure.”

  “What about you?” He set his bag next to the sofa and headed for the papers she’d spread across the table. “Finding anything in the background checks on Price and Tremant?”

  She flipped her notebook shut before he could reach her and started gathering papers and photos. “Not much. Not yet, anyway. I’m still digging.”

  Josh didn’t mean to look so hurt, but he actually felt his face sag as she hid her work from him. He stopped closing in on her and stared, not knowing what to say after her obvious display of shutting him out.

  A loud sigh escaped her full lips. “Sorry. Habit.”

  It was a habit she’d
started when they were dating. She hadn’t minded talking about her work with him until he’d started pushing back with questions about danger and security. After that, she’d start closing her files, exiting out of windows on her laptop, and changing the subject when he walked into the room.

  He’d really screwed up.

  “You’re not an investigator, Josh,” she said, as if that explained her response. “I shouldn’t have asked for your help with the key fob. That was giving you mixed signals. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t mind helping.” Finishing the trek he’d started, he sat at the table. “I want to help.”

  She met his gaze, but he couldn’t read her response. He’d never been able to read people like she could. She would have had to send smoke signals and plaster pictures on a billboard before he understood what looked to be sadness in her eyes.

  He was tempted to ask what she was thinking, but instead of pushing, he rolled his shoulders back and shared the decision he’d made. “I thought I’d start doing tai chi. Can you recommend a place?”

  Her eyes changed, but this time the message was clear. Confusion. Her morning ritual was the one thing she was interested in that he just hadn’t wanted to try with her. He had been intimidated by the movements and hadn’t really believed the power of calm she said the practice brought. Only after dating her for some time had he started to change his mind, but they had moved on to learning other things. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” He laughed uneasily. “Down in the locker room, Tremant almost busted me.”

  She lifted her brows. “Are you okay?”

  “I started shaking so bad, I could hardly hide it. I’d like to learn how to keep my cool. You always said tai chi helped control your stress, so…”