12-Alarm Cowboys (128 page)

J
ax pulled his
motorcycle into Station 58’s lot and parked, then shoved down the kickstand and killed the engine. Captain Stewart had called an hour ago and told him the arson investigators and cops wanted to talk to him about the guy who had assaulted him and whether it could be Skye’s ex-boyfriend. Jax wasn’t thrilled about being separated from Skye, but at least Dane was there to keep an eye on her. Skye had wanted to come with him, saying she might be able to help the investigation, but there was no way in hell he was letting her leave the ranch any more than necessary while Jordan was out there. The nut job had resorted to using fire in his first two attacks, but there was nothing to say the guy wouldn’t use a gun next time.

Jax found the captain in the training room with a few people from the fire investigation division, some uniformed police officers, and a detective.

After introductions were made, the detective—Collins—put the photo of Jordan that Skye had given them up on the training room’s projector screen. Then he went through everything the NYPD had sent down.

“I’m going to bottom line this,” Collins said. “The NYPD still can’t find Jordan McAvoy or Aiden Dunn. Based on evidence at McAvoy’s apartment, they think he killed Dunn and got rid of the body. They assume McAvoy then left New York to come to Dallas to get back at Skye Chandler for leaving him by setting fire to the hotel where she was staying. Unfortunately, they have no evidence McAvoy ever boarded a plane in New York or at any of the other nearby airports, either. They also can’t find evidence of him leaving on a train or bus or rental car.”

Jax swore silently. “Why the hell do we care how he got out of New York? We know he’s here. We need to find him before he finds Skye.”

“That’s the problem—we don’t
know
. We
think
he’s here. Just like we think he’s after Skye, and now you.” Collins shook his head. “But no one has seen McAvoy for sure and we have nothing to convince anyone that the arson cases are even linked to each other, much less to Skye and you.”

Stewart frowned. “So what hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying that the police department can’t dedicate much in the way of manpower to this case or assign any kind of protective detail to Skye Chandler.”

Jax snorted. “You’d rather wait until she ends up dead, I guess.”

Collins let out an expletive. “That’s not what we want and you know it.” He sighed. “I’ll have patrol do extra drive-byes of your ranch. For now, that’s all we can do.”

Jax would have argued, but just then Tory walked in to tell the captain that the chief was on the phone looking for an update on the situation.

As Stewart left the room, Tory walked over to study the picture of Skye, Jordan, and Aiden that was still up on the screen. “So this is the guy who started those fires and tried to kill you and Dane’s sister, huh? And he looks so normal.”

Jax scowled at the picture of Jordan. “I don’t know. Underneath that blond hair and spray-on tan, he looks like some kind of serial killer to me.”

Tory frowned. “Blond hair? Which guy are you looking at?”

Jax pointed to Jordan. “Him. He’s the psycho ex-boyfriend trying to kill Skye.”

“If he’s the ex-boyfriend, who the hell is that?” Tory asked, motioning to Aiden.

“That’s Skye’s best friend, Aiden.”

Tory looked at Jax like he was crazy. “Huh. Well, if that guy is the psycho ex-boyfriend, what was the other one doing in the hotel the night of the fire?”

Jax hadn’t realized anyone else had been listening to their conversation until the entire room suddenly went quiet.

“Aiden was there?” he asked. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Tory looked at the photo again. “I found him up on the fifth floor a little while after you came down with Skye. He’d collapsed from smoke inhalation.”

Collins shared a look with his fellow DPD officers before moving closer to the screen and jabbing a finger at Aiden. “You’re positive this is the man?”

Tory nodded. “Yeah. I mean, it’s not as dramatic as getting to save a beautiful woman, but I did lug the guy down five flights of stairs and across a parking lot. It kind of makes a man’s face easy to remember.”

Collins muttered something under his breath. “No wonder the NYPD couldn’t find any evidence of McAvoy leaving New York—he never did.”

“Shit,” Jax muttered. “That means Aiden is probably the one trying to kill Skye.”

The detective pulled out his cell phone. “I’m going to call this in. Get a BOLO out on Dunn.”

“I thought you said Aiden was Skye’s friend?” Tory said to Jax. “Why would he try to kill her?”

Jax pulled out his own phone and slid his thumb across the screen to unlock it. “Who the fuck cares? I need to call Dane and let him know what’s going on.”

But when he called Dane’s cell, it immediately went to voice mail. Jax swore and called him again, but it did the same thing. “Dane, it’s me. Aiden is the guy after Skye, not Jordan.”

He texted the same message for good measure before calling his home landline. He swore when he got the answering machine.

“Shit!” he hissed. “Dane’s not answering his cell and I got the answering machine when I called my home phone. That can’t be a coincidence. I need to get over there.”

As he raced out of the room, Jax heard the detective telling the uniformed cops to go with him even as Collins called in for the closest patrol unit to get to the ranch. Jax didn’t even slow down. He might not be a cop, but that wasn’t going to stop him from protecting Skye and Dane.

*

Skye was in
the kitchen, trying out the new cupcake recipe she’d picked up last night on the internet—chocolate with a bacon and marshmallow cream filling—when Dane came in. He’d avoided her since Jax left, so she fully expected him to walk right past her and grab something from the fridge, then walk out straight back out without saying a word. But after getting a soda, he walked over to the island where she was working.

“Mind if I try one?” he asked, motioning to the last batch of cupcakes she’d just taken out of the oven.

“Sure, go ahead. Careful though, they’re still a little hot.”

He nodded and unpeeled the wrapper, taking an insanely large bite and chewing it as if the filling was room temperature. Then he raised an eyebrow. “Hey, this is actually pretty good.”

She knew she shouldn’t let it, but for whatever reason, his surprised tone pissed her off so bad she almost threw a marshmallow covered spoon at him.

“You don’t have to act so shocked,” she said. “I realize you think I’m an idiot for quitting my job to bake cupcakes, but I do know what I’m doing.”

Her brother looked like he was about to argue, then had the decency looked contrite. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

She tossed the mixing spoon back in the bowl so hard that some of the filling slopped over the side. She ignored it. “Then how did you mean it, Dane? Because I’d really like to know.”

She expected him to get defensive. It’s what he’d done any time she called him out about anything since they were kids. But he didn’t. Instead, he gazed at her with a sadness in his eyes she’d never seen before, not even when their parents had died.

“I just meant that I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I know I haven’t been the kind of brother you needed since Mom and Dad died, but I really tried.”

Skye stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment. Then she ran around the cupcake covered island and threw her arms around her brother, squeezing him tightly.

“What the hell are you talking about?” she demanded. “You’re the best brother a girl could ever have.”

Dane laughed as he hugged her back. “Yeah, right.”

“You are,” she insisted.

He pulled away to look at her. “I know I said some really shitty stuff when you came back to Dallas. I’m sorry about that, too. But I’m even sorrier about shipping you away to college right after Mom and Dad died without ever asking if it was what you wanted.”

She felt tears burn her eyes, and quickly blinked them back. The day Dane had put her on a plane for college had almost been as bad as the day they’d lost their parents. Hearing he’d been hurting just as much made her feel like a bitch for thinking all the terrible things she had about him.

“Let’s just forget about that, okay? It’s in the past.” She gave him a small smile. “Besides, I understand why you did it. You thought it would be best to get me away from home and all the bad memories. I get it.”

Dane shook his head. “I wish I could look you in the eye and tell you that’s why I sent you off to college, but I’d be lying to you, and to myself.”

“What do you mean?”

He picked up another cupcake, but instead of eating it, he stared at it pensively. He was silent for so long, she didn’t think he was ever going to answer. But finally, he took a deep breath and looked at her.

“I didn’t ship you off the college for your benefit, Skye. I did it for mine. Because every time I looked at you and saw how unhappy you were, it was a reminder that Mom and Dad were dead because of me.”

Skye reeled back as if her brother had slapped her. Dane was home when the fire had started, but that didn’t mean he was responsible—even indirectly. She refused to believe that.

“Don’t say that,” she pleaded. “The fire was an accident. It was nobody’s fault they died. It was just a stupid, horrible accident.”

“The fire was an accident. Faulty wiring.” Dane’s mouth tightened. “But what happened afterward was all on me.”

Her brother looked so torn and broken right then that her heart broke for him. It was obvious he’d been carrying this pain around for a long time. She only wished she understood why.

“Dane, what are you saying?”

He turned his attention back to the cupcake again and carefully peeled off the wrapper. Like he didn’t want to waste any of the cake by letting it get stuck to the paper.

“I was in the basement playing video games when I smelled the smoke,” he said softly, not looking at her. “I thought mom had burned something in the oven, so I didn’t pay any attention. Then I heard the flames. I didn’t even know flames had a sound until that night, but they do. When I ran upstairs, the whole first floor was on fire. I still don’t know why the smoke alarms never went off—nobody ever figured out that part. I shouted for Mom and Dad, yelling for them to get outside.”

He stopped to wipe tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I was sure they heard me, so I ran outside. I didn’t see them right away, so I ran around the whole house. That was when I realized they hadn’t come out, that they were still in there. I ran back inside and tried to get up the steps, but it was too late. The fire had run up the walls and collapsed the whole landing, crushing the stairs.”

The tears he couldn’t seem to shed ran freely down Skye’s face. She put her arm around her brother’s broad shoulders. “None of that was your fault, Dane. You did all you could. No one could have made it up those stairs, even in full firefighter’s gear.”

He shook his head. “I could have gotten up those stairs and gotten to them in time if I hadn’t panicked and run out of the house first.”

“You were barely out of high school, Dane. You did what any eighteen-year-old would have done. You shouted for Mom and Dad to get out of the house, then you got out yourself. I never held you accountable for their deaths. Nobody did.”

“Maybe not, but I held myself accountable,” he said. “After becoming a firefighter and talking to some people, I realized how stupid that was. But back then, every time I saw you staring off in the distance with tears in your eyes, or heard you crying in your bed at night, all I could think was that it was my fault. So, when people told me that Mom and Dad would have wanted you to go to college, I figured that would probably be best for both of us if you left Dallas, but especially me. That way I wouldn’t have to look at you and remember what I did.”

Skye wiped the tears from her cheeks with her fingers. “Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?”

He looked at her, his eyes still wet. “Probably the same reason you never mentioned you’d rather make cupcakes than work on Wall Street—because we were both so caught up in our own issues that we didn’t bother seeing things from the other’s perspective.”

She gave him a wry smile. “We’re some screwed up siblings, aren’t we?”

He laughed and gave her a hug. “Yeah. But I think we’re getting better. And your cupcakes really are good. Mom would be proud.”

Skye liked to think so.

Dane leaned back against the island, watching as she frosted the rest of the cupcakes. For the first time in almost forever, they simply talked—about college, why she’d left her job on Wall Street, and how the events with their parents’ death had made Dane want to become a firefighter. It was an amazing few hours. Skye felt like she was meeting her brother for the very first time.

After his fourth cupcake, Dane announced he was going to check outside to make sure everything was quiet. Skye thought that was an unnecessary risk, but knew she’d never talk her brother out of it. They might be in a good place after their heartfelt conversation, but Dane still wasn’t going to take that kind of advice from his little sister.