Burn for You (3 page)

“And what’s the PC term for adulteress?” she asked.

“Isn’t it only adultery if the couple is married?”

“Oh, right. Cheating ho bag then?”

“Vic,” he said, his tone slightly scolding.

“Sorry,” she said.

He smiled, that signature golden-boy smile that never failed to make her stomach dip a little. “It’s okay. I appreciate your loyalty.” He stood, braced his hands on the next step up, and began stretching his calves.

No longer smiling, he said. “It can’t all be her fault though. Obviously, I wasn’t giving her something she needed if she had to go outside the relationship to get it.”

“Stop. We’re not rehashing this again. You’re over her. It’s over. It’s been over for two months. That’s eight whole weeks. Fifty-six whole days. And….a shit-ton of hours. It’s time to move on.”

He nodded. “You’re right, Vic.” He straightened and put his hands on his hips. “See. This is what I mean. What would I do without you?”

He held out a hand and she took it. He pulled her up from the bench, and true to their routine, they moved to a nearby tree to do their quad stretches. Placing one hand on the trunk for balance, she grabbed her ankle with the other. Feeling a satisfying pull through the front of her thigh, she considered her next move.

She’d been thinking about it for weeks. Ever since that day at the bridal salon when she’d first heard Graham was single again. “Have you thought about Tony and Camille’s wedding at all?”

“How do you mean?” he asked, switching legs.

“Well, maybe your next step in getting over Tabitha is to go to the wedding with someone else.”

“You mean, like a date?”

She laughed. “Yeah. Like a date. What else would I be suggesting? A prostitute?”

Smiling, he lifted his blue-eyed gaze to hers. “I never know with you.”

Her amusement faded a bit. That was the problem, wasn’t it? He expected her to say inappropriate, unladylike things. Tabitha would never make a hooker joke. There’d be no chance of misinterpreting her meaning. But Victoria? Yeah, she’d probably say something like that. No wonder Graham needed clarification.

“Hold my feet?” Graham asked, sitting in the grass to start sit-ups.

“Yeah.” Victoria got down on her knees and held his feet in preparation for his requisite sixty old-fashioned sit-ups. She used her arms to scrunch her girls together a bit, a desperate effort to say,
Hey, check this shit out. I’m a girl! I have boobs!

“Wouldn’t it be kind of boring?”

“Hmm?” Victoria asked, distracted by the lock of short dark-blond hair falling over Graham’s forehead. With each sit-up, she wanted to brush it away from his eye.

“For my date. If I’m in the wedding party, won’t she be bored? We won’t be able to sit together at the church or during dinner at the reception.”

This was her moment. This was exactly what she’d intended to point out to Graham before she got all flustered by his rakish hair. She leaned in a little, giving her girls an extra squeeze. “Well, what if your date for the evening was also in the wedding party?”

“One of the bridesmaids? But I don’t know any of those chicks very well.”

Really? Seriously? Did he need to be hit over the head? She wanted him to think this was his idea, but if she left this conversational journey up to him, they’d never get there. So which card to play? Did she say,
Well, you know me
. Or, did she just agree and say,
True
, and then give him another minute to get there on his own?

“Wait,” he said.

Eureka, he’s found it!

“What if you were my date?”

“Me?” she asked, feigning surprise. As if she’d never thought of that.

Riiiight.

“Yeah, it’d be perfect.” He sat up one last time and didn’t lean back for any more reps.

She released his feet and sat back on her heels.

“We could hang out all night,” he said. “And I wouldn’t have to worry that there’d be any drama. There wouldn’t be any of that first-date getting to know you crap. We could just party. Dance. Have fun.”

“Yeah?” This sounded like friend-zone talk. Only he’d be wearing a tux and she’d have on a dress and a little make-up.

“And if things get a little wild, and we have a little too much fun, it won’t be awkward the next day.”

“It won’t?”

“Nah. What’s the big deal? We’ve slept together before and it wasn’t a big deal. Why would it be this time?”

Wasn’t a big deal?
Wasn’t a big deal?
The summer after her senior year—when she and Graham had been camp counselors at an overnight camp and she’d lost her virginity to him—certainly
was
a big deal. And so was every time after that, for that matter.

“Want me to hold your feet?”

“Sure.” Grateful for the reprieve from answering his question, Victoria assumed the sit-up position. What exactly was he proposing? That they go as friends and perhaps—if they got drunk enough—cash in some benefits? Is that what she wanted?

Hell, no.

But…then again, what if something started between them as a result of a friends-with-benefits arrangement? That might not be so bad.

“So, what do you think?” he asked as she completed her tenth sit-up. “You want to go together? You didn’t have a date anyway, right?”

She continued her reps, breathing hard so she wouldn’t have to answer right away. He really took her single status for granted, didn’t he? He couldn’t even imagine that she’d have a date.

Evidently, this damn running tank top wasn’t working.

Graham might never see her as girlfriend material. And maybe it wasn’t just her lack of boobs. Maybe he needed the ultra-feminine Tabitha-type in order to feel manly.

That would never be Victoria.

All these years, she’d thought it was just terrible timing that kept them apart. When summer camp ended, he’d gone back to college in Iowa, and she’d gone to Illinois State University. She’d never romanticized the idea of long distance. She was realistic enough to know it wouldn’t work for them, and she’d never even asked him to try it.

They’d had a few reunions though during her college years. A few trysts here and there during school breaks, and when she’d graduated and returned home, they found each other once more. But it would be another summer fling cut short, because she’d already committed to join the army and become a combat medic. And when she’d finally come home for good and landed a position as a paramedic in the same firehouse? He’d been in a long-term relationship.

Despite the time apart, they’d always kept in touch through e-mail and social media. They were friends, and she’d nurtured a fairly strong hope that someday…

But he’d been single for weeks now and she still hadn’t made any progress. It was time to face the possibility that it wasn’t just bad timing that had kept them apart all this time. Maybe she needed a character from a Drew Barrymore movie to come and sit her down over a cup of coffee and tell her, point-blank, “Honey, he’s just not that into you.”

She finished her last rep and leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees. “I’m sorry, Graham.” She took a second to catch her breath. “But I already have a date for the wedding.”

“You do?” His eyes widened in surprise, but he quickly recovered and held his palm up for a high-five. Just like he would’ve done if a guy friend had just announced he’d gotten laid. “Well, good for you, dude.”

She slapped him a half-hearted high-five. “Thanks.”

Victoria scooted back and stretched her legs in front of her for one last big stretch. Leaning forward, she touched her toes.

“Ahem,” Graham coughed.

Victoria looked up to find him staring…at her chest of all things.

“You got…ah…your…”

She glanced down to find her left breast escaping from her tank top. “Oh, shit.” Face already warm from the exertion of their workout, she must’ve turned ten shades redder.

Oh, sure.
Now
he looks at my chest.

“Got it, thanks.” She pulled the tank top up quickly.

Graham laughed, all awkwardness gone from his tone. “Yeah, you’re going to want to save that for your big date,” he teased. “So, who is this guy, anyway?”

“Just some guy I know,” she said, hopping up. “Race you to your car?”

He sighed. “It doesn’t always have to be a race to the finish, you know?”

“That’s what she said, Graham-ma.”

He didn’t laugh at her joke, and for once she didn’t much care. She had more important things on her mind than trying to make him laugh.

She’d probably have to enlist the help of a third cousin. Or maybe hire a male escort. But she’d figure something out. Whatever she did, one thing was certain. She wasn’t walking into that wedding alone.

Chapter 3

The 3
AM
wake-up call was probably good practice for the odd hours he’d keep if he ever made it onto vice. At least, that’s what Jason told himself on the drive to the warehouse fire. He’d take any consolation he could get when he’d only had three hours of sleep.

The drive gave him just enough time to down an energy drink, and by the time he arrived at the warehouse, the blaze was mostly under control.

He pulled up and the beam of his headlights illuminated the steam rising from the ashes as firefighters hosed down the charred, black remains of the old, abandoned Beckett’s Warehouse.

He turned the car off and headed toward the chief’s SUV, parked in front of an ambulance on standby.

“Chief Bines?”

A middle-aged man with broad shoulders and a sits-at-a-desk-all-day paunch straightened from his lean against the SUV, and Jason held out a hand.

“Meadows,” the chief said, taking Jason’s hand in a firm grip. “The new arson investigator, right?”

“That’s right,” Jason said. “Good to see you again, Chief Bines.”

“Didn’t think we’d be meeting again so soon. You just completed your training, didn’t you?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Hell of an initiation.”

“Indeed.”

“I tell you what. I envy your department. Must be nice to have enough personnel to have an officer away at training for weeks at a time.” Bines crossed his arms over his chest and appeared to look down his nose at Jason, despite being a few inches shorter. “Heard you even have some new hires over there.”

It was the classic tit-for-tat attitude that plagued police and fire chiefs the world over. Police got new squad cars? Where’s the new ladder truck for fire? Firefighters get a gym membership and release time to work out? Where’s the gym membership for cops?

Jason wasn’t interested in a rundown of Chief Bines’ mental tally sheet. He knew the guy thought the fire department always got the short end of the stick.

“Yeah, we’ve hired a couple people, but then we’ve had some retirements, too.”

Bines grunted, but let the subject drop.

Jason scanned the scene, his eyes unable to distinguish much in the dark. But the smell, the smell was something else. “Smells like burnt rubber.”

“Yeah, we think there might’ve been a lot of semi-truck tires in the warehouse.”

“Anybody inside?”

“EMTs pulled one guy out. He was yelling from a second story window. Homeless, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah, we’ve chased squatters from this building from time to time. But usually in the winter. Wonder what he was doing in there this time of year.”

Bines shrugged. “Who knows? Making a home for himself, I guess.”

The two looked on as some of the firefighters began reeling hoses in. It was too dark to get pictures worth anything, and he wouldn’t be able to get in and sift through the ashes until everything had cooled. There was nothing he could do for now except ask questions.

“Any idea how the fire started?”

Chief Bines grunted. “I’m guessing our homeless guy wanted to have an indoor fire.”

“In the summer?”

“It’s only June. Still gets cool at night out here by the lake.”

“Yeah, but if you’re homeless and squatting in an abandoned building, that’s a lot of effort—to pull together materials and risk being found—just to take the chill out of the air.”

Bines shrugged again. It seemed his mind was made up about the vagrant’s contribution to the fire. “I don’t think there was any electricity going into the building, so that rules out electrical fire.”

The chief was probably right. It was logical to assume the bum started the fire. Maybe he was trying to cook something over an open flame. Or maybe he was just mentally ill and playing with fire. Who knew? But Jason wasn’t willing to jump to conclusions too soon. He would do a careful, thorough, by-the-book investigation. He’d show McCann he was more than capable—and good enough for vice.

And that meant considering all of the possibilities. Not zeroing in on the obvious like the chief had. “Did he say anything when he was rescued?”

“Don’t know. I got here after the ambulance left.” Bines checked his watch. “I doubt you’ll get near the patient until the docs are done with him, but the EMTs are probably back from the hospital by now. You could catch the paramedics at the firehouse and ask them.”

“I think I’ll do that and come back here in a couple hours.”

Bines nodded. “Ask to speak with Vic Russo or Bob Kearney. They were the ones here.”

“Will do. Thank you, sir.”

* * *

He put the unmarked car in park and tried to empty another drop from his energy drink. He hated to pollute his system with the stuff, but he needed a pick-me-up bad.

The cool night air hit his face and helped keep him alert as he walked into the firehouse through one of the open garage bay doors. The ambulance was back, just like Chief Bines predicted it would be.

Jason made his way to the kitchen and found a shorthaired woman in a paramedic’s uniform sitting at the kitchen island, staring at an uneaten sandwich. A TV droned in the adjoining room, a news station playing for the two firefighters dozing on the sofa. The noise from the other room somehow accentuated the silence of the kitchen and the woman’s complete stillness.

Something about her far-off look made Jason pause before speaking. Her head was tilted, revealing an elegantly long neck. Her dark blond hair was streaked with light-blond highlights in a trendy, edgy style, and while the cut was youthful, her expression was anything but.