Josh's Justice, Cowboy Romance (Bad in Boots, Book 4) (14 page)

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, amazed by how easily he could excite her with just a touch. “Have you ever used that feature?”

He sat down on the bed and put on his shoes. “That phone was a gift from the guys at the firehouse. I’m…um…notorious for losing my cell phone.” Glancing at her, his expression turned sheepish. “Keys I can seem to keep up with but my cells…” He trailed off, then shrugged. “The guys got me this cell phone for my birthday last year as a kind of joke. The truth is I actually have used the ‘locator’ feature several times. So far this year I haven’t had to buy a new cell phone. Last year, I had to buy three. Gets expensive after a while.”

Despite how upset she was, Sabrina managed a smile at this endearing look into Josh’s foibles.

He leaned over and kissed her on her lips, lingering as if he really didn’t want to go. Before she could grab his shoulder and beg him to stay, Josh pulled away, a regretful expression on his face.

He walked back over to his closet and grabbed his jacket. “There’s sandwich meat and cheese in the fridge, fruit, whatever you’d like for lunch. I’ll be back before you know it.”

It won’t be soon enough, she thought as he walked out of the bedroom and left the house.

As soon as the door shut behind him, she climbed out of bed and headed for the shower. While the hard spray hammered down on her, she rubbed Josh’s spice-scented soap over her body to try to stay focused on him and not where he was. But the only thoughts that filled her mind was losing her father and how difficult it had been for her to adjust to that loss.

She finished her shower and dried off, standing in front of the mirror. Wiping away the fog on the glass, she stared at her reflection. Fear and worry filled her deep green gaze.

How can you let yourself get so upset over this
? She yanked the comb through her long, dark hair.
It’s not like you and Josh are in a committed relationship
. For that matter, Josh certainly didn’t say anything beyond this weekend together.

While she ran the hair dryer, she realized that the fact of the matter was she did care about Josh, cared what happened to him. She couldn’t just stand by and watch the same thing happen to him that happened to her father even if they were just sleeping together.

Once she was dressed in a casual floral sundress, Sabrina smoothed the short skirt’s cotton material across her thighs and walked into the living room. Standing in the center of the large open house, she heard every single sound the house made, from the creaking of a floorboard as she walked across it, to the ticking of the standup pendulum clock on the fireplace mantel. She opened the window, hoping the forest sounds would drain out the sounds of sheer emptiness she heard in the house everywhere she turned.

Hugging herself, Sabrina stared into the woods, wishing she could talk to someone about her fears. Elise always knew how to make her feel better, but she had enough on her mind without Sabrina adding to the burden. Then it occurred to her exactly who she could talk to.

She walked back into the bedroom and picked up Josh’s cell phone. She’d purposely left her own cell phone behind in Arizona. Otherwise she’d have never really
gone
on vacation from work. People always had a way of finding you if you had your cell phone with you.

Thinking about something happening to Josh had her stomach in painful knots. She really needed to talk to someone. “Please be home,” she whispered as she dialed and waited for the phone to ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey Mom.”

“Sabrina? Hi, honey. Hold a sec, let me get Taz in. Come on, boy. You’ve scared enough rabbits tonight.”

Sabrina smiled, imagining their Border Collie chasing rabbits. The sound of a door shutting came across the line and her mom sighed. “Now I can talk. Where are you calling from? I don’t recognize the number.”

“I’m calling from Texas. I’m visiting my friend Elise on her ranch. Do you remember my roommate from college?”

“Oh yes. Such a sweet girl. How’s she doing?”

Sabrina walked into the living room to look outside. “She’s great. Recently married a cowboy.”

“Good for her. Is he handsome?” her mother whispered in the phone.

Sabrina snickered. “Yes, and you should see him with Elise. She’s his world.”

“Your father was like that with me,” her mother said wistfully. “Are you there on vacation?”

“Yes, I finally took some time off. Can you believe it?” She began pacing, working up her nerve to talk about things she’d never discussed with her mom.

“Well it’s about time. You’ve been working so hard, dear. You don’t sound very relaxed. Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine, Mom. Having a good time. I even met someone here.”

“That’s wonderful! But why do you sound so tense?”

Sabrina swallowed the lump in her throat and exhaled a deep breath. “There’s just one problem. He’s a firefighter.”

“Oh, honey.” Her mother released a sad sigh.

Sabrina clutched the phone close. “I know, I know, Mom. I would never have gone out with him if I’d known.”

“Why?”

Sabrina stopped pacing, surprised by her mother’s question. “Well, because of Dad,” she answered, her voice shaking.

“Sabrina, I don’t regret a single moment with your father. Even all the worrying I did was worth the time we had together. Don’t let your fear keep you from getting to know this man. The really good ones are rare.”

“Mom, he’s fighting a fire as we speak, and I feel like I’m going to throw up. I just don’t think I’m strong enough to handle this.” She began pacing again, biting her thumb nail.

“How do you feel when you’re with him?”

“What?”

“How does he make you feel?”

Sabrina stopped and stared at the carpet where they’d made love for the first time. “Wonderful. I’ve never felt this way about a man before. This was supposed to just be a fling, but I really like Josh. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted, but—”

“If Josh makes you feel better than you’ve ever felt with anyone else, don’t push him away. Give him a chance first, give the relationship a chance.”

“But spending more time with him means I’ll fall even deeper. I don’t think I could handle worrying about him every time he goes to work.”

“It won’t happen overnight, Sabrina, but if you really care about Josh, your feelings for him will eventually overrule your worry of him being a firefighter. The fear of losing him in the line of duty may never go away, but if it means being with him or not being with him, that’s a choice you’ll have to decide on your own.”

Sabrina squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. “How did you do it, Mom?”

“I loved him, sweetheart. Plain and simple.” Her mother was quiet for a second, then said, “I’m really glad you called. We’ve needed to talk about this for a long time. I’m just sorry you’re not sitting in front of me so I could hug you right now. I’ll always miss your father, Sabrina, but he died doing what he loved. Saving lives. I have no regrets. Not one. Make sure you live your life so you don’t either, okay?”

Sabrina nodded. “I will, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you too. Now go enjoy the rest of your vacation.”

Sabrina felt a little better after she hung up with her mother. No, she wasn’t a hundred percent but she could cope. Work was always a good outlet when one had too much time to ponder things. She hopped on Josh’s laptop and logged into her email and checked it via the web. Yep, there were a hundred messages waiting to be answered.

She spent the next few hours responding to emails, only pausing to rummage through Josh’s fridge and make herself some lunch. She couldn’t believe how much work she’d gotten done. She’d been twice as efficient without people walking in her office to chat every so often. When her shoulders started to feel sore from sitting so long, Sabrina decided she’d worked long enough. She shut down the computer and looked at her watch.

Frowning as worry crowded her thoughts once more, she realized several hours had passed and she still hadn’t heard from Josh. She moved to stand by the big picture window and stared out at the darkening sky and the trees blowing in the wind. A storm was brewing.

He could’ve called to reassure her he was okay and he didn’t. Man, she was going to rail at him as soon as he walked in the door. Well, after she held him close and gave him a welcome home kiss. When she thought of something happening to him, her heart sped up and suddenly her rib cage felt too small for the wild beating that hammered against it. She put her hand on her chest, the sense of panic setting in as her breathing turned to short, choppy pants.

God, Josh better come home soon, or at this rate I’m going to pass out
.

Chapter Nine

Sonofabitch, he ached all over. Josh stood under the hot stream of water in the firehouse’s shower, washing away the sweat, soot and general grime from the fire. After they’d put the fire completely out, he didn’t have a choice but to hitch a ride back to the fire station on the fire truck since his truck was gone. To save time, he’d driven his truck directly to the fire’s location and parked away from the burning building. But while he did his civic duty, putting out a five-alarm fire, his damn truck had been towed.

Josh poured the fire station’s antiseptic-smelling shampoo into his hair and hissed as the soap ran over the cut on his cheek. He thought about Sabrina while he lathered the suds. Hell, for that matter he’d thought about her all the way to the fire. Only while he fought the raging inferno was he able to disengage his thoughts about the woman he’d fallen in love with. Yeah, he’d admitted it to himself on his way to the fire, but how the hell was he going to convince her living with a fireman wasn’t so bad?

Some shampoo got in his eye and without thinking he rubbed it hard, then winced, cursing Dirk for giving him the shiner earlier in the day.

“Sorry,” his buddy had said as he elbowed him in the eye while they were pulling down the hoses. “See why it’s important to have all your gear on.
Accidents
happen.” Dirk had mock-scolded while Josh rubbed his injured eye.

“Screw you,” Josh had grated.

“Nah, you already took care of that.” Dirk tossed over his shoulder. Flashing him an unrepentant smile, Dirk had continued, “Now we’re even.”

Josh shut off the shower and after he toweled dry, he touched his sore eye. At least something good came from it. Since the tow truck place closed at three, he’d been able to guilt Dirk into giving him a lift back to the Double K after he took a shower.

“Hey,
little
man,” Dirk smirked, purposefully glancing at Josh’s naked lower body as he poked his head into the locker room. “You’ve got a phone call.”

Josh grabbed his junk and faced his friend with an eat-shit-and-die smirk. “Bite me, Chavez.” After he’d quickly dressed, he made his way to the front of the station house.

When he passed Dirk on his way to the phone, his buddy warned, nodding to his bruised eye, “I hope the reason she’s calling you is strictly business or I’ll have to give you a matching set.”

“It’s Renee?”

“None other,” Dirk shot back in a dry tone before he walked away.

Josh picked up the receiver from the front desk. “Hello.”

“Josh, hey, it’s Renee. Listen, I need to get a hold of Colt. You know where he is, right?”

“What’s this about?” he asked, his stomach tensing.

“I just need to talk to him, that’s all.”

He didn’t like her evasiveness. “This has to do with your investigation, doesn’t it? You still suspect Colt?”

When she didn’t reply, he ground out, “You going to tell me or not?”

“No.”

“Suddenly, my memory isn’t so good. I’m hanging up now.” He started to pull the phone away from his ear.

“Wait!”

“Yes?” he replied into the receiver.

“Time is of the essence here.” She sighed. “I got a call yesterday from a concerned woman. She’d heard about the fire at the Lonestar Ranch and that someone had been in the fire. She said she wanted to make sure it wasn’t Elise Tanner. She went on to say that she was out for dinner one night and overheard Colt tease his wife, saying that if he was ever really that hard up for cash, he could always bump her off and collect the life insurance money.

“Out of curiosity, I checked all the life insurance companies in town and a representative from the Oracle life insurance company confirmed Colt and Elise had recently taken out life insurance policies with their company.”

Josh snorted. “So. They recently just got married. Makes sense to me.”

“Maybe you’re right and I’ve got it all twisted up, but Sabrina looks a lot like Elise, and from my notes the night of the accident, I know Elise leaving town was a last minute decision. The fact that the stables were locked from the outside while an unconscious woman lay in danger of burning to death inside sounds pretty intentional to me. If the attack on Sabrina was purposeful, it’s possible she wasn’t the intended target. Maybe whoever did this meant to attack Elise and not Sabrina. She did say she was hit from behind.”

“Are you implying what I think you’re implying?” he fairly yelled into the phone as his anger rose.

“Josh—”

“Colt is with Elise right now. You know that from our conversation yesterday.”

“Wasn’t he originally planning to be out of town, though? Nice alibi,” Renee countered, leaving the implication dangling between them.

Josh took a couple of deep breaths. He might know Renee personally, but she was still an investigating officer and she took her job very seriously. He decided to go in another direction. “What about that escaped convict?”

“No dice. When we pressured him with an attempted murder charge on top of his other offenses, he finally confessed he’d broken into an empty house and stole some food and checks around the time Sabrina was attacked. The house he broke into was two miles away from the Tanner ranch. The homeowner confirmed the timing of the break-in because they arrived home to see someone running away from the house. There wasn’t enough time for him to have been in both places at the same time.”