Winter's Fire (Welcome to Covendale #7) (3 page)

She was surprised to find that hearing his name had the opposite effect of what she’d expected. It made him a person instead of a dream, the subject of an investigation rather than the embodiment of the most amazing night she’d ever had. But the relief that flooded her failed to comfort.

She looked at the hand coldly. No way would she touch him again—not after what happened the first time. “Winter Solomon,” she finally said. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Rhodes.”

“Winter.” He whispered the name like a caress, and to her horror, she felt her face flush with heat. “Your name is Winter? Of all the names I—”

“It’s Miss Solomon,” she said curtly.

He blinked once, and at last lowered his hand. His expression was completely blank. “Of course. Miss Solomon,” he said. “What can we do for you?”

“
You
can show me your insurance claims and expense documentation,” she said, throwing a pointed look at the other firefighter. It was hard enough dealing with this man at all, let alone with an audience. “I’ll need to review all of your files for the past five years. And then I may have a few questions for you—and your chief, if he can be bothered to make an appearance.”

Fleeting anger passed through the man’s features, but he composed himself quickly enough. “All right,” he said. “I’ll show you to the records room, and you can have all the files you want. But I have a question for you.”

“It had better be a professional question, Mr. Rhodes,” she said.

He recoiled a bit. “Completely professional,” he said. “What, exactly, are you investigating?”

She couldn’t help stiffening. “You have a right to review the accusations—”

“Accusations? Of
what
?”

“It’s all in the documentation,” she said. “If you have a machine, I’ll make copies for you.”

Adam stood completely silent and still, except for a single jaw twitch. At last he said, “Fine. Follow me, Miss Solomon.”

“Hey,” Dom said softly, stepping forward to stand beside the incensed firefighter. “You want me to come with you, bro?”

“No. We’ll be fine.” Adam’s posture relaxed as he addressed Dom, and he clasped the man’s shoulder briefly. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said. “I’ll fill you in later, okay?”

“Sure. You just watch yourself.” He sent Winter a distrustful glance and left the room.

Adam stared at her for a moment, and then turned toward a different door from the one Dom had used. “Come on,” he said, opening the door onto a flight of metal stairs. “And just so you know, I’ll want to see your documentation before I show you mine.”

“That’s fine, Mr. Rhodes.”

She followed him without a word. His reaction wasn’t unusual—no one enjoyed being investigated, and it was perfectly common to encounter defensive subjects in her line of work. Unfortunately, the most defensive ones also tended to be guilty of something.

Maybe this investigation wouldn’t be as straightforward as she’d thought.

* * * *

Adam couldn’t believe this cold, professional robot of a person was the same woman who’d all but thrown herself at him on the beach last summer. It was as if she’d spent every ounce of passion she owned that night—and now she didn’t feel a thing.

They were in the records room. The only other computer at the station besides the one in the chief’s office was in here, but hardly anyone used it. Mostly, there were lots of file cabinets and hard copy records, some of them dating back almost to the town’s founding.

She’d copied the files from her briefcase, but he hadn’t looked at them yet. Instead he pointed out the cabinets with the documentation she wanted, and then stood back and watched her pull and stack folders on the table with neat, almost brutal efficiency.

She hadn’t even looked at him since they entered the room.

Right now she was standing at the copier, programming it for multiple pages. He cleared his throat, and she pushed a button and glanced at him like he was a fly she wanted to swat. “Listen,” he said. “Are we going to talk about—”

“No.” She flung the curt word like a dagger.

“Why not?”

She gave him a cool stare as the copier began spitting out paper. “Because as far as I’m concerned, Mr. Rhodes, it never happened.”

“I see.” He spoke through clenched teeth, aware his anger was mostly directed at himself but unable to hold it back. He should’ve just forgotten about her, like she’d obviously wanted him to. “And you don’t think this thing that never happened might cloud your professional judgment?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Must be nice,” he said.

Her brow went up. “What?”

“To be able to sleep with someone, and then flush it completely from your system and move on with your life.”

She blinked once. “I hardly think that’s appropriate!”

He hid a smile at her shocked tone and slight blush. So the woman he’d met was still in there somewhere, after all. He decided to play it her way—for now. “You’re right,” he said, taking the folders she’d finished with and returning them to the file cabinets. “Let’s talk business. Are you going to tell me what you’re investigating, or do I have to guess that, too?”

Her color rose for an instant, but she took a slow breath and made the blush disappear. “It’s all right there in the documentation I gave you.”

“Maybe it is. But I want to hear it from you.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Why?”

“Just humor me.”

She offered an exasperated sigh. “The insurance company that underwrites your department suspects several incidents of inflated cost claims and imbalanced intake-spending figures.”

It was Adam’s turn to blink. “You wanna repeat that in English?”

“They think you’re robbing them. Taking in a lot more money than you’re spending.”

His gut twisted, and he told himself that her saying
you
didn’t specifically mean
him.
Still, the idea that they’d think anyone here would do something like that pissed him off. If the fire department was raking in the insurance money, they’d have equipment that actually worked. And they wouldn’t have had to close the Valley Ridge station. “Well, we’re not,” he said. “Robbing them, I mean.”

Winter Solomon shook her head slightly and almost smiled. “Normally I wouldn’t mention this to a subject, but—”

“Subject?” he said.

“Yes. You’re the subject of an investigation—well, your department is.” Once again, she sounded like a robot, but this time she’d at least retained a friendly edge. “Anyway, I don’t think you are robbing them.”

“You don’t?”

“No.” This time her smile was faint but recognizable. “Usually it’s a matter of missing line items or transposed numbers. An honest mistake. I just have to go through these records to find whatever doesn’t match up, and then the investigation will be closed.”

“So you’re not going to throw us all in jail.”

“That would be highly unlikely, Mr. Rhodes.”

He grinned out of pure relief. “In that case, will you do me a favor?”

“What kind of favor?”

“It’s an easy one,” he said. “Call me Adam.”

“All right…Adam.”

He noticed she didn’t invite him to call her Winter.

“Well, I guess I’ll let you do your thing,” he said, disappointed to sense that she’d stopped thawing and was all business again. But he couldn’t help one last attempt to reach her. “Listen, how long are you in town?”

“Mr. Rhodes—”

“Adam,” he said. “And I swear, I’m not trying to hit on you.”

Her shoulders slumped just a touch. “Just for the night,” she said. “As long as there are no complications with this, I’ll be headed out in the morning.”

“Well, would you like to come to a party tonight?”

She shot him a searing look.

“It’s not like that,” he said quickly. “In fact, it’s pretty relevant. We’re having a retirement party for Ben Schaeffer, the guy who—well, used to run the Valley Ridge station. It’s at the Klinker.”

“The what?”

“The only bar in town. You can’t miss it,” he said. “How about it? You’d be able to talk to the guys there, get to know them.”

“And why would I want to do that?”

Her downright frigid tone took him aback. In that moment, her name suited her perfectly. “Guess you wouldn’t,” he said with a careful shrug. “Anyway, the invitation’s open. Party starts at eight.”

She frowned and handed him the last folder. “Fine. Thank you for the invitation,” she said absently, moving to the table where she’d left her briefcase. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get this done.”

Adam backed out of the room without another word, surprised at the heavy sense of loss he felt. It’d only been one night, and they’d barely spoken—but it was a night he couldn’t forgot. He’d tried to find her on and off for the past year, hoping for a chance at something more. Knowing that he’d never meet another woman like her.

But now that she was here, he suspected there never had been a chance…and never would be.

Chapter 3

This investigation was going to take a lot longer than Winter had hoped.

She’d gone over the paperwork at the fire station for hours, until her body ached and her vision blurred—but if there were any discrepancies, she hadn’t found them yet. A few of the files she’d set aside for more detailed review. Six of them specifically, each with numbers that felt off. And perhaps coincidentally, the copier had cut off the signature from the last page of each file.

There wasn’t anything blatantly wrong with them, but her instincts suggested something was there. She’d learned to trust those instincts.

It was after six by the time she returned to the bed and breakfast. She’d seen only two men at the station when she left. Presumably, the rest of them were getting ready for the party. The one Adam had invited her to, as if he just wanted to be friends. As if that could somehow happen after what they’d done last summer.

Well, she wasn’t about to give him a repeat performance. That had to be what he wanted. Guys like him weren’t interested in relationships, especially with plain-looking, boring nobodies like her.

A small part of her whispered that wasn’t fair, she had no idea what he was like because she’d never given him a chance. She crushed the whisper ruthlessly.

She managed to make it to her room at the bed and breakfast unnoticed, and decided to try out the Jacuzzi before she made any further decisions. As it turned out, it was incredible. She could have spent the rest of the night immersed in that deliciously warm, roiling water. But she made herself get out before she could wrinkle like a prune, then she dried off, dressed, and called Teddy.

He answered his cell on the third ring. “Hey, Win. I thought you’d be back by now,” he said in gently teasing tones. “I mean, peaceful and relaxing just isn’t your style, right?”

“Well, it’s peaceful. But I’m not sure I can relax.” She told him about the lack of problems so far with the fire department’s paperwork—which in itself was a problem—and the feeling there was something wrong. She left out the part about running into her one-night stand, which of course she’d never told him about in the first place. “It looks like I might be here for a few days, after all,” she said.

“Well, good. Not good that there might be complications,” Teddy said. “But I still think you could use the time away from the city. Tell me you’ve tried the Jacuzzi.”

She grinned. “Just got out, actually.”

“Ah. Now I can live vicariously through you.” He paused long enough to make the silence awkward, and then said, “So I guess it’s too much to hope you’ll do something other than hang out in your room by yourself all night.”

“Actually, I was invited to a party.”

“And you’re going?”

“Of course not,” she said. “I just thought I’d mention it, so you know I’m not a complete social outcast.”

“Win…” He was slipping into concerned-parent mode now. Teddy had been like a father to her ever since she started at the fire marshal’s office. He’d known her parents even before the accident that took the daughter they actually cared about, and for some reason felt it was his responsibility to step in where they’d left off.

She loved him dearly, but sometimes he worried far more than he should.

“You really should meet some new people, you know,” he said. “Why not go?”

“Because I’m investigating them,” she told him. “It’s a retirement party for one of the firefighters here. Does the term conflict of interest ring a bell?”

“How about the term casual interaction?”

She frowned. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Come on, Win,” he said. “You’re going to interview them formally, right?”

“Of course. First thing tomorrow.”

“Well, you might learn more if you talk to them in a casual setting.”

“Teddy…are you suggesting that I trick them into giving me information?”

“I’m suggesting that you’re making this investigation harder than it needs to be,” he said. “Right now, you’re an outsider in a small town. I guarantee they’ll be a close-knit bunch, and they won’t like talking to a stranger. You get to know them a little, and they’ll be more willing to cooperate.”

She gave an exasperated sigh. “I suppose that makes sense,” she said.

“Good. So you’re going to the party.”

She hesitated. It was a good idea, in theory—but it’d mean seeing Adam Rhodes in a non-business environment. And as much as she tried to deny it, she was still attracted to him. Extremely attracted. But she couldn’t tell her boss she wasn’t going because the stranger she’d slept with on her last vacation would be there.

“Win?”

“Yes,” she said. “All right. I’m going.”

“Thank you. You’ve made me a happy old geezer.”

That made her smile a little. “You’re not that old, you know.”

“Old enough,” he said. “Now, go. And try to have a little fun, will you?”

“I’ll try. Call you tomorrow.”

They said goodbye, and fresh trepidation filled her as she disconnected the call. She absolutely couldn’t afford to make the same mistake she’d made a year ago. It had taken her far too long to get over the man she barely knew—and even now she was realizing she wasn’t as over him as she’d thought. Being intimate with him again would cost her dearly.