Line of Fire (5 page)

“I . . . well, that’s nice,” she said, fumbling for something to say. “She doesn’t look much like a police officer.”

“Don’t let her appearance fool you. She’s tough as boot leather and has the temper of Satan.”

“Charming.”

“Actually, she can be when she sets her mind to it.”

Shea did not want to discuss Daisy’s charms, or Tommy’s knowledge of them. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Tommy smirked. “Oh, don’t take mine. See for yourself.” He flicked a hand toward the edge of the dance floor, where Daisy was sidled against Forrest as though stuck to him with Velcro. She giggled animatedly at something he said, and ran a long, manicured nail down the front of his shirt. Poor Forrest looked ready to burst into flames.

Worse was the knowledge that Daisy’s flirtation with the man didn’t bother her at all.

“Oh, I get it.” Fisting one hand on her hip, she glared at Tommy. “You brought your friend along to run interference.”

He grinned at her, completely unrepentant. “I’d say that makes you a quicker study than your so-called date, wouldn’t you? Tell me something. Why would you waste another second of this perfect day on a jerk who’s so easily distracted by another woman’s attentions?”

“I don’t believe it,” she said, incredulous. “That’s so underhanded.”

And sort of . . . wonderful.

“All’s fair, as they say.”

“Well, Forrest isn’t going to fall for your machinations.”

“Forrest who?” His expression revealed only mild curiosity.

“He’s Forrest Prescott, the city manager.”

“Thought he looked familiar,” he said, unimpressed. “Anyway, seems like he already has fallen for my scheme.”

“What?”

Sure enough, Forrest and Daisy were on the dance floor, working up a sweat to an upbeat Madonna song. Shea crossed her arms over her chest, unsure whether to be relieved or annoyed. She looked at Tommy, trying to appear unfazed by the whole conversation.

“So? Doesn’t mean anything.”

“You’re not nearly as upset by your sweetie’s defection as you should be if you were serious about him.”

“He’s not my sweetie—he’s a friend.” Dammit! And damn him for appearing so frigging happy about it. She clamped her mouth shut.

“Aha! Then you won’t mind dancing with me. It’s only fair, seeing as how my date deserted me for yours.”

She hesitated. God, she needed to give in to him like she needed another ten pounds on her hips.

Cocky, beautiful son of a bitch.

“One dance.”

The sly catlike expression of satisfaction on his face almost melted her panties. “Uh-uh. No stipulations except enjoying yourself. Come on!”

Grabbing her hand, he pulled her into the throng and spun her to face him before she could protest further. He made it appear easy, just to throw caution to the wind and let loose. To move to the music with fluid grace, uninhibited, every lean sinew flexing as though making love.

Like liquid, molten sex.

“I’m not that great a dancer,” she said, raising her voice to be heard above the music. Trying to match his graceful moves, she felt like a dork.

One strong arm snaked around her waist, pulled their hips together. He rocked against her, his unmistakable hardness pressing into her belly. “Believe me, you’re doing fine.”

Her cheeks blazed. She wasn’t some simpering virgin—far from it—but the man caught her off guard at every turn. And Tommy was a man, not a boy. No doubt whatsoever, if there ever had been.

As they moved, the friction of their bodies setting her on a slow burn, she watched his face. Studied the nuances. There was no trace of the young, carefree charmer in evidence now. In his place was a man she’d never seen before. A man completely confident of his intentions, his crystal eyes dark with desire. One who made her blood quicken, her soul cry out to answer his unspoken challenge, to be his.

The fast song ended, abruptly snapping her from the spell. Thinking to make a quick getaway, she stepped back, but he caught her hand.

“This next one, too. Please?”

The soft, pretty opening to “My Wish” by Rascal Flatts began, one of her favorite songs. She paused for a couple of beats and, apparently taking her hesitation as a yes, he enveloped her in his arms. Began to sway gently, big hands spread over her back, chin resting on top of her head. In spite of her qualms, she felt herself melt in to him, soaking up his strength.

Warm. Intoxicating. Incredible.

Like coming home.

“God, it feels so good to finally hold you,” he whispered into her hair.

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t, not when her senses, every barrier she’d erected between them, were under toe-curling assault. Searching for the right response, she lifted her head to meet his gaze.

Instead, his lips brushed hers. A sensual glide that wasn’t a tentative question, but a warning. Electrifying her to the core.

His fingers brushed down her cheek. “Pretty baby.”

And he claimed her mouth then, kissed her like a man kisses a woman when he means business. When he wants her no matter the cost, above all others. Whatever it takes.

His tongue tangled with hers and she whimpered, unable to help herself. He tasted so good and she wanted to slide under his skin, stay there forever. Wrapped up in him. The party, the guests, vanished as the kiss went on and on. It might as well have been the two of them locked in their own world, free of doubts and unwanted baggage. For the first time in more than a decade she felt protected and safe.

But she’d been wrong before.

The memory was a bucket of ice water dousing her ardor. Reality intruded, along with fear. Cold, familiar companions who never failed to remind her what happened to stupid girls who dreamed too much.

She gave Tommy’s chest a forceful shove, and he stumbled backward, blinking at her in a daze. Confused, emotions frazzled, she shook her head and in reflex, wiped her mouth with trembling fingers. “I—I’m sorry. I—I’d better go . . . check on Forrest.” Which was precisely the wrong thing to say.

Hurt flared bright, then cooled as his eyes went flat. “You do that, baby. And when you figure out that stingy, pencil-pushin’ sack of shit can’t give you what you need? Call me.”

Then he did something he’d never done before—turned and left her standing there, gaping at his retreating back.

His absence, his anger, left a horrible ragged hole where passion and the rightness of being in his arms had been moments ago. She longed to call him back, or go after him, but didn’t know if he’d accept her apology. Besides, what could she say, really?

He might listen to the truth and even understand, but she wasn’t ready to tell it. Might never be.

Ducking her head, she jogged blindly for the house, praying nobody noticed the tears dripping off her chin.

This wouldn’t do. At fucking all.

It was like watching a slow-motion train wreck, his careful plans derailing and stacking like dominoes. Broken and useless.

No. He’d be the one broken if he failed, and the possibility—certainty—made him shudder. No use thinking about that. Negativity was counterproductive.

He had a commitment to see through, and his own nest to feather. Can’t lose sight of the prize. There’s too much at stake.

Taking deep breaths, he forced himself to calm down as he watched the dejected blond guy leave the dance floor. Relax. One way or another, he’d achieve his goals.

No matter who he had to crush under his heel to see them to fruition.

5

Joseph Hensley puttered in the tiny kitchen, heating a can of chicken noodle soup on the stovetop. Microwaves made your food taste like warmed-over shit, in his opinion. Made the edges weird, like hot rubber. Young-uns were so impatient these days, wantin’ every damned thing yesterday. Never waitin’ for the best in life, always in a rush.

Just like Will. Where in the hell was that boy, anyhow?

Probably off at that highfalutin city job of his, as usual, never mind that it was the weekend. Always runnin’ like the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, his nose buried in his stopwatch.

Which was how dumb rodents ended up as roadkill.

He snorted, switching off the burner and moving the pan aside. Will thought he was so smart, but he’d have to live a long fucking time to best his grandpa. Did the boy honestly think Joseph didn’t know the Big Secret? Couldn’t guess why Will never had a gal around, didn’t have friends over for beers and ball games on the television?

Joseph took his soup bowl in shaking hands—goddamn this fucking Parkinson’s disease anyhow—and shuffled to the rickety square table in the breakfast nook. He sat down and dug into the savory broth, shoveling in spoonfuls, hardly aware of the mess he made. Didn’t the boy understand that Joseph wouldn’t hold his . . . orientation against him?

Didn’t he realize he couldn’t keep secrets from a man who’d seen about every stinking, rotten thing the world had to offer? Once upon a time, he’d been like Will—brash, young, nose to the wind. Invincible.

World War II had cured him for good.

Joseph didn’t get everything Will did, but he loved his grandson unconditionally. Always would. He just had to—

The bleating of a cell phone interrupted his thoughts. Seein’ as how he didn’t own one of the damned things, Will must’ve left it at home again. He was starting to see why, too, because the annoying gadget sounded off constantly. Two, three, sometimes four times a day. Which was mighty strange, since nobody ever came by to see Will, and the boy never asked after friends who might’ve called.

Making up his mind, Joseph stood with a grunt and made his way to the couch, where he located the small device trapped between two cushions. By the time he plucked it from its hiding spot, the thing had stopped ringing. But it would start again. It always did.

All he had to do was carry the phone to the table, eat his dinner, and wait. He might be old, but he wasn’t stupid. He hadn’t survived being a tail gunner in the war, decorated with a cedar chest full of medals, by being a pussy. And this, he suspected, might be war of a different kind.

As he figured, the phone shrilled a greeting five minutes later. Eyeing it, he flipped it open and waited. He’d learned the value of patience on the correct end of a B-17 Flying Fortress.

“Hensley?”

“Yep.” No lie there.

“You sound funny.”

“Not feelin’ too good.” Also the truth.

“Whatever,” the man said, sounding as though he was in a hurry. Sweating, maybe. There was a lot of noise in the background. “Have you been getting my messages? I need that next job done in a week, tops. We have to keep things rolling.”

Nothing too alarming there. “Or?”

“Don’t fuck with me, asshole,” the man snarled. “You’re in this up to your balls, same as me.”

He stiffened. “Am I?”

“Damned straight you are, no pun intended.” The stranger barked a nasty laugh at his own joke. “You flake out on me now, you little faggot, and my contact will make you sorely regret messing with the big dogs. Got that?”

“Yep.”

“Next week. Don’t let me down.”

The man hung up and Joseph did the same, dropping the phone onto the table as it shook from his gnarled hand. “Oh, Will. What have you done, boy?”

He stared into the waning light, long after the remnants of his soup had gone cold.

Joseph Hensley might be tired, his old body giving up the ghost, but it seemed he had one more battle to fight.

And win.

“Where’s Sean?” Tommy eyed the hungry group seated around the station’s kitchen table waiting for his version of breakfast. He just hoped it would be edible this morning.

“Running late,” Eve muttered, scowling into her coffee mug. “As usual.”

“Maybe we should chip in for a new alarm clock for his birthday.”

Nobody laughed at Julian’s lame joke. They all knew why the captain was late, and nothing but a stint in rehab was going to fix him. Which he’d stubbornly refused to do, insisting he could handle his problem with the bottle. Alone.

“It’s been a year and half since the accident,” Eve continued, as though Julian hadn’t spoken. “Something has to be done.”

Tommy flipped the pancakes and shook his head. “Like what? Can’t help a man who doesn’t want to be helped.”

“Maybe he can’t be helped.” This from Clay Montana, who normally worked as FAO on B-shift. He’d jumped at the chance to earn some OT this week while Zack was on his honeymoon.

The silence fell like a shroud. Wasn’t this everybody’s worst fear? That Sean wanted to sink and nothing would stop him? Honestly, if Tommy had learned that his entire family burned to death in a fiery car crash, that his baby girl died screaming for Daddy . . . Jesus, they’d have buried him long ago.

“Maybe if we staged another intervention—”

Julian cut off Eve’s suggestion. “No way. Are you forgetting what a disaster the first one turned out to be? He won’t listen.”

“He’s right,” Six-Pack said, face grim. “I put my ass on the line with that one, and it backfired.”

She slammed her fist on the table, startling the others with the temper normally reserved for her sparring matches with the captain. “Then what the hell are we supposed to do? Just let him drown?”

“Did I miss the memo inviting me to my own fucking performance review?”

Aw, hell. Everybody looked toward the doorway, where Sean stood, arms crossed over his chest, good and pissed. His eyes were bloodshot, making the green of his irises pop.

Tommy turned off the heat under the bacon and took a deep breath. “I brought it up, sir. I asked where you were and everybody’s worried about you. Can you blame us?” He met the captain’s glare without flinching.

Sean’s harsh features softened, but not much. “No, I can’t. But I’m here now, so anybody who’s got something to get off their chest can do it to my face. Well?”

Seconds ticked by from the kitchen wall clock, the only sound save for Tommy sliding the last of the pancakes onto a plate. Watching, waiting for the man to detonate.

Christ, are we having fun yet?

Eve stood slowly, face pinched with anger. Worry. “I’ve got plenty to say. In your office.”

“You’ll say it here. God knows you’ll all talk about it later anyway,” Sean said, giving a humorless laugh.

“Fine.” She rounded the table as the others stared, like witnesses to catastrophe. “You’re late for the third time in two weeks, a transgression you’d have called any of us on the carpet for by now.”

“Granted,” he agreed, mouth tight. “I apologize to all of you.”

But Eve wasn’t finished. “It wouldn’t be that big a deal if it were anyone else, but you? We all know you’re stumbling in here either half-drunk or hungover—”

“Just a goddamned minute,” he hissed, stepping into her space. His face was parchment white, red flags staining his cheeks. “You’re crossing the line, Marshall.”

“I’m thinking of this team, something you’re damned well not doing.” She closed the distance further, getting in his face. Not giving an inch.

“I have never come to work drunk,” he said hoarsely. “This team is all I have, and I’d never place any of you in jeopardy.”

“You wouldn’t mean to, but that’s how accidents happen, Sean.” Leaning in to him, she sniffed at his neck. “I can smell the whiskey oozing from your fucking pores. You might be sober at the moment, but you’re hungover. Tired. You’re going to make a mistake, and when you do, someone’s going to get hurt. When that happens, none of us will be able to save you from the city brass. Or yourself.”

Sean fell quiet and, for a long moment, gazed into Eve’s earnest face. No one breathed. Not even Howard had ever dared to lay it all on the line quite this way in front of the entire team, the failed intervention aside. Here, at work, it took on a whole new level of seriousness.

“Maybe I don’t—”

The high tone of the intercom stopped Sean from saying something he might not be able to take back, and deflated the almost painful tension in the room. The rest of the group around the table shoved back their chairs and rose, and everyone started for the bay as the computerized female voice related a call to a structure fire, close to downtown.

Tommy wiped his hands on a kitchen towel, pitched it onto the counter, and shot a last, forlorn glance at the abandoned breakfast.

For once, his meal had turned out perfect.

Clay pulled the quint into the empty parking lot near the building and whistled. “Mother Mary, look at that bastard burn! Three alarms, baby!” Baby came out bay-bay, Austin Powers style.

Despite the thick atmosphere in the cab, Tommy suppressed a snort of laughter. Their resident cowboy couldn’t be more different from Zack’s quiet authority. Montana was just a little bit crazy, a tad off. But in a likable way.

“Did you take your medication this morning, cowboy?” Eve asked with a grin as they all jumped out.

“Nah. I gotta work, and that shit aggravates my multiple personality disorder.” Heading around the side to yank out the preconnected hoses and work the valves, he gave her a wink. “Figured you guys would want to know for sure which one of me showed up today.”

Tommy did laugh then, along with Eve. The guy was a ball of white-hot energy, and funny as hell. He must run circles around B-shift and keep them in stitches to boot.

“Skyler, you and Marshall take the roof,” the captain called. Clearly, he wasn’t in the mood for Clay’s humor. “Six-Pack and Salvatore, take the hose around back.”

Eve hesitated, frowning at the squat, two-story building. “Sean—”

“Get moving, dammit.”

She turned away, muttering under her breath. “Prick.”

The four of them sprang into action, Tommy and Eve each grabbing an ax from the quint and hefting the ladder. The FAO from Station Two shut off the hose aimed at the roof, and a pair from their team and from Station Four entered the building in the front with more hoses.

Tommy and Eve jogged for the back of the building and placed the ladder against the back wall of the structure, giving it a shake to be sure it was secure.

“I don’t like this,” Eve said. “I’ve got a bad vibe.”

“We don’t have to go.”

“He’ll chew our asses.”

He didn’t have to ask who she meant. “But we’ll be safe. Why get killed over an old, empty building?”

She hesitated for a beat, then sighed. “Our guys are inside. If it’s unstable up top, we need to know.”

“All right, a quick check. If it sucks, we’re outta there. Ladies first.”

As she began to climb, Tommy squashed a twinge of trepidation. Better the roof than going inside the burning structure, though some of his friends would argue differently. He’d never told a soul how he hated the claustrophobic feeling he got from a dark, tight, unfamiliar space. Add smoke and fire, boiling heat, and the scene was something right out of Dante’s Inferno.

Most of the time, their jobs involved assisting the community in other ways—accident victims, medical emergencies, school fire prevention awareness. Helping people rocked.

This kind of stuff? Sucked hairy donkey balls.

Glancing up, he got an eyeful of Eve’s ass bouncing under the edge of her heavy coat. Not bad, even in the less-than-flattering fire pants. The sight didn’t trip his trigger the way it used to, though. Before Shea.

Oh, no. Not going there.

He pushed her out of his head and focused instead on keeping his weight centered, slightly forward, balanced. The Air-Pak was like an anvil against his spine, trying to pitch his tall frame backward. Eve seemed to have no problem, shimmying upward like a spider monkey. As strong as Eve was, he admired how she handled every aspect of her job, given that every one of them outweighed her by a good fifty pounds of muscle.

In truth, for all their good-natured teasing, the woman intimidated him a little. If she got wind of that, she’d ride him into the ground. And not in a pleasurable way.

When Tommy reached the top and hoisted himself over the ledge, Eve was already busy circling the roof. Stepping carefully, she scoped the area, still damp from the attempt to cool off the surface.

At first glance, he could see the dousing hadn’t been enough. Little ripples, bubbles, were forming under their boots. A chill chased through his blood. “Eve, let’s go.” He keyed the mic hooked to his coat and began walking swiftly back to the ledge. “Cap, get everyone out. She’s not gonna hold.”

“Copy that.”

Relieved, Tommy let out a breath—

Just as an ominous rending noise tore through the air behind him, punctuated by a screech.

He spun, just in time to see one of Eve’s legs disappear through a gaping hole in the roof.

“Tommy!” Her lower half was swallowed, dangling over the inferno as she scrambled for purchase. Black smoke belched from the ragged hole. Arms straight out in front of her, ax in one fist, she clung, eyes wide with terror.

Tommy ran, slowing his steps as he eased toward her, gently prodding the surface with the head of his ax. One wrong move, one quirk of the bitch called fate, and they were both dead.

Sweat rolled down his temple, and not only from the heat boiling under his feet. Carefully, he stretched out on his stomach and crept toward her, much like a person would on a frozen lake trying to rescue a victim without sending them both through the ice.

“Oh, God,” she moaned. “Hurry!”

Incredibly, his mind locked down. Sharpened to the one task he must not fail—to save his partner. Laying the ax aside, he stretched toward her. “Let go of your ax, too, and give me your hands, sweetheart.”

She did, and they locked their grips around each other’s wrists.