Secrets are burning out of control

After she broke his heart in college, Faye Walker is the last person fire chief Reese Bristow ever expected to see again, especially as his new EMT. But that’s not Reese’s only surprise. Faye has an eight-year-old son, Elliott, whose counseling at The Lemonade Stand shelter is her first priority.

It’s nearly impossible to accept that she had a child with another man—and married that man—right after their breakup. Trusting Faye won’t be easy. Especially when she reveals a secret about the boy that might tear them apart for good.

“I...have a son.”

His hand suspended midair, the paper hanging there between them, Reese looked at her.

“His name’s Elliott. He’s... During the day he’s... There were only two places in the United States that offered the kind of nonresident counseling and education that he needs, and the other one is on the East Coast. I’d have to recertify and...”

She had a son. He dropped his hand to his side. His Faye. The woman he’d thought would be the mother of his children...had a son.

“He’s severely at risk, Reese. To move him now, after he’s started the program... To move him from Southern California, the only home he’s ever known... Please. Give me a second chance to show you that I have what it takes to be reliable. I’m good at my job. Really good. You’ve seen my credentials and performance reports. I won’t let you, your department or Santa Raquel down.”

“Severely at risk,” he repeated. “What does that mean?”

Dear Reader,

I’m so glad you’re joining us in Santa Raquel. I love this town, the beach, the people and, of course, The Lemonade Stand, Where Secrets are Safe.

The scary thing is that abuse comes in many forms. From different, often unpredictable, sources. It comes verbally, physically, emotionally. And sometimes...sexually.

The really, really good news is that in every city there are places where caring people help victims of abuse recover. Places where victims can find healing. Where many can find hope and the ability to open their hearts and love again.

This story is particularly close to my heart. I can tell you from firsthand knowledge that women suffer as Faye did more often than you’d ever expect. I can also say, unequivocally, that with love, kindness and the right man, women like Faye do find pure joy again. The world is filled with survivors. Women who know and value their strengths. Who reach out to other women who’ve been where they’ve been and are struggling to get where they are. Women who care.

Please come on in to The Lemonade Stand. Join us. As a collective group, we’re going to make the world a beautiful, safe place. One heart at a time.

I love to hear from my readers. Please find me at Facebook.com/tarataylorquinn and on Twitter, @tarataylorquinn. Or join my open Friendship board on Pinterest, Pinterest.com/tarataylorquinn/friendship!

All the best,

Tara

www.TaraTaylorQuinn.com

The Fireman’s Son

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Having written over eighty novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering intense, emotional fiction. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America. She has won a Readers’ Choice Award and is a five-time finalist for an RWA RITA® Award, a finalist for a Reviewers’ Choice Award and a Booksellers’ Best Award. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

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For the ones who know Faye’s story intimately—you are stronger than you know.

This is your reminder.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

REESE BRISTOW WOULD not normally race to the scene of a small fire on the beach in the middle of the night. He was the newly appointed Santa Raquel Fire Chief. One truck of junior firefighters could handle the call half asleep.

Still, there he was, in jeans and a T-shirt, racing up the beach behind men in full gear carrying hoses he hoped they wouldn’t need to use.

If they could smother the fire instead of drench it, there’d be more evidence.

And that was why Reese was there. To get a look at the initial evidence firsthand.

Holding back to give the suited men ample room, he watched his team. Three in turnout wear, one in paramedic blues. Even suited up and from the rear, he could tell who was who. Brandt, his second-in-command, was the tall one who ran with the bent knees of a track star. Riley had the shoulders of a football player. And Mark, at five-one, was the smallest firefighter he’d ever known.

Gaze moving to the paramedic, Reese frowned. He didn’t recognize the guy—or more specifically the rounded derriere that filled out those blues like a man wouldn’t.

The new hire. He’d vetted her file, but Brandt had done the interviewing and hiring. Reese had spent much of the past week between his office, scenes and a forensic lab in LA trying to find anything that would help him solve the rash of small fires being set around Santa Raquel.

As one of Southern Cal’s wonder-boy fire investigators, he was not doing so wonderfully. Pathetic, considering he was the man who’d been in national news for his work on a fire that had killed most of a family. The husband and father was the only surviving member. He’d claimed he’d jumped out his bedroom window when he awoke to the flames. All evidence had pointed to an accident. All of it. No matter how many times Reese had looked at it. But he’d had a hunch.

Made into a strong suspicion when he heard that the survivor had completed a fire training course years before in another state under a different name.

It turned out the husband had set the fire himself. The guy had made one mistake. When he’d broken the window to jump out—which he’d broken after the fire was set—he’d left the glass on the ground just as it had fallen. Glass that wasn’t as shattered, or as sooty, as it would have been if the fire had been burning as hot and as close as the guy claimed when he took his sail.

Reese had discovered the guy’s wife was leaving him. He’d been willing to break a leg jumping out of a second-story window to kill her and their kids so she couldn’t start over without him.

“We’ve got this one, boss!” Mark’s voice traveled the short distance down the beach as Reese jogged toward them. He could barely see smoke or flames now. Hoses on the ground, Brandt and Riley were working the fire, while Mark and the new hire stood ready to jump in if needed.

Reese went straight for the one person he didn’t know, holding his hand out as he approached. “Reese Bristow,” he said. “Sorry we have to meet at a scene in the middle of the night. My understanding was that you didn’t start shift until tomorrow.”

He’d planned to meet her at the station in the morning. Have a pseudo-interview with her. She’d already accepted the job. He already knew her credentials were fine. He just liked to know every member of his team.

And he knew he didn’t like it when one of them hesitated before shaking his hand. When she didn’t meet his gaze.

If she’d been focused on the scene, he might have shrugged off the brief gaffe. The fact that she was looking toward the sand when she reached for his hand a couple of seconds late bothered him.

“Hi, Reese.”

What the hell?

A new employee didn’t...

The voice...he knew it...

With his hand holding hers, he reared back a few inches. Studying her in the shadows. Damning the darkness.

What in the hell was her name? He pictured her file on his desk.

Faye Walker.

The only Faye he’d ever known had been Faye Browning and...

She was staring at him now. His men, the tamped-down fire...it all faded out in the tepid beach air. Her hair was longer. A lot longer. Still dark. He couldn’t make out the blue in her eyes, but he remembered it well. And the way they glinted with emotion when they looked at him.

Emotion that the moonlight couldn’t hide.

“Faye?”

What in the hell was she doing on his beach? In EMT clothing? With his team?

Heads were going to roll.

Starting with hers.

“I thought you’d at least call,” she was saying. Making no sense at all. “I wouldn’t take the job until Brandt assured me that you’d seen my file and approved the employment...”

Last he’d heard, Faye Browning had been in her second year of a four-year nursing program at UC Berkeley.

He’d been at Southern Cal in LA.

“You did know, didn’t you?” Her voice trailed off.

His horror must have been showing.

He’d glanced at Faye Walker’s credentials and work history. And trusted Brandt with the rest. If he’d felt a need to do more, he’d have conducted the interview himself.

“You didn’t know...”

“Okay, boss, she’s all yours,” Mark said, approaching him and Faye and motioning to the smoldering embers behind them.

“On first glance it’s just like all the rest,” Brandt said, joining them. “Gasoline. Matches. Nothing but ashes left, so considering how quickly we got here and put it out, there couldn’t have been that much to burn to begin with...”

“Or that they used a lot more gasoline, in a wider sphere...” Reese said, turning his back on the paramedic he couldn’t deal with in that moment. “It’s a bigger radius,” he said, coming up on the fire.

“Yeah.” Brandt stood with him. The rest of the crew was a few feet back. Reese heard soft murmuring among them. And hoped to God it was about fires.

If she thought for one second she was going to come here and upend his life again, she’d be out on her ass so fast...

“And closer to property that could catch and do actual damage,” Brandt said, reminding Reese that his second-in-command was still standing there assessing the mess on the beach.

“It’s escalating,” Reese said, confirming a fear that he and Brandt had already discussed.

“Clearly it’s not homeless people trying to stay warm.” Brandt’s tone did not lack for sarcasm. The theory had appeared in the media a month or so back, when they’d had a cold spell at night, colder than usual for Santa Raquel in June.

“It’s also not kids.” Reese rebutted the other theory that had been passing through the town by word of mouth. “They’d have grown bored by now and...”

“We were here fast enough tonight to catch them if there’d been a group of them.”

Because Reese had had sentinels on the beach. And the Santa Raquel police force was vigilantly watching the town for signs of smoke.

Disproving theories one and two only left them with number three. Someone was giving them a warning. Something bigger was ahead.

And it was his job to find the clue to what that might be and stop the perpetrator before it happened.

“You and the others...you can head back. Get some rest,” he said. “I’ve got my evidence kit in the car. I’ll take it from here.”

Brandt nodded. Reese felt the other man’s stare and knew it was because of his curt tone. He also knew he couldn’t do anything about it.

“So you met the new girl,” Brandt said. “Smith had a couple of drinks at a party tonight. He couldn’t come out.”

With a glance, Reese communicated what they both knew. Smith was history. The paramedic had known he was on call, and lives depended on his self-control and good choices. “At least he had the decency to say so,” Reese allowed. To make amends for his earlier tone. He wasn’t usually a total ass.

And because he realized that Brandt had taken his tone for displeasure over the fact that he’d been blindsided by a crewmember he wasn’t expecting.

If only the other man knew.

“Go on, get some rest,” he said now, jerking his head toward the others. He needed Brandt and the guys to go.

He needed her to go.

He needed his kit, fresh air and a few hours with smoldering embers on the beach.

Then, maybe, he’d trust himself to get rid of Santa Raquel Fire Department’s newest employee with the level of professionalism expected of its chief.

* * *

SO...THAT WENT WELL. Faye’s sarcasm rang loud and clear in her mind as she trekked across the beach with her brand-new coworkers.

She was on a mission. Had a very clear plan. She’d considered every step in-depth prior to implementation. She’d allowed for every eventuality. Taken measures to ensure that nothing went wrong.

“You told me he approved of my employment,” she said to Brandt Rollins, hurrying to catch up with him instead of lagging behind with the other two.

She knew Brandt best. Other than a quick introductory hello to the two that night and a few others when she’d taken a tour of the station as part of her final interview, he was the only one she knew.

Other than Reese, of course.

“He did.”

Right. Which was why he’d been shocked to see her that night. And not pleasantly so.

Not that she’d expected he would be pleased. The fact that he’d agreed to her hire without having it out with her had shocked her. It was a part of the plan that had gone far better than anything she’d imagined.

Now she knew why.

“You gave him my whole file. With the photo and all?”

“I put it on his desk. But he likes me to pull out the credential and experience sheet and attach it to the top. I’m the one in charge of hiring. He trusts me to do my job.”

Now she was pissing off the one guy who actually liked her.

Reese had every reason to hate her. And those were the reasons he knew about. She now suspected there could be one more. Worse than the others.

He’d only seen her credentials. All earned and issued under the name Faye Walker, EMT. He’d known Faye Browning, studying to be an RN.

“Don’t worry if you think he didn’t like you,” Brandt said as they reached cement and he stomped the sand off his boots. “It’s not you he was pissed at.”

Oh, she was pretty sure it was.

But, until Reese said differently, she had to make certain that no one knew she’d ever known him.

If her plan was going to work—and it had to—she had to let her ex-lover call the shots. Until her son had time to heal and she had answers. Then she’d be back in charge. And could take Elliott and quietly slip away.

“How can you be so sure he didn’t take an instant dislike to me?” she asked. Because it seemed like something she might have asked if she’d never met the boss before.

They were at the truck and Brandt stripped off the top half of his gear. The others were still several yards behind.

“Because I know why he was pissed and it didn’t have anything to do with you.”

She frowned. Completely sure Brandt was wrong, but curious about why he thought he was right.

“Why was he pissed?”

“Because he gave the paramedic you’re covering for a second chance and the guy blew it.”

It was the best news she’d heard in a while.

Nodding, she climbed up into the truck. Buckled herself in. And allowed herself to take a deep breath.

Reese Bristow had not only become the fire investigator and chief he’d always said he’d be, but he’d grown into a man who gave second chances.

Her plan might just work out fine after all.

CHAPTER TWO

THE SCOPE OF the fire was a ten-yard diameter. Ashes composed one yard of that. The rest of the fire had been caused by a burn-off of gasoline. The fuel stopped just a few feet from a dry field leading directly to an abandoned house. Given the abandoned home’s distance from other residences on the private beach, it was likely no one would have been hurt, but considerable damage might have been done.

The first fire, set almost a month ago, had been a three-yard diameter. Set down by the water. The arsonist had only been testing his tools then.

What Reese didn’t yet know was why. How. Or who.

What he really didn’t understand was what in the hell Faye Browning...Walker...was doing working for his department. Or in Santa Raquel, period.

He measured. Took notes.

She hadn’t been surprised to see him. She’d been surprised that he’d been surprised to see her.

What was it she’d said? “I thought you’d at least call.”

Why in the hell would he have called her? Ever again?

She’d been his girlfriend, through high school and two years of college. His lover during the college years. In his mind, there’d been no doubt that they were going to marry, raise a family, grow old together. No doubt that she was his one and only.

And then in one weekend, it had all shattered. She’d gone out with another guy. And the very next day had called Reese to tell him they were through. No talking. No chances. Just done.

With gloves on, he handled, bagged and tagged the ashes that he’d be taking to LA. He was using the forensic lab where he’d studied during college. Doing a lot of the work himself.

The fires felt personal.

Santa Raquel was his town now.

She wasn’t a nurse. Why? It was all she’d ever wanted to be. Just like his passion had been fire investigations. Firefighting. On the front line protecting his home state from the wildfires that threatened it during the dry season.

That’s why, even when she was awarded her scholarship to UC Berkeley, he’d gone to Southern Cal, LA. Because their fire management program was the best in the state.

And now she wasn’t even a nurse?

She’d married. Her name was Walker.

She was married. Walker. Did the guy know his wife had just moved to the town where her ex-lover had settled? Did he know she was working for him?

The audacity of that one burned his blood.

Did she know he’d been married? Did she think that somehow made them even?

Not even close, lady. Not even close.

He walked the beach, his state-of-the-art flashlight leading the way. If the guy had so much as spilled a drop of gasoline, he wanted to find it. It would tell him which direction he’d come from. Or left by. He checked the dried brush on the other side of the fire.

He searched for three hours but found nothing of significance.

Was no closer to discovering his arsonist.

But he had a solid plan for Faye Walker.

She was going to be axed. Immediately.

* * *

“ELLIOTT?” LEAVING HER son’s bedroom, Faye searched the apartment. She’d rented the upstairs of an antebellum home just two blocks from the beach. The rooms, with their high ceilings, new paint and pristine wooden floors, were beautiful, but the clincher on the deal for her had been the landlady.

Suzie Preston, a widow in her sixties, lived on the first floor and had offered her services as babysitter anytime Faye was called into work. Suzie volunteered in the library at The Lemonade Stand, a unique women’s shelter in Santa Raquel. The place had become Elliott’s current daytime habitat.

“Elliott?” She glanced into the bathroom to make sure her eight-year-old hadn’t sleepwalked to the toilet to relieve himself and stayed there.

Suzie had met her on the landing as she’d walked up the second flight of the wide, winding, bannistered staircase that could have been in any number of old films. She’d said the boy hadn’t made a peep during the hour and a half Faye had been gone.

“Elliott!” Not sure whether to be pissed at her son’s deliberate lack of response or worried about finding him before he hurt himself, she sped toward the living room and kitchen.

Her son, thick sandy hair askew, looked up at her with eyes as blue as hers. His expression as dark as Frank Walker’s had been the last time he’d left bruises on her arm with his strong grasp...

“Why didn’t you answer me?”

Elliott spooned another mouthful of cereal between his lips, slurping. Dripping onto the small Formica table, too.

She sat down next to him. He didn’t acknowledge her presence. Not all that unusual when he was in a mood, but there was always a tell. A flinch. A tightening around his mouth. He was only eight. Not yet capable of completely sealing himself off.

Unless he was asleep. Like now. Hard to believe that a child could sit at the table with his eyes open, eating a bowl of cereal and be asleep—but such was her life.

Looking out through the thin black bars on the large window overlooking the gorgeous, flowered backyard, Faye issued a silent thank-you.

For them. The bars. They were the second reason she’d chosen this home. Suzie had told her the bars had been put on the upper windows by her great-grandmother, after a child had almost fallen out one hot summer day.

The bars were tasteful. Decorative, expensive wrought iron that matched the fencing around the house and the rails on the front porch downstairs.

They were what let her sleep at night. Elliott was locked in. There was an alarm system on the front door in case he did manage to find a key and get himself out of their door. And the bars kept him from throwing himself out as he’d tried to do the first night after they’d left his father.

They’d been in a hotel. On the fourth floor. She’d awoken to the sound of the balcony door opening, and she’d had to rip him from a deathly clutch on the balcony rail. The next morning, he’d wondered how his forearms had gotten bruised. He’d remembered none of it.

She’d checked both of them into a women’s shelter. She’d had nowhere else to go, no one to turn to, no idea what to do. That had been in Mission Viejo, where she’d fled when she’d left Frank Walker.

Almost two years had passed since then.

Elliott was fine with the divorce. Never asked to see his father. Never spoke of him.

But he was still sleepwalking.

And he was still angry with her.

Because she hadn’t stopped his father from hurting her, because she’d stayed.

For starters.

So here they were in Santa Raquel. Elliott had been referred to The Lemonade Stand as one of two choices for daily education with domestic violence counseling and emotional supervision. Technically he was homeschooled at the shelter.

Reese Bristow had made the town the only choice. For her own healing.

And perhaps for Elliott, as well.

The boy finished his cereal. Carried the bowl with both hands to the sink, as she’d taught him when he was about two so he wouldn’t drop it and raise his father’s ire. Stopping by the table on his way past it, he wiped at the dribble of milk on its surface with his pajama sleeve. And then he was gone.

Back to bed.

She’d been told not to wake him during these episodes. She should watch out for his safety, but unless he was hurting himself, she should just let him be.

He’d be up again in a couple of hours. Getting ready for her to take him to the Stand. Probably wanting breakfast. Not remembering a thing about his middle-of-the-night snack.

Sitting at the table, thinking about the past few hours, about Elliott, about seeing Reese again for the first time in nine very, very long years, she considered getting some sleep, too.

With tears dripping slowly down her face, she put herself to bed.

On the couch in her son’s room.

* * *

“MOM, COME ON, we’re going to be late!” Was it just her imagination or was Elliott’s tone starting to sound like Frank’s?

“I’ve got ten more minutes,” she told him, leaning over the sink to apply concealer under both eyes. She’d smoothed on extra foundation, too. And eyeliner. And lipstick.

“Who ever heard of an EMT showing up at a crash in makeup gunk?” Shaking his head, the thick hair he preferred to wear down past his ears flopping, he turned and left her room.

Frank had always insisted on a military cut. For himself. And for their son.

Though Elliott had more stuff—furniture and toys—Faye had taken the larger of the two bedrooms when they’d moved in the week before. Mostly because she’d loved the claw-foot tub in the adjoining bath. Loved that the room had an adjoining bath.

Almost as much as she’d been opposed to Elliott having one. At least if he had to cross the hall to go in the night, she’d have a better chance of hearing him.

“Mom!” he called from the other end of the apartment, near the front door.

Pulling on a clean set of the standard blue utility pants and shirt she’d been issued, Faye was nervous but excited. She slipped into the ugly black EMS boots she’d purchased as soon as she’d graduated from training four years before and reminded herself that she was not only worthy, she was capable.

And had five minutes to spare.

Surprisingly, Elliott was not standing impatiently by the front door. So far, he liked going to The Lemonade Stand. There were two other boys there his age. Both had mothers who were victims. He’d taken quite a liking to one of the older boys, as well.

Maybe that older boy could be someone Elliott could look up to? Someone who’d be able to reach the little guy inside of Elliott—the little guy who’d spent years listening to the sounds of his mother’s sexual abuse without her knowing he could hear it?

“Ell?” She turned the corner toward the kitchen. He’d already had breakfast. She’d fixed it—a lighter rendition than usual—and then run for the shower while he ate. The Lemonade Stand provided balanced and delicious meals, so he didn’t need to take a lunch.

The boy turned around as she came into the room. She noticed his hesitant expression, like he wasn’t sure of his reception. And then she saw the paper plate he held in both hands. He’d made her a bagel with what looked like a half-scrambled, half-fried, somewhat-raw egg on it.

“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want,” he said, shrugging as he held the plate up to her. “I just...” He shrugged again. “It’s your first day and all.”

He’d made breakfast for her.

Her precious, precious angel boy had made her breakfast.

Because it was her first day...and all.

They were going to be okay. She knew for certain now that Reese knew about her. She hadn’t received a call telling her not to come into work. Which meant she was still employed.

The rest—her plan, Elliott’s future—would all fall into place now.

When she could speak without tears clogging her throat, she thanked her son, careful not to let too much emotion spill onto him and make him withdraw. Taking the sandwich with her as they left the apartment, she ate every single bite.

CHAPTER THREE

SLEEP MIGHT HAVE been good. But it wasn’t the first time he’d shown up at work without it. Wouldn’t be the last.

When a fire was raging out of control and there weren’t enough fighters with the necessary training, sleep wasn’t an option.

Today Reese had a personal fire raging and he wasn’t going to rest until he’d put it out. Faye Walker was not going to have a first day of work. Not one second to settle in. He wanted her out.

He was waiting in the station when he saw her get out of an older, light gray, four-door sedan and head toward him.

Mark, who was in the middle of forty-eight hours on, walked past with a cup of coffee. Reese had sent Brandt home. He didn’t need his second caught in the cross fire that could very well happen after he’d had his moment with the woman who’d invaded his den.

“Send the new hire to my office as soon as she gets here,” he told Mark and strode in that direction himself, sure that his employee was staring after him. If he’d waited thirty more seconds, he could have told her himself.

If her aim was to force him to keep her on, or threaten to sue for wrongful termination if he didn’t, then let her bring it on. He wasn’t going to fire her in front of witnesses.

She wasn’t staying.

One thing didn’t make sense. If she’d meant to trap him, she wouldn’t have assumed he knew about her hire. But that phone call thing...why would she expect him to call? Unless she thought he didn’t have the balls to fire her face-to-face.

He’d gone home long enough to shower and shave, run a comb through his hair. It was shorter now than when she’d known him. He’d shaved his mustache since she’d last seen him, too. Tabitha had hated it. Said it poked her when he kissed her.

He’d had one clean uniform left. Technically Mondays were his day off. Laundry day, among other things. Instead, he was planning a trip to LA just as soon as he’d finished with the business at hand.

That was all Faye Walker was to him. Business.

And he was a master at handling his job. Which was why, at twenty-nine, he’d already made fire chief.

The knock came as expected. Sharp. Short. No hesitation.

I have to break up with you, Reese. I’m sorry.

She’d left a damned text message. Four years together, plans for a lifetime and he didn’t even warrant an in-person breakup?

Or a phone call?

He’d texted back: Okay, why?

Nine years before, that had meant pushing number buttons on a flip phone for corresponding letters. No quick task for a guy with big hands.

That had been shaking.

There’s someone else...

He hadn’t responded to that. There’d been no point.

“Come in,” he called now. He stood a few feet from the door, blocking the chairs in front of his desk, hands in his pockets.

There was no need for her to sit. She wasn’t staying.

“Reese, Mark said you wanted to see me...”

Her eyes were as blue as he remembered. And seemed to have all kinds of things to say to him.

He remembered that about her, too. It had been the promises she’d made with those eyes, as much as any words she’d ever given him, that had held him captive.

There’d been only one night he hadn’t been there for her. A night after he’d almost been hurt in a fire. He’d been facing death for the first time. Asking himself if there was more he might want out of life before he died...

“You’re going to fire me,” she said before he got a word out of his mouth.

Damn her. Reading his mind when she was his girlfriend was one thing. But now...there had to be something illegal about that. Invading a person’s mind against their will.

“I am.” She’d broken up with him in a few words. He could fire her the same way.

At least he’d given her the respect of doing it in person.

He could have texted her. Told her not to bother coming in.

“I’m going to beg you not to do so,” she said, standing there with her hands at her sides. Not at all challenging.

And yet he felt...pushed.

Reese didn’t like feeling pushed. Most particularly not by a five-foot-three-inch woman with a cute ass and a cheating heart.

“Beg all you want,” he said, meaning to hand her the paperwork he’d already filled out.

As he turned to pick up the page lying on his desk, she said, “Please, Reese, I need this job.” The pleading in her voice did his injured heart good.

He picked up the sheet and turned back to her. But he didn’t immediately hand it over.

Turned out, he wanted her to ask him again. To prolong the moment. He’d had no idea he was such a sick bastard.

But he also couldn’t believe that Faye Browning had just walked back into his life expecting to work for him as though they’d never loved each other to distraction.

Probably because she hadn’t loved him that way.

“It’s not just for me, although, of course, I need the money, but this job, here in particular...it’s...important, Reese. Truly important.”

She was looking him right in the eye. Not fidgeting. Not even blinking.

The woman was honestly and sincerely begging him.

It kind of threw him for a loop and he had to remind himself that she’d texted him to break up with him. Because she’d met another man.

“Your husband doesn’t make enough to pay your bills?” That was it. Remember Mr. Walker. Had she cheated on him, too? And how many in between him and Reese?

“I’m divorced.” That seemed to mean more to her than it did to him.

He almost told her he was sorry to hear it. But he wasn’t. What he was, was pissed. Pissed that she was there at all.

And pissed that he hadn’t kicked her out yet.

“Just out of curiosity, who broke it off? Him or you?”

If she said the guy had left her...if she really was alone and in need...

“I did.”

Of course she did.

And then came to beg him to take her in?

Uh-uh. No way. In hell.

Or out of it. He held the termination paper out to her.

He was done with her.

“I...have a son... Reese.”

His hand suspended midair, the paper hanging there between them, he looked at her.

“His name’s Elliott. He’s... During the day he’s... There were only two places in the country that offered the kind of nonresident counseling and education that he needs, and the other one is on the east coast. I’d have to recertify and...”

She had a son. His hand dropped to his side. His Faye. The woman he’d thought would be the mother of his children...had a son.

“He’s severely at risk, Reese. To move him now, after he’s started the program... To move him from Southern California, the only home he’s ever known... Please. Give me a second chance to show you that I have what it takes to be reliable. I’m good at my job. Really good. You’ve seen my credentials and performance reports. I won’t let you, your department or Santa Raquel down.”

He heard the last part. Couldn’t focus on it.

“Severely at risk,” he repeated. “What does that mean?”

When she ran her tongue over her lips, he almost turned his back on her. If she thought she was going to play him with that old maneuver...

Her kid probably wasn’t at risk at all...

“He’s at The Lemonade Stand.”

He froze. “The Lemonade Stand’s for victims of domestic violence,” he said.

She nodded.

She’d asked for a divorce. And the kid was with her.

“Your ex hit your son?”

She shook her head.

Then who had? Surely not her. Faye might be a cheater but she was most definitely not someone who would strike out in anger. Ever. She’d had the most trusting, giving, generous, nurturing heart...

“Who then?”

“Me.” For the first time since she’d entered the room, her gaze dropped from his, falling to the floor.

“You hit your son?” The world had gone from ridiculous to unrecognizable. Who was this woman? What had happened to drive her to do such a thing?

She shook her head. Shuddered. And then looked up again, something new in her eyes as she looked at him. “No, Reese, my ex-husband hurt me, not our son.”

Our son. That answered that then. She’d been married to her son’s father.

“How old is he?” He’d never felt so...uncomfortable...in his life. “Your boy, I mean.”

“Eight.”

The word hit him hard, right in the gut.

“You married the guy you dumped me for.” There was just no classy way to get that out there.

She nodded.

“And had his son.”

She nodded a second time. Looking him straight in the eye.

His disrespect for her lessened a little as he tried to figure out what to do with her. How to get rid of her.

The man she’d married had hurt her, she’d said. He was trying his damnedest not to process that part.

“Are you at The Lemonade Stand, too, then?” It was a resort-type place with more housing than most shelters, including cabins for families to live in alone. Or for a mother and one child to share with another mother and one child.

But...Faye was working for him. She wasn’t a woman finding protection at a shelter...

The realization hit at the same time she shook her head. “I did go to a shelter, briefly,” she told him. “But just until I could get some counseling. Get my bearings. I’m not in... Frank...there’s no danger there.”

In spite of himself, Reese cared. If some bastard was going to be coming after Faye...

“Frank didn’t...abuse me...in the traditional way,” she told him. “And he’s not angry that I left. He was glad I walked out and took Elliott with me.”

“He wanted you to take his son?”

Her eyes dropped again. “Frank had antiquated ideas about men and child rearing. He didn’t raise a hand to Elliott. He just ignored him.”

Reese didn’t get it. Not any of it.

Faye being here...her son not being abused but being at the Stand... Faye as a victim of domestic abuse.

And then there was Reese, losing a wife he didn’t really love to a car accident that shouldn’t have happened. Finding out after his wife was dead that she’d been six weeks pregnant.

Life wasn’t supposed to have turned out that way.

But one thing was clear...he and Faye...their ship had sailed. He was sorry Frank Walker had turned out to be a bastard. Honestly sorry.

But that didn’t change the fact that Faye had cheated on Reese. Cheated him out of the life—the family—she’d promised they’d have together.

“Elliott wasn’t abused, physically, but he...heard...what was going on between his father and me,” Faye said, breaking the silence that was leading to him picking up the piece of paper on his desk. “He...my son...has issues. Ones that could ruin his life if we don’t get them under control. It’s believed that his best chance of success is to spend at least the next semester being homeschooled at the Stand, with specialized counseling, and see if we can break through his walls and help him work through things.”

Issues. Specialized. Things. He could imagine. But he didn’t really understand.

The vagueness left him unsettled.

“You’re not a nurse.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m not.”

He knew that. He’d read her file.

“But I’m a damned good EMT.” She’d grown more outspoken than he remembered her. Stronger.

And yet, she’d always had the strength to move mountains. It had just been a quiet strength.

“A single mother with a troubled son.” He shook his head. She’d given him the legitimate out he needed to get rid of her. “There’s no way you can be relied upon to work the kind of hours your position is meant to fill,” he said. “On call three nights a week. Twelve-hour shifts.”

He understood her desperation. But surely even Faye knew that he couldn’t cover for her—even if he’d had a mind to.

“I’ve got that all worked out.” She told him about her landlord, Suzie Preston, who worked at the Stand. She was in the library but only because she was retired. The woman had been a counselor at a domestic violence shelter for more than thirty years.

Her eyes begged him. They knew him. Knew he wouldn’t turn her away.

But he couldn’t have her here. Day after day. Even when she wasn’t on duty, he’d know that she’d be back.

For a brief second, he considered quitting. Moving on.

Except that he’d signed a contract. To renege on that for no good professional reason would be a permanent black mark on his record.

In the end, he did what they both had known he would do.

He nodded.

He saw the tears that sprang to her eyes and swore silently.

Out loud all he said was, “Stay out of my way, Faye. I mean that. You’ve got the job but as far as anyone knows, you and I do not and never have known each other.”

She nodded, pursing her lips as though biting back a smile.

“I mean it. No one here knows my past prior to Tabitha.” He wasn’t going to have people watching him.

Wasn’t going to have gossip.

And most certainly wasn’t going to have anyone getting the idea into their heads that Faye could somehow heal the gaping hurt caused by his wife’s death.

She couldn’t.

Because as ashamed as he was to admit it, it wasn’t his wife’s death that had caused the chasm within him.

It was Faye’s cheating that had torn at his heart.

And his unborn child’s death that had ripped it in half.

“I understand,” Faye said now, reaching for the door handle. “I expected as much. Which was why I expected you to call me before I came to work.”

He would have dismissed her, but she’d already stepped out.

And not a second too soon. He needed a drink. Maybe more than one. Didn’t matter that it was eight o’clock in the morning. He’d been up all night.

Life had a strange way of dealing its cards. Faye was a cheater who had a child. He was a man who’d been cheated on, with a dead wife on his conscience—and a lost child because of it.

Reaching for his keys, he thought of the beer in his fridge. Then he remembered the evidence bags locked in his trunk. He wasn’t going home to drink. He was going to LA.

Maybe he’d spend the night there.

Away from Faye and all of the memories she’d brought back into his world.

Even the good ones were bad now, tainted because they hadn’t meant enough to her.

Going out for UC’s homecoming had been more important to her than he’d been. Than their four years together had been.

He’d gotten her message loud and clear.

He wasn’t ever going to need to hear it again.

CHAPTER FOUR

HIS HAND SLID across her breast. Cradling it. So soft. So tender. As though it was precious to him.

She shivered. Wondered if she was naked. If he was. In bed, but not sure how she’d gotten there, or even where “there” was, she snuggled closer to him, smelling the musky scent on his skin. Wanting to be closer yet. Finding warmth to soothe her coldness.

His departure was imminent. Fear surrounded his leaving. He couldn’t go. She couldn’t stop him. She had to stop him. Couldn’t. Had to...

Faye didn’t know where she was. Drenched, shaking, she stared into the darkness—recognized the small glow of light off to the right...

“Mom?”

Elliott!

Shooting up, she reached for him. Remembered at the last minute not to touch. She could startle him awake.

“You were crying.”

He came closer. Sat on the side of her bed. Like most nights, she was in her own room. His gaze was focused.

Touching her cheeks, she felt the wetness there. Knew he saw it.

“I...was...dreaming,” she said. Her son was awake. She had to think. Shake off the torturous dream. Convince him that she was fine.

That the years of him waking in the night to the sound of his mother’s tears were over.

God, let them be over.

He looked so young standing there...his eyes wide. Innocent. Concerned.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” she said, taking his hand. Half expecting him to pull away. To see his blank expression reappear as he walled himself off from her.

Instead, he moved closer, leaning toward her until her arms couldn’t help but circle around him and pull him to her. He didn’t resist.

He was tired. She was, too. Tired of not being able to just make Elliott’s world right. Tired of being strong all alone.

Tired of avoiding Reese the past couple of days as she settled into a job that she otherwise would have loved.

Tired of all the regrets.

So she took the rare gift he’d offered her. Sliding down in the bed, she settled her son against her, laid her head on her pillow and closed her eyes.

Morning would come.

And with it, her strength would return.

* * *

ON THURSDAY, REESE pulled into the station with an infusion of energy. He’d had a bit of a hit from the LA lab results—the print from a popular brand of running shoe, men’s size ten. Maybe not enough to pursue all the way to a suspect, but it was a start.

And Faye Walker was off for the next four days.

There’d been no other fires in the area since Sunday night. So while his crew had been kept unfortunately busy with a couple of car accidents, it had been a relatively slow week, without a lot of paperwork.

That alone made for a happy day. He had a meeting with the city manager and a couple of inspections awaiting his attention as he also served as the city’s construction inspector. In departments as small as his, they couldn’t afford too many full-time employees. Part of the reason he’d been awarded the job of chief was because of his multiple qualifications.

Three members of his crew were inside the station, wiping down a newly cleaned truck. Cyrus, the only paramedic left on his crew that he wanted to be around, was checking medical supplies. By nine o’clock, all of the equipment would be checked, as it was every day, seven days a week, and then, barring calls, the men would be in the fitness room, working out.

He’d have liked to join them. If all went well, he’d make it for the afternoon session. Staying in shape was a huge part of their jobs. And a personal must for him.

“You’ve got a phone call,” Doris, their receptionist, called, the receiver still in hand. “Holding on four.”

His raised eyebrow was all the question he needed to ask. “I saw you pull in,” she said from her desk in the first office inside the door. “And I had a feeling you’d want to take it.”

She’d piqued his curiosity.

“Chief Bristow,” he said, the phone to his ear as he closed his office door.

“I’m sorry to bug you, um, sir...Chief...”

Reese pulled back and looked at the receiver. What kind of prank was Doris pulling, putting a kid through to him? Certain that his receptionist would have already determined there was no emergency, that she would never have put a kid on hold had there been one, that if there’d been one, the call would have come in through 9-1-1 and police dispatch, not the station’s number...

“Who is this?” he asked, trying to figure out the joke. It wasn’t like his men to play around at work. When it came to fire safety, he was a pretty serious guy.

But he’d already let one employee go that week—Chester Smith—the paramedic who’d been drinking while on call.

“I can’t say,” the young voice told him. “At least... I gotta know what happens, first.”

“Do you know who you’re talking to?” How well had Doris screened this call?

“Yes, um, you just said. You’re Chief Bristow. It’s...who I asked for.”

Sitting behind his desk, he glanced at the folders on top of it. His good mood rapidly dissipating, he thought about sending the call back out to his receptionist.

He wasn’t all that great with kids. Didn’t spend any time around them, but didn’t particularly want to offend one, either. Joke or not.

“What do you gotta know?” he asked, purposely using the kid’s vernacular. He assumed he was talking to a boy but wasn’t altogether sure.

“If I...confess...do I gotta go to jail right away? Or do I get to explain to my mom?”

He sat forward. And then stood. What in the hell were they dealing with here?

It had to be a joke. But the boy didn’t sound like he was kidding.

Which would make it the best kind of joke...

“You sure you don’t need to be talking to the police?” he asked, to buy himself another second or two.

“No, um, it’s you.”

He nodded and adjusted his tie. He would put on working blues later after his meeting with the city manager.

“I can’t answer your questions until I know what we’re talking about,” he said. And then, in case this was for real, added, “But if you’re under eighteen, then yes, you can talk to your mom. It’s the law. No one can question you without your mom or dad’s permission.”

Maybe this was a test. Of what, he had no idea.

Knew the thought was out there.

“I don’t got a dad.”

Or an English teacher, either, apparently.

“But you’re under eighteen.”

“I’m eight.”

The same age as Faye’s son? Not that he’d remembered or anything.

All week long, every thought had come back to her. If he ate something they’d shared in the past, he’d remember whether or not she’d liked it. After four years together, they’d eaten pretty much everything together, which meant every time he took a bite those past few days...

He stood still, putting a hand in his pocket.

“You going to tell me what you did?” Joke or no, this had to end.

“I set a fire.”

He glanced around the office as though the whole station had heard.

Did Doris know? And if so, why in the hell hadn’t she given him a heads-up?

“You did.”

“Yes.”

Was this his escalating fire threat? An eight-year-old in a size-ten tennis shoe?

He shook his head. “How many of them?”

“Just one.”

Not his threat. At least not entirely.

“Did you have help?”

“Maybe.”

They’d dismissed the idea that they were dealing with kids. Maybe too soon?

“Where did you set the fire?” he asked, thinking of the various unsolved small-fire crime scenes.

“In a trash can in the boys’ bathroom.”

Reese ran a hand through his hair. “Not outside?” he asked.

“No. Then it wouldn’t be contained.”

He hadn’t heard an “um” in a couple of minutes. And the kid’s grammar had improved. Because he was more comfortable now in speaking with him?

Or because he was repeating what he’d heard from someone else? Contained was an industry description.

“Who told you it had to be contained?”

“No one.”

“How’d you know, then?”

He had to find out the kid’s identity. Find out where he was. Send a crew out.

Heading out of his office, he motioned for Doris to get him the caller ID as the childish voice answered his question.

“My mom.”

“You mother taught you a fire had to be contained?”

“She didn’t exactly teach me. She just says stuff and I hear it.”

“Who’s your mom?”

The long silence gave him pause.

“What’s your name, son?”

“It’s not her fault. And it wasn’t s’posed to leave that black mark in the bottom of the can. They weren’t s’posed to find out.”

“But they did.”

“Yeah. This morning when I got here, there was a meeting with all the kids. And no one should hafta get in trouble ’cause of me. ’Specially my mom, too.”

Reese started to relax. He was fairly certain that the call was legitimate and that caller ID would tell them the boy was calling him from the elementary school.

Not abreast with current parenting theories, he would have to tread carefully while he tried to figure out what to do.

The boy was obviously a good kid. He’d called the fire chief to confess, after all. But he must be troubled—he’d set the fire to begin with.

Back in his office, with the door shut, he asked, “Does she know you set the fire?”

“Uh-uh.”

Still perplexed as to why he was getting this call, Reese asked, “Are you ready to tell me your name?”

“Can my mom not be in trouble?”

“Why would she be in trouble?”

“Um...’cause you’re her boss and all.”

Reese sat down. Hard.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I DON’T KNOW what’s wrong with me...” Leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, hands clasped together, Faye sat on Sara’s couch and looked at the other woman. Sara’s shoulder-length blond hair framed her face and pretty blue eyes in a way that made Faye feel like she was talking to an angel.

Or her personal rendition of one.

Maybe it was just that she needed a guardian angel right then.

“Nothing’s wrong with you,” said The Lemonade Stand’s full-time counselor.

Faye wasn’t seeing Sara on an official basis. Faye had a weekly appointment with Dr. Bloom Larson for her own counseling. She’d just dropped off Elliott and found herself in Sara’s office.

“Oh...something’s wrong,” Faye said now.

Sara, leaning back against her desk, smiled at her. And shook her head.

“You’re alive, Faye,” she said. “Feeling sexual desire is a normal part of life.”

“Not for me it isn’t. Not since...”

She stopped. Thought of the previous night’s dream, with feelings that were so mixed up. Glorious and panic-inducing at the same time.

Wonderful mixed with devastating.

“What Frank did to you...it’s had an effect on you, Faye. You know that.”

She did. She’d been through counseling. “I thought I’d never feel sexual desire again.” Mostly, she’d been fine with the prognosis. She had no intention of having another man in her life, so sex was pretty much a nonissue to her.

“You might not. Not in the way you think...”

“But last night...”

“Was showing you that your ability to feel sexual desire is not completely dead.”

“Why now?” The words hurt her throat. But she had to know. For the rest of her life, there would be no more hiding. She’d promised Elliott.

And herself.

“My guess?” Sara asked.

Faye nodded.

“Reese takes you back to a time before Frank. To a time when you were on fire with desire.”

She stared.

“Am I wrong?”

Faye wanted to jump up and leave the room. Laugh the whole thing off. She just shook her head.

“It doesn’t mean that you’d feel those same feelings now,” Sara said, a warning note to her voice. “If he were to touch you, I mean.”

Okay. The tightening in her chest subsided a bit. She drew in a complete—and calming—breath.

“It’s just a trigger from the past. Not an indication of current—”

“What are you asking me?”

“The dream,” Faye said. “It doesn’t have to mean I’m still in love with him, right? Just that seeing him sparked a ‘muscle memory’ kind of response from my psyche in terms of sex.”

“Exactly.”

Well, thank God.

“I woke up crying.”

“That’s what you said.”

“Elliott was there. Awake.”

“Yes.”

“So...you’ll talk to him today?” Because she didn’t know how to help her own son. She had to rely on professionals.

“Just like every day.”

“Thank you.” She stood.

“Faye?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful.”

She nodded. Then turned back to her. “Why do you say it like that?” Like she was really concerned.

Sara wasn’t smiling anymore. “Because you’re vulnerable. And I don’t think you’re letting yourself see that. These feelings for Reese—whether they’re real or just regression—feel real. And he’s right here. In your life.”

“You think I’ll fall prey and sleep with him?” If only Sara knew how far from possible that was. Reese hadn’t so much as met her eye in the two days they’d been around the station together. He hadn’t been on any of their rescue calls. And when he’d come into the training room and seen her there, he’d made an excuse and turned around and left.

“I think that you could find yourself in a situation where you think what you’re feeling is real and make love with him...”

“Not going to happen.”

“The more you deny the possibility, the more at risk you are.”

“I’m not denying the possibility of my own feelings going haywire. I’m not planning to trust them to guide me.” She didn’t do that even on a good day anymore. Except when she was working.

The paramedic, she trusted implicitly. The woman, not at all.

“I just know that Reese isn’t going to let us get even close to a near encounter.”

“And what if he does?” Sara asked.

Faye knew the answer to that one. “I’m grabbing Elliott and running for the hills.”

She wasn’t going down the man road again. Particularly not until her son was man enough to watch out for himself.

* * *

HE’D TOLD HER to stay the hell out of his life. So why in the hell was Reese standing around in a too-small conference room, watching his palms sweat, while he waited to meet the kid who should have been his?

No. The one who should have been his had been his, at least for the few weeks his wife had been pregnant. Even if he hadn’t known about it.

Faye’s child had not been meant to be his. Her defection had told him that. You’d think, after almost ten years, he’d have gotten that one down straight.

He was meeting the kid alone. Whether or not the boy’s mother knew about it was none of his concern. Lila McDaniels—managing director of The Lemonade Stand—had set the whole thing up. Reese had called the Stand as soon as he’d recovered from talking to the boy.

Faye had said Elliott had problems and that he spent his days at the Stand. And now here was Reese, through no wish of his own, having agreed to meet with the boy and hear what he had to say.

Someone thought it was best for Elliott.

Reese damn sure knew it wasn’t best for him.

Meeting Faye’s kid was about the last thing he wanted to do, right down there with having his toenails pulled off one by one without anesthetic.

Maybe one below that.

At the moment, physical pain, in any amount, seemed preferable to—

He turned sharply as the door opened.

Lila, with her gray bun and wearing a gray suit, stood there. She had her hand on the shoulder of a thin, sandy-haired boy with determination on his face.

He looked straight at Reese, almost as if daring him to take him right to jail. The blue in those eyes, so like his mother’s, prevented Reese from moving at all.

Faye’s son.

The boy that he’d thought would be his own. Already half grown up.

“I’ll leave you two, then,” Lila said, nodding at Reese as she ushered the boy in and then closed the door.

Reese and Lila had known each other since before Reese had taken the job as Santa Raquel’s fire chief. He’d had a meeting with her at the request of the city manager and chief of police. All public services, and most particularly rescue services, were available to provide any help the Stand might need.

While no members of Reese’s staff were on the High Risk team that coordinated social services, counselors, doctors and teachers in an effort to prevent domestic violence deaths, Reese was well aware of the team. He reported to them anytime anything suspicious came across his desk.

“Are you here to take me to jail?” The boy tilted his chin up, skinny arms crossed as he stood here in a striped polo shirt and brown baggy shorts. As if to say he didn’t care.

The way his lip trembled gave him away but Reese wasn’t going to let on to that. At least not yet.

Lila had asked him if he’d talk to the boy. Try to find out anything he could about what he’d burned, where he’d gotten the matches, why he’d set the fire.

So far, the boy was refusing to speak to anyone else.

“I don’t carry handcuffs,” Reese said now. He was the man here. Elliott was just a scared little kid.

And it sure as hell wasn’t the kid’s fault his mother had chosen another man. He pulled out a chair. Sat. Motioned for Elliott to do the same.

Without hesitation, the boy did so and tilted his chin up again. Like he was some kind of cool dude who wasn’t going to be intimidated.

Reese wasn’t sure what to do. Truth was, he had no plan at all. He was there as a favor to Lila.

Nothing more.

“Tell me about the fire.”

“I already told you.”

“Tell me again.”

“I did it.”

“Where?”

“In the trash can in the boys’ bathroom by where we do gym.”

“Why that bathroom?” As Reese started focusing on his purpose for being there, the questions came easier. He was an investigator. A damn good one.

Elliott shrugged. His clothes looked new, as did the leather sandal he was tapping rapidly on the commercial tile floor. “It was furthest from anybody.”

“So you didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

He was there to get the kid to trust him. To talk. Nothing else.

“Uh-uh.”

“But you know fire’s dangerous.”

“’Course I know. My mom’s told me about a hundred times that...” He broke off.

“You broke your mother’s rules.”

Elliott’s chin came up again. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“’Cause she’s not always right. ’Cause she thinks she knows best but she doesn’t.”

Interesting.

But in terms of the investigation?

“So you think setting a fire in the boys’ bathroom trash can was right?”

“Sorta.”

“How can something ‘sorta’ be right?”

“You can’t tell anyone.”

“I can’t promise not to. Not until I hear what you have to say.”

Elliott shook his head. “When we talk in there, no one can say what we say.”

Reese studied the boy, investigating a possible subject. He had to consider the fact that he knew, from Elliott’s mother as well as from Lila, that the boy was in a dangerous place. That the rest of his life could well depend on his time at the Stand.

Counseling sessions were confidential.

“Did your fire have something to do with something that happened during one of your group meetings with Sara?”

He had no idea if the kids knew they were in counseling, but he knew that Sara Havens was overseeing Elliott. Lila had told him that Sara was the one who’d recommended that Reese be allowed to speak alone with the boy. Because Elliott had reached out to him.

Elliott’s nod gave Reese a curious kind of confidence. He had this.

In spite of extenuating circumstances that would not be named.

“Sara didn’t tell you to start a fire.”

He shook his head.

“What did she say?”

Elliott stared at him.

“She told Lila to call me in to speak with you. I’m sure they told you that,” Reese said at the boy’s continued silence.

Elliott nodded.

“So she expects you to speak to me, which means you can say what you say in there.”

The boy’s brow furrowed. He puckered his lips. And then said, “Sometimes we write stuff. To get it out.”

“What kind of stuff?”

Elliott shrugged. He was patting the side of his leg over and over with the tips of his right fingers. “Bad stuff.”

“Okay.”

The boy sat there.

“So you wrote about starting a fire.”

Elliott’s gaze seemed to be seeking something from him as he once again shook his head.

“You wrote bad stuff.”

The boy nodded again.

“And?”

“A way to stop it from bugging you is to write it and then throw it away.”

Understanding dawned.

“But you didn’t throw yours away.”

Elliott shook his head.

“Why not?”

He shrugged.

“I’m not asking you what you wrote, Elliott, I’m asking why you didn’t just throw it away in the trash can. Why did you start a fire with it?” He was certain he was right about this part.

“Because I didn’t think just throwing it away where it still could be read would be good enough.”

A thought many mature adults had, as well. Adults who had the means to find access to a fire pit, a fireplace, a burn barrel...

“Where’d you get the matches?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not a snitch.”

“Did someone steal them for you?”

“No.”

“Did someone else give you the idea to burn what you wrote?”

Another shrug. “Can I just go to jail now?”

The boy was not going to give up his source. Reese’s job was done here.

Except...

“Why did you call me?”

“So you don’t fire my mom.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because she said that I have to be really good and not make her late on work days, that we can’t mess up at all, because bosses fire people and then we’d have to move because there aren’t any other EMT jobs here except yours.”

Reese was still recovering from the sentence, nowhere near finding a response to it, when the boy said, “And because you’re the fire chief. Mom always says if I’m ever in trouble to go straight to the principal. Or to Lila. You know, the boss. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers or trust people we don’t know, even if they’re adults.”

Because his father could send someone for him?

Faye had said they weren’t in danger. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have residual trust issues stemming from what she’d been through.

What she’d been through...

He pushed the thought away.

“I wanted you to know it’s not her fault,” the boy finished. “Can we go now?”

Reese leaned forward, elbows on his knees, saw his hands shaking and clasped them together. He and Faye used to sit in front of each other, face-to-face, that way, clasping hands when they were talking about serious things.

The memory flashed by out of nowhere.

He sat back.

“You aren’t going to jail, Elliott,” he said. “You’re going to stay right here. Your punishment is up to Lila and Sara. And your mom.” Then he stood. “But if I ever hear of you so much as having matches again, we’ll have to rediscuss this.”

The boy was in danger. Thinking he could get away with playing with matches was not cool.

Elliott’s blue eyes were wide now as he nodded. “So I’m not going to be in trouble with you?”

“Not this time.”

“And my mom? Is she in trouble?”

“Not at all. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

He nodded, his lips puckering in a new way now. A little-boy way.

Like he might be about to cry.

Reese yanked open the door, relieved to see both Sara and Lila on the other side. With a nod to both of them, he strode out.

Lila could call him to find out what he knew. When she was ready.

In the meantime, he was ready for a tall one.

CHAPTER SIX

I CAN’T BELIEVE Elliott set a fire. I can’t believe it. I cannot believe he did that...

Faye paced by the side door on Reese’s house, back and forth, back and forth. Waiting for him to get home. If he was even coming home.

She worried about a lot of things where Elliott was concerned—the fact that he harbored such resentment against her sometimes. The possibility that he’d learned to disrespect her from Frank’s example.

The chance that he could have some genetic predisposition to anger, as Frank had. The need to know if that was possible.

Where was Reese? He’d left the station. She’d called to find out.

She’d have gone to work to find him two hours ago—when she’d heard from Lila and Sara about what had been going on that day—except that he’d laid down the law. No one was supposed to know they knew each other.

Or rather, had known each other.

The always-serious, always-businesslike, strict guy Reese was now wasn’t the man she’d known.

But then, she probably didn’t even remotely resemble the girl he’d once known.

One thing about him was the same—besides his apparent appeal where her screwed-up sexual psyche was concerned—he was fair.

She hoped.

Would he let her keep her job?

What had he thought of Elliott? She’d spent so many hours mentally playing out that moment when Elliott and Reese came face-to-face. Would Elliott like him?

Would Reese care at all?

Or would Elliott just be someone else’s child, with no attachment value whatsoever?

Had Reese liked him?

When his shiny blue truck pulled into the drive, she welcomed the interruption from thoughts that served no purpose. Stepping away from the house, she waited for him to notice her. She’d purposely left her car parked down the block, not wanting him to see it and turn around before she had her shot at him.

The scowl on his face as he climbed down from his truck didn’t bode well.

“I know, you don’t want to see me,” she said, approaching him with her hand out in front of her like a stop sign. “But I can’t talk to you at work, and I was afraid you’d hang up on me if I called and...”

“You’re right, I would have.” He walked past her and toward his door. “You can show yourself out,” he said, climbing the two cement steps and putting his key in the lock.

She wasn’t in. Was he maybe more rattled than he was letting on?

The house had a lovely front porch by the front door. But the side door was by the garage.

She’d known that was the one he’d use.

Some things hadn’t changed.

“Reese...”

He was still in uniform...all official looking in dress pants and shirt with his tie over one arm.

“If you want to keep your job, I suggest that you leave now.”

He said the words in the most congenial tone. Still, her feelings might have been hurt if not for the first part. If you want to keep your job.

He wasn’t firing her.

She turned before he could see the tears of sheer relief that flooded her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, and pretty much ran back to her car.

* * *

HE WAS NOT going to get involved between her and her son. Hadn’t asked a single question.

It wasn’t his business.

He didn’t want to know.

If the kid was punished...if they found out where he got the matches... What had Elliott written that was so bad he’d had to destroy it?

None of it was anything he needed to worry himself about.

And Faye...

She did her job well. Damn well, according to Brandt, who had her riding with him most of the time. Calm and cool in the most hideous circumstances...and compassionate, too.

She’d started an IV on a screaming four-year-old in seconds, finding the vein immediately. Dealt with the mother, whose face had been severely damaged by the crash, and had done CPR on an elderly occupant of the car. Everyone was still alive.

And that had just been one accident.

His second-in-command had told him that if he was ever dying on the side of the road, he’d want Faye to be the one who came to rescue him.

Reese was busy not thinking about her on Friday night, just past ten, when his scanner beeped. There were reports of a fire out of control near a backyard on a cul-de-sac five miles from him. No one was home. There was no sign of anyone near the fire.

His perp was back.

Reese wasn’t on call but had consumed only half a beer. He could be at the scene. Pouring the rest down the drain, he grabbed his gear, suited up at home and headed to the site.

The truck was there ahead of him. Brandt. Mark. Riley.

And Faye.

Cyrus had switched with her so he could attend a family event. Reese had seen the change come through on the calendar.

As before, his guys had the fire put out with little effort, but Reese didn’t like what he saw. They’d had to use the hose this time.

“He doused a bigger area with gas,” Brandt said as Reese approached. The rest of the crew were standing back, watching, knowing better than to contaminate his crime scene with so much as a footprint that wasn’t needed.

Their boots were distinct—far different from a size-ten running shoe—but they could still ruin an imprint.

“And he’s moved to private property,” Reese said.

“Which is bad, considering that we now have to start giving serious consideration to the fact that people are likely to get hurt if this continues...” Brandt’s concerned tone echoed what Reese had already been thinking.

“But it’s going to make it harder for him to continue without someone seeing something,” Reese added.

Police were already canvassing the neighborhood. They’d left the fire scene to Reese. Evidence bag in hand, he took a step closer.

For now, with the scenes so small, he preferred to be alone. They were a small-town fire department. Paid, not volunteer. If they wanted to stay that way, everyone needed to pull extra weight.

And Brandt did more than his share.

Truth be told, Reese liked the fieldwork. He hadn’t fully realized just how much of his time would be taken up with administrative duties when he took the job. He didn’t mind them most of the time, but they’d hired him for his wildfire, investigative and inspection skills, too. That was the work he loved.

Kneeling near the burning embers, similar to last week’s but in a larger pile than the previous week, he noticed what he thought was a small piece of something white. He shined his flashlight. There was nothing but ashes in the center of the clear gas burn that snaked out for several feet. Except that fleck of white. He had to get to it without disturbing the circle.

Camera in hand, he snapped pictures first. Plenty of them.

He took shots of the doused grass and dirt that hadn’t burned. He had samples packed up to prove they’d been doused, but he already knew. He’d smelled them while he’d processed them.

Now...to get to that...

“Reese?”

Shit. He almost dropped his camera.

The truck hadn’t left yet. Brandt would still be conferring with the police detail and any witnesses. The last thing he’d expected was to hear Faye’s voice right behind him.

“What?” His bark was brusque. She should know better than to disturb him at a crime scene.

“I just...”

The tone of her voice was anything but brusque. She looked...scared?

“What is it?” Where the softness suddenly entering his tone had come from he had no idea. He hadn’t thought he had it left in him to be soft.

Had rather hoped there was none left.

“I recognized someone...”

“Where?” He was all business now. Taking her shoulder, he turned her so that her back was to the others. “Who?”

“Back there.” She pointed to the crowd of neighbors gathered behind the taped-off crime scene.

“He was standing off by himself...you know...like we’re trained to watch for...”

Technically, as an EMT she wasn’t trained to notice a possible suspect in the back of the crowd watching his work...but he wasn’t surprised that Faye would pick up on the jobs going on around her.

And take on whatever responsibility she could.

No. He shook his head. The Faye he thought he’d known hadn’t existed. And this wasn’t about her, anyway.

“Who was it?”

“A kid from The Lemonade Stand. Kyle Dawson.” She sounded scared. “He’s older than they usually allow to stay there, and he’s in a bungalow with his mother. I think he’s being homeschooled there. But I just saw him. I know it was him.”

“It’s dark, Faye. And...”

“He’s taken Elliott under his wing, Reese. My son really looks up to him...”

And Elliott had had matches. He’d started a fire...

“He’s a victim,” she said, her tone pleading. Prompting another memory flash. Senior year of high school. Captain of the football team had made fun of Faye’s dad’s beat-up car in the parking lot. Reese had been ready to deck him. Her dad, a janitor, was an honest man. A good guy who worked a lot and who was raising Faye all by himself. Faye had stopped him from taking the kid out. Telling him that the kid’s own dad had just skipped town, leaving him and his mother and little sister without support.

He wondered what had happened to Len Browning. Where he’d been when Faye’s husband had been abusing her...

Shaking his head, Reese admonished himself for the inappropriate trip down memory lane. A dead-end road.

“I’ll put a call in to Lila,” he said, pulling his phone out of the holster on his belt.

She nodded. Took a couple of steps back, watching him, as though she wanted to say more.

But as he started to speak into the phone, Faye turned around and left him to it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

FAYE COULDN’T SLEEP. Not even on the couch in Elliott’s room. She just couldn’t shut down the worries clouding her mind. The fear slicing through her heart.

Was Elliott’s Lemonade Stand mentor their serial arsonist?

She’d been so grateful when Kyle had taken Elliott under his wing. Had felt like their luck was finally changing when Elliott had responded so positively to the older kid. She hated the thought of him in trouble.

Dots connected of their own accord.

Elliott had gotten his matches from someone he was protecting. Even Sara Havens couldn’t get him to ante up on that one.

Was her son being led astray at the very place where she’d taken him for guidance?

Life seemed to explode out of control right before her eyes. Kyle was a resident at the Stand. His mother needed to be there. Elliott was only there as part of a special counseling and education program for at-risk kids.

But there was another program he could attend.

On the east coast.

Was she going to have to pull up again and move to such an unfamiliar place? Recertification in another state would take time. Where would she work in the meantime?

And that assumed the shelter in New Jersey would even take her son, or that they could work with her on the fee for having him there.

The Lemonade Stand was essentially free to her—she could donate when she was able.

She’d been considering talking to someone about a position on the High Risk team. Fire and Rescue didn’t have a representative on the team...

But she was going to have to leave.

She couldn’t expose Elliott to any more risk.

He’d set a fire, for God’s sake! A fire, of all things. She’d told him over and over about the dangers. He knew that she worked with people who risked their lives every single time a fire got out of control.

Turning over on the slippery leather couch so she could better see her son, watch him while he slept just like she’d done when he was a baby, she feared all of the things that were affecting his life. Feared everything that was out of her control.

Like her father’s death. Who’d have thought a man as gentle and giving, as clean-living as Len Browning, would end up being beaten to death a block from his own home for the measly ten dollars he’d had in his wallet?

She and Frank had only been married a year. Elliott was less than six months old. Len had never even seen him. He’d disapproved of Frank, so Frank had banned him from their home.

In those days Faye had been trying to convince herself she loved her husband. Had been trying to be a good wife. Learn how to be a good mother. She’d told herself they had time for hearts to soften, imagined Frank one day welcoming her father into their home. She’d thought then that her dad would see Frank was a good husband. And Frank would see how much she missed her dad. How much she needed him in his life.

Elliott moved. Faye froze. Waited to see if he’d settle back to a restful sleep. Or get up.

He didn’t know about the fire she’d been at earlier that night. He’d already been asleep when the call had come in.

He didn’t get up. And eventually she fell into a restless on-and-off doze that took her to morning.

* * *

KYLE DAWSON DID not set the fire. After Reese called Lila McDaniels, he’d come in to interview the young man. It was after midnight on Friday. The boy and his mother were waiting for him when he arrived at The Lemonade Stand after he finished processing the scene.

“My aunt’s husband just left her,” the fourteen-year-old said. “Mom had to go to her and I couldn’t let her go out alone.”

Mandy Dawson nodded. “He was with my sister and I the entire time,” she said, one of the saddest looks Reese had ever seen on her face. Like a woman who’d lost all hope. “He’s afraid to let me out of his sight.”

But Faye had seen the boy outside.

“When the next-door neighbor called, saying there was a fire, Kyle jumped up and ran out to see,” Mandy said, looking at her son with moist eyes. “My sister and I were actually excited to see him act like a normal kid again—even for a second.”

“I’m a normal kid, Mom...” The boy watched his mom with the concern of a much older man. Then he turned to Reese. “Mom’s...my grandfather...and then my dad...she doesn’t defend herself.”

“I didn’t want them to hurt Kyle,” the woman said. And Reese knew he was in way over his head.

No, Reese, my ex-husband hurt me, not our son.

What did you do with that?

The beast he was trained to fight raged by certain rules. You just had to assess the weather and the mood of the fire, then apply the right process. There was never a fire that they wouldn’t win against. It was just a matter of how long you had to fight and how much damage you could or couldn’t prevent in the meantime.

But this...

“And now here we sit,” Mandy said, looking at Reese, her eyes still wet with unshed tears. “Because Kyle ran outside, he’s suddenly a suspect? What has he ever done? My son’s a great student. He’s never been in any kind of trouble. He’s a good boy...”

Reese was done here.

“He’s not in trouble,” he said. But just to be certain, he had to ask, “What size shoe do you wear?”

“Nine, why?”

“No reason.”

He looked at the boy, knowing that he could fix at least one small portion of Mandy Dawson’s hopelessness. “We’re questioning everyone who was outside tonight,” he said. “Because you are both residents here, we wanted to make certain you got back safely, first and foremost. We’re just looking for anything you might have seen, however innocuous, anything you might have noticed or that caught your attention, for whatever reason. A candy wrapper on the ground. A person standing alone—”

“I know that my father’s white truck was nowhere to be seen, and that he wasn’t outside with the other people standing around...”

The boy had been looking for signs of his father. He hadn’t noticed anything that could help Reese. The fire truck had just been arriving when he’d run outside. He’d noticed plenty while he’d been standing there, just not anything that might point to a perp. Clearly Kyle was interested in the business of fighting fires. If Reese had hired someone to report on the activities of his crew, if he’d been running a secret performance review, he’d have just received a great one.

Reese thanked Kyle and his mother for their time, apologized for having created any unnecessary angst by requesting a meeting with them and left.

He spent the entire drive home resisting the temptation to go back. To ask if he could do anything to help. He spent the next hour at home, telling himself not to call Faye. He was out of his league on this one.

There was nothing he could do.

The urges he was feeling were his own issue—a product of living with bone-deep regret. Of having lost someone close to him because he hadn’t been aware enough. Hadn’t done enough.

His skills lay in firefighting.

It was best if he just stuck with that.

* * *

FAYE WAS OFF all weekend and spent every waking moment with her son. Trying to fill the two days with happy memories, as though they could wipe out years of frightening ones.

He wanted to go to the beach, so they spent both days there. She made picnic lunches. Bought him a boogie board and herself an umbrella with a weighted stand. She bought sunscreen and beach towels—all things they’d had in their old life but she’d left behind.

Elliott was fine with the plans—as long as they didn’t include her.

“I’m not sitting with you,” he said as she packed up their gear on Saturday morning. He’d come into the kitchen in his new fluorescent green and blue suit with a drab green T-shirt, carrying his new boogie board. She’d picked up the oversize shoulder bag with her blanket, two beach towels and the book she wanted to read.

“Fine.”

He didn’t usually sit when they went to the beach. He played in the water.

The cooler sat on the counter, filled with ice and food. Another bag held drinks and cups and paper towels. “Could you get the cooler, please?” she asked him, putting her purse on her opposite shoulder. “It will fit on top of your board.”

“No.”

“Elliott.”

“You wanted the dumb picnic, you carry it.”

The whole “happy memory” plan in mind, she picked up the cooler.

“Could you at least get the bag?”

“No.”

“Elliott!”

“No. I don’t want that junk. I shouldn’t hafta carry it.”

His disrespect couldn’t be ignored. Sara had made that point very clear. “We don’t have to go.”

“Fine.”

Dropping his new board on the floor, he stepped on it, and then off, dropping into a chair, his arms on the table. “I didn’t want to go to the stupid beach, anyways,” he said.

“I thought you did.”

“Not with you, I didn’t.”

Two years’ worth of battling his hateful words still hadn’t thickened her skin enough to prevent their sting.

“But you want to go.”

He shrugged.

“And you’ll get hungry and not want to have to come home with me for lunch. You like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which is what I packed.”

He didn’t budge, his expression sour.

“So...you carry the cooler down with your lunch and I won’t walk beside you once we get to the beach. Or put your towel down by my blanket.”

Muttering something under his breath, Elliott took the cooler from her, put it on his board and stood sullenly by the door, waiting for her to unlock it and set him free.

* * *

SUNDAY DIDN’T GO much better. He didn’t think he should have to make his bed because Sundays were days of rest.

“Making your bed keeps the sheets clean for when you climb back between them,” she told him. Sara had told her to set boundaries, to give him rules and chores—not too many, but enough—and then to stick to them. To build a source of security, and also a sense that she meant what she said. That her word was something upon which he could rely.

But it was Sunday. After spending the day before utterly alone at the beach watching her son in the water, watching him sit on his towel several feel from hers while he ate his sandwiches and walking behind him back to the car, she was tired.

She didn’t want to fight with him, and an unmade bed wasn’t a big deal.

But keeping her word was.

“Bed made before breakfast,” she said. “Come on, Elliott, you know the rules.”

“Yeah, like you think beds aren’t dirty.” The words were soft. Barely reaching her. But their slap took her air.

He’d heard her say words Frank had made her say. She hadn’t known then. She did now. More, Frank. I’m a dirty girl in a dirty bed.

Turning her back so he wouldn’t see the sudden flood of tears, she said, “I’m making pancakes. When your bed is made, you can join me for breakfast. If you choose not to make it, you will not be eating this morning.”

He was in the kitchen before the first pancake was off the griddle.

He didn’t apologize. An hour later, when she was back in the kitchen and once again packed and ready for a day at the beach, he picked up the bag with the drinks and paper towels and put it on his boogie board. He left the cooler for her to carry.

Faye didn’t thank him, didn’t say a word. She didn’t want to push him to the point where she’d be forced to make them stay home. The idea of spending all day cooped up in their apartment with him was too much to contemplate.

She could force him to go shopping with her but knew that if she did, he’d very likely just make rude comments to and about her the entire time—loud enough for others to hear.

With the blanket bag on one shoulder and her purse on the other, Faye picked up the cooler. She walked a couple feet behind her son when they arrived at the beach. Kept an equal distance when she ate her sandwiches. He ate every bite of his.

She watched him play. He made friends with a couple of brothers that were about his age and laughed so loud in the waves she could hear him from her spot on the beach.

And Sunday night, as she waited for him to climb into bed—he wouldn’t let her tuck him in—and turn out the light in his room, he gave her three words that made all of the effort worthwhile.

“Today was fun.”

The words sang her to sleep and took her to work on Monday. They were still ringing in her ears when she picked Elliott up from The Lemonade Stand Monday afternoon. Still in uniform, she’d be heading back to the station for the rest of her twelve-hour shift as soon as she dropped him at home with Suzie. She’d be on call all night, as well.

Reese, thank goodness, was off on Mondays. At least she’d been able to relax as she did her chores at the station, worked out and helped prepare the noon meal. There’d been no looking over her shoulder or worrying about being hit with completely inappropriate and unwanted sexual feelings at the unexpected sight of him in the distance.

She’d barely stepped inside the private section of the Stand when Elliott approached, his backpack slung over his shoulder, and said, “Let’s go,” in a tone that didn’t bode well.

Head slightly bent, he didn’t look at her. When he brushed against her on his way to the door, he didn’t do so gently.

If Lila or Sara had been present, he’d have been reprimanded for that. Faye knew she was expected to say something, as well. And she would.

Sometime before her son went to bed.

But more pressing than her son’s long-term counseling was finding out what had upset him. She had to deal with one before she could have any effect on the other.

He didn’t immediately and automatically listen to her, as he did Sara and Lila. That hurt her feelings more than it should.

Reminding herself that Elliott loved her, she pushed the automatic unlock button on her key fob so he could get in the car as soon as he reached it.

If he thought he was going to subject her to another sullen and silent ride home, he had another think coming. She had to go back to work. And she wasn’t leaving him this way.

Her son was angry with her for letting his father hurt her. At himself for being angry with her. At the world for giving him a father who was mean instead of loving to his mother.

She looked weak in his eyes for not stopping what was going on behind closed doors. And her weakness was a huge source of his insecurity.

Reminding herself of what they were dealing with—as she’d been counseled repeatedly to do over the past two years—Faye got in the car ready to speak.

“How could you?” Elliott practically spat the words. His blue eyes, once so sweet and trusting when they looked up at her, were more like points of glass.

Laced with bitterness.

Nothing an eight-year-old should be experiencing, let alone shooting toward his mother.

“How could I what?” she asked, banking down the hurt feelings to focus on him.

“You told on Kyle.”

“Elliott...”

“You did. I know you did.” The boy was looking straight at her, his thin shoulders far too little to bear all of the weight he continued to put upon them.

She’d spoken with Lila briefly that morning to find out what the situation would be with the older boy. She’d wanted to prepare Elliott for the other boy’s absence if nothing else.

Lila had assured her that everything was fine. She claimed Kyle had had nothing to do with the fire and that he and his mother were still at the Stand.

“I don’t...” She couldn’t lie to him. She knew what he was talking about. She just didn’t know how much he knew.

“Can you calm down enough to tell me about it? And then I’ll tell you what I did or did not do.”

“There was a fire Friday night by his aunt’s house. He and his mom had a safe trip to visit her for something...”

Safe trip. It was one of the terms they sometimes used with kids to describe trips away from protective custody during at-risk domestic violence times. A term most kids never heard. The fact that it had become a normal part of her eight-year-old son’s vocabulary hurt her heart.

“He went out to look and then when they got back to the Stand, he had to go talk to Chief Bristow in a little room with his mom there.”

“Maybe that was just to see if he knew anything.”

Elliott shook his head. “You told, Mom. Kyle never saw anyone he knew so no one else could have told on him. It had to be you.”

She took a deep breath. “You said Kyle is in trouble,” she said. “What kind of trouble is he in?”

The little boy’s shrug was telling—most particularly to a mother who used to be able to read him like a book.

“He’s not in trouble, is he?” she pressed.

Elliott shrugged again and folded his arms against his chest as he stared out the front windshield.

“You’re a snitch.” The boy’s tone had softened considerably. His chin rested against his chest. “You snitched on my friend.”

“I told Chief Bristow that I recognized Kyle,” she said. She’d promised him the truth and she was not in a position to go backward on the climb to rebuild his trust. “But I did so for his sake as much as anything else,” she said. “I was concerned about him being out on the street where his father could have had access to him.” She didn’t figure then was the time to tell her son that officials believed the fire was part of a serial arsonist’s work.

Elliott looked at her.

She started the car and drove home, feeling his stare the whole way.

When she pulled into their apartment’s drive, he didn’t immediately reach to undo his seat belt.

“Look, Elliott. I’m not perfect by any means. But I did the right thing Friday night. And I would do it again.” They’d told her to be firm. To be consistent. To set boundaries.

He sat still, staring out the front window.

And she forgot counseling for a second. “You hate it that I didn’t tell on Dad for what he was doing.”

“So?”

“So, I wasn’t a snitch then. And it was wrong.”

His gaze swung toward her and she continued.

“Sometimes you have to tell,” she went on. “And if there’s a possibility that someone could get hurt, you have to tell every time. That’s something I know now.”

She’d known it then, too. She just hadn’t realized that the price of staying had been far greater than the one they’d paid for leaving.

She hadn’t known that Elliott had been affected by, or even known about, Frank’s abuse. She’d been trying to give her son a secure home, with nice things, all the bills paid, a loyal father who came home every night. She’d hoped that as Elliott grew out of boyhood into pre-manhood that Frank would take over—or at least take an interest in the child he’d fathered.

She’d thought a lot of erroneous things back then.

“Did you tell Kyle I told on him?” she asked now, wondering what kind of position her son had put himself in. Wondering if the bond with the older boy would pit them both against her.

“No. ’Course not,” Elliott said. He opened the door and got out.

He didn’t speak to her again as she settled him upstairs in their apartment with Suzie. Not even when she told him good-night and that she loved him.

But she heard Suzie’s voice behind her.

“That’s your mother. A good man responds when his mother speaks to him. And little boys who need their mother’s love are allowed to accept it. No matter what.”

She was smiling as she skipped down the stairs.

She might feel sometimes like she was facing her battles all alone.

But she wasn’t.

She should remember that.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THERE’D BEEN A house fire over the weekend. Reese completed his inspection report on Tuesday. Faulty wiring. No gasoline on the premises.

While he hated to see anyone go through the trauma of losing irreplaceable belongings, he’d been relieved to know that arson wasn’t involved.

On Tuesday, he got the report back from LA regarding Friday night’s fire. He’d been planning to process the evidence himself, but with the weekend fire he’d been unable to do so. The fleck of shiny white he’d pulled out of the small pile of burned ash turned out to be paint that had flaked off from something.

What kind, he didn’t yet know.

But it was something else to add to size-ten tennis shoes. Something else that taunted him, dangling just out of reach when he had trouble sleeping at night.

Still, thoughts of the arsonist were preferable to thinking about Faye Walker. Or her son.

On Wednesday, he ran into her in the station’s kitchen. He’d been leaving with a cup of coffee in hand. Dressed in black Lycra shorts, a black tank bra and a white muscle shirt over top, she’d clearly just come from the fitness room. Her hair was pulled back, her skin was flushed, her forehead covered with beads of sweat.

He was swamped with memories. Specifically, a vision of her after making crazy love with him on a pool table in a frat house. She’d been visiting him for the weekend. They’d found the house empty after a bike ride along the coast. She’d been dressed pretty much the same—she’d hoisted herself onto the table, scooted back and dared him.

In less than ten seconds, he’d pulled her shorts down to her ankles and had brought her to almost instant satisfaction.

Had he been nuts? Had she been?

“Did you find out where your son got the matches?” He blurted the words to cover up the rest of what was going on in his mind.

He didn’t want to know any more about the boy. Didn’t even want to think of him.

Pictures of what might have been, of Faye and her son at home, in the kitchen, watching a movie, on the sand at the beach—would only make life messy. And hard.

She’d been backing up, as though to turn tail and run. But stopped and looked at him.

He didn’t get her expression. Had never seen the doubt and uncertainty mixed in with her usual strength.

“No,” she said. That was all. Nothing else.

She turned to go. He wanted to call her back.

To say what? To what end?

They were strangers. Had nothing to discuss. House rule.

Because this was his house.

* * *

FAYE WAS STILL shaking inside from her encounter with Reese when she lay in bed that night. On call for another eight hours, she didn’t dare take so much as an aspirin to help her sleep. What she needed to do was relax.

Not think about how close she’d been to throwing her arms around Reese when they’d had their near collision that morning.

He’d asked about Elliott and her heart had started beating such a fierce tattoo she’d thought she might have to sit down.

Did he think about them? Did he care maybe even a tiny bit about her and her son?

She couldn’t want him to. Didn’t dare want him to.

And yet...

No. It was only latent feelings from her pre-abused days. Going back to muscle memory from when she was emotionally undamaged.

Sara had warned her. She was vulnerable.

She had to stay aware. Keep control of her feelings through strong mental determination. Not let herself be convinced by a psyche that yearned for easier, happier times.

She would not let that happen. She’d die first.

Her son had barely spoken to her when she’d called him at bedtime, as she did every night she was at the station before he went to sleep. He’d said enough to keep Suzie from calling him out, but that was it. He was withdrawing from her. She could feel it and she was panicking.

Eyes closed, she concentrated on a series of mental relaxation techniques she’d learned over the years. Not just because of Frank, but because she worked a high-adrenaline, high-drama job. Finding and maintaining her center was paramount to being successful in her career.

“Let me out!”

Faye was out of bed before her eyes had completely sprung open, through her open door and across the hallway to her son’s room.

Elliott stood at the barred window, clawing at the curtains. “Let me out!” he screamed again.

It took everything she had not to wake him. To bring him back from whatever hell he’d sunk into. To hold his arms to his sides until the panic within him calmed.

Standing back, watching for any sign that he could hurt himself, she prayed for his angst to end, for peace to settle over his young soul and lead him gently back to bed.

“Let. Me. Out!” The growl was not a sound Faye recognized. It was as though the body standing there did not belong to her son. He grabbed the curtains, pulling at them as hard as he could. Yanking as though to pull the rod off the wall. “Let. Me. Out!”

She couldn’t just stand there. Crossing the room, she took hold of the curtain, just above Elliott’s desperate clutch. She withstood his jerks, a countermeasure to the damage he could do. Her arms ached but she didn’t know what else to do.

She hoped that he was going to grow out of the nightmares—brought on, his counselors agreed, by the fact that Frank had abused her at night. The sound had woken their son, who’d lain alone in his bed and listened to every vile word as Frank described what he was doing to her. And told her over and over that she liked it.

After another couple of yanks—during which she was thankful for the fitness training her job required—Elliott let go of the curtain. As though he’d merely been up to go to the bathroom, he moved sleepily back to his bed. Lay down. And continued to sleep.

Gently pulling the covers from beneath him, Faye arranged them around his small body, smiling at the car pajamas he’d chosen. She’d been afraid, when she’d bought them, that he’d think they were too childish for him. Instead, they were his go-to choice.

Her little boy was still in there.

They just had to find a way to set him free.

* * *

A BAD ACCIDENT occurred on the freeway just above the Santa Raquel exit in the very early hours of Thursday morning. Reese heard about it from Brandt, who called him just past six—Reese was already out of the shower, in the middle of shaving.

“Three cars, all guys, mostly college aged,” he said. “Looked like maybe they were drag racing. Alcohol was clearly a factor...”

Santa Raquel Police Department’s issue, not his, thankfully.

“Any fatalities?”

“Two. And one injured, non–life threatening. That’s actually why I’m calling...”

He’d wondered. Every crash was newsworthy—a fatality more so. But it would wait until he got into work. He and Brandt were pretty good about respecting time off. Everyone had to have downtime. Time to regroup.

“Faye was on call...”

His heart sank. If she’d screwed up, been unable to get there, he’d have no choice but to take measures.

“The fatalities were pretty clear and she went straight for the injured...”

She’d made it to the scene.

No reason for him to feel relief to know that one of his employees had made it to work.

“The guy was clearly under the influence and scared out of his wits. We got him out of the car and on a stretcher, but he went for Faye when she was starting an IV in the back of the bus...”

In his bathroom, with shaving cream on his face, Reese stopped cold. Stood there looking at the man in the mirror, not recognizing the fear in his eyes.

“You’re telling me Faye was hurt?” And it hadn’t been the first words out of Brandt’s mouth?

“No, boss, of course not. You’d have been called at the scene...”

Of course he would have. It was protocol in the event of an employee injured on the job. He nodded to the guy in the mirror.

“She handled it like the pro she is. But he swung at her a couple of times. Connected once just below her left eye, but she said not with much force. I just thought you’d want a sit-down, especially with her being new and all...”

Any time a member of his team dealt with something tougher than usual, he called for one-on-one meetings. Firefighters were trained to be tough. He wasn’t going to send his people off to the shrink every time they had a hard day. But he did insist on his own personal assessment, just in case someone needed to seek help.

“Is she still at the station?” he asked.

Of all people to be with a violent victim, it had to be Faye? A woman who’d survived years of partner abuse and come out on the other side? Taking charge of her life. Moving on. Helping people. Raising a little guy all on her own? An at-risk little guy...

“Yeah, she’s here,” Brandt said.

He swallowed.

“Have her set up a meeting with me for later today before she leaves.”

It’s what he’d do with any of his crew.

Just not something that normally consumed his thoughts until it happened.

* * *

PRETTY MUCH THE last thing Faye wanted to do on Thursday was have a private meeting with her boss.

Hard to imagine that Reese would want to meet with her alone.

Surely he wasn’t going to fire her for having an altercation with a victim? The man had been flailing—fighting off her attempts to save his life. She’d had no choice but to forcibly restrain him.

But all the way back to the station that afternoon after seeing to Elliott, she played the scene over in her mind. Had she been too tired? She’d barely fallen back to sleep after Elliott’s nightmare when the call had come in.

Adrenaline had kicked in as it always did when she was on the job. She’d followed protocol.

Reese’s truck was in his parking spot as she pulled in. She took a last glance in the rearview mirror, checking to see that her makeup completely covered the bruise forming under her left eye. She’d had a couple of hours’ sleep before taking Elliott to the Stand that morning.

Not sure what to wear for the inquisition, she’d gone in to change when she dropped off Elliott, opting for black pants and a white, somewhat dressy button-down top, made of silk and tight at the waist with a flare to the hip. She hoped it spoke of strength. And success. More than that, she liked how she looked in it. At the moment, how she felt mattered most.

Because she was off shift as soon as she finished her meeting with Reese, she’d left her hair down and ran her hand through it now, throwing it back over her shoulder as she approached his door.

She still had a job. If, in an hour, she didn’t, she’d deal with that then.

Heart thumping, she raised her hand to knock. On Reese’s door.

Her Reese’s door.

Hand suspended, she stopped.

How cruel could fate be to bring them to this moment?

She reminded herself that she was vulnerable. That her psyche, in its effort to heal, would catapult her back and make her think something was real when it was just a figment of her imagination.

Shaking her head, she knocked.

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