Debra Cowan – Burning Love (страница 10)

Jack moved in front of her, paused. “If it looks like I’m going to be a while, one of the patrolmen can take you back to your office.”

“Thanks.” She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the cool night air. Reynolds moved up next to Jack, who cut him a sharp look.

The news reporter kept on moving and Terra bit back a smile. T. J. Coontz settled a large camera on his shoulder and gave her a thumbs-up as he hustled to catch Reynolds.

Jack’s gaze bored deep into hers. “Are you okay?”

“Sure.” Was that concern in his eyes? “I don’t mind.”

“I meant about Cecily Vaughn. She was brutal back there.”

Taken aback, Terra found herself unable to look away. “I’m all right. Thanks for asking.”

“He was your friend. I can only imagine how hard this is,” he murmured.

The connection she had felt to him snapped tight. Was he thinking about his own experience when his wife had died? How difficult not only to lose her, but to be a cop and not be able to prevent something like that.

“I just want to find whoever killed him.” A shiver shot up Terra’s spine and she hugged herself tighter. “If I have to deal with Cecily, so be it.”

Jack nodded, taking off his khaki jacket. Surprising her again, he slipped it around her shoulders. “Here, wear this.”

“I’m okay. Really.” The jacket smelled of him, clean and male and mysterious. She reached to take it off.

His hands covered hers, keeping the jacket in place. “It’s starting to get cold out here. Wear it, okay?”

She nodded, blinking at the slow spread of warmth in her belly. She wanted to tell him to stop touching her, but she couldn’t get her voice to work. Or anything else, for that matter.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Sure.” Her voice was a raspy whisper.

He released her, but his gaze stayed locked on hers. A long moment arced between them and Terra swallowed around a knot in her throat. She was suddenly aware of gripping the edges of his jacket with unsteady hands.

“See ya.”

“See ya.” She watched him walk away, power and purpose in his smooth, long strides. Trouble. Big trouble.

Hadn’t she told herself not to let things get personal? When he touched her, it was nothing but personal. She’d never backed away from a challenge. Joining a profession that traditionally employed only men didn’t allow for it, but she wanted to back away now. She wanted to run.

Chapter 4

Late the next morning, Jack walked into the fire investigator’s office as they’d agreed on last night. The trim blonde sitting behind the oak desk looked up from her computer. This must be Darla, Terra’s secretary. The woman, who Jack judged to be in her late-twenties, gave a smile that didn’t quite warm the sadness in her eyes and asked if she could help him.

He flashed his badge and told her he was supposed to meet with Investigator August. Anticipation that he’d been trying to ignore tightened his body. This was a job, he reminded himself. That’s all it would be.

Just as the secretary rose, Terra walked out of her office and said, “Darla Howell, this is Detective Spencer.”

Jack shook her hand, noting that the lush flowers he’d seen in Terra’s office yesterday had been moved out to the secretary’s desk.

“You’re working with Terra on Harris’s murder?” Darla asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“I was Harris’s secretary for a year before he retired. If there’s anything I can do to help you guys find this sicko, just ask.”

“All right. Thanks.” Jack smiled, noting the affection in the squeeze Terra gave the other woman’s shoulder.

His gaze shifted to the leggy fire cop and he wondered how she was holding up. “How’s it going today?”

“Busy.” As she stepped back into her office, she smiled tiredly and waved him in behind her. “You’ve got good timing. I just returned from a safety inspection so as soon as Darla brings me the last videotape, we’ll be ready to go.”

“Okay.” Moving inside Terra’s space-at-a-premium office, he hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “I noticed you moved the flowers from your secret admirer.”

“It seems a little strange to keep them when I’m not interested.”

“Between safety inspections and fire investigations, you must have your hands full.”

“Yes, and then some. The city also provides fire safety classes for the public and I teach training classes whenever they’re needed.” She moved around her desk and picked up a jacket from the back of her chair. His jacket.

She handed it to him. “Thanks for letting me borrow this last night. I hope you didn’t freeze after I left.”

“I was fine.” Immediately the delicate scent of flowers and soft woman drifted to him. He remembered the slight shiver in her shoulders when he’d draped the jacket across them. Remembered, too, the way he’d wanted to curve his hands around them and pull her closer. His fingers clenched on the camel hair and he asked gruffly, “Were you warm enough?”

“Oh, yes. It was great. Were you at the scene late?”

“About three hours.” He’d had a patrolman drive her back here, but that hadn’t meant she’d been out of his thoughts. Standing this close to her, inhaling her warmth, brought back the uncomfortable reminder that her green eyes had been the last image in his mind last night before going to sleep. And the first when he woke up. His nerves pinged.

“Can you talk about what happened there?” she asked.

“A shooting, the result of a domestic dispute.” Jack rubbed his neck, not liking the tension that settled there. Trying to ignore the provocative scent stealing up from his jacket, he kept talking. “A neighbor heard the victim threatening his wife and came over after calling the police. The neighbor walked in on the victim beating his wife and jumped him. He wrestled the gun away from the victim and it went off.”

“Will charges be filed?”

“No, the wife declined. Said she knew her husband would’ve killed her if the neighbor hadn’t stepped in.”

Darla appeared in the doorway with a videocassette and a green folder. “Here you go. Want me to shut the door?”

“Thanks.” Terra took the items and checked the date on the labeled tape case. She placed the cassette atop four others, which all sat on a filing cabinet tucked into the corner of the full office. Perched on top of the metal filing cabinet was a television with a built-in VCR.

The anticipation that had coiled in Jack’s gut earlier now settled tightly in his shoulders. Terra’s hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, revealing the elegant curve of her neck. Today she wore the long-sleeved, white shirt and navy pants of her uniform. A red-and-white patch, embroidered with the words Presley Fire Prevention, was sewn over her left breast.

The regulation clothing emphasized her long legs and trim waist. Not that they needed emphasizing. Her arms and legs, lean and slender, were perfectly suited to a swimmer. She walked with a flowing grace reminiscent of skimming through water. Jack had no trouble at all imagining her in a swimsuit, those legs bare and wet and glistening.

He hadn’t seen her in uniform before, had seen only her badge. Nor, for that matter, had he noticed a fire department insignia on her vehicle. “You drive the red SUV, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“Don’t you have a fire department vehicle?”

“No, just my red truck. It’s not marked, in case I need to go stealth in an investigation.”

“Go stealth?”

“Undercover.”

“Or a stakeout?”

“Yes.”

He grinned, getting a mental picture of her skulking around in the dark. Skulking was not what he would want to do with her in the dark. The thought darted in and out, but he didn’t need this kind of distraction. They had a case to work.

As she made a notation in a file, his gaze rested on a framed photo on the wall. He recognized her and Harris Vaughn in full turnout gear, appearing to walk straight out of a fire. Blood-orange flames swallowed the sky and walls of black smoke billowed around and behind them. Jack could almost feel heat pulsing from the picture.

At the sight of her walking out of those flames, a cold knot congealed in his gut. Jack didn’t need the photo to remind himself that he wasn’t interested in a woman in a high-risk job, but he sure wished his body would get the message.

“I stopped by your gym on the way over here,” he announced. He had no intention of acting on any of the damn crazy impulses that shot through him whenever she was around. “Your swim two nights ago checked out.”

“So, you’re marking me off your suspect list?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. He hadn’t really considered her a suspect, but he was glad to have his instincts backed up. “Records from the phone company detailed the times of your phone calls, and both the waitress and owner at Charlie’s Steakhouse confirmed the time you were there night before last. Three gym employees also remembered seeing you enter the gym or leave the pool. Now we can focus on who really did this.”

“Great.” She pulled over one of the chairs in front of her desk and turned it to face the television in the corner behind him. “Have a seat here and we can get started.”

She flipped on the set and slid in a videotape. The picture flickered then images filled the space—flames and smoke and a storefront. “This is the janitorial supply store,” Terra explained.