Loe raamatut: «An Honorable Man»

Chapter One

The alarm sounded, and rookie firefighter Priscilla Garner cocked her head and listened. Maybe it wouldn’t be for her crew—but she hoped it was.

“That’s us!” someone called out.

A fire at last. Priscilla was more than glad to halt the endless chopping of onions, her current assigned task. Captain Campeon had finally stopped putting her in charge of meals at Fire Station 59, because though she honestly tried, the end results usually were inedible.

So she got to do the fun stuff. Like chopping onions and peeling potatoes. Sometimes she felt as if she was in the Army pulling KP duty. And if she wasn’t chopping or peeling, she was likely mopping, scrubbing toilets or washing dishes. Such mundane tasks made her twenty-four-hour shift creep by.

It would have been easy to assume she was being picked on because she was the only woman at the station, but she knew better. Her best friends, Ethan and Tony, got pretty much the same treatment. Such was the life of a rookie.

Otis Granger, suddenly alert, turned off the meat he’d been browning for chili and they headed wordlessly to their stations and struggled into their turnout gear.

As a rookie Priscilla’s job was to stick close to Otis, watch and learn. He was twenty years her senior, a hulking man with a huge belly and skin the color of milk chocolate. At first he had fought like a cornered feral cat about having to work with a woman. But once he’d realized she was determined to succeed at her job, he’d let up. They’d actually become friends.

Priscilla vaulted into her spot on the jump-seat, next to Ethan. She finished bunking out, fastening Velcro cuffs as the engine, with its siren blaring, headed for what had been reported as a Dumpster fire behind a Chinese restaurant.

The engine hurtled through Oak Cliff, a large, diverse section of Dallas south of the Trinity River. As they sped down Jefferson Street, the main shopping drag, past colorful stucco shopping centers, kids on bikes stopped to gawk.

Drawing nearer to the fire, Priscilla saw a plume of heavy black smoke rising up in an otherwise flawless October sky, and when they turned the last corner she realized they’d be battling something more serious than a trash fire. A storage shed behind an apartment building was burning fiercely.

Lieutenant Murphy “Murph” McCrae, their driver, reported the change in conditions over the radio to the dispatcher as he tried to get the engine down the narrow alley. But the passageway was constricted by a Dumpster that was off its base.

“We’ll have to go around to that parking lot,” he announced. “Garner, Granger, go on foot. Looks like there’s a chain-link fence needs taking down.”

Priscilla was on it at once. She jumped down from the engine, grabbed a pair of bolt cutters, and in forty pounds of gear ran as fast as she could toward the blaze. She pulled her self-contained breathing apparatus over her face as she ran. The small building was completely engulfed, and the trees nearby were smoldering and starting to catch.

Damn, this was exciting!

Feeling the heat of the fire on her face, she went to work on the fence. Moments later, Otis was at her side, steadying the hot metal with his insulated gloves and pulling it aside as she cut each link. Bystanders began to gather, and she had to chase a few of them back. By the time the fence was dispatched, the engine was pulling up in the parking lot adjacent to them.

Priscilla was itching to stretch hose and attack this beast. Another siren wailed in the distance, indicating a second engine was on its way. She and Otis unfurled the main hose, while McCrae worked the various controls, and soon they had a fully charged line with which to attack the flames.

It always amazed Priscilla how quickly a fierce, hot blaze could be tamed. In a matter of minutes, the fire was under control. The burning trees were extinguished, the charred roof and walls of the shed had been soaked, first with water, then with foam.

“Garner!” Murph bellowed. “I want you and Granger on the roof.”

She hopped to obey. Man, she loved this, tearing holes with her pike pole and looking for hot spots, which Ethan promptly extinguished from below. Ha, take that. And that! No flickering ember would escape her clear eye or her sharp pike.

They hadn’t been called to a real fire in over a week. And since Priscilla still had months left on her paramedic training, she didn’t usually get put on medical emergencies, so she’d been bored and antsy.

She tore at the blackened composite shingles, giving the roof savage stabs.

Shouted conversations drifted around her until one specific word caught her attention: arson.

She paused. “Ethan, did someone say it’s arson?”

“Yeah, there’s a bunch of paint cans and rags piled next to an outside wall. Probably just malicious mischief.”

A few seconds later Murph called Priscilla down from the roof.

Any mention of arson made Dallas firefighters jumpy these days. A huge fire the previous spring, when Priscilla was still at the fire academy, had proved lethal for three veteran firefighters because the arsonist had rigged the roof of the burning warehouse to collapse. The fatalities—the first in many years—had sent shock waves through the department. The loss had been especially hard on her firehouse, Station 59, where the men had all worked.

But the arsonist hadn’t stopped there. He continued to set fires every few weeks and he was setting them more often as time progressed.

When a familiar black Suburban pulled into the parking lot, Priscilla tensed. Captain Roark Epperson. He’d been an arson instructor at the fire academy; he’d also taken a much more personal interest in Priscilla, though no one else knew that.

Since their brief, explosive fling had ended uncomfortably, Priscilla usually managed to avoid the man.

She busied herself folding hose and watched from the corner of her eye as the tall, broad-shouldered investigator talked to Murph, then glanced her way—giving her a long, lingering look that she pretended not to see.

She hoped no one else noticed. The guys didn’t need anything else to torment her with.

Roark examined the pile of charred paint cans and blackened rags, then he took a few pictures with a digital camera. Since everyone was watching him, Priscilla gave up trying to pretend she wasn’t interested. She ambled closer so she could hear, too.

“Definitely arson, but not our boy,” Roark said to Murph. Our boy was Roark’s designation for the serial arsonist. “Probably a kid looking for a thrill. If it was the property owner wanting to collect insurance, he’d have gone to a little more trouble to hide his tracks.”

The sound of Roark’s Boston accent, still strong despite the years he’d spent in Texas, brought back unwanted memories. And his conclusions about this fire frustrated her. Not that she wanted the serial arsonist to set more blazes. On the other hand, with each fire he set, the potential existed for more clues to his identity—though so far he’d been damn clever about not leaving fingerprints or witnesses.

The collective mood relaxed as everyone continued about their business, putting away tools and ladders, joking and laughing now that the tension had eased. Priscilla continued to poke things with her pike pole.

“Hey, Pris, you going to the retirement party next week?” Ethan asked her. The captain in charge of the B shift at Station 59 was hanging up his hat.

“I can’t. I have to attend…you know, a family event. My cousin’s wedding is coming up, and she’s having this froufrou dinner for all the bridesmaids at the Mansion.” Priscilla poked at a stump. Sparks flew out of it. “Someone douse this thing.”

“Ooo, the Mansion.” Otis strolled over with the booster line and sprayed down the stump. “I always wanted to go there. Need a date?”

Priscilla laughed. “Ruby wouldn’t like that.” Ruby was Otis’s girlfriend and about to become wife number three. “Besides, my mother has a list of eligible candidates, should I want a date to this shindig. Which I don’t.”

“Uh-oh,” Ethan said. “Sounds like your mother is still trying to fix you up.”

Priscilla cringed inwardly. It must seem to everyone else that she couldn’t get her own dates. The fact was, Priscilla didn’t want to hook up with anybody. Her job kept her plenty busy. When she wasn’t at the station, she was training for her paramedic certification. But her mother was concerned about her, worried that her only child was lonely after a nasty breakup last year.

Most of the time Priscilla refused her mother’s matchmaking attempts. But occasionally she gave in—just to keep the peace. Since all the other bridesmaids would have husbands or boyfriends in attendance at the dinner, Priscilla would probably end up agreeing to a fix-up this time.

“Why don’t you tell your mother to knock it off?” Ethan asked.

The question made perfect sense. Priscilla was not exactly shy and retiring when it came to telling people what to do. She knew she had a reputation as the C shift control freak, always trying to organize things to her satisfaction.

But telling her mother what to do was a whole different plate of deviled eggs. Lorraine Garner was an unstoppable force.

“I don’t want to hurt her feelings,” Priscilla said. “She tries so hard and she only wants me to be happy. I try to tell her I don’t want a boyfriend….” And at this point she slid a look toward Roark, who had stopped talking with Murph and was blatantly eavesdropping. Damn. “But she assumes I’m pining away because I’m not attached. Going out on an occasional fix-up is easier than arguing.”

And she didn’t want to argue with her mother. She’d been a rebellious teenager, angry at the world, and she’d hurt her parents more than she’d realized with her obstinate determination to do things her way and have her misplaced revenge. Now that she was older and supposedly wiser, she tried to be more careful about balancing her wants and needs with their sensibilities. They were, after all, the only family she was likely to have, given her dismal track record with the opposite sex.

Ethan got a roll of yellow caution tape and tied one end to a fence post. “Would your mother lay off if you had a boyfriend?”

“Sure. I mean, I think so.” When Priscilla had been dating Cory Levine the previous year and it appeared to be serious, her mother had been so happy. “But I don’t have a boyfriend and I don’t want one. Who has time, anyway? I don’t see how you newlyweds do it.” Ethan and Tony had both tied the knot during the past few months.

“How about a pretend boyfriend then?” Ethan suggested. “Tell your mom you’re seeing someone.”

“I’ve thought of that. But a fictional boyfriend won’t cut it. She’d have to meet him, approve of him and hear wedding bells before she’d stop matchmaking.”

Otis squirted the back of Priscilla’s coat with his booster line, just to be ornery. “Why don’t you take me home to meet your mama? Give her a heart attack and be done with it!” He cackled at his own humor, and Priscilla had to admit it was a little bit funny, thinking of how her parents would react if she brought home a forty-five-year-old, twice-married firefighter.

But then she sobered. Her mother’s matchmaking efforts had become a problem. She couldn’t attend any gathering without Lorraine thrusting some earnest young man at her. Some of them were very handsome and very nice. But Priscilla simply wasn’t interested in putting herself out there again right now, going through the dating rituals. The angst and uncertainty drove her nuts.

Her gaze again slid covertly to Roark. They hadn’t exactly dated; they’d slept together. Their affair had been all about stress relief, a strictly physical thing. That’s what she’d told herself, anyway.

Roark had wanted to prolong their liaison. But the intensity of their times together had frightened Priscilla. She hadn’t been able to control herself and she didn’t like that feeling. So she’d put a stop to the relationship before it had really gotten started—before they’d had a chance to get to know each other, to open up and share who they really were. She hadn’t been ready for that.

She might never be ready. She liked her life pretty well right now, living alone, answering to no one.

“Here’s an idea,” Ethan said. “Why don’t you produce a real boyfriend?”

“I can’t just materialize a boyfriend out of thin air,” Priscilla said sensibly.

“What I mean is, get someone to pose as your boyfriend. Someone impeccable. Someone your mom couldn’t possibly object to. Trot him out to meet your parents, hint around that it’s serious. Do that, and your mother will be satisfied.”

Priscilla had to admit the idea was attractive. The ploy might give her a few months of peace, anyway. “And where do you suggest I find this paragon of a fake boyfriend?” Although she didn’t want to say so out loud, she didn’t think her mother would approve of Priscilla dating a fellow firefighter. Lorraine had enough trouble with her daughter living one-third of her life in a firehouse with a bunch of men. But dating one of them?

“I have the perfect candidate,” Ethan said, his eyes full of mischief, and Priscilla felt a stab of apprehension. Who did he have in mind? What had she stepped into? “Maybe,” Ethan said, “your parents would approve of an arson investigator.”

Priscilla gulped and glanced at Roark, startled to discover that he was almost right behind her, leaning against the fence. Silently she begged Roark to put in a quick refusal. But he didn’t. He looked a little surprised at being put forward as a candidate to be Priscilla’s fake boyfriend. But not unhappy.

“Hey, that’s perfect,” Otis said innocently, having no earthly idea that Priscilla and Roark shared a bit of their past. “Who could object to Roark? He’s gainfully employed, he cleans up nice and he talks like some aristocrat. Epperson, what do you say? You want to make Priscilla’s mom a happy woman?”

Priscilla would have liked to sink into the dirt. The last thing she wanted was Roark to play any type of boyfriend, fictional or otherwise. She was still several feet from him, but she couldn’t stop her heart from racing. Her lips tingled, she was getting warm in places not mentioned in polite society and her hands itched to touch him, to muss up that perfectly groomed hair.

Priscilla looked to Roark, again praying he would say no, quickly and forcefully. But instead he wore a pensive expression, as if thinking over the proposition.

Then abruptly he smiled and looked straight at her, reminding her of a shark coming in for the kill. “I’m always willing to go the extra mile for a comrade. Sure, I’ll help you out, Priscilla. I could be convincing, too. Very convincing.”

A charged silence followed his statement. Jeez, did everyone in her unit now know that Priscilla and Roark had slept together?

Ethan broke the silence. “Then it’s settled. Priscilla, your problems are over. All we needed was to put our heads together. You can thank me later.”

Thank him? She was going to pinch his head off once they were some place without witnesses.

“Captain Epperson, don’t listen to any of them,” she said, pretending it was all a joke. “You’re very kind to want to help, but I can handle my mother. Been doing it for a few years now.”

Roark Epperson thought fast as Priscilla started to walk away. He needed a way to prolong the contact. He had questions and he wanted answers. “Priscilla?”

She turned. “Yes?”

“When you were in training, you seemed to take a special interest in arson investigation.” And in the arson investigator, but that was a separate issue. “I could use some help collecting samples. I’m sure Lieutenant McCrae won’t mind if I borrow you a few minutes.”

Roark could see the turmoil in her eyes. She didn’t want to be alone with him. Was she embarrassed that she’d shown him so much passion? Was she guilty about it? Was there another man in the picture?

They had shared very little personal information during their brief liaison. He knew she’d broken up with someone not long before they met, but she’d given him no details.

“Sure, I’ll give you a hand,” Priscilla said, deceptively casual.

He took her over to his car and handed her several clean empty cans and some plastic bags, then instructed her on what to collect from among the charred remains of the shed and how to package the evidence. She put on latex gloves and followed his instructions while he watched.

He’d been intrigued from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, the only woman in the class. At first he’d thought he had her pegged: too slender, too weak, too pampered. But in this case, first impressions had been totally wrong. She was astonishingly strong for a woman her size. And he had never seen anyone work harder to get through training. He’d spotted her on the obstacle course several times after hours, often by herself, practicing until she got it right.

Priscilla poked at some dead leaves near the chain-link fence, searching for evidence. “Hey, Captain, look at this.”

She’d found a book of matches. “Good job. Could be very useful.”

Carefully she used tweezers to collect the evidence and place it in a plastic bag. Roark, meanwhile, studied her face, imprinting it in his memory so he could think about it later—the slope of her cheek, the curve of her lower lip.

The physical chemistry between them had been undeniable from that first day. But it was her grit and determination—and her quick mind—that had truly fascinated him.

It might have come to nothing if she hadn’t gotten stranded in the fire academy parking lot one rainy day with two flat tires. Someone—one of the male trainees who resented her outshining him, no doubt—had stuck a knife in her treads. Roark despised bullies, and though Priscilla had been perfectly willing to call her auto club, Roark had convinced her to let him take her tires to be repaired. Then he’d helped her put them back on.

Afterward they’d gone for coffee. And somehow they’d ended up in bed at his place.

They hadn’t even made it out of bed before she’d called it a mistake, reminding him that it was ethically questionable at best for her to sleep with an instructor. Though he’d agreed with her in theory, he hadn’t wanted to let her go. He’d never met such a fascinating mix of characteristics in a woman—tough, no-nonsense one minute, then giving him glimpses of finishing-school manners the next. A soft, musical voice and innocent blue eyes that didn’t flinch at the sometimes raw language and tasteless jokes that were part of the firefighter culture.

She’d tried to resist him. She’d turned him down when he’d asked her out, claiming she was uncomfortable. She’d also mentioned that she’d had a recent breakup and wasn’t ready to start seeing anyone else.

But then she’d shown up at his loft. Twice more. Each time, she’d chastised herself afterward, saying it was wrong for her to use him. She’d said she didn’t know what had gotten into her, that she didn’t normally behave so erratically.

After that last time, he knew she wouldn’t be back and he had let her go—but only temporarily. If it was a bad breakup that plagued her, perhaps time would cure the problem. And so he’d left her alone, but he’d kept tabs on her. Eric Campeon, her captain, was a friend of his.

He’d always intended to follow up with Priscilla once she’d settled into life as a firefighter and had more time to recover from whatever jerk she’d previously been hooked up with. When he saw something he wanted, he went after it. He’d let his ex-wife, Libby, get away far too easily. Maybe they hadn’t been right for each other in the long run, but he would never know—because he’d given up without a fight. Once he’d realized she didn’t want to start a family, he’d been so stunned he’d just let her walk out.

He’d learned a lot in the ten years since then. The man he’d become never gave up without a fight. He had a reputation for pursuing every avenue when it came to catching an arsonist and he intended to be every bit as determined in his personal life.

Maybe Priscilla wasn’t right for him, either. But he wouldn’t know unless he spent more time with her. He wanted to know what was behind that tough-girl exterior.

He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had made him feel the way Priscilla Garner did.

He forced his mind back to the investigation at hand. “You were the first to arrive at the fire?” Roark asked.

“Otis and I were.”

“See anything unusual? Smell anything?”

“I’m not good at smells and I had my SCBA on. But the fire did seem unusually intense and hot.”

“Not surprising, since the shed was full of lawn equipment and maintenance stuff. Gasoline, paint, turpentine. We’re damn lucky the whole place didn’t explode.”

“The building was fully involved by the time we got to it. Probably whatever was going to explode had already done so. There were a lot of bystanders, but most of them had gone by the time you arrived.”

“Any kids? Gang colors?”

Priscilla paused, searching her memory. “Two Hispanic boys, maybe fifteen or sixteen. Probably should have been in school. One was wearing green and black—that’s Dawg colors, right?”

“You got it.”

She described them in detail, down to the fact one of them had a chipped tooth, the other a broken shoelace. “They seemed real curious.”

“Could you recognize them?”

“I think so.”

“Good. I might show you some mug shots.” He already had an idea who those characters might have been. He’d talked to them before about some Dumpster fires, but he hadn’t been able to prove anything. Maybe they’d escalated to sheds.

“So did I do something wrong?” he asked suddenly.

Priscilla straightened to look at him, and for the first time he sensed true regret from her. “No, you did nothing wrong. I was the one misbehaving.” She smiled sadly.

“So why is it you run from me like I have typhoid?”

She returned to her task, meticulously labeling one of the evidence bags. “I told you before—I’d just come out of a relationship.”

Okay, now he was getting somewhere. “So I was your rebound lover.”

“Yes. And that really wasn’t fair. You seemed like you wanted something more than a playmate, and I wasn’t ready for anything like that.”

“But that was months ago. Surely you’ve recovered from whatever your previous scumbag boyfriend did.”

That got another smile out of her, not quite as sad this time. “What about that rag? Should I collect that?”

“Yes, and you’re changing the subject.”

“I just don’t want a boyfriend,” she blurted out, sounding a little desperate.

“I don’t buy that. Nobody wants to spend all their nights alone.”

She sighed and looked anywhere but at him. “It’s complicated.”

“I’ve got time.”

“I don’t understand it myself, so how could I explain it to you? But, trust me, you really wouldn’t want me for a girlfriend. I have issues.”

“Everyone has issues. You deal with them or you live with them, but you don’t just stop living.”

She straightened up and turned to face him, her gaze direct and unwavering. “The fact is, Roark, I like you too much. I was so anxious about the whole thing I just…needed to get away from it. I’m one of those people who can’t stand uncertainty. I like to be in control. Around you, I had no control, and I really couldn’t tolerate it.”

Roark knew female logic was different than male logic, but this blew him away. “Let me get this straight—you liked me too much so you broke things off.”

“I know that sounds crazy.”

To put it mildly. “So you don’t even want to try?”

“Even if I wanted to, I don’t have time. Between work and paramedic training, I’m overscheduled as it is.”

“And yet you still have time to go on these dates your mother sets up.”

“Only once in a blue moon. Don’t try to defeat this with logic, Roark. I’m surprised and flattered you would want anything to do with me after the way I behaved during training. But I’m not ready to date anyone except on the most casual basis. And you and I couldn’t do it casual.”

She was right about that. With Priscilla, he would not be content with seeing her once or twice a month.

He took the samples she’d collected. “McCrae is looking a little impatient with us. Guess I better let you go.”

“Yeah. Thanks for letting me help with the evidence.”

“You’re a quick learner.”

She turned to leave, but he couldn’t resist a parting shot. “I could still be your fictional boyfriend.” Not that the role would be a big stretch.

“Thanks, but no. I just need to be more firm with my mother.”

Roark had done all he could do. He gave Priscilla one last long, steamy look, reminding her of what she was giving up. Then he walked away from her. Damn, it was hard knowing he’d never hear from her again.