CALE TWISTED the cold tap to full blast. The icy spray had zero effect on his current state of arousal. Even the scandalous images Maggie’s provocative parting shot evoked in his mind refused to stand down in the face of a freezing shower.
He’d cleaned up the kitchen, alone, in ten minutes, then beelined it to the shower in hopes of quelling the erotic thoughts, and his body’s rock-hard reaction.
No such luck.
The memory of the sexy glint in Maggie’s eyes stubbornly refused banishment from his mind. The seductive tone of her voice as she’d uttered that one fantasy-inducing word still rang in his ears. Not even the reminder that he and Maggie weren’t alone had the power to bring his testosterone down to a manageable level.
Face it, pal, you’re screwed.
He muttered a curse, along with a reluctant agreement, then dipped his head beneath the shower nozzle. There were days when he really hated the direct honesty of his conscience. Today was no exception.
His body ached for her, and no amount of cold water could dispel that fact. He’d kissed her, tasted those honey-sweet lips, had felt her tongue tangle with his and he wanted more. She had him so twisted in knots with wanting her, he was close to ignoring the reasons why he should keep his hands to himself.
He wanted her in his bed. Just the thought of the soft, sultry moans she’d make when he pleasured her had him cranking the cold water tap to high. The heavy blast failed to cool the need burning in his gut or quell the desire to feel her body beneath his.
He was a powder keg of need, he thought as he shut off the water and stepped from the shower. Ready to explode. Maggie not only held the match, the woman was setting off dangerous sparks.
He dried off and dressed quickly, then headed downstairs to join Maggie and his brothers in the room that would become his den if he ever got around to finishing it. As the largest room in the house, it had required the most work. He’d gutted it, hauling away old plaster, replaced the aging studs with new lumber and updated the area with drywall and a coffered ceiling. Over the last two years, room by room, he’d slowly been turning his investment into an attractive piece of beach property. He figured after another couple of years, he’d be ready to put the house on the market, make a decent profit, he hoped, then start the process all over again with another fixer-upper he could purchase for a song.
The room was empty, but the sliding glass doors leading into the backyard stood open. He followed the sound of voices and stepped through the doors onto the patio slab he’d replaced shortly after the spring rains.
Like a magnet, he was instantly drawn to Maggie. She sat on the bench at the redwood picnic table near the edge of the covered patio, her injured arm resting on the top. The rich cinnamon of her hair gleamed in the morning sunshine. His fingers itched to lift the reddish strands and let them sift through his fingers.
Her provocative taunt slammed into him. If only they were alone.
Drew and Ben had commandeered the white plastic patio chairs, neither of them in any apparent hurry to leave. Which was probably for the best, Cale thought as he crossed the patio to the picnic table. His ability to maintain a respectable distance from Maggie hovered in the dangerously low to nonexistent category.
Cale thumbed his nose at his rapidly dwindling self-control and sat down on the bench beside Maggie. Pearl trotted over and dropped her big black head on his knee in a bid for attention. He absently petted the dog’s neck.
“Weren’t you scheduled to work today?” he asked Ben, not that he was trying to get his brothers to leave or anything.
“I go on at midnight,” Ben answered with a brief shake of his head. “Trinity’s shorthanded this weekend, so I’m pulling a thirty-six-hour shift.”
Drew cast a knowing look in Cale’s direction. “I think he’s trying to get rid of us.”
Was he really that transparent? Apparently so, if the smirk on Drew’s face was any indication.
Out of the corner of his eye, Cale caught sight of the slight blush coloring Maggie’s cheeks. Damn, but she was cute. And one hell of a contradiction that had nothing whatsoever to do with her peculiar past. The mysteries he wanted, no, needed to solve stemmed from discovering which woman was the heart of the real Maggie LaRue: the woman who blushed prettily at a relatively innocent innuendo, or the captivating siren who’d nearly sent him to his knees ready to beg for the privilege of uncovering all of her sensual secrets.
She adjusted the position of her arm on the table. He didn’t miss the slight wince that briefly tugged her eyebrows into a frown. “Trinity?” she asked Ben. “I thought you guys worked for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.”
“Trinity Station,” Drew said. “It’s a nickname.”
Ben leaned back in the chair and laced his fingers over his stomach. Nope. His brothers were definitely not going anywhere anytime soon.
“The intersection where the firehouse is located is surrounded by three churches,” Ben explained. “Station 43 is on one corner. St. Jude’s Catholic Church and their private school on another, with Santa Monica Methodist and Community Baptist taking the other two.”
“The patron saint of lost causes,” she murmured. “I think I’ve been praying to the wrong deity.”
“Either you studied theology or you’re Catholic,” Drew said.
Maggie frowned, then shrugged. “Maybe,” she said thoughtfully. “Tell me about Trinity.”
Drew picked up the large red rubber doggy toy lying on the white plastic table between the two chairs. He tossed it up and down, instantly drawing Pearl’s attention. “The house has been called Trinity Station for as long as I can remember.”
No longer interested in love and affection when there was a warm body around willing to toss her favorite toy, Pearl deserted Cale.
“How is it all three of you work at the same station together?” Maggie asked.
Drew chucked the toy across the yard. “Dumb luck,” he said, but there was a hint of pride evident in his voice. “We don’t always work the same shifts though. And I don’t have the squirrelly hours these guys have to put up with half the time. Except for the occasional call when I’m off duty, I’m pretty much a part of the nine-to-five crowd.”
Cale understood Drew’s reasons for going into arson investigation. He’d been one hell of a firefighter, but after the death of one of their own during a three-alarm blaze a few years ago, Drew quickly put in for a transfer to the arson unit. The truth of the matter was, Drew absolutely detested hospitals, emergency rooms in particular. While an actual firefighter’s trips to emergency rooms were minimal compared to that of a paramedic, working with the arson unit generally kept Drew out of the antiseptic halls. The few occasions when he was required to pay a visit to a hospitalized witness, or worse, the morgue, were more than enough for the youngest Perry brother.
Cale leaned back and braced his elbows on the table behind him. “That reminds me,” he said, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Were you able to find out anything about the warehouse fire?”
Drew picked up the toy Pearl dropped at his feet and threw it across the yard again for her. She took off like shot, stirring up dust, grass and leaves as she raced around the avocado tree. The debris fluttered down on Frankie and Johnny who had been napping peacefully beneath the shade of the big tree. Frankie, the more temperamental of the two felines, hissed her displeasure at the disturbance of one of her treasured snoozing sessions.
“No suspicious circumstances, if that’s what you mean,” Drew said.
Effectively scolded by her feline roommates, Pearl carefully retrieved her toy and walked away from the cats. She flopped down near Ben’s chair with a loud sigh that sounded more like a disgusted groan now that she’d been chastised. She rested her big square muzzle protectively over her toy.
“That doesn’t make much sense,” Maggie said to Drew. “If what you’re saying is true, then why was I being grilled by a couple of very unfriendly detectives a few days ago?”
Drew shrugged. “Probably because you were in a place that wasn’t only closed to the public, but you were there after hours and there was no sign of forced entry. For the company to collect on the insurance, they need to have a full investigation.”
“What was the cause of the fire?” Ben asked.
A loud squawk drifted down from the open window in the morning room. “Pucker up, doll.” Gilda squawked again. She let out a very impressive wolf whistle, then belted out a string of curses that had Cale considering going upstairs to close the windows before the neighbors started complaining.
Maggie giggled and shook her head in dismay. “You really need to do something about her vocabulary,” she whispered to Cale. “It’s embarrassing.”
No kidding. “She’s a work in progress.” Excruciatingly slow progress, at that.
“The cause?” Ben prompted Drew once Gilda had settled down to a bits-and-pieces version of a Sinatra medley.
Drew leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. “An electrical short in the air-conditioning system. The place was full of accelerants, considering the product it warehoused.”
Ben shifted his gaze in Maggie’s direction. “You have no idea why you were there?”
Maggie let out a sigh before she answered. “No,” she told them. “None whatsoever. I can’t even imagine why I would be in a place like that. Detective Villanueva wasn’t too impressed with my answers, either.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about the cops,” Drew said, in an attempt to reassure her. “They’re only doing their job.”
A shadow passed through Maggie’s eyes. “They still made me feel like I was a suspect. Or worse.” The fingers peeking out from the cast curled tightly. Her knuckles turned white.
Her distress offered yet another reason Cale had a hard time believing the unusual memories she’d been having. Despite what he’d witnessed of Maggie’s behavior, he still held out hope for a logical explanation. Yet, after the incident on the beach followed by her break-and-enter trick with a credit card, even he’d experienced a few misgivings of his own. She’d learned her B-and-E talent somewhere, but he couldn’t think of a single college course that taught those skills.
He stood abruptly, eager for a change of subject that would chase away the tension he sensed building inside her again. Her doctor had insisted she rest and try to keep the stress to a minimum. Since he’d brought her home with him from the hospital, they’d both been guilty of ignoring doctor’s orders.
“Unless we plan to starve ourselves all week,” he said, “maybe we should get the shopping out of the way before I go on duty tonight.”
Drew, nowhere near his usual deliberately obtuse self, took the hint and stood. “Good idea. Your cabinets are an embarrassment.”
“You working a twenty-four?” Ben asked, following suit.
“No, I’ve got the six-to-six graveyard tonight with Scorch, then back to days on Monday.” He offered his hand to Maggie, but she ignored it and stood on her own. “Do you think you’ll be okay by yourself?”
“Of course I will.” Her glance was sharp and direct. Those gold rims reappeared in her gaze, letting him know he’d slighted her independence…again. “I’m not a child, Cale.”
A detail he was well aware of, in more ways than one. She was a living, breathing, full-grown woman with curves in all the right places. She held the power to turn him inside out with one sassy, sultry look or a husky, feminine laugh. Oh, yeah. She was all woman.
“I know that,” he said. “It’s just…what if you remember something. You probably shouldn’t be alone.” The last thing he wanted to do was to go into detail in front of his brothers, but he worried she might suffer another recollection of some unpleasant experience trapped in her mind. Was it wrong of him to not want to leave her alone, especially when she might need him?
Drew bent down to pat Pearl’s side. “She won’t have to be alone tonight.”
“I don’t need a baby-sitter, either.”
“Forget it, Drew,” Cale said to his brother. No way was he going to allow his flirtatious little brother to watch over Maggie. “That’s like asking a hungry kid to guard the candy store.”
“Not me, you idiot,” Drew laughed. “Deb and Tilly. Deb made me promise to have you bring Maggie to her place before you go on duty tonight. She called it girls’ night. Something about chocolate and old black-and-white movies.”
Ben pulled the keys to his pickup from the pocket of his khaki trousers.
“When did you have time to tell Debbie about Maggie?” Cale asked. He’d planned to tell his aunt himself, but wasn’t the least bit surprised one of his brothers had beat him to it. A little thing called privacy simply didn’t exist in the Perry family.
Drew straightened and retrieved his own set of keys. “Last night. Why?”
“What’s this?” Ben teased as they walked toward the side gate. “Friday night and Drew Perry without a date? Or two?”
Drew lightly slugged Ben in the shoulder. “I stopped by before I went out for the night.”
“Great,” Cale said, relieved Maggie wouldn’t be left alone. “Problem solved.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen, but there is no problem to be solved.” She glared at each of them in turn. “I can take care of myself.”
Cale’s hand stilled on the gate handle as he exchanged sympathetic glances with his brothers. Great. He’d gone and insulted her again.
“Please thank your aunt for the invitation,” she told Drew firmly, “but I’ll pass. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
Drew slung his arm over Maggie’s shoulder. Cale struggled to ignore the sharp twist of his insides at the sight of his brother touching Maggie.
“You might as well agree now, Mags,” Drew said with more familiarity than Cale appreciated. “Old Ben here is mild compared to our aunt. Believe me, once she makes up her mind about something, she won’t take no for an answer. She has a way of getting people to do what she wants.”
Cale nodded quickly in agreement, having been on the receiving end of his aunt’s determination on numerous occasions. “If I don’t take you over there, Debbie will come here herself and drag you kicking and screaming.”
“Not to mention what she’ll put Cale through,” Ben added with his own conspiratorial nod of agreement.
Maggie squared her shoulders. The defiant lift of her chin made each of them aware she wasn’t thrilled with them for ganging up on her.
“Fine. I’ll go,” she finally relented. She nailed Cale with her gaze, gold rims and all flaring to life. “And just so you know, I’m agreeing under absolute protest just to save your hide.”
His hide, as she put it, wasn’t the one in danger. When she looked at him that way, full of fire and sass, her own hide was the one in need of saving. The woman tested the limits of his control. Heaven help them both when the tenuous thread eventually snapped.
AFTER RETURNING from the grocery store with enough food to feed a small army for a month, Cale disappeared into his bedroom to catch a few hours sleep before his shift. Maggie didn’t mind the solitude in the least, and felt more than comfortable being left to her own devices.
Although she understood their concern, she still resented Cale and his brothers talking her into spending the night with their aunt. But when the Perry brothers turned on the charm, even the most cold-hearted woman would be hard-pressed to deny them whatever they wanted.
She genuinely liked Cale’s brothers. They were good men and they shared a bond she could never hope to understand, which led her to believe she must be an only child.
She liberated Cale’s laptop computer from the rolltop desk in the living room, then settled down in the cozy morning room with a can of cola and the Saturday edition of the LA Times. A soft sea breeze occasionally caused the miniblinds to slap against the window frame while Gilda played quietly with a colorful ladder in her cage. Pearl napped on the floor beneath the table at Maggie’s feet. Even the cats had decided to join her, stretching out on the small wicker buffet table beneath the rays of sunlight filtering into the room. She’d never feel lonely with such a menagerie for company.
While she waited for the computer to boot up, she opened the newspaper and immediately located the obituaries. She scanned the names and photos until one caught her attention. Britta Fenway, a thirty-two-year-old single woman whose life had ended tragically in a boating accident off Catalina Island. Without considering why, Maggie circled the name with the black felt-tipped pen she’d snagged from Cale’s drawer.
She set the newspaper aside and turned her attention to the computer, her intent to make a list of the fragmented pieces of the dreams and images she’d been recalling, hoping that by putting them into words, she might find a pattern to her thoughts. She had her doubts the wispy images would actually lead her to more solid clues about herself, but at least if she put them down into some semblance of order, she could attempt to view them objectively. If luck were on her side for a change, she might even garner a few clues to lead her to someone who knew she existed. Perhaps even the man hidden in the shadows of her dreams.
She called up the word processing program and started jotting notes as they came to her. The cast made her typing skills feel elementary at best, yet, despite the cumbersome hindrance, her fingers fell easily over the correct keys. The three pages of notes were as scattered and disconnected as her dreams, but the progress pleased her. She saved the file to print later, then called up another blank sheet. How she knew her way around the word processing program she really couldn’t guess, but there was no denying how naturally it came to her.
Feeling truly hopeful for the first time in days, she started typing again, noting the various physical items from her dreams. Halfway through the list, her mind wandered back to the man hidden in the shadows. Who was he? He meant a great deal to her, that much she did know. A relative, perhaps? Or possibly a mentor? She couldn’t say with absolute certainty, but she had a strong feeling that whoever he was, there was nothing romantic about their liaison.
She pulled in a deep, relaxing breath, sat back then closed her eyes. After two more deep cleansing breaths, the first image came to her. With her eyes still closed, she sat up and settled her fingers over the keyboard. She typed, sporadically at first, as the images floated in and out of her consciousness.
She took down the bits and pieces of conversation she heard from people who were unfamiliar to her. She documented the time and space of places she couldn’t remember ever visiting. A range of emotions, too many to capture in a single thought, swamped her and clamored for attention. Her only hope of understanding them was to record them for later dissection.
Then she saw him. A wall of glass separated them, but she saw him clearly. Fear for his safety climbed her spine. He shouldn’t have come.
A hand touched her shoulder. It was time to go.
She stood to leave. Sadness cloaked him, the emotion palpable in his dark chocolate-colored eyes as he looked at her and mouthed an apology she couldn’t hear. The lines of his face were deeper than usual. The gray at his temples, which had always given him a distinguished quality, were whiter than she remembered.
For the first time in her life, her father looked every second of his fifty-eight years.
AFTERNOON SHADOWS darkened the bedroom as Cale slowly opened his eyes. He turned his head on the pillow to check the bedside clock in case he’d either inadvertently failed to set the alarm or had hit the snooze button in his sleep, the latter being the most likely. Rising, he glanced around the room, a little surprised to find himself alone since he could always count on Frankie and Johnny for company when an afternoon nap was involved.
After a quick steaming shower to help shed the last vestiges of sleep, he dressed and went in search of Maggie. Since she’d already packed what she needed for girls’ night at Deb’s into the small nylon duffel he’d loaned her, they had plenty of time for an early supper out if they left within the next twenty minutes or so. That way they wouldn’t have to rush, and he’d still have plenty of time to drop her off and make it to the station house before his shift began.
The living room was empty. He turned, about to head downstairs to check the guestroom, but stopped and listened. A repetitive, rhythmic clicking sound drifted toward him. He concentrated, quickly determining the noise was coming from the morning room.
He turned back and walked through the kitchen to the morning room. There, seated at the table with his laptop, sat Maggie, typing with record speed. Given the cumbersome cast, he was more than impressed by the constant rhythmic click of the keys as her fingers literally flew over the keyboard.
He gently cleared his throat, not wanting to startle her. She didn’t so much as flinch, just kept typing away, her sole focus the laptop’s monitor. Pearl did react, however, her tail thumping against the tiled floor in greeting.
Impervious to the intrusion, Maggie continued typing. Pearl slowly stretched. With her big paws in front of her, she lifted her rump in the air and issued a dramatic groan before straightening lazily. Pearl nudged Maggie’s leg with her muzzle as if signaling they had company, then made her way out from beneath the table.
Maggie let out a contented sigh. Her hands fell from the keyboard and she leaned back in the chair, a satisfied expression on her beautiful face. She must have sensed his presence, because she turned her head in his direction.
The smile curving her luscious mouth was bright enough to lighten the room. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Not long.” He pulled out a chair and sat. “What have you been up to?”
She leaned forward and entered a few commands in the computer. “I had a breakthrough.”
Had she recovered the missing pieces of her past? His heart thumped behind his ribs, whether from excitement or dread, he couldn’t be sure. “What kind of breakthrough?” he asked cautiously.
She closed the lid of the laptop with a snap, then flashed him another one of those high-wattage smiles. “I work for sex.”