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.
Copyright © 2017 by Tara Taylor Quinn