Under Fire (Southern Heat Book 7) Read online

  Scarlett huffed out a breath. How had she let those bastards take so much? It wasn’t enough that they’d taken her husband? She’d somehow let them destroy every sense of safety, every moment of happiness from her future, too?

  Her jaw clenched, and her lips set in a firm line. She was done. It was just keys lying on the concrete, for God’s sake, but somehow on that windy night, they were a sign. A sign she was done looking over her shoulder every step, done locking herself away and beating herself up over every time she allowed herself to feel the least bit human.

  Derek wouldn’t want her to lock herself away for the rest of her life. He’d want her to go out, to laugh, to have fun with friends, and maybe even in time find someone to share her life with again. Scarlett’s hands tensed as she made her decision. She’d been in mourning for two years, not just for Derek but for what his death had represented. It was time to move on, to let go of the guilt that she was still alive and start acting like it.

  But first she had to pick up her damn keys. One more glance around the parking lot and then she bent at the knees and scooped them up. Her hand was shaking slightly by the time she stood, but she was still alone. No boogey man had flown out of the darkness and attacked. She turned and stepped briskly toward her car. She was done letting anyone—old enemies or new—replace happiness with fear. It was time to nail these bastards.

  The drive to the station took under ten minutes. She made the trip, turns and all, mostly on autopilot. Along with the case swirling through her mind, new thoughts had muscled in, vying for her attention. Connor’s attention at the fire earlier that day had been intense, the dark shape of him emerging from the fire, giving her shivers. Even underneath all the protective gear, she’d be able to identify his silhouette easily.

  She’d deliberately avoided him, until something shiny lying in the rubble of what was left of the third house caught her eye. His touch a few moments later had been electric. She’d heard all the old sayings—sparks flying and all that. She was beginning to think whoever coined that phrase had experienced a Connor of their own; someone you couldn’t get out of your head even when you activity tried to push them away. The entire week, she’d been fighting to stay away from the man. Scarlett thought she’d been up against the world, every asshole that had taken something from her, but really she’d been fighting against herself.

  What had happened to Derek had been horrific, but whether she lived the rest of her life in fear was her call. She was responsible for refusing to let them take anything else. Until that night, she hadn’t realized that the only thing holding her back from being happy again was herself. She was strong, damn it, and she was taking her life back. She grinned. Starting with texting a hot firefighter she knew and asking if he could meet her for coffee later.

  Scarlett hoped she hadn’t read the signs wrong. Somehow, even though she’d turned him down flat at least three times, and even thrown the man out of her apartment just minutes after sex, somehow Connor still wanted her. She wasn’t letting him slip through her fingers. She just hoped she wasn’t too late.

  She slid her car into a spot in the parking lot across the road from the back entrance to the station. The street was quieter at that time of night, but she should still leave the spots out in front of the station for the general public. The pizzeria and tattoo business just a couple of doors down were both open late and ensured the street was never really empty.

  She’d just stepped out from her car and pulled her phone from her pocket when a clang from the other end of the parking lot sounded. It had been quiet, muffled almost, and for a few seconds, Scarlett had trouble figuring out which direction the noise had come from. A crunch of gravel underfoot sounded behind her, and she turned, but before she could spin to face the noise, the sharp crack of gunfire echoed across the lot. Something hot seared across her bicep, and her mind flooded with pain as another crack sounded, followed by a muted thud as the bullet slammed into a wall across the road.

  Scarlett threw herself behind her car, praying it would be cover enough as she fumbled for her service weapon. Her arm shook as she held the gun. She was trapped. There was no way with her injured arm that she could hold her weapon and reach for her cell to call in backup. She could only pray that someone in the station across the street heard the exchange.

  She didn’t have to wait long. The back door of the station was flung open, and a voice called out into the night. “Christensen? That you out there?”

  “Affirmative, Chief,” she called back.

  “Hold your position,” her boss called back. “Backup is clearing the scene now.”

  New noises reached her ears. The squeal of tires and more footsteps, rushing now, along with shouts. She stayed behind her car, squatting, unmoving even when her leg muscles joined in with the shakes. It seemed as if it took an age, but in what was probably just a few minutes, one of her fellow cops rounded her car, concern covering his face as he took in her position. “Got her, Chief,” Scott Wilder spoke into a handheld radio. A detective, he was dressed in plain clothes but had a ballistics vest over the top. He squatted down behind her, his eyes running over her, pausing at the brand-new tear in her favorite jacket. “Need some help, Scarlett?”

  She shook her head, forcing herself to use her arm to holster her weapon, causing new flames to lick their way up her arm. She gritted her teeth but refused to show anything more. A nutjob taking pot shots in the parking lot was one thing. If her chief knew she’d been injured, she’d be on desk duty quicker than she could blink. There was no way she was being benched. Not when she was so close she could almost taste it. “I’m good,” she ground out.

  She stood and stepped forward, Scott falling into step behind her. In the relative darkness of the parking lot, the dark texture of her jacket hid a lot, but she could feel the slippery warmth of blood on her arm. She had no doubt if she stepped inside the station and into the bright light, someone would notice. The fact she was still standing minutes later meant the wound wasn’t bad enough to panic over, but try telling the boys that. She was as good as any of them, but after Derek’s death, they all wanted to shelter her, to protect her, more than they ever had before. She huffed out a breath, her steps stopping. She couldn’t blame them, but she could get the hell out of there while she still could.

  She turned to Scott, slugging him lightly in the shoulder with her good arm and plastering a smile on her face. “Thanks for the help, but I think I’m going to get out of here. Tell the boss I’ll drop off a report tomorrow.”

  Scott frowned but didn’t argue. His gaze drifted back down to her arm. “You’ll go to the ER and get that checked, though, right?”

  She smiled. “I promise I’ll get it checked out.”

  By myself, once I get the hell out of here.

  Now the adrenaline had started to fade, Scarlett’s skin was starting to crawl. The warm slick of blood inside her sleeve coupled with watching for every movement and noise as more cops appeared in the lot was making her twitch. By some miracle, her car didn’t have any new holes itself, but from the look on Scott’s face, there was no way she was hopping behind the wheel of her car and driving off. She huffed out a breath. She couldn’t blame him. If the situation was reversed, she’d be doing exactly the same thing. That didn’t change her ever-increasing need to get the hell out of there.

  Scarlett fished out her phone, biting back a groan at the movement. There was one person she could call, who’d be there, no questions asked.

  She swiped across her phone and then hit the number in the recent calls list. Thank God for speed dial. “Connor? I need some help.”

  11

  Connor

  Connor half-threw himself down on the couch at the fire station. They’d been at the scene longer than usual, poking around in the rubble and assisting the cops on scene. The number of recent fires must have been starting to rattle those higher up on the food chain, too, as an assistant chief from HQ had shown up after they’d been there about an hour. They�
��d made a beeline for Alex Stone, their battalion chief and then the highest ranking boy in blue there. Connor had watched as the guy had pulled out the plastic baggie holding Scarlett’s find, Connor dropping his head when the sergeant gestured his way. He was in no mood to explain why he’d been the one to hand the evidence over.

  He’d barely recovered from the feel of Scarlett’s lips on his before she’d turned and ran. He’d still been reeling from the sensation when she’d uttered those seven little words that had just about imploded his world. Her taste had been incredible, and her touch . . . Connor didn’t want to admit just how little attention he’d been paying to the rest of the world when her hand had brushed his. All the chaos of the scene had just floated away. Standing there behind the truck, shielded from the remains of the fire and the shouts of his co-workers muffled just enough that he’d been able to pretend they were in their own little world.

  The kiss had lasted under a minute before he’d jumped back, cursing the sudden stab of whatever the hell that thing was in his chest. He should have ignored it, kept touching her, his lips moving against hers harder, taking her . . .

  Mason plopped down on the couch next to him, jolting Connor out of his thoughts. God, he was a complete idiot. He and Scarlett might have been tucked away from immediate view, but they were still only steps away from the heart of a suspicious fire in the center of a joint investigation. It would have only taken one of his crew to need something from the truck, to step around the side, or worse yet, the lieutenant who had arrived on scene maybe ten minutes after Scarlett left arriving early. All his guys would have done is some good-natured teasing, but he didn’t know what Scarlett faced at work. From the little she’d told him, the guys at the station had been awkward around her for months after her husband’s death, and still treated her with kid gloves.

  He hunched his shoulders and shifted on the couch. Some of it was justified, probably. He wasn’t sure he’d know what to say to someone’s widow without making a total ass of himself. Thank God they’d never lost anyone at the firehouse since he’d started, but the threat was always there, worming its way inside your brain if you let yourself think about it too long. Coming face-to-face with the death of one of your own and then having to investigate it would be as hard as hell. It was a crap situation all round, and he hated that Scarlett was stuck in the middle of it all. Though he couldn’t blame her fellow cops from wanting to protect her from anymore heartache. He did, too. But trying to shield her from the evils of the world wasn’t the way to go about it.

  Scarlett needed to be in the thick of it, solving cases and getting the assholes off the street. It was where she felt like she belonged, where she shined. That much had been obvious to him in just the short time since he’d met her. That didn’t make the urgent need to protect her surging through him any less powerful. Even if there wasn’t anything more between them than friendship, he’d want to keep her safe, but the sparks that her mere touch could ignite, the way her body softened against his, the small noises she’d made as he’d thrust . . .

  Connor shifted on the couch again, needing to adjust a different part of his anatomy that time. Mason looked over from where he was fiddling with the TV remote, raising an eyebrow. “Alright over there, Cowboy?” His lieutenant’s hair was wet, and he’d changed into a fresh uniform. Unlike Connor, he’d taken the time to freshen up before taking a seat on the furniture. Connor didn’t seem to be able to get out of his own head long enough to do anything since Scarlett had taken off that morning.

  Connor smiled, inclining his head, half in acknowledgment of Mason’s words and half in case his control over his expression wasn’t working. He’d felt the slow crawl of heat on his neck at Mason’s words and could only hope the blush hadn’t made it onto his cheeks. He couldn’t exactly avoid replying. His cock, which seemed half-mast almost constantly around Scarlett, had surged to life thanks to his imagination, making standing up and moving impossible. He really didn’t want to explain why he was sitting there in the firehouse with a stiffy.

  Mason must have taken his head jerk as a response, as he ignored Connor’s idiotic shuffling and kept talking. “Alex mentioned you found something at the scene?”

  Okay. There was obviously no getting away from it. Storing the memories of Scarlett that had nothing to do with her job away for safekeeping, he turned to Mason. “Scarlett did, actually. I noticed her digging through the rubble and went over to help.” Mason nodded and Connor continued. “No idea what it is, really. Some weird piece of metal with a design stamped on it. Could be something, could be nothing. I helped her clean it off at the truck so we could get a better look.” He paused, shrugging. “She . . . uh . . . forgot it when she had to leave and sent me a text asking me to hand it in to the officer in charge to be processed.”

  Mason’s gaze was sharp. “So it never left your custody before you handed it in?”

  Connor shook his head. “No. It was in my line of sight the entire time.”

  “Good,” Mason said. “Last thing we need is to bungle any of this. We haven’t worked together like this before, but I’m all for it if it’ll figure out what the hell is going on.”

  Connor’s thoughts returned to the fires from the last couple of shifts, his dick fortunately deflating as his attentions switched. There would be time for working out what the hell was going on between Scarlett and him later when shift was over. For now, maybe he could help her in a different way. He turned back to Mason. “Can I borrow your laptop?”

  “No problem,” Mason said. He stood and stepped over to his office, returning a few seconds later holding the device. He passed it over to Connor. “Anything I can help with?”

  Connor pulled out his phone. “Whatever it was that Scarlett found, it had a symbol stamped on it.” He touched the camera icon and then swiped through to the images, passing his phone to Mason. “I didn’t recognize it as any logo I know. Seen it anywhere?”

  Mason studied the image, swiping through a couple of the photos Connor had taken before handing the metal over to the sergeant, turning the phone around, and looking at the image at different angles. “Nothing I recognize either, but look here.” He pointed to an edge. “That’s not a clean break. It’s been sheared off.”

  He passed the phone over, and Connor studied where he’d been pointing. The metal piece was too deformed to see what it had once been a part of, but Mason was right. A sick feeling took up residence in Connor’s gut as he stared at the photo. It didn’t matter how hot a fire got, heat alone wasn’t enough to do that. The edge of the metal fragment was stretched, the edge feathering, and a slight blue colored the end. Was that simply an artifact from his camera in the low light, or evidence of something else? He thought back to the various household chemicals they’d found at the first fire, and those weird-as-hell tanks at the next. It was possible, if there had been an explosion, that it was entirely accidental. Improper storage of chemicals wasn’t exactly new. Spontaneous combustion caused a large amount of fires, even at residential buildings. Was that all this was? “What are Liam’s thoughts?”

  Mason’s face was grim. “It’s too early for any of the forensics yet, and the police are handling most of that from the latest fire, but he’s concerned.” Mason picked up the laptop and opened a search engine. “He’s right to be. We all are.” He typed into the search bar, his jaw tight. “An upsurge in activity like this is never good.”

  Connor pocketed his phone and shuffled closer to Mason on the couch, leaning over to share his view of the screen. “Find anything?”

  “Nothing yet.” Mason clicked through the first page of results, then switched to the image search.

  They’d made it through three pages of results when Alex Stone appeared at the door, the assistant chief with him. “Rawlings. My office.”

  Mason huffed and pushed off the couch, handing Connor the laptop, his head inclining slightly over to where Chief Stone had disappeared down the hall with command. “I think we’re all a little on edge
right now.” He pointed at the screen balanced on Connor’s lap. “Keep looking. You never know.”

  Connor nodded. He pulled his cell out again, his hand lingering over the phone button now that he was alone again. It would be so easy—just slide his finger over Scarlett’s contact and call her, even type out a reply to her earlier message. But he couldn’t make his hands cooperate. Nerves, guilt—who the hell knew. He was torn between wanting to feel her under him again and potentially losing her forever, between protecting her from the dangers he was becoming more certain by the second were out there, or letting her fly, to do what she did best. To find joy in her job again, even if that was all she could do for now.

  He scrubbed at his face as he clicked to another page. Scarlett had been hurt deeply, past anything he could imagine, but she was also the most passionate woman he’d ever met. She had a light about her that surely nothing would ever completely extinguish. She was just too damn smart, too good. Working their type of job, helping others—it was in her blood as much as it was his. There was no way she was going to hide away from the world forever, and he was determined to be there when she was ready to take it on again. He turned his attention back to the laptop. Until then, he had a job to do, one that could potentially help her in another way. This case meant something to her, more it seemed than others she’d recently worked on. If he could help her solve it, even the tiniest part, it would be worth hours staring at identical thumbnails, searching for a small clue.

  He stood, made his way over to the kitchen and prepped himself the strongest cup of coffee that was possible from the disgusting instant stuff they kept at the firehouse, and then moved back to the laptop. Mason was still nowhere to be seen, which proved how intense things were getting at HQ. He took a swig of the coffee, then started up a new search.