A Firefighter in the Family

Again, Zac’s face popped into her mind, only adding to her foul mood. Romance with Zac Parker was a long-gone possibility.

She stopped and watched a pelican glide through the air before nosediving into the water. Thor nuzzled her hand and looked up at her. “Not that you’re not a wonderful companion,” she said to him. “It’s just not the same.”

Randi sat down and let the edge of the cool water tickle her toes each time the waves rolled in. She thought of her brothers. Will, married and the father of a two-year-old son. Josh, married. Karl, engaged. When Eric finally paired up, she’d be the only one left alone. Why did she suddenly feel as if a dark, hungry chasm was growing inside her heart?

Normally she stayed too busy to be lonely, but being back here, seeing her family—not to mention Zac—brought that buried loneliness to the surface where it stung and ached.

The breeze brought the sound of giggles. She turned to see a young couple kissing and laughing a few yards up the beach.

She wondered what that would be like—to be that carefree, that happy, that in love. She’d been that girl once, before she’d dared to follow in her brothers’ footsteps, before she’d gone into that fire, before Zac Parker had sided with the Cooke men against her despite how close they had grown. She’d been that girl once, but no more.

A WARM SUMMER Saturday night, and the joint was hopping. Just the way Zac liked it, especially after the day he’d had. Keeping busy was key to not focusing on his latest encounter with someone looking to make him an arson suspect—or the fact that person was Randi. What the hell was it with his karma?

He handed three beers to a customer and turned to the next only to find Randi Cooke standing there. His jaw muscles tensed.

She held up a hand. “I just want a bottle of water. And do you have an empty bowl?”

“An empty bowl?”

“So I can give Thor half the water.”

Zac looked across the packed bar but didn’t see the dog.

“Don’t worry. He’s on the beach.”

Zac fished a bottle of water out of the cooler and handed it to her along with one of the disposable peanut bowls.

In return, she handed him three dollars, said thanks and walked toward the front corner of the bar. He watched as she poured part of the water into the bowl then stepped down into the sand and walked a short distance. She bent out of sight before standing back where he could see her.

After the way he’d wronged her, the only reason she could be here was the investigation. It certainly wasn’t to reconnect, no matter how much he’d once wanted that.

“Hey, can I get a cosmo?” A girl wearing a tiny, lime-green bikini top stood at the bar.

An influx of new customers and those seeking seconds…and thirds…kept him busy, but his eyes continued wandering back to where Randi had taken a seat and appeared to be eating. The Beach Bum’s menu included only beverages and peanuts, so she’d brought it with her. Sometimes she caught him looking, other times she was either eyeing the crowd or staring toward the whitecaps of the waves against the much darker expanse of water. What was she up to?

Fifteen minutes passed, then thirty. Finally, he broke. “Be back in a minute,” he said to Suz, the other bartender. He wove his way through the laughter, but it didn’t penetrate his sour mood. What rolled inside him was more like a potent mixture of anger, frustration and a dash of the desire to flee. She had yet to accuse him of anything, but he couldn’t banish the feeling that it was only a matter of time. She was, after all, a Cooke. And she’d probably relish some payback against him.

Not for the first time, he wondered if he should’ve left Horizon Beach after he’d been cleared of the arson charges two years before. But he liked the little town and didn’t want to look like a coward. And he’d savored the idea of the Cookes having to see him and live with their mistakes. Petty, yes, but he wasn’t any more perfect than the next guy.

When he drew closer to Randi, he noticed how much prettier she was in her casual clothes. And when she wasn’t questioning him. Her ponytail hung down her back, looking so silky he wanted to touch it. Man, he had no right to make fun of Adam’s hormones with the way his reacted to Randi—despite their past and the reason she was back in Horizon Beach. She appeared oblivious to the reveling going on around her. Rather, she stared toward the Gulf, her forehead creased.

“Trying to figure out how to bust me?”

She turned her head to look at him. A moment passed before her look of concentration faded. “No.”

The simple answer, combined with her more casual attire and the appearance that her thoughts had been elsewhere, alleviated some of the tension knotted in his shoulders. She looked like just another bar customer, though normally such a beautiful woman wouldn’t be sitting alone.

“You’re not staking me out?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So you are?”

“I didn’t say that either.” She raised her eyebrows, and the barest hint of a suppressed smile curved her lips.

Very nice, intensely kissable lips.

Snap out of it, Parker. You destroyed that path a long time ago.

“I don’t want you harassing my customers.”

“Have you seen me talking to any of them?” The semismile was gone, as if she’d remembered who he was and what he’d done to her.

He stared at her, trying to figure her out.

She pointed at the chair opposite her. “Have a seat.”

“I’m working.”

“And yet you had enough time to come over to talk to me.”

She didn’t miss a beat, damn it. He looked back toward the front of the bar. Suz did seem to have the flow of business under control. Maybe he could do some questioning of his own. He pulled out the chair and sank into it.

Randi scanned the crowd. “Looks like you’ve got a good business here.”

He examined her face, her eyes, looking for the hidden meaning. “Can’t complain.”

She turned back toward him and leaned forward, propping her forearms on the table. “Listen, whatever you might think, I’m not in the business of railroading people—no matter who they are. And I’m pretty good at figuring out who the real culprit is.”

Had she just insinuated she thought he was innocent?

“Are you always right?”

“As an investigator, so far, so good.”

He noted her qualifier but chose to ignore it. Instead, he glanced toward the water and saw Thor snoozing in the sand. “Guard dog or accelerant detection?”

“Both.”

“He find anything in the rubble?”

“Maybe. We’ll know for sure when I get the lab report.” She paused so long, Zac looked back toward her. “Why’d you give up being a firefighter?”

Hot anger hit him in the gut, as if his career—one he loved—had been stolen from him only yesterday instead of two years ago.

He snorted at her question. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Why would I be?” She leaned back in her chair and gave him a look of challenge. “I seem to remember being a firefighter meant more than anything to you.”

More than her. She didn’t say the words. She didn’t have to.

No matter what he’d done though, did she have to pretend?

“I wasn’t hot on the idea of working with people who didn’t have my back.”

She scrunched her forehead.

“You seriously don’t know?”

“Would I have asked you if I knew?” Irritation laced her words.

“I’m surprised you didn’t hear it from your brothers.”

She looked down, but not before he saw a shadow cloud her pale blue eyes. Only a moment passed before she raised her gaze and stared straight at him. “Must have slipped their minds.”

Were they still estranged, even after all this time? Why did he find that surprising? He knew how unyielding the Cooke men were.

He glanced out toward the tide and let the familiar story flow out like the waves, curious how she’d react. “You’d been gone about six months when we got a call to a house fire. Turned out it was the house of a woman I’d just broken up with. Hell, it wasn’t really even a breakup. We’d only gone out three or four times.”

“And it was arson and the finger pointed at you?”

Zac noticed the sound of disbelief in her voice.

“Yeah. Easy target. The ex. A firefighter who understands how to make a house burn quickly. Not a native.”

“All circumstantial evidence. What about the woman? What did she say?”

He snorted a mirthless half laugh. “Swore up and down I was trying to kill her. Only she wasn’t at home. Though she normally would have been asleep at that time. She worked nights.”

“Did the investigators have any actual hard evidence on their side?” she asked, all business.

The conversation wasn’t going how Zac had expected. Where was the finger-pointing? The animosity?

“At first. They found a can of gasoline and matches in my truck, and a ‘witness’ said she’d heard me threaten my ex.”

“Pretty damning evidence, and yet here you sit.” Randi looked down at her empty water bottle. “Why did your ex-girlfriend think you tried to kill her?”

“She was psychotic.”

“Really?” Her voice rose slightly in surprise.

“I don’t know if she’s been diagnosed, but it’s there. You don’t notice at first, but that’s why I broke it off.” That, and the fact it had just never felt right. Not like his time with Randi had.

“And she didn’t take it well.”

Damn, it was odd talking to Randi about another woman.

“Obviously not. She burned her own place and tried to pin it on me.”

She tilted her head a fraction. “They proved that?”

“Yeah.” He watched her face, trying to figure out if she thought someone had made a mistake and he really was guilty after all. Hell, he’d strap himself to a damn lie detector machine if it’d erase this new suspicion.

“How?” She didn’t sound accusatory, simply curious.

“She told a friend how she got the idea after reading about an unsolved arson in the newspaper, how she planted the evidence and got her coked-up neighbor to claim to be a witness to me threatening her. The friend told the police.”

“And you didn’t go back to the department after you were cleared?”

“My innocence didn’t matter to a lot of people, including your family.”

She crossed her arms and shifted in her seat. “They thought you did it?”

“They sure didn’t back me up. Can’t say I wanted to be best buddies after that.”

“Why did you stay in Horizon Beach?” She stared, unwavering, at him, her captivating blue eyes making his breath catch. How could he still be attracted to her after all this time? When she could put him through the hell of suspicion again? They weren’t even the same people they used to be. They didn’t know each other anymore. But his body didn’t seem to mind.

Randi was listening to him, wasn’t she? Wasn’t that more than her brothers had done?

Zac let out a sigh. “Sometimes I ask myself the same question.” He stood and stalked back toward the bar. This time, he was the one who needed a drink.

RANDI WATCHED the power in Zac’s movements as he zigzagged through the crowd. Heat surged to her face when she realized she was watching him in a purely I’m-still-attracted-to-him way. Only it wasn’t the same as before. While he’d been young and exuberant then, now he was all man and rough around the edges. Accusation and the loss of a dream did that to a person. But why did she care? Hadn’t he just received a little of his own medicine? He was no stranger to turning his back on someone he supposedly cared about.

She needed to ask Eric about the other side of Zac’s story. Lord knew most of her brothers were aces at holding a grudge, but she hoped Eric would give her the honest story, one not tainted by hard feelings. It was one thing to hold a grudge when someone had done something to deserve it, quite another when they hadn’t.

And she couldn’t abide a wrong—even if it had been perpetrated against someone who’d once wronged her.

Someone who’d broken her heart.

Chapter Four

Randi slept badly. She wasn’t sure if it was the less-than-comfortable bed, her inability to stop thinking about her family or the disturbing nightmare in which Zac was trapped inside a burning house while her brothers stood back and watched, but it didn’t matter. Bad sleep was bad sleep, and Randi rolled out of bed as daylight was creeping into Horizon Beach. She changed into her running clothes and shoes, pulled her hair into a high ponytail and roused Thor. He yawned wide and tried to sneak a few more winks.

“If I have to get up at the crack of dawn, so do you.”

The horizon was as pink as some of the beach homes when Randi and Thor hit the beach at a brisk jog. Thor chased shorebirds and frolicked in and out of the surf.

Gradually, the kinks in Randi’s back and her headache ebbed. She’d missed running along the beach at dawn, the way the world seemed to be asleep and the day full of possibility. She sometimes managed to get over to Pensacola Beach for a morning run, but even that had become more rare as her job took her all over Florida and required increasing amounts of her time.

She wasn’t complaining. Someone had to make sure the firebugs didn’t get away with their crimes. Few things were more destructive than fire. Victims lost their homes, their businesses, their very lives. Unfortunately, there were people out there whose fascination with it led to all kinds of loss—including that experienced by her father.

The latest arsonist, if indeed the Horizon Vista fire was declared arson, had put her brothers’ lives at risk. So she’d be particularly happy to send him to prison.

Dissecting the case brought her thoughts back to Zac—and how he’d looked in the bar the night before. Tall, lean, corded muscles lining his strong arms. Attractive in that carefree, tanned sort of way. Maybe not so carefree. Her appearance had erased that.

When her mind focused on his physical attributes and her involuntary flushed reaction to them, she increased her pace, running instead of jogging. She ran until her muscles screamed at her to slow or move to a surface easier to run on than the packed, sloping sand. She ignored the plea, instead pushing harder. Her strides eventually brought her to the scene of the crime, causing her to slow then stop.

She stared at the hulking, black frame of Oldham’s building, the suspect list running through her mind. Slowly, she circled the building, looking for anything she might have missed in her initial survey. She completed the circle empty-handed, finding herself on the side next to Zac’s bar.

Despite her gut feeling that Zac couldn’t be the arsonist, she’d have to thoroughly investigate the possibility. She’d depended on Cooke instinct once and it had cost her father the use of his legs and her the comfort and closeness of her family.

But when she officially cleared Zac, then what? Would she be tempted to act on her attraction? After his failure to stand up for her following the fire that had injured her father, how could she even consider that? Because part of her didn’t want to hold a grudge like other members of her family, no matter how hard it would be to trust him again.

She spent the next several hours interviewing potential witnesses, including the owner of the hotel behind Zac’s bar. Her instinctual belief in Zac’s innocence took a hit when the man said he couldn’t imagine Zac burning down Oldham’s condos, but that it was possible. Then he mentioned the old arson charge, even though Zac had been cleared of that. How often was she going to encounter that prejudice?

But no matter how she tried, she couldn’t believe Zac could be guilty. Zac had been a good firefighter, working as hard as the rest of them. She didn’t rely on instinct anymore. It made her nervous that she did now, believing Zac had nothing to do with the fire. She refused to think about being wrong.

ZAC THREW a line into the water, hoping a little fishing would distract him. Since Randi had shown up, any chance at peace of mind had vanished.

The first time he’d ever seen her, she’d been dressed in a little pink dress and on her way to a wedding. He’d been stunned into silence. Even when he’d later seen her sweaty and wearing dirty turnout gear, she’d still been pretty. He’d pursued her until she’d finally caved and agreed to go out with him.

He sighed. That bright, fun Randi didn’t seem to exist anymore. But while the years since her father’s accident might have hardened her, she was even more beautiful than before, damn it.

He watched as a couple of fishing vessels motored out to sea. The sky was blindingly blue, making the water the gorgeous blue-green that attracted vacationers to the Gulf Coast. If he’d left Horizon Beach after his first brush with arson accusations, he wouldn’t have had to deal with Randi Cooke or Bud Oldham, but then he’d miss mornings and views like this.

Zac glanced toward shore, where Adam lounged in his concession shack reading the latest issue of Sports Illustrated. To think that only a couple of days before, Zac’s life had been similarly carefree. Now, he spent the hours he wasn’t working or sleeping following in Randi’s footsteps, doing his own investigation. Asking witnesses what they had seen, finding out all he could about Bud Oldham. The sooner the real arsonist was caught, the sooner he could go back to his normal life, free of suspicion and frustrating feelings about Randi Cooke.

Movement at the beach end of the pier drew his attention. Randi stepped onto the pier, Thor at her side, and walked over to where Adam sat. Zac resisted the urge to jump into the water to avoid her and his mentally impaired desire to kiss her. He tried to ignore her, but found himself glancing toward her and Adam every few seconds. Was she asking Adam about the fire, about him? Or was he being paranoid?

The minutes crept by, Zac feeling trapped at the end of the pier and hating himself for the reaction. Why couldn’t he just walk by Randi as if he’d never seen her before? Acting as if he wasn’t concerned by her presence would be the best plan.

While he was looking back to where she stood in full investigative mode, something tugged on his line. The jerk surprised him, and he almost lost hold of his fishing pole. He reeled in the line, bringing the fish toward the surface, causing it to splash the water in a vain effort to get away. After a few minutes of wrestling, Zac pulled the flounder over the side of the pier. The large, flat, speckled fish flopped against the planking, desperate to free himself.

The fish represented some good dinners, but something about the crazed, trapped look in its eyes made Zac pause. He knew exactly how the fish felt. He stooped, freed the fish from the hook then let it drop over the side of the pier.

“Didn’t figure you for a catch-and-release kind of guy.”

Zac didn’t turn toward the sound of Randi’s voice behind him. “Just goes to show you never know everything about a person, no matter how good an investigator you are.”

She took a couple of steps closer. “You might be right, but it doesn’t keep me from trying.”

Zac stared at the waves lapping at the pier. “That I don’t doubt.”

“In the interest of officially removing yourself from the suspect list, why don’t you help me out a bit? Did you find anything useful during your investigation yet?”

So she knew. The good ol’ Horizon Beach gossip mill at work.

Zac shrugged. “Not really. Could be anyone, granted you’ve determined it’s arson.”

“So no one stands out from the crowd?”

She seemed genuinely interested, despite his defensive attitude. But it was her job to investigate every possibility. He didn’t keep track of the locals like he used to. Most of his contact was with tourists and any residents who ventured into the Beach Bum.

He didn’t really have close connections with anyone despite the time he’d lived there. The few friendships he’d begun to build after moving to Horizon Beach had collapsed the minute the “evidence” pointed at him two years before. Adam was the only person he could call a good friend here, though he had regular customers and neighbors with whom he enjoyed talking. Now that he looked at it like that, it seemed crazy to stay. But something about this slice of coastline had kept him from selling his home and moving on. At first, part of that reason had been a hope that Randi would return and he’d find a way to apologize. That, plus he was stubborn and didn’t like being pushed around.

“No one in particular. There was a general dislike of the guy and the project. You could probably find a so-called motive for about three-quarters of the residents. People like it to stay the same here, and a fifteen-story building didn’t really fit in.”

“It’s hard to stop change sometimes.”

Zac glanced toward the burned building. “Looks like someone decided you could.”

Randi didn’t look at the building. Instead, she kept staring at Zac. He let the silence sit there like an unwanted guest. But instead of giving in and asking other questions, Randi didn’t lose her focus.

Zac turned his gaze slowly toward Randi when he sensed her continued stare. “You’ve turned into a tough cookie, haven’t you?”

“Some would say so.” This morning, she hid her emotions so well that he couldn’t tell whether she considered it a compliment or whether she was remembering how people like him had forced her to harden herself.

“I’m betting some of those are sitting in prison with arson convictions hanging around their necks.”

Randi walked to the end of the pier and leaned back against the railing. “You’d win that bet.”

Zac watched her, wary but also missing the little T-shirt she’d worn the night before. “I’m not planning on joining them, particularly since I’m innocent.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve never sent an innocent man to prison.”

“You sure of that?”

She didn’t flinch from his stare or question. “Positive.”

“You’re definitely a Cooke.”

Her expression tightened. “And by that you mean?”

“So sure you can’t be wrong.” Zac took a step toward Randi but stopped when Thor sprang to attention at her side, evidently ready to chomp off an appendage with his powerful jaws if necessary. “Everyone is wrong at some point.”

Her gaze caught his, and unspoken words about the past swirled between them. He nearly told her he was sorry for siding with her brothers, for saying her going into that fire had led to her father’s catastrophic injury, but enough arrogant Cooke flared in those blue eyes to raise his hackles.

“Just make sure you’re the only one you hurt when you’re so sure,” he said.

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

There it was, a hint of the hurt that resided below her steely, distant exterior. Damn it if his feelings didn’t soften a little.

“Like I said, everyone’s wrong at some point.”

Zac grabbed his fishing rod and walked the length of the pier toward the parking lot. If he didn’t get away from Randi, he was going to do something crazy like pull her into his arms. He didn’t have that right anymore. And even if she didn’t consider him a suspect in the fire, he doubted her belief in him extended an inch beyond that. As he left her behind, the thought hurt. He deserved the pain.

RANDI WATCHED as Zac walked away, stunned by what had sounded halfway like an apology for how he’d treated her before. But his command that she should be certain she didn’t hurt someone when she was wrong had brought guilt and pain to the surface, emotions she needed tucked well away while she worked. It felt incredibly wrong to have those feelings while also appreciating the mighty nice picture he painted as he walked away in worn jeans and a T-shirt that had seen approximately eight billion washings. And the resurgence of feelings more serious than simple attraction didn’t help.

The old wound she’d thought long buried felt raw against snippets of their time together—walks on the beach, flirtatious whispers to each other at the fire station, the night she’d finally felt comfortable enough to make love with him. Their lovemaking had still filled her senses when they’d been called to that fateful fire. Her heart ached when she remembered how he’d looked at her afterward—with anger and accusation.