America's Bravest (25 page)

Rachel remembered—hell knew—all her
favorites? Suddenly Felicia felt foolish. They’d been friends since
Rachel came on the force and truthfully, Felicia was beginning to
feel petty for ostracizing the woman. “They’re your favorites,
too.”

The woman’s pretty hazel eyes sparked. “They
are.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any Pinot Grigio in
there?”

“Chilled and ready to drink.”

“Come in and have lunch with me. I, um, miss
you, Rach.”

“I miss you, too.”

They’d had a great time and Rachel honestly
explained how she simply couldn’t control her feelings for Gabe.
Never having experienced anything like that about a man, Felicia
listened and they’d come to a truce…

Still bemused by the encounter, she reached
the Academy—the chief had one at headquarters, too--exited the car
and walked into reception. The Academy was a three storey building
with a large glass and chrome and a slate floored reception area.
The woman at the desk told her Noah was waiting for her. She went
through a door and down a corridor painted blue with white trim and
firefighter photos graced the walls. She found Ryan O’Malley
leaning against the one of those walls, his arms crossed over his
chest. Was he waiting for her?

And, damn, she was a sucker for men in
uniform--his navy blues were dynamite on him. He looked
scrumptious. Hell, she didn’t even like that she had the
thought
, but in her down time, she’d admitted she was
attracted to him. Not that she’d ever do anything about it. Getting
mixed up with a womanizing younger man was not her idea of smart.
Avoiding temptation was another reason she was glad she was off the
arson case.

He gave her a killer smile when she reached
him.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked
neutrally.

He put his finger to his lips and angled his
chin. “Look inside.”

Felicia peered through the crack in the door.
Noah sat in his chair, hands crossed over his chest, staring up at
Eve, his wife, who leaned her butt on the edge of his desk. Felicia
gave out a tiny gasp at the expression on the chief’s face. If any
look could say
madly in love,
his did.

Pushing away from the wall, Ryan drew her
down the hall a ways. “It’s something, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. So intimate. Wow!”

For a moment, he studied her, his blue gaze
intense. “Do you want that in your life, Felicia?”

Fat chance she would confide in him about
anything. “Nah. When I’m in a relationship, it’s for the hot sex.”
Hell, why had she said that to
him
? She hoped she wasn’t
blushing.

“That works for me.” His grin was brilliant.
Today his sandy colored hair caught the overhead lights. She’d
never noticed the golden highlights in it.

“Besides, your reputation tells me you’re
nothing like that.” She pointed to the chief’s office.

“Maybe I’m a new man since I got hurt.”

She couldn’t help but smile.

“How you doing with the bruises?”

“Good, I’m back at work tomorrow.”

“Hmm.”

“Your knees okay?”

“Uh-huh. That was nothing compared to how
hurt you got.” Reaching out, he grasped her forearm. “I want to say
again that what you did was very brave. Heroic even.”

Her brows knitted. “You would have done the
same thing if you got to her first.”

“That doesn’t make what I said any less
true.”

Felicia wondered when they’d gotten to this
level of understanding of each other. Not liking it, she stepped
back and he was forced to drop his hand.

“Hey, there.”

Turning, Felicia saw the two junior
assistants to Eve had approached them. “Hi, Tom. Martin.”

Martin said, “No one’s here yet?”

“Yeah, everybody now.” Ryan nodded. “Me and
Licia were chatting. Let’s go inside.”

Ryan went ahead of Felicia and the rest of
them trailed behind him. He knocked loudly on the door, and heard,
“Come in.”

He noted that Eve Callahan was seated in a
chair, acting all prim and proper now, but he saw what he saw—a
passion, a love so deep on Noah’s face it had made him wait outside
for fear of interrupting the honesty. Damn, he wished he had
that!

Nah. When I’m in a relationship, it’s for
the sex.

Recalling Felicia’s retort, he pictured her
in the sack. With him.

“Hello, everybody.” Noah greeted them from
his chair. The chief didn’t stand on formalities and Ryan liked
that. “Take a seat, guys.”

They found a place to sit and Ryan noticed
Felicia dropped down into the farthest chair away from him.

“Before we start, I want to thank you,
Lieutenant White, for what you did at the camp last week. Not only
is Rachel Wellington a valued member of this department, we all
like her. Again, thanks, Felicia.”

Hmm, must be he wasn’t pissed at Gabe and
Rachel falling in love. Then again, the chief and Eve had done the
same thing.

“You’re welcome.”

“She was something to watch,” Ryan put in.
“Don’t get on her bad side. She’s got more muscles than me.”

The group laughed and he winked at Felicia.
She looked away quickly. Ryan grinned inwardly. He didn’t know
exactly when he started thinking of her as a woman—a sexy woman—but
now that she’d confessed in her painkiller haze she was attracted
to him, too, he’d decided to use that to his advantage and ask her
for a date. He also decided not to tease her about what she
admitted in the Malvaso’s home. For one thing it would alienate
her. But it also didn’t seem fair. He wasn’t above capitalizing on
what he knew, though.

In clear concise language, Eve explained
their preliminary findings. The fire was definitely incendiary,
Ryan and Felicia had collected and bagged the evidence,
photographed the scene then the Eve released the site for salvage
and overhaul.

“Incidentally, the team from Engine 4 wasn’t
happy about the cleanup job.”

Noah nodded and glanced at Eve. Ryan bet the
chief didn’t like the lieutenant at Engine 4 who Brody absolutely
hated.

Eve handed him a folder. “In there are the
reports from the lieutenant and sergeant, along with a diagram of
the site. The file also contains Tom’s and Martin’s external
investigation of the 911 call, the insurance on the building,
hospital checks, and interviews from firefighters.”

They discussed what the last of the reports
indicated.

Eve added, “There was evidence of forced
entry, and the fire was set after the library closed. We have no
internal prints or any on the window, but we did get shoe imprints
on the ground below. Only a handful of people were outside and
there were a few cars in the parking lot, but they weren’t much
help.”

This didn’t come as news to Noah. “So, we
aren’t very far along, are we?”

Eve shook her head. “My team and I are going
to do some profiling and analyze the evidence again in terms of
targeting the torch, but as I told you before, we don’t have
much.”

“Not for a lack of a thorough investigation,”
he said kindly.

“No, not for that.”

Ryan had read that not even ten percent of
arson cases were ever solved.

“Then I’ll wait for your final report.” His
gaze swept Ryan and Felicia. “Thanks for pitching in here. Your
expertise was greatly appreciated.”

“Just doing our jobs.”

“Above and beyond.”

Felicia and Ryan left the investigators with
the chief. They were walking out to their cars together when Gabe
Malvaso’s truck swerved into the lot. He exited it like a man with
a mission and approached them. Today, he looked a lot better than
when Ryan had last seen him at the camp and Rachel’s life had been
endangered.

“Hi, Cap.”

“Gabe.”

“Eve let it drop that you were meeting with
Noah today, so I came over to find you both.” He held out two
letter-size envelopes. “These are for you. Open them now.”

From the inside, Ryan pulled out a hundred
dollar gift certificate for the Lakeside Restaurant. “What’s this
all about?”

Gabe’s expression turned profound. “It’s out
of my pocket. I can’t thank you enough for what you two did for
Rachel. If something had happened to her…” He glanced away, clearly
emotional. When he looked back to them, he gave them a weak smile.
“Go have fun, each of you. Take a date.”

“This isn’t necessary, Cap,” Felicia
said.

“It is to me.” He said goodbye and headed to
his car.

Staring at Gabe’s retreating back, Felicia
shrugged. “That was nice of him.”

Ryan was moved by Gabe’s naked emotion for
Rachel. So he asked, “You gonna bring a date there?”

“And that would concern you why?”

Casually, he shrugged a shoulder. “I thought,
um, well, I wondered if you’d want to have dinner with me at
Lakeside. With two of these, we could get an expensive bottle of
Cabernet, lobster and crab, and still cover the tip.”

She smiled, he guessed, against her will. “I
love all those things. It sounds tempting, but…”

“It wouldn’t be like a date,” he added
coaxingly.

Felicia stared hard at him.

“I thought maybe working with me made you
like me a little better.”

Now she laughed. “Actually, it did. Oh, all
right, if you’re sure it’s not a date.”

“Scouts honor. When?”

“My social calendar isn’t exactly full.
You’re the one with women falling all over you.”

“Not the right ones. How about tonight?”

“Fine by me. I’m off till tomorrow. I’ll meet
you there.” She shook her head. “Oh, wait, I can’t. I’m dropping my
car off today at the garage. I won’t have it tonight. Let’s do a
rain check.”

No way was he giving her time to reconsider.
“Felicia, I can pick you up.”

Her glare seemed false. “This isn’t a
date.”

“I promise, I’ll remember that.”

“I guess it’s okay. What time?”

“Seven.”

“I live at…”

He grinned. “I’m a cop. I’ll find out.”

When she walked to her car, Ryan watched the
gentle sway of her hips in the skinny black pants she wore and how
the breeze blew her hair askew. She hadn’t fought too hard against
going to dinner with him.

He wondered if convincing her to do other
things with him might be this easy.

Standing in front of her mirror, Felicia
shook her head in disgust and yelled at herself. “Damn it, what the
hell are you doing?”

This was the third outfit she’d put on. After
she’d done her hair and makeup. She had to admit she looked good.
Her curls were fluffy, the mascara accented her eyes and this
dress, a little black one with three-quarter sleeves to cover most
of the scrapes from the roof incident, also had a low neckline and
gathered at the waist with a flared skirt. Felicia liked clothes,
probably because she wore a uniform in her job. She splurged on
both dressy and casual outfits, and enjoyed herself. Sometimes she
and Rachel had gone shopping together. And she missed that. Maybe
after her friend’s visit the other day, they could go out
again.

She’d just spritzed on some perfume when the
doorbell rang, preventing her from changing her mind again about
her appearance. She grabbed a bag, headed downstairs and drew open
the door.

Damn, he was even more gorgeous dressed up.
She’d forgotten that after she’d seen him clubbing. Or maybe she
hadn’t noticed then. He wore dark slacks, a dark shirt and a taupe
blazer with a jaunty little handkerchief in the pocket. His hair
was mussed beautifully from the slight breeze.

Something jolted inside Felicia; it took her
a minute to recognize the kick as desire—even stronger than what
she’d felt as she watched him sleep that day on his porch.

“Hi, there.” He drew his hand from behind his
back and held out a bouquet to her. Petty little roses, a couple of
dozen of them, stuck their heads out from green tissue paper.

She didn’t take them, instead eyed the
bouquet suspiciously. “This isn’t a date, Ryan.”

“Hey, a woman who risked life and limb this
week to save someone deserves a few buds, don’t you think?”

The desire inside her shifted to an emotion
she didn’t normally feel for people. Tenderness. “I guess. Come on
in.”

He followed her into the foyer. “You look
terrific.”

“Thanks. Thought I’d dress up. I don’t get
much of a chance to do it.”

The condo was big and spacious with an
entryway leading directly to a great room overlooking forever wild,
a kitchen with a big dining area open to that, and bedrooms at
either end.

As she fished out a vase from a kitchen
cabinet, she sensed Ryan looking around. “Very nice.”

“A lot different from your place.”

“I like all kinds of décor.”

“How’d you get interested in antiques?”

“My aunt and uncle. We used to stay with them
a lot. Their house was full of antiques because they owned a store
which sold them. They taught me about antiques and when I earned
enough money to furnish my own place, I decided to buy some for
myself.”

As she set the vase of flowers on the island,
her computer pinged from the desk across the room. “Damn it.”

“What was that?”

“I get an automatic alert every time Parker
Allen posts about the fire department.”

“Ah, the woman on all our
Most Hated
lists.”

“You got that right. Mind if I check?”

“Go ahead. Cops don’t cotton her any better
than you guys do.”

Having a bad feeling about this one, Felicia
sat down at the desk and called up Allen’s blog. Ryan stood close
behind her and she got a whiff of his cologne. Oh, man! Her fingers
slipped on the keys.

But all thoughts of Ryan O’Malley fled when
she read the heading of the post. The Good, the Bad and The
Beautiful. There was a short paragraph where Allen wrote that she’d
captured some video of America’s Bravest and Finest.