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An Honorable Man
Kara Lennox
He Was Looking For Forever…Priscilla Garner isn't looking for romance. She's more interested in being accepted as the only female firefighter at Station 59. But when she needs a date–platonic, of course–to her cousin's wedding, she turns to Roark Epperson. After losing control during a brief relationship with him, she turned him away. Can she handle the heat this time around?Being close to Priscilla suits Roark just fine. He has never understood why she ended things between them six months ago, but he respected her decision. However, he hasn't forgotten the moments he spent with Priscilla and wants her to be part of his life–always. Knowing this may be his last opportunity to make her see how much he cares, Roark intends to make this second chance count!
“There are no guarantees in romance, Priscilla.”
“I’m not into taking risks,” she replied.
“Oh, really? Is that why you jump onto the roofs of burning buildings?”
“I knew you were going to bring that up,” she said with a laugh. “That’s different. If you understand fire, you can try to predict what it will do. It follows the laws of physics. A guy, on the other hand, doesn’t follow any rules—of physics, logic, anything.”
“Guys are easy,” Roark scoffed. “Give them food, sex and football on a regular basis and don’t take away the remote control.”
He got a smile out of her with that, but she didn’t seem inclined to continue the debate.
Roark’s needs were even simpler. He wanted Priscilla back. In his life and in his bed. But he sensed that now wasn’t the time to push. He had to give her some time to figure out that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
He couldn’t resist one last attempt to convince her. “I’m not really that complicated. What you see is what you get. And your secrets, whatever they are, couldn’t possibly be that bad. I consider it a personal challenge to figure you out.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he planted a quick but firm kiss on her lips.
Dear Reader,
I’ve admired women who choose to pursue a traditional “man’s” career, whether that be as a cop, a soldier or a construction worker. So of course I couldn’t resist including a female firefighter at Fire Station 59. While I was doing research for this series, I discovered that firefighting may be the last place where women are accepted. Most of the male firefighters I interviewed did not want to work with women. Period.
So, in addition to the usual hurdles a rookie faces, my heroine, Priscilla, has challenges simply because of her sex. Then there’s the gorgeous arson investigator, further upsetting her equilibrium, and a matchmaking mama dragging her to distraction. I admit, Priscilla is my favorite of the firefighters, with her tough-girl attitude masking a few deep-seated insecurities.
I hope she is a heroine you can root for, too!
All my best,
Kara Lennox
An Honorable Man
Kara Lennox
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Texas native Kara Lennox has earned her living at various times as an art director, typesetter, textbook editor and reporter. She’s worked in a boutique, a health club and an ad agency. She’s been an antiques dealer and even a blackjack dealer. But no work has made her happier than writing romance novels. She has written more than fifty books.
When not writing, Kara indulges in an ever-changing array of hobbies. Her latest passions are bird-watching and long-distance bicycling. She loves to hear from readers; you can visit her Web page at www.karalennox.com (http://www.karalennox.com).
Books by Kara Lennox
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
974—FORTUNE’S TWINS
990—THE MILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR
1052—THE FORGOTTEN COWBOY
1068—HOMETOWN HONEY * (#litres_trial_promo)
1081—DOWNTOWN DEBUTANTE * (#litres_trial_promo)
1093—OUT OF TOWN BRIDE * (#litres_trial_promo)
1146—THE FAMILY RESCUE ** (#litres_trial_promo)
1150—HER PERFECT HERO ** (#litres_trial_promo)
Many thanks to the guys at Station 14 for helping me with firefighting details: Lieutenant Charlie Salazar, Firefighter Ken Sutcliffe, Firefighter Joe Hinojosa and Firefighter Byron Temple.
Contents
Chapter One (#ude0862dd-6ad5-5aff-8eeb-88d28a9cbd2d)
Chapter Two (#u393bf134-f187-5864-9f2b-07ba38c89256)
Chapter Three (#udb671358-cb70-53e8-ad37-0c853112c874)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
The alarm sounded, and rookie firefighter Priscilla Garner cocked her head and listened. Maybe it wouldn’t be for her crew—but she hoped it was.
“That’s us!” someone called out.
A fire at last. Priscilla was more than glad to halt the endless chopping of onions, her current assigned task. Captain Campeon had finally stopped putting her in charge of meals at Fire Station 59, because though she honestly tried, the end results usually were inedible.
So she got to do the fun stuff. Like chopping onions and peeling potatoes. Sometimes she felt as if she was in the Army pulling KP duty. And if she wasn’t chopping or peeling, she was likely mopping, scrubbing toilets or washing dishes. Such mundane tasks made her twenty-four-hour shift creep by.
It would have been easy to assume she was being picked on because she was the only woman at the station, but she knew better. Her best friends, Ethan and Tony, got pretty much the same treatment. Such was the life of a rookie.
Otis Granger, suddenly alert, turned off the meat he’d been browning for chili and they headed wordlessly to their stations and struggled into their turnout gear.
As a rookie Priscilla’s job was to stick close to Otis, watch and learn. He was twenty years her senior, a hulking man with a huge belly and skin the color of milk chocolate. At first he had fought like a cornered feral cat about having to work with a woman. But once he’d realized she was determined to succeed at her job, he’d let up. They’d actually become friends.
Priscilla vaulted into her spot on the jump-seat, next to Ethan. She finished bunking out, fastening Velcro cuffs as the engine, with its siren blaring, headed for what had been reported as a Dumpster fire behind a Chinese restaurant.
The engine hurtled through Oak Cliff, a large, diverse section of Dallas south of the Trinity River. As they sped down Jefferson Street, the main shopping drag, past colorful stucco shopping centers, kids on bikes stopped to gawk.
Drawing nearer to the fire, Priscilla saw a plume of heavy black smoke rising up in an otherwise flawless October sky, and when they turned the last corner she realized they’d be battling something more serious than a trash fire. A storage shed behind an apartment building was burning fiercely.
Lieutenant Murphy “Murph” McCrae, their driver, reported the change in conditions over the radio to the dispatcher as he tried to get the engine down the narrow alley. But the passageway was constricted by a Dumpster that was off its base.
“We’ll have to go around to that parking lot,” he announced. “Garner, Granger, go on foot. Looks like there’s a chain-link fence needs taking down.”
Priscilla was on it at once. She jumped down from the engine, grabbed a pair of bolt cutters, and in forty pounds of gear ran as fast as she could toward the blaze. She pulled her self-contained breathing apparatus over her face as she ran. The small building was completely engulfed, and the trees nearby were smoldering and starting to catch.
Damn, this was exciting!
Feeling the heat of the fire on her face, she went to work on the fence. Moments later, Otis was at her side, steadying the hot metal with his insulated gloves and pulling it aside as she cut each link. Bystanders began to gather, and she had to chase a few of them back. By the time the fence was dispatched, the engine was pulling up in the parking lot adjacent to them.
Priscilla was itching to stretch hose and attack this beast. Another siren wailed in the distance, indicating a second engine was on its way. She and Otis unfurled the main hose, while McCrae worked the various controls, and soon they had a fully charged line with which to attack the flames.
It always amazed Priscilla how quickly a fierce, hot blaze could be tamed. In a matter of minutes, the fire was under control. The burning trees were extinguished, the charred roof and walls of the shed had been soaked, first with water, then with foam.
“Garner!” Murph bellowed. “I want you and Granger on the roof.”
She hopped to obey. Man, she loved this, tearing holes with her pike pole and looking for hot spots, which Ethan promptly extinguished from below. Ha, take that. And that! No flickering ember would escape her clear eye or her sharp pike.
They hadn’t been called to a real fire in over a week. And since Priscilla still had months left on her paramedic training, she didn’t usually get put on medical emergencies, so she’d been bored and antsy.
She tore at the blackened composite shingles, giving the roof savage stabs.
Shouted conversations drifted around her until one specific word caught her attention: arson.
She paused. “Ethan, did someone say it’s arson?”
“Yeah, there’s a bunch of paint cans and rags piled next to an outside wall. Probably just malicious mischief.”
A few seconds later Murph called Priscilla down from the roof.
Any mention of arson made Dallas firefighters jumpy these days. A huge fire the previous spring, when Priscilla was still at the fire academy, had proved lethal for three veteran firefighters because the arsonist had rigged the roof of the burning warehouse to collapse. The fatalities—the first in many years—had sent shock waves through the department. The loss had been especially hard on her firehouse, Station 59, where the men had all worked.
But the arsonist hadn’t stopped there. He continued to set fires every few weeks and he was setting them more often as time progressed.
When a familiar black Suburban pulled into the parking lot, Priscilla tensed. Captain Roark Epperson. He’d been an arson instructor at the fire academy; he’d also taken a much more personal interest in Priscilla, though no one else knew that.
Since their brief, explosive fling had ended uncomfortably, Priscilla usually managed to avoid the man.
She busied herself folding hose and watched from the corner of her eye as the tall, broad-shouldered investigator talked to Murph, then glanced her way—giving her a long, lingering look that she pretended not to see.
She hoped no one else noticed. The guys didn’t need anything else to torment her with.
Roark examined the pile of charred paint cans and blackened rags, then he took a few pictures with a digital camera. Since everyone was watching him, Priscilla gave up trying to pretend she wasn’t interested. She ambled closer so she could hear, too.
“Definitely arson, but not our boy,” Roark said to Murph. Our boy was Roark’s designation for the serial arsonist. “Probably a kid looking for a thrill. If it was the property owner wanting to collect insurance, he’d have gone to a little more trouble to hide his tracks.”
The sound of Roark’s Boston accent, still strong despite the years he’d spent in Texas, brought back unwanted memories. And his conclusions about this fire frustrated her. Not that she wanted the serial arsonist to set more blazes. On the other hand, with each fire he set, the potential existed for more clues to his identity—though so far he’d been damn clever about not leaving fingerprints or witnesses.
The collective mood relaxed as everyone continued about their business, putting away tools and ladders, joking and laughing now that the tension had eased. Priscilla continued to poke things with her pike pole.
“Hey, Pris, you going to the retirement party next week?” Ethan asked her. The captain in charge of the B shift at Station 59 was hanging up his hat.
“I can’t. I have to attend…you know, a family event. My cousin’s wedding is coming up, and she’s having this froufrou dinner for all the bridesmaids at the Mansion.” Priscilla poked at a stump. Sparks flew out of it. “Someone douse this thing.”
“Ooo, the Mansion.” Otis strolled over with the booster line and sprayed down the stump. “I always wanted to go there. Need a date?”
Priscilla laughed. “Ruby wouldn’t like that.” Ruby was Otis’s girlfriend and about to become wife number three. “Besides, my mother has a list of eligible candidates, should I want a date to this shindig. Which I don’t.”
“Uh-oh,” Ethan said. “Sounds like your mother is still trying to fix you up.”
Priscilla cringed inwardly. It must seem to everyone else that she couldn’t get her own dates. The fact was, Priscilla didn’t want to hook up with anybody. Her job kept her plenty busy. When she wasn’t at the station, she was training for her paramedic certification. But her mother was concerned about her, worried that her only child was lonely after a nasty breakup last year.
Most of the time Priscilla refused her mother’s matchmaking attempts. But occasionally she gave in—just to keep the peace. Since all the other bridesmaids would have husbands or boyfriends in attendance at the dinner, Priscilla would probably end up agreeing to a fix-up this time.
“Why don’t you tell your mother to knock it off?” Ethan asked.
The question made perfect sense. Priscilla was not exactly shy and retiring when it came to telling people what to do. She knew she had a reputation as the C shift control freak, always trying to organize things to her satisfaction.
But telling her mother what to do was a whole different plate of deviled eggs. Lorraine Garner was an unstoppable force.
“I don’t want to hurt her feelings,” Priscilla said. “She tries so hard and she only wants me to be happy. I try to tell her I don’t want a boyfriend….” And at this point she slid a look toward Roark, who had stopped talking with Murph and was blatantly eavesdropping. Damn. “But she assumes I’m pining away because I’m not attached. Going out on an occasional fix-up is easier than arguing.”
And she didn’t want to argue with her mother. She’d been a rebellious teenager, angry at the world, and she’d hurt her parents more than she’d realized with her obstinate determination to do things her way and have her misplaced revenge. Now that she was older and supposedly wiser, she tried to be more careful about balancing her wants and needs with their sensibilities. They were, after all, the only family she was likely to have, given her dismal track record with the opposite sex.
Ethan got a roll of yellow caution tape and tied one end to a fence post. “Would your mother lay off if you had a boyfriend?”
“Sure. I mean, I think so.” When Priscilla had been dating Cory Levine the previous year and it appeared to be serious, her mother had been so happy. “But I don’t have a boyfriend and I don’t want one. Who has time, anyway? I don’t see how you newlyweds do it.” Ethan and Tony had both tied the knot during the past few months.
“How about a pretend boyfriend then?” Ethan suggested. “Tell your mom you’re seeing someone.”
“I’ve thought of that. But a fictional boyfriend won’t cut it. She’d have to meet him, approve of him and hear wedding bells before she’d stop matchmaking.”
Otis squirted the back of Priscilla’s coat with his booster line, just to be ornery. “Why don’t you take me home to meet your mama? Give her a heart attack and be done with it!” He cackled at his own humor, and Priscilla had to admit it was a little bit funny, thinking of how her parents would react if she brought home a forty-five-year-old, twice-married firefighter.
But then she sobered. Her mother’s matchmaking efforts had become a problem. She couldn’t attend any gathering without Lorraine thrusting some earnest young man at her. Some of them were very handsome and very nice. But Priscilla simply wasn’t interested in putting herself out there again right now, going through the dating rituals. The angst and uncertainty drove her nuts.
Her gaze again slid covertly to Roark. They hadn’t exactly dated; they’d slept together. Their affair had been all about stress relief, a strictly physical thing. That’s what she’d told herself, anyway.
Roark had wanted to prolong their liaison. But the intensity of their times together had frightened Priscilla. She hadn’t been able to control herself and she didn’t like that feeling. So she’d put a stop to the relationship before it had really gotten started—before they’d had a chance to get to know each other, to open up and share who they really were. She hadn’t been ready for that.
She might never be ready. She liked her life pretty well right now, living alone, answering to no one.
“Here’s an idea,” Ethan said. “Why don’t you produce a real boyfriend?”
“I can’t just materialize a boyfriend out of thin air,” Priscilla said sensibly.
“What I mean is, get someone to pose as your boyfriend. Someone impeccable. Someone your mom couldn’t possibly object to. Trot him out to meet your parents, hint around that it’s serious. Do that, and your mother will be satisfied.”
Priscilla had to admit the idea was attractive. The ploy might give her a few months of peace, anyway. “And where do you suggest I find this paragon of a fake boyfriend?” Although she didn’t want to say so out loud, she didn’t think her mother would approve of Priscilla dating a fellow firefighter. Lorraine had enough trouble with her daughter living one-third of her life in a firehouse with a bunch of men. But dating one of them?
“I have the perfect candidate,” Ethan said, his eyes full of mischief, and Priscilla felt a stab of apprehension. Who did he have in mind? What had she stepped into? “Maybe,” Ethan said, “your parents would approve of an arson investigator.”
Priscilla gulped and glanced at Roark, startled to discover that he was almost right behind her, leaning against the fence. Silently she begged Roark to put in a quick refusal. But he didn’t. He looked a little surprised at being put forward as a candidate to be Priscilla’s fake boyfriend. But not unhappy.
“Hey, that’s perfect,” Otis said innocently, having no earthly idea that Priscilla and Roark shared a bit of their past. “Who could object to Roark? He’s gainfully employed, he cleans up nice and he talks like some aristocrat. Epperson, what do you say? You want to make Priscilla’s mom a happy woman?”
Priscilla would have liked to sink into the dirt. The last thing she wanted was Roark to play any type of boyfriend, fictional or otherwise. She was still several feet from him, but she couldn’t stop her heart from racing. Her lips tingled, she was getting warm in places not mentioned in polite society and her hands itched to touch him, to muss up that perfectly groomed hair.
Priscilla looked to Roark, again praying he would say no, quickly and forcefully. But instead he wore a pensive expression, as if thinking over the proposition.
Then abruptly he smiled and looked straight at her, reminding her of a shark coming in for the kill. “I’m always willing to go the extra mile for a comrade. Sure, I’ll help you out, Priscilla. I could be convincing, too. Very convincing.”
A charged silence followed his statement. Jeez, did everyone in her unit now know that Priscilla and Roark had slept together?
Ethan broke the silence. “Then it’s settled. Priscilla, your problems are over. All we needed was to put our heads together. You can thank me later.”
Thank him? She was going to pinch his head off once they were some place without witnesses.
“Captain Epperson, don’t listen to any of them,” she said, pretending it was all a joke. “You’re very kind to want to help, but I can handle my mother. Been doing it for a few years now.”
Roark Epperson thought fast as Priscilla started to walk away. He needed a way to prolong the contact. He had questions and he wanted answers. “Priscilla?”
She turned. “Yes?”
“When you were in training, you seemed to take a special interest in arson investigation.” And in the arson investigator, but that was a separate issue. “I could use some help collecting samples. I’m sure Lieutenant McCrae won’t mind if I borrow you a few minutes.”
Roark could see the turmoil in her eyes. She didn’t want to be alone with him. Was she embarrassed that she’d shown him so much passion? Was she guilty about it? Was there another man in the picture?
They had shared very little personal information during their brief liaison. He knew she’d broken up with someone not long before they met, but she’d given him no details.
“Sure, I’ll give you a hand,” Priscilla said, deceptively casual.
He took her over to his car and handed her several clean empty cans and some plastic bags, then instructed her on what to collect from among the charred remains of the shed and how to package the evidence. She put on latex gloves and followed his instructions while he watched.
He’d been intrigued from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, the only woman in the class. At first he’d thought he had her pegged: too slender, too weak, too pampered. But in this case, first impressions had been totally wrong. She was astonishingly strong for a woman her size. And he had never seen anyone work harder to get through training. He’d spotted her on the obstacle course several times after hours, often by herself, practicing until she got it right.
Priscilla poked at some dead leaves near the chain-link fence, searching for evidence. “Hey, Captain, look at this.”
She’d found a book of matches. “Good job. Could be very useful.”
Carefully she used tweezers to collect the evidence and place it in a plastic bag. Roark, meanwhile, studied her face, imprinting it in his memory so he could think about it later—the slope of her cheek, the curve of her lower lip.
The physical chemistry between them had been undeniable from that first day. But it was her grit and determination—and her quick mind—that had truly fascinated him.
It might have come to nothing if she hadn’t gotten stranded in the fire academy parking lot one rainy day with two flat tires. Someone—one of the male trainees who resented her outshining him, no doubt—had stuck a knife in her treads. Roark despised bullies, and though Priscilla had been perfectly willing to call her auto club, Roark had convinced her to let him take her tires to be repaired. Then he’d helped her put them back on.
Afterward they’d gone for coffee. And somehow they’d ended up in bed at his place.
They hadn’t even made it out of bed before she’d called it a mistake, reminding him that it was ethically questionable at best for her to sleep with an instructor. Though he’d agreed with her in theory, he hadn’t wanted to let her go. He’d never met such a fascinating mix of characteristics in a woman—tough, no-nonsense one minute, then giving him glimpses of finishing-school manners the next. A soft, musical voice and innocent blue eyes that didn’t flinch at the sometimes raw language and tasteless jokes that were part of the firefighter culture.
She’d tried to resist him. She’d turned him down when he’d asked her out, claiming she was uncomfortable. She’d also mentioned that she’d had a recent breakup and wasn’t ready to start seeing anyone else.
But then she’d shown up at his loft. Twice more. Each time, she’d chastised herself afterward, saying it was wrong for her to use him. She’d said she didn’t know what had gotten into her, that she didn’t normally behave so erratically.
After that last time, he knew she wouldn’t be back and he had let her go—but only temporarily. If it was a bad breakup that plagued her, perhaps time would cure the problem. And so he’d left her alone, but he’d kept tabs on her. Eric Campeon, her captain, was a friend of his.
He’d always intended to follow up with Priscilla once she’d settled into life as a firefighter and had more time to recover from whatever jerk she’d previously been hooked up with. When he saw something he wanted, he went after it. He’d let his ex-wife, Libby, get away far too easily. Maybe they hadn’t been right for each other in the long run, but he would never know—because he’d given up without a fight. Once he’d realized she didn’t want to start a family, he’d been so stunned he’d just let her walk out.
He’d learned a lot in the ten years since then. The man he’d become never gave up without a fight. He had a reputation for pursuing every avenue when it came to catching an arsonist and he intended to be every bit as determined in his personal life.
Maybe Priscilla wasn’t right for him, either. But he wouldn’t know unless he spent more time with her. He wanted to know what was behind that tough-girl exterior.
He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had made him feel the way Priscilla Garner did.
He forced his mind back to the investigation at hand. “You were the first to arrive at the fire?” Roark asked.
“Otis and I were.”
“See anything unusual? Smell anything?”
“I’m not good at smells and I had my SCBA on. But the fire did seem unusually intense and hot.”
“Not surprising, since the shed was full of lawn equipment and maintenance stuff. Gasoline, paint, turpentine. We’re damn lucky the whole place didn’t explode.”
“The building was fully involved by the time we got to it. Probably whatever was going to explode had already done so. There were a lot of bystanders, but most of them had gone by the time you arrived.”
“Any kids? Gang colors?”
Priscilla paused, searching her memory. “Two Hispanic boys, maybe fifteen or sixteen. Probably should have been in school. One was wearing green and black—that’s Dawg colors, right?”
“You got it.”
She described them in detail, down to the fact one of them had a chipped tooth, the other a broken shoelace. “They seemed real curious.”
“Could you recognize them?”
“I think so.”
“Good. I might show you some mug shots.” He already had an idea who those characters might have been. He’d talked to them before about some Dumpster fires, but he hadn’t been able to prove anything. Maybe they’d escalated to sheds.
“So did I do something wrong?” he asked suddenly.
Priscilla straightened to look at him, and for the first time he sensed true regret from her. “No, you did nothing wrong. I was the one misbehaving.” She smiled sadly.
“So why is it you run from me like I have typhoid?”
She returned to her task, meticulously labeling one of the evidence bags. “I told you before—I’d just come out of a relationship.”
Okay, now he was getting somewhere. “So I was your rebound lover.”
“Yes. And that really wasn’t fair. You seemed like you wanted something more than a playmate, and I wasn’t ready for anything like that.”
“But that was months ago. Surely you’ve recovered from whatever your previous scumbag boyfriend did.”
That got another smile out of her, not quite as sad this time. “What about that rag? Should I collect that?”
“Yes, and you’re changing the subject.”
“I just don’t want a boyfriend,” she blurted out, sounding a little desperate.
“I don’t buy that. Nobody wants to spend all their nights alone.”
She sighed and looked anywhere but at him. “It’s complicated.”
“I’ve got time.”
“I don’t understand it myself, so how could I explain it to you? But, trust me, you really wouldn’t want me for a girlfriend. I have issues.”
“Everyone has issues. You deal with them or you live with them, but you don’t just stop living.”
She straightened up and turned to face him, her gaze direct and unwavering. “The fact is, Roark, I like you too much. I was so anxious about the whole thing I just…needed to get away from it. I’m one of those people who can’t stand uncertainty. I like to be in control. Around you, I had no control, and I really couldn’t tolerate it.”
Roark knew female logic was different than male logic, but this blew him away. “Let me get this straight—you liked me too much so you broke things off.”
“I know that sounds crazy.”
To put it mildly. “So you don’t even want to try?”
“Even if I wanted to, I don’t have time. Between work and paramedic training, I’m overscheduled as it is.”
“And yet you still have time to go on these dates your mother sets up.”
“Only once in a blue moon. Don’t try to defeat this with logic, Roark. I’m surprised and flattered you would want anything to do with me after the way I behaved during training. But I’m not ready to date anyone except on the most casual basis. And you and I couldn’t do it casual.”
She was right about that. With Priscilla, he would not be content with seeing her once or twice a month.
He took the samples she’d collected. “McCrae is looking a little impatient with us. Guess I better let you go.”
“Yeah. Thanks for letting me help with the evidence.”
“You’re a quick learner.”
She turned to leave, but he couldn’t resist a parting shot. “I could still be your fictional boyfriend.” Not that the role would be a big stretch.
“Thanks, but no. I just need to be more firm with my mother.”
Roark had done all he could do. He gave Priscilla one last long, steamy look, reminding her of what she was giving up. Then he walked away from her. Damn, it was hard knowing he’d never hear from her again.
Chapter Two
Twenty-four hours later, Priscilla wanted to eat her words. She was helping her mother fix Sunday dinner and she needed a boyfriend in the worst way.
Lorraine Garner, who was well known for her cooking skills, had been only too happy when Priscilla had shown an interest in the kitchen for the first time in her life. Now that Priscilla had discovered how essential cooking was to her popularity at the firehouse, she had practically begged her mother to teach her to cook.
In between instructions on preparing lasagna, Lorraine couldn’t resist interrogating Priscilla.
“How is your nurse training going?” she asked as she demonstrated how to properly crush garlic without even chipping her manicure. She wore a cream-colored silk dress and pearls around her neck and she never got a spot on herself.
“It’s paramedic training,” Priscilla gently corrected, “and it’s going fine so far.”
Her mother would probably be much happier if Priscilla had become a nurse. She’d been horrified when her daughter had announced she was going to leave the home decor shop she’d been managing since she graduated from college and become a firefighter. Lorraine hadn’t liked the whole blue-collar aspect of it, but even more than that she’d been worried for her daughter’s safety.
Priscilla, however, had been bored to death as a shopkeeper. She’d wanted to do something active, something that would make a difference in the world. She’d needed to turn her life in an entirely new direction so she wouldn’t brood about Cory.
She’d always been fascinated with fire trucks. She’d even played fireman when she was a little kid, rescuing her cousin Marisa’s dolls over and over from various flaming tragedies. It was pure impulse that had prompted her to apply to the fire department, and she’d wondered at the time if she’d gone a little crazy. But the very first time she’d fought a blaze in training, she’d liked that feeling and wanted more of it.
Eventually Lorraine had come to accept her daughter’s new vocation and had stopped hoping it was a phase she was going through. But she had not stopped trying to fix what she perceived to be Priscilla’s tragic lack of social life.
“Are they going to give you time off to attend the bridesmaids’ dinner?” her mother asked.
“Yes, I have that day off.” And she knew what was coming next.
“Have you decided who you’ll take as your escort?”
“Mother, I really don’t think Marisa is going to care whether I bring a date to the dinner.” Her cousin Marisa was the bride. Lorraine and Priscilla’s aunt Clara, her mother’s sister, had been pitting the girls against each other since they were babies.
“I just don’t want people to feel sorry for you,” Lorraine said. “You know Aunt Clara thinks you somehow messed up your only chance to snag a husband.”
“The breakup was hardly my fault.” Cory, who had never shown the slightest fondness for children that Priscilla had seen, had nonetheless been devastated when Priscilla confessed that she would never be able to bear his children. When she’d brought up the possibility of adoption, he’d closed his mind. His heart had been set on biological children. And that had meant he most definitely would not be proposing marriage.
Priscilla had been shocked and then saddened by his attitude. She’d been sure Cory was “the one.” But she hadn’t known him as well as she’d imagined she did.
“Of course it wasn’t your fault,” Lorraine said. “But Clara doesn’t know that. She doesn’t know what really happened.”
“And she’s not going to either.” It had taken Priscilla years to come to terms with the fact that she could never become pregnant, never carry her own child. She was sixteen when she’d gone in for surgery to have one of her ovaries removed. Just one. But the surgeon, after inspecting them, had declared they both needed to come out, and Priscilla’s parents had signed the consent form on the spot.
She’d awakened from the surgery to the devastating news that she was now infertile, that she would have to take hormones for the next thirty or so years. And she had been angry that her parents had stolen her future from her.
Unreasonably angry, she realized some years later. Her parents had made the best decision they could at the time.
Priscilla had spent the past couple of years repairing her relationship with her parents and she hated to rock the boat now. But she did need to put a stop to her mother’s matchmaking.
“Would it be so very difficult for you to bring a date to the bridesmaid’s dinner?” Lorraine tried again.
“All right, Mother, who is he?”
Lorraine almost managed to hide her smile of triumph. “Remember the Conleys who lived next door to us?”
“Yeah. They moved to Miami or someplace, didn’t they?”
“Yes. But young Bill has moved back recently. And he wants to get into the social scene here.”
Priscilla gasped as memories resurfaced. At age twelve, “young Bill” had worn a white belt and a pocket protector, and the rubberbands on his braces were always shooting out of his mouth.
She shook her head. “No. No can do.”
“Priscilla, he’s so handsome now! You would not recognize him. And he’s an orthodontist. Anyway, it’s just one date.” The pleading note in Lorraine’s voice nearly did Priscilla in. Her mother had such a way of manipulating her, and it drove Priscilla wild even as she fell victim to it.
“I can’t, Mother, really. I’m…well, I’m seeing someone.” Even as she said it, she knew she was heading for disaster.
“Really?” Lorraine’s nose twitched. “Who is he? How come you didn’t say something earlier?”
“It was so new and so fragile, and I didn’t know if it was going to work. I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
“But it’s working out?” Lorraine asked, her eyes filled with hope. “Who is he? Please end the suspense.”
Priscilla knew her mother was hoping the mystery boyfriend wasn’t a firefighter. “He’s…He’s an arson investigator.” The words just popped out of her mouth.
Lorraine smiled. “How interesting. Tell me more.”
“His name is Roark Epperson.” After that, it became easy to tell her the rest. He was in his midthirties, extremely handsome and came from a wealthy family in Massachusetts.
“Win, did you hear that?” Lorraine asked of Priscilla’s father, who had wandered into the kitchen to get a refill on his wine. “Priscilla’s dating an arson investigator.”
“I heard,” Priscilla’s father said, sounding cautious. “I think I’ve seen that guy on TV.” Generally Winfield Garner was content to remain at a distance from Priscilla’s social life, letting his wife do all the organizing. But not today, apparently. “Does he talk like a Kennedy?”
Priscilla couldn’t help smiling. That did seem to be the feature that everyone remembered about Roark. Well, women first remembered that he was mouthwateringly gorgeous and then they remembered the accent. “He’s the one. They interviewed him the other night about the serial arsonist.”
“An arson investigator,” Lorraine said, trying it on for size. “That’s really kind of interesting, isn’t it, Win?”
The timer went off, indicating the lasagna noodles were ready. “So you can bring this Roark to the bridesmaids’ dinner, right?” Lorraine said as she strained the noodles.
“He wouldn’t know anyone.”
“Why don’t you ask him? And if he can’t come to the dinner, what about the wedding itself?”
Eek. Roark would see her in that hideous pink monstrosity of a bridesmaid’s dress. It might almost be worth it, though, to watch how Roark would weather the combined scrutiny of her entire extended family. By offering to play the role of her devoted boyfriend, he had no idea what he would be getting himself into.
“We’ll see.”
HE WAS FIVE MINUTES late.
Priscilla sat at a bistro table at the Nodding Dog, a cute little coffee shop in Oak Cliff’s trendy Bishop Arts district, waiting for Roark.
If things worked out as she hoped, Roark would attend one function with her and her parents would be relieved, if only temporarily, that she wouldn’t spend the rest of her life alone. Snobby Aunt Clara would be suitably impressed. And Priscilla wouldn’t have to produce a flesh-and-blood boyfriend again for months.
She checked her watch again and took a sip of her latte. Then she saw him.
He looked as if he’d just stepped out of the pages of GQ, in perfectly creased khaki pants and a pale yellow shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow in a sort of casually rumpled but still stylish way. For a few seconds she drank in the sight of him. Then he looked her way and she schooled her face.
She would just die if he knew he could melt her on the spot simply by looking at her. Actual skin-to-skin contact might cause her to spontaneously combust.
He walked up to the counter and ordered, and the pretty barista batted her eyelashes and blushed as she poured his coffee. He paid, chatting and smiling easily. Did he even know the effect he had on women?
He joined Priscilla at her small table, and she wished she’d chosen a larger one. He was so close she could see the tiny shaving nick on his jaw and smell his aftershave. It made her think of being on a mountaintop.
With her clothes off.
“I see you found the place.” Why did she sound so inane? She’d had no problem talking to him that first night, when he’d helped her with her flat tires. She’d opened up to him, confessing how alone she felt sometimes, isolated from the other trainees. Tony and Ethan had befriended her, but back then she’d still felt a bit of an outsider even with them, since the two men already had been best friends for fifteen years.
Roark had been a sympathetic ear. He’d offered her encouragement that she’d needed to hear. A strong shoulder to lay her head on.
She’d been in a vulnerable state at that point in her life, she reminded herself—she’d still been smarting from Cory’s cold rejection. But she was stronger now.
Roark took an appreciative sip from his mug. “I’ve been here before. Best coffee in Oak Cliff.” He drank plain black coffee. No mochaccino whip for Roark.
She tucked that fact into a corner of her mind. Sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep, she remembered the little intimacies she had shared with Cory. He knew she loved the scent of freshly washed sheets; she knew he couldn’t stand green bell peppers. Would she ever be that close to a man again? Did she want to be?
She had a hard time imagining it. Sex was one thing. But the secret looks, the private jokes, the cozy breakfasts…How had she shared all those things with Cory, and yet missed some of the most fundamental aspects of his personality?
Like the fact that not being able to have his own biological children with his wife was a deal breaker?
She swallowed the last few sips of her latte.
“Let’s take a walk,” Roark suggested, gulping down the remainder of his coffee. “The weather is gorgeous.”
She didn’t want to walk in the gorgeous weather with Roark. She wanted to conclude their business and get away from him, because already she was feeling that familiar lethargy steal over her, that urge to open up, to trust him.
“So,” he said as they exited the coffee shop, “I’m guessing you really, really need a fake boyfriend to get your mother off your back.” He raised a single eyebrow at her. “Unless you’ve decided I’m not such a bad guy after all and maybe you want to get to know me better.”
She quickened her step, striding down the sidewalk on Seventh Street. She did want to know him better. On the surface there was nothing wrong with him. He was smart and dedicated to his work and he’d helped her out of a jam when she’d had those two flat tires. But Cory had looked pretty good on the surface—and deeper, too.
How could she tell if Roark was all that he appeared to be?
“I need a fake boyfriend,” she said.
He matched her stride, managing to do so without seeming to hurry. “What do you want me to do?”
“It’s just one date. To my cousin’s bridesmaids’ dinner. It’s at the Mansion.” As if the bribe of a fancy dinner would hold sway with him. “It’s next Friday. I realize it’s short notice, but…”
He swore softly. “I can’t make it then. I’m speaking at a conference out of town. Sorry, Priscilla.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. “You could come to the wedding, but that’s probably more of an ordeal than you bargained for.” She paused to look in the window of an antiques shop.
They had slowed, Priscilla noticed. Now they were just strolling along like any couple. An older woman passed them and smiled insipidly, and Priscilla wondered what she was thinking. Young couple in love?
“Are you close to your cousin?” Roark asked.
“We used to be like sisters.”
“Used to be?”
“She kind of dumped me in high school, when I had some sticky problems she didn’t want to deal with.”
“How rude. What kind of problems?”
“Oh, you know, teenage rebellion.” Which involved a stint of hanging out with a bad crowd just for the shock value. She couldn’t really blame Marisa for keeping her distance.
Roark clearly wasn’t satisfied with her dismissive answer, but he didn’t push.
How did Roark do this, anyway? Ten minutes in his presence, and she was blurting out embarrassing personal things.
“So when is the wedding?” he asked. “I don’t mind weddings.”
“November second.” She half hoped he’d be busy then, too. But he checked his BlackBerry and confirmed he was free.
“I have to be at the church two hours early, so you can meet me there.”
“Nonsense. What kind of a lousy boyfriend would I be if I didn’t pick you up? We want your mother to think I’m a gentleman, right?”
“All right, but you’re going to be bored.”
“I doubt that.”
The blatant interest in his gaze alarmed her. “Roark, this is pretend, right? I mean, you’re not doing this because you want to continue…go back to…I mean—” She stared hard through the window of an art gallery at an ugly ceramic bowl.
“Yes, I want to do those things. Continue where we left off, go back to when we were involved.”
“But that’s not why I asked you to help.”
“I know that. I’m planning to change your mind.”
“No. You can’t do that.”
“I can’t?” He gave her a challenging look, his hand still on her arm.
She pulled away. “No, you can’t. Roark, you have to promise me you won’t try to, you know…”
“Win you over?” His sexy mouth cocked into a half smile.
“Seduce me.”
Roark had the nerve to laugh. “You can’t tell me you’re that vulnerable to my wicked ways.”
“Actually, yes, damn it, I am. You’re impossible to resist. I can’t imagine how you’ve managed to stay single, but I can only guess it’s because you’re a player, and that is the last type of person I need in my life.”
To her surprise, Roark looked contrite. “All right. I’ll try to behave myself.”
“You can’t touch me.”
“Aren’t you trying to convince people we’re an item?”
“All I need is a warm, suitably male body at my side. If you give me besotted looks every now and then, so much the better, but no further acting is required.”
“You mean like this?” And he did a pretty good imitation of a basset hound yearning for a bone.
Somehow he made her laugh, and her anxiety receded. “Maybe not quite that besotted.” They worked out a few more details, and the deal was struck. Roark would provide the services of one fake boyfriend. But Priscilla couldn’t help wondering what she would end up giving in return.
IT WAS LUNCHTIME ON the C shift at Fire Station 59, and Priscilla was in charge. She had practiced the vegetable lasagna at home and it had come out tasting really good. So she’d asked Captain Campeon to give her another chance in the kitchen.
She wasn’t sure why it was so important to her, except that her previous gastronomical disasters were just one more thing that set her apart from the guys—all of whom seemed to know their way around a kitchen. Even Ethan and Tony, who hadn’t started out particularly gifted, had caught on.
As the guys ambled in to the large eat-in kitchen, grumbling about the possible culinary torture Priscilla would subject them to, she pulled a large casserole dish out of the oven and set it down on the long table.
“Be afraid. Be very afraid.” The comment came from Otis.
“What is that stuff?” Tony asked suspiciously. “It looks weird.” Ethan elbowed him, and Tony quickly added, “But it smells good and I’m sure it’s delicious.”
She gave him a smile for his loyalty. Tony and Ethan had often been the only ones to take her side during training and those first few weeks here at Station 59, when she was subject to attack from guys who objected to women firefighters in general and her in particular.
“It’s vegetable lasagna,” Priscilla announced with a flourish.
For her trouble, she got groans all around.
“God save us from women trying to make us eat healthy,” said Bing Tate, who was one of the most annoying men Priscilla had ever known. Though most of the other guys grudgingly had come to accept the rookies, Bing continued to make caustic comments at every opportunity—especially if the captain wasn’t within earshot. And he wasn’t at the moment.
“Where’s the captain?” Priscilla asked as she cut the lasagna into large squares so it would cool faster.
“He’s got someone in his office.”
Priscilla hoped whoever it was wouldn’t keep the captain so long that he missed a hot lunch. She liked Captain Campeon. He was stern and humorless, but he kept strict order, and she approved of that. She didn’t function well in a chaotic environment.
Priscilla noticed no one was touching the salad she’d put out. “You can eat the salad while the lasagna cools.”
She served some salad for herself. The mixture of field greens topped with fresh garden tomatoes tasted pretty good as far as she was concerned. But her fellow firefighters seemed to thrive on red meat and a variety of breaded, fried foods—along with a steady diet of action movies on TV, twangy country music on the radio and off-color jokes just about everywhere.
She was adjusting.
The guys went for the whole-wheat rolls and butter she’d put out. Only Bing tried a little bit of the salad, making faces as he chewed.
“Hey, Priscilla,” Bing said. “Where’d you get these leafy things? Did you pick ’em from that weedy patch out back?”
She just shook her head. The only lettuce most of these guys had ever seen was the soggy iceberg they put on their hamburgers. She started to say something to that effect, but the captain chose that moment to appear with his guest in tow.
Roark.
Priscilla’s heart thundered so loud she was sure everyone would hear it. Tony and Ethan knew of the deal she’d struck with Roark, but no one else did. She hoped he wouldn’t say anything. If he did, there would be no end to the teasing she would get, and any credibility she’d built up would disintegrate.
The others greeted Roark like an old friend—which he was by now. Since the men who’d died in the warehouse fire had come from this company, Roark’s investigation had brought him to their station quite a few times.
“Captain Epperson is gonna have some lunch with us,” Campeon said. “Then he wants to talk to you—all of you, one on one.”
The solemn note in the captain’s voice was troubling. Everyone was wondering what this was about. Since this station responded first to the warehouse fire, Roark had no doubt interviewed everyone already, probably more than once. Why do it again?
But Roark reassured them with his easy smile. “You guys don’t mind if I mooch some lunch, do you?” He didn’t make eye contact with Priscilla, which was a relief. Perhaps he didn’t want to be ribbed any more than she did.
“Join us at your own risk,” Bing said. “Priscilla made lunch.” He nodded toward the lasagna pan. “We think it might still be moving.” A couple of the other guys couldn’t help laughing. Even Tony cracked a smile.
She couldn’t really blame them. Her previous meals had been pretty awful. But she was sure this would be different. Yes, it was a vegetarian dish, but her father loved it. Even Cory had loved it when Lorraine had served it at a Garner family dinner, and he was a meat-and-potatoes guy all the way.
Still, she didn’t like Roark witnessing the guys making fun of her. She didn’t like appearing incompetent in front of him—or anyone.
Priscilla quickly served the squares of lasagna, oozing with cheese and fragrant with fresh herbs. The men stared at their plates, but no one seemed willing to take that first bite.
Finally Roark took a leap of faith. “This looks good.” He put a big forkful in his mouth. Others followed suit.
Priscilla took a bite, too—and almost spit it out. Her mouth was on fire. It tasted as if the sauce contained a quart of jalapeño pepper sauce, though she’d used only a drop or two.
Horrified, Priscilla looked around the table to see faces turning red, eyes watering, hands grabbing for glasses of tea or milk to try to wash down the offending substance.
“Um, interesting,” Tony said, barely managing to swallow. “Where did you get the recipe, Pris? The Cataclysmic Heartburn Cookbook?”
“It’s my mother’s recipe,” she said, bewildered. She’d followed the recipe exactly. There was no way….
Then she saw that one man at the table hadn’t taken a bite. Bing Tate was trying to hide his mirth—and not doing a good job of it.
Suspecting she’d been sabotaged, she got up and stalked over to the cabinet were they kept spices and found the bottle of jalapeño sauce she’d bought recently. It was nearly empty.
She marched back to the table. “Bing Tate, did you dump a whole bottle of jalapeño sauce in my sauce when I wasn’t looking?” She remembered he’d been in the kitchen that morning, getting a refill on his coffee and taking a little too long to do it.
“Who, me?” he said with feigned innocence. Obviously she’d found her culprit. Though what Bing had done was mean, she was relieved the disaster wasn’t her fault this time.
She struggled not to react with anger. Practical jokes were a part of life around here, a natural product of boredom and too much testosterone, and anyone who wasn’t a good sport only got hit with more foolish mayhem.
But no one else seemed to think Bing’s joke was funny. Otis put some more salad on his plate and drowned it with ranch dressing. “The salad’s good, anyway, Pris,” he said grudgingly, and she could have kissed his shiny bald head.
“Anyone want a ham sandwich?” Priscilla asked brightly. “I can’t mess that up.”
“The guys can make their own sandwiches,” Campeon said, clearly irritated by the incident. “I think Captain Epperson would like to get on with his interviews. Garner, he can start with you.”
“Me?” The order took her by surprise. “I wasn’t even at the warehouse fire.” She’d still been in training, and up until now Roark hadn’t ever included the rookies in his investigation.
“You,” Roark confirmed. “We can talk in the captain’s office.”
Chapter Three
Roark’s breath caught in his throat the way it did every time he saw Priscilla. Even in the loose-fitting department uniform of dark pants and a golf shirt, her caramel-brown hair pulled back in a braid, she looked touchable. He stepped around Eric Campeon’s desk and sat in the captain’s chair, putting a large amount of polished oak between them.
“Is that the kind of crap you have to put up with all the time?” He’d been surprised by the protective instincts that had arisen when he realized she’d been the victim of a mean joke. And then he’d been impressed by the cool, controlled way she’d handled the situation.
“It used to be worse.” She took the chair opposite. “I wasn’t very popular when I was first assigned here. None of us were, because we were taking over for the three men who died. And, let’s face it, it’s pretty hard to fill the shoes of a martyr.”
“I can imagine.”
“But we all just kept our mouths shut and did our jobs, and gradually the others began to accept us. Except maybe for Bing Tate.”
“The guy’s an ass.” Roark had seen how hard Priscilla was trying, how much she was hoping the guys would like her lasagna. When he’d realized what Tate had done, he’d wanted to wring the scrawny jerk’s neck.
Priscilla shrugged. “I’ll get him back in some passive-aggressive way. Maybe I’ll short-sheet his bed.”
Roark didn’t think she would. She wouldn’t stoop to Bing’s level. He liked that about her. She wasn’t vengeful or petty. He’d seen her take a lot of crap during training, and she’d always been a good sport.
He suspected sometimes the taunting had hurt more than she let on. She wouldn’t show any weakness, though. Not Priscilla.
“So what’s going on?” she asked. “Why do you want to talk to me?”
Truthfully, he would have invented any excuse to get her alone for a few minutes. Unfortunately he did have a legitimate reason. “I think the serial arsonist is someone connected to the fire service.”
Priscilla’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. I really hope you’re wrong.”
It was a sad fact that many arsonists turned out to be firefighters or former firefighters. A person might be drawn to the fire service because he wanted to serve his community or save property or because the lifestyle appealed to him or his father and grandfather were firefighters. But it might just as easily be an unhealthy fascination with fire.
Clearly this particular perpetrator wasn’t your average firebug—a teenage mischief maker or someone out to collect on insurance. This guy knew a lot about fires—and how not to get caught setting them.
“We don’t know for sure, but the evidence is leaning that way,” Roark said. “The fires aren’t set just to watch something burn. The guy is deliberately trying to injure or kill firefighters, which indicates he has some emotional connection. I’ve been investigating every firefighter who’s left the department under less-than-favorable circumstances in the past ten years, but so far none of them look good as a suspect. I’m wondering now if it’s someone still currently employed, maybe someone who got passed over for promotion.”
“But surely no one from this shift. I mean, they were all here when the warehouse fire started. They couldn’t have started it.”
Roark lowered his voice. “This isn’t common knowledge, but there was a timer on the ignition device. The whole thing could have been set up several hours before.”
“I don’t want to believe this. It can’t be any of the guys here.”
“What about Tate?”
“Not even him. Every one of those guys out there has grieved for the men who died. I’ve watched them.”
“It’s only a possibility at this point. It could be anybody, from any shift, any station.”
“So why are you talking to me about this? How could I possibly help?”
“Maybe you weren’t here for the warehouse fire, but you’ve been around for several months now. You could see or hear something as easily as anyone. For instance, if there’s anyone with an ax to grind with the department—any scuttlebutt going around—that’s the kind of information I need.”
“You want me to rat on my brothers?”
“To stop this guy from killing more firefighters? Yeah. And he will kill again. If he goes unchecked, it’s only a matter of time.” The arsonist often left a little surprise for the firefighters. Once, it was a vicious dog that had bitten Murph McCrae when he’d tried to rescue it. Another time, the serial arsonist had left a homemade bomb, though fortunately the thing hadn’t detonated.
Priscilla sagged a little in her chair. “I know he’s got to be stopped.”
“Anything you tell me is confidential,” Roark continued. “I’m asking everyone the same thing. If there’s anyone I should look at more closely…”
“I wish I could help. But I’m the last person anyone would trust or confide in,” she said a little testily.
“Just keep your eyes and ears open.”
“I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”
“Believe me, I don’t like it either. And I hope I’m wrong. But it’s my responsibility to catch this guy, and I’ll do whatever it takes. Even if it ticks people off.” He would not allow another person to die on his watch.
“Is that all?” She stood, preparing to make her escape.
He stood, too, and stepped around the desk. He didn’t want to end their meeting on such a negative note. “Have you told your mother all about me?”
She nodded, inching away from him, putting more distance between them. “Mother is thrilled. She got on the Internet so she could read all the newspaper articles you’ve been quoted in. She printed them off to show my aunt Clara.”
“Aunt Clara being…the mother of the bride?”
“Good guess. She and my mom are sisters and they’re intensely competitive. It’s killing Mother that Clara’s daughter is getting married before hers, especially since…”
“Since what?”
“Well, since last year Mother thought she heard wedding bells. Turned out to be a funeral dirge.”
“The guy you were rebounding from?”
She nodded. “When we broke up, Mother was more disappointed than I was, I think.”
“And now she has something to pin her hopes on again.”
Priscilla nodded, wincing. “I hadn’t realized it was going to get this complicated. I thought this plan would buy me some peace, at least for a few months. Maybe I should claim we broke up at the last minute.”
Roark smiled. “I wouldn’t do that to your mother. But I do have one question for you.”
“Yes?”
“How is anyone going to believe I’m your boyfriend when you look like a scared rabbit every time I get within two feet of you?”
“I’ll do better,” she promised hastily.
“Maybe we should rehearse. You know, practice looking fondly at each other. Hold hands.” With every suggestion, her eyes got a little wider.
“That’s not necessary,” she said. “We’ll do fine.” Then she did escape. But Roark wasn’t too discouraged—if anything, her skittishness raised the bar. Would he even want a woman if she was a pushover? He enjoyed the challenge.
ROARK HAD BEEN LOOKING forward to this day like a kid counting the days to Christmas. The wedding of two people he’d never met. He could devote the whole evening to Priscilla. She would be his captive, stuck at the wedding and unable to flee. And he intended to see how far that could take him.
He pulled up to the curb in front of her two-story frame house in Oak Cliff’s historic district and cut the engine. He was late by five minutes, which was probably good. He didn’t want to appear too eager. He checked his hair in the mirror and then laughed at himself for being vain. His brothers and sisters had always teased him about that, about the fact that he liked to dress well and look his best even if he was just running to the grocery store for milk.
When he rang the bell, Tony Veracruz promptly opened the front door. He held a crying baby in one arm and a cat in the other and he was wearing a big smile.
Roark had been to this house before. Tony had invited him over a couple of times to play shuffleboard. He knew that Priscilla owned the house and lived in the upper apartment, renting the main floor to Tony. But he’d never been up the stairs.
“Priscilla will be down in a minute,” Tony said.
They were standing in a small vestibule. A set of steps to the immediate left of the door led upstairs. Roark wanted to see what kind of apartment a woman like Priscilla called home. But she apparently didn’t want him up there.
“Come on in,” Tony was saying. “Sorry about the racket. Josephina is teething.”
Last he’d heard, Tony didn’t have a baby. A nine-year-old daughter, yes. And there was Jasmine, perched on a chair in the living room, holding a baby bottle.
“Jasmine and I are babysitting,” Tony explained. “The baby belongs to Julie’s chef. Her regular sitter is sick.” Julie was Tony’s wife and also the owner of Brady’s Tavern and Tearoom, across the street from Fire Station 59.
Roark could see that Tony and his daughter had been exerting considerable effort to distract the baby from her teething pain. Toys of every description were spread out over the coffee table and a large area rug in the living room.
“Jasmine,” Tony said, “run upstairs and tell Pris her boyfriend is here.”
Startled, Jasmine stared at Roark. “Priscilla has a boyfriend?” She sounded almost scandalized.
“Go,” Tony said.
When she’d gone, Roark asked, “You aren’t giving Priscilla trouble over this fake boyfriend thing, are you?”
“Are you kidding? After all the grief she gave me when Julie and I got engaged, I couldn’t let a golden opportunity like this pass by.” He paused, put the cat down and shifted the baby to his other shoulder. “I shouldn’t do that, huh?”
“It’s a bit of a sore spot with her, I think,” Roark said carefully. “She’d probably never admit that.”
“Yeah, heaven forbid she show any weakness.” Tony jiggled the baby and offered her a teething ring, which she promptly rejected. “Aw, come on, little one.”
“Here, let me try,” Roark said.
“You? You don’t have kids, do you?”
“Just an endless stream of nieces and nephews. But I spend as much time with them as I can. Whenever I go home to visit, someone is always teething.” He took the baby, who wore a ruffled pink dress and matching booties, and held her up, looking her in the face. “Hi, Josephina. Can you look at me?” And he proceeded to make faces at her while Tony tried not to laugh.
The baby was so startled by the faces that she did stop crying, at least for the moment. Roark gently swung her back and forth. She stared wide-eyed at him.
“How’d you do that?” Tony asked.
“It’s probably just the novelty of a new face,” Roark admitted. “She might start crying again any minute.”
“Let me try it,” Tony said, holding out his hands. Before he could take the baby, though, Jasmine came running down the steps.
“Dad, wait till you see this. You won’t believe it!”
Moments later, a cloud of florid pink chiffon barely contained in a clear plastic bag descended the stairs, and somewhere behind it was Priscilla—in curlers.
The men froze, and even Josephina, who’d been cooing softly, went silent. She seemed to be staring at the spectacle, too.
“I don’t want to hear anything about cotton candy or Glinda the Good Witch or…or Martians,” Priscilla said as she descended. Carefully—probably because she couldn’t see her feet. “Not one word.”
Tony whistled. “Do you have to get permission from Pepto-Bismol to wear that color?”
Roark bit his lip. He had to admit, the bridesmaid’s gown was a ghastly hue.
He hadn’t expected Priscilla to show up for their first—and possibly only—date in curlers, either. Pink plastic rollers like his mother used to wear. He didn’t see why she had to resort to such extreme measures. Her natural hair, straight and thick and the most gorgeous dark honey color, didn’t need any improvement.
Priscilla finally looked at Roark, and what she saw almost made her miss a step. Roark, holding a baby as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She felt an unexpected contraction in the vicinity of her womb. And the way Roark was looking at her, as if she were a mountain of strawberry ice cream and he was hot fudge, didn’t help matters. She had thought the curlers would put him off.
She pulled herself together. “Hi, Roark. There’s still time to change your mind.”
Roark shook his head. “Not a chance. I want to see you actually wearing that dress. It’s bigger than you.”
“And it weighs more than my turnout gear.”
“I think it makes you look like Cinderella,” said Jasmine, who loved all things pink and girlie. She had begged Priscilla to model the dress when she’d brought it home a few days earlier.
Priscilla spared a smile for the girl. “Thank you, Jasmine. But, remember, it’s not the dress that makes the princess.”
“I know, it’s the inner princess,” Samantha said with a giggle.
Priscilla ruffled the girl’s dark mop of hair, then grabbed a couple of bulging shopping bags sitting near the bottom of the stairs. She looked at Roark. “Are we taking Josephina with us?”
“Oh, um, no.” He handed the baby to Tony, then focused his attention back on Priscilla. “You ready?” He had to raise his voice to be heard over Josephina’s renewed screams.
“I know I don’t look ready. But Marisa has a legion of makeup artists and hair torturers waiting for me at the church.”
Priscilla was momentarily taken aback once again when she saw Roark’s car—a red Porsche. “Quite a step up from the black Suburban.”
“That’s my work car. This is my play car.”
Pretty nice toy, Priscilla thought as she stuffed her shopping bags, containing shoes and other accessories, in the tiny trunk. Where was she going to put the dress? The car didn’t have a backseat to speak of. “We need a sidecar for the dress.”
“I think all three of us will fit.” He gallantly opened the passenger door, then held the dress while Priscilla got herself situated. He gently draped the dress over her, though he had to try three times before he was able to stuff the mountain of pink chiffon inside.
And then they were off, Roark deftly maneuvering his macho machine through the twilight of an early fall evening. The weather was magnificent, with just a touch of chill in the air. Priscilla wished she could enjoy it. But she was too tense. The next few hours were going to be tedious. Marisa and her mother would be walking, talking high-anxiety machines while eight bridesmaids—eight!—tried to do makeup and hair and change their clothes in that tiny bride’s room.
Priscilla didn’t like pandemonium, especially when she had no chance of controlling or organizing things. She would be at the mercy of her family. And Roark would get to see it all.
He would probably run for the hills.
“Okay,” she said when the silence had stretched too long. “I’ve been thinking about this, and here’s the story. In case someone asks how we met, how long we’ve been dating, that sort of thing.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s keep it simple. We met a couple weeks ago, when you were called to a fire that I worked. You asked me some questions about the fire, then you asked me out to dinner the next night and we’ve been seeing each other ever since.”
“Where did we go on our first date?” he asked. “Everyone always asks that.”
“Um…We went out for pizza.”
“I could do better than that. How about we went to Newport’s?” Newport’s was one of Dallas’s best seafood restaurants.
“Too dressy for a first date. How about Havana Nights?” Havana Nights was a hot new Cuban restaurant in Bishop Arts.
“Done. Are we serious?”
“Our relationship, you mean? It has potential to be serious,” she said carefully.
“Do we hear wedding bells?”
Priscilla’s heart skipped a beat. “You don’t have to take it that far. Do you know where you’re going, by the way?”
“To that humongous church in Highland Park? The one that looks like a medieval cathedral, complete with gargoyles?”
“That’s the one. You’ve been there?”
“Actually, I got married there.”
“You’ve been married?” she blurted out. She wasn’t sure why that surprised her. A man as good-looking as he was seldom reached his midthirties without at least one trip to the altar.
“Only for a couple of years, when I was younger.”
“Were there children?” The image of Roark holding Josephina flashed through her mind.
“No.”
She gathered by his clipped answer that she might have touched on a sensitive issue.
“Libby and I wanted different things. We married pretty young and we had some idealistic notions about what marriage would be all about. But we were still growing and changing and figuring out who we were. And in the end…our goals in life were polar opposites. Maybe if we’d gotten counseling or something…” He shrugged. “But we were just dumb kids.”
“It’s still sad.” She processed this new information about Roark, trying to fit it to the man as she knew him. “You don’t seem jaded, like a lot of divorced people are.”
“Cautious would be more accurate. But not without hope.” He smiled enigmatically at her. Instantly her chest tightened in a not-unpleasant way.
“I hope this won’t bring back sad memories for you,” she said.
He shrugged. “I got over all that a long time ago.”
She wondered. Did anybody truly get completely over a divorce? She and Cory hadn’t even gotten to the wedding-plan stage before their relationship had ended, but she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to talk about it as casually as Roark talked about his previous marriage.
She shivered.
“You cold?” Roark asked.
“Maybe a little.”
He inched the thermostat up a bit.
They took advantage of the valet parking that had been arranged—Priscilla didn’t want to drag the dress any farther than she had to. Roark courteously carried the rest of her things, so she could hold the dress well off the ground.
The church did look like a medieval cathedral. Since she’d been attending services here her whole life, she’d never thought about it much. But it was grand to the point of ostentation. Everything was white and gray marble, punctuated by intricate stained glass and pseudoancient tapestries.
The wedding consultant, whose name was Elisha, greeted Priscilla like a long-lost best friend. “The others are all here. Hurry, now, hurry!” Then she gave Roark a quick once-over, gasped daintily and directed them toward the dressing room.
“You want me to go to the dressing room with you?” Roark asked, looking doubtful. “I can just go sit in the church.”
“Oh, no,” Priscilla said, “you have to come with me. My mother is already half-inclined to believe I made you up.” She grabbed his hand and dragged him with her. A few seconds later she realized she had voluntarily touched him. As soon as he appeared to be following willingly, she dropped his hand like a hot coal.
She knocked on the dressing room door, which opened instantly. Her mother stood blocking the entry and looking worried. “Priscilla. Where have you been? I was starting to get concerned.”
Priscilla checked her watch. She was only five minutes late. “Sorry, traffic was bad.” Which was true. Traffic in Dallas was always bad.
“Hang your dress up over there, but don’t get it mixed up with the others. Christina will do your makeup as soon as she gets done with Judith’s. And then Rebecca will do your…” Her tirade halted abruptly when she saw Roark. “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you weren’t alone. This must be your young man.”
Gawd, where did her mother come up with these archaic expressions? She’d grown up in the sixties. Surely she hadn’t referred to her boyfriends as “young men.”
“Mother, this is Roark Epperson,” Priscilla said dutifully. “Roark, my mother, Lorraine Garner.”
Roark took her mother’s hand and squeezed it. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Garner.”
Lorraine’s attention was so fixed on Roark she forgot she was in the middle of giving Priscilla her instructions. Priscilla couldn’t help but smile. Roark had that effect on women, no matter what their age.
She was sure Roark could hold his own, so she skulked past her mother and into the room where she could properly greet the bride with a dainty hug.
“You look beautiful, Marisa,” Priscilla said, meaning it. Although her cousin was still in a dressing gown, her lush, curly black hair had been piled on top of her head in a style worthy of a Greek goddess. “You’re just…radiant.”
“Thank you,” Marisa said regally. Then she whispered, “The guy is gorgeous. And you let him see you in curlers!”
“Couldn’t be avoided. You know my hair doesn’t hold a curl for more than five minutes.”
“And mine frizzes in the humidity. Remember when we used to want to trade hair?”
Priscilla nodded and swallowed hard. She hadn’t thought she would get mushy—especially because Marisa and she hadn’t been as close in recent years. They’d gone to different colleges, cultivated different friends. But they’d shared a lot when they’d been younger, including their attempts to thwart their pushy mamas.
“Come and meet everyone, Roark,” Lorraine was saying. And she performed introductions. To his credit, Roark didn’t even flinch when seven women, some of them wearing identical hideous pink dresses, all tried to introduce themselves at once. Three of them were already married, yet to a woman they eyed Roark with predatory interest.
Even the prospective bride, who should have had thoughts only for her groom, sparkled a bit as Roark was introduced.
“Thank you so much for coming,” Marisa simpered. “It’s such a pleasure to have you at my wedding. I’ve seen you on TV.”
“The pleasure’s mine.” His voice was low and sexy as he shot Priscilla a look that could melt cold steel.
Again Priscilla was sure everyone in the room read between the lines and knew they’d slept together. This was not what she’d asked him to do.
“Well,” Roark said briskly, “I’ll let you ladies get back to…whatever it is women do before a wedding.” Every female in the room but Priscilla giggled—even her aunt Clara, who was normally about as giggly as a Star Wars storm trooper.
Priscilla walked him to the door. “You’re supposed to be devoted and besotted,” she whispered, “not hot to trot. Try to remember the difference!”
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