Blazing Hotter (Love Under Fire Book 2) (4 page)

A tap sounded on the door to the physical therapy room, and Cassie jumped. Quickly pulling her hand away from Frankie’s face, she was glad Frankie always insisted on keeping the blinds drawn so others couldn’t watch him struggle through his harder days at therapy. That meant whoever was outside hadn’t seen the way she touched him.

While it was okay to have limited physical contact with her clients as needed for their rehabilitation, she definitely shouldn’t be caressing the face of the man she continued having wet dreams about.

“I’d better see who’s at the door.” She hopped off the table and crossed the room, praying her cheeks weren’t as pink as she suspected they were. When she opened the door, one of the nurses at the facility stood with a large vase of red roses in her hands.

“Sorry to bother you, Cassie.” A large grin split the other woman’s face. “I know you’re with Mr. Hernandez, but a delivery man just dropped these off and I couldn’t wait to deliver them.”

Cassie looked over the bouquet, wondering who Frankie’s admirer was. “We’re almost done here. Why don’t you put them in Mr. Hernandez’s room and he can look at them when we’re finished?”

“Oh, no. You misunderstood me.” The younger nurse, Sandy, pushed them toward her. “These flowers are for you.”

“For me?” Shock filtered through her as she accepted the vase. “Did the delivery person say who they were from?”

She shook her head. “No, but there might be a card. Want me to come in and help you find it?”

“No thanks. I’m still with my client. I’ll figure it out later.” Stepping back inside the room, Cassie kicked the door shut with her foot. When she turned around, it was to find Frankie staring at her.

“Do you have a boyfriend, Cassie?”

Even though it shouldn’t make her happy, the slightly crestfallen way he said it gave her hope. She wasn’t the only one viewing this relationship on a less-than-professional level.

“No boyfriend,” she assured him. “In fact, I’ve hardly dated in a while.”

Not entirely true, she did have a dinner date two weeks ago with one of the veterinarians at the clinic where Laura worked. However, the man had hardly seemed the type to send flowers. He had been widowed when his wife developed lung cancer, and she was all he could talk about the entire dinner. The date was a total disaster, and Cassie had begged Laura to quit setting her up.

A couple months before that, she’d met a nice guy at O’Hara’s bar. They’d shared a few dances, had a few drinks, and ended up making out in one of the corner booths. Cassie really thought he liked her, and he’d asked for her phone number before leaving. Unfortunately, the guy never called, and she wrote it off as another failed attempt. Maybe he’d expected her to come home with him for more than a make-out session, and when she hadn’t he moved on to easier women.

“Is there a card?” Frankie asked, still sounding a bit quarrelsome and angry.

She grinned, liking to see this possessive spark from him. Frankie was uncomfortable with evidence of another man’s affection. It seemed promising that she wouldn’t be taking advantage of the man if she ever acted on her dreams.

“Let me check. I have no clue who they could be from.” Cassie walked to the desk situated below the outer window and set the roses down, taking a second to inhale their sweet fragrance. Whoever sent them didn’t know her well. Her favorite flowers were tulips. She highly doubted these roses were anything of a romantic nature.

Buried deep in the greenery surrounding the flowers, Cassie spotted the corner of an envelope. She gently plucked it loose without disturbing the bouquet and walked back to Frankie. “It’s a little mystery for us today, I guess. Who’s sending me flowers and why?”

Frankie let out a real smile, carefully patting the cushioned table next to him. “Come here and we’ll find out together.”

Yep. The man was certainly glad she didn’t have any romantic involvement with someone else. She wouldn’t rush the final weeks of his treatment or the work they’d need to do once he had his hand amputated, but after Frankie left the hospital and got back to a real life, Cassie would ask him to dinner.

She leaned against the edge of the rehab table and unsealed the card, holding it up so Frankie could read it with her.

“What the fuck is that!” Frankie’s hand knocked into her arm as he attempted to pull the card closer to his face.

Cassie shook him off, staring at the red skull and crossbones drawn at the top. With a shaking voice, she read the message. “Roses are red, violets are blue. Stop being a whore, or I’ll cut you.”

***

F
rankie snatched the card from Cassie, reading it again. It was hard to shake off his disbelief. The words had been written in all capitals with large, blocky strokes. Likely whoever sent them didn’t want a way to compare his handwriting to that on the card if he were caught.

“Call the police right now,” he said, realizing he shouldn’t have touched the card. With his uncooperative fingers, he’d put the entire thing in his hand. What if he covered up any fingerprints the ass who sent them might have left?

“I’m not calling the cops.” Cassie shook her head and stood, pacing the room. “It has to be a joke. I mean, I haven’t really dated anyone lately, so why would the person think I’m a whore?”

“A joke? That’s a damn sick joke.”

Hot anger coiled in Frankie’s stomach, making it hard for him to think rationally. He wanted to find whoever threatened his woman and make that person pay. He might be a cripple, but he was sure there were things he could manage. If not, he always had plenty of strong firefighter friends who could handle the job for him.

Unaware of his internal struggle, Cassie continued pacing, tucking her short blond hair behind her ears and chewing on her lip.

It definitely worried her. Frankie couldn’t understand why she didn’t want to call the police.

“Haven’t you been watching the news?” he asked when she still made no moves to get her cell phone.

She finally stopped marching around the room and turned to face him. The naked fear in her eyes only served to make him angrier.

Cassie shook her head. “It’s been a busy week, considering I had a lot of patients to see after being gone the week before. What’s on the news? Something about this?”

While Frankie didn’t want to scare her further for something that might not be related, he couldn’t help but replay the reports of two recent murders. Someone in Sayle was killing women and so far, the police had no leads. What if the person who sent these flowers was the killer?

Then again, there had been no mention of flowers delivered to the victims. That didn’t mean they didn’t get any, but maybe the police didn’t know it was significant or maybe they weren’t reporting that to the press. Frankie watched a lot of television now that he could do little else. The crime shows always portrayed how details of the investigation were held back to help weed out leads with no real information.

As carefully as he could, Frankie set the card next to him on the cushioned surface and ran his left hand through his curly black hair. What should he tell her?

“Frankie?” She walked toward him, stopping within touching distance of his knees. “You look worried, and that’s scaring me more than the note.”

“Just call the police and report this, Cass. Maybe it’s a sick joke by some bastard, but maybe there’s a psycho obsessed with you.”

“It has to be a joke,” she repeated. “If someone was obsessed with me, they’d know I rarely date. Since they can’t read my thoughts, they’d have no clue about the dreams...” She broke off, her cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink.

Why would she be worried about dreams? Unless...

Despite the gravity of the flowers, Frankie couldn’t help but grin and flashed her a wink. “Who exactly is featured in these dreams? Could it be a hot Latino patient?”

Her blush deepened to a bright scarlet and she looked away. However, she didn’t deny it.

For the first time since his accident, Frankie felt his old swagger attitude returning. It was one thing for him to have fantasies about his therapist. He was sure lots of people fell for their doctors—it was sort of like having a crush on your high school teacher. But if she fantasized about him too, that was something worth thinking about. He wondered how, exactly, she pictured them together. She’d have to ride on top, considering his limited state, but he was sure they could still have a whole lot of fun.

Cassie cleared her throat, breaking him from his thoughts before he could get too carried away. He needed to focus right now. Fantasies of getting hot with Cassie while she wore a skimpy nurse uniform would have to wait. Right now, they needed to figure out if these flowers came from a person who actually wanted to hurt her.

“Where was your brother’s wedding? Did you meet anyone there who might have thought you’d become more than friends?” If it was someone from the wedding, he wouldn’t have to worry about the killer. A regular stalker would be less terrifying than someone who’d already killed twice.

She shook her head. “The wedding was in Europe. That’s why I was gone so long. My mom and stepdad live there, and my brother wanted to honeymoon in Paris anyway so it made more sense for us to go there. It was a fairly small ceremony. Just us and the bride’s family. I spent the entire trip hanging out with my six-year-old nephew. He’s the only man in my life.”

While he was happy to hear the only man in her life was no competition, that didn’t help reassure him that the card was harmless. “Look, Cass, I don’t want to scare you, but there’s a killer in Sayle. Two women’s bodies have been found so far.”

Her sharp gasp of breath made him regret telling her. He’d definitely given her other things to dream about tonight than him. Nightmares about a killer weren’t nearly as much fun. At least she didn’t know how closely the other victims resembled her in looks. That might send her into a panic, and Frankie didn’t want that.

“It’s probably not the guy,” he hastened to assure her, “but why take chances? We need to report this. Bring my chair over here.”

Cassie looked toward his wheelchair in the corner, making an aborted stride toward it before turning back. “I’ll call a nurse in to help move you.”

Frankie shook his head. “Just bring the chair. I can do this. If you’re still wavering about calling the cops, we need to at least find out where the flowers came from and see if we can figure out who sent them.”

Seeming uncertain, she walked slowly toward his chair and pushed it back even more slowly. “You aren’t forcing me to call the cops?”

“I can tell you don’t want to for some reason, although I can’t imagine why.” Gritting his teeth, Frankie used his left arm to push himself off the edge of therapy table. Burning pains shot up his legs as they touched the ground, and Frankie twisted and slumped over the table to keep himself upright, biting back a groan.

“Frankie!” Cassie rushed to his side, her hands going around his waist. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Getting in that damn chair. Line it up behind me.”

Rushing to do as he asked, Cassie got the chair in place just in time for Frankie to fall into it.

He struggled to control his labored breathing as pain tore through his legs and back. He’d only thought it was bad before when Cassie moved the legs, but this was all bullshit. He was tired of being an invalid with no control over his own life. Now Cassie was in trouble, and he wasn’t going to let injuries that occurred so long ago stop him from keeping her safe. No matter what it took, he’d protect her.

When he felt like he could talk without revealing how much pain he was in, Frankie met Cassie’s eyes. “Let’s start by talking to the nurse who brought these to you. The card doesn’t say what florist they came from, but someone had to deliver them. We need to see what Sandy knows.”

Shaking her head, Cassie grabbed a towel off a nearby cart and blotted at his forehead. “You’re sweating. That must have hurt a lot.”

“I’m fine. Stop worrying about me. I’m worried about
you
.” Even though he’d been upset about them getting that electric wheelchair, it’d sure be handy to have right now. Standing for a few seconds was one thing, but there was no way Frankie could wheel himself down the hallway to the nurses’ station. He needed Cassie’s help for that. At least until the motorized wheelchair arrived. Then, he could investigate things on his own. “Grab the card,” he ordered, “but try not to touch it more than we have. Pick it up by the corner. If we can’t figure anything out after talking to the nurse, we’ll have to call the cops.”

Cassie looked around the room, finally going toward the drink machine along the back wall. “I think there should be some sandwich bags over here that they use for snacks.” She dug through the cabinets and drawers before giving a triumphant squeal and standing upright, a gallon-sized zippered bag in her hand.

She opened it as she walked toward him, stopping at the table. Touching the very corner of the envelope the card came in, she dropped it inside the plastic bag, doing the same with the card before sealing both things inside. “That should preserve anything we didn’t already destroy.”

Frankie nodded, sticking his hand out to take the bag without thinking about it.

She hesitated, then carefully set it on his lap. “Let’s go find out what the nurses saw. I’m sure this is nothing. I’d rather not bother the police while they’re in the middle of a murder investigation unless we have to.”

C
assie pushed Frankie from the therapy room and headed for the front desk of the rehab center. While the letter had her heart racing and Frankie’s news of a killer on the loose served to frighten her further, she thought she had an idea who was behind the flowers. The question was whether she should share that information with Frankie.

For the first time in months, Frankie had stood up under his own power with no coaxing or encouragement from her. The few times she’d had him on his feet lately, he always seemed as if the pain was too much and she’d relented and let him sit. Maybe she was too emotionally entangled in his care now. Frankie obviously
could
stand, he just needed the right motivation. She’d let her feelings for him cloud her judgment, not pushing him as hard in his rehabilitation as she should have.