Cavanaugh Reunion (9 page)

She glanced over toward Ethan, who had caught up to
her again. “What do you make of that?” she murmured in as discreet a voice as she could manage and still be heard above the din.

Ethan wasn’t sure where she was trying to go with this. “He’s obviously someone who takes his job to heart.” He saw the number on the engine and knew that she’d come from that fire station. “I take it that you don’t know him.”

Kansas shook her head. “He came to the house just when I got promoted to investigator. I hang out at the firehouse, but I have my own office, do my own thing. They answer the calls, I only go if arson’s suspected.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m really not part of that whole firefighting thing anymore.”

Ethan detected something in her voice. “Do you miss it?”

He had a feeling he knew the answer to that no matter what she said. He was prepared for her to say something dismissive in response. He’d come to learn that she was nothing if not a private person. Ordinarily, that would be a signal for him to back off.

But she intrigued him.

“Sometimes,” she murmured in a low voice, surprising him. “Other times, I feel I’m doing more good as an investigator. Or at least I was before this lunatic showed up, setting fire to everything in his path and driving me crazy. Us,” Kansas amended quickly. “Driving us crazy.”

Thinking in the plural was harder than she’d realized. It was really going to take practice.

Ethan grinned, appreciating the effort she was making. He couldn’t help wondering if she was just
turning over a new leaf or if she was doing this solely because of what he’d said earlier.

“You’re coming along, Kansas. You’re coming along.”

She had no idea why his approval didn’t incense her. Why it had, oddly enough, the exact opposite effect. Maybe she’d been breathing in too much smoke these last few years, she theorized.

About to say something flippant about his comment, Kansas stopped as she became aware that the rest of the task force had just joined her and Ethan.

The moment they had, Ethan went to Dax and she knew without having to listen in that he was making the request for the available footage of the last dozen fires. She couldn’t help smiling to herself as she made her way over to the two men.

They looked alike, she caught herself thinking. Both dark, both good-looking. On a scale of 1 to 10, they were both 10s. With Ethan possibly being a 10.5.

And what did
that
have to do with the price of tea in China? she upbraided herself. She needed to stay focused and not let her mind wander like this.

When she was within earshot, she heard Dax ask her partner, “You think he stuck around to watch the fire department try to save the buildings?”

“The minute Kansas said it, it made sense. I’m sure of it,” Ethan told Dax vehemently. “He wouldn’t be able to resist. This is like an opiate to him. It’s too much of a draw for him to pass up.”

“Okay,” Dax agreed. “I’ve got a few connections. I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’ve got a smartphone,” Ethan suddenly remembered as Dax began to walk to his car.

Youngman looked at him oddly. “As opposed to what, a stupid phone?”

“No, you idiot,” Ortiz, years younger than the veteran detective, berated his partner in disgust. “He means he’s got a video camera in it.”

Ethan was already putting his phone to use, panning the surrounding area and committing the image to film. It was a very simple act. He sincerely hoped it would help in capturing what was turning out to seem like a very complex perp.

“I believe this comes under the heading of ‘be careful what you wish for,’” Dax announced the following morning as he walked up to Kansas’s desk and deposited a huge carton. The carton was filled to the brim with videotapes.

She had to rise from her chair in order to see inside the box. “What’s all this?” she asked.

“These are the tapes you asked for,” he reminded her. “This is all footage from the fires.”

“All these?” she asked incredulously, having trouble processing the information. There was an incredible amount of footage to review, she thought with a sinking feeling.

“No. That’s only a third. Youngman and Ortiz are bringing the other two boxes.”

She groaned as she took out the first tape. It looked as if her eyes were about to become tread-worn.

“W
hat are you doing?” Kansas asked in surprise.

On her feet, she’d picked up the first box of tapes that Dax had gotten for her to review. Braced for hours of incredible boredom, she was about to head to the small, windowless room where a monitor, coupled with a VCR, was housed. Her question, and the surprise that had prompted it, was directed toward Ethan, who had just picked up one of the other boxes and was walking behind her.

“Following you,” he said simply.

She immediately took that to mean that he thought she needed help transporting the tapes. It was inherently against her nature to allow anyone to think she wasn’t capable of taking care of herself in any fashion.

Kansas lifted her chin. He was beginning to recognize that as one of her defensive moves. He really needed
to find a way to get her to be more trusting, Ethan thought.

“I can carry them.”

“I’m sure you can,” he told her in an easygoing voice, but he couldn’t help adding, “Probably with one hand tied behind your back.” He gave her a weary look. “For once, why don’t you just accept help in the spirit it’s offered? This isn’t any kind of a covert statement about your capabilities. I just thought I’d help you with them, that’s all.”

Kansas felt a flush of embarrassment. She supposed she was being a little paranoid. She was far more accustomed to put-downs than help. It hadn’t been easy, even in this day and age, getting accepted in her chosen field. It was still, for all intents and purposes, mostly an all-boys club. Female firefighters and female arson investigators were a very small group, their authority and capabilities challenged almost at every turn.

“Sorry,” she murmured in a small voice as she resumed walking. “Thank you.”

Ethan nodded. “Better.” Grinning, he fell into place beside her as they went down the hall. “I thought I’d give you a hand viewing them. There’re two monitors in the room and two sets of eyes are better than one.”

She hadn’t realized that there were two monitors, but even if she had, she wouldn’t have expected anyone else to volunteer for the tedious job of looking for the same face to pop up somewhere within every crowd shot of the various fires.

She stopped walking and looked at him in astonishment. “You’re actually volunteering, of your own free will, to help me go over the tapes?”

Arriving at the room, he shifted the box to one side, balancing it on his hip in order to open the door for her. He stepped back and allowed her to go in first. “I think if you play back the conversation, that’s what I just said.”

Walking in, she deposited the box on the long, metal-top table that served as a desk. Both monitors with their VCRs were on it.

“Why?” she asked, turning to face him.

He put down his box next to hers. “Because that’s what partners do, and like I said, for better or for worse, we’re temporary partners.” He pulled out his chair and sat down. “The sooner we get done with these, the sooner we can move on to something else. Maybe even catching this guy,” he added.

Considering the way she’d treated him, O’Brien was being incredibly nice. She wondered if it were a mistake, letting her guard down just a little. She didn’t like leaving herself open. But verbally sparring with him after his offer of help didn’t seem right, either.

“Thank you,” she finally said. “That’s very nice of you.”

He took out the first tape. The writing on the label was exceptionally neat—and small. An ant would need glasses to read it, he thought.

Ethan gave her a glance. “Remember that the next time you want to take my head off.”

She supposed she had that coming. She hadn’t exactly been the most easygoing, even-tempered person to work with.

“It’s not your fault, you know,” she murmured, sitting down. “The way I react.”

“Never thought it was,” he answered glibly. Ethan paused, waiting. But she didn’t say anything further. So he did. “Okay, whose fault is it?”

Again, Kansas didn’t answer right away. Instead, she seemed to be preoccupied with taking tapes out of the box and arranging them in some preordained order on the long, narrow table that they were using. It was a balancing act at best. Most of the space was taken up by the monitors. She remained silent for so long, Ethan decided she wasn’t going to answer him.

And then she did.

“My husband’s,” she replied quietly. “It’s my husband’s fault.”

Ethan stared at her. To say he was stunned would have been a vast understatement. His eyes instantly darted to Kansas’s left hand. There was no ring there, which caused another host of questions to pop up in his head. Men didn’t always wear a wedding ring. Women, however, usually did. But she didn’t have one.

“You’re married?” he asked, the words echoing in the small room.

“Was,” Kansas corrected him. “I
was
married. A long time ago.” She took a breath, because this wasn’t easy to admit, even to herself, much less to someone else. But he was still a stranger, which in an odd way made it somewhat easier. “Biggest mistake of my life.”

The statement instantly prompted another thought. “He abused you?”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, Ethan felt himself growing angry. Growing protective of her. The only other time he’d ever felt that way was when his mother had told them about their father. About being
abandoned by the only man she’d ever loved, which to him represented abuse of the highest degree.

“Not physically,” Kansas was quick to answer. Which only led him to another conclusion. “Emotionally?”

She laughed shortly, but there was no humor in the sound. “If you call bedding the hotel receptionist on our honeymoon emotional abuse, then yes, Grant abused me emotionally.” And broke her heart, but she wasn’t about to say that part out loud. That was only for her to know, no one else.

She knew that kind of thing couldn’t just happen out of the blue. A guy didn’t become worthless scum after he pledged to love, honor and cherish. The seeds had to have been there to begin with.

“You didn’t have a clue what he was like before that?”

Yes, she supposed, in hindsight, she had. But she was so desperate to have someone love her that she’d disregarded any nagging doubts she had, telling herself that it would be different once they were married.

Except that it wasn’t. It just got worse. So she’d ended it. Quickly.

Kansas shrugged carelessly. “I was in love and I made excuses for him.”

Ethan looked at her for a long moment. She didn’t strike him as the type who would do that. Obviously he was wrong. His interest as well as his curiosity was piqued a little more.

“If he came back into your life right now,” Ethan asked, selecting his words carefully as he continued
unpacking tapes and lining them up in front of him, “and said he was sorry, would you take him back?”

Kansas regretted having said anything. He was asking a question that was way too personal, but she couldn’t blame him. This was all her fault. She’d opened the door to this and O’Brien was doing what came naturally to him—prying. And besides, the man
was
being helpful to her. She supposed she owed him the courtesy of an answer.

“That depends,” she said tentatively.

He raised a quizzical brow. Definitely not what he would have expected her to say. He decided to push it a little further. “On what?”

And that was when he saw the lightning flash in her eyes. “On whether or not I could find a big enough barbecue skewer to use so that I could roast him alive.” Now
that
he would have expected to hear, Ethan thought, doing his best to keep a straight face. “I had no idea you were so bloodthirsty.”

“I’m not,” she admitted after a beat, “but he wouldn’t know that—and I’d want him to sweat bullets for at least a while.”

Ethan didn’t even try to hold the laughter back. “How long did you stay married?” he asked once he finally sobered a little.

Kansas didn’t answer him immediately. She hadn’t talked about her short stint as a married woman to anyone. In a way, it almost felt good to finally get all this out. “Just long enough to file for a divorce.”

That, he thought, explained a lot. “Is that what has
you so dead set against the male species?” he asked, voicing his thoughts out loud.

“Not all of it,” she corrected. “Only the drop-dead handsome section of the species.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “Because drop-dead handsome guys think they can get away with anything.”

She was looking at him as if she included him in that small, exclusive club. But there was no way to ask her without sounding as if he had a swelled head. Ethan opted for leaving it alone, but he couldn’t resist pointing out the obvious. “You can’t convict a section of the population because one guy acted like a supreme jerk and didn’t know what he had.”

“And what is it that you think he had?” The question came out before she could think to bank it down. Damn it, he was going to think she was fishing for a compliment. Or worse, fishing for his validation. Which she didn’t need, she thought fiercely. The only person’s validation she needed was her own.

“A woman of substance,” Ethan told her, his voice low, his eyes on hers. “You don’t just make a commitment to someone and then fool around.”

No, he’s just trying to suck you in. He doesn’t mean a word of it.

“And you, if you make a commitment, you stick to it?” she asked, watching his eyes. She could always tell when a man was lying.

“I’ve never made a commitment,” he told her honestly. “It wouldn’t be fair to have a woman clutching to strings if there weren’t any.”

Why was her breath catching in her throat like that? This was just talk, nothing more. There was absolutely
no reason for her to feel like this, as if her pulse were just about to be launched all the way to the space station.

Shifting, trying to regain her bearings, her elbow hit one of the tapes and sent it falling to the floor. She exhaled, and bent down to pick it up. So did Ethan. They very narrowly avoided bumping heads.

But other body parts were not nearly so lucky. Stooping, their bodies brushed against one another, sending electric shock waves zipping through both of them at the same time. Kansas sensed this because just as she sucked in her breath, she thought she heard him do the same, except more softly.

When their eyes locked, the circuit seemed absolutely complete. Rising up, his hands on either side of her shoulders as he brought her up to her feet, Ethan didn’t think his next move through, which was highly unlike him. What he did was go with instincts that refused to be silenced.

Ethan bent his head, lightly brushing his lips against hers. And then he savored a second, stronger wave of electricity that went jolting through his system the moment he made contact.

He would have gone on to deepen the kiss, except that was exactly the moment that Dax chose to walk in with the third box of tapes.

Dax looked from his cousin to the fire department loan-out. It didn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to pick up the vibes that were ricocheting through the small room. The vibes that had absolutely nothing to do with the apprehension of a firebug.

Clearing his throat, Dax asked a nebulous question.
“Either of you two need a break?” His tone was deliberately mild.

Ethan glanced at her, then shook his head. “No, we’re good,” he assured Dax.

Yes, he certainly is,
Kansas couldn’t help thinking. Even a mere fleeting press of his lips to hers had told her that.

She was definitely going to have to stay alert at all times with this one, she thought. If she wasn’t careful, he was going to wear away all of her defenses in the blink of an eye without really trying.

This was not good.

And she didn’t know if she believed him about not making any false promises. He sounded convincing, but it could all be for show, to leave her defenseless and open. After all, she didn’t really know the man.

But she knew herself.

It wasn’t in her to play fast and loose no matter how much she wanted to. She wasn’t the kind who went from man to man, having a good time with no thought of commitment. If she succumbed to this man, it would be a forever thing, at least on her part. And she already knew that there was no such word as
forever
in O’Brien’s vocabulary.

“Good.” She seconded Ethan’s response when Dax turned his gaze in her direction.

“I’d send you a third pair of eyes.” He addressed his remark to both of them, then waved at the equipment they were going to be using. “But there are only two monitors to be had.”

“That’s okay, Dax,” Ethan answered for both of them. “We’ll manage somehow.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Dax promised. Then, with a nod toward Kansas, he left the room, closing the door behind him. The lighting in the windowless room went from soft to inky.

It felt to Kansas that she’d been holding her breath the entire time. She stared at the door as if she expected it to open at any moment.

“Do you think that he saw us?” she asked Ethan uneasily.

“If he had, he would have said as much.” There was no question in his mind about that. “Dax doesn’t play games. None of the Cavanaughs do. They’re all straight shooters.”

She laughed softly, shaking her head. “That puts the lot of them right up there with unicorns, mermaids—and you.”

He grinned at her. “Always room for more.”

What did that even mean?
she wondered. Was O’Brien just bantering, trying to tease her? Or was there some kind of hidden meaning to his words? What if he was saying that he and she could—

Stop it. Don’t be an idiot. That’s just wishful thinking on your part. How many Grants do you need in your life before you finally learn? We come into this world alone and we leave it alone. And most of us spend the time in between alone, as well.

“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” she told Ethan.

“Fair enough,” he commented. And then he looked back at the piles of tapes. “We’d better get to work before Dax assigns us a keeper.”

She merely nodded and applied herself to the task at hand.

And tried very, very hard not to think about the firm, quick press of velvet lips against hers.