The Fire Still Burns (21 page)

“You're right.”  Adam nodded his head in agreement.  “I'll play it cool.”

With another quick nod and a wink—which he didn't give a damn who saw—Adam turned away, heading toward the group of teens who had phoned in the report.

He was careful to stay back far enough from where the action was so as not to get in the way of the firefighters.  He'd been a member of the fire and rescue team for over a decade, but he didn't get that itch he knew Brynn got.

For some reason, she'd grown up yearning to be a firefighter, aching to be a part of the team each of the few times there had been a fire while they were growing up.  He smiled, recalling her enthusiasm, and wondering if it was driving her crazy now, standing by while a building burned, yearning for a set of turnout gear and a hose.

A glance back in her direction showed her moving from the spot he'd left her in.  She wasn't rushing toward the burning house, but away from it, toward the edge of the trees outlining the wooded area between the property and the main road.

He peered closer, wondering if she saw someone suspicious, someone potentially dangerous, but as she approached the edge of the woods he saw her latch her hand onto the arm of a kid who seemed to be hiding there behind one of the trees.  A kid about twelve years old or so with dirty blond hair and a build that reminded him of someone.

Brynn said something to the boy and he shrugged it off, responding with, what his body language suggested, was a smart remark.  Brynn grasped the boy by his chin so they were face to face, said something sternly, and forced him to walk with her in the direction the boy had most likely come from. 

Adam realized the kid was Nathaniel, Brynn's son.  Brynn and Cal's son.  He swallowed down bile, thinking of how that child was conceived.  It just wasn't fair, he thought, watching as the kid disappeared into the woods with Brynn.  Wishing that Nathaniel was his son, the way it should have been.

The way it should be.

The boy was probably a good kid, despite his paternity. Why shouldn't they be a family?  Adam had never stopped loving Brynn.  He could accept her son, surely he could.

From what he could see, the kid wasn't exactly the image of his father, he could block out the fact that Nathaniel came from Cal.  He could pretend they were just a normal family.  Hell, the boy had the same dirty blond head of hair he, himself, had at that age, and he even kind of walked like…

Oh for Pete's sake, talk about seeing what you want to see.

The boy was Cal's.  As much as he didn't like it, he could learn to accept it.  He had to.  He couldn't let Brynn walk away from him again.  If that meant raising another man's child, then, that's what he would have to do.  If only he could convince Brynn that he could do it, that he wouldn't fail her this time.  

~~~

“Where is your grandmother?” Brynn bit out as she hauled her son through the woods he'd just come from, thankful she'd seen him before someone else had.  Before Adam had.

“She's napping,” Nathaniel responded, his tone not the least bit pleasant as he jerked his arm, unsuccessful in his attempt to break loose from her vice-like grip.  “What is your problem?”

Brynn gritted her teeth, working hard to keep her temper leashed as she continued guiding Nathaniel toward home. It wasn't his fault she was raped thirteen years ago, causing her dreams to scatter to the winds, nor was it his fault she had to hide him from Adam Good.

And it wasn't his fault that she felt like the worst mother on the planet when he managed to yank his arm free of her hold and asked her why she was so ashamed of him.

“You're so scared to death of someone seeing me,” he continued.  “What is it with you and this place? Am I not good enough for these people?”

“Nate, honey, I couldn't possibly be ashamed of you.  You're the best thing that's ever happened to me.”  Guilt and regret tossed around the pit of her stomach, making her nauseas.

“Then why are you hiding me?”  He folded his thin arms across his chest, his feet planted firmly apart.

“I'm not hiding you from these people.” 
I'm hiding them from you.

“Then why do I have to be home-schooled?  Why can't I go out and meet anybody?  Why am I not allowed to leave the house?”

“Nate, I explained already.”

“What?  That you hated this town and the people here weren't that nice to you?  What kind of explanation is that?  What could you have possibly done to make a whole town hate you?”  He sounded so much like Adam when his voice raised in anger.

“I didn't do anything,” Brynn said, massaging her aching temples. “You're upset right now and nothing I say is going to change that, I know—”

“Don't, Mom.  Don't brush this aside.  I'm tired of it.  I feel like a prisoner in that house.”

“Don't be over-dramatic.”

“
I'm
being over-dramatic?  You're the one who keeps her kid locked up with an old woman, because she's so scared of what—”

“Wait just a second,” Brynn snapped, tossing aside the reins on her temper.

“First of all, you are not a prisoner nor have you ever been treated like one.  Second of all, don't make it sound as if I leave you with some senile old lady.  How would you like it if I told your grandmother how you just referred to her?  She'd have an absolute fit.  You should appreciate the fact that she took us in.  It's not like we had many choices.”

Nathaniel had the decency to look ashamed, the color in his cheeks changing from an angry scarlet to a dull pink shade of guilt.

“I know Grandma isn't a senile old lady, and I do appreciate her,” he mumbled with his head bowed as he tapped a small rock with the toe of his shoe.

“She took us in because my worthless father
shot himself after he got into your bank accounts and wiped them out.”

“Yes.”  Brynn cringed at his summarization.  For the millionth time she wanted to kick herself for ever thinking it was a good idea to tell Nate that Cal was his father.

Their little charade of normal-everyday-dysfunctional-family had done nothing good for her son, unless she counted the lesson she hoped he'd learned.  Stay away from drugs.

But, she'd thought he needed a father figure, and there had been a chance Cal actually was his biological father, so that was the story from day one.  By the time he was born and his little blond curls grew in, she didn't know what else to do.  She'd already claimed him as Cal's child to everyone she knew.

“Who was that man you were talking to?”  Nathaniel drew her out of her thoughts, his question hitting her like a slap of cold water.

“My partner on the case I'm working,” she answered quickly, prodding him along, back toward home.  She had to get him out of the woods and back in her mother's house before Adam noticed her missing and came looking.

“Is he your boyfriend?”

Brynn would have probably jerked to a halt, but, surprised as she was, she knew better than to slow Nate down, much less make him come to a full  stop now that she had him moving again.  “He's my partner. I don't have time or need for a boyfriend.”

“He winked at you.  I saw him.”

“A wink doesn't mean anything.”  Brynn cursed Adam's wink, and her son's apparently extraordinary eyesight.

“He looks familiar.”

Brynn's heart slammed into her ribcage, but she managed to keep walking, picking up the pace as her palms grew sweaty.  “You don't know him.”

“Did you know him before?”

“Yes,” Brynn said sharply, seeing no advantage in lying.  Lying to Nate made her sick to her stomach anyway, and it was already doing all sorts of flips and flops.

“Did you date him?”

“Why this sudden interest in ancient history?”  She stole a look over her shoulder to make sure Adam hadn’t followed her.

“I just figure you had to love someone, sometime in your life.”

Brynn glanced warily at her son, wondering what was going on in that much too clever head of his.  “I love you.”

“I mean a guy that's not your son or your dad.”

“You don't think I loved your father?”  The words left a bitter taste in her mouth, but she had to ask the question.  If she had loved Cal, she would have asked that type of question.

Wouldn't she
?

“I know you didn't love him.  You didn't even like him.  Sometimes I think he couldn't even possibly be my father.”

Brynn stumbled, righting herself in just the nick of time to avoid meeting the ground face-first.  She cut a glance at Nate and found him watching her with a look in his eye, a look that said he knew too damn much.

“You all right, Mom?”  His eyebrow rose.

“Fine,” she answered, searching frantically for a response to his statement as they stepped out of the woods and onto the road that would take them home.

“Uh-oh,” Nate grumbled softly, looking up the road.

Brynn followed the direction of his gaze and sent up a silent hallelujah as she saw her mother's car cruising down the road toward them. 

“Well, warden,” her too wise for comfort son said, “looks like the guard is coming to take me off your hands, and I bet she's going to be in a real pleasant mood.”

“Serves you right for disobeying house rules,” Brynn stated as the car neared.  “And if you want to witness my mother in a real unpleasant mood, keep up with the wisecracks.  I could always tell her you called her an old lady.”

The way Nathaniel's face paled to a ghostly white would have been downright hilarious if not for the fact that he'd scared the crap out of her with his remarks.  He was too close to the truth, and Brynn had the sinking feeling he was much closer than he let on.

~~~

The fire had been put out and the majority of the crowd had disbursed by the time Brynn returned, trudging out of the woods looking like she'd seen a ghost.

“Everything all right?” Adam asked as she approached him by the remaining fire truck where he was pulling on a spare turnout jacket.

“Just dandy,” she responded, her voice thin and weary.  She grabbed a helmet and a set of turnout gear for herself, quickly pulling them on.  “Interview the kids?”

Straight to business, Adam noted, curious why she wouldn't bother to mention what she'd been doing while he'd been working the case they were both supposed to be handling.

“The building was already burning when they arrived.  They didn't see anyone running from it or driving down the road they took to get here.  The only useful information I got were the names of the first members of the crowd.  I figure if the arsonist watched the aftermath, he or she would be one of the first onlookers to arrive.”

“Makes sense.”  Brynn zipped the jacket, which was a little big on her but would do the job.  They weren't putting out the fire, so its sole purpose was to keep her as close to clean as could be reasonably expected.

Adam handed her the boots Jamie Lee had left specifically for her to borrow, knowing she'd never fit into the spares they kept in the fire truck, and she yanked them on.  “I take it we've been cleared to do a walk-through.”

“Just as long as you don't go stomping through the building,” Adam chided her in an attempt to pull a laugh out of her, but he didn't get so much as a grin.  Something was wrong.

“Is everything all right with your son?”  They walked toward the building as
the late afternoon sun beat down on them.  The temperature wasn’t uncomfortable, but it seemed that way in the turnout gear.

“Why wouldn't it be?”  Brynn cast him a glance.  It was the first direct look she'd given him since returning to the scene and it lasted a whole five seconds.

“I saw you with him earlier.”

Brynn tripped, and Adam barely caught her before she took a nasty spill.

“Whoa, you all right?  Jamie Lee left those boots for you but if they're too big—”

“They're fine,” she said quickly, brushing off his hands.  “I guess I'm just a bit clumsy at the moment.  I've got stuff on my mind.” 

“Well, it'd be best if you clear it out of your head before we start stepping through this house.  I need you alert and focused.”  He looked at her pointedly.

“Yeah, I know.  I'm all right.  Let's do this,” she said, jutting her chin out as she continued her trek toward the house.

The damage to the white wood-paneled house appeared minimal, only the back of the structure and the front of the second floor showed any external charring, but Adam knew it would be a different story for the inside.  The heavy scent of wet ash alone told him it would be nasty in the building.

Adam followed Brynn, shoving aside his need to grab her and pull her away from the house, the scene of her greatest nightmare.  That had to be why she was acting odd.

She was walking right into a house, which had surely haunted her for the past thirteen years
¾
after seeing her son, the product of the worst moment of her life, standing so close to it.  That would rattle any woman in her position.

They entered through the front door and carefully inspected the large main room.  Adam forced memories of making out with her in that very room out of his mind.  He needed to focus.  His brother's killer was still on the loose, still setting fires.