to confide in her. She’d wanted to help him, but he wouldn’t let her in. He had dismissed her, turning her worry for him to frustration with herself. What had she expected Brady to say to her? That he was sorry? To offer some explanation for why he’d broken up with her?
That his rejection had hurt was telling. She wasn’t over Brady. She couldn’t write him out of her life. Her unresolved feelings for Brady doubled her guilt over Justin. Why wasn’t she grieving for Justin as deeply as she’d grieved when she’d lost Brady?
Susan turned off the television. She wasn’t paying attention to it anyway. Though sleep had eluded her many nights, she was exhausted and her eyes were heavy with fatigue. If she were lucky, she would fall into dreamless sleep.
* * *
Susan awoke to the sound of Brady’s voice. Was she dreaming? Sweat covered her skin and her sheets were knotted around her body. Why was it so hot? What was that sound? She fought with the blankets to get some air.
A shadow appeared and grabbed her by the shoulders. Susan screamed and coughed, her voice choked by the heavy air. Her eyes were burning and adrenaline spiked in her veins.
“Susan, it’s Brady. Your house is on fire. We have to get out.” He tore the rest of the blankets away from her body.
Brady? What was he doing in her room?
She wore only a blue nightshirt, her legs bare. She needed clothes. Brady didn’t give her time to think or react. He dragged her to the ground, and the floor was hot under her hands and knees. She followed him at a crawl out of her room and into the hallway.
The front door at the bottom of the stairs was open. They crouched low as they thundered down the stairs. Brady stayed next to her, keeping one guiding hand on her back. Smoke warred with the oxygen in the air. Susan coughed, cupping her sleeve over her mouth, trying to draw fresh air. None existed. Brady’s gaze met hers, and alarm flickered in his eyes while the flames crackled and hissed around them.
“Keep going,” Brady shouted over the roar of the fire.
The heat from the fire was unbearable and her lungs heaved. Fresh air. They had to get outside. The house groaned and screeched under the assault from the fire. Dizziness assailed her and she grabbed at Brady to steady herself. He slid his hands around her and under her knees and carried her from the house.
The cold night air refreshed her, a dramatic change from the heat inside. Brady set her on the ground.
“Are you okay?” he asked. Susan stared at her home, now consumed in flames. Was she okay? No. She wasn’t. This incident alone was bad. On top of everything else, it was cataclysmic.
Confusion and sadness weighed heavy on her heart. How had this happened? She hadn’t lit a fire in the hearth that night. Hadn’t cooked dinner after work. Didn’t fix herself a cup of tea to relax. How had this fire, which was now consuming her home, her artwork and her possessions, started?
Questions flashed in rapid succession and she spoke the two that repeated most often. “What happened? Why are you here?” She’d made it clear outside the gallery she wouldn’t—couldn’t—see him. It hurt too much.
Then again, him saving her life put a fresh, bewildering twist on her feelings. Gratitude, desire and security mixed with guilt in a heady cocktail, jumbling her emotions.
Brady rubbed at his knee, pain written on his face. His injury! She’d been worried about herself and her house. What about Brady? He’d risked his life for her.
“Are you hurt? Is your knee okay?” she asked before he could answer her first questions.
He looked at her unblinking, emotionless. “I don’t know what happened. I saw the flames, called 911 and rushed inside. I didn’t hear your smoke detectors going off.”
Had they malfunctioned? Or was something more sinister afoot? Susan had never been the paranoid type, but events over the past week had put her on high alert. “Why are you here?” she asked again.
Brady shifted on his legs and stood, shaking out his right leg. “I explained the other day why I’ve been hanging around. Reilly’s gotten caught up in this and I need the truth. He’s worried about you, and given the current state of his career, he can’t look out for you. He wants me to.”
Susan’s jaw slackened. Her friendship with Reilly didn’t include talking about Brady often. He was a subject they both avoided. Reilly knew she wouldn’t be comfortable with Brady involved in her life. “I asked you to leave me alone and you were spying on me?”
He blew out his breath. “No, Susan, come on. I was making sure you were safe.”
Had he been the person she’d sensed watching her? She shivered, feeling a combination of cold and uneasy. “Did you look in my windows?”
Brady’s eyes narrowed in indignation. “No, dang, Susan, I’m not a creepy pervert. I was making sure you got home from work safely and no one was harassing you.”
“I’m trying to handle things.” She shivered again and rubbed her arms. Brady removed his jacket and slipped it over her body. It smelled like a combination of smoke and Brady. The scent of him was both comforting and arousing.
Brady glanced at her burning house. “I’m seeing a number of threats coming in your direction and while I know you’re independent and can handle yourself, I don’t know if you realize who you’re up against.”
Brady wanted to help her. Protect her. Had Brady figured out something she hadn’t? Susan had tried to sort out how her life had spun out of control. She had tried to remember what had happened the night Justin had died. She had come up empty on answers in both cases.
Every time Justin’s name came to mind, which was at least a hundred times a day, guilt and hurt slammed her in the gut. That she wasn’t emotionally shattered by his death only compounded the guilt. She missed him and she was sorry for his family and what they were going through, but she wasn’t experiencing the gut-twisting, heart-wrenching heartbreak of lost love. She had been on his boat before he’d died and she couldn’t recall anything to help the police. Had she been involved? She wasn’t a temperamental woman, but the circumstances made her question everything.
Justin had been a good man. He’d deserved better than a violent death. “I don’t know who I’m up against because I don’t know anyone who would do this to me.”
“Justin’s murderer.”
Susan tried to wrap her mind around Brady’s words. “If the person who killed Justin wanted me dead, they could have killed me that night, too.”
Brady’s face took on a serious expression. “My theory is that you were a good scapegoat for his murder and now that enough time has passed to leave the investigative trail cold, you’re a loose end that needs to be tied off.”
Chapter 2
Brady’s words slammed into her like a hammer. Someone wanted her dead? “Who would kill Justin and try to hurt me?” Susan asked.
“That’s the big question,” Brady said.
Susan rubbed at her temples where a headache of massive proportions was brewing. “This doesn’t
