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?”
