Wild Fire

“You startled something, all right.”

She bit her lip, hiding a smile. “I’m just saying it didn’t mean anything.”

“C’mon, Shelby. I wasn’t the only one affected in there.” His gaze dropped to her breasts and he could see the faint impression of tight nipples beneath her sweater. He forced his gaze to her face. “I saw you,” he rasped.

Shelby squirmed. “What are you talking about? It was no big deal.”

“So that’s why your body responded to mine, why your—”

“All right!” She blushed furiously. “Okay, so I…noticed you noticing. Just because I responded doesn’t mean I should have. Or that I will again.”

“Maybe you’re right, but I don’t think so.” He stretched his arm along the top of the seat, hit with a purely macho urge to prove she would respond to him again. “I don’t know why something’s started between us, but it has.”

Dear Reader,

The idea of best friends falling in love has always fascinated me. Perhaps it’s the excitement of two people who think they know each other so well, only to be surprised and amazed by romantic feelings they never expected. I wanted to do a story of a man and woman who have only ever felt strictly friendship for each other, who fell in love with other people first. And then one day, bam! Hormones and emotions go wild. Where did that come from?

Firefighter Shelby Fox and Detective Clay Jessup have been there for each other through thick and thin, through death and divorce. Their bond is unbreakable and reassuringly familiar. So what are they supposed to do when their friendship suddenly feels anything but platonic? When they are both hit with the temptation to give in to their closest friend…who now doesn’t seem close enough?

Happy reading!

Debra Cowan

Wild Fire

Debra Cowan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DEBRA COWAN

Like many writers, Debra made up stories in her head as a child. Her B.A. in English was obtained with the intention of following family tradition and becoming a schoolteacher, but after she wrote her first novel, there was no looking back. After years of working another job in addition to writing, she now devotes herself full-time to penning both historical and contemporary romances. An avid history buff, Debra enjoys traveling. She has visited places as diverse as Europe and Honduras, where she and her husband served as part of a medical mission team. Born in the foothills of the Kiamichi Mountains, Debra still lives in her native Oklahoma with her husband and their two beagles, Maggie and Domino.

Debra invites her readers to contact her at P.O. Box 30123, Coffee Creek Station, Edmond, OK 73003-0003 or via e-mail at her Web site at: www.debracowan.net.

In memory of my grandfather, R. E. Warren. The kindest man I’ve ever known and also a master storyteller who passed that love on to me.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to David Wiist, retired Chief of Fire Prevention, Edmond, OK, and to Jack Goldhorn, PIO, Norfolk Fire Rescue, Norfolk, VA. You’ve both been unfailingly gracious and patient. I lucked out when I met you guys and I have the greatest respect for you both. To Linda Goodnight, nurse, writer and friend. To Patti Hager, for her help with all things Spanish, and to my nephew, Mason Banta, for answering my questions on bows and arrows.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 1

Typical male, thought Presley firefighter Shelby Fox. Wouldn’t cooperate even with a willing female.

The May night was unseasonably warm for Oklahoma. She stood completely still outside Station House Three, pressed against the brick wall as she watched the stray tomcat slink warily through the shadows and approach the food she had left out for him.

The other firefighters fed the animal but didn’t care if he was social. For the last month, Shelby had been trying to coax the gray furball into sight. Three-quarters of the way through her twenty-four-hour shift, she should probably be trying to catch some sleep before the next call, like everyone else inside, but—

Someone screamed, the sound startling in the midnight quiet. She snapped to attention, her gaze going across the usually busy two-lane street to the nearest residence in the subdivision.

The sound had come from M. B. Perry’s house. Unsure if there was an emergency, Shelby decided to check it out herself. She dashed across the street, wondering if what she had heard had been a sound from one of those horror movies the petite schoolteacher loved so much. But it wouldn’t have been that loud, would it?

All was quiet except for the chirp of insects as Shelby reached the neatly tended lawn. Her gaze skimmed the short, trimmed hedge along the front porch. No sign of an intruder. No sign of anything unusual. Shelby had seen M.B. park her car in the garage a couple of hours ago and she didn’t think the woman had left. There were no cars in the driveway, so it appeared M.B. didn’t have visitors.

Welcoming light shone from the porch, behind the large, curtained front window and from M.B.’s bedroom upstairs. It wasn’t unusual for the woman to stay up so late on a Sunday night, but something was wrong. Shelby knew it by the sharp tingle in her fingertips, the same buzzed nerves she got every time she faced a fire.

The house was quiet, too quiet. She hurried up the few steps to the front door. Just as she knocked, she heard another scream, this one abruptly cut off. She tried the door, found it unlocked and opened it. “M.B.! Are you all right?”

Soon after moving into the older neighborhood, Mary Beth Perry had quickly endeared herself to the firefighters of Station House Three by bringing over all manner of fattening goodies twice a week. Shelby wasn’t the only firefighter who loved M.B.’s pecan brownies or had given fire station tours to dozens of M.B.’s high school students.

“M.B.?” Eerie silence greeted her. Alarmed now, Shelby’s stomach took a dive. She stepped inside, hit with an arid sticky odor as her gaze tracked up the stairway to her left, across the tall ceiling. Hair spray?

Hair spray? Could that be what she smelled?

A wrought iron banister and railing led up to the landing that looked over the formal living area where Shelby stood, giving the house an airy inviting openness.

Quickly she scanned the formal living area in front of her. A squatty brass lamp spilled soft light into the room, over the Queen Anne sofa with its curved lines and glossy wooden back that M.B. had refinished. Warm beige-and-green rugs pooled on the dark hardwood floor.

As Shelby started to cross the living room to check the kitchen, she heard a hollow popping noise upstairs and smelled smoke. Moving toward the staircase, she glanced up and saw a thin gray wisp coming from what she thought was M.B.’s bedroom.

Grabbing the black iron banister, she took the stairs two at a time. The smell of hair spray—it was definitely hair spray—grew stronger. “M.B., are you up here? Answer me!”

It was unlike the teacher not to respond. Shelby headed for the bedroom, the first one to the left of the stairs. Light and smoke rippled from the open doorway, weaving around the stair rail spindles to sweep across the living room floor.

On the second floor landing, the sharp chemical odor of hair spray made Shelby’s eyes water, as did thickening smoke. Rancid, bitter smoke that wafted out of M.B.’s bedroom. Shelby noted the new odor in the split second before she stepped into the doorway, blinking against the sting of smoke.

No! At first her mind couldn’t process the horrible sight. Then it clicked into place—M.B. lay on the bed in flames! A man stood over her. A man Shelby knew! She froze in shock, then automatically recoiled from the gruesome scene. She was remotely aware of what was happening and how quickly.

Even as she recognized the man standing over M.B.’s body, caught the sour stench of burning hair and flesh, she backed up reflexively to run. The man charged across the room, putting his head down and ramming it into her stomach. His momentum, combined with her own, lifted her off the floor.

She grunted, her breath whooshing out as he plowed her backward, hard hands closing over her lower thighs and lifting her.

Off balance, she threw an elbow. The blow caught him on the side of the head, but it didn’t slow him down. She pushed at him, trying to gouge his eyes. Something hard slammed into the small of her back. The railing. Her feet left the floor and she plummeted backward. Air rushed past. She screamed. Her hip hit the sharp edge of the couch. Her head cracked against the hardwood floor. Pain exploded, then nothing.

Clay Jessup hit the door of Presley Medical Center at a dead run. Jack’s call that Shelby had been hurt and was being taken to the hospital had jerked him clean awake. Clay had pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, jammed his gun into the notch at the small of his back, put on tennis shoes and driven about eighty miles an hour to get to the center.

He didn’t have all the details yet, but Jack Spencer, his friend and fellow cop who had caught this case, told him Shelby had been found unconscious in a house across the street from her fire station. The firefighters on Shelby’s shift had also found a dead woman—a dead burned woman-—in an upstairs bedroom.

Even at this late hour, the emergency room was half-full. Clay’s nostrils twitched at the mix of ammonia, antiseptic and sweat. Nurses barked orders. Doctors conferred down the hall. The admitting nurse, sitting behind a sleek curved counter, calmly directed people to take a seat or to the patient they sought.

Clay flashed his badge, even though it wasn’t necessary. He just wanted to get to Shelby. Fast. A short, trim nurse snagged his elbow to point him down the hall to the last trauma cubicle where his friend was being assessed. Three men in bunker pants, grimy boots and white, soot-streaked fire department T-shirts stood in a circle outside the curtain.

Clay recognized Jay Monroe, but not the others. His breath jammed in his lungs. He didn’t want to think about the last time he and Shelby had been in a hospital together, but the memory was all over him.

Shelby wasn’t hurt like her brother, his best friend, had been, Clay told himself. She wasn’t going to die—

He cut off the thought, reaching her room and nodding to the waiting firefighters. The curtain to her room, one of three used to evaluate emergency room admissions, was slightly open and Clay took a deep breath, schooled his features into what he hoped was a calm mask.

He stepped inside and saw she was alone. His heartbeat jackhammered in his chest.

“Clay?” Her voice was weak, her eyes unfocused and dark blue with pain under the grainy fluorescent lights. The bed had been raised to a half-sitting position, and Shelby reached out to him with her right hand.

“Hey, blue eyes.” He managed to keep his voice steady as he moved around the bed and squeezed her hand. Shelby wasn’t big on hugging or touching, but he could tell how rattled she was when she didn’t immediately release him. She was trembling.

His strong, athletic friend, who had competed in two triathlons, looked frail in her grimy white T-shirt and dark blue pants. Her black shoes smeared dirt over the snowy sheets beneath her. She was pale, the white bandage at her hairline and left temple glaring against her brown hair. Her soft features were pinched with pain.

His chest tightened. “This isn’t your way of getting out of that dinner for the mayor, is it?” he teased.

Instead of shooting back with some cute retort, she said, “I…don’t know.” Tears filled her eyes, rocking him. “Clay, I can’t remember anything.”

“You mean about how you got hurt?” he asked.

Her fingers tightened on his. “Yes.” She started to shake her head, then winced, releasing his hand to press hers to her temple.

“There’s something wrong with my wrist—” She lifted her right one. “And my head. Why can’t I remember?”

“What did the doctor say?”

“I…don’t know.” She frowned, panic edging into her voice. “She told me, but I couldn’t follow.”

Her words were slightly slurred. He wanted to calm her, wanted to calm himself. “I’ll find out. It’ll be all right.”

“The doctor said she would be right back.” Her eyes fluttered shut for a second. “How did you know?”

“Jack called me.” Clay wondered what Shelby had been doing alone at the scene of a fire.

“Jack knows?” Opening her eyes seemed to be a struggle. “Why?”

So she didn’t remember about the dead woman upstairs. Or maybe she hadn’t even known.

“Clay?”

“They found you on the lower floor of a house across from the station. You’d…fallen over the stair railing.”

She shook her head, confusion in her eyes. “Who found me?”

“The guys on your shift.”

“There was a fire? Why would I be there by myself?”

“Yeah, there was a fire. I don’t know much else.”

“But…why would Jack be called to a fire scene?”

Clay hesitated. Procedure between Presley’s police and fire departments stated that when PFD found a dead body in a fire, they worked to contain the blaze, then stopped and called Homicide. Shelby knew this, but that hit to the head had obviously jarred some things loose. “There was a woman in an upstairs bedroom,” he said as gently as he could. “She was dead.”

She touched a hand to her temple, her brow furrowing. “But I was at M.B.’s. I do remember going inside her house—” She gasped. “M.B.? Clay, is it M.B.? Is she dead?”

He hesitated. “I’m sorry.”

“No!” she choked out. “How? What happened?”

He really didn’t want to lay this on her right now. “I don’t have all the details yet.”

Other questions pressed harder at him. What had happened to Shelby? How had M. B. Perry died? As a result of that fire? All things Clay would have to find out.

A tear slipped down Shelby’s lightly tanned cheek. “M.B. is dead? I can’t believe it.”

Clay could hardly breathe past the relief that Shelby hadn’t met the same fate. He could have lost his best friend tonight. After what he’d been through with Megan and then losing Shelby’s brother Jason, standing in a hospital room with an injured Shelby had Clay almost panic-stricken. That had to explain this urge he felt to touch her again, hold her for just a minute. He rubbed a hand across his sweat-dampened nape. “There are some guys waiting outside to see you.”

“The doctor asked them not to come in yet.”

“Should I have waited?”

“No. I need you in here.”

“I called your mom. She’s on her way.”

An attractive blonde with a stethoscope hanging out of the pocket of a white lab coat breezed into the room. “Sorry I took so long, Shelby. I wanted to set up a CAT scan and wait for the X rays. Got ’em.”

She lifted a large manila file jacket. The woman’s hair was a mass of wild blond curls pulled into a ponytail. Despite the dark circles under her eyes, she was pretty and she gave Clay a faint smile.

Shelby raised a visibly shaking hand to the side of her head. “Clay, this is Doctor…I’m sorry.” Frustration tightened her voice. “What was your name?”

“Meredith Boren.”

“Dr. Boren,” Shelby repeated. “You’ve told me that before, haven’t you?”

“It’s all right. The confusion will pass and so will the difficulty you’re having concentrating,” the woman soothed, glancing at Clay. “Are you family?”

“Yes,” Shelby said before he could answer. He knew her mother would agree.

“You’ll probably ask the same questions for a bit,” the doctor said. “That’s due to the concussion. I expect that fogginess to dissipate in the next twenty-four hours or so.”

“Concussion?” A new worry snaked through Clay. He’d gotten one years ago in a high school football game. But his had been mild; he’d suffered with only a headache, some nausea. His mind had never been this fuzzy, and he’d never forgotten anything. His voice was sharp with concern. “How long was she out?”

“We’re not sure.” The doctor’s sober gaze told him she was concerned, too. “The EMTs who brought her in said she was unconscious when they found her. She woke up a couple of times en route, but I’d estimate she was out at least five minutes.”

“That’s a long time.” Clay’s stomach knotted as he scanned Shelby’s heart-shaped face. She had an injured wrist, a cut and some bruises on her golden-ivory skin, but what was going on internally?

“I’ve looked at your X rays,” Dr. Boren said to Shelby. “Your wrist is sprained. We’ll need to wrap it and stitch up that gash at your hairline. That’s not what worries me, though.”

Clay stiffened. “What does?”

The woman’s warm gaze took in both of them. “Shelby, you have a grade three concussion. That’s pretty severe. The hit you took to the head had some momentum behind it.”

That put a hard knot in Clay’s chest. “Meaning she was pushed?”

“Or fell from some height.”

“I wish I could remember what happened,” Shelby said impatiently. “How long will this last?”

“I can’t say. With a grade three concussion, it’s possible the post-traumatic amnesia will last longer than twenty-four hours. I want to keep you overnight to monitor you and to see if your memory improves at all. At this juncture, I don’t think your skull is fractured, but I want to watch for a change in symptoms in case there’s a small hematoma I haven’t detected.”

Blood clot. Clay knew that much. His mind reeled with all the information, the sight of his strong, irrepressible buddy lying feebly in a hospital bed.

“Besides the confusion,” the doctor continued, “you’ll have headaches, dizziness, possibly some disturbance in your vision. I want to run a CAT scan and check for visible contusions on the brain.”

“What’s that, Doc?” Clay dragged a hand down his face.

“Bruising on the brain. Sorry.” The woman smiled.

“I can’t remember anything except walking into M.B.’s house.” Shelby frowned.

“Do you remember what time that was?” Clay asked. “Or why you went over in the first place? Did you see anyone else?”

“You have on your cop face,” she muttered.

The vise around his chest finally eased its grip, and he grinned.

“I know it’s hard, Shelby,” Dr. Boren said. “But do not make yourself try to remember. What you need to do is rest, and I can give you some medication to help with that. We’ll see how you do tomorrow. Try not to get ahead of yourself, all right?”

“Hello?”

Hearing the warm, familiar voice outside the door, Clay glanced up.

The doctor turned as Paula Fox moved into the room in a swirl of loose flowing skirts.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Paula,” Clay murmured.

The woman, who had been like a surrogate mother to him since his own had left, moved up the other side of her daughter’s bed, her gaze searching Shelby’s face.

“I came as soon as Clay called.” Paula’s brown kinky hair was pulled back with a headband, her pretty features wan with worry.

He knew all three of them were thinking about the last time they’d been in a hospital together. The night Jason had died. The older woman looked terrified and Clay certainly understood why.

“I’m okay, Mom.” Shelby squeezed her mom’s hand. “This is Dr. Boren.”

The blonde smiled. “Mrs. Fox, I was just explaining to Shelby and Clay that I want to keep her overnight.”

“It’s standard procedure,” Shelby explained.

When Clay nodded in agreement, some of the rigidness left Paula’s shoulders.

Dr. Boren scribbled something on a chart. “I’ll send in a nurse to wrap your wrist and stitch you up, then we’ll get you into a room. I want you to get some rest, even though we’ll bug you every two hours to check your vital signs.”

“All right.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Clay said.

The doctor left, closing the door on her way out. Paula frowned at the bandage on her daughter’s temple. “Shelby Marie, what happened?”

“All I remember is I went across the street to check on a friend. There wasn’t a fire when I got there. At least I don’t think so. Somehow I fell.”

Clay decided not to mention the possibility that she could also have been pushed.

Paula frowned. “You don’t remember anything else?”

“No.”

“Do you have a concussion? Is that why the doctor wants to admit you?”

“It’s nothing to be overly concerned about. You know how hard my head is.”

“What about your memory? What does she say about that?”

Shelby glanced at Clay and he saw the strain of worry in her eyes. “Dr. Boren thinks the memory loss may last only twenty-four hours.”

Clay hoped that by tomorrow Shelby would be able to recall those lost minutes.

“I’ll stay with you tonight.” Paula smoothed a wing of Shelby’s short brown hair away from her face.

“You don’t have to.”

“You need someone.”

“She’s right, Shelby,” Clay put in.

Shelby nodded. “Okay.”

Clay didn’t want to leave her. Telling himself she’d be fine with Paula did nothing to unlock the muscles that had gone rigid when he had heard about Shelby. He needed to do something. “I’m going to call Jack. Be right back.”

He slipped out and leaned a shoulder against the wall. The three firefighters who’d been there had moved down the hall. Upon seeing Clay, they walked toward him.

Jay Monroe, wiry and ruddy-skinned, shook his hand, introducing the other two men. “The doc already told us we can’t see her tonight. How’s she doing? How bad is she hurt?”

“She’s hanging in there.” He recounted her injuries.

“Could’ve been worse,” one of the others murmured.

Which was why Clay couldn’t get his heart to stop hammering.

Jay nodded. “I left a message for Captain Oliver so he’d know what was going on. Tell her to keep her chin up and we’ll check back.”

Clay nodded, walking with them to the exit doors before calling Jack. He wanted to know if his buddy of ten years had a problem with Clay requesting to be assigned to the fire death case. Jack didn’t, even offering to speak to Lieutenant Hager when Clay did. He also told the other man about Shelby’s amnesia. Jack agreed Clay would have a better chance of getting answers from her by waiting until tomorrow to question her.

Clay hung up his cell and jammed it back in his jeans pocket. He went back inside, still rattled over what might have happened to Shelby tonight.

Just as he reached her room, he saw Vince Tyner stalking toward him. At the sight of the paramedic whom Shelby had dumped a month ago, Clay planted himself in front of her cubicle. Shelby had told him Vince still called her, even though she ignored him. The muscle-bound guy had dated Shelby only for a couple of months.

“I heard from dispatch that she’s hurt.” The other man halted, concern darkening his brown eyes. “How bad is it?”

Clay told him, thinking that Tyner looked genuinely alarmed.

“I want to see her.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Why not? I want her to know I’m here if she needs anything.”

She doesn’t need it from you. “The doctor doesn’t want anyone else in there tonight. She still has to get her arm wrapped and her head stitched up.”