Chapter Two

      Twenty-four hours later, Priscilla wanted to eat her words. She was helping her mother fix Sunday dinner and she needed a boyfriend in the worst way.

      Lorraine Garner, who was well known for her cooking skills, had been only too happy when Priscilla had shown an interest in the kitchen for the first time in her life. Now that Priscilla had discovered how essential cooking was to her popularity at the firehouse, she had practically begged her mother to teach her to cook.

      In between instructions on preparing lasagna, Lorraine couldn’t resist interrogating Priscilla.

      “How is your nurse training going?” she asked as she demonstrated how to properly crush garlic without even chipping her manicure. She wore a cream-colored silk dress and pearls around her neck and she never got a spot on herself.

      “It’s paramedic training,” Priscilla gently corrected, “and it’s going fine so far.”

      Her mother would probably be much happier if Priscilla had become a nurse. She’d been horrified when her daughter had announced she was going to leave the home decor shop she’d been managing since she graduated from college and become a firefighter. Lorraine hadn’t liked the whole blue-collar aspect of it, but even more than that she’d been worried for her daughter’s safety.

      Priscilla, however, had been bored to death as a shopkeeper. She’d wanted to do something active, something that would make a difference in the world. She’d needed to turn her life in an entirely new direction so she wouldn’t brood about Cory.

      She’d always been fascinated with fire trucks. She’d even played fireman when she was a little kid, rescuing her cousin Marisa’s dolls over and over from various flaming tragedies. It was pure impulse that had prompted her to apply to the fire department, and she’d wondered at the time if she’d gone a little crazy. But the very first time she’d fought a blaze in training, she’d liked that feeling and wanted more of it.

      Eventually Lorraine had come to accept her daughter’s new vocation and had stopped hoping it was a phase she was going through. But she had not stopped trying to fix what she perceived to be Priscilla’s tragic lack of social life.

      “Are they going to give you time off to attend the bridesmaids’ dinner?” her mother asked.

      “Yes, I have that day off.” And she knew what was coming next.

      “Have you decided who you’ll take as your escort?”

      “Mother, I really don’t think Marisa is going to care whether I bring a date to the dinner.” Her cousin Marisa was the bride. Lorraine and Priscilla’s aunt Clara, her mother’s sister, had been pitting the girls against each other since they were babies.

      “I just don’t want people to feel sorry for you,” Lorraine said. “You know Aunt Clara thinks you somehow messed up your only chance to snag a husband.”

      “The breakup was hardly my fault.” Cory, who had never shown the slightest fondness for children that Priscilla had seen, had nonetheless been devastated when Priscilla confessed that she would never be able to bear his children. When she’d brought up the possibility of adoption, he’d closed his mind. His heart had been set on biological children. And that had meant he most definitely would not be proposing marriage.

      Priscilla had been shocked and then saddened by his attitude. She’d been sure Cory was “the one.” But she hadn’t known him as well as she’d imagined she did.

      “Of course it wasn’t your fault,” Lorraine said. “But Clara doesn’t know that. She doesn’t know what really happened.”

      “And she’s not going to either.” It had taken Priscilla years to come to terms with the fact that she could never become pregnant, never carry her own child. She was sixteen when she’d gone in for surgery to have one of her ovaries removed. Just one. But the surgeon, after inspecting them, had declared they both needed to come out, and Priscilla’s parents had signed the consent form on the spot.

      She’d awakened from the surgery to the devastating news that she was now infertile, that she would have to take hormones for the next thirty or so years. And she had been angry that her parents had stolen her future from her.

      Unreasonably angry, she realized some years later. Her parents had made the best decision they could at the time.

      Priscilla had spent the past couple of years repairing her relationship with her parents and she hated to rock the boat now. But she did need to put a stop to her mother’s matchmaking.

      “Would it be so very difficult for you to bring a date to the bridesmaid’s dinner?” Lorraine tried again.

      “All right, Mother, who is he?”

      Lorraine almost managed to hide her smile of triumph. “Remember the Conleys who lived next door to us?”

      “Yeah. They moved to Miami or someplace, didn’t they?”

      “Yes. But young Bill has moved back recently. And he wants to get into the social scene here.”

      Priscilla gasped as memories resurfaced. At age twelve, “young Bill” had worn a white belt and a pocket protector, and the rubberbands on his braces were always shooting out of his mouth.

      She shook her head. “No. No can do.”

      “Priscilla, he’s so handsome now! You would not recognize him. And he’s an orthodontist. Anyway, it’s just one date.” The pleading note in Lorraine’s voice nearly did Priscilla in. Her mother had such a way of manipulating her, and it drove Priscilla wild even as she fell victim to it.

      “I can’t, Mother, really. I’m…well, I’m seeing someone.” Even as she said it, she knew she was heading for disaster.

      “Really?” Lorraine’s nose twitched. “Who is he? How come you didn’t say something earlier?”

      “It was so new and so fragile, and I didn’t know if it was going to work. I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

      “But it’s working out?” Lorraine asked, her eyes filled with hope. “Who is he? Please end the suspense.”

      Priscilla knew her mother was hoping the mystery boyfriend wasn’t a firefighter. “He’s…He’s an arson investigator.” The words just popped out of her mouth.

      Lorraine smiled. “How interesting. Tell me more.”

      “His name is Roark Epperson.” After that, it became easy to tell her the rest. He was in his midthirties, extremely handsome and came from a wealthy family in Massachusetts.

      “Win, did you hear that?” Lorraine asked of Priscilla’s father, who had wandered into the kitchen to get a refill on his wine. “Priscilla’s dating an arson investigator.”

      “I heard,” Priscilla’s father said, sounding cautious. “I think I’ve seen that guy on TV.” Generally Winfield Garner was content to remain at a distance from Priscilla’s social life, letting his wife do all the organizing. But not today, apparently. “Does he talk like a Kennedy?”

      Priscilla couldn’t help smiling. That did seem to be the feature that everyone remembered about Roark. Well, women first remembered that he was mouthwateringly gorgeous and then they remembered the accent. “He’s the one. They interviewed him the other night about the serial arsonist.”

      “An arson investigator,” Lorraine said, trying it on for size. “That’s really kind of interesting, isn’t it, Win?”

      The timer went off, indicating the lasagna noodles were ready. “So you can bring this Roark