Burning Love. Debra Cowan
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He flipped through his notebook unnecessarily, giving her a moment to control the emotion swimming in her eyes. Understandably, women might be jealous of Terra August’s perfectly molded features, the classically straight nose and peach-tinted skin. Her moist, plump lips looked as if they could leave a man weak. “Do you know what contact, if any, Harris had with Cecily recently?”
She hesitated, chewing on her bottom lip. “He said she’d been calling, leaving messages on his answering machine. He’d also seen her following him.”
“Did she follow the two of you last night?”
“If she did, I didn’t see her.” She sighed, stroking nervous fingers down the long, elegant column of her neck. She had a beautiful neck.
“Did Cecily ever threaten you?”
“No.”
She paused and his eyes narrowed. “It’s better if I hear it from you rather than her.”
She contemplated a moment, then said, “One time, she blamed me for their divorce. She never threatened me, but for a while after they split up, she would show up here or at my house. She also left messages on my answering machine.”
“Saying what?”
“Just…none of it was true.”
He stared at her.
Protest flared in her eyes, but she finally spoke. “Saying I couldn’t have him, that he didn’t want me, things like that. There were never any threats against me. And she stopped bothering me altogether about a month ago. Didn’t she tell you this herself?”
“I haven’t been able to talk to her yet.” Sounded like Terra had a motive to kill Harris’s ex-wife, but so far, Jack hadn’t found one to explain why she would want to kill Harris. “When I stopped by her house, she’d taken a sedative.”
Terra’s gaze held his. “When you go back, I’d like to go with you.”
Which was perfectly legal and within her rights as the fire investigator on this case. He had no grounds to refuse, but he wished he did. “Okay. I plan to try again after I leave here.”
“Great.”
He wondered if she would confirm the information he’d learned about her earlier. Watching her closely, Jack said, “I thought firefighters who were interested in investigations could move into the job with a lot less years on the job than you had.”
She arched a brow. “How many was that?”
“Nine.”
She cocked her head. “You’ve been checking up on me.”
He could read nothing in the midnight-soft voice. He wondered what she was thinking, then asked himself why he cared. “It’s my job.”
She crossed her arms, putting an invisible wall between them. “You’re right. Firefighters can move into investigation whenever they pass the tests. I wasn’t sure until then that I wanted to be a fire cop.”
There was a story there; he could read it in the way her eyes shuttered against him. That old familiar itch to solve a puzzle, dig out every secret kicked in.
What kind of training had she had? From what he remembered, there were no formal courses for fire investigation offered at their local universities, just on-the-job training. Jack found himself wanting to ask Terra questions that had no direct bearing on the case, only on her. The realization irritated him as did the anticipation thrumming in his blood. He felt as if he were losing his focus and his voice came out hard.
“Is there anyone else who could be jealous of you seeing Mr. Vaughn?”
She stiffened. “I already told you about Cecily.”
She still looked a little disoriented. Again, he felt the same clench in his gut that he’d felt upon seeing her so torn up at the crime scene. He knew this had to be hard on her, but didn’t think she would appreciate the observation.
“I meant whoever you’re seeing.” For some reason, he really wanted to know who that man was. Jack fingered the velvet-soft petals of the rose nearest him. “Like whoever gave you these flowers.”
Her gaze skipped away and she rubbed at a spot just below her collarbone. Jack found his gaze trailing down the sweet line of her neck, the hollow in her throat where her pulse fluttered softly.
“I don’t know who those are from. I’ve got a…secret admirer.”
“A secret admirer?” He couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. “These aren’t from someone you’re dating?”
“I’m not dating anyone at the moment.”
He ignored the sharp jab of adrenalin that hit his system. “So you can’t think of anyone who might be upset by your seeing too much of Harris Vaughn?”
“No.”
“What about your ex-husband, Keith Garcia?”
“Only if it interfered with something he wanted to do.”
Whoa, he’d hit a nerve there. “How long have you been divorced?”
“Two years. As if you didn’t know.”
He wondered if her quiet anger was due to pain over the breakup of her marriage or his blatant digging into her past.
“That’s a long time to go without dating.” Not that he had any room to talk.
“I didn’t say I hadn’t dated,” she responded coolly. “Just that I wasn’t dating anyone now.”
A grin tugged at his lips. “Did your relationship with Vaughn have anything to do with your marriage breaking up?”
“No.”
Her curt answer indicated that was all he’d get on the subject. Good thing he believed her. “Any ideas about the identity of your secret admirer?”
“I think it’s one of the local news reporters. I figure if I ignore him, he’ll eventually give up.”
Shifting his weight to the other foot, Jack squashed an unexpected—and unwanted—flare of jealousy. Maybe her divorce had been caused by Garcia’s having another woman. Or if not, could their breakup have been related to the dangers of her job?
He supposed some men might find a woman exciting who battled fire, who risked her life, but Jack didn’t. Women in perilous jobs were as unappealing to him as working as a crossing guard.
He didn’t have a problem with women in dangerous jobs—combat, police work, fire fighting. He just had a problem with his woman being in such a line of work. His wife’s job had seemed low-risk and she’d been gunned down by a pissed-off social work client. Since her death, his work had been his world. Not much penetrated, but Terra August certainly had.
“What about you, Detective?”
“What about me?” He stuffed his notebook into the inside pocket of his khaki jacket.
“Are you dating anyone?”
Sliding his hands into the pockets of his navy slacks, he arched a brow. He was the one who asked the questions.
“Not married, are you?”
This was a job, not The Dating Game. Jaw tight, his gaze locked with hers. “I’m heading over to talk to Cecily Vaughn. Are you coming?”
Her gaze measured him, sending a lick of fire through his belly. She tucked her hair behind her ears, the movement stretching the red sweater taut across her lush breasts.
Jack looked away, trying to ignore the way his body hardened from his shoulders to his calves.
She walked around the desk toward him. “Before I left the burn site, I picked up the videotape.”
“Of