Wild Iris Ridge (Hope's Crossing) Read online

  She lifted her chin. “How can I be trespassing in my own house, Chief Caine?”

  He jerked his head up as if she had lobbed a fireball at him. In the glow from the porch light, she saw his rugged features go slack with shock. “Lucy? What the hell?”

  She tried for a nonchalant shrug. “Apparently, having the chimneys cleaned is now at the top of my to-do list.”

  “You did this?”

  “The furnace wouldn’t kick on so I thought I would warm the place up with a fire”

  “The pilot light has been dicey all winter. I’ve been meaning to have somebody in to look at it. I’ve had to relight it a couple times a week.”

  Of course. He only lived about four houses down the street—and since Annabelle had been Jessica’s great-aunt, too, Brendan would naturally feel responsible for looking after Iris House.

  “I didn’t know how to light it and I was freezing,” she said. “I just figured I would stay warm with a fire tonight and deal with the furnace in the morning.”

  “And you never thought to go to a hotel?”

  “Why go to a hotel when I happen to own a twenty-room mansion?”

  Before he could answer, the two firefighters who had first charged into the house came out. “Chimney fire,” one said. “Looks like some creosote ignited. It’s mostly extinguished but we’ll need to head up to the roof to put out any hot spots.”

  She wanted to sit right down on the porch steps and sob with relief—but she would never do that in front of Brendan Caine, of course.

  He pulled out a radio and issued instructions in it that were completely beyond her understanding, something about a ladder truck.

  “I want my paramedics to take a look at you,” he said to her after he finished.

  “That’s not necessary. I’m fine.”

  “It wasn’t a request,” he said, his tone hard. “We need to be sure your lungs are okay after breathing all that smoke.”

  He spoke to a couple other guys who had just pulled up. “Redmond. Chen. Run vitals on Ms. Drake here. Let me know if you think we need to transport her to the E.R.”

  “I’m perfectly fine. I don’t need to be checked out, and I certainly don’t need to go to any E.R!”

  One of the paramedics, a big, burly bald guy with a mustache and incongruously sweet features gave her an apologetic smile. “It won’t take long, ma’am.”

  They led her over to a waiting ambulance. Had Brendan called out every truck in his entire department? For the next ten minutes she sat mortified on a stretcher while they checked everything. Oxygen levels, normal. Blood pressure, slightly high—no big surprise there. Temperature and reflexes, all as they should be.

  “Everything checks out,” the bald guy said.

  “I told you it would.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. We have to follow procedure. The chief can be a stickler about that.”

  “Am I free to go?”

  “As far as we’re concerned.”

  Not knowing what else to do, she retreated to the safety of her car and for the next hour watched as the Hope’s Crossing volunteer fire department scrambled across the various roof levels, climbed up and down ladders and peeked through windows, checking out every inch of Iris House.

  Finally, they seemed to be certain the fire was completely out. The ambulance peeled away first then one engine after another until only the first ladder truck and the SUV that said Fire Chief on the side were left.

  When Brendan walked onto the porch, speaking into his radio, she finally gathered the courage to climb out of her vehicle and approach him.

  The rain had stopped, but the April night was still cold, with a damp wind that seemed to burrow beneath her coat.

  He looked surprised to see her again, as if he had just remembered her existence—and probably would have preferred to forget it.

  “I guess you’re okay or the paramedics would have taken you to the hospital.”

  “I’m fine. Just like I told you. What are the damages to the house?”

  “Too soon to say. You’ve got smoke damage, definitely, though it seems to be isolated to the TV room. We’ve got the windows open, airing things out.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “It could have been a lot worse.”

  She shivered as all the nightmare images that had been parading through her mind seemed to march a little faster. “I really do appreciate everyone. Please tell your department thank you for me. I’m sorry to call them out of their beds in the middle of the night.”

  “It’s part of the job,” he said, his tone dismissive. He tilted his head. “Now, you want to tell me what the hell you’re doing here? Why didn’t you tell anyone you were coming?”

  She shrugged. She couldn’t tell him everything, the personal and professional humiliation she had left behind. “Spur-of-the-moment decision.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t end up fried to a crisp.”

  What would have happened if the creosote hadn’t ignited so quickly? If it had smoldered for an hour or so, until she was sound asleep just a few feet away from the fire? She would have died of smoke inhalation first and then been fried to a crisp.

  Cold panic dripped down her spine, but she clamped down on the nerves before they could flood her completely.

  “I know.”

  He gave her one of those dark looks that could mean anything. “You can’t stay here tonight. You understand that, right? We need to make sure the house is safe tonight, with no lingering hot spots. You’ll have to find a hotel.”

  If she had only done that in the first place, they wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.

  “I can do that,” she said.

  Of course, he didn’t invite her to stay at his house. They didn’t have that kind of amicable relationship, despite the fact that she was godmother to his children or that his late wife had been not only her cousin but her dearest friend in the world.

  “I still can’t quite wrap my head around you showing up in the middle of the night like this. You should have let me know you were coming. I could have made sure the pilot light was turned on for you, and none of this would have happened.”

  She was tempted to remind him caustically that she didn’t need his permission to visit her own house. He might be watching over it, but she had been Annabelle’s only surviving heir.

  Iris House should have been Jessica’s. She had adored the place, and she and Annabelle had always talked about turning it into a bed and breakfast one day after the children were grown, with Jess running the day-to-day details.

  But Annabelle and Jess were both gone. Lucy was the only one left, the sole owner of this rambling old Victorian mining mansion she had never wanted in a town she had once been so eager to leave. Since her own dreams had just burned up hotter than any creosote fire, she had decided to borrow Jessica’s for a while.

  “Like I said, spur-of-the-moment decision. I didn’t think things through.”

  “How very unlike you,” he said, his voice dry enough to make her bristle.

  She was too tired to fight with him tonight. Instead, she changed the subject. “How much damage do you think the fire caused?”

  “We won’t know until we inspect things in the morning. From what I could see, the fire seemed to be contained to the chimney. I doubt you’ll see any structural damage but we can’t be certain until at least tomorrow. It might be Monday or Tuesday by the time we know anything.” He paused. “Are you planning to stick around that long?”

  She glanced at the house, feeling that steady, relentless dribble of panic again. “Yes,” she said, lips tight.

  She had no reason to tell this man who disliked her so intently that she would be here for the immediate future, that she had nothing left but this smoke-damaged house that sat in th
e rain like a graceful grande dame.

  “You can call the fire station and leave the name of your hotel once you figure it out. I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I know whether the house is safe to inhabit.”

  She could afford a night or two in a hotel, but she would have to come up with another solution if this dragged on longer than that—especially if she was going to pour all her resources into pursuing Jess’s dream. Again, nothing she was willing to share with Fire Chief Caine.

  “Thanks,” she murmured.

  He studied her for a minute longer and she knew she must be a mess—bedraggled and sooty and smelling of smoke and fire extinguisher chemicals.

  “Welcome back. I guess.”

  * * *

  SOMETHING WAS UP.

  Brendan frowned as he watched Lucy Drake slide back behind the wheel of her fancy BMW. She sat for a moment gazing out the front windshield into the darkness as if she couldn’t quite remember how to put the car in gear.

  He was aware of a tiny, wriggling concern, like a slippery earthworm in the garden he couldn’t quite grasp.

  Usually, she was brash and confident, striding through the world with her designer suits and leather briefcases.

  On her rare visits to Hope’s Crossing before Jess had died, Lucy would blow in with a backseat full of expensive gifts for the kids and for Jess and story after story about her exciting life in Seattle as the marketing director at a hugely successful and rapidly expanding software company.

  Yeah, the circumstances were rough tonight. It had to be a rude welcome for her to come back to Iris House and end up with a chimney fire five minutes later.

  That didn’t completely explain the way she had been acting. The woman who had just headed away looking lost and alone didn’t seem at all like the fiercely driven go-getter who usually made no secret of her disdain for him.

  Don’t you think you can do better than a washed-up jock with more muscles than brains?

  He pushed away the bitter memory he hadn’t realized still haunted him somewhere deep inside to find he wasn’t alone in his contemplation of Lucy’s little red BMW.

  Pete Valentine, one of his volunteer firefighters who ran a successful plumbing business the rest of the time, stood at his elbow. The other man licked his bottom lip with a greedy sort of look as his gaze followed her taillights. “Lucy Drake. She’s still as hot as ever. Man, she used to make my balls ache in high school.”

  He glowered at the locker room talk which, unfortunately, wasn’t all that uncommon among his crew at times.

  Pete was married to a nurse at the hospital. If she heard him talking like this, Janet would probably give him a whole new definition of aching balls.

  Pete seemed to take his silence as tacit permission. “Something about that whole badass-Goth-girl thing just did it for me, you know? Especially because she was so smart on top of all that attitude. Honor roll, the whole thing. I sat behind her in Mrs. McKnight’s English class senior year, and I spent the whole semester trying to get a peek beneath all that black leather, if you know what I mean.”

  He had always thought he liked Pete, but right now he wanted to take one of the attack fire hoses to him, for reasons he didn’t quite understand.

  “Yeah, well, how about we don’t take any more visits down your horny teenage memory lane while we have a job to finish?” he growled.

  Pete blinked at his tone and his glare. “Uh, sure, Chief. Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just surprised to see her, that’s all.”

  Yeah. Join the club, Brendan thought as Pete hurried away.

  He never would have guessed when he tucked the kids in at home with Mrs. Madison and drove past this very house on his way to his shift that evening that he would be back here—and facing Lucy in the process.

  Though her car was long gone, he still couldn’t help gazing down the road where she had traveled.

  He hadn’t missed how evasive she had been when he’d asked how long she was staying. He had to hope it was only a day or two.

  Some people just tended to shake things up wherever they went, to spawn chaos and tumult without even trying. Lucy had that particular gift in spades—as tonight clearly indicated.

  He and Carter and Faith were finally digging their way out of the deep, inky chasm Jess’s death had tossed them all into. They were finally settling back into a routine, moving forward with one steady foot in front of the other. His kids didn’t need Lucy to aim all that chaos in their direction and shake up the world that was finally feeling calm for the first time in two years.

  No sense in worrying about it, he thought as he turned back to the fire and all the details he needed to do in order to clear the scene and send his engines back to the house.

  One thing about Lucy. She never stayed long in Hope’s Crossing. In a few days, no doubt she would be packing up her little red car and heading back into the fray, to Seattle and her high-powered career and the world where she belonged.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A MAN WHO had reached the ripe old age of thirty-six ought to have picked up a little sense along the way.

  The next morning, Brendan sipped at his coffee at the counter of his father’s café, The Center of Hope, waiting for some of Pop’s delectable French toast. Though his cup was still half-full, Pop topped him off without asking the minute he set it back down.

  “Lucy Drake! That darling girl.” Dermot’s weathered features creased into a concerned frown. “You’re certain, are you, that she came to no harm, then? Did you give her an examination?”

  “I had a couple of the EMTs check her out. They reported all her vital statistics were normal. She was only exposed to the smoke for a few moments.”

  “You didn’t check her out yourself?”

  “No, Pop. I relied on the word of a couple guys who have a combined twenty years as emergency medical technicians. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so trusting.”

  “She’s a family friend. Godmother to your children. You can’t be too careful with people who are that important.”

  Did Pop mean it was okay for Brendan to provide subpar care to the various strangers he encountered in the course of his job every day? “You can put your mind at ease. She was fine when she left Iris House last night, I promise.”

  “That’s a relief. And you’re sure she had no burns?”

  “Positive.”

  He should have expected this interrogation. By his very nature, Dermot was concerned about everybody in Hope’s Crossing, but he especially fretted over those he had taken under his wing. For reasons known only to him, Dermot had developed a soft spot for Lucy from the moment she showed up in town to live with her great-aunt, all black clothes and pale makeup and a truckload full of attitude.

  Brendan sighed and sipped his coffee. When he’d decided on the spur of the moment to grab a quick bite of breakfast at the Center of Hope Café before he headed home, he had hoped he could avoid thinking about Lucy for five minutes—something he had found impossible throughout the night as he worked the rest of his shift.

  Dermot wasn’t making that task particularly easy by bringing the woman up the moment Brendan walked into the café. He should have known his father would have heard about the fire the night before, that it would be a central topic of discussion in town.

  Dermot knew everything that went on in Hope’s Crossing, from the precipitation level for the month to the color of Mayor Beaumont’s new suit. Owning the town’s most popular gathering spot meant he was usually privy to the best gossip and the most interesting tidbits.

  Flashing lights and an assortment of ladder and pumper trucks showing up in the middle of the night to one of the town’s historic silver baron mansions would certainly have set tongues wagging.

  The minute Brendan walked into the café, Dermot had demanded all the details about th
e chimney fire excitement at Iris House—and particularly about the juicy rumors that Lucy Drake had been the cause of it.

  “Where did she spend the night, do you know?”

  He sighed. “Can’t tell you that, Pop. Sorry I didn’t think to press her for more details about her lodging arrangements. I was a little busy. You know, putting out the fire and all.”

  Dermot was unfazed by his dry response. With six strapping sons and a daughter, very little could faze his father, especially not a bit of mild sarcasm.

  “I hadn’t heard she was coming back to town, had you?”

  “No. She didn’t tell me.” A little warning would have been nice. Air-raid sirens, at the very least.

  “How long is she planning to stay?”

  “No idea,” he answered.

  “Well, have you told the children yet?” Dermot persisted. “Carter and Faith will be thrilled to see her, won’t they? Why, Faith is always talking about her aunt Lucy sending her this or that, video-conferencing with her on the computer, emailing her a special note.”

  He picked up his coffee cup with another sigh. So much for hoping he could eat a hearty breakfast without having to think about the woman for five minutes.

  “I haven’t seen them yet. I had a meeting first thing when my shift ended and didn’t catch them before they left for school this morning. Mrs. Madison took them. My plan was to grab some breakfast here and then head home and crash for a few hours until school is out. I’m sure I’ll have the chance to tell them later.”

  They would be over the moon at the unexpected treat of a visit from their favorite aunt. Lucy wasn’t truly their aunt. She and Jess had been cousins, linked mostly through their relationship with Annabelle, but his late wife had adored Lucy like a sister.

  She had been the maid of honor at their wedding. In typical Lucy fashion, she had been too busy to come back for any of the pre-matrimonial events until the weekend of the wedding, where she had appeared late to the rehearsal dinner with apologies about a last-minute meeting she couldn’t miss and then had left early from the reception to catch a flight.