Cold Dawn Part 24

Nick wasn't offended. He'd said the same thing when he'd enlisted in the navy a year out of high school.

"Do you think that's what Beth wants?" Rose asked.

Thorne shrugged. "Doesn't matter." He sighed, clearly uncomfortable with his reasons for being there. "I should go."

"Beth's coming back." Rose gently rubbed Ranger behind an ear. "Black Falls is home for her. Beverly Hills isn't what's come between you two, anyway. You think you both work in the same sandbox. Jo being back in town just brought it all home to you, but she's a federal agent-Beth's a paramedic. Her work's not the same as yours."

"Thanks for the a.n.a.lysis," Thorne said through gritted teeth.

Rose wasn't intimidated. "You'd prefer if Beth were a kindergarten teacher, or just worked at the cafe full-time."

"Good night, Rose."

Thorne nodded curtly at Nick, returned to his cruiser and drove off.

Rose sputtered at the retreating cruiser, then spun around and marched up the steps. Ranger waited for Nick and walked up with him. Once inside, the golden retriever yawned and flopped onto his bed by the woodstove.

Rose peeled off her coat, hat and gloves and kicked off her boots. "I should wipe Ranger's paws and brush him, but I'll do it in the morning."

Nick kept his coat on, remained standing as she started a fire in the woodstove, her movements sure, automatic. As she added kindling, got it going, then laid on some small sticks, he could see her alone on her hilltop on quiet winter evenings.

"You're self-sufficient," he said. "You don't need anyone, do you?"

"I manage." She turned to him, her cheeks flushed from building the fire. "Any plans to quit as a smoke jumper?"

"Not yet. I only work seasonally or when needed. I'll keep it up as long as it makes sense to."

"You'll know when it doesn't make sense when-what, you fall out of a plane or catch your hair on fire?"

"Already caught myself on fire."

She blanched. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"It's okay. It was a while ago. I did something stupid and paid for it with a few skin grafts. It could have been worse." He smiled. "I haven't fallen out of a plane yet."

"Do people think you're reckless?"

Jasper had asked Nick the same question. "My fellow smoke jumpers don't think so," he said, repeating the answer he'd given Jasper. "If they did, I wouldn't last as one."

"Sean's not reckless," Rose said.

The scars on Nick's right arm and side suddenly felt as if they were still burning. "Sean's as good as they come. I screwed up as a young smoke jumper and I paid for my mistake with a lot of pain and some permanent scars. Fortunately I was the only one who got hurt or was ever in danger that time."

She knelt down in front of her dog and stroked his golden fur. "Ranger can't tell me when it's time for him to retire. I have to tell him."

"You two have made a good team."

"He has a hard job, but he's done it well."

"You both have," Nick said.

Ranger yawned and stretched, and Rose stood, looking down at him. "I'm as careful and as responsible as I can be, but sometimes I wonder if I asked him to do too much."

"Think he'd be happier if Bowie O'Rourke had adopted him?"

"Maybe."

"You've had a long day. You're beating yourself up for no good reason."

She grabbed a log out of the woodbox, added it to the fire. She shut the lid on the woodstove and stared at the flames through the gla.s.s. "I have a hundred *what-ifs' floating in my brain, Nick. Derek and I got together and broke up all before my father was killed. What if Derek was involved with this serial arsonist after all? What if everything that's happened this past year ultimately leads back to him-to me? To something I did or didn't do? What if I'm responsible for bringing this violence to Black Falls?" She turned to Nick, her eyes a blue-black in the shadows. "What if Lowell Whittaker chose Black Falls for his country home because of me, my work, Derek?"

"You didn't kill anyone or hurt anyone," Nick said.

"When did Jasper get on the trail of his guy?"

"Rose."

She hesitated, then said softly, "I know I'm leaping ahead of the facts. Nick, what if my distractions helped lead to Jasper's death? I was out there in the canyon-I was searching for the boy who'd wandered off. What if I missed something that could have saved Jasper?"

"It wasn't your job to save him. You know that. You're not a firefighter, and Jasper was a man with a mission."

"And now you are," Rose said.

Nick forced a quick smile. "I'm always a man with a mission."

She gave him only the slightest smile.

He unzipped his coat, the house quickly warming up with the fire. "Jasper was pursuing a firebug theory that every other professional considered far-fetched. He was trying to connect suspicious wildland fires, structural fires and explosions to the same arsonist. Different types of fires like that are rarely connected. He was convinced a serial arsonist was at work setting fires for his own pleasure and drama as well as hiring himself out as a contract killer."

"To Lowell."

"Possibly. Jasper died before anyone knew Lowell's network existed."

"What if he got too close to Lowell?" Rose was very pale now. "My father did, and Lowell had him killed. Did Jasper give you anything, Nick, anything at all?"

He stared at the flames through the woodstove's gla.s.s doors. When he looked at Rose, she'd s.h.i.+fted just enough that fiery colors reflected in her eyes. "You and I were both in tough spots emotionally in June. We didn't save Jasper. It was a bad fire. Everything was out of control."

"It's okay, Nick," she said. "I'm not holding you to any romantic entanglements. I didn't then, I haven't in the past eight months. I'm not now."

"No regrets, then?"

"None."

"Good." He grinned at her. "But that's what I am? A romantic entanglement?"

She almost smiled in return. "Go back to the lodge," she said. "Relax, have a nice dinner and sleep well. I'll be here. I'm fine."

He stepped closer to her and noticed her lick her plump lower lip. He remembered the taste of her mouth that hot, frantic night. He'd let his emotions get away from him. He'd been raging, out of control. He'd wanted Rose Cameron more than he'd ever wanted any woman.

Sean's sister. The forbidden woman.

Except it was all so much more complicated than that.

"Rose." Nick said her name quietly, gently, and touched his thumb to the corner of her mouth. "I didn't mean to hurt you then and I don't want to hurt you now. But I do want to kiss you."

"You're asking my permission?"

"I don't want there to be any misunderstanding."

She placed her hands on his shoulders and pressed her lips to his in a perfunctory kiss.

Almost as if she were kissing a friend.

She stood back and smiled. "There. All done."

Nick tilted his head back and studied her a moment. "Was that enough for you?"

"For me? You're the one who wanted to kiss me and asked permission."

"You make it sound as if you needed a permission slip to be excused from gym cla.s.s."

"Well?"

"We moved too fast before."

"We're not moving at all now, are we? Nick, I'm okay. You don't owe me. You don't have to pretend I ever meant anything to you on a romantic level. Nothing will change now that Sean knows about our fling. I didn't want him to find out, but he'll never ask me for details."

"That doesn't mean he won't ask me."

"I'm not going to come between you and your friends.h.i.+p with Sean. You two have known each other longer than I've known you. I never should have allowed myself to get involved, even for one night, with my brother's best friend. We're all adults, but that notion is still tough, at least for a Cameron."

"Back up," Nick said. "Fling?"

"That's what it was."

"Then that talk before about possibly having been attracted to me for a long time-"

"Just talk."

"Ah. Just talk. Well, then this is just a kiss."

His mouth found hers. He was deliberate, giving her a chance to decide how she was going to react. He felt her take a step back, but she couldn't go too far with the woodstove right there. She stumbled slightly, grabbed him by the hips, steadying herself. Nick wasn't distracted. He relished the taste of her, the feel of her. She was strong and soft in all the right places.

"Is this what you mean by romantic entanglement?" he asked, amused, even as he kissed her again, forcing himself to resist doing more-carrying her off to bed, for instance.

She tightened her grip on him, and he wondered if she was doing the same-resisting, holding back.

Finally he released her and stood back.

She took a shallow breath. "I guess you had to get that out of your system. Maybe we both did. It's good. The romantic entanglement stuff is behind us. Now we can be..." She considered a moment. "Friends and colleagues."

"Ah. That's what I was thinking. Couldn't you tell? Is that what you want, Rose, for us to be friends and colleagues?"

"It's what has to be."

"Not what I asked."

"I wanted that kiss," she whispered.

"Which kiss? The chaste one you gave me or the one I gave you?"

"Chaste?" She laughed, her eyes sparking. "That's not a word I expected from Nick Martini, submariner, smoke jumper and multimillionaire, a.s.s-kicking businessman."

"What word would you use?"

"Careful. Repressed." She pushed both hands through her tangled hair. "I'm not good with emotion."

"You wanted more than a kiss," he said, then added, "You do now. So do I."

Color rose in her cheeks.

He decided he'd made his point. "It's not a good idea for you to stay here, Rose."

She nodded. "I know. I'll get my things. If you can grab Ranger's food and dishes, I'll pack."

Nick was already on the way to the kitchen.

She took her Jeep. Nick understood. She wasn't going to be stranded. She was independent, and she was afraid. Having her own transportation gave her confidence. He was unsettled himself as he walked into the lodge under the starlit sky, the unfamiliar landscape spread out around him. He could do snow and cold and all that, but Black Falls was a small New England town and new turf. He knew the players only from stories from Sean and trips west by various friends and family members.

He'd met Rose several times but hadn't considered sleeping with her until fate had thrown them together in June.

At least in the lodge there was no question of sharing a bed or even a room.

Maybe that was why she'd agreed to spend another night there.

As soon as he arrived at the lodge, Nick went up to his room and checked the phone messages, but there was nothing new on Portia Martinez or the missing actor.

He met Rose in the dining room. She wasn't wearing a badly hand-knitted sweater tonight. Instead she wore a black knit dress with her hair up. She even wore makeup, her eyes smoky, her lips glossy and very pink.

She could fit in anywhere-on a mountaintop, a wilderness rescue or at a Beverly Hills party.

"We're expecting snow tonight," she said as she sat across from him. "Just a few inches."

"Great," Nick replied with a wry smile.

She ordered handmade wild mushroom ravioli and a salad. He ordered the same. The discovery in the guesthouse and the murder in California weren't far from his mind, nor, he thought, hers, but both had experience compartmentalizing such things and pretending otherwise.