“Hi, Mom,” Lucia said from the doorway.
“You’re early,” her mother said.
“Not that much.” Lucia moved into the room, taking off her coat. “I’ve been reading to him, and to be honest, now I’m wanting to know how the story turns out.”
They talked a few minutes longer, and after her mother left, Lucia sat down next to the bed and began reading to her dad, a novel from his collection of Zane Grey Westerns. He loved those stories, and she understood why. In the end, justice prevailed and evil was vanquished. That thought took root, along with the newspaper ad that Colleen had shown her.
What if Colleen was right and it was a message? Lucia looked up from the book to her father’s sleeping face. She thought about that some more, trying to analyze the problem the way her brother Sam would. As a detective, he was good at sifting through the puzzle pieces and putting the right ones together.
If the message was a warning, she wondered if it was somehow connected to her dad’s shooting. Or was she simply giving too much importance to her own family? And if the ad was connected to her father somehow, surely one of the FBI agents who had been assigned to the case would see how everything fit together. Deciding others were far better equipped to figure out the puzzle, if there even was one, Lucia returned to reading to her father.
She spent the rest of the afternoon with her dad, not leaving until one of her sisters-in-law arrived, a continuation of the family agreement that Mayor Vance would always have a family member by his side.
Lucia left the hospital, her attention drawn to the leather jacket on the front seat of her car. Since she had looked up Rafe’s address before she left home and discovered he lived only a couple of miles from the hospital, returning his jacket seemed the neighborly thing to do. Except that she hadn’t called, mostly because she hadn’t been able to figure out what she would say after the initial hello. Her internal argument continued while she drove. Since it wasn’t yet five o’clock, maybe he wouldn’t even be home. So she’d be off the hook, a thought that brought a pang of disappointment.
Her stomach clenched with unaccustomed butterflies as she pulled into the parking lot. The apartment complex where he lived was large, but she easily found his building. The jacket firmly wrapped in her arms, she climbed the two flights of exterior stairs to his floor, found the apartment number and knocked on the door.
She could hear music from inside, so clearly someone was home.
A second later, the door opened and a tall, good-looking man with coffee-colored skin and dark eyes smiled at her.
“I was looking for Rafe,” she said.
His smile widened. “I wish I could say that you found him.”
“Is this the right apartment?”
He nodded. “Right apartment, wrong guy.” He extended his hand. “I’m his roommate, Malik Williams. And you are?”
“Lucia Vance,” Rafe said, appearing behind Malik.
The butterflies in her stomach fluttered at the sound of Rafe’s deep voice. Her gaze latched on to his, and she lost herself within his green eyes that were so at odds with his dark brown hair and olive skin. The outside of the iris was a pure, dark jade. As she realized he was studying her just as intently, her own gaze shifted to Malik’s openly curious and teasing one. She noticed a bandage above one eyebrow.
Malik’s smile grew into a wide grin that flustered her even more. He took her hand. “He wouldn’t tell me a single thing about the lovely firefighter, except for your name.” He clucked his tongue. “I knew you’d be pretty.”
They had talked about her, Lucia thought, the butterflies beating against her chest, her attention still on Rafe’s smiling face. His hair was longer than she had remembered, the color a warm, dark brown.
“And I’m pretty sure you have something else to do,” he said, taking Lucia’s hand out of Malik’s and drawing her into the apartment. “Like now.”
Malik laughed. “I do?” At Rafe’s glower, he repeated, “I do. Something very, very important back here that I’m sure I’ll remember real soon.” He slapped Rafe on the back. “She’s fine, so you be extra nice.”
Completely bemused, Lucia watched Malik amble toward a hallway. Rafe’s hand around her own was warm and solid, which made sense since the man had proven to be both yesterday.
Rafe led her through a living room that was dominated by a huge black leather couch, a matching loveseat and an equally masculine recliner. An enormous black television was surrounded by various high-tech components, smooth jazz emanating from the speakers. The kitchen was small, the stainless-steel appliances gleamed, and the counters were neatly lined with various gadgets, from a cappuccino machine that looked too complicated to use to an electric ice-cream maker. Something savory-smelling bubbled in a glass-lid-covered pot on the stove.
Letting go of her hand, Rafe said, “I’m glad to see you. Would you like something to drink?” Without waiting for an answer, he opened the refrigerator. “A soda or a lemonade, or the ever-popular iced tea?”
I’m glad to see you. Those simple words warmed her beyond anything reasonable—maybe because it was an echo of how she felt. She realized he was looking at her expectantly, and her attention shifted to the open refrigerator door.
“Iced tea.” At the breathless tone in her voice, she silently marshaled her thoughts into some coherent order. “That sounds good.”
Rafael Wright wasn’t the first man she had ever found alluring. But he was the most potent.
FOUR
“I’ve got to warn you,” Rafe said, taking the jug of tea out of the refrigerator. “It’s sweet tea—a taste I acquired when I was living in North Carolina a few years ago.”
“That’s fine,” Lucia said. “Were you fighting wildfires there?”
Filling the glasses with ice, he nodded. “They were having a drought, and I spent most of the season there.”
“Fires have a season?”
He grinned, that killer dimple flashing. “They do. Brush fires as early as February or March, sometimes, in Florida and southern California. Or late. There was a big fire in the Everglades in November the same year I worked in North Carolina.” He filled the glasses from a pitcher in the refrigerator. “I see you brought my jacket back.”
She glanced down at the coat still clutched in her arms. “Yes.”
He handed her the glass. “I was hoping it would turn up.”
She extended her arm so he could take the jacket. “It looks like you’ve had it a long time.”
“I have.” He set it over the back of a chair and motioned her toward the living room. “It was a gift from my sisters one Christmas.”
“The schoolteacher and the homemaker,” she said, heading for one end of the monstrous black leather couch, where she sat down. Setting the iced tea on the chrome-and-glass coffee table, she slipped off her lightweight coat.
“You remembered,” he said.
She didn’t respond to that, especially since everything from yesterday was vividly etched in her mind. “Your friend that you were visiting when the fire started, how is she—”
“He,” Rafe corrected, cocking his head toward the hallway. “Malik. He was released this morning.” Rafe sat down on the other end of the couch, extending one arm across the back and balancing the iced tea glass on his thigh. “A ladder fell on him during a training exercise, and since he had a concussion to go with the