Curiosity as well as a sense of mourning prompted her to push away from her hiding place and to take a walk over to where she had rescued the dog. She picked her way carefully across the wooden floorboards, knowing that even this far from the central source of the blaze, the support structures could be weakened.
Water still grouped in puddles in the sunken places on the main floor, and she could hear the steady drip of it working its way down to the basement level. The corridor where she’d first entered and followed the sounds of the dog’s cries had been reduced to twin piles of ash and rubble.
She stopped near the edge of the last solid board and looked up at the back wall. The second-story platform was gone. The heavy beam and its iron rigging—with her rope still tied to it and hanging out the broken window—was the only structure left. She looked down into the exposed basement area. The rest of the support system had collapsed into a fiery pit.
She and the pooch had been damn lucky to survive.
“Revisiting the scene of the crime?”
Meghan sucked in a breath and clutched her hand at her waist, startled by the familiar voice. When she turned to face Gideon, the thudding of her heart still hadn’t stopped. “I thought I was the only one in here.”
His watchful eyes seemed to bore right through her. “I’m doing the preliminary walk-through on my investigation.”
“That’s right.” Without the courage to meet the questions in his expression, she settled for talking to the center of his broad, streamlined chest. “I heard you got promoted to Investigator.” Unexpectedly hungry to reacquaint herself with the strength and dimension of his body, she let her gaze drift up past the point of his chin to the classic male contours of his mouth. But she wasn’t quite ready for eye contact. Gideon had always been able to read her emotions like a book. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
A subtle movement at his waist dragged her gaze downward again. He’d tucked his hand into his pocket. He’d always had such wonderful hands. Nicked and calloused enough by life to give them character, with the strength and control that could soothe or arouse, by turn.
Sweet, tender memories flooded her, raising goose bumps of anticipation along her skin as she remembered his touch—so very different from the creepy sensations that had assaulted her earlier during the TV interview.
But then she realized he’d angled the left side of his body away from her. She’d been staring at his wrist above his pocket, wishing for things that could never be. Wanting something she had destroyed two years ago.
“Sorry.” She mustered a smile and shrugged, not sure what she was apologizing for. Staring? Or breaking this good man’s heart?
“So you’re the one who made the great escape.” Gideon was looking up at the rope and beam now. “You always were as agile as a monkey. Still, that must have been a close call.”
“For once it paid to be scrawny.” She wanted to thank him for changing the topic. Work was one thing she could talk about. It might be the only safe topic where Gideon was concerned. “I don’t think that platform could have held a full-size man.”
“Looks like it didn’t hold you, either. You took a big risk.”
For one brief instant Meghan’s insides went all drizzly with warmth. Was that concern she heard? The smooth texture of his deep-pitched voice melted her momentary resolve into a pile of goo.
Though Gideon had always been the strong one in their relationship—the whole one, the one with his head on straight—he almost sounded as if he was the one who needed reassurance now.
“I’m okay. I know how to handle myself on the job now.” Meghan looked around the angle of Gideon’s shoulder and forced herself to make eye contact with him. It was impossible for her to look away from the raw hurt and hunger she saw there. “Really. I learned from the best. I’m fine.”
“Scrawny, hmm?” A sudden blaze of heat shattered the lingering walls of doubt and distrust in his expression. His warm brown gaze caressed the lines of her face and hair, then explored the subtle jut of her breasts, triggering a pebbling response at the tips as if he’d touched her with his hands. “As I recall, there were plenty of curves in all the right places on that body of yours.”
Meghan crossed her arms and shivered at her body’s wanton response to his hungry look and suggestive words.
She tried to come up with some kind of joke, some excuse to deny the powerful effect he still had on her. But she was trapped by desire, caught up in the memories of how good it felt to be close to this man, how exciting and scary it had been to have him want her. The meaning of this flood of heat eluded her, but she couldn’t turn away.
When he reached up and traced the curve of her cheek with the tip of one finger, she closed her eyes and savored his touch. This was too good, too sweet, too wonderful to be real.
She tilted her face, urging him to repeat the caress along her jaw, her brow. He rested the weight of his finger against the arc of her lower lip.
A familiar coalescence, like warm, sweet syrup, gathered inside her and moved with nearly painful deliberation toward the juncture of her thighs. The pressure built with agonizing slowness. There. Deep in her belly.
Behind the scars.
Meghan flinched beneath the delicate stroke of his finger along the straight line of her nose, fighting the intrusion of memory. Fighting off the past that would rear its ugly head and destroy Gideon’s magic.
“Meg?”
He caught the tip of her nose between his thumb and forefinger in a playful gesture one might use with a child.
A child.
She lost the fight. The spell was broken.
Meghan’s eyes snapped open and she backed off a step, not sure whether to dredge up an apology or a thank-you.
“You had some soot on your nose.” Gideon splayed his fingers in front of her face, showing her the greasy black residue.
“Oh.” Embarrassment couldn’t begin to describe the emotions trying to break through. She pressed her lips tightly together and waited for control to kick in. Gideon wouldn’t want her to have any feelings for him—grateful or sexual or otherwise. She’d long ago killed any feelings he had for her. So she made a joke. “Well, you know me and makeup. I never get it quite right.”
Gideon didn’t laugh and neither did she. Instead he strode away from her and climbed down a ladder into the basement. It was an easy movement that betrayed no reaction to the heated moment they’d just shared. “I want you to have a look at something I found earlier.”
If she was smart, she’d turn around and walk the other way. But then, she’d never been able to resist one of Gideon’s challenges. And if it was work-related…
That was where their relationship had started in the first place. As a probationary recruit about to wash out of basic training, Gideon had taken her under his wing and turned her into a real firefighter. She’d learned her skills at the foot of a master. This was her career now. This was who she was and who she needed to be. She’d be foolish to turn down the opportunity to learn more.
Carefully watching her step and keeping her distance, she followed him down the ladder. “What is it?”
She stepped down into a half-inch slush of water and dirt and debris. While the muck oozed around the soles of her boots, Gideon directed his flashlight across the floor.
“There.” He lifted one of the charred planks piled in the middle of the floor and tossed it aside. “You can hardly see it through this slime, but it’s there.”
She moved to help him clear more boards to prop them up in a makeshift