Crash and Burn (Wildfire Hearts Book 1) Page 3

  The older woman nodded and took Maggie's hand in one of hers. She used the other to wave at the brightly welcoming foyer and front room. “Now, let's get down to the nasty business of writing this will.”

  “Wills are a good thing,” Maggie reminded the woman as she squeezed Mrs. Miller's hand.

  The older woman settled herself into one of the plush chairs across from the large oak desk. Just as Maggie was opening her mouth to ask about how Mrs. Miller might need to divide her estate, the older woman opened the conversation with something entirely different.

  “I don't know if you heard …” She leaned forward as though to share a secret. “But just outside of Lincoln, they found another body.” The bright blue eyes looked truly worried, and she reached up and fidgeted with the stone on her necklace.

  “I didn’t know,” Maggie said. She hadn't been in the area for long. A body was bad. Another body was worse. She felt her brows pull together but Mrs. Miller kept talking.

  “They're saying the Blue River Killer is starting up again.”

  Chapter Seven

  The more Sebastian handled the jewelry, the more his stomach turned.

  He worked diligently while Maggie met with Mrs. Miller. He wasn't exactly sure what Maggie was doing for the older woman. He only knew that Maggie was a lawyer, and that her sign out front said: estate law, prenups, divorces, contracts.

  He didn't think anyone around here was going to need a prenup, but he didn’t tell Maggie that.

  When she came in to do her station volunteer work, he’d found excuses to chat with her, and found that he liked her more than just a little. Seeing her every week was something he’d looked forward to, until she’d begun taking Rex’s daughter during A-shift.

  Sebastian told himself again it was a sign that they were serious and that he needed to get his head out of his ass. Nothing good could come from wanting a woman who was with someone else.

  Besides, he wasn’t anything special. She talked freely with all the guys. He’d gotten the impression—the way her voice sometimes tightened—that she wasn't all that confident her business was going to bring in enough money. So he didn't want to interrupt her now.

  The old, scratched wood floor was too dark to be a good background for the pictures. So he headed into the room she'd converted to an oversized supply closet and found a few reams of white paper sitting lonely on a mostly empty shelf.

  He picked up one of her pens and thought about taking it. The monogrammed “Magdalyn Willis, Attorney at Law” might have cost her something, so he put it back. The beautiful gold script was all Maggie.

  Back in the room, he got down to business. Photographing the jewelry went much better with the white paper as a background. By the third piece, he admitted what he was doing. He was photographing evidence.

  Evidence of what, he didn't know. But the more he examined the jewelry, the more he realized Maggie was right. No one person would want this odd collection. And which of Sabbie’s boarders would want so much jewelry?

  Who would collect such odd pieces, and then hide them in a cigar box under the floorboards? Sebastian didn’t like any of the answers that came to mind.

  When he was done, he scooped the jewelry back into the box without touching a piece. Using only one fingertip, he flipped the lid closed.

  With nothing left to do, he needed to head home. As he snuck by the door Maggie had left ajar, he waited for a moment, watching her work. He thought about popping in and telling her he was leaving. But her serious expression and the words “my will” made him realize he shouldn't be listening. So he simply crept out the front door and pulled it closed tightly behind him.

  His thoughts rolled, turning back to the box.

  He’d known Sabbie. Hell, they all knew she had boarders in and out of the house for years. Some had stayed a long time and others had rotated through in a week or just a few days.

  The guys at the station had always worried—an older woman running a boarding house for men she often didn't know. Men often no one in town knew. But Sabbie had stayed safe and strong. She ran the house with an iron fist and a side of freshly baked cookies right up until the night she passed in her sleep.

  Heading home, Sebastian figured he should take a nap, which was his usual routine. Starting the next morning he had a twenty-four hour shift. He needed to be alert the entire time. But he found he struggled to fall asleep this time and, an hour later, he was online.

  He started by searching “boxes of jewelry.” Which was possibly the stupidest search he could have tried, unless he wanted to buy a new, elaborate jewelry box.

  The next thing he tried was finding a list of Sabbie’s boarders. There was no way Sabbie would have kept this jewelry, let alone stuffed the box into the floorboards in a room she was renting. It definitely belonged to one of the men who’d come through.

  So if he could figure out who they were, he might be able to figure out which one had left it.

  Three hours later, Sebastian had only three names, spanning the last fifteen years of renters. That was not nearly enough, he thought, given the number of people he knew had stayed at the boarding house.

  There had to be a better way, he thought. Then he realized the better way was simply to ask Maggie. Surely, Sabbie had kept records.

  And seeing Maggie again wouldn't hurt. He didn’t like that she thought someone had been in the house. Between the noises and his growing concerns about the jewelry, Sebastian was fighting that churning premonition in his gut. He decided he would keep a closer eye on Maggie. Rex wasn’t doing it and someone needed to

  Could he just subtly watch over her and still keep himself in the box that was ‘just her friend’? Sebastian wasn’t sure, but the alternative wasn’t an option anymore.

  Chapter Eight

  Maggie shot up out of bed, her bare feet hitting the rug before she even realized she was awake.

  Her blood rushed in her ears and her heart pounded.

  With a concerted effort, she forced her breathing to slow, hoping she could hear something besides her own fear. Her toes curled into the plush rug she’d laid out beside her bed so her feet didn't hit the cold wood every morning.

  She should have worn something other than a silly night shirt.

  Thump.

  There. She heard it again.

  Oh dear God, there was someone in the house. Surely that wasn't a sound the house made on its own.

  Without moving her feet, Maggie snaked her hand out and curled her fingers around the Louisville Slugger she’d set beside the bed. She'd found it in one of the rooms while cleaning last week. Had one of Abbie's tenants left it?

  There was no telling. Maggie had cleared drawers of the antique chests to find real silverware, old letters, and receipts from purchases made twenty years ago. There were instruction manuals for appliances no longer in the house.

  The baseball bat had been a boon.

  Now she was grateful as she held it in her grip, aiming it down the stairs in front of her almost as though it were a broadsword rather than a bat. She had no idea what she was doing with it.

  Slowly, so as not to make the floors creak, she stepped cautiously forward. What she wouldn’t give to have Sebastian here.

  Oh hell. Why was she thinking of him?

  Thump.

  Another knock came from downstairs and made her ribs squeeze and her fingers clench tighter.

  Whoever it was, was trying to be quiet. Or, she told herself, maybe it wasn't a silent human, but a noisy raccoon.

  It was entirely possible this was just some random wildlife that had snuck in. The property bordered on woods. Though the boarding house was relatively near the middle of town, Redemption had done a good job of staying green. Strips of lush trees, bushes, and woods buffeted many of the neighborhoods offering shade and walking trails.

  Right now, however, Maggie was wishing for the trees to be gone. How she would love to see clearly out the back of her yard and into her neighbors’, to make eye contact wi
th another person who should have been there.

  As the next noise made her jolt, she felt the anger flare. She'd had enough of this. Forgetting her bare feet and her unorthodox grip on the bat and her ridiculous nightshirt, Maggie bolted forward.

  She thumped down the stairs, making more than enough noise for anyone to hear her coming. Her goal was speed. In her sheer pissiness, she'd forgotten her safety and was ready to duke it out with whomever might have snuck in.

  Even as she hit the bottom step she heard another noise, this one toward the back of the house.

  She whirled around the stair post and chased the sound, ready to throw down in defense of the home that still didn't quite feel like her own. As she skidded to a halt at the back of the house, the cool night air wafted over her, the gentle breeze knocking her back.

  The back door stood wide open.

  Holy shit, she wasn't just imagining things. The noises weren’t just the creak of an old house, someone had actually been here.

  She looked around the hallway, bat still choked up and ready to swing. All the hallway doors stood open.

  She kept them closed normally, and if any were open, she closed them on her nightly lock up. Maggie didn't know why. It was just part of her regular routine, like checking the bolts on the windows. There were so many windows in this house.

  Now, she reached out and gingerly closed the back door with one hand. Her fingers shook as reality set in while she tried to work the bolt. Only as she felt the heavy lock slide home did she realize that she might have bolted something inside with her.

  Sucking in a breath at her own stupidity, she cautiously turned and headed toward the front of the house. She peeked into each of the bedrooms, looked into the living room and through the arch to the dining room. Maggie couldn’t see into the kitchen but she wasn’t willing to get too far from the front door. It could wait.

  She padded softly into the foyer. The porch lamp sent a soft glow through the frosted glass of the front door giving her some light to see by.

  Did a shadow move in it?

  Her rage sparked again. No one had any right invading her home. With one hand still on the bat, she rapidly undid the bolt and threw the door wide.

  Maggie stepped boldly and angrily onto the front porch and smacked right into a broad, hard chest.

  Chapter Nine

  He'd heard the noises inside and wondered what was happening, but Sebastian was not prepared for Maggie to barrel out the front door and right into him.

  He lifted his arms to hold her back but even as he started the movement, she wrapped both hands tighter around the bat she was holding and hauled it back.

  Yanking his own hands skyward, he jumped backwards—maybe a little too far back. The floorboard at the top of the steps gave a little with his weight and he thought he was going to tumble down the porch stairs.

  Thank God he was sure footed, because his sneaker slipped and he thumped down a step but he managed to remain upright. He did this while calling out, “It's me, Maggie. It's me. What's going on?”

  De-escalate the situation, his brain was thinking, even though it was also thinking that Maggie had been plastered to him just moments before. And that she was wearing only a pink nightshirt with a Tweety Bird on the front. Tweety did not match her glower. He pressed, “Maggie?”

  She held the tip of the bat out almost as though it were a sword or a gun, keeping him at the end. “Someone was just in my house.”

  Holy shit, that explained the wild look in her eyes. And here he was on her doorstep, looking awfully suspicious at three 3am. The press of her lips and narrowing of her eyes indicated she thought exactly the same thing. “Why are you here?”

  She’d jabbed the bat at him forcefully enough to make him dip backwards just a few inches to avoid getting a punch into the sternum, and damn if he didn’t find the fire attractive. “You're not going to like what I have to say, Maggie.”

  Her eyebrows shot up and she jabbed at him again. Luckily, this time he was too far away. “Don’t tell me what I will and won’t think.”

  She had a good point. “I will tell you why I’m here, but can we first check the place out? Make sure no one’s still here?”

  He watched as she thought through her options then lowered the bat. She looked up and down the street, probably checking for her prowler, before stepping backwards. “Okay.”

  Though she didn't exactly invite him in, she didn't slam the door in his face either, and Sebastian slowly walked into the foyer. “Let’s check each of the rooms.”

  He watched as her adrenaline turned to laughter. The bat now hanging loosely in one hand, the tip thumped into the hardwood floor. She waved her other hand loosely to indicate the house. “There are so many rooms, it’ll take an hour.”

  Though she was exaggerating, she was right. He’d heard the place had six bedrooms for renters. He’d seen for himself that there was a den, two formal living rooms, a dining room and her office. Sebastian was about to find out for himself. “Let's give it a shot.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they’d done a cursory sweep of every room. He tried to keep his brain on the task at hand and off her bare legs. He was trying not to notice the way her nightgown occasionally hitched up or that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath it …

  Pushing his brain back to the task at hand, he immediately thought of smoke and accelerants, but he'd seen all the corners and all the doors. Aside from the house itself, there were no fire hazards here. He’d seen the large upstairs bedroom with the attached bath that Maggie claimed as her own. The covers of the high antique bed had been thrown back haphazardly and he imagined the plush rug still held the footprints of her delicate bare feet.

  Sebastian tried not to think about it. Instead, he walked heavily toward the back door and asked her if the noise matched what she’d heard.

  “I think so. I mean, the back door was open and it sounded just like that.”

  “But you didn't see anyone?” He was just clarifying, but her eyes darted to the left and her jaw clenched tight as she said “no,” as though she didn't like admitting that it might be nothing.

  “It's not nothing,” he told her. But even as he tried to reassure her, she turned a glare his direction. She was still seemingly unaware that she was only in a thin night shirt and that Tweety Bird was grinning at him.

  “Why are you here at three in the morning Sebastian?”

  He’d known this was coming, and there was no really good answer but the truth. “I saw the lights flipping on all over the house … so I got out of my car and ran toward your door.”

  She only needed a sharp rise of one eyebrow to get him to confess the rest.

  “I was watching your house.” He sighed, “after what you said—” and what he’d found, but he didn’t say the last part out loud, not yet.

  Her look of sheer surprise didn't surprise him. Watching over her was probably the dumbest thing to do. Then again, she'd had a problem and he was glad he was here now.

  Her expression turned worried. “Why were you really watching my house at three a.m. Sebastian?”

  Okay, she wasn’t going to let it go.

  He wanted to remind her that her prowler had gone out the back door and he'd been knocking out front, but she would figure that out on her own fast, if she hadn’t already.

  “Because I didn't like what I saw,” it was a stupid answer, but he wasn’t quite ready to tell her what he’d found online.

  “About what?” she wasn’t going to let him sidestep.

  He admitted half of it. “When I left the other day, I saw footsteps around the side of your house. They followed the flower bed and they went into the back woods.” He pointed at the wall as if to indicate the yard outside. At the time it had seemed silly to think they were sinister. “I told myself they were yours. But last night I remembered that I've never seen you wear work boots.”

  Chapter Ten

  Maggie felt her blood start to rush again.

  She didn’t
need this—as if having a break-in tonight hadn't been enough. She wanted to yell at Sebastian, “Why didn't you tell me there were footsteps in my yard?”

  But it would just be rude, because honestly, she wouldn't have said anything either. Sebastian had thought they were her prints. And why would he think anything else?

  Taking a deep breath, she fought to calm her racing thoughts. Her first clear idea was that she should thank him. The connection between the footprints and that he hadn’t seen her in work boots was the only reason she knew the other sounds she’d been hearing were truly concerning and not just her wild imagination.

  The second clear thought was that her nightshirt hit mid thighs … maybe.

  She looked up to see he was staring at her oddly, as though he knew she was about to lose it.

  Was he staying? Was he going? He didn't look like he was done talking. Lord help her if he had other bad news. Well, she wouldn’t face it in this ridiculous nightshirt and no bra.

  “Do you mind if I go change?”

  He shook his head no, but then followed her up the stairs. For a moment Maggie wondered if he was going to stand in the doorway while she got dressed.

  But Sebastian Kane stood respectfully in the hallway with the door closed and waited without a peep. She knew this man well enough that thinking any different was about her and not him.

  Her breath whooshed out of her lungs and she realized she finally felt safe knowing he was just beyond the door. Still, she didn’t want to linger. She couldn’t leave him standing in the hallway for the rest of the night. Maggie quickly pulled jeans out of her closet and a comfy t-shirt out of her dresser drawer—well, Aunt Abbie’s dresser drawer.

  Though it was barely 3:30 in the morning, she was fully dressed for the day now. No hair, no makeup, but that's what a man got when he showed up on a woman's doorstep in the middle of the night.