Flirting with Disaster & Fanning the Flames Read online

  “He just wants in.”

  “Well, let him in.”

  Isabelle rolled her shoulders, trying to release the tension that had latched in like claws. “He won’t come in here. He doesn’t like this room.”

  “I’m not surprised!”

  “It’s the smell of the paint, not the carnage. You should see what he can do to a rabbit.”

  Bear hit the door harder this time, and Tom jumped even as he put the gun away. “Why is he banging on the glass if he won’t come in?”

  “Because he wants me to open the door so he can stare at me while I get exasperated. Haven’t you ever had a cat?”

  “I’ve missed out on that joy,” he said drily.

  “They have their benefits.”

  “Like?”

  She smiled. “He’s really warm on a cold night when I’m alone.”

  He slanted her a look as he ran a hand over a windowsill. “How often are you alone?”

  “Marshal Duncan, that’s a very forward question.”

  He sneaked another look over his shoulder. “That was a very forward kiss.”

  She couldn’t stop her grin. “I’m not attached to anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “That’s what I’m asking.”

  “Why?” she asked slyly. “Are you going to kiss me again?”

  He looked gratifyingly pained by the question. “I can’t. I need to get back to my assignment. Plus, we barely know each other.”

  She realized her laughter was a little impolite, but she couldn’t help it. “And we’re not going to get to know each other. You live on the other side of the state. But we can still kiss.”

  He finished checking the windows and turned to her, his mouth flat. “Come on. Cheyenne isn’t that far away. Tell me something about yourself.”

  “You know plenty about me already. It’s your turn. Do you have family?”

  “Yes. Mom and Dad, and a sister who has a family of her own.”

  “Are they all in Wyoming?”

  “Yes,” he answered as he led the way out of the room.

  “Do you get along with them?”

  “We get along fine,” he said, as if that meant anything at all. Before she could press, he asked her a question. “How did you end up here?”

  “I came through on a road trip, and I liked it.” Another truth. She was getting almost comfortable with it. “Why aren’t you married?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “I travel too much.”

  “Oh? So US Marshals don’t get married?”

  “Fine. I never met the right woman. I don’t want kids, so that complicates things, or so I’ve been told.” He didn’t look to see if she was following him toward her bedroom.

  “Now we’re getting interesting. Why don’t you want kids?”

  “Why don’t you? You’re, what...midthirties? Why aren’t you married?”

  Ha. She could answer that. “I’m thirty-six. And I’m too mean.”

  He stopped and turned toward her. “You’re not mean.”

  “Oh, really? Am I nice?”

  His head cocked, and he studied her for a moment. “You’re not nice, exactly.”

  She laughed so hard she had to press a hand to her stomach to try to control it. “I like your honesty,” she managed to say past her gasps. “You’re pretty cool.”

  “Now, that’s something I haven’t heard in a really long time.”

  “Then we’re even.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment before Tom shook his head. “Shit, I want to kiss you.”

  “Do it,” she dared him, her insides already tightening at the idea.

  But his gaze slid to her bed, and he shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “Afraid I’ll lure you into my bed and steal your virtue?”

  “If you can find my virtue, you can have it. And if that’s a euphemism, even better. But what I’m afraid of is having to leave in twenty minutes. Not very memorable. And...” He held up a hand as if reminding himself. “I really shouldn’t get involved when I’m in your house on official business. Now tell me why you’re not married.”

  “Tell me why you don’t want kids.”

  That shut him up, and Isabelle was free to watch him work for the next five minutes until he left with a warning about locking the door. And with no goodbye kiss.

  But that was okay. She could wait. He’d give in before long. And in the meantime, she could fantasize about exactly how it would happen.

  * * *

  DAMN. TOM WAS in deep trouble. He hadn’t meant to kiss her. It would’ve been a bad idea even without the extra complication that he was looking into her on the side. He had Veronica Chandler to protect, and he couldn’t mess around with Isabelle when he was on duty.

  More than that was the trouble of Isabelle herself. Tom had been thirty-one before he’d realized he couldn’t trust himself with women. Not because he had a roaming eye or a callous heart or a cruel streak, but because he didn’t. He’d been a sucker for the damsel in distress. The soft girl who couldn’t quite figure life out. He’d been smart enough not to fall for any hard cases, but that had only made it worse. When a girl was hot and helpless and nice, it was really hard to break things off when you finally realized you needed to.

  Isabelle wasn’t like that, of course. He’d finally aged out of those immature attractions. Isabelle was capable and tough and smart as hell. But she was still in some sort of trouble. He couldn’t add sex to the mix, especially when he could tell just how good it was going to be. He couldn’t do that when he was still checking into her past.

  “Damn it,” he growled as he drove carefully down her snow-packed driveway and eased onto the road.

  All he wanted to do was turn around, bang on her door and spend the next few hours in her bed. But he couldn’t.

  Despite his misgivings, he might not have had the willpower to make it out of there, but then she’d said she liked his honesty. When the only reason he’d asked her to stay close in her house was so he could probe her about her past.

  He should drop it, but he couldn’t. What if she was in danger? Worse yet, what if she was a criminal and he didn’t do his job because he would rather have sex with her?

  He shook his head. Dropping it wasn’t an option. He couldn’t ignore his gut at this point. The most he could do was keep his suspicions quiet until he found out the truth.

  You didn’t just ignore trouble. He’d learned that the hard way at a young age. Those were the kind of lessons you got when your older brother was a drug addict. When the choice came down to honesty or tricking someone into getting help, you dropped honesty every time.

  If Isabelle needed help, she’d never admit it. And if she’d done something wrong, he couldn’t ignore it.

  Simple enough, but he felt like biting someone’s head off by the time he got out of the car and stalked toward the judge’s house. He wanted to slam the door open and yell at everyone in sight, but it wasn’t his home, and his people hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Mary was waiting for him as soon as he hit the basement stairs. “Did you really approve this night out for Veronica?” she snapped.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Her tone suggested he’d lost his mind, and she was about to help him find it.

  “Veronica didn’t have to come here. We can’t keep her prisoner. And it’s not like she wants to go to the state fair. It’s a private residence within shouting distance of our base. It shouldn’t be difficult.”

  Mary was about to argue with him. He could see that as clearly as if she’d said it, but eventually she closed her mouth and nodded. “Okay. Fine. Who are you sending over?”

  “You.”

  “Me?” she screeched.

  “I’m going, too.”

  “What the hell, Tom? We’ve got twelve additional people here now, and this is a job for a first-year deputy.”

  He couldn’t tell her that the real reason was that he wanted to spy on Isabelle. He also could
n’t tell Mary that he wanted her to meet Jill. She’d dig in her heels and tell him to mind his own business. She was always telling him to mind his own business; he never did. “Those guys need all their attention on the courthouse. We know how to pace ourselves. You can sleep in the next day if you need to.”

  “I don’t need to sleep in!” she growled before stomping up the stairs. That was the end of the discussion. Good.

  They’d debriefed in the meeting room after court had adjourned, but that didn’t mean there weren’t twenty emails waiting for him. So far there’d been no activity at the judge’s place, and Stevenson hadn’t been spotted in Jackson or Boise or anywhere in between.

  Tom wrote an update for his chief, laying out his plan to feed only the smallest bits of information to the press so as not to inspire any of the defendant’s sympathizers. Then he sent an email to his team with a few more specifics about tomorrow’s detail, requested an expedited review of the letter from the consulting psychiatrist and was finally ready to turn in at eleven.

  But he had something else to look into.

  He’d considered taking a long-range photo of Isabelle and feeding it into a reverse image search, but if she’d kept a low profile for the past fourteen years, it probably wouldn’t pan out. No point stepping that far over the line into invading her privacy. He’d also considered that he could’ve lifted some small piece of garbage from her trash to get her fingerprints, but that felt even more wrong. He really wanted to leave a moral pathway open to sleeping with her.

  At this point, the best he could do without compromising his own convoluted sense of integrity was to do it the hard way. He knew she was thirty-six and that she was maybe from Cincinnati, but probably from Chicago if his ear was right, and it usually was. If there was news or an event or an arrest, it would be pre-2002. That was it, really. He cracked his knuckles and got to work.

  He searched missing persons in Cincinnati first, but considering that was the location she’d given, he didn’t trust it. When he found nothing related to Isabelle, he moved on to the Chicago area. There weren’t any missing women in her age group that looked like Isabelle there, either. Next up were the fugitive lists. It didn’t take long to get through the FBI list, but the local Chicago lists were extensive and broken down by district. An hour later, his eyes swimming from all the scrolling he’d done, he sat back in his chair with a sigh.

  She wasn’t a fugitive, as far as he could tell. Which meant, as a marshal, he should just drop it. But he’d never been very good at dropping things. And he had more than a professional interest now.

  If she wasn’t a wanted fugitive, then she was running from something else. She had a gun, a fake identity, a Chicago accent and no pictures of her family, who she’d implied were dead.

  Trying to ignore the clock screaming 12:15 at him, he searched for murders in the Chicago area for the five years previous to when Isabelle West’s name had appeared on the record. There were a lot of murders. He started filtering out the least likely scenarios, but by 1:00 a.m., he realized it was useless. There was too much crime in a place like Chicago, and he still couldn’t be sure he had the city right. Could be Milwaukee. Cleveland. Or any place in between.

  He needed to sleep. And he needed not to care. And he really needed to drop this.

  He fell asleep ten minutes later with theories about Isabelle West still spinning through his brain, but when he dreamed, it was all about that kiss.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT WAS TURNING out to be a truly glorious day.

  Isabelle had awoken to a warm band of sunlight snaking across her bed and turning January into pure heat. No matter how cold it was outside, the sun at this altitude was scorching, so she’d kicked off her covers and stretched out naked in the warmth, feeling like a self-satisfied cat.

  Self-satisfied, indeed, because thoughts of Tom had turned her slick and tight, and Isabelle had touched herself. Slowly. Lazily. Thinking of his subtle tongue and hard cock and the very good things she’d like from both of them.

  He was dangerous. Maybe not to anyone else, but definitely to her. He could destroy everything she’d worked hard to build. Yet something about him drew her in. Maybe that very thing. The danger. Or maybe just that even though she didn’t trust cops anymore, even though she wanted nothing to do with any of them... She’d spent her whole life around cops. She knew how they moved and spoke and thought.

  She loved the wariness in his eyes each time he entered a darkened room. The way his hand went to his gun when he was on alert. The way he studied her face when she spoke, trying to figure her out.

  That was the problem right there. That he looked at her and saw her. But just the thought of it turned her on, so she imagined that. Imagined him watching as she touched herself in lazy strokes. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t order her around and ask to be touched. He just watched, took her in, devoured her with his eyes. Then he reached down and unzipped his pants and tugged down his underwear, and Isabelle whispered, “Yes.”

  Yes, she’d said, fingering herself, stroking her clit, her other hand sliding up to pinch her nipple hard. Yes, she wanted him just like that. Standing above her. Watching her fingers slide deeper. Wanted him stroking his cock. That beautiful jaw of his would get so tense. His lush mouth would flatten. The sun would glint off his chest hair, and it would shine on the wetness of her pussy and—

  “God,” she choked out as everything inside her coiled tight. “God, yes.” She came saying his name and picturing him coming right along with her.

  Just that long, shuddering orgasm would have been enough to make the day special, but she’d followed it up with a spectacular day of painting, putting the final touches on one piece before starting on a clean canvas that was the very last work of the contract.

  And now...now she was in the mood to party.

  Jill, well aware that Isabelle’s domestic skills consisted of occasional grilled cheese construction and charring a perfect steak, arrived early with little puff pastries to be thrown in the oven. “Cheddar and jalapeño,” she said.

  “Jesus, can I eat one raw?”

  “No, but I made some guacamole, too. With more minced peppers, just the way you like.”

  “Give it,” Isabelle said, managing to growl out a quick thank-you before she stuffed a chip into her mouth. She groaned her approval as the creamy goodness melted over her tongue. Yes, this was the perfect, perfect day.

  “I’m going to paint another picture for you this spring,” she promised Jill. “Though I’d have to paint ten a year to repay you for all the food.”

  “If I didn’t make food for you, I’d make it for myself, and I’d gain twenty pounds every winter instead of five.”

  “Okay. Just get those puff pastries in the oven and we’ll call it even.”

  “All right, greedy. But first I’ll grab the pies out of the car.” She headed toward the front door, and Isabelle rushed after her, her skin actually flushing with excitement.

  “Pie? You brought pie? You really are the perfect woman.”

  Jill winked over her shoulder as she opened the front door. “I normally don’t hear that until after sex.”

  “Vixen,” Isabelle said before realizing there was a petite blonde stranger standing in the open doorway, her frown answering their laughter.

  “Oh, hello,” Jill said brightly, as if the woman wore a decidedly more friendly expression.

  The woman’s scowl deepened. “I’m Deputy Marshal Jones.”

  “Isabelle,” Jill said slyly, “you’re under arrest again.”

  “It figures.” Thank God Tom had warned her he was sending another deputy over or she’d be fighting off a panic attack. Isabelle craned her neck to see past the porch to the driveway beyond. “Is Tom coming?” she asked. “He said he was coming over to keep an eye on Veronica Chandler.”

  Jill gasped. “Tom’s coming? I’m going to spoil him like he’s the only boy at a girls’ night party.”

  Isabelle poked her shoulde
r. “You’re the worst lesbian ever, and a terrible feminist to boot. Focus on feeding us and forget about the boy. He wasn’t even invited.”

  Marshal Jones watched them with a wariness that suggested she wouldn’t be surprised if they both pulled out revolvers and started whooping their way down the porch steps, shooting pistols in the air.

  “I’m sorry, Marshal Jones,” Isabelle said. “But we are in the mood for a party. Did you want to come inside?”

  “No, I’m only here to take a quick look around the property before it’s full dark. Tom will be over soon with Ms. Chandler.” She stepped quickly off the porch and headed for the side of the house.

  Oh, shit. Tom, Marshal Jones had said with a little sneer in her voice. As if she didn’t approve. As if she had reason not to.

  He’d said something about his second-in-command coming by, which meant that he spent a lot of time with this woman. Time on the road, at restaurants, in hotel rooms. An occasional night of mutual stress relief would be totally normal, but those situations rarely played out with equal levels of feeling on both sides. This was going to be awkward. No wonder Tom hadn’t stayed for a quickie last night.

  “That woman needs some good food,” Jill said, climbing back up the steps with a pie in each hand.

  Isabelle quickly grabbed one and backed into the house. “I guess she’s tired after a full day at the courthouse. Crap, I didn’t even check the news. Is everything okay?”

  “It seemed quiet. Some motion was filed by the defense, and everything ended around 3:00 p.m. Aside from the lawyers and reporters blathering on for endless interviews, of course. They received another letter this weekend. Did you hear?”

  Isabelle frowned. “Maybe?” She couldn’t quite remember, but she did recall how tired Tom had looked the night before. She sifted through her constantly crowded brain, trying to tuck away all the useless bits of anatomical details and medical facts that were currently crowding the way. “Right. A threat against the judge’s family. I talked to Tom about it last night.”

  “Oh, you did? Now, that is something I hadn’t heard.”

  Isabelle shrugged. “He comes to see you, too.”

  “Yes, but I’m luring him with food. What are you luring him with?”