Trish Milburn - A Firefighter in the Family

He broke eye contact. “Listen, Oldham tried to buy me out. I said no. He was ticked. End of story.”

“Just how bad was this disagreement?”

There she was doing it again, acting as if he were a stranger, as if they hadn’t once worked side by side. As if they hadn’t once been more than co-workers. Still a Cooke through and through—despite everything that had happened.

Zac moved to the edge of the oak bar and leaned down so his voice didn’t carry. “Bad enough to think tossing the jackass in the Gulf might be amusing—yes. Bad enough to burn his eyesore to the ground—no. Now you know and can move on to the next person on your list.”

“You’re a bit belligerent for an innocent man, aren’t you?”

Yeah, he was belligerent. It felt like déjà vu all over again. “Anyone would be if unfounded accusations were being cast at him.”

She caught and held his gaze, and for a second he thought he glimpsed a sliver of the old Randi. He couldn’t help the yearning for what they’d once shared, what might have been, however ill-advised that might be.

“I’m not accusing you, Zac,” she said. “I’m just asking questions. Looking for the truth.”

Zac’s stomach knotted. The last time someone had questioned him about a fire and he’d told the truth, they’d rewarded him with handcuffs and a trip to jail.

He wouldn’t be falsely accused again.

Zac huffed and turned away as he shoved individual wine bottles into a glass-fronted cooler to chill.

“You don’t seem to like me very much anymore,” Randi said, trying to sound as if she didn’t care one way or the other.

“I’m busy. I have a business to run.”

“Yeah, about that—what’s with the whole bartender shtick?” Not that he didn’t look yummier than any cold, fruity drink he could serve up.

Randi leaned one arm against the edge of the bar and stared at Zac’s back, a very nice, muscled back from what she remembered, and his tanned forearms. When he glanced to the side, she eyed his profile. Short, dark hair. Strong jawline. Stubborn. Why, of all the people in Horizon Beach, had she crossed paths with Zac Parker? And why did the mere sight of him still make her pulse race as if it were trying to break free of her veins?

A blonde in a pink bikini with a flowered wrap around her hips wandered up to the bar and asked for two beers. Randi waited while Zac turned, pulled the bottles from the cooler and took the girl’s money. He didn’t ogle the eye candy, and Randi was annoyed by how much that pleased her. Which made no sense, considering the circumstances the last time they’d seen each other.

He looked up, his expression casual. “You’re still here?”

“Let’s leave past animosity in the past, shall we?” She was here in her professional capacity, and what they’d once meant to each other wasn’t relevant to the task at hand.

“Fine.” He bit out the word as if it was anything but fine. As if to contradict his tone, he placed a lemonade in front of her. He glanced up, caught her gaze for a moment before breaking eye contact. “I have a good memory.”

She didn’t let it show, but she was shocked he’d remembered.

Zac leaned against a metal cooler and crossed his arms.

Why was he so hostile? She was the one with that right, not him. “I have to investigate every angle. You know that.”

“Dig to my birth certificate if it makes you happy, but don’t jump to conclusions before you know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Those words sliced at her. She didn’t rush headlong into things anymore. She’d learned her painful lesson.

“Nice to see you’ve matured since I saw you last.” She couldn’t help it. The bitterness just tumbled out. Better to sound bitter than brokenhearted, though.

Four lobster-human hybrids stepped into the bar and eased their sunburned selves into the chairs surrounding a nearby table. A surfer type approached the opposite end of the long bar, and Zac moved away without another word or glance in her direction.

Fine. She knew where to find him.

She noticed his liquor license on the wall. Why on earth was he tending bar instead of fighting fires? Oldham would have her believe Zac had started setting them instead. But no matter how much he’d hurt her, she couldn’t picture him as an arsonist.

Zac’s deep voice drew her attention. He was even sexier than she remembered—and what she’d remembered had been plenty sexy. Alone in her mind, she could admit she was still attracted to him, even if she couldn’t forgive him.

ZAC WATCHED Randi Cooke retrace her steps toward the burned-out condos, her wake sucking him back almost three years.

“Dude, you’re about to pop a blood vessel.”

Zac redirected his gaze to find Adam had sauntered back to the bar and was tapping his temple. “I’m fine.”

“Then I’d hate to see a man on the verge of a stroke.”

Zac turned to throw some empty cartons in the trash so he wouldn’t bite off Adam’s head. His friend had been a beach staple for barely two years, hadn’t been there when all hell broke loose in Zac’s life.

Adam took a drink of his beer as he watched Randi disappear over the dunes. “What’s the story with the babe?”

“No story.”

“Right.”

“We went out a few times, that’s all.” He wasn’t willing to recount all the details, but he’d give Adam enough to get him off his case.

“So, how bad was your argument with Oldham?” Adam asked.

“If you’re going to play cop, you can just go back to the pier.”

Adam raised his hands. “Chill. I’m on your side.”

Zac braced his palms against the top of the cooler. “Sorry. She just raised my hackles.”

Adam nodded but looked like he suspected there was more behind Zac’s reaction. “Understandable. Having the ex interrogate you—not exactly what you expected when you got up this morning.”

Actually, when he’d arrived at work and seen the devastation next door, he’d imagined such an encounter. But he’d figured on one of Randi’s brothers doing the interrogation. He wasn’t sure that wouldn’t have been better. At least he didn’t have any guilt wrapped up in his feelings toward them.

“Anything you want to share in case your Nancy Drew shows up at the pier asking questions?”

Zac shook his head. “There’s nothing to know. Oldham wanted to buy me out, I said no, that was the end of it.”

Adam stared at him for a moment, as if maybe he didn’t believe him. Well, that was Adam’s problem, not his. He was damned tired of explaining himself, especially to people who were supposed to be his friends.

RANDI WALKED out of her hotel room’s bathroom toweling the excess water from her long hair. After a full day of sniffing rubble and accompanying her while she interviewed witnesses, Thor lay stretched out on one of the beds watching the Eukanuba Dog Show on Animal Planet.

“Checking out the babes, huh?”

Thor licked his chops as a female husky strutted her stuff.

“You’re so predictable. It’s always the blue-eyed girls.”

Randi slipped into white cargo pants and an orange tee, thankful to be out of smoky clothes. She propped her pillows behind her against the headboard and pulled out her case notebook.

She scanned through the list of names and didn’t scratch any off, not even eighty-year-old Penelope “Busybody” Jones. Randi couldn’t imagine the woman who looked like Barbara Bush’s twin doddering across Sea Oat Road with a can of gasoline and a box of matches in the middle of the night, but she’d seen stranger things happen.

She leaned back and thought about Zac’s reaction to her questioning. Red-flag city. Her eyes drifted closed as she pictured his tight facial expressions, his tense body language. His finely toned body. She swallowed.