Seeing Red Read online

  Summer nuzzled the soft fur. “So what’s an adorable thing like you doing with such a grump?”

  “She’s not a grump,” Joe said.

  Summer laughed. “And do you really think you’re so adorable?”

  He looked down at his coveralls. “Not at the moment.”

  But sitting next to her on the dirty floor, surrounded by chaos and soot and grime, his hair scruffy and untamed, his mouth curved in a slight grin, he was. Absolutely adorable. Reaching out, she ran her finger over his dimple. She wanted to run her finger over more of him. All of him.

  As if he could read her thoughts, he got to his feet. Kept his distance. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

  “Yeah.” She stood, feeling awkward. Unwanted. “I know I’m keeping you from your work.”

  “And my sleep, too, but since when has that bothered you?”

  Her heart hitched. “I’m keeping you from sleep?”

  “I thought that was your new mission in life.”

  “Oh, it is.” She backed up a step and forced a smile. “Along with driving you wild.”

  “Baby, that’s a given.” He put his hands on his hips. “You done making light of this?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Because it’s sure as hell easier than talking to me, right?”

  “Is that what you think? That I don’t want to talk to you?”

  “You tell me what I’m supposed to think. You come into town after years of silence, wanting to pick things up right where they were left. With benefits. Well, things change, Red. People change, damn it. I’m not that same idolizing, stupid, pathetic kid who would have rolled over like this puppy if you so much as smiled at me.”

  She stared at him, as disconcerted by his self-derisive tone as by the words. “I never knew that’s how you saw yourself. I never saw you that way.”

  “You never saw me at all.”

  She searched his fathomless gaze, her heart melting when the puppy in his arms stretched to lick his jaw and he leaned into it, nuzzling the puppy’s face beneath his neck.

  Summer wanted to be right there. She wanted to nuzzle that spot. Jealous of a puppy.

  “You said being friends works for you,” he said. “But you still won’t open up to me about anything that matters—” He froze a moment, then scrubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus. I can’t believe I just said that.” Turning from her, he stared off into space. His broad shoulders were filthy and looked like he carried the weight of the world on them. She put her hands there, gently squeezed, woman enough to love the feel of the hard strength of him.

  “Would you like to know why I usually get dumped by women?” he asked.

  “Um, they’re farsighted?”

  A low, harsh laugh escaped him. “Because I don’t open up. I don’t share myself.”

  The implications of that, mixed with what he wanted from her, sank in. “Oh.”

  “Yeah, how’s that for irony? I’m standing here hounding you for the very thing I’ve never given. I’m sorry for that.” He shook his head and still didn’t look at her. “Look, I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Joe—”

  “And like I said, non-fire personnel aren’t allowed in here. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go.”

  Right.

  She had to go.

  Story of her life. Her own fault, she’d written it herself.

  Chapter 15

  Joe named the puppy Ashes for her rather disgusting love of rubbing her nose in soot. A friend of Kenny’s was indeed an arson-dog trainer who agreed to begin working with Joe and the puppy. Given that Ashes fell asleep in the middle of their first session, Joe didn’t expect any miracles.

  The next day, San Diego was hit by a hot, violent summer storm. Joe and Kenny set out in it to talk to the people involved with the Creative Interiors case again, going to Ally’s Treasures first. As they ran from the truck, getting drenched in the process, the unhappy Ashes began to howl from her perch behind the wheel.

  “She could wake the dead,” Kenny yelled over a boom of thunder.

  “I need a dog sitter!” Joe yelled back, eyeing the pathetic puppy face plastered to the window, woefully watching them run away. “Or someone to just shoot me.”

  “I’ll shoot you later,” Kenny promised, and pulled him inside Ally’s Treasures.

  Ally was a tall, lean, haughty beanpole, with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue, who clearly did not like dripping wet fire marshals. “I’m busy,” she said when they identified themselves.

  “This will only take a minute,” Kenny promised, and smiled his charm-the-witness smile.

  Immune, Ally frowned. “Make it quick.”

  “How do you feel about Creative Interiors?” Joe asked.

  She lifted a shoulder. “They have the better building and street visibility, but since I do a better business, I don’t lose sleep over it.”

  “How do you know?” Kenny asked, looking at a shelf of seashells filled with sand, all marked with shockingly astronomical prices.

  “How do I know what?” Her tone was holier-than-thou, her nose so high in the air she was in jeopardy of a nosebleed.

  “That you do a better business,” Kenny said patiently.

  “Because I snoop, if you want the truth. I go into their stores and check out their stock and what their customers are buying. There’s no law against that. Camille does it to me right back.”

  “Camille spies on you?” Kenny asked.

  “Of course she does. She sends one of the twins, the one who smokes, to buy a Cosmo off my magazine rack, then she presumably goes back and tells them everything. If I were Camille I’d be more concerned about how much more work she does than her spacey sister, or that seriously creepy bookkeeper she just hired, or even that wild and crazy roam-the-planet daughter of hers, but whatever. To each her own.”

  Joe bit his tongue with effort. “One of the twins smokes?”

  “Yes. Don’t know which one.”

  “Have you ever been to their warehouse?” Joe asked.

  “The one that burned?” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “Have you?”

  Her cool veneer slipped a moment. “I don’t like where this is going.”

  “Yes or no.”

  “No.”

  “What about the new store site?” Kenny asked. “Creative Interiors II. Were you there at all?”

  She paled and shook her head.

  “Are you sure?” Joe asked.

  “Once,” she admitted. “At the opening party. They had quick-serve hors d’oeuvres set out. Please.”

  “What about the next day?” Joe asked. “Were you there at all on opening day?”

  Some of the snide light and superiority drained out of her eyes. “I drove by,” she said quietly, finally taking them seriously. “Right at ten o’clock. Just to see how many people they had, that’s all. I never went in.”

  “Where were you between the hours of six and ten that night?”

  She straightened her shoulders and looked him right in the eye, all attitude gone. “I was here. I closed at six and spent the next few hours working on my books. I was alone. I have no one who can verify that, but I can tell you right now, you’ll find no evidence of my doing Creative Interiors any harm. I don’t need to, they do enough harm to themselves.”

  Next up on the interview list was Braden. Joe and Kenny crossed the street from Ally’s Treasures to Creative Interiors, getting drenched all over again. Halfway across, Ashes saw them from the truck and resumed her howling.

  Kenny laughed, and because of it, Joe made him go back and get the damn puppy.

  Kenny ran and opened the truck, scooping the puppy against his shirt. “She’s shedding.”

  “Bummer for you.” Joe no longer bothered to swipe the rain out of his eyes. It was six o’clock, closing time, and as they came up to the door of Creative Interiors, Braden walked out.

  “You’re looking for me,” he said, and opened his umbrella, tucking himself a