He’d never considered introducing Andy to a woman he was seeing. He didn’t even talk about his son with the women he dated. This thing with Carly was—he didn’t know. What he did know for certain, being with her felt good, selfish bastard that he was.
But he had to have ground rules around her. When she touched him, all his critical thinking disappeared into his pants. And he needed to concentrate, on protecting himself and his very precious cargo.
After fifteen minutes of silent musing, Carly straightened up and looked around, surprised to find they were deep on the southwest side of town. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere we’re not likely to be recognized. But first, I’ve got to eat something. You hungry?”
Harley, who’d been dozing in the backseat, sat up and barked several times. Clearly he understood “eat” and “hungry.”
“Guess that’s a yes.” Noah swerved to cross three lanes of highway traffic to take an exit ramp at the last instant.
Carly reached for the dashboard to halt her sudden sway and turned big eyes on him. “You cut that close.”
“Yeah, well, Harley only saw the golden arches when it was almost too late.”
Ten drive-thru minutes later, they were back on I-20 West in a truck cab smelling of burgers and French fries, an order of chicken nuggets, three cherry turnovers, and one child’s cheese sandwich.
Biting into the golden warmth of toasted bread and cheese, Carly watched him exit I-20 West onto 377 South. Then she saw a mileage sign. “Granbury?”
“Maybe.” He glanced at her. “You good with that?”
“As long as the food lasts, I’m good.” Carly reached over and grabbed two fries from his bag.
He gave her body a quick sweep. “I thought models had to watch their weight.”
She snorted. “Ex-model. I eat like a horse.”
He drove on, devouring two burgers in under two minutes. The food helped settle him. He’d skipped breakfast. The one expensive roasted turkey leg he’d bought at the auto show had been eaten mostly by Harley. He grabbed for his cup and took a swallow of the scalding brew without a flinch. Mainlining coffee for that jolt of wakefulness was something every first responder was familiar with.
He glanced over at his suspiciously quiet partner. Carly was feeding him pieces of chicken nuggets, and bouncing her head in time to the music on the radio. She looked ridiculously cute in that knit cap, and happy. Too bad. Time to get real.
He reached over and turned off the radio.
She glanced over at him in surprise.
“You wanted to talk. So talk.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Carly fed Harley the last of the nuggets. “All gone, boy. Sorry.”
She wiped her hands on a napkin and then looked at Noah. “I want to help you solve this case.”
He shook his head. “Absolutely not. I’m a professional investigator. I work alone.”
“And you’re doing a superior job.”
He slanted her a dark look from beneath lowered brows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you even have a statement from me, the only eyewitness?”
He hunched a shoulder. “You wouldn’t talk to me.”
“That’s right. The professional arson investigator couldn’t even wheedle the truth out of a sympathetic witness. At this rate you’ll have the case solved in no time.”
“Not helpful, Carly.”
“No.” She said the word softly as she reached for another French fry. She swirled it through the ketchup and held it out as a peace offering. “Sorry.”
He gave her a sharp-eyed look before he grabbed the fry with his teeth.
She watched him chew before asking, “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know the events of the night of the fire. Every detail you recall. Nothing’s too small.”
Carly gave her version of the events in sequence, even the phone calls from her aunt, and her inclination not to investigate the barking dog even after she noticed the door was ajar.
Noah listened in silence, stopping her only for clarification. “You’re sure the fire hadn’t started when you entered?”
She pulled the knit cap off and tossed her head, bringing the cascade of blonde curls to life. “I’m not brave enough to have gone in after a fire started. I was trying to free Harley when I heard a sound like the pilot on a hot water heater come on. And then there were little flames along the baseboard. I was in total denial for a moment.”
He glanced at her. “What changed your mind?”
“Fire.” She said the word softly. “There was a real fuckin’ fire.”
He nodded. “Why didn’t you just get the hell out and call for help?”
She looked at him with a puzzled expression. “I tried. But there was Harley, and you. I had to help.”
Noah recalled the jelly belly feeling he’d felt the first time he went into a burning house to save a civilian. And he’d been fully prepared in turnout gear.
He glanced at her. She, too, was staring straight ahead, remembering things best forgotten. Time to change the subject.