This was why he didn’t want her involved in the case. God knows he’d said that to her often enough.
Guilt ripped at his calm. He knew this was his fault. In spite of what he’d said, what he’d done told a very different story.
He’d wanted to be with her. Wanted to touch her. Wanted to dive into her silken heat. Pump long and hard into her, offering pleasure even as he took it from her. He still wanted her. Just thinking about it was enough to make him curse his own weakness. But he also wanted to talk to her. She challenged him, didn’t sit in awe or expect him to have all the answers. They’d operated from the first as if they knew each other by heart. Shortcuts. Shorthand. They didn’t play games. It was easy and exhilarating with Carly. She made him feel … so many things he’d thought he’d lost.
He wanted her. Wanted to be with her. Wanting to know that she was in the world and happy. But now her life was in jeopardy. His fault. His to correct.
“Selfish prick!”
“Huh?”
Noah ignored Mark’s questioning look. He would never expose Carly’s confidence, her generosity to him, by ever telling a soul about them. Mark, Durvan, and the rest might speculate from here to doomsday but they’d never get a word out of him.
Something raw and ugly whip-snaked through Noah. If that asshole Cody had hurt Carly—
Finally, police intervention in the form of traffic control rerouted most of the commuters to other streets and they were allowed through to the blocked-off area after showing their FWFD credentials.
Two engines plus a grass wagon and water tank were on-site. Fire had burned halfway across a field between two new housing projects. Fires like this were often easy to contain and put out by an attack “from the black,” that is, approaching it from the rear over already-burned ground. That way, there was nothing to catch fire behind the crew that might box them in. But a brisk March wind was frustrating efforts to contain the blaze this morning. Burned patches of grasses, flame links pushed by the wind, could be seen farther afield than where the main fire spread on a rolling lip of yellow flames. Blackened ground was still smoking heavily, sending up a gray veil that obscured the neighborhood in the direct path of the flames.
Once out of Mark’s truck, Noah pulled out his fire gear. The set he kept in his truck had been impounded with the truck. Luckily the department provided two sets for its members, so that one would always be clean and ready to use.
A stiff breeze dragged at his gear as he stomped into his boots, and pulled up his pants and suspenders in one move. His bunker jacket was bulky and hot, so he stashed it under his arm to carry if and until it was required. His gloves were stashed in a pocket. He dumped his helmet on his head and grabbed Harley’s leash.
Durvan and Mark were dressed likewise as the three men crossed over to the fireman in charge. The acrid sting of smoke and ash swirled around them as the fire sucked up more and more oxygen for fuel.
“Damn wind. But we’re getting it knocked down.” The Edgecliff Village fire captain came up to share his progress when he recognized Durvan. He offered his hand. “Fire chief sent for you guys to go in to search for cause?”
“No, this is an unofficial visit.” Durvan’s look was stern all the same. “Looking for one of your men. J.W. Cody. Need to speak with him.”
“He’s here somewhere.” The fire captain looked around, scanning the line of men working the margins of the grass fire. Dressed in bunker suits, helmets, and other gear, it was nearly impossible to tell one man from another. “There.” He pointed at the far end of the blaze. “Working the edge by the road in the reflector vest.”
“You hold on to Harley.” Noah tossed his leash to Mark.
“Whoa!” the fire captain called as Noah headed in Cody’s direction. “We’ve got an uncontrolled burn on-going. I can’t have unauthorized men in the field.”
Durvan stepped in between them and pointed. “Looks like you’ve got maybe a hundred yards before the edge of the blaze meets that far fence line. This wind will eat up that distance in no time. You got the first row of houses behind that fence on alert to be evacuated?”
“We’re on it.” The fire captain began shouting orders into his radio, giving Noah the chance to make his way toward Cody.
Noah walked right up to Cody, who was using a backpack foam sprayer, and grabbed him by the arm to swing him around.
“Where’s Carly?”
Cody spun around with a look of surprise. “What the—? Glover? What the hell are you doing here?”
“Not the right answer.” Noah hit him like a freight train, knocking both men to the ground.