****
Well, that certainly hadn't been what he was expecting when he got home, he thought as he pushed himself off the floor and picked up the overturned chair. He lit the stove, used the pump handle at the sink to fill a coffeepot, and put the water on to boil.
She had come through that door like some sort of . . . of Valkyrie or avenging angel, he thought. And she had been as beautiful as one of those legendary creatures, with her hair tousled from sleep and her smooth shoulders and long brown legs flashing as the bedcovers swirled around them. He had never before seen anyone quite so strikingly lovely.
He was just lucky she hadn't clouted him with that poker, he told himself. She had been ready to do battle on his behalf, to defend his home, and any intruder unlucky enough to find himself there would have been facing a female fury.
As if he needed more evidence, Cole thought, this morning had provided even more proof that he had never before met anyone like Annabel Lowell.
He went to the back porch, took off his long coat, and hung it on a hook. Then his uniform jacket and helmet went up beside it. He unbuttoned his shirt collar and his sleeves, rolling them up a couple of turns. Everything smelled strongly of smoke.
He thought about the fire at the warehouse and frowned.
Rarely did a fireman get called out to a blaze in one of his own businesses, he mused. The fire the night before had been at a dockside warehouse owned by Brady Enterprises. Luckily, it had been empty; one cargo had left on a ship the day before, and the next wasn't due until tomorrow. So while the building itself had been gutted, a bad enough loss, it would have been much worse had it been full of goods. Cole's insurance would have covered that, as it did the loss of the building, but losing a cargo would have been a severe blow to his pride, as well as to his clients' confidence in Brady Enterprises.
Was it merely coincidence that he had turned down Wing Ko, leader of the biggest tong in Chinatown, when approached only a few days earlier about a business "arrangement"? Cole didn't want to believe that Wing Ko set the fire. The tongs might use murder and arson as weapons among themselves in their wars, but such tactics were seldom if ever applied in their dealings with legitimate businesses.
Then again, perhaps Wing Ko was getting more daring.
"Cole . . . ?"
He turned to see Annabel hurrying into the kitchen. She had put on the walking dress she'd worn after leaving Miss Mellisande's the day before, only without the hat this time. Her hair was still loose, and Cole liked it that way, rich brown waves that tumbled around her shoulders and on down her back.
"Cole, I'm sorry," she said quickly. "You must think I've completely lost my mind."
"Not at all," he assured her.
"But the way I came bursting in here, yelling, and waving that poker around—"
He held up both hands, palms out. "It's all right, Annabel, I understand. You were still sleeping, and you heard strange noises down here. Of course you'd come to see what was going on."
"Actually, I had just woken up," she said with a smile, "but it was taking me a while to remember where I was."
"You must have slept well, then."
"Yes, very well, thank you, but—"
"Coffee?"
She sighed. "That sounds wonderful." As he turned toward the stove, she moved deftly past him. "Why don't you let me make it. You should sit down and rest. You must have had a hard night."
"How can you tell?" he asked with a chuckle.
"Oh, the smoke, the soot, the way you groaned when you took your boots off. I've been there."
"Yes, that's right," he said as he sat down at the table. "You're a lady fireman."
She paused as she was reaching for a bag of coffee on the counter next to the stove and shot a sharp glance at him. "I really am a firefighter, you know."
"That's what you said."
"It's the truth."
He nodded arid decided not to press her on the issue. She was obviously sensitive about it. And for all he knew, she was telling the truth. Back where she came from—wherever that was—maybe women really did work as firemen. Cole supposed it was possible. He had caught enough glimpses of her body while she was wrapped up in those bedcovers to know that she was rather athletic.
Those glimpses had also been enough to start his heart pounding a little faster and to expose an emptiness inside him.
Or maybe that was just hunger. After all, he'd worked hard all night, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd slept. He wanted to eat something, take a bath, then fall into bed for a few hours.
"Why don't I fix you an omelette," Annabel suggested. "Do you have any eggs?"
"In the icebox," Cole said. "Which reminds me, the iceman will be around later today. I need to buy a new block."