Page 89 of Playing With Fire

Her heart began to race. Jodi stood up. The uneasiness at the back of her mind hardened into suspicion.

She composed her message with trembling hands.

Meet me at the retirement village. And bring Silas and Jaime.

The sun chose that moment to drop below the tree line.

***

Ricky drove with the exaggerated care of a man who knows that time is running out. A man who ought to be doing his duty and standing next to his boss before a major press conference got underway. A man taking a risk on a woman’s hunch—and her heart.

Jodi was waiting in the parking lot, leaning against the Miata, when he pulled in. Her hair whipped around her face as the breeze picked up. Her coat was patchy with damp and grit.

A stray twig had lodged in her scarf and her pants were streaked with mud. The tip of her nose was red with cold and her lips were chapped and dry.

Ricky thought that Jodi had never looked more beautiful.

She strode toward him, eyes flashing.

“Are they coming? Silas and Jaime?”

He nodded, shoving his gloved hands deep into his pockets. The temperature had dropped again. By tomorrow, the muddy drifts and snowy slush would be frozen into hard icy puddles, slippery as heck.

Jodi’s expression was strained and she couldn’t quite manage a smile. She would know that persuading Hattie and then Silas to bring the unhappy toddler out into the cold on a wild goose chase had been a big ask. And that Ricky was putting his job on the line by being here instead of at Chief Browning’s media conference.

“The Chief...ah...didn’t take my advice to reschedule the press conference.”

She nodded. Their eyes met. With or without his New York City firefighter hero at his side, Leroy Browning was about to throw a national spotlight on the missing foster kids. Boys who were a danger to society and to themselves.

After that, there would be no going back to the cheerful chaos of the Beecham family for the twins. No more foster homes.

Ricky rubbed his chilled hands together. His leather gloves were all but useless in this climate. His eyes drifted across the familiar landscape of Temple Mountain. Lights twinkled in the growing gloom.

No going back, he reminded himself. He was done chasing dreams.

He glanced at his phone. Nearly five. Right about now, the Chief would be checking that his uniform was pristine and that his hat was at the correct angle, while Sally Lett would be taking him through the final version of the media release.

Jodi’s face glowed with intensity in the fading light.

“Thanks for doing this, Ricky.”

She took a breath and then the words tumbled out, as though she had been keeping them inside for too long. “Forgive me for asking this, but...I know why I’m dragging myself around this town looking for a couple of runaways, even though everyone says they’re long gone.” She shrugged her shoulder. “I know these kids. I know their foster parents. But why are you doing this, Ricky Sharp? Isn’t there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere you should be rescuing?”

Her gentle words struck him to the core. Browning had asked the same question, only not so politely.

“I care,” Ricky said roughly. Her eyes were fixed on him, waiting. “I care about that family, of course I do. They’re good people.”

She nodded, still waiting.

“And those boys are lost.” He forced himself to keep going. “Their foster parents—and let’s call it how it is—their mom and dad who love the very bones of them—don’t know where they are. They can’t protect their children. Do you know what that feels like, Jodi?”

His throat was raw, his breath ragged. “I have to find them.”

Like a shadow, Jodi glided towards Ricky and he wrapped his arms around her like it was the most natural thing in the world. She was the port in his storm.

He felt the next words forming in his mouth. About Chrissie and Lioba and how he couldn’t look after his own child, but by God, he was going to look after Josh and Judah.

A horn sounded. Jodi and Ricky leaped apart like guilty teenagers.

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