Page 6 of Wild Fires

“I don't need this shit. I've been benched. I'm just taking the rest of the day off.”

I turned to stomp out in a dramatic exit that I rarely allowed myself while at the station. It wasn't always easy being the only female on the team.

“Gracie,” Chief barked.

I sighed.

“What?” I yelled back.

“Get your ass in here. I have a job for you.”

It wasn't like Clarence to change his mind, but maybe he was coming to his senses and realized I hadn't really put myself or anyone else in danger.

“Yes, sir?” I asked, peeking my head into his office, feeling suddenly optimistic.

“Need you to drive to the site of last night's fire and finalize the field report. Ryan's going with you. Perhaps he will offer a fresh perspective. You may want to take him to the other sites as well. We've agreed to look at them as one issue for now.”

“Arsonist?” I asked. That was the first I'd heard about it.

“Possibly. Five fires in five days, Gracie. I don't believe in coincidences. So with that in mind, take another look at all the sites. What do they have in common? What story are they telling?”

“You want me to do paperwork for you? We have a team for this kind of shit.”

“I'm aware, but if I'm right, we need to get ahead of this thing and fast, so I'm doubling up our resources.”

“Then give me Andrew or Dan, anyone. Ryan doesn't know jack shit about fires. No offense.”

“None taken.”

Ryan Davenport had been two years ahead of me in school and the most popular guy in our school. I'd had the biggest crush on him. Hell, there wasn't a girl in school that didn't have a crush on him at one point or another.

We weren't kids anymore though, and he’d grown up into a respectable citizen of the Congress. The mayor even. Like what the hell?

Mayors are supposed to be old stodgy men or sophisticated righteous women. Not him. He was like a god around Ravenden, part of the elite and wealthy Davenport Flock, with a body that looked like it was carved out of marble and should be put on display.

I didn't understand how a man who worked as much as Ryan could manage to find time to work out, but he had to. No one looked like that without regular time in the gym. And with all of his suits custom tailored to accentuate ever ripple of muscle, it was sometimes hard to concentrate in his presence. Hell he looked good. He knew it too. A man couldn't be that hot and not know it.

Fire couldn't hurt me. Some days I couldn’t decide if it was a gift or a curse. And other days it was both. But messing around with a man like Ryan would surely burn me. I may be considered reckless at times, but I wasn't stupid.

Still, it was hard to ignore the way my body reacted in his presence. It was almost like I was on the verge of touching a live wire.

Davenport witches had power and the ability to control electricity, so maybe there was something scientifical to it. Because there had to be a reason that I got goosebumps and felt like I was warming from the inside out every time I was near him.

A rush of heat pooled between my legs.

Holy hell, what was he doing to me? Sure, I hadn't had sex in a long time, longer than I wanted to admit, but with my job it just wasn't that simple. I had a firm policy of not screwing around at the station. I'd worked my ass off to prove myself in a male dominated career and no lay was good enough to destroy that.

But Ryan? Yeah, I wanted to, but I could never allow it to happen. He might not be in the fire department, but he had enough pull and connections that it would look bad.

I pushed all thoughts of the serious man in the suit, who looked so out of place amongst us common folk, and shoved him into the “do not engage" box. For my own sanity I just prayed he stayed there.

“Gracie?” he said in a deep voice that reverberated through my chest and down—nope!

“Huh?”

Real elegant, Gracie Lou Freebush.

Could I just crawl under a rock now?

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