The Fire Still Burns Read online

  “Nellie, you don't want to do this,” Brynn calmly talked the small, thin woman down. She didn't approach her and, for that, Adam was thankful.

  He glanced around the restaurant, quickly assessing the situation. All of the diners and the restaurant staff had fled, leaving only them and Dalia, who sat at her table clutching her purse in front of her chest like a shield while mascara mixed with tears streamed down her cheeks. Her eyes beseeched them, begged them to get her out of there alive.

  Nellie stood an equal distance between Dalia and them, her hazel eyes wide and crazed as they darted between them and Dalia, looking out of place against her perfectly made up face and brunette hair.

  For Pete's sake, the woman taught Sunday school. What was she doing with her husband's shotgun in her hands?

  “Oh, but I do want to do this.” Nellie’s voice held an eerie calmness to it that sent chills down Adam's spine.

  “No, Nellie, you don't,” Brynn continued. “Think about it. You hired me to get evidence of infidelity. You were going to use that when you filed for divorce. That's the best way to handle this, not shooting the woman your husband is messing around with.”

  “She deserves it.” Her voice elevated as she cast pleading eyes on Brynn. “I've done so much, put up with so much…”

  “You're better than both of them,” Brynn said vehemently, inching closer, sending Adam's heartbeat skyrocketing.

  He wanted to step in and do something, but, with the gun pointed at them, he was forced to remain stock-still with his hands in the air. Nellie seemed to be crying out for someone to understand her heartbreak and Brynn was doing a good job of it. If only she’d quit inching closer.

  “You took vows and honored them,” Brynn continued, genuine conviction laced through her words. “You are so much better than both of them, but if you shoot her now what will that matter? You'll be a killer. You're no killer, Nellie. Don't do something like this over a man.”

  The sound of sirens rent the air. Nellie turned her head toward the direction of the approaching police, and Brynn leaped toward her. The scene played in slow motion. Nellie swung back around toward Brynn. Adam saw the fear in the betrayed woman's eyes, the desperation.

  He saw her finger press the trigger.

  Adam lunged forward and knocked Brynn to the left. She landed under him on the floor in front of Nellie. The gun shook in Nellie’s hands but it was still pointed at them. She was saying something, but he couldn’t hear over Dalia’s screams and the sound of his own blood rushing through his ears.

  He ignored the sharp pain in his side as he kicked out with his leg, catching Nellie in the shins. She fell to the floor like a rag doll, the gun fired as it fell from her hands, and the stray bullet hit the wall behind his head. He reached out and slid the gun a safe distance from Nellie before looking down at the woman beneath him.

  “Brynn?” His voice came out as a croak, the pain in his chest far worse than the burning sensation in his side. She was too pale. “Are you hit?”

  “No,” she groaned, “but I'd feel a lot better if you weren't suffocating me.”

  With a chuckle and a hefty dose of relief, he rolled off of her as a dozen of Black Bear Gorge's finest ran around them, placing Nellie in handcuffs and helping a hysterical Dalia Smith out of the restaurant. The latter was screaming about the former being a deranged psycho.

  “I guess you're not getting your money shot,” Adam said as he rested flat on his back.

  “Yeah, I guess she didn't really need my help figuring out what Bruce was doing,” Brynn responded as she rose to a sitting position, rubbing her head.

  “I think proving infidelity is the least of her problems n—” She glanced down at him, her eyes widening. “You've been shot!”

  “I noticed.”

  “Help!” Brynn called out to the men around them, “he's been shot!”

  Adam glanced down to his side, confirming what he'd thought. “The bullet just winged me. Nothing a bandage won't fix.”

  Brynn stared down at him, her eyes growing dark and narrow. “You macho bastard,” she spat, hitting him in the chest. “You could be dead.”

  “Ow! What the hell, Brynn?”

  “You idiot. What's the matter with you, jumping in front of—”

  “I was just following your dumb-ass lead,” Adam shot back as Willie Cooper, one of the town's paramedics, dropped to his knees at his side, inspecting the wound. “If I recall correctly, I think I just saved you from a wound a whole lot nastier, maybe even a killing wound.”

  “You were just winged,” Willie said, extracting antiseptic and bandages from his kit. “I'll patch you right up.”

  “Thanks, Coop,” Adam said through tightly gritted teeth as the antiseptic was introduced to his injured flesh.

  “See, I told you…” His voice trailed off as he took in the sight of tears falling down Brynn's cheeks. “Brynn?”

  “You could have died protecting me,” she whispered, one hand on her chest as though it hurt.

  Adam reached out to her, wiping a tear away with his thumb. “It's all right, baby, I'm not gonna die on you anytime soon.”

  Her breath hitched in her throat, her hand flew to her mouth, and Adam realized too late the paramedic had caught the exchange. He looked toward Coop to find the man staring at him as though he'd grown a second head.

  Willie must have realized he was caught gaping, because he shook his own head, seeming to shake himself out of his shock and closed his kit. “You're good, buddy. You should follow up with Doc Seaver later though just to make sure. You don't want to risk infection. Are you okay, ma’am?”

  Brynn nodded toward Willie. “I’m fine.”

  “Good. You guys got lucky.”

  “Stupid jerk,” Brynn said after the paramedic left them.

  “Ungrateful wench.”

  “Jackass.”

  “Brat. Help me up, would ya?”

  Brynn helped him to his feet, offering to help support his weight. The thought of her little body holding his up brought out a chuckle despite pain searing his side.

  “It's a scratch, Brynn. I can hold myself upright just fine.” He noticed the redness spreading across the side of her forehead and whispered a curse, raising his hand to touch it. “I guess I rammed you into the floor pretty hard.”

  “Biting the floor beats biting a bullet.”

  “Does it hurt?” he slid his hand down the side of her face to her neck, checking for injuries.

  He stared into her eyes, then, lowered his gaze to her full lips. The sound of a throat being cleared rudely at his side drew him back.

  “I've got some questions for you two.” Sheriff Clarkson looked disapprovingly between them.

  “I've got a question for you,” Brynn responded. “What the hell happened to this peaceful little town after I left?”

  Clarkson made a growling sound in his throat, dismissing the question. “I heard Mrs. Barton walked in with a gun and you two adrenaline junkies ran in after her. I take it both of you ate your bowls of stupid flakes this morning.”

  “She was going to shoot Dalia Smith,” Adam said.

  “You know this for sure?”

  “She hired me to find out if her husband was cheating on her,” Brynn answered. “I was here tonight to get a picture of him in the act. She said she wanted pictures for when she divorced him, to get more alimony. While I was waiting for him to arrive, she walked in with a shotgun announcing to the whole restaurant she was here for Dalia.”

  “So, Brynn was working a non-arson related case. What were you doing here?” Sheriff Clarkson asked, staring Adam in the eye.

  “I was with Brynn.” He noticed the curious look in the sheriff's eyes, mixed with a hint of disapproval, but he didn't care.

  He'd come too close to watching a bullet sink through Brynn to give a damn about what the town thought about them at the moment. He'd almost lost her all over again. The realization caused his hands to tremble.

  “Are you all right?” Br
ynn asked, grasping one of his hands in her own, her arm snaking around his back in case he needed support. “Are you going into shock?”

  Something like that, he thought to himself but answered, “I'm fine.”

  The sheriff looked at where their hands intertwined, letting out a sigh. “Well, with Dalia's cooperation, we'll get everything resolved. I sent a car over to the Barton's residence to check on Bruce.”

  “Do you think Nellie killed him?” Brynn asked, her face paling.

  “Dalia says he was supposed to have met her here but never showed,” the sheriff said by way of answering.

  “But I really don't think Nellie Barton, a sweet church-going Sunday school teacher could kill a person, Brynn.” He looked at the blood stain showing through Adam's T-shirt. “This accident could have been avoided.”

  “And Dalia could have died,” Adam advised. “I saw it in her eyes, sheriff. Nellie was desperate, full of vengeance. She wanted someone to pay. Maybe she wouldn't have killed her, but trust me, she would have put that woman in a world of hurt either way.”

  “And she did shoot at me,” Brynn added.

  Sheriff Clarkson nodded. “Ya'll get on out of here and catch that arsonist. Don’t play dodge-the-bullet again while you're doing it, okay?”

  Brynn and Adam nodded and left the restaurant. “I'll drive,” Brynn offered, an amused twinkle in her eye that turned Adam's insides all warm and fuzzy.

  “You're thinking I'd never let anyone drive my truck, even if I was suffering from a head wound, aren't you?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, then, you'd be right.”

  She chuckled as she opened the passenger side door and slid inside. Adam slid into the driver's seat, putting the key in the ignition, but he didn't turn it. He sat back and watched as the police huddled in and around the restaurant, which was now a crime scene.

  “What are you thinking?”

  He thought of the entries he'd read in Rachel Wood's diary and pictured the crazed look in Nellie Barton's eyes. The fear, the desperation. “You think a woman scorned could be pushed to do something truly awful?”

  “Like set a man on fire?” Brynn seemed to follow his train of thought.

  “Zeke wanted Rachel to get an abortion, or in her own words, kill their child. He didn't want her child, an extension of herself.” He pursed his lips, thinking hard. “In this town we're taught abortion is a great sin, and anyone who even considers having one—”

  “Should be punished,” Brynn finished for him.

  “Exactly. I don't think Rachel's missing. I think she's hiding.”

  “Waiting to strike again?”

  “Yes, but if she already killed Zeke…” Adam rubbed his forehead, wishing he kept aspirin in the truck. “Why set more fires? What is she saying?”

  Chapter Ten

  Adam turned off the headlights before pulling his truck into the driveway, hoping his mother was fast asleep. His head was in enough of a whirl without having to listen to her.

  He'd risked taking a bullet for the woman who'd left him for his best friend¾his best friend who'd later committed suicide due to his guilt. Guilt over what? What he and Brynn had done? Something else he'd done after leaving Black Bear Gorge?

  Thousands of questions flooded Adam's tired mind. Why would Cal not get along with his own son? What could he have done so bad that made him take his own life?

  He thought back to the man he'd once loved like a brother, the man he would have sworn would have his back no matter what, who, instead, ended up stabbing him in it. It just didn't make any sense. None of it made sense.

  Brynn had been as crazy about him as he was about her, he was sure of it, even now when he looked in her eyes. He sucked in a breath remembering the way she'd looked at him when he dropped her off at her mother's home.

  They had sat in silence, looking at each other, and it had taken every bit of self control he possessed not to kiss her senseless after seeing the way her gaze drifted down to his mouth, almost like she was silently asking for him to do it.

  The tears she had shed while Cooper patched him up were proof enough that she cared for him. She'd looked so devastated, he'd seen in her eyes she would have never forgiven herself if major damage had been done to him. If she cared so much, why did she ever leave him to begin with? And why would she consider Bruce Barton to be a cheating jackass if she herself had cheated on him?

  His head ached from the strain of analyzing the data he had. There was something he just wasn't getting, some major piece of the puzzle he kept overlooking. Cal and Brynn, his best friend and future wife would have never done anything to hurt him…but they had. Why? What caused them to do it?

  “Dammit!” Anger coursed through his blood. Was his mother right? Was he just being a fool? He still loved her, even after what happened he still wanted Brynn with every fiber in his being.

  He'd never want another woman like he wanted her, and he knew it for a fact because he'd slept with nearly every available woman in Black Bear Gorge during the years she'd been gone in a pathetic attempt to get over her. He’d even gone so low as to sleep with Brynn's high school arch enemy.

  It hadn't worked, and he still felt the shame of his actions all these years later. He could have sex with every woman in America and it wouldn't come close to what he got from making love to the woman who held his very heart in her hands.

  “So what am I going to do about it?” Adam talked out loud to himself. “Beg her to come back to me?”

  Ignore the speculation they'd receive from everyone in town? Help her raise another man's son, a child who would undoubtedly remind him of the worst moment in his life?

  It's not the kid's fault, he reminded himself, mulling it over. Could he do it? Could he be a big enough man to raise the boy with unconditional love?

  “What a mess.” Adam swung open the door and stepped out of the truck.

  He entered the house through the kitchen, going straight to the refrigerator and pulling out a carton of orange juice, wishing there was something stronger to drink. His mother didn't allow alcohol—the devil's nectar, she called it—in the house so the juice would have to do. He grabbed a glass from the cabinet and started to pour himself a drink while painful memories played through his mind.

  He'd never forget the end of his relationship with Brynn, how things had seemed to shift in a minute, Brynn closing off from him without warning. They'd always had a perfect relationship filled with love and trust until the night of the costume party.

  Everything had been normal until Cal had told him about Zeke getting into a fight. He'd rushed to break it up, only it wasn't Zeke fighting. It was two members of his football team. Being the captain, he felt the responsibility to pull them apart and resolve the matter without blood and fists being involved.

  It took a while, and when he returned to where he had left Brynn, she was gone. He was on his way upstairs to the second floor when she came bounding down, tear stains marred her creamy peach complexion.

  “What's wrong?” he went into protective mode.

  She'd looked at him, her eyes wide and frightened, red-rimmed from tears. “I don't feel good,” she'd finally said when he was about to repeat the question. “I want to go home.”

  “All right. You probably drank more alcohol than you can handle,” he'd responded, reaching out to touch her face.

  She'd jerked away as though he were about to slap her, and quickly left the house to wait in his truck, sitting as far away from him as possible once he joined her. He didn't get a goodnight kiss that night. He hadn't even gotten a goodbye.

  Things had only gotten stranger after that night. She avoided his calls, skipped the last week of school and barely spoke to him at the graduation ceremony, leaving as soon as the event ended.

  After another week of unreturned phone calls and claims of being ill when he stopped by her parents' house, Zeke had been the one to tell him why she was acting so strangely.

  “I don't know how to tell you t
his, but she's messing around behind your back,” his older brother had said. “I caught her in a lip-lock with Cal Wylie at the costume party. I should have told you then, but I didn't have the heart to, baby bro.”

  Adam hadn't believed it, couldn't believe it. His girlfriend and his best friend? He'd told Zeke he was crazy, a jealous liar. They'd gotten into an awful argument which ended with Zeke telling him if he wanted to stay blind to what everyone else in town could see—that Brynn was trash—then fine.

  Afterward, Adam couldn't get the awful lie out of his head, especially since the timeframe fit so well, and it had been Cal who'd told him Zeke was in a fight, setting up the perfect diversion. Still…it just couldn't be, no matter how odd Brynn acted. She wouldn't do that to him. But he still had to ask.

  He went to her house, telling her mother he wasn't leaving until he spoke to Brynn. He'd paced the front porch for hours before Brynn finally came out, looking guiltier than a crook. She still wore her pajamas though it was mid-afternoon and her hair was in wild disarray. “You look like you haven't gotten out of bed in days.”

  “I haven't.”

  “What's going on, Brynn?”

  “I don't want to talk now, Adam. Please just leave me alone.” She couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “Are you cheating on me?” Adam had blurted, unable to postpone the inevitable question any longer. Suspicion was eating him alive.

  Her eyes widened as her mouth formed a big “O” of surprise, but she didn't answer. She only whimpered as her gaze fell to the porch.

  “Answer me. My brother says he caught you with Cal at the costume party. He says you were kissing him. Is it true?”

  She looked up at him, her bottom lip trembling as she seemed to search for an answer. The fact she was taking so long told Adam enough, but he had to hear it to truly believe it.

  “Is it true?” he bellowed, not caring if her mother heard him inside the house and called Brynn's father at work. He needed an answer.

  “Yes,” she finally said as tears ran freely down her cheeks. She heaved in a breath and looked to her left, avoiding his gaze while she drove the final nail in his coffin.