“No. It’s perfect. Thank you.” She pinched the straw between her index finger and thumb and took another pull. Ah, sweet relief. “I just don’t remember telling you what I get at the soda shop.”
“You didn’t.” Taking the seat Danny had vacated, Murray didn’t explain, but her best friend had been right. He was a man of few words. He merely watched her until she’d drank every drop.
She kept the cup as a distraction. Something to look at to keep herself from staring at him. It really was unfair how put together and handsome he was right now. Despite almost dying, she waspositive she resembled drain hair compared to him. “How are your hands?”
“Medium well.” The humor failed to reach his eyes. He turned his palms up toward the ceiling, glancing between them. “Second-degree burns. Nothing that won’t heal in a few weeks as long as there’s no infection.”
“I’m sorry.” Those two words felt heavier than anything else she’d said since coming around. She couldn’t imagine what he’d gone through in trying to escape that fire, but if he walked away with solely his hands injured, she’d thank whatever god had watched over him. “I should’ve predicted the traps he set. Arsonists will do whatever it takes to escape, even hurt civilians if they have to.”
Oh, no. That family the arsonist had threatened—
“Look at me, Aslen.” The intensity in his expression held her hostage, but he didn’t need it. A mere glimpse from him in her direction had always set her nervous system into overdrive. “You have nothing to apologize for. Do you understand me? This wasn’t your fault. I’m not disappointed in you or whatever emotion you’ve concocted in your head. You were a victim just as much as anyone caught in those fires.”
Didn’t he understand? He’d spent the past twenty years trying to protect her, and she’d failed him. Wasted his time. His life. But worse, she didn’t know what to do with the hole in her chest knowing he’d been hurt. Because of her. “You could’ve died out there.”
Murray leaned forward in his seat, his blistering gaze reigniting that tightness behind her sternum. “So could have you. But we didn’t. We fought back. We survived. Together.”
Because he’d saved her. Somehow, he’d known she’d been taken and pulled her from that reservoir. Her wrists and ankles burned then, the scratches from the swollen ropes she hadn’tbeen able to escape shooting into awareness through the pain meds. She’d come so close to losing her life. Losing everything.
“Wait.” His words registered slower than she’d expected. “What do you mean I’m as much a victim as anyone caught in those fires? Did someone else get hurt?”
“Danny and the rest of your unit got the explosion from the RV and the wildfire under control within a couple of hours.” Sorrow etched across his features. So quick she might’ve missed or imagined it. “But we found another body.”
Chapter Eighteen
He’d meant to give her more time.
To ease her back into the investigation when she was ready, but once again, time hadn’t chosen their side. With two victims in the Springdale morgue and an arsonist still on the loose with little to no leads since Murray had pulled Aslen out of the reservoir, he had to move fast. He’d had her physician check her over twice before Murray let her sign the discharge papers, wanting her to stay hidden under layers of added security and watchful eyes within the hospital walls. Away from him and this manhunt. But the arsonist had targeted her, would come back for her. And Murray wasn’t going to make it as easy as the first time.
Holding the door for her, Murray surveyed her two-bedroom rambler as she passed in front of him. Her movements weren’t necessarily slow but hesitant. As though she expected her abductor to jump out from the hallway and take her all over again. The house hadn’t changed any since he’d last been here that morning after the fire, but her entire world had, for a second time in her life. The nightmares would be the worst part. The feeling of helplessness he’d spent years helping her navigate when they got to be too much after losing her parents. He’d almost convinced himself she’d overcome them in the past few years, but after what happened in those woods, on that boat, in that reservoir—it would be like starting over. “Danny is stayingwith a couple other rangers in your unit. She thought you might want some space.”
Aslen didn’t answer. Hadn’t spoken a damn word since they’d left the hospital. Studying her living room, she seemed to accept the bogeyman hadn’t been squatting in her house these past few days and shuffled to the kitchen. Dejected. Almost…detached. She pried the refrigerator door open and bent to inspect its contents. The scrubs she’d been offered from the hospital were far too big for her, gracing him with a glance straight down the front of the V-shaped neckline.
Murray swung his duffel bag onto the nearest section of her worn couch that sure as hell wouldn’t fit him, even if he curled up into a fetal position. But he wasn’t leaving her to go through all this alone. He wasn’t going to give the arsonist another crack at taking her from him, and he certainly wasn’t going to ogle her as she tried to come to terms with her kidnapping and near drowning.
What the hell? He wasn’t going to ogle her at all. Murray forced himself to breathe through his nose as he closed the front door behind them and twisted the dead bolt. Next time he stopped by the hardware store, he’d upgrade the locks on her doors. The windows, too. Maybe get her an alarm system and a few cameras. Who was he kidding? No amount of security would satisfy that part of him that’d wanted to save her from pain since he’d been sixteen. “I’ll take the couch. Keep watch. You just get some rest.”
“I don’t want to rest, and I don’t want to be coddled.” Throwing the refrigerator door closed, she pressed her lower back into the opposite countertop and bit into what looked like a piece of cherry pie straight from the store-bought tin. She closed her eyes a split second before a moan escaped, and hell, that sound would stay with him through the night if not into the next month whenever he had a quiet minute to himself.
No. This wasn’t happening. He wasn’t attracted to Aslen. He would not let the events of the past three days change anything because the closer he allowed people, the greater chance he had of losing them. And he couldn’t lose anyone else. He wouldn’t survive it, which meant keeping his damn hands—and his damn thoughts—to himself.
Though he couldn’t deny that small part of him that had always wondered what it would be like between them. How she’d grace him with that wide smile in the mornings from the other side of his bed. The way she fit against him perfectly on the couch during movie nights, like a puzzle piece he’d been missing his entire life. The places they would travel, the nights he’d replicate that moan she’d just given up for a piece of cherry pie. How he’d help her battle every nightmare, every night if that was what she required to feel safe again. He would do it all. For her.
“Murray.” Aslen had lost the metallic tin of pie. Staring at him in expectation.
He tried to recover, to recall something—anything—she’d said in the past few minutes while he’d been fantasizing about a future he’d never have. How long had she been trying to get his attention? Murray cleared his throat, shaking himself back into the moment. “Sorry. What did you say?”
“I said I want to know where you are in the investigation and what you know about the man who abducted me.” Those green eyes assessed him straight down to his soul. No. Deeper. To his very being. Concern, anxiety, a little bit of bravery—it all combined in her expression and raised the hairs on the back of his neck.
“The medical examiner doesn’t have a lot to go off of with DNA, fingerprints or dental records for the victim you recovered in the shed. Basically, all we have is what you’d surmised on the scene. Older woman, possibly in her fifties or sixties, but the ME was able to identify the object in the victim’s hand. A photo.Seems her body protected it from completely becoming ash.” Rounding fully into her living room, he sank onto the couch. Yeah. There was no way in hell he was going to be able to sleep on this ratty thing. Not with the threat to Aslen’s life and not with her scent clinging to the fabric. “The heat of the fire did a lot of damage to the image, but we’re working with Springdale PD to bring in a forensic photographer. They might be able to tell us who the subjects are.”
“It must’ve been important to her. To hold on to it even in her final moments.” Her voice had lowered to whisper softly, grazing his senses in more of a caress than he cared to admit. Hand pressed against her neck, Aslen moved into the living room and took a seat on the opposite couch. As far from him as she could get without making a point. Still shaken from the abduction. Still trying to come to terms with letting anyone close. Including him. “And the second victim?”
His heart strained at the thought, that she could ever think he would hurt her. That he wouldn’t give his own life in order to protect her, but trauma didn’t have to make sense, and he wouldn’t push her. “Your team found him in the RV.”
“Him?” The breath seemed to suck straight out of her, and it took every ounce of Murray’s training to not think about those moments he’d had her on the boat, willing her to breathe with every cell in his body. He shut it down—that raw helplessness—and focused on the fact she was sitting here. Alive. Alive. Alive. She was alive, and that was good enough for him. “The second victim was male?”
“The medical examiner puts him in the same age range as our female vic.” Murray had been going through every avenue while she’d lain unconscious in the hospital hooked up to all those tubes and IVs. Late nights, early mornings, scouring the evidence, revisiting both scenes, calling in every favor he might have to find that boat—none of it had done a damn bit of good.No one had reported the boat missing from the dock, but owners were still trickling in after the evacuation order had been lifted. “Considering the arsonist is responsible for both deaths—”
