Page 4 of Burning For You

He’d rather battle this any day than a house fire.

“True.”

“Who called this in? The owner of the car?”

The facts would come out at some point, but since he was here and close to Tate, might as well chat.

“Not the owner. Not sure whose car it is yet. Pretty beat up on top of it. A neighbor said it’s been sitting there for a few days.”

“And no one called it in as odd?”

Tate looked around the area. “Not the best neighborhood. They probably wanted to mind their own business.”

His eyes scanned the rundown apartments with sheets and blankets in the windows, the rusted cars parked out front on the lawn and in the road.

“Most likely.”

“Tate!”

Ash turned his head, his jaw dropping, his smile going wide.

“Skye,” Tate said. “What are you doing here?”

Tate reached for his sister, Skye Murphy. No. Skye Lancaster now.

When her parents had died in a house fire their sophomore year of high school, the Lancasters took her in like they had other foster kids.

But they adopted Skye as one of their own. Like they had four other kids.

The girl who once held his teenage heart had grown up during her years away, first at college, then working.

Now Tate was lifting Skye’s petite body and giving her a hug, her feet off the ground before Tate released her.

Ash wanted to do the same.

She wouldn’t let him, he was positive.

No matter how much he wanted to get close to her, before her parents passed and after, she’d pushed him away.

It was hard when he’d been in the Lancaster house so much as a kid, and her brothers were often on his family’s farm.

He didn’t take it to heart though. He couldn’t.

“I’m writing a story,” Skye said. She had her phone up to her brother’s face. “Who called it in? What can you tell me about this? Is it like the other car fire last week?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Tate said. “I can’t give you anything just yet and you know it.”

“Be a good sport,” she said, shoving at her brother’s arm. Then she turned to Ash. “What can you add⁠—”

“Hi, Skye,” he said, the smirk filling his face.

The surprise in her blue eyes was clear as day.

His ego could stand the hit that she hadn’t recognized him right away.

“Ash? Is that you?”

“It is,” he said, his fingers itching to reach out and touch her. Hold her. Anything.