Chapter One

 

Nah! It canna be! Ash Callahan stood with his mouth open, staring in shock at the wicked orange light castoff from his burning, dying woodworking shop. He might not have built it from the ground up, but he might as well have. His heart and soul and every last one of his dreams was in there, but now…

Blimey. They’re all gone.

Grimy puddles filled with soot and cinders shimmered along the gutter and sidewalk in the morning sun. Fire hoses stretched like overfed pythons from the hydrant on the street to the rear of the warehouse. Others wound about and between the rubber boots of at least two-dozen firemen, not that they’d be working a miracle today. Like Ash, they’d arrived too late to save the pallets of expensive hardwoods he’d stored, some from far off places like India and Indonesia. Africa.

His heart stuttered in his chest. How could this happen? To me? Now, when I’m finally turning a coin?

He faced the gathering crowd, feeling as naked as a newborn babe, his gaze raking their faces to detect the faintest glimmer of a smile of the bastard who’d set the fire. This was no accident. He knew it to his soul. Someone was out there gloating at what he’d done. Getting off on another’s misfortune and despair.

The fire chief on site had already called his men to stand down. There was no need for first responder heroics, and no one to save, not today. The fire department’s presence was just precautionary, to let Ash’s future burn and to keep gawkers from getting too close for a selfie, the bloody fools.

The raging fire beast trapped inside what was left of the groaning skeleton that had been home and family, of sorts, to the wanderer Ash once was, still crackled and roared to be let free. Hungry still, it seemed to want his very soul.

Just last night, he’d stayed ’til well past midnight in that shop, working his fingerprints smooth on his latest masterpiece. The chairs, rockers, and benches he crafted by hand were nothing but a means to an end. The practical side of his enterprise provided the coinage so the dreams trapped in his heart could live and breathe and…

No more. He’d lost it all. Every chair and lathe. Every press and glue gun. Gone.

A simple Irish carpenter, he’d come to America. Straight from the old sod, his strong, deft fingers had been blessed with the gift of woodcarving. His latest project, a nautical figurehead of her highness, the fearsome Irish pirate queen, Grace O’Malley, had been crafted with tender loving care for some wealthy bloke’s home on Cape Cod. Only Ash had fashioned the voluptuous breasts and curvy body of that work of art, the plush hips, and, yes, the beautiful face after—her. The woman he pined for every minute of every day. Most nights, too. He had a magical, almost mystical connection when it came to wood. So apparently, did the fire.

What a fool I am. Nothing to show for myself again, but for the shirt on my back.

This—this!—was supposed to have been his second chance, the one where he made good, where he built a decent business that could sustain a loving wife and family. All gone. Every last chair and customer order. Oak or cedar, pine or mahogany, it didn’t matter. He lifted his fist to his teeth. Holy Mother of God, I’m flat broke again. What’ll I do now? Ye mind telling me?

Smoke stung his eyes, searing them enough that tears fell. He took a step out of the reach of that fire beast and swiped the back of his hand across his face, lost when he should’ve been found. Kicked to the curb like a lousy cur by the brutal universe when he should have been saved.

“Blimey hell,” he growled at the smoke darkened heavens. “What’s a man got to do in this world to make you happy, eh?” He would’ve cursed all of his Catholic saints, but his mother had boxed his ears too many times in the past for him to let loose with such heinous sacrilege now. But Mum! My most prized pieces are in that burning rubble. My Irish pirate queen, for the gods’ sakes!

Surely she’d understand, God bless her. Even as he allowed the thought, he crossed himself with a quick Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. She might’ve offered a Hail Mary if she’d been alive to see this flaming disaster, but no. Sweet Annie Callahan would never know her youngest son had amounted to something besides drinking and women. She’d been gone for years, gone the way of all his lost saints. Back to heaven with all that damned smoke.

For two quid, he’d storm the barricades and challenge that fire god for admission to his building—my feckin’ building not yours!—but there was no sense in it. The time for a good Donnybrook was gone, and he couldn’t win a match with the Devil anyway.

Ash flexed his fingers, holding his angst at bay as the grim-eyed fire chief rounded the nearest thoroughly charred corner of what once was a dream come true. Waving the smoke away, he said, “A few questions if you don’t mind.”

The chief, Kevin Hayden, a good bloke and a solid friend, hailed from the same county in Ireland as Ash. Mayo. His brogue thickened under stress, as any Irishman worth his salt should.

“Aye. As you can bloody well see, I’ve got nowhere to go, do I? What is it you want to know now?” He couldn’t make his eyes move from the writhing beast that seemed to delight in destroying his future. One mighty roof joist growled back at him, then another as they fell, tossing another raft of sparks and the blackest smoke skyward.

“You wouldn’t by chance have left a can of petro on your loading dock, would you?”

That earned a mean stare. Was the man daft? “I keep no flammables on my property, Kev. Nah with the kinds of exotic woods I store—” Bite that tongue. “—stored. I’m a simple carpenter, man, nah a flamin’ grease monkey.”

Kevin took the hit without a blink of his gunmetal gray eyes. “Then I hate to tell you, but we’re looking at arson for sure. ‘Tis the Beantown stalker, I’d bet Saint Paddy’s last sixpence on it. He’s torched three warehouses on the docks this month; yours makes four. We’ve got to be nailing his sorry arse soon.”

“’Twould be good if you’d done your job a might quicker,” Ash bit out. Instead of later, though a fat lot of good it does me now.

Instantly sorry for lashing out at his friend, Ash scratched his fingers over his shorn head, madder than hell at the feeling of utter impotence in his gut. But ye gods! Life had shit on him one too many times in his thirty-one years. By now, all his friends had wives and children, good homes and better jobs. They’d amounted to something while he hadn’t. Their máthairs and das were proud of them, but bad boy Ash, the know-it-all who’d left his country behind? He had nothing but a handful of sweat, cinders, and lost chances to show for his time on Earth, be it in Ireland or America. He didn’t even have his mum and da, nor her, the feisty woman who still had hold of his bollocks as well as the cockles of his bloody heart. This run of bad luck had all begun the day the high-and-mighty Colby Quaid left town.

Damn the wee lass.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One in the chamber. Two for the show. Three to get ready and…

Time to go.

Colby Quaid stood at the front door of her buddy’s hacienda, itching to leave. Her time in Sunnyvale, Texas, was done; her debt repaid. She’d already packed her gear and loaded her pistols and extra magazines. Her trusty blade, the shiny surprise she liked to save until negotiations failed, snuggled her ankle in its hidden holster. It was the one thing she never left home without.

Unbeknownst to her when she’d left Cambodia behind only a week earlier, she’d had a mission in this dusty state: Saving ex-Navy SEAL, Smoke Montoya’s life. He and his woman were home from the hospital now, their harrowing adventure over. His horses grazed peaceably in the corral, while the guy who’d nearly killed Smoke and Jessie was behind bars, hopefully awaiting a death sentence for what he’d done to the Montoyas.

For the first time in years, maybe his life, Smoke was safe.

Colby loved this big, brash state for its standing on the death penalty alone, but it wasn’t her home, nor would it be. She’d had the urge to saddle up for a couple days now, but hadn’t, not until she knew for sure her buddy didn’t need an Army ranger on his six any more. Not that he ever did. Smoke was born capable of fighting his own battles.

He didn’t need anyone but Jessie West. How did Colby know? It didn’t take a genius to figure out what all that moaning and groaning coming from his bedroom this morning meant. They might’ve been moving furniture, but they weren’t redecorating. For longer than he’d been willing to admit, Smoke’s wagon had been hitched to a rising star named Jessie West.

Colby laid an open palm to the closed door behind her and said her goodbye in the only way she knew. “Ride easy, Smoke. Sleep hard and sleep tight.”

Stirring up puffs of dust with her new shitkickers, she strode to her latest bad boy, her Harley. She donned her leathers: chaps and jacket. Zipping up tight, she tucked her blonde hair under her helmet and straddled her bike. With a sigh for the friends she was leaving behind, Colby revved the hell out of her ride in a final salute to one of the few men on the planet she respected. Smoke would go down in history for his acts of courage. Not her. She’d just done her job.

Booting the kickstand, she didn’t look back as she throttled up and roared off to the West Coast. She had one stop to make in Dallas. It was important she thank the men at Fire Station 58. They’d reached out to a recalcitrant SEAL who was used to doing everything the hard way. In a way, those fire and rescue guys welcomed Smoke home.

After that, Colby Quaid, one of the Army’s first women Rangers and the sole heir to the mighty Quaid dynasty of Beacon Hill, was taking the long way home.