Chapter One
Laney
Laney smoothed down her auburn curls and walked into Station 58, Dallas Fire and Rescue.
It was a hot day for Texas in early October, but Laney guessed nothing was on fire because when she entered the station, nobody was running around and all eyes were instantly on her.
“Hi,” she said. “Is Lucas Moore on duty today?”
Three firefighters were stretched out on benches, their bodies slack with heat. Their shirtsleeves were rolled up and their big palms cupped water bottles or sodas.
The blond man closest to her blinked once, twice. “You’re sure you’re here for Lucas?” he finally asked.
“Yes.” She paused. “He works here, right?”
“Yeah, he works here,” another man said, his feet propped up on the bench. He shouted deeper into the station. “Hey, Lucas! Someone’s here to see you.” He squinted at her. “You his cousin or something?”
“No.” Laney shook her head. Maybe smoke inhalation had gone to these guys’ heads, because of all the visits she’d had with survivors of the 1997 Cattleman’s Crossing Inn Fire, this was one of the weirder welcomes. And that was saying something, because one of the survivors had not only claimed to have seen an apparition that night, but the ghost of her dead iguana, too.
“Lucas doesn’t get many visitors,” the first man said, “of the female persuasion.”
Laney said, “It’s a—a personal matter. Don’t worry, it won’t take long.”
Before she could rephrase that, one of the men guffawed, and another, the big one with his feet up, bit back a grin. Laney was about to tell them where to stick their fire hoses when a dark-haired man walked up from the back.
“Hey,” he said. “Do I…”
Laney had never met Lucas before, so she hadn’t known what to expect. He wasn’t the sort of handsome that sparkled in a suit, nor the red-carpet level of charismatic that would make most women unable to form complete sentences. Instead Lucas Moore, dressed in a plain gray t-shirt and pants, had a quiet kind of attractiveness: a strong build, dark eyes, and a kind face. It might not have made most women swoon, but already Laney sensed that if she were stuck in burning building, Lucas’s eyes were the ones she’d rather see before any celebrity’s or tycoon’s.
“Hello,” she said softly. Then, remembering herself, she walked toward him, thrust out her hand, and raised her voice. “I’m Laney Stonewater.”
He put out his own hand, confusion knitting his brows together. “Hello, Laney Stonewater.”
As they shook hands, something sparked between them. It wasn’t the kind of fire Lucas and his buddies put out, but something made Laney’s skin feel tingly and warm nonetheless. She removed her hand from his strong grip.
After an awkward turn of silence, Laney remembered there was a point to this. “I’m here with a few questions. And a strange request.”
“Okay.”
“Do you remember the Cattleman’s Crossing Inn?”
Lucas’s gaze—which only moments before had been interested, almost dancing—darkened. “Not often.”
“I’d love to talk to you about your experience there as a child,” Laney continued.
He glanced back at his fellow firefighters, who were ogling them both, and gestured with his head. “Outside.”
She reluctantly followed the man out the door, to where the sweltering heat made the horizon of the city hazy.
Lucas turned to her and crossed his arms. “Talk,” he said—but he seemed like he wanted to do anything but.
“I’m writing an article about the Cattleman’s Crossing Fire,” she said. “In particular, I’m connecting with people who’ve claimed to have experienced something unusual that night.”
He shifted his weight. “You some kind of ghost hunter?”
Laney laughed. “God, no.” To cover up that bit of honesty that’d shined through, she wiped the smirk off her face and continued. “How much do you remember about that night?”
“Not much,” he said. “And there’s a lot less that I’m willing to share.”
Far from the interest he’d shown when they first met, Lucas’s expression was now shuttered, his body defensive. Unlike Adele and the other people she’d interviewed from that night, he was unwilling to share what he’d experienced when the fire had ravaged Cattleman’s Crossing from the inside out—an inferno that some thought utterly unnatural, and one that claimed the life of a man that night. Or so it seemed.
Laney softened her voice and stepped closer to him, trying to get the firefighter to open up. “Of course, you were only a kid,” she said. “It must’ve been a pretty scary experience. I understand if it’s hard to talk about.”
Of all the supposedly haunted places there in Texas, Cattleman’s Crossing was one of the most famous. Of course, what happened at the inn was probably just some bizarre fire caused by faulty wiring, but the strangeness of the story would get clicks on the article she was writing, for sure. Laney needed clicks, not to mention the dollar-and-a-half-a-word rate the magazine was offering her.
So what if ghosts were bullshit? If the magazine had suggested she write a firsthand account of an alien abduction, she’d be signing herself up for the next probe.
As if sensing her thoughts, Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want from me?”
“Just to hear your perspective,” Laney said. “And…”
“And?”
“I want you to spend the night with me,” she finished.
Lucas’s eyebrows shot up. His gaze dropped to her mouth for one fleeting second that made her toes curl.
“I mean, at the inn,” she said. She was flushing, and it wasn’t just the Texas heat. “To provide some color to the article. Like a twenty-years-ago retrospective thing. You do know that tomorrow it’ll have been twenty years to the night, right?”
“Vaguely.”
His eyes cut to the side, and Laney could tell he damn well was aware of the date.
But he didn’t even meet her eyes when he turned around to walk back inside, leaving her sweaty and disappointed, her mouth agape.
“The answer is no,” he called over his shoulder.