It took Scarlett another hour before she was at all ready to allow the outside world to see her again. After taming her hair into a style that was more no-nonsense cop than sexy-times-on-the-floor, she’d just managed to find where she’d kicked her boots earlier that morning when her phone buzzed. It skittered along the kitchen counter, setting off the low pounding in her head again. The hot shower had leached some of the soreness out of her body, but the headache remained.

She grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen, popping two with a cup of cold coffee that was sitting on the counter from the day before, wincing at the taste as she scrolled through her messages. She nodded her satisfaction at them—the preliminary work from the fire was back. Sometime today, she’d ask her captain to get in touch with Monroe’s firefighters HQ and get their report. There was no way she was putting herself in a position where it was even remotely possible she’d bump into Connor.

The phone rang in her hand, and her chief’s name splashed across the screen. “Speak of the devil,” she murmured as she swiped to answer the call.

“Christensen,” the man barked down the phone. He didn’t exactly have a friendly manner—any manners at all, really, but the man got the job done, and that made him a damn good cop in Scarlett’s eyes. “I need you back out in the field. Pronto.”

“Sir?” she said. “I was about to come in to the office. The lab’s got a prelim report for me, and I wanted to . . .”

“Shelve it,” he said. “There’s been another fire.”

That time the shiver reached down to her bones. Why had his words filled her with the kind of dread usually reserved for horror movies and HQ-sponsored baseball games? Despite her colleagues’ pleading, there was no way they were ever getting her to play baseball. For all her athleticism on the job, she sucked at sports. Badly. She could do without the entire squad seeing her fall flat on her face on first base.

“I haven’t gained access to the last fire scene yet, sir. Shouldn’t we wait to hear from HQ that I can enter the building before I go down there?” Before she had to see any firefighter again.

“Negative. You can get back on that as soon as I’ve talked to Chief Stone. This one is different. Witnesses report hearing gunshots right before the house went up. I need you there to get what you can before those smoke-eaters destroy all the evidence.”

Scarlett couldn’t help but smile at the term. If anything serious went down, then the two departments were there for each other—no questions asked. That didn’t stop the derogatory nicknames flying all over the damn place, especially at the inter-department baseball games she made all efforts to avoid—actually playing, anyway. Sitting in the stands with a slice and a warm beer, watching her colleagues and the rest of Monroe’s first responders make fools of themselves was hysterical. Leave it to her captain to use the terms whenever he damn well pleased. After the hour she’d had since she’d come back to consciousness, she could do with the laugh.

“I’ll text you the address. Report on my desk by six.” The chief’s voice came down the line, and Scarlett’s expression sobered at the reminder of where she was heading. It didn’t matter if the person shot was a criminal themselves or yet another tragic innocent bystander. Anyone who killed a citizen of Monroe on her watch better be ready for Scarlett to hunt them down.

After hanging up the phone, she grabbed her shield and slipped her duty weapon into her holster, adding a backup at her ankle. It was time to go to work.

* * *

When Scarlett pulled up at the address, the fire was already out. Lazy tendrils of smoke drifted up from a smoldering home, but no flames were visible. She frowned. This was the second home to go up in flames in Monroe in as many days. True, this was a different callout from the other—reports of gunshots pulling her into the investigation rather than an unknown man fleeing the scene. Still, it was unusual enough to make her pause.

She shook the thought from her mind. There was no point letting her imagination run away with her, or making any conclusions based on conjecture. She’d wait until she could get in there and see for herself before she started drawing any wild conclusions. For all anyone knew, the previous day had been a case of arson and nothing more.

She leaned against her car, sighing. She hadn’t even had the time to look through the lab reports and witness statement from yesterday before she’d been rushed off to the new fire. There’d be no wild sex on the living room floor after this shift. At the rate she was going, she’d be in the squad room until the start of her next one, catching up on paperwork.

Scarlett ran a hand through her hair. She hadn’t done much except throw it back in a messy ponytail before leaving the house that morning. It was as put-together as she felt, and all frizzed on the ends, just like she was, too. She half snorted a laugh. Her appearance hadn’t mattered to her in a long while, but maybe it was time she started taking better care of herself. She was still here, and there was more to experience in life that she wasn’t going to get half-buried in paperwork or sitting on the couch in her sweats on a Saturday night.

She looked up, groaning. Just when she finally felt like she was coming out of the fog she’d been in, doing something more with her life, the powers that be clearly felt the need to slap her about the head with what she could never have.

Of course this would be a Monroe company fire, but what the hell was Connor doing standing in the middle of the group of firefighters? It was supposed to be B-shift’s turn at the wheel. But there he was, in all his sweaty, smoky glory. The same smoky streaks as earlier that morning were tracked across his face and down his neck, and for a moment Scarlett entertained the idea of stripping him down and throwing him in her shower. They’d both fit. It would be a tight fit, but that was the point. Their bodies would touch, sliding against each other in a wet mess as she lathered him up, her hands moving over every expanse of his skin. She bit her lip as heat grew in her belly. As far as she was concerned, all of Connor needed attention before she’d be done.

Yep. Fate was definitely screwing with her. Connor chose that exact moment to look up from where he was packing away the truck’s equipment. His gaze locked onto hers, no less intense than when he’d been holding himself over her, thrusting deep into her sex. Her pussy fluttered in response, and Scarlett suppressed a groan. Knowing her luck, it would come out as a sex-starved moan instead.

Well. She wasn’t exactly sex-starved. More like she’d had one taste of the best ice-cream in the world, and now she wanted the entire pint. And then some. She could happily eat at Connor until the end of time.

Oh, God. Her cheeks blazed at the thought. She said a prayer skyward that at least she hadn’t said that out loud. A small grin slipped across his face, and Scarlett panicked. She hadn’t, she was sure of it. Though he’d done a pretty damn good job of eating her first.

She slapped a hand over her face, fumbling for her keys. She’d come back later, after Engine 81 had left the scene. It was the only way she was going to be able to get through the case with the respect the victim deserved, instead of her personal porno running through her mind. Before she could get the door open, the thud of heavy boots on muddy ground sounded behind her and Connor appeared, standing at the front of her car. Despite the tailspin he’d put her in, she wasn’t going to run the man over, and so unless he moved without any interaction from her at all, she was at least stuck talking to the guy. “What are you doing here?”

Great move, Scarlett. Real classy.

He shrugged. “Adam from B-shift screwed over his ankle, and I volunteered to sub in.” Scarlett nodded but didn’t speak in reply. Perhaps if she didn’t open her mouth, then she could avoid embarrassing herself any further. “You?”

Unless he asked a direct question. What the hell had she done to piss the powers that be off this much in one day? “My chief. Said there was a report of gunshots before the fire went up. I guess he thinks there might be some relation between today and yesterday.”

Connor inclined his head in response. “Maybe. There doesn’t seem to be any barrels or chemicals at this one, though. Just a dead body.”

That didn’t do much to calm Scarlett’s nerves. She liked living in Monroe, but she was also a cop. They got their fair share of thefts and other crimes, like any other town. Murders, however, were a different story. She frowned. As was arson, their rate well below the national average. And now there’d been two suspicious fires in two days? Maybe her captain was onto something. “When can I go in?”

“Look, Scarlett. If I . . .”

Nope. If Connor started talking about that morning, she didn’t know whether she’d blush over her entire body, climb him like a tree, or burst into tears. None of those options were the least bit appealing, and so she cut him off. “Perhaps Chief Stone could spare someone to take me through both scenes at once, so you can get back to work?”

Connor’s mouth opened and then closed again, a look of hurt crossing his face. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, but it added yet another layer of guilt on top of Scarlett’s already weighted shoulders. He moved over to the cab of his chief’s truck and grabbed a bright orange hard hat, holding it out to her. “Here. Fire’s out and the house’s structure is still relatively intact. This’ll protect you from any stray debris.”

She only needed to step into the front room of the home to find the body. Maybe that was why this fire had been easier to contain. She leaned over the corpse, ignoring the noxious smell rising from the burned flesh. From the height, she’d guess male, though the rest of the identification was going to be up to dental records or personal effects. Whether the fire was a result of attempts to cover up a murder or he died in the fire itself, the body was way beyond any identification she could provide.

Moving on, she poked her way around the room. Soot dusted every surface, and if anyone could make it past the smell of smoke mingling with burnt flesh, there were still puddles of water to negotiate, along with squelching carpet. Scarlett made her way out of the front room and down the hall. There, the overwhelming smell of death was less present, the entire pathway smelling instead a little like a wet sheep as the water saturated the floor and any soft furnishings. She’d take that any day over what was lying back in the front room.

Making her way through the house, Scarlett was becoming more and more convinced that it had been nothing more than a garden-variety murder; if there was such a thing in Monroe. Still, even that was a better option than an arsonist or serial killer loose on her watch. The guys at Engine 81 had faced both in recent months. She’d heard most of the story from cop friends; she hadn’t been assigned to the case. Still, it had been a hell of a time for anyone working as a first responder in the town, and she didn’t wish that on anyone. But it didn’t look like this case was going to be one of those. She even started to relax a little. Until she hit the third bedroom.

There was nothing unusual at first glance. A bed. A chair and desk. Even a beanbag sat in the corner. Unlike the front half of the home, the room seemed mostly untouched. Right down to the five weird scuba-looking tanks propped up in the corner.

She should leave. She should turn around and walk out of there and call in the experts. She didn’t. The tanks stared back at her, as if daring her to look more closely, to get rid of any idea that this case wouldn’t be yet another threat to blow their lives away.

She moved closer, her heart changing from pumping fast at her discovery to stopping in her chest. What she’d thought were scuba tanks weren’t. They were smaller, more compact. The masks lying nearby didn’t have a simple mouthpiece. Instead, they covered the whole face, and it looked like maybe the head, too. What the hell was going on? She turned to see Connor standing behind her, staring at her find. Without saying a word to her, he picked up the radio on his shoulder and reported the find back to his chief. A reply came back, but Scarlett barely heard it. Her mind was racing with possibilities. Rather than settle anything, the stash of breathing equipment hidden away in a back room created more questions. This was the second find of out-of-place equipment in a suburban home. Who owned the homes? Was there any connection between the two? In all the chaos—both professional and personal—she hadn’t found out. She picked up her phone, dialing her boss. “Captain Harrelson, I . . .”

Before she could report anything further, it was her turn to be cut off as the captain spoke over her. “Don’t bother, Christenesen. It’s already sorted.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “Uh, what’s sorted, sir?”

“I’m already out the front. Chief Stone and I had a nice little chat. I hope you’re getting along well with Company 81, Scarlett, as you’re their new liaison. Effective immediately.”

Well, fucking great.