Where There's Smoke Read online

  Nothing beat seeing her seventy-two-year-old neighbor rolling his eyes a moment before Myrtle descended on them with gasps, cries and hugs for Ben. For the first time since she’d spotted the wisp of fire from her bedroom window, Kyana felt like things might be okay.

  Eventually.

  Chapter Two

  Logan crashed onto the beat-up leather recliner in his shitty apartment. Sure, it was barely after dawn, but it wasn’t early by his standards. Usually he raced the first rays of sunrise to a construction site. This morning was really the end of a long, long night and a terrible day.

  His buzz had faded hours ago, somewhere around the time he’d realized he couldn’t get it up with the slightly skanky blonde who’d promised to suck all his woes right out of him in some even sketchier alley. Probably the one behind the bar he’d attempted to drown his sorrows in. What the hell was wrong with him?

  It wasn’t every day a guy got canned, he supposed.

  Not that he hadn’t seen that train barreling down on him from a mile away. Still, he’d tried his damnedest to save his spot on the renovation crew by working his ass off. Demonstrating superior skills and reliability hadn’t been the Hail Mary he’d hoped. Hell, he’d even skipped out on Rose’s funeral so he wouldn’t have to call off. What a waste. He’d left a pathetic message on Kyana’s voicemail, offering condolences he should have given in person. No wonder she hadn’t called his lame ass back.

  Not now, nor ten years ago when he’d walked out on her and Ben like the chickenshit eighteen-year-old he’d been.

  It was about time he got his priorities in order. As soon as he could believe this had really happened. Grief, fury and shock sweated from his skin along with the vile stench left behind by a 40 of King Cobra—the most buzz he could buy for his last twenty, drinking like a hobo. Might as well have duct-taped the bottle to his palm. At least then he wouldn’t have knocked it over, spilling some. He really could have used those last six or seven shots. Maybe they would have granted him oblivion.

  Logan tipped his head onto the comfortable cushion, which had dented to perfectly contour his form years ago. He tried not to think of the shit he’d lost in his life, like the gorgeous young lady he’d admired and wanted so desperately. Her delicate Asian features, refined manners, unwavering loyalty to her mongrel best friend, and her all-American sass had practically brought him to his knees. Just another thing he’d never really had a chance at holding on to.

  What a loser.

  Doubly so because the simple thought of her—and the sultry all-woman voice that had transfixed him on her voicemail—had blood rushing to his dick. If it had been her smooshed up against him in that cesspool tonight, there’d have been no performance issues to stand in the way of a mind-numbing good time. Yeah, right. Kyana would never stoop so low as to join him in a dive like that. He didn’t blame her either.

  “Son of a bitch!” He thumped his fist on the tattered arm of his chair, refusing to give in to the temptation to take matters into his own hands while visions of the polished, perfect girl next door danced through his mind. He’d grown out of that phase back in high school. Okay, he had occasional relapses, but it hadn’t been until Ben told Logan she’d moved home—during one of their twice-weekly calls—that he’d regressed to his former obsession.

  Ben would be awake in an hour or so. Maybe Logan would call and see what was going on in the old neighborhood. He’d crash-landed there when his mom hooked up with a new guy and didn’t have room or patience to take a rebellious teen along to her new picket-fence life. He didn’t really blame her.

  Better yet, maybe he should pay his great-uncle a visit. It was about time Logan did something useful. Something decent for someone who deserved his loyalty.

  He still couldn’t believe he’d been played so bad. A total sucker. How hadn’t he realized what was up?

  To distract himself for a while, he snatched the remote off the side table, which he’d rescued on junk day and restored, before flipping on the TV. Channel surfing his basic cable didn’t yield much of interest.

  Infomercial, infomercial, infomercial…

  News.

  It might do him some good to remember there were entire nations of people out there who had it a hell of a lot worse than he did. Fucked up? Yes. But it did make him feel better about the state of his existence. If he could find an old Jerry Springer rerun he’d really be looking fine.

  Flames transfixed him as they wrapped around the edges of a window to grasp at the shutter outside. Wow, it would seriously blow to have your pad burn down. Especially if you had a home instead of merely a place you stayed, which is how he felt lately. The fire hypnotized him as it licked at the walls of an older Victorian that looked not that different than the one he’d spent his adolescent summers in. Ben’s house had been home. The real kind. For a while.

  Maybe Logan could try for that again.

  He leaned forward in his chair as a fireman flew off the deck at the rear of the building with a woman cradled in his arms. Raven hair and pale skin wrapped in something that might once have been pretty blue silk were revealed with each cycle of the flashing emergency lights.

  Logan’s head tilted as he examined the injured woman. He must have been more fucked up than he realized to imagine the damsel in distress looked a hell of a lot like Kyana. Not that he’d studied her photographs in Ben and Rose’s houses on his infrequent visits or anything.

  Sure, sure. Keep telling yourself those lies. One day you might believe them, buddy.

  Shit, he’d even snapped his own copies with his cell phone. The woman he’d spied posing in designer suits or in endless graduation cap and gowns in photos on Rose’s vintage mantel didn’t seem like the sort who’d doll herself up in gorgeous yet frivolous finery. He scrubbed his eyes with the bruised and cut knuckles of one hand after he realized he hadn’t blinked for a solid thirty seconds.

  When he refocused, he saw it—the ugly-ass birdbath he and Kyana had built Ben one sweltering August afternoon as kids when her family had been on a round-the-world tour and his mom had been on the prowl for a step up. The broken flower pots they’d recycled made unlevel, garish yard art better suited to Logan’s mom’s trailer park than Ben’s neat and trim community. Despite that, his great-uncle had refused to get rid of the junk.

  No! It can’t be. He stabbed the volume button on his remote, disengaging the mute feature.

  “The cause of the fire is still unknown but the resident was the only occupant at the time of the blaze. His neighbor spotted the fire, called emergency crews, then rushed inside to haul the elderly man from the flames.” In the background, a burly fireman toted Kyana’s rag doll form as though she weighed nothing at all. Tall and willowy, she probably didn’t. The graininess of the image made it hard to tell much, but the tattered nightgown and soot stains covering her sent ice through Logan’s veins.

  “Neighbors tell us this isn’t the first tragedy to strike Oak Avenue this year. The death of a longtime resident next door just a few months ago has some wondering if bad luck really does come in threes. And, if so, who will suffer it next?” The reporter paused while footage cut away from Kyana being loaded onto a gurney outside an ambulance.

  “Go back! Go back!” he shouted at the TV. He had to make sure she was okay. And where was Ben? They’d said Ky had pulled him from the burning house, but was he all right?

  Batty as ever, Myrtle Jansen entertained the reporter with old wives’ tales and superstitions that portended more dire times to come. Logan shook his head and instead studied the rest of the crowd. He didn’t recognize the man and woman huddled together in the background. They must be new to the area. Daryl Thick loomed still and watchful on the fringes of the frame. His assessing stare on Myrtle and the newscaster put Logan on instant alert.

  “More on this story as it becomes available. Back to you, Tom…”

  “What? That’s it?” Logan didn’t know when he’d launched to his feet. He paced the kitchen as he dug his cell from
the back pocket of his jeans. Snagging his keys out of the bowl by the door, he jogged from his apartment.

  Ring after ring grated on his nerves until he realized, of course, there’d be no answer at Ben’s place. He used his thumb to search the contact list of his basic, un-smart phone for the number he’d only found the balls to dial once. After Rose’s funeral. Kyana.

  Instead of infuriating chimes, a beeping busy signal greeted him. “Damn it!”

  He punched the steering wheel then jammed a key in the ignition of his pickup truck. At least there wouldn’t be traffic at this time of day, and he’d gotten gas just a day or two ago. If he pushed it, he could make the drive in an hour.

  It was the longest fifty-three minutes of his life.

  Logan skidded to a halt in the driveway of Rose’s house. No, Kyana’s house. The yellow tape blocking off the entrance to Ben’s place was completely unnecessary. Stopping there would have been pointless. Char lingered in the air, making his eyes water and his nose itch. He didn’t pause to swipe at his face before tearing from the truck. He hopped the flower beds and retaining wall with a single leap before sprinting up the hill to the back stairs he’d used many times in his youth.

  The bottom one creaked louder than he remembered. Maybe he’d never subjected it to such force in the past. Today he leapt them three at a time. He swiped the key from its usual hiding place in the grill, tucked in the corner of the deck, then burst through the screened-in porch. Without bothering to ring the bell, he let himself inside.

  Lights blazed in the kitchen, so he headed that way first.

  Logan was a little surprised to find his uncle awake after all the commotion, which had probably included a trip to the hospital in the handful of hours between the fire and the airing of the piece on the news. His heart stuttered in his chest when he caught sight of Ben, slumped over the dining room table. For the first time Logan could remember, the man looked…old. White hair slicked back from a recent shower. Neat rows left by a comb in his thinning locks contrasted with a fuzzy gray robe, which Ben clasped tight around him. It had obviously belonged to Rose. If Logan wasn’t concentrating so hard on not breaking down, he might have snapped a picture.

  “Nice outfit.” He tried not to startle his great-uncle. The guy didn’t need that kind of shock on top of everything else.

  “Even without my hearing aids, I could tell that was you clomping up the stairs. Maybe because you were shaking the whole damn house, you big lug.” Ben lifted his head and pasted on a wry smile. “How’d you find out?”

  “The goddamned news.” He tried not to shout, balling his fists at his sides instead. He didn’t bother with inane questions like, “How are you?” when the answer was clearly devastated-yet-mostly-healthy. Besides, they were both more comfortable with confrontation than sentimental shit. “Were you going to call me? Or am I so worthless you didn’t think I’d come?”

  “Logan, please.” Ben shook his head, his eyes shining. “Things have been rough lately, I understand. How many decades did I work two or three jobs to earn my house? When you have a dream, you have to go for it. Things—important things—have to be sacrificed. I wasn’t about to pile any more pressure on you. We’ll handle it.”

  “You and Wonder Woman, huh? I can’t fucking believe she ran into a burning building.” His guts roiled again at the thought of what might have happened. The ragdoll flop of her lithe body in the fireman’s arms had him brewing some punches. Aimed at whom, he couldn’t say. Maybe the dude who had been there to rescue her. Logan wished he could have been her hero.

  The nightmare vision distracted him from pursuing Ben’s revelation. What had the man sacrificed? Logan would give his great-uncle anything in his power. Another time he would circle around and find out.

  “I’m torn on that one. Can’t say I’m pleased she put herself at risk. At the same time… I’m sure I wouldn’t be sitting here right now if it weren’t for that girly.” Ben sighed. “She’s tough. You know she is. But a person can only take so much. She’s been in the shower an awfully long time. I’m starting to think someone needs to make sure she’s okay. I should have insisted the doctors examine her too, damn it. You know how she gets, though. Hardheaded.”

  Ben stared at Logan, unblinking.

  “I’m on it.” Logan bent down and clapped a hand on Ben’s back, surprised to find his palm met with more bone than muscle. He manned up and said what he was really thinking all along. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  “Me too, kiddo.” Ben coughed when he laughed. “Guess I gotta go to extremes to rate a visit, huh?”

  “Not anymore. I swear. Things’ll be different. Shit, you might not be able to get rid of me now.” Logan never broke promises. For one thing, his landlord was likely to boot him into the skid row gutter a millisecond after the dirt bag found out he’d lost his job. But mostly, being here felt right.

  Though his world had turned upside down, something in his soul had settled the moment he’d driven his truck onto Oak Avenue—even if he’d executed the maneuver practically on two wheels.

  Ben nodded then shooed Logan with a wave of his hands toward the stairs. “Check on Kyana. I’m going to rest for a while. Is it sleep or a nap if it’s already six o’clock? In either case, I’ll take Rose’s room.”

  They both winced at the reminder of their absent friend.

  Overflowing with terror, loss and regret, Logan bounded up the stairs to the second floor. He strode to the bathroom that adjoined Kyana’s old room and banged on the door.

  No answer.

  She’d have to be deafer than Ben to miss his second round of pounding.

  Still not a peep confronted his battery against the hardwood.

  Something told him he’d have better luck convincing her to open the door if he didn’t start bellowing at her from the other side of the six-paneled maple. If she recognized his voice, he’d certainly be left out in the cold.

  Then he imagined her passed out. Unconscious. What if she’d slipped and hit her head?

  She had to be exhausted.

  Drained.

  Scared.

  Hurt.

  It didn’t take much for him to visualize her crumpled in the tile basin, bleeding from a nasty dent in her thick skull. Screw that.

  He pivoted on his heel and marched into Rose’s room. Ben looked at him with a single raised brow when he rummaged through the supplies near the vanity mirror. He held a bobby pin up to the soft morning light, glowing in the window, to judge the wire’s gauge.

  “You can’t just barge in there. Give her space if she needs it,” Ben protested, leaning forward from the edge of the bed. His fingers gripped Logan’s arm hard enough to leave marks.

  “She’s not answering. What if she’s messed up?” He paused, respecting the opinion of his great-uncle. During the time in between stays, Logan had merely been surviving, not learning and growing like he had been in the glorious summers or the final year he’d spent on Oak Avenue.

  “Shit, you’re right.” Ben closed his eyes. “No choice. Be ready for her to fight you though. She’s a wildcat, our girly.”

  “I think I can handle one wet, naked woman.” He groaned. It took all the fortitude he possessed to halt that line of fantasy right in its tracks. “Damn. I didn’t mean it like that…”

  Ben laughed. “I didn’t raise a dumbass. She’s likely to tear your nuts off as it is. Good luck, son.”

  Logan grimaced and adjusted his package as he made his way to the bathroom door. He tried once more, rapping in a more reasonable tone. One deep breath. Two. Three.

  He gritted his teeth and got to work finessing the lock. It took him less than five seconds to disengage it even with the crude bobby pin. Some habits die hard.

  Yeah, like lusting after Kyana Brady. Somehow he figured what he was about to do wouldn’t simplify that situation.

  Logan paused with his shaking fingers on the knob. He sighed then turned the antique glass and porcelain handle. Steam billowed from th
e crack when he pushed the door open, making him wonder how Kyana had managed to maneuver through the smoke in Ben’s house. She must have been terrified, but she hadn’t let that stop her from saving his great-uncle’s life.

  He owed her one. A monstrously huge one.

  “Kyana?” he called out as he inched forward, shutting the door gently behind him. “Are you all right?”

  Waving his arms in front of him, he advanced through the cloud of lightly scented mist. It smelled of something exotic. Jasmine and green tea, which reminded him of Kyana’s half-Japanese heritage. He’d always adored her long, black hair and the gorgeous shape of her unusual hazel eyes.

  A tiny hiccup yanked him from the memory of her smile.

  “Ky?” He tilted his head to make sense of the jumble of limbs curled into a tight ball on the shower floor. For a moment he thought he’d had it right. She must have slipped and fallen. Who knew how long she’d lain there suffering. “Oh, fuck.”

  Without hesitation, he tugged open the clear glass enclosure and sank to his knees beside her. The door banged a little as it swung closed. The noise startled Kyana. If he hadn’t already reached for her, she might have slammed into the wall in her haste to retreat. Instead, he caged her against his chest, giving no thought to his rapidly dampening clothes.

  “Where are you hurt?” Warm spray blasted his back. Nothing could have burned as bright as the woman he held in his arms. Even if she was trying her damnedest to break free.

  Logan didn’t plan to let her go any time soon.

  “What? I’m not. I’m fine. What the hell—?” She thrashed for a few seconds more, until his gentle rambling broke through her initial fear.

  “It’s me. Logan. I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m sorry I frightened you. I tried to knock. You didn’t respond. I thought you might need me. I was afraid. It killed me to see you lying there. Let me help. Let me help.”

  She went limp in his arms. So much so, he might have thought she’d fainted for real except the momentary relaxation didn’t last. A shuddering sob ripped through her. All resistance fled. Like a pendulum that’d reached one extreme, she swung the other way. Latching on to him, she crawled so close on his lap he might have thought she’d burrowed inside his jeans if they hadn’t stuck to him like a second skin.