She nodded. “My stackable washer and dryer are in the back, along with a few shelves against one wall.”

  “Anyone angry with you this morning?”

  Her face fell. “Jason came to visit.”

  Rafe swore as the fire trucks pulled up to the curb, followed by an ambulance. Firefighters in full gear jumped out and rushed to the house.

  “Anyone else inside?” one asked, hose in hand.

  Rafe looked at her in question.

  “No. No people, no pets,” she assured them.

  The fireman nodded and went on, blasting the place with a loud torrent of water.

  Several others joined the cause, battling the blaze, now spreading through the entire house.

  Emergency medical techs leaped out of the ambulance and raced toward them, then assisted them inside the ambulance.

  “Are you hurt?” a sturdy woman approaching forty asked, her starched white shirt covering her ample shoulders.

  “I just have a bump on the back of my head,” Kerry said as she sat inside the vehicle.

  “Do you know what day it is?”

  She frowned. “Tuesday, May ninth.”

  The female tech nodded to indicate Kerry hadn’t totally lost her marbles, then listened to her lungs with a stethoscope.

  “You don’t sound as if you inhaled too much smoke, but just in case . . .” She set Kerry under an oxygen mask and examined her wound, cleaning away the blood and treating it with an ice pack.

  “This isn’t too bad. A bit of a nasty bump that will heal soon. Are you allergic to anything?”

  Kerry shook her head.

  “Take these and keep the ice on that wound.” She handed two brownish tablets to Kerry, following it with a plastic cup of water.

  The other tech, a reedy, sandy-haired guy, looked at the gash on Rafe’s calf while pushing an oxygen mask on him as well, cutting off any conversation.

  “Might need stitches. Would you like us to take you to the hospital?”

  Rafe hesitated, his gray eyes sliding over Kerry. He shook his head.

  “You sure?” the tall tech asked.

  “Just give me a bandage or something. I’ll be fine.”

  The bleeding stopped. An antibiotic ointment and some butterfly bandages later, Rafe lowered his pant leg down again and the EMTs gave them both clean bills of health.

  “Follow up with your doctor in the next few days.” The female tech looked at Rafe. “If she has any nausea or vomiting later, or doesn’t seem to know when or where she is, anything that would signal a change in mental status, get her to a hospital right away.”

  Rafe agreed. The ambulance pulled away.

  They looked around to see that the firemen had the blaze all but extinguished, but it was obvious that Kerry couldn’t stay there.

  “Can you tell how the fire started?” she asked one of the firefighters just emerging from the charred house.

  “Looks like you might have left a towel or something on the stove when you lit it.”

  What? She didn’t remember doing that.

  “You may not recall it. It’s not uncommon for something to fall during a fire, and I see you have a head wound.” He pointed to the ice pack she held up to her head.

  But she remembered everything clearly. “I . . . I—this happened before the fire.”

  The fireman patted her shoulder gently. “People are often confused after a major trauma like this, especially when they’ve had a head injury.”

  “But—”

  “You need to rest,” Rafe intervened, steering her away. “Come back to my hotel with me. We’ll talk about this.”

  Kerry agreed. After leaving a number where she could be reached, a fireman retrieved her car keys. She and Rafe piled into her beat-up blue Honda, Rafe driving this time. Kerry was too tired, too perturbed. All she smelled was smoke. It lay acrid on her tongue. She wanted a shower and a nap, and to curl up with Rafe. He always made her feel safe in a crazy world.

  On that thought, she grabbed his hand as he sped through the streets of Tampa.

  He stared at their joined hands for a hard moment, then drove on.

  That gave her pause. Did he want her with him, really? Seemed like a silly question when he’d just saved her life and offered her a place to crash. But she’d heard stories of people running into burning buildings to save complete strangers. That didn’t equal love, just bravery. And he could pity the fact she had no home now, without really wanting her around.

  Kerry withdrew her hand. Rafe didn’t reach for her again as she continued giving quiet directions.

  Oh, she hadn’t thought about the fact that her little rental house was gone. It had never felt like home. Most of her mementos were still at Mark and Tiffany’s place. What few valuables she had, like her mom’s wedding ring, were in a safe-deposit box. But she lamented the loss of a picture of her parents and a few treasured articles of clothing.

  The truth was, she had more immediately pressing questions. What the heck had happened this morning? And where would she go now? To Mark’s house, she supposed. But if the fire department ruled that the fire had been her fault, she could kiss her thousand-dollar deposit goodbye—an enormous fortune to her. And what if her landlord sued for loss of property?

  Kerry clutched her aching head. She couldn’t think about it now.

  When they reached the hotel, Rafe valeted the car. Kerry walked beside him as they entered the cool lobby of the hotel.

  Once inside, he grabbed her hand again as if he wasn’t about to let go. She knew it was dangerous, that she was reading too much into a simple gesture after something so harrowing. But he’d come after her, run into a burning building to find her, offered his hotel room. She still hoped he cared, at least a little.

  The elevator ride up was silent, and Rafe guided her to his door, palm at her back. Quietly, he closed the door behind them.

  Out the window, Kerry saw the Causeway and the Gulf waters beyond, a sludgy blue close to the hotel, then wending out to a sparkling turquoise highlighted by the noontime sun.

  “Kerry? Babe, sit down. You look exhausted.”

  He drew her onto a smallish sofa against one wall, then sat beside her. “Tell me exactly what happened after you left here this morning.”

  She sighed, trying to get it all straight in her mind. “I went home. I hadn’t been there long when Jason arrived. We fought.” Regret cramped her belly into a thick knot. “He . . . came on to me, said he never intended to marry Mara. Said he thought about me”—she winced—“about having sex with me all the time. I had no idea.”

  Rafe looked every bit as furious as he would if someone outlawed computers. “What else did the son of a bitch say?”

  Kerry hesitated. “That he wanted to take care of me. When I refused him, he cornered me in the kitchen. He pinned me against the cabinets and . . . he kissed me.”

  Another bout of anger spread over Rafe’s face, tightening his mouth. “I’m going to break his fucking face if I see him again, I swear. Forcing you to kiss him—”

  “I broke it off, told him I wasn’t interested in him as more than a friend. I think that surprised him for some reason. He cursed at me, then slammed out of the door. I was upset and tense, so I took a hot shower.”

  “Did you lock the door first?”

  Frowning, Kerry sorted through the morning’s events in her head. As vividly as an NFL replay, she realized that she hadn’t. “I—I usually do. But I was so distraught . . .”

  Losing the man she loved and a trusted friend all within a few hours apparently wreaked havoc on a girl’s common sense. What an idiotic mistake!

  “Kerry . . .” he growled.

  “I know, I know,” she huffed. “Anyway, when I came out, I decided to make a cup of tea. That’s when something hit me on the head. That’s how I remember it, anyway.”

  Rafe scowled. “That doesn’t fit with what the fireman told us.”

  “True, but I didn’t have the stove on yet when I was hit. I didn’t have a towel on the stove, either. I just know it. I was still sorting through tea bags when I heard something behind me, from the direction of the pantry. I tried to turn . . . but something—someone?—hit me.”

  “Jason, I’ll bet.”

  “Maybe.” She looked unconvinced. “I just never considered him dangerous. You have to admit, he’s not exactly menacing. I can’t imagine that he’d actually try to kill me.”

  “Someone tried to kill you. Smikins and Tiffany hadn’t just been to your house, hadn’t just been rebuffed by you. If your little friend took the money, as I suspected all along, he was probably foaming at the mouth by the time he left your place this morning.”

  “He wasn’t happy,” she conceded.

  “Hell, I knew he couldn’t be trusted,” Rafe muttered. “He hadn’t locked your door on his way out and probably suspected that you hadn’t locked it, either. He could easily have come back in while you took a shower and hidden in your pantry, waited for you. Face it, babe, he had opportunity and motive.”

  “I . . . I guess. He was angry, but angry enough over my refusal to try to kill me?”

  “Maybe not just that. Someone went looking for the money this morning. Someone got on the ‘retired’ terminal there at the office and started beating around the accounts for that money.”

  Kerry shook her head. “He hadn’t been to the office yet that morning. How could he have known it was missing?”

  Rafe scoffed. “He told you he hadn’t been to the office yet. Who knows if that’s the truth? Maybe he’d been there and realized the money was missing. He knew from the beginning that I was helping you find out how Mark was framed. It’s possible this morning, when he saw the money gone and found it shuffled into an account in my name, that he came to you and he was angry.”

  “Then why come on to me?”

  “My guess? He wants you and the money both.”

  “He never asked me about the money.”

  Shrugging, Rafe leaned closer. “Why not get close, gain your trust, get a little—or a lot—of ass before you start talking about stolen money? Maybe he wanted you happy and sated before he raised the subject. Besides, would he really tell you if he framed your brother?”

  Mentally, Kerry chewed on Rafe’s theory. “I don’t know. I just don’t see him going to the office and leaving, or angry enough after being turned down to try to kill me.”

  “You didn’t see that he was trying to get into your panties, either.”

  Kerry covered her face with her hands, head reeling. Maybe Rafe was right. Maybe Jason had wanted to get close to her so he could find out what had happened to the money.

  She sighed, beyond confused. “It’s just . . . I thought I knew him so well. But this morning, I wondered if I knew him at all.”

  “I know, babe.” He squeezed her hand.

  Squeezing back, Kerry continued to turn the possibility over in her mind. But something still didn’t ring true.

  “Wouldn’t Jason have brought up the money before just leaving? Why try to kill me before finding out what happened to the money? Any information I had would die with me.”

  “He’s not a stupid guy, but neither is he subtle. He knows where the money is, most likely. But he didn’t know where I was. Regina made my hotel arrangements.” Rafe grabbed her shoulders, fingers gripping with urgency. “He asked you where I was, didn’t he?”

  Kerry thought back through the hours that seemed like a whole month ago. “He did, several times. Why does that matter?”

  “He can’t get to that money without me. I put it in a bank that’s nearly as tight as Fort Knox. Working at a bank, he’d know that. So he devised a very smooth plan. Get close to you, find out how to get the money back and who’s watching it. That would have been Plan A. When you refused him, he had no choice but to leave and try to hunt me down himself so he could get the money back. Which he did. He asked Regina where I was staying.”

  “But why try to kill me? That wouldn’t gain him anything. It’s just risky.”

  Rafe swiped a hand across his face. “If he can’t have you, he doesn’t want anyone else to.”

  She sent him a dubious frown. “That’s twisted.”

  “The guy framed his best friend for embezzlement so he could sleep with said friend’s sister. That doesn’t make him sound like the most stable of characters.”

  “Ohmigod!” Kerry gasped as pieces of a puzzle came flying together. “The reason Mark never wanted him to date me . . . When Mark first brought Jason around the house, Mark had been doing some charity work, something to do with a drug treatment center. Jason had just come through re-hab. Mark befriended him so that he wouldn’t fall back in with old friends and old patterns. Mark helped Jason get the job at the bank. But Mark confided in me once that Jason, when he’d been an addict, had robbed a liquor store with a gun.”

  Sighing, Rafe grabbed her hand. “Kerry, I know you don’t want to see it, but I think you need to reconsider—”

  “That Jason might be guilty. I’m thinking about it as we speak.”

  She’d wanted a shower, and Rafe didn’t blame her. He reeked of smoke himself, hair, clothes, skin. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand her desire.

  It was that he didn’t understand his own.

  Pacing, he stared at the bathroom door, waiting, watching. He gritted his teeth as residual fear pumped through him. What if he’d lost her today? It was one thing to jet home and know she was safe and sound—and eventually with someone who could give her everything her heart desired—here in Florida. In that scenario, he’d never see her again, but she was happy, healthy, loved by some unknown guy Rafe didn’t have to picture.

  The thought of her dead . . . He swallowed, unable to form thoughts out of the jumble of emotions. It was like a loud buzzing in his head. The mass of feeling was almost too big for his body. Even now, knowing logically that she was all right—that wasn’t the same as holding her, looking into those wide green eyes, seeing her smile that could melt metal. Knowing intellectually that she was safe lacked the impact of sliding deep in her heat and feeling her so very alive in his arms.

  He was insane. Had to be. Why else did the need to connect with her, feel her in the most elemental way possible, beat at him worse than a group of back-alley thugs?

  Raking a grungy hand through his smoky hair, Rafe looked around the room. He needed something to do, something to keep him busy, or he’d yank off all his clothes, jump in the shower with Kerry, and claim her in every way possible.

  But he’d given her up, for her own good. For his sanity. He couldn’t go back on that now.

  Prowling over to his phone, he flipped it open and called Regina.

  “Mr. Dawson?”

  “I need two things as soon as possible.”

  “Name it,” came her confident reply.

  “My flight changed. I don’t think I can get out of here before tomorrow, maybe early afternoon. Push out the Fairline Tech job in Jersey until Friday. Offer them ten percent off and my apologies.”

  “Something wrong with the Standard National job?”

  He heard the frown in her voice. “No, it’s not the job. Something . . . personal.”

  “Ah, I see.” She hesitated. When he didn’t offer anything more, she said, “I’ll let you know when I’ve revised your reservation.”

  “Thanks. I also need the name of the best criminal attorney in Tampa.”

  If Mark’s case made it to trial, the man deserved more than an overworked public defender. Kerry deserved more. After all, what good was five million dollars if he didn’t use it to help someone he lov—

  Whoa! Where did that thought come from?

  He didn’t love Kerry. No. He cared. Yeah, he could do that. Loving her . . . it was too soon. And too difficult. Everything he knew about love, he’d learned from watching his parents, who, with a little more trailer in their blood, could have appeared on Jerry Springer. If he tried to love Kerry, she’d be doomed.

  “Criminal attorney? Are you in trouble, boss?”

  “No.” A smile twisted his mouth when he imagined how the request must have sounded. “Not for me. For a . . . friend.”

  Regina hesitated. “Miss Sullivan?”

  “Not exactly. Long story. Can you let me know when you get that info, too? I want to call the attorney and get it set up before I go.”

  “Sure thing.”

  The shower stopped running. Water sloshed. The whoosh of the shower curtain against the metal rod told him Kerry was getting out.

  “Gotta go. Thanks.”

  He put his phone down and turned to find Kerry emerging from the little bathroom, her lush body barely wrapped in a skimpy white towel. Wet strands of her dark gold curls clung to her shoulders, rivulets of water running under the terry cloth, between her breasts.

  “Kerry?”

  At the sound of his voice, she whirled, wide-eyed, to face him. The shock of the day’s events bleached her skin white. Scratches marred one of her cheeks. A bruise was forming above her left eye.

  Some asshole had done this, nearly ended her life. The need to protect roared with all the subtlety of a tornado inside him.

  He swallowed, fisted his hands.

  Damn, he was going to explode if he didn’t hold her soon, feel that she was all right. While part of him ached to have her naked, underneath him, assuring him with every cry and moan that she was real and in one piece, he needed to wrap his arms around her and listen to her heart beat.

  Okay, hold her, yes, he told himself. Sex—no dice. Blood churning through his body, he exhaled. He couldn’t make love to her. Their forty-eight hours was up. She owed him nothing. If she had feelings for him, better to end it now, before he really fucked up.

  “Shower sounds like a good idea. I’ll—um—be back in a few minutes.”

  The shower, even set to mimic the Arctic, didn’t help. He went through the motions quickly. His illogical need to assure himself that she lived and breathed, heaped on top of his insane desire . . . he felt like a rocket ready to explode. Like the adrenaline had never left him. Sure, he could take matters into his own hands, but he’d rather be with Kerry, next to her, even if she just talked and smiled, than self-pleasuring. Being near her was as necessary as air or water right now.