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Brandon moved to open the door for her, but she stepped in at the same time, blocking his reach. Her arm grazed his, then stayed there, just barely touching. The doorknob was cold in his palm.
They stood in the wedge of the entryway, neither talking, both pretending to listen to the distant sound of his mom’s bedroom TV.
He looked at her. “Good night, Desiree.”
She nodded. “Night.”
Brandon didn’t mean to cross that final, invisible line, at least not consciously. He was still half trying to apologize for his mother when he caught Desiree’s eyes, really caught them—wide, uncertain, and bright enough to cause his pulse to race. Her mouth was still curved in that almost smile, one corner tugged higher than the other, as if a laugh and a warning were locked in a draw. And he realized, with a flash of clarity, that she was waiting to see what he’d do next.
It was probably less than a second, in the time it takes for a heart to skip a beat, but it stretched out long enough for him to replay every choice he could make—not just tonight, but the whole unwinding thread of his life, every turn he’d made to land two feet from this woman.
He leaned in, slow enough to be stopped, if she wanted. But she didn’t. Her gaze flicked to his mouth, then up, a silent dare. So, he kissed her—soft, tentative, a question folded inside a breath. Lips meeting, warm and surprised and tasting of peach cobbler, meeting for a moment that felt inevitable.
When he pulled back, Desiree lingered, her forehead almost touching his. Then she kissed him, brief and deliberate as an exclamation on the end of a sentence. Her hand had found his arm at some point, and she left it there, fingers light, small tremor betraying nerves she’d never admit to having.
They didn’t move, not at first. It was as if the moment left them stranded, closer than they’d ever been but not sure which way to go next. Desiree’s eyes searched his, not with shyness but with the same intensity she brought to their investigation. Looking for evidence, for motive, for meaning.
He tried to speak, but the words tangled. She beat him to it. “You know that was a terrible idea.”
“The worst,” he agreed. They didn’t need the complications—but if that were enough to stop it, he wouldn’t be thinking of doing it again. “Still…” he whispered, and let the word hang there, shading everything unsaid.
Desiree stepped back first, her hand leaving his arm like it burned. She dusted invisible dirt from her jeans, then laughed, just once, the sound more vulnerable than any of her usual dry retorts.
Brandon felt the heat rising in his face, and the sudden awkwardness was so excruciating, he almost wished his mother would come back in and rescue them with another round of dessert. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
Desiree shook her head, cutting him off. It was the first time he’d seen her genuinely flustered. She took a step toward the door, but then paused, turned, and looked him right in the eye. “Don’t apologize for a mistake unless you plan to never do it again.”
He stood there, hands buried in the pockets of his jeans, wishing for once he had something to say that wouldn’t make things worse or more confusing. When no words came, Desiree stepped out onto the porch and waved good night before heading to her car.
Brandon stood in the doorway for a long minute, the cold air coming in around him, and thought that maybe the best mistakes were the ones you couldn’t wait to make again.
CHAPTER 8
The only sound in the fire station was the click of Desiree’s boot heels on tile and the slap of her field kit as she set it on the conference table. No lights but the security strip above the hallway, casting blue-white shadows over the evidence grid she’d sketched out the night before. She ignored the drone of the vending machine and the last bitter dregs of yesterday’s coffee thickening in the carafe. Instead, she unpacked her stack: manila folders, a portable scanner, rolls of orange evidence tape, and a set of photos she’d printed at the all-night copy place.
Desiree lined the photos up on the table—warehouse, pizzeria, hardware store. The angles were identical in each. She’d spent half her night sleeplessly sorting them, then sorted them again at four a.m., looking for differences the way some people sifted the edges of a crossword puzzle. She laid the pour pattern overlays next to each scene. She drew a line across the grid paper, checked the scale, then cross-referenced her measurements—the patterns held—same radius, same burn marks, same signature. Someone wanted to be seen—enjoyed having their work viewed.
The station stayed quiet, for now. She preferred it this way—her brain ran best when everything around her was still, and she could imagine she was alone in the world. The station’s front windows faced the circle, and she could see the town waking in slow motion—the bakery lights flipping on, the old man in the yellow coat shuffling from the church steps to his truck, the church kids rehearsing in the gazebo for the Christmas pageant.
A voice echoed from the crew lounge—Kimble, always up first, and Ruiz, who slept anywhere if given the option. Desiree didn’t move from her seat, but she heard their conversation, rolling in from the doorway.
“Did you see the memo? Holloway’s running a safety fair on Main, says he needs bodies,” Kimble muttered, his mouth full of something crunchy.
“Was that in the schedule?” Ruiz said, the groggy slur still in his voice.
“He sent it out Sunday,” Kimble answered. “You check the email?”
“Not since last week. What kind of safety fair?”
Kimble gave a low snort. “You know how it goes—he learned from his father. Parade the engine, hand out coloring books, make the town forget about the recent string of arsons.”
Desiree tuned out the rest. She’d been expecting the cold shoulder—if not from the crew, then at least from the man himself after the mistake they made last night. She shouldn’t have let it go as far as she did. It was unprofessional to get so personal with him and let things end with a kiss.
And what a kiss it was—it was the toe-curling, stomach-flipping, mind-blowing kind of kiss that she had only read about in books. It made her lose all rational thought, even prompting her to reach up and kiss him back—another mistake, in a series of many where Brandon Holloway was concerned.
She uncapped the Sharpie and marked three new measurement points, doing her best to distract herself. She mapped the spots against the aerial layout, noting all the fires radiated from a central point, a hundred feet from the circle’s edge, like the arsonist was working outward in deliberate, measured increments.
She was annotating the directionality of the fire when Brandon entered the conference room. He didn’t walk in with the crash and swagger of a small-town fire chief; instead, he moved through the doorway like he wasn’t sure if he belonged in it. He wore his standard windbreaker, Sweet Bloom patch over the breast, but kept the hoodie underneath up as he scanned the conference room. His eyes darted past Desiree’s setup, landed on the carafe. He filled a mug to the rim, set the carafe down a little too hard, then faced her square on. “Morning, Investigator Garcia,” he greeted, voice brisk and workplace neutral.
