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She shook her head. “I even checked with the road crews. Nobody came in from the highway.”

He nodded. “So, they did their homework and knew to avoid where construction was going on.”

She nodded. “I think it’s someone who knows Sweet Bloom. Knew how to time the call so it’d be too late to save the building but early enough that nobody got hurt. They’re not in this for the casualties.”

He let out a heavy sigh and ran his hand through his hair. “Could be someone trying to make a point.”

“Or someone tying up loose ends,” she added as an option.

He looked as if he wanted to ask her something else, maybe something personal. Instead, he simply inquired, “You got what you need from the scene?”

Desiree gave another nod. “Now I just need to cross-check what I found against the other fires.”

She laid everything out side-by-side, focusing on the grid overlays. “Here,” she pointed out. “Notice the signature?” She didn’t wait for him to respond; instead, she filled in the answer for him. “The arsonist had a tell—a tiny offset, maybe half an inch, in the direction of each pour. Always away from the wind, always favoring north. Nobody would see it unless they were looking for a pattern.”

She waited while he absorbed it.

Finally, Brandon leaned back, stretched, and sighed. “You think he’s escalating, don’t you? That another one is coming right on the heels of this one.”

“I’d bet on it.” Desiree closed the file and stacked her papers before heading to the door. Over her shoulder, she simply said, “See you tomorrow, Chief.”

As she made her way back to the inn, she couldn’t help but think about their case. She should have stayed longer, worked harder, but she had to get away from him. The awkwardness between them after the kiss was becoming a problem. If she didn’t figure out how to work with him despite it, their mistake was going to cost them the case. And she couldn’t have that. She needed to solve this case and prove she deserved her position. She wasn’t going to let anyone get in her way, not ever the handsome fire chief.

CHAPTER 9

When Brandon arrived at the station the next morning, he headed straight for the conference room. It only took fifteen minutes for him to be surrounded by a chaos of files and printouts. This was so much easier when Desiree was there to help him sort everything, but he had made a mess of things by kissing her the other night.

Brandon took advantage of the early quiet while the rest of the crew was sleeping. He straightened property maps annotated with his own scribbled arrows, then cross-referenced every note Desiree had left in the margins. He’d flagged a county ledger to a page marked with two sticky notes, one orange and one yellow, because he couldn’t remember which color meant “important” and which meant “urgent.”

He was stalling. He knew it. He didn’t want to think about what he had to do when Desiree arrived. If he was going to fix his mistake, he had to be the one to make the first move. He’d replayed the words a hundred times, turning them repeatedly in his mind while he tried to sleep. In the end, he decided to just tell the truth. No jokes, no detours. Just clear the air before the situation became untenable.

A half-hour later, Desiree appeared in the doorway. She wore black slacks, a county-issue fleece zipped up to her chin, and her hair tucked back tight. A pair of reading glasses perched on her nose, catching the overhead glare. She didn’t look at him—just at the dishevelment he’d created on the table.

She circled to the far end, sat, and immediately started flipping through the stack of reports he’d set out for her. Brandon watched, not moving, until she found the page she needed. She snapped a photo of it with her phone, then made a little mark in the corner. It wasn’t coldness, exactly. But it wasn’t friendliness, either.

Brandon stood and took a deep breath. Coffee. It would make this go a bit easier. The coffee machine gurgled behind him, still finishing its cycle. He pulled two mugs from the cabinet—both plain white, both slightly mismatched in size—and filled them without asking how she took hers. He already knew: black, no ceremony. He crossed the room, set one mug down beside her elbow without a word, and took the seat directly across from her.

She didn’t say thank you. She just wrapped both hands around the cup.

He let the silence ride a beat, taking a sip of his coffee and letting the burn slide down his throat. Once he worked up enough courage, he began. “I want to apologize for how things went after the other night,” he said, low and even. “That’s on me. I don’t want it messing up the case.”

Desiree didn’t look up at first. She traced the rim of the mug, then glanced at him over the top of her glasses. “It’s not just the case. We’re working under a microscope, Brandon. If word gets out, we’re…” She hesitated, like she didn’t want to name it. “That we’re not keeping boundaries, my credibility is gone. I fought too hard for this job to lose it over a personal mistake.”

He watched her face, the way she didn’t blink, how she held her ground even when she was clearly on the back foot. “Was it a mistake?” He asked. No accusation, just a need to hunt for the truth.

She exhaled, a small, sharp sound. “Whatever it was, it happened.” She set the mug down, folded her hands in front of her like she was testifying. “I’m not good at this part, either. But I’ve been telling myself it’s a bad idea, because that makes it easier to ignore. For you, there’s no risk, but for me, I could lose everything. When it comes to our jobs, I have to do everything twice as good as the next guy to even get in the room, and you—” She cut herself off, but her eyes stayed locked on his. “Your last name buys you a lot of leeway.”

He stiffened in his chair, not liking that she implied that he coasted on his name. “Not as much as you think. I’m always waiting for them to figure out that I can’t do this as good as my dad. That they backed the wrong Holloway this time.”

She let that settle between them before saying, “It still doesn’t change all the obstacles stacked against us. It would be easier to just go back to being strictly colleagues.”

He shrugged, then leaned in. “I’m not really good at pretending something isn’t there when it clearly is, but I’ll follow your lead. If you want to put an end to whatever is growing between us, I’ll respect it. You can set the rules here, Desiree.”

She studied him a long moment, then removed her glasses, folding them with care. “What I want is for a way that won’t get one of us—probably me—burned.”

He nodded, slow and measured. “That’s fair.”

She finally smiled. It was barely there, but it cracked her whole face open. “You ever not get the last word in a negotiation?”