On Fire(21)

He seemed as at ease there as he did anywhere. He chose a chamomile tea bag and dangled it in a mug.

The phone rang. She snatched up the portable and hurled it across the room.

Straker eyed her knowingly.

"See?"

She could hear her message machine taking the call in the next room.

Her mother's voice came on.

"Riley? Are you there? Your father just phoned. He told me about the  fire at Sam's. He's worried about you. I am, too. Call me" -Riley  grabbed the portable off the floor where she'd hurled it.

"Hi, it's me. Mom, I'm fine. There's no need to worry."

Straker arched a brow at her.

Her mother gasped in relief, half sobbing.

"Riley! Oh, thank God. I was afraid you were caught in the fire.

After the Encounter..." She couldn't go on.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes." She made an instant decision not to give her mother all the  details about her evening. Emile, Matt, her presence at the fire.

Kissing Straker in his beat-up Subaru.

"Thanks for checking up on me."

"I hate the thought of you being there alone."

In her mother's view, having Straker camped out on her futon might be  worse than being alone. He poured boiling water into her mug.

Naturally he was listening. He was on alert at all times, never mind  when a suspicious death and a suspicious fire were at hand. It was his  nature. His training.

"Riley?"

"Sorry. I'm a little distracted. The past few days haven't been easy, that's all."

"You can always stay with your father." He had a studio apartment in the  North End of Boston, getting up to Camden when he could.

"You know that, don't you?"

"Of course."

"And me--you're welcome here."

"Thanks."

Her mother sucked in a breath, and Riley could predict what was coming next.

"Your father told me about Matt's behavior tonight. It's inexcusable.

Was John Straker outside?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, he was."

"But that was none of your doing," her mother said.

"No." It was the truth, as far as it went.

"Good. I know he's an FBI agent, but I can't..." She paused.

"I have my doubts about him, that's all. I can't help it. He's been  living out on that island for months and months, and he's in tight with  Emile."

And he was making her chamomile tea.

"Right. I'll be careful." But Riley felt an immediate tug of regret at  deceiving her worried mother--and she'd learned the hard way over the  years that bad news was best delivered early and completely. She had to  get this over with.

"Mom, John Straker's staying here."

"In your apartment? With you? Riley."

"It's okay. I can handle him." She ignored another arched brow.

"Mom, Emile will be okay, too."

"I don't give a damn about Emile. I'm past caring about him."

But this was a lie, or denial. He was her father, and Riley was  convinced that for all her frustrations and fears, Mara still loved him.  It wasn't a point they could argue.

"You haven't told Sig about Matt showing up at dinner and being such an ass, have you?"

"No, I don't see the need. You just be careful, Riley St. Joe. I came  close enough to losing you last year. I won't go through that again."  Her tone softened, lost some of its vehemence.

"If you need me, I'm here."

Riley thanked her, and after they hung up, she sank onto a chair at the  kitchen table. Straker shoved a mug of fragrant, calming chamomile tea  in front of her.

"Your mother wasn't comforted by my presence?"

"I'm not, why should she be?"

She crossed her ankles. One foot kept jiggling. Her hands had started to  shake again. She could see the tea jumping around in her mug as she  tried to take a sip. Straker had given it to her straight, no honey, no  milk, no sugar. He sat on another chair, watching her with those cool  gray eyes. He wasn't shaking. The only indication he'd been through any  kind of ordeal was a slight frown.                       
       
           



       

"I suppose tonight was nothing to you," she said.

He shrugged.

"You weren't in the fire. Emile wasn't in the fire. I managed not to  kill anyone despite all provocation. I'd say I got off light. You, on  the other hand, had Matt Granger go berserk on you, then made the  mistake of following Emile instead of minding your own business."

"So I got what I deserved?"

"I think you did."

She used both hands to grip her mug. He was the most obnoxious man on  the planet. Yet not even an hour ago, she'd all but had sex with him in  his car. It was the fire, of course. Sirens, flames, the crush of  people, adrenaline. On an ordinary Thursday night, she wouldn't have let  him touch her, much less touch her where and how he had.

He smiled.

"Wishing we hadn't stopped when we did?" "What?" She shook off her thoughts as his words sunk in.

"What are you doing, reading my mind now? You really do have a lot of gall, Straker."

"You were looking distracted."

"Because of the fire," she said.

He smiled in that confident, disbelieving, know-it- all way.

"Ah."

"Just because you've been sitting on a deserted island for the past six  months doesn't mean I have. I'm not as hot to trot as you are."

"You were thirty minutes ago."

"That's projection."

He settled into his chair and laughed, cocky, genuinely amused.

"You still can't believe you kissed me back, can you?" "It is rather hard to swallow. But I understand, and I forgive you.

We'd just had a shock, and you haven't--well, I'm the first woman you've  come in contact with in quite a while. It's only natural, if you think  about it, that you'd end up throwing yourself on me. "

"Jesus. You're amazing." He sat forward, holding up two fingers.

"Two things. One, you enjoyed what we did down in my car as much as I did.

I know you did. You know you did. "

She squirmed and said nothing. Her tea, at least, was soothing.

"Two, this six-months-on-a-deserted-island bit will get you only so far.  You're using it as an excuse for 'succumbing' to my demands or some  damned thing. I'm not an animal. I can control myself." "That was  self-control down in your car?"

He grinned. It was almost like a caress and set her skin tingling.

"That was supreme self-control."

She took a breath. Sometimes she should know when to leave well enough alone.

"My point is," he continued, "you bear responsibility for your own  actions. If you kiss me back, it's because you want to, not because I  demand it."

"I see. Well." She cleared her throat, sipped her tea, decided he didn't  know the first thing about what she wanted. She was aware of his eyes  on her, aware of his. self-control. If she so much as breathed the idea,  he'd take her to bed.

"Six months on Labreque Island hasn't reverted you back to caveman status. Okay. That's good."

His eyes flashed, sexy, knowing.

"That's not what I said. I said I could control myself. I didn't say my months of isolation haven't had an effect."

"You mean you do feel" -He cut her off. "" Caveman status' covers it.

"

This wasn't going well at all. She felt exposed, as if he could see  right through her dress, and she wondered if 'caveman" conjured the same  images in his mind as it did in hers. With a shaky hand, she tucked a  few stray hairs behind her ear. " Now that we have that straight"

He laughed.

"We don't have anything straight, but go ahead."

"We have to find out more about the fire at Sam's. How it happened, if  it was arson, why Matt was there--and Emile. Where he was."

Straker shook his head.

"We don't have to do anything."

"That's true. You can go back to Maine."

"You try a body's patience, St. Joe." His voice was low, serious, not as  irritated as she could have expected. She drank more tea, closing her  eyes briefly as she tried to let the chamomile calm and soothe her.

"You've done enough.

Tonight. fetching me at the fire. Thank you. "

' T wish I had a tape recorder. Riley St. Joe thanking me. "

She leveled her gaze at him.

"Are you always this aggravating?"

"You've known me since you were a tot. You tell me."                       
       
           



       

"You were beyond aggravating at sixteen."

"That's when you gave me the scar above my eye. You were pretty much a pain in the ass yourself.

Nose in a book, and when it wasn't, you had to go around telling people how many individual hairs there were on a sea otter. "

"A hundred thousand. I also hiked and kayaked."

"You were and still are a showoff."

"At least I wasn't mean, and I didn't go around trying to humiliate twelve-year-old girls."