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He leaned in and spoke against her ear. “I don’t want to put your fire out. I just want to fan the flames higher and hotter. You’re beautiful and demure in your church clothes. Gives me all sorts of ideas.”
“Hell.” She informed him. “Straight to hell.”
He grinned. Marcus roused as his phone started buzzing. After he glanced at it, he held up a hand at Elaine’s censorious look. “Not work. It’s John. Hey, John.”
John was Marcus’s brother, who lived in Iowa, on the same property as Marcus’s widowed mother. Elaine’s expression softened as Marcus rose to his feet. “I’ll be back,” he told her, as he added to his brother, “Let me take you into the house so I’m not interrupting the front porch conversations.”
“Tell your mother happy Easter from all of us.” Elaine gave his hand a pat as he passed by her. Then her shrewd gaze went to the porch swing. “Brick, how often do you get by to see your mother? I know your job keeps you busy.”
Though the question seemed casual, Les noted a trace of reproof, a reminder of the holiday in her expression. As if she’d detected the tone of their exchange, the intimate body language. Rory tossed Brick a knowing humorous look that clearly said, Busted.
Les hid a grin, but Brick gave Elaine an easy smile. “The family has a standing lunch date, fourth Sunday of every month. My brother makes the drive down from DC with his family, and my sister in Wyoming videoconferences in.”
He kept stroking Les’s arm with that distracting rhythm, including the erogenous zone under her wrist. When she had to suppress the overwhelming desire to squirm, she promised herself she was going to kill him. Lent was over. It would be okay.
“Is Willow still not married?” Elaine asked.
“She’s way too busy. They have her traveling all over the place for her job.” He directed his next words to Thomas. “She’s in California next month, not far from where your show will be. Tell Marcus she has a lot of rich, fancy friends with money to blow, and I’m sure he’ll send her a personal invitation.”
“With encouragement to bring them all,” Thomas agreed.
“Does she still have a mean right hook?” Rory asked.
“Still.” Brick’s gray eyes twinkled. “If only we’d taken video of the day she put down Greta Child.”
Elaine tsked, but Daralyn asked, “What happened?” She had her bare feet drawn up on the edge of her chair, her head resting on the top. Her long hair draped over Rory’s hand on the arm. He was stroking strands between his work-roughened knuckles.
“Greta was always picking on other girls,” Les told her. “One day she went after Brick’s sister. Got all her equally worthless friends laughing at her. Which Willow ignored, until Greta tossed a full soda on her motorcycle. A little Indian she’d restored herself. Willow laid her out on the pavement with one punch. Greta never bothered her again.”
“No one bothered her again,” Rory added. “Even her prom date called her ma’am.”
Though the others laughed, Les noticed Brick’s attention had moved elsewhere. He’d twisted around in the swing, and was looking out over the side yard, to the fields and homes beyond it. Rising from the swing, he went to the railing and looked down the road in that direction.
A moment later, Les smelled what she expected had caught his attention. Smoke.
“You’ve gotten used to the city,” Rory assured Brick. “A lot of people burn trash around here.”
“On Easter Sunday?”
“Could have been left over from yesterday. Picked up when the wind shifted.”
“Yeah, maybe. But it smells different.”
When he lifted his hand to shade his eyes, squinting them to get more visual range, Les snagged the binoculars off the window ledge. Her mother kept them there for bird watching. She nudged him, drawing his attention.
“Thanks.” His look said he appreciated her anticipating his needs, in that act of service way. She might be injecting “Domness” into everything he did, but she wasn’t going to squelch the inclination.
Brick scanned the area. Then he stopped. “Where I’m looking. The wood two-story. Is that the old Landry place?”
“Yeah,” Rory said.
Brick handed Les the binoculars and met her gaze. The certainty in his gray eyes spiked fear in her chest. “Call 911 and tell them there’s black smoke coming out of a first-level window of the house, possibly white smoke on the second level. Tell them to dispatch all available volunteers.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
As calm as Brick sounded, Les noted he didn’t waste any time leaving the porch and striding to his truck. Thomas was already up and moving with him. She had to break into a near run to catch them, the porch swing bumping against the railing as she bolted out of it. Elaine was dialing 911 to deliver Brick’s message.
“What are you doing?” Brick asked as she climbed in the passenger side.
