Page 288 of Her Reluctant Hero
Why not? She’d started this fire when he’d had no clue. How did he know she hadn’t started others? “They say she did this to get me to pay attention to her.”
“Who said?”
“Peyton Michaels, the woman Kim attacked on the mountain, told my ex, Jen Sheridan.”
Agent Devlin consulted his pad with a graying eyebrow quirked in amusement. “The woman you were sleeping with told your ex-wife one of the women on your crew was in love with you.”
Didn’t that make him sound like a player. The blunt words grated on Gabe’s nerves, but he didn’t correct the man.
“Ms. Michaels is returning to Chicago, right?”
Chicago. Gabe hadn’t known where the woman he claimed to love was from. She hadn’t been forthcoming, and damn it, questioning her about it had seemed too needy. He planned to find out, though, as soon as he got out of here.
“She left a couple of hours ago,” he admitted.
“I’ll get in touch with her again. Now, you know Kevin as well?”
Gabe resented the new direction of the conversation. “Very distantly.”
“You spoke to him just days ago. What indication did he give to raise your suspicions?”
“What do you mean?”
“Jen Sheridan said you suspected it was Kim the minute you saw the list you’d had her get of firefighters who had been in the area when the fire started. Did you suspect Kevin before you saw his name?”
Gabe shook his head. “Nothing jumped out at me till then. His hatred for Doug Sheridan when I talked to him this week was over the top. I mean, Doug’s a pretty mild-mannered guy. Most everybody likes him.”
“Except you.”
He rubbed a thumb between his eyebrows. “Yeah, well, I had good reason.”
“He stole your wife.”
“Glad you have all the gossip,” Gabe muttered.
Devlin shifted. “I do have to wonder why you were so all-fired anxious to clear his name when he was such a shit to you.”
Because that’s what heroes do, according to Peyton. “I knew he couldn’t have done it.”
“But you didn’t feel the same about Kim?”
“I didn’t want to believe it was a firefighter at all. I wasn’t convinced it was Kim till she hurt Peyton.” The memory rose up, dragging anger with it, choking him with it. Because he’d trusted Kim, so had Peyton. She’d almost died because of it.
“Do you have any idea where Kim could be now?”
Gabe shook his head. “I wish to hell I did. I’d bring her in myself.”
*****
Peyton tapped a rolled-up flyer against her thigh as she waited in the Missoula airport for her flight home. The news of the fires played in a continuous loop on the TVs throughout the waiting area. Every yellow shirt reminded her of Gabe, every shot of flames reminded her of how they’d almost died.
Being dead would almost be preferable to the pain twisting in her. She was paralyzed with a grief similar to what she’d felt when Dan died. The terror of seeing Gabe unconscious and unable to help him left her off balance.
Now she’d lost him anyway thanks to her unwillingness, as always, to risk herself.
She didn’t have the courage to change her mind.
If she’d known, when she met Dan, that their time would be limited, would that have stopped her from falling in love with him? She dropped her head to her hands, squeezing her eyes shut, seeing the big charming man she’d adored, she’d married.
