“You have it bad for that man.”
My face heated. She wasn’t wrong. I had definitely fallen for Seth Davis.
Chapter Thirty
SETH
“He ran that way,”the older man told Dylan. “Into the woods.”
Maybe we would actually catch a break this time with an eyewitness. Almost like clockwork, the arsonist had struck again. I wondered if Violet had already made the connection. I hadn’t until that moment. “He ran that way,” the older man told Dylan. “Into the woods.”
Maybe we would actually catch a break this time with an eyewitness. Almost like clockwork, the arsonist had struck again. I wondered if Violet had already made the connection. I hadn’t until that moment.
The first one I’d dealt with was at the beginning of May. Then he set Logan’s garage on fire at the beginning of June, but there was nothing in July. The one in August happened the first week of August, and now this one was in the beginning of September. I made a mental note to ask Violet when she arrived on scene.
I was dying to see her, but preferably not because she had to come help investigate another fire. The last one didn’t go too well. Well… I smiled. Maybe it did. It had brought us together, after all.
I planned to follow her through the house this time and not let her out of my sight. That settled, I tuned back in to the conversation Dylan was having with the older guy who lived across the street.
“Did you recognize him?” Dylan asked.
The man shook his head. “I couldn’t see his face. He wore a sweatshirt with the hood up.”
“Was it green?”
“It was dark.” The guy paused and his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
Dylan’s jaw locked. I understood his frustration, but it was also why our arsonist liked the early morning hours. It was easier to come and go without prying eyes when it was still dark out.
My feet were moving the second Violet’s car pulled up along the curb. I fucking missed her. Between working night shifts and dealing with Lucy, I’d barely seen her in the last two days.
I’d done my best to be kind to Lucy. Open to the idea of talking, but also making it very clear we were not getting back together. Only to have her throw a fit yesterday and go back to Charlotte. I was almost worried she’d freeze me out, decide not to let me go to the doctor’s appointment and sonogram. But so far, she hadn’t said anything to make me think she changed her mind on that.
The second Violet was close enough, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, bringing her into my chest. I breathed her in, letting her ground me.
“Rough morning?” she mumbled.
“Yeah.” I pulled back and looked down at her. “Rough couple of days.”
She gave me a slight nod and I stared down at her. I was still nervous that the situation with Lucy would affect my relationship with Violet. It was so new, and obviously not what she signed up for. But so far, she’d been nothing but supportive and understanding. Would that change when I moved back to Charlotte? Would history repeat itself and another relationship end for the same reasons?
I blinked. Violet was nothing like Lucy, I knew that, but it didn’t stop me from wondering how things between us might change once I was living in Charlotte, having to co-parent with my ex.
She reached up and brushed a long lock of my hair off my forehead. Staring into her eyes, everything around us disappearing, I vowed to do whatever I could to make this work. It was almost impossible to fight the pull between us, and I didn’t care who saw, I needed to feel her lips on mine. But the chaste kiss we shared wasn’t enough to tamp down the need to hold her in my arms and get lost in her.
It didn’t matter that I saw her last night for a few minutes, or the fact that it had only been forty-eight hours since we were in each other’s arms. The time away from her was torture. Thankfully we only had one more night of this.
A throat clearing behind me made me reluctantly let her go and step back. She brushed past me, and Dylan filled her in on their eyewitness statement and what he had marked for her inside to look at and bag.
I followed behind them until they got to the door, when they both stopped and turned my way.
Dylan cocked a brow, silently asking what I was doing.
“I’m not letting her out of my sight this time. We haven’t started the overhaul process yet, and with this dry heat, the fire could reignite easily.”
We probably had at least another few weeks of high temperatures and very little rain, which always made our jobs a little harder.
Dylan looked over at Violet. “Please tell me I wasn’t this bad when Hattie and I first got together.”
