Cavanaugh Reunion Read Free Page B

hair. I was just going to remove them. Unless you want them there,” he speculated, raising a quizzical eyebrow and waiting for a response.
    Something had just happened. Something completely uncalled-for. She’d felt a very definite wave of heat as his fingers made contact with her hair and scalp. Her imagination?
    Kansas took a step back and did the honors herself, carelessly brushing her fingers through her long blond hair to get rid of any kind of soot or burnt debris she might have picked up while she was hustling the children out of the building. She supposed she should count herself lucky that it hadn’t caught fire while she was getting the children out.
    “There,” she declared, her throat feeling tight for reasons that were completely beyond her. She tossed her head as a final sign of defiance. And then her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “Now, why are you so interested in the fires, and who did you just call?”
    She was no longer being just nosey, he thought. There was something else at work here. But what? Maybe she was a reporter and that was why she seemed to resent his being one, as per her last guess.
    If that was what she was, then she was out of luck. Nothing he disliked more than reporters. “Lady, just because I borrowed your phone doesn’t entitle you to my life story.”
    She squared her shoulders as if she were about to go into battle. He braced himself. “I don’t want your life story. I just want an answer to my question, and it’s Kansas, not ‘lady.’”
    Ethan’s eyebrows lifted in confusion. What the hell was she talking about? “What’s Kansas?”
    Was she dealing with a village idiot, or was he just slow? “My name,” she emphasized.
    Ethan cocked his head, trying to absorb this meandering conversation. “Your last name’s Kansas?”
    She sighed. She was fairly certain he was doing this on purpose just to annoy her. “No, my first name is Kansas, and no matter how long you attempt to engage in this verbal shell game of yours, I’m not going to get sidetracked. Now, who did you call, and why are you so taken with this fire?” Before he could say anything, she asked him another question. “And what did you mean by ‘there’s been another one’?”
    “The phrase ‘another one’ means that there’s been more than one.” He was deliberately goading her now. And enjoying it.
    She said something under her breath that he couldn’t quite make out, but he gathered it wasn’t very favorable toward him.
    “I know what the phrase means,” she retorted through gritted teeth. “I’ll ask you one more time—why are you so interested in the fires?”
    “What happens after one more time?” Ethan wanted to know, amused by the woman despite himself. Irritating women usually annoyed the hell out of him—but there was something different about this one.
    She drew herself up to her full height. “After one more time, I have you arrested.”
    That surprised him. “You’re a cop?” He thought he knew most of the people on the force, by sight if not by name. He’d never seen her before.
    “No. I’m a fire investigator,” she informed him archly. “But I can still have you arrested. Clapped in irons would be my choice,” Kansas added, savoring the image.
    “Kinky,” he commented. Damn, they were making fire investigators a hell of a lot prettier these days. If she was telling the truth. “Mind if I ask to see some identification?”
    “And just so I know, who’s asking?” she pressed, still trying to get a handle on his part in all this.
    It was a known fact that pyromaniacs liked to stick around and watch their handiwork until the object of their interest burnt down to the ground and there was nothing left to watch. Since she’d begun her investigations and discovered that the fires had been set, Kansas had entertained several theories as to who or what was behind all these infernos. She was still sorting through them, looking for something that would rule