She reached the two hundredth white fluffy animal before an odd smell tickled her nose. She lifted her head to survey the air. Hazy beams of light filtered through the gauzy curtains and lent an ethereal glow to the old-fashioned room. Brass glinted off bedrails and shadows hummed along the edges to settle into the corners.

The smell grew stronger.

Smoke. Oh God, it was smoke.

Sophie jumped out of bed with a gasp and leaned one hand on the night table as the world spun around her. Several deep breaths had the room righting itself so she could hurry to the door and pull it open. Smoke billowed up from the stairway. Flames licked the wooden handrail.

Panic shot through her.

She slammed the door closed and grabbed her sweatshirt off the flowered chair to cover the space under the door. Thank goodness Mrs. Shiller was out of town. She grabbed her cell and dialed 911, giving the address to the operator before yanking on jeans, a sweater, and her boots. Then she ran to the window and pushed it all the way open before turning back to the room. The solid door kept too much smoke from entering, and she figured she had a few minutes.

She grabbed her purchases and tossed them out the window, watching as they bounced two stories down onto the thick grass. Then she threw out her suitcase and charcoals. Smoke wafted out the front of the house to cover the ground in a fine haze.

From a distance, sirens pierced the night.

Sophie finally grabbed her two sketchbooks and swung one leg over the ledge of the window. “We can do this, baby,” she said, eyeing the nearby thick branches of the statuesque bull pine. She’d never climbed a tree but had studied gravity in a physics class. Gravity would win over wishful hopes any day. She reached for the closest branch, her plan formulating as she moved.

Flashing blue and red lights stopped her mid-reach as the sheriff’s truck slammed to a stop and both Jake and Quinn jumped out. More shrill sirens sounded in the night.

“Sophie!” Jake yelled as he barreled across the grass to look up at the window, Quinn on his heels.

“I’m fine, Jake,” Sophie called down, her white knuckles on the window frame starting to ache. “Catch these, would you?” She tossed down her sketchbooks, which Jake snatched out of the air and placed near the base of the tree.

Quinn said something into a big black radio just as a red fire truck screeched to a stop and men in full gear scrambled off.

Jake’s eyes held Sophie’s captive as he murmured something to his brother, who nodded and turned to direct the crew. Then Jake jogged to the tree and jumped to clasp the bottom branch before swinging his legs up over his head toward another branch, crossing his ankles and levering himself into the tree.

Sophie held her breath as Jake easily climbed branch after branch and sent leaves and bark cascading down to the ground.

Suddenly, he stood even with the window. “You ever climb a tree, Sunshine?”

Chapter Twenty

Sophie shook her head, tears surprising her as they slid down her face.

Scratches marred Jake’s hands and bark wove through his hair, yet his grin was genuine. “Okay. You’re going to reach out to that branch”—he pointed to the branch she had been aiming for—“and inch along until you get even with my hands.” He nodded to the spot. “Then, when I touch your wrists, you get ready to move quickly, okay?” His voice stayed soft, soothing.

Sophie nodded and then jumped as her door crackled into fire. Smoke filled the area behind her.

“Now,” Jake coaxed as he shifted his weight on a straining branch.

Quinn took up a position directly below Sophie as she leaned forward and grasped the branch with both hands.

Following Jake’s directions, she inched her hands and arms farther toward the trunk of the tree until her knees sat on the windowsill. She couldn’t go any farther without putting all of her weight on the branch.

“Good job. Now this is a thirty-year-old tree, very sturdy, very safe. But that branch you’re holding won’t hold your entire weight for very long. Do you see the branch about three feet below it? The really thick one?” Jake pointed.

“Yes.” Smoke filled her nose, and she coughed, her eyes watering from the sting.

“Good.” Jake encircled both her wrists with his hands, balancing his weight while standing on two bowing branches. “So sweetheart,” he said, speaking with confidence as more smoke spilled out from the window, “you need to hold this branch and swing your feet onto the lower one. It’ll hold you all day. Ready?”

Sophie turned panicked eyes on Jake and tried to pull her hands back.

Jake shook his head. “The fire’s behind you, Soph. You have to move—now.”

“It’s okay,” Quinn called up from the ground. “I’m right under you. If worse comes to worse, you’ll land on me.”

“Now, Sophie.” Jake tightened his grip as the firemen slammed through the front door armed with axes and an uncoiled hose.

“Jake, the baby.” Sophie clenched the branch with a quick look down. Way down to where Quinn stood patiently.

“Babies don’t like smoke.” Jake’s voice lowered. “Besides, ours would love to flatten Uncle Quinn, I’m sure.”

Sophie tried to breathe shallowly and not take in too much smoke. With a quick prayer, she seized the branch and swung from the safety of the window, her heart all but beating out of her rib cage.

Her feet hit the lower branch and slid off, her boots scraping for purchase.

Panic squashed the breath from her lungs.

Sophie cried out as her legs dangled, and the sound of a branch snapping in two filled the air. It disintegrated in clumps of bark between her hands. Jake’s hands tightened on her wrists as he held her in midair before he swung her so her feet could again find purchase. She caught the lower branch and pressed her legs forward until it balanced in the center of her feet.

She stood for a second, her feet on the branch, her wrists in Jake’s broad hands, before he tugged her toward the trunk and wrapped her arms around the tree.

Sophie rested her head against the scratchy bark and her knees began to tremble.

“Okay, almost done now,” Jake whispered into her ear as he positioned his body behind hers. “See that branch to the right, about a foot down from you?”

Sophie twisted her head to look. “Yes.”

“Hold onto the trunk and just step one foot down to it.” Jake pressed even closer. “I’ve got you, I promise.”

Sophie stepped down, her palms scraping the bark as she fought for balance. Then she sighed in relief as she lowered her other foot. The crackle of fire and shattering glass boomed around them. The process continued until they both stood on bottom branches, about seven feet from the ground. At Jake’s quiet order, Sophie sat, her hands gripping the trunk while he jumped to the grass.

“Grab my arms and jump.” Jake reached up with both hands.

Sophie reached down, clasped broad arms, and let gravity have its way. Her feet met wet grass for a mere second before Jake scooped her in his arms and strode for the paramedic van on the street.

Sophie coughed lightly into his neck, her stomach heaving as Jake lowered her on the tailgate of his truck and a uniformed paramedic placed oxygen over her nose and mouth. Thunder crackled in the distance, and a light rain peppered the ground. Jake pushed Sophie farther into the back of the truck, into dryness.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, the scratches on her hands searing. Red and blue lights swirled as the firefighters rolled up their hose and the stench of burned wood filled the air. She began to shake violently, her teeth chattering behind the mask.

“The fire’s out, Sunshine,” Jake said, his eyes on Quinn and a sooty firefighter as they surveyed the damage from the porch. He shifted so he stood directly between the smoldering walls and Sophie, and she wondered if it were intentional or instinctive. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. I don’t think I inhaled much of the smoke. The baby should be fine.”

“I was worried about you.” Jake didn’t turn as he spoke.

“How did you get here so fast?”

“Poker night at Hawk’s. I was there when Quinn got the call.” Jake straightened as his brother approached.

“The fire was intentional.” Quinn didn’t waste any words as he reached Jake and cast a concerned gaze toward Sophie. “Most people know Mrs. Shiller is out of town.”

“You sure?” Jake lowered his voice.

“Yes. Typical Molotov cocktail through the front window.” Both men turned to study her—twin sets of deep onyx eyes with different expressions. Quinn was all cop, curious and hard. Jake’s expression spoke of something dark, something heated.

Yet one thing remained the same—both were pissed.

“What?” Sophie scooted to the edge of the vehicle, letting rain splatter against her legs. “You think this was on purpose?”

Quinn nodded. “I know it was. Have you noticed anything odd, anyone following you while you’ve been here?”

“I haven’t seen anyone following me. But…” She took a deep breath. “Somebody has left notes on the Jeep window for me.”

“Notes?” Quinn placed a restraining hand on his brother’s arm as Jake’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Um, yeah. Basically saying that the development was a bad idea.”

“And?” Jake growled it.

“And that I should get out of town.”

Jake swore under his breath while Quinn cast a glance around at the milling spectators on the street and nearby lawns.

“But I don’t understand, I mean, the commissioners denied the application.” Sophie’s temper stirred. “There won’t be a golf course.”

Quinn shook his head. “But the tribe has hired you to build a golf course.”

Sophie shrugged, wary of the fury on Jake’s face. This wasn’t her fault, damn it. She turned her attention to Quinn. “I still have the notes. They’re over in the suitcase I threw out the window.” The muscle ticking in Jake’s sooty jaw captured her gaze.

“Stay with her, Jake. Let me do my job.” Quinn stepped around his brother and headed for the still smoldering house.

“I want to see them,” Jake called to Quinn’s retreating back.

“I know,” Quinn tossed back over his shoulder, his legs eating the distance to the pile under the bull pine.

Jake’s eyes bored holes in her as his arms slowly crossed over his broad chest.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal.” Sophie answered his unasked question, snapping the words out.

The muscle in his jaw swelled. “How many notes?”

“Three.”

“When?”

Sophie was saved from answering when Quinn returned with her suitcase in one hand, the other pulling papers from beneath his jacket. Two dark, masculine heads dipped to read the notes in the muted light of the paramedic’s vehicle. Sophie shivered at the looks on their faces once they finished reading.

Quinn nodded at her. “Get her home. I’ll follow up with questions in the morning.”

Jake reached for her.

“No.” Sophie moved farther in the vehicle as lightning ripped across the sky.

“You’re coming with me.” Jake hauled her out of the vehicle and carried her to his truck, where a deputy finished loading her possessions into the backseat.

“Damn it, Jake.” Sophie fought the urge to kick him. Hard.

Jake didn’t reply as he started the ignition and pulled past the emergency vehicles onto the rain-drenched road. Sophie pouted in her seat, determined to ignore him. He drove several miles in silence before speaking. “If you weren’t pregnant, you’d absolutely be wearing my handprint on your ass right now.”

Her butt actually clenched. “Good thing you knocked me up, then.”

His dark gaze set a fluttering in her stomach. “Remind me to Google if spanking will hurt a pregnant woman.”

“You don’t scare me.” Which was a complete freakin’ lie. The guy was kind of scary…but he’d never hurt her.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the notes?”

“They weren’t really threats,” Sophie huffed back.

“So it wasn’t a big deal.” Sarcasm wove through his every word.

“Right. Frankly, I didn’t even think to tell you.” Her arms crossed over her chest as she watched the storm wage outside the truck.

“Really.”

“Yes, really.” Heat rose to her face. “This was just a quick fling, remember? A couple of weeks, then I was gone. Out of your life.”

“Once you discovered you were pregnant? You didn’t think to let me know someone was threatening you?” As they reached his home, Jake slammed the truck into park and turned off the ignition with a sharp twist of his wrist.