| Synopsis | Reviews | Excerpt |
Kaylin Danner gave up everything when her mother died. Her dancing career. Her life. Her future. With her dance studio, she helps pay the bills and raise her younger sisters. When an explosion kills her father, Kaylin is suspicious of foul play. Suddenly, strangers begin asking about her father’s business secrets, their home is invaded, and the family attacked. And now Kaylin has her hands full holding the family together. Who can she turn to? Who can she trust?
Sawyer Scott was her dad’s partner. He wants to carry on their research, research which could change the world, literally. But Kaylin fears continuing her father's work increases the danger to her family. As they both grieve, Sawyer shows Kaylin how dependable, thoughtful, and protective he really is. Resisting the brilliant and sexy scientist is difficult. And although Kaylin tells herself she can face the hard times alone, she slowly lets down her guard. Yet even as she falls into a working partnership with Sawyer, Kaylin questions her own judgment.
Is trusting Sawyer a good decision? Will finding the missing formula lead them to her father's killer? Can she stop dancing with fire long enough to save her family and herself?
Kearney, a native of New Jersey, writes full time and has sold books to the industry’s top publishing houses – Grand Central, Tor, Simon & Schuster, Harlequin, Berkley, Leisure, Red Sage, and Kensington. As an award winning author, Kearney earned a Business Degree from the University of Michigan. Kearney’s knowledge and experience span the romance genre, and her fifty plus books include contemporary, romantic suspense, historical, futuristic, science fiction, and paranormal novels. She resides in a suburb of Tampa – with her husband, kids, and Boston terrier. Currently, she’s plotting her way through her 54th work of fiction.
Visit Susan at www.SusanKearney.com.
"An exciting romantic suspense novel.The chemistry between Kaylin and Sawyer is almost as combustible at the missing fuel formula." -- Rosemary Smith, Netgalley
"The fast-paced story line never slows down… Kearney turns up the Florida summer heat with this exhilarating, fiery tale." -- Harriet Klausner, The Mystery Gazette
1
DAMN, the
woman had moves.
Stunned
and awed, Sawyer Scott peered through the sheer curtains into Kaylin Danner’s
dance studio. Ignoring the hot Florida sunshine baking his neck while he stood
on the sidewalk, he watched, riveted by Kaylin’s shapely silhouette, a Kaylin
he’d never seen before.
The
conservative, practical, proper ballet teacher he might have imagined in pink
toe shoes and a sleek leotard had been replaced by a Kaylin in black, a Kaylin
who was innovative, wild, and uninhibited, a side of her that Sawyer barely
recognized. Beyond the pink door of the dance studio, this new Kaylin was
dancing to the radical music of Goldfrapp. Sawyer would have given up dinners
for a week to watch her dance all evening. In fact, Kaylin’s erotic and undulating
movements had so seduced him that he’d almost forgotten he’d come to her school
about business.
And
forgetting business wasn’t like him at all. During the last ten years while
Sawyer had earned doctorates in chemical engineering and physics at MIT, he’d
rarely been distracted from his goal of running a manufacturing plant with
Kaylin’s father, Dr. Henry Danner. Set on having the satisfaction of being an
innovator and entrepreneur, he’d turned down a big offer from a petrochemical
company to work with Henry. And they’d made remarkable progress.
In fact,
they were on the verge of a breakthrough. Sawyer had never regretted his
decision, a decision that meant he’d been doing little more than studying,
researching, and dreaming about oil. Yet now, seeing his business partner’s
daughter dance, he had no doubt Kaylin would be invading his future thoughts as
easily as she’d distracted him from his present objective.
Sawyer had
no idea what kind of dance Kaylin was performing but was fairly certain it
wasn’t the classical ballet she taught the neighborhood children. No way. These
moves were as complex as they were mesmerizing. And so out of character for
Kaylin that the surprise had stopped his forward momentum.
But he
wasn’t here to watch a private performance or to enroll as a student in her
class. He was here on business. Sawyer forced his hand to knock on the door.
But Kaylin didn’t stop dancing.
"Probably
can’t hear over the drumbeat,” he muttered. A drumbeat that echoed from his
ears to his toes.
Taking a
deep breath, Sawyer opened the door and stepped from warm and humid to hot and
steamy. Kaylin wore a black sports bra and matching yoga pants that sat low on
her hips and flared wide at the ankles. Her feet were bare, her hair in a messy
knot at the back of her head. However, her clothing, or lack of it, had nothing
to do with his breath whistling out of his lungs. Instead of precise spins and
regulated moves that he would have expected of the Kaylin he thought he knew,
this Kaylin’s body ebbed and flowed like a wave, the rhythm provocative, the
beat primal. The effect she had on him was druglike, tantalizing, like a
whitecap swelling, breaking, sweeping him under.
From
outside the studio, the full impact of her skill hadn’t been as apparent. Her
stomach muscles, emphasized by a slick gleam of sweat, shimmered and flexed as
she spun a complete rotation. As she twirled, she caught sight of him and went
still. If he hadn’t been watching closely, he wouldn’t have seen her bristle,
her nostrils flare, her lips tighten, her eyes narrow—just a bit. Then she
flicked off the music, picked up a towel and draped it around her graceful
neck, and raised an imperious eyebrow.
Dabbing
her face with the towel, she shot him a you-better-have-a-
damn-good-reason-for-invading-my-space look. "Yes?”
"That
dance... wow.” He could tell by her expression she wasn’t
sure whether to take his words as a compliment. She bit her lower lip, the
confidence and sensuality of the dance hidden, replaced by invisible armor
she’d wrapped around her taut frame. She appeared as unhappy as he’d be
if a stranger intruded on one of his experiments.
Uncertain
if he’d offended her, he combed his fingers through his hair. "Sorry. I didn’t
mean to come in uninvited. I knocked. You didn’t hear. Those moves you
do... that’s not classical ballet, is it?”
Kaylin
chuckled, her green eyes brightening, her lips breaking into a wide and playful
grin. In that one moment, her barriers shredded, and her inner self shone
through. "That was tribal fusion belly dance. An experiment.”
"If you
want my opinion,” and he wasn’t sure she did, "your experiment’s an unqualified
success.”
"Thanks, but as you aren’t a dance critic... what
are you doing here?”
She hadn’t
taken long to redirect his personal comments. She did it smoothly, giving him a
gentle brush-off. He had to give her credit. Kaylin Danner was outwardly
consistent. Her tribal dancing—a wild aberration in her normally staid
character—had shocked and intrigued him. To his frustration, the Kaylin he’d
occasionally seen around her father’s business had returned, the one who was a
master at keeping Sawyer at an emotional distance. "I’m looking for your
father.”
She
frowned. "Isn’t he at the lab?”
Twenty-five
years ago, Henry Danner had built his lab, a nine-thousand-square-foot steel
building, on the one-acre lot next door to the house he’d inherited from his
grandparents. Back then, the zoning laws had permitted industrial building in
the area, allowing Henry to construct his lab in the middle of the neighborhood,
and it had since been grandfathered in. Henry could work on his inventions
literally in his own backyard. Although Kaylin’s studio shared land with her
family’s home and stood about a hundred yards behind her father’s laboratory,
Sawyer hadn’t been here before.
Since
Henry had made Sawyer a partner in an exciting new business, they’d stayed busy
at the lab. Lately, their results had been encouraging, and Sawyer had just
returned to Tampa after an interesting consultation with researchers at the
University of Michigan. With technology growing exponentially, Sawyer and Henry
couldn’t afford not to stay apprised of the latest developments.
"Your
father didn’t answer the phone or my knock.” Sawyer pulled a key from his
pocket and held it up. "My key didn’t work, and he didn’t answer his cell
phone. I heard your music and thought you might know where he is. So I came
over. Why’d he change the locks?”
"He
upgraded security.” Kaylin went from uptight to thoughtful. "You were gone last
week, right?”
"Yeah. Why
the upgrade?” Sawyer was surprised she’d noticed his absence. Kaylin didn’t
come over to the lab much, if ever. She preferred her dancing. According to
Henry, she’d been all set to head for New York and ply her talents on Broadway
four years ago. Then her mother, Danielle, had died, and Kaylin had given up a
serious boyfriend and her dreams. She’d stayed home to help raise her younger
sisters and undoubtedly pick up the slack. Henry, who would be the first to
admit he was a better inventor than businessman, needed Kaylin’s help to pay
the bills. Though with Sawyer on board, that was about to change.
Still, he
understood why Kaylin was so prickly. As much as he admired her loyalty to her
family, he thought it a shame that she’d given up her ambitions to stay home and
teach ballet to five-year-olds. Anyone who could move like she did should be
sharing her talent with the world.
"Would you
like a glass of water?” Kaylin asked, then headed toward an alcove she used as
her studio’s office.
The
apricot-painted walls showed off framed pictures of her students as well as
posters of famous ballet stars from the New York City and Moscow Ballet
companies. A pair of threadbare toe shoes hung from ribbons on a hook, signed
by some ballerina whose name he couldn’t read. She opened the mini-fridge
beside her desk, removed a pitcher of water, poured two glasses, and handed him
one.
She
sighed. "Dad told me this morning he has the biodiesel formula all worked out.
He was waiting for you to return to fire up the plant’s reactor. But when I
walked my students to their parents’ cars, I heard the generator go on. I
assumed you were with him. You think he started without you?”
"I doubt
it. It takes both of us to make fuel. He was probably just warming up the
power.” However, the generator hadn’t been on when Sawyer had discovered his
key didn’t work. He hoped the power wasn’t on the fritz.
Kaylin’s
shoulders slumped as she let down her guard again, allowing him to see her
concern. "Dad’s been working too hard. Sometimes to relax, he sits by my
mother’s rose bushes. Did you check out the backyard?”
Kaylin
stood and pulled open the sheer curtains so they could both look out the
window. Sawyer’s gaze swept over the lot that Kaylin’s students’ parents used
for parking. Spiked grass with Mexican heather, blooming yellow, pink, and
orange zinnias, roses, and variegated ginger decorated the yard. Her students
and their parents were long gone. And Henry wasn’t there.
His gaze
shifted to the Danners’ back porch, a cozy deck with a potted pink grapefruit
tree and hanging baskets of white and pink orchids. Their mutt, Randy, lay
curled and lazy on a lounger, sunbathing in a beam of Florida sunlight that
filtered between palm fronds. The grass needed mowing, and the orange trees
required pruning, but the ferns beneath the moss-laden granddaddy oaks shone
green and healthy. A swift perusal of the fading olive-colored paint along with
the curling shingles and sagging shutters of the family’s two-story home
reminded Sawyer that the house needed repairs to squeak through another
hurricane season. He didn’t see Henry anywhere.
Kaylin
went to her big yellow purse on a hook by her desk. "Let’s see if he’s in the
lab.” She pulled a key from her purse, but it snagged on a piece of paper. An
airline ticket fell to the floor.
"Going
somewhere?” he asked.
"Maybe.” A
muscle in her jaw tightened, and she picked up the ticket and replaced it in
her purse.
"Maybe?”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. "But you’ve already bought the ticket.”
Kaylin
helped support the family with her dance studio. She was practical, full of
common sense, and managed the family checkbook like a seasoned accountant and
financial planner. And she never, ever went anywhere. Not to the beach with
friends. Not over to Disney or Universal Studios for a day trip. Certainly not
anywhere that required air travel. It was so atypical for her to buy an airline
ticket, never mind one that she wasn’t certain she’d use, that she’d piqued
Sawyer’s curiosity. And from the flush of color in her cheeks, she didn’t want
to talk about it.
"I
haven’t—”
One moment
she was placing her purse strap onto her shoulder, the next a thunderous roar
rocked them. The glass panes of her studio’s windows shattered. Sawyer yanked
her to the floor with him and caught a glimpse outside. A fiery inferno.
"Oh God,”
he breathed.
The lab
had exploded.
2
KAYLIN AND
SAWYER shoved up from the floor and dashed out of the studio. Her view of the
hellish flames was up-close and perfect. Just like her fear.
God.
Oh, God.
Dad had
started up his lab, and something had gone terribly wrong. Rectangular, made of
gray and rusted metal, the entire building had burst into flames. The red-hot
metal walls flickered with orange fire, and the roaring flames devoured the
two-story flat roof. Even from here, the heat beat on her face.
The
fuel—Dad’s biodiesel—must be burning, the black smoke curling into an ugly
death plume. As Kaylin stared in growing horror, a second explosion rocked the
building, spitting flames thirty feet into the sky.
"Call for
help,” Sawyer told her, his face drawn and hardened, his jaw set as if
clenching his teeth. "I’ll check the back of the building.”
As Sawyer
sprinted around the lab, she prayed the other side wasn’t on fire, too. Hands
shaking, she reached into her purse, plucked out her phone, and dialed 9-1-1.
On autopilot, she gave her name and address. "Hurry. Please hurry.”
No one
could survive that inferno. Yet, Dad might not have been inside. After all,
Sawyer had been at the lab before he’d come to her studio, and no one had
answered his knock. Her father could have gone to buy more caustic soda, used
in the biodiesel production process, or to see his attorney. Or maybe he’d had
a dental appointment he’d forgotten to mention.
Kaylin
looked right and left and didn’t see her father in the backyard. Not on the
back deck. Not beside her mother’s rose bushes.
Don’t
panic.
She had to
hold herself together. For her sisters. Perhaps Dad had stepped out to get the
mail. Or returned to the house for a file or a wrench. Or gone to his car to
run an errand.
Randy
scampered by on his short little legs and started barking at the fire from the
relative safety of the back porch. A neighbor shrieked for her children to come
inside. Even from her studio, the air reeked with the stench of burning fuel,
causing Kaylin’s eyes to water.
Her
sixteen-year-old sister, Lia, sprinted across the yard with Billy, her best
friend, in tow. Lia had lost her usual flirty and sassy expression. She now
wore a wide-eyed look of horror. Billy hung back, and his normal teenage
cockiness had vanished. And when, for a moment, Billy and Kaylin locked gazes,
she could have sworn he looked guilty as hell. When he took off running toward
the house, her suspicions spiked.
But then
Lia was tugging Kaylin toward the lab with surprising strength. "We have to get
Dad out. He was in there.”
Please,
no. "Are you sure?”
"Billy and
I were just there, talking to Dad. He got a phone call, and then his line went
dead. We left. We have to get him out.”
No way
would she let her sister walk into that blaze. "Sawyer’s checking the lab.”
Kaylin tugged Lia back toward the house, a relatively easy task since her
sister’s initial strength seemed to have vanished. "If Dad’s phone went dead,
maybe he went to the house for his spare battery or to recharge it on the
cigarette lighter in his car.”
Kaylin and
Lia raced across the yard to their home. Together they searched the downstairs,
kitchen, office, and dining and living areas, shouting for their father. And
all the while she wondered if the explosion had been sabotage. After two
hard-looking men had paid them a visit last week, they’d had a break-in.
Afterward, her father had changed the locks.
Now, she
wondered if those men had threatened him. Had they returned and blown up the
lab? Or was the fire an accident?
"He’s not
answering,” Lia half yelled, half sobbed.
He’d have
to have been deaf not to have heard them. "Maybe he’s on the phone with 9-1-1.”
Kaylin sprinted upstairs, Lia on her heels. But again, they didn’t find him.
Kaylin spun around, grabbed Lia’s hand, and clenched it tight. "Let’s check the
garage and his car.”
Panic
urging her onward, Kaylin opened the door that led from the house to the
garage. She flipped on the light. Dad’s ancient Oldsmobile sat parked on the
right. She held her breath, hoping he’d pop up from under the dash with his
lopsided grin.
Lia’s
voice trembled. "He’s not here, either.”
"Let’s go
back outside. Maybe he’s with a neighbor. Or he’s searching for us while we’re
looking for him.”
"I’m
scared. I’m so scared, Kaylin.”
"We’ll
find him.” Kaylin wrapped her arm around her sister’s thin shoulders. She was
scared, too. But she had to clamp down and lock out the terror. It was her job
to take care of Lia and Becca. After Mama’s liver had shut down and she’d died,
she’d left Kaylin her love of dance, her roses, and her job. So Kaylin couldn’t
give in to her own fear. She had to be the adult, even when inside she was
crying.
They
hurried outside. The flames had grown higher, the heat more intense. Neighbors
congregated down the block, holding their children tight, fear reflected on
their faces. Kaylin didn’t see her father or Sawyer anywhere.
Sixty feet
away, the flames consumed the lab, the heat forcing them to retreat. Neighbors
on the far side of the block gawked from their yards as if the Danners were a
Florida side show attraction. Kaylin heard the squeal of car tires, the driver
clearly eager to avoid the flames near the street. Even Randy had the sense to
stay back from the fire and sat cowering by the studio door, whining uneasily.
Kaylin led
her sister away from the house—even as she prayed that, too, wouldn’t also go
up in flames. She began to advance around the backyard when her sister planted
her feet and stopped.
"Look!”
Lia pointed to a man running like an Olympic sprinter straight toward the
flames. "It’s Sawyer.”
Her
father’s partner bolted across the side yard. With a crowbar in hand that he
must have fetched from his vehicle, he ran, no hesitancy in his stride. But a
black cotton T-shirt and hip-hugging jeans were no protection from the heat or
the flames. Eyes narrowed in determination, lips tight with resolve, Sawyer’s
tan face was red—too red from his proximity to the fire. Sparks landed on him,
but he didn’t so much as bat them away. Arms pumping, biceps bulging, he raced
straight for the burning lab’s side door.
"Sawyer,
stop!” No one could enter that building. No way. Kaylin’s throat tightened with
fear. Either Sawyer hadn’t heard her or had paid no mind. He was about twenty
feet from the burning lab when a third explosion blasted open the door, ripping
it from its hinges and knocking him off his feet. The crowbar flew from his
hand.
The force
of the blast slammed him to the ground, and the industrial-sized door missed
crushing him by only a few inches. Flat on his back, he didn’t move. Blood
trickled down his forehead and into his dark hair.
Lia
gasped, hid her eyes against Kaylin’s chest, and wailed. "He’s dead. Oh, God,
he’s dead.”
Praying
Lia was wrong, Kaylin stepped away from her sister. "Stay here.”
Ducking to
keep stray embers from her eyes, Kaylin sprinted to Sawyer. She drew hot air
into her lungs and tried not to wince at the increasing heat. He sprawled on
his back, one arm flung over his eyes. Blood trickled from his sliced scalp,
seeping over his temple and ear, and she hoped that meant his heart still beat.
When
sparks threatened to ignite his clothing, she grabbed the towel that was still
around her neck and used it to flick embers and ashes from his legs and chest.
Flames danced up his shoulder and she smothered them with the towel.
"Sawyer.
Get up.” She grabbed his calloused hand, surprised at the warmth and size of
it. Kaylin tugged, but the guy didn’t budge. Not an inch. This man was fit. And
muscles were heavy. Too heavy for her to pull him to safety.
Something
burning drifted onto his jeans and began to smoke. She snapped the towel at it,
but wasn’t quick enough. The flames caught. What did they teach kids in school?
Stop, drop, and roll.
He was
already down. "Sawyer,” she screamed and shoved him onto his side. "Roll.”
He moaned,
opened eyes that were clear and blue and stared straight at the burning
building. By his sad gaze, she could have sworn he’d awakened clear-headed and
immediately recalled what had happened at the lab. The explosion. Her father
still missing.
"You’re on
fire. Burning up. Roll,” she ordered, shoving him with a strength that came
from years of dance training.
He
tightened his fingers on hers, pulled her down. "You’re burning, too.”
He kept
his wits, rolling in the grass with her in his arms. They both swatted the
flames with their hands. Randy kept barking. Lia shouted for help, her voice
surprisingly shrill and loud. But working together, Sawyer and Kaylin finally
beat the fire on their clothing into submission.
For one
long second, he lay on top of her, his chest against hers. Their gazes locked,
and she couldn’t look away. She couldn’t read his expression. Couldn’t guess
his thoughts.
Then he
rolled aside and helped her to her feet. He now possessed several charred holes
in his jeans, and his ripped shirt looked like he’d gone through a shredder,
but the flesh beneath didn’t appear to have blistered.
"You
okay?” Breathing evenly, he stood, towering over her, his broad shoulders
slumped, head bowed.
She
blurted the first thought in her mind. "That was crazy. For you to
try...”
"I had
to.” His massive hands closed into fists.
He’d had
to try. Something about the rawness in his voice at that moment cut through
her fear and touched her heart. Kaylin had always kept Sawyer at a distance.
For one, he was too damn good-looking. For another, she wanted nothing to do
with a dreamer like her father. And lastly, she didn’t intend to put down one
more root that might keep her from leaving town.
Still, she
didn’t hate him, either. Her father had told her his history. After losing his
own parents in a car accident, he’d grown up with his grandmother, without a
father figure. Sawyer and her father had bonded, the two of them working in the
lab, fishing, bowling, fixing cars, and drinking beer. Even when he’d been away
at college, he’d returned and worked with her dad during the summer. No doubt
her father had wanted a son—and Sawyer had needed a father. Case closed.
They’d
fit. Not by blood, but by common interests. And mutual respect. Enough for
Sawyer to risk his life on the chance her father was still inside the lab.
Fire
engines with alarms wailing roared down the street, arriving with sheriff’s
cruisers, their red and blue lights flashing. Deputies made the neighbors move
back.
Lia, her
round green eyes dilated with shock, ran over and hugged Kaylin. "Hold me.
Please. Dad’s gone. He’s not in the house. Or your studio or across the street.
Hold me and don’t let go.”
Her little
sister had always been on the delicate side, like their mother, and with her
blond curls blackened and streaked from the ashes, her frail bones trembling,
Kaylin feared Lia was about to collapse. All three of them backed away from the
heat toward the curb, with Kaylin supporting Lia. "We’re okay. I’m all right.
Sawyer has a cut on his head, but he’s fine, too.”
As she
embraced her sister, she couldn’t help thinking that if her father had been out
of the lab, like Sawyer, they would have found him by now, too. Between the
smoke, the oncoming sirens, and the stench, her hopes of finding her father
alive dwindled, especially as she stared at the ruined lab.
Sawyer
raised his head, and he was anything but defeated. His blue irises burned with
sorrow and fury, and in that moment, if his rage had been a hurricane, the
storm would have taken out the state of Florida. The force of his rage was
almost palpable, and she took a step back. Then another. She knew the moment
his anger and helpless frustration turned to something else. She could almost
smell his determination to find out what had happened, a consuming intensity
that canceled out the reek of the fire.
Kaylin
didn’t know Sawyer well, but he wouldn’t have headed into that inferno unless
he believed her father had been inside the deadly fire. Despite her terrible
fear for her father, she’d never forget that Sawyer had risked his life to try
to save him. Still, that didn’t mean her father had been inside. A tiny
part of her refused to give up hope. Maybe there was a safe pocket inside the
building that had protected him from the fire. They might yet find her father
safe.
