by Anne Marsh
“I’ve got to take that,” she mumbled. Sheriff Tegan wouldn’t have paged her unless it was important.
“Okay,” Joey said and unwrapped his arms from around her. Instead of going back to sleep or getting up himself, he sprawled on her bed, watching her move around the room and grab her clothes. She loved the way he didn’t complain, just accepted her job and its realities. She shimmied into a clean pair of panties and her bra while she read the page.
“Bad accident? Rock slide? Nuclear apocalypse? It can’t be a fire or my phone would be going crazy.”
“Accident. A hit-and-run, but it must have happened hours ago. I’ll find out more when I get there. I’m sorry to run out on you.” The accident had to be a bad one if she was getting called in, but leaving Joey now sucked.
“We could fix the leaving thing. Move in with me, and then at least you’re coming back to me.” He lounged back against her headboard, sheet at his waist, as if he hadn’t just dropped a bombshell on her.
“You’re joking.” She opened her closet door and grabbed her uniform pants. She had no idea why he was bringing this up now, but it wasn’t funny.
“No. I’m not.” He eyed her levelly. “Why not?”
Right. She had a wee-hours-of-the-morning call to go into work, and he wanted to discuss the future of their relationship. Well, she had news for him. They’d talked about having sex. Then they’d had it. She’d made it perfectly clear that sex was as far as she went with him, so if he didn’t like it, that was too bad. Plus she had a hard time believing a man like Joey could be serious anyhow.
“We’re having sex,” she said, jamming a leg into her pants.
“True.” He sat up and leaned forward. “Hot sex. But that’s not all.”
“No?” She took her frustration out on her belt, then grabbed a shirt.
“No.” He sounded certain, which made one of them. “We’re not just having sex.”
“I—” had no idea what to say. Why were the stupid buttons so hard to do up? It was nice to hear that she wasn’t just a booty call. And she did think they were something more. They were friends, and she didn’t have so many of those that she didn’t value Joey’s friendship.
“We’re dating. We have a relationship. I care about you.” He looked at her, and she was pretty certain he saw right through her. “And you care about me.”
“This can’t be a long-term thing.” He was crazy.
“Don’t give me that morals clause crap again.”
Okay. Fine. She marched to the gun safe and retrieved her service weapon.
“Because,” he said, sounding irritated. “I’m not a convicted felon. I drive too fast. I get too many speeding tickets. Those aren’t irredeemable character flaws.”
“Tell that to Tegan,” she said.
He shot to his feet, and she tried to ignore the fact that she had six feet of naked hot guy standing in her bedroom. “Do you want to live your life worrying about what other people think? You’re afraid to take a chance on loving me because maybe you’d get hurt. Because maybe it would end up like high school sweetie did and that would suck.”
“Are you done?” She shut the gun safe and holstered her weapon. A hair tie, her shoes, and her keys, and she was out of here.
“I think I love you,” he said quietly. “We could get married. We could do this thing together.”
The bottom fell out of her stomach and a few other places as well. Like, say, her heart. No. He wasn’t right. This thing they had was chemistry, and neither of them had been playing for keeps.
“I thought we were having fun.” Lame.
“Because marriage sucks?”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she turned and left. She had a job to do, and that had to come first, didn’t it? Because without the job, who was she and what had she done with her life?
11
Although fire season wouldn’t kick off for another three months or so, there was plenty of prep work to be done in the off-season. Joey took his frustrations out on a tangle of equipment piled up in their tool cache. As work went, sorting wasn’t exciting, but it needed to be done. He’d worked a few fire camps before joining Donovan Brothers, and opening up the caches there had been part Christmas morning and part oh shit. It was amazing how many guys thought nothing of chucking their Pulaskis and all their other gear into random piles when their lives would depend on the same stuff in six months.
He didn’t have Mercy’s obsession with order, but sorting the tools into matching piles was satisfying. Like went with like and broken got added to a different pile, to fix or toss out. Of course, if Mercy were there, she’d have their shit not only organized but alphabetized, ordered by size, and labeled. Fixing tools was easy. Fixing people? Yeah. Not his thing.
Tires crunched on the gravel outside. Maybe he wasn’t the only sorry, can’t-sleep bastard putting in hours at the crack of dawn. When Rio Donovan strode inside the hangar, the man looked like he hadn’t slept at all. In addition to the rumpled, standing-on-end hair, tension lines stood out on either side of his mouth. He scanned the hangar and then laid in a line for Joey, who was the only other jumper present. Most of the guys were too smart to roll out of bed at dark o’clock without the promise of fire and a three-thousand-foot free fall.
Maybe he’d missed a memo, though, because he heard more cars entering the parking lot. Or maybe there was an out-of-season fire. It happened sometimes, and concern painted Rio’s face. He wore a flannel shirt open over a battered T-shirt and a pair of cargo pants. His shitkickers were half-laced, like he’d rolled out of bed, shoved his feet in, and hit the road.
Rio stopped beside Joey. “Don’t say anything to me, but listen up.”
Oookay. Rocking back on his heels, he gave the guy his full attention. “I’m listening.”
Rio gave him a hard look. “Trouble’s headed this way, looking for you and for explanations about last night.”
Two things struck him. One, Rio knew where Joey had spent the night. And two, there was no fire other than the one Rio apparently intended to light under his ass. Shit. While he would have been perfectly happy for all of Strong to know that he and Mercy were together, he didn’t want to risk her job or stress her out. He’d promised her she could call the shots when they were out and about in public, and he kept his promises.
“I can neither confirm nor deny.”
“Damn it.” Rio dropped down beside him. “I told you to slow down. Mercy told you to slow down. So why’d you do it?”
Because Mercy was his everything. It sounded stupid, like a bad country song, even in his head, and he had no idea why she’d agreed to give him a chance as her lover, but he wasn’t going to waste it. He didn’t have much to offer, but he’d give her what he could and hold on with both hands.
He set the adze he was holding down. The edge was dull and needed to be sharpened. “This has nothing to do with the jump team.”
Rio ran a hand over his head and exhaled roughly. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to infer that his boss was pissed.
“It does,” the other man countered.
“How?” Because honestly, he was sick and tired of everyone treating him like he was some sort of criminal. He was entitled to a personal life, and Rio didn’t need to know the details.
“Jesus.” Rio glared at him. “How can you ask that? Do you even know what happened last night? Or were you riding so fast that it was all a blur?”
Whoa. “Why don’t you tell me what you think happened last night?” he asked carefully. He respected Rio and he’d enjoyed working with the man, but he wasn’t letting anyone dictate how his relationship with Mercy played out. That was between the two of them.
Rio paused, like he was trying to marshal his thoughts into some semblance of order. That was smart, because right now Joey was fighting the urge to haul off and hit his friend. “You don’t know?”
“I was there,” he snapped, “but apparently you feel you get to weigh in too.”
“You hit someone with your bike, Joey. That’s what I heard. And then you fucking rode away. How the hell is that not my business? There’s some fifty-year-old guy in the hospital with internal injuries and God knows what else, and you’re here in my hangar, going through our gear like nothing happened.”
“I hit someone?” He had no idea what was happening here. Somehow their conversation had taken a hard right turn, and he had no idea where they were headed except that, deep in his gut, he knew their destination was nowhere he wanted to go. Like some bad movie, time slowed down, except he couldn’t reach out and change the channel or turn the shit off. He hadn’t hit anyone. Hell, he hadn’t even gotten on his bike last night. Thought about it, yeah, but then he’d sat there like an idiot and smelled the damn roses before climbing back into bed with Mercy.
“Did you?”
He couldn’t really blame Rio for his question, although he resented it. He also knew the other man would take his word for what had happened. That was part of being on the same team. They’d give each other shit, would step in when the situation warranted it, but at the end of the day, it was them against the rest of the world. Rio would have his back. It was, after all, why he was here in the hangar, giving Joey a heads-up. So he looked the other man in the eye and shook his head.
“Hell, no. I didn’t ride all night.”
Rio cursed. “Well, someone did, and he drove like a demon, so every cop in town is headed this way right now because you’ve got a date with the sheriff to do some explaining. Can someone vouch for where you were last night?”
Oh. Hell.
***
Mercy flicked through the preliminary report on her tablet. The investigation had barely gotten underway, but the bare bones were right there in black and white. Calvin Jackson and his wife, Rae Jackson, had blown a tire on the mountain highway early this morning. He’d managed to pull the car over, and then he’d got out the jack and the spare and tried to fix things. His wife had been sitting in the car because, as she’d explained, he wanted her to be safe.
That had been a good call on Mr. Jackson’s part.
A black motorcycle ridden by a large, leather-jacket-wearing man had shot around the curve going at least eighty miles an hour. There were no skid marks on the road, no sign that the biker had even spotted Mr. Jackson before the bike’s front fender had hit the man and sent him flying. Too much speed. An inconvenient blind spot. And just like that, the motorist had gone airborne. Mrs. Jackson, from her safe spot in the front seat, had seen it all. It turned out that she’d already had her phone out and had been calling 4-1-1 for a tow assist when her husband had hit first the guardrail and then the ground. Despite her shock, she’d given them a barebones description of the bike and the rider. It wasn’t detailed, but there was only one local who rode the highway like a midnight madman.
A midnight madman who loved her.
She could understand the accident, but leaving a man down? Joey didn’t do that—look at the way he’d held onto Will Donegan. So how could Tegan believe the driver had been Joey? Had Joey lent his bike to someone else, and had that person been driving it while Joey had been at her house? Considering the possibilities made the drive to Donovan Brothers’ hangar both impossibly long and miraculously short. When they arrived, she scanned the parking lot. Rio Donovan’s truck was parked close to the door, next to Joey’s motorcycle.
Sheriff Tegan jerked a thumb toward the Ducati. “That’s his bike right there. I’ll have one of the techs start going over it.”
“You don’t need a warrant?”
“Not when he’s parked the damn thing in a public lot. I just happen to be walking by and notice something.”
Sheriff Tegan had ordered her into his car for a reason. He’d wanted to make his point: Joey Carter had come to grief, and he’d have taken her with him if she hadn’t broken things off. Part of her was relieved that Tegan apparently didn’t know that she’d still been seeing Joey. The other part of her wanted to say so and let the chips fall where they may and tell Tegan the truth.
“You really think he did it?” Joey had gone outside last night, had come back cold. Wherever he’d been, however, he hadn’t had enough time to ride off and cause this particular accident.
“If I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t be here. If you can’t do this, you tell me now.”
Sheriff Tegan didn’t think Joey was innocent. She stared at his back, but no magic solution came to mind and she had a job to do. She followed her boss inside.
Rio Donovan looked up as they came in, sitting side by side with Joey. Figured. The Donovan brothers and their guys were a team. They presented a solid front to the world, whether they were fighting fire—or accusations. Another day, with another guy, and she’d have appreciated the sentiment. Right now, however, her stomach churned.
Sheriff Tegan didn’t hesitate, getting right down to it. “Joey Carter. You and me need to talk.”
“So Rio here tells me.” Joey unfolded himself, standing up.
“There was an accident last night on the highway. A motorcyclist hit a motorist who was changing a tire.”
She gave Joey credit. The first words out of his mouth were “Is the motorist okay?”
“Mr. Jackson’s in a world of hurt, but he’s not dead and that’s something. Another ten feet and he’d have gone over the guardrail, and we’d have a different outcome to deal with.”
There was a pause while they all thought that over. Hit-and-run was bad enough, but a murder charge would have been in a whole different league of bad. She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Joey fought. He defended. He wasn’t the kind of man who would mow someone down with his bike and then keep right on riding. He stood there, confident and sure, meeting the sheriff’s hard-eyed stare with a level gaze of his own. Like his world wasn’t imploding around him. Around them.
“And you think I was the guy riding the bike.”
Sheriff Tegan didn’t bother with the bullshit. “I do.”
Joey nodded. “My bike’s out there. Feel free to take a look at it. If I’d hit the motorist, there would be damage to the front end.”
“I’ll do that.”
“I didn’t ride last night.” His gaze never wavered from Tegan’s. And he didn’t meet her eyes. Tension radiated off him, though, like he wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else, and she’d bet he was itching to get on that bike and ride like the demons of hell were after him. She moved a little closer, wanting to tell him that she believed him. He drove too fast, lived too large, but he was a good man.
A good man who wouldn’t look at her and who was standing across the room from her while she stood on the opposing side.
“Sheriff—” She wasn’t sure what she intended to say, but Tegan cut her right off.
“You got someone who can confirm your whereabouts last night at half past one in the morning?”
Her head started pounding, echoing the frantic thump-bang of her heart. There was only one person who knew where Joey had been last night, and that was her. She’d been wrapped around him, naked and riding him like a cowgirl when the motorist had gone flying. Open your mouth. Tell Tegan.
“No,” Joey said. “There’s no one who would tell you where I was.”
***
Fuck this. He wasn’t a criminal, and he was damned tired of being treated like one. He liked speed and he liked his bikes. Those weren’t felony offenses, and he’d never failed to own up to his mistakes.
Except that once.
Yeah, he didn’t need the voice in his head chiming in on this one. It was bad enough having Mercy standing there with Tegan when he needed her by his side. So okay, she’d made her thoughts on them clear. He was her dirty secret, her midnight lover, or whatever other crap label she could come up with. What he wasn’t was the guy she’d admit to seeing in public. He’d been okay with that too.
Right up until he wasn’t and he’d told her he loved her.
She hadn’t said anything then and she sure wasn’t saying an
ything now.
He met her gaze and couldn’t read a goddamned thing on her face. She looked calm, collected, and every bit the professional. He was torn between wanting to applaud her and kiss her for all the wrong reasons. Reasons that included marking her as his, and that was a public no-no. Being in love sucked. Frankly, he had no idea what his honeymooning sister or any of the married smoke jumpers saw in it. Because if he hadn’t loved Mercy, he could have explained where he was and what he’d been doing when he was allegedly violating all notions of personal decency and running down innocent civilians.
He shoved to his feet. He was done here. Rio came to his feet too, laying a hand on his arm.
“Think first,” Rio said. “Act second.”
Been there, done that, got the postcard. He shook Rio’s hand off.
“I’ve done nothing but think. Apparently, you all have done plenty of thinking and have voted me most likely to kill someone and ride off into the night. Frankly, I’m tired of it.”
Tegan had never liked him. And if he was being honest, the man had good reason for his dislike. Joey had been a wild child and Tegan’s ranch had been the site of more than one prank gone awry. The man had run out of patience long before Joey had turned eighteen and joined up with Uncle Sam and straightened out his life. It didn’t make Tegan’s jumping to conclusions any easier to accept, however.
Rio wasn’t going to let it go. “You didn’t ride your bike last night.”
“No.” He’d been tempted, but he’d refrained because he’d had Mercy waiting for him and he hadn’t wanted to disappoint her. Turned out that had been a mistake.
“And, to the best of your knowledge, no one else rode your bike last night.”
He took a good look at Tegan’s face. The man’s sour puss was better than his only other option, which was looking at Mercy, because she knew exactly where he’d been. Unless she believed he’d gone riding when he’d stepped out for some air? Jesus. Right now riding seemed like his best option. Just throw a leg over his bike and ride until he ran out of gas or out of road.
