by Anne Marsh
Honey. He was the only man who had ever called her that. She hated that endearment. There was nothing sweet about how she felt. His words got her blood boiling, not that that was hard to do. It was damned hot in this forest. Sweat dripped off her face, soaking her tank top beneath her windbreaker.
He looked up at her and his eyes crinkled at the edges, like he was about to laugh again.
She’d kill him.
She looked down at him and frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” he growled, suddenly serious. “Like I said, this park is closed. We’ve got one hell of a fire coming over that ridge far too soon.”
“I’m aware of the fire,” she snapped, rolling off him. For a long moment, she lay there on her back and told herself she was breathing fast because of the quick wrestle. Overhead, smoke clouded out the daylight. Only three o’clock, but it was dark enough already to be twilight. Before long, the smoke would make it impossible to see anything.
He got smoothly to his feet. For a big man, he was silent. Lethally graceful. “Good. Then we’re in agreement that you and I need to get going. Right now.”
He reached down and stuck out a hand, waiting for her to take it.
That was Sam. He’d always been so sure. Confident, in bed and out of it. He’d always known the best way to do things.
“Who died and put you in charge?”
“The U.S. Forest Service.” He shot her a look and pulled her to her feet, brushing the leaves and twigs off her with brisk efficiency. Except for that last moment, when his big hand lingered on her ass. Maybe. God, the lick of fire that went through her had nothing to do with the wildlands and everything to do with the man.
His touch was almost impersonal, but she hadn’t missed that flash of heat.
Had she?
Chapter Three
Livy Albert pulled her hand free and turned away from him. Clearly, reunions and hi-how-are-yas weren’t her priority right now. Sam had wondered, over the years, what had happened to her, but he’d told himself he was better off without her. He hadn’t chased her down when she’d failed to write to him and he’d managed not to stalk her on the Internet. So he was surprised at the hot curiosity spiking through him now.
He wasn’t wondering where she’d been these last ten years.
Or who she’d been kissing.
She was even prettier now, wrapped up in fresh-off-the-rack L. L. Bean like a Christmas present tailor-made for him. Her brown hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail, giving him a clear look at her face, and those hazel eyes—yeah, he had some mighty fine memories of those eyes looking up at him as he sank deep, deep inside her hot, sweet body.
She didn’t look welcoming right now.
No, she dropped his hand like a hot potato and started marching away from him. “I’m out of here,” she added, the words unnecessary. Her intentions were plenty clear to him. “I don’t take orders from you.”
Too bad for her he was even more stubborn than he’d been ten years ago.
Instead of letting her go, Sam fell into step beside her. “That’s a three-hundred-acre fire out there.”
“It’s not here yet,” she said grimly, checking some kind of handheld gizmo. The military had clearly shared toys with her and, under other circumstances, he’d have enjoyed taking a look himself. “The road is a few clicks from here,” she continued. “If I hike fast, I’ll get there in twenty. Plenty of time.”
Yeah, right. She read that message loud and clear in the look he gave her. Sam wasn’t on board with that plan.
She fought the urge to slap a hand against his chest. Professional . She’d stay professional if it killed her. “I know what I’m doing. I don’t need your help.”
“Uh-huh.” He took a step forward that put him toe to toe with her. He was big and no way she didn’t notice the sheer size of him. His proximity forced her to tip her head back and that was a strategic disadvantage, but she wasn’t about to back up or give him an inch. “Honey,” he continued, “maybe you haven’t realized you’re standing in the middle of a goddamn forest fire. What the hell were you thinking, coming in here on foot?”
She’d noticed, but she’d had other priorities. “Holm Arthurs disappeared inside these woods—after carrying out a successful practice run. He drove up to a military base and opened fire on the soldiers in the guardhouse.”
Sam frowned. “I didn’t hear about that on the news.”
“We kept it quiet. He thrives on attention and fear. Reporting that the U.S. military had men down on a site storing nuclear weapons would give Holm precisely what he wanted.”
Sam gave her a measured look. “Last time I checked, Sequoia National Park housed bears and gray fox. Not nukes.”
“He went to ground here. We believe he has a bunker.” Or three.
Sam shook his head, his grin disappearing double-time. “Right now, he’s got himself a barbecue.”
“My job is to neutralize him—or bring back irrefutable evidence that he’s dead.”
“And how exactly did you plan on doing that, Livy?”
Damn it, his voice made her shiver all over again. “Don’t call me that.”
His hands came up, covering her shoulders. Don’t react. There had to be a goose walking over her grave somewhere, because it was suddenly far too warm in this forest and she refused to believe it was Sam’s touch heating her up. He pointed her southwest.
“You need to leave, honey.”
“I know, but I hate to give up on bagging Holm Arthurs.”
“If he’s hanging around here, he’s a dead man.”
Holm’s death was one way to solve the FBI’s issue, but she needed the certainty of an ID. Possibilities weren’t enough when dealing with a man like him.
“Hell, Livy.” Sam rubbed his hand over his head. “What makes this guy so dangerous you got to go in after him in the middle of a wildland fire?”
“He’s a lone wolf. He operates by himself and he doesn’t take orders from anyone. There’s no higher-up, no organization running Holm’s show.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“It’s neither. We take him in, though, and we cut his operation off at the knees. Once he’s in custody, he loses the fear factor. After he took down the two Marines at the guardhouse, he led base security back to a bomb-making safe house. They defused the situation, but Holm Arthurs likes things that go boom.”
“And he’s worth dying for?”
“Stopping him is worth dying for. So far, his targets have been military, but intel says he’s expanding his base of operations. Civilian targets,” she added grimly. “Based on writings we recovered from his safe house, he believes he’s ready to graduate to the next level. Ruby Ridge. Waco. Those places might have nothing on what this guy’s dreamt up.”
Protect and defend. Sam understood that fundamental need in the most primal part of his soul. It was what he did, what his team did. Nevertheless, years of fighting forest fires had taught him that it was key to have a safety zone and to admit when it was time to fall back. Good men died when they refused to throw in the towel.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t go after him now. And you can’t make it back to the access road either. It’s too far from here.”
“I move fast.”
“Not fast enough. You see that tree?” He pointed to a ponderosa where flames spiraled up the trunk, eating greedily into the tree’s crown. “That’s your first clue right there. We’ve got flames laddering up the pines, which means we’re about to have a full-blown crown fire. Once the flames are in the treetops, they’ll hop from tree to tree, faster than we can run. So that means we’re not outrunning the fire, and we’re not headed back to the road because the fire’s headed that way.”
“My team is on that road.”
“Not anymore.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your ride is gone. I ordered them out.”
The look she gave him wa
s full of feminine irritation, which was too damned bad. His goal here wasn’t to step all over her job or her toes—it was to keep her safe. Which was his job, whether she liked it or not.
He looked over at her. “You want those guys to get hurt?”
“Those guys are highly trained military. They can hold their own.”
She picked up the pace—finally—but she was still headed in the wrong direction. Doing her own thing, like she’d always done. He reached for her, got a hand on her arm, and pulled her to a gentle halt.
If looks could kill, Livy’s latest glare said he’d be dead all right, because she didn’t like his hands-on approach. That was too bad. Before she could protest, he pointed her in the opposite direction.
“No,” he said. He needed her to listen, because he didn’t have time to fight with her. Later, he’d be happy to give her whatever she wanted. He thought about that for a moment, while she stared down at his fingers wrapped around her upper arm like she couldn’t believe he’d laid hands on her. He’d do more than that to keep her safe. Hell. Some things definitely didn’t die, even after ten years—she brushed past him, and he still got hard.
“We’ve got to go the other way.” He pointed behind them, away from the direction she’d picked out. “Even if you get back to the road you came in on, then you’re standing there, alone, or you’re walking out. No way we can get a chopper to land for a pickup. Conditions are too poor.”
She sighed, eyeballed the dark plume spreading over the ridge—in the direction she wanted to go—and stopped walking. “So what do you suggest we do?”
At least she was listening. Even if she wasn’t moving. He focused on her face, watching her eyes. Livy’s eyes had always been her tell. Those hazel eyes snapped right now with a fire of their own. Yeah. She was all fuel load waiting to go up. He needed to handle this right.
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you, we’re going to fall back some, pick a spot and hunker down. Then we wait for the fire to burn herself out, or for the wind to shift and take her away from us. After that, it’s easy money and we hike out. There’s a team of smoke jumpers working a few miles inland, and we can hook up with them and hitch a ride home.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again, while he fought the urge to lean into her and plant a kiss on those lips. Would she still taste the same? He’d spent hours kissing those pretty pink lips, licking the seam until she sighed and let him in. He’d loved kissing Livy Albert.
“Staying here would be a death sentence!”
At least she’d finally woken up to the severity of their situation.
“I’m not going to get us killed.” He squeezed her arm gently, hoping she’d get the message. Things were going to be okay.
“Sure seems like the odds aren’t in our favor.” Her eyes flicked to the horizon, where a white plume of smoke shot up into the sky above the tree line. Higher up, the smoke was pure white, but darkened where it appeared to hit ground. Worse, even from here, the orange glow at the very bottom was obvious. That fire was burning hot, fast—and was headed right towards them.
“Five years in the fire service,” he interrupted. “I’ve been doing this that long, honey. This is what I know, so you come with me and we’ll be fine. Trust me on this one.”
Emotions flickered over her face. “You’ve said that before.”
“Uh-huh.” He turned. He started moving away from the ridge and the smoke and, miracle of miracles, she came with him. Maybe she was finally ready to listen. He should give her more words. He should explain what the situation was and what they needed to do. He wasn’t used to that, he’d admit it. Out in the field, he looked and he knew and his team followed right behind him.
Livy Albert didn’t take orders.
Not anymore.
A very arousing memory shot through his mind. Not nice of him—he knew that, but what a man thought up in his own head was his own business, right?—but she’d been one hell of a woman in bed. She’d taken direction just fine then. Her sensual curiosity had undone him. She’d had him with her willingness to try anything. Everything. With him. Because she’d made it perfectly clear that she’d only been willing to play those sensual games in his arms. He’d been king of the world, blissfully happy right up until the moment she’d waltzed out of his bed, out of his life, and gone to college. Three thousand miles of the good old U.S. of A. between them, even before he’d shipped overseas with the Marines, but there’d been the post office.
He’d written to her.
He’d been no fucking poet, but he’d tried. He’d told her his hopes and dreams. And there’d been nothing but radio silence on her part. Not so much as a postcard.
Yeah, he and Livy had lots of catching up to do.
“So,” she said lightly, like she had no idea what he was thinking, “you do this often?”
He wouldn’t look at her. Not yet. Because the more he thought about things, the angrier he got. She’d left him. “Hike away from certain death?”
Maybe she’d picked up on the sudden tension in his voice, because, while her feet kept on moving, matching his longer stride, she backed off a little. “Sure,” she said. “You think things are that bad?”
She had no idea.
His desire for her had been a slow sleeper of a fire, banked and simmering but waiting to explode to life. She’d been a summer lightning strike, a quick, bright blow that had startled him awake ten years ago. She’d given him a handful of weeks to savor the hot pleasure of her loving and then she’d disappeared on him. Hell, he thought. He had been waiting for her to come back ever since then, even if he hadn’t realized it. He’d been on fire for her, a slow burn waiting for that final spark to blaze up.
Now here she was.
When he looked behind them, the flames were fully visible, a slow orange creep coming up over the ridge far too fast. He was out of time here. They needed to find a spot to wait out the fire’s uphill run.
“Wow.” She licked her lips, eying the fire’s footsteps through the trees below. Those flames were stripping the lodgepole pines bare, consuming branches and needles and leaving nothing but char behind. “That’s—intense, Sam.”
“Yeah,” he said gruffly, because he wished he wasn’t the one to put that little spark of fear in her eyes. But she needed to understand what was happening here. She needed to understand the danger and what she had to do to protect herself.
“You think my guys are okay?”
He liked the concern in her voice and resented the hell out of it at the same time. He’d do anything for his team, too, but he needed her to work with him right now.
“I put them in my pickup.” He scanned the woods. There. The gorge he was making for was on the other side of that pine-studded slope. Fifty feet deep and a product of the Ice Age, that gorge reminded him how easy it was to forget the park’s true age. A stream ran through the base of the gorge, watering a growth of sagebrush. Still, even though those bushes would burn fast, the surrounding rocks would make a good safety zone. If he needed to, he could even light a back fire and burn off the brush before they hunkered down. And the gorge might pay off in another way, too.
Twenty minutes to make the zone.
A quick look behind them said there was enough time to make that distance. Barely. “That’s a good truck,” he continued. “Unless they stop to picnic, they’re fine. They’ll drive like hell and they’ll meet up with my crew. Everything’s going to work out.”
For them.
Livy didn’t turn her head, just kept plugging along beside him in a slow jog. He was moving too fast for her, but she didn’t complain. He could hear the soft catch in her breathing as she worked to keep up.
“So it’s your job to come after hikers.”
“And military whack jobs, yeah.” His little grunt of amusement brought an answering curl of laughter to her mouth. He suspected he would have come out here twice as fast if he’d known it was Livy Albert lost in the woods. Hell, he’d always c
ome for her. There was no point kidding himself about that.
Flames danced through the loose branches littering the forest floor, then laddered up the pines. The forest was all patches of flame now, not a solid wall yet, but working on it. The fire had smoked up the sky really good, and sheets of smoke rose relentlessly from the fuel burning on the ground. The treetops stood out black in the white cloud of smoke rising towards the sky.
Mother Nature was on a tear here. In the years Sam had fought forest fires, this was one of the worst situations he’d faced. He certainly wasn’t going to stand around admiring the view. No, he was getting the hell out of Dodge, finding his designated safety zone, and waiting this one out. He knew that forest fires came with no guarantees something wouldn’t go wrong with a man’s best-laid plan.
So, yeah, he could understand why the show made her nervous.
She coughed, and not for the first time.
“Hold up a moment.” Reaching into his pack, he pulled out his breathing gear. The yellow Nomex mask sported a kick-ass filter in addition to strips of Day-glo neon to make a man more obvious when the going got dark and his team was more hurry than wait-and-see. Breathing through that mask would buy her eight hours of better air. “Let’s get this on you.”
“Why?” She eyed his offering like he’d pulled a corn snake out of his pack.
“Because breathing’s a good thing, Livy,” he said patiently. “Come here.”
“I can’t take your mask.”
“Of course you can.” That was a no-brainer. He didn’t like hearing her cough, and he could fix that.
When she gave in and came over, he tilted her head up and slid the mask over her nose and mouth. “See?” he said. “You rock the surgeon look.”
“Again, why?” The mask’s filter muffled her voice, but the question was plenty clear.
Too bad he didn’t have an answer to the question she was really asking. He just shook his head and adjusted her hood, pulling the nylon fabric up over her head and adding his hard hat for good measure. He didn’t need her getting hit by a falling snag. He, on the other hand, had a hard head. Plus, he plain liked the sight of her wearing his things, even if Nomex was about as unsexy as it got. She looked safe. And like she belonged on his team.
