“You’ll be strictly behind the scenes. No cameras will be aimed in your direction. They’re shooting at the Fire and Rescue compound, which is a former Army base, very intimidating. The hotshots will be coming and going, the Forest Rangers, other first responders. The movie crew will have its own security as well. It’ll be the safest place in Jupiter Point.”
She fussed with the stem of her wine glass. “What would I be doing? Treating some movie star’s sunburn?”
“Unlikely. Annika never leaves the house without SPF fifty.”
“Annika?”
He shrugged his wide shoulders. “She’s starring in the movie. She plays a climate scientist. But she’s just one of the people on set. You probably won’t have much to do with her. Think about it. You already have the Jupiter Point police and sheriff on alert. You have friends to watch your back. And now you’d have the entire Fire and Rescue compound as a safeguard. What bad guy is going to want to go there? When I’m gone, you can spend the night in our barracks. I can clear that with Sean. And you also have this guesthouse, complete with a built-in bodyguard named Rollo. If you want, we can trade Sparky in for a pit bull.”
She set her jaw. “We’re keeping Sparky.” Over the past weeks, she’d grown attached to the little tortoise.
“Is that a yes? I’ll call Jill right away if you’re willing.”
Still, she hesitated. The thought of being around Annika didn’t appeal to her one bit. She remembered the first time she’d seen Finn in the street outside the salon, and the way Annika had clung to him so possessively.
“You’d be practicing your profession again. I know you’ve been missing Nurse Badass. Being Nurse Ass-so-fine-she-makes-a-grown-man-cry isn’t enough for you, is it?” He grinned, touching his forehead to hers. Little tremors of delight skipped along her skin, like soap bubbles from a wand.
“You’re such a goofball.”
“Goofball. Nice word. It’s code for sexy man-candy who makes me laugh, right?”
She laughed. Because he was right. Finn could always make her laugh, and he was always sexy. She didn’t know what man-candy was, exactly, but if men were candy, Finn would definitely be her weakness.
“I think you might be my mini Reese’s,” she murmured as he drifted his lips across the corner of her mouth.
“Your what?
“When I worked at the ER, I used to pop those mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups like pills. They had the perfect combo of protein, sugar and caffeine, just the boost I needed during a long shift. I used to stock up when they went on sale after Halloween. I was a bit of a junkie when it came to them. I went cold turkey when I left Houston.”
His lips paused. “So what are you saying? I’m your mini peanut butter cups?”
“You wanted to be man-candy, right? Would you rather be my Gummi Worms? Those are the ones I always gave to my sister after Halloween.”
“No, I don’t want to be your Gummi Worms, thank you very much.” His dry tone made her laugh. “I’ll stick with the mini peanut butter cups. Though I have to object to the ‘mini’ part on principle. Especially combined with ‘cup.’”
She giggled. “Goofball.”
His low chuckle sent warm, wine-scented breath past her ear. For one stunning, perfect moment, absolute joy filled her, and she knew she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
Finn felt the subtle change in Lisa’s body language. A certain softening, a relaxing. Maybe it was the wine, or the full stomach, or all the silly jokes about candy. Maybe it was the currents of warm night air rising up the cliff, bringing the scent of sage and ocean salt. Maybe it was the stars sparkling so joyfully above them. Or maybe it was some magical combination bringing Lisa out of her wary shell.
Whatever it was, he ran out of time to figure it out. A text dinged on his phone. He knew that ringtone. It could mean only one thing.
“Damn, that was fast.”
“What happened?”
“First fire call. And it’s still April.”
He shifted Lisa off his lap so he could pull out his phone.
Brushfire in SoCal. Base in one hour. Driving out tonight.
“Why is it always Southern California?” he muttered as he showed Lisa the text. Her mood instantly shifted into all-business. He could imagine her at the ER, running alongside a gurney taking someone’s vitals, issuing commands.
He came to his knees and started gathering up wine glasses. “I’m sorry about our dinner—”
“Don’t worry about the cleanup.” She took the glasses from his hands. “I’ll take care of it. How can I help? What else do you need?”
He should have known that Lisa would respond perfectly to the situation. No complaints, no whining. Shit, what did he need? He hadn’t even packed his gear bag yet. He’d barely gotten his official spot on the crew. He had to gather up a spare set of clothes, extra socks, bug spray…
Then it hit him. He was about to take off and leave her unprotected. How was he supposed to concentrate on fighting wildfires when he was worried about her? “I need one thing. That’s all. Promise you’ll take that medic job on the movie.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll do it.”
Relieved, he pushed himself onto his feet. “Maybe a few other things. When you’re here, stay within shouting distance of Rollo. Keep his number on speed dial. Maybe get a concealed-carry license.”
Lisa put her hands on his shoulders and turned him toward the house. “Don’t you dare worry about me. I promise I’ll be careful. I won’t go anywhere without an official police escort. I’ll watch some self-defense on YouTube.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“I’m not joking. I mean, a little, but just to make you laugh. Underneath, I’m serious.” She marched him across the grass. She was a lot stronger than she looked; she obviously had practice pushing ER patients around.
“I probably won’t be gone long. Early-season wildfires tend to be smaller.”
“Aren’t I supposed to be the one panicking? You’re going off to fight a wildfire.”
At the door of the guesthouse, he stopped and swept her into his arms. “You don’t seem like the panicking type.”
“I’m not, generally speaking.” She scanned his face, her beautiful dark eyes wide and serious. “Please be careful.”
His heart gave a slow somersault. He’d never seen so much tenderness in her face. Was she starting to care for him even a fraction of the way he did for her?
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “You’d better come back soon, because you owe me a bubble bath, a foot rub and an entire case of mini peanut butter cups.”
“You’ll get it. All of it, and more.” He kissed her fiercely, pouring all his passion and protectiveness into the gesture. In the past, he’d always gotten excited about call-outs. They felt like a big, wild, intense adventure.
This time, a deep well of emotion ran through the moment. He was leaving, she was staying, and both faced their own kind of danger.
When they ended the kiss, Lisa looked flushed and rumpled. “If I’m going to be working on that movie, I might be at the base when you get back. Will you be flying in on some kind of fancy firefighter airplane?”
He snorted. “Try a weird green van that looks kind of like an ice cream truck. We call it the crew buggy. We practically live in that thing during the fire season.”
“Really?” Her forehead crinkled at that image. “That’s not what I pictured, to be totally honest. I was thinking helicopters and people jumping out of airplanes.”
Another text pinged. Probably Sean making sure everyone was on their way. “Not to worry, sweetheart. We’re hotshots. We make it all look good.”
With a cocky grin, he brushed one last kiss on her lips, then hurried inside to gather up his personal gear. Lisa leaned against the doorjamb as he threw bug spray and underwear into his duffel. “Want me to drive you to the base?”
“No. I got it. You stay here.” He looked up at her, her dark hair loose around her sh
oulders, her lips raspberry red from his kiss. “I want to picture you just like this while I’m out there cutting line.”
She lowered her lashes teasingly. “Really? Just like this? How about like this?”
And she flashed him.
One minute her top was down, the next minute it was up around her chin. Then it was back down again, and he was blinking in astonishment. “Are you trying to torture me before I go? Is that any way to treat a heroic fireman?”
“It’s not torture. It’s inspiration. Motivation to come back.”
She tucked her thumbs in her pockets and cocked her hip, looking like a sassy, sexy dream come true.
“Oh, I’m motivated, all right.” He shouldered his duffel and came toward the door. “Motivated to make you pay for that when I get back.”
He swatted her on the rear as he passed, making her jump.
“Whatever works,” she called after him.
Oh, she was definitely going to pay. But he’d make sure she enjoyed every second.
24
No matter how much a person trained, that first sixteen-hour day cutting line was a shock to the system. After three days, Finn’s back and shoulders felt like concrete. His eyes stung from the constant smoke. He had to keep chugging water to fend off dehydration. His feet ached in his steel-toed work boots.
Even so, he couldn’t stop grinning at random moments. He was back. This was what he’d fought so hard to return to. He loved the intensity of wildfire fighting, the tightness of the crew, the breathtaking surroundings. Battling a wildfire took everything he had, and more. He was constantly testing his limits, working to exhaustion and beyond. The fire didn’t stop because they were tired, so neither could the firefighters.
Damn, it was good to be back.
Within a few days, his body got used to the intense pace, and he and the rest of the crew had found the groove. As one of the greenest members, his role was “swamper.” He worked as one of a pair of firefighters called a saw team. Their job was to clear away obstructions from the fire line using a chainsaw. The “sawyer”—Tim Peavy—operated the saw while Finn got to clear away any large debris that might be in the sawyer’s path.
It was back-straining, muscle-taxing work, and Finn ate it up. He only knew a few of the guys from his days on the Fighting Scorpions—Sean, Baker, Hughie and Josh, who was still on leave with the baby. The rest of the team, he’d gotten to know during training. But nothing bonded a crew like an actual wildfire. By the end of the San Dimas fire, they all felt like brothers.
Which wasn’t always a good thing.
“Heard they started filming that movie about us,” Baker said as they chowed down on pork and beans near the catering truck at the I.C. “You going to get us tickets to the premiere?”
“Yeah, sure.” Finn hunched over his paper plate and forked pork into his mouth. “But you’ll have to trim that beard of yours. Take a shower, maybe a walk through the car wash.”
The other hotshots at the table laughed. The teasing camaraderie among the brotherhood of firemen was Finn’s favorite thing about being a hotshot.
“Anyway, it’s not just about Big Canyon anymore. They changed some of the story around, so it’s a combo of different fires.”
“That’s true. I sure don’t recall any gorgeous blonds hanging around the Fighting Scorpions. No one who looked like Annika Poole, for sure.”
Finn held his tongue, having no interest in discussing Annika.
“I saw something in the tabloids about her,” one of the younger guys piped up. “Said she was heartbroken and sobbing her eyes out over the ‘one who got away.’ They meant you, Finn. You’re the one who got away. The beast who broke the beauty’s heart.”
Finn swallowed a huge mouthful of smoky beans. He recognized the hand of Gemma at work, with that hokey beauty-and-the-beast thing. “Don’t read that trash. It’s all made up out of nothing. It’s for publicity, so people will go see the movie.”
“Whatever. I say we all show up at the premiere and parachute down from a chopper.”
Finn grinned at that image, which sparked more ridiculous ideas from the crew.
“Let’s take the crew buggy down the red carpet.”
“We could have, like, a chainsaw quartet.”
“Hell, let’s book a C-130 to do a fly-by.”
They were all laughing when Finn felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Sean, who gestured for him to follow. They walked a few steps away from the others, out of earshot.
Sean scrutinized him with smoke-green eyes in a tired face. “I haven’t had a chance to check in with you. How’s it going out there, man? Feeling good?”
“Feeling real good. Like I was never gone. I even have a new nickname.”
“Yeah?”
“Animal. As in, ‘that Finn, he trains like an animal.’”
Sean laughed. “I hadn’t heard that. Good one. How about the situation with your family? Anything new?”
Finn looked away, scanning the command post, which was a tent city filled with hundreds of people, vehicles, and canvas shelters. In a few days, this spot would be an empty fairgrounds again, home to tumbleweeds and some stray trash. Similar to a movie set, actually, which drew a small army of workers who dispersed when the job was done.
“Nope, nothing new. Just one false lead after another.”
“Sorry about that.”
Finn shrugged. “Haven’t been thinking about it that much lately.”
Sean’s rugged face creased in a smile. “I know how that goes. Once I started falling for Evie, it got a little hard to focus on anything else.”
“Oh, I’m focused,” Finn said hastily. “One hundred percent focused, no worries about that.” Was that what Sean had pulled him aside to talk about?
“Glad to hear it. Hope this doesn’t change that. I just got word from the movie people that your father is on his way to the base.”
“Our base? In Jupiter Point?”
“Yeah. He’s visiting the set of the movie.”
Finn’s mouth fell open. “What the fuck? Why? He runs the studio, he doesn’t show up at location shoots anywhere outside of Beverly Hills.”
“Can’t answer that. Maybe he wants to see you.”
“He doesn’t. He knows I’ll be after him with more questions. Besides, I’m not even there.”
“Then maybe he wants to see the hot nurse you personally recommended.”
Finn laced his hands behind his neck and tilted his head back, feeling the stretch of his sore muscles. “Oh man. I bet you’re right. Lisa is going to fucking kill me. Or leave town.”
“From what I’ve seen, Lisa Peretti can handle herself.”
“I’m going to do bad things to that Finn Abrams,” Lisa muttered to herself as she hurried across the Fire and Rescue compound toward the set. Her walkie-talkie was crackling with an urgent command for her presence. She reached down and muted it, since she was already on her way. “Bad, uncomfortable things that he’ll never forget.”
One of the grips passed her, heading in the opposite direction. “Lisa, you’d better get there in a hurry. We have two hours until we lose the light and Annika won’t come out of her trailer.”
“I know, I know.” she said. “Might be easier for everyone if she stayed in there,” she added under her breath.
The grip laughed and headed for the catering table. Movie crews lived well, Lisa had discovered. She didn’t ever have to worry about going hungry. She’d been working on the set for a week now, and had eaten more bagels and muffins than she usually ate in a year.
The Miracle in Big Canyon production had landed in the Fire and Rescue compound like an Army invasion. Production and crew vehicles packed the parking lot, along with individual trailers for the “talent.” Equipment filled every corner of the empty wing—lighting gear, racks of costumes, wooden crates filled with props. Since they were shooting a movie about real firefighters, they were using a lot of the spare gear from the fire cache. Extras dressed in real hotsh
ot gear—“greens and yellows”—wandered around the base.
The sight always made her pulse race because she’d seen Finn wearing his gear and, oh my God, it was sexy beyond belief.
Lisa had even met the actor playing Finn. Talk about a mind blower. He was a Spanish actor who had the smoldering romantic look down. All the makeup artists kept gushing over him, but Lisa privately knew that he couldn’t hold a candle to the real Finn.
Annika Poole was playing a climatologist who kept warning the U.S. Forest Service, the BLM, and anyone who would listen that wildfires were going to keep getting worse. Apparently, her character was based on a real person—but that person happened to not be blond or a dead ringer for Gwyneth.
Lisa’s first task as the on-set nurse was helping Annika treat an infected tattoo. She’d found the star in her trailer drinking diet Mountain Dew and moaning from the pain on her hip.
Of course it had to be her hip, a body part Lisa had never expected—or wanted—to see up close and personal.
Annika had recognized her right away.
“You’re the girl from the wedding,” she said, looking perplexed, as if she were a movie extra who had ended up in the wrong movie. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, Finn found her, isn’t she fabulous?” Jill poked her head into the trailer to deliver Lisa’s ID and walkie-talkie.
Annika waved her away. “Go, Jill, Jesus, does the whole crew need to see my infection?”
Jill disappeared, leaving Lisa alone with a cranky movie star. She crouched down next to her, and assessed the red swelling around the new tattoo. “I’m going to clean this a bit, then put some antiseptic on it. It might sting.”
“Ugh, whatever. Just bandage it up so I can shoot my fucking scene. Where is Finn, anyway?”
“He’s out with the crew.”
The perfect skin of Annika’s forehead creased in a frown. “The crew?”
“The hotshot crew. You know, fighting a wildfire,” Lisa explained.
“You mean a real one?”
Was she speaking a different language here? “Yes. A real one. He got a spot on the Jupiter Point Hotshots. They’re down in Southern California right now.”
Setting Off Sparks (Jupiter Point Book 4) Page 17
