by Jill Shalvis
“Right.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Hey, it works. So…” She sized him up from toe to forehead, somehow making him want to stand up taller. “You didn’t need a bag to toss your cookies after all.”
“I’m stronger than I look,” he responded, mocking her own words to him.
She smiled, apparently unapologetic for her bluntness, which was oddly both refreshing and a little startling. “You still look a little green, but strong enough,” she decided. “You’ll need that strength, with the job ahead of you.”
As if his stomach wasn’t wobbly enough, it did another somersault. It’d been so long. A year.
A lifetime.
And it would have been longer if Brody hadn’t interfered.
The thought of his brother, probably at this very moment lounging on the beach, grinning at bikini babes and chuckling over what he’d done, made Griffin grit his teeth. “Let’s just get this over with. Take me to the fire.”
“Oh, no. My job was to get you here.” Turning to an old weathered guy in beat-up coveralls and a cap low over his eyes, she nodded when he pointed to the gas tanker. “Gracias,” she said, and handed him a brown bag that no doubt held the required booze.
Julio, apparently.
“Good luck, Ace,” she said to Griffin over her shoulder as she headed back to her plane.
“Wait.” He stared at her, stunned. “You’re leaving?” He didn’t like her, mostly because she’d provided the means to get him here, but she was also his only tie down here.
“Don’t worry. Tom Farrell will be here any minute to pick you up.”
She’d told him not to worry a few times now. He hated those words. “Tom?”
“The postmaster.” She cocked her head. “In fact, I hear him coming now.”
“What? Where?”
“Shh.” She listened some more. “Yep, that’s his Jeep. For your sake, I hope he got the brakes fixed.”
Two seconds later, a Jeep roared right onto the “tarmac,” and skidded to a stop a few feet from the plane. There were no windows, no fenders, no top, and what might have once been a cherry red paint job had long ago faded and rusted down to the metal.
“Hey, Tom.” Griffin’s pixie pilot smiled, transforming her face. “You washed this heap, I see.”
“Nah.” Tom hopped out. Fiftyish, he had a tough, rangy body, long blond-gray hair pulled back in a leather strap, and deep brown eyes. “I drove through the rio yesterday. Just long enough to spruce it up some.” He stuffed his hands in his front jean pockets. His tanned Caucasian face crinkled into a welcoming smile.
“Tom came from North Dakota,” Lyndie explained to Griffin. “In case you’re wondering why he’s as white as I am. He showed up here in the seventies to fish, fell in love with a local, and never left.”
“True, true,” Tom said, thrusting his hand out to Griffin. “And you’re the help we need so desperately.”
“Yes, and you’re…the postmaster.”
Tom gave Lyndie a long, wry look. “You never get tired of messing with the guys’ heads, do you? I bet you took the long way in, too.”
“Who, me?”
Tom shook his head, still pumping Griffin’s hand. “I’m mostly the sheriff now, but also I deliver the mail. When we get it. Don’t worry, son. You’re not dreaming, you’re really here.”
Not so much of a comfort, actually.
“How bad is it really?” Lyndie asked Tom, who sighed.
“Bad.”
“Well, keep me posted.” His pilot, the little she-devil, gave them both a wave and started backing away. “Later.” She tossed a look Griffin’s way. “You go play hero, now. I’ll be back for you at the end of your shift. Sunday night.”
That wasn’t a comfort either.
“Yeah…uh, Lyndie?” Tom took off his hat and scratched his head. “Nina’s sort of in a mood again.”
Lyndie stared at him, than laughed a little and shook her head. “Nope. I’m not translating for you all weekend. I haven’t had a day off all damn year. Sam gave me this weekend, and I’ve got a date with a long nap and a pleasure joyride wherever I feel like winging to.”
“So who’s going to translate for your hotshot here?”
“He’s not my hotshot, he’s yours.”
“Now, Lyndie—”
“No.” She pointed at him. “Don’t you ‘now Lyndie’ me. Sam pays Nina to do it, and you know it.”
“Who’s Nina?”
Both Tom and Lyndie looked at Griffin as if they’d forgotten he existed.
“My daughter,” Tom finally answered. “She’s uh, rather headstrong.”
“Code for stubborn and selfish.” Lyndie let out a sound of annoyance. “She’s a native with flawless English who translates for our volunteers in return for cash. When she’s in the mood, that is.”
“Yes, she’s a hothead, that one.” Tom lifted his hands in the helpless gesture of someone who’d created a monster and now didn’t know what to do with her. “Stay, Lyndie. Please? You yourself said you had time off, and how better to spend it if not in a place you know and love, a place now in danger if the wind doesn’t cooperate and our men don’t get that fire under control?”
“Yes, but—”
“But you hate to be social, I know. I know—”
“I don’t hate to be social,” Lyndie said through her teeth, which Griffin thought was interesting.
She didn’t want to help any more than he did. After the plane had landed, she’d put her hand on him to soothe. The urge to return the favor shocked him.
“Then you won’t mind helping us out,” Tom said smoothly.
Lyndie put her hands on her hips and glared at Tom, who pretended not to notice.
“Into the Jeep, now,” he said to no one in particular, putting a hand on Lyndie’s back and trying to push her toward the vehicle.
“I can’t stay,” she insisted, notably less forcefully this time. “I have…”
“Yes?” Tom smiled sweetly, his warm eyes guileless. “You have something more important?”
Lyndie stared at him, then suddenly her shoulders sagged. “No. Damn it. Of course not.”
“There you are,” Tom opened the beat-up door and patted her arm. “You know it’s okay to admit you have a home here,” he said gently.
“I do not.”
“You feel at home here,” Tom said.
“My home is the sky—which I should be up in right now, thank you very much.”
“Whatever you say, Lyn.”
She let out a low, unintelligible reply that sounded like a growl.
Griffin had never known a woman who could snarl so convincingly, as if she might launch herself at the source of her aggravation. He wondered if he touched her now if she’d snap at him. He put a hand on her shoulder.
Whipping around to face him, she stared at him.
Unbelievably, he nearly smiled.
“It’s all settled then.” Tom nodded approvingly. “I’ll make sure your plane is properly tied down and cared for, and that Rosa knows you’ll be staying for the weekend. Get in now, darlin’.”
And to Griffin’s amazement, the strong-headed, temperamental, free-spirited Lyndie merely sighed and climbed up into the waiting Jeep.
In the front seat, naturally.
Leaving the back to him.
3
Why had he touched her back there? Lyndie couldn’t figure it out so she stopped trying and looked around. They made their way toward the fire on a narrow, rutted road that wound around the hills in a meandering fashion. If they could get there as a crow flew, they’d have arrived in two minutes flat, but the roads here in the Barranca del Cobre were few and far between. Just outside the airport, they crossed a set of railroad tracks that nearly rattled the teeth out of Lyndie’s head.
“That’s where the train comes through,” Tom explained to Griffin. “Which is the only way to travel this area. It’s not really safe any other way. Too many deep, dark canyons where one can fall
to their death; too many wild animals, including hungry bears. Too many damn places to get lost and never get found again.”
Griffin didn’t look happy at that knowledge.
After the tracks came a creek. They used the one and only rickety old bridge to cross, which Lyndie tried not to think too much about as it creaked and groaned with their weight. She glanced back at Griffin to see how he took it, but he just sat there, immobile, face utterly unreadable.
Halfway across, the Jeep stalled. “Damn,” Tom said.
The bridge swung with their weight and Lyndie gulped. “Tom.”
“On it.” He tried to restart the temperamental Jeep while they all hung there in the balance on the wobbly bridge with the fire ravaging the hills around them.
The Jeep didn’t turn over.
The bridge shuddered.
“Just give it a sec,” Tom said calmly, and cranked the engine again. Finally it turned over, and they began to move.
And still no reaction at all from Griffin.
So he wasn’t easy to ruffle, she thought, with just a little bit of admiration. She appreciated that in a volunteer. In anyone.
The road widened a bit after that, crossing through the low-lying hills beneath the hot day, the sun trying to beat down on them through the thick smoke. Breathing became a challenge as they came into San Puebla. The sandstone and brick facades of the buildings lined well-traveled narrow cobblestone streets, concealing courtyards, some empty and deserted, some lush with bougainvillea that had been lovingly tended to for centuries. The city’s beautiful and unique architecture reflected a Moorish influence brought by seventeenth-century architects from Andalucia in southern Spain.
There was a gas station and tire shop next to an eighteenth-century cathedral. A farmers’ market next to a cantina that had once been home to a Spanish run-away prince. And an undeniable peaceful, timeless feel to it all, if one didn’t count the ominous cloud of smoke overhanging it, threatening, growing…
Lyndie’s heart leapt at being back here, she couldn’t deny that. Nor could she deny the lump in her throat at the overhang of smoke and the terrible stench of the fire so close that the sky seemed to glow.
She glanced over at Tom. He seemed tense, too, but when he caught her looking at him he reached over and squeezed her hand. “It’ll be okay now.”
She hadn’t been looking for reassurance, but she’d take it. The choking air, the way the smoke seemed like a live, breathing thing, scared her to death, and she didn’t scare easily. “This is bad,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” Tom let out a heartfelt sigh. “It’s all bad. The record high temps, the rainfall at less than one tenth the norm…” He shrugged his shoulders. “Mexico’s lost an area the size of Rhode Island in this season alone.”
Lyndie’s heart clenched. She didn’t want San Puebla to be just another statistic.
And still their stoic firefighter didn’t say a word.
They passed through town, and it seemed as if they headed directly into hell as they climbed the hills, totally engulfed by flames. The smoke swirled around them, thicker and then thicker still, billowing so high in the sky they could see nothing else.
Tom’s radio squawked.
He pulled over because, as Lyndie knew, attempting to manage the narrow, curvy road and a radio at the same time was bad news, and he’d gone through four Jeeps in his career to prove it.
While he fumbled for his radio, she turned and eyed their passenger. Griffin Moore looked over the rough road, the cliff on one side, a drop-off on the other. In front of them lay mountainous terrain so rough and unfriendly that few humans had dared to venture.
Now that they were out of the plane Griffin looked even leaner than before, the lines of his face more stark. He’d pulled out a pair of sunglasses from somewhere, which covered his blue eyes just enough that she couldn’t get a feel for what he was thinking. Not that it took a genius to make a guess.
There was a hauntedness in those eyes, she’d seen it in the brief moment before he’d covered them. He didn’t want to be here.
Not her problem; he’d volunteered. Maybe he’d gotten himself in hot water with his captain or someone, and had been forced to put in the time, but it didn’t matter, he was here.
What was wrong with people anyway? What was the big deal about volunteering, giving some time, helping others? Hell, she was no saint, and she did it.
But still she sensed it was much more than mere reluctance to help…
“You’re staring at me,” he said, not moving his head. “You have something to say?”
Slowly she shook her head. “Nope.”
“Sure? Because you’re thinking loud enough to give me a headache.”
“I’m thinking you look like you’d rather be having a root canal without drugs than be here.”
“And you’d be right.”
She opened her mouth to say something to that, but Tom said, “Ahorita voy,” into his radio, and that got her attention. “You’ll be right where?” she demanded.
He set the radio down and gave her a long look.
“More good news, I take it?” she said.
“Well.” He scratched his head, which had Lyndie’s heart sinking because he was thinking, and thinking hard. Never a good sign. “You’re going to have to take over for a bit. I’ve got a bar fight to break up.” He unhooked the strap across his lap, as the shoulder part of the seat belt had long ago disintegrated. “It’s been a whole week since I’ve had me a good bar fight.”
Lyndie rolled her eyes. “Try to keep all your teeth this time.”
“Hey, I haven’t lost a tooth in a fight in years.” Tom got out.
Griffin remained quiet, but his grim expression said it all. He was no more thrilled at being left alone with Lyndie than she was.
“I’ll walk back,” Tom said. “You get our hero here where he needs to go.”
Griffin stirred at that, shifted in his seat, which Lyndie found interesting. A reluctant hero? Not many men would fit that bill, and damn if that didn’t pique her interest where she didn’t want to be piqued.
“It’s half a mile,” she pointed out to Tom, who wasn’t exactly known for his interest in exercise. “You always say the walk from your desk to your filing cabinet is too long.”
“Yeah, but it’ll give them a good chance to beat the shit out of each other. By the time I get there, they’ll be too tired to resist arrest.”
“And you’ll be in time to get your afternoon nap in.”
“Not today.” His smile faded as he gestured to the smoke. “I’m coming back. Stay safe, you hear?” With a fond pat on her head, he nodded to Griffin. “See you soon. You stay safe, too.” And he began walking.
“How are you going to get out to the fire?” she called after him.
Tom stopped on the dusty road.
“Do you have a tractor?”
Lyndie turned in surprise to Griffin, who kept his eyes on Tom. “Do you?” he asked.
“I could probably get my hands on one.”
“A tractor can get anywhere and clear a path,” Griffin said, using more words than he had all day. “That’ll work for fire lines, or even an emergency road exit, if we need it.”
“Consider it done, then.” Tom saluted, then he was gone.
Lyndie climbed over the stick shift and into the driver’s seat, grumbling at the condition of the seat belt. While she clipped herself in, Griffin put a big, tanned hand down on the console between the seats and hopped from the back to the passenger seat she’d just vacated. He slid his long legs in first, then rested his broad shoulders back, tilting his face up to look at the marred sky before glancing at her. “Better,” he said.
She jammed the shifter into first gear and hit the gas. She had to give him credit, he didn’t react, not other than reaching for the seat belt as the acceleration pressed them both back. He settled in, one elbow resting on the passenger door, his face inscrutable. In charge of his world.
She liked to
be in charge, too, so she supposed she could appreciate that. She certainly appreciated having the view of his nicely built, long, leanly muscled body to look at. Not that she’d ever do more than look. Unlike her boss, Sam, she rarely mixed business and pleasure.
The road took a sharp turn and arched up toward a series of ranches, and then beyond them the sharp, ragged peaks. The road was narrow, pitted, and frankly, quite dangerous. With the sheer cliff on one side, the drop-off on the other, it was impossible to tell yet how far the fire had raged.
The smoke around them thickened along with the choking, clinging scent of the fire. The hills above them, between the village and the alpine mountains beyond, were nearly invisible, and what wasn’t invisible glowed with flame. Lyndie squinted into the smoke as she drove, desperately wishing she could reach out and shove it all aside. Her lungs grew tight, an unfortunately familiar feeling. She patted the inhaler in her pocket, knowing she’d need it before this was through.
“What’s the problem?”
Griffin Moore had a way of looking at her that made her feel as if he could read her mind. Too bad she never allowed a man close enough to do such a thing. “No problem.”
He knew that wasn’t the truth, she could tell, he just wasn’t going to pursue it right now. “We’re nearly there,” he said.
She nodded to the ashes raining down over them. “Yeah.”
His nod was tight, his mouth growing grimmer by the minute. Odd, as she’d have figured as a firefighter, he’d get more excited the closer they’d gotten to the front.
Because she’d been staring at him, she hit a deep rut, and nearly tipped them over. Applying the brakes didn’t help as they didn’t give right away. “Sorry,” she gasped when they finally stopped. She began again, slowly. “The road’s a little rough.”
“In the States this would barely qualify as a fire road.”
