White Heat

by Jill Shalvis

  She imagined his training had had a good deal to do with that, and his character, as well. He was a save-the-world sort of guy…which meant his terrible losses, the ones he’d started to tell her about, would have been taken doubly as hard.

  She’d known he’d dealt with something big, something horrific in his past, but she hadn’t imagined the truth, that people had died, his people. The raw emotion she’d glimpsed in his eyes when he’d said that would have brought her to her knees if she’d been standing.

  Is that what made him so serious? So intense? Is that what made him fight the attraction between them, what made him want to push her away at every turn? In that case, on a much different scale, she supposed she understood. She’d lost people in her life, too.

  They were nearly there, surrounded by fire when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Sam. “Yes,” she said when she answered. “I’m still on the clock. Your clock.”

  “So you did stay to translate.” There was a smile in Sam Logan’s voice. There was always a smile in Sam’s voice.

  “Nina wasn’t up for it.” She squinted into the smoke. “If I hadn’t stayed, your man here would have been pretty much stuck.”

  “And so you jumped right in. You keep trying to tell me this is just a job for you, Lyndie, and you know what? I don’t buy it.”

  “It’s the bottom line. Don’t forget, you’re paying me by the hour while I’m here dreaming of a fun, easy flight to Catalina, and I’m not as cheap as Nina.”

  He laughed. “Bill me.”

  “I always do, Sam, I always do.”

  “Yeah, just come back in one piece.”

  She knew Sam Logan ran Hope International on pure adrenaline and love. He paid his pilots, but the various experts they flew all volunteered their time and went unpaid. Sam felt they made enough money on their own time, and mostly, he was right.

  What he wasn’t quite right about, however, was that while his heart might be big enough for the entire world, not everyone felt the same excitement for their job as he did.

  Because for some, like Lyndie, this was just a job.

  Yes, she got to help people, and that made her feel good, but she also got to fly for a living, and pretty much picked when and where she went.

  Not many had that freedom, and she was grateful, but at the moment, she was also just a little resentful at having to stay when she’d wanted, needed, to be alone. Resentful at all the feelings that surfaced when she thought about possibly losing San Puebla, or the feelings that Griffin seemed to cause within her.

  “Take good care of that firefighter, too,” Sam said. “Maybe we can get him back sometime.”

  Lyndie glanced at Griffin. His body was tense, his expression growing more and more unnerved as they pulled off the main road. The fire had progressed even farther toward town than she’d imagined.

  Would this weekend help him forget…or remember? “I don’t know about a repeat on this one, Sam.”

  “Hey, once they get a taste of the philanthropist lifestyle, they love it. We don’t have anyone as skilled as he in what he does. You can talk him into it.”

  Griffin turned his head toward her.

  She met his eyes and thought…no one talked this man into anything he didn’t want to do.

  And yet his brother had. “Prepare yourself for a very large bill from me. Bye, Sam.” She disconnected while he was still chuckling.

  “Your boss?”

  She shoved her hair out of her face, only to have it fly right back in it. “He wants me to talk you into doing this again sometime.”

  The sound that escaped him might have been a laugh, or a tortured groan.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said.

  “Hey, you’re no more thrilled to be here than I am.”

  “I just wanted some alone time.”

  “You like that? Being alone?”

  It was what she was used to. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  He considered that. “It’s new for me. But being alone right now would be better than…”

  “Being here?”

  “Yeah.”

  She’d gotten that loud and clear from him, so why it felt just a little bit hurtful to hear made no sense at all. The engine roared up the road, as did a sudden wind, and the noise of that and of the fire seemed as loud as thunder.

  Griffin parked next to the water trucks and tossed her a bandana. “Tie it over your mouth.” He turned off the engine. “You have your inhaler?”

  “And a spare.”

  They got out of the Jeep, with Griffin looking more and more distant as they moved toward a group of men who had just gotten there themselves. They all greeted each other somberly, and Griffin pulled out his PDA, bringing up the screen of the map. He pointed to the lines he’d drawn in yesterday, indicating the fire’s perimeter.

  Two men came forward, and pointed to where they were now, indicating how much the fire had grown.

  Griffin let out a long breath, then made adjustments to the map accordingly. He looked at his weather kit, then started talking. He talked slowly and clearly, and always waited for Lyndie to translate before moving on to the next point in his plan of action.

  And he did have a plan of action, one that he’d clearly thought out meticulously and precisely.

  “As yesterday, we’ll use the river as one line of defense,” he said pointing to the water line. “The sheer rock wall as a second. But we’ll have to start digging new lines, from here.” He pointed to the area just south of them, above the town. “The fire is strong here.”

  Everyone nodded. They understood.

  “Long, hot, hard day,” he said quietly to Lyndie. “I had Tom load the back of the Jeep with gallons of drinking water, along with more shovels and gear. He’s also hunting up more men. Now that they know what I need, we can make do if you want to go back.”

  “Go back?”

  “Seriously, Lyndie. This is incredibly exhausting work. Almost all of it will be manual labor clearing lines. You don’t want to do that again.”

  She hadn’t met many men as tough and rugged as this man, who was also gallant. Why that felt like a plus, she had no idea. She didn’t want a tough and rugged and gallant man in her life.

  She didn’t want any man in her life, at least not for more than a night, maybe two. And she especially didn’t want one who thought he knew what was best for her. “How do you know what I want?”

  He stared at her, let his broad shoulders sag as he let out a long breath. “This is not a good time to go all stubborn on me.”

  “Because you know best?”

  A gust of wind hit them, plastering his shirt to his torso, emphasizing hard muscle. He was big, solid, and quickly becoming far too familiar. She pulled him around the side of the first truck, away from the eyes of the others. “Look, I know this is just some misguided sense of responsibility. You’re afraid I’m going to get hurt.”

  “Hell, yeah, I’m afraid you’re going to get hurt.” He gently touched a bruise on her jaw, courtesy of their fall from yesterday. “I’m afraid you’re going to get dead. Can’t you just listen to me and go the hell away?”

  She was pretty much a stranger to him, and yet he cared, deeply. Not many felt that way about a person they didn’t know, but he did. Another plus about him, if she’d been counting pluses. She hadn’t.

  She’d been counting minuses and she would continue to do so. One, he was pigheaded. Two, he was single-minded to the point of making her blood boil, and three—the biggest minus of all—he apparently wasn’t capable of mindless sex. Damn him.

  Then, totally disarming all her thoughts, he gripped one of her hips in his hand. The other cupped her face, stroking her skin with his thumb, the look in his eyes haunting and melting all at once. “Please, Lyndie. Go back.”

  She covered his hand with her own. She understood he needed her to go, but she couldn’t. “I’m sorry.”

  He stared at her, then dropped his hands from her. “You’re not going to listen
to me.”

  “No. But hopefully you’ll listen to me, because I’m only going to have this out with you once. I’m not going back. I’m not going anywhere but up that hill with a shovel in my hand.”

  “You aren’t trained.”

  “And neither are more than half the men waiting for you to help them fight this fire. You know that from yesterday, I’m here, I’m staying. So…” She gave him her toughest smile. “Lead the way, boss. Let’s do this.”

  Turning his head, he studied the trail they were going to take, the men waiting for him to lead, and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them, kissed her once, hard, and nodded grimly. “Just stay safe.”

  “I intend to.”

  “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  No reason to point out that he looked as if he’d rather face an execution squad, and when he didn’t move, she merely gently nudged him along to face the day ahead.

  * * *

  Brody sat in the living room in South Carolina, where once upon a time he’d leapt from couch to couch like a wild puppy, where he’d kissed his first girl at age thirteen and had gotten caught by his grinning brother…where he’d told his parents one year ago that Griffin was gone and no one knew where.

  He let out a careful breath and smiled, because, after all, today he had good news. “I found him.”

  A gasp shuddered out of his mother, and she reached blindly for his father’s hand, clenching it tight. “You found—” her voice broke. “My Griffin?”

  “The one and only.” His parents sat side by side, Phyllis and Ray Moore, his father in his “retired” clothes of stiff jeans and a cardigan sweater his mother had probably insisted he wear, his mother in her fashionable Capri pants and carefully ironed blouse.

  They’d always looked so happy to him, so absolutely in charge of their own world. So much so it had always seemed impossible for him to even attempt to replicate it.

  So he hadn’t. He hadn’t even tried. If asked, he would have said he hadn’t found his calling, but he was working on it—on the couch with his eyes closed.

  But that had been before Griffin’s life began to unravel, and for once, his brother hadn’t been able to pull things back together.

  For Brody, turning his back on Griffin’s troubles would have been expected. Easy.

  And wrong.

  Apparently he did indeed have a conscience. Damn it.

  “Son, tell us.” His father stroked his mother’s hand, the one that held his so tight his skin had gone white.

  “How is he? Where is he?” Tears swam in his mother’s eyes. “When is he coming home?”

  He had to do this right—he, the son who’d majored in kidding around, the class clown, the guy who’d never successfully created a single relationship worth having except for the one he had with Griffin. “I can’t tell you where he is. I promised I wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, Brody—”

  “But I’m in touch with him. He’s okay.”

  He hoped. God, he hoped. He was flying back to San Diego in a few hours, he wanted to be there when Griffin got back late tonight or the next morning. Not that Griffin would want him there.

  “Can’t you tell us anything? What he’s been doing? Why he’s stayed away so long…something, Brody,” his mother whispered. “Please.”

  He looked at them, his parents who’d aged in the past year more than in any other time in their lives. “I don’t really know what he’s been doing all this time,” he said. “Just existing, I suppose. But I managed to talk him into—” He let out a mirthless laugh. “I bullied him, actually, into volunteering for Hope International. It’s a charity organization that sends out volunteers to assist in whatever their specialty is.”

  His mother gasped again, her hand to her chest. “And he went on a fire?”

  “He did, he went out on a wildfire in Mexico. I want to be there when he gets back.”

  “Oh, my God.” His mother got up, drew him up also, and hugged him tight. “Oh, Brody. You’re such a wonderful brother.”

  Brody let her squeeze him while he squeezed his eyes tight. He wasn’t a wonderful brother, he’d never been a wonderful brother. That had been Griffin.

  But letting her think so felt…really good. “I’ll talk to him, try to get him to call you.”

  “I love you, Brody.”

  He knew that. He did. But for the first time he wanted to live up to that love.

  Much later, before he left his parents’ house for the airport, still basking in that nice, warm, “wonderful brother” glow, he called his own cell phone.

  He got the voice message, which had been changed.

  “Brody,” Griffin’s voice said. “Don’t even think about leaving me a message and asking how I’m doing, because I’m going to tell you. Remember that time when you climbed that tree out front of Aunt Gail’s house? You slipped and fell, but a branch caught you on the way down, leaving you hanging there, upside down, bleeding and screaming for an hour before anyone rescued you. Remember that, Brody? Remember that feeling? That’s how I’m doing. I’m hanging in. Literally. Now go away. Go far, far away.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brody said regretfully. “No cando.”

  * * *

  Griffin leaned on his shovel and swiped sweat off his forehead with his arm. Three times this morning alone the increasing winds had forced him to call the crew back and redirect. The only saving grace had been the river and the rock. All they had to do was use them effectively and pray the weather cooperated. If that happened, they just might get this thing contained.

  The tractors were barely able to handle the mountainside, but they put them to work anyway, dragging thick, heavy railroad ties behind each machine, which effectively cleared the dead pine needles and small branches and made a damn good firebreak.

  He himself had been scraping dead and extremely flammable growth for hours now, and his stomach was still bouncing around. At the moment they had the fire at their backs and were working on setting the flames back on themselves, hoping to trap the hot monster.

  A hot, hard gust of wind hit him, and then another, which made his heart sink. The weather report Tom had brought had been for a steady barometer and low winds.

  And yet that’s not what it felt like. If they weren’t careful, the fire was going to jump this latest firebreak as well, and head south, right into town, never mind what the northward climb up the mountain would do.

  Griffin lifted his head from his work, immediately searching out and finding Lyndie, only about ten yards away, digging hard.

  She still wore the bandana around her mouth. It was filthy. She was filthy, sticky, damp with perspiration, and looked every bit as exhausted as he felt, and yet her arms never slowed as she worked as hard as any man out there. He thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  And then suddenly, vibrantly, the wind shifted and the fire reacted accordingly; jumping, writhing, and just like that, he was hit.

  Not by the heat, which was intense.

  Not by the flames themselves, which were hot enough to make him feel sunburned.

  No, what doubled him over was a sudden, menacing, unstoppable panic.

  13

  He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. Unreasonable and insidious, twisting inside him, Griffin actually grabbed at his throat as if that could help him drag air into his lungs.

  He was back in Idaho. Staring helplessly at the crew that hadn’t made it to the other side of the firebreak as the flames flew through the air on the current from hot, harsh winds. The heavy winds without moisture had been like gasoline on a lit match.

  Too late for fire shelters, too late for anything, in a blink of an eye, he’d watched, horrified, as they’d all perished.

  “Griffin.” Suddenly, Lyndie stood right in front of him. She’d tossed aside her shovel, she’d tossed aside his, and held his arms in her hands, standing on tiptoe to look right into his face.

  “The wind shifted,” he said hoarsely.

>   “Yes.” Her fingers dug into his arms, the only sign of her distress. “The wind shifted. What do we do?”

  The best safety lies in fear. Who’d said that, he wondered inanely, Shakespeare? Because nothing had ever been truer.

  “Griffin, tell me what to tell them.”

  He looked into her face, which was cool and calm, only her eyes filled with worry and apprehension, and hell if he was going to screw up now and lose her, too. “We retreat.” As he knew all too painfully, a change of even the smallest magnitude meant the difference between escape and entrapment.

  He didn’t intend for anyone to get trapped. He took her arm, needing to hold on to something, someone, oddly relieved that it was her. Behind them, he felt the heat wall that always ran just ahead of the fire, and his heart kicked into an even higher gear. “Come. Hurry.”

  Lyndie nodded and yelled over her shoulder, “Ven por aca, apurarse,” and the men did exactly that, running with them eastward.

  “Faster,” he said to Lyndie, still holding her arm. He thrust his radio at her. “Tell them all to move now.”

  She translated into the radio, and they scrambled up the path that only yesterday they’d used to map the perimeters, the fire now nipping at their heals.

  At higher ground, safe for the moment, they began all over again, digging, clearing, more digging.

  * * *

  Several hours later, Griffin climbed a little higher to see what was happening. And when he did, he had to admit, despite the unpredictable wind, things were steady.

  A hand settled on his shoulder. “We’ve made excellent progress, right?”

  Lyndie’s soft voice penetrated the protective shell he’d donned like the rest of his gear, the one to protect him emotionally, but her touch slayed both it and him. He didn’t know how it was she could do that—make him feel, make him ache, but she did. She made him want to be a whole man again, she made him want so many things, and his throat was so tight when he turned to her that he didn’t trust his voice so he simply nodded.

  Shockingly enough, they had made excellent progress. They’d nearly made back the time they’d lost this morning. East and west movement were covered, fully contained. Northbound, the fire had made little headway, appearing to be trapped by the rocks, and southward, toward town, they were frantically working ahead of the flames and, unbelievably, were actually close there as well.