WILD HEAT

by Bella Andre

  And then, just yesterday, Logan's name had been called in to an anonymous “Smoky the Bear” forest-fire tip line. Combined with his very public objections in recent weeks to reductions in pension and health care payments for veteran hotshots, her boss had assigned her to the case immediately.

  With no natural lightning strikes to blame—and given that ninety percent of all forest fires were due to arson—every finger pointed straight to Logan Cain, the leader of the local hotshot crew.

  She laid his file on the passenger seat, then turned her eyes back to the thick column of black smoke that rose up from the valley floor. Shifting into four-wheel drive up a narrow dirt road off Highway 50, certain that the crew would be out on the mountain fighting the fire, she bypassed the Tahoe Pines Hotshot Station and headed straight for the ridgetop.

  Current Forest Service reports indicated that the fire was steadily growing, but still under control. She turned on the wipers, dousing the windshield with fluid to clean the thin layer of soot. She leaned forward, squinting up at the sky. Smoke had turned it to a gray haze. Why on earth were they under the impression that this was a controlled fire?

  From her vantage point, it looked to be just the opposite. And an underestimated fire was a deadly one. Once a fire exploded it would consume everything in its path—including any firefighters currently on the mountain.

  Maya was suddenly struck with a dark premonition. Burns. Fatalities. Oh God, she should never have come back here. The worst hours of her life had been spent in Lake Tahoe after Tony's death. Unlike the throngs of tourists who came to gamble and ski and backpack, when she looked around she didn't see beautiful lakes and soaring pine trees.

  She saw death.

  Depression.

  And an unpardonable afternoon in a stranger's arms.

  Slipping on her shades, she grabbed her binoculars and exited her car, hiking briskly to the anchor point at the top of the mountain. A couple of buckets of unloaded medical supplies had been dumped beneath a thick dry sagebrush.

  Alarm settled in beneath her breastbone. This fire had clearly exploded, and yet there were no water trucks, no helicopters doing water drops, no additional wildland firefighting teams pitching in.

  Her heart was in her throat as she moved toward a group of hotshots who were standing on the ridgetop. She scanned the hotshots' faces, counted seventeen men. Which meant there were still three hotshots in the blowup.

  Was one of these men her suspect? And had he yet realized that if one of his fellow firefighters died in this blaze, the penalties would be so much worse than just millions in restitution for loss of property? He'd be charged with murder … and would spend a lifetime living with crushing guilt.

  An older man she assumed was the squad boss spoke steadily into his radio. “Logan. Sam. Connor. Respond if you can hear me.”

  She squinted down the hill into the fire until she could see three figures moving slowly toward them, their white hard hats a blessed sign of life.

  The squad boss had called out her suspect's name and she briefly wondered which one of the three he was, but she couldn't hold on to the thought. Not when the only thing she wanted was for all three hotshots to make it out alive.

  She couldn't bear to think of the suffering these men's families would face—of the moment when they got “the call,” when their biggest fears about having a son or brother or husband who was a firefighter came true.

  She'd lived it. It was horrible.

  Fire was rolling over the mountain like a wave. Maya had never seen anything like this, had never wanted to. Even though her brother had dreamed of being a firefighter since he was a toddler, she'd never wanted to physically fight fire. Her father had been the one to suggest she move from criminal justice into arson investigation, and he'd been right. It was her way of quenching the fire in her blood.

  Even so, ever since Tony's death, she'd avoided actual fires at all costs. Now she felt utterly unprepared to witness this one's destruction—and sure death knell—firsthand. She fought back a vision of what it must have been like for Tony before he died, of black smoke swamping his vision, the crack of a burned-out beam beneath his boots, the sure knowledge that he was going to die.

  But she couldn't think of him now, couldn't keep her lunch down if she allowed herself to go to that dark place.

  A dead silence hung over the men as they watched the flames leap into the air. Once a fire exploded like this, no sane firefighter would go back in. Not without risking even more lives. Seventeen men had no choice but to watch three of their own die.

  Maya watched helplessly, an unthinkable question burning into her brain: If these three men died today, how would the other hotshots erase the picture from their minds? How would she?

  Because even from this distance, Maya could see that the men were about to be consumed by flames. All it would take was one hard wind and they'd be sucked into the firestorm, their skin and bones melting while they still lived. Bile rose in her throat and she swallowed it down, knowing she couldn't sidetrack any of the fire-fighters' attention by throwing up or fainting.

  The gray-bearded man yelled into his radio, “Hit the wall. Hit the wall. Hit the goddamned wall.”

  Maya had been so blinded by the red-orange flames that she hadn't noticed the rock face that extended out into the canyon. If the men could make it past the rock, it might force the blowup into a different path, one that would spare their lives.

  But she knew they couldn't hear the squad boss's directions. Even if they hadn't already thrown down their radios to save weight, they wouldn't be able to hear anything over the roar of the smoke and flames and the blood pounding in their ears.

  Go, go, go, she silently screamed, barely keeping the words in her throat.

  The fire lashed out at the small figures and Maya caught her gasp a moment too late as a wave of gas knocked over one of the men, throwing him facedown into the dirt. Putting her hand over her mouth, she inhaled her scream, the smoke searing her lungs even from this distance. She watched in horror as the two men in the lead backtracked to help the third.

  A firefighter's bonds of brotherhood meant more than anything, more than even saving their own lives. The other two men were going to die helping their friend.

  She prayed for them, her lips moving soundlessly. She wasn't the only one praying. The mountaintop full of hotshots had turned into a silent vigil.

  And then, what felt like minutes later, but could have been seconds for all she knew, the group of three crested the rock wall. Two of them held up the third between them, and even then, they ran uphill at a pace most unburdened runners couldn't match on flat pavement.

  The man with the radio turned to the crew. “There are going to be burns. Severe dehydration. Shock. We're not going to lose them now. Not a goddamned one.”

  Instinctively, Maya took her place in the human chain as everyone worked to quickly unload and set up the medical supplies and tents. It would take ambulances a good thirty minutes to wind their way up here.

  Several firefighters carried the burned hotshot into the shade of a newly erected tent, the skin on his hands bright red and blotchy. Shaking, she made sure she wasn't going to vomit before resuming the task of bringing fresh water and bandages to his tent.

  Thanking God that the young man was on the verge of going completely unconscious, she watched his fellow hotshots remove the clothes that hadn't melted in order to pour cool water over his burns.

  The smell of burning flesh was inescapable.

  Although she'd spent five years interviewing fire survivors and prosecuting arsonists, she'd never personally witnessed men going above and beyond human limits to outrun a deadly fire. Intellectually she knew that her father and brother's lives had been about more than simply putting out fire, but they'd always been so full of laughter and joy that she'd let herself forget the reality of what they did.

  Coming face-to-face with such pain—and such incredible bravery—shook Maya to the core. Her stomach twisted wi
th nausea, but she wouldn't let herself lose it again. She was stronger than that.

  She had to be strong.

  The two remaining hotshots moved into her line of vision, leaning on the wide shoulders of their fellow crew members. They were covered in dirt and soot, save the whites of their eyes. Helped into the shade of two more tents, they sucked down water. Both tall, their lean yet muscular physiques were honed for the amazing feat they'd just performed.

  In the wake of such serious injuries, it was difficult to stay on task and remember that she was here on the hunt for an arsonist. But with the fire blowing up and a hotshot injured, the case had just become a thousand times more important.

  Maya kept her eyes trained on the man they were calling Logan as he took off his helmet. Finally able to see his face, she stumbled back into a tree trunk.

  Oh God. Him.

  The bartender.

  He looked exactly the same.

  Hard.

  Gorgeous.

  And covered with sweat and ash because he'd just escaped a deadly blowup.

  She closed her eyes and clung to the bark as the earth spun too fast. All this time she'd thought her biggest mistake was a bartender. A sexy guy in a baseball cap who'd made her a drink and helped her suspend time, if only for a handful of minutes.

  Not a firefighter.

  Not a hotshot.

  And definitely not her prime arson suspect.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LOGAN STEPPED back into his fire-resistant pants and left the hospital examination room. He'd dealt with Dr. Caldwell and her surgical team at Tahoe General Hospital countless times over the years. Usually, she was a straight shooter with good sense. Today, she'd been a pain in his ass, wasting time he didn't have probing for signs of shock, telling him to “take it easy” and get some rest.

  He wasn't going to rest a single second until he put out the fire that had nearly eaten his friend for lunch. The smell of charred flesh and the sound of Connor's raw, tortured scream as the fire slammed into him played out again and again in Logan's mind.

  As if that weren't enough, he was afraid someone he loved and respected was responsible for lighting the fire.

  An ambulance driver took him where he needed to go: Joseph's cabin on the edge of Desolation Wilderness.

  Logan remembered sneaking up the private road as an anger-ridden teenager, so sure he'd live forever that he'd risked his life in a hundred different ways for one stupid, seemingly important reason after another. He hadn't known the first thing about what was really important. Not until Joseph had shown him.

  Joseph Kellerman had plucked Logan out of an adolescent nosedive at his mother's request after he'd fallen in with a bad crowd. It was only his mother's begging her ex-boyfriend—a seasoned hotshot—for help that got him out. Joseph was the best wildland firefighter there ever was. Hands down, Logan had never met anyone who could match his mentor's intensity. His passion.

  Now he knocked, then opened, the unlocked front door. He'd grown from an out-of-control, confused teenager to a man in this log cabin beneath the pines. Every year the trees grew taller and every year he appreciated even more just how much Joseph had done for him. Not only had Joseph saved Logan's punk-ass life, but he'd given him a future.

  The vaulted living room was musty and the kitchen smelled like rotting meat. As soon as this fire was wrapped up he needed to head straight back here and do some cleanup. Joseph sorely needed a regular cleaning lady, but Logan hadn't figured out how to force one on the tough old man quite yet.

  He was opening drapes and windows to air out the cabin when Joseph walked in from the back.

  “I thought I smelled a wildfire.”

  Logan noted Joseph's wrinkled, stained clothes. There had to be someone he could call to drop by and at least help out with laundry.

  “We could have used you out there today.”

  Joseph waded through the piles of newspapers and empty soda cans and pulled a couple of Cokes out of the fridge. He tossed one to Logan.

  “No way. I'd be more of a liability than a rookie.” He sat down in his shredded corduroy La-Z-Boy. “Everyone make it out okay?”

  Logan warred with himself for a long moment. He didn't want to lie to Joseph, but how much of the truth could he handle in his condition? Finally, he decided the best thing was to be as straight with Joseph as he could. His mentor had an uncanny nose for bullshit.

  “Sam, Connor, and I got caught in a blowup.”

  Joseph frowned. “How the hell did you let yourself get on top of the fire?”

  “Honestly,” Logan admitted, “I don't know. But they're my men. I should have gotten us out sooner.”

  “Don't blame yourself, boy. It could have happened to anyone. Hell, it happened to me once. Wyoming, in '74. Hell of a fire. The winds changed, lightning struck, and everything went up in smoke. We nearly pissed ourselves running up the mountain.” Joseph's eyes went unfocused for a moment, but thankfully his gaze was clear and direct when he spoke again. “Only thing that matters is that you're all still alive.”

  Logan knew Joseph was right. But he prided himself on his crew's extremely low injury rate and hated to see one of his guys in pain.

  “Connor's in the hospital. His hands and arms are wrecked.”

  Joseph didn't waver. “Burns heal.”

  Logan appreciated the pep talk, but that wasn't why he was here. It was time they had a serious conversation. One he could no longer avoid.

  He stood up and pulled open the back door. “Come outside for a minute. We need to talk.”

  Bemused, Joseph followed him onto the back deck they'd built together five summers ago. It had been a good sweaty project, full of black, fallen-off thumbnails and a dozen trips to the hardware store for extra nails and perfect, knotless strips of redwood. Dozens of bar-beques and hotshot reunions had gone down on this deck. Logan remembered standing against the rail just a few months ago, drinking a beer and wondering about the girl in the bar, if he'd ever see her again.

  Joseph's voice broke into his recollections. “Now I know how you felt when you were seventeen and I was riding your ass all the time, wondering what I was going to come down on you for next.”

  They'd never talked about that tough first year when Logan was breaking all the rules. Logan had never told Joseph how much he appreciated everything he'd done for him. He figured Joseph already knew.

  “You did what you had to do.” One side of Logan's mouth cocked up as he remembered Joseph's tough lessons. “Although I was pretty pissed at you that night you cuffed me to the flagpole. I almost got it out of the ground, you know. You're lucky I didn't. I had visions of bashing your head in with it.”

  Joseph grinned before saying “I always worried you'd end up hating me.”

  But Logan had never been afraid of Joseph. Not even when things had gotten physical, when his out-of-control behavior had forced Joseph to run through every available option—even putting him in handcuffs.

  “Better than ending up dead or rotting in prison,” Logan said.

  Which brought him right back to his reason for stopping by. Logan leveled a gaze at the man who'd been a better father than blood had ever been. It was time to spit it out.

  “Are you going up in the mountains, Joseph?”

  “What are you asking me that for? You know I hike.”

  Joseph wasn't well and Logan didn't want to trigger anything that would make Joseph worse. But he had to at least ask the question. The big one.

  “Are you lighting fires?”

  Surprise—then anger—crossed over Joseph's face. “Of course not.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Hell, boy, you don't think I know what I'm doing? Where I'm going?”

  Logan clenched his jaw. He didn't want to belittle Joseph, didn't want him to think he was less of a man because age was taking its toll. But yes, that was exactly what he thought.

  Over the past year, Joseph had been slowing down and forgetting things. A lot of things. L
ike what year it was and whether or not he'd taken a shower or eaten for several days in a row.

  Logan had tried talking to Joseph's son, Dennis, about it. But Dennis and Joseph had their problems, and Dennis hadn't seemed to want to deal with the situation at all.

  After everything Joseph had done for him, Logan didn't want to accuse his mentor if his behavior was simply minor symptoms of aging. Joseph was still active, still enjoyed heading up into Desolation from the trails behind his cabin to go for day hikes. Hikes that Logan feared were becoming a big problem.

  Just this week alone, he'd found two campfires burning along trails with entry points in Joseph's backyard. Given his mental deterioration, it wasn't impossible that he was lighting—and forgetting about—those fires.

  And now Connor was in the hospital, unconscious, about to undergo hellish skin grafts. If the nerves in his hands were fried, odds were he'd never fight fire again.

  Logan couldn't imagine another life. Who knew how Connor would deal with his injury when he came to. It was unthinkable.

  Connor's injuries brought him full circle to Joseph. Somehow, he had to walk the fine line between respecting the man who'd given him so much love and dealing with his problems.

  Logan simply couldn't ignore the situation anymore, not when so many lives were on the line.

  “I know you don't like to talk about how you've been feeling lately,” he began, and Joseph pushed away from the rail, as stubborn now as he'd always been.

  No wonder he and his son, Dennis, always butted heads.

  “There's nothing to talk about,” Joseph insisted.

  Logan tried to reason with him. “You're too close to the fire. I want you out of danger. I'm buying you a ticket to Hawaii. I'll drive you to the airport. You'll leave tonight.”