Wilde Heat

by Bella Andre

  "No."

  "Would he have any reason to set you up?"

  "No."

  All of a sudden, he was king of the one-word answer, and she felt sorry for all of the women he'd ever dated, especially the ones who'd wanted to talk things through.

  "Okay, then, why don't you explain why he told a total stranger all about what a piece of work you were when you moved in with him and Joseph?"

  Logan shrugged. "We were teenagers. I probably went out with some girl he liked."

  She thought about it, thought about everything Dennis had said. "I don't think so. He didn't say anything about you taking away a girlfriend. It was all about his father, about how you ended up being the golden child. Instead of him. People start fires because they're angry. Or sad. Or hurt. They light fires because they want people to notice them. They harm people because they're jealous."

  Maya lost the tenuous hold she had over her patience. "If you want to clear your name and get back out on the mountain, you should be happy that I'm following another lead."

  "You're right. I need to be on the mountain with my men. But I'm not going to sell out my foster brother. There has to be another way to approach this."

  "I've already got one," she said, knowing he wasn't going to be much happier with her next move than he was with her investigating his foster brother. "We both know that gasoline doesn't combust in open air, even if someone lights it on fire. Not without something else added to it. Which means I need you to take me to the site of the explosion and lend me some turnouts so that I can get a sample before the fire devours all of the evidence."

  He looked at her like she was crazy.

  Maybe she was. But she wasn't turning back.

  CHAPTER TEN

  LOGAN FELT like he was standing at the end of a batting cage, with baseballs hurtling straight toward his head.

  He'd stared at Robbie in his hospital bed and known it could have been any of them lying there, wrapped head to toe in bandages, fighting for their lives. Sure, he and Sam and Connor had run faster than the blowup, but in so many ways getting out had been sheer luck.

  The last thing Logan wanted was another reason to have to return to the hospital. Between worrying about his men and worrying about Joseph wandering onto the trails behind his house and getting too close to the fire--or lighting a new one--Logan was pulling from reserves.

  And now Maya wanted to risk her life to collect evidence. During fire training, he'd been interested in every part of the fire academy, and he was fairly well versed in running an arson investigation.

  To get enough solid evidence to test in a lab for flammable hydrocarbon residue, she'd need to stand on top of the explosion site.

  No way.

  "Using that sniffer you've been hauling around is way too dangerous right now. Forget about it."

  "I'm not stupid," she said, her mouth set into a familiar stubborn line. "I know it's dangerous, but I need those samples. If you won't take me, I'll find another way to get it done."

  She was the most bullheaded woman he'd ever met, which made her perfectly suited to her job.

  No matter how much he got in her face, she stuck to her instincts. She followed her gut, just like he did when he was fighting fire. There was no point in arguing with her. She wasn't going to back down.

  "I'll suit up and get the samples."

  Her mouth opened in shock. "No way. I can't allow you to do that. You're my suspect. Not my assistant."

  But Logan wasn't going to back down either. If she hadn't figured it out yet, they were well matched.

  "I'm your only option, the only guy with the gear who's willing to risk his life to get you something to take to the crime lab."

  She had to realize he'd never let her go in herself. He couldn't stand the thought of seeing her wrapped up like a mummy in the hospital.

  "I'm good friends with the chemist who runs the local lab. You don't want to wait out the weekend, do you?"

  She sighed, knowing her hands were tied. "You know I can't wait that long."

  "I'll get him to open up his lab today." Provided David wasn't sailing on the lake with his family for the weekend, of course, but there was no point in mentioning that. Not when he was using his friend as leverage.

  They drove to the hotshot station to collect his gear. "You might want to stay in the car," he warned her in the station parking lot. "Odds are, you're not real popular with the guys right about now."

  Ignoring his good advice, she jumped out. "Do you honestly think I care?"

  Yeah, he did. But saying so would only set her off. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

  He watched her square her shoulders and set her expression into an impervious mask as they headed inside. A handful of guys were gulping down a quick meal around the plastic dining table.

  Logan grabbed his flame-resistant jacket, pants, boots, and helmet from his locker.

  "What the fuck is she doing here?"

  Even though Maya had pulled him from duty, he wasn't going to stand for the guys treating her like she was dirt. She had a job to do and she was doing it. End of story.

  To her credit, she didn't appear the slightest bit bothered by their scrutiny. Logan supposed being hated by firefighters in these situations came with the territory.

  "She's just doing her job, Sean," he said before turning their focus away from her. "What are conditions like on the mountain right now? How's everyone holding up?"

  Sean, Zack, and Andy momentarily stopped glaring at Maya. "It's completely kicking our ass," Zack admitted. "The wind's acting all squirrelly, and with the dry shrubs, the fire's moving fast. Really fast."

  Andy cut in. "I heard you went to see Robbie. How's he holding up? None of us can get out to the hospital. Not while the fire's spreading so fast."

  Firefighter morale was a funny thing. Most of the time guys could block out the bad stuff until they'd finished doing their job and the fire was out. But this was a special case. His only option was to say very little about Robbie's true situation. After his brief talk with Dr. Caldwell, he wasn't at all sure Robbie was going to pull through.

  Logan weighed his words carefully. "He's hanging on."

  The guys nodded and ate some more, knowing better than to push for details they couldn't handle. Sean pointed to the gear in Logan's hand. "She letting you back in the game, man?"

  Maya finally spoke. "Let's get going, Mr. Cain." She turned on her heel and walked back out to the car.

  Andy whistled. "What a waste of a hot piece of ass."

  Logan clenched his jaw, feeling more than a little proprietary about Maya's curves. "Keep your focus on the fire," he warned, knowing it was exactly what he needed to be doing himself. "I'll be back in action as soon as I can."

  He headed outside and threw his gear into the back of his truck. He slid behind the wheel.

  "Must be rough."

  Maya didn't say anything, but her full lips were a tight line.

  "Your father was a firefighter. And today you're the enemy, the one they all love to hate."

  She shifted in her seat, turning away from him, her hands clasped tightly on her lap. "I don't have to investigate firefighters very often, but when I do, I don't treat their cases any differently."

  "Are you sure you can do that?" Logan asked, even as he wondered why he cared so damn much. Especially when she sure as hell wasn't making it easy for him.

  She was silent for a long moment. "I never expected to run into you again, let alone for you to be my lead suspect. And then after what happened at the motel, after getting that note--" She stopped, and started over. "Trying to separate this case from what happened to my brother is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. But I promise you--and your men--that this is not a witch hunt. I'm not simply looking for someone's head to jam on a stake. And I don't want any more of your men to get hurt because of a serial arsonist."

  She wasn't hiding her distress from him, and he felt that maybe he was starting to gain her trust.

  "
Thank you for that," he said. "For your honesty. And for thinking of my men."

  She twisted the sniffer in her hands. "I don't want you to get hurt either, Logan. Getting evidence is too dangerous. I can't let you do this."

  But danger no longer mattered. He needed to find out who'd set up the explosion to make sure it didn't happen again and take out another one of his men.

  "Robbie was my friend. He didn't deserve this. Some asshole thinks he can get away with it. He probably thinks no one will be willing to walk up to that fire and find out what caused it." His hands tightened on the steering wheel. "That asshole is wrong."

  "It's too dangerous. I wish you'd reconsider."

  But they both knew he wouldn't. "What do I need to know about operating the sniffer?"

  "Be sure to hold the red button down for at least thirty seconds or the sample size won't be large enough to register on the meter. I'll also need a couple handfuls of dirt and grass, and anything that isn't native."

  She looked like she was going to say something else.

  "Go ahead. What else do you want me to know?"

  She shook her head. "Nothing."

  "I can take it," he said in a soft voice. He could feel her warring with herself in his passenger seat, could practically see the wheels turning in her head.

  Suddenly she said, "Just be careful, okay?"

  Of all the things he expected her to say, that wasn't anywhere on the list. "Nice to know you care."

  "Yeah," she said, her mouth quirking up on one side, "it would suck to lose my top suspect."

  He found himself grinning in the face of the hellish thing he was about to do, appreciating her quick comeback as much as her luscious curves.

  "I can't believe how big these houses are," Maya marveled as he used his universal remote to open the gates to the ritzy housing development and they drove past a row of huge recently built mansions.

  He knew she was trying to lighten the mood between them in the face of oncoming danger--and probably evade their growing connection while she was at it.

  "They've all got killer views," he said, playing along. "I used to hike up here before the houses went in. It was a damn shame when the public lost this land."

  Not to mention one more pain-in-the-ass development for his crew to protect, despite owners who went out of their way to create fire hazards. Protecting people took first priority. But saving expensive houses was a close second.

  He followed the winding road up the hill to a dead end. He could feel the heat from the fire even at this distance. It was going to be hotter than hell on the other side of the wall. And a hundred times more dangerous. All it would take was one spark to land on an untouched patch of gasoline.

  He jumped out of his truck and quickly suited up, but when he came around to her side of the car Maya held tightly onto the sniffer and mason jar.

  "Wait here." He dropped his keys in her lap and pried the sniffer from her fingers. "But if you see flames start to come over that wall, get away as fast as you can, then get on my radio and report it."

  She curled her fingers around his keys. "I'm not leaving without you."

  "No use in both of us dying," he said, then leaned in and stole a quick kiss before he walked straight into a firestorm.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MAYA WANTED to call out Logan's name as he opened the gate, and demand that he come back. A blast of hot air knocked into the truck, pushing through the cracks in the metal, vibrating against the windshield.

  He'd told her to stay put, but she couldn't just sit in his truck while he risked his life to procure evidence for her investigation, not when she could hear and smell and feel the blaze as if it were right next to the truck rather than beyond the neighborhood wall. She was the only one who could keep watch over him. She had to make sure he didn't do anything stupid.

  Running up the brick walkway of the nearest house, she knocked on the front door and rang the bell several times in rapid succession before she realized no one was home. The homeowners had likely been evacuated. She ran around the side of the house, searching for a way up to the roof. Fortunately, a huge extension ladder was propped against the back wall. The owner had likely used the ladder to water down the roof until the evacuation order came.

  Scrambling quickly up the two-story ladder, she steadied herself on the gray roofing tiles and pulled herself onto them. She clambered across the roof to a spot where she had a clear view of Logan. But when she caught sight of the situation, her heart nearly stopped in her chest.

  While the other hotshots were keeping a safe distance from the fire, Logan was crouched down directly in front of a three-foot wall of flames, scanning the ground for the best chunk of evidence.

  Oh God. She'd been so focused on getting evidence, so consumed with her vendetta against arsonists, she'd actually sent him in without really giving thought to what he would face in the site of the explosion. How could she?

  She screamed, "Come back," but all yelling did was hurt her throat. It was impossible for anyone to hear her over the roar of the fire and the helicopters circling overhead. The wildfire crackled louder now, and the sun moved behind a thick mantle of ash.

  The blaze had looked big and brutal from the air that morning. Now it resembled a war zone. Clouds of black smoke hung ominously in the blue sky, while men and machines scrambled to battle a wildfire that was sending dozens of fiery tentacles farther across the mountain with every passing hour.

  Everything moved in slow motion as the deadly yellow-orange flames reached out toward Logan and nearly covered his head. And then, at the last possible moment, he jumped back onto a safe patch of grass. She knew the vision of Logan standing fearless among five-foot flames and a black-and-gray carpet of ash would haunt her forever.

  She choked on the smoke and dust rising into the air, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest. She didn't want any more firefighters hurt. Especially not Logan.

  Helplessly watching him do her dirty work, she didn't have the strength to keep denying how special he was. She watched as he squatted, his turnouts pulling tight against his muscular shoulders and narrow hips. He was the kind of man women dreamed of at night. And he willingly faced death for the greater good.

  Women threw themselves at him for good reason.

  He held the sniffer away from his body and stood perfectly still for sixty seconds, just as she'd instructed. Flames whipped around him and she cursed herself for telling him not to rush. There was no way for him to have any idea if and where additional gas and explosives had been strewn across the grassy hill.

  At any moment, the ground he was standing on could explode.

  Her legs shook at the horrifying image of Logan lying on a stretcher, covered in blisters and raw, bloody skin. Her foot slipped on a tile and she had to reach out to steady herself by grabbing an exhaust fan.

  Maybe he'd been right and she should have stayed in the truck. Maybe it would have been easier than coming up here to watch him.

  And no matter what side of the investigation they were on, she was stunned by his courage.

  She now fully believed Logan Cain was innocent. He would protect his men with his life. She was watching him do it right now. Witnessing his superhuman nerves in action as he walked through fire to gather badly needed evidence cleared any remaining doubts from her mind.

  He hadn't lit the Desolation Wilderness fire.

  Which meant someone else was responsible for all of this destruction. All of this pain. All of this suffering. Someone had lit the wildfire and then left that message on the tip line with Logan's name. She was almost certain that the same arsonist had lit her motel room on fire, then tried to scare her with the note in the fire-box, and then had put all the pieces in place to set off the explosion that had nearly taken Robbie's life that morning.

  Finally, Logan stepped away from the flames and jogged back to his truck. How, she wondered, could he move so quickly with so much heavy equipment on his shoulders? Especially given how drained he
must be from the shocking heat.

  Not wanting him to find her up on the roof watching--and worrying about him--Maya started to make her way back toward the ladder, but it was harder going on the way down, and her progress was slow. She was halfway across the roof when she heard the loud clang of heavy boots on the steel rungs of the ladder. Logan's soot-covered face appeared above the gutters.

  "Don't you ever listen?"

  "Rarely," she replied as carelessly as she could manage, but she couldn't push away the sweet feeling of relief that he'd returned unscathed.

  "I guess I should just be glad you didn't come after me to make sure I was holding down the right button."

  She kept her face averted, uncertain how to respond to what sounded an awful lot like teasing. Especially coming on the heels of an adrenaline-soaked evidence run. How could he be so carefree and relaxed, while merely watching him risking his life had jumbled up her insides?

  But she was so damn glad that he'd made it out in one solid, intact piece that she couldn't hold back a smile. "You can't blame me for wanting a front-row seat for the Logan Cain show, can you?"

  He smiled back and it was like looking straight into the sun. "Hotshots aim to please."

  She was almost to the edge of the roof and he reached out for her, setting her heart racing again. She was so afraid of what she was feeling for him, had never been more scared of anything in all her life.

  Wanting to keep some much-needed distance between them, she said, "I got up here by myself and I'll get down by myself," realizing too late that she sounded like a petulant child instead of an independent woman.

  He didn't move from the ladder. "I've never left a beautiful woman stranded on a rooftop and I'm not starting now."

  It was the second time he'd called her beautiful. He wasn't the first man to say that to her, but it was the first time she'd really cared.

  No question about it. She was in way over her head with this man.

  But when he reached for her on the roof, she couldn't push him away. Not when she'd just watched him walk into fire. She wanted to assure herself that he was really here, was still solid muscles and bones and unending charm.

  His large, strong hands circled her waist and she ran one finger down the side of his face, leaving a thin line of tanned skin visible through the soot. She lowered her mouth to his, could almost taste the ash on his lips-- when the ladder shifted, and she stiffened.