by Anne Marsh
“No.” Ben slammed his hand down on the card table that was doing double duty as command central. “But when I get the boys out there, we both know they’re going to find something.”
“Walk me through it, Ben.” He needed to hear that the other man had sensed the same pattern he had. “Lightning is the likeliest cause of any wildfire. So why isn’t this Mother Nature setting a few hot ones underneath our asses?”
He’d seen enough of the burn pattern from the plane. He’d damned sure seen the speed and the height of the fames. What else had Ben noticed?
“Fire likely started near those homes on the ridge, either right by Haverley’s or by the road. Besides the spotter, several neighbors called the fire in—but they all saw a different set of flames. That kind of pop-pop-pop—one little fire next to another—doesn’t happen accidentally.”
“So what’s in it for our boy?”
“He’s getting something out of it,” Ben said grimly. “Not insurance money. We didn’t lose any structures today.”
“But it didn’t look good there for a while.”
He shrugged in acknowledgment. “Could also be crew, looking to pick up some overtime, but I’ll vouch for my team.”
Ben nodded. “So it’s not money our boy wants. He’s getting off on this some other way.”
“Pleasure. He likes setting things on fire. Likes watching them burn. He lights one or two or three, he’s going to want to light another.” Lily had said her stalker had been masturbating while he watched her kitchen go up in flames. He’d been aroused.
“Serial.”
“Yeah. Or he’s going to get fucking inspired by the fire a lightning strike kicks up, and he’ll set one of his own. But one won’t be enough.”
“How many fires did Lily have before she came home?” Ben asked.
Too many. “If he followed her on back, he’s not going to stop with one fire. Hell, is there any number that would be enough?”
Ben eyed him grimly. “I don’t think so, Jack. I think he’s going to keep coming back and back, until he makes a mistake or he’s got what he wants.”
“Bastard’s going to come for her.”
“So you’ve got someone watching, Jack.” The chief didn’t take his eyes off Jack. “Because she’s a fine woman, just like Nonna. I’d hate to see either of them hurt.”
“I’ll keep her safe, Ben.”
“You do that.” Ben paused, and, sure enough, he couldn’t leave well enough alone. “You partner up with a woman like that, Jack, and you won’t have regrets.”
“When are you gonna make Nonna an honest woman?” Offense was the best defense, right?
Ben just glared at him. “We’re not talking about me here, boy. This is all about you and Lily.”
Jack shoved away from the table. “Hell, Ben. This is none of your business.” He already had half a town breathing down his neck. He didn’t need Ben on his case, as well.
“Speak of the devil,” Evan called, a small smile playing across his lips, as if he had himself a little secret he was enjoying. “Or maybe we’ve got us a visiting angel.”
Jack knew Lily was no angel, even if she was spun-sugar on the outside. Inside she was hiding a bad girl who wanted nothing more than to come out and play. All he had to do was convince her to play with him.
Although he was going to have to do something about the car. He winced. That car of hers might have been an expensive little import once upon a time. Jack guessed that motor was still pure fun, despite the piss-poor paint job and the battered leather seats. A lavender wand dangled from the rearview mirror, the braided strands of dried flowers bouncing up and down with each rut she hit. Hell, he was surprised she hadn’t painted the damned car purple.
Lily was a slow, deliberate driver, meticulously trying to steer her car around each pothole.
“Going to take her all afternoon,” Rio observed cheerfully. He was camped out with half the jump team. Taking care of the housekeeping that went with jumping. After the day’s jump, they were going through the chutes. Rio was drawing a needle in and out of the fabric with the same precision he’d used at the firing range during their tours of duty. Chute was just a different weapon, and you didn’t go back into battle without giving your weapons all the TLC they needed. They’d all darned chutes when they had to. Sure as hell, you didn’t trust your chute to anyone off the team.
Once the car was parked carefully, Jack rose to his feet. He’d never brought Lily here, and he found himself wondering what she thought about the base camp, the beat-up plane parked out on the short runway and the men and equipment scattered around the hangar. No air-traffic control or bags of peanuts here. The car door opened, and she slid out, deliciously feminine in his masculine world.
Yeah, he’d enjoy playing with her.
“Couldn’t wait until tonight?” he drawled, enjoying the outrage blossoming in her eyes. She’d wanted to play—so he’d play. Adrenaline rushed through him.
Jack was big and wet, pulling a white T-shirt over his head. Jeans hugged powerful thighs, and those booted feet of his moved with sheer determination. God. She shouldn’t find him so damned sexy. He was six feet of trouble. She should have tossed his damned supper at him and left. Instead, damned if she didn’t take a step closer.
“Nonna sent me,” she said, giving him an artificial smile. “Sacrificial lamb and all that.” When his eyes narrowed, she added, “I brought food.”
He took a step toward her, that familiar smile curling his lips. “We both know food wasn’t what Nonna had in mind.” That was true enough, and there was no missing the good-natured, masculine chuckle of agreement from one of his brothers. He loved his Nonna, but he wasn’t above grabbing this bull by the horns. “She wants me to keep you, plain and simple.”
“There’s nothing simple about this,” she growled, grabbing the cooler wedged inside her trunk. He slid in front of her before she could do more than get her fingers wrapped around the plastic handles, lifting the cooler out effortlessly and carrying it over to the picnic table. Nonna could plan for the future all she wanted. No matter how attractive that fantasy of happily-ever-after was, Lily had to be practical. Right now all she could think about was the short term. Sure, maybe she’d dreamed about Jack—a time or two—when she’d been younger, but that had been years ago.
Now she was all grown up.
She knew better.
She’d known she’d take as many nights as she could get in his arms. Jack Donovan was a weakness, six feet of sexy demand she couldn’t—and didn’t want to—resist. She’d thought she could enjoy what he was offering. She’d planned to seduce him if that was what it took. His determination to go after her stalker was something else altogether.
Something she hadn’t calculated on or planned for.
Why would he play the white knight for her?
“Eat with us,” he coaxed. His fingers curling around her wrist sent her catapulting right back to that night at the pond. Some things hadn’t changed. The little grin tugging at the corners of his mouth was still pure mischief.
“I’m not hungry,” she grumbled, but she sat. Awkward silence reigned at first, but she filled that by passing out Nonna’s bounty. She’d never met a man who’d pass up a free meal, and Nonna was a great chef.
“It always this hot?” One of the newer men on Jack’s team volunteered this little conversational nugget. Jack sat back to see how she would respond. Weather up here in the jump camp was more than just polite small talk, she knew, and, sure enough, all heads at the table swiveled, watching her.
“It’s summertime.” She shrugged. “Hot and dry. Always that way up here. Maybe we get a few showers, but most of us will be irrigating heavily before the month is up.” She knew all about watching the sky and praying for rain clouds. When the water dried up, the drought stressed her lavender. Stressed plants meant less oil—and less fragrance. Water was more valuable than gold out here, but too much could be just as much a threat as too little. Each day wa
s a careful balancing act between too much and too little. She was dependent on the grudging rainfall; when it rained, everything came alive, and her dreams survived one more day.
“The farm have its own water?” Jack was a dark, brooding presence beside her. His muscled thigh pressed against hers. She scooted away, but that leg followed. He took up all the space. All the air.
“Some,” she acknowledged. The jump team sprawled around them, some laid out on the ground, others parked in white plastic lawn chairs. They’d spent the whole day cutting line. Fighting back the fires threatening Strong.
Yeah, they really did want to talk about the weather. “Lavender Creek has its own well,” she explained, “but not enough for much more than drinking and bathing.”
“No creek?” Rio teased, laughing when she shook her head.
“That namesake is a trickle now. You couldn’t get much more than your feet wet. All the irrigation water is pumped in.” Lavender Creek wasn’t in the difficult, dry situation of Central Valley farmers, who had to pump their water out of the reservoirs and canals crisscrossing the state’s sun-baked middle. All those cars zipping past on the freeway saw only orchards and fields. Green and brown. Not the daily life-and-death struggle to get the water where it needed to go.
“You think we’ve got rain in our future?”
Rio answered, shaking his head. “Not from the forecasts I’ve seen. Maybe we’ll catch an unexpected break, but the next couple of weeks are looking to be hot and dry.”
“Damn,” she said feelingly. “That’s not going to make things any easier.”
“No,” Jack said quietly. “We’re going to have sleeper fires.”
There wasn’t much to say to that kind of conversation stopper, so she hunkered down and paid quality attention to her lunch. The next twenty minutes provided a companionable silence as the jump team settled down to the serious business of eating, the rustle of paper and the pop of plastic lids replacing conversation. Nonna hadn’t stopped at ham sandwiches. No, she’d added fried chicken. Coleslaw. Biscuits. Clearly she hadn’t gotten the latest message from the Surgeon General about restricting fat intake.
“You don’t do anything without your brothers,” she said, when the picnic table finally cleared out some and most of the team had wandered away in pursuit of showers and rest.
Jack heard the note of accusation in Lily’s voice when she mentioned his brothers. She wasn’t the first woman to complain about Rio and Evan’s constant presence, but he’d tell her what he’d told the others.
That he was a package deal.
He cut her a slice of the peach pie she’d been craving, because Nonna made the best pie this side of Sacramento, and he waited until she’d dug her fork in before he answered her unspoken question.
“We’re family.” It was that simple, but she wanted the words, so he tried to find a handful of sentences that explained a relationship he didn’t completely understand but valued more than anything. “Before we came up here to Strong, before Nonna adopted us, I was pretty much on my own.” He told her about life on the streets of San Francisco. He left out the uglier parts, but he knew she’d fill in those gaps. She’d lived in the city herself, and, even though she’d seen it through different eyes, she’d know precisely how rough things could get for a boy on his own. Instead, he told her about the beach where he and Rio and Evan first met and about the sight of the Pacific Ocean battering the San Francisco coastline.
That ocean had been all wild power. Damp, too, but he’d been young enough not to mind. Young enough to love the way the salt spray whipped off the waves beating against the shore and delivered a load of wet on top of his sleeping bag. They’d lived off hot dogs coaxed or earned from the vendors at the nearby zoo, slipping down onto the sand after dark, once the police had made the first of their nightly sweeps.
He’d been big enough to be mistaken for an adult, so to the authorities he was just another homeless guy looking for a place to lay his head. It hadn’t been entirely legal to use the beach as his own personal hotel, but those same cops had had more to worry about than a couple of harmless sleepers. As long he’d kept his nose clean and minded his own business, it’d been all good. And he’d had himself an ocean view and a bit of peace and quiet.
“None of you had any family?” She asked the question lightly, but he knew that absence worried her.
“Evan didn’t.” He cut her another piece of pie because the first was gone and he’d never forgotten her sweet tooth. “Rio, on the other hand, he needed to put some space between himself and a father who used him as a punching bag. It was easier to just go down to the beach and cop a spot there. No one bothered us. There was plenty of space for everyone.”
No one, on the beach or off it, asked too many questions. The three of them had had each other’s backs, and together they’d made their own family. Hell, they’d even picked their own last name. The original Donovan had been a local guy who ran construction and gave them odd jobs. Donovan and Sons—that’s what they’d called themselves.
It had been Rio’s idea that they needed to get themselves an education. Never mind that getting that education meant going right back into a system they all hated.
“We’ll stick together,” Rio had argued, “and it’s just for a few years.” When foster care tried to split them up, they’d run away; after the third time, the adults in charge had accepted the truth. No one split up the Donovan brothers.
Strong wasn’t the ocean. It sure as hell wasn’t the beach. Parts of it, though, were just as wild and unfettered as all that water had been. If a man paid attention to a handful of unwritten laws, well, everything else was negotiable. And some things he had every intention of taking.
“I’ll see you tonight, baby,” he growled, brushing a thumb over her lips. “You count on that.”
She stepped backward, sliding away from his touch. The look on her face was no invitation. “You’ve got a bed here at base camp with your brothers. Sounds to me like you want to be staying in it tonight.”
She headed back to her car as if they’d settled matters between them.
He’d straighten out that little misapprehension of hers later tonight, all right.
One way or another, this particular wildland fire season could burn up their town. Strong couldn’t take another economic hit. Nonna knew that. Over time, entire families had packed up and moved away, chasing jobs. Chasing dreams that required a bigger stage than Strong had to offer. She’d recognized years ago when she’d decided she was going to rebuild her town, put it back on the map, that the job wouldn’t be easy.
“How bad was it?” She turned her head and looked over at Ben. Neither of them was young anymore. Those added years, she figured, meant she had a little more experience to throw at the problem, but time didn’t make it any easier to get the work done. Now she was like an old cat who wanted nothing more than to curl up where the summer sun spilled through the window. Not because she had to, but because she’d learned the value of slowing down. Taking the time to soak in those heated, sleepy moments, because those were firefly moments—here today, gone tomorrow. Someday soon, she promised herself. Just as soon as Strong—and her boys—were good and settled.
Ben stretched his legs out in front of him, his boot heels hitting her porch with a familiar thud. “Couple of brush fires,” he acknowledged. “Nothing we couldn’t handle, but those fires burned faster and longer than they should have. Trees weren’t cut back from that ridge up behind Haverley’s place, and the flames got up into the deadwood there. Burned real hot for a while.”
She closed her eyes, the map of town as clear as day in her mind’s eye. Jack had offered to take her up in that plane of his, fly her over the town, but she didn’t need wings to see the place—it was all mapped out in her head. “That ridge borders Lily’s lavender farm.”
“Fire didn’t jump,” Ben offered.
“But it could have.” Nonna set her glass down. “If there’d been wind, Ben, we’d all have
been in trouble. That fire just needed a little more fuel, and it would have been knocking on Lily’s front door.”
“And that’s why we called Jack,” he reminded her. “To stop that from happening.”
Making a decision, Ben reached over and took Nonna’s hand in his. Real casual-like. Could have been just two old friends reaching out to each other for a little comfort.
Could have been.
Life, he thought, was too damned full of could have beens.
Chapter Seventeen
Lily stared at the man standing in her doorway and knew she shouldn’t have been surprised. Jack Donovan had never backed down from a challenge in his life, and her suggestion that he spend the night at base camp—rather than beneath her roof and in her bed—had been pure challenge. Now that he was here, she wasn’t sure what she wanted. Looking at his familiar face, those broad shoulders filling up her doorway while a sensual grin tilted that wicked mouth of his, well, she recognized the now-familiar hum of desire low and warm in her belly. Some things didn’t change, no matter what other feelings were piling up between them.
Just because she wanted him, however, didn’t mean she had to lie down and let him tromp those boots of his all over her. Give him an inch, and that man would take a mile. “You shouldn’t be here, Jack. I told you you should stay with your brothers tonight.”
She wasn’t sure what was making her so prickly, but, placing her hand on his chest, she gave him a little shove.
He didn’t move, just looked down at her. “I’m not leaving. Not unless that’s truly what you want, Lilybell. You give me those words. You tell me to go.” When she didn’t say anything, just stood there watching him, he came toward her, stepping inside, and she moved out of his way. He didn’t misread that little feminine retreat as he grabbed a chair. He leaned back lazily, watching her with those sex-sleepy eyes of his. “Then, I’ll go. Not until then. But you have to say the words, Lily.”
