Combustible

by Lexxie Couper

  Combustible

  A Heart of Fame Story

  By Lexxie Couper

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  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Combustible

  Copyright © 2014 Lexxie Couper

  Edited by Edited By Correctamundo Edits

  Formatted by IRONHORSE Formatting

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—accept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission.

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  LexxieCouper.com

  Desmond Russell. Arson investigator. The best Australia has. Cool, calm, collected and utterly poised. Nothing intimidates him. He knows fire like he knows his own body and soul. Sent to the small Outback town of Wallaby Ridge to investigate the complete destruction by fire of the Australian Deputy Prime Minister’s cattle station homestead, he clashes with Jess Montgomery, captain of the local fire brigade, a feisty woman no taller than his chin, with wild red hair and a mouth like a drunken sailor.

  Jess has a major dislike of arson investigators, especially ones from the big smoke. Two years ago her brother died in a fire she knew wasn’t an accident, but the investigator who arrived from the city—a smug bastard who looked down on the people of Wallaby Ridge even as he reeked of scotch—said it was. She doesn’t trust Desmond Russell to investigate his own arse, let alone a fire that destroyed the Deputy PM’s Outback homestead. And when she learns Desmond is the son of the drunken investigator who dismissed her claims of arson in her brother’s case...well, she’s not going to let him waltz in and take over.

  Arson investigator, Desmond Russell is the best in Australia. Cool, calm and collected, nothing ruffles him. Until he meets Outback fire brigade captain, Jess Montgomery, a woman who ignites all his sexual desires. The initial spark will engulf them both…but will their hearts survive the inferno?

  Dedication:

  To the hot firefighter who used to work with my dad back when I was only seventeen. You were the start of a lifelong obsession I still have with sexy firefighters. Which kind of messed me up a little, given I saw my dad almost daily in his firefighter’s gear.

  Yeah.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  About the Author

  Look for these titles by Lexxie Couper

  Chapter One

  Desmond Russell climbed out of the plane and into a furnace.

  The dry Outback heat sucked the moisture from his lungs, his skin, his every breath. He paused, allowing himself a moment to adjust to the searing summer temperature. When he’d boarded the small plane waiting for him on the runway at Sydney’s domestic airport—three hours and forty-two minutes ago—the humidity of the day had clung to him like a shroud.

  Humidity and the Outback however, didn’t go hand in hand. This far from the coastline, the only hint of moisture was the small beads of sweat currently popping out on his temples.

  With a soft grunt, Desmond shrugged out of his suit jacket and draped it over his left forearm. He didn’t loosen the Windsor knot at the base of his throat. As hot as the day was here in Wallaby Ridge, a small town nearly in the middle of Australia—and it was hot, somewhere in the upper forties Celsius, by his educated guess, which made it around 118-plus in Fahrenheit—it was mild compared to some of the intense infernos he’d been in the middle of.

  The heat didn’t worry him at all. He was used to it. Twelve years as a firefighter for Sydney City, one of the busiest stations in the country, and eight years as an arson investigator meant the heat and Desmond were on a first name basis. The heat didn’t intimidate him, it just told him secrets.

  Like the fact the woman storming toward him now across Wallaby Ridge’s red-dust-covered runway was not happy to see him.

  Not many people in Outback Australia ventured outside at high noon when the blistering sun was at its most savage without wearing a hat. Nor sunglasses to shield their eyes from the extreme UV rays.

  This woman had though, although woman wasn’t the term that came to mind as he watched her make a beeline for him. Pocket-rocket came to mind. Pixie sex goddess was another.

  Pissed off a third.

  Drawing in a slow breath of hot air, Desmond stood motionless, his investigator’s kit resting against his thigh, and waited for Jessica Montgomery to reach him.

  Based on the telephone call he’d received from her before takeoff, he wasn’t in any hurry to initiate their greeting. Pixie sex goddess or not, she’d been far from discreet in letting him know he wasn’t wanted here.

  “I see you got on the plane after all, Des.”

  Desmond couldn’t help but smile at her contraction of his name once again. She’d snarled it at him on the phone as if it were a curse. Now, without the aid of a tenuous digital connection to soften the syllables, the full extent of her contempt was clear.

  “I did.” He inclined his head with a slow nod.

  She stopped a foot before him, the top of her un-hatted head barely reaching his chin, her hazel eyes ablaze with fury hotter than the day. Wow, she really didn’t like him.

  “Even though I told you I had it covered.” Her jaw—finely boned and delectable—clenched. “That your services weren’t needed or required.”

  “Even though. Do I need to point out again, the property destroyed is owned by the Deputy Prime Minister?”

  “You don’t think I have the ability to investigate the fire?”

  “Ms. Montgomery—”

  “Captain Montgomery,” she corrected, a pointed challenge in her voice. “Wallaby Ridge Rural Fire Brigade. Ten years’ service. And, in case I need to point out, the head of the Far West team that covers a total area of two-hundred and sixty thousand kilometres.”

  Once again, he inclined his head. “Captain Montgomery. Before taking off, I accessed the state firefighting records, and spent the flight here reading up on you. I am aware you are good at your job. Very good. I’m here because the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister asked me to be. This is no slight on your ability to determine the cause of the blaze. As I said to you on the phone before I left Sydney, I—”

  “Am recognized as the country’s most respected arson investigator,” she snarled. Hazel eyes flared with mocking contempt. “You did mention that. I’m still trying to decide if I’m meant to be impressed.”

  Desmond raised his eyebrows. Damn, she was a prickly one. With no compunction about letting him know how she felt. Prickly and feisty. And not in the least likely to cower or back down from a challenge.

  Unable to stop himself, he ran a slow gaze over her face, down her pixie-like body and up to her face again.

  A direct challenge flickered in her eyes, stirring something unexpected in the pit of his gut. A direct challenge followed by an almost imperceptible downward glance away. Like she was torn between ripping off his balls, or contemplating something far more…stimulating.

  Control yourself. Now.

  He drew a calm breath. Held it. Let it out with an equally calm exhalation.

  “Might I suggest, Captain Montgomery,” he said, refusing to allow a hint of request or question in his voice, “that you take me to the site of the fire. So I may begin?”

  Jess Montgomery’s jaw bunched. Her eyes narrowed for a fleeting second.
Her stare flicked over him in the same way he’d inspected her, as if sizing him up.

  And then she cocked her chin, crossed her arms over her gloriously round breasts—breasts straining against a snug white T-shirt featuring the Wallaby Ridge’s Fire Brigade emblem—and gave him a slow, cold smile. “The last arson investigator I worked with from the Big Smoke was also called Russell.”

  A thick tension filled Desmond’s body. A heavy pressure wrapped around his temples.

  “He also claimed to be the ‘most respected arson investigator in the country’.” Jess’s tone grew cutting. The combative fire in her eyes turned sharp. “He stank of scotch the whole time he was here and got everything wrong.”

  Desmond stared at her. The pressure around his head spread to his chest. His gut churned. He drew another breath. Remained motionless. Sent out a wordless thank you to a god he didn’t believe in that he was wearing black Ray Bans. The sunglasses hid his eyes and the emotion no doubt currently in them. An emotion he’d spent the last six months holding in check. Repressing.

  Denying.

  “Darius Russell?” he asked, the name like dust on his tongue.

  Jess Montgomery nodded, lip curling with distaste. “That’s the bastard. Relative of yours?”

  Desmond inclined his head with a single nod, offering his own smile. Inside, a cold tension coiled and writhed. “My father. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to work. Feel free to join me at the site, but do not interfere. I have a job to do for the Deputy Prime Minister.”

  And with that, he inched his folded suit jacket a little farther up his forearm and walked from the runway, telling himself he didn’t care if the captain of the Wallaby Ridge Rural Fire Brigade followed.

  Telling himself but knowing it was a lie.

  He cared a lot.

  Because ever since his father died six months ago, ever since the truth of his incompetence was revealed, Desmond had made it his mission to right the wrongs left in Darius’s drunken wake. It was clear by the hate and contempt in Jessica Montgomery’s eyes when he’d told her he was Darius Russell’s son that she had been a victim of one of his father’s many fuckups.

  Which impacted greatly on his time here in the Outback.

  He would find out how his father had screwed her over and do everything he could to fix it.

  What were the chances, however, of her letting him?

  Why the fuck did he have to be so fucking sexy?

  Jess watched the big-city arson investigator stride away from her, with his big city suit—no doubt costing more than she made a year—and his big city haircut and his big city attitude. She narrowed her eyes, wishing she hadn’t hurried from the Wallaby Ridge fire station without first grabbing her sunglasses. She was going to get a headache from the glaring sun if she wasn’t careful.

  You’ve already got a headache. Thanks to the bastard in the immaculate suit with the chiseled cheekbones. Seriously, what real living man looks like that?

  Before she could stop herself, she dropped her gaze to Desmond Russell’s arse, noting with a traitorous throb how fucking good it looked in his suit pants.

  Everything about him looked good. Nothing like his father at all. And it wasn’t just the tailored suit talking to her. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, impeccably groomed, square-jawed, hawked-nosed, salt-and-pepper poster boy for everything she secretly lusted after. The kind of man she never dated—huh! Dating? What the fuck is that?—not just because they didn’t exist out here in the Ridge, but because really, what would a man like that ever see in someone like her?

  “Captain?”

  At the deep timbre of Desmond’s voice, Jess flinched. She jerked her gaze up to his face, unable to miss the twitch of his lips. The realization that he’d caught her staring at his butt flooded her cheeks with heat.

  Damn it. Why couldn’t he look like his father? The drunken, conceited, condescending bastard who’d snubbed her when she’d tried to point out evidence of an accelerant in the fire that had killed her brother. Who’d scoffed at her when she drew his attention to the melted wax residue on the floor beside the charred remains of a stack of newspapers she knew hadn’t been piled by a chair in her brother’s living room the night before.

  “Yes?” she snapped, confusion strangling her irritation. Was she angry with herself for getting busted checking out his backside, or for actually checking out his backside? Or was she angry with him for being a big city arson investigator sent in to investigate a fire in her territory? Or for being the son of the jerk who dismissed the evidence she’d found about her brother’s death?

  Perhaps it’s because despite all those things, you’d still climb him like a pole and seek out his tonsils with your tongue at the drop of a—

  “Are you going to join me in the helicopter, Captain Montgomery?” His twitching lips curled into a smile. The kind that made Jess’s pussy throb and her ire heat. “Or are you going to meet me at the scene of the fire?”

  Jess ground her teeth. Movement behind Desmond grabbed her attention. Evan Alexander, the area’s only aviation firefighter, was walking towards them both.

  Another wave of heat rushed through Jess, this time at the unnerving thought of being in the small confines of Wallaby Ridge Rural Fire Brigade’s Bell 205 with Desmond as they flew to the Deputy PM’s remote homestead, two hundred and forty-two kilometres away.

  She opened her mouth to say there wasn’t a hope in hell she was flying with him to the burnt-out remains of the Deputy PM’s homestead, and then caught sight of that small twitch of Desmond’s lips again.

  The bastard was smirking at her. Thought he’d ruffled her feathers.

  Ha. As if. It took more than a sexy guy in a killer suit with wholly kissable lips and a jawline she just wanted to lick—

  Jesus, woman. Stop it!

  Pulling a breath, she met the bastard’s Ray Ban-covered gaze. “Of course I’m joining you in the helicopter.”

  Did he just cock an eyebrow at her?

  Grinding her teeth, she strode toward him. Past him. Heading for the Bell, where it sat on the helipad next to the Ridge’s miniscule airport terminal. “Someone has to be there to point everything out,” she threw over her shoulder.

  Behind her, Desmond remained silent.

  Jess refused to check if the insult had ruffled him.

  Instead, she stomped over to the chopper, yanked open the cockpit door and climbed into the copilot’s seat.

  Desmond Russell might be the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on, but she was putting him firmly in his place right now.

  And that place was not in control of the fire scene investigation or her.

  The sooner he wised up to that, the better for everyone.

  Chapter Two

  This was not a boat accident.

  The classic line from Desmond’s favourite movie whispered through his head, as it always did when something about a fire site felt…wrong.

  Desmond stood in the middle of the charred carcass of the Broken Downs living room, a homestead owned by the Deputy Prime Minister’s family for over one hundred and fifty years, and let his gaze run over the blackened remains of what was once opulent country furniture. Furniture paid for, no doubt, by Australian taxpayers.

  He drew a slow breath, taking in the acrid smell of burnt varnish, wood, upholstery, carpet and plastic. Tasting it.

  Analysing it.

  This soon after the blaze—only a matter of hours, when it came down to it—the air still hung heavy with the taint. Fire didn’t just destroy property and possessions; it singed the air itself. Changed it.

  Every fire was different, regardless of the cause. Not just the conditions, but the burn. The life of the fire told a story, as did the remains. And these remains were telling Desmond something wasn’t quite the way it looked.

  Staying motionless, he replayed the inferno that had gutted the house, and this room in particular, in his head.

  He hadn’t been here of course, when the homes
tead was destroyed. He didn’t need to be. He could see every lick of flame, could hear every crack as the structure surrendered to them. Without moving from where he stood, he knew where the flames were at their hottest, at their most greedy.

  But what caused such ravenous hunger? And what directed such ferocious burn?

  He fixed his focus on the far corner of the room, picturing an exquisitely carved antique armchair gifted to the Deputy PM by the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, where a charred pile of ash now sat.

  The chair (or the lack of it)…

  There was something…

  For it to be nothing but ash now…

  A faint crunch—the sound of a booted sole on charred floorboards—shattered the silence of the scene and he drew another breath, yanked from the moment by the one person he didn’t want to be near.

  Damn it, she’s too much of a distraction.

  Trying to maintain his focus on the corner, he narrowed his eyes. What had the insurance report said about the chair? What kind of wood was it carved from again? Teak? Mahogany? Both burned differently. Neither left ash like—

  A whiff of something distinctly feminine tickled his senses. Nothing overt or cloying, just a hint of jasmine. Her shampoo? Her soap?

  The chair. Focus on the—

  “Far be it from me to question your technique, Des,” Jess said, the prickly distaste still in her voice. “But you haven’t moved from this spot for close to an hour now.”

  “Fifty-three minutes,” he said without checking his watch. “And as yet, there is no need for me to do so.”

  Another crunch of boot on burnt destruction, this one softer. More…contemplative. Considered.

  A small smile tugged at the corners of Desmond’s lips before he could stop it. The captain of the Wallaby Ridge Rural Fire Brigade may be the feistiest woman he’d ever met, but she also knew how to move around a delicate fire scene without disturbing it, and that impressed him. Not many people did, even among seasoned firefighters.