by Lisa Childs
And for a moment a strange feeling tightened his stomach muscles into tight knots. Was that feeling jealousy? He didn’t immediately recognize it because he’d never felt it before. He had never been serious enough about any other woman to be possessive of her.
But Avery Kincaid was the last woman he should feel that way about; she was only in Northern Lakes for a week. Then she would be returning to her big city job and big city life.
The thought should have given him relief—should have assured him that he was in no danger of getting too attached to her. She wouldn’t interfere with his focus on his job any more than he would interfere with hers. But instead of feeling relieved, that knot tightened more in his guts.
“Why did Zimmer stop by?” he asked. Just what had damage control entailed? Not that he had any reason to be jealous of his boss. Everyone knew he was still hung up on his ex-wife—which was another good reason Dawson should be grateful Avery was leaving soon.
He didn’t want to wind up as heartsick as Braden was over a woman. Nothing was worth the kind of pain that man had suffered.
“He wanted to explain what I’d overheard earlier,” she said.
“What did you overhear?” Anything about the accelerants?
“He thought you had agreed to do the feature,” she said. “And he was asking you if I’d told you when it was going to air.”
What did you find out from the reporter?
Zimmer’s explanation wasn’t a big stretch. Except for one thing…
“Never,” he said. “That’s what I was about to tell him when you walked up.”
She smiled—a coy, sexy smile that had his muscles tightening in other places. His cock throbbed, demanding attention. Her attention…
“I’m not agreeing to it,” he said. “I don’t need any special attention for doing my job.”
She stepped closer and reached out, trailing her fingers down his chest. “You don’t need any special attention?”
“Avery…”
Her fingers dipped lower. Metal scraped as she lowered the zipper of his jeans. Then she pushed her hand inside the waistband of his boxers and her fingers slid around his erection.
He groaned as his control ebbed away. The intensity of his desire for her pushed aside his concern about her doing a special feature on him. At the moment nothing mattered but her—sliding deep inside the heat and the heart of her.
He scooped her up and carried her the few short steps to his bed. Then he dropped her gently onto it. She bounced on the soft mattress and giggled.
But he swallowed her next laugh as his mouth covered hers. He kissed her with all the passion burning inside him. He slid his mouth over hers before pressing hard enough to part her lips.
One of her sexy little moans slipped out—along with the tip of her warm tongue. She slid it across his bottom lip and then into his mouth. Their tongues tangled, sliding around each other. Her fingers reached for him again and slid around his cock at the same time, pumping it up and down.
He pulled back, tugging himself free of her seductive grasp. “Avery…”
She tensed as if she thought he might reject her—as if he could.
“You’re overdressed,” he observed. And he pulled off her sweater. Unlike last night, she wore a bra beneath it—some frothy lace concoction that did nothing to hide the color of her nipples or the tightness of them. He touched them through the lace, teasing them with his thumbs.
She moaned again and squirmed on the mattress. He wanted to build the same tension in her body that she’d built in his. So he continued to tease her nipples.
But she touched his chest, sliding her palms over it before she grasped his shoulders and urged him back down on top of her. But he had other ideas…
He pulled back and dragged off her jeans, taking the wispy lace of a G-string down her legs with the denim. Then he stroked his fingers over her core.
She squirmed some more and cried out. “Dawson…”
He looked up at her flushed face. Her eyes were wide with surprise. “You…” she murmured hoarsely. “You drive me crazy…”
“At least it’s mutual…”
She grasped his shoulders, but he was too heavy for her to move. He pulled back and dropped his jeans and boxers. He found a condom in the table beside his bed and sheathed his cock. He didn’t trust himself to let her touch him again. He’d probably come right away. And he wanted this to last.
Hopefully there was no damn fire tonight.
When he settled onto the bed beside her, she pushed at him. But she didn’t shove him away; she only shoved him onto his back. Then she straddled his hips and lowered herself onto his shaft.
“Avery…” Her name escaped him in a groan. “You feel incredible.”
Her inner muscles tightened, pulling him deep inside her. She rose up, then lowered herself again.
He reached for her. First he tangled his fingers in her silky blond hair and pulled her head down for a kiss. Then he moved his hands down her shoulders to cup her breasts. As she rode him, he stroked her breasts and teased her tight nipples with his thumbs.
She gasped, and her muscles tightened even more as she began to come. He clutched her hips then, increasing the pace to a frantic rhythm.
She shuddered and screamed her pleasure.
He loved the sound of it—loved how she nearly sobbed it as her body shook. He continued to clutch her hips, continued to drive the rhythm—until she bit her lip.
“Dawson…” His name slipped out again as if she couldn’t help it.
Then she began to move frantically. The tension must have wound inside her once more. His cock was pulsing—desperate for the release. He needed it like he needed air.
Like he needed her…
But he wanted to drive her as crazy as she drove him. Then she tensed and shuddered as she came again.
He couldn’t stop thrusting his hips up—thrusting inside her. And he came with an intensity he’d never felt before—not even the previous evening with her.
How was it that it got hotter between them?
Was their attraction like the big fire—too powerful to ever stop burning?
12
COMPLETELY SATIATED FROM the most incredible night of sex she’d ever experienced, Avery stretched like a cat. She felt like purring. Actually, she felt like making love again. She reached out, but her hand encountered only the wide expanse of empty mattress. Dawson was gone. The sheets had even cooled. He’d been gone awhile.
Had he been called to another fire? She hadn’t heard that siren ring out from his phone again. But then, she’d been beyond exhausted when she’d fallen asleep. She might have slept through it.
She uttered a soft sigh of disappointment. She wasn’t just upset that he was gone. She was upset with herself. Despite all her pep talks that she could handle her attraction to him—that she wouldn’t lose her focus again—she hadn’t asked him a single question beyond “Does that feel good?” and “Do you like that?”
Even those questions he hadn’t really answered—with anything beyond a guttural groan of satisfaction. He had to have been as satiated as she was.
She felt boneless. She knew she needed to get up. He’d let her sleep but he hadn’t really invited her to stay. She actually couldn’t believe that he’d left a reporter alone in his house. But just as he didn’t talk about himself, he was probably careful to leave nothing around that would reveal anything about him.
She forced herself to get up and dressed. And she looked around—with only a slight pang of guilt over invading his privacy.
The cabin was sparsely furnished. The bed dominated the room. Then there was a small table near the kitchenette. It had only two chairs pulled up to it. And in the opposite corner there was a short sofa and a TV.
Nothing hung from the log walls. No pictures. No awards. She sighed. The house was as elusive as its resident. She returned her focus to the bed. And her face flushed as she remembered all the things they’d done to each
other in that bed—leaning over that bed, leaning off that bed…
Dawson didn’t need to verbally express himself when he made love as thoroughly and passionately as he did. The man was as incredible a lover as he was a firefighting hero.
She couldn’t include that in her special feature about him, though, and not just because it would be unprofessional and a betrayal of his trust. If word got out about what an amazing lover he was, Dawson would have even more women after him than the usual firefighter groupies. And Hotshots—being the most elite team of firefighters—had more groupies than most to start with. When she’d covered the Northern Lakes fire, she’d seen all those women. They’d looked almost as desperate as the parents worried about their missing children.
But unlike the parents, who’d looked as if they hadn’t slept or eaten in days, those women had looked as if they’d stepped out of a salon. Their hair had been more expertly styled than Avery’s when she had to be on camera—their makeup even more elaborate.
Another pang struck her, but this one wasn’t guilt; it was jealousy. She didn’t want those women throwing themselves at him. But they undoubtedly already had. After all, he was the best-looking man on the entire team. And they would continue to do so after she returned to Chicago. That was why she hadn’t wanted to get involved with him—because she knew they had no hope for a relationship. But there had been no denying the attraction burning between them.
That was all it was, though—attraction. She wasn’t developing any deeper feelings for him. Sure, he was the most heroic man she’d ever met. And sexiest…
But she didn’t need a man. She wasn’t ready to settle down—as Kim had—in Northern Lakes. And she didn’t have that many days left of her week off before she had to return to Chicago. But she couldn’t go back without a story. Or she might not have a job to return to.
She needed a very special special feature. So she ignored her pang of guilt over snooping and scrutinized the small cabin, trying to determine where something could be hidden.
She noticed again how high the bed was. Tugging back the blankets, she discovered why. Drawers were beneath it—a double set on both sides. The pang returning to one of guilt, she pulled open a drawer. In most of them she found jeans and Tshirts, underwear, socks…
It was in the last drawer that she found the personal stuff he hid away. Diplomas. One from high school. Another from college. He had a bachelor’s degree in forestry studies from Michigan Tech. Instead of proudly displaying it, though, he kept it shut away. There were books, too. Thrillers. A couple of science fiction novels. There was also a leather binder. Her hands shook slightly as she pulled it out. This was it. A journal. A scrapbook. The history of Dawson Hess. Even before she flipped open the cover, she was certain of it.
But the picture inside that cover was old and yellowed, from a newspaper article two decades ago. Dawson would have been a kid then. Not the Hotshot hero who died trying to save a honeymooning couple—as the newspaper headline proclaimed. Martin Spedoske was the firefighter who’d died twenty years ago. So he wasn’t Dawson’s father. With light-colored hair and dark eyes, he looked nothing like the man Dawson had become.
Who was he that Dawson would have kept a scrapbook of him? There were several articles—all covering the same tragedy. The couple—who’d actually been on their second honeymoon—had been in a cabin in the middle of the forest a wildfire had consumed.
Martin Spedoske had found them, but not in time to save them or himself. He’d died in the fire. And so had Kevin and Susan Andrews.
While covering the story of Wyatt Andrews rescuing the lost campers, several reporters had brought up how he’d lost his own parents in a wildfire out West. Was it this fire? The one Martin Spedoske had also died in? It had to be same tragedy.
But why did Dawson have the scrapbook? It would make more sense that Wyatt Andrews would have it. The articles were old, so they were faded and difficult to read. She needed to go online and look up the original coverage of the tragedy to find out more. But when she picked up her purse and retrieved her phone, she found the screen ominously blank.
The weak cell signal up north always drained her battery. She dug deeper for her charger. She usually carried that with her. But she’d been in such a hurry to see him that she must have forgotten it.
She couldn’t take the scrapbook with her. Snooping was bad enough. But stealing? She’d feel way too guilty if she did that. So she’d have to take notes the old-fashioned way—with a pen and paper. She found a pen in her purse, but she hadn’t packed a pad. She usually took notes on her phone so she could put in reminders, too. There was only one piece of paper in her bag—the envelope she’d shoved inside last night. It didn’t give her much room to write down all the dates and names from the articles. Maybe she could use the back of the letter—if the person hadn’t written on both sides.
She tore open the envelope and pulled out the paper. There was only writing on the front—the message was short:
Miss Kincaid,
I thought you were a good reporter. How come you haven’t figured out the fire was arson? The Huron Hotshots might be too cowardly to admit the truth, but I didn’t think you were afraid of it. If you don’t report what really happened, you should be scared—of what I’ll do to you.
She reread the message. It could have been penned by a kook, by someone trying to claim responsibility for an act of nature. But she doubted it. Her instincts hadn’t failed her. And she hadn’t imagined that the Huron Hotshots had been trying to hide something from the public. Now she knew what it was: there was an arsonist jeopardizing the safety of everyone in Northern Lakes.
Anger coursed through her as she remembered her sister’s terror and her own fear over the twins being in danger. She wasn’t afraid of the arsonist or what he was threatening to do to her. She wasn’t afraid of what she might do to Dawson for keeping the truth from her—for not making the public aware so that they could protect themselves.
No. She wasn’t afraid at all. She was furious.
*
“THE ARSONIST IS definitely still in Northern Lakes,” Superintendent Zimmer said, addressing the entire crew. He’d called all of his team to the meeting—even those stationed at firehouses in other areas of the country.
It had been hard leaving Avery—she’d looked so sweet and sexy curled up in his bed. But even if Zimmer hadn’t said it, he’d known this meeting was important.
From the chair next to him, Cody turned and caught his gaze. When he’d heard that everyone had been called in, Cody had thought they were being flown out West to one of the fires still burning there. He’d been looking forward to going out to a big fire—to relieving some of the crews who’d been working them too long.
But Dawson knew what this meeting meant. If the arsonist was still in Northern Lakes, they had to stick close to home.
At least, it was home to Dawson.
What was it to Avery? Unlike him, she’d been born and raised in the village. But she’d left it years ago for college and she’d stayed away because of her career. She was unlikely to ever call it home again.
Not that it mattered. Not that he’d ever thought they could actually have a future. He wasn’t a fool. He knew she was only been a reporter after a story.
The sex was just a bonus for her. He had no doubt that she’d enjoyed it. He had scratches on his back and his butt from her nails. And her screams of pleasure still echoed inside his head. Hearing them again, his body hardened, wanting hers.
Would she still be there when he returned?
He doubted it. What would she think when she awoke alone again? Would she be mad?
He should have left her a note. But what could he have said? Been called away to a top secret meeting? No. It was better that she hadn’t been awake when he’d left. She would have known for certain something was going on in Northern Lakes.
They had confirmation now. But an eerie silence had fallen after Superintendent Zimmer’s declaration. Everyone
else might have been stunned, but Dawson wasn’t. He’d known the arsonist was still in Northern Lakes. He suspected the man had been inside Avery’s cottage, too.
“How do you know he’s still here?” Ethan Sommerly asked. The guy was big and burly with an overgrown beard. When he wasn’t with the team, he was stationed in the upper peninsula of Michigan—in a forest even bigger than the one where Dawson and Cody lived. But rumor was that he’d been raised in a big city—in a rich family.
Dawson never paid much attention to rumors, though. He didn’t care where someone came from, just that they could do the job. And he trusted every one of the Hotshots on his crew to do their part—to have his back—during a fire or a bar fight.
Would they have his back when Avery learned the truth? She’d be furious with him when she did. And he had no doubt that she would eventually.
“The last two hot spots weren’t random flare-ups from the original fire,” Zimmer said. He spoke from a podium at the front of the big conference room on the firehouse’s third floor. This was where they held their team meetings—and press conferences when they felt the public needed to be informed.
Avery would probably think they should have been. But Dawson understood why his boss was reluctant to do that. Zimmer didn’t want to feed the arsonist’s appetite for attention.
“The fires were deliberately set?” Wyatt Andrews asked. A muscle twitched along his tightly clenched jaw.
Zimmer nodded. He wore his tension in the tight lines around his mouth and the dark circles beneath his eyes. He’d obviously been losing sleep worrying about the fires—about the town. “Accelerant was found at both sites.”
Dawson had been losing sleep, too, but not because he’d been worried. Guilt flashed through him. He’d let Avery get to him—he’d let her distract him. With an arsonist on the loose, he couldn’t afford any distraction. Or any lost sleep…
They’d been given this break to protect their village and to catch up on their rest before getting called out to one of the big fires Cody was itching to fight.
He forced himself to forget about Avery—to forget the passion that burned so hotly between them. And he focused on the meeting.