by Lisa Childs
“There had to be more than accelerant,” Dawson said. There had been no vegetation left to burn.
“Bales of hay again,” Zimmer confirmed.
“So it’s definitely our guy,” Cody said with a ragged sigh. “Sick bastard…”
“Do we have any information about him? Any leads?” another team member asked. Trent Miles worked out of a firehouse in one of the roughest parts of Detroit. He’d encountered more than his share of arsonists, but most of them were pros who burned down buildings for a percentage of the insurance money.
Their arsonist was different. He wasn’t a professional. Burning down a forest had nothing to do with money. One of the other five motives for starting a fire was driving him: vandalism, excitement, revenge, crime concealment or extremism. They hadn’t discovered that any other crime had been concealed, though, so that motive was unlikely.
“We’re working on a lead,” Cody said. Then he turned toward Dawson. “Have you learned anything from the hot reporter?”
Ethan Sommerly stared at Dawson, his dark eyes wide. “You’re talking to a reporter?”
Ethan shared Dawson’s aversion to the press. He probably would have found it easier to believe if Cody had claimed Dawson was talking to a unicorn.
“A hot reporter,” Cody said, as if that justified it. “Avery Kincaid.”
Trent Miles groaned. “She’s a hot pain in the ass.”
She’d worked for a Detroit station before. Obviously Miles had encountered her then.
“She’s a hometown girl,” Zimmer said. “If the arsonist contacted anyone in the media, it would be her. And she’s in Northern Lakes this week.” He stared out from the podium—his entire focus on Dawson. “So what do you think? Has he contacted her?”
The arsonist might have been the one watching her, the one who’d been inside her place. But Dawson didn’t think she was aware of it.
He was reluctant to admit it—even to himself—because then he’d have no legitimate reason to keep seeing her. “I don’t think she knows anything about the arsonist.”
13
“IT WAS ARSON,” Avery said.
Kim glanced up from the hearth. “It doesn’t look like the fire did more than burn a single sheet of paper.”
“Not that,” Avery said. “I’m not sure what that was about.”
A warning? The arsonist knew where she lived; he’d put the note under her door. Had he been inside that night she’d been so spooked? That had been the night she didn’t lock her doors.
Had he burned the paper Dawson had found in the fireplace?
Kim shrugged. “It was probably just left from the last renters. I already told you that the weather was so warm I didn’t think anyone would have started a fire.”
And when Kim had told her that earlier, it had made sense because Avery had thought she’d been overreacting. But she wasn’t overreacting now. The arsonist knew where she lived.
An arsonist didn’t start a fire for warmth. He started it for pleasure. He got some kind of sick satisfaction from destroying things.
“But you always clean so well when the renters leave,” she said.
Kim sighed. “I’ve been distracted since…”
“That fire,” Avery said, and anger coursed through her again. Her sister had been terrified since that horrible day her children had been missing in the wildfire. “That’s the one that was arson.”
Kim tensed and turned away from the fireplace, almost as if she couldn’t bear the sight of the ashes. “Someone deliberately set it?”
Avery nodded.
“Dawson Hess told you that?”
“Hell, no.” Her anger intensified to fury that bubbled over again. He’d slept with her—more than once. But he hadn’t shared anything with her—about himself or the fire. He’d just shared his body.
His incredibly hot, sexy body…
Heat flushed through Avery. But it was just anger. She was so pissed, yet strangely hurt, as well…
She’d let Dawson get to her in a way no man ever had before. She’d been drawn to his heroism, to how he’d protected her nephews. And she’d been even more attracted to his modesty over that act of heroism. He hadn’t wanted any credit for it.
But it was more likely that he hadn’t wanted any more attention drawn to the fire. He hadn’t wanted the truth to come out.
Kim tilted her head and studied her. “Why do you think it was arson, then?” she asked. “There has never been any mention of it.”
“Nobody’s considered that it could have been?” Avery asked. She needed to learn more before she determined what to do about the note. She could turn it over to authorities. But…
Kim shook her head. But her face had tensed, lines pulling tight around her mouth. She looked older than thirty-two now. Those long hours worrying about her children had aged her.
“What?” Avery asked, and her concern was for her sister now—for how ill she suddenly looked. “What did you think caused the fire?”
Kim uttered a ragged sigh as she admitted, “Rick and I and the other parents kind of suspected that our campers might have inadvertently started it.”
Avery gasped. “The kids? You think the kids caused the fire that nearly killed them?” She had always suspected there was more to the fire than the Hotshots had admitted. But she had never considered this possibility and she should have. Campers often caused fires.
Kim nodded. “The Scout leaders who took them on that trip were inexperienced. They probably didn’t extinguish a campfire correctly.”
And nearly cost themselves and the kids in their care their lives.
“But…” She had the letter. It was wrapped in plastic in her purse. She couldn’t show it to Kim, though. If it was legit, she didn’t want her sister involved—didn’t want her threatened. Kim would try to protect her, and she had already been through too much. But Avery needed to show the letter to someone.
Dawson? If he’d been open and honest with her, she would have taken it to him immediately. But he hadn’t been.
Superintendent Zimmer? She recalled the conversation the night he’d come to see her. He had claimed he’d thought Dawson had agreed to the feature. Knowing how adamantly against it Dawson was, she’d been confused at the time, but she’d just figured he’d been mistaken. What if Zimmer had actually been playing her? What if Dawson had been playing her?
Did they suspect the arsonist might have contacted her? Were they trying to contain the story, keep it quiet?
If she turned over that letter to either one of them, she doubted she’d ever see it again. And without any evidence to substantiate her story, they could deny it. Hell, without any evidence to substantiate her story, her producer wouldn’t even run it. No one would learn the truth.
“What makes you think it’s arson?” Kim asked again.
“A source…”
“A credible source?” Kim asked. “When things like this happen, don’t kooks generally try to claim responsibility?”
Avery sighed as she admitted, “Yes…”
The station routinely received calls and letters from people so desperate to get on the news that they claimed everything from alien abduction to organ harvesting had happened to them. Then there were the really disturbed ones who claimed to be serial killers or…
Arsonists.
She needed more evidence than that damn letter. She needed the fire marshal’s report. It should have been a matter of public record. But Northern Lakes wasn’t like big cities or even some of the counties. They had no online presence; no way to download or even order records. Northern Lakes didn’t even have a police department—just a state police post. She’d stopped by and asked about the fire. But they’d told her that because the forest was national land, the US Forest Service had taken over the investigation.
Investigation? Was it routine? Or criminal?
“I would never run a story without confirmation,” she said. She’d never get it on the air. “I just don’t know who I�
�d get to confirm it.”
At the sound of a truck coming down the drive, Kim glanced out the front windows of the cottage and smiled. “You don’t?”
Dawson shut off his truck and stepped from it, but he paused beside the driver’s door. His handsome face was tense, his usually light eyes dark. Something was weighing on him—something he was too stubborn to share.
Frustration replaced her earlier fury with him. And as always, desire rushed over her. Why did he have this effect on her? “He won’t talk.”
Kim giggled. “So you two don’t do much talking when he spends the night here? I assume you spent last night at his place.”
“Kim…” Avery cautioned as he started toward the cottage, “don’t say anything to him…”
“Getting shy, little sister?”
“Not about the sex,” she said. “About the fire. Don’t mention the arson thing to him.”
“Maybe that’s why you can’t get him to talk,” Kim said. “You’re not talking, either.”
Avery’s face heated with embarrassment—over how she’d lost her focus. Every time she got around him she could think only about how much she wanted him.
Kim’s eyes twinkled as she studied her face. “But then,” she said, “sometimes you get farther without talking.”
“What do you mean?” Avery asked.
She wriggled her eyebrows. “You get what Rick and I have.”
Two kids and a house in the small town where she’d grown up? No thanks, she wanted to tell her sister. But she didn’t want to insult her. Kim was happy with her life. Avery was the one who’d always wanted more.
As she stared through the window at Dawson Hess, she had to admit she wanted more—of him. But she wanted him to be the man she’d thought he was, the hero reluctant to take any credit for his selflessness. Not the man concealing secrets and seducing her into losing her focus on the story.
*
WHAT THE HELL was he doing here—again? Dawson asked himself. He no longer had an excuse to see her. She obviously didn’t know anything about the arson. But he’d come back—because he hadn’t been able to make himself stay away.
He was worried about her safety. She might not know anything about the arson, but that didn’t mean the arsonist didn’t know about her. Everyone in Northern Lakes knew about Avery Kincaid, about how smart and ambitious she was.
But those weren’t the attributes that had attracted Dawson. It wasn’t even her beauty. It was her obvious love for her nephews, her friendship with her sister…her determination to learn the truth.
She was beautiful, though. And sexy…
His body—his tense, aching body—had led him here. He had developed an addiction. To her.
She was only in Northern Lakes a few more days, though. He should have been relieved about that—that he would no longer be in danger of falling for her. But he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. A fear that he was already falling. He lifted his hand to knock but the door opened before his knuckles touched the wood.
“Hello,” Kim Pritchard said with a smile of amusement.
“Oh, I didn’t realize…”
“That my sister isn’t alone?” she teased. “I was just leaving.” She brushed past him as she stepped outside. “It was nice to see you again, Dawson.”
“You, too,” he said. He turned as she started to walk away. “You’re walking home?”
“It’s how I got here,” she said. And her brow began to furrow.
“But it’s getting late.” It wasn’t dark yet, but it would be soon.
“It’s not far, as you know,” she said. “And Northern Lakes is safe.”
“Isn’t it?” another voice asked.
He turned back to find Avery standing in her doorway, studying his face. She wore some impossibly short shorts—like tiny, nearly transparent boxers—and a tank top. He was glad the temperature hadn’t dropped much tonight—just enough that her nipples had tightened into little buds that pressed against the tank top. He felt hot, though, his skin burning up from the heat of his attraction to her.
“Isn’t it safe?” Avery asked again.
Her sister had stopped, too, and was staring at him.
He’d been an only child, but now he understood some of his friends’ complaints about having sisters—about how they’d ganged up on them and skewered them with a look.
But it wasn’t just the way they looked at him that made him uneasy. It was the question and how they’d asked it. As if they knew something they shouldn’t—something he hadn’t thought they knew.
“You thought someone might have been in your house the other night,” he reminded Avery. “You installed dead bolts and started carrying Mace…”
Kim lifted her hand. “She gave me a canister of my own.” She glanced down at it. “I felt silly carrying it until…”
“Until what?” he asked. What did she know?
“Goodbye,” Avery called to her sister. “You’ll want to hurry home before the boys mess up your house too much.”
“I have left them alone too long,” Kim said.
But as she rushed off, Dawson didn’t think it was her house she was worried about—it was her children. Either something had happened again or Avery had said something to unnerve her.
“What was that about?” he asked.
Avery moved her bare shoulders in a slight shrug. “She’s been like that since the fire,” she said. “Overprotective of her kids.”
He nodded. “I don’t blame her.”
“She worries that something will happen to them again.”
“Mothers sometimes worry too much,” he agreed. His certainly had. She’d forced him into counseling so that he could talk about his feelings instead of dealing with them.
It wasn’t until he’d become a Hotshot that he’d really dealt with them—by making his life worthwhile. He saved people.
But it wasn’t possible to always save everyone. Just recently a Hotshot from another team had died in the fire out West. It had brought back memories, but he’d dealt with it.
“She has reason to worry,” Avery said. There was that tone in her voice again, and her gaze was focused too intently on his face.
“Why?”
“Well, those hot spots keep flaring up,” she said. “The whole town is in danger.”
He shook his head. “We’re monitoring the area closely. Nothing’s going to happen again like that first fire.” He stepped closer then, because he had to—because his body demanded contact with hers. His fingers brushed along her delicate jaw. “Your sister and her kids are safe.”
She stared up at him, her eyes narrowed with skepticism. She knew more than she had when he’d left her this morning. Something had happened; she’d learned something…
“I’m sorry I had to leave this morning,” he said.
“Was there another fire?”
He shook his head. “Just a team meeting.”
“About the hot spots?”
Had she been hanging around the firehouse again? Had she overheard something? Cody’s protégé had been on strict notice to not let her inside again.
“Just a team meeting,” he repeated.
“You must have discussed something in this team meeting,” she said.
“You…”
She lifted a hand to her chest—to her beautiful breasts straining against the confines of that tight tank top. She was killing him.
He felt sweat begin to trickle down between his shoulder blades. And it was finally growing cooler outside—where she’d left him.
“Why would you talk about me?”
“Trent Miles calls you a pain in the ass.”
She grimaced. “That’s one of the nicer things…”
Anger flashed through him. Had Trent insulted her? Sure, Dawson had lost his patience with reporters before. But Avery was different. Avery was…
Gorgeous. Sexy. Smart.
So smart that she was probably playing him—had probably been playing him
all along just to get information about the fire.
“He warned me to stay away from you.” Before Dawson had left the firehouse, Trent had made a point of warning him about Avery. She’s so ambitious she’s lucky she didn’t get herself killed. Since she’d been foolish enough to take on gang members, she’d have no qualms about trying to handle an arsonist. Maybe that was why Dawson had had to come to her—to make sure she was safe.
She shrugged. “I’m not surprised he would warn you.”
“So why are you here?”
He couldn’t use her safety as an excuse. She’d pointed out several times how she’d installed the dead bolts and started carrying her Mace around Northern Lakes. She also might begin to question why he thought she was in danger.
So maybe he was only distracting her. Or maybe he was giving in to the attraction he couldn’t deny or control when he reached for her. He pulled her up tight against his body—so he could feel her breasts against his chest, her hips against thighs. And still it wasn’t enough—not with clothes between them. He lowered his head and covered her mouth. It was the only way to stem her flow of questions. To kiss her…
He parted her lips and swept his tongue across the fullness of her bottom one. Then he nipped it lightly with his teeth.
She moaned and trembled slightly against him. So he lifted her in his arms. Then he kicked the door closed behind them as he headed for the bedroom.
He flopped her lightly onto the mattress. She stared up at him now—but there was no skepticism, no inquisition. Her eyes were dark with desire and confusion.
“How do you make my knees go weak?” she asked.
He leaned over to press a kiss against one of her sexy knees.
She shivered. “Dawson?”
His name was a question. One he had no problem answering as he trailed his fingers from her knee up her inner thigh. He dipped his fingers inside her shorts. She was already so hot—so wet. He dragged the shorts over her hips and down those long, sexy legs, while she pulled off her tank top. Her breasts sprang free, the nipples pointing right at him. He couldn’t resist leaning forward and lightly nipping one.
She gasped—but that wasn’t enough. He wanted to make her scream again as she came.