Into the Flames (Jupiter Point Book 3)

by Jennifer Bernard

  "How do you know?"

  "Melvin Turner has a gun collection. He gave me a full tour once. Sometimes we do target practice together."

  Merry sat on her knees next to her. "I swear, girl, you need to let me do a story on that man. There's something not right about him."

  "Are you going to write a story about this? Hero hotshot takes down armed assailant with help of Thermos?"

  "While screenwriter catches up on his beauty sleep?" They both started at the sound of Finn's raspy voice.

  "Finn! Are you okay?" He was trying to get his arms out from under Merry's yellow down jacket, but Brianna tucked him in more tightly. "Don't move, Rollo said to keep you warm."

  Looking irritated, he shoved the jacket aside and sat up, swaying a little. "I'm plenty warm. Jesus."

  "But Rollo said—"

  "He was worried about shock, but I'm conscious now and I'm not shivering, and I'm fine.” He propelled himself to his feet. "Where's Rollo?"

  Brianna and Merry exchanged a look of alarm. "He went to the tower."

  "Then come on, let's go." He launched down the trail toward the lookout. "We have to help Rollo, for Christ's sake. He might need backup. That guy's dangerous, did you see how he went after me, Merry?"

  Merry folded her lips together, but Brianna could guess what she was thinking. Finn and Rollo were both fit, strong, powerful firefighters.

  But only one was a badass. Rollo.

  12

  Rollo had been to the Breton tower before; luckily they hadn't changed the access code. He punched in the numbers and pushed open the door. Once inside, he propped the gunman in a corner and powered up the radio communications system. He called the forest ranger, who was based out of the same Fire and Rescue compound as the hotshots. He filled the dispatcher in on what had happened, and she called the state troopers, who immediately sent a car. He promised to wait until the deputies arrived. The last thing he wanted was to let the guy slip away.

  His knuckles hurt. His shoulder hurt. His heart hurt.

  He hadn't struck anyone that hard since the day he'd nearly killed Dougie Berkowitz. He'd vowed not to. Punching bags, sure. Walls, if he couldn't find something better. But not people. The crunch of the guy's jawbone, the fierce adrenaline surging through his system, the heady sense of overpowering someone weaker—it scared him down to his bones. He'd been there before. He knew what could happen.

  Outside, night was descending like a dense purple blanket. He heard a sound at the lower door and figured it might be the deputies. Instead, he opened the door to Brianna, Merry and Finn.

  "Come on in," he told them. "Cops are on their way. I got permission for us to stay here tonight if you guys want."

  Merry came in first. He noticed that she was looking at him much differently than she had at the start of their trip. As if he were Superman instead of an oaf. "Thanks for dealing with that dude. I can't believe he had his slimy hands on me."

  "He'll be going to jail for sure, if that's any comfort."

  "It helps." She tilted her head, brown eyes glinting. "Not as much as seeing you whale on him, though. You were an animal."

  He cringed at that description, knowing how accurate it was. He'd felt like an animal. A wolf or a grizzly bear or some other lethal predator.

  Next came Finn, who wore a disgruntled expression.

  "You okay?"

  "I'm okay, yes, except for being left behind like a rotting log."

  His friend gave him a little shoulder shove as he passed, but Rollo took no offense. "I wanted to get this guy locked up somewhere. I knew you'd be fine, tough guy."

  Finn shot him a wry look. So much for that attempt to make him feel better. His gaze slid to Brianna, who was bringing up the rear. He was still furious with her. The sight of the gun veering toward the woods, the man sighting it on Brianna—God, he'd never forget that feeling.

  He'd also never forget how he'd been kissing the daylights out of her right before all hell broke loose.

  Brianna sailed through the door, head held high. "Don't bother to yell at me anymore. I had a good plan, it just didn't work out exactly as I intended."

  "A good plan? You call getting him to shoot in your direction a good plan?"

  "It wasn't supposed to be my direction," she hissed at him. "The Thermos was supposed to land away from me. What was I supposed to do, just wait and watch him wave that gun around?"

  "Was that really too much to ask?" He lowered his voice to a growl in her ear. "I should have kissed you harder."

  She felt her face flame. "What? Why?"

  "So you'd stay put like I told you to."

  "Oh my God. You're serious? Sorry, bud. I am not the 'staying put' type. I'm as strong as a lot of guys, and since I'm little, I can surprise them too."

  "Oh yeah? With your strong man-hands? Were you going to tickle the guy or give him an ass-rub?"

  "Ha. Ha." She made a face at him. But when he caught the smile tugging at her pretty lips—delicious lips—he figured they were okay. Thank God. If things got weird with Brianna over this, he might have to really hurt that loser with the gun.

  The night improved a lot after that. The deputies arrived, took their statements, and hauled the bad guy away. They decided to stay in the tower overnight. The space was the shape of an octagon, with communications and testing equipment taking up most of the middle, and a small bedroom and kitchen area filling the rest. The big panes of glass on all sides looked out on the dark forest and a vast sky filled with the first evening stars. It felt as if they were floating over the forest in a glass bubble.

  Before it got completely dark, Rollo and Finn jogged back down the trail to grab their gear. They left Brianna and Merry in charge of raiding the Forest Service's stores for dinner. By the time he and Finn returned, soup was heating on the stove and plates of crackers awaited their brie.

  Maybe because he'd kicked the bad guy's ass—or maybe because of the brie—Merry showered him with attention. As they devoured the cheese and crackers, she asked him about fighting fires, about growing up in New York. It turned out they'd been to some of the same museums and parks when they were growing up. She was raised in Brooklyn, and he was Upper East Side, but they still had plenty of New York experiences in common.

  Finally, Merry was taking him seriously, just as he'd wanted her to when she was embedded with the crew.

  It felt damn good, he had to admit. But not nearly as good as he'd imagined. He didn't like the fact that it took a glimpse of his violent side to get her attention. He found that just a little fucked up, in fact. That was the side of himself he didn't like. The side he worked to conquer.

  Brianna, on the other hand, was avoiding him. Every time he looked her way, she ignored him and focused on sipping her soup or chatting with Finn. Chatting comfortably with Finn. As if he no longer made her feel awkward. He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

  That kiss in the woods had really knocked him off his game. Where had that come from? And what now? Brianna seemed determined not to make a big deal out of it, which was probably the right way to go. Why mess up an awesome friendship with kissing? Or more than kissing?

  Problem was, he couldn't stop thinking about the "more."

  But he couldn't have more.

  "Hey, who's this?" Finn was peering at a photo tacked up on a corkboard in the kitchenette area. Rollo joined him and saw that the photo showed a young woman in a Forest Service uniform and green wool hat. She looked as if the photographer had caught her off guard. Her expression was…haunted. That was the best word for it. She was beautiful, even in a casual snapshot, with big dark eyes and a stubborn tilt to her jaw.

  "I don't know. I've only been here once, and I didn't see her. Maybe a volunteer?"

  Finn couldn't drag his eyes away from the photo. Even when Rollo mentioned the bottle of wine they'd brought, he barely reacted. "I'm going to find her," he murmured. "I want to meet her."

  "Get a grip, Finn. Did that knock on the head hurt your brain? This photo co
uld be twenty years old."

  Finn rubbed the bump on his head and scowled. "I'm fine. Don't remind me. I'm never going to live this down."

  "Bullshit. You did good. The man had a gun."

  "Yeah, but the girls said you kicked it out of his hand and beat the crap out of him." Finn shot him a curious glance. "I never thought of you as a fighter."

  "I'm not. At least not anymore."

  "But you used to be?"

  Rollo hesitated. He didn't talk about this kind of thing, but of all the hotshots, Finn would be the most likely to understand, being a black sheep himself. But before he could answer, he spied Brianna coming toward them with plastic glasses of wine.

  Since he didn't want her to see Finn staring at the photo of the girl, he slung his arm around her shoulder and headed her off. He plucked one of the wine glasses from her hand and steered her toward the window the farthest away from Merry.

  "You're avoiding me," he told her sternly.

  She turned almost as red as the wine in her cup. "I'm not." At his skeptical look, she admitted, "Okay, I am. I'm just…confused. I thought you were head over heels in love with Merry, but if you're going to be kissing other people, I can't help you in your quest anymore."

  "I didn't kiss 'other people.' I kissed you."

  "Yes, but…why? You don't like me that way. How many times have people tried to set us up now? And every time, we just laughed it off."

  All true. But things were different now. He could still feel her lips so soft and fresh against his. The spicy fragrance of her hair brought back the sensation of her warm, curvy body snuggled in his arms.

  "We need to talk about this," he told her in a low voice. "We can't just pretend it didn't happen."

  She nodded reluctantly as she sipped the wine. "Okay. But not here. After we get back to Jupiter Point."

  "Deal. I'm not letting you off the hook, Bri. This changes things." She met his eyes. A vibrant kind of energy passed between them. Something intense and delirious, like the first hint of sunrise in a quiet forest.

  "What are you two plotting over there?" Merry called to them from the easternmost window, where she'd been taking photos of the star scape outside. "And does it involve a glass of wine for me?"

  They moved to the central island where the observation equipment was located and Rollo poured a glass for Merry. Finn finally tore himself away from the corkboard. They all crowded around the countertop.

  "To quiet towers in the peaceful wilderness," said Merry wryly, raising her glass.

  Rollo snorted as they all clicked glasses. They spent the rest of the evening telling stories, laughing, speculating about the guy with the gun, and watching the stars slowly shift across the night sky.

  Merry and Brianna shared the tower's single bed, while Finn and Rollo slept on sleeping bags on the floor. Rollo didn't get much sleep. The incident with the gunman had shaken him right down to his core. When he finally drifted off, he dreamed about the fight with Dougie. Sharp, jumbled images: the look of shock and terror on the smaller boy's face, the way his head snapped back, the crumpled look of his body on the gym floor. The dark blood seeping into his hair.

  Images he'd never forget. Images he didn't want to forget. Because as long as he remembered, he'd never do anything like that again.

  Except that he just had. He'd knocked someone out with the power of his fists. He didn't even know how much damage he'd done. He wouldn't know until he called the hospital the next day.

  It had to be done, he reminded himself. The guy was about to shoot, and Brianna was in the line of fire. He'd done the right thing.

  The next day, he forgot all about the bad guy. He forgot about talking to Brianna about their kiss. Because halfway back to civilization, his cell service returned. He'd missed over twenty phone messages. His mother, his father, Brent, and members of various police departments had called.

  Sidney, his fourteen-year-old sister, had run away from her school. After she set fire to the curtains in her dorm room.

  Using their mother's credit card, she'd booked herself on a flight from New York to the West Coast. Destination—Jupiter Point.

  13

  Brianna had left her truck at Rollo's house, so she got the honor of riding shotgun while Rollo drove twenty miles above the speed limit while trying to track down his sister by phone.

  She wasn't hard to find, as it turned out. The minute they turned into his driveway, Brianna spotted a tall, brown-haired girl wearing horn-rimmed glasses, an oversized black hoodie and dark blue leggings sitting cross-legged on the front lawn. She jumped up at the sound of Rollo's Jeep and ran toward them.

  "Don't be mad, don't be mad, don't be mad," she chanted before flinging herself into Rollo's arms.

  He caught her tight against him. "I'm not mad. I'm—okay, damn it, I'm mad. You scared the shit out of everyone. Why are you doing this?"

  "I just need a break. No one has to freak out." She slid back down to the ground. Brianna scanned her outfit and noticed black ankle boots with chains on the sides, and a very expensive-looking black leather backpack. "It's practically Thanksgiving break anyway. Don't get all lecture-y on me." Pouting, she turned her attention to Brianna and Finn.

  "This one's a fireman, I remember him," she waved her hand at Finn, "but I haven't met your friend the elf."

  Brianna's face flamed. Would the phrase "I'm not an elf" be too ridiculous to utter?

  "Run away all you want, but don't be rude to my friends," said Rollo sharply. "This is Brianna. Brianna, this is my sister Sidney. She's nothing but trouble and has no manners."

  "Hi, Brianna. Elf was a compliment, by the way. I'd give anything to be an elf. But I'm stuck in giant territory."

  Would the phrase "you're not a giant" be equally as absurd? "It's nice to meet you, Sidney. Welcome to Jupiter Point." Actually, that sounded kind of ridiculous too. The girl hadn't come for the scenery.

  "Thank you! I'm glad someone's being welcoming." She screwed up her face at Rollo and slid her arm through Brianna's. Behind her glasses, she had big gray eyes a bit like Rollo’s. "If Rollington decides to be a jerk, can I stay with you?"

  Finn let out a snort. "Did you say Rollington?"

  "Oops." Sidney clapped a hand over her mouth. "Was that a secret?"

  Rollo scrubbed his hand through his hair, leaving the thick waves standing on end. "Of course not. Grow up, Finn. It's just a name, for Chrissake."

  Finn, still laughing, gave them all a wave and went to unload Rollo's Jeep. "See ya later, Sidney. Welcome to the nuthouse, I think you'll fit right in."

  Rollo rolled his eyes. "Come on, kiddo, get your stuff. Are you hungry? Tired? Do you need a shower?"

  He strode to the overloaded messenger bag she'd left on the lawn and slung it over his shoulder.

  "Yes, yes and yes. Then you can show me to my bedroom and I'll unpack."

  "Sorry, sis. Not happening. After we get you straightened out, I'm booking you a plane ticket."

  Sidney stopped in her tracks, then bolted behind Brianna. Brianna felt herself being gripped from behind like some kind of human shield. "I'm not going back, Rollo!"

  Rollo swung around and marched toward them. Even though she wasn't the target of his hard stare, Brianna's heart jumped into her throat. He looked furious, worried, upset, concerned, and sexy as hell.

  "You don't have a choice. Do you know how many messages they left on my phone?"

  "Please! Not yet. I just need a little time. Please, Rollo! Work it out so I can stay with you just through the holidays. I'll homeschool. I'll do all my work online. I can live with you and cook for you and I won't get in your way, I promise."

  He shook his head firmly. "I can't be responsible for a spoiled teenager who just ran away from her million-dollar boarding school. I'm still fixing up the damn house. It's a construction zone, in fact. I'm building a koi pond."

  "I can help with that," Sidney said quickly. "I love fish."

  "Brianna doesn't need any help. Right, Bri?"

/>   Brianna opened and closed her mouth, probably looking a lot like a koi herself. "Um, sure? I mean, that's not really the point. Maybe you should sit down and talk before you make a decision." Behind her, she felt Sidney squeeze her hand gratefully.

  Rollo's stormy gaze settled on her. "You know nothing about the situation."

  "I know she's upset. Why else would she run away? And I know she trusts you, because she ran away to you. Geez, Rollo, would it kill you to just listen to her?"

  Tension thrummed between the three of them. Finally Rollo turned to Sidney. "Did you set a fire at Bridewell?"

  "Yes," Sidney said in a whisper that tickled Brianna's hair.

  "Do you promise not to do anything like that here?"

  Brianna felt the breeze from Sidney's frantic nodding.

  "You won't run away again? You'll never turn off your phone? You'll behave yourself?"

  More nodding. Rollo relaxed by slow degrees. "I don't know if they'll go for it."

  "They will. They don't want me around anyway. That's why they sent me to Bridewell. If they know I'm with you, they can just stop worrying about me. That's all they want."

  The wistful note in Sidney's voice made Brianna's heart ache for her. In her own family, everyone was always hugging and saying “I love you.” She never doubted her parents' love for her. Or each other. But in Sidney's voice, she heard a very different story.

  If Sidney stayed, Brianna vowed to take the girl under her wing and make her feel safe and loved while she was in Jupiter Point.

  "Well, we'll see," Rollo grumbled. "Now come get some food into you."

  Brianna nearly stumbled as Sidney gave her a tight hug from behind. "Thank you," the girl whispered in her ear. "Thanks for standing up for me."

  Brianna turned and planted her hands on her hips. "Just so you know, I grew up here and I know everyone in Jupiter Point, so don't even think about finding trouble to get into. I will know."