Slow Burn: A Colorado High Country Novel

by Pamela Clare

  Oh … wow!

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  He wore full bunker gear, helmet beneath one arm, air pack hanging from one hand. His yellow coat made his shoulders seem even broader, a look of determination on his face. He put the air pack in the back of his truck, then opened the door, climbed into the driver’s seat, and held out his helmet. “Can you hold this?”

  “Of course.” She took it from him, surprised at how heavy it was.

  They had to fight traffic again going the other direction, but people gave way more readily this time. The blaze was a couple of blocks away, so it was just a matter of minutes before Eric pulled up behind a big fire engine and parked. He silenced the siren, but left his lights flashing.

  Ahead and to her right, a small white house was completely engulfed, flames lapping at the roof through shattered windows. Two teams of firefighters sprayed water on the blaze through two hoses, while another firefighter stood by himself, hosing down the neighbor’s roof to keep it from catching.

  She rolled down the window, got a blast of hot air on her face. “Oh, man! I can feel the heat from here. How can anyone possibly get close to this?”

  “That’s what the fancy suits are for.” He took his helmet from her, climbed out of the truck, walked around to her window. “You can keep the window down, but stay in the vehicle. Got it?”

  “Yes, Mr. Fire Chief.” She saluted.

  His lips quirked in a lopsided grin. “Damned straight.”

  She watched him move through the scene, talking first with his crews, then with a sheriff’s deputy, then heading back her way. He walked over to a small, thin man with a scraggly ponytail and mustache who stood in the shadow of the fire engine. The man wore nothing but faded jeans, every vertebra and rib visible.

  “Sorry to see you in this sad situation, Hank.”

  So that was Hank. Vic had thought him just a spectator, maybe a neighbor who’d come down the street for a better view.

  “Do you think they can save it?”

  “Save your house? No, buddy. I’m afraid it’s gone.” Eric spoke in a voice that held both compassion and a sense of authority. “Are you hurt? If you are, we need to check you and get you patched up.”

  “I’m fine.” Hank gave a little laugh. “You shoulda seen me, man. I jumped about twenty feet in the air and ran like a deer on speed.”

  “When the fire is out and I walk in there, please tell me I’m not going to find a bunch of butane canisters and a big pile of weed.”

  Hank’s gaze dropped to the ground.

  “Damn it, Hank, I warned you. I told you that if you were going to break the law, at least do it outdoors. You’re damned lucky you’re not burned to a cinder.”

  “I know. I know.”

  Eric rested a hand on the man’s shoulder. “They’re going to arrest you, buddy, and there’s nothing I can do about that. You understand?”

  His concern for Hank made Vic’s heart melt. He wasn’t just trying to ensure Hank’s safety and protect property. He was doing what he could to shepherd the man through this ordeal, even though it was of Hank’s own making.

  “You think I should run, go to Mexico maybe?”

  “No, I don’t. I think you should stand your ground and face the consequences. That’s the only way to move forward.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll get pounded in the ass. I’m not like you, Hawke. I’m weak and small for a man. I’ll end up being some guy’s bitch.”

  “Jesus, Hank. Prison isn’t what you see on TV. Besides, you don’t know that you’re going to prison. Take it one day at a time. I’ll make a few calls, get you a lawyer. I’m not going to let you face this alone.” He put his arm around Hank’s shoulders, the smaller man making him seem huge by comparison. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

  “I’m pretty shook up, but I’m okay.”

  “I’m going to get you a shirt.” He walked to his truck, opened the door, and grabbed a shirt out of the back—a Team T-shirt. “Megs will have my hide if she hears you wore this to jail, so let’s turn it inside out and just keep it between us, okay?”

  And Vic’s heart melted again.

  Hank pulled it over his head, the shirt far too big for him. “Thanks, Hawke. I’ll get this back to you one day.”

  “I’m going to turn you over to Deputy Marcs now.” Eric motioned to someone.

  “Hey, Hank.” A woman in uniform stepped into view. “Remember me? I’m Deputy Marcs. I’m glad you’re okay. I’m here to arrest you and take you in. I promise no one is going to hurt you tonight. We don’t run that kind of jail.”

  By the time Hank was cuffed, searched, and headed down the street in the back of a squad car, the fire seemed to be under control, smoke rising from the gutted remains of the house.

  Eric walked to the truck, grabbed his air pack out of the back, and then came to stand next to her open window. “I’ll give you one guess: Whose job is it to investigate fires in Scarlet?”

  “Yours.”

  He chuckled. “Brains and beauty. You’re the total package.”

  If another man had said those words, it probably would have made Vic feel uncomfortable, but coming from Eric, it made her laugh. She watched while he donned his air pack and disappeared through the charred front door.

  Five minutes went by. Another five.

  Boom!

  Flames flared out of one window, then vanished.

  Vic’s heart leaped into her throat, her pulse taking off at a sprint.

  Eric.

  When the firefighters around her didn’t react, she figured everything must be okay. Eric was their chief. If he were lying there wounded or burned, they would be running inside to help him, not calmly going about their work.

  When he emerged a few minutes later, she let out a sigh of relief.

  And to think he did things like this every day.

  “Butane hash oil extraction,” Eric climbed into his truck, his bunker gear stashed in the bed of his vehicle so that it wouldn’t stink up the cab. Between smoke from the fire and the stench of burning weed, it reeked. “That was the cause of the fire.”

  “I’ve never heard of that.”

  He slipped the keys into the ignition, started the engine. “It’s illegal to do at home—and dangerous as hell. I counted ninety-four butane canisters. They were sitting right next to a big, old pile of weed. It’s a wonder Hank wasn’t incinerated.”

  A woman on a bicycle cut in front of the truck’s headlights, headed straight for Hank’s place, what looked like a fat wad of twenties gripped in her right hand. When she saw a sheriff’s deputy squad car, she turned her bicycle around, cash disappearing into her fist.

  “Jesus! Did you see that?” Eric couldn’t help but laugh.

  Vic nodded. “Was she on her way there to buy drugs from him?”

  “That’s what it looked like.” Eric nosed his truck into the street and headed back toward the station house. “Sometimes life in Scarlet feels like a bad Hollywood flick. Christ! You can’t make this shit up.”

  “But isn’t it legal to buy marijuana here?”

  “It is—if you buy it from a licensed seller. Hank doesn’t even have a driver’s license.” He glanced over at Victoria, found her watching him, a mysterious smile on those lips of hers. “What now? Did I say something funny?”

  “You took good care of him.”

  Eric shrugged off the compliment. “There wasn’t much I could do. Sometimes you’ve got to sleep in the bed you make.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?” Something in the tone of her voice made him remember the conversation he’d overheard this afternoon.

  Could he help it if he wanted to know the whole story?

  He changed the subject. “Hey, do you mind if we stop at the station first so I can drop off my gear?”

  “Whatever you need to do.”

  “Are you still drinking?”

  She held up an almost empty bottle of water. “No headache.”

  “Good.”


  Back at the firehouse, he returned his gear to his locker and dropped the cylinder from his SCBA off in the compressor room. The initial response crew pulled in as he was leaving, men and women piling out of the apparatus, all of them reeking of ganja.

  Silver passed him, air cylinder in hand. “The firehouse is going to have a skunk funk tonight, chief.”

  It sure as hell would. “Great job, folks. Get your showers, and get the gear cleaned. And someone open a damned window.”

  Back in the truck, he realized that funk had settled on him, mixing with smoke and sweat from doing yard work earlier today. God, he needed a shower.

  But first, he needed to get Victoria back to the inn.

  He started the engine again. “So, what did you think?”

  “It was really interesting—except for the moment when I thought you were dead. After you’d gone into the house, I heard a boom, and flames shot out of the window.”

  Oh, yeah. That.

  “A box of butane canisters blew. That’s why I tell my crews always to wear full bunker gear when overhauling a scene like that, even when the fire seems like it’s out. You never know what kind of surprises might lie in store for you.”

  “It scared me to death.”

  Really?

  “Sorry about that.” He reached over, took her hand, gave it a squeeze.

  What the hell?

  The moment his skin touched hers, he felt it—raw current arcing between them.

  He drew his hand away, tried to act like he hadn’t felt a thing. “I’d say we should work on the video, but it’s already ten-thirty. You need to rest up.”

  Tomorrow, Lexi and Austin were taking them horseback riding at the Cimarron, and he’d hate for to miss out on that, too.

  “Are you kidding? I couldn’t sleep now if I tried. Besides, I got a three-hour nap in the middle of the day. If you want to work on the video for a while, that’s fine with me. I can show you what I got done last night.”

  He pulled his shirt away from his chest. “I’d be up for that, but I need a shower.”

  “I’ve got lots of extra towels in my suite, and there are unopened bars of soap and little bottles of shampoo in the bathroom. I’m sure Bob and Kendra wouldn’t mind if you took a shower there, considering the circumstances.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded. “We’ve only got until Friday to finish this.”

  “Okay, then.”

  Vic stood in the middle of her bedroom, her gaze on the bathroom door. For the first time in her life, she was jealous of a bar of soap. Eric was in there, completely naked, washing that amazing body of his without her.

  You are losing your mind.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, as if that could somehow ward off the unwanted emotions inside her—desire, sexual hunger, loneliness. She could not get involved with him. She couldn’t hook up with a man who’d once hit on her best friend and who made love with women without actually loving them.

  Oh, but it would be so worth it.

  That’s what she’d thought when she’d met Stewart. She’d been wrong, and she’d paid for it with months of grief, fear, and humiliation. The sex hadn’t even been satisfying. The whole nightmare had proved to her that her man-picker was broken. Like a compass that didn’t point north, hers had led her to choose a man who had tried to destroy her.

  Eric isn’t Stewart.

  No, he wasn’t. He was nothing like Stewart. Stewart was interested only in himself, while Eric took care of his entire community. Images from the day drifted through her mind. Eric giving Hank a T-shirt. Eric carrying her back to his truck. Eric handing her ibuprofen, taking her pulse.

  No, he was nothing like Stewart, but Eric’s own mother had admitted people thought he was a bit of a playboy. Besides, Vic had made herself a promise.

  She closed her eyes and let herself imagine what it would be like to kiss him, his hard body pressed up against hers, his mouth coming down hot and hard on hers, his tongue teasing hers. Maybe he would cup her breast, tease her nipple with his thumb.

  Belly flutters. An ache between her thighs. Wetness.

  God, she wanted him.

  But could she handle it?

  There’d been a time—oh, say, yesterday—when she would have sworn she’d never be able to let down her guard and trust a man with her body again. Now here she was staring at a closed bathroom door and fantasizing about a man she barely knew.

  You know enough. You’ve seen what kind of a man he is.

  Inside the bathroom, the shower stopped.

  What was she doing here? If he opened the door …

  Jolted from her fantasy, she hurried out of the room.

  “I looked through all the clips last night and made some obvious edits. Then I organized the photos into folders so that we can find what we’re looking for quickly.” She ran the cursor over the list of folders. “Lexi. Lexi with her parents. Lexi and Austin together. Austin by himself. Those historical shots of the inn. Scenery.”

  “Aren’t you the organized one?” He leaned for a closer look, his damp hair combed into place, the clean scent of his skin like a drug. “What’s on the timeline?”

  Keep your mind on the job.

  “I haven’t made any changes there. I cut out dead space, all those spots where your mom had to stop because of the guy revving his engine, and that segment where you dropped the camera onto the floor.”

  “Oh, that.” He ran a hand over his jaw with its day’s growth of stubble. “Sorry. Steven Spielberg I am not.”

  “I think you did a great job.” She wasn’t just saying that. “I got pretty choked up watching these last night.”

  “Yeah?” That seemed to please him. “You think Lexi will like them?”

  “I don’t think there will be a dry eye in the room.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Now you come up with a narrative.”

  “A narrative? Okay. Great.” It was evident from the confusion on his face that he didn’t understand. “How do we do that?”

  “You want the video to tell a story so the viewer can take a journey with you.” She clicked on a document file. “I made a list of all the interviews and jotted down some keywords for each interview. So what you need to do is decide how you want to order the them—which clip goes first, which goes second and so on.”

  His brows drew together, and he blew out a breath. “I was just going to put them all together. I hadn’t thought about it as a story. It’s been so long since I’ve listened to most of these. Do you have any ideas?”

  She liked seeing him like this—a fish out of water, uncertain of himself, needing help rather than giving it. “I think we should start with your mother. She talked about Lexi’s mom finding out she was pregnant.”

  “Okay.” He nodded. “That’s good.”

  They got to work, selecting portions of interviews and dragging them onto the timeline. Once he’d grasped the concept of narrative, Eric had no trouble deciding which segment should come next. Vic knew all the keyboard shortcuts, so she did the actual pushing of buttons. After about an hour, they had cobbled together a rough assembly of clips.

  “Should we add the photos now?”

  “No.” Vic rubbed the ache in her neck. “I think we should make sure we’re done editing the video first.”

  “Getting tired?”

  “My muscles are sore from yesterday.”

  “Let me.” He moved his chair so that he sat behind her now, his strong hands replacing hers. “Just relax.”

  “Ow! Oh! Ahhh.”

  He chuckled. “Better?”

  “Yes.” What he was doing felt so good, the skilled motions of his hands chasing away the stiffness in her neck and shoulders. “You’re really good at this.”

  His voice was deep, his words slow, when he answered. “Becoming a paramedic means studying a lot of human anatomy.”

  Human anatomy? Good grief!

  She should stop him before this went in the w
rong direction. Yes, she should, but she couldn’t because it was already too late.

  Oh, yes.

  Warmth licked through her blood, desire that had been on a slow burn since yesterday kindling into something more. She couldn’t remember being so affected by a man’s simple touch. It wasn’t just the fact he was touching her; it was the fact that he was touching her. Electricity made her tingle everywhere his skin made contact with hers, the heat sending little shivers down her spine. “Mmm.”

  Had she just moaned aloud?

  His hands slowed, his touch sensual now, callused fingers curling at her nape, caressing her cheek. Then he shifted, his lips pressing against her temple, his breath hot against her skin. “God, Victoria.”

  She turned her head to the side, lifted her chin. “Kiss me.”

  Chapter 6

  Eric heard her whispered invitation and damned if he could resist. He slid his fingers into her hair, angled her head to give him better access, then brushed his lips over hers. The jolt of heat took him by surprise, shot straight to his cock. “Victoria.”

  He closed his mouth over hers, wanting more, but this was no good. Sitting behind her, he couldn’t really kiss her, not the way she deserved to be kissed.

  He turned her chair, then, in a single motion, scooped her into his arms and stood.

  “Oh!” She gave a little gasp, but there was no mistaking the thrill in her brown eyes as he carried her toward the sofa, her pupils wide and dark.

  He hadn’t gone two steps when she caught his face between her palms and kissed him. His eyes closed, and his feet stilled, his awareness shifting to the hot feel of her mouth on his, the pressure of her lips, the sharp edges of her teeth as they nipped his bottom lip, the taste of her tongue as it searched for his.

  Jesus!

  As much as he’d love to stand here holding her all day, they weren’t going to get very far like this. He opened his eyes and staggered forward, the beautiful woman in his arms refusing to break the kiss, her fingers sliding into his hair, holding his mouth right where she wanted it. He struck his shin on the coffee table, adjusted his trajectory, stopping when his knees bumped the sofa. He lowered her to the soft cushions and stretched himself out above her.