by Anne Marsh
One
Hot
SEAL
ANNE MARSH
Ex-SEAL Luke Dawson’s new mission in life is fighting fires. When he rescues local bad girl Deelie Olsen from a summer blaze, lust isn’t supposed to be part of the equation. Nor is love—but something about the frank, tough-as-nails woman has him throwing caution to the wind. Getting her in bed may be easy, but getting to know her will be a whole lot harder… and the battle for Deelie’s heart is one fight he has every intention of winning.
1
Luke Dawson loved his job. Fire roared on the other side of the hill. Although the flames weren’t visible yet, the rain shower of embers dropping everywhere and the choking smoke were Mother Nature’s heads-up that a shitstorm of destruction was barreling toward the Black Mountain hotshots. Usually, Luke would have dug his heels and his Pulaski in, literally drawing the line in the forest floor between what burned and what escaped the flames. It was the best kind of firefight and a welcome change of pace after two tours of duty as a US Navy SEAL. He’d loved that job too, but it had been time to come home. Time to put down a different kind of roots and get on with living his life.
But today had gone to shit, and it wasn’t Mother Nature’s fault. The campsite was supposed to be clear—and all the official sites were. The Black Mountain crew had rousted the last occupants over an hour ago and sent them with a police escort to a safer area. The problem was there had been nine cars at those campsites—and ten cars had checked in with the park ranger earlier that day. Unless a car had grown wings and flown away, Luke Dawson had a rogue camper who’d copped an illegal spot somewhere.
A flambéed camper if Luke didn’t find him or her.
He was unfortunately reminded of his last mission as a SEAL, storming a Somali pirate ship to rescue the hostage crew. Not only had the pirates decided to split up their captives, making a rescue effort more challenging, but some of the crew members had successfully hidden from the pirates, putting friendlies in unknown locations. They’d taken out the pirates, but clearing the vessel had taken hours of painstakingly sweeping each level.
Luke and Pick Harris were supposed to be confirming that the campground was empty. Pick ran with a local motorcycle club in the off-season. Luke had asked him once about the name and gotten a terse Pickax in reply. Someday Luke planned on getting the story behind the name from him, but that wouldn’t be tonight.
“So we’re definitely missing a camper. Highway patrol is running the plates to get an ID on the owner and reach out in case the driver somehow managed to leave the park without checking out with the rangers.”
Double-checking was the smart move, but they didn’t have the time to wait. The fire would crest the hill within the hour, probably sooner, and since the Northern California campground occupied fairly rugged terrain, that didn’t leave them any time to search.
“Roger that. I’ll check this road.” Luke pointed to a gravel access road.
Pick nodded, looking thoughtful. “How long until we can get the tankers in the air?”
“Two hours until sunrise. Our boys can’t fly until they’ve got daylight, but they’re gassed and ready to go. They’ll be airborne by six.”
Which would be about an hour and a half too late for Mystery Camper.
Pick cursed again. “Make your road check quick. We’re burning time.”
And ten thousand acres. Although the most common cause of wildland fires was the goddamned people who flicked a Bic, failed to put out a campfire, or did other dumbass, highly illegal shit, today’s blaze was likely courtesy of a lightning strike from a thunderstorm last week. One good hit to a dead tree could simmer for days and then explode into flames, which was probably what had happened here.
He was good to go, so he swung up into his truck and hit the access road. The deeper he headed into the campground, the more obvious this Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot became. He’d driven a Humvee through a firefight in Afghanistan once, hostile rounds landing left and right. Now blazing embers hit his truck, thudding relentlessly against his hood when the wind shifted briefly. Good thing he hadn’t been attached to his paint job.
He guided his truck down the access road, flooring the gas as much as he dared. It should be fairly easy to spot a car. He had the make, model, and license plate number, and it was better than beating the bushes looking for a solo hiker on foot. Leaving anyone out here wasn’t an option, particularly a civilian who wouldn’t know how to take cover and maximize his chances of survival. As soon as the fire hopped the hill, the entire hotshot team would be flat-out sprinting for safety. There simply weren’t too many good spots here to hole up and hope for the best.
The road split. “You voting left or right?” Luke asked the bobblehead stuck to his dash. The cheerleader doll sported the Incident Commander’s face, cut out from a newspaper article and glued on. The guys on his team loved practical jokes, and that one had been fun. The doll’s blond hair and supersized tits shimmied as he steered the truck left.
There were undoubtedly all sorts of valid and compelling reasons why Rogue Camper wouldn’t have evacuated voluntarily. Car troubles. Sleeping pill. Heart attack. Wannabe photographer who thought scoring an up-close-and-personal video of the firestorm would guarantee YouTube stardom and a thousand bucks from the local news station. None of these, however, were reasons worth dying for. After two tours in Afghanistan, Luke had seen all sorts of reasons for dying. Some he’d been on board with. Others had been flat-out stupid. Fire fell into the second category.
There.
He caught a flash of metal through the trees. Someone had parked a beat-up, powder-blue Cadillac by the stream. Another foot and the car would have been in the water, although the six inches of mountain water didn’t pose much of a danger. It was the principle of the thing. Someone had converted the old Cadillac into a truck, the low boat of a car now sporting a bona fide truck bed. He couldn’t see a tent in the clearing, but there was definitely a blanket-covered mound in the back of the Caddy.
Shit. If the camper was already dead, the return trip would suck.
Pulling over, he radioed in his position. “I’ve got our missing vehicle. I’m making contact now.”
“Roger that.” Pick’s voice crackled over the headset. “Load him up quick because the fire’s gonna crest soon and I left my fucking crystal ball at home. Maybe the flames jump the road, maybe they don’t, but I wouldn’t be hanging around to admire the scenery.”
“Ten-four.” He left the truck ready because a speedy getaway was clearly the order of the day. When he got out, the air was smoky but still breathable.
“Black Mountain hotshot crew.” He announced his presence as he strode toward the Caddy. If the guy was still okay, scaring the camper into a heart attack would only make the situation more challenging. “The campground’s under a mandatory evacuation.”
He shone his flashlight into the truck bed, expecting to see movement. And… got nothing. A small white head popped up from beneath the blanket mound. The dog was small and squat, its sides wider than it was high. It panted happily, the crystals in its pink collar flashing in Luke’s light. Okay. If the dog was breathing fine, the camper should be too. He’d roust the sleeper, get him or her back into the Caddy and onto the road. Reaching into the truck bed, he grabbed the closest piece of Blanket Mountain and shook.
“Fire department. There’s a mandatory evacuation.”
Sleeping Beauty sat up, and Luke had a whole different problem on his hands. Or, rather, in his palm, because he was cupping a stranger’s breast. Granted, it was a mighty fine breast that was completely free-range beneath a worn T-shirt. Mystery camper had huge tits.
“If you’re not buying me a beer, that boob’s off-limits. I’ve got a guard dog, and Vicious will kick you
r ass.” Maybe the exhaustion and grogginess in her voice explained how she’d slept through a forest fire creeping up on her. The earplugs she yanked out had to have been a contributing factor as well. Who the hell wore earplugs way out here in the forest where the only night noises were a few crickets and marauding raccoons?
They both examined the dog, who was panting happily. The same dog who couldn’t be bothered to bark when he’d pulled into her clearing—and that was now licking the back of his hand. Yeah. So vicious. Then she looked down, a playful smile tugging at her pretty mouth. Even underneath all the crazy, every-which-way curls, he could see she had what his older brother had called One of Those Mouths. Pouty and kiss-shaped, her mouth made a man fantasize about the Victoria’s Secret catalog—or guiding those lips down his dick. He needed to work on his dating life. He needed to not get a hard-on for the damsel in distress.
“I’m not hearing you offer me a beer.” And… he was still holding her breast like it was the handle of an ax.
“Sorry.” Fuck. He yanked his hand back. “The campground’s under a mandatory evacuation, ma’am.”
Yeah. Definitely a ma’am. At least, he hoped like hell he hadn’t just felt up a minor, because then he’d have to kick his own ass. She shoved her hair out of her face and recognition hit him. Nope. He didn’t have himself an underage, illegal camper, but a whole different kind of trouble.
Deelie Jacks.
Her heart-shaped face was downright unforgettable, as were the hazel eyes with the flecks of green he’d spent days of his high school career trying to describe in excruciatingly bad rap lyrics. Deelie had always been the prettiest girl in town, although he suspected that had hurt more than it had helped her. People didn’t always bother to look past the pretty package and see who she was inside. They got stuck on the honey-colored hair tumbling around her face to her shoulders and how she looked—in the best possible way—like she’d just rolled out of bed. She’d won homecoming queen and at least two magazine competitions, but then she’d stuck around Strong when the rest of their high school class was busy leaving.
The pink streaks in her hair were new, but otherwise, she hadn’t changed a bit in the twelve years since he’d seen her last. The part running down the center of her head was the only portion of her that stuck to the straight and narrow, and even then, it wasn’t perfectly straight. No, there was nothing perfect about his Deelie—except that once upon a time he’d looked at her and thought that she was perfect for him. His friends and family had been happy to explain just how stupid that particular plan of his had been. She’d dumped his sorry ass spectacularly.
From the slow smile on her face, she remembered him too. Her gaze dropped like she was trying to eyeball his crotch through the side of her Caddy. Yeah. She definitely remembered him.
“Why, if it isn’t Luke Dawson.”
~*~
The last time Deelie had seen Luke, she’d had his pants and his boxers down and her mouth on his dick. It had been a shockingly good look for him, and she’d enjoyed the heck out of herself that night. That had been just one of the many reasons why she’d cut him loose the next day. Luke’s parents owned a cattle ranch, and he’d helped out there all through high school, making him a bona fide part-time cowboy. She’d enjoyed a good (or bad) cowboy fantasy even then. The younger Luke had been tall and lean, although not so big that he approached mountain territory. He was still cut, moving with a confident prowl. She’d bet he still kissed with that same confidence he’d shown twelve years ago. Mr. In Charge, right up to the moment she dropped to her knees and gave him his first blow job. A boy didn’t forget his first.
She could feel her lips curving up in a smile even as his eyes narrowed briefly, before the edges crinkled up in a smile. He’d always had a sense of humor.
She waited to see if he recognized her. She’d learned the hard way a few shifts into her second career at Ma’s that guys didn’t always remember the cocktail waitress they’d fucked the month before, the week before, or even the night before. And it had been—she did a quick mental count—at least twelve years since she’d run into Luke.
“Deelie.” His growly, rough voice saying her name made her toes curling, even though she knew it wasn’t personal. He always sounded like such a tough ass, and yet she knew he had a sweet side.
“We have to go.” When he turned away, she squashed a pang of hurt.
“No good-bye kiss?” It was like poking the sore spot in a tooth. She knew she shouldn’t do it, but how could she not? Plus, she was still half-stupid from the sleeping pill she’d downed a few hours ago, which had to explain why all she could do was stare at him and think holy hotness.
He stopped and turned around, hands propped on his lean hips, thumbs hooked into pockets of the olive pants. She got up on her knees, because she was shameless and he was worth looking at. Yum. Steel-toed boots. The sexy on his bottom half made up for the neon yellow shirt he wore and the hard hat.
“Three words. Mandatory. Campground. Evacuation.”
Right. He’d barked something at her. Vicious had failed to bark, and then Deelie had started staring at his dick. Conversation over. He gestured behind him and up, and she automatically looked. Holy crap. The sky was on fire. The orange glow was huge and, now that she inhaled consciously, she smelled smoke. It was just her luck that she’d go camping and end up in the middle of a forest fire.
She shot to her feet, feeling her brow furrowing. Wrinkles. Bad. She was already looking at the wrong side of thirty, and it wasn’t like working part-time at Ma’s Bar earned her a paycheck that could afford Botox treatments. Or even half a treatment. In fact, after losing her other part-time gig, she’d been reduced to sleeping in her car because at least her car was paid for. Most of her stuff was parked in a storage unit, where she might also have camped once. Possibly twice. Somehow she’d thought that sleeping out in the woods beneath the stars would be an awesome upgrade on her shitty life.
Big mistake.
“We need to go,” Luke said in a perfectly calm voice, like the hill wasn’t on fire and they weren’t going to burn alive. “You’re going to pull out in front of me, and I’m going to follow behind you. It’s a straight shot to the main road. If, for any reason, the road is blocked, I’ll flash my lights at you and you’ll stop.”
“Were you always this bossy?” She vaulted over the side of the Caddy. If she flashed him panties, too bad.
“I’m with the Black Mountain hotshot team. We’re responsible for evacuating this campground. You weren’t at any of the registered sites,” he said pointedly.
Oops. Yeah. She’d preferred being a little more off grid given her probably illegal living-in-her-car act.
She opened the driver-side door, slid in, and rummaged around. Five seconds of searching produced a pair of bright purple Crocs. Pants would have been nice, but she preferred not burning to a crisp. Plus Luke had already seen her legs. When she turned the key, nothing happened, and wasn’t that just the cherry on her shit-day sundae? A hundred and twenty thousand miles and her car picked now to poop out on her.
She tried again, and all she got was an irritating, terrifying clicking sound. She didn’t have the money to fix the car anymore that she had wings to fly out of the forest fire’s range.
“Problem?” Luke tapped on her window, and she rolled it down.
She demonstrated. Turn. Click. Nada.
Being a guy, of course he leaned in and tried turning the key himself, as if she didn’t know how to stick the key into the ignition. She might not be rocking the executive suite in a big city, but she knew how to start her car.
He cursed, which she mentally seconded. “When’s the last time you changed your battery?”
She shrugged, because honestly she had no idea. When stuff broke, she fixed it. If she had the cash. “The last time it died on me? Maybe five years ago.”
She’d been dating a mechanic that month, which had been an awesome coincidence she’d really appreciated. He’d driven he
r to the auto parts store and had even popped the new battery in for her. Maybe her car woes had scared him, because he’d come back for one more night—which, in retrospect, made her feel vaguely sleazy—and then he’d hit the road. She hadn’t seen him again.
“New plan.” Luke opened her door. “You’re riding in my truck. Grab anything essential, and let’s go.”
She stared into his brown eyes, wondering if he’d been this bossy twelve years ago. “I’m not leaving my car.”
Because it’s the only thing standing between me and homelessness.
He sighed. The radio in his truck squawked. “Take a look at the horizon. Then take a look around your campsite.”
She wasn’t blind. Her pretty woodland campsite had several new additions, including flying sparks and orange embers, which was reason number one thousand twenty six that she wanted to get in her car and drive like hell.
“We don’t have time for me to jump your car, and that’s assuming that the problem really is a dead battery. The alternative is that I reach in there,” he continued. Maybe he’d learned how to read minds while he’d been away from Strong, because he’d managed to hit on her biggest objections without her ever opening her mouth. “I can pull you out and put you in my truck, but that’s doing things the hard way. It’s your choice.”
She gaped at him. “Really?”
He shrugged. “If you’re into BDSM and enjoy being manhandled, we’ll have to renegotiate after we’re out of the burn zone.”
She tried the key one more time, but all she got was that stupid clicking. Okay. Think. She got out and grabbed the hobo bag stuffed with her clothes, Vicious’s kibble, and her stack of paperbacks from the library because replacing those would probably bankrupt her.
“Come on, Vicious.” When she made kissy noises and the dog popped over to the side of the Caddy, she scooped her up.
“You need any of the stuff in the back here?” Luke nodded to the truck bed.