Slow Burn (Smoke Jumpers)

by Anne Marsh

  She was out of conversation and about to plunge in where she had no business going when Jack Donovan showed up, handing around a stack of photos. Her photos. Sometime in the last couple of hours he’d managed to have them printed up. For a few minutes, everyone got busy trying to pick out identifying details.

  “No one’s admitted to being on scene before Evan.” Jack turned his photo over in his hand, as if maybe there was a secret code on the back. “You saw just the one guy, right?”

  They’d been over this before. More than once. She raised her bottle in silent agreement.

  “Maybe five foot ten with those boots on.” Rio tossed that nugget out there.

  Evan nodded, like his brother was reading from his Pulitzer-prize-winning essay. “One-fifty. Possibly one-sixty. Nicely built, but on the wiry side. White guy, from what I see of him.”

  “Yeah. He was into covering up, wasn’t he?” Despite the fire’s heat and the sweat-inducing summer temps, the firefighter in her pictures was dressed head to toe. Between the jeans and the long-sleeved work shirt, the bandana and the cap, he’d bared only his forearms. Tanned and fit, he hefted the shovel easily, his head turned away from her lens.

  “Hell.” Jack ran a hand over his head. “There isn’t that much to work with here. He could be almost anyone.”

  “We can rule out Evan,” Rio pointed out, swapping his photo for Jack’s. “This guy’s not that damned big. Congrats,” he said, turning to Evan. “You’re the only one in the clear here. The rest of us fall within the margin of error.”

  “You able to match him up to anyone here?” Evan asked.

  “No.” She tossed her trash onto the burn pile. “Jack here marched me up and down past the food line twice, and I can safely say I’m running blind here. He really could be anyone. Between the baseball cap and the way the light was hitting him, you’re lucky I’m sure he’s a he.”

  “That’s real helpful,” Jack said dryly. “Seeing as how right now there are precisely zero women working on this fire crew.”

  “Happy to help.” She grinned at him, taking a sip from her bottle. The beer was cold and perfect. Her sister would never believe her: here she was, parked in the middle of fire camp, with a cold one and three of the hottest men she’d ever met. None of whom were hers, but she’d leave that detail out of the story. Lazily, she set down the bottle and reached for her camera, getting off a few shots. Firefighters after the fight.

  Ben Cortez, who headed up the department, ambled over to them. “Here you go,” he said as he handed her her official-looking, typed-up statement to sign. “Sign in triplicate, and we’re done for the night.” As she flipped through the pages, dutifully initialing, he dropped onto the log across from her, leaning forward to monitor her progress, arms on his knees. He’d had a go at the pictures on her camera, as well, with equally disappointing results. The tightness at the corners of his mouth said he was taking this hard. He might be a teddy bear of a man, but there was nothing benevolent about his eyes right now. He was riled up.

  “She have a chance to review this?” That was Evan’s voice, all calm and measured. Was he looking out for her?

  “She did. Faye?” Ben prompted.

  She had. Ben had gone over the need for a documented statement from her. She was an eyewitness, even if she hadn’t seen crap. Now that crap was official record. “It’s okay, Evan.”

  Hitting the bottom of Ben’s clipboard, she gave the documents a final once-over and scrawled her signature at the bottom of the last page. There were no surprises in there. Ben had been efficient but thorough, going over what she’d seen and from where. He’d wanted to nail down her point of view exactly. They’d walk the scene tomorrow, he’d promised.

  “Why go to all this trouble when I can’t actually identify anyone?”

  “Because if that fire was the beginning of something bigger,” Evan growled, “I need to know. Rio needs to know. That’s why your information goes into a database. We do info-sharing with local and state agencies, and Ben here does his own investigation, as well.”

  Rio raised his beer in mock salute, and she itched to grab her camera again. Rio was trouble, six-plus feet of pure, sweet mischief sprawled on the ground. His shoulders strained beneath a faded cotton T-shirt that sported the logo of Ma’s bar. Like Evan, he was tall and well-built, but there the similarities ended. Where Evan was all hard angles and just plain big, Rio had the kind of face women liked to look at. A lot. Too bad he didn’t get her toes tingling the way Evan did. Sleeping with Rio would have been simpler. A little hot summer fun and then adios when August rolled into the autumn months and fire season ended.

  Instead, she settled for giving him an are-you-kidding look. “That’s a lot of number crunching for what was probably just a brush fire.”

  Evan cracked another can of soda and passed it to her, taking her empty beer bottle. “Probably doesn’t mean definitely .”

  “And you want to know for certain.”

  “It’s not a question of want. It’s a question of need. I told you that already.” His expression was concerned. “I’ve got a job to do here, Faye. People to keep safe. I don’t do that job by closing my eyes to the possibility that one of the guys on our team has decided to light it up on his off-hours. Small fires don’t always stay small.”

  It was like a quest, she thought. An adventure, but also something more. Something that really mattered. These men were clearly a unit, their team more like family than most families were. All that laughing and teasing camouflaged close-knit bonds. They knew who they were, and they had each other’s backs. Except that, possibly, one of them wasn’t all that he seemed to be. One of those firefighters might be lying.

  That kind of betrayal cut right to the core.

  She knew all about firemen who lied, didn’t she? She was a first-class expert on the kind of secretive asshole who got off on riding out on fire calls. Mike had taught her all about that.

  She’d never taken Mike’s last name, and, looking back, that had been a sign. She’d never answered to Mrs. Thomas, never even hooked his name together with hers and a hyphen. Because strong, independent women kept their own names and identities, thank you very much.

  If she was honest with herself, she’d thought about Evan’s offer all afternoon—and, the longer she thought, the more seductive that offer to stay on in Strong and go adventuring with him got. Maybe Evan Donovan could be her get-back-on-the-dating-horse fling. She’d never had a fling before. He could be her two-week treat to herself. If he wanted her. She put her hand on his knee, savoring the immediate tension in his body.

  He wanted her.

  Why not? That was her new motto. And why shouldn’t she take Evan up on his adventure-a-day offer? Sure, he was big and gruff, and making him talk was the verbal equivalent of pulling teeth. He certainly acted as if he’d rather be anywhere else when it came time to talk rather than do, which made teasing him all the more fun. Fresh out of a bad relationship and a divorce, she didn’t want happily-ever-after. So why not enjoy him and all he had to offer? This wasn’t a relationship—her trip to Strong was pure adventure, and she might just end up with the photos of a lifetime.

  She’d do it.

  There really wasn’t any reason not to.

  Leaning in, she put her mouth to his ear. He stiffened but didn’t move away. “Get ready to pony up, big guy.” She blew lightly. “I accept your adventure-a-day proposal.”

  Those photos were a potential problem. Hollis hadn’t thought it through, not quite, when the red Corvette had zipped through his flames and pulled over. The lady had been real pretty, seated behind the wheel, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a female looking at him like that.

  Like he was a real, live hero.

  He should have hightailed it out of there, but, no, he’d been all caught up in that interest of hers. Of course, she’d been good and scared when she flew around the bend and into those flames. Her eyes had been real big and her hands tight on the wheel,
like she was afraid to let go. He’d noticed, because he’d suddenly been watching her.

  When his turn in line came, he’d loaded up his plate with barbecue. He’d lucked out when he’d been loaned to Strong’s fire team for the summer. After all, he’d fixed up the lull in the action pretty good, and he was going out on calls fairly regularly now.

  Despite the fact that the jump team was still off-limits to him.

  He eyed the jumpers hanging out around the fire pit. Lots of things could happen. Fire season wasn’t nearly over yet. He’d have an opportunity to show them what he could do—that much he was sure of. If not, he could make his own luck. That matchbox of his provided real equal opportunity.

  “You know who she is?” he asked the man in front of him, because the more he learned about her now, the sooner he’d know what the chances were she’d made him.

  The other firefighter shrugged and piled a load of slaw onto his plate. “Photographer for some fancy magazine— that’s what I heard. She came up here to do a piece on the firehouse restoration.”

  Hollis spooned beans onto his plate and thought it over. “Professional?”

  A professional photographer was both better and worse than a random lady with a camera. She might actually know how to do some of those things he’d seen on TV. Maybe she’d blow up the photos, blow up his cover. On the other hand, she could also put him on the magazine cover. He’d done some seriously heroic shit out there, and clearly she’d liked what she’d seen. She’d taken his picture.

  “Yeah.” The other man grabbed a handful of paper napkins and looked around for a spot to sit. “She’s getting paid. Sounded professional enough to me.”

  “Our shot at getting famous, huh?”

  “Sure.” The guy was already beating feet for an open spot at a nearby picnic table. “All she has right now is a bunch of pics of that roadside fire we snuffed yesterday. That’s not much.”

  Fuck him. That fire had done its job, hadn’t it? They’d gotten called out and spent an afternoon actually fighting fire rather than sitting on their asses at base. His paycheck would definitely notice the difference, and he’d gotten the eyeball from the female photographer. So that had been more than enough fire.

  Picking a different direction, Hollis headed off, carting his plate. He hadn’t gotten caught. He’d fucking pulled it off. True, it had been close. Kinda like getting it on right in public, where anyone might walk in on you. He’d done that once. Not with a girl, but almost as good as.

  He’d unzipped and pulled his dick right out in the parking lot behind his old high school. He’d liked revisiting his old stomping grounds, not that he’d ever gotten much action out there in the backseat of his car. The girls had mostly ignored him, and he’d mostly pretended he didn’t care.

  Now that he was fire crew, he was finally getting some action.

  That night, he’d fisted his dick and rubbed one out right there next to his car, standing in the open where anyone could see. The first stroke was awkward, but in a couple of minutes he had his groove, and his hand was going up and down like a piston, and he was harder than he’d ever been. Coming was an added bonus, a little something he got out of his giant fuck-you to all the school admins who’d told him he’d hopped the train to Loserville and didn’t he want to trade in that ticket for something better.

  He was a firefighter.

  A damned good one.

  If he kept it up right, got enough fires under his belt, he’d make that jump team. There wasn’t going to be any holding him back.

  As they drove away from the fire camp, Evan filled Faye in about the jump team. She knew he was giving her the pretty version, skimming over the parts that the magazine’s readers wouldn’t want to know. For every jump, for every fire, there were often days and even weeks of downtime. Mike had complained about the boring day-in, day-out at the firehouse, about how a man did more sitting around than he did riding out. It came with the territory, though, and it had never kept him from returning to the firehouse.

  She asked questions, listening to Evan’s answers, her eyes on the dark road ahead as she drove. She could hear the quiet laughter in his voice as he told her about the funny mishaps when one of the jumpers hung up in a tree and had to cut himself free. And what it looked like to clear a mountain and come face-to-face with a wall of smoke. Fire was beautiful, seen through his eyes, until you were on the ground, fighting for every inch. Even then, she supposed, there was a savage beauty to the flames, but no one he knew had time to sit around and write poetry about it. The smoke jumpers did what they had to do.

  “You jump with the same team every summer?”

  “Yeah.” He shifted in his seat, one arm riding the edge of the open window. Summer air filled up the inside of the Corvette. “I do. You met my brothers. Together, we’ve got one of the best smoke-jumping outfits in the north-west. When it works well, you don’t mess with that.”

  “And when summer’s over?” She asked the question casually.

  “There are always fires, Faye. But, when fire season ends and the calls taper off, we train. Rebuild planes. Plan for next year.” He shrugged. “There’s always something to be doing.”

  “No new guys for you this year?”

  “Not in the last two years.” The road rushing by was empty. Outside the window, the trees were taller than buildings she’d lived in in L.A. No cars and no other people—just the two of them inside the Corvette slipping through the summer night.

  “It’s a man’s world,” he said, answering her unspoken question from earlier. “I’m not saying it’s right or that that’s the way it’ll stay, but, right now, there aren’t too many women signing on to jump. We’re kind of rough and tumble. Not too pretty when you look closely, but we get the job done.”

  “Bad boys,” she said lightly, and the Corvette hit Strong’s now-familiar one-and-only main street. Mimi’s bar, Ma’s, was already open, lights spilling out of the windows. She didn’t know where they were going. There was something about the night and the ride—the man—that made her content to let this happen. Right now, she didn’t have to be in control, even though she was the one ostensibly in the driver’s seat.

  “Sometimes,” he agreed, that wicked smile of his tugging at his lips. “When the fires are out.” He gestured for her to pull over. “Park in front of the firehouse. Home, sweet home,” he added, opening his door when she’d come to a stop.

  She got out, coming around the car to stand next to him. “Your brother’s fixing this place up, right?” This old firehouse was why she’d come to Strong. The building was pretty but dilapidated. She could almost feel the pull of its history. It was easy to imagine the men streaming in and out of the bays, hanging out on the porch between calls. The space was deeply masculine despite the white-painted porch furniture and the black-and-yellow Lazy Susan vines. She itched to photograph it.

  “Yeah. That was Jack’s plan. He bought the firehouse last month, and we’ve been working on her in our spare time ever since. He’ll give you all the details. He has a vision.” He shook his head, but there was no missing the pride in his voice.

  “He’s going to make the place historically accurate?”

  She’d been filled in by her publisher, but it never hurt to hear the local version. Sometimes wires got crossed or the locals had details she hadn’t heard.

  “So he says. It’s going to take some cash, though.”

  When he headed for the porch, she followed. She had a feeling he was used to that. She’d met his brothers, and the Donovans weren’t men you overlooked. The three of them were used to leading, whether it was a team of jumpers or a woman. She’d bet they didn’t hear no anywhere near often enough. And her traitorous body sure didn’t want to be the exception. She wanted to cozy right up to Evan Donovan.

  He popped a key into the door, the snick of the lock far too loud on the quiet porch. When she exhaled, her breath sounded rough. She was waiting for something. Was he?

  He reached out, holding
open the door. “So you need a place to stay.”

  “Other than in my car?” Which was barely big enough to hold her, even though she’d fantasized about making love on those seats, climbing onto the lap of some unknown lover. Who was now starting to look an awful lot like Evan Donovan. God, she needed to stop this. She forced herself to focus on his words rather than the heat building in her belly. “Yeah. But it’s going to have to be cheap.”

  “Not a problem. Strong doesn’t have a motel, and we’re not five-star territory.” His slow grin sparked an answering smile on her own face. “So, no credit, no problem. This place is livable,” he explained, “but she isn’t real pretty. Not yet.” The laughter was back in his voice, a deep rumble of amusement she felt low in her belly. “Although when Jack’s fiancée finishes up, I’m betting we’ll have the prettiest firehouse this side of the Rockies. I figured you could stay here. Consider it a down payment on the adventures I owe you.”

  “It’s not operational yet?” She could stay here, fix it up some more while she took photos for her article.

  Evan shrugged. “Mostly it is. We’ve got a truck in the bay, and the guys are in and out, but no one’s camped out in the bunkroom. Everyone except for Ben is up at the fire camp, and he’s got a house of his own down the street. You’d have this place all to yourself, and no one would bother you.”

  The stairs he led her up ended in a bunk room that was basic but immaculately clean. Four sets of bunk beds lined the far wall, and a card table with some folding chairs filled up the rest of the space. Anyone spending the night also had access to a microwave, a coffeemaker, and a mini-fridge humming in the corner. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it sure beat the Corvette.

  Plus, if she was into firefighter fantasies, she had more than enough material to work with now.

  “So.” He watched her, and she wondered what he saw. “You want to spend the night?”

  His plan wasn’t great, but it was workable. Evan knew it in his gut. He’d trade her a little R & R of the exciting variety in exchange for the time he needed to eliminate the threat to his jump team and to Strong. No one hurt what belonged to him. Strong—and its people—were his. Now that included Strong’s newest resident, Faye Duncan. If there was anything he could do to fix things for her, he’d do it.