by Bella Andre
Everything moved in slow motion as the deadly yellow-orange flames reached out toward Logan and nearly covered his head. And then, at the last possible moment, he jumped back onto a safe patch of grass. She knew the vision of Logan standing fearless among five-foot flames and a black-and-gray carpet of ash would haunt her forever.
She choked on the smoke and dust rising into the air, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest. She didn't want any more firefighters hurt. Especially not Logan.
Helplessly watching him do her dirty work, she didn't have the strength to keep denying how special he was. She watched as he squatted, his turnouts pulling tight against his muscular shoulders and narrow hips. He was the kind of man women dreamed of at night. And he willingly faced death for the greater good.
Women threw themselves at him for good reason.
He held the sniffer away from his body and stood perfectly still for sixty seconds, just as she'd instructed. Flames whipped around him and she cursed herself for telling him not to rush. There was no way for him to have any idea if and where additional gas and explosives had been strewn across the grassy hill.
At any moment, the ground he was standing on could explode.
Her legs shook at the horrifying image of Logan lying on a stretcher, covered in blisters and raw, bloody skin. Her foot slipped on a tile and she had to reach out to steady herself by grabbing an exhaust fan.
Maybe he'd been right and she should have stayed in the truck. Maybe it would have been easier than coming up here to watch him.
And no matter what side of the investigation they were on, she was stunned by his courage.
She now fully believed Logan Cain was innocent. He would protect his men with his life. She was watching him do it right now. Witnessing his superhuman nerves in action as he walked through fire to gather badly needed evidence cleared any remaining doubts from her mind.
He hadn't lit the Desolation Wilderness fire.
Which meant someone else was responsible for all of this destruction. All of this pain. All of this suffering. Someone had lit the wildfire and then left that message on the tip line with Logan's name. She was almost certain that the same arsonist had lit her motel room on fire, then tried to scare her with the note in the fire-box, and then had put all the pieces in place to set off the explosion that had nearly taken Robbie's life that morning.
Finally, Logan stepped away from the flames and jogged back to his truck. How, she wondered, could he move so quickly with so much heavy equipment on his shoulders? Especially given how drained he must be from the shocking heat.
Not wanting him to find her up on the roof watching—and worrying about him—Maya started to make her way back toward the ladder, but it was harder going on the way down, and her progress was slow. She was halfway across the roof when she heard the loud clang of heavy boots on the steel rungs of the ladder. Logan's soot-covered face appeared above the gutters.
“Don't you ever listen?”
“Rarely,” she replied as carelessly as she could manage, but she couldn't push away the sweet feeling of relief that he'd returned unscathed.
“I guess I should just be glad you didn't come after me to make sure I was holding down the right button.”
She kept her face averted, uncertain how to respond to what sounded an awful lot like teasing. Especially coming on the heels of an adrenaline-soaked evidence run. How could he be so carefree and relaxed, while merely watching him risking his life had jumbled up her insides?
But she was so damn glad that he'd made it out in one solid, intact piece that she couldn't hold back a smile. “You can't blame me for wanting a front-row seat for the Logan Cain show, can you?”
He smiled back and it was like looking straight into the sun. “Hotshots aim to please.”
She was almost to the edge of the roof and he reached out for her, setting her heart racing again. She was so afraid of what she was feeling for him, had never been more scared of anything in all her life.
Wanting to keep some much-needed distance between them, she said, “I got up here by myself and I'll get down by myself,” realizing too late that she sounded like a petulant child instead of an independent woman.
He didn't move from the ladder. “I've never left a beautiful woman stranded on a rooftop and I'm not starting now.”
It was the second time he'd called her beautiful. He wasn't the first man to say that to her, but it was the first time she'd really cared.
No question about it. She was in way over her head with this man.
But when he reached for her on the roof, she couldn't push him away. Not when she'd just watched him walk into fire. She wanted to assure herself that he was really here, was still solid muscles and bones and unending charm.
His large, strong hands circled her waist and she ran one finger down the side of his face, leaving a thin line of tanned skin visible through the soot. She lowered her mouth to his, could almost taste the ash on his lips— when the ladder shifted, and she stiffened.
What was wrong with her? She was up on some stranger's roof in the middle of a raging wildfire and all she could think about was kissing a hotshot. If her boss could see her now, if her father was looking down at them, they'd both be horrified by her behavior. By her utter lack of self-control.
She pulled back, working like hell to rein in her body's disappointment. She'd wanted to kiss Logan more than she'd wanted to take her next breath. But although she couldn't kiss him, she could tell him what she knew he wanted to hear.
“I believe you, Logan. I know you're innocent.”
He was still holding her, his hands burning through her T-shirt, onto her back. “What made you change your mind?”
She could hardly believe they were having this conversation up on the roof. “So many things. But watching you out there risking your life …” She shook her head. “I don't know a single other person who would have done something like that.”
He touched her cheek. “You were going to.”
“Once I saw how tall the flames were, once I felt how hot it was, I would have given up. But you didn't.”
Oh hell, she shouldn't kiss him again. But she was going to anyway. How could she not?
She pulled him closer and the ladder clanked hard against the gutter as she pressed her lips to his. She slipped her tongue between his teeth and moaned as he took what she was giving and gave it back tenfold.
I could love this man, she found herself thinking, and it scared her so much that she nearly fell off the roof trying to get away from him.
“I'm sorry,” she said, pulling away again. “I don't want to lead you on. And you know as well as I do that we can't do this.”
The look he gave her said he didn't know anything of the sort, but he was willing to wait for her to come around. He helped her climb down the ladder, and his hands steadying her body felt way too good.
When they were standing on solid ground again, he said, “Thank you for what you said up there, about me being innocent.”
She felt so nervous with him all of a sudden, like a schoolgirl talking to the star quarterback. “I'm just going with my gut, but you're welcome.”
She'd never been comfortable with the idea of his guilt, not for one single second. She wasn't any closer to knowing who the arsonist was, but it was a huge relief to at least feel certain it wasn't Logan. She wanted to get the okay from her superiors to take him off suspension as soon as possible, but first she needed more data. Running the evidence he'd procured from the explosion site under a microscope would help a great deal.
Wanting desperately to find some middle ground, she said, “Is the crime lab close by? I'm anxious to find out what caused the explosion.”
He pulled off his turnouts and dropped them into the cab of the truck. “I'll call David right now.”
He clicked open his phone just as she slid into the passenger seat. “David, I'm glad I caught you. It's Logan Cain. I need a favor. A big one.”
She was relieved when he
quickly got a thumbs-up on using the lab. They'd have their data—and, hopefully, some answers—soon.
“So,” he said, turning his focus back to her as they traveled down the lakeside highway, “how'd you become a fire investigator?”
His low, sexy voice and his question jostled her. She couldn't think fast enough to respond as if she had more than a handful of brain cells.
“The National Fire Academy.”
“Sure,” he drawled, “that's the usual way. But why?”
For the past six months, she'd avoided firefighters like the plague. She hadn't dated them or hung out with them or helped out with their fund-raising raffles beyond what she could do on the Internet in the privacy of her apartment. She hadn't needed, hadn't wanted, any more reminders of the two men she'd lost.
But now that Logan was clearly trying to get to know her—who she was, why she did what she did—making out with him almost seemed like the safer option.
Sharing their bodies was one thing. Sharing their hearts was something else entirely. Especially when she didn't know if she had a heart left to share.
Finally, she said, “I knew from the start that I didn't want to be a firefighter, but I liked certain aspects of the job. So I ended up getting a degree in Criminal Justice. When my father encouraged me to go into arson investigation, it seemed like a good path.”
“You know, I was thinking that your father and Joseph must be around the same age. I wonder if they worked the same fires.”
It was hard for her to talk about her dad. They'd been so close.
“Probably,” she said. “He was based near Monterey, where we lived, but his crew was sent to wildfires in the Sierras lots of times.”
“I probably worked some of the same fires he did. When did he retire?”
Maya stared out the window at the cars rushing in the opposite direction. “He didn't. He died of lung cancer. A year ago.”
Logan's hand covered her knee, his warmth penetrating her thin cotton Lake Tahoe sweatpants. “Jesus, Maya, that's not fair.”
She was glad when he didn't point out how close together her father and brother's deaths were. Most people felt compelled to say that when they found out. It didn't help.
“You must miss him.”
“I do,” she said, “but I also know he wouldn't have done anything differently. And I wouldn't have wanted him to.”
“I'm sorry.”
His two simple words pierced her heart. She didn't want to talk about herself anymore. “What about you? Why firefighting? Why hotshots?”
She wasn't asking because she was an investigator and he was a suspect. She was asking for herself now.
“Joseph is a phenomenal man. A great mentor. And he loved what he did. I wanted that life.”
“It fits you.”
“It's all I've ever wanted to be. The only thing I've ever wanted to do.”
She had a sudden flash of insight into the gorgeous wildland firefighter sitting beside her. “It's what set you straight, isn't it? It's what made you stop lighting fires.”
He took his eyes off the road for a split second and caught hers. “You're right. It is.”
“And I almost took it away from you.”
“You were only doing your job.”
He was right. Which was why she couldn't relax and forget about the case. She had to keep asking the hard questions, even if it meant the end of their first truly pleasant conversation.
“Tell me about Dennis.”
His hand tightened on the gearshift. “What do you want to know?”
“You followed Joseph into firefighting. But his own son didn't. Do you have any idea why?”
“Flying a helicopter isn't easy.”
“No,” she agreed. “Being the passenger isn't always easy either.”
“Never would have figured a tough investigator like you would be prone to motion sickness,” he teased.
She had to laugh at herself. “Trust me, it's the only thing that's ever made me reconsider my choice of career.” Quickly, she got back on task. “I guess what I'm wondering is why not fly for the Forest Service? They can always use more guys on water drops and search-and-rescue.”
“They can, but not everyone is cut out for firefighting,” Logan said.
She'd seen enough rookies quit midway through their first year to know he was right. “That's true. But I can't help wondering if his staying away from the fire service goes deeper than that.”
“Deeper how?”
“Maybe he didn't want to be in competition with you.” Because he knew he'd lose, she added silently.
“Dennis and Joseph were good to me when no one else gave a damn. Dennis is my brother in every way that counts. Every family has its problems. They don't resolve them by setting fires and getting one another thrown into jail.”
Maya wished she could let her suspicions regarding Dennis go, wished she could drop it and return to the comfortable space she and Logan had shared just minutes ago. But the more she thought about her conversation with Dennis in the helicopter, the more it seemed like Dennis had a serious grudge with not only Logan but the entire hotshot crew. Could he have been the person who set the campfires that Logan had been seen putting out? Could he have digitally disguised his voice and left the message on the tip line?
“I hear everything you're saying, but what if this is a cry for help? A way to make sure his father finally notices him? And the perfect way to make sure you take the fall?”
A muscle jumped in Logan's jaw again and she hated having to put him in a position to defend—to doubt— his friend.
“Even if he was pissed at me for something, fire isn't Dennis's thing. Back when we were seventeen and I'd try to goad him into throwing a match into whatever fire I'd started, he never would. He wouldn't know the first thing about lighting motel rooms on fire or creating explosions on a hillside.”
“Maybe he had help from someone who knows fire behavior?”
Logan shook his head. “He doesn't have a lot of fire-fighter friends. Only me.”
Everywhere Maya looked, she saw brick walls. “Do you know where he was last week when he was on vacation? Did you see him at all? Talk to him?”
Logan pulled into a gravel driveway. “No, but I'm going to find out.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE CRIME lab door was open when they arrived. Maya was used to urban steel-and-metal buildings where the chemists all looked alike in their white jackets and black-rimmed glasses. A red-and-white barn in the middle of pine trees took some getting used to, as did the spray-painted fire motif that ringed the walls. Even the chemist's arms were covered in tattoos of flames.
For a moment she wondered if she was looking at another pyromaniac—but without anything else to go on besides an abundance of fire graphics, she knew she was grasping at straws.
“David, thanks for opening up the lab on a weekend for us,” Logan said when they walked in. He took in his friend's casual beach clothes and flip-flops. “Damn it, I was hoping I hadn't pulled you off the lake. Sorry about that.”
The chemist waved away Logan's concern. “Don't worry about it. Kelly was dying to get me out of the boat so she could take it for a spin alone with her friends. She says I'm too much of a wimp to max out the speedometer.”
“It's nice to meet you, Maya.”
She estimated he was in his early forties, solely by the lines on his tanned face and his slightly receding hairline. He was tanned and trim and had the physique of a much younger man. Something about the lake and the mountains and the thin air in Tahoe made all the men better-looking than they had a right to be.
It was extremely disconcerting.
“So you're investigating the wildfire?” he asked.
“Yes, but this is evidence from an explosion that took place this morning.”
“We heard about that. Poor kid. We're praying that he pulls through.”
She didn't need to look at Logan to know that he was still seeing Robbie wrapped up like
a mummy in the hospital bed.
“I need to find out where the explosive materials came from. Once you tell me what caused the explosion, I'll have a better idea where to look for other clues.”
“I'm glad I can help. Not just to clear your name,” he said to Logan, “but to catch the bastard who hurt Robbie.”
Logan didn't respond. His head was bent down, just as it had been in the hospital when he was kneeling beside Robbie's bed, overloaded with sorrow.
David must have sensed it too, because he efficiently took charge of them both. “No offense, you guys, but I'm not big on people hanging over my microscope. Logan, go use my shower and take whatever clothes you want.”
Shooting a lopsided grin at Maya, David said, “I'm guessing either you're a really big fan of Lake Tahoe”—he gestured to her tourist duds—“or something happened to your clothes.”
“No one is this big of a fan,” she said, smiling back.
Logan quickly explained, “Someone lit her hotel room on fire last night.”
David whistled. “Do you think it's the same person who did this?” He held up the mason jar.
Not wanting to disclose too much of what was supposed to be a confidential investigation, she said, “I'll be following up with the fire chief shortly to see if he's learned anything more. But at this moment, I don't know.”
David quickly got the point and backed off. “My wife is about your size, Maya. I'm sure she wouldn't mind loaning you a few things if you're tired of being a walking Lake Tahoe billboard.”
Glad for his practical suggestion, Maya followed Logan out of the barn and into David's A-frame house. The only time she'd spent in Tahoe since her brother's death was to investigate the fire that took his life. She'd always made sure to get in and out of town quickly, steeling herself against acknowledging its beauty. It had been easier to focus on the seedy aspects of Tahoe life—the drugs and the booze and the crime.