by Bella Andre
This trip was different. This time she couldn't run away, and even as she guarded herself against its charms, the beauty of the lake and the mountains and the trees seeped deeper into her pores.
Just as Logan and all his charm and good looks and heroicism pushed further past her defenses.
She turned away from the window and saw that Logan had stripped off his T-shirt. Her mouth nearly fell open at the beautiful, tanned lines of his torso. He had muscles in places she didn't know they came. And he was so much better built than any firefighter she'd ever seen.
“Since we've got to wait for David, a shower sounds good.” He smiled and his flash of white teeth was utterly mesmerizing. “You want one?”
Maya instructed herself to look away from his chest. And failed.
“No,” she croaked.
He let her look her fill, one corner of his mouth moving into a grin.
“Suit yourself,” he said, then headed into the bedroom off the kitchen.
Maya stood in the middle of the living room and worked like hell to tamp down her stupid hormones. As soon as she heard the shower start, she stepped into the master bedroom and tried to ignore that fact that Logan was only a couple of rooms away.
And he was naked. Her mouth went dry.
Her body urged her to accept his invitation to join him in the shower.
But even though she didn't think he was guilty of arson, she still couldn't allow herself to get involved. Not while she was working on a case. And definitely not with another firefighter.
Quickly, she pulled a pair of designer jeans and a T-shirt from the dresser. She drew the line at borrowing a stranger's underwear, however. She'd just have to stick to having the words “Lake Tahoe” scrawled across her behind.
Knowing she'd do something reckless and stupid if she was still standing there when Logan walked out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel, she locked herself in the laundry room to put on the new clothes. Both the jeans and T-shirt were a bit snug, but anything was better than the pink T-shirt and sweatpants she'd bought at the tourist shop in her motel.
She waited impatiently for Logan to return to the living room, and when he finally emerged she had to work like hell not to react to how ridiculously sexy he was in low-slung surf shorts and a T-shirt. Her only chance at fighting her attraction was to stay wholly focused on the investigation.
“How much longer do you think David will be?”
When he didn't bother telling her to relax, she knew he was just as anxious for some answers.
“Let's go ask him,” he replied.
David was still hard at work when they opened the lab door and stuck their heads in.
“Not done yet,” he said, locking a slide into place beneath a microscope before he looked up. “I'll bet you guys haven't stopped to eat today, have you? Our fridge is pretty much empty, so how about you head down to the Bar & Grill at the end of the road and I'll meet you there when I'm done.”
Maya felt Logan tense beside her. The Tahoe Pines Bar & Grill was the last place either of them wanted to go, but it would be beyond awkward to explain to David why heading to that particular establishment was a very bad idea.
And then her stomach betrayed her by growling, sealing the deal.
“You guys are hovering,” David said, so they went outside, closed the door behind them, and stood looking at each other on the flagstone walkway, neither one of them saying a word.
Finally, Logan shrugged. “I'm game if you are.”
“I guess I am pretty starving.”
All of a sudden the idea of taking a load off for a few minutes was a good one. Even if they were about to wade into emotional quicksand.
Maya knew she needed to be on her guard at all times around Logan. He was too good at knocking through her defenses, patiently pushing them away one by one. But she was so tired. And hungry, since it had easily been twenty-four hours since she'd last eaten.
Worst of all, she was more aroused than she should be by a great-looking firefighter in surfer clothes.
Silently, they drove down the hill, parked, and walked into the crowded restaurant. Logan hadn't been back in the place since Eddie had sold it to a couple of guys from Las Vegas about a month after Maya'd come in for a drink and blown his mind.
Logan wasn't sure he liked the changes. It had always been a neighborhood hangout, somewhere his crew would go when they were streaked with dirt and sweat, to shoot some pool and forget about staring death in the face for a couple of hours. The new owners had glossed it up, making it look more like a big national chain than a neighborhood bar and grill.
Posed pictures of people having a good time on the lake studded the walls, along with new paint and windows. Even the crowd was different. Flashier, richer.
“Man, this place has sure changed,” he said as they grabbed a free table by the window.
She looked around. “Has it?”
What was he thinking? She'd been so full of grief over her brother six months ago that she probably hadn't noticed anything about the place. Besides, he'd shoved her into the wall of bottles and had been all over her so fast she couldn't have seen much of anything.
“I hate to break it to you,” he said, intent on changing the subject, “but you're no longer in the running for Miss Lake Tahoe. Looks like Kelly's stuff fits pretty good.”
A gorgeous flush worked itself onto her cheeks. “She's a little smaller than I am.”
Logan dropped his eyes to her breasts for a brief moment. “A little. But trust me, it works on you.”
Dennis's girlfriend, Jenny, came around the corner carrying a heavy tray of drinks. He'd forgotten that she worked lunch and dinner all summer. She smiled widely when she saw him, but when she noticed who he was sitting with, her smile turned to confusion.
“Logan, what are you doing here?” She didn't add with her to the end of her sentence, but he could read her mind.
“Time for lunch,” he said. “What's good today?”
She looked down at her pad. “Everyone's been ordering the grilled chicken and avocado sandwich on a French roll. We're almost out.”
Logan looked at Maya and she nodded. “We'll take two if you've got 'em. And two Cokes.”
Jenny wrote down their order, but didn't get the picture that now wasn't a good time to talk. Especially considering Maya's new suspicions regarding Jenny's boyfriend. Logan knew Jenny wouldn't much like hearing that. Not any more than he did.
“I went by Joseph's cabin after breakfast,” she said with a frown. “I had no idea things were getting so bad. He barely seemed to know who I was. You should have asked for my help earlier.”
Up until now, Maya hadn't made the possible connection between Joseph's illness and the trails heading up from his backyard into Desolation, and Logan didn't want to give her any reason to turn her suspicions that way. Even though she'd been in Joseph's house and had talked with him, the less said about the extent of Joseph's situation, the better.
Logan's conscience knocked at him. Maya had treated him with honesty from the get-go, she'd told him precisely why she'd thought he was guilty and then admitted she was wrong as soon as she'd decided he was innocent.
He wanted to be just as straight with her, but he didn't know her well enough yet to be absolutely certain how she'd respond to his concerns about Joseph. And he couldn't let anything happen to Joseph because he'd said too much to the wrong person.
“Thanks for going by, Jenny. I really appreciate it.” He didn't bother with subtlety. “I'll give you a call later and we can talk more about the situation.”
Jenny shot another glance at Maya before saying “Sure thing, Logan. I'll go put your order in.”
Maya gave him an amused look when Jenny rounded the corner. “Boy, does that girl have a crush on you.”
“Jealous?”
She watched Jenny giggle while whispering something to a cute busboy before walking into the kitchen. “I take it back. She flirts with everyone.”
He no
ted that Maya didn't go anywhere near his jealous question and he grinned. She didn't need to answer. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.
Now all he needed was for her to figure it out too.
Still looking at Jenny, she suddenly frowned. “Hey, wasn't she with you at the airstrip this morning?”
“She was meeting Dennis for breakfast. They've been dating for a while.”
“Dating Dennis, huh?” She looked pensive. “How does he feel about his girlfriend flirting with you?”
He'd wondered the same thing and had come to only one conclusion: “He's not the jealous type.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Sure he isn't.”
A couple of firefighters from the urban station walked in and headed to the bar, probably to pick up some drinks for the road, and her face fell. He knew she was thinking about Tony.
“I was serious last night when I offered to help with your brother's case.”
She turned back to him, her eyes wide with surprise. “I don't get it. Why would you want to help me?”
“Why wouldn't I?”
It was clear that she didn't know how to respond. Probably for the very same reason he wasn't comfortable coming clean about Joseph yet. Despite their physical connection, she was as unsure of him as he was of her.
“Thank you,” she said in a soft voice. “I really appreciate your offer. Maybe when this case is done …”
Her words fell away and he wanted to press her further, make her commit to seeing him again when they were on the other side of this craziness.
Right then, he saw David walk in and search through the crowd for them.
“David's here,” he said, and Maya's expression became all business again.
As glad as Logan was that they were going to know what had caused the explosion, the interruption had come too soon. At last, he'd felt as if he was getting at the real Maya Jackson, the flesh-and-blood woman with insecurities and hopes and softness, not just the hard-as-nails fire investigator that she forced herself to be every minute of every day.
David pulled up a chair. His happy-go-lucky friend looked as solemn as Logan had ever seen him. “I've got it.”
Before he could say more, Jenny arrived with their sandwiches. They waited in tense silence for her to put them down and go away, but she was clearly in no hurry to leave.
“Hey, David,” she said, “how are you doing?”
“Fine, thanks.”
“Some fire burning, huh?”
He shot a quick look at Logan. “Yup.”
She looked between the three of them, finally noting that something was up. “You guys need anything else? Ketchup? Mustard? Are you hungry, David?”
“I'm fine, thanks.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Okay, then. I'll be going on a short break for the next few minutes, so just holler at Amy if you need something else.”
They all nodded, the plates of food remaining untouched. Finally, Maya broke the heavy silence after Jenny left. “What have you found out?”
“I've been able to clearly identify gasoline and fertilizer.”
Maya closed her eyes for a moment. “Together they explode just like a bomb. It's easy and inexpensive. Anyone could have done it. It's the perfect crime.” When she opened her eyes again, Logan got the sense she wasn't really seeing them. “Gasoline and fertilizer are too common, too likely to be in anyone's garage. Finding the person who laid the groundwork for the explosion is like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
During his fifteen years as a hotshot, at the first sign of trouble Logan immediately sprang into action. He used his body, his tools, and his brain to fight deadly blazes. But this time things were different. Instead of battling fire, he was up against an arsonist. One who was out for blood.
“Thanks for the help, David,” Maya said, pushing back her chair without touching her food. “I need to get going, need to check a few things out.”
Logan stood up and threw down forty dollars as David handed Maya a printout of his results.
“Keep the faith. You'll find out who did this. And you'll stop them before they do it again. I'll stick around the house the rest of the weekend if you need me to test something else.”
Maya gave him a weak smile as she took the lab paperwork then walked beside Logan to his truck. “I appreciate you hooking me up with David,” she said when they were alone again, in the front seat. “And thanks for going above and beyond the call of duty today, first with the fire, now with this.” She looked him in the eye. “But you need to stop wasting your time helping me, and get a lawyer, Logan.”
What the hell? She'd told him she believed him.
She put her hand on his arm. “I know you didn't do it. But this is a small town. How many gas stations are there nearby, without driving all the way downtown?”
“One.”
“How many places to get fertilizer?”
“One.” He knew exactly where she was going. “And if the gas and fertilizer in my garage come from the same lots as the ones David just tested and my name is already on the suspect list …”
She finished his sentence. “It'll look like you did it.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MAYA HAD come to Tahoe to prove Logan's guilt, and he'd completely turned the tables on her.
Now she was certain of not only his innocence, but his compassion and understanding as well.
He was far too perfect, and far too difficult to resist.
She looked up, suddenly, and realized she hadn't told him where she wanted him to take her. “Where are you going?”
“To my house to get those fertilizer and gasoline samples.”
No. She didn't want to go there, didn't want to pick up any evidence that could possibly link Logan to the crime.
But she knew he was right. If there was a chance that they could definitively rule him out, she could call McCurdy and get him to officially end Logan's suspension.
She needed Logan to promise her one thing first, though. “If it turns out your samples are a match, promise me you'll get a lawyer.”
Stuck behind a big tour bus, he took his eyes off the road and looked her in the eye. “I'll do it, but you'll come with me.”
The bus needed to get its exhaust pipe looked at. It smelled like gas was funneling straight into his truck.
She frowned. “You don't need me to find you a lawyer.”
“It isn't about finding a lawyer. I'm not willing to leave you alone. Not after what happened last night. Not until we find the bastard lighting these fires.”
She wanted to tell him she could take care of herself, but those words were lost amid the warmth of knowing that someone was actually looking out for her.
In recent months she'd gotten used to handling everything herself, to never asking anyone for help, but there had been a time, back before everything that had happened to her family, when her father and brother had looked out for her. They'd kept her safe, whether it was vetting out a new boyfriend or screwing her overflowing bookshelves to the wall so they wouldn't fall over in an earthquake and bury her.
She was still trying to figure out how to respond when he pulled onto a gravel road that she figured was his driveway. Much like Joseph's, it was a narrow pathway between tall pines. And then, as if by magic, there emerged a pond with bright blue water, and beyond that a beautiful meadow. The driveway meandered up the undulating hills, toward a stunning wood-framed house.
It was one of the most incredible locations she'd ever seen. And the beauty all around her spoke volumes about the man sitting beside her.
“You did this, didn't you?” she asked in a quiet voice. “You built this house.”
He turned off the engine. “How'd you guess?”
“My father did the same thing when I was a little girl. It reminds me a lot of where I grew up.”
She'd loved every wall of their home, the tree house in the backyard that she'd helped her father build and paint and decorate, the flowers she'd dug into the
earth and carefully watered all summer long so that when her father came back in the fall there'd still be blooms for him to see.
“Sounds like he was a great dad.”
Something large, yet fragile, shattered inside of her. “He was.” One of the walls protecting her heart now lay in shards by her toes.
“I would have liked to have met him.”
She looked down at her hands. Anywhere but at Logan. She didn't want him to see her weak like this, all because he'd expressed a sincere wish to meet a man she missed every single day.
Obviously sensing that she had one foot stuck in quicksand, he brought things back to the situation at hand. “My workshop is through the house and out the back. The faster we get an answer from David about my samples, the better it'll be.”
She got out of the truck, grateful for his understanding, but as she followed Logan up his front steps, every nerve and wire inside her was on edge. The last thing she wanted was to be alone with Logan in this beautiful home he'd built. Not when a foolish part of her brain had started spinning elaborate fairy tales as soon as she'd set eyes on the property.
What if she'd met Logan under different circumstances? What if she'd come to his house an excited, blushing date, more than halfway in love with a strong, rugged firefighter? What would have happened then? Would they have gotten into his hot tub together and kissed until they were so crazy for each other they could barely make it upstairs to his bedroom? Would she have fallen asleep in his arms after making love and woken up beside him the next morning?
She tried to tell herself that she was only having these fantasies because she was tired. But as he led the way up a paved path to his front door, not only did her mouth water for the hundredth time at his muscular, tanned arms, his wide shoulders and sexy rear end, but her heart longed for a deeper connection.
For love.
He pushed open the unlocked front door and led her into a light-filled kitchen. She'd never had much of an eye for colors and shapes, but now she knew exactly what she wanted her house to look like one day. Exposed pine beams, huge panes of glass, and counter tiles the mottled color of natural stone.