WILD HEAT

by Bella Andre

  The blonde girl was sitting at the motel's front desk watching TV when Maya walked in to get a key. “What happened to you? You look like shit.”

  Three days blurred together in a strange and murky cloud in her brain. “I lost my key” was all Maya could manage. She was too tired to say anything else.

  The girl snapped her gum. “Name?”

  “Maya Jackson.”

  Her name was the same, but she was a completely different person.

  The girl handed her the key and Maya was surprised to see her hands shaking as she took it. Funny how you could fool yourself—and everyone else—into thinking you were holding everything together when you weren't.

  Maya headed for her room, surprised that taking the stairs to the second floor felt like climbing to the top of the Empire State Building. She was so fried she could barely stand, yet at this exact moment she knew Logan was knee-deep in ashes, wielding heavy equipment and hoses to save what was left of Joseph's cabin.

  Once she got inside her room, she stripped down, barely acknowledging the bruises, scrapes, and welts that covered her arms, legs, and torso. She walked into the shower and leaned her weight against the tiled wall. When she looked down, the white floor tiles were black beneath her feet. She watched ash and dirt wind down the drain until the water ran cold.

  Shivering, she wrapped a towel around herself and walked into the bedroom. Heavy weights hung from her eyelids, and she used up her last burst of energy crawling under the covers. There were a hundred things she should be doing. But all of them required strength and energy she didn't have.

  Additional hotshot crews and smoke jumpers from all across the West were on their way to fight the forest fire in Desolation Wilderness. By late Sunday afternoon, Logan had to make the difficult decision to bring his crew in again. With forty-mile-an-hour winds, the usual method of digging fire lines wasn't going to cut it. And while he reassessed the situation, his men could get some much-needed rest.

  They'd straggled into the station, exhausted and covered in ash and dirt, each one of their faces lighting up when they saw him behind the maps.

  “Logan, glad you've decided to join the party. How was your vacation?”

  He'd grinned at the rookie who was as happy as a pig in shit to be out there with the rest of the hotshots, risking his life. Logan had been that kid once. Hell, he still was, only with more responsibilities on his shoulders.

  The Forest Service superintendent had already called to apologize for getting in Logan's way this weekend with the suspension. Logan told the man he knew he'd simply been doing his job. Putting him on suspension was a judgment call. Nothing personal.

  He shared a chili dinner with his crew, and when they stumbled off to bed, he, Gary, and Sam discussed tactics.

  Most of the guys looked beaten all to hell. Not Sam MacKenzie. Even the toughest fires didn't scare him. Nothing did.

  “What's the forecast?” Sam asked.

  “High winds and low humidity for the next forty-eight hours. Water is either blowing out from beneath the helicopters or evaporating before it hits the ground. Some of the guys are getting in as close as twenty feet, but it's not making a difference.”

  “It's been too long since these forests have burned. The trees are ripe for it,” Gary added, fatigue hanging on every word.

  “Both of you need to get some sleep.”

  Sam remained at the table. “I talked to Connor today.”

  Firefighters were masters of understatement, part and parcel to the life-threatening risks they took every day. But sometimes Logan wanted to jump for joy anyway.

  “Thank God he's awake. How's he feeling?”

  “Like shit,” Sam said. “I never thanked you for saving his life.”

  “We did it together.”

  Nothing more needed to be said, so Sam pushed back his chair and headed off to his bunk, leaving Logan alone with the maps. A couple of hours later, he finally accepted that all they could do until the winds died down was keep the fire out of the trees. By dusk the next day, chainsaws and axes were going to feel like natural extensions of their hands.

  When night fell, he'd sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, thinking of Maya. She was so beautiful. So stubborn. Too damn stubborn to tell him she loved him. Even though she did.

  It didn't matter if she stayed in Lake Tahoe until they put this fire out. He'd find her wherever she went.

  And he'd love her forever.

  When sunlight finally glinted in through his eyelids, he splashed his face with water then rang the station bell. Fifteen minutes later, his men were assembled, looking sharp and ready for another killer day in Desolation. He kept his instructions short and sweet.

  “Clear all low-hanging branches and chop down any burning trees. We've got to keep the fire from spreading to the treetops. Helicopters will continue making bucket drops on the hot spots as long as it's safe to keep flying in.” He paused to make sure every last one of them understood his orders. “At the first sign of danger, get out. I don't care if every house in Tahoe turns to rubble. I'm not losing any more men.”

  Somber eyes met his, filled with determination. He followed his men out the door to their trucks.

  He thought about Maya, knew she'd learned that lesson well: At the first sign of danger, get out. Her casualty list was long enough already. She didn't need him to be one more name, one more firefighter she'd loved and lost.

  He couldn't turn his back on a fire. And he couldn't walk away from the woman he loved. Even if it was what she thought she wanted.

  The original anchor point was no longer safe, so the crew drove into a wide clearing that had been bulldozed flat. From there, Logan watched flames jumping across treetops as heat rumbled over the mountains like a fleet of jets. Entire trees were torching, exploding into flames instantaneously.

  He pulled down his hood and picked up a chainsaw. It was time to get back to work.

  Maya woke up stiff and sweating beneath the thick comforter as the sun set through the thin drapes on her window. Logan's face was the first image she saw. She had faith in his fire knowledge and his years of experience as a hotshot, but the madness wouldn't end until Jenny was behind bars—or dead.

  Moving quickly, she brushed her hair and teeth, then realized she had to put on her same filthy clothes again. Picking them up off the carpet, she shook them out in the shower. Her stomach growled. Grabbing her key, she walked down to the lobby.

  “I need to use the phone.”

  The girl behind the desk shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Maya walked as far away from the blaring TV as the phone cord would allow. Using her company calling card number, she dialed information and got her boss's home number. He picked up on the third ring.

  “Maya? I've been trying to reach you all weekend. What happened to you?”

  Where should she start? So many things had happened in three days.

  “We found her.”

  “Her?”

  “The arsonist.”

  “The arsonist is a woman?”

  “Yes.”

  For the millionth time, Maya wished she'd figured it out earlier.

  “How'd you find her?”

  Maya rubbed a hand over her eyes. “I didn't,” she admitted. “She found me.” She paused. “She tried to kill me from a distance and when I didn't die she came to finish the job.”

  How strange it all sounded when she said it aloud. Almost improbable.

  Albert cursed. “You should have come home. I can't believe I let you stay, let you put yourself in danger.”

  But Maya wasn't at all sorry. Because if she'd left, Logan and Joseph would probably both be dead by now.

  “I'm coming to Tahoe. Straightaway. Keep her in jail until I get there. And stay out of trouble.”

  Maya could hardly believe what she was about to tell her boss. “She's not in jail, Albert. She escaped.”

  “You've got to be kidding me! How the hell did that happen?”

  Al
bert was one of the calmest men she knew, and a great boss, but obviously even he had his breaking point. Looked like she'd found it.

  She summed up the past forty-eight hours in as few words as possible. “She didn't stop at setting my motel room on fire. She set off an explosion that killed a hotshot. She bombed Logan's truck. She set two homes on fire, then taped me to a tree and nearly killed me with a chainsaw. When Logan saved my life again, she got away.”

  “Logan?”

  “The initial suspect,” she clarified. “He's one hundred percent innocent.”

  She waited for everything she'd said to sink in. Lord knew, it was a lot to handle over the phone.

  “Are you sure you're not in any more danger?”

  No, she wasn't sure, but if she told Albert the truth, he'd drive up to Tahoe and force her to get in his car and leave all the madness.

  “I hope not” was as honest as she could be, adding “I'll e-mail you a copy of my report as soon as I can.”

  “No need. I'll be there in four hours. Where are you staying?”

  She gave him the name and location of the motel, then hung up the phone. The teenage girl was staring at her with an open mouth. “You were making up that stuff about being attacked with a chainsaw, right?”

  “I wish I were.”

  The girl looked at her with new respect. “Cool.”

  Heading for the downtown strip, Maya bypassed a smoke-filled diner in favor of a deli. Sitting outside on the sidewalk in her ratty clothes, she forced a turkey sandwich down, then walked into a boutique and picked out the least flashy clothes on the rack.

  She threw her ruined clothes in a trash bin on the sidewalk and felt a hundred times better as she hailed a taxi to take her to the city library to look up Jenny's address, then called Chief Stevens and asked him to meet her there with a set of universal keys. He was waiting on the curb for her when she arrived.

  “You've done good, kid. Real good. And you're looking much better. Did you get some sleep and something to eat?”

  She nodded but didn't say anything else. She didn't want to relive it all over again. “I need to go through her things for my report to make sure the case against her is solid.” She couldn't bring herself to say the woman's name aloud. Not after what she'd done. “Thanks for helping me out.”

  Patrick patted her shoulder. “It's my pleasure.”

  Thirty seconds later he had the door unlocked and open. Nothing seemed particularly odd when she first entered the apartment. A few dirty plates in the sink, a stack of People magazines on the coffee table, tennis shoes kicked off under a dining table.

  She found it hard to reconcile the normalcy of the apartment with the madwoman who'd ruined so many lives. Patrick moved past her down the hall and she followed him into Jenny's bedroom.

  The bed was neatly made, and it looked as if it hadn't been slept in for some time. Not bothering with the dresser drawers quite yet, she walked back out into the hall and tried to turn the doorknob of the second bedroom, but it was locked.

  “Patrick, could you open this for me?”

  Using a small tool, seconds later he swung open the door. Her eyes went wide with horror as she gazed into the room.

  “My God,” Patrick said in a low tone, “she was obsessed.”

  Every square inch of wall and ceiling was covered with photos of firefighters.

  “She must have every firefighter calendar ever made,” Maya said as she stood at the threshold of the room, disgusted by the creepy shrine.

  “I can do this for you,” Patrick offered. “You've had a hell of weekend already.”

  “Don't worry, I've done this a hundred times,” she said aloud as a reminder to herself that she knew what she was doing. That she could handle this.

  She headed for the chest in the corner, her heart racing as she opened it. She gasped and Patrick moved to her side.

  They were staring at dozens of firefighter badges.

  “What the hell is this?” Patrick asked. “Every guy she bagged?”

  Maya started searching through the pile. And then she found the one she was looking for.

  Tony's badge fell from her fingers and she stumbled backwards, out of the room, out of the apartment, unable to stop moving until she made it out to the sidewalk.

  She missed him so much and wished he were still alive so she could tell him everything that had happened in the past six months.

  Patrick found her there, perched on the edge of a bus stop bench, her head in her hands. He held out Tony's badge as she looked up. “He would want you to have this.”

  She took it from him and as she curled her fingers around the coarse fabric that bore her brother's name, she felt a bolt of love shoot through her.

  And that was when she knew: Tony would have hated watching her waste her life mourning him.

  He'd have loved to watch her jump off a roof, loved to see her run like a wolf through the forest.

  He would have told her to risk everything, to live every day like it was her last.

  He would have wanted Logan to be his friend. His brother.

  And most of all, he would have wanted her to risk everything for love.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  TWO DAYS and nights passed in a blur of felling trees until his arms throbbed and his hands continued to vibrate whether they were holding a chainsaw or not. Fatigue was a constant, as was the continuous threat of dehydration. As Logan's team worked the eastern hills, along the trailheads that led to what was once Joseph's cabin, he kept an eye out for a body. It was only a matter of time before they found Jenny.

  And then Sam called him over and Logan turned off his chainsaw and dropped it into the dirt. He hurried to a small cave where Sam was kneeling in the dirt, searching for a pulse between the blisters under a woman's chin.

  They'd found her.

  “Holy shit,” Sam said. “She's alive.”

  Despite everything she'd done, Logan was impressed with her resilience. Maybe she'd learned something from all those firefighters she'd screwed, after all.

  “I've got to get her to a hospital.”

  Sam frowned, shook his head. “After everything she's done …”

  But Logan had already scooped her up in his arms. Her limbs were a mass of blistering, scarred flesh and he wasn't sure how much longer she'd be able to hold on—or if he even wanted her to.

  “Maybe she got what she deserved,” Sam said in a low voice.

  “No one deserves this,” Logan said in a flat voice.

  Not even the devil herself.

  He headed back to the anchor point, Jenny's weight barely slowing him down. She groaned several times, her eyes fluttering but not opening before she went unconscious again. Thirty minutes later, he got in the ambulance with her, but he was thinking about Maya.

  She'd stopped him from strangling Jenny just in time, and now that the intense rage had passed, he was glad for her insistence. Over the years he'd watched people die from smoke inhalation, from burns, but never at his own hands.

  They arrived at the hospital and Jenny was rushed in for evaluation. Logan was itching to get back to the fire, but he couldn't leave until the doctor gave him the low-down on Jenny's condition.

  A short while later, Dr. Caldwell pulled off her mask as she stepped through the swinging double doors. “Logan, why don't you come into my office for a few minutes.”

  He followed the middle-aged woman into a tidy of-fice overlooking a courtyard. “Is she going to make it?”

  “Honestly, I don't know. I'd say her chances of living without life support are extremely slim.” She paused. “But we found something else while we were examining her, something I think you should know.”

  His stomach twisted. It seemed that nothing was simple when it came to Jenny. “Lay it on me.”

  “She's pregnant.”

  He didn't bother to hide his shocked expression. “Is there any chance the baby could make it?”

  “Maybe. She's already almost five months alo
ng. Do you know who the father might be?”

  “Yes, I think so.” Holy shit. Dennis might become a father in a few months.

  “I need to discuss this with my colleagues, but my gut is to keep her on life support for another ten to fifteen weeks until the baby is big enough to take by C-section without too many complications. Could you tell the father to contact me as soon as possible?”

  Logan stood to leave. “I will.”

  She came around her desk and put her hands on his. “I'm so sorry about Robbie. We were hoping he'd pull through.”

  “You did everything you could,” he said, his voice the consistency of sandpaper.

  His brain was overloaded with images, with emotions, as the ambulance driver took him back to the mountain.

  Gary jogged over. “Good news. The winds are dying down. Humidity is up. If we continue bucket drops at this pace, we should be at least fifty percent contained by this evening.”

  And they'd caught the arsonist. Thank God. The end was in sight.

  Gary had a good ten years on Logan. He could read between the lines, could see that there was something else on his mind. “What now? Something about Jenny? Is she going to survive?”

  He shook his head. “Probably not. She's on life support. But she's pregnant.”

  Gary raised an eyebrow. “Dennis the father?”

  Gary's question was a good one. Who knew what Jenny had been doing behind Dennis's back besides lighting deadly fires and killing people? “I sure as hell hope so.”

  “As long as the weather keeps cooperating, we've got this. Go tell Dennis the news.” Gary dropped his car keys into Logan's palm. “And I don't want to see you back here until you've found Ms. Jackson and put a ring on her finger.”

  Wednesday morning, Maya walked out of the Tahoe Basin Forest Service office into the bright sunshine. When Albert had arrived in Lake Tahoe late Sunday night, he'd taken one look at her and insisted on taking her to dinner. He hadn't let her leave the table until she'd polished off a salad and a cheeseburger. Although she'd initially protested, halfway through the meal she'd realized her boss—and friend—was right. She'd been starving.