Okay, it was. Um. Gabe straightened up from driving the last spike. The tent was no bigger than a coffin and she was going to share it with him. No way they were both going to fit. Maybe she could sleep outside. Hypothermia had nothing on sleeping next to a man who oozed virility. But she was already shivering, though earlier she could have sworn she’d never be cold again.
“Um, I think I’ll sleep outside.”
She heard him suck in an impatient breath, but couldn’t look at him.
“We can sleep with our heads toward the opening, can even leave it unzipped a bit if you want.”
He thought her claustrophobia made her hesitate. And she had to admire his patience. She didn’t realize he had the resources. He couldn’t understand—she wouldn’t admit—his size, his undiluted maleness had her heart hammering in her chest.
“It won’t be bad, Peyton. You’ll be asleep before you know it. And it’s going to be too cold out here.”
Come on, Peyton. You ran from a wildfire today, crawled through a cave. You can sleep next to a man you hardly know. She squared her shoulders and nodded, though he’d turned off the flashlight and couldn’t see her.
He took her arm, urging her into the tent. When she crawled inside, feet first, the nylon stretched over hard ground was like the bed of a five-star hotel.
Then Gabe crawled in and sucked all the air out of the tent. Her skin tingled with awareness as he tried to fit in beside her. She scooted toward the seam and still felt the press of him against her back. She held her breath, heard him clear his throat in obvious discomfort as he settled on his side also.
“This, ah, this isn’t going to work,” he said gruffly, his breath grazing her ear.
She couldn’t turn around to look, didn’t want to see how close he was, though his shoulder bumped hers as he tried to find a spot for his arm. “Um, what?”
“Maybe you could put your head on my arm. There doesn’t seem to be any other place for it.”
She lifted her head in surprise and he took that as agreement and slipped his arm beneath. She settled back down, at first hesitant to let the whole weight of her head rest on it. He grunted her name and she tried to relax. His arm was hard and warm and smoky. Just when she thought she was used to the smell, her senses had to come back in full force.
All of them. The change in position brought his chest against her and she wished for the extra layer of his fire shirt between them. His T-shirted chest felt naked and she cursed her fertile imagination.
He flipped her hair over her shoulder away from him and she immediately tensed.
“Sorry. It was tickling my nose.” His voice was so close, his words teasing the back of her neck. She tensed all over again.
“Oh.” She smoothed the ponytail against her throat so no stray hairs would bother him. Then she shifted her hips and bumped her bottom into his groin. Both of them went perfectly still. Then, as if not to draw attention to her movement, she eased her hips away infinitesimally.
“We both have to, ah, relax,” he murmured at last.
He placed a hand on her hip and she flinched. He shushed her and slid his arm about her waist, drawing her against his body, spooning her against him, careful to keep their lower bodies apart, which of course only made her focus on it. Had her little bump aroused him and he didn’t want her to realize it?
No, she was being ridiculous. She was filthy and sweating and still wearing her boots, for crying out loud. Hardly arousing.
No one had held her since Dan died. She squeezed her eyes shut at the memory of the intimacy they’d shared every night, even the night before he died, but her eyes were too dry for tears. Good thing, since she didn’t want Gabe to think she wasn’t tough enough.
His heart beat against her back, strong and sure. One arm over her body, the other under her head, almost made her forget the tent wall inches from her nose.
And made her remember with an alien longing other things that happened in the dark.
She’d forgotten how wonderful a man’s strong arms about her felt, how safe. The thought terrified her. She took awhile to relax against him.
“That’s more like it,” he said against her ear. “Good night, Peyton. You did real good today.”
Pride rose at his words, almost blocking out the awkwardness of their sleeping arrangement. She’d hung in, she’d proven—
Proven what? That she was as tough as the people she wrote about, as Dan? Not yet.
Gabe’s breathing evened out almost immediately, but as tired as she was, she couldn’t sleep. Her mind snapped from one thought to another, from the fire to the campers, from Gabe to Dan, back to Gabe. Always back to Gabe.
He wasn’t as much like Dan as she’d first thought. Though both men were heroic, Gabe’s confidence didn’t come at the expense of caution. His mistakes were quickly rectified. He hated to be questioned about his decisions, but never failed to answer her. He was pure hero material, decisive, tough, intelligent. Just the right combination for her story.
So why was this the first time she’d thought of her story in hours?
Chapter Six
Peyton woke alone, light glowing through the yellow nylon of the tent. Was it the fire coming up on them? She scrambled through the opening, pricking her palms on the burned grass poking through the flimsy floor of the tent. Where had Gabe gone? He hadn’t left her, had he?
She’d barely calmed herself when he walked out of a grove of trees the fire had burned under, blackening trunks and undergrowth, but not reaching branches. How he’d managed to find a clearing in the dark just added to the mystery of Gabe Cooper.
She had trouble untangling herself from the tent opening before finding her feet to stand and confront him.
“Where were you?”
“Went to see a man about a horse,” he said cheerily, raising her suspicions. He hadn’t used that tone before. “I have a signal on your phone. I told them where we are and that we’re okay.”
Relief sagged her shoulders. “Are they coming to get us?”
He shook his head and she was glad to see his face again, to be able to read his expressions.
“They can’t spare the manpower to rescue two healthy firefighters. We’ll be fine.” Okay, maybe she wasn’t as glad to see his face, since he seemed to pity her for her naïveté.
“Yes, but—” She hadn’t realized how much contact with civilization would raise her hopes. “I thought maybe you were too integral to be gone all day.”
He laughed, moving past her toward the tent, and her hope deflated.
“Nice try. Now you go talk to that man about that horse and I’ll pack up.”
Well, a little sleep did Gabe a world of good. Peyton changed her socks as he folded the tent and repacked it without seeming to realize what had gone on in there. Apparently the emotions awakened by sleeping in such confines didn’t torment him. Wouldn’t it figure. She was all twisted with what-ifs and why-nots, and he was whistling. Whistling.
Annoyed he had viewed last night as nothing more than a necessity, she snapped at him. “What are you so cheerful about?”
He didn’t blink at her tone. “Jen told me the fire burned past us while we slept. It’s all downhill from here.”
“But you said downhill was harder,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, but we’ve had a good night’s sleep.” He swung his pack onto his shoulder. “Everything looks better after that. Ready to move out?”
Was she ever. She couldn’t wait to get back to other people and her right mind, the one that didn’t wonder what might have happened last night if she’d turned around in his arms.
“How long do you think it will take us to get back to camp?” She hefted her own pack.
“We won’t have to spend the night in a tent again.”
Like that was a bad thing. Oops, where had that thought come from? So she had liked sleeping against his chest, with his arm across her. It made her—secure. Something she hadn’t thought to experience again.
&
nbsp; He made her feel something else, but she wasn’t quite ready to put a name to it. It was beyond desire, beyond tenderness, almost…trust.
How could she trust a man who could hurt her most? How could she let herself be vulnerable to him in any way? Because once she was open to him, it was only a short step to fall in love.
But that wouldn’t happen. The two of them were stuck in a life-and-death situation. It was simple. And once they got back to camp she’d head home and remind herself why she was writing these articles.
“How come it only took a little while to get to the Girl Scout camp and it’s taking so long to get back?”
“We sort of circled around behind the fire camp, adding a few miles to the return trip.” He squinted at the sky. “It’ll be hot today, since we’re hiking across the burned-out section with no shade, so we’ll have to pace ourselves.”
They headed down the hill, slipping and sliding on the brittle grass, every step stirring up black ash. Gabe crabbed sideways ahead of her, one arm raised toward her to catch her. She tried not to depend on him, but a touch of their gloved fingers now and then helped her keep her balance. At least physically.
She should have known better than to volunteer for this trip. She recognized Gabe Cooper for the dangerous man he was, not only in the work he did, but in his appeal to her. She’d thought he reminded her of Dan, but it was Gabe himself, his confidence, his strength.
Okay, his handsomeness. The virility that had her still feeling the heat from his body.
No, no, no, Peyton. He’s no good for you.
But he made her feel good about herself, in a way all the stories she’d written hadn’t, despite her best efforts.
She’d be damned if she gave a man that kind of power. Especially a man who could leave her alone again.
She’d suffered the loss of two people she loved more than anything. She wasn’t strong enough to go through that again.
The day warmed up quickly and their earlier progress slowed. More soot coated their already filthy skin, clung there, glued with sweat. Peyton licked her chapped lips, grimaced at the taste. She took out her water, sipped enough to clean off her lips.
“You hanging in?” he asked, his eyes dark with concern.
“Thirsty.”
“You can have some of my water.” He reached for his pack.
Her heart did a little trip at his generosity, but she couldn’t let him make the sacrifice. She shook her head. “I’ll deal.”
“Peyton,” he began, his tone chiding.
“If I need it, I’ll get it, all right?”
Gabe slowed, held a hand back to stop her.
She skidded behind him, scanned past him, pulse racing in anticipation. “What? What is it?”
“The wind is coming up.”
She felt it now, saw the blackened earth skittering along the ground toward them. A chill that had nothing to do with the breeze ran over her skin.
“What does that mean?” she asked through chapped lips, but already had a good idea.
“Any embers left behind could flare up, or the fire could start heading back this way.”
“There’s nothing for it to burn.” The shrill note of panic in her voice made her cringe.
“You saw yesterday how it can find something to feed on.” His face was set in a grim line, but he didn’t slow down.
“So what do we do?” He’d gotten them safely this far. She waited to hear his plan.
“We keep going till we can’t go anymore.”
Some plan. “That’s it?”
He grinned over at her, the defiant face-the-devil smile she’d seen the day before at the Girl Scout camp. “That’s it.”
“And then?”
“Then we’ll see.”
The plan did not sound promising. She had to distract herself. Her thoughts wandered back to last night, but that proved to be the wrong kind of distraction as she remembered the way his arm had tightened around her in sleep, the way his hips pressed against her bottom. The way his body had reacted to their proximity.
She shook the thought away. She’d get information from him for her story.
“So do you work for the Forest Service all year?”
“This isn’t an interview, is it?”
“You don’t give interviews,” she replied tartly. “Do you talk?”
“Am I talking to you, or a reporter?”
“Does there have to be a difference?”
“That’s a question,” he pointed out.
“You know?” She lifted her hand in exasperation, let it fall against her thigh with a slap. “I knew that. I can’t believe you won’t answer any questions. Why?”
“Another question.” But a smile quirked the corner of his mouth.
She picked up her pace till she was in front of him and could look back up at him. He swerved to go around her, but if he thought that would deter her, he had another think coming. “Come on, Cooper, what you do is amazing. People are fascinated by it.”
“I thought your story was about the job.”
“The job, and the people who do it.” She skidded, bumped her butt against the side of the mountain, but was on her feet again before he could turn to help her. “Will you just tell me if you’re a full-time Forest Service employee?”
“You’ll just keep asking questions.”
“That’s my job.” But she fought back a smile. How she had missed this since Dan died, the quick-witted exchanges, the low sexual hum beneath. She’d just have to watch out that she kept Gabe in focus and didn’t overlap Dan’s face over his in her article.
He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. “Nah. I don’t work for the Forest Service year round.”
“No?” There was a surprise, part that he answered, and part at the answer. “What do you do?”
“I’m an EMT.”
That only surprised her a little. Another high-risk, intense job. While she couldn’t imagine him sitting behind a desk during the winter, or flipping burgers, she couldn’t imagine him working in a one-on-one situation with real live people. He kept so much to himself. “That’s convenient to have those skills on this job. Where?”
“Albuquerque.”
A country apart from her home in Chicago. Not that it mattered. “So why don’t you work for the Forest Service all year? You’ve been a Hot Shot for a lot of years, right?”
He continued forward, eyes ahead. “Yeah. I’m not much for the indoors and I hate the Park Ranger hats, so I go home to Albuquerque.”
“And come back to the mountains every summer.”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m good at it.”
A slice of familiar envy went through her, but she battled it. “Are you good at being an EMT?”
“Yep.”
Like he was going to shock her by being modest. “Is there anything you aren’t good at?”
He looked at her then. “Conversation.”
She laughed as he passed her on his way down the mountain.
Gabe had always depended on his instincts. They’d never failed him. A good thing in his line of work but a bad thing now. He was leading Peyton into danger and he wasn’t sure how to avoid it.
They’d left the black a few miles back, in favor of easier terrain, gently sloping, grassy, with young trees. The barren black challenged them, without shade, with so much ash in the air and no water to wash it from their throats. He’d fooled himself into complacency with the knowledge that the fire burned past them last night, but now he regretted his decision.
Behind him, she was uneasy and the distraction made him irritable. Okay, he’d be honest and admit it wasn’t her uneasiness distracting him. It wasn’t that she was a reporter.
It was that she was a woman.
He’d gotten through the previous day by thinking of her as just another one of his crew, like Mike or Howard. That had mostly worked.
But in the tent last night, he’d been glad as hell she wasn�
�t one of the men. She’d been so soft against him once she relaxed, so female. And when he’d awakened to find his mouth pressed against the skin of her throat and her bottom cradled against his erection, well, any thoughts of her as one of the guys was gone for good.
The last time he’d let thoughts of a woman distract him on the fire line, he’d ended up in the hospital for three days. He didn’t want to land there again.
So he had to remind himself what he didn’t like about her and quit wondering what she looked like under all those clothes. Especially when he’d woken up with a hard-on pressed against her gorgeous butt.
He wasn’t lying; he stank at conversation, which was why he lived alone. But he wanted to keep Peyton’s mind off the lack of water and the long hike back.
“Jen says you’re a big-time reporter.”
His voice must have startled her, because she misstepped and skidded down the hill past him, her arms extended like a surfer’s. He grabbed the back of her shirt and jerked her upright. She stumbled, but found her feet beneath her.
“You okay?”
“Sure, great.” She rubbed the front of her throat where the collar had caught her.
“Trip?” he asked.
She scowled at him and snuffled back a giggle. “Yeah.”
“Want to sit down?”
The anxiety in his eyes calmed her down. “No, I’m okay. Can I take off my fire shirt now?” She lifted her ponytail off her face, having long since hooked her helmet to her pack.
He gauged the wind, the distance. He didn’t smell fire, but he didn’t depend on that abused sense anymore. “Yeah, I guess. Keep it ready, though. Don’t pack it away.”
He watched as she unbuttoned the shirt, waiting for a glimpse of the T-shirt she’d worn the other day.
Today’s T-shirt was pale green, and cut lower than the white one had been. Thinner fabric too, her lacy bra more pronounced, her nipples pressing against the fabric.
So the whole reporter conversation hadn’t helped much.
She tied the shirt around her waist and glanced at him. Busted. He turned abruptly and headed downhill.
Once they found surer footing as the ground flattened out, he repeated his question. “So, are you? A big-time reporter?”
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