by Bella Andre
"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 noted 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.
He opened the fridge and handed her a soda. Suddenly realizing how dry her mouth was, that she hadn't touched anything at the restaurant, she took a long drink from the can. And then she made the mistake of looking back at Logan, and it took superhuman strength to pull her eyes away from his fingers on the pop tab, his lips on the aluminum rim, his Adam's apple moving beneath his tanned, lightly stubbled skin.
She forced her attention back to his very impressive house. "I would have known you built this house the minute I saw your floors." She pointed to the tight-fitting inlays in the hardwood. "Most contractors won't do this kind of detail work. It isn't worth their time."
"Is your boyfriend a builder?"
Her eyes flew to his face. "No." She found herself stumbling over words, found herself wanting him to know. "I don't have a boyfriend."
Logan's answering smile knocked the wind out of her lungs and she spun away from him. She couldn't stand it when he looked at her like that, like he knew exactly what she wanted, because he wanted the very same thing.
"Good to know," he finally said. And then, "While we're here, are you sure McCurdy isn't going to insist that you rummage through my file cabinets? My bedside table, maybe?"
Great will was required to stave off the redness in her cheeks. "I've seen condoms before."
His voice was smooth and sexy as he hit her with "Even the supersized, ribbed-for-her-pleasure kind?"
Damn it. He was good.
She turned and walked out of the kitchen, keeping her reaction to herself. Because even though she knew he was just joking around, her crystal-clear memories of that afternoon six months ago--and how his big erection had pressed hard into her belly--told her he was only half kidding.
The workshop was dark and cool. She pulled out a Ziploc bag and a sterile glass jar.
"I'm surprised that thing hasn't given you a hernia yet."
She put the heavy messenger's bag down on the cement floor. "I like to be prepared."
Quickly and efficiently, she began to collect samples, using a baby wipe to clean away any petroleum on her hands before moving to collect a sample of fertilizer. Her face was as serious as it'd been at the hotshot station when she'd suspended him from duty. Just as he had then, he wanted to pull her against him and kiss the solemn expression off her face.
She looked up and caught him staring. "Stop looking at me like that."
He'd never wanted a woman as badly as this. "I wish I could," he said, his words more honest than he'd intended.
She lowered her head again to the bag of fertilizer. "I wish I didn't have to do this, Logan. I wish I didn't have to take these to David's lab for analysis."
"Stop blaming yourself, Maya. We'll figure this out."
She surprised the hell out of him by spinning around and saying "Could you stop being so fucking calm already?" Little white pellets fell out of her bag and scattered all around their feet. "Just stop being so goddamn self-sacrificing for one second!" She shook the half-full bag of fertilizer in her fury, and more tiny pellets skipped onto the ground.
"If these match the samples from the explosion you could be in serious trouble. You could go to jail for something you didn't do. If Robbie doesn't live, they'll call you a murderer. And my hand will be in it. My saying you didn't do it won't mean a damn if your supplies came from the same stores and the same lots."
He moved closer, covered her hands with his. "It's not going to come to that. And if it does, we'll find a way to fight it." He rubbed her palms lightly with his thumbs. "Together."
She stared at him like he'd lost his mind, her face awash with emotions. Lust was there, of course, it always was between them. But there was also hope. And fear.
"You're either the most optimistic person I've ever met, or the most delusional," she said, but already he could feel her relaxing moment by moment.
And the
n, just as he was about to pull her into his arms, she moved out of his grasp, backing into the bags of fertilizer.
"We'd better go."
God, how he wanted to make her face up to the fact that they belonged together, naked and sweating in his bed. But she wasn't the kind of woman a guy could push around. One wrong move and she'd back so far away he'd be lucky to catch a glimpse of her across a crowded room.
He followed her sweet ass in her tight-fitting borrowed jeans back out to his driveway. When they got in his truck, she scrunched up her nose.
"It still smells like we're riding behind that tour bus."
He frowned, thinking the same thing. "Might just be all the smoke in the air."
He started the engine and began to back out, when it suddenly felt like the bottom of his seat was on fire. And then it hit him: What they were smelling had nothing to do with the exhaust from a random tour bus.
Someone had sabotaged his truck.
He shut off the engine. "Get out of the truck, Maya."
"Why? What are you talking about?"
"I think there's a bomb under my seat."
She didn't ask any more questions, just unhooked her seat belt and reached for her bag just as his ass started to smoke.
He hooked one hand around her waist and her mouth opened with surprise as he dragged her out of her seat and through the driver's-side door. A faint hissing sound pricked his ears, and it was sheer instinct that had him picking her up off the ground and throwing her away from the truck.
Her body arced through the air, her hands moving to shield her face, her knees curled to protect her stomach and groin as she hit the ground.
Logan felt the force of the explosion a split second before he landed on top of her, covering every square inch of her head and back and legs and arms from the flying shrapnel.
Where am I? And why am I lying on the ground under someone? were the first thoughts in Maya's brain as she slowly came to. Her body ached in a hundred places. She felt bruised and battered all over.
And then she realized that Logan was covering her body with his own, his hard muscles a blissful blanket of safety. His chest rapidly rose and fell against her back as he worked to catch his breath.
Oh God, his truck had blown up. And they'd almost died.
She could feel the heat from the explosion all around them. She hadn't braced herself for hitting the gravel, and her cheek was pushed painfully into the sharp gray rocks, along with the rest of her. But it didn't matter how much it hurt.