by Bella Andre
"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 along. 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.
For two days, they'd hashed through the details of the Desolation Wilderness case, and by Tuesday evening, she'd finished writing up the report. Albert hadn't asked a lot of questions about Logan beyond the case. He didn't have to. Not when it was obvious where her heart lay.
"I'm staying in Lake Tahoe," she'd told him.
"Logan?" had been his response.
She'd had to laugh at herself. Clearly, love had been written all over her face. And then Albert had surprised her again. He'd felt confident that she was safe, so he was leaving town. And he'd made an appointment for her to meet with the superintendent of the Forest Service. Alone. This wasn't his case, he'd told her. And he wasn't going to take any of the credit.
William McCurdy was a very sharp man, his questions and comments concise and to the point. But she'd refused to leave his office until she was one hundred percent certain he supported Logan's innocence, even though the samples from his garage had been a match in the explosion by the housing development.
<
br /> "Of course he's not guilty," McCurdy had told her. "Unfortunately, based on the meager facts initially at hand, I had no choice but to suspend him until we'd conclusively ruled him out as a suspect."
Much to her surprise, at the end of their meeting, he'd offered her a job working directly for him. The ever-shrinking line between the city and the country was putting wildland firefighters' lives in greater peril than ever before as they worked to save not only forests but houses and homeowners, often getting caught in the middle. McCurdy needed someone to keep an eye on the urban interface.
She accepted without hesitation. Lake Tahoe was now her beautiful new home.
The lake was less than a quarter mile from the Forest Service headquarters, and she made a beeline for the beach, smiling at the news the superintendent had given her that the fire was officially under control. Smoke jumpers and extra hotshot crews had been called off. Amazingly, they'd found Jenny on the mountain. Alive. McCurdy didn't know anything else, but she'd call the hospital soon enough and get the rest of the details for her report.
She kicked her shoes off as she walked toward the clear blue water. The sky had lost its look of dark gloom, the clouds quickly shaking off the gray to return to their usual bleached-white glory. She was finally ready to take in the beauty all around her.
She listened to the water lapping up on the shore, watched a couple of toddlers giggle as they rolled in the sand, and then someone was saying her name and she turned around and saw Logan standing right behind her.
Her heart pounded like crazy, just like it had the first time she'd seen him six months earlier, standing in the doorway of the bar; just like it had five days ago when he'd pulled off his helmet after running up the mountain and she'd realized he was the man she was after; just like it had when they'd finally made love and she'd known love was exactly what she felt for him.
Deep, unending love.
She drank in the sight of him. He was so beautiful, so big and strong.
And he was alive.
But even though she was desperate to be alone with him, to tell him everything that was in her heart, naked and in his arms instead of standing in the middle of a public beach, she needed closure first.
"What happened to Jenny? Is she going to die?"
Logan's eyes were dark with regret. "Sam found her. She was badly burned, but still breathing. The doctors don't think she'll live without life support." He paused. "And she's pregnant."
"She told me she was pregnant when I was taped to the tree," Maya said, swallowing hard, vividly remembering the horrific scene. "She was going to tell everyone it was your baby."
"I should have guessed. I should have known what she was plotting."
"No one could have known," Maya said firmly. "She was a jealous woman who went over the edge. I wouldn't have picked her out of a crowd."
He moved closer. "Every time I think of you with her, I go a little crazy."
"I'm not going to say I wasn't scared, because I was." She smiled at him. "But I was never worried. Not for a single second. Because the best damn hotshot in the world was coming for me."
She didn't want to talk anymore, so she launched herself at him, knocking them both down into the sand. He pressed a row of kisses along her jawline.
"I'm glad you're still here," he whispered into her ear, sending shivers up her spine.
He rolled them over so that the warm sand was at her back and he was blocking the sunlight with his beautiful face. She wasn't confused anymore. All she wanted was Logan. Forever.
"I love you," she said, the words falling from her tongue so easily. And then they were kissing again, and she was whispering the same three all-important words between their kisses, wanting to tell him a hundred times, a thousand times that she loved him, to make up for her earlier reticence, her confusion.
"So many times, I wanted to tell you I loved you." She needed to explain everything to him, knowing that she could admit her weaknesses, that he would still love her. "I was so scared. I still am."
"No," he told her as he stroked her arms, her back, her hair. "You're the bravest woman I know. The strongest."
"I didn't want to love you. I didn't want to love any firefighter, ever again. I thought my mother was crazy sitting by the phone. Waiting. How could she think my father wouldn't come back? He was my hero. I thought he was invincible."
"He was."
"He wasn't, Logan. He died."
"And before that day came he loved you with everything he had. So did your brother."
The way he was looking at her, like she was the only woman he'd ever loved--like she was the only woman he would love for the rest of time--made her tremble with desire. And something so much deeper, so much stronger.
"I've always loved you, Maya, from the first moment I saw you, when you demanded a drink, then decided kissing me was better than getting drunk."
She stared at him, surprised by his revelation. "You couldn't have. I was a mess."
"You were beautiful. As soon as I touched you I knew you were mine."
It had been the same for her. "That day in the bar," she whispered, "you were all that stood between me and--"
"I know, sweetheart. You don't need to tell me."
"But I do," she insisted. "You were a flash of light in the darkness. The only person who could help me find my way out."
"You would have found your way without me, Maya. I'm the one who needed you. I was running. Just like you. Every day, I was afraid of losing control, afraid of what would happen if I did."
"I like it when you lose control," she teased.
He smiled and she pressed her fingertips against his beautiful lips.
"That's just it," he said softly, his words a sensuous caress. "I can lose control with you, Maya. You make everything right. Perfect."
She couldn't stand to keep her mouth off of him for another second, so she caught a handful of his T-shirt in her fist and pulled him closer, a repeat performance of their first kiss.
His grin was swift and then his mouth was on hers and his tongue was in her mouth, tasting her, branding her as no man ever had.
"Marry me," he said later that night when they were finally alone and she was cradled in his arms, and she whispered "Yes" to the only man on earth for whom she would have dared risk everything.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BEFORE PLUNGING wholeheartedly into writing romance, Bella Andre got a BA in economics at Stanford University, worked as a marketing director, and strutted hundreds of stages as a rock star. Bella now lives in Northern California with her husband, children, and dog, where she is currently working on the next novel in her Hotshots: Men of Fire series for Bantam Dell.
If you loved Wild Heat, stay tuned
for the next book in Bella's steamy
Hot Shots series ...
HOT AS SIN
BY BELLA ANDRE
Coming from Dell
THEY'RE LIVING LIFE TO THE EXTREME ... AND BURNING UP THE COLD MOUNTAIN NIGHTS
ONLY TOTAL desperation could reunite Dianna Kelley with Sam MacKenzie, the irresistible bad boy she walked out on ten years ago. But the fearless firefighter with awesome wilderness skills is the only one who can take her where she needs to go. It's a gamble--tracking down her endangered sister while keeping Sam and their undeniable attraction at arm's length. Not easy when they're trekking into a remote corner of the Rockies, where she's got to trust her former lover with her life.
Despite their past, Sam never could refuse a damsel in distress, especially one who has haunted his dreams for years. He'll help find her sister and get Dianna out of his system once and for all. But soon it's hard to tell whether the greatest threat is from the rushing rapids, the deadly enemy on their trail, or the passion that's sending them straight into the line of fire.
WILD HEAT
A Dell Book / May 2009
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York This is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright (c) 2009 by Bella Andre
Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.,
and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33845-1
www.bantamdell.com
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