Slow Burn (Smoke Jumpers) (4 page)

“Yeah.” She tucked the sheet beneath her arms and eyed him. “On my way into Strong. I came around a bend, and there it was. I drove right through it.”

“You remember what time that was?” Had there been another fire he hadn’t known about?

She shrugged. “Three or four o’clock. Exact time-stamp will be on the pictures.” She grinned at him. “Happy hour had already started at Ma’s when I got there about twenty minutes later.”

Christ.
Of course she’d taken pictures.

Her next words were the final nail in the coffin. “I’m sure I can use some of them in the photo spread.”

“You work for a magazine.” Shit just kept on coming, didn’t it? He needed to go, but he also needed to hear what she had to say. His fingers flew up the laces of his steel-toes, but no plan popped ready-made into his head.

“Catalogs mostly, but I’m freelance now. This piece on Strong’s volunteer fire department is for a magazine. Show the firefighters doing their thing in a historic firehouse that’s being restored.”

Jack was definitely going to kill him for getting involved with her.

“We need to talk about that brush fire.” He stood up, considering his options. He’d ask Ben to double-check with his team and verify that Evan really had been the first responder. Maybe someone else had put in an unofficial appearance, but something was off here and, until he figured out what, he needed her to stay put, so they could have that conversation. “When I get back.”

“Really.” Her eyes narrowed.

He’d seen that look of feminine outrage on Lily Cortez’s face. His brother’s fiancée didn’t take orders well, either. He knew he’d stepped in it. Again.

“Look, I appreciate the bed for a night, but now I’m out of here. I need to do my thing. I got some good quotes last night. I’ll talk to one or two of the firefighters down at your firehouse. Take a few more pictures. Then I’m hitting the road. All I need is the name of a good mechanic. My car was acting up on the way into town.”

“Wait for me,” he repeated. “I’ll hook you up with a mechanic, if that’s what you need, but first you have to talk to Ben Cortez, the local fire chief, and my brothers. Tell them about this brush fire you saw.”

“I can’t afford a motel,” she admitted.

He wanted to pull her toward him, stroke away the pink flush on her cheeks. He’d done things to be ashamed of. He doubted that this woman had.

“You saw my car?” she continued.

“I saw it.” It would have been damned hard to miss the cherry-red Corvette, and they both knew it. “It’s a real nice car. Fast, too, I’ll bet.”

“That car,” she said simply, “represents the sum total of my life savings. Beyond the change rolling around in the bottom of my purse, that car is all I’ve got. Whatever your fire chief needs to discuss, I need it to be quick.”

This he could fix. “So you need a place to stay.”

“Other than in my car? No. I need to take my pics and leave. It’s almost too bad,” she said, and she smiled her Mona Lisa smile. “There could be a whole lot to like about this Strong of yours.” That trick she had of looking up at him from the corners of her eyes was pure sex kitten. But there was something else—someone else—hiding behind those eyes.

He was suddenly sure of that much.

Playbook said kissing her would be a mistake. She’d be entitled to call a penalty, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He had to taste her, had to find out if she lived up to the promise of those mischievous eyes.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he warned, because giving her fair warning he was taking her up on her earlier offer was the right thing to do.

“That right?” she asked. The words were pure challenge, but she glanced over his shoulder, toward the door and the buzz of noise outside warning him he didn’t have much time left. He needed to go.

Still, he’d make this kiss his opening salvo in the battle they were apparently waging.

She didn’t say no. He gave her the time, and she stared up at him, impish challenge painted all over her lovely face. “Well,” she said, “I guess a guy’s got to do what a guy’s got to do. So you go off now and save us all from the fires. The incoming. Whatever.” She shrugged, and his T-shirt slid down her shoulder in a little tease that had his blood heating right up. That shirt always had been a favorite of his.

“I do need to go. But that’s not all I need.” The words coming out of his mouth didn’t belong to him. The words were smooth, the practiced lines of a player. He’d never been a player. Funny thing was, he meant them. And that was almost enough to send him running for the door.

She hummed, a small sound of doubt and feminine pleasure, and nodded. “Guess that makes two of us then, smoke jumper.”

So he wrapped an arm around her waist and swung her beneath him. Got her pressed right back against his mattress.

This time, it was arousal that pinkened her cheekbones, and when she turned her head, last night’s earrings kissed the line of her jaw the way he wanted to do. The silver sparkled and moved along her skin in short, teasing strokes.

“I’m going to touch you now,” he warned.

“Are you?” She tried to shift backward, the mattress halting her little retreat.

The soft cotton of his T-shirt slid farther down her shoulder when he hooked a thumb in the stretchy fabric and tugged. That white cotton coming down her tan shoulder undid him. He wanted to see the rest of her, but that would be too much, too soon. He didn’t want to scare her.

He wanted to taste her.

All of her.

Wanted to lay her down here on his bed and taste every secret she was hiding beneath his T-shirt. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said, and it was more delighted observation than statement. “Not now.”

She leaned her head back against his sheets, all tousled hair and sexpot smile, watching him with those curious eyes of hers. He wasn’t stopping her from escaping. Not really. If she wanted to get out from under him, she could take one little wiggle to her left, and she’d be free and clear.

“Not yet, but I will,” she disagreed, putting a hand on his arm. Her face said she wanted to ask him something, but he didn’t want to talk anymore. All he wanted was to taste.

Bracing a hand by the side of her face, he threaded his fingers through the teasing mass of hair and lowered his head, wrapping an arm beneath her to gather her gently up toward his body. Strong and firm, she felt even better than she looked. Stroking a thumb over the small of her back, he stole a moment to savor the heat and the softness of her through the fabric.

His lips against hers were a simple little tease, a gentle brush of his skin on hers. He’d meant to fire the opening salvo in this sweet game they were playing, but sensation rocketed through him with that first touch of his mouth to hers. Liquid pleasure burned through him, reducing him to a single, primal urge.

The taste of her was all sweet, hot summertime. No fleeting sensation, though, because, Christ, she packed a punch, the heat and taste of her nearly knocking him out.

He tore his mouth away from hers, rolled off the bed, and made for the door. Faye Duncan was even more trouble than he’d imagined—and that was saying something.

She made a sound behind him—outrage or protest, he couldn’t tell—but he was beyond caring. He opened the door.

Sure enough, when he looked back, she was scrambling off the bed. “Stay put,” he growled. “I’m jumping, and then I’ll be back to finish what we started.”

In case he was misreading the anticipatory look on her face, he made sure he still had her car keys tucked safely in his pocket. Then he let the door slam shut behind him and got the hell out of there.

T
he DC-3 waited out on the runway. Their pilot, Spotted Dick, had her gassed and ready to go, the bone-jarring rumble of the engines thundering through Evan in a familiar, exciting rhythm.
Time to go. Time to jump
. The hand crew had already loaded up the plane, moving the jump gear and equipment on board with ruthless efficiency. Men’s voices barked final orders and curses, and the spotter hauled himself in, ready to go.

The team would be airborne in ten.

The DC-3 could hold eighteen jumpers. Today, Donovan Brothers was fielding a team of eight. Spotted Dick, his ass parked in the pilot’s seat, was running through the start-up checks. That plane was Jack’s baby; he had rebuilt her, piece by piece. Evan’s brother cared for that ninety-five-foot wingspan like a lover, although that might be changing now that Jack had Lily Cortez heating up his life. The betting pool the boys had going was leaning toward a September wedding and a whole string of little Jacks and Lilys following shortly thereafter.

It was still hard to reconcile that image of domesticity with Jack, the bad boy who’d caroused with the best of them.

Ten jumps already this summer and hundreds during the years he’d spent working side by side with his brothers and the jump team, but the pure adrenaline rush of facing the plane on the tarmac, of knowing he was headed up and out—that never faded, never got old. He’d do this as long as he could, until his body gave out. Domestic bliss wasn’t in the cards for him.

He took the hangar at a dead run and reached for his gear, banging open the locker door. The place was already a beehive of mad activity. He was late to the party.

“Thought we were leaving your ass on the ground, soldier!” Zay hollered in greeting, and Evan flipped him the bird. Zay had fought his way across half of Asia and the Middle East, and there was no better man to jump with.

“Last one in buys the beer.” Mack, another former platoon mate, winked and then charged for the plane. Bastard redefined
early bird
and was all over that worm.

“I had shit to wrap up.” Which was true. “I can’t always drop and run.”

Beside him, Jack zipped his Nomex jacket closed, grabbed his chute, and strapped it on. “What the hell did you have to do?”

Evan ignored the jibe, concentrating for a long moment on yanking on his own Nomex and gearing up.

“That’s our boy.” Evan’s younger brother, Rio, chortled and finished his suit-up, turning to check Jack’s gear. “Silent as the grave. He gives us a heart attack because his ass isn’t the first one in the hangar, and now he’s holding out on the details. Was she that good, Evan?”

Shit
. All of Strong probably knew he’d brought a woman home with him last night. He loved his town, but sometimes he wished like hell folks knew when to keep their mouths shut. “She needed a place to sleep.” Yanking the zipper closed, he reached for his pack, fingers flying on the buckles. Outside, Mack climbed on board, high-fiving the spotter.

Jack whistled. “Chivalrous. He rescued a damsel in distress. There’s a lesson in that for us, Rio.”

Rio stepped away from Jack, turning so his brother could check his gear. “Lily would kick your ass,” he said cheerfully. “Then she’d come after us for letting you
get
so ass-deep in trouble rescuing other women.”

Jack laughed. “True enough.”

“Nothing happened,” Evan gritted out. “Swear to God, that’s all it was. A bed for the night.”

Jack nodded knowingly. “You slept on your side of the bed with this mystery woman, and she was all hands-off on her side. Right. Maybe you should think about investing in a sofa, because when Nonna hears about this, you’re going to have a whole lot of explaining to do.”

“Next time,” Rio added mock helpfully, “take sleeping beauty over to Nonna’s. Hell, bring her out to Lily and Jack’s, and dump her on their couch.”

“Fuck you.” Evan should have done one of those things, but Faye Duncan’s head had hit his chest, and his brain had turned right off. “You want to hear the interesting part?” Two more jumpers were already sprinting across the tarmac, Mack and the spotter reaching down to haul them up into the DC-3.

“He’s sharing details, Jack.” Rio raised an eyebrow. “He must have mistaken us for a bunch of girls.”

“Don’t tell me about your sex life,” Jack ordered. “Or lack thereof. Leave me out of it.”

“Spill,” Rio ordered. “Now, Evan.”

“You remember Mike Thomas, from our CFR team?” No way Jack had forgotten a fellow Marine. Mike had been right there whenever things had heated up for Crash, Fire, and Rescue. When his brother grunted an acknowledgment, Evan continued. “He up and got married when he went back to L.A.”

“Wouldn’t have thought he was the marrying kind.” Jack sounded thoughtful.

“It didn’t last. He got a divorce. Apparently . . .” Evan hesitated, because he still couldn’t believe the next part. “. . . his ex-wife was headed up here, to Strong. He was worried about her, so he called yesterday. Asked me to look her up and make sure things were okay.”

Rio whistled. “They get a divorce, and he wants to check up on her? Maybe the divorce was a bit premature.”

Rio hadn’t heard the regret in the other man’s voice. “Mike said the whole thing was his fault.”

“This doesn’t explain why the woman is in your cabin.”

No. It didn’t. Hell, there was no explaining his behavior, was there? “I went to Ma’s, and, sure enough, Faye was there.”

“Faye being Mike’s ex,” Rio observed cheerfully.

“Yeah.” Faye had looked up at him and fallen asleep against him. As if he was a nice guy. Safe. Someone she could count on. “She needed a place to stay, so I took her home with me.”

“She pretty?”

“She’s Mike’s ex.” She was more than pretty. She glowed with an excitement for living.

“She’s Mike’s
ex,
” Rio emphasized. “That means she’s not off-limits. Spill, Evan. If she was in Ma’s, you know I’ll go ask Mimi, because she knows everything that goes on in that bar of hers. If I were you, I’d be wanting to get my own version out there first.” He smiled evilly.

Yeah. He was royally fucked here. There was no explaining behavior so out of character. “So she’s pretty. And she was more than a little drunk. Hell, Rio. There’s no motel here in Strong. You know that as well as I do. What was I supposed to do? Stick her on Mimi’s office couch and walk away? Mike wanted to know she was doing okay, and waking up on a couch in a strange bar isn’t
okay
.” He knew that much about women.

“Let’s revisit, because I’m missing key details here. You put her in your bed,” Jack said wryly. “And then you left her there, and you slept on the floor? Or did you crawl right into bed beside her?”

His brothers looked back in the direction of the cabins tucked away on the far side of the airstrip, as if they expected to see an irate woman come flying right on out the door.

“I’m not sleeping on my own floor, especially not after yesterday’s fire.” That wasn’t right either. He ran a hand over his hair defensively. “I didn’t touch her.”
Except to put her in my T-shirt
. No way he could shake his memories of those sexy little panties. That black lace had been almost as pretty as the gentle curve of her stomach. God, he was a bastard, because now he wanted more memories, wanted to see more of Faye Duncan.

“And?” Rio stared at him expectantly. Yeah, he knew there was more to this story.

“And she’s still there right now, okay?”

“You told her about Mike’s call, right?” Jack had gotten himself engaged last month, and his Lily had taught him a few things about women, all right. No way would that man have asked that question six months ago. He’d have laughed, nudged Evan in the ribs, and gotten on with the day. “You want me to send Lily over there?”

“I didn’t tell Faye about Mike’s call.” He cleared his throat. “The opportunity didn’t come up.”

“You’d better.” Laughter filled Jack’s voice. “Woman might not like hearing that her ex hired her a babysitter.”

Rio whistled. “She’ll probably kick your ass.”

“Or cry.” Jack looked as if he’d take the ass-kicking any day.

Evan should have told Faye about Mike’s call. He knew that. He also knew he didn’t like the mental picture he had of Faye driving through a brush fire in that too-expensive car of hers.

He snapped the final buckle closed. Jack nodded, fingers flying as he checked out Evan’s work. He had Evan’s back. No one jumped with bad gear, not on this team. Not ever.

“I told you, she’s a favor. Mike Thomas asked me to look her up, make sure she was doing fine.”

“And is she, Evan?” Rio tossed him a gear bag. A quick check said all was in order there. Water and gloves. Fire shelter. All the necessities. “Is she fine?”

He’d stick with the facts. Like how she could have gotten hurt, badly, or even died. “She drove into Strong yesterday afternoon, right through that brush fire we got called out on. She said something that got me thinking, though. I didn’t see her—and she didn’t see me, but she claims she saw a first responder.”

When the call had come in, he’d thrown his truck into gear and raced down the road. Ground crew had spotted the first smoke, just a lick of a fire eating up the side of the highway right outside Strong. Not too big. Not yet. There was always the possibility of the wind shifting, though, of the fire finding itself a good supply of fuel and eating its way into something much bigger. While he loved to jump, he wasn’t an idiot. If he could put a fire out while it was still small, that’s what he’d do.

He didn’t have to put a plane up and parachute out into the middle of hell simply because that was when he really felt alive. As if he was doing something important. Sometimes the small stuff was important, too.

Jack’s hands tugged on the straps and buckles. “I’ll confirm with Ben that you were the first on the scene. Make sure someone else didn’t jump in and not say anything. We’ve had a lot of those little fires lately.”

“Yeah. Not like earlier this summer”—when a crazy stalker had done his best to burn up half the mountain to get at Jack’s woman—“but too many fires all the same.”

Rio looked over at him. “You want me to do a little investigating? Analyze the patterns?” Rio was their computer expert. There wasn’t too much he couldn’t make their software do.

Evan didn’t need software, however, to tell him what his gut was shrieking. Even if another firefighter had been first on the scene, the man should have stuck around—not hightailed it out of there.

Jack cursed. “We don’t need another arsonist out here.”

“What if our burn boy is internal?” Evan didn’t want to say the words out loud, but the pattern fit. Hell, the pattern was staring him in the face, giving him the fucking bird. “Lots of little fires, all called in. Plenty of action for every man based in Strong, plus enough overtime to put some cash in a man’s pocket.”

“Who would do that?” Rio asked. “If the arsonist is one of ours, who is he?”

Jack scrubbed a hand over his face. “Someone who doesn’t give a damn that I’ve only got half a fire department here. Word gets out that we can’t shut down an arsonist, finding funding isn’t going to get any easier. I’ve got a photographer coming on board.” Jack swore. “She’s taking pictures for a magazine piece about the firehouse and my plans for it. That article is supposed to be our calling card—a little hey-look-at-me when I go out and hit up potential donors.”

Sure wasn’t going to look good if the article mentioned unsolved arson. Plus, the truth was, none of them wanted Strong burning up. Slow, hot anger blew through Evan, mean and strong. He had Jack’s back on this. That went without saying. This fire department was Jack’s baby, his dream. He’d hunt down the son of a bitch setting fires. That also went without saying.

Rio looked over at Jack. “When’s that photographer due?”

Jack tossed him his gear bag. “Yesterday. Today. Whenever she gets around to coming. She’s freelance, so she’s not punching a clock.” He looked up at Evan. “Even you can’t shanghai her, Evan. She comes when she comes, and she does her thing. That’s non-negotiable.”

“Yeah. About that photographer . . .”

His brothers must have seen something on his face, because they stopped talking.

“Hell.” Rio whistled. “He’s already done something, Jack.”

Jack raised an eyebrow, and Evan could feel a dull flush heating up his face. “Yeah. I’d say he has. You lock the photographer up in your cabin with Mike’s ex?”

“Mike’s ex
is
the photographer.”

“Fuck.” Jack’s palm hit the closest locker. “We’d better have been joking about locking her in, Evan.”

“She can leave anytime she wants.” She simply wasn’t getting far on foot.

Rio pointed toward the door. “Our ride is about to leave, ladies. Argue later, and get your asses out there.”

“I took her car keys,” Evan admitted right before they cleared the door and their boots hit the tarmac.

Jack and Rio looked at each other, and then Jack groaned. “She’s going to kill you, Evan. You know that, right? You’d better hope you’re not coming back from this jump, because she’ll be waiting for you.”

Tucking his helmet under his arm, Evan ran flat-out for the plane, his brothers whooping and hollering beside him. Last man in bought the night’s beer, and it sure looked as if it was going to be Evan’s night to pony up. That was fine, too, because as soon as he was on board, the plane would hit the runway and then the air. The ground and his problems would all fall away.

If only it was that simple to leave Faye Duncan behind.

 

Jesus.
This fire business was better than porn. Yesterday, Hollis had waited until the flames really got going, eating up the side of the hill where he’d set his latest fire. He’d wanted to get a little excitement going on a slow Friday night, and the brush fire had been good stuff, although the lady in the red Corvette had given him a scare when she popped up out of nowhere. She’d forced him to put a temporary restraining order on his fire until she’d pulled out and he could fan the flames some more before he left and called it in.