Hot Pursuit
Lisa Childs
This firefighter is five-alarm hot!For Braden Zimmer, leading his team of Hotshot firefighters isn't just about being the best—it's about sensing when a fire is coming. And a scorcher is definitely on its way. Maybe it's from the dangerous arsonist who's targeted him. Or maybe it has something to do with the sexy little arson investigator who's been sent to protect Braden…Sam McRooney may be tiny and blonde but she doesn't mess around. Braden is in serious danger, and she's not about to jeopardize his life—even if he is hot enough to leave scorch marks on her libido. But with the arsonist growing bolder by the day, getting too close to this hunky Hotshot won't just get her burned…it could get her killed.
This firefighter is five-alarm hot!
For Braden Zimmer, leading his team of Hotshot firefighters isn’t just about being the best—it’s about sensing when a fire is coming. And a scorcher is definitely on its way. Maybe it’s from the dangerous arsonist who’s targeted him. Or maybe it has something to do with the sexy little arson investigator who’s been sent to protect Braden...
Sam McRooney may be tiny and blonde but she doesn’t mess around. Braden is in serious danger, and she’s not about to jeopardize his life—even if he is hot enough to leave scorch marks on her libido. But with the arsonist growing bolder by the day, getting too close to this hunky Hotshot won’t just get her burned...it could get her killed.
“For the first time I think I understand the arsonist...”
Sam’s brow furrowed as she stared up at Braden. “How?”
“Sometimes you have a compulsion to do something and you just can’t fight it...”
“You have a compulsion to set a fire?”
“I have a compulsion to do this...” He touched her—just his fingertips along her jaw. Her skin was so silky, just like her hair, which brushed across his hand. He tipped up her chin, and when he lowered his mouth to hers he felt a jolt.
Maybe she felt the jolt, too, because she gasped. And he deepened the kiss, dipping his tongue inside her mouth to taste her. She was sweet and sexy and hot as hell.
He felt the fire burning between them.
Then something flew through the open window, dropping onto the hardwood floor with a crash of breaking glass.
A Molotov cocktail.
Now there was a real fire burning in the house. And like his kissing Sam, it was quick to get out of control...
Dear Reader (#u4556d901-a3bf-5016-b039-666fa5a7ffe6),
I hope you’ve been enjoying reading my Hotshot Heroes series for Harlequin Blaze as much as I’ve been enjoying writing the books. I’ve had so much fun with the Hotshots’ camaraderie and with their resistance to falling in love. All of them have fallen but for one. Superintendent Braden Zimmer has the biggest reason for avoiding love. He’s already been burned—badly—with a horrible marriage that ended in divorce. And now he’s busy trying to track down the arsonist who’s been terrorizing his hometown and home base of Northern Lakes, Michigan.
Sexy arson investigator Sam McRooney might solve one problem. If she’s as good as her reputation, she’ll catch the firebug who has now started sending Braden threatening notes. Or she might make herself the arsonist’s next target... Braden wants to protect her. He also wants her—badly. But he has to resist, or risk being burned again. Please enjoy the exciting conclusion to this hot series!
Happy reading!
Lisa Childs
Hot Pursuit
Lisa Childs
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Ever since LISA CHILDS read her first romance novel (a Harlequin story, of course) at age eleven, all she wanted was to be a romance writer. With over forty novels published with Harlequin, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. Lisa loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook, through her website, lisachilds.com (http://www.lisachilds.com), or her snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435.
With great appreciation for Laura Barth, my amazing editor, who helped me so much with writing this series! Thank you for your wonderful insight and support!
Contents
Cover (#u3da54764-1f43-5a31-b6f2-b04c69f3f19a)
Back Cover Text (#u1477b991-4a45-5b23-87da-6f9677071428)
Introduction (#u3a1c23c2-c828-5ebb-8dc2-0dcab4e36df5)
Dear Reader (#u8fdabcbc-9bcc-5199-a84f-0652ba118934)
Title Page (#u3321ff34-6512-5824-8249-f4b21c0b5b22)
About the Author (#ucbc285db-fa41-5f5a-b2f5-ed29d0575cab)
Dedication (#u18e12075-d22b-55df-a2b0-5d2b5f93878d)
Chapter 1 (#u328c5f25-1236-5032-8d57-77b3c84e6965)
Chapter 2 (#u88d6850c-8919-5932-ba99-c67a642e9b64)
Chapter 3 (#u268debfe-d8df-5eab-88c4-cdafc3df3008)
Chapter 4 (#u8322b721-1b66-5343-934a-d590001e6bc7)
Chapter 5 (#u4291522d-c72d-5f86-9004-438620461e4b)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
1 (#u4556d901-a3bf-5016-b039-666fa5a7ffe6)
ANOTHER BIG FIRE was coming. Braden Zimmer didn’t see or smell the smoke yet. He didn’t hear the crackle and roar of the flames. But he felt it—not the heat; he felt the certainty and the dread and the foreboding.
A fire was coming.
Unless he could stop it...
Unless he could stop the arsonist...
For months Braden, the superintendent of the Huron Hotshots, an elite team of US Forest Service firefighters, had been trying to find the person responsible for setting fires in his home base of Northern Lakes, Michigan. But he was no closer to nailing a suspect than he’d been when the first fire was set six months ago.
He wasn’t giving up. He wouldn’t stop looking until he found the person responsible for the fires. But he could no longer argue he didn’t need help. Yet catching up an arson investigator from the US Forest Service who knew nothing about the case was going to take more time Braden didn’t have.
Not when he was so certain another fire would be set soon. It wasn’t just his instincts warning him about another blaze. It was the arsonist himself.
He glanced down at the note he’d found sitting on his desk in the Northern Lakes firehouse. There was no envelope. It hadn’t been mailed; it had been placed on the scratched surface of his old metal desk. The son of a bitch had walked right into the firehouse—into Braden’s office. Too bad they didn’t have security cameras in the firehouse. But they had never needed them; until the fires, there had never been much crime in Northern Lakes. The arsonist had been getting bolder and bolder with each fire, but this was ridiculous.
The action taunted Braden as much as the note itself:
YOU MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE. AND IT’S GOING TO COST YOU AND YOUR TEAM GRAVELY...
Since the fires were only set when his team was in Northern Lakes, he’d already figured out it was personal. He just hadn’t realized how personal—that he was the one the arsonist wanted to hurt the most.
Leaving the note where he’d found it, Braden pulled the office door shut behind him as he exited the room. This time he tested the knob, making sure it was locked. Few people locked their doors in Northern Lakes. Until the fires had started, it hadn’t been necessary. Nothing bad had ever happened here, as far back as Braden could remember, and he’d been born and raised in the northeastern Michigan town. He’d only left for college.
He headed down the hall toward the workout room. Like his office, the hallway walls were concrete blocks—the floors bare concrete, too. But in the workout room there was a wall of mirrors behind the equipment. Ignoring his reflection, he settled onto the weight bench and began to lift. Despite not having to wield a chain saw or ax anymore like his team, he liked to make sure he still could. He wouldn’t have their respect if he couldn’t physically do the job he asked them to do. At thirty-three, he was one of the youngest Hotshot superintendents, so it was important that he maintained authority over his team.
That wasn’t why he worked out now, though. He was trying to ease the frustration that had his stomach clenched into knots. Lifting the heavy bar up before lowering it nearly to his chest over and over again, he pushed himself—harder and harder. But instead of alleviating his tension, it elevated.
Some of his guys thought he just needed to get laid—that sex would ease his frustration. But Braden knew he needed to stop the arsonist. And he needed to do it soon.
Or that big fire would start...
Maybe it was already too late to stop it, since he could feel it coming. So far they’d been lucky. The Hotshots had been able to rescue everyone in harm’s way; they’d been able to put out every blaze without any serious injuries.
But the arsonist had been getting more and more dangerous. Eventually someone was going to get hurt or killed. If he believed the warning in the note, that someone was going to be him—or worse, a member of his team.
They weren’t just his workers or fellow firefighting Hotshots. They were his family. He couldn’t lose any of them.
* * *
SAM MCROONEY WALKED through the open garage door of the Northern Lakes firehouse. In the three-story cement-block building with its bright red metal roof, she could almost smell the testosterone. She’d grown up in a houseful of males, so she was accustomed to it. As an arson investigator for the US Forest Service, she was used to dealing with macho men. But Hotshots were another breed entirely—the macho-est of the macho. They were the firefighters who risked life and limb, battling the blaze on the front line.
“Hello?” she called out. Her voice echoed hollowly off the concrete floors and walls. She knew they weren’t out west fighting wildfires right now—not without their superintendent. And Zimmer was here; he’d called in the arsonist’s threat just over an hour ago. He knew she was coming. Was he avoiding her?
The firefighters weren’t out on a local call, either. The garage was full, an engine—the same bright yellow as the Hotshots uniforms—in every bay. And in the lot next to the firehouse, she’d parked beside a black US Forest Service pickup truck. Somebody had to be here. Or else why had the door been left open?
If they were that careless, they were lucky the arsonist had just left a note. He could have burned down the firehouse.
“Hello?” she called out again as she stepped farther inside the garage.
Instead of her voice, she heard the echo of a door slamming from somewhere above her. She quickly climbed the steps. At the top of the landing, she started down the wide hallway. The sound had come from up here; someone was in the building. Someone besides her.
Maybe the arsonist had returned to burn down the firehouse, after all. She reached for the weapon she was carrying in her purse since her gun belt was in her duffel bag along with her uniform. She usually wore the tan-and-green US Forest Service uniform, but as an arson investigator, she could dress in plainclothes, too. She withdrew the Glock and moved slowly down the hallway. Maybe she was overreacting, but she would rather be cautious than careless.
“Anyone here?” she called out.
Hinges creaked as a door opened; steam billowed into the hall. Then a man stepped out. Water dripped from his short dark hair and glistened on his broad shoulders and naked chest. He wore only a towel, cinched low on his lean hips. He lifted his hands, and the towel slipped a little lower.
“Are you holding me up?” he asked, and a slight grin curved his mouth.
She shook her head. “I’m with the US Forest Service.”
“Me, too,” he said. “You don’t need the gun.”
He obviously wasn’t armed. But she wasn’t convinced he wasn’t dangerous. He was making her heart race, her palms sweat. She tightened her grip on her weapon, but then slid it back into her purse.
He lowered his hands, and just as it had begun to slip free from his hips, he caught the towel and secured it.
Ignoring the flash of disappointment she felt, she explained her reason for pulling her gun, the strange feeling she’d had as she’d walked into the firehouse. “The big door was open, but nobody was around.”
“Nobody?” he asked.
“I didn’t know you were up here...” In the shower. Naked. But now that she knew, she could imagine it, could imagine him standing under the water, his impressive muscles rippling beneath the pulsating spray. “...until I heard the door.”
“That damn kid,” he muttered. “He should have been down there washing trucks.”
“I’m not here to meet with some kid,” she said. At least no Hotshot superintendent she’d ever met had been a kid. “I’m here to meet with Superintendent Zimmer.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m Braden Zimmer. I would have been downstairs, but I thought it was going to take longer for someone to get here from the chief’s office.”
It would have taken longer—had she not already been on her way north to investigate. “I was in the area,” she said. “You’re Zimmer?” He wasn’t a kid, but he was younger than most superintendents she’d met.
He nodded, and water droplets sprayed from his hair onto her face. “Yeah.” He reached out and, with the pad of his thumb, wiped the droplets from her cheek. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get you wet.”
She narrowed her eyes and studied his handsome face. As a female working in a still male-dominated field, she endured more than her share of sexual innuendo. But there was no flirtatious smile or teasing glint in his dark eyes. He had no idea there could have been a double entendre in his words. It was good he wasn’t a flirt. And that he had no idea how he—and his near nakedness—had affected her.
She fought to steady her pulse and cool her skin, which had heated even more from the touch of his hand. She’d also felt an unexpected tingling sensation. But that was silly.
She was around guys who looked like him all the time. Hell, she was around even younger, hotter guys. And while she appreciated their masculine beauty, she never reacted to it. And she sure as hell never let them get to her.
“I’m Sam McRooney,” she said as she extended her hand to him.
“McRooney?” he repeated as he closed his hand around hers.
The sensation jolted her again; it reminded her of when her brothers had tricked her into reaching for a piece of shock gum. As her fingers had closed around the foil-covered stick, an electrical charge would travel from the tips up her arm. Braden Zimmer was exactly like shock gum.
“Are you related to Mack McRooney?” he asked the inevitable question everyone asked when they heard her last name. Her father was a legend for all the years he’d been a smoke jumper and for all the smoke jumpers he’d trained and led.
She nodded. “He’s my dad.”
Braden cocked his head. “I thought he had all boys.”
“I have four brothers.” She wished she hadn’t been the only female. She’d spent her entire life having to prove she was as strong and capable as the boys.
“Maybe it’s because of your name,” Zimmer explained.
No. It was probably because her father never talked about her like he did her brothers. Like all of them, she’d started out as a firefighter. But she hadn’t been tall enough or strong enough to become a smoke jumper or a Hotshot. So she’d focused on fighting fires another way—at the source. She’d wanted to stop them from starting at all—by stopping arsonists. She’d worked hard, taking college courses in criminal investigations and psychology along with specialized arson programs. And it had paid off. At twenty-seven she was one of the top investigators with the US Forest Service.
Why didn’t her father brag about that?
“Is Sam short for Samantha?” Zimmer added.
She shook her head. “No.” She wished. But her father had named each of his kids for one of the men he’d trained and lost to a fire. Eventually some women had become smoke jumpers, too, stronger, taller women than her—but not until after Sam’s birth.
“You’re a long way from Washington,” Braden said.
He was probably referring to the state—where her father lived. But she wasn’t there anymore.
“Michigan’s not far from DC,” she said, which was where she lived now. But she felt like it was far away—like she was going someplace she’d never gone before. She tugged on her hand, which he still held, yet in a loose grasp, as if he’d forgotten he was holding it.
“Sorry,” he murmured. Then he glanced down at his bare chest. “I—I really should get dressed.”
She nodded. But she wasn’t certain she agreed. While a dressed Braden Zimmer would be less distracting, she enjoyed looking at him—looking at all those sculpted muscles.
“Yes,” she agreed. “You get dressed. I can look over the letter from the arsonist while you do.”
“It’s locked in my office. I’ll get it for you after I...” He pushed open the door to the locker room.
“Get dressed,” she finished for him and nodded again. But it would be a shame to cover up all that masculine perfection.
“Are you just picking it up for the arson investigator?” he asked.
She tensed, but not with attraction now. Chauvinists were never particularly appealing to her. Maybe that was why she hadn’t previously been attracted to any of the good-looking macho types she’d met, though they were often attracted to her. She always adopted a certain tone and attitude in order to fend them off. She didn’t need to fend off Braden Zimmer. But she needed to let him know she wouldn’t tolerate his chauvinism.
So she used that tone now, her voice going all icy, as she informed him, “I am the arson investigator.”
2 (#u4556d901-a3bf-5016-b039-666fa5a7ffe6)
AS HE STEPPED out of the locker room, Braden fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. He had dressed in a hurry. But it was already too late. He hadn’t just gotten caught with his pants down; he’d gotten caught with them off.
Not that he’d been doing anything wrong. He hadn’t been expecting anyone from the US Fire Service to show up so quickly. And he certainly hadn’t been expecting Sam McRooney.
Mack’s daughter. And she didn’t just work for the US Fire Service like her Hotshot, smoke jumper and ranger brothers, she was the arson investigator.
And he was a fool for not realizing it sooner.
Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who thought him foolish, either. The way she’d looked at him when she’d informed him who she was...
He shivered, and it wasn’t because his skin was still damp from the shower. She’d frozen him out.
He found her at the bottom of the stairs. She wasn’t alone. Stanley had returned from wherever he’d gone, and he’d brought that damn dog with him. Someone had dropped off the puppy at the firehouse a few months ago. Orphan Annie, as they’d named her, was probably part sheepdog and part mastiff; she was huge and hairy and—if Braden believed one of his Hotshots—heroic. She was also standing with her paws on the arson investigator’s slender shoulders. And the dog probably weighed more than the petite blonde.
“Stanley,” he admonished the kid. “Get Annie off Ms. McRooney.”
The curly-haired teenager tucked his fingers beneath the dog’s collar and pulled her down.
“Where were you earlier?” Braden asked the kid. “I asked you to watch the firehouse while I took a shower. But you took off and left it wide open.” Which probably also explained how the arsonist had waltzed right in earlier and left that note on his desk.
Stanley’s face flushed a bright red. “I’m sorry, Superintendent Zimmer. Annie ran off after a cat, and I had to catch her before she got hurt.”
“What about the cat?” the woman asked.
“Annie wouldn’t hurt anything or anyone,” Stanley defended the dog. “But she could’ve been hit by a car.”
Braden nodded. “Okay, I understand.” Occasionally he had to reprimand the kid—like when Stanley talked to reporters or ignored orders to drop a puppy at the humane society. But Braden usually wound up feeling worse than he made Stanley feel. “If you have to leave again, please close down the door, though. I will be in my office with Ms. McRooney—”
“Ms. McRooney?” Stanley interrupted. He probably recognized the last name. Her father had nearly gotten the boy’s foster brother to leave Northern Lakes.
“Sam,” she said.
Wanting to get the meeting back on track, Braden told the kid, “Sam and I will be in my office.”
She glanced at him, and those blue eyes were still cool. She must have only been giving Stanley permission to use her first name—not him.
Braden led the way—through the garage and down the hall, past the workout room to his office. He fumbled with the ring of keys clipped to his hip until he found the right one.
“Don’t often lock it?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I can see how the arsonist got in—”
He flinched.
And she added “—easily.”
He pushed open the door, but when she moved to pass through ahead of him, he caught her arm and stopped her. She glanced down at his hand on her arm, then looked up at his face. He shivered again at the coldness of her gaze.
“I am not a chauvinist,” he told her, his pride prickling that she obviously thought he was. “When I called the chief’s office, they told me it could take a while for an arson investigator to get here. That’s why I didn’t think you were the investigator.”
“When they called, I was closer to Northern Lakes than they thought I would be.”
He wanted to ask where she’d been. But he wanted to resolve their misunderstanding first. “And I know your dad,” he continued. “He always brags about his boys being Hotshots and smoke jumpers and rangers. So I thought you were a ranger.”
She flinched now. “I’m not a boy.”
There was no mistaking Sam McRooney for a man—not with her petite but curvy body. Her waist was tiny but her hips swelled into a tightly rounded derriere cradled in tight-fitting jeans. He’d never realized he was an ass man until now. Her silky blond hair was short, barely falling to the shoulders of her pale blue sweater, but the yellow locks framed a delicately featured face. She was quite beautiful.
“I know,” he assured her.
“Sometimes my dad forgets.”
Braden bet her father was the only man who made that mistake. But then he wondered if she meant her dad forgets she’s female or forgets about her entirely.
“I wish other people would forget I was female,” she admitted. “Too many question my ability to do my job merely because of my sex.”
Braden shook his head. “Sex has nothing to do with it.”
She arched a blond brow. “Really?”
“I can’t speak for anyone else,” he said. “But for me, sex doesn’t matter.”
Her lips curved into a wider smile, and a twinkle brightened her blue eyes. Then he realized what he’d said. And he hoped like hell none of his men had overheard it. They would all mercilessly tease him, especially Cody Mallehan and Wyatt Andrews. Those two Hotshots were always giving each other a hard time, and since his divorce, they’d been on a mission to lighten him up and get him laid.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “You’re trying to assure me you’re not a chauvinist.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I have two female crew members who work every bit as hard as the guys. They’ve earned my respect.”
“Why did they have to earn it?”
“Everyone does,” he said with a shrug. It had always been that way; he’d had to prove himself, too, or he wouldn’t have had the job he did. “You have to prove yourself, too.”
“Oh, I’ve done that,” she said. “The Brynn County wildfire... I caught the arsonist.”
He expelled a breath. “That was you?”
She nodded.
Maybe the chief had sent the right investigator. “That fire was a few years ago,” he said. “You look so young I didn’t realize you’ve been on the job that long.”
She emitted a shaky sigh, and he felt the sweet caress of it against his throat. They were still standing in the doorway—too close. “I thought you were too young, too,” she admitted with a sheepish smile.
“Too young?” Already married and divorced, he felt old—older than his thirty-three years. And after dealing with the threat of the arsonist, he felt even older.
“Too young to be a Hotshot superintendent,” she said. “I didn’t think you were Braden Zimmer when we met in the hallway.”
“Maybe I look younger in just a towel,” he said.
Her lips parted on a soft gasp, and her eyes darkened as her pupils dilated. Her skin flushed. Then she finally stepped away from him and settled into one of the chairs in front of his desk.
Was she embarrassed? He was the one who should have been embarrassed.
“Sorry about that,” he said as he dropped into the chair behind his desk.
“I know,” she said. “You didn’t expect me to show up as quickly as I had.”
“Where were you?” he asked.
“Already on my way here,” she said.
He cocked his head. Did she have a sixth sense, too? How had she known he was going to call? So far the US Forest Service had been letting him and the state police handle the arson investigation. “Why?”
“My dad is Mack McRooney,” she reminded him. “He respects you and also thinks highly of a Hotshot named Cody Mallehan. Mack’s concerned about all of you and asked me to look into the fires.”
“Mack tried to poach Cody from me,” Braden said with mock resentment. “Recruit him as a smoke jumper.”
She smiled. “The way he tells the story, he only lent you Cody, and you won’t give him back.”
Braden chuckled. “I could see how he might see it that way.” Since that was the way it had actually been.
“Lucky for you Mack doesn’t hold a grudge.”
“You call him Mack?” he asked. “To his face?” If he called either of his parents by their first names, Ben and Ramona would kick his butt even now.
She nodded. “He prefers it. My brothers and I have always called him Mack.”
He suspected she’d had an interesting upbringing. “And your mom allowed that?”
She shrugged. “She didn’t stick around to protest.”
And now he remembered hearing that Mack had raised his kids alone. But nobody had ever said if his wife had died. Apparently she’d just left, deserting her husband and her kids.
Sam had had a very interesting upbringing then. He wanted to ask her more. But she was pointing toward the note on his desk. “Is that it?”
Braden suppressed a groan. He’d rather talk about her than the arsonist. He already talked about the fire-starter entirely too much with his team. But he never got any closer to discovering who he was. Maybe Sam could actually help. She had caught the Brynn County arsonist, after all.
He touched the edge of the paper, but she reached across the desk and caught his wrist. “Don’t...”
He didn’t mind her touching him. In fact he kind of enjoyed it—enjoyed the sensation of her fingertips sliding over his skin. But it wasn’t necessary for her to stop him. She moved her hand from his. Then she stood up and moved around the desk until she stood behind him.
“You won’t find any fingerprints on it,” he said. “The state police didn’t find any on the notes he left for Avery Kincaid.”
“She’s the reporter,” Sam said. “The one who did the special feature on your assistant superintendent Dawson Hess.”
He nodded, and his head nearly bumped hers as she leaned over his shoulder. Her breath whispered across his cheek as she read, “‘You made a terrible mistake...’”
He felt her gaze on his face, as if she was speculating what that mistake might have been. He waited for her to ask. But instead she continued to read, “‘And it’s going to cost you—’”
The mistakes he’d made had already cost him.
“‘—and your team gravely...’”
He flinched. He didn’t care about himself as much as his team. It was his responsibility to make sure they were safe. Working fires like they did, they were in enough danger without a psychopath targeting them.
Her breath whistled between her teeth and brushed warmly across his ear. He nearly shivered at the sensation. He hadn’t been this close to a woman in quite a while—not since the drunk women who’d tried to tear off his clothes some months ago. That would teach him for letting Wyatt Andrews talk him into checking out some new club—one that had featured male exotic dancers on the night they’d gone. Braden had fended the women off then, but he suspected he wouldn’t fight Sam McRooney too hard if she had the inclination to undress him.
“Mack was right to be concerned,” she remarked.
Braden uttered a ragged sigh of resignation. She was Mack’s daughter. And Mack was a friend. Braden wouldn’t cross that line with her even if she wasn’t the US Forest Service arson investigator.
“You’re in danger,” she said.
“We already knew the arsonist was fixated on us,” Braden said. “The fires only happen when we’re in Northern Lakes. He’s gone after a couple of my men directly.”
“Cody Mallehan,” she said. “The arsonist cut his brake line and sabotaged a shower, making him slip. He got a concussion out of that.”
Braden added, “He went after Cody’s girlfriend, Serena Beaumont, too.”
“Her boardinghouse was burned down.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have worried about wasting time bringing Sam McRooney up to speed. She obviously knew quite a bit about the fires.
“Just like he burned down Avery Kincaid’s cottage,” she continued. “He’s targeting your superintendents and the women they’re seeing.”
Braden’s stomach clenched with dread. If Dawson had lost Avery or Cody had lost Serena...
He would have lost his men as well. They would have gone out of their minds if such amazing women had been taken from their lives.
“Are you seeing anyone?” she asked.
Braden turned his head, and his mouth nearly brushed across her cheek. Her eyes dilated, the pupils swallowing up the blue until it just rimmed the black. She jerked back.
“Why would you ask that?” He doubted she was interested in him. As beautiful as she was, she was probably already seeing someone.
“Because the arsonist appears to be targeting you now,” she pointed out.
He glanced down at the note. And he couldn’t argue with her.
“If you’re seeing anyone, she would be in danger, too.”
Because of the arsonist, Braden hadn’t had the time or the inclination to date anyone—despite how some members of his team had pushed him into socializing after his divorce. But apparently that was a good thing, because if he had gotten involved with anyone, he’d have only put the woman in danger.
“I just got divorced...” A year ago. It had been a year. The revelation stunned him. No wonder his men were pressuring him to get back out there. It had been a while. “So no, I’m not seeing anyone.”
“That’s good,” Sam said, and she looked away from him, as if unwilling to meet his gaze.
His heart rate accelerated. Was she interested? Not that anything could come of it...
But it was nice to know that women didn’t have to be drunk in order to find him attractive.
“Now we only have to worry about protecting you,” she continued.
“Protecting me?”
“Yes, you’re obviously the arsonist’s next target,” she said. Her brow furrowed slightly. “Or maybe you’ve been his ultimate target all along. So we need to make sure you have protection—around the clock.”
“Who?” Braden asked. “You? Are you going to protect me, Sam?”
He was just teasing. Even though she carried a gun, she was an arson investigator—not a bodyguard. He expected her to use that icy tone and remind him as much.
Instead she replied, simply and succinctly, “Yes.”
Maybe she meant well or she was only trying to please her father, but Braden couldn’t allow her to get that close to him. As she had just pointed out, any woman who got close to him would be risking her life.
3 (#u4556d901-a3bf-5016-b039-666fa5a7ffe6)
SAM INTENDED TO protect Braden Zimmer—by stopping the Northern Lakes arsonist. It wasn’t going to be easy, though. In fact it felt a lot like when her brothers had gotten a head start on her in a game of tag. It hadn’t mattered that they were older and stronger. Eventually she’d caught them, though—just like she’d catch the arsonist. And maybe it would be the same way. Her brothers had let her catch them. The arsonist wanted to be caught. She could see that in his notes. He wanted the notoriety, but he also wanted to be stopped—at least subconsciously. He probably wasn’t aware that his letters were a cry for help.
“I wish you would’ve called for help sooner,” she remarked as she walked across the charred ground in the Huron National Forest. On the other side of the dirt road on which Braden had parked the US Forest Service black pickup, the trees were vibrant with yellow, orange and red leaves. Where they stood, the sparse trees that remained were bare of leaves, their trunks as black as the ground beneath them.
Braden sighed. “I was working it alongside the state police. I thought we’d have caught him by now.”
“You were busy working other fires,” she reminded him. “This is all I do.” But she’d started out fighting fires, too, before she’d taken the special training to become an arson investigator.
He ran his hand through his thick brown hair. It had dried now and looked so soft Sam was tempted to touch it. But she curled her fingers into her palm.
“We still should have caught him by now,” Braden remarked.
“We’ll catch him soon,” she promised. She flipped through the photos on her tablet. She had pictures of every crime scene. “This is the place where it started.”
“Yes,” Braden replied, though she hadn’t asked a question. “The first fire was traced back to this spot.”
She glanced around, studying the blackened area. “He restarted it a few times since...”
Braden slid his hand around the nape of his neck and squeezed as if trying to relieve some tension. “More than a few—it’s like he’s determined for the forest to stay dead.”
“This area was already slated for a prescribed burn,” she deduced.
Braden’s dark eyes widened in surprise. Then he glanced at her tablet. “Were you told that? Is that in the records you have?”
She shook her head. Nobody had bothered writing it into the report. “I grew up in the middle of a national forest,” she said.
Her father had raised her and brothers in a US Forest Service cabin. The structure had been small—one bedroom for her dad and a loft in which she and her brothers had all slept on mattresses on the floor. But they had never spent much time inside; their home had been the forest itself. “Mack taught me about burns and breaks before I learned my ABCs.”
Braden’s mouth curved into a slight grin, drawing her attention and making her wonder what it might be like to kiss his lips. “Mack knows his stuff...”
And he’d taught his children well—all about the ways of getting burned. Professionally and personally.
She turned her attention back to the crime scene. Her only interest in Braden Zimmer was getting whatever information he had about the arsonist. Not how he looked in a towel, or how his hair might feel, how his mouth might taste...
She shook off the fanciful thoughts. Maybe she’d been working too much—trying too hard to prove herself. And for what? Even catching the Brynn County arsonist hadn’t been impressive enough for Mack to mention to his friends. And she doubted her brothers talked about her at all...
Once she found this arsonist she would reward herself with a mini-vacation. But for now she had a job to do—and a criminal to catch.
“The arsonist seems to know his stuff, too,” she said. “I don’t think he intended to do the damage he did with the first fire.” That was why he’d started it where one was already intended to happen. But how had he known that?
Braden snorted. “He nearly killed a bunch of Boy Scouts.” Then he shuddered. “And a few of my guys...”
“That was just because it was unseasonably dry and the fire took off,” she said. “I don’t think that had been his intention with the first one.”
“Do you have photos of the others?” he asked as he stepped closer behind her. Since he was so much taller than her, it was easy for him to look over her shoulder.
She could feel the heat of his body against her back and her butt. She forgot what he’d asked her.
He didn’t wait for her to remember. He reached over her shoulder and touched the screen of her tablet. His arm brushed against hers, then fleetingly grazed her breast as he scrolled through the photos.
She held her breath but studied the photos. A cottage, its once-light-teal vertical siding blackened. A couple of photos later, the cottage was nearly gone.
“The fire wasn’t bad the first time,” Braden said. “So he came back. He nearly killed Avery Kincaid.”
“He left threatening notes on her doorstep,” Sam said, moving her finger across the screen until a photo of the notes was displayed. Her finger brushed against Braden’s, and she felt that disturbing jolt again.
He slid his finger across the screen, flipping through more photos. “He’s inconsistent, though. He didn’t leave any notes for Serena,” he said, anger rumbling in his deep voice. “He just torched the house, nearly killing her and her boarders.”
She glanced up at his face, which was so close to hers. A muscle twitched along Braden’s tightly clenched jaw.
“Maybe with this first fire he didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” Braden said. “But that quickly changed.”
Sam couldn’t argue that—not when she saw the photos of the houses. There had been even less left of the boardinghouse than the cottage. And Sam had seen photos of Serena Beaumont’s historic home before the fire. It had been a huge, plantation-style estate that had served as a former stagecoach stop.
“He has done a lot of damage,” Sam agreed.
“He is targeting people,” Braden said, his voice rough with emotion. “My guys, their girlfriends...” He’d obviously taken it personally even before the arsonist left the threatening note.
Sam was beginning to wonder just how personal it was. Did the arsonist have a grudge against Braden Zimmer? Was it someone close to him? Someone maybe he trusted too much to suspect?
“Now he’s targeting you,” she reminded him.
“Good,” Braden said. “Better me than anyone else.”
She peered up at his handsome face. His square jaw, already dark with stubble, was rigid with determination. She wondered if he was just displaying macho bravado like her brothers always did. She was just looking at photos; Braden had seen the arsonist’s destruction firsthand. He’d helped fight those fires. How could he not be afraid?
Sam was afraid for him. She had to catch the arsonist before he struck again.
* * *
“WHAT’S HE DOING HERE?” Braden asked as he noted the state police car parked outside as he drove up to the firehouse. For once Stanley had listened. The overhead doors were down, and since Trooper Gingrich sat in his vehicle instead of Braden’s office, the other doors must have been locked as well.
“I called him,” Sam said from the passenger seat.
“You already know more than he does about the investigation,” Braden said.
Trooper Gingrich had been assigned to investigate the fires, but he hadn’t gotten any closer to discovering who was responsible than Braden had. Just how hard had he actually tried, though? They’d argued with each other more than they’d collaborated.
Braden should have asked the US Forest Service to take over the investigation months ago. Sam was certainly a lot better-looking than the bald-headed trooper who stepped out of his vehicle.
“I called him to protect you,” she said.
“I don’t need a bodyguard,” he said, though when he’d thought she was volunteering for the position, he had momentarily been tempted to accept. But risking her life for his was out of the question. If anything happened to her, he was sure Mack would kill him. And even though he’d just met her, Braden would be beside himself with guilt and regret.
“The arsonist proved he doesn’t make idle threats,” Sam said.
Braden was well aware of that. He’d almost lost Dawson Hess and Cody Mallehan when they’d gone into burning houses without wearing protective gear, to rescue the women they loved. Fortunately both Avery and Serena had survived. If anything had happened to them, it would have destroyed two of Braden’s best Hotshots. They loved those women so much. Braden thought he’d loved his ex-wife like that, but now he knew better—after witnessing real love. Ami had hurt his pride more than his heart when she’d left him for another man.
“You need to take his threat seriously,” Sam persisted.
“It’s not him I’m having trouble taking seriously,” he murmured as the trooper approached Braden’s pickup truck.
A breath hissed through Sam’s teeth.
He cursed. Now she’d be thinking again that he was a chauvinist. “I’m not talking about you,” he assured her as he pushed open the driver’s door and stepped out.
“Zimmer,” Trooper Gingrich greeted him coolly. Then he turned his attention to where Sam alighted from the passenger side. He stretched his hand out to her. “Ms. McRooney?”
She nodded and took his hand.
The trooper introduced himself as he held on to her. “I’m glad you gave me a call,” he said. “I would really like to discuss the investigation with you.”
She pulled her hand free of his grasp. “Of course. But first we need to get some more troopers patrolling Northern Lakes.”
Braden couldn’t argue against more patrols—not after receiving that threat. The arsonist was bound to set another fire. And Braden’s instincts—which had never failed him professionally—were warning it would be soon.
“Have you already pinpointed a suspect?” the trooper asked with a glance at Braden, who kept his attention on Sam.
The last rays of the setting sun played across her face, making her skin look even more golden and her blue eyes brighter. She was beautiful—with delicate features. She must have resembled her mother because she looked nothing like her father. No wonder Mack hadn’t mentioned having a daughter; he’d probably been trying to protect her from all the rabble-rousing firefighters he knew.
She shook her head, and that silky blond hair skimmed her jaw. “Not yet,” she conceded. “But earlier he dropped off a threat to the firehouse. And if he’s following the same MO that he did with Avery Kincaid, then he’s going to act again—soon.”
She was right. If the arsonist followed the same pattern he had with Avery, then he wouldn’t wait for Braden to heed his warning. He was going to strike at any moment.
Braden wasn’t afraid, though. He was anxious. He wanted the arsonist to make a move so they’d have an opportunity to catch him in the act.
“Of course he’s going to start another fire,” the trooper agreed. “Zimmer’s team is back in town. There’s a fire every time they’re here.”
Braden flinched. “Not every time,” he called Gingrich out on his exaggeration.
“Maybe I should have said the fires only happen when his team is in town then,” the trooper amended.
Braden heard the insinuation.
Sam must have heard it, too, because her heavily lashed eyes narrowed. “That’s why you need extra troopers in the area,” she said. “Superintendent Zimmer and his team are in danger.”
The trooper shot Braden a resentful glare. He probably hated that Braden had called in the threat to the US Forest Service rather than the state police this time. “Are they in danger?” the trooper asked. “Or are they the danger?”
“What the hell are you implying?” Braden asked. He closed the distance between him and the trooper and stared down into the shorter man’s flushed face.
“I’m not implying anything,” the trooper said. “I’m only saying what everyone else in town has been saying...”
Dread tightened his stomach into knots. “And what’s that?” Braden demanded to know.
“That this town is a hell of a lot safer when you and your team are gone,” Gingrich said.
Since the fires had only happened when the Hotshots were in Northern Lakes, Braden found it hard to argue that point. But he didn’t think that was all Gingrich was saying.
“You called us the danger,” he pointed out. “We’re not the ones setting fires.”
The trooper raised his brow so high it disappeared beneath the brim of his hat, which he wore low, probably so Sam wouldn’t see he’d already lost his hair. And he was only Braden’s age.
In fact, they’d gone to school together. But they’d always been more rivals than friends—competing for the captain position for every team they’d played on together. Marty hadn’t taken it well when he’d lost to Braden—which had happened a lot.
Braden had foolishly thought since they were adults now, they would be able to work together to find the arsonist. He should have known better, known Marty would argue everything.
“Are you accusing me of something?” he asked.
“No accusation,” Marty said. “Just a logical conclusion. If the fires are only set when you and your team are in town, it stands to reason someone on your team is setting the fires.”
It had been a long day—so long Braden’s usually tight control slipped. Anger heated his blood and had it pumping fast and hard in his veins; he could hear the rush inside his head.
“Don’t you dare,” he warned the trooper. “Don’t you damn well dare accuse one of my team members of setting fires—not after all the times they’ve risked their lives putting them out!”
“They’re just like you,” Gingrich said with a derisive snort. “Always playing the hero. Maybe one of them—” he stared hard up at Braden, making it clear which one he thought “—is making sure he has the opportunity to act like a hero.”
A curse slipped through Braden’s lips as his temper snapped entirely. And he reached for the trooper with one hand while he pulled his other one back and fisted it. Before he could take a swing at the guy’s smug face, his elbow struck something else—someone who’d come up behind him.
And he cursed again. Sam pushed herself between him and Gingrich, shoving Braden back. “Calm down,” she yelled. And he noticed the red mark on her cheek.
He’d been worried about the wrong person hurting her. He’d thought the arsonist would, but Braden was the one who’d actually injured her. He reached for her face, but she flinched and stepped back.
What the hell had he done?
4 (#u4556d901-a3bf-5016-b039-666fa5a7ffe6)
“YOU NEED TO press charges,” the trooper told Sam.
She hated being told what to do, which was another reason she never got involved with any of the alpha males she encountered in her profession. They were all too damn bossy. And hot-tempered—like Braden Zimmer.
Sure, Gingrich had been goading him. But the trooper wasn’t wrong to question the involvement of one of the Hotshots. She’d noticed, too, that the fires occurred only when they were in Northern Lakes. When they were gone, nothing happened. She doubted that was just a coincidence—but was it because they were behind it? Or because they were being targeted?
“Press charges? For an accident?” she scoffed, shaking her head. Her cheek throbbed.
But she could tell she didn’t feel as bad as Braden did. He stared at her solemnly from across the tavern. The Filling Station was just around the corner from the firehouse. It was a blue-collar bar with peanuts strewn across the floor. Braden had already apologized—profusely—and had offered to go into the firehouse to get an ice pack for her.
Trooper Gingrich had wanted to take her to the state police post so she could press charges. She’d assured them both that she was fine. Then Braden had suggested coming here—for that ice pack.
Gingrich had insisted on coming along, and he’d been so obnoxious Sam had worried he’d provoke Braden into taking another swing. So she’d told Braden to let her talk to the trooper alone. He’d reluctantly left her—to join a few guys in a back booth near the pool tables. But just moments later, a confused waitress had brought her an ice pack.
She knew who had ordered it for her. Gingrich hadn’t even offered to buy her a drink. But that was good. She didn’t want a blowhard like him interested in her.
“I’m not the one Braden wanted to hit,” she said.
“He’s a hothead.”
She would have agreed after how she’d seen him act just moments ago. But his anger had quickly evaporated. So she suspected he wasn’t really as quick-tempered as he’d briefly appeared. He was just a man who had been under a lot of pressure for a long time, and Trooper Gingrich had purposely added to Braden’s stress until it was too much for anyone to endure.
“I’ve never heard that about him,” she said. Her father had told her quite a bit about Braden Zimmer when he’d asked if she was investigating the Northern Lakes fires. Of course Mack had no problem singing the praises of the men he’d worked with; it was her praises he never sang.
“I’ve known him a long time,” Gingrich said, his puffy face flushing with anger. “We went to school together.”
She narrowed her eyes to study the trooper’s face, but the skin pulled on her swollen cheek and she flinched.
It was her fault she’d gotten hit. She knew better than to get between two angry alpha males. And if she was ever tempted to forget, she could just look at some of the scars she’d gotten for her efforts to stop her brothers from fighting. Though, like Braden, her brothers had always felt bad when she’d gotten hurt.
Gingrich didn’t feel bad—despite his goading—that she’d gotten hurt. In fact he’d been smirking right afterward, and now that smirk curled his thin lips again. “I know more about Braden Zimmer than he knows himself...”
“Really?” she prompted him. “What do you know?”
His face flushed a deeper red, and he shook his head. “Nothing to do with the fires...”
“You pretty much accused him of setting them,” she said. As a former firefighter herself, she knew how angry that would make her. Maybe she shouldn’t have tried to stop that fight. But if Braden had struck Gingrich, she had no doubt the trooper would have immediately arrested him for assaulting an officer.
Gingrich snorted. “He’s the most obvious suspect.”
She tilted her head and considered it. She had already begun to suspect that a Huron Hotshot could be the arsonist. But the superintendent? Risking the lives of the team he’d seemed so passionate about protecting?
Not that she hadn’t been lied to and misled before...
“Come on, you see it, too,” Gingrich said patronizingly, as if she would be an idiot if she didn’t.
“But what evidence do you have?” she asked, because she had seen nothing in the state police file. There had been photos of the crime scenes but no evidence that pointed to a suspect—any suspect.
“Do you have eyewitnesses who saw him in the area right before any of the fires?” she asked. She knew he’d been in the vicinity afterward because he and his team had put them out. “Do you have copies of any receipts you can trace back to him for the purchase of gasoline or hay bales?”
The trooper’s face reddened an even darker shade. “If I had anything like that, I would have arrested him by now,” he said, his voice still condescending.
“So you have no evidence,” she concluded. “What exactly do you have against Braden Zimmer?”
“I—I don’t—It’s not like that,” the guy stammered. “He’s just...”
Better than him. Taller. More handsome. Smarter. Stronger. She knew guys like Gingrich—guys who’d hated her brothers just because of who they were. Of how effortlessly they’d been good at everything.
While she’d never hated her brothers, she had resented them from time to time. She’d definitely resented not being as strong as they were. Because of her small size, she had barely made the requirements to be a US Forest Service firefighter. She hadn’t been big enough to make a Hotshot team or to become a smoke jumper. She wasn’t physically capable of packing one hundred and ten pounds for ninety minutes—that would have been like carrying her own body weight. But her small stature wasn’t her brothers’ fault; she couldn’t blame them.
Just how much did the trooper resent Braden? Enough to try to get back at him by starting those fires? She leaned a little closer and studied Martin Gingrich’s flushed face. In addition to the arson-investigation courses, she had a degree in criminal psychology. She’d also attended seminars on FBI profiling at Quantico.
“Go on,” she prodded. “Braden Zimmer is what?”
Gingrich leaned back and forced a nervous-sounding chuckle. “A psychic—if you believe him. He claims he’s got some sixth sense about when a fire’s coming.” He snorted again, derisively.
Sam couldn’t be so dismissive. Her father had that sixth sense—about people. He could read them so well. He’d once told her she’d inherited that ability from him—when she’d caught the Brynn County arsonist—but she wasn’t as good as he was. She had made her share of mistakes over the years.
Like Chad. And Blake...
She flinched again, but not because of the pain in her cheek. Chad had reinforced her determination to stay away from alpha males. And Blake had proven beta males could be jerks, too. She wouldn’t make those mistakes again. It was smarter to focus on her job—and at the moment that job was catching the Northern Lakes arsonist.
“I take it you’re a nonbeliever?” she remarked.
“I don’t believe in that psychic hocus-pocus stuff,” he said. “I’ve been to the freak show at the carnival and wasted five bucks on some chain-smoking fortune-teller predicting my future. It never happened. That stuff’s not real.”
She tilted her head. She could have given him examples from Mack’s experiences. But she didn’t have to. “So has Braden been right? Did the fires he sensed actually happen?”
He jerked his chin, which was barely a point in his round face, up and down in a quick nod. “Yeah, but the only reasonable explanation is that he’s the one setting the fires.”
She understood his logic. Of course someone could predict what would happen if he personally made certain it did. Could Braden Zimmer be setting fire to the territory he’d been assigned to protect? Could he be the one putting his own team in danger?
She glanced across the room and met his gaze. He hadn’t stopped staring at her since he’d sat down at the booth. The men he’d joined kept glancing her way, too—probably wondering what was drawing his attention.
What had? Was he concerned because he’d unintentionally struck her? Or because he was worried she might discover who was really responsible for setting the fires in Northern Lakes?
* * *
BRADEN’S STOMACH TWISTED into knots of apprehension. He’d been such an idiot to let Marty get to him. Not only had he hurt Sam, but he’d also left her alone with that blowhard. Gingrich thought the worst of Braden and his team and was determined to make certain everyone else did, too. Unfortunately he might succeed in convincing Sam McRooney.
With the way she was staring across the room at him—speculatively—she might have been considering what the trooper was saying. She might have begun to wonder if it was possible Braden or one of his team members was responsible for setting the fires.
She wasn’t the only one being forced to listen to an idiot, though.
“You’ve been out of the dating pool a long time,” Cody Mallehan was saying to him. “So let me explain to you how this works. When you think a woman you see in a bar is hot, you’re supposed to send her a drink—not an ice pack.”
A grin tugged at Braden’s mouth. Cody was an idiot only because he got so much enjoyment out of giving everyone else a hard time. Other than that he was one of the best Hotshots Braden had on his team. He would trust the younger man with his life.
But he’d never previously trusted his dating advice, despite Cody’s womanizing reputation—or more accurately, because of it. Things were different now, though; Cody had recently fallen, and fallen hard, for a sweet woman. So Braden might have been tempted to listen if he had any intention of dating Sam McRooney. But he had no such intention—with her or anyone else.
“I’m not trying to pick her up,” Braden said. “I accidentally hit her earlier.”
A breath whistled out between Cody’s teeth. “Man, you really have been out of the dating pool a long time—since the caveman times—if you think you can club a woman and drag her off. Sounds like something Ethan would do.”
Ethan Sommerly glanced across the table at Cody and glared. With his bushy black beard and long hair, he did look a bit like a caveman.
Owen James followed Braden’s gaze. “Her left cheek is swollen,” the EMT said, assessing her condition even from across the room. He was a Hotshot, but when they were back at home base in Northern Lakes, he was also a paramedic.
Braden’s stomach lurched with guilt and regret. “I accidentally caught her with my elbow.”
“She’s not pressing charges, is she?” Trent Miles asked. “Why’s she talking to Gingrich?” He grimaced with disgust. During the off-season, Trent worked out of a firehouse in Detroit. He worked closely with law enforcement in the city since a lot of the fires set there were arson, so he had a healthy respect for officers. Real officers. He’d made it no secret he didn’t consider Marty a real officer.
“She’s not going to press charges.” At least that was what she’d told him. Marty might have convinced her otherwise, though. “She’s talking to him about the arson investigation.”
“Why?” Cody asked. “If she knows something, she should be talking to you.” He’d apparently assumed Sam was a witness with information. “He has no business investigating the fires. He’s gotten nowhere.”
“Neither have I,” Braden admitted. “That’s why I called the chief’s office. The woman talking to Gingrich is an arson investigator with the US Forest Service.”
Cody leaned back in the booth and uttered a ragged sigh. “Good. We should have already stopped this son of a bitch...” Then his girlfriend wouldn’t have recently lost her home and very nearly her life.
“Yes, we should have,” Braden agreed. Guilt overwhelmed him again. He pushed the beer Owen had poured for him across the table. He hadn’t taken a sip and had no interest in it. His stomach already felt queasy enough.
“Is that why you called the meeting for tomorrow?” Trent asked. They’d been back only a couple of days from fighting a blaze out west. Usually they had more downtime than that between assignments, so he’d been smart to conclude Braden had called the team together for another reason.
Braden nodded. “I was going to wait until the meeting tomorrow to share this. But...”
“What?” Dawson Hess asked. The assistant superintendent had just returned to the booth from the pool game he’d been shooting at the tables nearby with Braden’s other assistant superintendent, Wyatt Andrews.
Braden dragged in a deep breath before admitting, “I received a note...”
Dawson tensed. “From the arsonist?”
Braden nodded. “Left on my desk in the firehouse...”
Cody cursed.
“You need to be careful,” Wyatt said, his blue eyes darkening with concern.
“That’s why I called the US Forest Service,” Braden told his assistants. He probably should have called Wyatt and Dawson when he got the note, but Wyatt was planning a wedding, and Dawson had taken a quick trip to New York to see his girlfriend. Braden pointed across the room. “And why she’s here. Her name’s Sam McRooney.”
“Any relation to Mack?” Cody asked.
“Daughter,” Braden confirmed.
“Mack never mentioned having a daughter.”
“Nobody mentions their daughters to you,” Wyatt razzed him, then turned back to Braden. “I don’t get why she’s talking to Gingrich, though. You know way more about the arson investigation than he does.”
“She called him in to protect me,” Braden said. He glanced across the room again. He would have preferred her protecting him; then she’d have to stick close—real close. But then she would be in danger, too. It was better she—and everyone else—stay away from him now that he’d become the arsonist’s next target.
Owen snorted. “Who’s going to protect you from him? That guy has always hated you.”
Thinking of Gingrich’s accusation, Braden’s temper flared again. “Marty’s the one who needed protecting from me,” he admitted. “I was about to hit him when I clipped Sam with my elbow.”
Owen nodded. “Of course... Too bad she got in the way.” He was a little younger than Braden and Gingrich, but he’d grown up in Northern Lakes, too. He knew the trooper too well.
Trent sighed. “Good thing she stopped you, or we’d be bailing you out of jail right now.”
“At least he would’ve been safe in there,” Dawson remarked. “Sam McRooney was right to call in protection for you. She just called the wrong person.”
“I don’t need a state trooper,” Braden said. The last thing he wanted was anyone following him around; it was bad enough when Stanley brought Annie to the firehouse and she shadowed his every move.
“No, you don’t,” Owen agreed. “Not when you’ve got us. We’ll each take a shift.”
Braden shook his head. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“No,” Ethan Sommerly agreed. The Hotshot was the biggest loner on the team. He spent most of his time as a ranger in the middle of a national forest in the Upper Peninsula. Of course he would understand. But then he added, “You need a bodyguard.”
Wyatt nodded in agreement. “If you don’t want one of us, I can see if Matt can get time off from the assisted-living center to protect you.”
Matt was Wyatt’s soon to be brother-in-law. The kid had wanted to be a Hotshot. But when he, like hundreds of other applicants, hadn’t gotten the open position as a US Forest Service firefighter, he’d decided to go back to school to become a registered nurse.
“I don’t need a bodyguard, either,” Braden said. He’d argued enough for the day, so he stood up. “What I need is a good night’s sleep before the meeting tomorrow.” He worried that might be hard, though he wasn’t sure what would keep him awake longer—that note, or his guilt over accidentally hitting Sam.
Or would it be other thoughts of Sam that kept him up? She was damn beautiful.
“Braden, you can’t just take off,” Cody protested as he started away from the booth. “You never know when or how he might strike at you.”
“I’ll be vigilant,” he promised his guys. “He won’t sneak up on me.”
From the skepticism on their faces, it was clear he hadn’t convinced them. So he added an order, “Nobody follow me. I’m perfectly safe.”
He wasn’t. And they knew it. But being around him would put them in danger, too. They’d already been through enough of that. He’d nearly lost Wyatt, Dawson and Cody in fires.
And Owen...
He glanced at the jagged scar on the man’s cheek. He’d nearly lost the Marine on his last deployment. They all risked their lives enough doing their jobs. He wouldn’t ask them to put themselves further at risk because of him. He glanced over at Sam McRooney. And he certainly wouldn’t put her in danger, either.
“I can take care of myself,” he assured them, and headed out of the bar before they could argue.
He appreciated and understood their concern, though. As he stepped outside, he felt an odd sensation—like he was being watched. None of them had followed him from the bar, so it had to be someone who was already outside—maybe even waiting for him? He peered around in the dark but couldn’t see anyone lurking in the shadows beyond the small circles the street lamps cast on the sidewalk.
That didn’t matter; he didn’t need to see the person to know he was there.
Braden could’ve gone back inside, but he didn’t. That wasn’t how he wanted to live his life—in fear. He felt the shadow following as he walked the two blocks to the small home he’d rented because of its close vicinity to the firehouse. He’d had a bigger house before the divorce—one farther from town with a big yard and a lot of bedrooms. He’d intended to raise his family there.
But maybe it was good that had never happened. Because then they’d be in danger, too. Fortunately his parents had moved away from Northern Lakes a couple of years ago, to be closer to his sister and her kids. They’d promised when he gave them grandkids, they’d come home. But they were safer in Arizona—even with wildfires burning nearby. At least nature had caused those—a lightning strike—not a maniac with a match.
Whoever was following seemed to tail Braden all the way home. The skin between his shoulder blades tingled at the feeling of being watched. It hadn’t made him walk any faster, though. He wasn’t afraid. He was pissed. So pissed he stomped across his porch with such force his front door creaked open before he even reached for the knob. He must’ve left it unlocked. But he knew he’d shut it tightly; he always did.
Someone had been inside his house; undoubtedly the same person who’d been in his office earlier. He wished momentarily for the gun he kept behind the seat of his US Forest Service pickup. The shotgun was for protection from bears, though. Not people.
But while Braden suspected someone had been inside his house, he doubted he was still there. He was behind Braden—watching him—probably for his reaction to whatever he’d been doing inside Braden’s house. Whatever he’d left behind for Braden to discover...
He stepped closer and opened the door the rest of the way. The house was dark inside; he couldn’t see anything.
But he could smell it. Gasoline.
5 (#u4556d901-a3bf-5016-b039-666fa5a7ffe6)
SAM STARED AT the closed door of the Filling Station in disbelief that Braden had just walked out without talking to her again. Not that she felt personally slighted, but professionally he’d ignored her recommendation to have someone protecting him. Of course she couldn’t blame him for not trusting Gingrich to do the job.
The trooper’s phone vibrated seconds before a tune pealed out—something that sounded peculiarly like something you might hear at a strip club. As Martin pulled his phone from his pocket, his wedding ring glinted in the light dangling over their table. She doubted he would have assigned that song as his wife’s ringtone. But then she didn’t know much about marriage beyond what a few married friends had told her. She certainly hadn’t grown up with an example of it since she couldn’t even remember her mom.
Gingrich didn’t accept the call immediately—just stared down at his phone, his face flushing red again. “I need to take this.”
“Go ahead,” she said, curious about who’d put that look on his face—a mixture of shame and excitement.
“I—I won’t be able to hear in here,” he said. “So I’m going to take it outside. I may have to leave.”
“I asked you here to discuss protection duty for Superintendent Zimmer,” she reminded him.
“And I told you he’s not the one who needs protecting.” There was something in his voice—something almost threatening—that had Sam’s patience close to snapping.
She picked up her ice pack and held it in a tight fist—more tempted to throw it at him than use it. “You’re not in charge of this investigation, Trooper Gingrich,” she informed him. “I am.”
His face flushed an even deeper red. “But Braden doesn’t want my protection any more than I want to protect him.” He glanced at the table of Hotshots, then at the closed door. “He doesn’t seem to understand you’re in charge, either.”
Though Braden had claimed he wasn’t a chauvinist, she wondered if that was the case.
“I need to leave,” Gingrich said as he stood. His phone began to ring again, and he hurried toward that door.
“Dick,” she muttered after him.
A deep chuckle followed her remark. But she wasn’t sure which of the Hotshots who suddenly surrounded her table was behind it.
“You’re obviously as good a judge of character as your dad,” a blond-haired firefighter remarked as he extended his hand to her. “I’m Cody Mallehan.”
She shook his hand—firmly—like her father had taught her when she was just a little girl. Unfortunately she’d never gotten much bigger. She hadn’t been able to excel at the things her brothers had. So she had to excel at what she could—catching arsonists.
“Mack’s mentioned you,” she said. “He’s not too happy you didn’t join him at Northern Cascades.”
“That’s cool of him, but I’m happy here,” Cody said. “My team is my family.” He introduced the other men. Wyatt Andrews and Dawson Hess. Trent Miles.
She recognized all the names. She had the roster of the entire team.
“Owen James and Ethan Sommerly left a little while ago. Owen had an EMT call and Ethan can only handle being social for so long,” Cody remarked. “Otherwise, you could have met them, too.”
“I do need to meet the entire team at some point,” Sam said. Because, like Gingrich, she suspected one of them could be the arsonist. She’d already started investigating them. Owen James carried physical scars from war. Did he have psychological ones that could cause him to start fires?
And Sommerly was notoriously antisocial. Enough to want to hurt people?
“You’ll meet everyone tomorrow,” Superintendent Andrews said, “at the team meeting Braden has called.”
He hadn’t mentioned the meeting to her. He certainly hadn’t invited her. But she didn’t betray her surprise—just nodded in agreement.
“I hope you didn’t believe any of that nonsense Gingrich spewed about Braden,” Cody said as he settled onto the chair across from her.
“He’s just jealous,” Wyatt added as he turned a chair around and straddled it. “Goes back to high school and all the girls chasing after Braden instead of him.”
“Braden needs some women chasing after him now,” Cody remarked.
Sam’s pulse quickened as she remembered how he’d looked in just that towel with water droplets trailing over his impressive chest and abs. She couldn’t believe he didn’t have women chasing after him now. If not for the investigation, she might be tempted to be one of those women.
Cody continued, “After what his ex-wife did to him...”
It would be her business only if it had something to do with the investigation. But then it was hard to know the arsonist’s motive unless she learned everything about his latest target: Braden. So Sam asked, “What was that?”
“Cheated on him, then invited him to her wedding to the other guy,” Wyatt replied. “Braden did have a couple women after him a few months ago. They mistook him for a stripper and nearly ripped off his clothes.”
Sam could hardly blame them. He looked better without clothes. Not that he hadn’t looked damn good in the Hotshots’ casual uniform of black T-shirt and khaki cargo pants. Their official uniform while firefighting was all yellow—shirt, pants, coat and hat—so they were easier to see through the smoke and flames.
“Now the arsonist is after him,” Dawson said, “and that’s not good...”
“No,” Sam agreed. “Especially when he refuses police protection.”
Wyatt snorted. “You can’t call Marty police protection. He’s an idiot, just like you said. How the hell can he blame Braden for starting the fires?”
“Every time one of them has started we’ve been with him,” Cody said.
Sam looked at the men gathered in a circle around her table and asked, “All of you?”
“The three of us who are based out of Northern Lakes during the off-season.” Cody gestured at himself and the two assistant superintendents. “We were definitely together when that first fire started and the last one, too.”
“So the four of you were together?” she asked. One person might lie for another, might even be working with another—although that was rare for arsonists unless they were hired to start fires for insurance claims. But four?
Cody groaned. “You let Gingrich get to you.”
She shook her head. She’d had her suspicions before she’d even talked to the state trooper. And while the four of them could alibi one another, that left sixteen other Hotshot suspects. “You’re very protective of your boss,” she remarked, “yet you all just let him walk out of here alone.” She included herself in that accusation. Her heart shifted again, contracting with a spasm of fear. Was he all right?
“He gave us direct orders not to follow him,” Wyatt said.
“And, what? You’ve never disobeyed one of his direct orders before?” she asked. She’d read the report on the first fire. She knew Wyatt Andrews had refused Braden’s command to return to base. He’d refused to leave the fire until he’d located the missing campers. Her gaze swung toward Dawson Hess and Cody Mallehan. Against Braden’s orders, they had returned to the fire to help Wyatt.
“You’re definitely Mack’s daughter,” Cody remarked.
She narrowed her eyes. “Is that a compliment?” She wasn’t certain. Mack wasn’t always the easiest person—especially with her.
He grinned. “Definitely a compliment.”
“Careful,” Wyatt warned him. “You’re nearly engaged. You can’t be complimenting other women anymore.”
“I just meant she knows her stuff,” Cody said. Then he turned back toward her. “You’re thorough.”
“That’s how I close cases,” she said. “I know how to do my job.” Had they come over here to question her abilities? She was used to being underestimated—especially by alpha males like them. But she suspected they had another motive, particularly when she noticed Dawson Hess studying her face.
When he realized she’d caught him staring, he pointed toward her cheek. “You should have used the ice pack Braden sent over,” he advised. “It would have stopped the swelling and minimized the bruising.”
Makeup would minimize the bruising, too. She shrugged off his concern. “It’s fine.”
“You know Braden feels horrible about that,” Cody said. “He would never hurt a woman.”
“I know,” she said. “I didn’t press charges—no matter how much Gingrich tried to convince me otherwise.” Calling him to protect Braden was a mistake she wouldn’t repeat. But could his team be trusted to protect him?
Only Wyatt, Cody and Dawson, who’d been together when the fires had started. If that was true, none of them could be the arsonist. But what about the sixteen other members of the team?
Did they have alibis? Because the fires only happened when the Hotshots were in town, it was entirely possible the arsonist was one of them—which put Braden in more danger. He was unlikely to suspect one of his own.
She needed to talk to him—needed to make him aware of the threat. He wouldn’t want to hear it, of course, any more than her dad would want to hear that one of his team members couldn’t be trusted. Plus, it was late—felt even later since she’d traveled all day. She had yet to check into her hotel. And apparently she’d have to get up early to crash the Hotshot meeting Braden had called.
But she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she’d made certain he was safe. “Where does Braden live?” she asked.
“Are you going to protect him?” Cody asked.
She could. She had a gun, and she knew how to use it. But knowledge might keep him safer than her weapon. Still, he wouldn’t be cautious if he couldn’t accept that the arsonist might be someone close to him.
“I need to talk to him,” she said.
One of Cody’s blond brows arched, as if he wondered if there was more to her wanting to see Braden. Sure, she was attracted to him. He was a good-looking man. But she had no intention of acting on that attraction.
All she wanted was to do her job—to catch the arsonist. But how many arsonists would she need to catch before her father started bragging about her and not just her brothers?
“I need to talk to him about the meeting,” she said. And how she wanted to interrogate every member of his team after it...
Cody nodded, but there was skepticism and something else in his eyes—as if he didn’t entirely believe her. Or hoped she had another reason for wanting to go to Braden’s house this late at night.
Truly, she just wanted to make sure he was safe. But as she followed his men’s directions down the dark street toward his house, she wondered who would make sure she was safe. Because she didn’t feel safe at all. And it had nothing to do with the arsonist and everything to do with seeing Braden Zimmer again.
* * *
BRADEN’S GUTS TIGHTENED into a knot of dread. Who the hell should he call to report the arsonist being inside his house? The state police? Gingrich would probably think the gas-soaked hay bale proved Braden’s guilt. And Sam...
He wasn’t sure what the hell Sam would think. Had Gingrich raised her suspicions? Did she have doubts about him now? Of course the arsonist was unlikely to burn down his own damn house. Not that it had been burned down.
There was only the one small hay bale sitting inside his living room. But it had been soaked in gasoline. The odor hung heavily in the air. He’d opened the windows, and the curtains billowed in the chilly evening breeze.
Just as he’d suspected, the arsonist hadn’t been waiting inside for him. He just left this message, which was even more blatant than the note. Gasoline-soaked hay bales were both his igniter and accelerator. Had he intended to start a fire in Braden’s house and had been interrupted? Or was he just taunting him that he could have?
Braden suspected the latter. He needed to call Sam—once he found his phone. He must have dropped it in the living room when he tripped over the bale. After getting gasoline on his pants and all over his skin, he’d wanted to clean up before calling anyone. Even after a shower, he could still smell the gasoline on his body. He thought about stepping back under the spray, but a noise on the porch drew his attention.
He stepped out of the bathroom just as a shadow passed the front windows. He sucked in a breath. Had the son of a bitch come back with a match?
Did he intend to start the blaze now—with Braden inside? But then knuckles bumped against the wooden door. He doubted the arsonist would knock.
The breath he’d sucked in slipped out in a ragged sigh. He shouldn’t have been surprised that at least one of the guys, if not all of them, would come by to check on him. Of course they would ignore his order to leave him alone. They could definitely be selective about which of his commands they followed sometimes. He’d have to bring that up at the morning meeting. But when he opened the door, he was shocked into silence because he hadn’t expected her.
How had she even known where he lived? Sam McRooney stood on his front porch, her face washed in the golden glow from the kerosene lanterns he’d converted to porch lights. Her cheek had swollen some more and was beginning to shift from red to purple.
Guilt made him feel even queasier than the smell of gasoline had. Hitting her had been an accident, but it was an accident he could’ve prevented had he kept his temper in check.
He knew better than to let jerks like Marty get to him. But then he’d been on edge—not just from the arsonist but from her. Or maybe it was like the guys had told him: he needed to get laid. Hell, Cody had left a box of condoms on his desk a couple of weeks ago.
He’d forgotten all about those until now—until he’d met Sam. Now not just guilt churned his stomach. Desire did, too. Even with the bruise, she was so damn beautiful.
Her mouth gaped as she stared at him. “Do you have something against wearing clothes?”
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