“And until your name is cleared, I have to put you on suspension. Starting now.”
CHAPTER FOUR
DISBELIEF FOUGHT with fury in Logan's gut. Tahoe Pines had been his hotshot crew for fifteen years, and after watching Connor head off in an ambulance, these guys desperately needed his leadership.
Most of his men had been fighting fire long enough to understand the risks. Injury—and death—went hand in hand with wildland firefighting. Every hotshot knew how to wall his emotions off long enough to put the fire out; forever, sometimes, if he'd lost a close friend or a buddy he'd joined up with. But sometimes it was harder to watch a live man burn than it was to mourn a dead one.
Any one of them could have been caught on the mountain this morning with nowhere left to run, surrounded by fire.
A fire this woman thought he'd started.
The same fire that he thought Joseph might have started. And if Joseph had, even if it had happened when he'd disappeared into one of his brain-fogs and had no idea what he was doing, once there were injuries—or, God forbid, deaths—he'd be in a whole hell of a lot of trouble. Joseph wasn't strong enough to withstand weeks or months of questioning, fines, or even imprisonment.
Logan's resolve hardened. He needed to protect Joseph no matter what. Even if it meant taking the heat himself.
His fists were clenched on the wall behind Maya's head as he forced himself to step away. While Superintendent McCurdy was sitting in his comfortable, air-conditioned office in the Forest Service headquarters, a beautiful woman was facing Logan down, and she was a messenger of doom who looked a hundred times hotter than he'd remembered.
Which was saying a lot, considering how good she'd looked six months ago.
Hell yes, he remembered that afternoon in Eddie's bar well. Too well. In his line of work, girlfriends came and girlfriends went, but none of the women he'd been with had stuck around in his brain like she had.
Now here she was, back in his life again from out of the blue.
No doubt about it, out of the blue was her M.O. But this time she wasn't grasping at his shirt, wasn't diving onto him, wasn't jamming her tongue down his throat.
This time around she was accusing him of arson. And she wanted to bench him while a wildfire raged.
But there was no way he could let that happen. He needed to be out there keeping an eye on his crew. Which meant getting back out on the mountain in full gear, wielding his chainsaw and Pulaski in the thick brush within the hour.
“Look, I know it's your job to track down arsonists. The Forest Service sent you here to investigate. I get that. But you and I both know I didn't light this fire. And I've got to get back out there and put it out. So why don't you run along to look for the real arsonist and let me get back to my job?”
“I'm afraid that's not possible, Mr. Cain.”
Maya's expression remained neutral. She wasn't angry. Or nervous. Instead, she seemed cold. Frigid, even.
She had all the same curves in all the same places, but she sure as hell wasn't the wild woman he'd met in his friend's bar. If anything, she was standing there, her full br**sts and sweet ass outlined to perfection in her goddamned suit, looking down on him for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and winding up an arson suspect in a fire that had nearly killed one of his men.
She pulled a file out of her briefcase. Quickly flip-ping through the pages, she handed him a single piece of paper.His days of flipping off authority and getting away with it had come and gone a long time ago, so he took the page and read it. It didn't take long to scan the words that were as good as a death sentence: Should he disregard suspension orders to stay off the mountain, he would be banned from working with the Forest Service in any capacity, even in a city office, forever—signed his buddy Superintendent McCurdy, Tahoe Basin Forest Service.
He was about to crumple up the paper and toss it into a wastebasket in the corner when he realized why Maya's name seemed so familiar. Not because she'd introduced herself to him in the bar before wrapping her legs around his waist, but because she'd coauthored the FBI report on firefighter arsonists.
His crew had played darts with it until the pages shredded.
“It's not just me, is it? You've got something against firefighters, don't you?”
“Excuse me?”
“You're an excellent writer,” he said, waiting for realization to dawn.
Her lips curved up, but she wasn't smiling. He was surprised he didn't see frost forming on the surface of her skin.
“I take it you're referring to the FBI report I contributed to.”
“Hell, sweetheart”—she flinched at the endearment— “take credit where credit is due. You penned that little beauty, start to finish. Tell me, apart from one afternoon in a bar, what did a firefighter ever do to hurt you?”
Her mouth tightened and went flat. “My father was a firefighter. So was my—”
She cut herself off sharply and he noted her strange behavior. What wasn't she telling him?
“I have boundless respect for firefighters,” she finally said.
“You sure have a funny way of showing it.”
She narrowed her eyes, anger beginning to melt away her icy core. “I grew up surrounded by firefighters. They were some of the best men I've ever known. How dare you accuse me of being out to get them?”
Her words rang with sincerity, but he wasn't in any mood to back down. Not since she'd come between him and a wildfire, with reams of bureaucratic bullshit.
“Then why the hell did you write that report?”
“Don't tell me you've never come across a firefighter who liked to play with fire, Mr. Cain. Anyone who's worked in the Fire Service knows someone who had a problem with getting excited about fire for all the wrong reasons.”
He immediately thought of Joseph and his chest grew tight. What the hell was he going to do if Joseph really was guilty?
Logan wasn't familiar with the bitter taste of fear and sure as hell didn't like swallowing it down. One thing was for sure: If Ms. Hotshot Investigator was going to keep pushing him, he hoped she was prepared for him to push back.
“Tell me something, did an investigator ever accuse your father of arson?”
Pain registered in her eyes, on the small lines around her mouth, and he knew he'd hit below the belt, but he was fighting for his life, for his fellow hotshots, for Joseph.