The situation sucked. Big-time.
“Think about my offer. A couple of weeks on the beach. Pretty girls in bikinis. Fruity drinks.”
“Sounds like the ninth circle of hell,” Joseph said, a stubborn old man down to his toenails.
Logan couldn't beat back a grin. It sure did. He crushed the empty aluminum can in his hand. “I gotta get back.”
Joseph's short gray hair was sticking straight up and his face was riddled with uneven patches of stubble. “Come by for dinner on your next down day. And stay out of any more blowups.”
“Will do.”
Logan grabbed the keys to Joseph's spare truck. It was time to head back to the station. The Tahoe Pines Hotshots had a mother of a fire to put out.
Maya followed the ambulances down the mountain, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. The smell of smoke that clung to her jeans and hair kept the terrible scene she'd just witnessed fresh in her mind. She hadn't thought she was capable of wanting to avenge her brother's death any more than she already did, but after watching a firefighter emerge with severe burns—even though he still had his life intact—she couldn't stop wondering Had Tony suffered like that?
Unclenching her white-knuckled fingers from the steering wheel, she pulled into the parking lot of her motel. Cal Fire had sent her to Lake Tahoe to investigate the Desolation Wilderness fire. It was time to get a grip and focus all of her attention on the current case.
Only, now that she knew her lead suspect and the bartender from six months ago were one and the same, how could she possibly separate the two circumstances?
Logan Cain would forever be inexorably tied to Tony's death, simply because she'd made the mistake of trying to assuage her pain with his kisses. And if it turned out that Logan really was guilty of arson, she didn't know how she'd ever be able to live with herself for fooling around with an arsonist.
She checked into her room and showered off the smoke and dirt, then pulled her power suit out of her suitcase. She needed to look fierce and feel even fiercer. She was on the hunt for an arsonist, not to win a beauty contest, but there was an undeniable power in looking the part.
The first time she'd met Logan, she hadn't given a second thought to what she'd looked like. This time would be different. She would be prepared for him, using lipstick and blush and mascara like modern-day armor to protect herself from his effortless good looks.
She was thinner now than she'd been six months ago, her appetite having never quite returned full force. Sometimes when she looked in the mirror she was surprised to see her cheekbones standing out in full relief, the slightly hollow spots above her jaw. Would Logan notice that there was less of her now?
She stopped her rambling thoughts cold. What were the odds that Logan would even recognize her? He probably saw more ass than a pair of jeans. The fifteen minutes they'd shared—while she'd writhed helplessly against his long fingers, God help her—were likely nothing more than a mini-blip on his sexual radar screen. Whereas he'd been so hot—so good—she'd been unable to forget about him, particularly at night in her dreams.
After verifying via telephone that the hospital had discharged him, she entered the hotshot station, her heels clicking as rapid a beat on the cement floor as her heart did in her chest.
Twenty pairs of eyes—men only, she noted—turned on her. They weren't stupid. They smelled an investigation.
She put her briefcase down on top of a table. “I'm Maya Jackson and I'm working with the Forest Service on the Desolation Wilderness fire.”
Logan had a mass of maps spread out in front of him. She focused her attention solely on her suspect.
“Mr. Cain, could you spare a moment to speak with me?”He didn't say anything, just laid down his pen and stood up. She waited for him to betray some sort of recognition, but his movements were easy, surprisingly sure—especially considering how close he'd come to death that morning. Clearly, a vertical slope on fire had nothing on Logan Cain.
His expression was utterly impersonal. She should have been happy that he didn't seem to recognize her as the crazy woman who'd jumped him in the bar. But she wasn't. Because the woman inside her wanted to be remembered.
How sad it was to be so easily forgotten.
And how pathetic she was for caring.
Again, she snapped herself out of it. She supposed there was a time and place for mulling over men. But not here. Not while a fire was raging.
She cleared her throat, glancing at the crowd of fire-fighters watching her every move. Each one was better looking than the next. Golden skin. Closely cropped hair. Incredible physiques.
And yet Logan was so striking she was left breathless.
What was wrong with her? He was a possible arsonist and here she was in heat for the guy.
Clearing away her stray thoughts, she asked, “Is there somewhere we could speak in private?”
“Gary,” he said to the gray-haired man she'd seen up on the mountain, “keep mapping routes, would you? I'll be right back.”
She followed Logan into a sparse, windowless office, thinking that she'd never seen a man wear jeans and a T-shirt better, before she could push the inappropriate thought away.
Long-buried sensations rushed back at her. The feel of his lips on her br**sts, the slip and slide of his fingers on her sensitive skin. He'd had the same afternoon shadow six months ago. Her cheeks had been red with burns for days from his kisses.
She took a deep breath. She'd tried not to think about that day. The hot stand-up make-out session with a stranger in a bar had been a grief-induced aberration, nothing more.
Logan offered her a chair and she noted his gentlemanly behavior. Even if he is just a playboy firefighter, she thought, at least I didn't almost have sex with a complete jerk. It was the most positive spin she could put on the situation for the time being.
He took a seat behind an old metal desk, his gaze level. Steady. Not hard, but not open and friendly either. And full of something that looked an awful lot like lust.
Maya wanted to squirm in her seat.
No. She was in charge here.
“I'm sorry about what happened to your friend today,” she said.
“The Forest Service folks are already talking about it?”
She shook her head. “I was there. On the mountain. I saw the blowup. I watched you run, watched you leave in an ambulance.”
“How did you find me?”