Buch lesen: «Hot Pursuit»

1

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.”