Lisa Childs - Hot Pursuit

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.