Wild Heat (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #1)(30)
Author: Bella Andre

Scrambling quickly up the two-story ladder, she steadied herself on the gray roofing tiles and pulled herself onto them. She clambered across the roof to a spot where she had a clear view of Logan. But when she caught sight of the situation, her heart nearly stopped in her chest.

While the other hotshots were keeping a safe distance from the fire, Logan was crouched down directly in front of a three-foot wall of flames, scanning the ground for the best chunk of evidence.

Oh God. She’d been so focused on getting evidence, so consumed with her vendetta against arsonists, she’d actually sent him in without really giving thought to what he would face in the site of the explosion. How could she?

She screamed, “Come back,” but all yelling did was hurt her throat. It was impossible for anyone to hear her over the roar of the fire and the helicopters circling overhead. The wildfire crackled louder now, and the sun moved behind a thick mantle of ash.

The blaze had looked big and brutal from the air that morning. Now it resembled a war zone. Clouds of black smoke hung ominously in the blue sky, while men and machines scrambled to battle a wildfire that was sending dozens of fiery tentacles farther across the mountain with every passing hour.

Everything moved in slow motion as the deadly yellow-orange flames reached out toward Logan and nearly covered his head. And then, at the last possible moment, he jumped back onto a safe patch of grass. She knew the vision of Logan standing fearless among five-foot flames and a black-and-gray carpet of ash would haunt her forever.

She choked on the smoke and dust rising into the air, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest. She didn’t want any more firefighters hurt. Especially not Logan.

Helplessly watching him do her dirty work, she didn’t have the strength to keep denying how special he was. She watched as he squatted, his turnouts pulling tight against his muscular shoulders and narrow hips. He was the kind of man women dreamed of at night. And he willingly faced death for the greater good.

Women threw themselves at him for good reason.

He held the sniffer away from his body and stood perfectly still for sixty seconds, just as she’d instructed. Flames whipped around him and she cursed herself for telling him not to rush. There was no way for him to have any idea if and where additional gas and explosives had been strewn across the grassy hill.

At any moment, the ground he was standing on could explode.

Her legs shook at the horrifying image of Logan lying on a stretcher, covered in blisters and raw, bloody skin. Her foot slipped on a tile and she had to reach out to steady herself by grabbing an exhaust fan.

Maybe he’d been right and she should have stayed in the truck. Maybe it would have been easier than coming up here to watch him.

And no matter what side of the investigation they were on, she was stunned by his courage.

She now fully believed Logan Cain was innocent. He would protect his men with his life. She was watching him do it right now. Witnessing his superhuman nerves in action as he walked through fire to gather badly needed evidence cleared any remaining doubts from her mind.

He hadn’t lit the Desolation Wilderness fire.

Which meant someone else was responsible for all of this destruction. All of this pain. All of this suffering. Someone had lit the wildfire and then left that message on the tip line with Logan’s name. She was almost certain that the same arsonist had lit her motel room on fire, then tried to scare her with the note in the fire-box, and then had put all the pieces in place to set off the explosion that had nearly taken Robbie’s life that morning.

Finally, Logan stepped away from the flames and jogged back to his truck. How, she wondered, could he move so quickly with so much heavy equipment on his shoulders? Especially given how drained he must be from the shocking heat.

Not wanting him to find her up on the roof watching—and worrying about him—Maya started to make her way back toward the ladder, but it was harder going on the way down, and her progress was slow. She was halfway across the roof when she heard the loud clang of heavy boots on the steel rungs of the ladder. Logan’s soot-covered face appeared above the gutters.

“Don’t you ever listen?”

“Rarely,” she replied as carelessly as she could manage, but she couldn’t push away the sweet feeling of relief that he’d returned unscathed.

“I guess I should just be glad you didn’t come after me to make sure I was holding down the right button.”

She kept her face averted, uncertain how to respond to what sounded an awful lot like teasing. Especially coming on the heels of an adrenaline-soaked evidence run. How could he be so carefree and relaxed, while merely watching him risking his life had jumbled up her insides?

But she was so damn glad that he’d made it out in one solid, intact piece that she couldn’t hold back a smile. “You can’t blame me for wanting a front-row seat for the Logan Cain show, can you?”

He smiled back and it was like looking straight into the sun. “Hotshots aim to please.”

She was almost to the edge of the roof and he reached out for her, setting her heart racing again. She was so afraid of what she was feeling for him, had never been more scared of anything in all her life.

Wanting to keep some much-needed distance between them, she said, “I got up here by myself and I’ll get down by myself,” realizing too late that she sounded like a petulant child instead of an independent woman.

He didn’t move from the ladder. “I’ve never left a beautiful woman stranded on a rooftop and I’m not starting now.”

It was the second time he’d called her beautiful. He wasn’t the first man to say that to her, but it was the first time she’d really cared.

No question about it. She was in way over her head with this man.

But when he reached for her on the roof, she couldn’t push him away. Not when she’d just watched him walk into fire. She wanted to assure herself that he was really here, was still solid muscles and bones and unending charm.

His large, strong hands circled her waist and she ran one finger down the side of his face, leaving a thin line of tanned skin visible through the soot. She lowered her mouth to his, could almost taste the ash on his lips— when the ladder shifted, and she stiffened.

What was wrong with her? She was up on some stranger’s roof in the middle of a raging wildfire and all she could think about was kissing a hotshot. If her boss could see her now, if her father was looking down at them, they’d both be horrified by her behavior. By her utter lack of self-control.

She pulled back, working like hell to rein in her body’s disappointment. She’d wanted to kiss Logan more than she’d wanted to take her next breath. But although she couldn’t kiss him, she could tell him what she knew he wanted to hear.