Wild Heat (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #1)(62)
Author: Bella Andre

And then Sam called him over and Logan turned off his chainsaw and dropped it into the dirt. He hurried to a small cave where Sam was kneeling in the dirt, searching for a pulse between the blisters under a woman’s chin.

They’d found her.

“Holy shit,” Sam said. “She’s alive.”

Despite everything she’d done, Logan was impressed with her resilience. Maybe she’d learned something from all those firefighters she’d screwed, after all.

“I’ve got to get her to a hospital.”

Sam frowned, shook his head. “After everything she’s done …”

But Logan had already scooped her up in his arms. Her limbs were a mass of blistering, scarred flesh and he wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to hold on—or if he even wanted her to.

“Maybe she got what she deserved,” Sam said in a low voice.

“No one deserves this,” Logan said in a flat voice.

Not even the devil herself.

He headed back to the anchor point, Jenny’s weight barely slowing him down. She groaned several times, her eyes fluttering but not opening before she went unconscious again. Thirty minutes later, he got in the ambulance with her, but he was thinking about Maya.

She’d stopped him from strangling Jenny just in time, and now that the intense rage had passed, he was glad for her insistence. Over the years he’d watched people die from smoke inhalation, from burns, but never at his own hands.

They arrived at the hospital and Jenny was rushed in for evaluation. Logan was itching to get back to the fire, but he couldn’t leave until the doctor gave him the low-down on Jenny’s condition.

A short while later, Dr. Caldwell pulled off her mask as she stepped through the swinging double doors. “Logan, why don’t you come into my office for a few minutes.”

He followed the middle-aged woman into a tidy of-fice overlooking a courtyard. “Is she going to make it?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’d say her chances of living without life support are extremely slim.” She paused. “But we found something else while we were examining her, something I think you should know.”

His stomach twisted. It seemed that nothing was simple when it came to Jenny. “Lay it on me.”

“She’s pregnant.”

He didn’t bother to hide his shocked expression. “Is there any chance the baby could make it?”

“Maybe. She’s already almost five months along. Do you know who the father might be?”

“Yes, I think so.” Holy shit. Dennis might become a father in a few months.

“I need to discuss this with my colleagues, but my gut is to keep her on life support for another ten to fifteen weeks until the baby is big enough to take by C-section without too many complications. Could you tell the father to contact me as soon as possible?”

Logan stood to leave. “I will.”

She came around her desk and put her hands on his. “I’m so sorry about Robbie. We were hoping he’d pull through.”

“You did everything you could,” he said, his voice the consistency of sandpaper.

His brain was overloaded with images, with emotions, as the ambulance driver took him back to the mountain.

Gary jogged over. “Good news. The winds are dying down. Humidity is up. If we continue bucket drops at this pace, we should be at least fifty percent contained by this evening.”

And they’d caught the arsonist. Thank God. The end was in sight.

Gary had a good ten years on Logan. He could read between the lines, could see that there was something else on his mind. “What now? Something about Jenny? Is she going to survive?”

He shook his head. “Probably not. She’s on life support. But she’s pregnant.”

Gary raised an eyebrow. “Dennis the father?”

Gary’s question was a good one. Who knew what Jenny had been doing behind Dennis’s back besides lighting deadly fires and killing people? “I sure as hell hope so.”

“As long as the weather keeps cooperating, we’ve got this. Go tell Dennis the news.” Gary dropped his car keys into Logan’s palm. “And I don’t want to see you back here until you’ve found Ms. Jackson and put a ring on her finger.”

Wednesday morning, Maya walked out of the Tahoe Basin Forest Service office into the bright sunshine. When Albert had arrived in Lake Tahoe late Sunday night, he’d taken one look at her and insisted on taking her to dinner. He hadn’t let her leave the table until she’d polished off a salad and a cheeseburger. Although she’d initially protested, halfway through the meal she’d realized her boss—and friend—was right. She’d been starving.

For two days, they’d hashed through the details of the Desolation Wilderness case, and by Tuesday evening, she’d finished writing up the report. Albert hadn’t asked a lot of questions about Logan beyond the case. He didn’t have to. Not when it was obvious where her heart lay.

“I’m staying in Lake Tahoe,” she’d told him.

“Logan?” had been his response.

She’d had to laugh at herself. Clearly, love had been written all over her face. And then Albert had surprised her again. He’d felt confident that she was safe, so he was leaving town. And he’d made an appointment for her to meet with the superintendent of the Forest Service. Alone. This wasn’t his case, he’d told her. And he wasn’t going to take any of the credit.

William McCurdy was a very sharp man, his questions and comments concise and to the point. But she’d refused to leave his office until she was one hundred percent certain he supported Logan’s innocence, even though the samples from his garage had been a match in the explosion by the housing development.

“Of course he’s not guilty,” McCurdy had told her. “Unfortunately, based on the meager facts initially at hand, I had no choice but to suspend him until we’d conclusively ruled him out as a suspect.”

Much to her surprise, at the end of their meeting, he’d offered her a job working directly for him. The ever-shrinking line between the city and the country was putting wildland firefighters’ lives in greater peril than ever before as they worked to save not only forests but houses and homeowners, often getting caught in the middle. McCurdy needed someone to keep an eye on the urban interface.

She accepted without hesitation. Lake Tahoe was now her beautiful new home.

The lake was less than a quarter mile from the Forest Service headquarters, and she made a beeline for the beach, smiling at the news the superintendent had given her that the fire was officially under control. Smoke jumpers and extra hotshot crews had been called off. Amazingly, they’d found Jenny on the mountain. Alive. McCurdy didn’t know anything else, but she’d call the hospital soon enough and get the rest of the details for her report.