Wild Heat (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #1)(8)
Author: Bella Andre

Joseph grinned before saying “I always worried you’d end up hating me.”

But Logan had never been afraid of Joseph. Not even when things had gotten physical, when his out-of-control behavior had forced Joseph to run through every available option—even putting him in handcuffs.

“Better than ending up dead or rotting in prison,” Logan said.

Which brought him right back to his reason for stopping by. Logan leveled a gaze at the man who’d been a better father than blood had ever been. It was time to spit it out.

“Are you going up in the mountains, Joseph?”

“What are you asking me that for? You know I hike.”

Joseph wasn’t well and Logan didn’t want to trigger anything that would make Joseph worse. But he had to at least ask the question. The big one.

“Are you lighting fires?”

Surprise—then anger—crossed over Joseph’s face. “Of course not.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hell, boy, you don’t think I know what I’m doing? Where I’m going?”

Logan clenched his jaw. He didn’t want to belittle Joseph, didn’t want him to think he was less of a man because age was taking its toll. But yes, that was exactly what he thought.

Over the past year, Joseph had been slowing down and forgetting things. A lot of things. Like what year it was and whether or not he’d taken a shower or eaten for several days in a row.

Logan had tried talking to Joseph’s son, Dennis, about it. But Dennis and Joseph had their problems, and Dennis hadn’t seemed to want to deal with the situation at all.

After everything Joseph had done for him, Logan didn’t want to accuse his mentor if his behavior was simply minor symptoms of aging. Joseph was still active, still enjoyed heading up into Desolation from the trails behind his cabin to go for day hikes. Hikes that Logan feared were becoming a big problem.

Just this week alone, he’d found two campfires burning along trails with entry points in Joseph’s backyard. Given his mental deterioration, it wasn’t impossible that he was lighting—and forgetting about—those fires.

And now Connor was in the hospital, unconscious, about to undergo hellish skin grafts. If the nerves in his hands were fried, odds were he’d never fight fire again.

Logan couldn’t imagine another life. Who knew how Connor would deal with his injury when he came to. It was unthinkable.

Connor’s injuries brought him full circle to Joseph. Somehow, he had to walk the fine line between respecting the man who’d given him so much love and dealing with his problems.

Logan simply couldn’t ignore the situation anymore, not when so many lives were on the line.

“I know you don’t like to talk about how you’ve been feeling lately,” he began, and Joseph pushed away from the rail, as stubborn now as he’d always been.

No wonder he and his son, Dennis, always butted heads.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Joseph insisted.

Logan tried to reason with him. “You’re too close to the fire. I want you out of danger. I’m buying you a ticket to Hawaii. I’ll drive you to the airport. You’ll leave tonight.”

“I’m not going anywhere. If there’s a wildfire burning in my backyard, I’ve got to stay right here in case you need my help. I’ve never run from a fire and just because I’ve got a few gray hairs on my head, I’m not going to start now.”

“Hell, Joseph. If you want to help me, you’ll get on a goddamned plane. I can’t be worrying about you. I’ve got to get you somewhere safe.”

“What are you so worried about?”

I’m worried that you’re going hiking and lighting campfires and then coming back home and forgetting all about them was on the tip of Logan’s tongue. But he couldn’t say it.

Damn it, he wished he could just throw the man over his shoulder and carry him to safety. But he couldn’t treat him like an invalid. It wouldn’t be right, not when it might destroy what was left of Joseph’s strength.

Logan reluctantly accepted that he was going to have to work on Joseph a little at a time. Get him used to the idea of heading out somewhere safe.

Which also meant he’d have to work overtime to make sure Joseph didn’t accidentally light any new fires in the coming days.

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?