Hot Pursuit

“I’m not the one Braden wanted to hit,” she said.

“He’s a hothead.”

She would have agreed after how she’d seen him act just moments ago. But his anger had quickly evaporated. So she suspected he wasn’t really as quick-tempered as he’d briefly appeared. He was just a man who had been under a lot of pressure for a long time, and Trooper Gingrich had purposely added to Braden’s stress until it was too much for anyone to endure.

“I’ve never heard that about him,” she said. Her father had told her quite a bit about Braden Zimmer when he’d asked if she was investigating the Northern Lakes fires. Of course Mack had no problem singing the praises of the men he’d worked with; it was her praises he never sang.

“I’ve known him a long time,” Gingrich said, his puffy face flushing with anger. “We went to school together.”

She narrowed her eyes to study the trooper’s face, but the skin pulled on her swollen cheek and she flinched.

It was her fault she’d gotten hit. She knew better than to get between two angry alpha males. And if she was ever tempted to forget, she could just look at some of the scars she’d gotten for her efforts to stop her brothers from fighting. Though, like Braden, her brothers had always felt bad when she’d gotten hurt.

Gingrich didn’t feel bad—despite his goading—that she’d gotten hurt. In fact he’d been smirking right afterward, and now that smirk curled his thin lips again. “I know more about Braden Zimmer than he knows himself...”

“Really?” she prompted him. “What do you know?”

His face flushed a deeper red, and he shook his head. “Nothing to do with the fires...”

“You pretty much accused him of setting them,” she said. As a former firefighter herself, she knew how angry that would make her. Maybe she shouldn’t have tried to stop that fight. But if Braden had struck Gingrich, she had no doubt the trooper would have immediately arrested him for assaulting an officer.

Gingrich snorted. “He’s the most obvious suspect.”

She tilted her head and considered it. She had already begun to suspect that a Huron Hotshot could be the arsonist. But the superintendent? Risking the lives of the team he’d seemed so passionate about protecting?

Not that she hadn’t been lied to and misled before...

“Come on, you see it, too,” Gingrich said patronizingly, as if she would be an idiot if she didn’t.

“But what evidence do you have?” she asked, because she had seen nothing in the state police file. There had been photos of the crime scenes but no evidence that pointed to a suspect—any suspect.

“Do you have eyewitnesses who saw him in the area right before any of the fires?” she asked. She knew he’d been in the vicinity afterward because he and his team had put them out. “Do you have copies of any receipts you can trace back to him for the purchase of gasoline or hay bales?”

The trooper’s face reddened an even darker shade. “If I had anything like that, I would have arrested him by now,” he said, his voice still condescending.

“So you have no evidence,” she concluded. “What exactly do you have against Braden Zimmer?”

“I—I don’t—It’s not like that,” the guy stammered. “He’s just...”

Better than him. Taller. More handsome. Smarter. Stronger. She knew guys like Gingrich—guys who’d hated her brothers just because of who they were. Of how effortlessly they’d been good at everything.

While she’d never hated her brothers, she had resented them from time to time. She’d definitely resented not being as strong as they were. Because of her small size, she had barely made the requirements to be a US Forest Service firefighter. She hadn’t been big enough to make a Hotshot team or to become a smoke jumper. She wasn’t physically capable of packing one hundred and ten pounds for ninety minutes—that would have been like carrying her own body weight. But her small stature wasn’t her brothers’ fault; she couldn’t blame them.

Just how much did the trooper resent Braden? Enough to try to get back at him by starting those fires? She leaned a little closer and studied Martin Gingrich’s flushed face. In addition to the arson-investigation courses, she had a degree in criminal psychology. She’d also attended seminars on FBI profiling at Quantico.

“Go on,” she prodded. “Braden Zimmer is what?”

Gingrich leaned back and forced a nervous-sounding chuckle. “A psychic—if you believe him. He claims he’s got some sixth sense about when a fire’s coming.” He snorted again, derisively.

Sam couldn’t be so dismissive. Her father had that sixth sense—about people. He could read them so well. He’d once told her she’d inherited that ability from him—when she’d caught the Brynn County arsonist—but she wasn’t as good as he was. She had made her share of mistakes over the years.

Like Chad. And Blake...

She flinched again, but not because of the pain in her cheek. Chad had reinforced her determination to stay away from alpha males. And Blake had proven beta males could be jerks, too. She wouldn’t make those mistakes again. It was smarter to focus on her job—and at the moment that job was catching the Northern Lakes arsonist.

“I take it you’re a nonbeliever?” she remarked.

“I don’t believe in that psychic hocus-pocus stuff,” he said. “I’ve been to the freak show at the carnival and wasted five bucks on some chain-smoking fortune-teller predicting my future. It never happened. That stuff’s not real.”

She tilted her head. She could have given him examples from Mack’s experiences. But she didn’t have to. “So has Braden been right? Did the fires he sensed actually happen?”

He jerked his chin, which was barely a point in his round face, up and down in a quick nod. “Yeah, but the only reasonable explanation is that he’s the one setting the fires.”

She understood his logic. Of course someone could predict what would happen if he personally made certain it did. Could Braden Zimmer be setting fire to the territory he’d been assigned to protect? Could he be the one putting his own team in danger?

She glanced across the room and met his gaze. He hadn’t stopped staring at her since he’d sat down at the booth. The men he’d joined kept glancing her way, too—probably wondering what was drawing his attention.

What had? Was he concerned because he’d unintentionally struck her? Or because he was worried she might discover who was really responsible for setting the fires in Northern Lakes?

* * *

BRADEN’S STOMACH TWISTED into knots of apprehension. He’d been such an idiot to let Marty get to him. Not only had he hurt Sam, but he’d also left her alone with that blowhard. Gingrich thought the worst of Braden and his team and was determined to make certain everyone else did, too. Unfortunately he might succeed in convincing Sam McRooney.

With the way she was staring across the room at him—speculatively—she might have been considering what the trooper was saying. She might have begun to wonder if it was possible Braden or one of his team members was responsible for setting the fires.

She wasn’t the only one being forced to listen to an idiot, though.

“You’ve been out of the dating pool a long time,” Cody Mallehan was saying to him. “So let me explain to you how this works. When you think a woman you see in a bar is hot, you’re supposed to send her a drink—not an ice pack.”

A grin tugged at Braden’s mouth. Cody was an idiot only because he got so much enjoyment out of giving everyone else a hard time. Other than that he was one of the best Hotshots Braden had on his team. He would trust the younger man with his life.

But he’d never previously trusted his dating advice, despite Cody’s womanizing reputation—or more accurately, because of it. Things were different now, though; Cody had recently fallen, and fallen hard, for a sweet woman. So Braden might have been tempted to listen if he had any intention of dating Sam McRooney. But he had no such intention—with her or anyone else.

“I’m not trying to pick her up,” Braden said. “I accidentally hit her earlier.”

A breath whistled out between Cody’s teeth. “Man, you really have been out of the dating pool a long time—since the caveman times—if you think you can club a woman and drag her off. Sounds like something Ethan would do.”

Ethan Sommerly glanced across the table at Cody and glared. With his bushy black beard and long hair, he did look a bit like a caveman.

Owen James followed Braden’s gaze. “Her left cheek is swollen,” the EMT said, assessing her condition even from across the room. He was a Hotshot, but when they were back at home base in Northern Lakes, he was also a paramedic.

Braden’s stomach lurched with guilt and regret. “I accidentally caught her with my elbow.”

“She’s not pressing charges, is she?” Trent Miles asked. “Why’s she talking to Gingrich?” He grimaced with disgust. During the off-season, Trent worked out of a firehouse in Detroit. He worked closely with law enforcement in the city since a lot of the fires set there were arson, so he had a healthy respect for officers. Real officers. He’d made it no secret he didn’t consider Marty a real officer.

“She’s not going to press charges.” At least that was what she’d told him. Marty might have convinced her otherwise, though. “She’s talking to him about the arson investigation.”

“Why?” Cody asked. “If she knows something, she should be talking to you.” He’d apparently assumed Sam was a witness with information. “He has no business investigating the fires. He’s gotten nowhere.”

“Neither have I,” Braden admitted. “That’s why I called the chief’s office. The woman talking to Gingrich is an arson investigator with the US Forest Service.”

Cody leaned back in the booth and uttered a ragged sigh. “Good. We should have already stopped this son of a bitch...” Then his girlfriend wouldn’t have recently lost her home and very nearly her life.

“Yes, we should have,” Braden agreed. Guilt overwhelmed him again. He pushed the beer Owen had poured for him across the table. He hadn’t taken a sip and had no interest in it. His stomach already felt queasy enough.

“Is that why you called the meeting for tomorrow?” Trent asked. They’d been back only a couple of days from fighting a blaze out west. Usually they had more downtime than that between assignments, so he’d been smart to conclude Braden had called the team together for another reason.

Braden nodded. “I was going to wait until the meeting tomorrow to share this. But...”

“What?” Dawson Hess asked. The assistant superintendent had just returned to the booth from the pool game he’d been shooting at the tables nearby with Braden’s other assistant superintendent, Wyatt Andrews.

Braden dragged in a deep breath before admitting, “I received a note...”

Dawson tensed. “From the arsonist?”

Braden nodded. “Left on my desk in the firehouse...”

Cody cursed.

“You need to be careful,” Wyatt said, his blue eyes darkening with concern.

“That’s why I called the US Forest Service,” Braden told his assistants. He probably should have called Wyatt and Dawson when he got the note, but Wyatt was planning a wedding, and Dawson had taken a quick trip to New York to see his girlfriend. Braden pointed across the room. “And why she’s here. Her name’s Sam McRooney.”

“Any relation to Mack?” Cody asked.

“Daughter,” Braden confirmed.

“Mack never mentioned having a daughter.”

“Nobody mentions their daughters to you,” Wyatt razzed him, then turned back to Braden. “I don’t get why she’s talking to Gingrich, though. You know way more about the arson investigation than he does.”

“She called him in to protect me,” Braden said. He glanced across the room again. He would have preferred her protecting him; then she’d have to stick close—real close. But then she would be in danger, too. It was better she—and everyone else—stay away from him now that he’d become the arsonist’s next target.

Owen snorted. “Who’s going to protect you from him? That guy has always hated you.”

Thinking of Gingrich’s accusation, Braden’s temper flared again. “Marty’s the one who needed protecting from me,” he admitted. “I was about to hit him when I clipped Sam with my elbow.”

Owen nodded. “Of course... Too bad she got in the way.” He was a little younger than Braden and Gingrich, but he’d grown up in Northern Lakes, too. He knew the trooper too well.

Trent sighed. “Good thing she stopped you, or we’d be bailing you out of jail right now.”

“At least he would’ve been safe in there,” Dawson remarked. “Sam McRooney was right to call in protection for you. She just called the wrong person.”

“I don’t need a state trooper,” Braden said. The last thing he wanted was anyone following him around; it was bad enough when Stanley brought Annie to the firehouse and she shadowed his every move.

“No, you don’t,” Owen agreed. “Not when you’ve got us. We’ll each take a shift.”

Braden shook his head. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“No,” Ethan Sommerly agreed. The Hotshot was the biggest loner on the team. He spent most of his time as a ranger in the middle of a national forest in the Upper Peninsula. Of course he would understand. But then he added, “You need a bodyguard.”

Wyatt nodded in agreement. “If you don’t want one of us, I can see if Matt can get time off from the assisted-living center to protect you.”

Matt was Wyatt’s soon to be brother-in-law. The kid had wanted to be a Hotshot. But when he, like hundreds of other applicants, hadn’t gotten the open position as a US Forest Service firefighter, he’d decided to go back to school to become a registered nurse.

“I don’t need a bodyguard, either,” Braden said. He’d argued enough for the day, so he stood up. “What I need is a good night’s sleep before the meeting tomorrow.” He worried that might be hard, though he wasn’t sure what would keep him awake longer—that note, or his guilt over accidentally hitting Sam.

Or would it be other thoughts of Sam that kept him up? She was damn beautiful.

“Braden, you can’t just take off,” Cody protested as he started away from the booth. “You never know when or how he might strike at you.”

“I’ll be vigilant,” he promised his guys. “He won’t sneak up on me.”

From the skepticism on their faces, it was clear he hadn’t convinced them. So he added an order, “Nobody follow me. I’m perfectly safe.”

He wasn’t. And they knew it. But being around him would put them in danger, too. They’d already been through enough of that. He’d nearly lost Wyatt, Dawson and Cody in fires.

And Owen...

He glanced at the jagged scar on the man’s cheek. He’d nearly lost the Marine on his last deployment. They all risked their lives enough doing their jobs. He wouldn’t ask them to put themselves further at risk because of him. He glanced over at Sam McRooney. And he certainly wouldn’t put her in danger, either.

“I can take care of myself,” he assured them, and headed out of the bar before they could argue.

He appreciated and understood their concern, though. As he stepped outside, he felt an odd sensation—like he was being watched. None of them had followed him from the bar, so it had to be someone who was already outside—maybe even waiting for him? He peered around in the dark but couldn’t see anyone lurking in the shadows beyond the small circles the street lamps cast on the sidewalk.

That didn’t matter; he didn’t need to see the person to know he was there.

Braden could’ve gone back inside, but he didn’t. That wasn’t how he wanted to live his life—in fear. He felt the shadow following as he walked the two blocks to the small home he’d rented because of its close vicinity to the firehouse. He’d had a bigger house before the divorce—one farther from town with a big yard and a lot of bedrooms. He’d intended to raise his family there.

But maybe it was good that had never happened. Because then they’d be in danger, too. Fortunately his parents had moved away from Northern Lakes a couple of years ago, to be closer to his sister and her kids. They’d promised when he gave them grandkids, they’d come home. But they were safer in Arizona—even with wildfires burning nearby. At least nature had caused those—a lightning strike—not a maniac with a match.

Whoever was following seemed to tail Braden all the way home. The skin between his shoulder blades tingled at the feeling of being watched. It hadn’t made him walk any faster, though. He wasn’t afraid. He was pissed. So pissed he stomped across his porch with such force his front door creaked open before he even reached for the knob. He must’ve left it unlocked. But he knew he’d shut it tightly; he always did.

Someone had been inside his house; undoubtedly the same person who’d been in his office earlier. He wished momentarily for the gun he kept behind the seat of his US Forest Service pickup. The shotgun was for protection from bears, though. Not people.

But while Braden suspected someone had been inside his house, he doubted he was still there. He was behind Braden—watching him—probably for his reaction to whatever he’d been doing inside Braden’s house. Whatever he’d left behind for Braden to discover...

He stepped closer and opened the door the rest of the way. The house was dark inside; he couldn’t see anything.

But he could smell it. Gasoline.

5

SAM STARED AT the closed door of the Filling Station in disbelief that Braden had just walked out without talking to her again. Not that she felt personally slighted, but professionally he’d ignored her recommendation to have someone protecting him. Of course she couldn’t blame him for not trusting Gingrich to do the job.

The trooper’s phone vibrated seconds before a tune pealed out—something that sounded peculiarly like something you might hear at a strip club. As Martin pulled his phone from his pocket, his wedding ring glinted in the light dangling over their table. She doubted he would have assigned that song as his wife’s ringtone. But then she didn’t know much about marriage beyond what a few married friends had told her. She certainly hadn’t grown up with an example of it since she couldn’t even remember her mom.

Gingrich didn’t accept the call immediately—just stared down at his phone, his face flushing red again. “I need to take this.”

“Go ahead,” she said, curious about who’d put that look on his face—a mixture of shame and excitement.

“I—I won’t be able to hear in here,” he said. “So I’m going to take it outside. I may have to leave.”

“I asked you here to discuss protection duty for Superintendent Zimmer,” she reminded him.

“And I told you he’s not the one who needs protecting.” There was something in his voice—something almost threatening—that had Sam’s patience close to snapping.

She picked up her ice pack and held it in a tight fist—more tempted to throw it at him than use it. “You’re not in charge of this investigation, Trooper Gingrich,” she informed him. “I am.”

His face flushed an even deeper red. “But Braden doesn’t want my protection any more than I want to protect him.” He glanced at the table of Hotshots, then at the closed door. “He doesn’t seem to understand you’re in charge, either.”

Though Braden had claimed he wasn’t a chauvinist, she wondered if that was the case.

“I need to leave,” Gingrich said as he stood. His phone began to ring again, and he hurried toward that door.

“Dick,” she muttered after him.

A deep chuckle followed her remark. But she wasn’t sure which of the Hotshots who suddenly surrounded her table was behind it.

“You’re obviously as good a judge of character as your dad,” a blond-haired firefighter remarked as he extended his hand to her. “I’m Cody Mallehan.”

She shook his hand—firmly—like her father had taught her when she was just a little girl. Unfortunately she’d never gotten much bigger. She hadn’t been able to excel at the things her brothers had. So she had to excel at what she could—catching arsonists.

“Mack’s mentioned you,” she said. “He’s not too happy you didn’t join him at Northern Cascades.”

“That’s cool of him, but I’m happy here,” Cody said. “My team is my family.” He introduced the other men. Wyatt Andrews and Dawson Hess. Trent Miles.

She recognized all the names. She had the roster of the entire team.

“Owen James and Ethan Sommerly left a little while ago. Owen had an EMT call and Ethan can only handle being social for so long,” Cody remarked. “Otherwise, you could have met them, too.”

“I do need to meet the entire team at some point,” Sam said. Because, like Gingrich, she suspected one of them could be the arsonist. She’d already started investigating them. Owen James carried physical scars from war. Did he have psychological ones that could cause him to start fires?

And Sommerly was notoriously antisocial. Enough to want to hurt people?

“You’ll meet everyone tomorrow,” Superintendent Andrews said, “at the team meeting Braden has called.”

He hadn’t mentioned the meeting to her. He certainly hadn’t invited her. But she didn’t betray her surprise—just nodded in agreement.

“I hope you didn’t believe any of that nonsense Gingrich spewed about Braden,” Cody said as he settled onto the chair across from her.

“He’s just jealous,” Wyatt added as he turned a chair around and straddled it. “Goes back to high school and all the girls chasing after Braden instead of him.”

“Braden needs some women chasing after him now,” Cody remarked.

Sam’s pulse quickened as she remembered how he’d looked in just that towel with water droplets trailing over his impressive chest and abs. She couldn’t believe he didn’t have women chasing after him now. If not for the investigation, she might be tempted to be one of those women.

Cody continued, “After what his ex-wife did to him...”

It would be her business only if it had something to do with the investigation. But then it was hard to know the arsonist’s motive unless she learned everything about his latest target: Braden. So Sam asked, “What was that?”

“Cheated on him, then invited him to her wedding to the other guy,” Wyatt replied. “Braden did have a couple women after him a few months ago. They mistook him for a stripper and nearly ripped off his clothes.”

Sam could hardly blame them. He looked better without clothes. Not that he hadn’t looked damn good in the Hotshots’ casual uniform of black T-shirt and khaki cargo pants. Their official uniform while firefighting was all yellow—shirt, pants, coat and hat—so they were easier to see through the smoke and flames.

“Now the arsonist is after him,” Dawson said, “and that’s not good...”

“No,” Sam agreed. “Especially when he refuses police protection.”

Wyatt snorted. “You can’t call Marty police protection. He’s an idiot, just like you said. How the hell can he blame Braden for starting the fires?”

“Every time one of them has started we’ve been with him,” Cody said.

Sam looked at the men gathered in a circle around her table and asked, “All of you?”

“The three of us who are based out of Northern Lakes during the off-season.” Cody gestured at himself and the two assistant superintendents. “We were definitely together when that first fire started and the last one, too.”

“So the four of you were together?” she asked. One person might lie for another, might even be working with another—although that was rare for arsonists unless they were hired to start fires for insurance claims. But four?

Cody groaned. “You let Gingrich get to you.”

She shook her head. She’d had her suspicions before she’d even talked to the state trooper. And while the four of them could alibi one another, that left sixteen other Hotshot suspects. “You’re very protective of your boss,” she remarked, “yet you all just let him walk out of here alone.” She included herself in that accusation. Her heart shifted again, contracting with a spasm of fear. Was he all right?

“He gave us direct orders not to follow him,” Wyatt said.