Hot to Touch

Shane was ready to fire off a retort, just as the woman approached them. He clamped his mouth shut, folded his arms across his chest and waited until she stood in front of them. Giving Shane only a quick, cursory glance, her eyes darted away and she turned her attention to Roebuck.

Up close, her small, heart-shaped face was dominated by a pair of large, dark brown eyes, surrounded by long, full lashes. As she’d scaled down the rope, he’d noted how long her shapely legs were, but he had misjudged her height. Up close, the top of her dark brown head barely reached him at chest level.

Both her height and pretty face gave the appearance of a fragile doll. Still, although petite, her legs were long, shapely, and toned, as was the rest of her body, belying the notion that there was anything fragile about Emogene Rawlings.

Several strands of hair had escaped from her haphazard ponytail, and Shane felt a sudden and unwanted need to finger the dark tendrils and see if her hair were as soft as it looked.

“That was damn impressive!” Roebuck said to her, pulling Shane out of his observations.

“Thanks, sir. I can’t believe how much fun it was!”

“It’s hardly fun and games,” Shane said. “This is training—training the men go through on a daily basis to prepare them for whatever hazardous mission they may face on any given day. Call it what you will, but it’s hardly fun and games.”

Roebuck turned to Shane, heartily smacking him on the back. “Of course it isn’t, Shane. And I think Ms. Rawlings will fit right in, no problem at all!” If the commander’s hearty enthusiasm sounded a bit forced, no one called him on it. “And for the next four weeks, Emma will follow you, learn what it takes to be a jumper, interview the men and—”

“Now wait a minute, boss. What do you mean she’ll be following me? I never agreed to that!”

There was a long, strained silence. “Shane, Emma…why don’t we go to my office and discuss the particulars?” Roebuck turned on his heels, walking stiffly toward the exit.

Emma glanced around self-consciously, noticing they were the center of attention. With a tight smile aimed at the staring group of jumpers, she went to follow Roebuck out of the gym. From her peripheral vision she saw Shane hesitate, as though he had no intention of meekly following along.

She released a breath of relief when she saw him reluctantly follow them. So this was the jumper she was supposed to shadow. A sinking feeling settled in her gut.

Well, damn.

Chapter Three

“Sir, no disrespect intended, but I don’t really give a damn what ‘good press’ she’ll bring to the station. I just want her out of here. The sooner the better. And she sure as hell is not trailing me around. I have enough to worry about without playing babysitter to some damn reporter!”

Shane tried to keep his anger at a slow boil. He respected his base manager and didn’t want to go off half-cocked and say something he’d regret later.

Although Roebuck was in his early forties, his craggy features made him look older, deep lines scoring the sides of his full mouth, due to the hard life he’d led. He’d come to the smoke jumpers after serving several years in the military as a paratrooper, most of his service done during several deployments overseas. Despite all of that, Shane had rarely seen Roebuck blow his stack. Even when one of the younger jumpers screwed up, the captain always kept his cool and always treated everyone fairly, equally, from the newest jumper to the seasoned vets.

It was one of the many traits Shane admired about his commander, and one of the many reasons he willingly followed the man’s lead, trusting his judgment, something crucial in their line of work.

But not this time.

He turned away, walking over to face the large bay window, not really seeing the view of the mountains and the hill country below.

“Shane.”

When he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, he turned his head.

“Be reasonable. It’s a done deal. Nothing you can do about it. I’ve already given her permission.” Roebuck sighed. “Look, I know where this is coming from. But you can’t let one incident make you like this. It was an accident, no one—”

“She’s not ‘shadowing’ me. Period,” Shane interrupted, not wanting to hear what his commander would say next, fighting against memories of a time he tried his hardest to ignore.

“And I would think you of all people would understand why,” he finished, grimly.

Emma paused, her fist poised to knock on the door, when the voices inside grew louder.

After leaving the gym on their way to the office, her cell phone rang, a call from her editor.

Although she could have allowed it to go to voice mail, she used the call as an excuse to get away. She needed a chance to pull herself together and rally her defenses against what she knew was a battle she faced with Shane.

Although she’d taken the call, she’d spoken less than five minutes with Bill before ending the conversation with a promise to call him back.

The anger of the prudent never shows.

She’d learned the value of the wise old adage long ago, while on her first assignment in a small village in Burma. She’d incorporated the saying as much as she could into her everyday life, although at times it wasn’t so easy to do.

She took a deep breath, slowly exhaling. No matter what happened, she wasn’t going to allow him to bait her into saying something she would regret later. He wouldn’t make her say something stupid and shoot herself in the foot before she even got it in the door.

When she could no longer clearly hear the angry staccato of words, she strained her ears to pick up on the conversation, stepping closer to the door.

After several minutes of silence, Emma mentally and physically squared her shoulders and knocked briskly on the door.

So, tall, blond and fine didn’t want her around his precious jumpers? Oh well. She had every right to be there. She hadn’t been given any special favors, she’d worked hard to get the assignment and no one was going to take this golden opportunity away from her.

There was a slight pause before she heard Roebuck’s deep baritone calling out for her to enter. Cautiously, she opened the door, plastering a bright smile on her face.

Like a magnet, her eyes were drawn to the jumper as he stood near a large window, his long legs braced far apart, big arms crossed over his chest, his back to her.

Roebuck motioned her to come inside. “Come on in, Emma. We were just discussing your assignment.”

Emma picked up on the false cheer in his voice and the worried glance in the commander’s eyes as he looked at her.

Obviously he was aware that she’d heard at least part of the discussion. Despite that, along with the accompanying tension so thick in the room she could cut it with a knife, Emma nodded and stepped inside the office, closing the door behind her.

The office was small, but everything was neat and orderly. An oversize, scratched, oak desk took up most of the room, upon which two monitors sat. One was a computer, and the other seemed like some type of weather-monitoring system.

“Have a seat, Emma. We can go over the particulars of the article. Your expectations and ours.”

“What did you have to do to get this job?” Before Emma could take the offered seat, Shane spoke, surprising her, turning to face her.

“So you can speak. I thought you were just here for my viewing pleasure.” Before she knew it, her mouth started in, before her head could rule it out, the retort tripping off her tongue.

Shane’s expression darkened, his brows nearly meeting in the middle as he took two steps toward her and stopped. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Whatever you want it to mean.” Emma shrugged. “Probably the same thing you meant when—”

“Shane,” Roebuck broke in. “Emma, before this goes any further, let’s all sit down, discuss this like we have some sense.”

Emma fully faced Shane, her anger rising. She crossed her arms over her chest, keeping her expression light. “Well, you were asking me how I got the job?” she baited Shane. “Just what did you mean by that?”

“You call yourself Gene Raw, right?”

“Yes. And your point would be?”

“My point is you seem to be…billing yourself as one thing when you’re selling something else entirely.”

“I’m not selling myself as anything other than what I am. A damn good photojournalist.” Emma brushed off his not so subtle innuendo and focused on the latter part of his sentence.

“I don’t get how having a pen name makes me seem as though I’m billing myself—or as you like to say, ‘selling’ myself—in any way different than who I am.” Emma stopped and drew in a deep breath. “And I do that purely because of men like you. Men who think that just because I’m a woman, I’m not as capable in doing my job as any other journalist. I don’t have to—”

“Look,” he interrupted. “I don’t pretend to know how it works in your world. I don’t give a damn one way or another. What I do know is that lives are on the line here. There is no time for play, this is real—”

“And how will my presence here alter that?” Emma bit out angrily, her chest heaving, brushing against the hard wall of his abdomen.

She took a step back.

It was then that she noticed how close they stood to each other. One or both of them had moved so that they were so close they were touching. Emma caught the subtle hint of his cologne, mixed with his natural scent, wafting across her nose.

After backing up, she continued. “I didn’t get any special favors to get this job. I worked hard for it, just like I have for everything I’ve ever gotten. Every accomplishment I’ve ever had was because I worked hard for it.” She emphasized each word, unwanted emotion burning the back of her throat.

“No one gave me any special consideration.” She made one more attempt at civility, desperately trying to bring her anger and threatening tears under control.

“I’m sure you did nothing to get any favors, Ms. Raw,” he said, emphasizing her pen name. He just wouldn’t let it go.

“Like I said, I got this job fair and square, Mr. Westwood. And unless you want a sexual-harassment claim slapped on you and the rest of this camp, I suggest you put on your big-boy panties and deal with it.”

The back of her teeth hurt so badly from clenching them that she knew that as soon as she reached her room she’d have to pull out her industrial-sized, extrastrength Motrin to rid herself of the pain.

Turning on her heels, she strode toward the door. If the door slammed back against the hinges with more force than necessary, she didn’t really give a damn.

To hell with not allowing her anger to show. If only he wasn’t so fine.

Chapter Four

Shane threw his workout gear on the floor, and then grabbed his duffel bag from the chair in the corner and tossed it onto his bed. He yanked open the zipper and began to unpack, separating his clothes, his thoughts on the woman foisted on him by the general manager.

He still hadn’t unpacked since his return. Although he had a place in town, he’d decided to stay at the station to keep an eye on the reporter.

He’d been so tired after coming home that the only thing he’d wanted to do was lie down for a week straight and not think about the fire that claimed the lives of three civilians or the havoc it had wreaked on the small Alaskan community. He certainly didn’t want to think about the helplessness he’d felt watching families lose their homes, all their possessions, with nothing left but the clothes on their backs.

He didn’t want to think of any of it.

No, he’d wanted to chill and put all thoughts of the fire and the destruction out of his mind, decompress after the physically and mentally draining ordeal and indulge in a little mindless rest and relaxation.

Well, that was shot to hell, he thought, dumping the rest of his clothes in the hamper in disgust.

From the moment he laid eyes on Emogene Rawlings, his gut told him she was nothing but trouble wrapped up in a little package, big brown doe eyes staring at him. She might have fooled the others with her demure smile, dimples flashing, but he caught the speculating look in her eyes when she didn’t think he was looking at her. Sizing him up, no doubt, figuring out which angle to take to win him over. Even as he had the thought, he remembered the hurt look she tried to hide when he’d all but accused her of her sleeping her way to get what she wanted.

He felt a momentary stab of remorse, remembering the sheen of tears she’d tried like hell to hide. But he hardened himself against the look, and the way he’d wanted to apologize for the unnecessary remark.

It wasn’t going to work, not on him. He was on to her game. Their heated exchange echoed in his mind, reinforcing his belief that the kitty definitely had claws.

As he unpacked the remaining items from his duffel bag, the image of her legs as she rappelled flashed in his mind’s eye, her strong, lean muscles flexing as she pushed off the wall.

She had the kind of legs a man dreamed about, the kind he could imagine wrapped around his waist as he drove into her perfect little body.

“Damn!” he mumbled, shaking his head as though to purge the image of her long legs, along with what he wanted to do with them, from his mind.

He angrily dumped the few clean items he had into one of his drawers.

Before he turned from the dresser, he glanced down at the small, 3 x 5 framed picture, the only picture he had in his room. A ghost of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth, replacing his frown. He looked at the image staring back at him, of the two men grinning ear to ear, faces covered in soot, as though they’d just conquered the world. He ran a finger over the edges of the frame before lifting the photo from the dresser.

It had been taken not long after completing his training. He and Kyle had just returned from fighting a forest fire in Idaho, a grueling job that had taken three weeks just to get the fire under control. His glance slid to the woman directly behind them, the smile slipping from his face.

Ciara Summers. The woman responsible for the death of his best friend.

The memories hit him hard, replaying in his mind, reel by reel, as though from some old movie.

Shane hit the ground, removed his chute and took off running. Ignoring the yells from the others to stay clear, he went after Kyle, who was trapped inside one of the remaining cabins in the decimated area.

Through the roar of the blazing fire, Shane made it to the cabin and heard his friend’s frantic call for help to save Ciara. After pulling the woman outside to safety, he turned around to head back to the cabin, despite the commander and other jumpers yelling for him to stay clear, that the cabin was collapsing.

The memories played out in slow motion. He stood, frozen in place, watching in disbelief as Kyle lay trapped beneath a fallen column, flames shooting in every direction around him.

Surrounding him, the hungry flames were eating the cabin alive when it finally shattered in a fiery explosion, collapsing in on itself, debris flying everywhere.

And then there was silence.

Shane carefully placed the frame back on the dresser.

Emma was just like Ciara, and no woman was ever going to get close enough to interfere with his work again if he had anything to do with it. Nothing had ever been the same again for Shane; the guilt ate at him just like the hungry flames that devoured his friend.

“Deal with it, my ass,” he said, gritting his teeth. “Round one is yours,” he said, aloud. “But, I’ll have you out of here before the week is out.”

As he made his promise, he ignored the inner voice that mocked his proclamation.

Chapter Five

As soon as she walked inside her room, Emma allowed the backpack to ease from her shoulders. Barely making it to the corner chair mere feet away, she slumped down into it lazily.

She untied the laces of her Timberlands and, using the toes of each foot, pushed one and then the other boot from her aching feet, kicking the shoes away. With a groan she lifted a foot into her lap. She sighed, massaging her instep before bringing the other foot into her lap and repeating the deep massage.

What was it about her that always made her attack any new thing she was told she couldn’t do?

After leaving Roebuck’s office too angry to think straight, she’d wandered into the gym. She’d felt as though every man’s eye was on her, feeling as though the words between her and Shane had spread like proverbial wildfire throughout the station. The word was out.

Shane Westwood didn’t want her there.

The men who’d begun to open up to her now turned away as she entered the gym. When one of the squad leaders approached her and asked if she wanted to participate in training with a few of them, she agreed, ignoring the way a few of the rookies nearby snickered at the comment.

Once outside, she scanned the course. At first glance it didn’t appear impossible for her to maneuver; she’d run courses before. This one reminded her of an obstacle she’d once done at a military post while doing a story on fighter pilots. Large, it spanned at least a quarter of a mile in length. Much like the military obstacle course, it was filled with rope ladders, high walls to scale and logs to run across, and at the end of the course was a rope swing where they’d have to jump over a pool of water to reach the other side.

Feeling confident to the point of cocky, Emma strutted over to where the others were gathering. A pin was stuck directly into her balloon of confidence when one of the squad leaders placed a large duffel bag at her feet, telling her to suit up.

“Suit up?” She frowned, speaking to his retreating back.

“You have two minutes to put on your jumpsuit and protective gear, including helmet, and then place the duffel bag on your back.” As he spoke, Emma swiftly began to don the suit, her eyes widening as she spied the heavy gear inside the bag.

“After the whistle blows, you have ten minutes to maneuver the course. This is the first of many trials for this particular test before your examination, rookies. Don’t screw up.”

Emma was seconds away from backing out, eyeing the heavy helmet in her hand and the even heavier duffel at her feet, when she felt a prickling on the back of her neck. She didn’t have to turn around to know where the source of the now familiar sensation came from.

Mentally squaring her shoulders, she completed suiting up in the allotted time. When the whistle blew she was off and running with the others.

“Carrying a friggin’ twenty-five-pound rucksack, wearing another ten pounds of gear while tripping over tires and going facedown in a pool of water in an obstacle course…what in the world was I thinking?” Emma wondered aloud, reflecting on her afternoon.

But she knew what made her accept the challenge. It was for the same reason she went after any new challenge, particularly one she was told she couldn’t do. She didn’t need any psychotherapist to give her an unneeded, expensive, in-depth analysis.

It wasn’t that she’d been abused physically as a kid. Instead she’d been ignored, or tolerated at best. Left on her own, she’d never had many friends, being shuffled from relative to relative. She learned to rely on herself and herself only, determined not to need anyone to take care of her.

That transient way of living, picking up and moving frequently, had also made it so that she’d never needed a “home.” If she occasionally thought of what it would be like to stay in one place longer than a few months, of having somewhere to call home, she reminded herself that she had the type of life she’d always wanted—an exciting career, traveling, experiencing the world on her own terms.

After completing the obstacle course, her body dripping with a combination of sweat and water from the headlong dive, she nearly collapsed as soon as she made it to the other side. Despite it all, she’d found herself grinning her face off, proud that she’d beaten several of the other rookies who’d started with her. A movement to her left caught her attention and she spotted Shane on the sideline with a few other men, his focus solely on her. Their gazes locked.

Emma inhaled a swift breath. The way her pulse quickened, heart banging against her chest, had nothing to do with the physical act she just completed and everything to do with the man who was watching her.

Emma caught the glint of admiration in his bright blue eyes before he turned away.

Groaning, Emma settled back against the headboard, crossed her legs and dragged her bag from the floor before plunking it down beside her.

She took out her cell phone, flipped it open and saw that she’d missed two calls. Without looking she knew that both had to be from her editor. She didn’t really have anyone else who would call her. Particularly because of her lifestyle, she had next to no one she actually called “friend.” The few she did were reporters or photographers and led a similarly transient life, and rarely made idle phone calls just to chit-chat.

And that was the way she liked it, she reminded herself.

When she’d spoken to her editor earlier, their conversation had been brief; she hadn’t gone on to detail her experience with Shane. She’d assured him everything had been going “peachy,” and then there’d been a pause and Emma had held her breath. Bill was one of the few people who could pick up on how she was feeling, no matter how hard she tried to hide it from him. Although he hadn’t called her out, just gruffly said, “good,” she knew she wasn’t off the hook.

“Might as well get this over with,” she mumbled.

She quickly punched in his number, the only one she knew by heart, and waited for him to pick up the phone.

After several rings, a gruff voice on the other end barked, “Hello.”

“Hey, Bill, it’s me.” Emma leaned back against the headboard, sighing deeply.

“You sound like hell.”

“Way to make a girl feel good,” she replied, laughing humorlessly.

“Been one of those days, huh?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“Humph. I was wondering when you’d call. How’s it going so far? You all settled in?” Emma heard the concern he tried to hide in his scratchy voice. Asking if she was settled in was his way of asking what she needed from him. Not if she needed anything, but what she needed. Emma knew that whatever it was she needed, he’d do everything in his power to help her. He never actually came out and told her that he worried about her, that he cared, it wasn’t his style, but Emma knew he did.

Bill Hanley knew her better than anyone, including her own family. He’d been the one to give her her first job, right out of journalism school. He’d also been the one to give her her first overseas assignment.

He was the first person to believe in her abilities as a reporter—even during the times she doubted them herself. Emma was determined not to let him or herself down.

“Yeah, Chief, I’m cool. I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

There was a moment of silence. Emma was about to disconnect the phone when he surprised her. “Look, if things get funky, let me know. You don’t have to put up with bull. I know some folks,” he said, and she smiled.

His phrasing reminded her of an old mafia flick. Bill had an old-school way of speaking, straight and to the point.

“Is there something you neglected to tell me?” She shut her eyes, allowing her head to rest back against the wrought-iron headboard.

There was a slightly short pause before he spoke. It was small, but enough that it made her fatigue melt away and alertness take its place.

“Bill?”

“The base manager and I go back, way back. I once did a story about his firefighter unit in the army, back when he was in the military. We became friends and have kept in contact ever since.”