Читать книгу Hot Pursuit - Lisa Childs - Страница 11

2

AS HE STEPPED out of the locker room, Braden fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. He had dressed in a hurry. But it was already too late. He hadn’t just gotten caught with his pants down; he’d gotten caught with them off.

Not that he’d been doing anything wrong. He hadn’t been expecting anyone from the US Fire Service to show up so quickly. And he certainly hadn’t been expecting Sam McRooney.

Mack’s daughter. And she didn’t just work for the US Fire Service like her Hotshot, smoke jumper and ranger brothers, she was the arson investigator.

And he was a fool for not realizing it sooner.

Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who thought him foolish, either. The way she’d looked at him when she’d informed him who she was...

He shivered, and it wasn’t because his skin was still damp from the shower. She’d frozen him out.

He found her at the bottom of the stairs. She wasn’t alone. Stanley had returned from wherever he’d gone, and he’d brought that damn dog with him. Someone had dropped off the puppy at the firehouse a few months ago. Orphan Annie, as they’d named her, was probably part sheepdog and part mastiff; she was huge and hairy and—if Braden believed one of his Hotshots—heroic. She was also standing with her paws on the arson investigator’s slender shoulders. And the dog probably weighed more than the petite blonde.

“Stanley,” he admonished the kid. “Get Annie off Ms. McRooney.”

The curly-haired teenager tucked his fingers beneath the dog’s collar and pulled her down.

“Where were you earlier?” Braden asked the kid. “I asked you to watch the firehouse while I took a shower. But you took off and left it wide open.” Which probably also explained how the arsonist had waltzed right in earlier and left that note on his desk.

Stanley’s face flushed a bright red. “I’m sorry, Superintendent Zimmer. Annie ran off after a cat, and I had to catch her before she got hurt.”

“What about the cat?” the woman asked.

“Annie wouldn’t hurt anything or anyone,” Stanley defended the dog. “But she could’ve been hit by a car.”

Braden nodded. “Okay, I understand.” Occasionally he had to reprimand the kid—like when Stanley talked to reporters or ignored orders to drop a puppy at the humane society. But Braden usually wound up feeling worse than he made Stanley feel. “If you have to leave again, please close down the door, though. I will be in my office with Ms. McRooney—”

“Ms. McRooney?” Stanley interrupted. He probably recognized the last name. Her father had nearly gotten the boy’s foster brother to leave Northern Lakes.

“Sam,” she said.

Wanting to get the meeting back on track, Braden told the kid, “Sam and I will be in my office.”

She glanced at him, and those blue eyes were still cool. She must have only been giving Stanley permission to use her first name—not him.

Braden led the way—through the garage and down the hall, past the workout room to his office. He fumbled with the ring of keys clipped to his hip until he found the right one.

“Don’t often lock it?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“I can see how the arsonist got in—”

He flinched.

And she added “—easily.”

He pushed open the door, but when she moved to pass through ahead of him, he caught her arm and stopped her. She glanced down at his hand on her arm, then looked up at his face. He shivered again at the coldness of her gaze.

“I am not a chauvinist,” he told her, his pride prickling that she obviously thought he was. “When I called the chief’s office, they told me it could take a while for an arson investigator to get here. That’s why I didn’t think you were the investigator.”

“When they called, I was closer to Northern Lakes than they thought I would be.”

He wanted to ask where she’d been. But he wanted to resolve their misunderstanding first. “And I know your dad,” he continued. “He always brags about his boys being Hotshots and smoke jumpers and rangers. So I thought you were a ranger.”

She flinched now. “I’m not a boy.”

There was no mistaking Sam McRooney for a man—not with her petite but curvy body. Her waist was tiny but her hips swelled into a tightly rounded derriere cradled in tight-fitting jeans. He’d never realized he was an ass man until now. Her silky blond hair was short, barely falling to the shoulders of her pale blue sweater, but the yellow locks framed a delicately featured face. She was quite beautiful.

“I know,” he assured her.

“Sometimes my dad forgets.”

Braden bet her father was the only man who made that mistake. But then he wondered if she meant her dad forgets she’s female or forgets about her entirely.

“I wish other people would forget I was female,” she admitted. “Too many question my ability to do my job merely because of my sex.”

Braden shook his head. “Sex has nothing to do with it.”

She arched a blond brow. “Really?”

“I can’t speak for anyone else,” he said. “But for me, sex doesn’t matter.”

Her lips curved into a wider smile, and a twinkle brightened her blue eyes. Then he realized what he’d said. And he hoped like hell none of his men had overheard it. They would all mercilessly tease him, especially Cody Mallehan and Wyatt Andrews. Those two Hotshots were always giving each other a hard time, and since his divorce, they’d been on a mission to lighten him up and get him laid.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “You’re trying to assure me you’re not a chauvinist.”

“I’m not,” he said. “I have two female crew members who work every bit as hard as the guys. They’ve earned my respect.”

“Why did they have to earn it?”

“Everyone does,” he said with a shrug. It had always been that way; he’d had to prove himself, too, or he wouldn’t have had the job he did. “You have to prove yourself, too.”

“Oh, I’ve done that,” she said. “The Brynn County wildfire... I caught the arsonist.”

He expelled a breath. “That was you?”

She nodded.

Maybe the chief had sent the right investigator. “That fire was a few years ago,” he said. “You look so young I didn’t realize you’ve been on the job that long.”

She emitted a shaky sigh, and he felt the sweet caress of it against his throat. They were still standing in the doorway—too close. “I thought you were too young, too,” she admitted with a sheepish smile.

“Too young?” Already married and divorced, he felt old—older than his thirty-three years. And after dealing with the threat of the arsonist, he felt even older.

“Too young to be a Hotshot superintendent,” she said. “I didn’t think you were Braden Zimmer when we met in the hallway.”

“Maybe I look younger in just a towel,” he said.

Her lips parted on a soft gasp, and her eyes darkened as her pupils dilated. Her skin flushed. Then she finally stepped away from him and settled into one of the chairs in front of his desk.

Was she embarrassed? He was the one who should have been embarrassed.

“Sorry about that,” he said as he dropped into the chair behind his desk.

“I know,” she said. “You didn’t expect me to show up as quickly as I had.”

“Where were you?” he asked.

“Already on my way here,” she said.

He cocked his head. Did she have a sixth sense, too? How had she known he was going to call? So far the US Forest Service had been letting him and the state police handle the arson investigation. “Why?”

“My dad is Mack McRooney,” she reminded him. “He respects you and also thinks highly of a Hotshot named Cody Mallehan. Mack’s concerned about all of you and asked me to look into the fires.”

“Mack tried to poach Cody from me,” Braden said with mock resentment. “Recruit him as a smoke jumper.”

She smiled. “The way he tells the story, he only lent you Cody, and you won’t give him back.”

Braden chuckled. “I could see how he might see it that way.” Since that was the way it had actually been.

“Lucky for you Mack doesn’t hold a grudge.”

“You call him Mack?” he asked. “To his face?” If he called either of his parents by their first names, Ben and Ramona would kick his butt even now.

She nodded. “He prefers it. My brothers and I have always called him Mack.”

He suspected she’d had an interesting upbringing. “And your mom allowed that?”

She shrugged. “She didn’t stick around to protest.”

And now he remembered hearing that Mack had raised his kids alone. But nobody had ever said if his wife had died. Apparently she’d just left, deserting her husband and her kids.

Sam had had a very interesting upbringing then. He wanted to ask her more. But she was pointing toward the note on his desk. “Is that it?”

Braden suppressed a groan. He’d rather talk about her than the arsonist. He already talked about the fire-starter entirely too much with his team. But he never got any closer to discovering who he was. Maybe Sam could actually help. She had caught the Brynn County arsonist, after all.

He touched the edge of the paper, but she reached across the desk and caught his wrist. “Don’t...”

He didn’t mind her touching him. In fact he kind of enjoyed it—enjoyed the sensation of her fingertips sliding over his skin. But it wasn’t necessary for her to stop him. She moved her hand from his. Then she stood up and moved around the desk until she stood behind him.

“You won’t find any fingerprints on it,” he said. “The state police didn’t find any on the notes he left for Avery Kincaid.”

“She’s the reporter,” Sam said. “The one who did the special feature on your assistant superintendent Dawson Hess.”

He nodded, and his head nearly bumped hers as she leaned over his shoulder. Her breath whispered across his cheek as she read, “‘You made a terrible mistake...’”

He felt her gaze on his face, as if she was speculating what that mistake might have been. He waited for her to ask. But instead she continued to read, “‘And it’s going to cost you—’”

The mistakes he’d made had already cost him.

“‘—and your team gravely...’”

He flinched. He didn’t care about himself as much as his team. It was his responsibility to make sure they were safe. Working fires like they did, they were in enough danger without a psychopath targeting them.

Her breath whistled between her teeth and brushed warmly across his ear. He nearly shivered at the sensation. He hadn’t been this close to a woman in quite a while—not since the drunk women who’d tried to tear off his clothes some months ago. That would teach him for letting Wyatt Andrews talk him into checking out some new club—one that had featured male exotic dancers on the night they’d gone. Braden had fended the women off then, but he suspected he wouldn’t fight Sam McRooney too hard if she had the inclination to undress him.

“Mack was right to be concerned,” she remarked.

Braden uttered a ragged sigh of resignation. She was Mack’s daughter. And Mack was a friend. Braden wouldn’t cross that line with her even if she wasn’t the US Forest Service arson investigator.

“You’re in danger,” she said.

“We already knew the arsonist was fixated on us,” Braden said. “The fires only happen when we’re in Northern Lakes. He’s gone after a couple of my men directly.”

“Cody Mallehan,” she said. “The arsonist cut his brake line and sabotaged a shower, making him slip. He got a concussion out of that.”

Braden added, “He went after Cody’s girlfriend, Serena Beaumont, too.”

“Her boardinghouse was burned down.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have worried about wasting time bringing Sam McRooney up to speed. She obviously knew quite a bit about the fires.

“Just like he burned down Avery Kincaid’s cottage,” she continued. “He’s targeting your superintendents and the women they’re seeing.”

Braden’s stomach clenched with dread. If Dawson had lost Avery or Cody had lost Serena...

He would have lost his men as well. They would have gone out of their minds if such amazing women had been taken from their lives.

“Are you seeing anyone?” she asked.

Braden turned his head, and his mouth nearly brushed across her cheek. Her eyes dilated, the pupils swallowing up the blue until it just rimmed the black. She jerked back.

“Why would you ask that?” He doubted she was interested in him. As beautiful as she was, she was probably already seeing someone.

“Because the arsonist appears to be targeting you now,” she pointed out.

He glanced down at the note. And he couldn’t argue with her.

“If you’re seeing anyone, she would be in danger, too.”

Because of the arsonist, Braden hadn’t had the time or the inclination to date anyone—despite how some members of his team had pushed him into socializing after his divorce. But apparently that was a good thing, because if he had gotten involved with anyone, he’d have only put the woman in danger.

“I just got divorced...” A year ago. It had been a year. The revelation stunned him. No wonder his men were pressuring him to get back out there. It had been a while. “So no, I’m not seeing anyone.”

“That’s good,” Sam said, and she looked away from him, as if unwilling to meet his gaze.

His heart rate accelerated. Was she interested? Not that anything could come of it...

But it was nice to know that women didn’t have to be drunk in order to find him attractive.

“Now we only have to worry about protecting you,” she continued.

“Protecting me?”

“Yes, you’re obviously the arsonist’s next target,” she said. Her brow furrowed slightly. “Or maybe you’ve been his ultimate target all along. So we need to make sure you have protection—around the clock.”

“Who?” Braden asked. “You? Are you going to protect me, Sam?”

He was just teasing. Even though she carried a gun, she was an arson investigator—not a bodyguard. He expected her to use that icy tone and remind him as much.

Instead she replied, simply and succinctly, “Yes.”

Maybe she meant well or she was only trying to please her father, but Braden couldn’t allow her to get that close to him. As she had just pointed out, any woman who got close to him would be risking her life.