Hot Pursuit

“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.

3

SAM INTENDED TO protect Braden Zimmer—by stopping the Northern Lakes arsonist. It wasn’t going to be easy, though. In fact it felt a lot like when her brothers had gotten a head start on her in a game of tag. It hadn’t mattered that they were older and stronger. Eventually she’d caught them, though—just like she’d catch the arsonist. And maybe it would be the same way. Her brothers had let her catch them. The arsonist wanted to be caught. She could see that in his notes. He wanted the notoriety, but he also wanted to be stopped—at least subconsciously. He probably wasn’t aware that his letters were a cry for help.

“I wish you would’ve called for help sooner,” she remarked as she walked across the charred ground in the Huron National Forest. On the other side of the dirt road on which Braden had parked the US Forest Service black pickup, the trees were vibrant with yellow, orange and red leaves. Where they stood, the sparse trees that remained were bare of leaves, their trunks as black as the ground beneath them.

Braden sighed. “I was working it alongside the state police. I thought we’d have caught him by now.”

“You were busy working other fires,” she reminded him. “This is all I do.” But she’d started out fighting fires, too, before she’d taken the special training to become an arson investigator.

He ran his hand through his thick brown hair. It had dried now and looked so soft Sam was tempted to touch it. But she curled her fingers into her palm.

“We still should have caught him by now,” Braden remarked.

“We’ll catch him soon,” she promised. She flipped through the photos on her tablet. She had pictures of every crime scene. “This is the place where it started.”

“Yes,” Braden replied, though she hadn’t asked a question. “The first fire was traced back to this spot.”

She glanced around, studying the blackened area. “He restarted it a few times since...”

Braden slid his hand around the nape of his neck and squeezed as if trying to relieve some tension. “More than a few—it’s like he’s determined for the forest to stay dead.”

“This area was already slated for a prescribed burn,” she deduced.

Braden’s dark eyes widened in surprise. Then he glanced at her tablet. “Were you told that? Is that in the records you have?”

She shook her head. Nobody had bothered writing it into the report. “I grew up in the middle of a national forest,” she said.

Her father had raised her and brothers in a US Forest Service cabin. The structure had been small—one bedroom for her dad and a loft in which she and her brothers had all slept on mattresses on the floor. But they had never spent much time inside; their home had been the forest itself. “Mack taught me about burns and breaks before I learned my ABCs.”

Braden’s mouth curved into a slight grin, drawing her attention and making her wonder what it might be like to kiss his lips. “Mack knows his stuff...”

And he’d taught his children well—all about the ways of getting burned. Professionally and personally.

She turned her attention back to the crime scene. Her only interest in Braden Zimmer was getting whatever information he had about the arsonist. Not how he looked in a towel, or how his hair might feel, how his mouth might taste...

She shook off the fanciful thoughts. Maybe she’d been working too much—trying too hard to prove herself. And for what? Even catching the Brynn County arsonist hadn’t been impressive enough for Mack to mention to his friends. And she doubted her brothers talked about her at all...

Once she found this arsonist she would reward herself with a mini-vacation. But for now she had a job to do—and a criminal to catch.

“The arsonist seems to know his stuff, too,” she said. “I don’t think he intended to do the damage he did with the first fire.” That was why he’d started it where one was already intended to happen. But how had he known that?

Braden snorted. “He nearly killed a bunch of Boy Scouts.” Then he shuddered. “And a few of my guys...”

“That was just because it was unseasonably dry and the fire took off,” she said. “I don’t think that had been his intention with the first one.”

“Do you have photos of the others?” he asked as he stepped closer behind her. Since he was so much taller than her, it was easy for him to look over her shoulder.

She could feel the heat of his body against her back and her butt. She forgot what he’d asked her.

He didn’t wait for her to remember. He reached over her shoulder and touched the screen of her tablet. His arm brushed against hers, then fleetingly grazed her breast as he scrolled through the photos.

She held her breath but studied the photos. A cottage, its once-light-teal vertical siding blackened. A couple of photos later, the cottage was nearly gone.

“The fire wasn’t bad the first time,” Braden said. “So he came back. He nearly killed Avery Kincaid.”

“He left threatening notes on her doorstep,” Sam said, moving her finger across the screen until a photo of the notes was displayed. Her finger brushed against Braden’s, and she felt that disturbing jolt again.

He slid his finger across the screen, flipping through more photos. “He’s inconsistent, though. He didn’t leave any notes for Serena,” he said, anger rumbling in his deep voice. “He just torched the house, nearly killing her and her boarders.”

She glanced up at his face, which was so close to hers. A muscle twitched along Braden’s tightly clenched jaw.

“Maybe with this first fire he didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” Braden said. “But that quickly changed.”

Sam couldn’t argue that—not when she saw the photos of the houses. There had been even less left of the boardinghouse than the cottage. And Sam had seen photos of Serena Beaumont’s historic home before the fire. It had been a huge, plantation-style estate that had served as a former stagecoach stop.

“He has done a lot of damage,” Sam agreed.

“He is targeting people,” Braden said, his voice rough with emotion. “My guys, their girlfriends...” He’d obviously taken it personally even before the arsonist left the threatening note.

Sam was beginning to wonder just how personal it was. Did the arsonist have a grudge against Braden Zimmer? Was it someone close to him? Someone maybe he trusted too much to suspect?

“Now he’s targeting you,” she reminded him.

“Good,” Braden said. “Better me than anyone else.”

She peered up at his handsome face. His square jaw, already dark with stubble, was rigid with determination. She wondered if he was just displaying macho bravado like her brothers always did. She was just looking at photos; Braden had seen the arsonist’s destruction firsthand. He’d helped fight those fires. How could he not be afraid?

Sam was afraid for him. She had to catch the arsonist before he struck again.

* * *

“WHAT’S HE DOING HERE?” Braden asked as he noted the state police car parked outside as he drove up to the firehouse. For once Stanley had listened. The overhead doors were down, and since Trooper Gingrich sat in his vehicle instead of Braden’s office, the other doors must have been locked as well.

“I called him,” Sam said from the passenger seat.

“You already know more than he does about the investigation,” Braden said.

Trooper Gingrich had been assigned to investigate the fires, but he hadn’t gotten any closer to discovering who was responsible than Braden had. Just how hard had he actually tried, though? They’d argued with each other more than they’d collaborated.

Braden should have asked the US Forest Service to take over the investigation months ago. Sam was certainly a lot better-looking than the bald-headed trooper who stepped out of his vehicle.

“I called him to protect you,” she said.

“I don’t need a bodyguard,” he said, though when he’d thought she was volunteering for the position, he had momentarily been tempted to accept. But risking her life for his was out of the question. If anything happened to her, he was sure Mack would kill him. And even though he’d just met her, Braden would be beside himself with guilt and regret.

“The arsonist proved he doesn’t make idle threats,” Sam said.

Braden was well aware of that. He’d almost lost Dawson Hess and Cody Mallehan when they’d gone into burning houses without wearing protective gear, to rescue the women they loved. Fortunately both Avery and Serena had survived. If anything had happened to them, it would have destroyed two of Braden’s best Hotshots. They loved those women so much. Braden thought he’d loved his ex-wife like that, but now he knew better—after witnessing real love. Ami had hurt his pride more than his heart when she’d left him for another man.

“You need to take his threat seriously,” Sam persisted.

“It’s not him I’m having trouble taking seriously,” he murmured as the trooper approached Braden’s pickup truck.

A breath hissed through Sam’s teeth.

He cursed. Now she’d be thinking again that he was a chauvinist. “I’m not talking about you,” he assured her as he pushed open the driver’s door and stepped out.

“Zimmer,” Trooper Gingrich greeted him coolly. Then he turned his attention to where Sam alighted from the passenger side. He stretched his hand out to her. “Ms. McRooney?”

She nodded and took his hand.

The trooper introduced himself as he held on to her. “I’m glad you gave me a call,” he said. “I would really like to discuss the investigation with you.”

She pulled her hand free of his grasp. “Of course. But first we need to get some more troopers patrolling Northern Lakes.”

Braden couldn’t argue against more patrols—not after receiving that threat. The arsonist was bound to set another fire. And Braden’s instincts—which had never failed him professionally—were warning it would be soon.

“Have you already pinpointed a suspect?” the trooper asked with a glance at Braden, who kept his attention on Sam.

The last rays of the setting sun played across her face, making her skin look even more golden and her blue eyes brighter. She was beautiful—with delicate features. She must have resembled her mother because she looked nothing like her father. No wonder Mack hadn’t mentioned having a daughter; he’d probably been trying to protect her from all the rabble-rousing firefighters he knew.

She shook her head, and that silky blond hair skimmed her jaw. “Not yet,” she conceded. “But earlier he dropped off a threat to the firehouse. And if he’s following the same MO that he did with Avery Kincaid, then he’s going to act again—soon.”

She was right. If the arsonist followed the same pattern he had with Avery, then he wouldn’t wait for Braden to heed his warning. He was going to strike at any moment.

Braden wasn’t afraid, though. He was anxious. He wanted the arsonist to make a move so they’d have an opportunity to catch him in the act.

“Of course he’s going to start another fire,” the trooper agreed. “Zimmer’s team is back in town. There’s a fire every time they’re here.”

Braden flinched. “Not every time,” he called Gingrich out on his exaggeration.

“Maybe I should have said the fires only happen when his team is in town then,” the trooper amended.

Braden heard the insinuation.

Sam must have heard it, too, because her heavily lashed eyes narrowed. “That’s why you need extra troopers in the area,” she said. “Superintendent Zimmer and his team are in danger.”

The trooper shot Braden a resentful glare. He probably hated that Braden had called in the threat to the US Forest Service rather than the state police this time. “Are they in danger?” the trooper asked. “Or are they the danger?”

“What the hell are you implying?” Braden asked. He closed the distance between him and the trooper and stared down into the shorter man’s flushed face.

“I’m not implying anything,” the trooper said. “I’m only saying what everyone else in town has been saying...”

Dread tightened his stomach into knots. “And what’s that?” Braden demanded to know.

“That this town is a hell of a lot safer when you and your team are gone,” Gingrich said.

Since the fires had only happened when the Hotshots were in Northern Lakes, Braden found it hard to argue that point. But he didn’t think that was all Gingrich was saying.

“You called us the danger,” he pointed out. “We’re not the ones setting fires.”

The trooper raised his brow so high it disappeared beneath the brim of his hat, which he wore low, probably so Sam wouldn’t see he’d already lost his hair. And he was only Braden’s age.

In fact, they’d gone to school together. But they’d always been more rivals than friends—competing for the captain position for every team they’d played on together. Marty hadn’t taken it well when he’d lost to Braden—which had happened a lot.

Braden had foolishly thought since they were adults now, they would be able to work together to find the arsonist. He should have known better, known Marty would argue everything.

“Are you accusing me of something?” he asked.

“No accusation,” Marty said. “Just a logical conclusion. If the fires are only set when you and your team are in town, it stands to reason someone on your team is setting the fires.”

It had been a long day—so long Braden’s usually tight control slipped. Anger heated his blood and had it pumping fast and hard in his veins; he could hear the rush inside his head.

“Don’t you dare,” he warned the trooper. “Don’t you damn well dare accuse one of my team members of setting fires—not after all the times they’ve risked their lives putting them out!”

“They’re just like you,” Gingrich said with a derisive snort. “Always playing the hero. Maybe one of them—” he stared hard up at Braden, making it clear which one he thought “—is making sure he has the opportunity to act like a hero.”

A curse slipped through Braden’s lips as his temper snapped entirely. And he reached for the trooper with one hand while he pulled his other one back and fisted it. Before he could take a swing at the guy’s smug face, his elbow struck something else—someone who’d come up behind him.

And he cursed again. Sam pushed herself between him and Gingrich, shoving Braden back. “Calm down,” she yelled. And he noticed the red mark on her cheek.

He’d been worried about the wrong person hurting her. He’d thought the arsonist would, but Braden was the one who’d actually injured her. He reached for her face, but she flinched and stepped back.

What the hell had he done?

4

“YOU NEED TO press charges,” the trooper told Sam.

She hated being told what to do, which was another reason she never got involved with any of the alpha males she encountered in her profession. They were all too damn bossy. And hot-tempered—like Braden Zimmer.

Sure, Gingrich had been goading him. But the trooper wasn’t wrong to question the involvement of one of the Hotshots. She’d noticed, too, that the fires occurred only when they were in Northern Lakes. When they were gone, nothing happened. She doubted that was just a coincidence—but was it because they were behind it? Or because they were being targeted?

“Press charges? For an accident?” she scoffed, shaking her head. Her cheek throbbed.

But she could tell she didn’t feel as bad as Braden did. He stared at her solemnly from across the tavern. The Filling Station was just around the corner from the firehouse. It was a blue-collar bar with peanuts strewn across the floor. Braden had already apologized—profusely—and had offered to go into the firehouse to get an ice pack for her.

Trooper Gingrich had wanted to take her to the state police post so she could press charges. She’d assured them both that she was fine. Then Braden had suggested coming here—for that ice pack.

Gingrich had insisted on coming along, and he’d been so obnoxious Sam had worried he’d provoke Braden into taking another swing. So she’d told Braden to let her talk to the trooper alone. He’d reluctantly left her—to join a few guys in a back booth near the pool tables. But just moments later, a confused waitress had brought her an ice pack.

She knew who had ordered it for her. Gingrich hadn’t even offered to buy her a drink. But that was good. She didn’t want a blowhard like him interested in her.

“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.