When opposites attract, the sparks ignite more than they bargained for…

Dylan Tehauno is a hotshot, an expert in preventing and fighting forest fires. He knows that the inferno that killed a tech billionaire was no accident—and he suspects that he and filmmaker Meadow Wrangler were supposed to die, too. When lawmakers identify Dylan as a prime suspect, he and Meadow decide to find the real arsonist themselves.

Dylan and Meadow have nothing in common. He’s a proud Apache and a war hero, a self-made man. She’s a rich girl with a tabloid past. But there’s no denying the heat between them. Is there more to their attraction than physical desire? Will they survive long enough to find out?

Apache Protectors: Tribal Thunder

Had the roaring decreased? She wasn’t sure.

“How you doing?” he asked.

She could hear him now. He wasn’t shouting.

“I don’t want to die,” she whispered. The words came as a surprise to her. Yesterday there was nothing she wanted to do. Nowhere she wanted to go. And now she just wanted to see the sky again. Dive into cold water. Inhale the scent of peonies.

“We’re both going to live.” He brushed his cheek against hers. “I’ll keep you safe, Meadow. It won’t get you.”

She closed her eyes and tried to control the ball of pain that wanted to escape her throat as a sob. She failed. Here she had thought there was only a thin veil of foil between her and the fire. But it wasn’t so. Dylan stood between her and the flames. He protected her with his body and his promise and she loved him for it.

Firewolf

Jenna Kernan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JENNA KERNAN has penned over two dozen novels and has received two RITA® Award nominations. Jenna is every bit as adventurous as her heroines. Her hobbies include recreational gold prospecting, scuba diving and gem hunting. Jenna grew up in the Catskills and currently lives in the Hudson Valley of New York State with her husband. Follow Jenna on Twitter, @jennakernan, on Facebook or at www.jennakernan.com.

This book is dedicated to hotshots with special consideration to the Granite Mountain Hotshots and their families.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Dylan Tehauno would not have stopped for the woman if she had not been standing in the road. Her convertible was parked beside her, a black Audi of all things, impractical as her attire. It was impossible that she did not hear him crunching over the gravel road. Yet she continued to stare in the opposite direction, presenting him with a very tempting view of her backside and long bare legs.

Killer curves, he thought, as dangerous as the switchbacks between him and his destination on the mountain’s ridgeline. Her pale skin had tanned to the color of wild honey. The Anglo woman wore no hat, and only a fool went out without one in the Arizona sun at midday in July. He let his gaze caress her curves again as she sidestepped and he glimpsed what he had not seen beyond that round rump. She was bent over a small tripod that had spindly black spider legs. Each leg was braced with a sandbag. On the pinnacle sat one of those little fist-sized mobile video cameras.

Her convertible blocked the right lane and her camera sat on the left. There was just no way around her as the graded gravel road dropped off on each side to thick scrub brush and piñon pine. It was a long way from his reservation in Turquoise Canyon to Flagstaff, not in miles, but in everything else that mattered. There were some pines down here, piñon mostly, not the tall, majestic ponderosas. Up in the mountains they had water and an occasional cool breeze, even in July. The McDowell Mountains could not compare to the White Mountains in Dylan’s estimation. The air was so scalding here he felt as if he were fighting a wildfire. He rolled to a stop. The dust that had trailed him now swirled and settled on the shiny hood of his truck.

He rolled down the window of his white F-150 pickup and leaned out.

“Good morning,” he called.

But instead of moving aside, she turned toward him and pressed both fists to her hips. The woman’s clothing was tight, hugging her torso like a second skin. Was that a tennis outfit? She looked as if she had just spilled out of some exclusive country club. The woman wore her hair swept back, a clip holding the soft waves from her face so they tumbled to her shoulders. It was blue, a bright cobalt hue. Mostly, but there were other hues mixed in including deep purple, violet and turquoise.

It seemed the only protection she did use from the sun was the wide sunglasses that flashed gold at the edges. These she slipped halfway down her narrow nose as she regarded him at last with eyes the color of warm chocolate. She had lips tinted hot pink and her acrylic nails glowed a neon green that was usually reserved for construction attire. A sculpted brow arched in disapproval. Was there anything about her that was not artificial?

Dylan resisted the urge to glance at her breasts again.

“Mind moving your vehicle?” Dylan added a generous smile after his request. It was his experience that Anglo women were either wary of or curious about Apache men. This woman looked neither wary nor curious. She looked pissed.

Had her car broken down?

“You ruined my shot,” she said, motioning at her tiny camera.

She was shooting in the direction he traveled, toward his destination, the house that broke the ridgeline and thus had caused so much controversy. Dylan had an appointment up there that could not be missed, one that marked a change in direction.

“The dust!” she said, and dropped a cloth over her camera.

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Dylan’s years in the Marines had taught him many things, including how to address an angry Anglo woman. “But I have to get by. I have a meeting.”

“I can’t have you in the shot.”

Was she refusing to move? Now Dylan’s eyes narrowed.

“Are you unable to move that vehicle?” he asked.

“Unwilling.”

She raised her pointed chin and Dylan felt an unwelcome tingle of desire. Oh, no. Heck, no—and no way, too. This woman was high maintenance and from a world he did not even recognize.

“You’ll have to wait.” Her mouth quirked as if she knew she was messing with him and was enjoying herself.

“But I have an appointment,” he repeated.

“I don’t give a fig.”

“You can’t just block a public road.”

“Well, I guess I just did.”

Dylan suppressed the urge to ram her Audi off into the rough. That’s what his friend Ray Strong would do. Ray spent a lot of time cleaning up after his impulsiveness. Right now Dylan thought it might be worth it. He pictured the car sliding over the embankment and resisted the urge to smile.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked.

He lowered his chin and bit down to keep himself from telling her exactly what she was. Instead, he shook his head.

“I’m Meadow.”

She gave only her first name, as if that was all that mattered. Not her family name or her tribe or clan. Just Meadow.

He shrugged one shoulder.

“Meadow Wrangler?”

He shook his head indicating his inability to place the name.

Her pretty little mouth dropped open.

“You don’t know me?”

“Should I?” he asked.

“Only if you can read.”

Charming, he thought.

In a minute he was getting out of his truck and she wouldn’t like what happened next. He could move her and her camera without harming a blue hair on her obnoxious little head. Dylan gripped the door handle.

“My father is Theron Wrangler.”

Dylan’s hand fell from the handle and his eyes rounded.

She folded her arms. “Ah. You’ve heard of him.”

He sure had, but likely not for the reason she thought. Theron Wrangler was the name that Amber Kitcheyan had overheard the day before the Lilac Copper Mine massacre. It was the name of the man that FBI field agent Luke Forrest believed was a member of the eco-extremist group known as BEAR, Bringing Earth Apocalyptic Restoration. But what was Theron Wrangler’s profession?

“I’m not surprised. He won an Oscar at twenty-five. I’m working for him now. Documentary film on the impact of urban sprawl and on the construction of private residences that are environmental and aesthetic monstrosities.” She motioned her head toward the mansion rising above the tree line on the ridge. “I’ve been here filming since construction. Timelapse. Sun up to sun down and today I finally have some clouds. Adds movement.”

The wind was picking up, blowing grit and sand at them.

“I still need to get around you,” said Dylan.

“And have your rooster tail in the shot? No way. Why are you going up there? I thought your people were protesting the building of that thing.”

She was referring to the private residence of Gerald W. Rustkin, the man who had founded one of the social media sites that self-destructed all messages from either side of any conversation. The man who allowed others to hide had put himself in the center of controversy when he had donated generously to the city of Flagstaff and afterward quietly received his variances to break the ridgeline with his personal residence.

“My people?” asked Dylan.

“You’re Native American, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but we don’t all think alike.”

“But you’re all environmentally conscious.” she said, as if this was a given.

“That would be thinking alike.”

“You don’t want to prevent that thing from being built?” She pointed at the unfinished mansion sprawling over the top of the ridge like a serpent.

Dylan glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go. You know you really should put on a hat.”

She scoffed. “You think I’m worried about skin cancer? Nobody expects me to make thirty.”

He wrinkled his brow. “Why not?” She looked healthy enough, but perhaps she was ill.

“Why?” She laughed. “You really don’t know me?”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s refreshing. I’m the screwup. The family’s black sheep. The party girl who forgot to wear her panties and broke the internet. I’m in the tabloids about every other week. Can’t believe they didn’t follow me out here. I thought you were one of them.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, I can see that.” She approached his truck. “Can’t remember the last time I did this.” She extended her hand. “I’m Meadow.”

Dylan looked at her elegant hand. He considered rolling up his window because this woman represented all the trouble he tried to avoid.

Instead, he took her hand gently between his fingers and thumb and gave it a little shake. But something happened. His smile became brittle and the gentle up-and-down motion of their arms ceased as he stared into bewitching amber-brown eyes. After an awkward pause he found his voice.

“Nice to meet you, Meadow. I’m Dylan Tehauno.”

Her voice now sounded breathy. “A pleasure.”

Her eyes glittered with mischief. Now he needed to get by her for other reasons, because this was the sort of woman you put behind you as quickly as possible.

She slipped her hand free and pressed her palm flat over her stomach. Were her insides jumping, like his?

“What’s your business, Dylan?”

“I’m a hotshot.”

She shook her head. “What’s that, like a jet pilot?”

“I fight wildfires. Forest fires. We fly all over the West—Idaho, Oregon, Colorado. Even east once to Tennessee. Man, is it green there.”

“Really? So you jump out of airplanes with an ax. That kind of thing?”

“No, those are smoke jumpers. We walk in. Sometimes twenty miles from deployment. Then we get to work.” In fact, he had most of his gear in the box fixed to the bed of his truck.

“That’s crazy.”

He thought standing in the sun with a GoPro was crazy, but he just smiled. “Gotta go.”

“All right, Sir Dylan. You may pass. How long will you be up there?”

“Hour maybe.”

“Time enough for me to get my shot then.” She reversed course and moved her tripod behind her sports car.

Dylan rolled past. He couldn’t stop from glancing at her in the rearview mirror. He kept looking back until she was out of sight. Soon he started the ascent to the house, winding through the thick pines and dry grasses.

His shaman and the leader of his medicine society, Kenshaw Little Falcon, had recommended Dylan for this job. This was his first commission in Flagstaff. He’d recently earned his credentials as a fire-safety inspector in Arizona. As a fire consultant, it was usually his role to give recommendations to protect the home from wildfire, identify places where wildfire might trap or kill people and provide fuel-reduction plans. Something as simple as trimming the branches of trees from the ground to at least ten feet or not placing mulch next to the house could be the difference between losing a home and saving it. But this consultation was different because so many did not want this house completed. Cheney Williams, the attorney who had filed the injunction, waited for him on the ridge. Dylan felt important because he knew that his report might prevent the multimillionaire Rustkin from securing insurance. At the very least it would buy time. That would be a feather in Dylan’s cap. He lowered his arm out his window and patted the magnetic sign affixed to the door panel—Tehauno Consulting.

Dylan smiled and then glanced back to the road where he could no longer see Meadow Wrangler. He should be looking ahead. By the time he finished with the attorney, would Meadow be gone?

The flash of light was so bright that for an instant everything went white. Dylan hit the brakes. The boom arrived a moment later, shaking the truck and vibrating through his hands where they gripped the wheel. Artillery.

His brain snapped to Iraq. He had served two tours and he knew the sound of an explosion. He glanced up, looking for the jets that could make such an air strike and saw the debris fly across the ridgeline. A fireball erupted skyward and rained burning embers down from above. Rocks pelted the road before him.

Meadow.

Dylan made a fast three-point turn and was hurtling down the mountain as embers landed all about him, erupting into flames. It was July, over a hundred degrees today, and the ground was as dry and thirsty as it had been all year. Perfect conditions for a wildfire. But this was not one wildfire—it was hundreds. Burning debris landed and ignited as if fueled by a propellant. The flames traveled as fast as he did. Faster, because the wind raced down the mountain, pushing the growing wall of flames that licked at the trunks of the piñon pines. Once it hit the crowns of the trees it would take off. There was nothing to stop it. His only chance was to get ahead of it and stay there.

* * *

MEADOW GAPED AS the top of the ridge exploded like an erupting volcano. With her camera still running, she stood in the road, paralyzed by what she witnessed. The house that had broken the ridgeline collapsed, falling in fiery wreckage into the gap below. The steel skeleton vanished amid tails of smoke that flew into the sky like launching rockets.

Dylan.

He was up there. Her impulse was to flee, but the urge to reach him tugged against her survival instinct.

The rockets of fire flew over her head, and she turned to watch them land, each a meteor impacting the earth. The vibrations from the explosion reached her, tipping her camera and making her sidestep to keep from falling beside it. She lifted the running GoPro and held it, collapsing the tripod as she panned, capturing the flaming rock touching down and igniting infernos to her right and left, knowing the HDMI video interface and antenna in her car compressed the video data before sending it to the live feed.

The desert bloomed orange as it burned. She turned back to the ridge, seeing the smoke billowing up to the sun. Beneath the yellow smoke came a wall of fire and the cracking, popping sound of burning. A hot wind rushed at her, burning her skin. She felt as if she stood in an oven. She had to get out of here. Meadow turned in a circle and saw flames on all sides. The smoke was so thick she began to choke. Should she try to drive through the flames?

How had the falling rock and fire missed her? She stood in the road as she realized everyone had been right. She wasn’t going to see thirty.

Chapter Two

Had she gotten out? Dylan wondered as he barely managed to navigate his truck along the thin ribbon of gravel to the bottom of the ridge and onto the straight stretch that led to Meadow.

He prayed that she had, but the fear in his heart and the flames already crowning in the pines warned him she was in danger. He listened to his instincts, slowed his speed, fighting against the urge to accelerate. Moving faster than he could see could cause him to crash the truck or to hit Meadow. He was close to her position now. He knew it. Where was she?

He saw her Audi parked exactly where it had been—only now the wall of fire to his left glimmered off the mirror surface of the black paint reflecting the approaching flames. Soon the paint would melt, along with every bit of plastic. The inferno was close to jumping the road. Dylan hit the brakes, sending gravel spraying from his rear tires.

“Meadow!” he shouted as he threw open the door. “Meadow!”

The blaze was loud now, sounding like a locomotive. His eyes burned as he swept the ground for any sight of her. Then he saw a flash of white. She was running. Strong legs pumping as she darted from behind her car and then in front of his truck. In one hand she held her camera by the folded, compressed tripod. She reached the passenger side, and his arms went around her instinctively as he pulled her into the truck and set them in motion again.

Not here, he thought. There was too much fuel. Too much energy for the flames to consume in the surrounding pines.

“There’s no way out,” she shouted.

He knew that. He knew they were trapped. It was not a question of if but when the fire would catch them.

Not here. Not yet.

He glanced behind them. The fire glowed red in the rearview. So close now. Ahead there was only smoke and the orange flames that raced along on either side of the road. Finally he saw it. The black earth he had been searching for. The fire had already burned the easy fuel there. He glanced back. How long did he have? A few minutes. He needed more earth, more black earth between him and what chased them. He needed a place to survive the burn-over.

He went as far as he could, hoping, praying it was far enough. Knowing if he went any farther he would not have the moments he needed to prepare.

Dylan hit the brakes.

“What are you doing?” yelled Meadow. “Go! Go!”

He reached across the gap between them and dragged her out of the truck by her wrist. She didn’t fight him, just locked her jaw and allowed him to pull her behind him. He grabbed his rake and thrust it at her. She clutched it in her free hand, the other still gripping her camera. Then he seized his pack and Pulaski ax from the utility storage box in his truck bed. No time to talk. No room for the bottles of water he always carried. He glanced about as he judged the wind and the flames, wishing the crowns of the trees had already burned. Then he rushed them off the embankment to the black earth. The road would help break the flames, but the truck... Were they far enough to be clear of the gas tanks? He tugged her along, running into the smoking black soil that crunched beneath his construction boots. Choosing his spot because he was out of time, he went to work with the ax breaking the soil, tearing away the burned vegetation by the roots, digging a trench. The ground was so hot. He’d never thought he’d have to deploy his fire shelter. After all the training films and practice and all the fires he had fought, Dylan really had believed that he could control the situation, stay ahead of the fire line and always have a viable escape plan. Yet, here he was.

“What are you doing?” she yelled.

The roar was louder and the hot wind rushed past them.

“Rake that away!” he yelled.

He broke more soil, digging deeper and glancing at the approaching wall of flame.

She pushed the tripod down the front of her shirt before using the fire rake to pull away the roots and brush he cleared with the ax.

“A grave?” she asked.

He paused to stare at her. She looked back with a calm that terrified him because he saw that she was ready to die.

“Fire shelter,” he called.

Her brows lifted and he could not tell if she was relieved or disappointed.

No time now.

“That comes off.” He tugged at her shirt.

“What?”

“Polyester. It melts.” He dragged the shirt over her head. She dropped the rake. The camera tumbled free, and she stooped to her knees to snatch it up again and yelped at the contact of her bare knee with the smoking ground. He went for his pack, grabbing the flame-retardant shirt he wore to fight fires and tugged it on. It would be his back between the shelter and the flames.

“This, too?” She lifted the edge of the flimsy scrap of fabric that was her skirt.

He nodded and dropped the camel pack in the ditch, then took his gloves and radio, but nothing else. He’d never heard of two people deploying in a shelter that was designed for one.

He estimated the wind was reaching fifty miles an hour now. If he lost the shelter to the wind they were both dead. He dropped to his knees, already tugging the fire shelter from the nylon sheath.

“That looks like a Jiffy Pop bag,” she said.

“Come!” he roared.

She dropped before him and he enveloped her, forcing her down to the earth and into the shallow ditch he had made. The roar grew louder, like a jet engine that went on and on.

He got the shelter over them and used the hand straps to tug the edges about them. His feet slid inside the elastic and he braced, holding himself up on his elbows.

“It’s hot,” she called, wriggling. “The ground—it’s too hot. I’m burning.”

“Stay still.” It was hotter outside, he knew. Five hundred degrees and rising, he thought, his training providing him the information.

“This isn’t going to stop it. It’s thin as one of those emergency blankets.”

Except this was two-ply. A silicon layer and the reflective outer foil.

“We’ll cook alive!” she yelled.

It was possible. Not all deployed wildfire fighters survived. But mostly they died from the heated gases that scorched their lungs until they could not breathe.

“Stick your face in the dirt and take shallow breaths,” he shouted in her ear to be heard above the roar. The explosion that shook them told him that his truck tires had blown. The gas tank would be next. Flying debris could rip the shelter. If that happened, they would die here.

The fire shield now seemed a living thing that he had to wrestle to hold down about them. The heat intensified until he felt as if the skin on his back burned. Every time the shelter touched him, it seared. He kept his elbows pinned and punched at the shelter, creating an air space. Each breath scalded his lungs. He took shallow sips of air and held them as long as possible, hoping the next breath would not be his last.

* * *

MEADOW FELT THE weight of him pressing down upon her. He was so big and the ground so hot. She couldn’t breathe.

“We have to get out,” she yelled, not knowing if he heard her. The air in her next breath was so hot she choked. He pushed her head down to the ground.

“Dig!” he ordered.

She held the neck of the tripod and used the collapsed legs to dig, making a hole, and then she released her GoPro to cup her hands over her face to inhale. How could he even breathe? The air above her head was even hotter. He needed to get his face down by hers.

She dug faster, using her hands now, her acrylic nails raking soft sand as she burrowed like a ground squirrel. “You, too!”

She gasped at the intake of hot air into her throat.

He wriggled forward, his cheek now beside hers, his nose and lips pressing into her cupped hands. She could feel his shallow breath. Their skin was hot and damp where their cheeks met.

From somewhere outside the balloon shelter came an explosion. She flinched.

Chapter Three

“Gas tank,” he shouted, clarifying what had just blown up.

The roaring went on and the shield fluttered and bucked, reminding her of the slack sail on a sailboat.

Ready about, her father would call, and the boom would swing over her head. As the smallest and quickest, she was allowed to scramble up to the foredeck to tie off the lines and drop the buoy between the ship and the dock.

Something stung her chest. She clawed at her bra.

“Burning,” she cried.

Dylan lifted, released the back fastening as she tugged it clear.

“Metal heats up,” he shouted in her ear. “Buttons, rivets.”

Underwire, she thought. The thing was so hot, like a brand against her flesh. She wondered if she had burned her skin. If she could just lift the edge of the cover and get some air. But he held it down with his forearms and legs. She reached for the shelter and he grabbed her wrist, forcing it to the hot, black earth.

“I need to breathe!” she shouted.

He said nothing. Just held her down along with the tinfoil roaster bag that was cooking them alive. It was an oven. Hotter than an oven. She pressed her face back in the dirt and tried to breathe through the fingers of her free hand. The rings were heating. She tugged at her captured hand. He resisted.

“My rings. Burning!”

He released her and she jerked off her silver, gold and platinum rings and pushed them away.

Beams of red light shone down in narrow shafts through the cover. She glanced up. There were holes in the shelter. She pointed and felt him nod.

“It will be all right,” he said. “It will still work.”

Had the roaring decreased? She wasn’t sure.

“How you doing?” he asked.

She could hear him now. He wasn’t shouting.

“I don’t want to die,” she whispered. The words came as a surprise to her. Yesterday there was nothing she’d wanted to do. Nowhere she’d wanted to go. And now she just wanted to see the sky again. Dive into cold water. Inhale the scent of peonies.

“We’re both going to live.” He brushed his cheek against hers. “I’ll keep you safe, Meadow. It won’t get you.”

She closed her eyes and struggled to control the ball of pain that tried to escape her throat as a sob. She failed. Here she had thought there was only a thin veil of foil between her and the fire. But it wasn’t so. Dylan stood between her and the flames. He protected her with his body and his promise, and she loved him for it.

“How long do we have to stay in here?”

He shifted, letting his hip slide to the ground, taking some of his weight from her. “A while. Have to be sure it’s past us.”

“How will you know?”

“The sound. The roar is fading. The heat and the color. It’s orange now. See?”

She lifted her head to the pinholes and saw the light that had been pink and then red like the flashing light of a fire engine were now the orange of glowing coals. The sky shouldn’t be that color. Never, ever. She let her head fall back to the breathing hole.

He stuck something against her face.

“Drink,” he ordered.

It was a tube. She put it in her mouth and swallowed. Water—hot, stale and welcome. She drank until he took the hose from her. How much water had she lost in this tinfoil tent?

She marveled at him. In only minutes he had gathered from the truck exactly what they needed to survive.

“How do you know all this? How do you have one of these things?” Hotshot, she remembered. Walking twenty miles to deploy, he’d said. She needed to get one of these Jiffy Pop thingies. “You fight wildfires,” she said, more to herself than to him.

“Yes.”

“Dylan?”

“Hmm?”

She wished she could look at him, see his handsome face, those dark eyes and the clean line of his jaw, but he was so close that his nose was pressed to her ear and he lay half across her.

“Can you...talk to me? You know? Take my mind off...”

“What about?”

“Tell me about yourself.”

“Well, I told you my name. I’m from the Turquoise Canyon Apache tribe. We are Tonto Apache. I live up there on the reservation between Antelope Lake and Darabee in the mountains.”

His voice was like a song with a lyrical quality that calmed her. She felt the panic easing away as he continued.

“If I met you there I would say to you, ‘Hello, I am Bear, born of Butterfly, and my father’s name is Jonathan Tehauno. My mother’s name is Dorothy Florez. They named me Dylan.’ It’s more important there to know your parents and clans. Your name comes after all that or sometimes not at all. So when I say, ‘Bear, born of Butterfly,’ you know my father’s clan is Bear and my mother’s clan is Butterfly.”

“I live in Phoenix. I am Wrangler, born of Theron and Lupe. My mother’s name was Cortez.”

He chuckled and she felt herself smile.

“Tell me more.” She felt herself relaxing, her weary muscles twitching from the tension that now eased away into the hot earth.

“I live in the community of Koun’nde in tribal housing. My friends make fun of me because my home has so many books.”

She chuckled because she had stopped reading the minute she realized no one could make her do anything.

“I own a truck, nearly, and have five horses in the community herd. Well, I did own a truck.” He sighed and then coughed. After a moment he kept talking, his breath cool against her face. “I like to ride. I’ve won some endurance races on horses and on foot. After high school, I joined the US Marines. I was honorably discharged after two tours. Decided not to reenlist. I missed home. It’s cool up on the mountain. Not like down here in Flagstaff or over in the Sandbox. That’s what we called Iraq.”

His voice hummed in her ear, a deep, resonant song. She closed her watering eyes.

“Let’s see. I’m a member of a medicine society, the Turquoise Guardians. We dance at festivals and perform ceremonies. I sing in a drum circle.”

She didn’t know what any of that meant, but she wanted him to keep talking.

“The people say I have a good voice.”

Meadow agreed with that, though she had not heard him sing. She wanted to ask him, but it was so hard for her just to breathe, she didn’t have the heart.

“I’ve been trying to get some of my friends to join me in August to go up to Rapid City for the Indian Relay Races. We’d need four good horses and a four-man team. One rider and each horse runs one mile with the same rider.”

She tried to picture that, one man leaping from one horse to another.

“I keep telling Jack that he was born to be a catcher and Ray and Carter could hold the mounts. I’d like to ride, but if they’re faster I’d let them go, instead. Only now Carter’s in witness protection. So we need a fourth. I suggested Carter’s brother Kurt. He’s smaller but strong. Jack said he’d think about it. Jack Bear Den is a detective on our tribal police. His brother Carter and my friend Ray Strong are hotshots. Turquoise Canyon Hotshots. That’s us. Kurt Bear Den is a paramedic with the air ambulance. I’ve been a hotshot since I came home but it’s only six months, the fire season. So I need more work. I was supposed to meet Cheney Williams.”

Her eyes popped open. “I know him.”

“You do?”

“He works with my dad. He’s a financial guy for the documentaries. Contracts, I think. Something. I’m not really sure. He’s around a lot.” Meadow felt a rumble in Dylan’s chest, like a growl.

“I was told that he’s an attorney in environmental law. Working to stop that house.”

“You haven’t met him?”

“No. My shaman recommended me.”

She lifted her chin. It was easier to breathe. “Was he up there?”

The rough stubble on his chin brushed her temple. “Probably. He was meeting me there.”

“Do you think he got out?”

Silence was her answer.

“Who would do this?”

His body tensed. “I’m planning to find that out.”

“The whole ridge exploded. The rocks were flying everywhere. I can’t believe they didn’t hit me.” She told him everything. About how she was filming and the red fireball and the house collapsing and the trees ablaze.

“You filmed the whole thing?”

“Yes.”

“Why were you here today?”

“I’ve been here several times during the construction. My father sent me. He has a shooting schedule.” She didn’t say that her dad hadn’t used any of the footage she’d shot. That she was beginning to think her assignment was a snipe hunt, designed to be rid of her, keep her busy and out of the clubs. That last headline had embarrassed them. Too much attention, her mother had said.

Too much was better than none at all, she thought, and she lowered her head.

“Your father sent you here. Today.”

She didn’t like the way he said that.

“Well, he couldn’t have known this would happen.”

His silence was her only answer. Meadow frowned. She didn’t like that silence. There was something sinister and judgmental about it.

“My father is a saint. He’s spent his whole life raising awareness of really important issues with his films.”

Still no reply.

“What are you implying?” she asked.

“Heck of a coincidence.”

“I could say the same for you.”

“Yes. That occurred to me,” he said.

The hairs on her neck lifted. She felt the need to fill the silence.

“Lucky you were here,” she said.

“Yeah.” There was a long pause. “Lucky.”

“You saved my life.”

“Not yet, I haven’t.” He moved again, trying his radio and getting nothing but static. He slipped the antenna out from under the fire shield and tried again. This time he got through to someone and she heard him give their position and ask for assistance. He also asked them to contact Detective Jack Bear Den on Turquoise Canyon Reservation.

He retracted the radio antenna inside the shield and she saw the black plastic tip had melted.

“I guess my car and Wi-Fi antenna is toast.”

“You have internet out here?”

“I did. I was streaming my footage.”

“You captured the explosion and streamed it...where?”

“My social media. Vine, Snapchat, Instagram. I also have YouTube, Facebook and Google+ and send footage to my remote server.”

He went very still. “So anyone could see what you shot.”

“Yes. That’s the point.”

“So you don’t need to make it out of here alive for someone to see what you saw.”

The hairs on her neck now began to tingle.

“What are you saying?”

“I think you and I were sent here to die.”

Chapter Four

Dylan tried to put the pieces together. He didn’t know if he was injured. During the worst of the burn-over he’d felt as if the skin on his back had burned. He knew from his training that it was not uncommon for a deployed hotshot to suffer burns. But the shelters worked. And theirs had worked. They were alive and the worst had passed. The worst of the firestorm. But now he wondered if by sending a distress call he had alerted whoever had sent them that they had survived. Radio channels were easy to monitor. If his hunch was right, they needed to get out of here before help arrived because the worst of the firestorm might still be out there.

The vehicles would be useless. He’d heard the tires blow and both gas tanks explode. His poor truck. He didn’t even own it yet. Meadow would likely have a new Audi by morning.

If they lived that long.

Help was coming, but so too were the ones who had set that explosive. Dylan was sure.

“Tell me what’s happening,” she demanded.

Was she one of them? A WOLF or a BEAR? WOLF, Wilderness of Land Forever, was the less radicalized arm of the eco-extremists, who destroyed property but only if it did not jeopardize human life. BEAR made no such allowances. The FBI thought her father was a member of BEAR, perhaps the head of the eco-extremist group. Jack had told him that. But they hadn’t proved it—not yet.

Had she been sent here as a sacrificial lamb, to die for the cause as a martyr?

He remembered that look when she’d asked him if he was digging their grave. She’d been ready.

“Did you come here to die?”

“What?” she said. She made a scoffing sound and then gave a halfhearted laugh.

Dylan felt his upper arm tingle. Not because of the heat outside the shelter but because of the tattoo he had gotten after joining Tribal Thunder, the warrior sect of his medicine society. His shaman had suggested each new member have a spirit animal to help guide them. It was Ray Strong’s idea to have them branded on their skin. Dylan’s spirit animal was bobcat, and his tattoo was the track of the bobcat on a medicine shield, beneath which hung five eagle feathers. He loved having a cat as his guide but did not appreciate the reason. His shaman said Dylan was too overt and needed to be aware that not all things operated on the surface. Bobcat would help him see what was hidden and give him a quality he lacked—stealth.

Dylan had a reputation for being where he was supposed to be and doing what was expected, more than was expected. He wasn’t reckless like Ray Strong or suspicious like Jack Bear Den or a natural leader like Jack’s twin brother, Carter. He was predictable and he followed the rules. He was the conscience of the group. Was that so bad?

This woman beneath him was not what she seemed. A shadow figure. Appearing one thing while being another or existing on two planes at the same time. A woman with two faces. He felt it and Bobcat warned him to be cautious.

“Have you heard of an organization called WOLF, or one called BEAR?” he asked, and then kicked himself for the overt question. But how would he know the answer if he could not ask?

BEAR was much worse. Bringing Earth Apocalyptic Restoration. That group was eco-terrorists. They’d orchestrated the mass shooting at the Lilac Copper Mine to cover the long-term theft of mining supplies and then paid a member of his tribe to kill the gunman of the mass murder, breaking the link between the gunman and those who sent him.

“WOLF? Yes. They burned that Jeep outfit in Sedona. Right? Some kind of activist opposed to overdevelopment of the land. Can hardly blame them. Damn red Hummers rolling all over the fragile ecosystem.” Her mouth dropped open. She must have inhaled some of the sand on her face because she coughed and spit. Then she turned, trying to glance back at him. They were so close he could feel every muscle in her back tense. So close he could press his lips to her temple.

“You think they did this?” she asked.

He did not reply, but he could almost hear her mind working.

“But the fire. They must have known that would cause a fire. And they don’t destroy the land. They protect it. And the explosion. That was like something from a movie.”

“Or a mine,” Dylan said.

“Lilac.”

There had been no mention of the loss of mining supplies from the Lilac mine in the media. Yet she had made the connection with the speed of a lightning strike. Mines had explosives, blasting cord and everything you needed to do exactly what they had just both witnessed.

He swallowed as he accepted the confirmation. Why did he think she could not be one of them? Because she was pretty or pampered or seemingly suffering from a terminal case of affluenza? Bobcat would see through all that. Bobcat would proceed slowly without moving a single blade of grass.

Her father, Theron Wrangler, was the one person the FBI had successfully linked to BEAR because Amber Kitcheyan, an employee at Lilac and the only survivor, had heard that name spoken the day before the shooting. Dylan’s friend Carter Bear Den had rescued her and the FBI now had both of them in protective custody.

This woman was Theron’s daughter and she’d captured the explosion on film, then streamed it live. He thought of the suicide bombers in the Middle East. Had she planted those explosives?

“We have to get out of here,” Dylan said.

“I’m all for that.”

He glanced up at the holes in his fire shelter—the required equipment he had purchased a year ago and never expected to need. His crew was too careful, too experienced and too smart to be trapped by the living, breathing monster of a wildfire.

He dragged the camel pack from beneath his knees and drank, then offered Meadow a drink. Some deployed men suffered from dehydration, and, unable to leave the shelter as their bodies had lost too much vital fluids, they died. He was lucky to have had the seconds he needed to grab the water pouch.

Dylan thought about his truck and the sturdy utility box made of a polymer and likely now a melted lump of plastic. All his equipment and the water—gone.

He resisted the urge to lift the shelter as he estimated the temperature inside had reached over two hundred degrees and was now falling. Every rock and stone beneath them radiated heat like the bricks in a pizza oven.

“Couldn’t it have been a gas explosion?” she asked.

“No gas lines.”

“Welding tanks, for construction?”

“Maybe.” Let her think that. He’d seen gas tanks explode on training videos. They were impressive but could not melt steel and bring down a 4500-square-foot home.

Dylan debated what to do. If he stayed, it gave whoever picked up his radio transmission time to get to them.

What would his friend Ray Strong do? Ray was the crazy one, or he had been until he met Morgan Hooke and became responsible for a woman and her child. Ray had changed. Perhaps his spirit animal, eagle, had really helped him see clearly and act, not on impulse, but with clarity and purpose.

Jack Bear Den would tell Dylan to be careful. To act on the assumption that the worst was coming and to be ready.

Jack’s twin, Carter Bear Den, would tell Dylan to be ready to fight what came. Carter’s tattoo was a bear track. Bears were strong. Carter had needed that strength to leave his tribe and go with the woman he loved. What would Carter do? He’d been their captain for the Turquoise Canyon Hotshots, a job Dylan assumed when Carter left them in February. They would be deploying without him today. He was sure. Who would be leading them now?

Dylan had joined the Turquoise Canyon Hotshots after his discharge. He had four full seasons fighting wildfire and two months and three fires as captain. But none like this. Back then fighting wildfire had been exciting. He had felt immortal. But his tours of duty in Iraq had shown him that none of them were and, lately, he had felt the weight of being the leader of his team. His decisions meant the life or death of members of his crew and he found himself questioning his ability to lead.

He held the shelter, feeling the time race by with the wind. If he was right and they stayed here too long, someone would come to finish what the fire had started. If they left too early, the heat would burn their lungs, saving the team from BEAR the trouble of killing them.

* * *

“HOW MUCH LONGER?” asked Meadow.

The sand and grit stuck to her damp skin. She’d never been so thirsty and she was beginning to feel dizzy.

“A few minutes more.” He glanced at her. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself? Pass the time.” And get to know the enemy beside him. Bobcat would be pleased.

“Well, okay. I’m Meadow. My mom’s nickname for me is Dodo, if that’s any hint. You know, like the bird? I’m the last of six children. The oops baby. My next oldest sister, Katrina, is seven years my senior. My oldest brother, Phillip, is the CEO of PAN. My three sisters, Connie, short for Consuelo, Rosalie, Katrina, and my other brother, Miguel, are all professionals with promising careers.” She had started to use air quotes but then dropped her hands back to the hot earth and the tripod.

Being so much younger sometimes made her feel like she was an only child with six parents.

“I’m closest to Katrina. She looked out for me when she could, or she used to before...you know, when I was a kid.”

And when Meadow was home, which wasn’t often.

“Your name isn’t Spanish,” said Dylan.

“What? No, it isn’t.”

“The others are, and your mother, Lupe.”

She’d never really thought of that before.

“Anyway. Phillip is a CEO. Miguel is a doctor. So is Connie, Consuelo. Rosalie is an attorney and Kat has a business degree from Berkeley, undergrad and a law degree from...” She tapped her chin. “I forget where... Anyway, just passed the bar. They all went to private school here. Me, too, for a while. I got kicked out. I also got kicked out of schools in Westchester, Greenwich, Boston and Vermont.”

“That’s a lot of schools.”

“What can I say? I’m good at what I do.”

“So you cause trouble. Make a big fuss so everyone notices you.”

“That’s it.” Only they didn’t. Not often.

But getting sent home was the one sure way to get her father’s attention.

“Oh, and colleges, too. I went to NYU for film. My dad made a contribution because my grades, well... I tried to be a chip off the old block. But my brothers have that gig all tied up. So I went to Berkeley for economics and then UCLA for marine biology.”

“How’d you do?”

“I got mostly A’s on the tests I took. Problem was I didn’t take enough of them. I had trouble getting to class.”

“Failed out?”

“Every time.”

“But all A’s. You’re smart.”

“If I was smart, would I be lying under an Apache hotshot in the middle of a wildfire?”

“Good point.”

“Maybe I’ll go back to school. They have some in Hawaii. I could learn to surf.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-six, but I’ll be twenty-seven next month. Just in time to join the 27 Club.”

“What’s that?”

She turned to stare at him in disbelief. “You got to get off your mountain. Get your brain out of the smoke.”

“Maybe. So...the 27 Club?”

“It’s all the musicians who died at twenty-seven. Morrison, Hendrix, Joplin, Cobain, Winehouse. Only they were famous for creating something and I’m only famous for being the screw-up daughter of a rich man. Creating scandals. I haven’t done anything else.”

“Not too late,” he said.

“Yeah. I’d like to see twenty-eight, even thirty.”

He tugged her closer to him, adjusting his body to hold the shelter.

“Can I help hold it down?” she asked, and then realized this was the very first time she’d offered to do anything. She’d drunk his water, complained about the lifesaving shelter and whined about how hard it was to breathe. She sagged. Maybe he should have rolled her out from under the shelter like a log. She knew she would have been tempted if their situation had been reversed.

“You’d need gloves. The edges get hot.”

Yet the thing had been flapping against him for what seemed like hours. He’d never uttered a word of complaint.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Twenty-eight.”

He seemed older, acted older, she realized.

“I’m going to lift the shield,” he said. “Hold your breath.”

Meadow drew as deep a breath as she could in the scalding hot air as Dylan lifted the edge of the shelter.

Chapter Five

A blast of hot winds rushed in below the fire shelter. The burning air made Meadow’s eyes tear.

“Everything is black,” she said, releasing her breath and then gasping at the heat of the air now rushing into her lungs. She hurried to be rid of it. The next breath seemed just as hot.

“Good. Did you see any fire?”

“No.” She pressed her hands over her stinging eyes and rubbed. “Hot.”

“Don’t rub them. Just keep your eyes closed.”

After a few minutes he asked her to hold the edge of the shelter. She tried but the metal was too hot. He piled some sand on the inner edge and she was able to press down the lip with her palm.

He used his free hand to retrieve his radio. She gaped at the melted top to the antenna. What did her car look like? It was miles to anything. A new fear tripped her heart rate. They couldn’t walk out. It was too far.

“Help is coming. Right?” she asked.

“Someone will be here as soon as it’s safe.” He lifted the edge again. The air was hot, but not as hot. “Stay here.”

“What! No!”

“Meadow, I’m wearing boots, a fire-resistant shirt, cotton jeans. You’re naked.”

That was true.

“Stay here until I tell you.”

She nodded. “Be careful.”

He slid off one glove. “Put that on. Use it to hold the shelter down. Use your feet to hold the bottom edge.”

With that, he lifted the right side and rolled away. The edge flapped as she tried and failed to catch it. She felt as if her skin blistered. From outside the shelter the edge dropped and she was able to get her gloved hand down on the perimeter.

“Feet!” he yelled.

She spread her legs until her sandaled feet were in place. Meadow tried and failed to ignore the pain of her burning toes.

“Stay there,” he called from outside the shield.

She heard the crunch of his feet on the scorched earth. Meadow’s legs and arms began to tremble from the effort of keeping the shelter steady against the constant wind. How had he held the shield down all that time? It seemed impossible. Again she realized that Dylan Tehauno had saved her life. She knew he had come back just for her, and, because of that act, everything in her life that was good was a gift from him.

Meadow’s eyes burned and she was surprised she had enough water left in her body to cry. But the tears came, sliding over the bridge of her nose and dropping into the dry sand. Even the tears were thanks to Dylan. The sobs came next. Meadow was so grateful and so undeserving.

How did a person like her repay a man like him? Money? Sex? A new truck? He said he was looking for a job. She could help him with that. Her father employed lots of people. Her brother Phillip, too. If she asked, her dad would give Dylan a job. Especially when he found out what he had done. She needed to call her father. But her phone was in her car. Or it had been.

The crunch of his boots signaled his return.

“Meadow. I’m taking off the shield.”

The foil wrapper lifted away and the hot air rushed past her. She pressed her hands over her mouth to cool the next breath as she rolled to her side looking up at him.

He stood shirtless, his skin smudged with ash and glistening with sweat. Dylan dropped his shirt over her naked body.

“Put that on.”

She drew to her knees, tugging the garment over her shoulders and holding it closed before her. The sand stuck to her skin and poured under her sandals. He offered his hand and, looking around, she rose beside him. The fire now raced far back along the road she had traveled, a line of orange glowing beneath the billowing gray smoke.

They were surrounded by a forest of tree trunks charred black and smoking. How many animals had died in that fire? She shivered at the thought. How many houses in the valley below them were now at risk? She’d driven through a new development that butted against the national forest. She remembered her father complaining about the expensive homes positioned with views of the sunset over the ridge. He’d called them hypocrites because they had objected to the mansion that broke the ridgeline for obstructing their views.

They were likely evacuating now.

Meadow glanced at the trench he had made. There lay the only patch of earth devoid of flammable vegetation. The only place the earth was not black. Her pink lace bra lay in the sand and a diamond on one of her rings twinkled. Then she spotted her GoPro. She stooped to recover it and paused. The camera was intact, but the tripod had not been wholly under the shelter and it had melted to a lump of black plastic. She stared at the evidence of how much hotter it had been outside the shelter than inside. Dylan crouched beside her and offered a wet bandanna, and she washed her face, horrified at the black soot that came away on the red cotton. He rinsed the cloth and used it to wipe off her throat. The simple act of kindness undid her.

She turned to him and fell into his arms, sobbing. He stroked her tangled hair. He whispered to her in a language she could not understand as she clung to him and wept. His hand stroked her back, rubbing up and down over the shirt he had given her. Everything she had and everything she was she owed to him. She lifted her chin to look up at him.

Why hadn’t she seen the kindness in his dark eyes or the strength reflected in his blade of a nose and the strong line of his jaw rough with dark stubble and sand? All she’d seen was a nuisance ruining her shot. His black brows lifted and the corner of his mouth twitched upward. That mouth was so tempting and she was so lost.

Meadow threaded one hand in his thick, short hair and tugged, angling her chin, and rose onto her toes, pressing her mouth to his.

* * *

DYLAN STARTLED AT the unexpected contact and the unprecedented wave of desire that swept over him. Reflexively, his arms contracted, drawing her tight to his chest. Only after the contact of her bare skin to his did he remember she had not yet buttoned his shirt and he had removed his T-shirt to check his back for burns. Her bare breasts molded to the hard planes of his chest, setting off a firestorm inside his body. Her tongue flicked out and he opened his mouth, allowing her to deepen the kiss that soon consumed them both. When her fingers scored his bare back, Dylan’s need overwhelmed him, but the fluttering in his belly and the stirring below that did not quite overtake the whisper of danger.

Bobcat growled a warning.

The overt. Her seeming desire.

The hidden. Her real purpose. Was this a distraction to give her people time to reach them? A way to make him forget his unease and take what she offered?

She had told him she was a party girl. Now he saw her provocative nature. Sex to this woman meant no more than choosing what dessert to eat. Dylan pushed her away, not because of the danger or the hidden agenda but because he did not wish to be the flavor of the month. For him, the intimacy shared by man and woman was sacred.

“We need to go,” he said.

She looked up at him with wide eyes, and a enticing pink mouth opened just enough to tempt him to kiss her again. But he wouldn’t, precisely because he did want to so much. She seemed bewildered. Oh, this one was good. Very, very good. If he did not know better, he would believe the innocence and astonishment he saw in her face.

“Come on. Now.”

He drew her away from him and then let her go. He allowed himself one long look at the swath of bare skin revealed between the edges of his shirt. His gaze stopped on the scrap of pink lace that covered her seemingly hairless sex. Then he met her gaze and saw the power in her eyes. She was used to men looking at her like this, completely comfortable now, as if she had regained her footing and stood on familiar ground. She stared at him with a kind of triumph melded with seduction.

He pointed at his shirt. “Button that.”

Meadow gave a mock salute that revealed the bottom curve of a bare breast. Dylan met her gaze.

“Why did you do that?” he asked, brushing the sand from his chest and tugging on his T-shirt.

“I just wanted to thank you.”

He shoved his bandanna in the back pocket of his jeans. “You don’t thank a man by having sex with him, Meadow.”

“Sometimes I do.”

“I’m not like you, then. I’m not casual about such things.”

“A real Boy Scout,” she said, pink lips curling.

“You should have more pride and respect for yourself.”

He saw his condemnation strike her. Her bottom lip quivered. Was this an act or real emotion? He rubbed his right shoulder, wishing Bobcat could tell him because his instinct was to take her in his arms again. Ridiculous. She was a wealthy, spoiled, lost woman-child and he was not interested.

Dylan dug in the sand, recovering her rings. “How many did you have?”

“Four.” She accepted the offering in cupped palms and slipped the trinkets onto her long fingers.

Meadow looked from her hand to the ground.

“Is that your ax?” She pointed at the metal head that was all that remained of the Pulaski ax after the wood had burned away.

He lifted the ax head and then dropped it back to the sand.

“Fought a lot of fires with that. Like losing an old friend.”

Meadow glanced to the road to the two burned hulls that had been his truck and her car. They were scorched gray and looked old, ancient, as if abandoned years and years ago.

She gasped, pressing one hand to her mouth as she pointed with the other.

“My car!”

“Totaled. But I suspect you have it fully insured.”

She took a step closer. “The glass melted. The seats. Upholstery. Everything.” Meadow gaped at him. “All the paint just... It looks like... Why is it on its side?”

“Gas tank must have been full.”

“I topped it up on Canyon Road before coming out here.” She lifted her digital recorder. All the acrylic nails had popped off her fingers in the heat, leaving small, ragged, natural nails glowing pink on her blackened, dirty fingers. She fiddled with the buttons and the screen illuminated. “It still works!”

She beamed at him.

“We have to go,” he said.

“But you called for help. They might be here soon.”

If they could get through the fire wall and if the ones who came were here to help them, he would stay. But there was too much risk. Rescue might be hours, even days, away, and the ones who had started this fire might reach them first.

“You can stay. I’m walking out.” He turned and headed in the direction of the ridgeline, some two miles away.

“What? Wait up.” She trotted along with him over the smoking ground. “Wow. It’s really hot. I can feel it right through the soles of my sandals.”

He stopped and debated. If he was wrong and she was not involved, they might kill her. If he was right and he brought her along, then she could report back to them everything he said and did.

“What?” she asked, those bright golden-brown eyes seeming as honest as a child’s.

“I think you should stay. Wait for your father. If I see anyone, I’ll send them to you.”

She twisted a diamond ring from her finger and held it out to him. “Take me with you.”

He looked at the tiny circle of silver. “I don’t wear silver.”

“It’s platinum.”

“It’s a bribe.” She was used to buying what she wanted. He could see that. Buying her way out of what she could and letting Daddy clean up the rest. Had Daddy gotten tired of wiping up after her?

“Why not wait here?” she asked.

Tell her the truth, a partial truth or a lie? He looked down at her and lifted a hand to brush the soot from her cheek. The touch of her skin made his insides twitch as the longing rose again.

“Because I think the men who did this are close, and I think they want you or me dead.”

Chapter Six

Meadow gaped, uncharacteristically finding herself rendered speechless. She had been around long enough to spot paranoia when she saw it. The guy said he’d been in Iraq. Maybe he had a screw or two loose.

Play along, she decided.

“What men? And why would they want us dead?”

“I don’t know the answers to those questions. I do know that you and I being here exactly when that explosion went off is something more than coincidence.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

Her savior did not answer. Instead, he gave her a long, uneasy look and turned away.

“Keep the shirt,” he said. Then he lifted his camel pack and shrugged it onto his wide shoulders and started walking. With him went all the water they had.

“Hey, wait.” She trotted to catch him, wishing her sandals were less cute and more practical. Wearing a wedge that showed her slim calves to best advantage seemed unnecessary when her legs were streaked with soot and covered with grit and sand. She caught him and grabbed at his arm, her hand covered with the long sleeve of his shirt. “Do you know how crazy you sound?”

He kept walking toward the road and the twisted remains of a bit of the blackened skeletal metal infrastructure that survived the blast. She let her gaze travel over the place where the eighteen-million-dollar home had been. She had not seen the explosion. The flash had been so bright and the earth had been shaking. He was right. It had been an explosion. What had caused the blast?

He was a firefighter, and even he had admitted that a gas tank could be the cause. But, as she looked at the ridgeline that she had been filming on and off for months, she realized the size of the demolition. It could not have been caused by a small propane tank or reserve tank for gas. She knew it in her heart.

Which meant someone had gone up there with explosives and set charges and pushed some kind of detonator and let the fires and rock spray down on the pine trees in the driest, hottest month of the year.

“Who would do this?”

He looked back. “You believe me now?”

She nodded. “It’s just too big. I need to look at the footage. Maybe I can see something.”

“I’d imagine the FBI will want to see that footage, as well.”

“It’s up on my feed. Anyone could have seen it live. But the entire thing, it’s only recorded on this.” She lifted the camera. “And on my server.”

“Can’t the social media sites recall it?”

“I don’t know.”

He started walking again.

She spotted a phone sticking out of his back pocket and jogged to come even with him again.

“You have a phone,” she said, pointing at his pocket.

“No service,” he said without slowing.

“You think you’ll have service up there?” She pointed to the ridge.

“Maybe. I know Rustkin’s got a well. Only water within ten miles. The fire started there and moved with the wind. Top of the ridge and the far side will be untouched.”

She looked at the climb ahead of them. Meadow already felt dizzy, and the prospect of the hike made her stomach twist. Maybe she should wait for help. A glance back showed the billowing smoke off to the east. How long until anyone could drive out here. The road they were on dead-ended at the mansion that had once occupied the ridge. Emergency and Fire would concentrate on the threatened town of Pine View and the larger community of Valley View, which lay between the fire and Flagstaff. But her father. He’d come for her. He knew where she was.

When she glanced back to Dylan, it was to find him another two hundred feet along the road. The man was quick as a jackrabbit.

She stretched her legs and walked. By the time she drew even with him, her mouth felt like cotton.

“I need some water.”

“No.”

Now that was a word she didn’t hear very often.

“Are you crazy? I’m thirsty.”

“We don’t have much left. We need to make it up there first. Then, if I find the well, you can have a drink.”

She stomped her foot, raising dust and his brow.

He was walking again. Meadow closed her dry mouth and lifted her stubborn chin. If he could make it up that mountain, then so could she.

* * *

SHE WAS TOUGHER than she looked, Dylan gave her that. The hike had to be four miles uphill, and she made it in those wedge sandals without another word of complaint or request for anything. In fact, it appeared that she would not even have taken the time of day from him if he had offered to give it to her.

Perhaps her strength was born of orneriness, but he still gave her credit for making the trek unassisted. He would have bet good money that she was going to start bawling like a branded calf or just stop so he’d have to bring water back to her.

Dylan glanced at the landscape surrounding them. He’d seen such a view before. Too often. The ground was scorched black and stank of charred wood. The fuel here had all been expended, the fire so hot that it had taken the crowns of every tree. The forest was gone, leaving denuded smoking trunks. The pristine view of the mountains, purchased at great expense, had now become bleak and ruined and would remain so for years to come.

Dylan lifted his phone and found a signal. He called Jack first, before his family and before his friend Ray, who was still a newlywed. He’d attended the ceremony in May. He knew now what no one but Ray and Morgan had known then. His new wife was already carrying his child. Seeing Ray happy for once, and settled with a wife and child, had been the deciding factor for Dylan. He wanted that. A wife. Children. And a job that didn’t smell of charred trees and animals.

Jack picked up on the first ring. “Dylan!”

Dylan could tell from the echo on the connection that Jack was in his truck.

“Yes!”

“Where are you?”

Dylan gave him their position.

“Sit tight. I’m on my way.”

It was over a 120 miles from Turquoise Canyon to Flagstaff and most of it on winding mountain roads.

Dylan told him he had a companion and relayed the name. Silence was his answer. Finally Jack spoke.

“Not good.”

“Did you contact Kenshaw?” asked Dylan, inquiring about their shaman and the leader of Tribal Thunder, the warrior sect of Dylan’s medicine society.

Jack said he had and that Kenshaw had been unable to reach Cheney Williams. “Kenshaw said he was there, right at the epicenter.”

“What is the news saying?” asked Dylan.

“Forest fire. Evacuations. No mention of the explosion yet.”

Dylan told him about the live streaming.

“I should be able to get that feed,” said Jack. “Have to submit a request. If it captured a major crime, they’ll release it.”

Dylan scanned the smoking landscape. He’d call it major.

“Cheney Williams’s death qualifies,” said Jack. “Was the home owner up there?”

“I don’t think so. Cheney said it would just be the two of us and a caretaker.”

“I’ll look into that. You have the caretaker’s name?”

“No. Sorry. Maybe you ought to call Luke Forrest.” Forrest was the field agent in charge when they took Jack’s twin brother, Carter, into federal protection. Forrest was also Black Mountain Apache.

“Maybe. Hey, they’ve already called in our hotshots. Ray’s heading up the guys in your absence. I guess you won’t be crew captain on this one.”

The Turquoise Canyon Hotshots were going on assignment without him. That was what he had wanted, wasn’t it? The reason he’d gone back for training as a fire-safety inspector. So why did his gut ache?

“Yeah.”

“I can’t get to you until the fire is off the road. You got water?”

“Soon.”

“All right, Brother Bobcat. Hold on. I’ve got another call. It’s Forrest.”

Dylan heard a double beep indicating he was on hold. He disconnected and continued along. They needed water.

“So, Cheney was here?” asked Meadow. It was the first she’d spoken to him in over an hour.

“Yeah. I’m sorry. He’s gone.” Now Dylan was wondering if Williams was a victim or some sort of suicide bomber. Kenshaw had recommended Dylan for this job, but now Dylan wondered exactly how his shaman knew this attorney who had lived down here in the valley? And why hadn’t Cheney sent one of his staff to meet Dylan up here on the ridge? If he worked with Meadow’s father, he must have people to do such things.

“Why did he call you brother bobcat?” she asked.

“You could hear that?”

She nodded.

“Bobcat is my spirit animal.” He pushed up the sleeve of his T-shirt, showing her the tattoo. “This is his track.”

She stroked a finger over the muscle of his arm and purred, her hand lingering. Dylan’s muscles twitched as he grappled with the tension now overtaking him.

He stepped back, breaking the connection between them.

She distracted him. Made it hard for him to think. Now the questions swarmed him again. Buzzing around his head like gnats when he reached the crest of the ridge. Nothing of the building had survived. The explosion had ripped away the rock beneath the building. The infinity edge pool that had floated above the valley on steel legs, the house, garage and guest suite—all gone.

Dylan checked his phone for calls and found the battery dangerously low. “I’m almost out of juice.”

“Switch it off and then check it periodically.”

“Will do.”

Dylan made another call to his parents’ home and reached his grandfather, Frank. He told him quickly what had happened, and that he was safe and Jack Bear Den was coming to get him. He remembered to tell the old man that he loved him before he disconnected. Frank Florez was the only father Dylan had ever known.

When he finished, he turned off his phone.

“That was sweet. Your father?” she asked.

“Yes, but officially he’s my grandfather. My mother’s father.”

“What clan?” she asked.

“Butterfly.”

“Same as your mother, of course.”

Dylan could see how Meadow had gotten all A’s in school. She was quick.

“Can I call my family?” she asked.

That was a bad idea. Her dad would find out she had survived eventually from his radio communication. But he didn’t want her father knowing exactly where to find them.

“Not yet.”

She lifted a brow but said nothing, keeping her thoughts to herself as they continued up the hill.

He moved farther up and over the ridge. He had left the road to climb past the wreckage and so had not seen beyond the epicenter of the blaze to the pristine pavers of the curving drive that led to the untouched gate and gatehouse beyond the flashpoint of the fire. His mouth quirked in a smile.

Meadow arrived beside him a moment later. Her face was dangerously red. He gave her the mouthpiece to the camel pack and she took a long drink. Then he led them to the gatehouse. The only standing structure had survived the blast by being well down the private road and back from the ridge. The fire had spared the gatehouse only because prevailing winds had carried the blaze in the opposite direction, westward from the epicenter of the blast.

The Rustkin gatehouse was larger than his home on the rez. Dylan knocked on the front door but received no answer.

“You said on the phone the guy would be here,” said Meadow.

“That’s what Cheney told me.” Dylan tried again, knocking louder. Then they gave up and circled the home. He broke a window in the garage and crawled inside, then disconnected the opener and hauled up the door himself. Meadow stepped inside.

“Phew,” she said. “Cool in here.” She glanced around. “No cars.”

Dylan hoped the caretaker was far away because the road that circled down the unscathed side of the mountain met the burning side at the break in the ridgeline. If the caretaker had evacuated, he would not get far.

She cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted a hello. There was no reply. She turned to Dylan. “Well, we have lights and AC.”

“Generator out back. Saw it on the way in.”

“Let’s take a look around,” she said.

She was a bold one, he’d give her that—perhaps a little too daring. Dylan didn’t just charge forward. He was more of a planner.

“Maybe you should wait here.”

“Hell with that.”

Meadow pivoted and led the way down the hall and past the office facing the drive, through the small living space and into the kitchen in the back.

There she stuck her entire head under the sink faucet and soaked her hair making the blue and purple turn a darker shade. Then she drank until he thought her stomach might rupture.

When she drew back, she whipped her head up so that the ends sent a spray of water to the ceiling.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Alive, thanks to you. But I’m dizzy...and what a headache.”

“Heat exhaustion.” Or heat stroke, he thought.

“Never had it this bad.” She stepped aside and Dylan drank. Then he soaked his head, letting the lukewarm water wash away the sweat and sand from his short hair. The water was heaven.

“I’m going to find a bathroom. I need a shower.”

“I’ll check the generator.”

She cast him a glance over one shoulder and shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Had she been inviting him along? That idea should have sent him in the opposite direction because he did not want to listen to the water running while he imagined Meadow washing her tempting body clean. Instead, he watched her walk away.

She strode down the hall that presumably led to the bedroom and bath. On the way she dropped the shirt he had lent her, giving him an unforgettable view of her back broken only by the lace bra. He’d kept her from being burned. Every inch of her was perfect, if dirty. Her tan covered her skin all the way to her bottom, which seemed very white by comparison above the scrap of pink lace. She cast a final glance over her shoulder and gave him a wink.

“You’re up next.” She reached behind her back and unfastened the bra as she turned, heedless of the glimpse she gave him of her body in profile. She was smaller up top than he had imagined, small and round and perfect. Thanks to him.

Dylan found the generator ran on propane and had switched on automatically when the power quit. How long it would last was just a guess, but he thought this would be the place to bed down tonight. Still, he would be careful about what electricity they used. He did a perimeter check familiarizing himself with his surroundings, then returned to the house and checked the rooms. The kitchen had a small table and chairs, and both the living room and the single bedroom were furnished. Someone had been living here, judging from the books, laptop and half-full coffeepot. The mail on the counter was addressed to David Kaneda. Dylan used his camera to snap a shot and sent it to Jack Bear Den with the message that they had reached the caretaker’s house, which was empty. Jack’s replay was the letter K.

Okay.

He busied himself filling his camel pack and then checking the landline, which was dead. The security system was not yet functioning, though the metal gate across the drive was locked. Unfortunately, the wall was not finished and a temporary road had been graded beyond the gate for construction vehicles to complete one of the most expensive homes in Arizona—and the only one that broke the ridge. Was that why they had blown it up?

They’d achieved a two-for-one, endangering the affluent community in the valley, as well.

He searched the cupboards and refrigerator. The refrigerator had bottled water, some of those sixty-four-ounce soda-fountain drinks and leftovers from lunches, some fruit, two half sandwiches—one meatball and one roast beef that smelled edible. On the counter he found chips.

Dylan arranged some of the food on the kitchen table and listened but did not hear the water running.

“You done?” he called.

“I didn’t start yet.”

“Why?”

“No soap.”

Meadow called from the shower. “Is there soap out there?”

He searched and came up with a bottle of liquid hand soap and was halfway down the hall when he paused as all kinds of erotic images flooded him.

Dylan debated his options. Sex meant nothing to her. He patted his front pocket where his wallet held two condoms. He had principles, but he was still a man.

“Dylan?”

“I found some.”

He stepped into the steaming air of the bathroom. The glass door gave him a pretty fair image of what she looked like naked and wet. He growled and lifted the soap over the top of the glass barrier.

“There are no towels,” she said, accepting the soap and then tipping her head back to let the spray of water cascade over her crown.

“They’re in the linen closet in the hall.”

She rolled back the shower door. He didn’t look away.

“So, do we have a bed?” she asked. She was so casual about her body and sexuality. Do we have a bed?

“There’s only one.”

“That’ll do.”

Now his skin was prickling and his body responding to the possibilities she raised.

“Is that all you ever have on your mind?” he asked.

She faced him, pressing herself against the glass, giving him a view he would never forget. “Only since I met you.”

He didn’t believe it, but he found himself growing hard.

“Why don’t you step in? I’ll wash you off.”

“Meadow, I don’t even know you.”

“You will if you get in here.”

Dylan untied his boots and stripped out of his clothing. He retrieved his wallet and one condom. Then he ignored his conscience, slid back the door and stepped into the shower with Meadow.

Chapter Seven

“Man,” she said, her smile widening. “You are fine to look at.”

“You sure about this?” His body pulsed with need.

“Totally.”

He’d never slept with someone who said totally. It wasn’t right. Dylan dropped the condom onto the tiled shelf and closed the shower door.

“I thought I had burned my back in the shelter.” He presented it to her. “But I don’t feel any burns.”

Her hands caressed his shoulders as the water pulsed on his skin.

“Perfect,” she said. She soaped him and lathered his skin from his neck to the back of his legs while his body built to a thrumming need to touch her.

Meadow’s hand slipped down his arm pausing at the tattoo.

“I like this. It’s well done. That’s a medicine shield. Right? And eagle feathers?”

He nodded, watching her as she traced the design.

She slipped around in front of him and repeated her ministration on his chest.

“I’ve wanted to touch you since I saw you with that ax. Then you were on top of me and I could barely breathe.”

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