Logan simply couldn't ignore the situation anymore, not when so many lives were on the line.
“I know you don't like to talk about how you've been feeling lately,” he began, and Joseph pushed away from the rail, as stubborn now as he'd always been.
No wonder he and his son, Dennis, always butted heads.
“There's nothing to talk about,” Joseph insisted.
Logan tried to reason with him. “You're too close to the fire. I want you out of danger. I'm buying you a ticket to Hawaii. I'll drive you to the airport. You'll leave tonight.”
“I'm not going anywhere. If there's a wildfire burning in my backyard, I've got to stay right here in case you need my help. I've never run from a fire and just because I've got a few gray hairs on my head, I'm not going to start now.”
“Hell, Joseph. If you want to help me, you'll get on a goddamned plane. I can't be worrying about you. I've got to get you somewhere safe.”
“What are you so worried about?”
I'm worried that you're going hiking and lighting campfires and then coming back home and forgetting all about them was on the tip of Logan's tongue. But he couldn't say it.
Damn it, he wished he could just throw the man over his shoulder and carry him to safety. But he couldn't treat him like an invalid. It wouldn't be right, not when it might destroy what was left of Joseph's strength.
Logan reluctantly accepted that he was going to have to work on Joseph a little at a time. Get him used to the idea of heading out somewhere safe.
Which also meant he'd have to work overtime to make sure Joseph didn't accidentally light any new fires in the coming days.
The situation sucked. Big-time.
“Think about my offer. A couple of weeks on the beach. Pretty girls in bikinis. Fruity drinks.”
“Sounds like the ninth circle of hell,” Joseph said, a stubborn old man down to his toenails.
Logan couldn't beat back a grin. It sure did. He crushed the empty aluminum can in his hand. “I gotta get back.”
Joseph's short gray hair was sticking straight up and his face was riddled with uneven patches of stubble. “Come by for dinner on your next down day. And stay out of any more blowups.”
“Will do.”
Logan grabbed the keys to Joseph's spare truck. It was time to head back to the station. The Tahoe Pines Hotshots had a mother of a fire to put out.
Maya followed the ambulances down the mountain, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. The smell of smoke that clung to her jeans and hair kept the terrible scene she'd just witnessed fresh in her mind. She hadn't thought she was capable of wanting to avenge her brother's death any more than she already did, but after watching a firefighter emerge with severe burns—even though he still had his life intact—she couldn't stop wondering Had Tony suffered like that?
Unclenching her white-knuckled fingers from the steering wheel, she pulled into the parking lot of her motel. Cal Fire had sent her to Lake Tahoe to investigate the Desolation Wilderness fire. It was time to get a grip and focus all of her attention on the current case.
Only, now that she knew her lead suspect and the bartender from six months ago were one and the same, how could she possibly separate the two circumstances?
Logan Cain would forever be inexorably tied to Tony's death, simply because she'd made the mistake of trying to assuage her pain with his kisses. And if it turned out that Logan really was guilty of arson, she didn't know how she'd ever be able to live with herself for fooling around with an arsonist.
She checked into her room and showered off the smoke and dirt, then pulled her power suit out of her suitcase. She needed to look fierce and feel even fiercer. She was on the hunt for an arsonist, not to win a beauty contest, but there was an undeniable power in looking the part.
The first time she'd met Logan, she hadn't given a second thought to what she'd looked like. This time would be different. She would be prepared for him, using lipstick and blush and mascara like modern-day armor to protect herself from his effortless good looks.
She was thinner now than she'd been six months ago, her appetite having never quite returned full force. Sometimes when she looked in the mirror she was surprised to see her cheekbones standing out in full relief, the slightly hollow spots above her jaw. Would Logan notice that there was less of her now?
She stopped her rambling thoughts cold. What were the odds that Logan would even recognize her? He probably saw more ass than a pair of jeans. The fifteen minutes they'd shared—while she'd writhed helplessly against his long fingers, God help her—were likely nothing more than a mini-blip on his sexual radar screen. Whereas he'd been so hot—so good—she'd been unable to forget about him, particularly at night in her dreams.
After verifying via telephone that the hospital had discharged him, she entered the hotshot station, her heels clicking as rapid a beat on the cement floor as her heart did in her chest.
Twenty pairs of eyes—men only, she noted—turned on her. They weren't stupid. They smelled an investigation.
She put her briefcase down on top of a table. “I'm Maya Jackson and I'm working with the Forest Service on the Desolation Wilderness fire.”