“I'm afraid that's not possible, Mr. Cain.”
Maya's expression remained neutral. She wasn't angry. Or nervous. Instead, she seemed cold. Frigid, even.
She had all the same curves in all the same places, but she sure as hell wasn't the wild woman he'd met in his friend's bar. If anything, she was standing there, her full br**sts and sweet ass outlined to perfection in her goddamned suit, looking down on him for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and winding up an arson suspect in a fire that had nearly killed one of his men.
She pulled a file out of her briefcase. Quickly flip-ping through the pages, she handed him a single piece of paper.
His days of flipping off authority and getting away with it had come and gone a long time ago, so he took the page and read it. It didn't take long to scan the words that were as good as a death sentence: Should he disregard suspension orders to stay off the mountain, he would be banned from working with the Forest Service in any capacity, even in a city office, forever—signed his buddy Superintendent McCurdy, Tahoe Basin Forest Service.
He was about to crumple up the paper and toss it into a wastebasket in the corner when he realized why Maya's name seemed so familiar. Not because she'd introduced herself to him in the bar before wrapping her legs around his waist, but because she'd coauthored the FBI report on firefighter arsonists.
His crew had played darts with it until the pages shredded.
“It's not just me, is it? You've got something against firefighters, don't you?”
“Excuse me?”
“You're an excellent writer,” he said, waiting for realization to dawn.
Her lips curved up, but she wasn't smiling. He was surprised he didn't see frost forming on the surface of her skin.
“I take it you're referring to the FBI report I contributed to.”
“Hell, sweetheart”—she flinched at the endearment— “take credit where credit is due. You penned that little beauty, start to finish. Tell me, apart from one afternoon in a bar, what did a firefighter ever do to hurt you?”
Her mouth tightened and went flat. “My father was a firefighter. So was my—”
She cut herself off sharply and he noted her strange behavior. What wasn't she telling him?
“I have boundless respect for firefighters,” she finally said.
“You sure have a funny way of showing it.”
She narrowed her eyes, anger beginning to melt away her icy core. “I grew up surrounded by firefighters. They were some of the best men I've ever known. How dare you accuse me of being out to get them?”
Her words rang with sincerity, but he wasn't in any mood to back down. Not since she'd come between him and a wildfire, with reams of bureaucratic bullshit.
“Then why the hell did you write that report?”
“Don't tell me you've never come across a firefighter who liked to play with fire, Mr. Cain. Anyone who's worked in the Fire Service knows someone who had a problem with getting excited about fire for all the wrong reasons.”
He immediately thought of Joseph and his chest grew tight. What the hell was he going to do if Joseph really was guilty?
Logan wasn't familiar with the bitter taste of fear and sure as hell didn't like swallowing it down. One thing was for sure: If Ms. Hotshot Investigator was going to keep pushing him, he hoped she was prepared for him to push back.
“Tell me something, did an investigator ever accuse your father of arson?”
Pain registered in her eyes, on the small lines around her mouth, and he knew he'd hit below the belt, but he was fighting for his life, for his fellow hotshots, for Joseph.
He'd do whatever it took to keep them all safe.
“No.” She swallowed hard. “Never. My father was a hero.”
“My point exactly,” he said, invading her personal space one more time. He got close enough to see that her olive-tinged skin was still flawless and that her cheekbones were more pronounced than he'd remembered.
Something tugged at him, a remembered sense that she hadn't been all there six months ago, but then again, he hadn't exactly been studying her from a distance. He'd been rubbing his lips against hers while grabbing her ass with both hands.
“Hotshots don't light fires that kill their own men. Call McCurdy and tell him to pull my suspension.”