He found himself grinning in the face of the hellish thing he was about to do, appreciating her quick comeback as much as her luscious curves.
“I can't believe how big these houses are,” Maya marveled as he used his universal remote to open the gates to the ritzy housing development and they drove past a row of huge recently built mansions.
He knew she was trying to lighten the mood between them in the face of oncoming danger—and probably evade their growing connection while she was at it.
“They've all got killer views,” he said, playing along. “I used to hike up here before the houses went in. It was a damn shame when the public lost this land.”
Not to mention one more pain-in-the-ass development for his crew to protect, despite owners who went out of their way to create fire hazards. Protecting people took first priority. But saving expensive houses was a close second.
He followed the winding road up the hill to a dead end. He could feel the heat from the fire even at this distance. It was going to be hotter than hell on the other side of the wall. And a hundred times more dangerous. All it would take was one spark to land on an untouched patch of gasoline.
He jumped out of his truck and quickly suited up, but when he came around to her side of the car Maya held tightly onto the sniffer and mason jar.
“Wait here.” He dropped his keys in her lap and pried the sniffer from her fingers. “But if you see flames start to come over that wall, get away as fast as you can, then get on my radio and report it.”
She curled her fingers around his keys. “I'm not leaving without you.”
“No use in both of us dying,” he said, then leaned in and stole a quick kiss before he walked straight into a firestorm.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MAYA WANTED to call out Logan's name as he opened the gate, and demand that he come back. A blast of hot air knocked into the truck, pushing through the cracks in the metal, vibrating against the windshield.
He'd told her to stay put, but she couldn't just sit in his truck while he risked his life to procure evidence for her investigation, not when she could hear and smell and feel the blaze as if it were right next to the truck rather than beyond the neighborhood wall. She was the only one who could keep watch over him. She had to make sure he didn't do anything stupid.
Running up the brick walkway of the nearest house, she knocked on the front door and rang the bell several times in rapid succession before she realized no one was home. The homeowners had likely been evacuated. She ran around the side of the house, searching for a way up to the roof. Fortunately, a huge extension ladder was propped against the back wall. The owner had likely used the ladder to water down the roof until the evacuation order came.
Scrambling quickly up the two-story ladder, she steadied herself on the gray roofing tiles and pulled herself onto them. She clambered across the roof to a spot where she had a clear view of Logan. But when she caught sight of the situation, her heart nearly stopped in her chest.
While the other hotshots were keeping a safe distance from the fire, Logan was crouched down directly in front of a three-foot wall of flames, scanning the ground for the best chunk of evidence.
Oh God. She'd been so focused on getting evidence, so consumed with her vendetta against arsonists, she'd actually sent him in without really giving thought to what he would face in the site of the explosion. How could she?
She screamed, “Come back,” but all yelling did was hurt her throat. It was impossible for anyone to hear her over the roar of the fire and the helicopters circling overhead. The wildfire crackled louder now, and the sun moved behind a thick mantle of ash.
The blaze had looked big and brutal from the air that morning. Now it resembled a war zone. Clouds of black smoke hung ominously in the blue sky, while men and machines scrambled to battle a wildfire that was sending dozens of fiery tentacles farther across the mountain with every passing hour.
Everything moved in slow motion as the deadly yellow-orange flames reached out toward Logan and nearly covered his head. And then, at the last possible moment, he jumped back onto a safe patch of grass. She knew the vision of Logan standing fearless among five-foot flames and a black-and-gray carpet of ash would haunt her forever.
She choked on the smoke and dust rising into the air, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest. She didn't want any more firefighters hurt. Especially not Logan.
Helplessly watching him do her dirty work, she didn't have the strength to keep denying how special he was. She watched as he squatted, his turnouts pulling tight against his muscular shoulders and narrow hips. He was the kind of man women dreamed of at night. And he willingly faced death for the greater good.
Women threw themselves at him for good reason.
He held the sniffer away from his body and stood perfectly still for sixty seconds, just as she'd instructed. Flames whipped around him and she cursed herself for telling him not to rush. There was no way for him to have any idea if and where additional gas and explosives had been strewn across the grassy hill.
At any moment, the ground he was standing on could explode.
Her legs shook at the horrifying image of Logan lying on a stretcher, covered in blisters and raw, bloody skin. Her foot slipped on a tile and she had to reach out to steady herself by grabbing an exhaust fan.
Maybe he'd been right and she should have stayed in the truck. Maybe it would have been easier than coming up here to watch him.
And no matter what side of the investigation they were on, she was stunned by his courage.
She now fully believed Logan Cain was innocent. He would protect his men with his life. She was watching him do it right now. Witnessing his superhuman nerves in action as he walked through fire to gather badly needed evidence cleared any remaining doubts from her mind.
He hadn't lit the Desolation Wilderness fire.
Which meant someone else was responsible for all of this destruction. All of this pain. All of this suffering. Someone had lit the wildfire and then left that message on the tip line with Logan's name. She was almost certain that the same arsonist had lit her motel room on fire, then tried to scare her with the note in the fire-box, and then had put all the pieces in place to set off the explosion that had nearly taken Robbie's life that morning.
Finally, Logan stepped away from the flames and jogged back to his truck. How, she wondered, could he move so quickly with so much heavy equipment on his shoulders? Especially given how drained he must be from the shocking heat.