Page 21 of Light My Fire

Huh?

And shoot, but the choking smoke, the swelling pain in his knee, and the fact that he’d nearly been burned alive simply dropped away as—seriously?—Stevie Mills came charging up the slope, her weapon out, and wearing a look that had Rio glancing at him and raising his hands in surrender.

Tucker wanted to get to his feet, to defend Rio, but instead he simply sat there, stunned. “Stevie?”

She had tied her hair back in a ponytail, wore a blue windbreaker, and ran up the hill as if she might be on fire.

“What are you doing here?” Tucker said, then glanced at Rio. “He’s not a threat.”

She regarded Rio with a stern eye, then lowered her gun. “You can put your hands down. I’m not going to shoot you.”

“I appreciate that,” Rio said.

Tucker winced as he worked his way to his feet. “I don’t understand—what’s going on?”

She tucked her gun away in her belt. “You have a murderer among your fire crew recruits. I’m here to bring him back.”

He glanced at Rio.

Who frowned. “It’s not me, dude.”

“It’s Eugene March, the guy I told you about last night.”

“Uh, there’s no one here named Eugene.”

“Right—he’s going by Clancy Smythe.”

“The professor?”

She frowned at that. “Yeah.He’s murdered three people, along with a few other charges. Like rape.”

Oh, just perfect. He shook his head. “Let’s keep March’s list of charges on the d-low,” Tucker said. “I don’t want to freak out the team. But, how soon can you get him off my line?”

“As soon as I can get a chopper in here.”

Which, given the smoke clutter, might be a while.

Tucker leaned on his Pulaski, aware of the strange rush of adrenaline, the thunder of his heartbeat, and the wincing heat in his knee as he climbed down to her. The sun had brushed a spot on her nose, and she looked windblown.

“How’d you get here?” Tucker asked.

Rio hiked down beside him, as if to catch him. Tucker tried to let the pain blow through him. It wasn’t the first time he’d worked while hurt. He just needed an emergency ice pack and some ibuprofen.

“I rode my dirt bike.” She gestured to an ancient-looking bike down the hill, out of the burn area.

Huh. But he turned to her and grinned. “Well, welcome to my fire. I don’t suppose you brought supper.”

* * *

“It’sa crazy kind of beauty, isn’t it?”

Tucker sat down beside Stevie against a pile of boulders in their strike camp, and his voice sliced into her thoughts, the ones that centered on two problems.

How did she keep Eugene from escaping under her nose?

And just what did she do with the fact that her father sat ten feet away, his gaze flickering to her, hurt in his eyes?

She didn’t blame her father. Not after the crazy, panicked exchange that occurred when she’d hiked up to the fire line with Tucker and Rio, the prisoner she’d thought just might be taking Tucker hostage.

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