Page 23 of Light My Fire

“Right.” Tucker continued to hold out the candy bar. “Then I guess this is it. Our one and only date.”

She looked at him, the way his mouth hitched up on one side. “This is a date?”

“Scenery. Good food, a little campfire…”

She laughed and took the candy bar. She nearly moaned with a stupid kind of joy as the chocolate hit her taste buds. She hadn’t eaten all day, having left her mother’s place on the bike, fueled only by panic.

Panic that had choked off clear thought because it wasn’t like she could put Eugene on the back of the bike and whiz them back to Copper Mountain. She’d have to call in a chopper in the morning.

Tucker finished his half of the candy bar and took a swig from his canteen before handing it to her. Their hands brushed, his work worn. She could admit to having enjoyed watching Tucker fight the fire this evening, the way he’d stomped out spot fires, yelled instructions to his crew, directed the water dumps. Too bad their hard work had created such a mushroom cloud of steam, or she might have been able to get a chopper in to extract her and March tonight.

She’d just have to keep a weather eye on March and the rest of the prisoners. She noticed that her dad was doing the same thing. Once a cop, always a cop.

She could feel her father’s gaze on her as she took a drink and handed the canteen back to Tucker.

She and Tucker sat close, his leg against hers. Strong, powerful, and again, like last night, she fought the craziest urge to tuck herself against him. Maybe just lean her head on his shoulder, close her gritty, tired eyes.

Oh, for Pete’s sake, she must really be exhausted because she didn’t do dependency. Or leaning.

“What made you go into firefighting?” she asked, resting her head against the boulder instead.

“A guy named Jed Ransom. He was a hotshot boss for the Jude County Hotshots and he recruited at my college. I joined right after my freshman year. Fighting fire sort of got into my bones, and I applied to the smokejumper team three years later. Made it my first year.”

“My dad was a firefighter back in the early Alaskan firefighting days. He told me stories about smokejumpers.” She didn’t look in her father’s direction but wondered if he could hear her. “Said they were the special ops of firefighting.”

Tucker drew up his good knee and leaned back against the rock, staring at the sky. “I dunno. It’s more like three minutes of crazy adrenaline and three days of backbreaking work. Usually around night three of eating ash, crying our eyes out from the smoke, and popping blisters from our cracked hands, we all sit around and wonder who hit us in the heads.”

She laughed.

“But other times…yeah, it’s probably a lot like the military. A team, working together. We get pretty tight.” He scrubbed his hand down his face. “A few years ago, the team lost seven of their men. It was pretty rough. They had to practically start over. Only Riley and I are left from that year of rookies.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Well, accidents happen. But not if I can help it.”

She glanced over at him, and Tucker was serious, given the way he met her eyes.

She didn’t know why, but the words just bubbled out, soft and low. “My father is here.”

He blinked at her. “What?”

Oh, why had she said that? But it was too late now, so she cut her voice even lower. “My father, the cop, is Archer Mills.” She glanced in his direction.

Tucker followed her gaze. Then cut his back to her. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t expect that question, out of all that he could ask, and it found unguarded soil. “Yeah. I think so. I don’t want anyone to know.”

“But you want me to make sure he gets home in one piece.”

Her jaw tightened against a wash of heat in her eyes. She thought she’d gotten over the worry. Apparently not. So she nodded.

Tucker touched her hand, wrapping his fingers through hers. Met her eyes. “I got this.”

She caught her lip between her teeth, painfully aware that Tucker Newman stirred in her a wash of forbidden desires.

“Hey, boss, can I talk to you?”

Stevie looked up just as Tucker released her hand. The female smokejumper stood over them.

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