From fighting fires...

To fighting attraction!

Firefighter medic Lauren Autry was devastated when she lost out on her dream job as a smoke jumper to golden boy Beck Ellison. Two years later she’s trying again and surprised to see her nemesis with the rookies on probation. Beck is more brooding than ever, but still as maddeningly handsome. A wildfire forces them to work together, but it’s the flaming attraction raging between them that Lauren is desperately trying to put out...

AMALIE BERLIN lives with her family and her critters in Southern Ohio, and writes quirky and independent characters for Mills & Boon Medical Romance. She likes to buck expectations with unusual settings and situations, and believes humour can be used powerfully to illuminate the truth—especially when juxtaposed against intense emotions. Love is stronger and more satisfying when your partner can make you laugh through the times when you don’t have the luxury of tears.

Also by Amalie Berlin

Taming Hollywood’s Ultimate Playboy

Challenging the Doctor Sheikh

Dante’s Shock Proposal

The Prince’s Cinderella Bride

The Rescue Doc’s Christmas Miracle

Back in Dr Xenakis’ Arms

Scottish Docs in New York miniseries

Their Christmas to Remember

Healed Under the Mistletoe

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Rescued by Her Rival

Amalie Berlin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08995-1

RESCUED BY HER RIVAL

© 2019 Amalie Berlin

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

FIREFIGHTER AND SMOKEJUMPER trainee Lauren Autry jogged with the rest of the herd to the large field behind the main hall at the old twentieth-century 4-H camp the Forest Service had repurposed for spring training facilities.

Every year since the nineteen-fifties new recruits and veteran smokejumpers alike descended upon a handful of camps littering the Northwestern United States for the intense training required to prepare them for the coming wildfire season. The elite firefighting service only took the fittest, the most capable of conquering and surviving the remote, treacherous terrain where wildfires tended to explode—parachuting in with simple tools and supplies to fight and contain big, dangerous blazes, only to be rewarded with a long hike back to civilization after the job was done.

Only the best made it through, and if Lauren had been lacking two years ago, she’d made up for it since then, throwing herself into every kind of study and training she could conceive of—even things not required, at least when her job and family responsibilities hadn’t gotten in the way. She’d trained harder, pushed herself beyond her already insane standards. If only she could’ve figured out how to grow a few more inches, everything would be perfect. And if she’d gotten to complete the civilian skydiving course she’d been counting on. That was something she should’ve better controlled. Better planned for. Not required, she’d get to learn it here, but still. Prepared. Making up for any deficiencies. That had been the plan.

If she made it to a crew—when she made it to a crew—no one would be able to question whether she was capable. Whether she was tall enough, or strong enough, or good enough. Never again. Not her brothers. Not her father. None of the hundreds of dead ancestors who’d been serving the same San Francisco fire station since its founding in the nineteenth century...not that she could hear their critiques, at least.

No more of those questions she’d been suffering the six years since she’d become a firefighter. No more of the insinuations her failure two years ago had amplified.

No more holding pattern of derailed life plans.

This year she’d made it through the selection process, even under the authority of Chief Treadwell, the same man who’d passed her over before and given the last spot to a no-neck marine.

None of that mattered. She was here now.

This was really happening!

The thought sent a jittery, tingling wave washing over her scalp again, every cell in her body seeming to light up at once. It had taken every ounce of willpower to sit still and pay attention through orientation, before she began the endurance test she’d been primed for two years to run. The simple act of moving again, letting her body do what it had been conditioned to do, was the kind of physical relief she’d like to also have mentally.

The crowd stopped in the grass, and so did she, but behind a sea of broad shoulders and crewcuts, she couldn’t see what was going on.

Right. Identify the problem, find the solution.

Turning sideways, she slipped and ducked through the crowd to reach the front, and the unexciting view of three older men with clipboards quietly conversing while everyone else waited. More waiting. More need to move crawling over her knees. An itch to get started. Prove herself. Prove to Treadwell he’d made a mistake passing her over for what’s-his-face.

Soon enough, they began calling names and sorting those assembled into three different groups. When that was done, one look around confirmed: her group was peopled with rookies—she could tell by their yellow badges. All new people. All new dudes. And her. Which was fine. Expected, even. It was the smallest group, which was also fine. She’d get more attention that way. The right kind of attention. Training attention. Proving-herself attention.

Her group split off, moving to the side of the large dirt track to hear the rules again.

Endurance test, first. Mile and a half in under eleven minutes. Easy-peasy. She barely needed to stretch for that, but did anyway.

“Ellison!” Treadwell barked the name just as she’d caught one ankle behind her to stretch her quads, causing her to pitch to the side then scramble to stay upright.

“You’re late!”

Chief. Shouting.

Someone late the first day?

Ellison.

The name caught up with her and she jolted again.

Beck Ellison. Her nemesis! Who likely had no idea he was her nemesis... The Golden Boy she’d only quasi creeped on online because when a girl had a secret nemesis... Well, social media was far too easy to peek at. Not that she’d been hoping to see anything bad. In fact, she hadn’t seen anything at all in terms of a profile for the man. She’d just seen posts about him doing this and that, articles in different newspapers used as PR for the service. Stuff she couldn’t help but see and feel the knife twisting in her spleen every time he did something else wonderful. Smoke Charmer nonsense.

She could do her job without an ego-stoking nickname.

Smoke Charmer.

Then again, if she had to lose out to someone, better he be astounding than abysmal. If she had to lose.

Positive thoughts. Positive thoughts. Maintain habit of sending good intentions out to the universe.

Maybe he was there to teach them all how to become one with the fire, Smoke Charmer style.

She turned slightly from her position at the starting line to catch sight of a tall, shaggy-haired man jogging onto the track to join the group. Curls. That was new. The man had shiny black curls, wafting on the breeze as he jogged to the track—the only trace she could see of his past life as a marine was his fitness. Also new? He had a neck now.

And he was coming to run. Not there to teach. There to run. With the rookies.

His badge was yellow.

Rookie yellow.

He was being placed with the rookies?

Not again. He’d made it two years ago. He didn’t need to weasel into her group now and start showing off.

She took a breath and got back in position at the track. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

This wasn’t a competition. Not one that he knew about, at least. She just sort of...wanted to do better than he did. Today. And every day for the next six weeks.

“Did we inconvenience your plans to sleep in?” Treadwell barked, but Ellison—or the beefy, bipedal sheepdog now impersonating the formerly chisel-cut marine—didn’t respond. He just dropped something black and plastic beside the track and got himself ready to run.

With. The. Rookies.

Let it go. Let it go and focus. She could tumble down some kind of rookie revirginization rabbit hole later, after she smoked him on the track. His legs might be longer, but hers would be faster.

The chief blew a whistle and she launched forward. All the anxious energy that had made her squirm in her seat through the arduous sixty-three-minute orientation finally freed.

She ran, everything falling into place as she pounded down the dirt track, her sneakers giving only the slightest slide on the hard-packed earth and gravel as she flew down the center lane. The heavy feeling of worry she’d been carrying with her for days suddenly lifted.

She’d always been a runner. The intense conditioning she’d put herself through was built on a lifetime of running, ever since she’d started T-ball and soccer, because her brothers had all played and they hadn’t taken it easy on her, even at six.

Doing what she was meant to do, made her strong. With the track underfoot, she felt peace. She felt in control of her destiny. Able to overcome that small mistake she’d made on her application...

In a matter of seconds, the group she’d started with thinned. Sixteen started at her heels, and before her lungs even began to burn, she no longer heard feet pounding beside her. Or behind her. Even when listening hard.

Nope. No one. She was alone.

Which was when she remembered: this wasn’t a race. She wasn’t supposed to be outrunning anyone. Not even Ellison. She was supposed to be outlasting them. This was an endurance test. And speed ate up endurance. Endurance she’d need to make it through the day.

It took some effort to slow herself down, she felt it every clap of her heels against the packed earth, jarring her bones.

Six laps was the expected minimum. She’d go longer just to show she could. Not faster. Longer. Longer than them. Longer than Ellison.

She made it to the third lap before she gave in to temptation to look behind her. The closest to her, who seemed to be moving at a much steadier lope? Ellison. Of course, he was taller. Longer legs didn’t need to run as hard for the same speed.

Never mind.

By the fourth lap her lungs were pretty warm.

By the sixth she legit wanted to stop. She could still finish first, but she wanted to finish best.

By the seventh lap, he’d caught up to her and when she gave in to the temptation to look up at him, she was met with one arched brow that said three things.

I know you.

I remember how competitive you were last time.

I still think you’re an idiot.

For the briefest second, her vision swam with a lovely little brain movie of her throwing one leg to one side and sending his curly arrogance into the dirt. But then her vision cleared, and the sweeter side of her nature took over. She looked back to the track, and kept running.

Eight.

When was he going to stop? Were they actually racing now? Was this a thing that was happening?

Other people had already stopped.

Eight and a half... Treadwell whistled again, loud and shrill. A call to stop. She let inertia carry her forward a few more yards to slow and stop naturally.

Hands on her knees, she kept herself up and gulped air, sweat plastering her shirt to her back, and the grit she’d kicked up from the dirt track rubbing like sandpaper against her bare legs. Should’ve stopped after the seventh.

“Not a race, Autry.” Ellison panted too, where he’d stopped a couple lanes away, the curls she hated to admire a little crisper from the light sweat he’d built.

Of course he’d have better hair too.

And not the point. Not a race, he’d said, but he’d still kept up with her ridiculous pace.

“Tell yourself.”

She straightened, less inclined to bear the grudging respect she’d built for him since he’d turned out to actually be something special, someone she could feel better about herself for having lost to, and walked much more slowly to center field, where the chief gathered his group again.

Ignore Ellison. What was next?

Maybe water. Please, let there be water.

* * *

Beck followed Autry off the track, his breathing more rapid than his sluggish thoughts. He’d been in a haze all week, trying to decide what his life was supposed to be, and had quietly hoped that once he’d made his decision the fog would lift, and he’d know whether he still had it in him to be what he’d felt called to his whole life.

No such luck. The only thing clear was his broken life compass. And that he’d somehow annoyed the woman he’d briefly met two years prior.

She seemed fit. Maybe a little harder than she had been. Normally, he’d say harder was a good thing—harder emotions meant distance, control, better decision-making in dangerous situations. But annoyed was just another flavor of the same emotional unsteadiness he’d seen in her when she’d gone teary after not making the ranks.

She’d sworn to Treadwell she’d be back next year. Last year. Was that another fail? Surprising, but probably no more than it was for her to see him as a rookie this year too.

Didn’t matter. Once training was complete, she’d be off to her own unit and her emotionalism wouldn’t be his problem. He had his own issues to focus on.

Before joining the others, he stopped to retrieve the radio he’d dropped earlier and wedged one earbud in to get another update on the wildfire he’d been monitoring since yesterday. A dry winter and an even drier spring meant the fire season had come early. When rain and runoff existed, spring wildfires were easier to handle and didn’t grow at the vicious speed this one was. The team would be called in today, for sure. If luck was with him, the call would come before he’d spent himself on the rookie field, while he still had enough energy to give Treadwell a reason to stop looking at him like he was the embodiment of all human disappointment.

The radio crackled and he stopped en route to the coolers, but no report followed. Maybe luck wouldn’t be with him. It certainly hadn’t been with him last season.

He grabbed a drink and joined the others, half listening to Treadwell go over the next exercise, the other tuned into the earpiece. It was the first day, and his attention was rightly divided. He didn’t need to hear the physical requirements, he remembered them. Listening for the call was an act of team spirit, for his true team. Not these rookies. Besides, no one was a spirited teammate on day one. Team-building took more than a day.

He worked better alone anyway—fewer distractions. Fewer people to worry about. Something that hadn’t been a problem until last season. One mistake had turned the chief’s opinion of him upside down.

Turned him upside down too. Getting back out there today would help in a way that four months tending his forest territory had somehow failed to help.

If his chief didn’t also take the rookies every year, he might not have even had the opportunity to try again, and he wasn’t ready to picture a future where this wasn’t his job. That meant he had to show up, do whatever Treadwell demanded for the next several weeks. Wear his rookie badge. Take his lumps.

Be like Autry.

She stood so straight and stiff she might as well have been in a muster, her attention narrowed on the chief with laser precision. Though none of what he said could’ve been news to her, the physical requirements were public information. Requirements that included the height minimum, so she’d certainly have read them.

As if feeling his gaze, she turned his direction, and met his steady examination with folded arms and a churlish bent to her brows. Still annoyed.

Whatever. He looked back at the radio because of another round of crackling static, and the next he knew, she was at his side.

“They stuck you with the new recruits?”

Her breathing had already leveled out, the only evidence of her prior exertion the pinkness of her cheeks. She’d run as if chased by wolves, but looked none the worse for wear. He should probably ask what had happened to last year, but that would only encourage conversation. And questions in return.

“Looks like it,” he muttered, and turned up the volume on the single earpiece as a quick buzz announced an incoming report.

“What are you listening to?”

“Reports.”

“Reports on what?”

He narrowed his eyes at the middle distance, feigning concentration, and pressed the earpiece into his ear, glad for a reason to tune out.

Not glad there was such a monstrous fire so early in the season, but he wanted to get at it. He was still on the team. If Treadwell went, he’d go too. His yellow badge was penance.

She finally took his silence for the hint it was and stopped prodding him for answers. There were plenty of other people to pester, and she didn’t know the report had long since ended and now he pretended to listen to dead air.

Treadwell began calling names again, dividing his group into three, and Beck found himself sorted to the bar, along with Autry, who was now busy introducing herself to the others in their team, making friends. Smiling. Showing her team spirit.

“Ellison’s not new,” he heard her say, calling his attention back to the newly formed subgroup. “He made it a couple years ago. But...uh... I guess he got stuck with us because he was late.”

Wrong.

“This is Alvarez, Finnegan, and Wyler.”

Still talking to him. No longer annoyed. She actually looked excited, a brightness in her eyes out of step with what was actually happening. Push-ups. Pull-ups. Sit-ups... Not exactly a party.

Treadwell called his name, saving him from making nice, and he stepped to the bar, pausing only long enough to deposit his radio on the ground and free his hands. The chief’s gaze wordlessly followed him and Beck said two words before reaching for the bar to pull himself up. “It’s bigger.”

A frown and a nod were his only acknowledgments, and Treadwell began to count as Beck got on with it. As soon as he’d passed the minimum number of pull-ups, he dropped down for sit-ups, then rolled to push-ups, stopping each time he’d passed the required amount, leaving himself room to “improve” as camp continued.

Treadwell’s arched brow? Beck shrugged a touch. “Conserving energy.”

His muscles buzzing, he pulled himself off the ground, retrieved his radio, then went for another drink so he could sit on the grass to watch the others work their way through as he listened.

Still no new reports to free him.

Autry had been in the middle of the five, but as he watched, she talked herself to the rear of the group.

She’d learn soon enough how to survive these days: go early, get it over with, don’t waste energy showing off. Take all opportunities to rest.

Or not. Maybe it was better for him if she kept doing whatever she was doing. If she finished too soon, she’d be there beside him, asking questions. Making a nuisance of herself with her newbie enthusiasm.

CHAPTER TWO

THE INSTANT THE call for more crews came over the radio, Beck sprang to his feet.

Finally. Time to get out of this. He headed for Treadwell, who stood with clipboard in hand, counting the reps of another rookie.

The chatter he’d expect from Autry had never come when she’d gotten done with her turn at the bar. Treadwell had stopped her from showing off by making her finish her reps when it became clear she had no idea what a reasonable number was. She’d been sitting on the grass, sulking, ever since, her formerly animated brow becoming a little ledge above her pretty green eyes.

Pretty?

He mentally shook himself. They were striking, an evergreen ring around a pale center. If anything, they were unusual and therefore compelling. Him fixating on eye color meant he needed to get out of there. Had spent too much time alone in the woods, lost in his own head.

Then again, no one lurked in the forest to constantly remind him of this nonsense about him undoing core tenets of his personality over a few short weeks. People went to years of therapy to change habits and outlooks acquired over a lifetime, and he had no interest in that either.

“Chief.” He interrupted the rookie doing push-ups with one word and a meaningful waggle of his radio, indicating the call had come.

Treadwell’s gaze narrowed and he nodded, but held up one hand in Beck’s direction and told the man on the ground he could stop.

He and Treadwell might not be on the same page on everything, but over the past two years the man had learned to interpret Beck’s admittedly spartan method of communication. Beck liked him for that. Liked him in general, really.

During his first year, back when it’d seemed he could do no wrong, he’d still had to actively work to be something like what they expected off duty. They’d accepted his tendency to go off on his own when he got a whiff of something during a fire. Let him come around to telling them whatever he’d concluded when he was certain.

He didn’t know where that sixth sense had gone, could only hope it had come back over the winter. Knowing how far he’d fallen in the chief’s esteem chafed.

After marking the rookie’s reps and still carrying his clipboard, Treadwell strode in Beck’s direction. The stout man was in his fifties, and probably as fit as when he’d joined. “What’s the call?”

“Us and two other units.” Beck nodded down the field to where the other groups were breaking up. “About a forty-five-minute flight. Kolinski said he’d pack our gear and hold the plane.”

Treadwell listened and nodded, but just when Beck thought he was going to turn around and give the grunts the afternoon off he said, “Not you.”

“It’s a big fire. You need me.”

“Not like this I don’t.”

The urge to argue burned his throat, but he clamped his teeth together. Not that he didn’t buck orders on occasion, but only when he had some measure of certainty he was right to do so. He wanted to argue that no one in the unit read fires like he did, but he simply wasn’t sure that was the case any longer. That was last year’s argument. Before his mistakes. Before he’d been trapped by the flames.

Treadwell handed him the clipboard. Accepting the transfer of the hard acrylic gave him a sensation somewhat like the first time he’d jumped from a plane. Plummeting. Ground that approached far too rapidly.

He stood straighter. Even without that one selling point, he was still as capable as anyone else. “You’re sure? I’m still boots on the ground.”

“Your boots are on whatever ground you see fit. This is the first day. Prove me wrong and we’ll talk.”

He wanted to, if he actually knew how to follow orders he knew were wrong. As annoying as the yellow badge might be, at least probation gave him more time to sort things out.

When Beck said nothing else, the chief turned to summon Autry with a wave.

She’d been watching—everyone in the group had been—and at the summons she popped out of her sulk and trotted right over.

“You two finish morning PT with the group,” Treadwell said, adding, “There’s a fire, and Ellison has already expended too much energy to give one hundred percent this morning, he doesn’t need to throw himself into the blaze at less than full capacity.”

Yes, he did. He needed that.

“I’m fine,” he argued finally, the prospect of minding rookies worse than simply sitting out a fight.

Treadwell shot him a hard look, one that Beck could also interpret. Punishment or probation, it didn’t matter, he was out of the game until this was done, and Treadwell was trying to save face on his behalf.

Beck would’ve gladly taken the ding to his pride if it would’ve gotten him back into the fray. Sitting around with a clipboard while his team jumped into danger didn’t sit right.

Treadwell thumped him on the shoulder once and before Autry could ask any of the questions bouncing around in those strange green eyes he finalized his orders. “Handle the rest of the baselines. Classroom was going to be protocols, but since it looks like most of us will be in the field, Ellison’s going to do a Q&A about service, lessons learned his first couple years. Then you can all amuse yourselves for the rest of the day, but be on the field at daybreak tomorrow before the siren blasts.”

Autry still looked confused, but she nodded and had now shifted her attention to him, her expression saying things he didn’t want to hear—like she got just how little he wanted to do this. “What do you want me to do?”

All of it.

Eager to get rid of the clipboard, he passed the cursed thing over and gestured for her to follow. The sooner they got on with it, the sooner he could get it over with.

“Three crews have been called to a blaze, Treadwell wants us to continue,” he announced, straight to the point, then added, because it would help them to know the course when it became mandatory, “After that, lunch, and then a five-mile run around the woodland course.”

Autry cleared her throat, and for a second he thought it was because she was going to correct him about the run, but instead she said, “Don’t forget the classroom Q&A before the run.”

One tiny twitch of an eyebrow challenged him to argue, but she didn’t correct Treadwell’s orders—probably because she was obsessive about exercise. Couldn’t rightly fault her for it, except that she didn’t let him get away with sidestepping the exercise in public speaking.

“Q&A after lunch. Five questions. Then run.” He returned her look. In unison, her brows and shoulders popped up. She might as well have just said, Whatever.

Whatever. He got back to the task at hand, gesturing to the man Treadwell had been testing, still on the ground. “Who are you?”

“San Giovanni.”

“He only has sit-ups left,” Autry added.

He’d have been happy to let her continue on her own, but Treadwell’s opinion wasn’t going to be raised by his desire to maintain the ten-foot ring of emptiness around himself he preferred.

“How many are left after him?”

“Six.”

He nodded once for the man to continue and silently counted while the man got on with it.

* * *

Lunch came and went, and Lauren found herself back on the field with the other rookies, waiting for Ellison.

He’d said about twenty words before lunch, and most of those had been numbers, or Next. He’d been chattier two years ago.

If saying more than one word per breath could ever be considered chatty. He only barely communicated at a level higher than grunts and too-easy-to-read judgmental faces. But he had communicated more last time. His current level of terseness seemed the type usually reserved for people who’d caused offense. Which couldn’t be her.

Unless he thought she stank at everything and couldn’t believe she’d returned for a second try? Wouldn’t be the first time she’d encountered that. Or the thousandth.

Women weren’t unheard of in the service, but they weren’t abundant either. Even with her firefighting pedigree, the weight of the Autry name probably just meant people would expect her to be better. Not making it two years ago had contradicted that notion, even though she’d served her family’s station since fresh from high school and her father had known better than to turn her away lest she go to a station where he couldn’t control her. Then six years of hard-fought experience, and the arguments it had taken to get it.

She looked at her watch. Two more minutes and Ellison would be late. Probably because he didn’t want to do the Q&A.

She could imagine now how it’d go.

What was the rating on the largest fire you encountered this year?

Big.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Here.

What’s your biggest weakness?

Talking.

When the hour struck one, and not a second before, Ellison jogged up from the food hall and onto the field. If someone’s posture could shout belligerence, his did. He held himself so erect she’d have expected his collarbone to snap with an accidental shoulder twitch. Everyone else seemed to pick up on it too. Absorbed it so well even that when he asked for questions, no one said a word for a long time, until Lauren shot her hand up. To help him out, of course. Not just to torture him. To get the ball rolling. And because she wasn’t scared of a grumpy off-season forest ranger.

“You’ve been at it two seasons. Have you had any close calls? Or, you know, back when you were a combat firefighter? That could be cool to hear about.”

He shouldn’t look so surprised, she’d only had forever to dwell on what had gone wrong last time. Marine combat firefighter? More impressive than the daughter of a local chief who only let her into the fires when she was able to outmaneuver him.

She wasn’t outmaneuvering Ellison. He held his tongue long enough that it seemed like he was translating words in his head, and then produced a miserly portion to answer only the first part, ignoring her question about his surly marine firefighting days. Another hand went up and the conversation moved on.

Where was the biggest blaze?

Did he enjoy the off-season? What did he do?

Forest ranger. Clearing brush. Controlled burns.

Nailed it!

Biggest mistake people made in the field?

Most useful advice to someone starting out?

That last one was the one that tripped him up. His mouth opened and closed no fewer than three times, and she could all but see him sorting through his options of advice to dole out. It meant nothing to her if he had so much advice to give he couldn’t decide on what was best, but when he spoke, he sounded like someone parroting words given to him at some point. Like he didn’t believe a word of what came out.

“Your team is your biggest asset. Be a team player. Watch out for your team. Follow orders.”

One look around confirmed that everyone thought this advice was basic, but he cut the questions off, having just scraped five, and sent everyone for their woodland run.

Everyone but her, the one who’d actually heard the chief’s orders. She went to fetch her things from the boot of her car, and on her way back through, stopped beside where he sat on the grass, hands behind him, propping himself up.

“Go Team, eh?”

He ignored her question again, his gaze fixed across the field to the wooden steps that led up to the rough, woodland running track where he’d sent them. “Not running?”

“You forget, I actually heard what the chief said.” She grinned down at him, not that he was looking, and put down her duffel. “I don’t see you running either.”

“I will. When the crowd thins.”

“So will I.”

“They need to do it.”

She hadn’t questioned that. Of course, they needed to do it. It was called Hell Week for a reason. Every one of them was supposed to come out in better shape than they’d gone in, and no one got better by sitting on their butt, enjoying the blistering afternoon sunshine, as he was doing. “No argument from me. I’m just getting my gear moved into a cabin first.”

“Cabin assignments haven’t been made yet.”

Contrary creature. Looking for things to pick apart? Lent more weight to the notion that he just didn’t want her there.

She could really tick him off by sitting down beside him, where he looked far too comfortable, his muscled legs sprawled out in the grass. The man wasn’t bulky, but he was dense and lean in a way that made the shape of every muscle down his arms and legs show under hair-dusted skin.

He’d had a certain soldierly hunkiness before, but now he looked like he’d dulled all his sharp, military corners except for those of his physique. Longer hair. Loose cotton clothes. White and gray, no khaki or green anywhere. And he spent enough time in the woods that he wasn’t as bronzed as he’d been either.

All softening touches. And somehow he was more churlish. Strange that years after leaving combat he’d become less friendly. By the look of him, and the way he’d stood apart from everyone, this man was the one who most needed a friend. What had he even been saying?

Oh, right. She was picking her own cabin, not waiting on orders. Blah-blah cabin shenanigans. They would’ve made cabin assignments today if everyone hadn’t been called to the field for an emergency.

“Do you really think the chief wouldn’t want everyone having a bed?”

“They do things a particular way.”

“And they can do things that way tomorrow.” She shrugged, shifting topic. “What’s your plan?”

“Truck.” He looked up at her finally.

Back to one-word answers.

“Did you have a stutter as a child?”

“What? No.”

“Propensity for mispronouncing words?”

“No.”

“Do you have some kind of a Samson situation going on in reverse? The longer your hair gets, the weaker your vocabulary?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were more talkative last time we met,” she answered, “even if you weren’t exactly Mr. Conversation. Did something bad happen that you find painful to revisit?”

He actually paled then and she immediately felt bad for asking. Suddenly it was something she couldn’t joke about. Something bad had happened. And now he was a rookie.

No smokejumpers had died, she would’ve heard if there had been any deaths. They were so well trained and prepared they could go decades without a fatality.

“Nothing happened.”

The man was not a good liar, at least not when directly questioned.

Lauren’s friends were mostly men, due to the nature of her profession. She wasn’t a native speaker of Dude Language, but she had fair fluency. In this kind of triggering situation, she had a few options on how to respond.

Call him out on the lie. Acceptable only if she was a friend—and she wasn’t, so calling him on it was a sure way to start a fight. She wasn’t looking for that either.

Or she could ignore what he’d said and just keep the conversation going in a way that made clear she’d picked up on the lie. Spotted a weakness. Another great way to make friends.

Or, what seemed smartest, pretend to misread the situation and make a joke out of it. Give him an out, assuming he had a sense of humor.

“Did you sleep with Treadwell’s daughter or something?” She squinted dramatically at him over her bags.

“No!” He answered so sharply some of the color came back to his cheeks and she felt that moment of vulnerability pass. “He doesn’t have a daughter.”

“Okay, you did something else, then,” she announced. “You just like to speak about as much as no one I’ve ever met.”

“Don’t care.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Fine, Miss Congeniality.” She jerked her head toward the cabins. “I’m going to continue moving in. Then I’m going to pack my duffel with some weight to simulate the pack carry and run the forest track. And since I know you’re not making any other friends with that effervescent charm, you’re welcome to take the other room in the cabin if you’d like to sleep somewhere that won’t put a crick in your neck. If you don’t want to sully a bed, use the couch. Or the floor. I can step over you. No problem. I doubt I’ll even accidentally kick you more than once or twice. Three times tops.”

The pack carry was the second biggest thing she worried about doing sufficiently well. The problem that took up most of her overly developed worry centers was her application mistake—her skydiving experience. Good intentions didn’t counter bad planning follow-through. Filling out the application on behalf of her future self—the one who would’ve completed the training program and gone on several jumps—was only okay until life and family emergencies had interfered with her training schedule. Now it was a lie. In writing. Even if skydiving experience wasn’t required to get into the program, once she’d been selected—months later—she hadn’t been able to figure out how to rewind it.

She’d gladly run herself ragged with a heavy pack to keep from thinking about those possible consequences.

He levered himself from the ground. “Don’t weight your pack for the run tonight. Hard track to run in the dark.”

“You think I’ll fall?”

“You wanted advice. Don’t take unnecessary chances,” he said, dusting some of the grass from his...very firm backside and meaty, manly legs.

Then he said more things and screwed up her mental appreciation.

“Washing out already would mean another year before you could get back.”

She had wanted to hear advice. Did want to. And this was even advice that he didn’t stumble his way through or have to force out. It sounded genuine.

It also sounded like criticism. Already was a very judgmental word. Although she couldn’t stop her hackles rising, she was almost thankful for it. Handsome wrapper over a jerky nougat center? He was suddenly far less attractive.

“I’m used to tougher workouts than a woodland path.”

“Uneven terrain.” Still doubting her ability to run on shaded trails, and not answering her invitation. Which was fine. Let him sleep in his truck.

He rolled his shoulders and took off at an easy jog for the all-terrain course where he’d sent the others a while ago.

The course was two and a half miles around, two laps to make it five.

If she hurried, she could stash her stuff in the cabin and catch up with him. Then he’d see how sure-footed she was. No falling. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not already.

And she still kind of wanted to trip him.

CHAPTER THREE

BECK’S FEET HIT the ground in a steady rhythm, broken only by the need to readjust his step as he covered the uneven packed earth winding through the various pine, fir and tan oaks of the evergreen forest.

Ahead of him lay the only thing he’d looked forward to when considering his return to camp: the gnarled tan oak near the halfway mark on the trail. Tan oaks littered the state, but he loved the ones that were twisted and gnarled. He’d developed an odd affection for this particular ancient-looking tree two years ago and come to think of it in anthropomorphic terms—the Old Man.

It was almost all boughs, branching at less than three feet from the ground, a hollowed palm with six fingers shooting toward the sky. A great sitting tree, like the one he’d grown up with in his yard. Shaded. Quiet. A respite from the heat. Surrounded by birdsong. Peaceful. Somewhere to forget where he should’ve been and wasn’t.

Treadwell thought he was being obstinate or stupid, or that it meant he just didn’t care about anyone else on the team. Every time he’d gone outside protocol, it had been for valid reasons. Lifesaving. Following the signs he’d seen.

Or thought he’d seen.

Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he hadn’t seen anything, just imagined it.

He climbed into the center of the old tree and leaned back on the thickest limb.

If it hadn’t been for his fire, he might have just become a forest ranger full-time.

They should’ve asked for advice about that. He had better words there.

He tilted his head back to gaze through the canopy to the patches of twilight sky. He should’ve kept the radio on him to keep tabs on the fire and his team.

Before he’d had the chance to fully relax, the sound of someone running far too fast over the packed earth had him tensing. He didn’t even need to look to know who it was. She’d run hard to catch up with him, fast enough that she’d have probably caught him even if he hadn’t taken a seat.

She skidded to a halt, the sound pulling his gaze from the sky in time to see her toe catch on a root, and she stumbled.

Without thought, he leaped from the tree, hands shooting out to make a grab for her, but she was just out of reach as she took several large, barely controlled steps forward, and managed to keep from hitting the dirt anyway.

“Okay?” he asked, still covering the distance and giving her a hand to ground her as she recovered her balance.

The touch of her hand sent a surge of lust and heat down his spine that had every muscle tensing.

She froze in place, her eyes wide and locked to his where they stood, facing each other, one hand held between them as if they’d gone to shake hands and had forgotten step two.

Even in the low, fading light, he was once again struck by the color of her eyes. Vibrant, and familiar somehow.

“Fine,” she answered, finally looking down to where their hands joined. He followed her gaze, and saw his thumb slowly stroking the back of her hand.

Immediately, he let go, and stepped back, mentally scrambling through a very short list of appropriate things to do or say after doing something so creepy.

She beat him to it. “Not running?”

Still winded, her speech—short as it was—came out broken with her need for oxygen, or maybe with something else. The same words he’d said to her when trying to get rid of her earlier.

She stepped into a shaft of fading light shining through the trees, a brighter spot in a darkened forest, and he could see how flushed she’d grown from the hard, uneven run.

Pretty. Damn, she was appealing in a way he hadn’t remembered.

“I’ll do two more laps when I get done here.”

“Getting late.”

“I’ve run this trail in the dark.”

She put her hands on her knees, and her breathing got a little slower, more even, but she still had a wariness about her as she watched him. “This year?”

She had a point, as much as he’d prefer to pretend otherwise. But if he ran with her, this would definitely turn into a competition.

“You know this isn’t a race.”

“I know.”

“But you were running like it was.”

“I was running to catch up, not to win.”

Bull. He turned and began jogging down the path again, letting her once again catch up, which she quickly did.

“Why are you rolling your eyes at me?”

“I gave you the advice you need to hear—this isn’t a race. Neither is it when you’re out in the thick of it. Staying longest, fighting hardest, that’s important. Not getting there fastest.”

“I know that, I’ve been a firefighter for six years and I was raised by firefighters. Generations of them, actually. I’m not stupid.” She kept up with him, but if he’d wanted to pick a way to make her stop with the optimism, he’d apparently picked well, judging by her tone.

“But you’re still acting like this is a competition you’re in. Work on improving yourself, not impressing everyone else.”

He shouldn’t have taken a seat tonight. He should’ve waited until tomorrow, or come back after the run was finished. He’d been wanting to wipe his mind clean, not think about her sun-kissed skin and brilliant green eyes. With his eyes on the trail before him, he suddenly had the strong mental image of a glossy, bright green stone with deep, evergreen bands.

His mother’s pendant.

And the same stone as the polished orbs she’d meditated with. Also the polished and raw pieces of gem she’d kept tucked into nooks all over their cottage.

Malachite, the word swam up from somewhere. Healing stone.

“Are you being contrary because you’re worried about your crew being out?”

God help him, if this was how the conversation was going to go, he’d be better off trying to lose her. He didn’t answer.

“I’m going to take silence for a yes.”

“I’m sure they’re fine.” He was the one in danger of resetting the safety record most recently, not that she needed to know that.

“But it must be hard to be stuck here with the rookies when they’re out there.”

She was going to ask. He could feel it. And once he gave her a scrap of that information, she’d keep pressing until she got more. Until she forced the conversation he hadn’t even wanted to have with Treadwell.

As much to stave it off as to just get the task complete, he picked up speed. A vigorous run was never good for deep conversation.

She kept up.

He glanced to the side and found her facing forward, eyes on the path. At least there was that.

She didn’t ask again, but the cadence of sneakers on compact earth began to sound too loud, too heavy.

“We’re careful. Haven’t lost anyone in a long time.” He spoke truth, words that’d probably comfort her, even if she should be afraid of the fire. Everyone should be afraid before they leaped in. “But I should be there.”

“Fires come earlier every year. There was always a chance the call could come while you were at camp.”

“So?”

“So, you can’t do everything.”

He snorted.

“What?”

“Funny, coming from someone who wants to be the best at everything.”

She didn’t say anything to him then, but he could hear her muttering under her breath. When he looked over, he saw her shaking her head and staring ahead like she could happily murder him.

“What?”

“You don’t get it. I have to be the best.” The words came out and she piled on speed, borrowing his tactic.

She didn’t get to drop that and run away.

“That’s crap,” he said when he pulled level again, although the more they argued, the harder the run became. “There aren’t tons of women in the service, but there are some and they’re treated the same.”

She didn’t slow down, kept up the speed even when she had to leap roots twisting over the path. “Have you asked them that?”

“Asked them what?”

“If your perception matches their experience.”

He stopped running. Did that mean something had happened to her?

She slid to a more graceful stop and looked back at him. “We’re not supposed to keep taking these breaks.”

“We weren’t required to run,” he reminded her, wanting to ask, but also not.

She thought for a second, then shrugged and propped her hands on her hips, breathing deep and fast, waiting for him to answer the question she’d dropped.

“I don’t socialize with them.” Or anyone else. This was the most he’d chatted with anyone that he could remember. At least anyone that wasn’t an animal.

“I noticed.”

“So I never asked them.”

“Hence my point. How can you know what they experience without asking when you see them for only short periods and don’t talk to them?”

Another point.

“I don’t know,” he said finally, because the truth sounded a lot more pathetic. He was usually pretty good at reading people, and leaned on that ability to keep from having to ask questions. From having to talk. From having to get involved.

She looked at him for a long second, then nodded, and jerked her head in the direction they’d been running. “Offer of couch or cabin still stands.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.” With that, she got back up to pace, leaving him to run a few yards behind and consider his options.

The idea that anyone would be treated unfairly bothered him, even though he’d seen it frequently enough in life. It jarred with the whole team life Treadwell pitched. It also didn’t line up with what he wanted the service to be. A teammate, though temporary teammate, was offering him a place to sleep.

It might not be so bad to take the couch she offered. But it would be dumb, if simply touching her hand made parts of his body go tingly.

Last time he’d brought a tent and never shared quarters with anyone, using only the communal showers and dining facilities when he was awake and not actively sweating to death. Having any roommate was a step up from that, proof he was trying to be a team player. But volunteering to room with the woman who’d made him see her as a woman, not just another coworker, would be the kind of stupid Treadwell already seemed to think him.

As they neared the end of the second lap, about to cross their five miles off for the evening, he sped up to catch up with her so she wouldn’t leave immediately when she stepped off the path.

“Hey.” He touched her arm to stop her, but as soon as he did, the words he’d wanted to say left his head. Her skin was so hot and slick...firm...

The touch of his hand, no matter how quickly he drew it back, stopped her in her tracks. She turned slowly back to face him, and stepped forward one pace, breaching that bubble of empty space he usually kept around himself. Out in the open air, the last light of day was fading, but the lights on poles around them buzzed, beginning to burn, and he found those astonishingly green eyes staring back at him.

The calm he’d been seeking tickled at the edge of his perception, like a hint of honeysuckle on the night breeze, and he wanted to touch her again.

Swallowing, he took one step back.

“If someone dumps on you because you’re a woman, tell me.”

As soon as he’d gotten the words out, before he saw more than her little ears pulling back as her face lit with surprise, he stepped around her and jogged off. It was almost chow time, and he was hungry and in need of a shower away from honeyed golden skin and perceptive green eyes.

No way would he take her up on the invitation to share a cabin. He was used to roughing it. Sleeping outside in a sleeping bag hardly qualified. He’d wait for his cabin assignment.

* * *

The next morning, Beck awoke in the cab of his truck, neck stiff and head clogged with thoughts he generally avoided. He’d dreamed about her. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d dreamed about a woman.

It wasn’t one of those dreams, it wasn’t even her pestering him with a million questions. They were just sitting on the porch of his little cottage, playing cards and drinking beer, and she’d kept looking over the top arching edge of her red-backed cards, her eyes even greener for the proximity, and flashing mischief.

There was something very sweet about it, although even trying to explain why just left him wanting to call it boring. Boring dream. Cards. Beer. Porch. Stupid thing to dream about. He’d rather have had some kind of wild sex dream about her. If he’d taken her up on the offer to sleep in the other bed in the cabin she’d claimed, he probably would’ve had something more cinematic in his head last night.

So he was up early, and made it to the dew-covered field just as the sun came up. Mist still rose from the grass, the morning siren hadn’t even blasted, but a few other folks were coming down from the cabins.

“Here.”

Her voice came from the side suddenly, and he turned at the waist to see her, his neck refusing his order to turn. She looked as fresh as a daisy, and had a steaming paper cup in each hand, one of which she held out. “I don’t know how you like coffee, but there was a coffee maker in the cabin, and I doubted you had one in the trunk.”

“Truck,” he corrected. The quirk of her lips said she’d knowingly made that verbal typo. He probably did look like he’d been sleeping in a trunk.

“Black, but I have sugar in my pocket,” she added.

God help him, he’d bet she did. Sugar. Sweet, addicting sugar...

“I like it black.”

“Thought you might. You probably also like it a week old when it’s condensed down to an inky liquid you could use to strip an engine block.”

“You’ll get used to roughing it.” He took a sip with some effort, the bitter shot of liquid a fleeting wake-up jolt. “Men in my unit used to pack coffee grounds in their lower lip like tobacco when on guard duty.”

“Gross.”

“Or chew coffee beans directly.”

“Double gross.”

“When you’re tired enough and the threat of a court-martial rides on you staying awake...”

She smiled at him then, and he really looked at her. Even in the low morning light, it was the first thing he saw. Malachite. Beautiful. She was girl-next-door cute, but her eyes...

He took another drink of his coffee. Talk. Ask her something. Just stop thinking. She liked to talk. “You’re not former military.”

The siren blast that called everyone to morning PT startled her, causing her hand to jerk, and heavily creamed coffee sloshed over the side.

“Should’ve warned you,” he said, watching her grumble and shake the liquid off her hand. “Every morning. Get used to it.”

“I’ll get a sippy cup,” she muttered, wiping her hand on her hip.

He grinned at the image, so opposite from the tough exterior she portrayed. Cute. Funny. Able to laugh at herself. That was something new.

When he opened his mouth to comment, the sound of movement behind him had him turning. More folks streamed in, but nowhere near as many as there had been yesterday—the teams were still out. Treadwell, however, was back. He walked in from the main buildings.

“Wasn’t sure they were back,” he murmured to Autry.

“Looks like he just got here.”

The observation wasn’t wrong. Treadwell’s hair had the spiky, sweaty quality of a head that had spent hours in a helmet being baked from the outside, and the sturdy, vibrant man from yesterday looked like he could’ve been knocked down with a breath.

“Does he always look like that after a fire?” She kept her voice low, for his ears only.

A closer look and the contrast between the man he saw and what he expected immediately concerned him.

Without another word, he broke away from Autry to catch the chief before he got to the group.

“Everyone okay?”

It was indirect, and the least offensive way to find out if Treadwell was well. Start with the crew, work his way back.

“Had to put Kolinski in charge for this one,” Treadwell muttered, shaking his head. “Never seen one so bad so early.”

The answer was both oblique and telling. “I can take these guys this morning if you need to catch some sleep.”

The old man smiled at him, the first time in a long time, and for the moment he felt like he was doing things right. “I can make the morning PT, son. Might take you up on it for the afternoon. I’m passing you lot to the other trainers for classroom time after. We’re hitting the tower.”

“So soon?” The tower usually came in the second week.

“I want to make sure everyone’s ready for the season as early as possible.”

Translation: he thought they might need to pull in some rookies early. The fire must be really bad.

He looked north, and with the brightening sky, even a forty-minute flight south of the wildfire, he could see haze against the pinks and blues of dawn.

Treadwell started forward again to begin PT.

When Beck looked at Autry, he could see the concern still there. He hesitated only a moment, then moved back to her side to continue their quiet conversation. “It’s a bad one.”

“Did we lose anyone?”

We. She’d already invested, even not knowing anyone. He could hear it in her voice, and although the same worry creaked down his stiff spine, he knew how to divorce himself from it. To keep making good decisions. It was anyone’s guess whether or not she could.

“He would’ve said. He didn’t. But we’re hitting the tower for classroom today.”

“What?”

Her voice, far more shrill than its usual pleasant timbre, drew his gaze.

“You don’t want to do the tower?”

“We haven’t done the pack run yet.” He could see her trying to moderate her reaction, waving a hand as if to dismiss the alarm still there in her features, even though her voice had dropped down off the treetops.

Afraid of jumping? That would really get in the way of the job.

Couldn’t be that.

“You’re getting worked up because the schedule is different than you expected.”

She cleared her throat, waved her hand again and finished off her coffee. “I’m fine with it.”

Bull.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if the pack run was this morning’s PT.” He let her off the hook, but then they quieted to listen as Treadwell announced they’d be doing a body carry around the track this morning.

“Or not.”

The chief asked if there were preferences for partners, and he glanced over just in time to see her hand shoot up and point to him once and then at herself.

“Ellison and Autry.” The chief marked their names on the list.

“You want me to carry you?”

“No. I’m going to carry your grumpy butt,” she answered without pause. “Your neck and your night in a trunk would make it hard for you to carry anyone.”

“I don’t need to be carried.”

“Shut up, Beck.”

She used his first name, and rather than annoying him he found himself smiling.

“You’re pushy, Lauren.”

“Damned right I am. I grew up in a fire family who still don’t want me to serve. Dad’s chief in our house, and my three big brothers are also all in the same station. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

“You’re the one who’s been obsessed with me the past two years.”

She paled then and in response shoved him with one hand, just hard enough for him to sway a little. “Shut up. I wasn’t obsessed. I just remembered. And then your name was everywhere, like the universe was gloating at me.”

“I see. I don’t know what you mean about my name being everywhere, but whatever you say.” He didn’t usually tease people. Or play. Or flirt. Crap, he was flirting. What was even being talked about before he started down this alien path?

Her family at the fire station...

“Why would I know about your family?” he asked, but Treadwell blew his whistle, calling everyone to the track.

“Autry’s kind of a legendary name in the fire service. Maybe in the forest service, it’s not.”

He didn’t pay attention to that kind of thing, which he almost regretted now. It sounded like they’d paid no small part in turning her into a tight little ball of competitive energy.

Which he hoped didn’t mean she’d over-extended herself by volunteering to carry him.

“I’m heavier than I look, you know.”

“You look like you’re made of lead.” She finished her coffee and held out her hand for the empty cup he was also holding. “See if you can make it to the track, iron man. I’ll meet you there.”

“You know if you drop me or crap out, we’re both in the muck.”

She turned around, shoulders popping up. “Trust me.”

Easier said than done. But the truth was, she’d be the one getting a strike if she couldn’t do it, he was already in. If anything, Treadwell would look upon him allowing her to carry him as a mark of his team spirit, especially as it was the most undignified position. Especially when she was almost a foot shorter than he was, and at least sixty pounds lighter.

Regardless, they were soon both at the track, Treadwell saying, “Once around, Ellison. Don’t drop her.”

“I’m carrying,” Autry corrected, making the chief pause and look her up and down once, then shift the same measuring but obviously tired look to him.

“I told her I was heavy.”

“And I told him to trust me,” she countered, and then slowly turned to look across the track, three lanes in, where two of the guys were snickering, and he remembered the name of neither of them. It took her turning for him to pick up that they were laughing at her. At the idea of her carrying him.

This was it. This was what she’d been talking about last night.

They weren’t snickering out of concern, it was a joke to them. They didn’t think she could do it.

He felt a whiff of shame as the next thought crystallized: he’d questioned whether she could do it too, even after she’d said it. Still questioned it, had only made a decision to trust her, which was something he’d never do with the bozos, now doing the far more obnoxious version of what he and Treadwell had just done.

After his offer, he couldn’t let it stand, regardless of the state of his neck.

Beck surged forward, ignoring the stiff, pinching pain in his neck, and didn’t stop until he was chest to chest with the one who had laughed the loudest. “Problem?”

The man stood up straighter, meeting his gaze and holding it, a challenge there. Briefly, then he took a step back, not saying anything in response.

It was always a gamble in a crowd of tough guys, going straight for the most aggressive maneuver, but whether it was Beck’s seniority or the amount of disgust dripping off him, the man backed down.

“She’s really small,” he said. “If she can carry you around the track, I’ll buy her a case of beer.”

“Yeah, she’s shorter than you, and she’s probably tougher,” Beck replied, not backing off yet but not escalating things. “Don’t bet against someone on your team, jackass.”

“All right, you two.” Treadwell sounded weary, but the chief’s words were enough to bring them back to their corners, which was when he noticed Lauren looking at him strangely. Like she either couldn’t believe what she’d just seen or didn’t want to.

“Runners, pick up your wounded. Once around the track,” Treadwell called, and then added to Lauren, “Don’t drop him, no matter how annoying he gets.”

“Yes, Chief.”

Was she annoyed? He’d told her he’d have her back if someone started giving her grief.

He didn’t have time to ask, or even to suss it out. She grabbed one of his wrists to control the lift, planted her shoulder a little roughly right in his middle to fold him over, and slowly began to lift.

It didn’t take more than a second for his density to become apparent. There was a moment where it seemed she wouldn’t be able to straighten her knees, but with a grunt and a wobble made it fully up.

His natural reaction was to make sure she really wanted to do this, but even thinking the words made him feel like the jerk who’d been laughing.

There was nothing funny about this. Her butt was perched right there in front of his face because of the way his longer torso hung over her shoulder, and he got a really good view of it, up close and personal.

She’d chosen gray gym shorts that were loose enough to allow free movement—not exactly baggy but not tight either. Short enough for active freedom but not indecent. They were perfectly ordinary cotton shorts, but up close they might as well have been a bikini. He could do nothing but look, because talking had been hard enough when they’d just been running through the woods, but now with her carrying his heavy weight? The best thing he could do for her would be to shut up.

And the best thing he could do for himself was ignore the way her bum jiggled as she began to walk. To walk too fast.

“Not a race,” he reminded her rear end.

“You’re heavy, need to hurry.”

Her voice showed strain, but she still kept going, and any thoughts for his own dignity faded against the jiggling reminder of her femininity taking up much of his vision.

There was a mole at the top of her left thigh, just below the hem of her shorts. The tingling resumed in his...

Damn it.

He closed his eyes to picture less pleasant things. Moldy bread. The smell of roadkill...

They needed to make it around the track once, the regular track. One quarter mile. But by the first bend she shook with the effort and he’d grown tense all over, trying very hard not to let his body show how pleasant he found hers.

Her stride became shorter and her steps less quick. No matter how fast she wanted to go, physics couldn’t be ignored.

Focus on that. Being dropped and her washing out of camp weren’t sexy.

“Easy.” He should help somehow. There was nothing he could do about his weight, but he could make himself more stable and easier to carry. Decision made, he wrapped his free arm around her hips to stop bouncing around and she wouldn’t have to engage her core so deeply to carry him.

“Hard.” She grunted the one-word response.

He was significantly heavier than the pack she’d likely trained for. He was also awkward. This was a harder test than the pack, even at the drastically shorter trek.

“Your dad would be proud of you doing it.”

It seemed like the supportive thing to say. Call on fond feelings, a desire to make people who loved her proud of her accomplishments. And it did seem to bolster her strength, though the grip she now had on the back of his thigh suggested it wasn’t with warm, happy feelings.

Dad wasn’t a good subject. Dad who was a chief in her firehouse. And this suggested he wouldn’t be proud of her or she didn’t want him to be.

This was going to be a spite victory. If they made it around.

She made it to the second bend, and three quarters of the way around the track on determination, but made it the rest of the way with far quicker steps, and with one foot over the line, bent to let him down.

And then kept on bending, to sprawl on her back on the packed earth and fine gravel.

“Good work,” Treadwell said, just as Beck reached down to drag her back to her feet.

She clearly didn’t want to get up, despite how uncomfortable it had to be, lying on little rocks, and he had to drag her.

Once on her feet, he returned the favor, wedging his good shoulder into her middle until she folded over, and carried her a short distance onto the grass to let her down again.

“Still the first around.” He nudged her once again prone body on the still-dewy grass.

Her breath was great, chest-expanding gulps, and she could’ve probably blown up a Zeppelin in one go. But it was slowing. “Yay, us.”

She went to clap, highlighting the trembling, uncontrolled quality to her movements.

“Do you get low blood sugar?” he asked, suddenly concerned she’d exerted herself too much before breakfast.

“No.” She held her hand up to him again, and he took it to help her sit back up. “Just over-exertion. I think I was wrong. You’re not an iron man. You’re that hairy one with the metal bones.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.