Playing With Fire: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 2) (12 page)

“Oh my—” The petite woman clasped a manicured hand over her mouth. “Oh—Blake.” She grabbed his arm.

“It’ll be okay, Allison,” Dr. Billings said, his expression saying the opposite as he pinned a look on Liza. Liza did the quick math and attached a name to the blonde—Mrs. Billings, Shep’s mother.

“Listen, I don’t know what happened. We shouldn’t jump to any conclusions.” Liza took a breath, bitterly aware, however, that she’d led the leaping.

“We need to search the camp,” John said. “Let’s form groups, and everyone check the cabins, the corrals, the zip lines, and all the outbuildings. But don’t leave camp premises.”

“But the jacket—” Mrs. Billings started. “My son is out there.”

Pastor John held up a hand. “Could be anyone’s jacket.” But the look he gave Liza suggested he was already over the edge of foregone conclusions and falling into dark consequences. He turned his voice down low, just for their huddle. “We are not going to do anything rash. We don’t know if that grizzly is still there, so we’ll need to call the rangers before we head back up there.”

“I already called for help.” Liza’s voice matched Beck’s. “A friend of mine works at the Ember base as a smokejumper and—”

“This isn’t a
fire
, sweetheart,” said Dr. Billings. “We need rangers.
Armed
rangers.”

Esther’s mother’s eyes widened. “You don’t think—you mean armed, with
guns
?”

“You did hear the word grizzly, right?” Mrs. Billings snapped.

“Everyone, keep calm.” Beck’s voice rose. “We don’t know what to think.” He glanced at Dr. Billings. “And by the way, smokejumpers do more than put out fires.” He turned to Liza. “Good call.”

Really? Because she’d been knocking herself in the head ever since hanging up.

And seriously wondering why her first impulse had been to call a man she had deliberately walked away from.

#

“So who is this girl?”

Reuben rode beside Conner at a gallop, his voice lifting over the sound exertion of staying on his mount. Except, expert horseman Reuben wasn’t wheezing, or frantically grabbing the saddle horn, hoping his horse didn’t flip him off.

He should have taken a four-wheeler to search for the drone, but he hadn’t known how dense the terrain to scour might be. Having Reuben around meant more questions than Conner wanted to answer.

“Just someone I met during the BWCA fire in Minnesota three years ago.”

Understatement of the decade, probably, but he didn’t need Reuben’s scrutiny.

Conner spotted his fifth-wheel trailer parked at the far edge of the Ember Campground in the last spot, closest to the road. His black Ford 150 was parked beside it in the gravel drive, Reuben’s truck and horse trailer behind it.

Conner slowed his horse to a canter once he hit the gravel road.

“She’s not just
someone you met,
” Reuben said. “In fact, I think I remember her. Brunette? Didn’t you go to Arizona last summer—”

“She’s just a friend who’s in trouble.” He’d tried her number, at least twice, after alerting the rangers at the Bull River Ranger Station.

Please let them be on their way—although by land, the rangers were nearly an hour out from Liza’s location.

“You should call Gilly.”

Conner shot him a look, doing the math even as Reuben filled in the answer. “It’ll take you two hours or more to get there by car. Gilly can drop you into the camp in twenty minutes.”

Easy math, the correct answer. “Good idea. And round up Pete and whoever else is off duty. Liza thinks there’s a girl missing—we might need manpower.”

Gracie was still breathing hard as he reined her in at his camper. “Thanks, old girl.” He patted her heaving withers as he dismounted and headed inside, dialing Gilly’s number on his cell. When it went to voice mail, he tried not to panic. “Gilly, call me. I need you.”

Rare words, but he didn’t care.

Behind him, Reuben had dismounted.

Gracie stood, lathered, waiting.

Conner banged inside his fifth-wheel trailer, already cataloging his supplies. His jump bag of course, a first aid kit, pressure bandages. flare gun. He might leave his Glock locked in his bedside stand.

He startled at the sight of Commander Jed Ransom sitting at his kitchen table. The crew boss wore a grim, dark look, attired in his uniform—black Jude County Smokejumpers T-shirt, green Nomex pants, and boots. He played with his cell phone, turning it like a pack of cards in his grip.

Conner froze and in a moment ticked off a list of everyone he knew who might be in trouble.

Nope, the team wasn’t deployed, and the Jude County Hotshots were on the tail end of a cleanup. Which meant the only one left who might leave a gaping hole in his life was the woman who’d just hung up on him. “Jed?”

“Where’ve you been?”

Conner gaped at him. “On my day off? None of your business.” He didn’t mean to snap at him, but— “I gotta go, Jed.”

He pushed past him, but Jed grabbed his arm.

“I’m here on official business.” It was the edge of worry in his voice that kept Conner from yanking his arm away, throwing Jed out of his camper.

“Talk fast.”

Conner headed to the back bedroom, grabbed his gear bag.

“We have a problem. There are a couple of arson specialists down at Overhead who seem to think your drones are causing fires.”

His drones—? “What—? Conner glanced at his watch. Fifteen painful minutes since Liza had called...Please, God, don’t let her be bleeding to death.

He returned to the kitchen, searching for his keys. “Listen, Jed. I don’t know what they’re talking about. My drones aren’t flammable, and they haven’t been anywhere near any fires—”

“They found one at the Solomon River fire, near the source. And another one at Cherry Creek.”

Keys. Another thought about the Glock. “I know I lost one at Cherry Creek, but that fire had been blazing before the drone crashed.”

“Not the one you flew in—another one. Again, at what they think is the source.”

Jed had his attention now. “They found one of my missing drones?”

“You knew the drone was missing?”

Conner glanced at him. “I lost it over a month ago. Just went crazy, like number four—that’s where I was just now. Reuben and I went looking for a drone I lost last night. It went haywire, dropped off the radar.”

“You need to come in and answer their questions, get this thing cleared up.”

Conner glanced again at his watch. Twenty-one minutes. “I don’t have time to answer their questions—listen, I gotta go—there’s been a bear mauling—”

Jed froze. “Oh no.”

Conner stepped to the door. “I already called the rangers—but I have to get there.” He pushed his way outside.

Jed was hot on his tail. “There are investigators headed in from Boise. They want your drones.”

Conner threw his bag in the back of the truck. “Absolutely not. I only have one left, and it’s a prototype. An expensive, valuable, one-of-a-kind prototype, and if I hand it over, I’ll never see it again.”

He put his hand on the door handle, but Jed grabbed his arm. “I’m just giving you a heads-up. You take off now, it’s going to look like you’re running.”

“Running from what? I didn’t do anything. My drones don’t start fires. I don’t start fires.” He shrugged away from Jed. “Listen—” He blew out a breath. “Liza called. You remember her, right? From Deep Haven...”

It took Jed a second, probably sunk as he was in the ramifications of one of his smokejumpers being hauled in for arson questioning. But he caught up fast. “Liza. Wait—isn’t she the one who—”

“Yeah. Walked away from me without a word. I know what you’re going to say, but—”

“So why did she call? Is she in the area?”

“She was in a tree, hiding from a grizzly!”

Jed blinked at him, a frown creasing his face. “Is she hurt?”

“I don’t know—maybe. I hope not. But I gotta go.”

Jed’s mouth tightened. “It’ll look like you’re guilty of something.”

“But I’m not.”

“You could get suspended while they sort it out. Maybe be kicked off the team for good.”

Conner looked away. Drew in a long breath. Then his voice fell. “Listen, she called me. And she needs me. What would you do if it were Kate?”

Jed’s mouth tightened into a grim line of agreement.

“Cover for me. And...give me a plane?”

“A plane?”

“I have to jump in. Liza’s at Camp Blue Sky. It’ll take me two hours overland to get there, minimum.”

“Oh, fantastic. So, lie, cover for you,
and
distract them? Never mind who’s going to pay for it.”

“And maybe let me have Pete and, I dunno, Rube? Or CJ?”

Jed shook his head, but his expression suggested he’d climbed on board Conner’s cause. “Reuben’s on call. If you can talk Pete into it—and yeah, I think CJ’s got a few days off. But Conner, the minute you’re back, you check in with HQ, are we clear?”

Conner’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the caller ID. “It’s Gilly.”

“Tell her to gas up and meet you at the end of the runway. I’ll have Pete pick up your gear.”

“Thanks.” Conner climbed into his truck.

“And lock up your drone. Because if you’re not using them to start fires, someone else is.”

“It’s already secure, somewhere the Feds won’t find it.”

“Just try and stay out of trouble.”

She’d just invited trouble back into her life.

Liza stood in the middle of the athletic field, where they played soccer and all-camp tag, and braced a hand over her eyes, scanning the blue sky for Conner’s drop plane.

I’m on my way with a couple of other guys—we’re dropping into the camp. Don’t worry, Liza, I’ll be there.

She’d replayed Conner’s voice mail message three times, finding herself leaning dangerously into his warm, husky baritone.

So, maybe not entirely trouble—because Conner’s superpower was dropping in, saving the day. No, trouble arrived in the aftermath, in the dust kicked up by his arrival, the fact that, inevitably, she couldn’t stop herself from longing to be in his world.

Which meant that despite her best intentions, she would start holding on, looking for promises, and in short, inadvertently insinuating—
forcing
—herself into his life.

Which would only leave poor Conner to figure out how to disentangle himself from her grip.

We’ll see. We’ll just take each day as it comes. I can’t make any promises.

No promises—in fact, he’d never made her any promises, something she’d spent nearly her entire adult life telling herself she didn’t need.

Until Conner.

However, she had, with general success, spent the last year flushing him out of her system, reminding herself that she didn’t need him—or anyone, really. Their kiss had simply been a misunderstanding, caused by the cascade of the glorious rose-gold sunset, making her see something on the horizon that wasn’t there. Something he hadn’t intended her to conjure up.

The fact that he took her call and was coming to her rescue said that, frankly, he was more of a real friend to her than she’d been to him.

Because she hadn’t taken
his
calls since she’d packed her bags and headed back to Minnesota.

“Why are you staring at the sky?” Skye was walking over to her through the grassy athletic field. She wore a running shirt and a pair of water-wicking cargo pants, her long blonde hair pulled back into two Laura-Ingalls braids secured with a bandanna, the quintessential trail guide.

The girl belonged in a magazine, with her slim curves, toned body, and her pretty aqua-gray eyes. A backpack hung over her shoulder, filled with first aid equipment. She was clearly ready to trek out with a search party as soon as the rangers arrived.