Playing With Fire: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 2) (14 page)

“It’s nearly eighty degrees and the temp is rising out there, ma’am,” CJ said in his Montana drawl. Their token fresh-off-the-ranch rookie smokejumper only
looked
like a fireman in his yellow shirt, his green Nomex pants. Under his uniform, he had the hardy common sense and easy get ‘er-done spirit of a Montana bull rider. Conner half expected to see a Stetson over his dirty blond hair. Dependable and sturdy, CJ didn’t spook easily.

But Conner could have strangled him when CJ smiled and added, “But don’t you worry. We’ll find her before night settles in, I promise.”

The last thing they could give these people were promises.

“I think we need to send a group of searchers down the trail. CJ, you and Skye can head up that group.”

Skye, Liza’s pretty blonde friend, looked over at CJ, flashing a smile that had warning flares firing. But he didn’t have time to lecture CJ on the perils of falling for a woman during fire season.

Or the delights.

Shoot—and there he went again, his mind drifting back to Liza, the memory of her voice on the other end of the phone, sweet laughter or murmurs of empathy deep into the night when he’d crawled back to his trailer, wrung out, lonely.

For a while, dialing her number seemed the only pinprick of light in his dark, overwhelming world.

“I saw the bear here,” Liza said, her brown hair caught back in a long ponytail at the nape of her neck. He had the inappropriate urge to loosen it and let her hair run through his fingers, and
for crying out loud, Conner, get your head back in the game.

“Where was the tree you climbed?” he asked.

“Uh—” She looked up at him, shook her head. “I don’t exactly know. Maybe a half-mile away?”

“Okay. I’m going to head up the trail, see if I can find anything. Pete will wait here for the rangers, and as soon as they show up, they’ll follow me.” He handed John a walkie, CJ another one. “Both of you, keep us informed of your position, and please, if you see the grizzly, back away quietly, stay still if you have to. The last thing you should do is run.”

He looked pointedly at Liza.

She narrowed her eyes. “Listen, it worked, okay? And by the way, I’m going with you.”

“No—actually, you’re not.”

Her eyes widened, argument gathering in the deep brown.

“She might not be, but I am.”

Conner’s gaze locked on the man standing behind Mrs. Billings, his hands on her shoulders. Well groomed, close-cropped dark hair, lean and sturdy, and a spark of fury in his dark eyes.

Oh great. “You’re Shep’s dad?”

“Dr. Blake Billings, and if anyone is going after my son, it’s me. I would have done it earlier, but John demanded we wait.”

Conner tried that one on for size and decided to let it go. If Conner’s son was lost in the woods, possibly a victim of a grizzly attack, it would take more than an army of Becks, despite the man’s seeming sturdiness, to stop him from bringing his boy home.

But maybe this doctor hadn’t ever really seen death up close. Heard people you loved dying as you fought to save them. Knew what it felt like to bury your entire family.

So he wasn’t buying Dr. Billings’s bravado, thanks, but he did understand his frustration, translated into anger.

Conner had been simmering in the same fury for over a decade. You didn’t just stand by when something terrible happened to someone you loved.

Still, anger easily turned to desperation, which meant mistakes. And with a bear on the prowl, Conner didn’t want to worry about anyone doing something stupid.

No, this was better done alone, at least for now.

“You stay here and come with Pete,” he said to Dr. Billings. “The rangers will have weapons. I’ll have my radio, and I’ll call if I find anything.”

Conner grabbed the map, folded it. “I won’t go far—just up the trail. Get the lay of the land and see if I can find signs of a grizzly attack.” He stuck the map in his pocket and grabbed his pack filled with the first aid supplies he’d envisioned needing for Liza.

He was striding out the door when he realized it hadn’t slammed behind him.

Oh, shoot. He turned—

“I’m not kidding you, Conner. And frankly, it’s not up to you.” Liza stood on the porch of the mess hall, her hands on her hips, shouldering her own backpack. She looked sturdy enough for travel—a jacket knotted around her waist, Gore-Tex pants, and boots—and the look in her eyes suggested this time she might not run from the grizzly.

She tried to stand him down with a look.

“Liza—”

“Those people blame me. You heard them. And the longer we sit here and wait, the angrier they become. And the crazier I will get, I promise you. I’m not asking your permission. I’m going.”

He strode over to her, took a chance, and put his hands on her shoulders, lowering his voice. “It’s not safe.”

She shot him a look that made him release her before she could shove his hands away. “Seriously? I spent the morning in a
tree.
So don’t tell me what’s safe. Listen, I know that I panicked and called you. And now you’re here, and, yeah, I’m grateful.
Super
grateful. And I promise I’m not going to get in your way, but I have to do this.”

Get in his— “I’m not worried about you getting in the way, Liza. But I can’t promise you that you’re not going to get hurt.”

“Are you kidding me? Trust me, if I get hurt, it’s on me. I know that better than anyone.”

He didn’t know why, but he had the sudden feeling they were no longer talking about the search.

“Liza, please—”

“Let’s just go.” She brushed past him, striding up the trail, and he stood there, watching her go.

What was his problem, that his best view of her lately seemed to be her walking
away
from him?

“Liza, come back here!”

“Keep up!”

Shoot—he scrambled up beside her, nearly at a run. Her long legs stretched out, not slowing, her jaw tight.

“This could turn out very badly, you know. Are you ready for that?”

She hooked her hands into her backpack straps, cutting up the path. “I’m very well aware of the trouble we could be walking into, Conner. And I’m truly sorry that I foisted my problems on you, but right now, in this moment, I don’t care. I’ll do whatever I have to, to find Esther.”

Even, apparently, spend time with him.

He didn’t know why, but for some reason he reached up and rubbed his chest, a burn there, as if she’d just put her fist into the center of it.

“Fantastic,” he said softly and followed her up the trail.

“The grizzly made good work of your backpack,” Conner said, picking up Liza’s shredded pack from the edge of the overlook. With the sun climbing the sky, slinging long shadows through the forest and across the trail, the sight of the decimated pack sent a shiver through her.

Liza kept her eyes peeled on the trail beyond the overlook, the image of the beast imprinted like a shadow in her head. She simply couldn’t blink it away.

“What did you have in it?” Conner asked, peeling the pack open.

“Some cheese, an apple, maybe some jerky.” She joined him, sifting through the remains, and picked up a canister, the safety lid still attached.

“Bear spray,” Conner said drily.

“Apparently, it’s just for ballast,” Liza said, but hooked it onto the outside of her new pack.

She tried to ignore the delicious tug of a smile on Conner’s face at her lame joke. But it seemed to unscrew the lid on the tension between them.

I’m very well aware of the trouble we could be walking into, Conner.

That had shut down his arguments about her hiking out with him. It also seemed to curb the way-too-enthusiastic greeting he’d given her.

And her painfully eager response.

Whatever had passed between them on that field, it seemed they’d managed to right themselves, find their footing.

Remember.

Still, it didn’t help that every time he looked at her he chipped a little deeper into the wound she’d worked so hard to heal.

Maybe she’d underestimated the danger of hiking out alone with Conner.

Forgotten the damage he could do to her heart.

But he didn’t have to know that. He was simply here to rescue Esther, and she’d be grateful for it.

Liza retrieved her lacerated tablet and crushed pencil box.

“Sorry,” Conner said.

“They’re just drawings.”

He touched her arm. “But they’re your drawings.”

And wasn’t that sweet. She shoved the tablet back in the destroyed pack, her hands trembling, suddenly achingly aware of how close she’d come to being mauled along with said pack.

Conner hesitated a moment, as if he wanted to add something, then got up and paced out to the overlook. “It’s mostly rock here, but I can make out a few footprints.” He squatted, used his hand to measure. “This is a big bear.”

“I know,” Liza said, scouring the trail and finding a print. She knelt, put her hand next to it. “Can I be seeing this right? A twelve-inch footprint?”

“That’s the front print—but yeah. I see some human traces also. Was Esther wearing Keens? The pattern is fairly distinctive.”

“I think so.” Liza came over to where he pointed, near the fencing. “They’re facing away from the view.”

“These aren’t,” he said, and pointed to another pair, bigger. “These look like Converse.”

“Shep wears high tops,” she said, mentally trying out the angle.
Oh, Esther.

Conner stood up. “Clearly he was into her,” he muttered.

“What?”

He strode away from her. “Oh, something Shep’s mom said about him not liking her. If a guy sneaks away with a girl, he’s into her.”

“For the moment,” Liza said, but thankfully he didn’t hear her as he strode over to the trail.
C’mon, Liza, get over it.
Conner obviously cared enough to answer the phone. Just because he didn’t want to give her any promises didn’t mean that certified him as a jerk.

“There’s not much in the way of clean prints beyond these,” Conner said. He headed up the trail, past the point where she’d spotted the bear, and around the bend. His voice rose in a shout. “I think I got something!”

Liza followed him, a chill running through her as she passed the bear sighting to where Conner stood at a huckleberry bush that was splintered and partially uprooted. He was unwinding a strip of royal blue yarn caught in the brambles. “Is this from a sweater?”

She took it, ran it between her thumb and forefinger “It’s from Esther’s backpack. It was something she got at the camp store—we have a bunch of consignment crafts, including knitted backpacks.”

More yarn caught in the twigs twined in the breeze. Here the mountain sloped more gently down to the valley, the terrain covered with tangled junipers and prickly wild roses, scattered patches of blueberry bushes until the land fell into a sketchy pine forest below. Overhead, the sun was high, nearly at its apex, the sky a pale blue.

“They must have seen the bear and veered off the trail,” Conner said. He had already advanced farther off the trail, through the bramble. “They came through here,” he said, pointing to a patch of trampled wildflowers, their yellow petals crushed in the loam, “but...” He stopped, pulled something from the knot of blueberry bushes. “The bear did, too.”

Fur, grimy and dark. He met her eyes with a bleak look.

Liza brushed past him, headed down the hillside, tripping over roots, cutting through bushes. “Esther! Shep!”

Nothing answered but the cry of a circling hawk hunting prey.

Liza worked her way down the hillside, pushing past the brambles of golden currant, the white blooms of boulder raspberries, the knee-high shrubbery of cascade bilberry. A regular smorgasbord for a hungry grizzly. The hollow in her stomach grew. “Esther!”

Behind her, Conner called out their names, his boots crunching through the tangle of juniper and scrubby maples.