Burning for the Mountain Man (Cold Mountain Nights 2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

NASH

September in Whisper Vale smells like dry pine and bad decisions.

The humidity hit single digits three days ago.

Wind's been pushing northeast since Tuesday.

Every dead tree on the east ridge is a matchstick waiting for a tourist with a campfire fetish, and my volunteer crew is down to nine bodies because Remón picked up extra shifts at the mine and Jackson's wife is due any day.

Bobby Garcia, my lieutenant and the only man alive who can annoy me before sunrise, leans against Truck 1 with a donut in each hand. "State's sending someone."

"State can send whoever they want." I tighten the coupling on the intake hose, test the seal with my palm. "Long as they stay out of my way."

"Prevention coordinator. For the whole season." Bobby takes a bite of chocolate glazed. Powdered sugar hits his department shirt. He doesn't notice. He never notices. "Some kind of audit thing. Your prevention ratings tanked after the east ridge fire."

"My prevention ratings." The wrench slips. My knuckle catches the edge of the coupling, and a thin line of blood opens across the back of my hand. I don't flinch. "Forty acres burned because a tourist left a campfire going. That's not a prevention failure, that's a stupidity problem."

"I'm just telling you what the email said."

"What else did the email say?"

Bobby scrolls his phone with one sugar-dusted thumb. "Arriving today. Will require station housing for the duration of the assignment. Please ensure the upstairs apartment is accessible."

The apartment. The one above the engine bay with the lock that sticks, the two-burner stove that takes three tries to light, and walls thin enough to hear someone breathing from the bunk room down the hall.

"Great." I wipe the blood on my jeans. "So some clipboard jockey from Carson City is gonna camp out in my station and tell me everything I'm doing wrong."

"Could be worse." Bobby grins. "Could be a man."

"Why would that be worse?"

"Because you'd fight a man. A woman, you'll just sulk." He shoves the rest of the donut in his mouth. "Maria says you need to get laid."

"Maria needs to stop talking about my sex life."

"She says that'd be easier if you had one."

My radio crackles. Dispatch, nothing urgent. Weather update. Wind advisory through Thursday. Humidity forecast staying in single digits. Fire weather watch for the northeast corridor.

Same report I've been reading every September for five years, since I came home from the hotshot crews with a burn scar the length of my left forearm and two names I carry like stones in my chest. Michaels. Cortez. Good men who trusted me to read the fire right. The fire didn't care.

Bobby's phone buzzes. He glances at it, then at the parking lot, then back at me with an expression I don't like. "She's here."

A white state forestry SUV pulls into the gravel lot too fast, kicking rocks against the chain-link fence around the equipment yard. The driver parks crooked. More from impatience than incompetence. The door opens before the engine fully dies.

Legs first. Long ones, in hiking pants that fit close through the thigh. Then the rest of her unfolds from the driver's seat, and my brain does something it hasn't done during working hours in five years.

It stops.

She's tall. Five eight, maybe, with a build that says she's been out in the field or a fancy gym.

Athletic through the arms and shoulders, curved everywhere else.

Dark blonde hair pulled back in a French braid that's already losing the fight against the heat.

Amber brown eyes behind sunglasses she pushes up onto her head as she surveys the station like she's cataloging every code violation from the parking lot.

Sun freckles across her cheekbones. Sharp jaw. No makeup. Radio clipped to her belt next to a multi-tool, and she's wearing hiking boots that have actually seen trail.

She pulls a tablet from the passenger seat and walks toward us with the stride of someone who has seventeen things to say and plans to start with the most inconvenient one.

Bobby elbows me. I ignore him.

"Chief Deveraux?" She stops three feet away. Extends her hand. Professional. Firm grip when I take it. Calloused palms. "Autumn Blake. I'm your new prevention coordinator."

"You're late."

An expression that could be either irritation or amusement flickers in those amber eyes. Both look the same on a face like hers. "Your mountain roads don't have guardrails."

"Don't need them if you can drive."

Bobby coughs into his fist. It sounds suspiciously like a laugh.

Autumn Blake does not laugh. She pulls her hand back, tucks the tablet under her arm, and looks past me at the engine bay. At the trucks. At the equipment locker with the door that doesn't close all the way because the hinge bent during the east ridge fire and I haven't gotten around to fixing it.

"Two operational trucks?"

"Three. Truck 3's got a water pump issue. Parts are on order."

"Community notification system?"

"Functional."

"When was it last updated?"

The answer is 2019, and she probably already knows that, so I don't give her the satisfaction. "It works."

"Defensible space compliance across the district?"

"Improving."

"The state assessment said forty-two percent." She pulls up something on the tablet. Doesn't show me. Doesn't need to. "Forty-two percent compliance with a September fire weather watch and single-digit humidity. That's why I'm here, Chief."

Bobby has found a third donut. He's watching us like we're the most entertaining thing that's happened to him since Maria let him name their dog.

"The east ridge fire was caused by an unattended tourist campfire," I say. "Not a systemic prevention failure."

"An unattended tourist campfire in a district where forty-two percent of structures meet defensible space standards, there's no prescribed burn schedule, and the notification system hasn't been updated in four years.

" She ticks each point on her fingers. Three fingers.

Three problems. She's efficient, I'll give her that.

"The ignition source was the tourist. The vulnerability was the district. That's what prevention addresses."

My jaw tightens. She's not wrong. She's also not welcome. Those two things can exist at the same time.

"Your apartment's upstairs." I nod toward the exterior staircase on the east side of the building. "Lock sticks. You gotta lift and turn at the same time. Hot water takes about four minutes. Bunk room's down the hall from the common area, so keep it down after ten."

"Keep what down?"

"Whatever you do at night. Walls are thin."

Her eyebrows go up a fraction of an inch. "I'll try to contain my wild evening plans of reviewing your incident reports."

Bobby snorts.

"Morning briefing's at oh-five-thirty," I tell her. "I don't wait."

"I don't need you to." She takes the apartment key from my outstretched hand.

Our fingers don't touch. She's careful about that, and I notice, which annoys me more than the forty-two percent.

"I'll also need access to your backcountry patrol schedule.

The state wants a fuel load assessment on the northeast corridor before fire weather peaks, and I'll need to see the north ridge firsthand. Three days minimum."

"I run the backcountry patrols."

"Then we'll coordinate." She says. As if it’s already been decided by someone with a bigger desk than mine. "Unless you'd prefer I file the assessment without your input."

She knows exactly what she's doing. If she goes alone, the report says whatever she wants it to say. If she goes with me, I'm stuck following her through my own territory while she tells me everything I should've done differently.

"We'll discuss it at the briefing."

"Five-thirty," she confirms. Then she walks past me toward the staircase, boots on gravel, tablet under her arm, french braid unraveling in the September heat.

Bobby waits until she's halfway up the stairs. "You're staring."

"I'm assessing a situation."

"Uh huh. Maria's gonna love this." His phone is already out. Texting. "Twenty bucks says you're sleeping together inside two weeks."

"Get back to work, Bobby."

He grins. Types faster.

I pick up the wrench. Turn back to Truck 1. The coupling doesn't need more work, but my hands need something to do and I need to forget the calloused palms and amber eyes on the woman who just walked into my station with opinions about every protocol I've run for the last decade.

From above the engine bay, I hear the apartment door open, then the lock mechanism fight her before giving in with a grudging click. A pause. Then her voice, not quite loud enough to be directed at me but not quite quiet enough to be accidental.

"The water pressure in here is a hate crime."

Bobby loses it. Full body laughter, bent over Truck 2, donut crumbs flying everywhere.

September just got a lot more complicated.