Revealed (The Found Book 1) (32 page)

Hal always consumed the meat first, then the carbs, followed by whatever was left, claiming he liked to eat the good stuff first. It amused Keanu to watch him. Being a man who loved his sweets, Keanu would skip the meal and eat dessert first when he could.

“Why are you staring at me like I’m some kind of lab experiment?” Hal asked.

Keanu shook his head, raised his fork and pointed it at his friend. “You are the weirdest eater.”

Hal raised his bottle. “I get no complaints from the ladies.”

“Thanks for the visual, dude.”

Ankles crossed, hands resting over his full belly, Keanu leaned his head on the back of his chair and stared at the darkening sky.

Hal kicked Keanu’s feet on the ottoman. With a grunt, Keanu made room for the other man to stretch his long legs too.

“Have you ever had the feeling your world was about to get rocked?” Keanu asked without looking at Hal.

“Yep! Every time I take a lady to bed.” Hal wagged his eyebrows.

“Shut up, dick,” he laughed. “I don’t mean like that. Besides, I don’t get my world rocked when I fuck a woman, I rock
her
world.” Keanu smirked.

“Man, you’re so full of it. I heard Cathy calling you all kinds of names and none of them good.” Hal punched Keanu’s arm.

“Damn, she’s one crazy-ass bitch. Seriously though, have you ever gotten a feeling nothing is gonna be the same again?” Keanu brought the conversation back around avoiding the unwanted reminder of his ex.

Hal bumped his size fourteen feet against Keanu’s before answering. Keanu felt like a pussy for voicing his fears.

“I don’t discount any mysterious crap. For real, my grandmother used to talk about the berserkers in my family, and how they came back every hundred years or some shit. I’m the first
blond giant
in over ten decades.” He gave Keanu a pointed look. “My Nana’s words, not mine. Sometimes, when I’m in the middle of a fire, I feel like another person is in my body. Ya know what I mean?” Color spread across Hal’s face.

Keanu knew exactly what he meant. Every member of their Smokejumper group had special abilities. Hal’s was clearly a human wrecking ball. He just hadn’t realized Hal wasn’t always in control, or didn’t feel like it at least. “I think we all feel like that to an extent. Have you talked to the captain about it?”

Hal pinned him with a look brooking no argument. “Nothing to talk about.”

They fell silent. Keanu let the quiet of the night soothe his soul. One of the reasons he and Hal were such good friends was because neither man pried into the other’s business.

“I’d better get going. You want me to help clean up?” Hal nodded at the dishes on the table.

“Nah, I got it.”

“Hey, I owe you for cooking, but I haven’t mastered the art of making anything other than Ramen noodles yet.”

Keanu blinked his eyes. “Because you have the poor little boy look down to an art. You bat those baby blues and all the ladies line up to cook for you.”

“Well, you just smile that bright cheesy ass grin and the ladies are lining up to take their panties off for you. I think that trumps my free meals.”

Both men laughed at the familiar argument, since neither man lacked for food or companionship.

They were opposite in looks, Keanu had dark hair hanging past his shoulders, dark brown eyes, and topped out at six foot. Hal was built more like a swimmer and had at least three inches on him. Keanu had the physique of a body builder and spent his off time working out or participating in extreme sports.

Brax, the co-leader of his team of Smokejumpers, recruited Keanu at twenty-two when he’d made national headlines. Now at thirty-three, he was ready to head home and settle down. Being seven years older than Hal, he considered him like a little brother. As the unofficial leader of the team it was his job to watch over the guys, but he’d taken Hal under his wing like a brother. Knowing he’d possibly done his last jump, and he and Hal would no longer be working together, Keanu already missed his friend.

He walked Hal to the door and watched as the big man took the stairs two at a time, before jumping into his oversized four-wheel drive pick-up. Hal waved one big hand out the window before executing a U-turn to leave. Keanu waited until the taillights disappeared down the long drive before going inside. After cleaning the mess up, he shed his clothes and stood under the rainforest-like shower he’d installed on his deck. Sighing, he closed his eyes.

* * *

Cammie Masters loved the little town of McKinley Landing, and the way it was tucked into the side of the surrounding mountains. But, and this was a big but, she hated the way it had grown. The town used to be only thirty-eight hundred people. Since the pork plant moved in the population had almost doubled, and so had the crime.

Many of the residents of McKinley Landing were a mix of races, but she connected best with her mother’s Native American relatives. Her red hair was the only thing that was different. When she was a child, she’d played with the other kids and wished she’d had their black hair.

The summer Cammie had turned twelve, she’d fallen in love for the first time. She’d climbed one of the big pines bordering the Cascade forests and her shoe got stuck several feet up between two branches. She thought back to the afternoon that changed her whole life with fondness.

“I’m a big girl. I am not gonna cry.” Cammie shivered, looking down at the ground from the tree she was stuck in. “Dang you, Mazey Otto,” Cammie whimpered.

Mazey called her a fire demon because of her red hair. When she told her it didn’t mean she was evil the other girl called her a liar. She hadn’t intended to hurt the brat, she only wanted her to shut up. It wasn’t her fault. Mazey was clumsy and fell down the stairs. Now everyone was calling her names, so she ran away.

Swiping at the tears dripping down her cheeks, she didn’t want to admit she was crying. Cammie tried to wiggle her foot free, but only made it worse. The sound of something crashing through the trees caused her to nearly jump out of her skin. From her viewpoint, something really big was running straight for the tree—for her.

Cammie held her breath, closed her eyes, and prayed whatever it was wouldn’t see her and decide she’d make a tasty snack. Her mama always said there were things in the forests that would kill and not to go in to them. But Cammie loved the big pines and the noises the animals made were her favorite sounds. Now, the wilderness seemed to stop and wait, like it knew a greater predator was in its midst.

The beat of her heart filled her ears. Cammie opened her eyes. Surely if the beast was hungry it would be growling or shaking the tree. Right? Looking at the last place she’d seen the thing, she relaxed, or tried as much as she could with her arms wrapped around the trunk.

“Are you ready to get down?”

Cammie jumped. “Oh my God. Please don’t eat me. I’ll taste really, really bad. I promise.”

A deep laugh had her looking at the speaker. He had to be the most beautiful person in the entire world. Long black hair and two dimples in his cheeks, if he was gonna eat her, he wouldn’t smile at her, Cammie thought.

“I’m not that hungry.” The gorgeous man snapped his teeth together. “Yet.”

She shivered, and the tears she tried hard to hold back, dripped down her cheeks.

“I was only joking, don’t cry. I’m going to climb up and see what’s going on, okay?”

He didn’t give her a chance to answer, before he scaled the big tree like a monkey. She was a good twenty feet in the air. What had taken her at least fifteen minutes to climb, he did in less than five.

“Wow, you’re a really good climber.”

“Why thank you, my tiny damsel in distress. I’m Keanu Raine. What’s your name?”

Cammie’s brow furrowed. “Um…I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

He held out his hand. “Well, since you’re kinda stuck in this tree and its getting dark, let’s become friends.”

Cammie gazed at the man she decided she would marry someday. He told her about himself, patiently telling her he was a local firefighter, and about his grandfather, the shaman of their tribe. Her mother was so gonna love him. Cammie adored the name Keanu, figuring it would go down in her diary as her new favorite.

“I’m going to be grounded for life if my mama finds out I was here,” Cammie groaned.

“Let’s worry about getting you down and then I’ll take you home. I’m sure she’s already worried about you.”

She nearly fell out of the tree when Keanu pulled out a little knife. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“What? This?” Keanu held it up. “I’m going to trim some of the bark off between these branches, so we can get your shoe loose.”

Watching closely, Cammie held completely still until the pressure eased on her foot. She jerked her leg, nearly kneeing her knight in the jaw.

“Thank you, thank you, Keanu.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

“All right, now we need to get down. I want you to climb on my back and hold on. Can you do that?”

“I can get down by myself. I got up here, didn’t I?”

“Yes, little lady, you did, but you also got yourself stuck. Besides, it’s my job to rescue people, so you’d be letting me do my job.”

He made it sound like she was helping him. With a huff, Cammie wrapped her arms around Keanu’s neck and held on for dear life.

He descended the tree like he’d been doing it all his life. She didn’t want to let go when they reached the bottom and he obviously thought she couldn’t walk. All the way back to town, he told her about his new job. When he told her he was leaving to become a part of a group called Smokejumpers, she wanted to weep.

Cammie decided she was going to be just like him when she grew up.

* * *

“Hey, Red, how ’bout you and me going out tonight?” Ted Grossman asked.

The question jarred her out of her memories. She used to consider Ted to be one of her best friends. Any time Cammie was in a jam, Ted was there to help pull her out. When her high school boyfriend had been cheating on her, it had been Ted whose shoulder she’d cried on. Luckily for her, Ted was also the one who had broken the news to Cammie, otherwise she may have made the biggest mistake of her life, since it was prom night and all.

Now, the thought of Ted and his new friends made her skin crawl. There was something about the three men he’d been hanging out with that didn’t sit well with her.

“Um, not tonight Ted.” She smiled to lessen the blow.

Cammie tried to walk around the pack of idiots standing outside the bar. One of them grabbed her arm, making her flinch at the rough treatment. The hand wrapped around her bicep held her in place. She looked at the man, at his hand where it rested on her arm, and back to him. She raised her eyebrows. Ted gave her a beseeching look.

“Listen, you little bitch. You think you’re better than us? Well, I have news for you.”

She recognized Bob Thompson and his sneering voice immediately. “Guys, I’m tired. I really just wanna go home and get some rest. Why don’t you go back into Sully’s and have another beer?”

Cammie looked at Ted, a guy she used to consider a friend.

“Aw, come on, Cam. You can have just one drink. You know you’re the hottest piece in town,” Ted said with a drunken leer.

Cammie shuddered. “Did you just call me a cow? No, don’t answer that.” She held up her free hand. “Seriously, I really appreciate your flattery, but I’m going home.” Cammie looked pointedly at the hand still holding her arm.

“Let’s go, Bob. I’ll buy you a drink,” Ted offered.

“You are a fucking pussy, Ted,” Bob snarled.

Cammie had enough. Using Ted’s distraction, she shoved her palm into Bob’s chest, pushing him away, and twisted out of his grasp. He lunged, but luckily for her his friends dragged him back into the bar. His curses still rang in her ears. Tossing her ponytail over her shoulder, she shook her head and quickened her pace.

Walking to the firehouse yesterday had seemed like such a good freaking idea. Why hadn’t considered the danger of leaving at midnight the following night? She decided to claim temporary insanity. With the string of fires, and one of her teammates injured, it worked for her.

She picked up her pace, pushed her bag over her hip, and tapped her pocket to make sure her phone was still there. She’d be totally lost without her iPhone. The hair on the nape of her neck prickled. Cammie glanced over her shoulder and saw a Jeep sitting idle at the stoplight. The late hour and the dark tinted windows didn’t allow her to see the driver, and a shiver wracked her frame.

With some kind of pyromaniac running around, the last thing she needed was a stalker for crying out loud. The engine roared and she watched from the corner of her eye as the Jeep turned at the light. “Thank you, Lord Jesus,” Cammie murmured.

* * *

Ted wanted to hit Bob for the way he treated his Cammie. When he saw the woman of his dreams walking alone, he thought he’d invite her in for a drink. He had no clue Bob and the other guys would follow him. Her rejection nearly gutted him, but he still didn’t want her hurt, and she’d be a lot more than hurt if Bob got ahold of her. Ted had seen firsthand what the man could and would do to those who didn’t do as he wanted.