Slow Burn (Smoke Jumpers) (23 page)

The truck ate up the highway. Heavy with gear and not designed for speed, though, the rear end skipped roughly when Evan took the next curve. Sixty miles per hour was usually the maximum recommended speed.

And Evan was already ten miles over that.

Rio cracked first. “You think you should slow down there, Evan? We’re not running the Indy 500 here.”

“I know how to drive.” Which didn’t exactly answer Rio’s question.

Evan downshifted on the next curve to make his point, pushing the truck, smooth and easy, into the straight stretch. He forced his fingers to relax on the wheel, but he wasn’t backing off. No way. Instead, he hit the gas and started praying as the road bent again. “You don’t have your seat belts on, you’d better put ’em on now.”

“Not SOP, Evan. You know that.” Rio pointed out that little truth calmly.

“Then you might want to shut up so as not to distract me.”

Mack snorted, reclining in his seat. “You make it back in half the time, you can explain the moving traffic violations.

“I don’t care.” It was all black night outside the windows, and the truck’s headlights barely carved up the road in front. Slowing down was a no-brainer. One deer out for a late night stroll, and he’d roll the truck.

And he
didn’t
care. That was the truth. “The sooner I get back, the sooner I slow down.”

“You think Faye’s in trouble.” Rio fiddled with the channels, hunting for the local airwaves. That was smart. They’d get more details that way.

Evan did think that. “I hope she’s not,” he said grimly.

“But she could be,” Rio pointed out, all Mr. Logic. “It’s late, and she’s bunking in the firehouse.”

“I know.”
Christ.
He needed to be in Strong. He needed to see Faye and make sure she was okay. The next curve came up, fast and tight, and he pushed the truck through it.

Mack closed his eyes. “Then you drive this thing as fast as she’ll go, okay? No one here wants to hang back.”

“No worries.” His foot was permanently down, the gas pedal sandwiched between his boot and the plastic floor mat. Before too many hours it would be dawn, the first pink and orange fingers of light spearing up from the dark horizon. He’d be home long before then. Or in a ditch. “We’re going to fly.”

His head ran a dozen different scenarios. Faye in the firehouse. Faye trapped in her car as fire shot up around her. Before he took the next bend in the road, he’d imagined a dozen hideous endings to the night.

“Evan?” Rio stared out the windshield at the road. “When you get back, when you see her face and know that she’s safe, you just tell her what you feel, okay? That’s what you tell her.”

T
he beer was real cold, a Budweiser pick-me-up while Hollis waited for the show to get started outside. Mimi hadn’t asked questions when he’d come in, so he’d ordered up the Bud and waited. Nothing unusual about banging one back at Ma’s. Still, Mimi was watching him. He’d ditched the drip torch outside her door, but he definitely smelled like kerosene and smoke. That happy little stink could be on the up and up, though, so she was hanging back right now. She’d put two and two together in the next five to ten, however.

Right on cue, fire alarms blared to life outside the bar’s front doors.
Showtime
. He started pulling money from his pocket, because he might set fires, but he paid his bar tab.

“On the house,” Mimi growled, and she ran for the door. She’d definitely gotten the 411 on fire safety, because she felt the knob before she decided the metal was cool enough, and she flung the door open. Yeah, he’d lit up the firehouse parking lot good.

A car horn went off, singing a swan song, accompanied by small pops like bullets firing. Two of the three cars were fully engulfed now, and smoke shot up in black streams that faded to gray as they became airborne. The stink was bad now, because something plastic had caught, and there was plenty of orange. The added bonus was the wind lending a helping hand, spreading fire from A to B with each hot breath of air.

Yeah. He’d set a real good one here.

Mimi cursed, whirled around, and came right back inside, grabbing the land line beneath the bar. As she punched buttons and placed a call, he grabbed a bowl of peanuts and another beer. Popping the top, he headed for the still-open door. Shutting it on her return trip would have been a smart move for Mimi, because now his fires were pouring smoke into the bar, and she’d have one hell of a Febreze job on her hands.

Behind him, Mimi slammed down the phone. “What do you think you’re doing, Hollis Anderson?”

He gave her the truth. “I’m getting me a ringside seat.”

She grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and a handful of dishtowels. “You’re a fucking firefighter!” she yelled over her shoulder as she ran for the door. “Fight that fire, Hollis!”

“Right behind you,” he agreed, to shut her up. Taking a sip of the beer, he followed her outside. It was that Coors Light shit but in a bottle, so that was one step up from a can. Plus, it was real cold and free. On the house was a definite bonus.

The parking lot between Mimi’s and the old firehouse was ringside, all right, and he had a good view, despite the sheets of smoke plugging up the sky now. Mimi was giving it the old college try, dancing in and out with that nouse fire extinguisher of hers. That much flame needed a fire hose. His professional assessment as he parked his ass on the smokers’ bench outside the bar was that she should forget the cars and worry about her bar. A little wind and the fire would hop from those cars to her building in no time at all.

He lined up his beer and bowl of peanuts. What he should have done was grabbed a third beer. It wasn’t as if he’d be driving home tonight.

It was like the Fourth of July out there, all lit up with the smell of smoke and shit going off. Sure, it was kind of strange to hang back, but he was done. So very, very done with trying to prove he fit in fine. He’d started this, and now someone else could finish it. That was a message right there.

He swallowed beer and peanuts and watched.

 

The doorknob was hot. Faye let go fast, thanking God for mandatory school fire education. If she opened that door, all the air on her side of it would feed the flames on the other side—and she’d be dead, dead, dead. After a really bad barbecue.

God
. That door was her out to the street and the parking lot. The fire alarms shrilling around her warned that getting out fast was still number one on her to-do list. Smoke was filling up the downstairs, and, now that she eyeballed the door more closely, smoke curled visibly through the hinges and edges. The cars were definitely not the only thing on fire.

Mind racing, she tried to remember what Smokey the Bear had to say about fire safety. But Smokey was an outdoor bear working his thing in the forest. She was inside. This fire was trying to get to her. So she’d have to find another way out, on a different side of the building. She could do that, right?

And help had to be on its way.

Even now, she could hear the long, hard wail of a fire engine approaching fast. The dispatcher knew she was inside. He’d tell the guys riding the truck and . . . what? They’d come for her, maybe, but she needed out
now
. The smoke swirled and eddied around her ears, and she bent over, getting herself as low as she could without actually hitting the ground.

There
. The bay for the trucks. The large space was empty now except for the painting and building supplies, stacks of lumber and ten-gallon buckets of paint. Yeah. That was an arsenal of fuel, but there wasn’t much smoke there yet.

So that was where she needed to be. Moving quickly, she punched the button to open the bay doors. The doors started rolling with a loud rattle and roar, and outside air swept in.

That air was also full of smoke and trouble.

She didn’t wait for the doors to go up all the way, simply ducked under and out as soon as she had enough clearance. The muscles in her legs burned as she straightened up with all the damned stuff she was carrying, but she couldn’t bring herself to abandon anything.

The stink of burning rubber and plastic hit her first. A minivan had gone up completely in the minutes she’d spent getting out of the firehouse, and her Corvette was all dark smoke and sheets of orange, with more flames coming from the undercarriage. As those flames hit a sweet spot of combustion, the fire surged up until only the rear bumper was clear—and everything else was fire.

And the fire wasn’t limited to the cars. The nearby foliage caught, flames shooting up the bushes. Those pretty flowers were the icing on some dry, dry branches, and the fire consumed it all like some kind of party snack.

This was out of her league. This wasn’t something she could fix or stop.

Right on cue, an engine roared, the long, slow wail of the siren warning Strong to stay alert as the big vehicle stopped somewhere between the firehouse and the bar, air brakes hissing. Firefighters bailed out. Nine-one-one had come through.
Thank God
.

Not in time, though. Her car was way beyond rescuing. Men shouted, pulling hoses and working wrenches on the fire hydrant. And yet the seconds ticked by, all slo-mo, and still there was no water. Her car burned and burned, and all she could do was watch. The big fuck-you to her ex. The freedom of tearing up the highway, going just fast enough that she wasn’t completely safe. It was going up in smoke, and all she could do was watch.

No
. The Corvette was only a car, and the damage was done there. Dumping her load on the sidewalk, she manhandled the fire extinguisher and pulled the pin. Running to the edge of the parking lot, she squeezed the trigger and swept the flaming bushes, dumping a load of foam.

The Corvette couldn’t be rescued, but Strong could be.

 

Strong was a war zone. With fire hoses unfurled and water streaming, men hollered directions and Mimi worked a fire extinguisher while the long, deafening tones of the engine’s siren woke up any sleepers. Evan pulled the truck up just outside the burn zone.

Before the truck stopped completely, Mack was out, booted feet tearing up the ground as he alternated between cursing a blue streak and bellowing Mimi’s name.

“Mimi’s gonna be a dead woman if she doesn’t back off,” Rio muttered. He paused to grab gear from the back of the truck, and then he was hot on Mack’s ass.

Evan didn’t care where they went. All he needed to know right now was where Faye was. The rest of Strong could burn to the ground as long as the little piece holding Faye came through intact. So, until he laid eyes on her, Rio and Mack and the rest of them were on their own.

Spotting Faye turned out to not be much of an improvement, however. She’d evacced the firehouse—thank God—but she was too close to those damn car fires. A sheet of black smoke shot off what had been someone’s ride until maybe a half hour ago. Minivan. Honda. And the Corvette.
Christ
. Of course, that was her car on fire, and undoubtedly that was why she was heading right toward the flames. The fire extinguisher in her hands didn’t pack enough power for that kind of trouble, and ten seconds or so of foam was hardly worth the effort of yanking the pin. She’d be out of juice before she got started.

Worse, the volunteer engine had already turned its hoses on the minivan. The stream hit the burning vehicle hard, water fighting the flames for possession. That wasn’t the problem. No, the problem was that Faye would soon be directly in line with those powerful hoses, and with all the smoke and flame, the men probably wouldn’t see her.

Her name came out as a bellowed roar, his feet hitting the pavement hard. Christ, he wasn’t going to make it. The fire crew repositioned the hose, aiming for the Honda. Forty yards. Thirty. He pumped hard, eating up the ground. If Faye got hit with that stream, it was about the equivalent of getting hit by a freight train. Faye wouldn’t stand a chance.

The Corvette was going up. Sharp, popping noises peppered the air as the frame slowly bent beneath the fire’s pressure. White-hot heat danced around the burning car, and the fumes were a thick, toxic wave.

“Get back!” he roared, catching her arm and yanking her backward as he tore off his Nomex jacket.

Her face, when she looked up at him, was a mask of anguish and indecision. “I have to do something.”

Throwing the Nomex around her, he grabbed her upper arms and put her behind him. He wasn’t going all PC here. Not when her life was on the line. “Go. We’ve got to go.”

A fresh column of black smoke billowed from the cars behind them. Fire had found something else to burn and was going to town. Burning embers and debris rained down around them, but the smoke was the real killer. He yanked the Nomex over her head and shoulders, scooped her up in his arms, and ran like hell. Embers struck his back and shoulders, but he was big and used to the sting of the burn, and he hadn’t been all that pretty to start with. All he had to do was get Faye where she could breathe and where the air was clean. His legs pumped, desperate to get her to safety. Twenty feet. Forty.

But, Christ, it was too late. He looked over his shoulder to gauge his distance from the cars, and the sound caught up with his eyes. First the tires blew out in a mini-explosion, and then the fire finally found the gas tank. The back end of the Corvette went up and came back down, slamming burned-out rubber and rims against the asphalt. Wrapping himself around Faye, he dove forward, taking her to the ground beneath him. Cradling her. Covering her.

She said something, but the fire’s noise ate up the words, and he simply pressed her Nomex-covered head deeper into his chest. What wasn’t exposed couldn’t burn, so his hand cupped her, keeping her down.

“Man down!” he yelled, but he’d need more than luck to be heard over the fire and the jet-blast of the hoses. A thick, black wave of smoke hit, and he closed his mouth, choking on the fumes
. Hold on, hold on
. The blast would die back in a minute, and he’d have a window of opportunity to move.

Faye felt small and fragile trapped beneath him. That he could still lose her ripped through him in an unwelcome wake-up call far more painful than the burning debris hitting him. Nothing mattered more than this woman.
Nothing
.

He wasn’t losing her.

Not as long as he could still fight for her.

Evan had her tucked beneath him, shielding her with his body and his coat. The hot wind blew over and past them as the fire flared greedily and the remaining bushes on the side of the parking lot went up like birthday candles, flames sheeting straight up.

“I’ve got you.” His rough voice rumbled close by, his arms crossed over her head. “No worries.”

She opened her mouth, closed it. She’d worried about
him
. A second, smaller explosion drowned out his next words. Startled, she twisted in his arms, trying for a better view. He held her effortlessly in place.

“We really, really need to go,” she bit out. The ground beneath her shook hard, water coming down over her head in a dense, wet sheet as the hoses unleashed a salvo at the flames.

She felt rather than saw him shake his head. “Better to stay put, stay low. Give it thirty seconds, darlin’. The boys have the hoses up, and we don’t want to get in the way of that. You had a close call there.”

“A
hose
?” He’d thought she’d been about to get hit by a stream of water? When she glanced past his shoulder, the water was definitely headed in their direction now. Spray hit her as the water smashed into the cars and bounced back.