Christine

I checked the front cinch. “You are exactly the therapy I need, big boy.”

Cloud tossed his head and kicked up dust, dancing sideways, when I led him to the fence. Grant met me in the yard.

“Hey, Christine. Need a leg up?”

“I’ve got her.” Travis stood in the doorway of the stable. His preoccupied expression said he wasn’t finished with his brooding. Well, I was finished with waiting for him to get over whatever had started eating at him when he’d seen Wyatt MacKay back at the ball field.

He settled his hands on my shoulders and met my eyes. “I can’t ride out with you today. I know you can take care of yourself. But I’ll feel a lot better if you don’t go too far on your own, okay?”

I noticed the fine stress lines at the corners of his mouth and the shadows in his eyes. I gnashed my teeth together, determined not to let his vulnerability sway me. He was worried for me but had yet to tell me why. Until he found the time to talk, I wasn’t giving him the right to worry about me. “I don’t need you to ride with me, Travis.” I needed him to share his secret bits and pieces with me. “I’ll be fine. I’ll stick to the main trail and turn around at Diamondback Lookout.”

After his easy boost into the saddle, I blew him a kiss, then whirled the horse around and took off at a trot, shaking with the effort of not looking back.

* * *

Travis

I watched her disappear, not surprised when she didn’t turn around. I knew she’d been thrown because of my reaction to Bull’s son. I should have explained it to her, but I hadn’t known how to begin. How could I explain to her that seeing the teenager had been the equivalent of seeing a ghost?

From behind me, Grant cleared his throat. “Things at her place that bad, or did you put her in that mood?”

I heaved a sigh but didn’t turn around. “This one’s all mine.”

Grant’s sharp laugh rang across the yard. “You’ve known her less than a week and you’ve managed to piss off the most un-piss-offable woman I’ve ever met. You sure you’re my brother?”

I pulled a hand down my face. Damn, I was tired. Blowing out a breath, I swung around and fixed Grant in a pointed stare. “I saw a kid at the ball field today.”

Grant’s grin turned into a frown of confusion. “What were you doing at the ball field?”

“I pulled off the road there to talk, to find out why Christine was so prickly.” I shook my head. Grant didn’t need the full explanation. “Thing is, DC stopped by, and then I saw this kid. DC said he was Wyatt Robert MacKay.”

The name registered on Grant’s face immediately. Regret clouded his eyes and he looked away, a muscle working in his jaw. “Oh, geez. I’m sorry, Trav.” He swung his green gaze back to meet mine. “You shouldn’t have found out about him that way. I should have told you when you got here.”

One side of my lip pulled upward in a sarcastic half-smile. “Or, I don’t know, maybe someone should have told me fifteen years ago. Or let Mac know. He is Mac’s son, isn’t he?”

Grant shook his head slowly. “No one’s ever called him that out loud. Speculation on that stopped ten or twelve years ago. Still, if I had to say one way or the other…” He shrugged. “I’d say there’s a good chance.”

The conversation DC had held with Stella Jinks the day before began to make sense. Regardless of his paternity, Wanda was his mother. Was the kid a troublemaker like Bull?

Looking up at Grant, I knew I should let it all go, but I had to know. “The fire at Lantree’s yesterday… I overheard DC mention a kid with red hair to Mrs. Pratt.”

Grant winced and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think he’s a bad kid, but there are rumors he gets into a little trouble now and then.”

“A little trouble? Someone set a fire in the lumberyard.” I bent and picked up a stone. I held it loosely in his hand, weighing it while I weighed the thoughts tumbling around in my head.

“Maybe more than a little.” Grant shrugged. “Folks have kinda given the boy a pass on things… growin’ up with all the questions—”

“Damn it!” I yelled, flinging the rock. The crack of wood, as the stone slammed into the side of the barn, echoed across the stockyard, followed by snorts and thudding hooves from the horses inside the barn, spooked by my temper tantrum. “Can things get any more screwed up?”

“Trav.” Grant’s voice was soft but firm. “Folks around here were aware we knew where you were, how to get in touch with you. And that included Wanda.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “So if this kid is Mac’s, she must have kept quiet for a reason.”

Grant inclined his head and shrugged. “Once the subject dropped, Trav, I never thought about it again either.”

I grimaced. “I probably wouldn’t have either.”

I stared along the trail Christine had taken. “Grant… are there any other surprises?” When his brother didn’t answer, I looked over my shoulder to meet Grant’s steady regard. “No. That’s about it.”

* * *

Christine

Cloud opened up when I gave him his head. Hot sun blasted over my back as his powerful muscles bunched beneath me. He carried me without extra effort, as though I were simply a part of him. We had covered a lot of ground before the horse worked off his energy, but when he slowed back to a fast walk, I began to think.

How could I know Travis so well yet know next to nothing about him? When had he been in the army? Had he run away to join? What else had he done over the years he’d been away?

Allan’s words about Travis fighting oil fires made sense. He did carry himself like the firefighters I’d once worked with. Confidence without arrogance. I suspected something big had happened to him on the job. Something big enough to cause a posttraumatic stress reaction the night before. Yet he’d refused to talk about it. His life was a graveyard of mysteries and secrets, and I might never find out about some of those. Then again, I had a mental graveyard of my own.

* * *

“Did you grow up with dreams of being a fireman?”

His sharp bark of laughter ended in a cough. “No, Angel, I was going to be a rancher. I never wanted the city life. Shit just happened.”

“Shit” as in the reason he’d left the home he loved.

“What’s it like? Fighting fires?”

“It’s part physical, part mental, and part emotional. Sometimes you have to get intimate with a fire, before you can kill it. But you can’t let yourself get caught up in it or you’ll start making… mistakes.” He gave a wry chuckle. “Like being where you shouldn’t be when the building falls in.”

My heart fluttered. I had to change the subject, but not so it was obvious what I was doing. He’d already proven too smart for that.

“What was the weirdest run you ever did?”

He laughed again. “This is L.A. There’ve been a lot of weird runs.”

“Tell me.” I lifted the water bottle to my lips.

“I think the strangest was the time the house began shooting at us.” I almost choked on my water. “Um, yeah… that would be pretty memorable. What happened?”

“We got a call about a trash fire. Nothing big, so we only rolled one unit.”

A spasm of coughing interrupted him. In the middle of taking another sip of water, I paused. The bottle cooled my palm. I scraped my thumb along the rippled ridges. Drops of water clung to the inside, but with a little shake of my hand, they fell to the waiting pool below. How many things had I blissfully taken for granted all my life? Like drawing my next breath or quenching my thirst. I should tell Mick to stop talking, save his strength. But his voice came over the radio again, mesmerizing me…

“We pulled up to this house and there was a trash can on fire. But behind the trash can, the house was involved, shooting flames out of one of the bedroom windows. We couldn’t get there, though, because the driveway was filled with clay pots of huge burning marijuana plants.”

“That’s one way of getting rid of the evidence,” I murmured, my lips twitching with humor despite the situation. “And a good way to get your local firefighters stoned on the job.”

Mick chuckled. “Even burning green, it did have a very distinctive aroma. We found out later the grower’s girlfriend had come home from work early and found the boyfriend bang—ah, engaged in sexual activity with her best friend. So she dragged his plants onto the driveway, doused them with barbecue lighter fluid, and lit ‘em up.”

“I guess the grower would have been upset.”

“He told the investigator that when he jumped up to save his plants, he knocked over a candle, which caught the bed on fire.” Mick drew another labored breath. “His companion tried to extinguish that with the bottle of whiskey on the nightstand and succeeded in catching the curtains on fire.” He gave another chuckle. “And that left her in a quandary since she wasn’t dressed.”

“Did she run out nekkid?”

“No,” he said with a raspy chuckle. “She grabbed a blanket which, unfortunately for her, kind of…”

“Caught fire.”

“Yep, and that led to her running through the house to escape it, spreading the fire behind her. In particular, some curtains in a utility room leading to the garage caught fire when she breezed through. We were just on the scene when she came running out of the garage. About then she managed to lose the burning blanket. Kind of made all of us pause to appreciate the view.”

My laughter echoed across the dispatch office. His words painted the picture so well I felt like I was there.

“By that time our backup had arrived and we dispensed with the burning pot. It, ah, didn’t fare so well. We were just moving into position to assault the house fire when the garage started popping like popcorn. Seems the grower had been stockpiling small arms and ammunition with the idea of protecting his little farm. Bullets explode when they get hot. We had to take cover, and pretty much watch the house become fully involved, before that ammo stopped burning off. No one got hurt so we all cracked jokes while we waited it out.”

“What happened with the naked woman? Did you give her your coat?”

“Me? Heck, no! I wasn’t going to spoil the view. My partner did. He’s always had a chivalrous streak.”

* * *

Cloud snorted and balked, tossing his head in violent up and down motions. The acrid scent of burning grass clung in the air, growing stronger with each step toward home. The horse danced sideways, pulling hard on the reins. Then he half-reared and I nearly slid from the saddle. Leaning forward, I murmured calming nonsense in his ear as I peered along the trail ahead. The barns should have been visible in the distance, but the only thing ahead of me was a writhing black serpent waiting for me to ride into its jaws.

Fire!