“So you were alone in the store when the fire started?” Mary asked Zack ten minutes later.

At first, Zack hadn’t wanted to stop his firefighting efforts to talk to her.

But then Dane Swanson arrived on the scene and discovered that not only had Zack left his turnouts at home, but he was coughing and covered with soot. When he heard that Zack had been inside the store when the fire began, Dane had ordered him away from the blaze and asked Fred Barker to treat him for possible smoke inhalation.

Zack was now standing next to the paramedic van, which had pulled up to the scene of the fire a minute or so after she and Tyler arrived. He was scowling under the clear plastic oxygen mask that Fred had slapped on him.

Mary noticed the dark, fist-sized bruise on Zack’s jaw and was reminded that Zack had been telling everyone earlier today that Tyler was the arsonist. She suppressed the protective growl that rose inside her, along with her wolf.

As the only law enforcement officer on the scene, she needed to be a neutral party right now and get all the information she could about how the fire may have started.

“Yeah,” Zack answered and stopped to cough. “I smelled something burning, so I grabbed the fire extinguisher and went to the back of the store to check it out.”

Mary saw him cast longing glances at the bustle of activity as the BPRFD’s other volunteers continued to arrive

Dane stood in the middle of the bustle, directing the volunteers and calmly imposing order upon chaos.

“Dammit, I need be over there, helping—” Zack said.

“You are helping,” Mary told him. “By telling me what happened.”

Zack’s scowl only deepened.

“You smelled smoke and went to the back of the store,” Mary reminded him in a crisp tone.

“Yeah,” Zack answered, his eyes glued on Tyler.

Mary followed his gaze and saw her new boyfriend effortlessly dragging a heavy hose over to the building. There, he joined Mark Swanson and Dimitri Medved in guiding jets of water into the hardware store’s interior.

“And?” With an effort, Mary dragged her attention away from Tyler’s heroic pose.

And how did you agree to be his girlfriend so quickly? The rational part of her brain wanted to know.

Shut up. He’s ours now, and you liked how he kissed and touched us. Her wolf’s instant response startled Mary with its vehemence.

But she couldn’t disagree, not with Tyler’s scent all over her and a pleasant tingling from beard-burn on the tops of her breasts, which were now safely concealed under her uniform.

Zack continued, “When I got to the shelves where all the pillows and cushions for outdoor furniture are located, I saw a wall of flame maybe four or five feet high. I knew that my extinguisher wouldn’t do jack shit against a fire that big, so I made sure that no one was in the store before I got the hell out and called for help.”

Zack Barenkamp might be a jerk, but at least he was a jerk with some common sense.

“And that was it?” Mary asked. “You didn’t see or hear anything suspicious around the time that the fire started?”

Zack shook his head. “My shift started at 6:00 p.m. Only one or two customers came by before the fire started around seven.”

“Can you identify those customers?”

Zack rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, but I can guarantee you that none of them started that fire. Roy Bagweshi came by to pick up some WD-40, and then Fred Barker needed a new set of wire cutters. Oh, and my uncle came by to drop off some dinner for me.”

Another dead end. Zack was right—neither Roy, Fred, nor Owen were likely arson suspects.

Mary sighed. Who’s setting these fires…and why?

Her gaze was captured once more by the sight of Tyler, almost unrecognizable behind his SCBA mask, aiming a hose into the store’s interior as dark smoke billowed out of the shattered plate glass windows.

“Maybe you need to talk to him,” Zack sneered. He was glaring at Tyler.

“Why?” Mary asked him, trying to clamp down on her wolf’s protective anger. “Do you know something I don’t?”

Something in her expression must have alerted Zack, because he just clamped his lips together and shook his head. “I just have a gut feeling about that guy.”

“And I happen to know that he has a solid alibi,” Mary snapped.

Zack’s eyes widened at her vehemence. He leaned forward and took a deep sniff. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You…and him?”

And with that, Mary realized that it was only a matter of time before the entire town knew that she and Tyler were more than just roommates.

* * *

It took nearly two hours to extinguish the fire at Hawkins Hardware.

Tyler was bone-weary by the time he and the others began rolling up hoses and packing away equipment. His day had started well before dawn, and now it was well after 9:00 p.m. The late summer sunset had darkened to a faint tangerine glow above the mountain peaks, and the first stars had come out.

But he didn’t want to leave and go back to his house without Mary. And she was still hard at work.

Bill Jacobsen and Owen Barenkamp had arrived at the store a while ago, as had Bill Hawkins, whose family had owned Hawkins Hardware for three generations. Tyler had caught glimpses of Mr. Hawkins’ shocked, disbelieving expression as he saw the damage.

It was nearly the same expression that he’d seen on Mary’s face this morning as she watched her home burn. Tyler hated that he and the other firefighters hadn’t been able to save her house or the store.

Flashes of bright white light in the building’s interior marked where Mary, Dane, Sheriff Jacobsen, and Owen were now conducting a preliminary investigation of the scene by flashlight.

Fred Barker and the paramedic van had already left, and Mark was pulling the ladder truck away from the curb when a shout went up from the inside of the building.

“Hey, you guys!” Sheriff Jacobsen called. “Found something!”

* * *

At Uncle Bill’s shout, Mary followed Dane to the back of the store.

Now that the fire was out, the inside of the hardware store consisted of blackened brick, broken glass, and huge puddles surrounding twisted piles of scorched junk that had once been the store’s metal fixtures and inventory.

The acrid smells of burned plastics, chemicals, and God only knew what else overwhelmed her keen wolf-shifter sense of smell, and she was thankful for the mask she was wearing.

Owen had set up a search grid that covered the store’s interior. Dane and Mary had been assigned to the front half of the store, while Uncle Bill and Owen concentrated on the back half, where Zack had reported seeing the fire start.

When Mary and Dane arrived, Uncle Bill was carefully putting a palm-sized wad of paper into an evidence bag. He was standing next to a badly burned bin filled with melted lumps and scraps of charred fabric. A shelf tag, badly blackened but still faintly legible, identified the contents as having once been patio furniture cushions.

“What did you find?” Dane asked, looming over her as he peered at the contents of the evidence bag. His voice sounded muffled through the mask.

Owen answered. “It looks like a time-delay incendiary device.”

Mary shone her flashlight on the bag. It still just looked like a wad of soggy paper to her. No wires, and nothing that looked a timer, either. Just the faintest trace of cigarette smoke.

Owen must have seen the question in her expression. “It’s pretty low-tech but effective, and almost guaranteed to burn up completely in a fire. We got lucky this time.” He looked grim.

“But how does it work?” Uncle Bill asked. “And can we trace any of the materials used to construct it?”

Owen shook his head with a regretful expression. “Unlikely. This kind of incendiary device is fiendishly simple to make using common items. You take a cigarette and use a rubber band to bundle it with a few matches. Then you wrap the whole thing in a twist of paper, leaving just the end of the cigarette sticking out. You light the end of the cigarette, put it somewhere near flammable materials, and walk away.”

“And then the cigarette burns slowly until it reaches the matches, then the whole thing bursts into flame…with the arsonist long gone?” Dane asked.

Mary shook her head. “That’s just evil.”

“And it would explain why none of us ever found any accelerants at the previous fires,” Dane said thoughtfully. “I wonder if the previous investigator found any cigarette butts. The reports didn’t mention anything like that.”

“And now we have proof that these fires are the work of an arsonist,” Mary said, feeling hot anger kindling inside her chest.

I’m going to catch the bastard who burned down my house down and nearly cooked me alive.

“I’ll send this to the lab for analysis first thing in the morning,” Uncle Bill said, tucking the evidence bag into his pocket. “Let’s see what else we can find.”

Owen shone his flashlight beam into the half-melted cushion bin.

“Hey, wait…that doesn’t look like it belongs here,” he said and leaned into its depths.

He straightened up, and Mary saw the burned remains of a work glove in Owen’s latex-gloved hand.

Uncle Bill reached into his pocket for another evidence bag. He leaned forward and sniffed at the glove just before Owen dropped it in the bag, then shook his head.

“Too stinky in here to get a good whiff,” he said. “I’ll try later, once I’m in a place with clean air and my nose has had a chance to recover from all this.” He waved his hand to encompass the destruction all around them. “Okay, back to work, troops.”

The four of them searched for another half hour but didn’t find anything else that looked out of place.

“Okay, let’s call it a night,” Uncle Bill said at last. Mary heard his shoulders popping as he stretched. “We’ll resume searching in the morning, when we’ve got daylight. Let’s meet back here at 8:00 a.m. sharp.”

After Dane and Owen had left, Mary and Uncle Bill spent a few more minutes cordoning off the store with bright yellow police tape printed with “CRIME SCENE – DO NOT ENTER.”

“See you in the morning,” Uncle Bill said as they stepped out onto the sidewalk.

He paused as he spotted Tyler leaning against his pickup truck, speaking with Bill Hawkins.

“…and if your insurance won’t cover a full rebuild, I’ll do it myself just for the cost of materials,” Tyler was saying.

Hawkins smiled, lightening his weary expression, and clapped Tyler on the shoulder. “Thanks a lot, son. Your dad would be real proud of you right now.”

Mary saw Tyler tense. Then he said calmly, “Anything I can do to help, you let me know, okay?”

She remembered what Tyler had told her earlier about his strained relations with his father and wondered why Mike Swanson hadn’t been able to see his son’s inherent generosity of spirit.

Then Tyler caught sight of her and straightened up.

“Hey,” he said, with a smile that warmed her from head to toe. “I thought you might want a ride back to the house.”

Mary smiled back, feeling a spark of excitement as his words reminded her of their unfinished business.

“What, you thought that three blocks was too far to walk?” she teased.

“Aren’t you two moving a little fast?” Uncle Bill asked in a low voice. “I saw how you were with him this morning, and then Zack said—”

“Zack has a big mouth, and he needs to learn to shut up once in a while,” Mary interrupted sharply.

With an effort, she softened her tone. “Look, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. And if you give him half a chance, you’ll find that Tyler’s a pretty nice guy underneath all those tattoos.”

Uncle Bill frowned and scrutinized Mary’s new housemate. “Well, Elle did mention that Tyler really cleaned up his act after leaving town.”

“Yes, and no one seems to be able to remember that part,” Mary commented. She turned and kissed her uncle on the cheek. “Good night, Uncle Bill. See you in the morning.”

Then, her heart beating with anticipation, she walked toward Tyler.

* * *

“So,” Tyler said as they turned left off Main Street and headed for his house. His voice broke the anticipatory silence building between them. “Do you think I’m moving too fast? I, uh, don’t want to scare you off or anything.”

“Did you hear me protesting?” she asked.

Mary saw him swallow hard as he reached for her, and his big hand settled possessively on her thigh. The gesture sent a jolt of heat through her.

“I want you, Mary. I want you so badly that it’s all I’ve been able to think about since this morning.”

“When we kissed?”

Tyler shook his head. “Nope. When I saw you in your pajamas on your front lawn. I feel like I’m seventeen again, with a huge crush on the prettiest girl in high school. You.”

“I–I don’t know what to say,” Mary admitted, warmed by the compliment.

No way was I ever the prettiest girl, in high school or anywhere else. But she loved him for saying that she was.

“So you know I’m totally going to jump your bones when we get back to the house, right?”

“I’m counting on it,” Mary assured him. Her heart was beating fast at the mental images he was stirring up.

The next few minutes felt like an eternity. Finally, they reached the house and parked.

As soon as they had both exited his pickup truck, Tyler took her hand and practically dragged her up the walkway.

Not that she was protesting one bit.

He kicked the front door shut behind them, then grabbed her shoulders and pushed her up against the wall next to the door. All the lights were off, and the house was dark and cool.

“Hey, baby!” Bogey shouted from his cage on the other side of the house. “Nice ass!”

Mary couldn’t help laughing. “Hi, honey, we’re home,” she called back.

Then Tyler drove Bogey’s existence clean out of her mind by sliding his fingers into her hair and capturing her mouth in a hard kiss.

She made a noise of pure need deep in her throat and arched against him, feeling the hard bulge of his erection behind the layers of clothing separating them.

Her fingers scrabbled against the fabric of his T-shirt, pulling it out of his jeans. She was desperate to feel his bare skin, taut and warm against hers.

“God, we both reek,” Tyler said, drawing back just far enough to speak.

His lips brushed hers with every word, making it hard to think.

“Then why don’t we take a shower together?” Mary suggested.

He was right—they both stank of smoke and sweat.

Tyler drew back a little, his breath coming fast. “Genius idea.”

He leaned in for another kiss. She turned her head, needing to tell him one more thing. “I’m not on birth control right now.”

“I’ve got condoms,” he promised, right before another devouring kiss reduced her to mindless need.

She yanked his T-shirt up to his armpits and felt his fingers leave her hair. An instant later, he was tugging at the buttons of her uniform shirt.

“This way,” Tyler said, his eyes sheened with shifter gold.

They stumbled through the house, stopping every few steps to divest themselves of another piece of clothing, and arrived at the bathroom clad only in their underwear.

Behind them, a trail of sooty, smoke-tainted clothes stretched all the way down the short hall and lay scattered across the living room floor.

As she’d suspected from those tight T-shirts he wore, Tyler was mouth-watering when he was dressed in nothing but his ink and his bulging briefs.

Mary forced herself to stop kissing him long enough to appreciate his sheer masculine beauty. Whoever had done his tattoos had been a real artist. The artwork across his chest and down his arms was a stylized landscape of pine-covered mountains done in the style of a classical Chinese painting. Half-hidden among trees and boulders were bears, wolves, cougars, elk, deer, and even a bald eagle that soared above the peaks.

Tyler's arms, chest, and shoulders were heavily muscled under his tattoos, and he had an impressive six-pack. His legs were thick with muscle as well and marked with thin, jagged white scars down their length.

She had heard that he’d been badly injured back in February, when his Chevy Tahoe had hit a patch of black ice and gone off the road into the trees.

“Are you having second thoughts?” Tyler asked, and she saw the uncertainty in his gilded eyes.

“Nope, just pausing to enjoy the view,” she assured him. “How about you?”

In reply, he gathered her back in and kissed her until she felt her blood pounding through her everywhere. His skin was hot against hers, and the hard bulge in his briefs pressed eagerly against her bare belly.

“I wasn’t kidding about wanting you as my girlfriend,” he said, his voice hoarse with desire. “After this, you’re mine.”

That mine felt like a shot of whiskey hitting her stomach, spreading heat and light like a miniature sun.

It was such a contrast to her previous relationship with Evan, where she’d had to tiptoe around her growing feelings for him because any hint that they’d become more than just “friends with benefits” would have sent him running for the hills.

And now here was Tyler, who apparently had no problem with demonstrating his feelings. And he was apparently head over heels for her, if his behavior today was anything to go by.

She’d be crazy not to want him as her boyfriend. No matter what her pack—or for that matter, anyone else in town—thought. Especially once Zack had the chance to tell all the shifters that he’d smelled Tyler and sex on her.

Her wolf liked Tyler’s scent, his strength, and his caretaker generosity towards his family and friends. He’s a keeper.

Mary smiled up at him and stroked her fingertips down his cheek. “Does that mean you’re mine too?”

“Yes,” he said immediately. “I think I’ve been yours since high school. No one else I’ve dated since then has ever come close to you.”

Her wolf half howled with joy at his declaration.

In reply, Mary bent and pulled his briefs down to his ankles, watching hungrily as his impressive cock sprang free, erect and ready for action.

Mary sank to her knees on the cool tile floor. Surrounded by the scent of his musky desire overlaid with smoke, she licked his thick shaft from base to broad tip. It felt smooth and burning hot against her tongue.

Tyler groaned and reached for the vanity drawer, jerking it open. As Mary took him into her mouth, she heard him rooting around in the drawer. A moment later, a condom packet dropped to the tiled floor next to her thigh.

Well, there’s a hint if ever I saw one.

And she was fine with that. It was time—way past time, with all the interruptions they’d had. She wanted him so badly…

She tore open the packet, then smoothed the condom down over his stiff length with long sensuous strokes. She liked the way he shook under her touch…and how his cock throbbed eagerly under her fingers.

“You’re killing me in such a good way,” he rasped and pulled her up with effortless strength.

He swiftly unhooked her bra and then buried his bearded face against the side of her neck, nipping and licking at her, driving her crazy with need.

When he finally yanked her panties off, she was so turned on that she felt that she could come at any second.

“Tyler,” she gasped, pulling his face up to hers. “Please don’t make me wait any longer.”

His eyes blazed gold. “Oh fuck, yes.”

He reached past her to turn on the shower.

Then he put his hands on her waist and carried her effortlessly into the wide shower enclosure. She felt the cool marble tiles press against her back as warm water cascaded over her shoulders and breasts. He put his hands under her hips and lifted her.

“Open your legs,” he ordered.

She eagerly obeyed and was rewarded by the tantalizing sensation of his cock sliding against her wet, aching pussy.

Mary usually didn’t make a lot of noise when she had sex, but the sensation made her moan with pure need.

In response, he invaded her with one powerful thrust.

“Oh. My. God,” she breathed as she felt herself stretch around his thick length.

He filled her completely. She wrapped her thighs around his hips and clung to him.

He took her fast and hard against the shower wall, his mouth covering hers, muffling her moans as he moved against her, his hard length caressing her nerve endings with every powerful thrust.

Mary wound her arms around his neck and returned his kisses as every part of her body seemed to catch fire.

He filled all her senses, so she clung to him and closed her eyes and just let herself feel what he was doing to her.

Something inside her shifted and settled into place, like a puzzle piece filling the empty place that had tormented her all throughout her failed marriage and mating.

Ours. He is our mate now, her wolf pronounced smugly.

Her eyes flew open and she turned her head, breaking the deep kiss.

“What the hell?” she demanded.