Page 7 of Burning Hearts (Chasing Fire: Alaska #1)

SEVEN

Logan looked out the window of the single men’s cabin, wondering what Jamie thought of the base. It was huge—but Alaska made everything look bigger. Then he wondered why he cared what she thought, considering she would be leaving first thing in the morning.

Kane slapped him on the shoulder. “Relax. The girls will take care of her.”

“Right. I’m sure she’s fine.” They probably all figured he’d sneak out and visit her in the girls’ living room later, but they didn’t have to know that wasn’t going to happen. Only Orion would be aware he didn’t leave their shared room.

In the corner of the guys’ living area, in lieu of a dining table, they had dragged in a pool table they’d got from a bar in Anchorage that had closed down. Saxon was playing pool with Hammer and Mack. Vince and Orion were chatting by the fridge, close to where Grizz stirred a pot on the stove, his big meaty fist grasping the handle of the wooden spoon.

Logan bellied up to the other side of the breakfast bar. He had to hand it to the Trouble Boys—they’d definitely designed the space with its use in mind. Even though there were eight guys in the room, it didn’t feel crowded. He said, “What’s for dinner?”

Grizz kept stirring, all his focus on the pot. “How should I know? This is for Jubal.”

Vince glanced over, breaking off his conversation with Orion. “Grizz thinks the dog has a sensitive stomach.”

“So you either don’t care or you’re just blind.”

Vince shot the big man a look. “Speak for yourself.”

“Just because Cadee isn’t here, doesn’t mean you need to pick a fight with me. Go find your girlfriend if you want to bicker with someone.” Grizz shut off the burner and moved the pot to the other side of the stove.

Vince looked like he wanted to say something, but Orion shoved him out of the kitchen. Always the peacemaker. But then he said to Logan, “So, you found her.”

Logan had figured they would get around to asking him about Jamie sooner or later. He just never thought it would be Orion asking—at least, not outside their shared room. The guy was also a believer, which made them a good match to double up in one of the rooms with twin beds.

Grizz didn’t share with anyone. Neither did Vince, which wasn’t surprising. Saxon and Kane shared a room, and Hammer and his little brother Mack doubled up next door. Mitch, the hotshot boss, lived in an old Airstream on the side of the cabins.

But they still all had to coexist in the open-plan living space. Where they now all started to crowd around. Waiting for the juicy story?

Logan sighed. “Yes, I found her.”

Vince said, “No surprise, since you didn’t show up to help us cut the line.”

He wasn’t quite sure what that dig at his actions meant. Probably just that it had never happened before. “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”

He could tell Orion had something he wanted to say. Hopefully the guy would leave it for when no one else was around.

The intercom speaker by the front door buzzed.

Vince headed for the door. “Chow time.”

The rest of them filed out after him, leaving Orion and Logan to cross the runway together. The girls came out of their cabin and headed for the mess hall as well. Logan spotted Jamie among them, chatting with Jade.

That was good. Logan liked Jade and her boyfriend, Crispin, who was always close by. Not that it was easy to find him. Jade and Skye both reminded him a lot of his sister Andi, back in Last Chance County.

Orion said, “Did she find her brother?”

“We had to leave him behind. But the sheriff can locate Tristan and make sure he’s safe.”

“Isn’t that what Jamie came here to do?”

“She should be going back to her life. Tangling with these guys isn’t something she needs to do.” Which he would have told her if she’d let him in on her plan to come up here. In fact, if she’d talked to him at all about finding Tristan, Logan would probably have come up here on his own, just like she had. He’d have offered to find the guy for her.

But they hadn’t spoken to each other in over a year.

Until Bryce told him he’d heard she was coming up here to look for Tristan, Logan had been trying not to even think about her.

“Isn’t going all out for family a good thing?” Orion said. “I mean, who wouldn’t want a woman who never gives up? Never surrenders.”

“Did you just quote a sci-fi movie to me?”

“Yeah, because it’s the best one ever.”

“I thought you were all about Trek of the Osprey .” The guys had been binging it in their time off since the locals in the crew here had discovered everyone who’d come up from Montana knew Spenser Storm. They all wanted to invite him up to Alaska for the end-of-season party.

“TV. Movies. Sci-fi is a good distraction from real life.”

“I prefer to stay below the clouds.”

Maybe that was what he’d been enjoying about being single. For the eight months he’d been with Jamie, it had always seemed like he was spinning out. Trying to keep up with her attempts to rescue her family. The first time they’d broken it off, he’d gone to Australia for a while with Macon. After his buddy had persuaded him to come home, there had been all that stuff with the Sosa cartel and his brother-in-law Jude. Things never seemed to calm down before something else kicked off and things went crazy.

Unless he was in the sky with a parachute above him and nothing but air between him and the ground.

When all he could think about was steering in the right direction, and praying God sent the right air currents to help him along.

This morning, God had dropped Logan right in the path of Jamie. He could now say he’d done exactly what he’d come up here to do, and it turned out it had all been so he could figure out it was time to let her go.

Logan said, “Anyway, what’s so bad about your life you need to escape into entertainment?” He hadn’t noticed anything wrong with Orion. Or preoccupying him. “Is something going on?”

Orion shrugged. The guy was young enough he’d only qualified as a smokejumper this year, though he’d gotten a jump on the whole wildland firefighting thing because his mom ran a teens camp in Montana called Wildlands Academy that taught firefighting skills.

Last summer, Orion had met his father for the first time. Charlie, a colleague of Logan’s from the Last Chance County Fire Department, hadn’t even known he had a son. After working with Charlie for a couple of months, Orion had put it together that he was the result of a teenage fling between Charlie and Jayne, his mom.

“Whatever it is, God’s got it, right?”

Orion nodded. “That’s right. And it’s why I feel like I should tell you not to discount Jamie and the real reason she might be here. Seems like something happened while you were out there.”

Logan shrugged. “Pretty sure I realized whatever was between us isn’t worth it now. Nothing’s changed.”

“You’re different than you were when you guys dated before. But that’s not really what I’m talking about. Maybe God directed you both up here.”

Logan had prayed that God would lead him. He didn’t know if Jamie had done the same thing, but he wanted to live a life where the Lord directed his steps. “If we still have the same obstacles between us, what’s the point? Besides, I live up here now, and she lives way too far away to make this work.”

Strong winds whipped across the valley, running parallel with the runway and sending strands of his hair flicking around. Logan brushed them back.

Orion said, “Why not see what happens while she’s here? If God wants to do something, then all we have to do is believe He’s more powerful than our dumb mistakes. It’s not like we can surprise Him.”

Logan glanced at Orion, wondering what he thought he’d done.

What mistake he’d made.

“You know I’m here if you want to talk about anything,” Logan said.

Orion nodded. “I know. Thanks.” He held out his fist and Logan bumped it.

Across the runway, at the mess hall, Logan grabbed the door handle and held it open for the ladies.

They nodded at him as they entered.

“Logan.” JoJo grinned.

Jamie stopped close to him. “How did it go with the commander?”

“I just got my side looked at by the medic and then changed clothes. I haven’t talked to him yet.”

“I hope you don’t get in trouble because you came to find me.” She winced. “I don’t mean coming to Alaska. I just mean the compound.”

The girls. “They told you?”

He hadn’t exactly made it a secret that he was in Alaska looking for Jamie. Every time they went to town, he asked around to find out if anyone had seen her. Why did it hit him like this that they’d mentioned it to her?

Probably because he’d already decided it was a nonstarter.

Even though Orion had told him to see what God might want to do, he’d pretty much decided she was going to go back to her life. He would move on at some point.

Her expression softened, and she set her hand on his arm. “Thank you for caring enough to come up here and make sure I’m safe.”

Logan didn’t know what to say. “We should go eat.”

He let go of the door and headed inside. So much for seeing what happened. Now that she’d said it out loud, it sounded dumb that he’d upended his life and moved to Alaska. He’d changed everything for her.

And now she thought he needed her pity.

Maybe he did.

* * *

Jamie stared over the table at the man who’d sat across from her. “Skye’s husband was undercover?”

She didn’t think she’d even met Skye today. Had she?

All the hotshot and smokejumper names had started to mix together in a muddle. She was trying to keep them all straight.

Neil Olsen, an older guy who’d told Jamie he was the smokejumper pilot, leaned across the table. “Finally, Rio was able to tell Skye that he was an FBI agent, undercover in the prisons for a long time. He got this guy, Darryl, to agree to testify against this bad guy, Buttles, right?”

Jamie nodded even though she had no idea. She chewed around a mouthful of surprisingly flavorful spaghetti. When Tristan had been little, he’d called everything “spicy” when he really just meant it had actual flavor rather than being bland like box mac and cheese. This spaghetti almost had a kick to it. She needed the recipe from their cook.

The warm older man who’d decided to sit with her had a slightly gruff exterior. Neil took a bite of his own dinner and glanced at the guy beside him—someone called a “spotter”—who’d tied back his long gray hair. The two of them as a pair looked like an aging rockstar had made friends with a retired cop.

“It turned out all right in the end,” Neil said. “These days Rio is the FBI field agent in Anchorage, and Skye works out of the base here. They have a house in Copper Mountain.”

Jamie couldn’t imagine that kind of marriage working, but then again, she hadn’t been able to get a successful relationship together. What did she know?

She adjusted her seat on the cafeteria bench, the sound of conversation swirling around her.

“Then there’s Tucker. Commander Newman. You met him, right?”

“Uh-huh.” Jamie shoved in another bite of food.

“His wife is Stevie, a US marshal around these parts. Good folks, all of them. And trust me, I’d know. I flew prisoner transports for the Feds for years. Ran into Stevie a time or two before she settled down with Tuck.”

Jamie nodded, like she had a clue what this guy was talking about.

“That guy talkin’ to Tucker now? That’s Mitch.”

Jamie glanced over. The men sat with two women, one of whom was pregnant.

“Mitch is the hotshot boss.”

“Right.” Jamie nodded. “I saw them all running up the road to the base earlier.”

“Gotta get that PT in.” Neil nodded.

Jamie moved a meatball around in her bowl. She was stuffed, but it was so good. And she might need the calories for whatever happened next. Like carbo-loading before a marathon.

As if she’d ever run one.

“Anyway, the wife has a migraine. I should take her a plate.” Neil eased up from the bench across from her, and she heard his knee pop. “We live in one of the trailers off the side of the men’s cabin if you wanna come by tomorrow and say howdy. I’m sure she’d like to meet you.”

“Thanks, Neil. I’d like that.”

The aging rocker guy took his plate and wandered off as well. She let her gaze sweep the room. A bearded man, the huge one—Grizz—sat by himself at one end of a table. Four guys sat with Sanchez like they were her designated bodyguards. Mack, the youngest one, with dark features and long hair pulled back in a tiny ponytail, was entertaining them with a story.

There seemed to be some kind of great divide between the table where Orion and Vince sat and the other side of the aisle, where Tori talked to Cadee. JoJo and Raine sat near each other, both reading worn paperback books. Logan fit in here, among these people who risked their lives every day to beat back the wildfires each season brought.

Seemed like it got worse every year, at least according to the news.

Jamie was glad she’d had the chance to thank Logan for caring enough to come here to try and find her. She could hardly believe he’d felt strongly enough about her to leave Montana and move to this place. Seemed like it was the edge of nowhere.

Or she would’ve thought so if it weren’t for the warmth in this room. The camaraderie and family rivalry.

She’d never fit in anywhere the way he fit in here, sandwiched in next to Orion and down from Grizz. He had a solid family at home, one connected to this base through his brother’s relationship with Tori’s sister Penny, Jamie was pretty sure—she’d seen the photo on the girls’ fridge. Now he had another family here with these people who obviously cared about him.

She had her mom, currently succeeding at rehab.

Her brother, wherever he was.

A job she loved.

But she didn’t have a family. Not really.

Her cell phone started to ring. She saw it was Samuel and answered it. “Winters.”

“Is everything really okay?”

“Worried about your bottom line again?” She tried to play it off. Right now, the melancholy feeling seemed to seep into her skin. Surrounded by friendship and yet not part of it. Uninvited. But she didn’t need it, did she?

It wasn’t like she was staying.

“You know I care more about you than the company. Even if you don’t think you are the company.”

Jamie wasn’t going to argue that point. “Everything okay with that?”

He said, “I turned on the software and tracked your ring. You said you slipped it in your brother’s pocket?”

“Which means there’s a possibility it fell out.” But it was the best she’d been able to do at the time.

“It’s pinging live at the compound. Hasn’t moved.”

Either her brother was still there or just the jacket was. “Did you get the files I sent over?”

“I’m having accounting look over all the financials. We’ll figure out where they transferred the money to.”

“And the rest?” She’d sent over the contents of the entire network. “I’d like to know if there are any indications what their plan might be. Tristan seemed to think they were up to something or involved in something.”

At face value, she’d have assumed them to be part of a drug operation or domestic terror group. But what did she know? She wasn’t close to being like these people. She wasn’t a federal agent or hero firefighter. Jamie was just good at math and had a knack for computers.

Talk about in over her head.

“I’ll call when I have something.”

“Thanks, Samuel.” She hung up, aware of someone standing across the table.

“Sorry.” Logan hesitated. “Didn’t realize you were on the phone.”

“Just talking to a colleague of mine.” She set the phone face down by her bowl and finished her glass of water. “They have access to the tracker technology. Apparently, Tristan hasn’t left the compound.” She bit her lip.

She’d left her brother there.

Logan sat. “You’re not going out there. A storm is coming in, and there are supposed to be high winds tonight. No one is leaving base camp.”

“So I have to pretend he’s not in trouble, even though it’s possible he’s being tortured for information?”

Logan glanced over. “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. They probably just shot him for betraying them.”

“We have no idea who those people are. And we’re not cops, so it’s not like it’s on us to investigate them. We both have jobs to do.”

Just because she didn’t like what he said, didn’t mean he was wrong. The chalkboard on the wall said HIGH WINDS. The math beside it looked like miles per hour.

Which was when she remembered the numbers on the map in the compound.

“What?”

She must’ve made a sound.

Jamie got up, waving him off. She went to the wall where someone had pinned a map of Alaska just slightly above her eye level. Someone taller, who didn’t need to reach the way she did with the pen she found.

Jamie wrote the numbers from memory, then marked the spots on the map that had been indicated. Not that she knew what any of it meant. Coordinates? No, not enough digits. If they had a letter at the beginning and end, they might be airplane tail numbers.

She had no ideas, only guesses.

From behind, she heard someone say, “She some kind of genius or something?”

Someone else said, “Shut up, Vince.”

Logan eased up beside her. “Is this from the map at the compound?”

Jamie nodded. “I have no idea what it means though.” She turned to find everyone crowded around her. Great, they were all staring now. Looking at her like she was some kind of freak show exhibition. “I should go.”

She squeezed between Jade and Tori and grabbed her things.

Logan met her at the door. “I’ll walk you. There are wild animals out, so it’s best not to go off by yourself.”

She nodded, sniffing back the burn of tears in her eyes. She could present to the board of directors of her company without getting nervous. In front of a crowd of heroes and federal bigshots, she crumbled like this was her first science fair.

Her phone chimed and she looked at the screen.

Logan held the door open. “Another work thing you need to respond to?”

“No, just a dip in our stock price.”

The door never closed.

She turned to find him staring at her. Logan moved far enough to allow the door to click shut. “Jamie, what do you do for a living?”

“I told you I work in finance.” And that was all there was to it.

“I know what you said.” He touched her shoulder, and she turned to face him. “I’m getting the feeling that even though we were together for months, I don’t know all that much about you.”

Telling him wasn’t going to make things better.

Not after…

No, he didn’t want to know. Even if he thought she should tell him.

Jamie set off walking. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not a hero. I’m just me.”