Page 21 of Burning Justice (Chasing Fire: Alaska #6)

Eleven

“You’re serious? He kissed you!” JoJo practically bounced up and down on the end of Maria’s bed. “That’s great!”

“I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use.” Monumental. Earth-shattering, maybe? “I need to get dressed, and you need to go train.” She used her good hand to toss the sweater at JoJo.

“Later, I want all the details.”

Maria nodded. JoJo helped her thread her hand through the sleeve and buttoned it for her. “Help me tie my shoes?”

“Of course, girl. No one is gonna leave you hanging.” JoJo sat cross-legged in front of her and laced up her sneakers. “I know you’re the lone wolf and all…”

“You know that correlating people and wolves doesn’t always work,” Maria pointed out.

“Except when it does. Like you, Ms. Lone Wolf. But you have a pack, in case you didn’t notice.”

Maria would’ve said the Trouble Boys were family, but JoJo was talking about all the hotshots and smokejumpers. “I know. Dani, Grizz, Crew, Tristan, and Jamie are gonna meet me in the mess hall so we can figure out what we know. What we need to find out.”

“And you’ll tell Dani or Jamie if you need help with anything…personal? It won’t be easy trying to do it one-handed.”

“I’ll ask for help.” As much as it might irk her to do that.

“Speaking of…”

Maria frowned. “What now?”

JoJo chuckled. “I guess you’re feeling pretty off-kilter since that man kissed all the reason out of your brain last night.”

“You make it sound salacious. It was sweet.” In a very Kane kind of way.

“Mmm. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Brooding has hidden depths we love in all honorable alpha males. It’s good to know he’s not messing around.”

He definitely hadn’t been messing around. “Just tell me what you were gonna say.”

She didn’t want to get distracted with thoughts about Kane.

That happened plenty, including when she was supposed to have been trying to sleep last night.

The man had driven her back to base camp, held her hand while he walked her to the cabin, and kissed her under the eave.

Short and sweet, but it had reminded her of that drag-me-across-the-console, lay-one-on-me-like-you-mean-it make-out session in the car. Talk about hot and bothered.

She was going to blame it on the two broken fingers.

Maybe she had a fever.

JoJo said, “Jade told me Crispin is back from one of his super-secret missions. He might want to help out if y’all are going to save the world. I guess it’s still his thing now, like it was in Montana.” She skimmed her gaze over Maria’s hair. “Want a braid?”

“Do it fast.” Maria turned around, one knee bent on the bed.

“Shame we don’t have time for two full Viking war braids, because you’d look like one of those tough Hispanic MMA fighters. But we’ll make do with the time we have.” JoJo fixed her hair, then grabbed her things and headed out to join the smokejumpers.

Maria called out “Thanks!” a second before the front door slammed, shaking the cabin.

She got her laptop in her backpack all zipped up and swung it over her good shoulder.

Outside, the sky had cleared, but she could see the haze of smoke in the sky.

Lightning from last night’s storm had caused a few new wildfires to spring up, but the Bureau of Land Management had crews out working those.

Their hotshots would join them this morning.

The smokejumpers were all in front of the hangar, across the runway.

She wasn’t going to look for Kane. He needed to do his job without worrying about her, and she had things to do herself.

He had been right that it was better to wait until this situation was over, but knowing he’d been harboring the same feelings for her that she had for him gave her enough peace to keep moving forward.

Not just that, but she’d broken down and gotten all emotional about what had happened, bleeding it off like pressure-cooker steam. He hadn’t freaked out and shut down or tried to fix it. He’d held her. Been there for her with that steady strength.

That was why she’d kissed him.

Because he’d been there for her since they met, sticking with her through it every day. On mission with her. For the first time, she’d felt like part of a team, even if the Trouble Boys were their own group and she was the one they were protecting.

The shift last night had been seismic in proportions. Maybe it had started with Hammer’s words, which she was going to hold close and cherish. Then Kane had drawn a dividing line between the two of them and Hammer and Saxon.

Because what she and Kane had was different from what she had with any of the others. Now they both knew it. They’d discovered why when she’d touched her lips to his and the fire nearly consumed them both.

“Great situational awareness.”

She took a step and nearly fell down the porch steps, turned at the same time and spotted a dark-haired man on the chair by the door, an open Bible on his lap. “Crispin. You nearly scared me to death.”

He set the Bible aside and stood. “Sorry. You were pretty deep in thought.”

“I’m headed to the mess hall for a meeting. Are you in?” She figured he knew enough about what was going on that she didn’t need to explain.

“Actually, I’m your bodyguard.”

Maria frowned.

“He isn’t paying me.” Crispin lifted a hand, his expression soft, though the man could be tough—even scary—when he wanted to be. He had that edge to him that only disappeared when Jade was around. “And he didn’t ask. I volunteered.”

Fine. “Thanks.”

They headed across the runway to the mess hall, where the others were already gathered. Maria handed Dani her laptop and looked around. “Where’s Tristan?”

Dani shrugged. “Saw him talking to Raine between the hangar and this building. Neither of them looked happy.”

Jamie said, “She’s been asking questions about Tristan, like she’s digging for information and trying to be sly about it.”

“Information about what?”

“I have no idea, and I’m due back at the hospital soon. Logan has more tests this morning.” Jamie dragged over Maria’s laptop and started typing. “Did you find anything on her grandfather’s hard drive?”

Maria shook her head. “I couldn’t go through every document, but he seems clean. It was just a lot of invoices and shipping notices for barrels of gasoline. Though, I’m not sure why he’d need so much.”

“Supplying communities up here with gas for generators. Plus, some planes use regular gas.”

“Which fits with what we were thinking. That he’s either innocent or he’s removed enough he can deny all knowledge of their activities because we have nothing .”

Grizz lowered his coffee mug. “Doesn’t mean he’s innocent. But I guess that’s up to Rio to dig out. He’s the one who questioned the guy and released him.”

“But we don’t think he’s clean, right?” Dani glanced around. “I’ve been looking into Raine’s family”—she winced—“which sounds bad, but it wasn’t pointless, because I found out something interesting.”

“Is it going to help us find Elias Redding and that canister?” Maria sat on the table, her feet on the bench seat.

Dani scrunched up her nose. “Unfortunately, it might.” She paced a little, as if she needed to move to keep the tension in her from building too high. “Her father is Brian Howards.”

Crew made a noise low in his throat. “Say that again.”

Dani winced. “He was the leader of the militia group that you ran into first. The group that Crew infiltrated.” She glanced at Jamie, who looked a little shell-shocked.

“But it doesn’t seem like they had much of a relationship.

He wasn’t a good guy. In and out of jail for stretches.

She lived with her mother and went to school in Anchorage. ”

“He was still her dad.” Maria couldn’t imagine finding out someone you knew had gone up against your father and considered him the enemy. Raine would have considered herself stained by her dad’s actions, even if they weren’t close.

Guilty by association.

“That’s why she said she was hiding here.” Like making amends—for who her father was. Maria could certainly understand that.

“We killed him,” Jamie said quietly. “He came into the room that day when we were trying to escape. Logan, Tristan, and I were in the room. He was at the door.”

Crew said, “I wasn’t there.”

“Tristan shot him.”

Maria looked at the door. “Why did you say Raine wanted to talk to Tristan?”

Jamie stood abruptly, almost falling. “Maybe she knows he’s the one who killed her dad.”

Crew ran to the door and hauled it open right as a gunshot sounded from outside.

Kane spun around and started running, even with all the gear on—the flight suit and the helmet with the wire plate to keep his face from getting scratched up by trees. He tore the helmet off as he raced toward the sound of the gunshot.

People poured out of the mess hall.

Kane raised a hand. “Stay back!” He stopped at the corner of the hangar building and looked around.

Tristan had Raine pinned up against the outside wall of the hangar, a thunderous expression on his face. She stared up at him, boxed in, angry beyond all measure. But which one of them had tried to shoot the other?

“Tris!”

The guy didn’t move.

As Kane closed in on them, he saw Tristan had hold of Raine’s wrist. She held the gun, and with Tristan pinning her where she was, the gun was pointed up in the air.

“Give me the weapon.” At this point, it didn’t matter who had control of it. Kane reached over and put his hand around the gun. “Both of you let go.”

“What’s going on?” Tucker strode over, his expression pinched. “Who fired that weapon?”

Kane had control of it now. A revolver, and it was old. He pushed the cylinder to the side and tipped the rounds onto the ground.

Tristan let go of Raine and stepped back. “I did.”

She flinched. Surprise flashed across her face.

“Is that what happened?” Tucker asked.

“I fired the weapon.” Tristan turned to the commander. “It was my fault.”

Kane watched Raine react to Tristan’s words.

“Come with me.” Tucker walked away, and Tristan went with him. Crew jogged after them.