Page 3 of Burning Justice (Chasing Fire: Alaska #6)

Two

Maria spun around in her crouch, wobbled, and landed on her butt in the dirt. “What? He said land mine .”

Saxon turned that dark stare on her. When he wanted to be, he could be scary, but the guy was a teddy bear.

Earlier in the season, they’d come across an evacuating family with a deaf child, and he’d spent an hour hiking alongside the kid, conversing in sign language until the kid had snorted because he was laughing so hard at Saxon’s jokes.

Over by the trees, Mitch called out, “Everyone good?”

They each sounded off. Raine’s voice wavered, and both Hammer and Mack turned to face her—but Maria couldn’t hear what they were saying.

Mitch yelled, “No one moves until we figure this out.”

Maria looked from him to Saxon, then Kane, who had crouched closer to her. “I feel like I should check under my feet and around me. Just to make sure.”

“Quicker to toss rocks and set them all off.” Saxon turned to face up the trail, eyeing the ground between him and Raine. He yelled, “I told you we should get a K-9!”

Grizz looked as unhappy as he normally did, but the typical grumpy expression on his face had softened a lot since he’d met Dani. Right now? The mountain man surveyed the area around them between the trail and the two fields of tall spruce.

Maria checked the dirt around her. “I don’t think there are any land mines on the trail. We would’ve hit one before now.”

She was ready to thank God that they hadn’t but wasn’t sure if she wanted to open that can of worms. Kane believed in God and said he trusted Him.

Even after everything he’d been through, he held tight to his faith.

It impressed her enough she’d considered it, purely because by all measures, he should’ve quit trusting God by now. But he hadn’t.

He still believed.

“I think Mack alerted us to something serious.” Kane straightened to standing. “And it would’ve killed us if not for him throwing that rock.”

Maria did the same, straightening beside him. Wanting to grab his hand so she could steady herself, but she couldn’t rely on him any more than she already did. Kane Foster was more dangerous than a land mine any day.

She said, “Someone put a boundary around this location to keep people out. That means he’s here. He has to be. Otherwise, why go to the trouble of making sure no one gets near it?”

Her father was here.

Kane grabbed her arm, and she realized she’d started moving. Going to her dad so she could have him back in her life. Finally, after so long.

“Let me go. He’s here.” She tried to tug her arm from his grasp.

He wasn’t hurting her, but he also wasn’t going to let go. “If he’s in there, then getting killed because you made a run for it through a minefield isn’t the ending either of you wants.”

“There might’ve only been one. Who would go to the trouble of burying land mines all over this place?” She spread her arm, encompassing the trailhead where Mack had stood up and sweeping to the right. All the way past where Mitch was…“What is he doing?”

Their team leader swung his axe at a tree.

“His job?”

She frowned at Kane, about to speak when another explosion rocked the ground farther down the tree line.

Mitch stopped what he was doing. “Thanks, Mack. That was helpful.”

Hammer dragged the kid back into a crouch. “Quit throwing stuff.”

Maria heard Mack reply, but only caught “…see if there were any other…”

She figured he was trying to ascertain the extent of the problem.

Mitch went back to work on the tree, swinging the axe over and over.

“My dad could be in there.” Maria clenched her fists by her sides. “He could be dying, and we’re standing here.”

The tree creaked and groaned, listing toward the trail. It toppled over and hit the ground, creating a single line between the trail and the tree line.

Nothing exploded.

“Sanchez—”

Whatever Kane wanted to say, she wasn’t waiting around to hear it. Maria bolted down the trail, leapfrogged over Saxon, and raced for Hammer.

Someone yelled, “Get her!”

Hammer jumped up, reaching for her.

Maria leaped off the trail, out of reach, the way she’d done a hundred times in track and field. Thank you, youth sports. She landed with her toes on the fallen tree. She whirled her arms but caught her balance, then ran along the tree toward Mitch.

He moved to block her path.

When Maria slid off the end, he caught her. “Stop.”

She caught him right back, clasping his elbows. “I have to know if he’s in there.”

“Even if it gets you or someone else killed?”

She looked him in the eyes. “I have to know.”

“I know you do.” He had an almost sad, understanding look on his face. “I know what it’s like to worry over someone and not know what happened to them. Believe me, I know. But what I don’t know is if you can follow orders when it really counts.”

“Depends who is giving them.”

“Hopefully I’ve earned that respect by now. Otherwise, we have no business being on the same team.”

Maria let go of her boss, breathing hard.

She stared through the trees and could make out a newer-looking cabin in the middle of a clearing.

Not as nice as the cabins she and the boys had constructed during the offseason.

They’d turned the Midnight Sun jump base from a derelict, forgotten military airfield that doubled as a base for the wildland firefighters—a couple of hangars and outbuildings and a stinky Quonset hut—into what it was now.

They’d spent all their pent-up winter energy fixing it up into a base for the hotshots, smokejumpers, and all the staff to live and work out of. A place they could enjoy and appreciate rather than turn up their noses at.

Maria was willing to concede that maybe Mitch had a point. They were supposed to be a team. “I worked alone for a long time.”

Sure, she’d had a handler. When she’d made a call, someone on the other end had picked up to offer support.

But at the end of the day, she’d been alone out there on missions.

She’d faced her enemy solo and tried to slip out unnoticed.

Which of course hadn’t worked the one time she actually needed it to.

Cue, disaster.

The first friendly face she’d seen had been Kane’s. He’d walked into her cell dressed in camo, with paint on his face and a dark look in his eyes. On the way out of that desert compound, the truck had been hit with an RPG. They’d escaped, but in the confusion, Kane had been captured.

Because he’d come out to save her. Risked his life so she could have hers back.

The worst part was that he was still doing it.

Mitch said, “You aren’t flying solo anymore.”

Of course, it wasn’t just the Trouble Boys who wanted to be part of her life now.

The hotshots and their smokejumper friends were all in to figure out what was going on in Alaska with all these militia guys.

Testing chemical compounds, using her father to create a substance they were going to deploy in the Midwest.

A senator had been captured in possession of one of several canisters, but that didn’t mean it was over. There was still more out there, and they had to stop this impending attack. Only, the man who had it must’ve laid low to wait out all the attention, because there had been nothing since.

No sign of him or the substance.

Or her father.

Maria bit out a single word. “Fine.”

Mitch said, “Good. Where’s your axe? We’re going to cut another tree to fall that way.” He pointed through the trees, toward the cabin. “So you can go and find your father.”

“Helping me get what I want is worse than telling me no.”

Mitch chuckled. “It’s called support. My wife said that’s what women want.”

Maria kept her expression impassive. “What women actually want is to borrow an axe and do it themselves.”

He held it out, instructing her what tree to hit at what angle so it would fall in the right place. She had plenty of frustration built up in her, and he’d already downed one tree. Maria squeezed the axe handle and put all her strength into chopping the tree down as quick as possible.

Finally, it toppled over and hit the ground.

Mitch ducked into a crouch. She did the same beside him.

When nothing exploded, Maria said, “Maybe you should stay here.”

Mitch frowned. “And why would I do that?”

“The aforementioned wife. Your kids. Pretty sure they want you to come home at the end of the season.”

“They do. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you go into this alone.”

“That’s why we’re here.” Kane hopped off the tree, a thunderous look on his face, Saxon right behind him.

Hammer had a knife out and was carving something into a tree that hadn’t been cut down.

The Trouble Boys didn’t need any enhanced interrogation techniques. They had the silent treatment down like it was an art form. Those disapproving stares.

Maria wanted to spill the rest of her secrets.

But if her father really was in that cabin, she was going to get him out. When that was done, it would only be a matter of time before this was over.

She could keep her secrets. Kane would go back to his life.

Whatever they had?

It would be over before it ever began.

Sanchez might think fear was a tool to use, but it had only ever paralyzed Kane. Sent him right back to that night when he’d been locked in his seat by that belt, listening to Ridge cry. Staring at the back of their grandpa’s head, frozen there, surrounded by darkness.

It didn’t matter what the enemy threw at him now or anytime, or what had been done to him in Delta Force training to prepare him to face missions. Nothing in his life would ever feel like that moment.

Saxon grabbed his arm. “Don’t kill her.”

Two years and she still acted like she worked alone. But then, she could’ve walked away. They had made a pact to stick together because they were brothers, and that’s what they did. She was supposed to be on board with it.

“Sanchez!”

She turned to look at him. “He’s my father.”