White Heat Read online

  “Yeah.” There weren’t many “fire roads” in this part of Mexico; there weren’t a lot of roads, period, but there were plenty of little known places where people might want to disappear. The Barranca del Cobre was one of those places. As the road all but disappeared, she said a silent thanks for the way the Jeep could get over just about anything, including all the rocks and branches blocking their way. Of course the shocks were nothing to write home about, and she thought the fillings in her teeth might just rattle right out of her head, but she had to get him there before this thing got worse.

  “How many men are out here?”

  “I’m not sure.” She maneuvered around a fallen tree and ended up on her two side wheels for a terminally long second. She was going to need a bottle of aspirin after this drive.

  “Do you know how many acres have burned?”

  “I know nothing, I’m sorry. I fly in a doctor every two weeks, alternating a dentist in every once in a while to get the locals some desperately needed health care, that’s all.” Which she did for other places too, wherever Sam sent her, but San Puebla was her favorite, and when she’d heard about the fire late last night, she’d insisted on flying in their “specialist” herself. “I also fly in supplies and highfalutin fishermen willing to pay the locals for the hot spots, people guaranteed to drop their money in the bar. This fire thing is new for me.”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  “We’ve never had a fire out this way, so I have no idea, though I imagine no one. You’ll be lucky to have the proper equipment, much less enough people. The only reason you’re here is because you volunteered through Hope International, and because you supposedly have some experience directing a fire crew—”

  “I didn’t.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t volunteer. My brother gave them my name.”

  She risked taking her eyes off the road again to stare into his tense, rugged features—and because she did, they hit a deep pothole blindsided.

  As she went airborne, Griffin gripped the dash with his right hand and thrust his left arm across her body while swearing impressively. With only the lap belt for protection, Lyndie slammed into the hard sinew of his forearm, wincing in anticipation of breaking his limb between her body and the steering wheel, but thankfully he was rock solid and held her back against the seat. No steering wheel involved.

  Without his arm squashing into her breasts, holding her back as the shoulder harness would have if there’d been one, she might have been hit face-first into the steering wheel herself. Arms tight, she held on to it for dear life and gritted her teeth, calling herself every kind of fool until he dropped his arm away from her. “Thank you,” she said from between her teeth, trying not to notice her asthma was kicking in right on schedule.

  “Maybe I should drive,” he said.

  “I’m fine.” Stewing, she drove in silence for a moment through the smoke, the flames in plain view now on their left. She hated to stew, but unfortunately, she was good at it. Then they came around a turn and into view of a ranch, and Griffin let out a low curse. Lyndie’s breath caught, too.

  The fields were on fire. Directly behind the hilly fields was the first higher peak. Because it was entirely engulfed in smoke, she couldn’t see how far up the flames had raged, but she had no problem seeing the ten-foot walls of flames on their left, at roadside.

  “Careful here,” Griffin said grimly, eyeing the hot flames so close. “A sudden sharp blast of wind will take them right over the top of us.”

  Terrific. Resisting the urge to duck, she drove on. She knew from Tom that the “fire central” was back here, behind this ranch, somewhere amidst all the flames, so she turned at the crossroad and hoped she could find it. “This is one of those days where I think a desk job wouldn’t be so bad.”

  Her passenger let out a choked sound that might have been a laugh, which had her risking a glance at him. “People who volunteer don’t show up all the time,” she said. “Why did you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  He was right, it didn’t, not at the moment. All that mattered was that he’d come, experience and all, to help get this wildfire under control. She knew he would do his best or die trying, because whether she liked him or not, he’d once been a hotshot. Helping others was ingrained.

  Or so she hoped.

  A hot wind was a constant now, and the thick ash and smoke combined to block out the sun but trapped the heat. Her chest tightened uncomfortably. The situation seemed far more desperate than she had imagined.

  She eyed the way the scorching wind fueled the flames. “I guess the weather is pretty crucial here. You have one of those fancy little weather kits on you?”

  No response from the firefighter, so she dared another quick peek. Ah, hell, he didn’t look so good again.

  Well, he could get sick all he wanted now, this wasn’t her Jeep. It was no less than Tom deserved for sticking her here with him alone.

  But in that moment, she lost a good amount of her confidence in him, and in their combined ability to be any help at all.

  4

  Lyndie navigated the narrow rutted driveway that wound past the charred ranch house and barn, around the base of a low hill. She knew from Tom that no one had died here last night when the house had gone down, but it was a devastating loss for the family.

  She made the last turn and stopped the Jeep in a natural clearing where they had a clear view down to San Puebla. They had a long afternoon and evening ahead of them, keeping the flames from making this last leap down the hill to town.

  There were a handful of guys sprawled out on the ground in an already burned-out area. A few appeared to be napping, some just sitting quietly or eating army rations, all with dirty faces and clothing, looking hot and exhausted.

  Lyndie turned off the Jeep and got out. “Let’s go, Ace.”

  Griffin didn’t move.

  She bent down and retied her boots, but when she straightened, squinting in the gusty, hot wind, her skin tight and feeling sunburned from the heat of the flames, Griffin still sat in the Jeep. “It’s going to be hard to work from there,” she said.

  With a face that might as well have been carved from granite, he got out of the Jeep. Head tipped back, he studied the sky, or what there was to see of it. Then he turned into the wind, his T-shirt plastered to his chest. “Weather sucks.”

  “It’s what we’ve got.”

  He looked at her, still pale. “It’s extremely dangerous.”

  “I imagine it is.” Something was going on here, something she didn’t quite get—other than that he didn’t want to do this. She got that part loud and clear.

  But why? “Look, you seem…sick. Maybe I should radio Tom—”

  “No.” Reaching into his pack, he pulled out a Nomex firefighter’s shirt. It was yellow and long-sleeved, and he shrugged into it, covering up what she had to admit was a drool-inducing chest and strong shoulders. He buttoned up, and when she lifted her gaze up to his, his was lit with the knowledge that she’d been looking him over. Unashamed, she lifted her chin, but instead of saying a word, he simply started walking toward the men, two of whom she recognized.

  Jose ran a horse ranch on the other side of San Puebla with his family, and Hector worked at the farmers’ market in town. They introduced her to the others, all of whom worked in or around Copper Canyon and did indeed have some limited fire experience.

  She spoke in Spanish, in which she was fluent, introducing them to Griffin. That they were ecstatic over his help didn’t need translation.

  “There’s no real leader here,” she explained to Griffin after she got the terrifying scoop. “Jose says that as a result, there’s been little progress in containing it. It’s got three ranches in its grip right now, and the hill behind us. If it goes north, it claims the peaks, and he says they’ll never catch it. If it goes south, it makes its way right through the town. At the moment it’s poised to do both.”

  Griffin didn’t respond