“If we continue the series, there’s a rule.”

“Of course there is.”

“If I sleep with a guy, I don’t sleep with other guys, or sleep with that guy if he’s banging anyone else. If either of us decide someone else looks good, that’s fine. Series over. That one’s firm. No exceptions.”

“That’s fair. One question. Why would I want anybody else when I get to take showers with you?”

“Because people tend to want what they don’t have.”

“I like what I’ve got.” He gave her an easy squeeze. “Ergo, I’m happy to abide by your rule on this matter.”

“Ergo.” She chuckled, closed her eyes. “You’re something else, Gulliver.”

Right then, tucked up with Rowan in bed, an owl hooting dourly in the night and the moon shafting through the window, Gull figured he was exactly who, and where, he wanted to be.

It took less time to burn a body than a forest. An uglier business, but quicker. Still, collateral damage couldn’t be avoided, and probably served as an advantage. She didn’t weigh much, considering, so carrying her up the trail, through the lodgepole pines, wasn’t as hard as it might have been.

The shimmer of moonlight helped light the way—like a sign—and the music of night creatures soothed.

The trail forked, steepened, but the climb wasn’t altogether unpleasant in the cool, pine-scented air.

Better not to think of the unpleasant, of the horror. Better to think of moonlight and cool air and night birds.

In the distance, a coyote called out, high and bright. A wild sound, a hungry sound. Burning her would be humane. Better than leaving her for the animals.

They’d probably come far enough.

The task didn’t take much effort or require too many tools. Just hacking away some dried brush and twigs, soaking them, her clothes. Her.

Don’t think.

Soaking it all with gas from the spare can.

Try not to look at her face, try not to think of what she’d said and done. What had happened. Stick to what had to be done now.

Light the fire. Feel the heat. See the color and shape. Hear the crackle and snap. Then the whoosh of air and flame as that fire began to breathe.

A thing of beauty. Dazzling, dangerous, destructive.

So beautiful and fierce, and personal, when started with your own hands. Never realized, never knew.

It would purge. Erase her. Send her to hell. She belonged there. The animals wouldn’t get her, tear at her as the dogs had torn at Jezebel. But she’d earned hell.

No more harm, no more threat. No more. In the fire, she would cease to be.

Watching it take her brought a horrible thrill, a bright tingle of unexpected excitement. Power tasted. No tears, no regrets—not anymore.

That thrill, and the rising voice of the fire, followed down the trail while smoke began to climb toward the shimmering moon.

14

For the second time Rowan woke curled up to Gull with her head on his shoulder. This time she wondered how the hell he could sleep with her weight pressing on him.

Then she wondered, since she was shoehorned into the narrow bed with him, why the hell she wasn’t taking advantage of it. She bit his earlobe as her hand trailed down his chest. As she’d expected, she found him already primed.

“I’d’ve put money on it,” she murmured.

“I like your hand on it better.”

“Now this...” She swung a leg over him, taking him in slowly. Slowly until she sheathed him in the warm and the wet. “This is what I call efficient.”

Thinking there was no finer way to greet the morning, he got a firm grip on her hips. “A plus.”

When she bowed back, the sun slanting light and shadow over her body, casting diamonds through her crown of hair, a snippet of Tennyson flitted through his mind.

A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, and most divinely fair.

She was that, in that moment, and in that moment took command of his romantic heart.

His grip gentled to a caress. And she began to move, undulating over him in a slow, fluid rhythm. Sensation spooled through him, unwinding a lovely, lazy delight.

Her eyes closed, her hands stroked up her own body, inciting them both.

Through the bars of light, the building beauty, he reached for her. He thought they could drift like this, leisurely awakening body, blood, heart, forever.

The siren screamed.

“Shit!” Her eyes popped open.

“Give me a f**king break.” He held on to her for one frustrating moment, then they broke apart to scramble for clothes.

“You did this,” she accused him. “You called it last night with that damn efficiency crack.”

“Ten minutes more, it would’ve been worth it.”

Instead, in ten minutes they suited up in the ready room.

“Spotted smoke at first light.” L.B. gave the outline. “Lolo National Forest, between Grave Creek and Lolo Pass. It’s fully active on the south slope above Lolo Creek. Conditions dry. Rowan, I want you in as fire boss; Gibbons, you’re on the line.”

The ground thundered as the tanker began to roll with the first load of mud.

The minute she boarded the jump ship, Rowan pulled out the egg sandwich and Coke she’d stuck in pockets. She ate and drank while she coordinated with the pilot, the spotter.

“There she is.” She pressed her face to the window. “And, damn, she’s frisky this morning.”

A hundred acres, maybe a hundred and twenty, she estimated, already fully active in some of the most primitive and pristine areas of Lolo. Lewis and Clark had traveled there, and now the fire wanted it for breakfast.

Here we come, she thought, and guarded her reserves as wind rushed in through the open door.

She felt fresh and fueled and ready—and couldn’t deny the ride down was beautiful. She checked on Gull, shot him a huge grin. “It’s not sex, but it doesn’t suck,” she shouted.

She heard his laugh, understood exactly what ran through him. It ran through her, free and strong into the sky, the smoke, and down to the soft landing on a sweet little meadow.

Once the unit and the paracargo hit the ground, she strategized with Gibbons. She decided to do a recon up the right flank while the crew headed in to start the line.

She traveled at a trot, gauging the area, the wind, and keeping twenty yards off the flank as the fire burned hot. She heard the head calling in that grumbling, greedy roar as it tossed spot fires into the unburned majesty of forest.