MATT’S HAND SQUEEZED her arm, pinching the skin and bruising the flesh. As he dragged her toward his truck, she fumbled inside her bag. But she felt only the leather of her wallet, the plastic of a makeup container, the rustle of a crumpled receipt...
She struggled against his hold, finally managing to pull free. Or maybe he got sick of holding her. He slammed her back against the side of his pickup box. She glanced up at him and stared down the barrel of her own gun.
“Looking for this?” he asked her.
He must have grabbed it out of her purse when he’d come up behind her in the bathroom. She’d been so focused on finding Braden she hadn’t realized he’d reached inside her bag and stolen her weapon.
Braden...
Was he just playing dead like she’d wanted him to? Or was it for real now?
Matt had hit him with a crowbar. She was surprised it hadn’t killed him instantly. But then he was Braden; he had a hard head.
“You’re going to shoot me?” she asked. “Is that how you plan to kill me?”
He sighed—then coughed on the smoke that filled the alley. “No. I didn’t plan to kill anyone. I didn’t even know anybody would be camping when I set that first fire. What the hell were Boy Scouts doing out in the woods so early in the spring?”
She’d grown up in Washington, where they’d camped year-round. But she knew Michigan winters were frigidly cold and long, and that the winter weather usually infringed on spring.
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice growing raspy as the smoke billowed around them. The burning building creaked as it threatened to collapse.
Braden was too close to it; it would definitely fall on him.
She tried to step back, but she was trapped between Matt and the truck. “What about Avery Kincaid?” she asked. “You tried to kill her.”
He shook his head. “I just wanted to scare her. But then she made me mad...” Because she hadn’t given him the attention he’d craved. She’d done her special feature about Dawson instead of the Northern Lakes arsons.
“Did Cody Mallehan make you mad, too?” she asked.
“Stanley told me that Cody took the last spot on the Hotshot team—that spot should have been mine.” He sounded like a spoiled kid denied a place on the basketball team.
“Is that why you caused his accidents?” she asked.
His brow furrowed. “What accidents?” he asked. “I’d heard he wasn’t going to stick around, anyway. He was going to take a job for your dad—smoke jumping.”
“Then why did you burn down the boardinghouse?”
“That was to scare Stanley,” Matt said. “He started asking me questions. I think he was figuring it out.”
So Stanley hadn’t been involved. But he had suspected.
“Hey!” someone shouted. “You need to get the hell out of this alley. The building’s about to collapse.”
She turned toward the end of the alley where a firefighter stood. Even beneath his mask, she could see the bushy beard. Ethan.
Matt swung the gun toward him, then back at Sam. Then finally he pressed it against his own head. Tears streamed from his eyes as he stared down at her. “It’s over, huh?”
She shook her head. “No, Matt, it doesn’t have to be over.”
“I hurt Stanley and Braden. If you arrest me, I’m going to go to jail for a long time—maybe the rest of my life.” He shook his head now. “I can’t handle that.”
But before he could squeeze the trigger, a big hand locked over his. Braden had his other arm wrapped around Matt’s neck. Blood still oozing from the wound on his head, he struggled with the younger man. He had to be weak from his injury.
“Get out of here!” he shouted at her.
She was frozen in place—until someone grabbed her. Ethan threw her over his shoulder and headed for the opening to the alley. For such a big man, he moved quickly.
Through the smoke, she could see Matt and Braden weren’t moving. They were locked in battle over her gun—both their arms stretched out and straining. Then the smoke thickened, and she couldn’t see anything but the glow of the fire as it grew.
The building creaked and moaned, and the flames roared. But still she heard the gunshot. Ethan lowered her to the sidewalk and someone pressed an oxygen mask over her face. Over the mask she stared into Owen’s face. He looked as scared and sick as she felt.
She struggled and dragged the mask down. “Get in there!” she shouted. “Please, save him!”
But she wasn’t certain it would be possible to save him. There was more danger in that alley than bullets. With a whoosh of air, the building collapsed—dissolving into a pile of flames and smoke that filled the alley.
There was no escape.
* * *
THE FIRE WAS bigger than Braden had predicted. It was hotter. All-consuming. He could smell flesh burning. It was probably his. Or Matt’s...
The kid lay somewhere in the alley, burning debris covering him. Like it covered Braden.
He couldn’t breathe through the thick smoke. There was no air. Only the heat and the pain.
He wasn’t going out like this—wasn’t dying in some damn alley. Wasn’t dying without telling Sam that he’d fallen for her...
Determination coursed through Braden. With a loud groan, he shrugged off the burning debris and lurched to his feet. He kicked around the rest of the debris, looking for Matt. He found him beneath a pile of bricks and a burning board. The flesh that burned was Braden’s as he gripped the hot wood and pulled it from Matt. The kid was unconscious.
Maybe dead...
They would both be dead if Braden didn’t get the hell out of the alley. But he couldn’t tell which way led to the street. He couldn’t see anything but smoke and flames.
Choking, lungs burning, he leaned down and lifted Matt onto his shoulders. Taking a chance, he headed out—or so he hoped.
Dodging burning debris and pillars of smoke, he wasn’t sure if he’d make it, until the smoke finally eased and he stepped in the space between the buildings and stumbled onto the street.
Finally his legs gave way, and he dropped to his knees on the concrete. He couldn’t go any farther. The buildings rumbled behind him—like the Filling Station had rumbled before it had collapsed.
Those buildings were about to collapse, too. Braden doubted he could move fast enough to escape them. But then he didn’t have to, as his team rushed forward. They helped him to his feet, helped him with Matt.
“Sam...” The smoke had burned his throat so that he could barely speak. “Sam...”
“Sam’s okay,” Ethan said as he helped Braden toward the EMT van parked at the curb. “She’s safe.”
Then he saw her, sitting in the back of the vehicle. As Ethan brought him closer, she jumped up and rushed forward. Her beautiful face was smeared with soot, making her blue eyes glisten even more brightly.
She stopped before she reached him and drew back her hands, as if afraid to touch him. “Are—are you okay?” she asked.
He nodded. But he wasn’t—because he saw something on her face he’d never seen before. He saw fear.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“What about Matt?” Wyatt asked the question as he joined them by the EMT van.
Braden gestured behind him, and noticed the blood oozing from his own charred-looking hands. He’d been burned, hurt badly, but it wasn’t the fire that had done it to him. Or even Matthew Hamilton...
Wyatt crouched next to his almost brother-in-law who lay on the sidewalk, Owen leaning over him. Treating him. Hopefully he would be all right.
No, Matt hadn’t hurt Braden. Matt had tried to hurt himself. He’d wanted to shoot himself in the head but Braden had wrested the gun from him.
It had gone off. But neither Matt nor Braden had been shot. The building had collapsed on top of them instead. Despite all that flaming debris, it was Sam who’d burned him.
And now she stepped back again, as if she were about to turn and run away from him. She hadn’t been scared of what might’ve happened to him. She was scared of him. Maybe she’d begun to fall for him, too.
But it didn’t even matter to her. All that mattered was her career. She moved toward the sidewalk—toward Matt as he began to cough and sputter. He didn’t doubt she would get her confession and close her case.
And leave...
Braden should have known better than to fall for her. She’d warned him over and over that she was only in Northern Lakes to do her job. And now her job was done.