time they’re here.”
Braden flinched. “Not every time,” he called Gingrich out on his exaggeration.
“Maybe I should have said the fires only happen when his team is in town then,” the trooper amended.
Braden heard the insinuation.
Sam must have heard it, too, because her heavily lashed eyes narrowed. “That’s why you need extra troopers in the area,” she said. “Superintendent Zimmer and his team are in danger.”
The trooper shot Braden a resentful glare. He probably hated that Braden had called in the threat to the US Forest Service rather than the state police this time. “Are they in danger?” the trooper asked. “Or are they the danger?”
“What the hell are you implying?” Braden asked. He closed the distance between him and the trooper and stared down into the shorter man’s flushed face.
“I’m not implying anything,” the trooper said. “I’m only saying what everyone else in town has been saying...”
Dread tightened his stomach into knots. “And what’s that?” Braden demanded to know.
“That this town is a hell of a lot safer when you and your team are gone,” Gingrich said.
Since the fires had only happened when the Hotshots were in Northern Lakes, Braden found it hard to argue that point. But he didn’t think that was all Gingrich was saying.
“You called us the danger,” he pointed out. “We’re not the ones setting fires.”
The trooper raised his brow so high it disappeared beneath the brim of his hat, which he wore low, probably so Sam wouldn’t see he’d already lost his hair. And he was only Braden’s age.
In fact, they’d gone to school together. But they’d always been more rivals than friends—competing for the captain position for every team they’d played on together. Marty hadn’t taken it well when he’d lost to Braden—which had happened a lot.
Braden had foolishly thought since they were adults now, they would be able to work together to find the arsonist. He should have known better, known Marty would argue everything.
“Are you accusing me of something?” he asked.
“No accusation,” Marty said. “Just a logical conclusion. If the fires are only set when you and your team are in town, it stands to reason someone on your team is setting the fires.”
It had been a long day—so long Braden’s usually tight control slipped. Anger heated his blood and had it pumping fast and hard in his veins; he could hear the rush inside his head.
“Don’t you dare,” he warned the trooper. “Don’t you damn well dare accuse one of my team members of setting fires—not after all the times they’ve risked their lives putting them out!”
“They’re just like you,” Gingrich said with a derisive snort. “Always playing the hero. Maybe one of them—” he stared hard up at Braden, making it clear which one he thought “—is making sure he has the opportunity to act like a hero.”
A curse slipped through Braden’s lips as his temper snapped entirely. And he reached for the trooper with one hand while he pulled his other one back and fisted it. Before he could take a swing at the guy’s smug face, his elbow struck something else—someone who’d come up behind him.
And he cursed again. Sam pushed herself between him and Gingrich, shoving Braden back. “Calm down,” she yelled. And he noticed the red mark on her cheek.
He’d been worried about the wrong person hurting her. He’d thought the arsonist would, but Braden was the one who’d actually injured her. He reached for her face, but she flinched and stepped back.
What the hell had he done?
“YOU NEED TO press charges,” the trooper told Sam.
She hated being told what to do, which was another reason she never got involved with any of the alpha males she encountered in her profession. They were all too damn bossy. And hot-tempered—like Braden Zimmer.
Sure, Gingrich had been goading him. But the trooper wasn’t wrong to question the involvement of one of the Hotshots. She’d noticed, too, that the fires occurred only when they were in Northern Lakes. When they were gone, nothing happened. She doubted that was just a coincidence—but was it because they were behind it? Or because they were being targeted?
“Press charges? For an accident?” she scoffed, shaking her head. Her cheek throbbed.
But she could tell she didn’t feel as bad as Braden did. He stared at her solemnly from across the tavern. The Filling Station was just around the corner from the firehouse. It was a blue-collar bar with peanuts strewn across the floor. Braden had already apologized—profusely—and had offered to go into the firehouse to get an ice pack for her.
Trooper Gingrich had wanted to take her to the state police post so she could press charges. She’d assured them both that she was fine. Then Braden had suggested coming here—for that ice pack.
Gingrich had insisted on coming along, and he’d been so obnoxious Sam had worried he’d provoke Braden into taking another swing. So she’d told Braden to let her talk to the trooper alone. He’d reluctantly left her—to join a few guys in a back booth near the pool tables. But just moments later, a confused waitress had brought her an ice pack.
She knew who had ordered it for her. Gingrich hadn’t even offered to buy her a drink. But that was good. She didn’t want a blowhard like him interested in her.
“I’m not the one Braden wanted to hit,” she said.
“He’s a hothead.”
She would have agreed after how she’d seen him act just moments ago. But his anger had quickly evaporated. So she suspected he wasn’t really as quick-tempered as he’d briefly appeared. He was just a man who had been under a lot of pressure for a long time, and Trooper Gingrich had purposely added to Braden’s stress until it was too much for anyone to endure.
“I’ve never heard that about him,” she said. Her father had told her quite a bit about Braden Zimmer when he’d asked if she was investigating the Northern Lakes fires. Of course Mack had no problem singing the praises of the men he’d worked with; it was her praises he never sang.
“I’ve known him a long time,” Gingrich said, his puffy face flushing with anger. “We went to school together.”
She narrowed her eyes to study the trooper’s face, but the skin pulled on her swollen cheek and she flinched.
It was her fault she’d gotten hit. She knew better than to get between two angry alpha males. And if she was ever tempted to forget, she could just look at some of the scars she’d gotten for her efforts to stop her brothers from fighting. Though, like Braden, her brothers had always felt bad when she’d gotten hurt.
Gingrich didn’t feel bad—despite his goading—that she’d gotten hurt. In fact he’d been smirking right afterward, and now that smirk curled his thin lips again. “I know more about Braden Zimmer than he knows himself...”
“Really?” she prompted him. “What do you know?”
His face flushed a deeper red, and he shook his head. “Nothing to do with the fires...”
“You pretty much accused him of setting them,” she said. As a former firefighter herself, she knew how angry that would make her. Maybe she shouldn’t have tried to stop that fight. But if Braden had struck Gingrich, she had no doubt the trooper would have immediately arrested him for assaulting an officer.
Gingrich snorted. “He’s the most obvious suspect.”
She tilted