All through her training to become a firefighter, she’d heard stories about Gabe Cooper and the Bear Claws, the best Hot Shot crew in Montana. And when she’d found out she’d been assigned to them, well, nervousness didn’t even cut it. Cooper didn’t take rookies, and he didn’t take to reporters. She was both, and she’d have to work hard to prove herself.

She was ready.

She scratched at her arm beneath the brand new itchy Nomex shirt and turned her attention back to the crew leader.

Movie star handsome, with a long jaw, lean cheeks, deep set brown eyes framed by long lashes and broad shoulders hugged by a black t-shirt. She’d forgotten how the sight of a handsome, confident man could kick up her pulse.

Every line in Cooper’s body defined self-assurance. The lines that fanned from his eyes and the silver that flecked his brutally short hair spoke of his years of experience. His tires-over-gravel voice conveyed his weariness, even though it was June, fairly early in the fire season.

The topographical maps on the bulletin board behind him were veined with different colored lines, and Cooper had marked their route in black Sharpie. He traced over it for emphasis, his hand square but oddly graceful as he dragged his finger down the line. The path looked pretty darn straight, and with all the brush and gullies and boulders, that couldn’t be the easiest way.

She’d heard that about him, that he didn’t do things the easy way.

Peyton scanned his crew, most of who cast curious glances in her direction. She could learn a lot about the man by knowing his crew.

A young redheaded woman stood at Gabe’s shoulder and faced the rest. She wasn’t quite one of them, but she wasn’t in charge. Every time the young woman looked at Cooper, admiration glowed in her eyes. But Cooper didn’t appear to notice. Perhaps he was accustomed to it.

Peyton was a little surprised to see almost half of the crew was women. Five other women, mid-twenties, not unattractive, proved he had nothing against women.

The men who rounded out the crew ranged from farm boys to rock band rejects, teenagers to men near her age, some with tattoos and earrings and others with wire-rimmed glasses. All gave Cooper their full attention as he spoke. He was without question the stuff legends were made of.

Peyton had had her fill of mythical creatures.

“Any questions?” Cooper asked, looking pointedly at her, sending her nerves skittering.

When none were forthcoming, he dismissed them to get their gear, and moved through them straight toward her.

The skittering nerves started a mambo, and it took everything in her not to step back. From the corner of her eye, she saw the rest of the crew moving slowly as they gathered their gear, watching Cooper move toward her.

She reached down and hefted her pack on one shoulder, not taking her eyes from him.

“There’s been a mistake.” He flicked his eyes to the freshly stenciled name on the pocket of her fire shirt. “Michaels.” His tone had softened a bit from when he was addressing his crew, but still had a take-no-crap edge to it. “I don’t take rookies on my crew.”

She straightened. “I’m not. I mean, I am. A rookie. But I’m Peyton Michaels from Up to the Minute magazine. I’ve been assigned to your crew.”

A reporter. Gabe scowled. That explained everything but the fireshirt that bore no crew insignia. Maybe she’d borrowed it from someone to get into camp. What the hell was she talking about, though, assigned to his crew? He glanced toward the media tent. “I beg your pardon?”
She drew back at his harsh tone, but only a little. “I’m going out with the Bear Claw Hot Shots. Jen Sheridan said you were the best.”

Jen Sheridan. The name kicked him in the chest. Didn’t that just explain everything?

He studied the reporter in front of him. Her elegant features, slender nose, high cheekbones, pale skin, hinted at a privileged upbringing. Her cleanliness pegged her as a rookie. The odd thing was, she was no young girl. Her sharp eyes, the slight creases near them and also around her mouth made him think she was in her thirties. What kind of job did she think she was walking into?

“The last thing I need is some reporter following me all over the mountain asking stupid questions and getting in the way,” he said.

“I assure you, I’ve done my research and gone through the necessary training.”

“I assure you, I could give less than a damn,” he drawled. “I’m here to get a job done, and I don’t intend to let anyone slow me down.”

“I’m here to get a job done as well,” Peyton said, shifting her pack on her shoulder. “I have my fire card. I can pull my weight.”

He expelled a doubtful snort. “Pulling your weight on my crew isn’t the same as making it through the Forest Service’s sorry course. The Bear Claw Hot Shots are the best of the best, and they’re that way because I don’t tolerate slackers.”

She rolled her shoulders back and lifted her face. “I can understand being the best. That’s what I want, and that’s why I wanted you.”

He took a step closer, dragged his gaze over her. A beautiful woman saying that to him shouldn’t raise his temper. “Ego stroking is not necessary.”

She didn’t move away and returned the inspection. “No, I can see that.”

A smile quirked his lips at her boldness.

“Who assigned you to me? Jen?”

She blinked up at him. “Yes. Do you know her?”

Did he know her? When he’d learned Jen was IC on this fire, he’d considered asking to be sent to another fire. But to ask would be to admit defeat, to admit he couldn’t work for his ex, that his feelings for her were too strong.

If he took the reporter without a fight, she’d think he was avoiding her.

He gave the reporter – he had to think of her as that and not as the compact little blonde who looked up at him with narrowed brown eyes – a last look and turned toward the command tent.

Jen was alone in the tent, behind a folding table, her attention on the maps spread in front of her when he came in. She looked up, and her expectant look froze, morphed into something bland, distant, like she didn’t know him. She sure knew how to hit a man right in the ego.

The past three years had been good to her. The healthy tan set off her streaky blonde hair. She looked – softer, her face fuller. Damn.

“Gabe,” she said quietly, easing back in her chair. “I heard you were on your way out. Good to see you.”

To fight the stab of pain at seeing her, stronger than he’d expected, he slapped his hands on the scarred table between them and glowered down at her.

“Just how much do you hate me?”

Jen returned his gaze unblinkingly, long past being intimidated by him. Hell, why should he intimidate her now? She’d left him without looking back, and here she was, incident commander, his boss on this fire. She’d hold that over his head till he could get out on the line.

She folded her arms over the maps in front of her and tilted her head back to look up at him. “I don’t hate you at all. What are you talking about?”

“The reporter,” he ground out.

“Ah.” She sat back, looking a hell of a lot more relaxed than he felt. “Ms. Michaels wanted the best and I’m giving her to you.” Her choice of words gave him a moment’s pause, but only a moment. She didn’t hate him, but he’d spent the better part of a year hating her before shutting off all feelings completely. That they’d return now in full force had him reeling. He pulled himself back to the fight at hand.

“She’s a rookie.”

“You’ve taken on rookies before.”

“Not by choice.”

She leveled a look at him that carried him right back to the last days of their marriage, cold and condescending. “What makes you think you have a choice now?”

“You’re putting my entire crew in jeopardy to get even with me.”

She blew out a breath and leaned forward again, not looking away, unwilling to give him that victory. “This has nothing to do with you. With us, anyway. It’s about which crew would benefit her the most.”

“To hell with fighting a fire.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Careful, Gabe. You’re sounding misogynistic. She can do the job. And it won’t be the whole season. She’s here for this fire only. She’s doing a story on wildland firefighters. She just needs to be here for awhile and she’s gone.”

“Great. As long as I know she’s invested in the job,” he said contemptuously.

“She’s just trying to experience the job. It’s no big deal. There’s nothing scandalous coming out of this.”

He gave his opinion of that in a few succinct words.

“Jesus, Gabe.”

“One shift, and then you find another crew for her.”

She inclined her head. “We can discuss it.” Now she turned back to her maps. “Is that all?”

Was it? What else could he say to the woman he hadn’t seen in three years? He couldn’t let her go without a parting shot. “Give Doug my best.”

The shocked expression on her face gave him a millisecond of pleasure before he shut that down as well. “You mean it?” Her voice was breathless with hope.

He wished he could be the type of man who would mean something like that, but he was a bastard. “No. He already got it.”

Now he turned and strode out of the tent.

Fire season was usually hell, but damn, what had he done to deserve this?

Maybe this was God’s way of telling him it was time to get the hell out of the Forest Service. Sure, great, but after punching line for twenty years there wasn’t a hell of a lot he knew as well.

He swore he’d never live in a city again, so being an EMT full time was out; the only way he could bear his time in Albuquerque now was knowing that once spring arrived he’d be back in the mountains he loved. He’d be damned if he’d sit behind some desk in the Bureau of Land Management and send kids into situations he couldn’t control. He was a Hot Shot till the end. Nothing would take him off the line.

So God could just keep on sending those messages. Gabe Cooper was sticking it out.

Peyton Michaels – what kind of name was Peyton, anyway? – sat smugly on a picnic table, waiting for him, her pack still over one shoulder, her ponytail over the other.

He jabbed a finger at her. “If I agree to this, it’s for one shift and one shift only, you do your job without question, is that understood?”

Those chocolaty eyes went wide. “Yes, sir.”

“I mean it, Michaels. My crew is the best for a reason, and I like to keep them in one piece. The way we do that is they do what I tell them to do. Got it? And you call me ‘sir’ again, the issue is off the table.” He slashed his hand through the air for emphasis.

“Of course. Gabe.” She even said his name with a smile in her voice.

He lifted his eyebrow. She had guts. Hell, how could she have anything less, walking into a firecamp and asking to go on the line with the best crew? But she was a reporter for Up to the Minute weekly news magazine; that told him she knew something about being the best, too.

“I mean the part about questions. I don’t give interviews.”

She angled her head in a way that made him feel like an idiot for saying it. “I wasn’t going to ask for one. This is a look-see assignment.”

He grunted, then asked, “You have gear?”

She nodded and he could practically feel the energy, the excitement rolling off of her. Her body all but quivered with anticipation but her expression remained cool.

“Let’s go,” he said through his teeth, and ignored the little skip of triumph as she followed him to gather his own gear before they met his crew at the edge of the camp.

Peyton fell in the middle of the disciplined single file group as they headed out of camp on the dusty path that curved up the mountain between rocks and shrubs. They’d be walking to this remote site. While now she felt the energy pulsing through her, she could only hope to maintain her strength up on the line.

The unit shifted into bunches of three and four, making their own path through the high grass and scrub as they got further up the mountain, their excitement growing as they drew closer to the fire. Other crews had been this direction; she could see someone had pounded down the grass before them.

She turned her attention to the man who held such respect from the firefighting community, his crew, yet kept himself apart, plunging through the knee deep brush alone.

His matter-of-fact, unapologetic manner reminded her of Dan. The recognition had hit her like a blow to her chest, bruising her heart and making breathing difficult. In her mind she saw her husband standing before the brass at his last debriefing, so handsome in his dress blues, so confident as he justified his SWAT team’s decision to invade that warehouse without a search warrant to stop the drug deal. If only he’d been reprimanded, had suffered some kind of consequence, maybe he’d still be alive. Instead, he’d been applauded, rewarded, and he’d gone back to the job that killed him a year later.

She never expected her “In the Line of Duty” articles to gain such recognition and popularity. She’d gone from Coast Guard rescue cruisers to EMT crews stationed in bad neighborhoods to this mountain. But still, nothing she’d written so far in her series had shed any light on what the job fulfilled in Dan that life didn’t.

The story on Cooper was a departure for her. Her other articles focused more on the jobs than on the men and women who performed them. She’d probably lost a lot of depth taking that route, but she’d needed the emotional distance as she grieved for Dan. She hoped she could afford to give it up now.

She had to work up the nerve to invade his space - she couldn’t very well write his story from this distance - when she zeroed in on a conversation between two of the men who walked with chainsaws slung over their shoulders. Her own pack was so heavy with her tools, weighted with bottled water, and these guys carried the machines like they were made of Styrofoam. Sheesh. She was so impressed with their ability that it took her a minute to tune into their conversation.

“You’ve been with him long enough to know how he feels about reporters.”

They were gossiping like old women about Gabe. Old man. Please. Still, intrigued, she moved closer.

“Why would she bust his balls after, what’s it been, two years? Hell, she married someone else.”

Who? Who? Who? Peyton willed them to give her a name.

“Women are like elephants, man. They don’t forget anything.”

Peyton wanted to take exception, but it was rude to interrupt an eavesdropped conversation.

“I hear she dumped him.”

“She had to have a reason.”

“I thought the smokejumper was the reason.”

Peyton eased back. Who had dumped Gabe for a smokejumper? What was his punishment? Her?

But gossip wasn’t her purpose here. She wanted a real story. She sought Gabe. He was her purpose.

Gabe’s mind cleared on the way to the line. He threw back his shoulders and sucked in a deep breath. Up on the mountain the smoke wasn’t as bad as it had been at the camp. It skimmed over their heads to settle in the valley like a rumpled blanket.

The incline grew steeper, the dust-dry brush thicker, slowing their progress. From this altitude he could see the orange glow of the sun that had been obliterated in the valley. Above them floated the wisps of cirrus clouds preceding a front.

He swung around to look at his unit strung along the trail, the loose gaits, the flashing grins, and suddenly he felt very old. He was older than the oldest in his crew by over a decade. He turned to walk a little faster. He’d be damned if these kids could out-hike him.

He considered Peyton, watched her trudge along with the others. She had to be in excellent shape in order to get her fire card, but endurance wasn’t what concerned him. Training was nothing compared to facing the dragon up close.

She saw him looking at her and trekked on over, leaving the group in order to angle up the mountain toward him. She had guts, he had to give her that. If she’d been on more fires, she’d know better than to try to talk to him. Even Kim, who had been with him on more fires than anyone else, didn’t talk to him on a hike. Past Michaels, he saw his team watching with interest, waiting for him to shred the new girl.

But his heart wasn’t in it. He told himself it was curiosity about this woman, why she was here. That was all it could be.

“I agreed to this for one shift only,” he said. “After this fire is contained, you’re out. You do your job without question, just like the rest of my crew. Got it?”

Her chin had tightened stubbornly as he spoke, her eyes narrowed, and he prepared himself for an argument, but she merely nodded. Okay. Something not quite right with her not saying anything. After all, she’d come over here. So why was he the one wanting to ask questions?
He settled on, “You drinking plenty of water?”

“I’m fine.” She stumbled, belying her words, and he resisted the urge to reach out to assist her. She wanted to see what the job entailed, she better stay on her feet.

“You’ll be more comfortable on the trail.”

“I’ll be all right.”

Damn, she was hardheaded. Determination, he knew, he understood. Stubbornness just to prove she could do it was something else. “This is the easy part. We have a thirty degree incline ahead of us.”

She grimaced. “And when we get there?” she asked, a little out of breath.

He showed no mercy, couldn’t afford to. Besides, if he kept up this pace, maybe she’d go back to the others. He didn’t know how long he could keep up the curiosity excuse.

“You know the drill. We cut line, cut down trees, stop the fire and go home.”

“As simple as that?”

This time he stumbled. “Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.”

She snatched her hand back from where she’d reached out to steady him. “You really love this, don’t you? The whole, ‘My crew can do what no other crew can do’ mindset.”

He cast her an incredulous look. “Are you giving me attitude, rookie?”

“I wasn’t aware you needed any.”

Now she was giving him mouth. No one in fire camp - outside Jen - ever spoke to him like that. He kind of liked the awe with which most of the firefighters regarded him.

He kind of liked the attitude, too.

He slowed to get a look at her. She already looked exhausted. She’d removed her fire shirt and wore a white t-shirt so fitted it couldn’t be cool. He could see her lacy bra through the thin knit. She’d pulled back her hair and locks of it fell toward her face, brushing the skin of her cheek, her throat. He thought, just for a second, to push her hair back in place but tamped down the urge, instead thinking her exposed skin was going to blister all to hell.

He gave his attention back to the trail where it belonged. “So why are you doing this? There are easier ways to get the story.”

“Do I look like the type to take the easy way?” She sidestepped an outcropping of rock with an agility he hadn’t expected.

“I don’t know,” he drawled. “I haven’t seen enough of you to know.

He had to bite back a chuckle when she blushed. Had he stumbled onto some guilt over their sexual attraction?

“Put your fire shirt on, Michaels, and go back with the crew.” He kicked at the smoke that hung low on the ground. The smoke could hide the fire; they could come up on it without knowing. The sheer challenge of the lethal hide and seek thrilled him. “It won’t be long now.”