Dakota Heat (Book 3 - Dakota Hearts) Read online

  Warrior protector.

  She’d been watching too many movies, Summer thought with a smile as she walked alongside Sam. And then it hit her. For the size of him and the length of his legs, Sam McKinnon should be walking strides ahead of her. She should be running to keep up. And yet Sam was walking by her side.

  She liked that.

  # # #

  Chapter 4

  They’d spent the first week having every member of the team tested for fitness, stamina and knowledge of the procedures the Hotshots would use all fire season. Many of the members of his crew were veteran Hotshots, but Sam had a few new members that he wanted to pay close attention to in order to make sure they were fully prepared for the unexpected.

  As they did at the start of every day, the entire crew of Hotshots, Smokejumpers and dispatchers met in the Quonset hut for a morning briefing. Mornings were cool, but as the day progressed, the Quonset hut would get warmer under the baking sun.

  As he held his cup of coffee in his hand, Sam glanced at Summer for what seemed like the hundredth time during the briefing. He tried not to, he wanted to listen to Adam as he discussed the success of the drills and the strategies he’d put in place to deal with the fire season. But he found it difficult to focus on the superintendent.

  He had heard all of it before, he knew the drill well enough to act in his sleep, but Sam also knew that it was a dangerous thing to get lazy and think there wasn’t anything left to learn. There were no typical days in his job. Every day could bring something unexpected. So he forced himself not to be distracted.

  And Summer had definitely become a distraction over the last week since he’d arrived home to Rudolph. So much so that even his brother, Ethan, had noticed his preoccupation at dinner, choosing to rib him about already finding a lady friend for the summer.

  Being that Sam already had a reputation with the women folk in Rudolph, he just took the teasing from his brother and didn’t elaborate. Summer Bigelow didn’t appear nearly as interested in him as he was in her.

  As he turned to look at her, he saw her face lifted to the front of the room, focusing on every word that Adam was saying, just like she had been every time he glanced her way. He still had no idea what this woman was all about or why she was here in South Dakota. Everything inside Sam told him something was driving Summer and it wasn’t love of the job. He couldn’t shake that look on her face when he’d seen her on the side of the road a week ago. It was almost as if she were running from something. But from what?

  “I know I’m not saying anything new,” Adam said, the words grabbing Sam’s attention. “But a recap never hurt anyone. And since we have some new faces in our crew this season, I’d say it’s necessary.”

  Sam watched as Adam turned to Summer. He spoke to her quietly, his voice soft enough to not even reach the people standing closest to him. A moment later, Summer nodded and smiled and Adam turned back to the group.

  “That’s all for now,” Adam said. “I’ll leave you to your responsibilities.”

  As the group dispersed, Sam tried to move to the front of the room where Summer had been sitting. A wall of men surrounded her before he could get close. Sam fell back, watching with a twinge of envy as some of the crew talked to Summer. She smiled up at each of them as they spoke to her. He could understand their reaction. Through the years there’d been no shortage of pretty women in Sam’s life, but Summer Bigelow was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen and the male to female ratio at basecamp was way off balance.

  “Sam?”

  He turned with the sound of a familiar voice behind him, one that he couldn’t ignore.

  Ian McKinnon was more like another brother to Sam than a cousin. Having grown up in Rudolph all their lives, they’d had the chance to grow up, make mischief and dream big together. Sam had realized his dream of being a Hotshot. That dream had been robbed from Ian while in the military.

  “I’m glad you stopped by,” Sam said, shaking Ian’s hand. He glanced over to where Summer had been sitting just in time to see her leaving the Quonset hut.

  Ian chuckled. “Looks like I came at a bad time.”

  Sam waved him off. “Nah, your timing was perfect.”

  “I can’t stay long. I need to get back to the work on the Veteran’s Center.”

  “Adam just finished his meeting. Let me introduce you to some of the guys and then I’ll bring you over to meet Adam.”

  They spent the next fifteen minutes meeting crewmembers and walking around basecamp. His brother, Hawk, the resident doctor in Rudolph, had told him that Ian’s limp had lessened considerably from the time he’d first gotten his prosthetic limb to now. But to Sam, each step Ian took was a reminder of how close they’d come to losing him. It had to pain Ian being amongst people who were looking forward to working a job Ian had dreamed of doing himself. For the first time Sam questioned urging his cousin to meet Adam White and talk about his future possibilities working in some capacity with the Interagency Fire Crew.

  As they approached the dispatch office, Ian stopped Sam. Summer was standing by Adam’s office door. The smile was gone and was replaced with the deer-in-headlights expression he’d seen on her at the side of the road last week.

  “Everything okay?” Sam said as she breezed by them quickly.

  Summer drew in a deep breath as she turned and focused on his face. As recognition set in, she said, “Yes, of course.”

  Before he could introduce Ian, Summer turned on her heels and headed to the dispatch room, leaving both Sam and Ian wondering what had just transpired.

  “I can handle this on my own,” Ian said, motioning to Adam’s closed office door. “You’ve got someplace else you need to be.”

  Sam shook Ian’s extended hand. “I’m glad you came down. Let me know how things go.”

  * * *

  “You look like you’re all settled in.”

  The deep sound of Sam McKinnon’s voice was both startling and comforting. Summer glanced down at her hand and saw it shaking. She stuffed her hand into the pocket of her jeans and turned in her chair.

  “I should be. I’ve been here a week.”

  “You’ve been ignoring me.”

  Her mouth dropped open when she saw Sam was actually serious. She didn’t know exactly how to take Sam McKinnon. In the week she’d been here, she’d heard stories, especially from one particular waitress at the diner near the motel, who clearly still carried a torch for the man.

  “I’ve been busy,” she said.

  He dragged a chair from one of the other desks and turned it around, straddling it as he sat down.

  “I thought we hit it off that first day.”

  “From what I hear you hit it off with all the women. No thank you. I’m not sticking around long enough to make it worth your while.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Fire season hasn’t even started yet.”

  She’d fumbled, but recovered quickly. “I’ll be here this season. But you won’t be seeing me after that.”

  A satisfied smile that she couldn’t ignore touched his lips. “You’ve been talking about me? I’m flattered.”

  She sputtered. “It’s hard to work here and not have you end up in the conversation down at the diner.”

  “So you’ve met my mother,” he said with a smile.

  She nodded, finding it hard not to smile with him. Summer had immediately taken a liking to Kate McKinnon. There was something about her that was so familiar that it made it hard for Summer not to miss her mother now that so much had changed in her life.

  When Summer had arrived in Rudolph, she’d called her parents in Florida. But instead of relaying her reasons for coming to South Dakota, she’d simply told her parents she’d decided to test her training in fire dispatch for a change of pace. Thankfully, they hadn’t questioned her.

  “Your mom is very nice. And she’s obviously thrilled you’re home. So much so that I think she’s forgotten she has other sons.”

  Sam cocked his head to on
e side. “I can’t help it if I’m the favorite,” he said quietly.

  Summer chuckled while shaking her head. “You’re so full of yourself.”

  “Some women find that charming.”

  Her smile faltered. “Well, I’m not like most women.”

  “I knew that the moment I met you.”

  He was looking directly into her eyes, probing as if he could read her mind. Her head went dizzy and her heartbeat quickened.

  “I told you you’re wasting your time. After fire season I’m heading back to Providence to resume my old job. And from what I hear you’re only here for the season anyway and then you’ll be off to some other location next season. Surely there is some old flame of yours you can play with while you’re home.”

  “You remind me of that quote from Hamlet. ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’”

  “Wow, you didn’t strike me as a fan of Shakespeare.”

  “I’m a man of many mysteries. I think my passion for his work is the only thing that helped me graduate from high school. Shocked the hell out of my father.”

  Now Summer was impressed and more than a little intrigued.

  “Who would have thought?”

  Sam got up from the chair slowly and silently placed it back at the workstation he’d taken it from.

  “The color has returned to your face,” he said quietly, giving her a thoughtful look that caught her off guard. “Whatever ghost you saw has vanished.”

  Her heart hammered in her chest. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Sure you do. If it comes back, whatever it is, I’ll be here. You’re not alone.”

  As Sam walked away, tears filled Summer’s eyes. Based on what Adam just told her, her ghost still hadn’t been found and that’s what chilled her to the core.

  People were laughing outside her window. She’d kept the window open to catch some of the cool breeze blowing over the field. She’d lived in the city so long that she’d forgotten the smell of clean, wide open spaces. Now she wanted to shut herself inside.

  What scared her more than anything was that she didn’t want Sam McKinnon to walk away.

  # # #

  Chapter 5

  “Sam?” Summer ran down the steps of the dispatch office, pulling her light spring jacket on as she ran.

  The sun was setting behind Sam as he walked to his SUV in the parking lot. When he heard her calling, he stopped and waited for her.

  “Did I forget something?” he asked.

  A little out of breath from running, she said, “You mentioned last week that you had a…friend who could help me find a rental in the area. I was wondering if you could introduce me to her.”

  “Ah, the lady friend.” Sam smiled down at her in that way he did when he was teasing. It grated on Summer’s nerves more than she wanted to admit, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing how he got to her.

  “Yes. If you have her number, I can call myself.”

  “That won’t be necessary. You’ve already met her.”

  Her eyes widened. “I have?”

  “Sure. It’s my mother.”

  A smile pulled at Summer’s lips despite the realization that Sam had indeed been playing her.

  “My mother knows everything going on in this town. She owns the diner. That’s akin to being a bartender or psychiatrist in a small town. People tell her everything. You should hear the stories she’s told us at dinner.”

  Summer laughed.

  “Come on. I’m heading home for dinner now. She’s always up for setting an extra plate at the table.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. But…”

  “What?”

  “She’s also determined to marry off her single boys. And since both Logan and Hawk are both off the market, she’s turned her attention to me and my brother, Ethan. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  * * *

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ethan said, accepting a bowl of mashed potatoes from his father and then dropping a big spoonful in his plate. He passed the plate over to Summer and then continued talking about the damaged areas of forest surrounding the river. “It looks as if a tornado ripped through the area. Trees are flattened and if a tree is still standing, the limbs are gone.”

  Donald McKinnon shook his head. “All my life I’ve never seen anything like it either. That’s the power of all that flood water and everything it took down the river with it.”

  “That’s why this area is so vulnerable right now,” Sam said. “So much of the debris is compacted. It’s like a tinderbox. It only needs the heat of the sun or a small spark to ignite it. It needs to be cleaned up before the summer heat or a lightning storm strikes or we’ll have wildfires all over the place.”

  Kate sat down at the table with a sigh now that the last bowl of food had been placed in the center.

  “You look tired, Mom,” Sam said.

  “Worried. After what happened to all those fire fighters in Arizona, I haven’t stopped worrying about you, Sam. I know you and Ian have always had an affinity for being fire fighters. But…I just worry.”

  “That’s understandable, Mrs. McKinnon,” Summer said.

  Kate gave her a glance with raised eyebrows, reminding her that Summer had been instructed to call her by her first name.

  “Sorry. Kate. When I told my mother I was going into criminal justice because I wanted to become a state police officer, she nearly fainted. Even after I’d gotten my acceptance letter to Johnson and Wales, she tried to talk me out of it. She wanted me to be a chef.”

  “Well, there’s nothing wrong with being a chef,” Kate said. Then she glanced over at Ethan and added, “I gave up trying to talk my boys out of doing dangerous jobs a long time ago. I just learned to pray a lot, especially when Ethan was a Navy Seal.” To Ethan she said, “I was almost glad I didn’t know where you were in the world or what you were doing.”

  “You’re right. You wouldn’t have wanted to know,” Ethan said. “And I couldn’t have told you anyway.”

  She turned her attention to Summer and said, “My son Keith—everyone calls him Hawk, even his patients—became a doctor. He has a practice right here in town. Logan, Ethan’s twin brother, is the only other one who settled down to do a relatively safe job. Although he’s given me reason enough to worry over the years.”

  Sam quietly said, “Logan’s wife died a little over a year ago.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “It was rough going for him and their little boy, but I hear all that has changed now that Poppy is back in town.”

  Kate smiled bright. “Poppy sure is a ray a sunshine for my Logan. Sometimes the universe rights itself when it’s upside down. She sure did that.”

  Sam leaned into Summer. “Logan always had a thing for Poppy in high school. I’m sure you’ll meet both of them while you’re here.”

  Summer couldn’t help but notice how amazing Sam smelled. He’d taken a quick shower before dinner while Summer helped Kate make a salad in the kitchen. He smelled of a mixture of musk and soap that filled her head. It was hard for Summer to concentrate on the good meal that Kate had prepared for the family with Sam seated so close to her. She could almost feel the heat of his body penetrating her skin and they weren’t even touching.

  Summer welcomed Ethan’s curious question to pull her attention away from her strong reaction to Sam.

  “How did you go from wanting to be a police officer to being a dispatcher?”

  “It’s sort of a long story and one I’m sure my mother would rather had not have happened at all, despite her not wanting me to be a police officer.”

  “Tell us,” Kate said.

  As they ate, Summer recalled the incident that had been the turning point in her decision to become a dispatcher.

  “My senior year of high school I was home alone one night. My parents were out at some dinner party in Massachusetts and weren’t supposed to be home until very late. Anyway,
I was in my bedroom and heard voices downstairs. I knew it wasn’t my parents and since I was upstairs, I had no way to get out of the house without going through the living room. I was pretty sure they were down there and would see me.”

  She leaned back in her chair, surprised she was being so open about a memory that had haunted her for years. All eyes at the table were on her as she recollected what happened.

  “I crawled into my closet with the phone and called 911. I could hear the burglars downstairs, but when their voices became louder, I started to hyperventilate. I was sure they were going to find me in the closet and do God only knows what to me when they did. The female dispatcher on the other end of the line became my lifeline. She talked to me calmly and told me everything would be okay, that the police were on their way. It probably only took the police about five minutes to get there, but it felt like an eternity.”

  “You must have been so terrified,” Donald said.

  “I was. I heard their voices in the upstairs hall and then the dispatcher—her name was Elaine—told me the officers had arrived at the house. One of the burglars ran out the kitchen door when he saw the cruiser outside. The other guy hid in my room and closed the door. For the longest time all I could hear was my heart pounding and the sound of Elaine’s voice reassuring me on the phone. The guy in my room eventually gave up and was arrested.

  “I was so shocked when I met Elaine the next day when I went to the police station. She was this little woman who was barely five feet tall and about ninety-five pounds. But while I was on the phone with her she was a giant, larger than life. I knew then how powerful that lifeline was for someone in need. So I trained to be a dispatcher and my best friend, Bobbi Collins, went to Johnson and Wales and eventually became a police officer.”

  “Wow, that’s quite an experience,” Sam said.

  “I told my story. Why did you want to become a fire fighter?” Summer asked.

  “Sam had a fondness for blowing things up when he was a kid,” Kate said dryly.

  Ethan laughed. “Yeah, he figured he’d better learn how to put fires out since he was so good at starting them.”