Burns So Bad (Smoke Jumpers) (22 page)

“If you’re looking for apologies,
come back tomorrow. I’m not in the mood right now.”

He suspected she was, but he’d also
deserved what he got, so he shrugged. “We’re good.”

“Uh-huh.” She didn’t look like she
believed him but that was her problem, not his. The pillow on couch sported a
visible dent from her head. She’d definitely been napping. She tucked her feet
up beneath the blanket, bad ankle propped on a pile of pillows, looking like
she might just pick up with the nap where she’d left off when he came knocking.
He eyeballed the place, not sure where to park his own ass. Since he might as well
be where he wanted to be, he sat down on the couch beside her.

“How’s the ankle?” he asked.

She made a face. “I’ve got a
professional wrap job, a pair of loaner crutches, two weeks unplanned vacation, and
a medical bill that would cover the price of a small couch. I’d rather be back
on a plane getting ready to jump.”

“Off-limits?” He was careful to
make his words a question and not a statement.

“For now.” She grinned. “Until I
can convince Jack otherwise or he’s short-handed.”

He wasn’t going to think about her
going back out in the field or about how close he’d come to losing her.

“I gave my statement to the DEA.”

She yawned and he fights back a
smile. She was goddamned beautiful.

“Me too. They say anything about when
they’re planning on taking out the grow?”

“As soon as the smoke clears,
they’ll put a plan up.” He shook his head. They’d be too late.

“You disagree with their plan?”

He looked at her.

She sighed, pulling the edges of
the blanket close. “It’s written all over your face. And you get this little
crinkle right between your eyes.”

She reached out and traced the
space. Even that little touch worked wonders on him. He could feel himself
settling back on her couch, soaking up the pleasure of being near her.

“You can read me like a book?”

She snorted. “As if. It would be
handy though.”

“The growers will have dismantled
the site by now. By the time the DEA gets out there, there’s not going to be
much of anything left other than a hell of a trash pile. All the incriminating
stuff will be gone. The guys, the guns—they’ll be gone too.”

“You’ve seen this before.”

Her eyes looked at him knowingly.
Not judging, just accepting. He liked the interest and concern, so much so that
his mouth opened up and started talking.

“Part of what I did for Uncle Sam,”
he said carefully, because so much of his job with the military had been
classified and that meant radio silence, even for her, “was shutting down drug
grows in South America. We flew in, busted shit up, and then left.”

“I’m
sitting next to a bona fide hero.”

He was no hero. “I did my job,” he
said gruffly.

“Uh-huh. Which took you halfway
around the globe and put your life in danger countless times.”

That much was true. The thing was,
his life wasn’t worth all that much. “I’m not a hero,” he said because it
needed saying. “No,” he said, pressing a finger against her mouth when she
started to protest. “I’m not. I did more than my share of crap growing up.
Doing something to stop the drug trade seemed only fair.”

“You grew up rough.” She sounded
certain. The Strong grapevine was clearly still working overtime.

“It wasn’t pretty. “He hesitated.
“You’ve heard how Nonna took me, Jack and Evan in. Before that, though, we made
our own way. The streets of Sacramento weren’t always rainbows and light. I saw
some stuff there and I learned my lessons.”

She laughed softly. “What doesn’t
kill you…”

It was official. He loved her
attitude towards life. She didn’t wallow in self-pity, didn’t waste time on
regrets.

“I’ll bet you were daddy’s little
princess.” He liked that image, almost as much as the sudden mental image he
got of a little girl who looked like Gia.
His
daughter. Huh. Who would have thought it? He’d never thought he was cut out to
be anyone’s father, but Gia made him want to try.

She grinned, clearly unaware of his
mental dreamfest. “You bet. But it wasn’t all fun and games. I had to argue to
do anything on my own.”

Something dark flashed in her eyes.
She had her own demons and bad memories. If she’d been daddy’s little princess,
that hadn’t been all she’d been. He pulled her closer.

“And you like taking care of
yourself,” he said carefully.
Treading on
thin ice, Donovan.

“Absolutely.” She met his gaze head
on. “That’s non-negotiable.”

And there it was. The problem
du jour
.

“You talked to the DEA,” he said. “And I
think you got the same speech I did. The DEA’s going to go after the grow, but it will be on their own timeframe and there’s
no guarantee that the guys who tried to take us down in the woods don’t follow
us here. That being said, the security here is unacceptable.”

She shook her head. “There’s a lock
on the door and on the windows. And it’s not like we don’t notice strangers
poking around here.”

“The cabin is too exposed,” he
growled. “You have windows facing the woods. There’s no alarm, no security
lights. Until we get this case wrapped up with the DEA, you need to move.
You’ll be safer.”

“This is my place.” Her eyes
flashed. “I’m not going to just pick up and relocate.”

“I’m not losing you. That’s my
non-negotiable.”

She eyed him calmly. “You’re
overreacting.”
“You’re the eyes on this op. Eliminate you, eliminate the only witness.”

“Are you trying to scare the shit
out of me, Rio?” Now she sounded pissed. She leaned forward, stabbing a finger
into his chest. “Because this is a great conversation.”

“I’m stating facts.”

“According to you.”

“And you might be pregnant.”

It was a low blow, but he’d use
whatever weapons he had here. She needed to move somewhere safer.

She opened her mouth. Shut it.

He pressed his advantage. “Until
you can tell me that you’re
not
pregnant, we act like you are.”

###

He’d pulled the pregnancy card. Gia
had known it was coming the minute she’d pulled open her door and seen him
standing there on her porch—after all, why else would he have come by?—but
knowing and hearing were apparently two different things.

Because he was right.

She
could
be having their baby. The condom had broken out there in the
field and sperm swam, making their happy, baby-making way to whatever egg her
body had on offer. So pregnancy was definitely a possibility, however
unwelcome. He watched her now, his face fierce and focused. Yesterday’s laughing,
sensual lover was nowhere in sight. Instead he was all stern and determined.

Pure trouble.

Because when he looked at her like
that she wanted to give him whatever he wanted.

She’d jumped with him for almost
two months and then they’d each saved the other. On the life saving front, they
were square. And, if she was being honest, she’d rather spend what was left of
the summer without that life-and-death adrenaline rush. She’d be heading back
to grad school and her last semester there all too soon. Right now, she wanted…

Rio.

He wasn’t the kind of man who
settled down and she’d been fine with that. She’d wanted a hot summer fling and
to indulge her curiosity about her jump partner. She looked at him, sprawled on
her loveseat. Worn denim showcased his muscled legs and ended in yet another
pair of work boots. Rio wasn’t an ironed-and-buttoned kind of man. Nope. He’d
changed into another faded cotton T-shirt, this one from a fire department
fundraiser for the rundown historic firehouse Jack had bought in Strong with
the intention of pulling a rehab. The shirt exposed his powerful forearms and
the intriguing tattoo on the inside of his wrist. Rio was big and strong and so
very, very focused on the moment.

He was gorgeous.

And he looked uncomfortable.

She got that the possibility of an
unplanned pregnancy scared the hell out of him. She wasn’t particularly
thrilled by the possibility either.

“When do you think you’ll know?” Gruff
concern filled his voice.

She did some mental counting and
then gave up. Her cycles had never been particularly regular and this was
foreign territory to her. “Two weeks?”

That was a guess, but Rio liked
numbers and specifics.

“Strong doesn’t have a doctor. I
could drive you into Sacramento.”

“I can drive myself,” she pointed
out. “And I think one of those boxed tests would do for starters.”

He looked at her and grimaced. “I
think Lily has some.”

That was interesting.

“Not that I wanted or needed to
know that,” he continued. “But I was at their place and the sink was backing
up, so I gave the pipes a glance and… yeah. She’d pretty much cornered the
market on EPT.”

“Maybe they’re planning on trying?”
she offered, biting back a grin. Imagining Rio coming face-to-face with Lily’s
secret stash was too funny.

“I didn’t ask.” He stretched out
his arm along the back of the loveseat. His fingers grazed the back of her neck
and settled in. “Jack will tell me if and when there’s something to tell.”

“Did you tell him…”

“About us?”

Were they officially an
us
?

“Not the details.” He slanted a
look at her. “He saw me kiss you, so he’ll have the general idea.”

Right. Like whether or not she was
actually pregnant.

“Some of those tests are supposed
to be pretty sensitive.” She’d done her Google-fu as soon as she’d reached the
cabin. Before long, she’d have her first shot at an answer.

“Can I—” He hesitated. “I’d
like to be there.”

“You want to watch me pee on a
stick?”

A slow smile tugged at the corner
of his mouth. “Are you offering?”

“Some things,” she said fervently,
“don’t need to be shared.”

“Just outside the door,” he
suggested.

His desire to be involved made her
feel warm inside. “That works for me.”

“And, in the meantime,” he said,
“I’d like you to move into town. Be close to other people.”

“Be close to you and your guard
dogs,” she groused. He wasn’t letting go of the safety issue.

“I want you to stay safe.”

She looked around her cabin. The
place was cozy, but it was just her here. She wasn’t stupid. And she might be
lonely. Keeping her PSVT a secret would be a little more difficult in a public
setting, but she’d managed on the jump team so far.

“What did you have in mind?”

He took a deep breath. “I want you
to stay with my mother.”

“Rio…”

“My mother has room. She lives
smack in the middle on Strong.” He ticked the plusses off on his fingers. “I
can have eyes on you twenty-four/seven.”

That was so
not
a mark in the plus column.

“I’m not moving in with your mom.”
She paused. “Did you even ask her?”

“I did. You’re more than welcome,”
he said. “You’ll like her.”

“I’m sure I would. That’s not the
point.” She hesitated. “But what kind of message does it send?”

Gossip traveled faster than light
in a place this small—so their kiss would already have made the rounds
and his mother would have plenty of ideas. Bringing a girl home wasn’t casual.
She and Rio were a summer hook-up with potential side effects. That was all. As
long as Gia remembered that, she’d be fine. If she moved into his mother’s
house, however, she might start thinking about having more.

About keeping Rio.

And he wasn’t the kind of guy a
woman kept.

“Rio?” she prompted when he didn’t
answer. She couldn’t interpret the look on his face. Part discomfort, part
something—else. She didn’t know what.

“I’d like you to consider staying
at my mom’s,” he repeated. “This isn’t between us and Strong or us and the jump
team. Even Jack and Evan are going to have to butt out of our business.”

She liked the way he said
our
.

But what would it be like to spend
time with Rio’s
mother
, of all people?
She’d seen Mary Ellen Donovan around Strong and the base camp. It was hard not
to know who she was because she was an integral part of Strong and they’d been
briefly introduced when Gia had joined the jump team. The older woman had hair
that was more grey than brown, twisted up in a loose bun and pinned with
whatever was handy. Energetic. Smiling eyes. Those had been Gia’s takeaway from
their brief meet and greet at the beginning of summer. Oh, and Gia was also
fairly certain that the Donovan brothers, the fire chief, and probably a
half-dozen other members of the jump team would gladly kill to protect her.

She wanted a chance at that for
herself.

With Rio.

And he wanted this for her. For
them. She thought about it for a moment.

“Okay.”

He stared at her. “Okay?”

“Yes, Rio. Okay.

###

Gia packed a bag. Her crutches
meant she also accepted a ride. She’d have preferred to followed Rio in her own truck to keep her escape route open in case the whole situation
backfired. Unfortunately, her ankle still wasn’t cooperating.

The drive was all too short. There
wasn’t much to Strong. She’d be walking distance to Ma’s, although alcohol was
clearly out for her until she knew whether or not she was pregnant.

Pregnant.

That word was alien as
us
.

Which was the word Rio had used to
describe their… relationship. Which was also something she wasn’t certain that
they had. But she wanted to try. Rio signaled and parked, before swinging down
and heading for her, sex on a stick. Of course. His determined stride ate up
the distance between them and he had his hand on the door, opening it, before
she’d got the thing halfway open.