“Annie wouldn’t hurt anything or anyone,” Stanley defended the dog. “But she could’ve been hit by a car.”
Braden nodded. “Okay, I understand.” Occasionally he had to reprimand the kid—like when Stanley talked to reporters or ignored orders to drop a puppy at the humane society. But Braden usually wound up feeling worse than he made Stanley feel. “If you have to leave again, please close down the door, though. I will be in my office with Ms. McRooney—”
“Ms. McRooney?” Stanley interrupted. He probably recognized the last name. Her father had nearly gotten the boy’s foster brother to leave Northern Lakes.
“Sam,” she said.
Wanting to get the meeting back on track, Braden told the kid, “Sam and I will be in my office.”
She glanced at him, and those blue eyes were still cool. She must have only been giving Stanley permission to use her first name—not him.
Braden led the way—through the garage and down the hall, past the workout room to his office. He fumbled with the ring of keys clipped to his hip until he found the right one.
“Don’t often lock it?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I can see how the arsonist got in—”
He flinched.
And she added “—easily.”
He pushed open the door, but when she moved to pass through ahead of him, he caught her arm and stopped her. She glanced down at his hand on her arm, then looked up at his face. He shivered again at the coldness of her gaze.
“I am not a chauvinist,” he told her, his pride prickling that she obviously thought he was. “When I called the chief’s office, they told me it could take a while for an arson investigator to get here. That’s why I didn’t think you were the investigator.”
“When they called, I was closer to Northern Lakes than they thought I would be.”
He wanted to ask where she’d been. But he wanted to resolve their misunderstanding first. “And I know your dad,” he continued. “He always brags about his boys being Hotshots and smoke jumpers and rangers. So I thought you were a ranger.”
She flinched now. “I’m not a boy.”
There was no mistaking Sam McRooney for a man—not with her petite but curvy body. Her waist was tiny but her hips swelled into a tightly rounded derriere cradled in tight-fitting jeans. He’d never realized he was an ass man until now. Her silky blond hair was short, barely falling to the shoulders of her pale blue sweater, but the yellow locks framed a delicately featured face. She was quite beautiful.
“I know,” he assured her.
“Sometimes my dad forgets.”
Braden bet her father was the only man who made that mistake. But then he wondered if she meant her dad forgets she’s female or forgets about her entirely.
“I wish other people would forget I was female,” she admitted. “Too many question my ability to do my job merely because of my sex.”
Braden shook his head. “Sex has nothing to do with it.”
She arched a blond brow. “Really?”
“I can’t speak for anyone else,” he said. “But for me, sex doesn’t matter.”
Her lips curved into a wider smile, and a twinkle brightened her blue eyes. Then he realized what he’d said. And he hoped like hell none of his men had overheard it. They would all mercilessly tease him, especially Cody Mallehan and Wyatt Andrews. Those two Hotshots were always giving each other a hard time, and since his divorce, they’d been on a mission to lighten him up and get him laid.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “You’re trying to assure me you’re not a chauvinist.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I have two female crew members who work every bit as hard as the guys. They’ve earned my respect.”
“Why did they have to earn it?”
“Everyone does,” he said with a shrug. It had always been that way; he’d had to prove himself, too, or he wouldn’t have had the job he did. “You have to prove yourself, too.”
“Oh, I’ve done that,” she said. “The Brynn County wildfire... I caught the arsonist.”
He expelled a breath. “That was you?”
She nodded.
Maybe the chief had sent the right investigator. “That fire was a few years ago,” he said. “You look so young I didn’t realize you’ve been on the job that long.”
She emitted a shaky sigh, and he felt the sweet caress of it against his throat. They were still standing in the doorway—too close. “I thought you were too young, too,” she admitted with a sheepish smile.
“Too young?” Already married and divorced, he felt old—older than his thirty-three years. And after dealing with the threat of the arsonist, he felt even older.
“Too young to be a Hotshot superintendent,” she said. “I didn’t think you were Braden Zimmer when we met in the hallway.”
“Maybe I look younger in just a towel,” he said.
Her lips parted on a soft gasp, and her eyes darkened as her pupils dilated. Her skin flushed. Then she finally stepped away from him and settled into one of the chairs in front of his desk.
Was she embarrassed? He was the one who should have been embarrassed.
“Sorry about that,” he said as he dropped into the chair behind his desk.
“I know,” she said. “You didn’t expect me to show up as quickly as I had.”
“Where were you?” he asked.
“Already on my way here,” she said.
He cocked his head. Did she have a sixth sense, too? How had she known he was going to call? So far the US Forest Service had been letting him and the state police handle the arson investigation. “Why?”
“My dad is Mack McRooney,” she reminded him. “He respects you and also thinks highly of a Hotshot named Cody Mallehan. Mack’s concerned about all of you and asked me to look into the fires.”
“Mack tried to poach Cody from me,” Braden said with mock resentment. “Recruit him as a smoke jumper.”
She smiled. “The way he tells the story, he only lent you Cody, and you won’t give him back.”
Braden chuckled. “I could see how he might see it that way.” Since that was the way it had actually been.
“Lucky for you Mack doesn’t hold a grudge.”
“You call him Mack?” he asked. “To his face?” If he called either of his parents by their first names, Ben and Ramona would kick his butt even now.
She nodded. “He prefers it. My brothers and I have always called him Mack.”
He suspected she’d had an interesting upbringing. “And your mom allowed that?”
She shrugged. “She didn’t stick around to protest.”
And now he remembered hearing that Mack had raised his kids alone. But nobody had ever said if his wife had died. Apparently she’d just left, deserting her husband and her kids.
Sam had had a very interesting upbringing then. He wanted to ask her more. But she was pointing toward the note on his desk. “Is that it?”
Braden suppressed a groan. He’d rather talk about her