He pointed at his shirt. “Button that.”
Meadow gave a mock salute that revealed the bottom curve of a bare breast. Dylan met her gaze.
“Why did you do that?” he asked, brushing the sand from his chest and tugging on his T-shirt.
“I just wanted to thank you.”
He shoved his bandanna in the back pocket of his jeans. “You don’t thank a man by having sex with him, Meadow.”
“Sometimes I do.”
“I’m not like you, then. I’m not casual about such things.”
“A real Boy Scout,” she said, pink lips curling.
“You should have more pride and respect for yourself.”
He saw his condemnation strike her. Her bottom lip quivered. Was this an act or real emotion? He rubbed his right shoulder, wishing Bobcat could tell him because his instinct was to take her in his arms again. Ridiculous. She was a wealthy, spoiled, lost woman-child and he was not interested.
Dylan dug in the sand, recovering her rings. “How many did you have?”
“Four.” She accepted the offering in cupped palms and slipped the trinkets onto her long fingers.
Meadow looked from her hand to the ground.
“Is that your ax?” She pointed at the metal head that was all that remained of the Pulaski ax after the wood had burned away.
He lifted the ax head and then dropped it back to the sand.
“Fought a lot of fires with that. Like losing an old friend.”
Meadow glanced to the road to the two burned hulls that had been his truck and her car. They were scorched gray and looked old, ancient, as if abandoned years and years ago.
She gasped, pressing one hand to her mouth as she pointed with the other.
“My car!”
“Totaled. But I suspect you have it fully insured.”
She took a step closer. “The glass melted. The seats. Upholstery. Everything.” Meadow gaped at him. “All the paint just... It looks like... Why is it on its side?”
“Gas tank must have been full.”
“I topped it up on Canyon Road before coming out here.” She lifted her digital recorder. All the acrylic nails had popped off her fingers in the heat, leaving small, ragged, natural nails glowing pink on her blackened, dirty fingers. She fiddled with the buttons and the screen illuminated. “It still works!”
She beamed at him.
“We have to go,” he said.
“But you called for help. They might be here soon.”
If they could get through the fire wall and if the ones who came were here to help them, he would stay. But there was too much risk. Rescue might be hours, even days, away, and the ones who had started this fire might reach them first.
“You can stay. I’m walking out.” He turned and headed in the direction of the ridgeline, some two miles away.
“What? Wait up.” She trotted along with him over the smoking ground. “Wow. It’s really hot. I can feel it right through the soles of my sandals.”
He stopped and debated. If he was wrong and she was not involved, they might kill her. If he was right and he brought her along, then she could report back to them everything he said and did.
“What?” she asked, those bright golden-brown eyes seeming as honest as a child’s.
“I think you should stay. Wait for your father. If I see anyone, I’ll send them to you.”
She twisted a diamond ring from her finger and held it out to him. “Take me with you.”
He looked at the tiny circle of silver. “I don’t wear silver.”
“It’s platinum.”
“It’s a bribe.” She was used to buying what she wanted. He could see that. Buying her way out of what she could and letting Daddy clean up the rest. Had Daddy gotten tired of wiping up after her?
“Why not wait here?” she asked.
Tell her the truth, a partial truth or a lie? He looked down at her and lifted a hand to brush the soot from her cheek. The touch of her skin made his insides twitch as the longing rose again.
“Because I think the men who did this are close, and I think they want you or me dead.”
Meadow gaped, uncharacteristically finding herself rendered speechless. She had been around long enough to spot paranoia when she saw it. The guy said he’d been in Iraq. Maybe he had a screw or two loose.
Play along, she decided.
“What men? And why would they want us dead?”
“I don’t know the answers to those questions. I do know that you and I being here exactly when that explosion went off is something more than coincidence.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
Her savior did not answer. Instead, he gave her a long, uneasy look and turned away.
“Keep the shirt,” he said. Then he lifted his camel pack and shrugged it onto his wide shoulders and started walking. With him went all the water they had.
“Hey, wait.” She trotted to catch him, wishing her sandals were less cute and more practical. Wearing a wedge that showed her slim calves to best advantage seemed unnecessary when her legs were streaked with soot and covered with grit and sand. She caught him and grabbed at his arm, her hand covered with the long sleeve of his shirt. “Do you know how crazy you sound?”
He kept walking toward the road and the twisted remains of a bit of the blackened skeletal metal infrastructure that survived the blast. She let her gaze travel over the place where the eighteen-million-dollar home had been. She had not seen the explosion. The flash had been so bright and the earth had been shaking. He was right. It had been an explosion. What had caused the blast?
He was a firefighter, and even he had admitted that a gas tank could be the cause. But, as she looked at the ridgeline that she had been filming on and off for months, she realized the size of the demolition. It could not have been caused by a small propane tank or reserve tank for gas. She knew it in her heart.
Which meant someone had gone up there with explosives and set charges and pushed some kind of detonator and let the fires and rock spray down on the pine trees in the driest, hottest month of the year.
“Who would do this?”
He looked back. “You believe me now?”
She nodded. “It’s just too big. I need to look at the footage. Maybe I can see something.”
“I’d imagine the FBI will want to see that footage, as well.”
“It’s up on my feed. Anyone could have seen it live. But the entire thing, it’s only recorded on this.” She lifted the camera. “And on my server.”
“Can’t the social media sites recall it?”
“I don’t know.”
He started walking again.
She spotted a phone sticking out of his back pocket and jogged to come even with him again.
“You have a phone,” she said, pointing at his pocket.
“No service,” he said without slowing.
“You think you’ll have service up there?” She pointed