Reburn by Anne Marsh

country safe. Now he was keeping her safe—and the fiercely protective look on his face was both thrilling and annoying.
    She had a job to do here, too.
    Rolling silently to her feet, she’d pulled on her boots and chambered a round in her Glock. She’d trained for this kind of confrontation and she wasn’t helpless.
    The warmth and something else she felt at his fierce protectiveness were satisfying, but she wasn’t hanging back and waiting for him to take care of business. This was her business. FBI business. Pushing to her feet, she’d moved out. This could simply turn out to be a false alarm, a nocturnal four-legged visitor who’d wandered into Sam’s trip wire.
    Or not.
    Twenty feet downslope, Sam was a dark shadow. And he wasn’t alone, not by a long shot. Sam lunged in a blur of motion and the other male grunted. She heard the wet thud of flesh slamming into flesh. Her gun was a liability in the near-dark. She couldn’t see to aim—and no way she would run the risk of hitting Sam. Her eyes were adjusting to the lack of light, but not enough to take the chance.
    The sharp, acrid smell of smoke almost choked her. Downslope, the smoke was thicker and denser, a moving carpet of gray. The forest fire that had kept them out here still burned on the horizon. The night sky was black, the stars smoked out, except along that deadly orange edge. When she looked, she caught the occasional bright, hot flicker as a ponderosa candled and flamed up.
    That smoke was drifting away; the twinkle of spot fires was like some kind of otherworldly Christmas lights. The slope here, however, was lit right up, bright enough to make out individual pines and the thick haze of smoke. Holm had started another fire. She’d bet everything on that.
    Drawing, she pointed her weapon at the combatants.
    “FBI. Stand down,” she snarled. “Get your hands up, Holm Arthurs.”
    She had to play this by the book. An arrest was risky, but her job was to bring him in. Not stand here like a damsel-in-distress and watch Sam pummel him. Or get pummeled.
    Holm landed a punch, a hard left hook to Sam’s jaw that snapped Sam’s head back. Sam just growled and returned the blow. She didn’t know how Holm was fighting with a clearly injured wrist, but the man was a demon.
    “You’re not leaving my woods,” Holm spat around a mouthful of blood. “Stupid coming here.”
    He pulled a blade and smashed his head into Sam’s jaw.
    “Draw,” Sam ordered her, rolling and pinning the other man’s arm to the ground.
    Holm scissored his legs up, jackhammering into Sam’s back. The knife disappeared between the two men.
    “Take the shot,” Sam roared. “Livy, just fucking do it!”
    She got her finger on the trigger and pointed the gun. At the man she just might love. Can’t do this . The two men rolled again, reversing positions, and she still couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bring herself to take the chance that her bullet would slam into Sam’s side, Sam’s back.
    Think .
    There had to be another way to end this. Fast. Grabbing a burning branch, she waited for the next desperate roll and then brought her makeshift weapon down hard. Holm reared up, blade coming down, and Sam groaned. Pushed back.
    Again .
    She raised the branch over her head, but then Holm was screaming, a high-pitched animal noise. Sam brought his feet up and pushed hard against Holm’s chest and the man staggered downhill. On fire. The heat from the branch had ignited the camouflage paint on his face. In a frenzy, the man ran and the flames leaped greedily, sucking in the air generated by his run, and crawling over his forehead. His hair. Down his clothes.
    The flames from the branch bit into her fingers and she dropped it. Oh, God . All she could do was stand there and watch as Holm disappeared into the forest fire he’d set, screaming until he stopped and there was nothing left but the sounds of the flames.
    “Christ, woman.” Sam rolled, extinguishing flames, and pushed to his