Slow Burn (Smoke Jumpers) by Anne Marsh

he said, turning to Evan. “You’re the only one in the clear here. The rest of us fall within the margin of error.”
    “You able to match him up to anyone here?” Evan asked.
    “No.” She tossed her trash onto the burn pile. “Jack here marched me up and down past the food line twice, and I can safely say I’m running blind here. He really could be anyone. Between the baseball cap and the way the light was hitting him, you’re lucky I’m sure he’s a he .”
    “That’s real helpful,” Jack said dryly. “Seeing as how right now there are precisely zero women working on this fire crew.”
    “Happy to help.” She grinned at him, taking a sip from her bottle. The beer was cold and perfect. Her sister would never believe her: here she was, parked in the middle of fire camp, with a cold one and three of the hottest men she’d ever met. None of whom were hers, but she’d leave that detail out of the story. Lazily, she set down the bottle and reached for her camera, getting off a few shots. Firefighters after the fight.
    Ben Cortez, who headed up the department, ambled over to them. “Here you go,” he said as he handed her her official-looking, typed-up statement to sign. “Sign in triplicate, and we’re done for the night.” As she flipped through the pages, dutifully initialing, he dropped onto the log across from her, leaning forward to monitor her progress, arms on his knees. He’d had a go at the pictures on her camera, as well, with equally disappointing results. The tightness at the corners of his mouth said he was taking this hard. He might be a teddy bear of a man, but there was nothing benevolent about his eyes right now. He was riled up.
    “She have a chance to review this?” That was Evan’s voice, all calm and measured. Was he looking out for her?
    “She did. Faye?” Ben prompted.
    She had. Ben had gone over the need for a documented statement from her. She was an eyewitness, even if she hadn’t seen crap. Now that crap was official record. “It’s okay, Evan.”
    Hitting the bottom of Ben’s clipboard, she gave the documents a final once-over and scrawled her signature at the bottom of the last page. There were no surprises in there. Ben had been efficient but thorough, going over what she’d seen and from where. He’d wanted to nail down her point of view exactly. They’d walk the scene tomorrow, he’d promised.
    “Why go to all this trouble when I can’t actually identify anyone?”
    “Because if that fire was the beginning of something bigger,” Evan growled, “I need to know. Rio needs to know. That’s why your information goes into a database. We do info-sharing with local and state agencies, and Ben here does his own investigation, as well.”
    Rio raised his beer in mock salute, and she itched to grab her camera again. Rio was trouble, six-plus feet of pure, sweet mischief sprawled on the ground. His shoulders strained beneath a faded cotton T-shirt that sported the logo of Ma’s bar. Like Evan, he was tall and well-built, but there the similarities ended. Where Evan was all hard angles and just plain big, Rio had the kind of face women liked to look at. A lot. Too bad he didn’t get her toes tingling the way Evan did. Sleeping with Rio would have been simpler. A little hot summer fun and then adios when August rolled into the autumn months and fire season ended.
    Instead, she settled for giving him an are-you-kidding look. “That’s a lot of number crunching for what was probably just a brush fire.”
    Evan cracked another can of soda and passed it to her, taking her empty beer bottle. “ Probably doesn’t mean definitely .”
    “And you want to know for certain.”
    “It’s not a question of want . It’s a question of need . I told you that already.” His expression was concerned. “I’ve got a job to do here, Faye. People to keep safe. I don’t do that job by closing my eyes to the possibility that one of the guys on our team has decided to light it