“Want me to put the RPAS up, boss?” I call to Hudson. “See if I can spot anything sus?” The night vision on the drone isn’t stellar—the camera is designed for surveying fires,not nightscapes—but it’s better than being in the dark, pun intended.
“Hudson?” Jared Shaw leans out the truck’s passenger window before he can reply. “Cormack’s on the radio. He’s got the person who’s rented the cabin stopped down at the roadblock. Wants to know if he can let her up?”
Her.
“All good,” Hudson calls. He looks at me. “I’ll get you to come back tomorrow. See if you can spot anything in the daylight.”
Chest tight, I nod.
After telling Sami I was a firefighter and we had a callout, and asking her to meet me at the station house tomorrow morning so we could go on our hunt for bacon, I’d bolted from the pub. I hadn’t had the chance to learn anything else about her, including where she’s staying.
But surely…
Bright headlights sweep across the cabin’s dark front yard, puncturing the blackness a second before a small hatchback speeds up the driveway.
Gravel spits up from the rear tires as the driver hits the brakes in front of the cabin, and suddenly I can’t breathe.
Sami throws herself from the little car, scanning her surroundings until she sees the cabana all lit up by the truck’s floodlights. It’s a black skeleton of its former self.
I move, striding across the yard, every step like a hammer in my chest, pounding for her.
“Oh my God.”
I hear her gasp. Or maybe I feel it in my head.
“Sami,” I call.
She swings to me, eyes wide with confusion. “Tony? What happened?” Shaking her head, she hurries to me, and I take her hands without thought, as if my body already knows she’s mine to protect for the rest of my life. “How did it start?”
“At this point, it’s unclear,” I say. “The cabin itself though, is untouched.”
She stares at the blackened structure and destroyed hot tub. “I only got the key to the cabin a few hours ago. I didn’t even come out here. I dumped my bags in the bedroom and headed into town.” Her eyes lift to mine. “To buy groceries. Bacon.” Her eyebrows knit as she looks at the cabana again. “There goes my security deposit.”
“Everything okay here?” Hudson arrives at our side, sliding a calm look between us. “Gibbo?”
“This is Sami… Samantha.” I realize I’ve smoothed my hand over the small of her back a heartbeat after Hudson raises his eyebrows. Fuck, I need to get a hold of myself. I pull my hand back and wave it at the cabin. “She’s renting the cabin.”
Hudson’s attention lingers on me for a split second—yeah, I’m going to have some explaining to do—before his expression becomes gentle. “Hi, Samantha. I’m Hudson McKinney, the captain of the Hartley Ridge fire brigade. Can I ask if you were in the cabana at any point this evening?”
My gut knots. “She was in the pub. I was talking to her when we got the call.”
He flicks me a look and then returns his attention to Sami.
She shakes her head. Does she realize she’s inched closer to me? “No. As I explained to Tony, I only got the key a little while ago, and I didn’t go out into the backyard at all before going down into the village.” She frowns, and I want to wrap her in my arms and take away her worry. “I promise.”
Something I don’t like crosses Hudson’s face. Not skepticism, something else, and he rubs his jaw, looking back at the burnt-out structure.
“What’s up, boss?” I ask, hip brushing against Sami’s.
Puffing out a sigh, he turns back to us. “Samantha, would anyone have left a parcel or gift in the cabana for you? Something that might have ignited?”
She stiffens. “Why?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. We discovered what looks like the charred remains of a box near the?—”
“What?”
The alarm in her voice slices into me. She presses to my side, and it might only be in my mind, but I swear I can feel her heart hammering.
