“You can’t be serious.” Aslen dragged her weight, just as she had at the scene. The man was impossible. “I’m perfectly capable of driving myself there, Murray.”
He opened the passenger door for her, guiding her inside with a practiced gracefulness. He gestured for her to fasten her seat belt, then pinned her with an intense gaze that sucked the air from her chest. His hand reached out and framed her jaw, those eyes dipping to her mouth and back, and she was frozen. Completely and utterly frozen as she let his touch linger. This was new. This was…everything. “You said there’s a chance the arsonist will begin to escalate. And since I have your full cooperation until this investigation is closed, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
Chapter Eight
She was leaving him.
Murray swallowed past the acid lodged in his throat.
She’d tried once before when she’d come to Zion, and he’d followed. But this time… This time felt different.
Aslen crossed park headquarters’ open floor plan toward her roommate, leaving Murray at the two-story entrance. Tinted windows fought to keep out the summer sun, but he couldn’t avoid the slap of heat against his face. Exposed beams added a cabin-like feel to the open structure designed to compliment the park’s visitor’s center with raw wood, beige rock accents, tan walls and yellow signage directing rangers to department offices. Headquarters wasn’t anywhere near the size of Zion’s visitor’s center, tucked just north of the museum along North Fork River. It looked just as any other building in the park but managed to provide a bit of peace from the onslaught of hikers. The people in this building kept the park running, including him.
Murray couldn’t help but watch Aslen as she settled into comfortable conversation with Danny, the only other female firefighter in the unit. A few more rangers had gathered nearby, but it was obvious both Aslen and Danny were kept at arm’s length until absolutely necessary. Something he’d never allowed in his own department. Each of his rangers, no matter their experience, gender, sexual preference or race were integral to the team, and if he got so much as a word differently, headdressed and neutralized it. As law enforcement rangers, his department had to work together to protect this park and the people in it. There was no preferential treatment, and he sure as hell didn’t encourage an every-man-for-himself mentality. They were all working for the same cause. Period.
Higgins obviously had a different management style, allowing division between rangers. It was one of the reasons Murray wanted Aslen out of the fire unit. If her fellow rangers didn’t go out of their way to include her and Danny in a meeting, what kept them from turning their backs on both women in the field?
Aslen’s flash of a smile lit up her entire face as she laughed at something her friend had said. Every sense he owned locked onto it, memorizing the sound, the way his gut tightened in response and etching the sight into his memory. She didn’t laugh like that around him.
Then again, he hadn’t given her a whole lot of reasons to.
Let her go. Out of all the requests he’d expected her to make, that possibility hadn’t ever crossed his mind. They were a team. Had been since she was thirteen years old. They’d survived the worst life had thrown at them by sticking together, and now she wanted to go out into the world alone to prove something? Not happening.
Word about the fire had gotten out. Each department had called their rangers to headquarters to exchange information and build a plan. Everyone from information to resources had been invited. With any luck, the National Park Service would get a leg up on whoever had set that fire and discover what’d happened to the body found in the maintenance shed. He caught whispers and glances in his direction. He’d gotten used to them over the years. His size alone tended to get people to talk, but he didn’t have the patience or the desire to confront them now.
“Ranger Simpson, it’s been a while.” A voice as smooth as silk and just as deadly when used with intention slithered to his position a split second before rich brown eyes locked on him. Eleanor Richie broke into his personal space, sliding a soft hand across his forearm. She’d pulled her hair back in some half-up twist, accentuating too-dark eyebrows that didn’t match her coloring and the few dozen layers of makeup cracking around her eyes and mouth. “I was hoping I’d see you here. You never called me back after our date.”
Probably because going out with the information ranger had been a mistake. It wasn’t her attempt to turn every word out of her mouth into a sexual innuendo or that she wore earrings twice the size of her ears that had kept him from taking her back to his bed. It’d been the flare of victory in her eyes when he’d asked her out—then subsequent anger when he’d ended their date early. It certainly had nothing to do with the confounding brunette who’d been a fixture in his life for nearly two decades.
Murray’s gaze snapped to Aslen. To see her monitoring his conversation with Eleanor. A sickening churn swept through his stomach. He had nothing against office relationships. Hell, he’d dabbled in a few during his time with SLCPD with women far more into themselves than Eleanor, and he sure as hell wasn’t celibate. But Aslen hadn’t been working with him at the time, nor with the women he took home then, and he couldn’t help but catch the slight fall of her expression before she turned back to Danny. Something like…disappointment?
What did she care who he slept with? Or hadn’t slept with, as was the case with Eleanor. And why did he want to punch himself in the face for giving her the impression he’d gotten any closer than a casual date with Eleanor? “Ranger Richie. I wasn’t aware you’d be here.”
“I’m an information ranger.” Eleanor’s lips curled into a smile that would give the Cheshire cat a run for its money.Manicured nails scraped against the skin of his forearm, forcing goose bumps to pimple up his arm. “It’s my job to ensure every department is up-to-date on the situation and visitors are informed of the state of the park.”
Right. Wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact the superintendent had brought him in to update the rest of the departments on the investigation. Murray pulled back out of her reach, ignoring the downturn of her mouth into something resembling a pout. “Excuse me.”
It was the same with every woman he’d set his sights on. Hope the next one would be different, disappointment when he found himself feeling emptier than when he’d started. No amount of pleasure could fill the hollow hole carved into his chest. It’d been gaping for too long, getting a little worse every day. The only times he could think past it were when he got Aslen within view. He didn’t have to explain himself to her or go through the motions. He didn’t have to answer a thousand questions from a stranger hoping to get to know him better or to be the one to heal his trauma. There was no healing. And there hadn’t been for a long time.
With Aslen, he could just…be. But if she wasn’t here to keep him from falling apart? Hell, he didn’t want to think about that. Ever. At the same time, using her for his own selfish survival would only push her farther away. And she deserved better than that. She deserved a man who could love her as much—if not more—than she loved him, and Murray wouldn’t ever be that guy. All the love he’d had—for his parents, his brother—had been taken from him.
He didn’t have anything left for her.
Murray headed for the front of the lobby, the weight of Eleanor’s gaze locked between his shoulder blades. It was like a shard of glass digging into his spine. “Everyone, if I could have your attention.” Instant quiet filtered through the room as hecrossed his hands in front of him. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Murray Simpson. I head the law enforcement rangers.”
A high-pitched “Woot” sounded from the back with the pump of a small fist.
“Thank you, Ranger Jordan.” He couldn’t keep his restrained laugh to himself as he surveyed the thirty or so rangers gathered. “As most of you have heard, there was an incident out at Lava Point around four this morning. A fire broke out and has since destroyed approximately two thousand acres of land. As of now, the fire department has the blaze under control and hasn’t needed to call in additional help from the state, but there is the potential for hot spots to reignite. The campground and the trails have been evacuated, and we want to keep it that way until Chief Higgins gives the all clear. Kolob Canyons has sent us a handful of rangers to look out for and turn back hikers out on the trails, but we’re going to need to dispatch another half dozen to take over night shifts and patrol the backcountry routes around Lava Point.”
Hands popped up from mass of volunteers, and Murray issued their orders to head out. Silence fell over the group as the rangers extracted themselves from the herd, but his heart rate ticked higher as he noted Aslen’s attention fully on him.
Her mouth curled at the corners in a half-assed attempt to erase the flash of disappointment from earlier.
If he was being honest with himself, not one of these rangers held his attention as much as she did. Like she possessed her own gravitational pull specifically designed to trap him. It’d been that way since the moment they’d met. He’d recognized her as the girl who was always getting yelled at next door, who’d sat at the front of the class pushing her broken glasses farther up her nose, the one who raised her hand for every answer and outsmarted every single kid in the class despite being two yearsyounger. He didn’t realize it then, but it’d been that moment he’d taken her back to his house to clean and bandage her face that had forged this invisible connection between them. Something had snapped into place and only seemed to get stronger every day. There’d been something deeper about Aslen Woods’s near compulsion to spew random facts when she got nervous, and he’d been caught up in her since.
Someone cleared their throat, drawing his attention back into the moment. Eleanor tossed him another one of those wide smiles, and his stomach lurched.
It took a moment for Murray to realize he’d been staring. At Aslen. Hell. He’d broken one of his own damn rules he’d put in place for himself when he’d landed in Zion by unnecessarily drawing attention to her. No one needed to know about their relationship—however that word applied to them. “Chief Higgins and his unit have concluded the blaze was started and fed by an accelerant, most likely gasoline, which means we’re looking for an arsonist.”
