Page 17 of The Heat is On

Young. Pretty, with a long blonde braid snaking down her back. Clearly a smokejumper by her uniform—yellow shirt, green pants, helmet—although no soot streaked her face, and she bore a hint of a sunburn on her nose. Beautiful aqua-gray eyes that closed briefly in relief just before Tucker grabbed her upper arms and put her away from him.

Maybe five foot five. Shapely, even in her work clothes, and—shoot. He was staring as if he hadn’t seen a woman in decades.

Okay, so maybe not one who made him wish he could take a shower, clean up, introduce himself properly.Rio Parker, FBI, ma’am.

He turned away.

“I’m okay, Skye. Thanks to Rio.”

Tucker’s voice made Rio look over, and at that moment, the woman’s gaze connected with his. A tiny smile tipped her lips, as if reaching out to him, as if…as if he’d done something good and right and—

Oh. Of course. He’d saved her boyfriend.

But his throat still filled with the heat that flared through him.

So maybe it was worth it, just for that smile.

Rio was turning back to his work when he caught it—the expression on Clancy’s—or Eugene’s—face. He’d stopped also, leaning on his shovel, his gray-eyed gaze raking over Skye, something almost hungry in his expression.

And just like that, the heat inside Rio dissipated, behind it running a streak of cold.

“Let’s get moving,” Rio shouted to Archer. Because yes, the faster they got back to the prison, the better.

Skye wantedto believe there was good in everyone, no matter how deep she had to search.

But a person had to look pretty deep to find it in the form of the prisoner named Rio. He sat with his back to a tree in a copse of forest, eating dinner from his MRE.

From the outside, she could admit he possessed looks that could stun a girl—short, wavy black hair, the scrub of whiskers on his chin, deep amber brown eyes. He stood over six feet, with broad shoulders, a lean body, as if he hadn’t spent a lifetime behind bars but working out in some gym, maybe playing a little football on the side. And he dug line like he might have a dog in this fight instead of being forced to work like a member of a chain gang.

Yes, she’d watched, mesmerized for a dangerous moment by the ripple of muscles in his arms, the lean length of his legs, the way his lats tensed every time he tossed dirt.

The heat was clearly going to her head because any resemblance to a clean-nosed college jock ended with the scar across his jaw, as if he’d been nicked by a knife in a street fight. And the bad boy aura just thickened with the tattoo on the back of his neck—some kind of tribal tattoo that started on his forearms and wound all the way up, under his shirt sleeves to circle his neck and dip back down under his collar. He wore a now-grimy white T-shirt under his orange prison shirt, which he’d stripped off, and all she saw were deft hands that scraped out a can of tuna. She couldn’t stop wondering if he knew how to turn a plastic spoon into a weapon.

Oh, brother. She’d seen too many movies.

He said nothing as he ate, but those amber brown eyes seemed to be watching them all, the expression on his face a little raw, a little broken, very wary.

And call her a sucker for the lost, but it was the expression that convinced her that maybe, just maybe, there was more to Rio’s story.

Especially since he’d saved Tucker’s life.

Huh.

She stood with Romeo, eating her cold MRE bag of chicken à la king, listening to Riley tell the story of how he looked up to see Rio—that’s what Tucker had called him—running into the fire. Without fire gear, without a shelter, just straight into the flames and smoke. Riley had shouted at him, not sure what to do, when Rio had disappeared over the ridge, right into the flames.

Here, Skye filled in her side of the story—watching Rio grab up Tucker and drag him to safety.

Clearly, there were blank spots—including how a US marshal had joined them. “She’s the one from the bar last night,” Skye said, taking the last bite of her dinner-slash-mush. “The one Tucker was fighting over.”

“I thought she looked familiar.” Seth had finished his dinner of beef stroganoff and now stirred coffee grounds into his sierra cup of water. “Didn’t figure on her being a cop.”

“She’s probably here to make sure no one escapes,” Riley said. “I was wondering why they sent the team in without a guard.”

“I think he’s in charge of the prisoners,” Romeo said, rolling up his MRE bag. He gestured to the middle-aged man who seemed to be watching the crew with hawk eyes.

Yeah, she would agree.

“Archer,” Skye said, remembering his name. “He keeps looking at the marshal, though, so I’m not sure he’s not thinking about making a dash for it.”