Page 19 of The Heat is On
“Yep,” she said.
He set down his coffee, then tore open the package. He had long fingers, strong-looking hands. And when he took a bite of the chocolate, his eyes actually closed.
Oh. My.
She was getting up when his eyes opened.
“Hey—uh. Sit?”
Oh. But with Seth a few feet away and Romeo glancing her direction now and then…okay. She sat cross-legged, not too close, but enough for him not to have to raise his voice. “It’s Skye, by the way. Skye Doyle.”
He met her eyes. “Rio. Parker.” He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say more, then closed it. Took another bite.
“Nice to meet you, Rio.”
His mouth twitched. “It’s pretty unusual to see a woman on a team like this. Congratulations.”
Huh. “Yeah. It’s…it’s hard work to get on the team. I had to put in three years as a hotshot first, and then Tucker gave me a chance—actually, not Tucker so much as Jed, our jump boss.”
“I haven’t met him.”
“No, he’s down in Montana. His wife is having a baby.”
Rio took another bite. A small one, as if he might be savoring each morsel.
Skye felt a little guilty for gobbling hers down so quickly.
“So, you’re out of Montana?” he asked.
“A little town in the northwest corner called Ember.”
He smiled at that.
“I know. The town is fire crazy. They train hotshots and smokejumpers there—have for about fifty years. Everything in town is named after fire. The local barbecue place is called the Hotline Saloon and Grill.”
He chuckled, and the noise came out low and rumbled next to her skin.
She should leave. Except he smiled at her then, a full-out grin, and it transformed his face, turned him from dark and mysterious to gentle, sweet.
And shoot, if she wasn’t turning into her father, easily seduced by danger.
“Is that where you grew up?” Rio asked. He took another bite.
“Close. We lived in Missoula, south of there a bit. But I grew up backpacking and skiing and loving the wilderness. I spend the winters working with the ski patrol.”
“And summers fighting fires.”
“It’s better than waiting tables.”
He gave a tiny huff, a nod. “I grew up in Chicago. All concrete wilderness there.”
She didn’t want to speculate how that might have led to his incarceration. Still, Alaska was a long way from Chicago. “How did you… I mean, Alaska is…”
“How did I end up in a prison in the middle of nowhere?” He took his last bite, chewed as if contemplating his answer. Glanced at her with those amber eyes. “It’s a long story, with a sad beginning and…well, a not great ending.”
She let out a terrible laugh, something of a nervous twitter, and wanted to cringe.
“Yeah. I guess that’s an understatement, huh?”