Burn for You

Lee

Excerpt

"No!" He jerked away from her. Not just one staggered step this time, but three. Three violent backward steps.

Jenna’s heart smashed into her throat.

He turned his back to her. For the first time, she saw how far around his body the scars reached. Most of the muscular plane of his back was a mess of pinkish-white taut flesh. It extended up to the base of his scalp to disappear beneath his shaggy hair, and down below the waistband of his jeans.

Once again, the reality of the excruciating pain he had endured slammed into her. Her stomach rolled.

Evan. His name fell from her in a husky plea. Please don’t do this to yourself. To us. I don’t care—

I do, he answered without turning. His back and shoulders moved as he pulled a ragged breath. She could hear the torment in the slow intake. You’ve got your story. Now you can go.

She stared at his back, at flesh marred by fire and who knows how many skin grafts. Hot tears pricked her eyes. Her blood roared in her head. Her heart thumped in her throat. My story? The only story I’ve found here is that the hero of Wallaby Ridge is nothing but a broken man afraid to let anyone into his life. Is that the story you want me to walk away with?

He didn’t answer.

Her eyes stung. Her vision blurred. A single tear fell to her cheek.

Is it? she repeated, although the words were little more than a choked breath.

He turned his head—a fraction—to the right, not even enough for her to see a hint of his profile. Please, Jenna. Please go.

Gut a churning storm, Jenna ran her gaze over his back one more time. Ached for him. Prayed for him to turn and look at her.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he snatched up his shirt from the floor and pulled it over his head and covered his torso once again. Instead, he walked from the kitchen without a backward glance.

Leaving her alone.

Burn for You

Outback Skies, Book 3

Lexxie Couper

Published 2017 by Book Boutiques.

ISBN: 978-1-946363-42-8

Copyright © 2017, Lexxie Couper.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Book Boutiques.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is wholly coincidental. The names, characters, dialogue, and events in this book are from the author’s imagination and should not to be construed as real.

Manufactured in the USA.

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Blurb

The fire in the heart is the hardest to fight.

Harsh, rugged and unforgiving, the Australian Outback is the perfect place for Evan Alexander to hide. Up in the air, fighting fires from the cockpit of his helicopter, no one sees the scars that run clear down to his soul.

When a massive fire breaks out in a nearby national park, Wallaby Ridge becomes a media staging ground, and Evan’s daring piloting skills the center of attention. Evan finds it easy to dodge every reporter—except one. A woman from his past.

Jenna McGrath can’t believe the quiet, withdrawn man declared a hero is the same arrogant, cocky pilot she fell in love with six years ago. A cruel betrayal caused Jenna to remove herself from his world, but she’s never been able to erase him from her memories.

Their long-suppressed attraction reignites, but the walls Evan has built around himself are high. And while Jenna easily overlooks the scars on his body, she begins to wonder if molten desire is enough to melt the emotional scars binding his heart.

Previously Published

(2015) Samhain Publishing

Dedication

While writing this book, my dad, a retired firefighter, was rushed to hospital and underwent emergency surgery. I would like to dedicate this book to the nurses of Ward 1 at the Tamworth Base Hospital for the amazing care they gave him during his time with them, and the kindness and compassion they showed my mum every minute, hour and day she sat by his bed.

Acknowledgements

Cover Artist: Valerie Tibbs, Tibbs Design

Chapter 1

"Here ya go, mate, get that inta ya."

Evan Alexander raised his head—heavier than it was five hours ago, surely—and took the beer offered to him by the owner of the Outback Skies pub. Thanks, Lacky.

His voice sounded scratched and dry, even to his own ears. It didn’t surprise him. His throat felt lined with hot sandpaper. He shifted his butt on the pub’s wooden step, unable to stop his gaze moving to the dense black smoke devouring the western sky. Smoke he’d just spent the last five hours flying around in. Smoke he’d just spent the last five hours inhaling.

Smoke he was, in roughly two minutes—give or take a mouthful—heading back into.

All around him, the small town of Wallaby Ridge writhed, rallying together in the face of a fire larger than any the area had experienced before. The Salvation Army had arrived from nearby Dubbo already, setting up outside the Ridge’s only green grocer, ready to offer support, sandwiches and water to anyone exhausted from fighting the blaze. Beside them, the first of the media trucks were unloading. Reporters sent from Sydney, no doubt to capture the drama of the history-making inferno.

Evan could only shake his head at the women in high heels and thigh-hugging skirts tottering around their equipment vans, their immaculate make-up at odds with the dusty street. And then there were their cameramen, dressed in baggy jeans and T-shirts and gaping at the billowing smoke rising into the sky hundreds of kilometres away as if it was a cancerous monster.

Charlie’s just got word the National Aerial Firefighting Centre has sent two choppers from Sydney. Matt Corvin lowered himself onto the step beside Evan and handed him a bag of salted peanuts. Here. Eat some of these. Doctor’s orders.

Evan snorted. Trust the town’s doc to make sure he was keeping his sodium levels up. Of course, with how much he’d sweated over the last five hours fighting the fire from the skies, his body would definitely be deprived of salt at the moment.

Snaring a handful of nuts from the bag, he tossed them into his mouth and chewed, returning his attention to the smoke well on its way to blocking out the setting sun. If the fire currently on its way to destroying half of the Mutawintji National Park wasn’t extinguished soon, Wallaby Ridge was going to be plunged into an unnatural night. And with both aerial and ground backup not arriving from Sydney for at least another three hours, the air assault on the blaze was pretty much left up to Evan.

Like the Blue Mountains fire? Are you going to fuck up this one as well? Is someone going to die before this fire’s out?

A suffocating pressure wrapped his chest. The nuts in his mouth tasted like dust. A heavy ball of dark contempt churned in his gut.

Dragging his stare from the smoke, eyes stinging with sweat and dust, he drained the glass in his hand and pushed himself to his feet.

He had to get back to it.

No rest for the wicked, eh, Evan?

He flicked Matt a quick glance, noting the worry on the doc’s face. Is the chopper refueled?

His friend nodded, rising to his own feet. Ryan called through a minute ago. I figured you needed a few minutes rest before I told you. You sure you’re ready to go back up?

Scrubbing his palms on the tops of his thighs, Evan nodded. Yeah. I’m good. I’ve done this before, remember?

Matt’s gaze moved to the twisted web of scarred flesh that covered most of the left side of Evan’s face. Evan didn’t need to ask what he was thinking. Everyone in Wallaby Ridge knew how those scars had come about. Was everyone in the Ridge now thinking about that? Wondering if Evan was up to the task of saving the national park, as well as keeping all those out there fighting the massive inferno on the ground safe.

Would someone die today, because Evan couldn’t handle the—

A red-dust-covered 4WD skidded to a halt directly in front of the pub, spewing dirt up from its back wheels. The driver’s door was flung open and a woman covered in ash and soot tumbled from behind the wheel, her stare fixed on Evan and Matt. Captain Montgomery just radioed through from the north front, she said, hurrying towards them. The wind’s shifted.

Evan’s blood ran cold. He stiffened.

Behind the 4WD, the big-city reporters stirred, as if sensing blood. One of the women grabbed her cameraman’s shirt sleeve and tugged at it as she fixed her stare on Evan. Dawning recognition flooded her face.

Hey! she shouted across the street. Hey, you’re that helicopter pilot who almost died in the Blue Mountains fire five years ago, aren’t you?

Adjusting his baseball cap low over his face, Evan jerked his stare back to Matt and their new arrival, ignoring the woman’s question.

Shifted? Matt—ever the doctor—pressed his hands either side of her face and gently tugged at the skin beneath her eyes, no doubt checking them for whatever doctors looked for when they did such a thing. "What’s that mean?

Tash Freeman, the town’s Royal Flying Doctors Service pilot shooed him away with a frown even as a warm smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

It means the fire’s on the verge of jumping the containment—

Evan didn’t listen to the rest. Throwing himself into Tash’s Land Cruiser, he yanked the door shut, slammed the 4WD into gear and took off, showering the female reporter currently hurrying across the street in a spray of red dust.

Pushing the vehicle to its limits, he headed for the Wallaby Ridge Rural Fire Brigade’s helipad. He had to get to the north front of the blaze. Now.

If the fire did jump the containment line, it meant the captain of the Wallaby Ridge’s fire brigade and the small team of locals working with her was surrounded.

If he didn’t get there before that happened, Jess Montgomery and her team would not survive.

An image of a blackened body flashed through his head. The haunting stench of burnt flesh filled his sinuses. The soul-tearing screams of a dying man filled his ears… A ghost from a lifetime ago he could never escape.

Gut knotted, chest tight, Evan shut out the tormented memory and pushed his foot harder to the accelerator.

Ryan Taylor was waiting for him at the chopper when he arrived. His best friend met him halfway across the helipad, holding his cowboy hat firmly to his head.