The Sapphire Crew, Book 4
Mop-Up
He was supposed to teach her the job. Nobody taught him what to do when the student outreads the teacher.
He was supposed to teach her the job. Nobody taught him what to do when the student outreads the teacher.
Rookie firefighter Kelsey Frost drew the Sapphire Hotshots' winter detail in the Georgia flatwoods: mop-up in peat that burns underground, prescribed fire in longleaf and wiregrass, and a mentor with a restless grin and a file he cannot talk about. Senior firefighter Theo Lindqvist is the youngest of the bloodline crew and the man a federal investigator's infrared frames caught standing where a bear stood ninety seconds later.
Theo's orders are simple. Mentor the rookie. Keep the secret. Reach a seventeen-year-old witness in Hamilton before Agent Dana Whitfield turns his phone into her case.
Kelsey is sharper than anyone expected. She reads weather, paper, and people a beat faster than the crew that hired her, and she keeps a list of things about her mentor that do not add up: the healing, the strength, the questions he will not answer. Where the fire hides underground and the smoke can kill on a dark highway, the truth is the most dangerous thing he carries.
What does a teacher owe a student he is falling for: the lesson, or the truth?