She swayed closer, and her warm breath mingled with his. Lured by the memory of that heat, he lowered his head.
The motion jolted his shoulder, and he froze. What was he doing? This was the woman who’d dumped him, who’d gutted his heart when she left. How in the hell could he kiss her? He dropped his hand and pulled back.
Disgusted with himself, he grabbed his map and climbed off the rock. Talk about a fool. How many times did he need to learn the same lesson? She didn’t want a smokejumper. She didn’t want him.
And he’d better get them out of this forest fast, before he forgot that fact.
He shoved his map into his bag. “You ready to go?” He didn’t look in her direction.
“Do you mind if we check the dog’s paw first? I want to see why he’s limping.”
“All right.” Still angry at his loss of control, he rose to his feet and waited.
“Come here, sweetie,” she called, tugging on the leash. “Come on.” She climbed off the rock and stooped down. Her soft, sultry voice quickened his pulse and he swore silently. Why couldn’t he ignore this woman when he knew she’d only cause pain?
The dog limped over, his tail slowly wagging. Still cooing, Jordan scratched his chin and scooted closer. Within seconds, she had him in her arms. “Okay, you silly dog. Let’s see what’s wrong with that paw.”
Her eyes met his and her face turned pink, as if she were thinking about that near-kiss.
Reluctant to get near her, he dragged himself closer and dropped to one knee. They both leaned over the dog’s paw, their heads nearly touching, and he inched himself back.
“I’m guessing he has a thorn stuck in it,” she said and her blush deepened. “See if you can find it while I hold him still.”
Forcing his attention to the dog, Cade reached out and clasped his paw. The dog instantly tried to jerk back. “Easy.” He gently massaged the ragged pad until he felt something sharp in the flesh. “I found it.” He pinched the thorn with his fingers and pulled it out. “Damn. No wonder he was limping.” He held it up for her to see.
“Make sure there’s not another one.”
He tossed aside the thorn, then felt the rest of his paw. “I think that’s it.”
“Great.” She kissed the dog’s head and let him go. He scrambled away, and her gaze rose to his. “He must have run through brambles.”
The concern in her soft eyes swamped him, and his head grew suddenly light. And that confused him. What was it about this woman that affected him so much? Why couldn’t he keep her at a distance?
He forced himself to his feet. Needing to get away, to put some space between them, he strode to his gear and picked up his hard hat.
She rose more slowly. “So what do you think about Dusty?” She brushed the dirt off her jeans. “For the dog, I mean. I’ve been trying to think of a name.”
Still annoyed with himself, but grateful for the change of subject, he shoved on his hard hat and lifted his bag. “I guess it suits him.” Even after crossing the river, the mutt needed a bath.
“I think so, too. Come on, Dusty,” she told the dog. “Let’s get you a drink.” She pulled the bowl from her bag and poured in water. While the dog drank, she stuck their trash in a plastic bag.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
“Yes.” She put away the empty bowl, tied the trash to the strap on her bag and joined him on the path. “What kind of dogs did you have on your ranch?”
“Border collies, mostly. They helped herd the cattle.”
“I could never have a dog when I was young. We moved too much.” She hiked beside him up the rocky trail, her long legs keeping stride with his. “Plus, my dad was
always gone on ships, and my mother couldn’t be bothered. She was involved with the wives’ club, and a dog didn’t fit her lifestyle.” She paused. “Actually, neither did a kid.”
The resentment in her voice surprised him. He’d always assumed she’d had a great childhood.
But now that he thought about it, she’d never discussed her past, at least not in any detail. Whenever he’d asked, she’d skirted his questions. And he’d never pursued it past that.
Troubled by that thought, he frowned. “How did you learn about dogs if you never had one?”
She glanced at the dog. No longer limping, he trotted easily beside her. “When I moved back East, I got involved in dog rescue. It helped me…cope.”
Cope? With what? Her guilt at deserting her husband? Bitterness soured his gut. “So you’re what, a dog trainer now?”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. I still help out with rescue, but I work in a nursing home now. In fact, dogs are how I got my job.”
She stopped and pulled a pebble from her shoe. He waited for her to catch up. “I had the sweetest golden retriever for a while,” she said as they resumed hiking. “A trained therapy dog. Her owner had to give her up. So I took her to a nursing home to visit patients and got hooked.”
“Hooked on what?”
“The people.” She sounded surprised.
“Seems like they’d be depressing.”
“Not at all. I mean, when someone…passes on…it’s really hard. But they’re wonderful. They have the most amazing attitude. They know that they’re going to…that they won’t be around very long. And some are in a lot of pain. But instead of complaining or focusing on what they don’t have, they’re so cheerful and optimistic. They just enjoy every moment they have.”
She frowned suddenly and nibbled her bottom lip. A second later, she slanted him a glance. He was surprised to see guilt in her eyes.
But then she cleared her throat. “Well, anyway, they’re always happy to see me.” Her voice dropped. “I guess I like feeling needed.”
Needed? He stopped, feeling as if she’d kicked the air from his gut. “Since when?”
“Since when, what?” Her eyes searched his. “What do you mean?”
“You know damned well what I mean.” He’d needed her, more than he’d needed to breathe. And she’d still bolted away. He turned and strode up the path.
“Cade, wait.”
“For what? Another lie?”
“Cade, please. Let me explain.”
His jaw rigid, he jerked around. “Explain what? Why you didn’t give a damn about my feelings? Why you ran out of town?” He stepped forward and his gaze pinned hers. “Why your husband’s needs didn’t count?”
“But you…You didn’t…” Her skin paled. “Cade, I…”
He waited, willing her to continue, to explain why she’d run away. But she only twisted her hands and looked distraught.
“Hell.” Disgusted, he strode off. His gut churning, his pulse thundering through his skull, he struggled to control his anger. What did it matter? Their marriage was over. So why did he even care? Why did her betrayal eat at him, even after all these years?
Because he still didn’t understand it. His heart pumping, he picked up his pace. Whenever he looked at her, whenever she talked, she seemed genuine. Sincere. As if she really cared about him. Hell, she even acted like that toward the dog.
And he fell for it, every damned time.
Was it just an act? Was she really that callous, that hard? And if so, why couldn’t he see it? Why couldn’t he get her out of his blood?
And if it wasn’t a lie, if she really had cared about him, then why had she left? And why wouldn’t she tell him now?
“McKenzie, this is dispatch,” a voice on his radio called.
He pulled out his radio and sucked in his breath. No, he didn’t understand it. But he did know one thing for damned sure. Before they reached Missoula, he was going to demand some answers.
Chapter 7
Jordan hurried up the rocky trail behind Cade, clutching the makeshift leash. A sick feeling swirled through her belly. She’d seen Cade in a lot of moods during their marriage, but never this fiercely bitter, and he had a cynical edge to his eyes that had never been there before.
Because she’d put it there whe
n she left.
Fierce guilt cramped her chest. Of course he was angry. What had she expected? That he wouldn’t care that she’d left him? That he’d shrug the divorce off?
Ahead of her, Cade said something into his radio, then shoved it into his bag. Then he stopped and looked back, waiting for her to catch up.
Her gaze met his as she closed the distance between them. His hard jaw tightened under the stubble, and his striking eyes narrowed at hers. And her heart tripped even more.
She’d hurt him, all right, deeply. More than she’d ever dreamed. And no matter how hard it was to discuss it, she owed him an explanation.
And she needed to do it now.
She caught up to him and stopped, trying to figure out how to begin. The dry wind swirled up dust and pushed a pinecone along the trail. The raucous squawk of a Steller’s jay pierced the mounting silence.
She finally dragged in a steadying breath. “Cade, when you were growing up, was there anything you really wanted?”
He held her gaze for several seconds, and she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he turned and started walking again, and she hurried to match his long stride.
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I wanted to get the hell off the ranch.”
She blinked. “But I thought you liked Montana.” In fact, she couldn’t imagine him anywhere else. He was always doing something outdoors—hunting, fishing, smokejumping…
“Montana’s fine. It was the ranch I hated. Doing the same damn work every day. Baling hay and feeding cattle.” He grunted in disgust. “It was a hell of a life, being stuck in that dying town.”
Still marveling over that revelation, she slanted him a glance. How come she hadn’t known that? She knew the most intimate details of this man—what he ate, how he made love—and yet, in so many ways he remained a stranger.
Still, it made sense. Even injured, he exuded energy. She could imagine his restlessness as a teen. “So you were anxious to leave?”
“No way was I spending my life trapped on that ranch, worrying about the price of beef.”
The bitterness in his tone caught her off guard. She studied the hard line of his jaw, sensing he’d had more at stake than a need for independence, but when he didn’t elaborate, she let it go. “Well, I would have given anything to live there.”
His eyes met hers again and he raised his brows. “You didn’t like moving around?”
“Hardly.” Her lips twisted. “Oh, some of it wasn’t so bad. We lived in some beautiful places. But I hated starting over, being the new kid in school every year. Sitting by myself, trying to figure out how to fit in and what to wear. And just when I’d finally get it right, when I’d start to make friends and relax, we’d have to move.”
“You can be lonely even living in one place.”
“True.” She glanced at him, wondering why she’d never viewed him as a loner. He’d always seemed so strong and confident, so impermeable to hurt. But apparently, she’d been wrong.
She gnawed her bottom lip, unable to stop the guilt creeping into her chest. If she hadn’t seen that part of him, what else might she have missed?
“Well, anyway,” she continued. “I didn’t like to travel.”
“How come you never told me that?”
Good question. “I didn’t like to talk about it. It wasn’t…It was a painful way to grow up. And I guess I assumed that you knew, that everyone understood the military lifestyle.” Obviously, she’d been wrong. And that assumption had cost her.
The road switched back, and she paused to haul air into her lungs. Sunlight
streamed through the Douglas firs in narrow beams, highlighting the punishing climb ahead. Cade held out his canteen, but she shook her head.
His Adam’s apple dipped as he drank, and she steeled herself to go on. “My dad was always gone. That’s how I remember my childhood, standing on piers, watching his ship disappear, knowing it would be forever before he came back.
“There was this one time when I was nine and he’d been gone for months. I’d been counting the days until he came home. I’d made one of those paper chains, you know, where you tear off a link every day? And the chain was finally gone.”
They started walking again. “We got the call that the ship was in sight, so we drove down to the pier. We saw it in the distance, and then the pilot boat went out to meet it. I was so excited, I thought I was going to burst.”
Her stomach clenched at the memory. And that old dread trickled in, that horrible sense of betrayal. “And then the ship stopped, right at the entrance to the harbor, and it started to turn. I thought that the pilot had told them to, so it could enter the harbor at a better angle, but they’d been called out on another case. They just turned around and left. I didn’t even get to see him. And they were gone for another month.”
Cade frowned. “Your father couldn’t control that. He was just doing his job.”
“Exactly. A job he cared more about than me.” Her throat tightened, and she searched his face, praying he would understand. “And that was my biggest wish growing up. To find a man who loved me enough to stay home.”
She’d thought that man was Cade. He’d swept her away with his intensity, the way he’d made her the center of his thrilling world. And during those amazing months in the cabin, she’d lived the life she’d always dreamed.
Eventually, she’d discovered the truth, that she hadn’t really enthralled him, or at least not for long. That he did everything with the same high energy, and he thrived on excitement and change.
And no matter what she did or how hard she tried to please him, she couldn’t hold him down. Adventure lured him away every time.
Just as it had seduced her father.
Cade stopped and turned to face her. His eyes blazed, and a red stain inched up his neck. Shocked by his sudden anger, she took an unsteady step back.
He moved forward, crowding into her space. “So, because I didn’t spend every damned second by your side, you figured I didn’t care?”
Unease thumped through her chest. “It was worse than that,” she said, her throat dry. “I hardly saw you.”
“I stayed with you when I could.”
“Sure, during the off season.”
“During the summer, too. Every minute I wasn’t working. What more did you expect?”
That he love her enough to stay with her. “Is that how you measured our marriage?” he continued. “By how many minutes I punched on a goddamned time clock?”
“No, of course not, but—”
“Hell, you didn’t want a man. You wanted a dog, somebody who’d sit at your feet every night.” He jerked his head toward the leash. “Well, it looks like you got what you wanted.” Looking furious, he turned and strode up the road.
Her face hot, her stomach balled, she slowly trailed him. Was Cade right? Had she expected too much from him? Had the problem really been her?
She dragged in a trembling breath. He made her sound so selfish. But was she wrong to want her husband around, to have a loving companion to warm the long nights?
She lifted her chin. “I don’t think that’s fair. Some men care more about their wives than their careers.”
He turned back to face her, his jaw rigid. “It’s not a matter of caring. A man has to support his family.”
“By being gone all the time?”
“If that’s his job.”
She shook her head. “Not all men think that way.”
He scoffed. “Good luck finding one who doesn’t.”
She looked away. “I already have.”
“You’re engaged?”
His incredulity stung. She snapped her eyes back to his. “Is that so hard to believe?”
His eyes narrowed even more. “What’s hard to believe is that any man would stay on that tight a chain.”
She flinched as he strode away. Phil was a man, a perfectly nice one. She pictured Phil’s easy face, his laid-back smile. The warm brown eyes that were as comfortable and w
elcoming as her favorite armchair.
And about as exciting.
She scowled. All right, so maybe he wasn’t as thrilling as Cade, but he’d make a great husband, wouldn’t he?
Still frowning, she tugged on the leash and resumed walking. In any case, she wasn’t looking for excitement this time. She wanted stability. She’d loved Cade passionately, but she’d been lonely without him. And it was far worse when she’d discovered she was pregnant.
Cade had been out on a fire, of course. And she had been so excited. She couldn’t wait for him to come home so she could tell him the news. So they could celebrate. She was sure he’d quit smokejumping so they could raise their child together, and create the family she’d always desired.
But instead of coming home, he’d veered off to Alaska. He’d sounded cheerful when he’d called to tell her. Excited. Lightning was striking all over and he’d get plenty of overtime pay.
And she’d felt hollow, betrayed, as if she were nine years old again and that ship had turned around.
She’d started cramping that same night.
Her stomach curled at the memories. The shocking gush of blood. The panic and fear. The terror of lying alone in that starched white hospital bed, her husband a thousand miles away.
God, she’d been scared. She’d needed Cade desperately, and he’d been off fighting fires. And when she’d left the hospital, no longer pregnant, drowning in depression and grief, she simply couldn’t go on. God forgive her, but she couldn’t make herself go back to that empty apartment. She couldn’t face the loneliness, the sadness. And so she’d left.
She sighed, unsure how to explain all that. How to tell Cade that he’d had a child, however briefly. And that she couldn’t cope when it died.
Just then, a plane flew overhead, and she squinted up toward the sky. White wings flashed through the pines and then they were gone.
Cade waited for her to catch up. “That’s the recon plane. They’ll check for a landing spot, too. With any luck they’ll pick us up soon.”
Which meant their time together was nearly over. And she still hadn’t told him about the baby. She cleared her throat. “Cade, I need to…”
Facing The Fire Page 8