Lana.
"Where, Chase? Where has the fire spread to?"
"South, near the highway."
"Shit!" Hank swerved on his stretch of road. The wheels of the truck squealed beneath him, and the whole creaking body of the vehicle careened wildly as he stomped the brakes and wrenched the wheel around into a screeching U-turn on the two-lane county highway. The smell of burned rubber filled the air and singed his nostrils as if the fire was beneath him, right at his heels.
"Hank! What the hell, man?" Now Chase sounded like he was in a blind panic. "Hank? You there, Chief? Shit! Please tell me he didn't just get into a fucking accident . . ."
"I can hear you," he growled. "I didn't get into an accident. I'm on my way back to you."
"Glad to hear it. See you when you get here."
Chase dropped the call. Hank's thumb flew across the keypad frantically as he dialed. The subsequent ringing in his ear was cold, and shrill, and continuing, continuing . . . continuing right into voicemail.
"Come on, Lana!" Hank hissed through his teeth. He tried dialing again. Nothing. Just Lana Sweet's unassuming voice inviting him to leave a message. Maybe it was a good thing that he couldn't reach her. Maybe it meant she had evacuated already.
Or maybe it meant she was screening his calls.
Hank hung up. He was about to toss his phone onto the seat beside him, maybe bang his hands on the steering wheel and string profanities together until his throat was sore, but another idea occurred to him. He shouted his sister's name into the phone, and Siri dialed.
"Hank!" He could only barely distinguish Sookie's voice over the din of what he recognized to be helicopter blades.
"Sookie, I need you to get to Lana's house and make sure she got out okay. The fire is headed right for her."
"I know it is, Hank." Sookie sounded more distressed then he could ever remember hearing her. "But I'm gearing up to fly. I have my orders. Believe me, I wish I could run to her house and make sure she's safe." The channel garbled as Sookie responded to something another member of the National Guard was shouting at her. "I'm sure she's fine, Hank. She has to have evacuated by now. Everyone knows where the fire is."
"I wish I could be so sure," Hank whispered. He doubted Sookie heard him over the roar of the chopper. He raised his voice to shout into the phone. "Be safe, little sister. I look forward to seeing you when you get back down, Sook."
"Same to you, big brother. I love you, Hank."
The words jarred him, but Sookie hung up before he could return the sentiment. He’d thought he would never hear those three words on his sister's lips again.
Hank threw his phone down and floored the accelerator, gunning the truck down the highway. As he sped, he tried to relax, starting with his shoulders since his thoughts wouldn't immediately cooperate. Of course, what Sookie said had to be true. Lana always had the local news on in her living room these days, just like anyone else. And there was no way she couldn't see the fire coming, looking out those huge bay windows of hers.
Nevertheless, he made the hour drive back in under forty minutes.
They had already set up the one-way blockades. Hank parked, but left the engine running as he stepped down out of the truck's cab.
A police officer hustled over to him, already shaking his head, a denial of entry on his lips.
Hank opened his wallet and thrust his ID at the man. "I'm a firefighter," he stated. "I'm here with the volunteer contingency from Alaska. Let me through."
The cop's headshake quickly transformed into a nod. "Winds’re pushing the fire up into the south part of town," the officer said as he moved the barricade. "Not sure where your squad is going to be. Caught us completely by surprise. We're still in the process of evacuating everyone."
"Thanks." Hank pulled himself back up into the cab, not bothering with his seatbelt as he shot on through.
He headed south, toward the flickering orange glow feeding on the darkening horizon. He couldn't tell if the black miasma in the evening sky overhead was smoke or storm clouds. It almost didn't seem to matter anymore.
The apocalypse had come to Cedar Springs.
He was forced to slow down as he began passing rapidly unfolding scenes of chaos. Too many volunteers had been sent home prematurely, and the people of Cedar Springs had been lulled into complacency thanks to the commissioner's positive reports. No one seemed prepared for the fire. Vehicles careened down both lanes of the road, and frequently screeched to a halt as the drivers stopped to pick up their fleeing neighbors. A man was outside on his lawn, spraying down the burning roof of his home with a garden hose; Hank watched the scene conclude in his rearview mirror, when a fireman was forced to tackle to the distraught homeowner and drag him away so the professionals could do their work but to Hank’s practiced eye, it wouldn’t be long before the house collapsed completely. Booming above the uncontrolled panic was an authoritative voice on a loudspeaker telling everyone to get out now! No request for calm, no time for orderliness. This was it.
Black smoke poured from Lana's street.
Hank wrenched the steering wheel in a skidding turn onto her street. He could see houses going up like torches further—not far enough—past her house. Shock made him yank the wheel too late, and he overshot her driveway (her car was still there!) and flew into the yard. His wheels churned her lawn as he hit the brakes and skidded the car around, ending sideways to the house. He threw the door open before the truck came to a complete stop and leapt onto her porch.
"Lana!" he shouted. He raised his fist to bang on the door—before realizing how far past pleasantries they were at this point. The fire was already consuming a neighbor's house just down the street, and wind-borne sparks filled the air around him like flaming fireflies.
He reared back and kicked the door in.
18
LANA
Lana was packing her duffel when the front door burst open. She whirled, heart leaping into her throat as if she expected . . . what? The fire to blow her door down like an uninvited house guest? Get a grip, Lana, she thought as she darted out into the hall.
But her heart refused to descend when she saw the man standing in the entryway.
Hank Logan breathed raggedly, in and out, like he had a pair of bellows for lungs. Like he had run back to her—all the way from Alaska. The way his shoulders squared, she knew he was ready for a fight, but—fight who? With fear, with the fire? With her?
It was with her.
"What the hell are you still doing here, Lana?" His voice was hoarse as he stalked toward her. Lana backed to the doorway of her bedroom, but not because she was intimidated by him. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder to take in just how much more she needed to pack. "The fire already caught a few houses down! What are you thinking?"
"Don't talk to me as if I were a child." She surprised herself by the tone of voice she used, and she could tell she surprised Hank, too, by the way he stopped walking toward her. "I know the fire's here, Hank. I'm almost done packing. I just had to get a few more things."
Hank glanced around the room. She knew that he was only just noticing for the first time the naked walls of her home.
She turned from him, trying to keep her composure, all the while stunned by his sudden reappearance in her life. She crossed to her bed to finish, and found herself arrested around the middle—though she managed to retain her grip on the duffel bag's handles.
"Hank!"
But the fire chief wasn't to be reasoned with. He had caught her around the waist, and he was hauling her out of the house. Lana kicked out at the empty air—she didn't know why she thought that would be an effective protest—and clutched at her bag to keep the contents from spilling out. She was furious that she should feel anything remotely resembling embarrassment at being dragged bodily out of her own home.
She decided to convert that humiliation to anger.
As soon as they were out on the front lawn, she hauled off with her duffel bag and hit him in the face. The roar of
the encroaching fire, the smoke, the sparks in the air seemed to mirror her roiling emotion.
Hank grunted and stepped back, finally releasing her, and Lana was ready. She whirled. "Get your hands off me, Hank Logan! You have no right to touch me! You have no right to come back here!" She was yelling nonsense, but it was the truth from her heart. Everything she said, she felt with her whole being in that moment.
"What if a gas main catches, Lana?" he demanded. "This whole block will go up! We have to leave, right now!"
Lana realized too late that the duffel bag had done nothing to deter him. Hank was coming for her again. She pulled away, out of reach, teeth clenched in anger. She had never felt so incensed in all her life.
"Get away from me," she repeated. "You were leaving—what do you care?"
"Of course I care!" Hank snapped. "Why do you think I came flying back into town?"
"I don't know!" Lana cried. "So you could be the hero? Isn't that why you came back to town in the first place all those months ago? Do you think that's the only time I need you? And what happens when the crisis is over? What happens to the hero? He'll take off as planned! So he might as well have never come back to begin with!"
Hank seized her arm and began to tug her toward the idling truck. Lana knew it was stupid to fight him on this point; she had been planning on leaving, anyway. What did he think? That she was so crushed by his departure, by her own sorrow, that she was willing to die in her own home?
"We can talk about this once I get you somewhere safe," he said, but Lana barely heard him.
"I don't need you, Hank," she protested desperately. "I don't need you. I don't need your help. I don't need you to be a hero, and I don't need you to be a father. I can do this myself!"
Hank froze. "Father?" he repeated dumbly.
Lana stared. Did she look as stricken as he did in that moment? Oh God, how had she let any of that slip out? She’d thought she would never see him again! Her defenses were down, and the truth was out.
She turned from his intense gaze back toward the fire. Another house down the block, one closer, had caught as the fire advanced; hungry flames were climbing the walls and shooting high into the air from the roof. The wall of heat was coming for them.
And there was no retreating from this.
"Yes, Hank," she said finally. She shut her eyes against it all. "I'm pregnant."
19
HANK
Lana spoke, and the world went quiet.
The silence was almost complete. Never mind the fire burning in the too-near distance, the sounds of civilization breaking apart and crumbling to ash. Never mind the familiar roar and moan of an elemental appetite that could never be sated. Never mind the smoke that filled the air and crawled down his throat and compromised his lungs. Lana's words rang in his ears, cannoning off the inside of his skull. His blood pumped as a new adrenaline dump flushed through his system and threatened to take him over.
He felt panic. He felt anger, and terror, red burning bursts of emotion that painted his mind's eye until he couldn't see the way forward. And then he felt . . . joy. A joy so pure and wonderful that he thought it would burst out of the seams of himself, the same way they had been hoping for the return of the sun all these months. It was all too much and not enough, and in the wake of Lana's confession, it left him paralyzed.
"You left me, Hank!" Lana's voice had risen in volume to a shout. All at once, Hank found himself pulled back into the moment. He realized she was shouting over the roar of the fire, but the tears streaming down her face also told him in no uncertain terms that he was the reason she had to give vent to her words in a scream. "You left me again!" She succumbed to a violent coughing fit and doubled over.
Hank raised his forearm to cover his mouth and nose, took as much of a breath through the cloth of his shirt as he could manage, and lowered his arm to say, "Lana, now is not the time or place!" He reached for her, hands encircling her waist to try and hustle her out of the way, but Lana pulled herself away from him, and he found he was too afraid to go after her. What would happen to the baby if he used all his strength to corral and carry her off the premises? What would become of her, of the baby, in the next five minutes, if he didn't?
"I won't budge from this spot until you tell me why," she said. The tears that streamed down her face reflected the living light of the fire behind them. "Why did you leave me again? What are you so afraid of?"
"Lana, I never wanted to leave you. Not ever." Suddenly the words were pouring out of him, the words that had lived inside him for years like a virus no amount of distance could ever inoculate him against. The words were rising up, breaking their chains, and he was helpless to drag them back down to the dark place he had buried them. He wasn't their warden anymore. He didn't want to be. He let the words take him over and fill the night air between them. "I left because of Michael."
"Why?" Lana hiccupped. "Michael died, Hank. We all miss him! There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of him. But he's gone! There's nothing any of us could have done . . ."
"That's not true!" Hank exploded like the bursting of the building foundations just up the street. "Michael died because of me! I was supposed to drive him home that night, Lana! From the party! I knew full well that was supposed to be the arrangement, and I blew him off. I blew him off because I wanted to be with you. I knew where our night was going, and I couldn't walk away from you! Hell, I couldn't even look away from you. You were so beautiful, and I was . . . I was so stupid. That was the first night we spent together."
"I remember." Lana's tears had all dried now. Hank watched her, and his stomach gave an awful twist as he saw that she was no longer in the moment with him. She was listening to every word that came out of his mouth, and filling in the blanks of that long-distant night with the real version of events.
But he couldn't stop. He couldn't leave Lana in the dark any more than he could walk away from her now.
"I was so in love with you that I blew off my best friend, Lana. If I had taken Michael home that night—like we had planned—he wouldn't have died. His death is my fault. I'm the one responsible for taking your brother away from you."
Lana gave a cough. He didn't know if it was a sob or a hard outtake of air.
"And when I went after the driver . . . everyone thought I stopped short of killing the man. But I didn't. I thought I had killed him. I had wanted to do it with all my heart." Hank clenched his hands into fists as if he could imagine them wrapped around the other man's throat, even now. "They never should have let me out of prison. And I never should have thought I could come here. I have no place in your life."
Lana's eyes steeled suddenly, and Hank thought he knew what was coming. She was going to slap him. His cheek already tingled from the impact that was about to occur. He waited. He wanted it. He wanted whatever punishment she of all people could hand down to him. It would absolve him of nothing, but maybe he could finally stop punishing himself, every day of the week he woke up without Michael, without her, in his world . . .
Lana reached for him, grabbed his collar, and pulled him in against her. Hank went. Her arms were slim, but he was already falling into her before he could think to do otherwise. He let the circle of her embrace cradle and enfold him. He shut his eyes, not believing in the moment that it was happening, but surrendering to it all the same.
"I forgive you, Hank," Lana said. Her voice couldn't have been anything above a whisper, but it drowned out the clanging in his head, the maelstrom of feeling that he couldn't take on his own. It all went away, as if Lana's whisper was the much-needed gust of strong wind to disperse the storm. "The past is the past. We need to move on from it. All three of us. Together." She pulled his hand between them and placed it on her belly. "It's what Michael would want. I know that you love me, and that you loved Michael. Neither of us would ever want to see you suffer this way. It's time to let go."
A sob hitched in his throat. The noise startled him. He tried to tamp it down, but it was no
use; it came again, and this time he didn't fight it. He let his suffering pour out of him, and Lana shouldered it—as she shouldered him. He clung to her as if he wasn't half a foot taller than she was. He clung to her like a child, crying like a child, and the hands that held him made gentle circles on his back. Tears he didn't know he was capable of streamed down his face, and . . .
Water. Drops of it, falling from the sky, catching in his hair and running beneath his shirt collar.
It was raining. The sensation was so extraordinary that Hank took a step back, and so did Lana, although their arms never left each other. The roiling sky opened up above them and poured forth a rain like he had never seen before. The deluge was almost biblical. It felt like standing beneath a waterfall with barely a break in the stream.
"The fire! Hank!" Lana tugged at him earnestly, and Hank diverted his attention to the burning houses behind them. The fire hissed beneath the onslaught of rain. It shied away, and looked to be retreating beneath the burning rafters of the roofs.
"My God. It's going to put the fire out," he breathed.
And just like that, he knew the rain had done something more. It had washed away him, and all that had made him Hank Logan for the past tormented decade: washed away his fears, his worries, and his guilt. The feelings bled away from him like rainwater runoff, until all that remained was the present. He was cleansed of the past, gifted with an unexpected, extraordinary future.
He was going to be a father. He was going to be with Lana.
"Forever," he said as he turned back to her. "Lana, I want to be with you forever. Even that won't be enough time. Lana, I want you to marry me."
"Yes." The tears streamed anew down her face, or was that just the rain cleansing her, as well? Hank folded her in his arms and she kept saying the word: "Yes. Yes."
Californian Wildfire Fighters: The Complete Series Page 31