White Heat

by Jill Shalvis

  Things such as last night, and the feel of Lyndie under his hands, his mouth, his body.

  But obsessing over that meant he didn’t have the time to feel sick over fighting this fire, didn’t have to relive the horrific memories floating so freely in his head, nothing. He simply worked.

  But again, like yesterday, it shamed him that he could have gotten over the Idaho fire at all, that he could move on and be okay, when twelve weren’t. So he stood there and brought back the screams, the heat, the vicious wind, the misguided directions and incorrect weather report from base nearly thirty miles away—and only when his heart had filled with pain, did he nod grimly.

  Now he could face this fire again.

  “Where are we at?”

  Griffin turned his head and looked into Lyndie’s green eyes. Her easy smile faded at whatever she saw in his. “Hey.” She put her hand on him. “You okay?”

  “You ever notice how you only touch me when you think I’m falling apart?”

  “You’re too hardheaded to fall apart,” she said, but dropped her hand from his arm. “And what do you call last night? You weren’t falling apart then and I touched you plenty.”

  He sighed. Scrubbed a hand over his face. “We’ve got the fire trapped between the river, and the rock, and the firebreaks we created. Town is safe enough. But that up above…” He pointed out the cliff above them. “I don’t think it’s stable. We need to get up above it, fuse all the vegetation between the rock and the flames. That’s when we’ll have it nailed.”

  If the weather conditions remained right.

  If the crew wasn’t too exhausted from the ongoing battle, not to mention last night’s fiesta.

  If they weren’t thinking about something else, like their families, or what they’d had or not had for lunch.

  If, if, if…

  So many variables, and on a job like this, even one thing off could make or break them.

  As he knew all too well.

  Oh yeah, there was that sharp stab of pain. He hadn’t forgotten. Good. He didn’t have to force himself to relive it, it was still right there. And though there were still many dangers, this fire would not end in tragedy as his last had. Not if he had breath left in his body. “I’m going to climb up there and see how much growth is beyond that rock. See if you can get Hector and a few others to walk the south, west, and east perimeters to check on them.”

  “Will do.” Lyndie watched him stride away, a funny feeling in the pit of her gut. She had a bad feeling it was fear, which made no sense. This was good. They had this thing under control.

  But soon as she contacted Hector, Tom ran up to her, huffing and sweating. “Just got back with more men…on the way up here we caught a weather report…” He bent over his knees and dragged air into his lungs. “Heavy winds forecasted, leading into dry thunderstorms…”

  Which meant lightning, and more wind without moisture. “Damn it.” She glanced at Griffin climbing the mountain directly ahead of her, already reaching for her radio to fill him in, but it squawked first. She brought it up to her ears just in time to hear Sergio say that he was already on the northeastern edge with a crew of fifteen men. Hearing that, she called Griffin. From above, high on the rock, she watched him pick up his radio and turn to look at her.

  “Bad news, good news,” she said. “Bad first: Tom said dry thunderstorms are on their way. Good news: You have a group of men who made it to the base of that northeastern canyon directly to your right, they’re between the river and the wall of rock. They’re above the fire. Repeat, they’re already above the fire. They have fuses on them, just tell me what to tell them.”

  She watched him go stiff. And even though she couldn’t see his eyes, she knew they were chilled and right on her. “Lyndie,” he said. “They’re right above the canyon next to me?”

  “Yes,” she verified.

  “Get them out of there.”

  Next to her, Tom nodded. “Tell him they’ll be out of there as soon as they check on the perimeters…”

  Lyndie repeated that for Griffin.

  “No.” His voice sounded hoarse. Terrified. “Tell them to get out of there. Tell them now—”

  The radio died.

  “Griffin?” Lyndie banged the radio against her thigh and tried again. “Griffin?”

  Her batteries had died. “Tom—”

  “Got it.” He slapped his pockets for more batteries, came up empty-handed. “Shit, I gave away my extras earlier.”

  And Griffin had her extras.

  She could see him up there, suddenly and furiously on the move, going sideways across the rock now instead of up. He was moving…directly toward the crew she’d just told him about.

  She glanced at Tom, who had shielded his eyes and was watching Griffin. “What’s he doing?”

  “I don’t know…it looks like maybe he’s trying to get to where the crew is…though that’s got to be a difficult climb from there—”

  She could see the glint of the hard hats of the crew now, to the right of Griffin and down a bit.

  And then below them, the northern front of the fire.

  The wind whipped around them suddenly, and though they were a good twenty yards from the flames, and on the other side of the fire line they’d dug, the heat made her skin feel tight. Her eyes, already tortured by the smoke and dust, watered, and her lungs burned. “What’s happening?”

  “The wind is moving ahead of the thunderstorm.”

  Whipped by the wind, the smoke thickened.

  Griffin disappeared near where the glint of hard hats had been only a moment ago, though now none of them were visible. Coughing, wheezing with the asthma that had never been worse, Lyndie blinked furiously but she could see nothing but flames and smoke, which seemed to blow up right before her very eyes and head northward with shocking speed.

  Heading right for where Griffin and the others had disappeared.

  “Oh, my God.” She ran to one of the men, grabbed his radio and lifted the radio to her mouth. “Griffin! The fire just blew up, it’s coming at you! Griffin, can you hear me? Ven por aca, apurarse,” she shouted, hoping if he couldn’t hear her, the men could, and that they would indeed come this way, and hurry.

  No answer, just static and the sound of the fire licking at them, crackling, which she imagined was the sound of them all dying. God, she was listening to them die, and with a helpless glance at Tom, she hooked the radio on her belt and began running.

  * * *

  Griffin heard Lyndie’s frantic warning through the radio, just as he jumped down a ten-foot drop to the crew of about fifteen guys, getting ready to work on turning the fire back on itself across the most northern front.

  But they hadn’t heard the weather change. They didn’t know that if the wind started at the bottom of the canyon beneath them, it would whip the fire into a frenzy, creating a vacuum up the ravine, sucking the flames right up and out the cliff rock above them.

  Annihilating every one of them in the process.

  Just one little mistake, he told himself grimly, his heart pounding hard, he’d known that’s all it would take here. In this case, that would be lack of swift communication from the fire central to the last man out in the field, a critical error that would rest on the incident commander’s head.

  His.

  It wouldn’t be the first time. In Idaho, the conditions hadn’t been that different, despite the fact that fire had been three times the size, their equipment the latest available, the crew all trained.

  That fire had stretched out for three weeks, until every last one of them had been exhausted, made worse by the remote conditions. With no neighboring town nearby, they’d all been camping at their base. The food situation had been army rations for the most part. Then there’d been the long hot hours. Everyone’s attention span had been low, they’d been sluggish.

  A nightmare waiting to happen, and it had.

  He wouldn’t let history repeat itself. When he leapt down, the crew all looked up in u
nison, surprised, just as Griffin remembered one important little fact.

  He didn’t speak Spanish. “Vamanos ahora,” he shouted. Let’s go, now thankfully being some of the only Spanish he knew, and pointed eastward, where they could go parallel across the mountain if they climbed up and over the rock cliff. They stood at the low point in the canyon, with the fire beneath them, looking at the deep gorges and dizzying heights, some of the most scenic views in the world. With one single burst of cold, moistureless wind, the fire would whip right up this point like a funnel.

  They’d all perish.

  He’d seen it happen. Hell, he’d lived it. “Move!” he shouted, pointing them in the right direction, showing them where he wanted them to go, then jumping back down to make sure every last one of them moved.

  Despite the panic and fear, they began the climb out, helping each other, scrambling as fast as they could.

  But the fire did exactly as he knew it would, he could feel it, hear it, roaring up the canyon wall in an unbelievable explosion of heat and wicked flame, moving in on them.

  There were two men left to climb out, then one. Paco was a rancher, not a firefighter, and doing the best he could to scramble along, but he was clearly exhausted and terrified, and upon closer look, not older than sixteen. His fingers kept slipping on the rock, and Griffin, feeling the wall of fire at his back, hearing Lyndie’s frantic cry for him over the radio, saw his life flash before his eyes.

  Not his early life, which had been full and happy and good, but the last year, which he’d completely let slip him by. He’d wasted an entire year, and now there were no second chances.

  He gave the kid a shove and scrambled along after him, just as the hair on the back of his neck began to singe. At the top, the men waited for direction from Griffin, who felt paralyzed. The incredibly intense heat and wall of fire was coming at them, the smoke so thick and choking, they were all coughing and gasping.

  But the only place to go was eastward, where there lay another ravine, this one a twenty-foot drop down.

  God damn it, not now, Griffin thought. He wasn’t going to die now. Hell, he’d gone through so much, suffered so much, but he’d never planned on dying.

  And he didn’t plan on it now.

  21

  The ravine might be a twenty-foot drop but it had one thing going for it—it’d already been ravished by the fire and was down to black. Because he couldn’t make himself understood to the men, and because the flames were going to be licking at them in seconds again, he simply showed the men what he expected, and ran.

  He came to a stop at the drop-off and pointed. Some went easier than others, but they all went, sliding down the face of the mountain. Griffin waited until each of them had gone before he jumped. It seemed he fell forever before he hit, hard.

  The first thing he noticed was the lack of the scorching wall of heat from the fire.

  Slowly he raised his head. They were now in an area that had already burned, and while the ground was black and still quite warm, the area couldn’t burn twice. Amazingly enough, they were safe.

  And alive. “Okay?” he asked the men all around him, all looking as dirty and frightened as he probably did.

  “Si,” a few said. Others nodded. They got up and looked around in the same slow motion, jerky movements he’d seen and recognized so well.

  Shock. Relief. Overwhelming relief. Above them and to the east and south the fire ravaged, but they were safe.

  “Griffin. Griffin!” From the west side, the safe side, Lyndie appeared, chest heaving, skin damp, face white with fright. She stopped short of him and gasped for air. “You’re okay.” Turning, she took them all in and sagged. “You’re all okay.”

  For some reason, an idiotic grin spread across Griffin’s face. “Yeah.”

  She stared at him; his non-cuddler, kick-ass pilot, wavering slightly on legs that seemed unsteady. And then her eyes filled with tears.

  His heart broke in two. “Ah, Lyndie, no. Don’t do that.”

  “I’m not doing anything.” Angrily, she swiped at the one tear that fell and shot him a scathing look as she dragged air into her poor, tortured lungs. “I just have smoke in my eyes.”

  God, she was magnificent. He took the step that separated them and cupped her jaw. “What, no hug? No sobbing, weeping woman throwing herself at me—”

  “Bite me.” But she lifted her arms and threw them around his neck and squeezed so hard he couldn’t breathe. In that moment, breathing was highly overrated anyway.

  This, though…this holding a bundle of solid, curvy, teary, sexy-as-hell woman in his arms, this was not overrated at all.

  In fact, he dropped his hard hat and held on for a good long time, burying his face in the crook of her neck, which smelled like smoke and Lyndie. Her skin felt soft and cool against his and he figured he could stand here forever, but her breathing was so erratic and raspy, he couldn’t stand it. “Lyndie, your medicine—”

  “I thought you were—”

  “I know. Get out your inhaler, baby.”

  She just squeezed him even tighter, pressing so close he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. “I couldn’t get here fast enough—”

  “It’s okay—I’m all in one piece, everyone is.”

  “I’m not falling apart.” But neither did she let go.

  And neither did he.

  * * *

  By nightfall, Griffin and two others had indeed managed to get above the fire to verify it had reached the rock cliffs and had nowhere else to go.

  It had turned back on itself, and all in all, they’d not lost too much more acreage. The south end of the fire, the one that had come so close to town, had begun to burn out as well, leaving only the higher elevations still hot. With or without cooperating weather now, it’d only be a day or so more before it ran out of fuel entirely.

  Lyndie had never felt more satisfaction or relief. She’d had enough of danger and adrenaline and horrifying fear to last her a lifetime. The ride back to the inn was once again a crowded affair. She sat in the Jeep with her inhaler out—she’d needed it too much today—practically in Griffin’s lap in the front passenger seat, with everyone around them talking, chattering, excited.

  Griffin smiled at something Brody said in the backseat, and she found herself staring into his dirty, exhausted face.

  His smile slowly faded, but his eyes warmed.

  So did her body. God, she’d died a thousand deaths today when he’d vanished on that mountain. She had no idea how he could have come to mean so much to her in such a short time, she a woman who never took any time at all to know anyone, but she couldn’t deny what she felt when she looked at him.

  Around them chaos reigned; the engine and the Jeep, the roar of the wind, the laughter of the others…but Griffin reached out and stroked a finger down her cheek, and at the simple touch, everything else faded away. The dark night and its sounds, the roar of the Jeep, the conversation around them, everything, until it was just the two of them.

  “You okay?” he asked softly.

  Was she okay…This past week had seemed an eternity, a blink of an eye. She’d met this incredible man, this amazing, strong, intelligent man. She’d watched him face his own living nightmare head-on and come through it. She’d laughed with him, cried with him.

  Slept with him.

  And tonight they’d all eat together, they’d probably talk and laugh some more. She might even sleep with him again—she really hoped she slept with him again—and then, first thing in the morning, she’d fly him back to his world, and then take herself off to hers.

  The end of yet another little episode in her life. She had a bunch of episodes, all unconnected, all floating around in her memories now, always coming back to just her.

  Just her.

  It was what she’d always wanted. Freedom. Independence.

  “Lyndie?”

  “I’m okay.” She managed a smile. “I always am.”

  * * *

  At the i
nn, Rosa waited with more mountains of food. She didn’t have to bully anyone to eat tonight, they were all starving, Lyndie included. She ate, and afterward, before she could vanish to her room, Brody spun her around the courtyard to the Spanish music blaring from the small boom box on the brick wall.

  The night was warm and still. Maybe she was hallucinating, or maybe she just wanted it so badly, but the night seemed clearer, more stunningly beautiful than she could remember. The moon cast a glow on the hills around them, and on the beautiful gardens in the courtyard that Rosa loved to slave over.

  Unused to such frivolity, she tried to pull away because he was making her dizzy twirling her around. “I’ll step on your feet,” she warned.

  “That’s why I wore steel-toed boots, darlin’.” Brody grinned. “Step on me all you want.”

  She looked into a face so like Griffin’s with its quiet strength and see-all eyes, and yet so different. Brody’s smile came far easier, with deeper laugh lines, and Lyndie had a feeling the women found this Moore brother much easier to approach. “Why are you dancing with me anyway?”

  “What, I can’t dance with a beautiful woman?”

  “The beautiful woman who wants to dance with you is standing on the edge of the dance floor, dressed to the hilt to grab your attention, shooting me daggers with her flashing eyes.”

  “Ah. Nina,” he said on a very masculine sigh.

  “You know her father is armed, right?”

  Brody grinned. “He wouldn’t really shoot me.”

  “If you believe that, I’ve got some swampland up the street for sale.” She looked into his eyes and saw something behind the laughter. “Seriously. I wouldn’t play with her, fair warning.”

  Brody’s smile faded. “I’m not playing.”

  That’s what she’d been afraid of. “Rumor is you’ve been playing two nights running.”

  “Rumor?”

  Ooh, the baby brother did have a temper, suddenly it showed in every line of his body. She took pity. “Nina told me herself,” she said, and patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry, no one is ruining the princess’s reputation but the princess herself.”