by Jill Shalvis
They wound their way toward San Puebla, over the railroad tracks, the rickety bridge, down the centuries-old road. Tom drove, with Griffin next to him. Lyndie was in the backseat with the two lovebirds, both of them chomping at the bit.
She had no idea why they had to get married right now, right this very moment. She’d have much preferred to see Tom let his daughter have the life she wanted. Then she’d have given out the cargo of supplies Brody had provided and gone back to the States. Brody and Nina could live in sinful bliss as long as they wanted, with no promise, or burden, of the actual marriage.
Something she’d hoped to do herself. Instead, she held Lucifer’s carrying case, who was extremely unhappy in her lap with the wind whipping around them. Unhappiness she understood, as it had rooted within her as well.
Historically, when she was unhappy, she made sure she was alone to lick her wounds, and she had plenty to lick. But there would be no alone time for her now.
It didn’t help that she had a perfect view of the man who’d caused her wounds. Griffin’s broad shoulders stretched the material of his T-shirt, his fawn colored hair blowing wild around his head. Then suddenly he stiffened, and when she saw why, she did, too.
A long, narrow plume of smoke rose over the closest peak in front of them.
29
A flare-up. The last thing on earth Griffin wanted to deal with.
Nope, scratch that. The last thing he wanted to deal with was the woman standing behind him, arms crossed, face unreadable, eyes filled with misery as she tapped her foot and pretended not to give a shit that he’d broken her heart.
Something he’d never intended to do.
He stood on a rock outcropping, with the river rushing at his feet and the blackened mountainside behind him. About a quarter of a mile below was where they’d left the Jeep, after leaving Tom and Nina off in town to get together whatever crew and tools they could.
Brody had remained at the top of the trail to wait for help to arrive.
Not Lyndie. There was no waiting anywhere for Lyndie. The stubborn woman had insisted on staying with him.
To the bitter end.
They easily found the fire, at the base of the canyon where the blow up had occurred the week before. He figured the embers had been smoldering for days, hidden from view by the rock and fresh vegetation lining the river. The last crew might have called it quits too early, or hadn’t checked all the northern perimeters first. Or maybe there’d been lightning.
“Not too bad yet,” Lyndie said. “Right?”
He estimated twenty acres. “Not if we get right on it.”
“You’ve got the river as one firebreak,” she said. “And the burned hillside behind it as another.” She smiled at his raised brow. “I learned a lot in the past few weeks.”
“Probably more than you ever wanted to.”
Her smile faded, her eyes filled with such sadness. “Yeah.”
Ah, hell. “Lyndie—”
“Just…fix this,” she said. “Get this fire taken care of once and for all, and we’ll go and smile for Brody and Nina, and then we can get the hell out of Dodge. Okay?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel and walked away, down the river, back toward the direction Brody had gone.
“No, not okay,” he said, but no one answered.
* * *
In two hours they had fifteen men along the back side of the flare-up, standing along a trail that they intended to use as a firebreak. They had their backs to a wall of weary, thirsty conifers, ripe for exploding if they didn’t stop the fire. Far above them was sheer rock, far below the already burned acreage…but in between was a nightmare playing out that couldn’t be stopped.
Griffin wore the same clothes he’d flown here in, which were the jeans and T-shirt he’d pulled on this morning after finding Lyndie had left him alone in her bed. Tom had come up with gloves for him, and a long-sleeve button-up to protect his arms.
It had to be nearly a hundred degrees, with no humidity. The air crackled. As always, the fire created its own weather, and Griffin had never in his life seen a flare-up get so hot so fast. As the afternoon turned to early evening, and then dusk, even the trees and growth with roots in the river were bursting into flame, shooting fire straight up into the sky, where balls of it seemed to leap from treetop to treetop. A crown fire fueled by wind, and now it didn’t even need the ground vegetation to spur it on.
Looking around, he knew. This thing had become bigger than them. The narrow, low running river wasn’t going to provide protection, not with the flames as hot as they were.
Which left them unexpectedly trapped. They couldn’t go down, the vicious walls of flame held them off. The 35 mph gusts shoved the fire ahead of them as well, reducing the angle between the flames and the fuel on the ground, resulting in an overwhelming inferno. It raced ahead of them, up the hill, blocking their road out.
Griffin’s mind raced with their options, which were few, when suddenly a two-hundred-foot pine tree fell, crashing down, shuddering the ground around them like an earthquake.
“Griffin?” Lyndie gripped his arm, pale despite the scorching heat.
It was automatic to reach for her. “Scared?”
“Nah.” She looked around her, at the trees above them crackling with the dry air and flames, at the way they were becoming circled in. The hot air whipped her hair around her face and she tightened her hand on his.
With an earsplitting crack, a tree just to their right exploded.
Lyndie jerked. “Okay, I’m officially scared now.”
The flames were licking at their heels, and he knew it would be only a matter of time before it leapt over the river to where they stood. It’d happened so damn fast he still couldn’t believe it. “The burned area to the east,” he told Lyndie.
She shouted the directions over the bruising wind and crackling fire. “Let’s go. Vamanos!”
In a single-file line, they made their way along the river back to the already blackened area that had burned last week. They couldn’t go any farther south, or any other direction for that matter, the flames had trapped them in. On a hillside about fifty acres wide, they sat surrounded by flames and watched. There was nothing else to do.
Caught between the rock hillside and the already burned out area, the fire turned on itself, and raged. The sun fell out of the sky, leaving them in the dark except for the fire itself, an eerie, out of body experience for anyone who hadn’t experienced such a thing before. Dark, dark sky, leaping flames into the sky, all around them.
Through Lyndie’s translation, Griffin did the best he could to ease everyone’s mind, and not for the first time, marveled at how she held up. For an hour they sat there, and then another hour, and then finally, the firestorm was over.
They’d lost forty more acres but not a single soul, and Griffin thought maybe he could lie down and sleep for three weeks. They staggered off the mountain and into the village, everyone going their own separate and exhausted ways.
Griffin found himself in the kitchen of the inn, being fed by Rosa, along with several of the men she had also insisted on feeding. Eventually they went off, leaving him alone.
He didn’t want to be alone. Hearing a low murmur of voices, he opened the back door and found Brody and Nina in each other’s arms beneath the dark, dark night. “Sorry,” he said, and went back inside. He headed into the large living room and found Rosa standing behind Tom’s chair, massaging the man’s shoulders, her mouth teasing his ear as she whispered something that had Tom looking like a mighty happy man.
Turning to head back into the kitchen, Griffin nearly tripped over a sleeping Tallulah and…Lucifer? Curled up together like they’d come from the same litter.
Damn, he’d never felt more alone in his life. It’d been a long time since he’d had someone in his life to kiss, to massage, to sleep with, someone who could just touch him and make his world seem like a better place.
Too long.
He climbed the stairs, then let himself
into Lyndie’s room, which was dark. Shutting the door, he moved to the bed, which had a very still lump in the center of it. “Lyndie.”
The lump didn’t move. She was exhausted, and so was he, but this couldn’t wait, not even for one more night. “I’ve got to get this out,” he said softly, and sat on the edge of the mattress.
She still didn’t move.
“God, I’ve screwed up,” he murmured. “So many, many times.” He sighed. “No one knows better than I that life is too damn short, cruel even, but Lyndie, I can’t keep living on the outside looking in just because I might get hurt.”
Nothing from the lump.
“Yeah, I know you know this. I know you tried to tell me, so many times. I was such a cocky ass, hiding behind fancy words, telling you I could easily risk again, and teach you to do so as well.”
She slept on.
He shook his head. “But I know the truth now. It’s okay to fail. Just as it’s okay to try again. To live, I mean.” He wished she would wake up and look at him with those green eyes. “I can’t forget what happened in Idaho, but…I can go on.” He drew a deep breath. “Somehow, some way, being here, I’ve learned that at least, and that my heart is still strong and willing. I’m sorry it took me so long to see it, Lyndie, but there’s no going back now. I love you.”
A soft gasp came not from the lump on the bed, but behind him, and he whipped around. There, at the window, stood the small, petite silhouette of a woman. He turned back to the bed, yanking off the covers to reveal…her pillow. “I thought you were sleeping.”
The silhouette straightened. “I’m not.”
He stepped toward her at the exact moment she took one step toward him. They collided, and he used the excuse to slide his arms around her warm, curvy body. “You fit against me like you were made for me,” he whispered.
She hesitated for a moment, and then slipped her arms around his neck. “Would you have said those things to me if you’d known I was awake?”
“Yes.”
“Could you say them again?”
“How about I finish first?” Cupping her face, he tilted it up to his. He still couldn’t see, so he reached out and flipped on a light, looking deeply into her blinking eyes. “I’ve felt homeless this past year, and I hated that. I’m not meant to be homeless, Lyndie. I want a place where I belong, and I want it with you. So now I figure all I have to do is convince you that you want that too, when you’ve never yearned for stability before.”
She took a shuddering breath. “You might be shocked to know what I’ve yearned for lately.” She lifted her hands to cover his. “I don’t enjoy being on my own as much as I thought. I found that I like having someone worry about me, care about me. Want me.” She shot him a wet smile. “The way you do all those things takes my breath, Griffin.”
He stared at her. “I love you so much. I didn’t think I could, and I sure as hell fought it, but I don’t know why. You make me want to be a better man, you make me smile, you make me whole.” He held her tight. “I love you with everything I have. I hope to hell that’s enough because I don’t want to be without you. For the first time in a year, I want stability, I want love. I want a home.”
She pulled back enough just to look into his eyes. “I love you, so much it terrifies me. And I want a home, too.”
“Where?” he whispered.
“Anywhere. As long as it’s with you.”
Epilogue
One year later:
Straighten out, straighten out!” Lyndie yelled.
Griffin grinned and did just that, leveling the Cessna out with a skill that shouldn’t have surprised her. Beneath them the majestic canyons and peaks of Mexico took her breath.
And for the first time in her history of flying, her eyes crossed with dizziness, damn him.
“Admit it, I’m a quick learner.” He smiled. “Come on, show me the next step. Let’s land this baby.”
“No ‘let’s.’ I’m landing. You, you’re crazy.”
“Fun-sucker.” But he let her take over. On the ground in San Puebla, he got out first, then scooped her off her feet as she went to jump down. His mouth covered hers for a deep, hot, wet kiss that effectively rid her of any lingering annoyance. When he pulled back, he cupped her face. “What are you mad at?”
“You learned to fly so quickly.”
“Because you’re a good teacher.”
“No,” she said. “I yelled at you the whole time. You learned because you’re good at stuff. At everything.” She looked over his shoulder at her beloved Cessna. “And that’s all I’m good at.” She hated the admission.
Hating it even more when he laughed.
“I’m sorry,” he said when she glared at him. “But baby, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” Leaning in, he kissed her again.
Not willing to be sidetracked, no matter how gorgeous he was or how he melted her bones every time he put his mouth to hers, she slapped a hand on his chest, holding him off.
He looked at her with those seductive, sexy eyes. “You can’t really think that flying is the only thing you do well—” He wrapped her close in his arms, putting them nose-to-nose. “My God, you do. Lyndie, do you know what I first loved about you?”
“No.” Even after all this time, she could hardly believe he loved her at all.
“Your strength, your passion.”
“Sam calls it stubborn and hotheaded.”
“You’re also giving,” he said, smiling. “And incredibly sweet.”
She scoffed.
“Do you know what else I love about you, Lyndie?” he asked, cupping her face until she melted. “How much you love me. You do that pretty damn well. So much so that it still takes my breath away.”
She stared up into his eyes. “I am pretty good at loving you, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, and you know what else you’re good at?” He put his mouth to her ear but before he could say anything, Brody got out of the Jeep parked on the tarmac.
“Oh, jeez,” he called out. “Get a room.”
Nina hopped out of the passenger seat of the Jeep. “Don’t you listen to him, he’s just grumpy because he didn’t get so lucky this morning.” She grinned. “I was on the Internet planning our trip to Spain next summer. We’re going to go and teach English to a group of village kids.” She practically glowed. “Exciting, huh?”
“Very.” Though personally, Lyndie preferred something a little closer to home these days.
Now that she had one, that is—with Griffin. They’d made his little place on the California coast their own; traveling often, to South Carolina to see his family and friends, to Mexico, to wherever she needed to fly, always accommodating his own work schedule with the SDFD.
“I plan to reward his patience tonight,” Nina said, arching her eyebrows up and down suggestively, making Brody smile like a hopeful fool.
“Did you bring the computers?” Brody came in close to inspect the cargo load he’d had donated to San Puebla’s library and school with his stateside contacts.
“Got ’em.” Griffin smiled at Lyndie, and again, as it had all year now, her heart skipped a beat. “We’re ready for your party.”
“Oh, that.” Nina feigned nonchalance for exactly two seconds before dancing in a circle. “We have everything ready, the food, the music, the beautiful setting off the inn terrace all decorated with so many flowers you won’t believe it. I’m so excited, my one year anniversary! I can’t wait to see your dress!” She dropped midtwirl and looked at Lyndie in horror. “Tell me you’re wearing a dress to my party.”
Lyndie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Now get out of the way.” She hopped into the Jeep. “I’m driving.”
“Of course you are.” Griffin leaned in to kiss her before hopping over her to the shotgun seat. But when he got a good look at her and her sudden solemnity, his smile faded. “Lyndie? Baby, what’s the matter?”
Damn it, did he see everything? “Nothing.”
He stopped her from start
ing the engine with a hand to her wrist. “It’s something.”
All right, yes it was. A big something. A big, horrifying realization that had her throat burning. “Why don’t you want to be married to me?”
Griffin blinked.
In the backseat came Nina’s surprised choked breath.
“Is it because you don’t want to be married to a crabby, bossy, know-it-all woman?” Lyndie whispered.
“No.” Reaching out, Griffin took her hand and looked at her ringless fingers. “I’ve brought up marriage several times this past year, and every time I did, you laughed at me. You said it was nothing but a silly little piece of paper. I thought I had to work my way up to it, talk you into it, get you used to the idea.”
“That took about a week,” she admitted softly.
“Lyndie.” He looked like one good breeze could have blown him over. “Marriage with you would be the second greatest thing to happen to me. You’re the first greatest thing,” he pointed out. “In case you didn’t realize. I love you, with all my heart.”
“Enough to be married to me?”
“Yes. God, yes.”
“All right.” She offered him a shaky smile. “Then, yes, I’ll marry you. If you’re asking.”
“Oh, I’m asking,” he said, and got out of the Jeep. He pulled her out, too. Then, before Brody and Nina, before the remote, dizzy peaks and canyons around them, he went down on his knees and shot her an endearingly shaky smile. “Lyndie Anderson, keeper of my heart, love of my life…will you marry me? Will you be mine forever and ever, and give me that silly little piece of paper that says it’s legal, the one I want so badly?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I will.” With tears in her eyes, nearly blinding her, she smiled over at Nina. “Now I have a reason to wear that dress.”
“Here?” Griffin asked incredulous. “Now?”
“As soon as we can get your parents down here. Again. Somehow I don’t think they’ll mind.” Lyndie let off her first real smile of the day. Looking at him took her breath, how could she have ever not been sure? “I’m so lucky to have you, Griffin.”