Wow, he loved her. Her courage and her spitfire determination and even her resourcefulness. He loved the fact that, yeah, she’d risked her life for him at least twice—maybe more—but also that she could still look at him like he was her hero.
He loved her because despite him being a big man, with more bullheadedness than brains sometimes, she still trusted him with herself, this petite woman who had experienced pain and fear under the hands of a man out of control.
With everything inside him, he wanted to protect her. From everything—and especially Patrick and Brownie and fire and fear and—well, even his own crazy emotions. Because she couldn’t possibly feel the same about him.
Unlike him, she hadn’t exactly been pining for him for years.
Still, maybe they had a chance if he did this right, if he didn’t rush her. Didn’t scare her.
“What is it, Reuben?” She ran her thumbs over his cheeks. “You look like you’ve been crying.”
He twisted his mouth, as if brushing her words away, but he couldn’t quite manage it and just stared out over the ravine.
“You were crying.”
“I just thought—”
And then she brought his face back to hers and kissed him again. So achingly sweet that he was in very real danger of bursting in tears again. He cupped her face in his big hands, caressed his thumbs down her grimy cheeks, so soft despite the dirt and cuts, and let himself sink into the wonder of her touch.
Gilly.
Making him feel like the guy who did things right.
She finally broke away, a smile in her eyes. Silence pressed between them, a warmth that had his heart thundering.
For a second he remembered the feel of her curled up against him in the night, and his body thrummed with an ache that he put away.
Preacher’s daughter.
But he wrapped his arms around her and wrestled himself off the ground.
“What—”
“I got hold of Conner, and he’s sending help. Sorry, Gilly, but we have a ride to catch, and I’m carrying you. No argument.”
And maybe it was just the smoke fogging up her brain, but she slipped her arms around his neck.
Although, true to form, as he started off through the woods, she said, “If you tell anyone, I’ll drop you out of a plane without a chute.”
“I’ll be our secret,” he said, loving her even more.
Gilly wasn’t going to actually complain about being in Reuben’s embrace. Not when she fit so perfectly in his arms, his own curled around her, hugging her to the planes of his chest. He seemed to carry her with such ease, as if she weighed nothing—then she remembered that he usually carried around a hundred-pound pack on his back, hiking out for miles.
He smelled like he’d spent a week fighting a fire—smoky, the scent of a hard-working male, his whiskers rough against her hair. He still wore his bandanna, a little soiled from his head wound, the trail of blood into his dark whiskers.
Yeah, she could stay forever right here.
Besides, her knee did hurt, having been wedged in that hole for hours. She couldn’t move her leg at all.
Still, “You can’t carry me to the road. It’s too far.”
“I could carry you to Hawaii, Hot Cake.”
She grinned, felt his words to the core of her body. “Okay, then at least let me climb on your back. You’ll be able to go a lot farther if you carry me piggyback.”
He looked down at her, met her eyes. Oh, he had devastating brown eyes, hints of gold around the edges, and so much compassion in them it could knock her off kilter.
Her gentle giant. With a hint of danger in his expression, of course, when riled.
“Then I can’t see your smile.”
And romantic to boot.
“You can see me smile plenty when we get back to HQ, and we have the team safely rescued.”
He nodded at that then, and put her down. Crouched so she could climb on his back.
And yeah, her knee started to burn a little when he tucked his arms around her legs, but she hoisted herself up, clamped him around the waist, and knotted her hands around his massive neck and shoulders to help with the weight.
“How far to the road?”
They were traveling through the moonscape of the burned forest, smoke still rising from downed trees, puffs of ash lifting with each step. Thankfully Reuben was wearing his double-soled smokejumper boots.
Her skin crawled with grit and cinders, and she felt like she’d rolled in a campfire and added a layer of grime. But at least she was alive.
Just stand, do your part, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf.
Never did that feel more true than when she’d heard Reuben’s voice, yelling her name.
She’d tried to yell back, but her voice died, stymied by the depth of the crevasse.
For a long, painful stretch of minutes, she thought she’d dreamed his voice.
And then, a feral, raw, gut-wrenching yell had echoed through the air, down through the ravine, and she knew.
The poor man thought she’d perished, the fire turning her to a corpse. And the pain in his howl had made her summon herself and shout his name with everything she had.
Twice.
And when he found her, the look on his face—so much disbelief, so much relief—turned her weak with the strength of it.
Not to mention the way he muscled her free, nearly yanking her into his arms.
And then his embrace—holding her so tightly, his entire body trembled. Or maybe that was her, she didn’t know, but he just kept saying that she was okay. She’d be okay.
Words, she suspected, that were for him, too. Because when he’d looked her over for injury, she read it on his face.
He’d been weeping. Furrows cutting through the grime on his face, so blatant it made her own eyes well up.
This amazing man looked at her then, his heart in his eyes, and it was all she could do to say his name.
Until he kissed her.
And then she had no words for the way he pulled her to himself, claimed her mouth, as if she already belonged to him, or he needed her to. She gripped his shirt, and, for that moment, became his, surrendering, kissing him back, needing him to belong to her, too.
She loved the feel of his hands in her hair, tangled there, and the way his breath shuddered out when he released her, as if she’d stoked a fire in him.
He’d certainly stirred something in her. Longing, and more.
She couldn’t call it love—not yet. Desire. Hope. A well of affection that went deeper than she could look. Because if she peered into it, she just might find that she could lose herself to this man. Could sink into his arms and simply stay there. Safe. Protected.
Loved.
She’d closed her eyes, buried her face in his shoulder.
“Are you okay back there?” He’d found a logging trail, was following it west. “I think we’ll hit the road in about a half mile. And then we’ll start walking toward Yaak. Conner should be able to find us.”
She didn’t want to ask about Patrick or Brownie.
She had no doubt that Reuben had already tumbled them through his mind. And if they got near her—them—well, she might see the other side of Reuben, the one who rode bulls and carried around a chain saw, the one who had let out the feral cry that could shatter her bones.
She loved that she knew both sides of him, the tough sawyer and the generous, kind, sweet man who had cried for her.
Except that same man was her, um, teammate. A guy she had to work with, a man who had to let her do her very dangerous job of bombing fires.
The last thing she needed was him deciding that he didn’t want his—what, girlfriend?—in danger. Yeah, Jed and Kate made it work, but they’d had their own identical set of troubles. Jed, not wanting Kate to die. Kate, being a fantastic smokejumper despite making the choice to go part-time.
This could get complicated, what with Reuben’s off-the-charts overprotective gene.
Except the summer was nearly over, wasn’t it? And then came a long, uneventful winter for them to sort it out.
Until then, Gilly would have to convince him to keep this—whatever it was between them—on a low simmer.
She was about to mention it when they emerged onto the road.
And, as if he knew exactly where they might be, there sat Conner, sitting in the cab of his truck, listening to his handheld ham radio.
Wearing a black JCWF T-shirt, he looked up at them, his blond hair swept back into a cap. Conner’s expression suggested they looked worse than she thought.
“Holy cow, what happened to you two?” He came out of the cab and helped Gilly off Reuben, draping her arm around his shoulders.
She leaned into Conner, hoping to throw off the fact that she’d been perfectly comfortable snuggled up against the big sawyer.
Conner helped her over to the truck, and she braced herself on the driver’s seat while he checked out the bloody scrape on her cheek. “Where did you get this?”
“Patrick Browning hit her,” Reuben said, the slightest hint of exactly how he felt about Patrick in his voice. “Right before he tried to kill us.”
Conner whirled around. “What?”
“We think Patrick could be our arsonist—or at least he has something to do with the fires. Who knows—it could be his father—”
“Brownie and Patrick? Setting fires?” Now Conner looked at her, and wore the same expression that she probably wore only twenty-four hours ago when she realized Patrick had his shotgun pointed at them.
Only twenty-four hours ago.
“It’s all about Tom. They say his death is our fault,” Reuben said.
Conner drew in a breath at that, probably evaluating Reuben’s words. Not for a minute did Gilly believe that his team was to blame, but she could imagine the three survivors had spent the last year in sleepless nights trying to decide that for themselves.
Maybe not coming up with the same conclusions.
“He tried to burn us alive in his cabin—ended up torching the entire forest. Gilly would have died if she hadn’t found a way to hide from the fire.” Reuben held a hint of pride in his voice, and Gilly wanted to amend his words.
Because she’d done exactly nothing to save herself.
But Reuben just grinned at her, something soft in his eyes.
Oh boy. Because she smiled back.
She simply couldn’t help it when he looked at her like that.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, turning to Conner. “I’m pretty sure Patrick sabotaged the plane. If he put sand or oil into the fuel tanks, I would have still read them as full. Which I did.”
Conner knelt in front of her now, examining her knee. “Is that what happened—you ran out of fuel? Because HQ lost you on the transponder shortly after takeoff.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he sabotaged that, too,” Reuben said. “Maybe he was hoping the entire team would be aboard.”
Conner had reached into his cab and pulled out a first aid bag. He dug around inside and pulled out an ice pack, cracked it, and placed it over Gilly’s knee. Secured it with a Velcro strap. “Get in,” he said.
She scooted into the middle while Reuben came around the side.
Conner was outside on the radio, calling in his successful retrieval of his teammates.
A few minutes later, he got in the truck, closed the door. “We’re headed back to HQ. The PEAK Rescue team out of Mercy Falls is headed up to search for the rest of the team by air. And Pete, Ned, Riley, and Tucker are headed up to hike in. Do you remember the coordinates, Rube?”
“No. But I can show you on a terrain map.”
Conner put the truck in gear and headed down the highway. “Satellite imagery suggests the Davis fire has grown to about fifteen hundred acres and headed east, through the canyon. We had significant wind increase this morning—”
“That’s why the fire grew so fast,” Reuben said, a tone in his voice Gilly didn’t understand. “The wind kicked up after I left for the tower.”
And then he did it. Put his muscled, protective arm around her in a very non-teammate move.
She stiffened, looked up at him.
He glanced down at her, gave her another one of those soft smiles.
She longed to lean over, rest her head against his arm. Okay, so she supposed teammates did that, sometimes.
His thumb caressed her shoulder, an almost absent move that sent tingles racing down her arm, through her body in another very non-teammate-like response.
No, no—If Reuben started to baby her, to act like she needed help…
This wouldn’t work. She shrugged out of his embrace then moved his arm off of her, sitting up straight in the middle.
She couldn’t look at him, would hate the confusion on his face. But she had a reputation to keep.
“Hopefully Pete and the guys will locate the others soon,” Conner said. “Then we can chopper them out. We’ll deal with the fire after that.”
Gilly let her head fall back and closed her eyes as she listened to Reuben give Conner the lowdown on the events. He started with the low fuel tanks, explained the crash, their determination to the hike out, how they ended up at Brownie’s cabin, the cabin fire, then Reuben’s race to the lookout, and finally her miraculous escape from the flames.
He left out, much to her relief, the kissing parts.
The very delicious, delectable, dangerous kissing parts.
Darkness descended around her, and it wasn’t until the change in road texture when they pulled onto the gravel of the Ember Fire Base that she woke up.
Her cheek pressed against Reuben’s shoulder. She might have even drooled, because her mouth hung open. Reuben didn’t say anything as she pushed herself up. But he did look down at her and smile.
A curl of warmth started in her belly.
“Let’s check in and see if they’ve found the team,” Reuben said.
Good man, had his priorities straight.
Maybe this could work out.
He waited for her as she slid out of the truck but didn’t make a move to pick her up. Instead, he offered his arm, and she leaned on it, limping into the office.
Miles stood over the giant relief map in the center of the room, running his finger along the edge of Black Top, down into the ravine, then further out toward Pete Creek. He held his radio, in contact with the rescue team. “Roger, Pete. PEAK Rescue is headed toward your position.”
“I can see the smoke from here,” Pete was saying. “I’m concerned their position is in the path of the fire.”
Gilly came up to the table with Reuben and Conner, and Miles glanced at them. “Pete, Reuben and Gilly are here. Stand by.”
Then he holstered the radio and came over to them. “We were worried.” He gave Gilly a quick hug, nothing but a perfunctory affection in it, but enough for her to confirm that Reuben’s embraces were, well, not this.
Miles shook Reuben’s hand, and they met in a man-hug.
“What’s the sit rep?” Reuben asked.
Conner pocketed his sunglasses and leaned over the map. He touched the road where he’d picked them up. “You guys were here,” he said.
“We hiked out along this ridge.” Reuben trailed his finger along the south edge of Mushroom Mountain. “We crossed Pete Creek here, then hit the forest service road.” He kept moving his finger north. “Brownie’s cabin was about here.” He pointed to a spot northwest of Garver Mountain Lookout Tower.
“What’s your best guess as to where the plane might be?”
Before Reuben could answer, Gilly touched the thin blue creek line on the map. “I think they’re here, at Beetle Creek, although it’s dry now. Tell the PEAK team to fly up the creek bed at the base of the mountain.”
Miles looked at her, his face grim. “They’re covering that basin, looking. But the smoke from the Davis fire is really thick, the air currents rough.”
She stared at Miles. “Are you saying the fire
is too close—that they can’t get in?”
“I’m advising they put down south of here, on this forest service road and hike in on foot—”
“But what if the fire finds the team first?” This from Reuben, who had walked over to the Doppler radar, reading the wind speed, the satellite images of the fire.
“It’s through the pass, and from the looks of this, only a few miles from the team’s estimated position,” Reuben said quietly. He turned, and Gilly recognized his expression. The same one he’d worn when Patrick told him to sit down, to surrender.
Not a chance. Maybe Miles had forgotten who Reuben was, the grief he shouldered, but she could almost predict his next words.
“We need to go in after them, right now.”
Yes. Exactly what she was thinking. She moved around the table, leaning hard on it, fighting the pain shooting up her leg. “Listen, I’ll take a plane, drop retardant on the front edge, slow the fire down. That will clear a path for the chopper to get in.”
Miles looked at her, and she could actually see the wheels turning in his head.
“It could work,” she added. “Buy them time for Pete and the guys to get in. The PEAK team could land in the creek bed, or maybe the smoke would clear enough for them to hoist them up.” She took another step, drew in a quick breath, but masked it with a smile.
“And I know exactly how to fly that canyon—I’ve done it once already.”
She meant it sort of as a joke, but it fell flat, with Miles’s mouth tightening in a dark line. She looked at Reuben for reinforcement, but his jaw had locked so tight he could be grinding coal into diamonds. “Okay, too soon to joke, but really, I can do this—”
“I can send Jared. He’ll get in there—” Miles started.
“No! Jared won’t get low enough. The canyon winds—yeah, they’re rough, but manageable. But a DC-10 will never make that run. Jared won’t risk it—”
“And you will,” Reuben said quietly.
She frowned at him. Of course she would.
“It’s the only air tanker we have,” Miles said. “The rest of the fleet has been routed to Idaho.”
“We can take the Annie. It’s fixed. I saw it before we left.”
Burnin' For You: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 3) Page 16