She looked up at him. And in the light of the rising moon, the smell of summer lingering in the air—in the way her mouth tilted slightly—he felt young again, taking pretty Claire Gibson to her senior prom and wishing she was his girl.
His gaze roamed her face just for a moment. Without waiting to think, to hear the warnings in his head, he bent down and kissed her.
He expected something of hesitation. Even feared that he’d gone too far, that she’d push him away, the old sense of guilt rising up to paralyze him.
But she kissed him back. Lifted her face to his, curled her arms around his shoulders, and molded herself to him. He had his arms around her back and pulled her close, deepening his kiss, tasting the lemonade on her tongue, feeling the whisper touch of her hair against his cheek.
She was delicate and perfect, and why hadn’t he done this years ago?
In truth, she was the reason he’d returned every summer. Claire.
She made the softest sound of enjoyment, as if no, he hadn’t just blown it with her. Not at all. So he lifted his head, found her eyes. “I might have a lot to apologize for, but I’m not going to apologize for that. I’ve been wanting to kiss you for years.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
He nodded and then, fueled by the smile that lit her face, lowered his mouth again to hers.
Yes, he was kissing Claire Gibson. On his deck, with the beauty of the forest around him, the call of the loons as serenade, the wind rushing through the trees as if in cosmic approval.
Maybe, indeed, this was the definition of grace.
Us. Darek let that word hover in his mind, over the growl of the chain saw in his hand.
He and Felicity had never been an us. A them, perhaps, but . . .
Yeah, that had been his fault too. How many times had she said she wanted a real marriage, the kind in which they actually meant their vows?
Us.
He stepped back from the tree, nearly six inches in diameter, and gave it a push. It went crashing down into the forest, taking out poplar branches and the furry arms of evergreens. He revved the chain saw, then began to dice the trunk into stackable pieces. Wood shavings splattered into the air, the smell rich with freshly hewn sawdust, mingling with a tinge of the far-off wildfire.
Too far to be a worry, but it never hurt to clean up the property.
He turned off the chain saw, removed his goggles, and reached for the logs, tossing them toward the wheelbarrow.
“Casper! Bring me the stump grinder!”
Casper, dressed similarly in a pair of leather logging chaps and gloves, an orange hard hat and goggles, hiked over with the tree stump grinder. “Next time you decide to fireproof the grounds, please send me an e-mail, and I’ll remember not to come home.”
“Go take out those saplings I marked.”
Casper lifted the chain saw. “Yes, chief. Anything else, Your Fire Highness?”
The finest prickles of sawdust layered Casper’s chin, feathered into his dark hair. He smelled like a swamp and wore a fireman’s tan.
“Hard work is good for you. All that archaeology is going to make you soft. Digging in the soil with a toothbrush. Whatever.”
Casper pulled down his goggles as he fired up the saw. “The Swan Lake fire is still twenty miles away. You heard Jed—they’ll put it out long before it gets to Deep Haven.”
Darek ignored him, began to grind down the stump, listening to the replay of his conversation this morning with Jed.
He’d come into the lodge just after dawn and found Jed and Conner Young, the new Jude County communications guru, huddled over a map. His father stood at the head of the table, cradling a cup of coffee, his face knotted in concern as Jed pointed out the fire’s growth over the last week.
Indeed, this morning, smoke seemed to saturate the air, as if overnight the wind had whipped it into a new frenzy.
Jed had drawn a red wax line on the fire map, only a small portion of it in blue, where the hotshots had hiked in yesterday and contained the edge. Most of them still camped out on the line. “Last night’s winds caused the fire to surge. Flyovers this morning show the fire hopping across Ball Club Lake, from island to island.” He pointed out the places. “And it’s made land here, twenty miles north of Deep Haven.”
Casper had walked in then, wearing a pair of shorts, his shirt open, his hair on end. He stood beside his father, arms folded over his chest. Darek’s mother was listening in the kitchen, wearing oven mitts, as if waiting for something to finish baking. The house smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg.
“We have a few natural fire breaks between the head of the fire and any residential areas.” Jed pointed to a couple logging roads, a smaller lake, and the larger Two Island Lake to the south that spanned miles. A roadblock to the residential areas of the county. “We’ll get an air tanker in today and see if we can slow the head down, but the forecast calls for wind gusts, and with all the deadfall, the fuel load is thick in this area. We need to be ready for some torching and spotting.” He circled a section of uninhabited forest where he predicted the fire would run.
Beyond the blue line, just down the road, the wilderness became dotted with cabins.
Darek leaned over the map. “I think this part of the line can be controlled by a hand crew. Our best line of attack is to get the crews in here—” he drew his finger along a logging road about two miles south of the flames—“early this morning, while the wind is still at five miles per hour. You may even be able to get a dozer in there. But I’d start a backfire, see if you can’t drive the fire toward Hand Lake.”
Jed seemed to consider it.
“The crew hiked in and posted video at the two fire stations, here—” Conner Young pointed to a mark on the map—“and north, up here. We should have fresh footage this morning that’ll give us a glimpse of how it’s moving.”
“Do you think it will get this far southeast? It’s coming at a pretty good clip,” Darek’s father said. He’d worked crews back in the days of national park fires, had stories of brave men fighting with just Pulaskis and shovels. Today’s equipment included saws, dozers, planes, and torches. But the hard work remained the same.
“It’s a remote possibility. It could hit Evergreen Lake, but we hope to stop it by then,” Jed said. “I’d make sure the place was fireproofed, just in case.” He turned to Darek. “Sure wish you were joining us.”
Him too. Although, after last night . . . “Sorry, Jed. I have to stick around, make sure our resort is ready.”
“Fair enough. By the way, we have a crew from Sacramento coming in today, along with a couple pilots and smoke jumpers out of the Jude County base in Ember. I told them they could stay here. We’re setting up a fire camp on Forest Road 153 for the ground pounders and command central. But I want my pilots and dozer operators fresh. I hope that’s okay.” Jed rolled up the map.
“We’ll make room,” Darek’s father said.
Jed swiped a piece of cinnamon bread that Darek’s mother offered him on a paper napkin. “Thanks, Mrs. C.”
“You boys be safe out there.”
“Videos?” Darek asked Conner. “Really?”
“Technology,” Conner said. “You might want to consider installing it up here.”
“We have indoor plumbing. What more do you want?” his father said, and Conner laughed.
Yeah, well, not a bad idea.
Although, for once, Darek had enjoyed watching the sunset with no Internet, no television, no cell phone to pull Ivy from his arms.
Now he shut off the stump grinder, brushed sawdust from his arms, and worked off his goggles. His stomach roared—he hoped his mother had a sandwich waiting. And Tiger should be returning soon.
Probably he owed Nan a thank-you. He hadn’t been at his best yesterday, and she’d sort of saved him. Although he’d never, in a thousand years, intentionally do anything to scare Tiger.
He looked up as his father emerged from the edge of the forest, gloved, wearing a long-sleeved fl
annel work shirt, hauling a dead log. He dumped it near the wheelbarrow, then turned to the lake, wiping his forehead with his shirtsleeve. “Sure makes me wish we’d taken the government up on that grant to install a sprinkler system.”
“We couldn’t afford the system, even with the grant,” Darek said. “It’s for . . .” He gestured across the lake toward Pine Acres. Then he walked up to his father. “They’ll stop it before it gets to Evergreen, Dad. Jed knows what he’s doing.”
“So do you.”
He did? Darek fought a strange swell of warmth.
“I wouldn’t trust this property to anyone but you, Darek. You know the forest; you know fires.” He turned to his son. “This property is over one hundred years old. It was the hottest place on the shore fifty years ago. We used to have dances right there, in that old pavilion.” He pointed to the broken shelter, the one Darek longed to tear down. He’d forbidden Tiger from playing under it, had roped it off, away from guests. A yellow flag fluttered in the breeze, connected to the rope.
“Your great-great-grandfather built the lodge with his own hands, and your mother and I got married right there, on the point.” His father looked up to the sky then, to where a dark, smoky cloud rolled over the lake. A haze had settled over the forest, probably blown all the way to town, turning the air to ash. “Do whatever it takes to save Evergreen Resort, Darek. I’m trusting it into your hands.”
Casper was watching them, had his ear protection removed and hanging around his neck.
“Don’t worry, Dad; I got this.”
His father clapped him on the shoulder, squeezed. “Evergreen is in the good hands of my sons. By the way, I was thinking, with your men staying here, we might be able to scrape up enough for a down payment on Gibs’s place. He’s back from the hospital but staying at the care center for a while. I thought I’d stop by, see what he says—”
“Darek!”
Darek looked up and frowned at the sight of Diane Wolfe striding down the path.
“She’s got her game face on,” his father said.
Indeed, this seemed a business visit—he’d seen that expression before. Like the time the Holloways had sued for custody. And twice after that, when they’d accused him of neglect.
He ignored the knot in his chest, tried to keep his voice cool. “Hey, Diane. What’s going on?”
“Hello, Darek. John. Casper.” The social worker, never a woman to flinch, came out hard and fast with her words. “There’s been a complaint, Darek.”
Nice. “What now?”
“I have to say, there are grounds. Tiger looks pretty beat up.”
Beat up? He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. “He fell. Off the top bunk a couple weeks ago. And then at the Fourth of July fireworks. But he’s fine now.”
“We have pictures. And then there’s the complaint from yesterday.”
Darek stepped out of his father’s touch. “What kind of complaint?”
“Brawling. Violence. The allegation is ‘egregious incident involving a child.’ It alleges emotional trauma—”
“Tiger was fine!” Darek throttled his voice to low. “Listen, he was a little scared, is all.”
Her lips tightened into a thin, unforgiving line.
He took a breath. “Diane. Nan hates me. You know this. She hates the fact that Felicity died and I didn’t. And she’s been trying to take Tiger from me since the day of Felicity’s funeral.”
“I have to investigate every complaint, Darek.”
“You tore our lives inside out last time. Tiger had to stay with a foster family—do you know how crazy that made him? He started wetting the bed again and—”
“These are serious neglect and egregious emotional injury allegations, Darek. You know you have to cooperate. I advise you to simply submit to another home study—”
“So you can what? Observe me as I feed my son, put him to bed? Read him a story? Explain to him why his grandmother thinks I would hurt him? Diane, it’s me. You know me. For pete’s sake, you go to my church.”
“We’re not saying you’d hurt him—just that there may be neglect.” She shot a look at John, her face pinched. “Especially this time of year.”
“What, you think running the resort will result in my forgetting I have a child? If anything, Tiger is better cared for with all of us home. No. This is stupid. I’m done cooperating. Back off, Diane. And tell Nan that if she ever wants to see Tiger again, she’ll have to stop accusing me of hurting my own son!” He didn’t care that his voice rose, reverberated through the forest. “Get off my property!”
She stood there.
He looked toward the empty parking lot. No wonder Nan was late bringing back his son. He tore off his gloves, dropped them in the wheelbarrow. Stalked past her.
“Where are you going?”
Darek turned around, walking backward. “I’m going to get my son before his grandmother skips town with him.”
Diane narrowed her eyes. “I’m warning you, Darek—”
“You’d better not be here when I get back.”
Ivy had wasted half the afternoon staring at her computer screen, listening to Darek’s words roll through her head.
I’m not going to give up on us.
Such strange, unfamiliar words, they almost didn’t make sense to her. Not give up. On us.
She simply couldn’t embrace them like this, couldn’t let them settle inside. Not when she had so much to push against them.
Like the truth. Her past. Jensen. Felicity.
With you, all the roaring anger in my head goes away, and I can forget. Even move on.
She wanted to cringe when she thought about her tirade. God wasn’t on her side? It was true, of course, but she’d never let that truth leak out. It sounded so . . . weak. Pitiful. Woe-is-me.
She’d learned early on in the foster system to hold in those kinds of moments. No one got anywhere with self-pity.
And she was getting nowhere with this warrant.
She saved it, reviewed it again, finished typing up the incidents of the complaint, and then printed it off.
A stack of DUI complaints from last weekend and one custody hearing still waited for review. She wanted to sink her head onto her desk.
“You picked a fine time to leave me, DJ.”
He’d stopped in this morning, on his way out of town, to ask, “You got this?”
“Of course,” she’d said as if she wasn’t sinking under piles of complaints to review. “Have fun in Yellowstone.”
“We’ll be out of cell range until Tuesday. But you have this under control. And Jodi will help you.”
“No problem.” Ivy had actually said that and waved him off as if, indeed, sixteen cases still to review by five o’clock tonight would be no problem at all.
Except she couldn’t get her mind off Darek.
She should have told him about Jensen. Should have just let the truth spill out, end things between them. But, well . . . You matter, he’d said, and her heart bought it. Turned her common sense off.
And when Darek held her like that, she never wanted to let go.
No, she’d done the right thing in not telling him. It seemed Darek wanted to leave it all in the past anyway, and what good was there in bringing up some remote, what’s-done-is-done memory that could only rake up the grief?
She’d let it go, and Darek would never find out. After all, clearly not even Jensen knew she’d been involved in his case.
See, she didn’t have to wreck anything.
Because despite her panic attack, the one that nearly had her running away, leaving before she got left . . . I’m not going to give up on us.
Yeah. She just might build a life here, with Darek Christiansen and his adorable son.
Ivy smiled and pulled out the next report, reading through it. A third-offense DUI. She opened a blank complaint form and began to type.
Darek had driven her home late, walked her to her door, kissed her again, holding her in those firefighter arms.<
br />
Oh, shoot. She deleted that last sentence.
For a long, crazy moment, she’d almost invited him in. By the look in his eyes, he might not have said no.
But—call her old-fashioned—she’d always wanted to wait until . . . what, marriage?
She shook the thought away. Marriage? She’d known the man for three weeks, tops.
Three amazing, breathtaking weeks—
A knock startled her right out of Darek’s embrace. “Come in.” Oh, she hoped she wasn’t blushing.
Diane opened the door. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure, of course. Sit down.”
Diane took a chair, a folder on her lap. She wore her hair in a tight bun, and added to the business suit, she looked like one of those social workers who could decree your future and make you live with it. Ivy had never liked that type—they scared her.
But she had the power now. She folded her hands on her desk. “What can I do for you, Diane?”
“I think we have a situation we need to review.” She rested her hands on the file.
“Oh?”
“Yes. It’s a local. He’s . . . Well, this is his third complaint. And normally I wouldn’t think anything of it, but this time there’s some reason to believe the child might be in danger.”
A fist grabbed Ivy’s insides, tightened. How she hated children at risk. “Who reported it?”
“A relative. I went to talk to the father today, and he ordered me off his property. Refused to even listen, let alone allow a home study.” She opened the file. “I think we need to review it, see if there is enough for an emergency removal of the child from the home.”
Emergency removal. Ivy had been on the receiving end of that, once. She could still hear her tiny voice on the phone to the 911 operator, still hear her mother cursing as the social services agent tore Ivy from her arms.
Sometimes, could still feel the fear curling through her body as they deposited her in a new home, with foreign smells and too many people, too much noise.
“I’ll look at it right away.”
“With the weekend upon us, we have no time to waste,” Diane said. She handed over the file. “The child is currently with his grandparents, but I’m not sure how long that will be the situation. I’m suggesting we issue an emergency removal, place the child temporarily with his grandparents, issue a no-contact with the father, and then proceed with a home study and review of his case.”
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