Where There's Smoke: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 1)

by Susan May Warren

  He closed his eyes, his memory bringing to him the feel of her body trembling as she pressed against him in the heat of their shelter. “If I could, I’d be there with you right now. Better, I’d take your place.” He cut his voice to a whisper. “But I know I can’t always be there to protect you, no matter how much I want to. Nor do you need me to. But...I’m scared too, Kate. Because I got you into this, and if anything happens to you...” His throat clogged, and he bent his head into his arms, shaking.

  Please, God. We need help.

  He didn’t know where the prayer came from, maybe an errant thought from so many years ago, a splinter of memory, spoken in her voice—or maybe his. But he let the prayer linger, solidify.

  We need help.

  He lifted his gaze to the ridge, a flame, hot and lethal, and heard her last words in the walkie, a fist in his soul.

  Help me.

  Yes. He took a breath, and because he didn’t know the words, he began to hum.

  Chapter 11

  If Kate didn’t keep Hannah calm, the girl might end up swallowing a lungful of toxic, deadly fumes.

  But in the shelter next to her, Hannah had stopped screaming, started begging, and Kate recognized the signs of someone unraveling.

  “Stay in your shelter!”

  “It’s too hot. I can’t—I can’t do this!” Hannah’s voice shook over the growl of the fire, strumming deep into Kate’s bones.

  “If you go out there, you might not burn to death, but the super-charged thermal plumes will fry your lungs.” She kept her mouth cupped into the dirt. “Stay in your shelter, Hannah. Trust me!”

  Judging by the cyclone of wind tugging at her shelter and the flickering glow of flame turning the fabric into pinpricks of orange, they still had a long fight ahead.

  Fear had long left her, pooled in her gut, replaced by a searing, dark agony.

  She imagined Jed from his position in the canyon below, watching her, his nightmares realized. Tears ran down her nose, dropped into the dirt.

  I’m just holding onto the wild, desperate—yeah, okay, faith—that you won’t get hurt. That you’ll be smart out there, and that by some grace that I don’t deserve, you’ll come back to me.

  Please, she wanted to come back to him.

  Because she did love him—much more than fire, more than proving herself, more than the fear that someday she’d show up and he’d have his bags packed.

  She closed her eyes, breathed through the sickly sweet, acrid redolence of the fire embedded in her bandanna. The outside world had vanished, only teeth-gritted survival as she zeroed in on enduring. Even Jed, through the coms, died, leaving only static.

  Alone.

  She shuddered, the heat baking her skin, her hands on fire as she fought the hungry winds ripping at the edges.

  Abandoned.

  Of course.

  But God is for you, Kate. He is on your side.

  Gilly’s voice in her head. Kate’s body trembled, sobs now finding her throat, racking up through her chest. I want to believe that, God. I really want to believe that, but—

  The static broke through, cracking, broken. She laid her head against the com, longing for his voice. “Jed?”

  Not Jed. Or maybe...But she thought she heard humming.

  She pressed her ear against the speaker, listening. She knew this song—their song. The one she’d sung to him as he’d shivered, shock overtaking his body, as she’d prayed for him to live.

  Great is Thy faithfulness, Oh God my Father...

  Jed. Humming to her, the only song he knew that might give her hope.

  Jed...a man without faith singing a song of faith for her.

  She sang the words in her soul. There is no shadow of turning with Thee...

  No shadow of turning...or running.

  No, in fact, she’d been the one who had done the running. No wonder she felt alone—God hadn’t left her—she’d left Him.

  And yet He kept showing up, saving her every time she found herself trapped. Giving her a chance to reach out. Ask for help.

  Believe in second chances.

  Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not.

  Oh, she needed that. Because a girl who had flirted with fire as much as she did needed all the endless compassion God would give.

  All the protection she could get.

  Even in the form of Jed. He’d been there, offering his protection—maybe even God’s protection—since the moment she’d decided she wanted to live an over-the-edge crazy, dangerous life.

  And for the record—I could probably come to accept you fighting fire if I knew you could see that you had a very good reason to stay alive.

  “I do have a good reason to stay alive.” Tears blurred her eyes, but she’d been crying for so long from smoke and fumes, it didn’t matter. “Jed,” she whispered. “I choose you. I want you.” Please God, don’t let it be too late.

  Outside, the cyclone hummed, moaned, and then, with a terrific crack, she heard the thunder of a giant pine crash down, splintering in waves so close to her fire dome the embers bit at it. Shaggy, burning tree limbs brushed the fabric, the heat suddenly soaring.

  Beside her, Hannah again began to scream, hysterical.

  Oh, God, save us. Kate buried her head in the ground, holding on as her shelter began to crinkle and burn.

  I choose you. For a second, Kate’s voice crackled through the radio, broken. I want you.

  Then the radio went silent again. “Kate!” He was on his feet, pacing, calling her name, holding the walkie against his forehead. “Conner, how are you doing on that location?”

  “Working on—”

  Crackling, then Kate’s voice again. “Jed! Help us! We’re burning!”

  “Kate!” He put the binoculars to his eyes, and his breath stalled as he located a wall of flame, tree fallen, its crown blazing over the well in which they lay.

  “Air Attack—we need that drop, right now!”

  Nothing on the other end.

  Jed leaned over, couldn’t breathe.

  Then he grabbed a water pump. Strapped it on. Grabbed his Pulaski.

  “You can’t go, Jed.” Conner, on his feet now, grabbed his shirt. “There’s nothing you can do—”

  “I can’t just stay here and watch—listen to her burn to death!” He shook off Conner. “I’m going—”

  “And you’ll end up dead, just like Jock. And if Kate lives through this, she’ll have two men dead by fire, going against their gut to save someone they love.”

  But wasn’t that the point? Having someone to love—and not being willing to let them go? He shoved Conner away. “I should have never let her walk away in the first place. She needs me.”

  “I’m sorry, buddy, but—” Conner tackled Jed into the dirt, pinning him, face down. “You’re not going.”

  “Jed!” Screams through the walkie. Jed swung at Conner, pushing him off, but Conner had him in some sort of Green Beret grip, choking him against his arm.

  “Let me go!” He elbowed Conner in the gut, heard him grunt, but Conner held on, tenacious.

  He was losing this fight—and not because of Conner, but because Conner was right—he’d only arrive in time to discover her smoking corpse.

  Not this way. Oh, God, please, not this way. He closed his eyes, put his head against the ground. His desperation emerged in a strangled whisper. “Please, God. Help us...”

  Conner let him go, standing over him, breathing hard.

  Then, crackling, a voice.

  “Air Attack, to Ransom. We’ve just sighted a plume of crowning from the ridge. It seems the fire’s jumping the ridge at that point—we’re going to drop there, see if we can slow it down.”

  Jed scrambled for the radio, but Conner got to it first.

  “That’s them! Drop the retardant! Now!”

  Jed launched to his feet, grabbing the radio back from Conner as the deep, heart-rumbling hum of the approaching tanker signaled the beginning of its drop run.


  “Hang on, Kate. The drop is on its way.”

  Nothing on the other end.

  The silver bird dropped from the smoky clouds, then, as if it might be bleeding, the plane opened the chute and the retardant sprayed out over the ridge, falling, splattering the fire with muddy reside.

  A cough of smoke and the fire gasped, drew back, as if stunned.

  “Call in another load,” Jed said.

  “Another tanker is on the way,” Beck confirmed.

  “Kate?”

  Nothing. As Jed listened, he met Conner’s eyes, his jaw tight.

  Conner picked up his water pump, his Pulaski.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I crashed the drone.”

  “Ransom, this is Gilly. We just dropped the second crew. They should be at your position shortly.”

  Not soon enough. But moments later, he heard Reuben’s voice calling to him through the green. The man appeared at a near run, ready to fight fire, followed by Ned and the rest of the recruits.

  Reuben’s face looked grim. “Have you heard from them?”

  Apparently, they’d been following the transmissions on their coms.

  Jed scoured the ridge with his glasses, gauging the color of the smoke. Not quite white, but not the cauldron of black it had been. He almost didn’t have the energy to hope, but lifted his walkie anyway. Toggled the switch. “Kate? Come in, Kate.”

  “C’mon, Boss,” Reuben said, motioning to the rookies to follow. “Let’s find our teammates.”

  Jed had already asked God for a favor today, but he lifted another prayer anyway—Please, God, let her be alive.

  Chapter 12

  “Kate—are you still there?”

  Hannah’s voice whispered across the crackling of the gasping embers, under the coating of thick ruddy mud, raspy, wavering, as if just barely hiccupping back a fresh onslaught of panic.

  Kate lifted her mouth from the burrow where she lay, trembling, bruised, still dizzy from the bath of retardant that slammed down over their enclave. Saving their lives.

  Now, the fire crackled and hissed around them, a dragon, gulping for life, dying.

  “I’m here, Hannah. We’re okay.”

  “I’m burned. The fire came through my shelter, burned my legs.”

  Kate felt pretty sure her elbows were singed, but her adrenaline kept her from feeling it. “We’re going to be fine, Hannah. We just have to wait—the air is still toxic.”

  And, in reality, she didn’t know exactly how they might extricate themselves. Her shelter seemed pinned to the ground, shaggy limbs pressing against the fabric under a coating of slime that turned the world to shadow.

  Her best guess—a snag had fallen over their hideout.

  “They’ll never find us—we’re buried here, and besides, you don’t know that they’re okay. Jed might have gotten caught in the flames too.”

  Kate hadn’t thought of that in the radio silence, that the fire might have turned— She reached for the radio. “Jed? Are you out there?”

  Beside her, Hannah began to sob. “I’m so stupid. I thought I could do this. My dad always teased me about being a smokejumper. But I thought I could do this.” More hiccupped sobs. “I had no idea.”

  No one ever did. “Smokejumping is twenty seconds of exhilaration followed by days of back breaking, chain-gang hard labor. And it isn’t for the weak. But—but you’ve got it, Hannah. We lived, and that counts, and if you want to walk away, you have that knowledge—you faced it, and lived.”

  More tears, shuddered breath. Around them, the snap and crackle of embers, the rustle of wind.

  “You don’t think—it won’t re-light, will it?”

  Kate took a breath, cradling the dead walkie against her ear. “I don’t know. But that’s why we need to stay put—”

  “I’m not staying here!” Groaning—

  “Hannah! Don’t move. I know it’s easier to run. Believe me—I get it. You’re hurt and scared and all you think is you have to get out. I get it better than you could ever know—but you can’t. Breathe. You’ll only make it worse by running.”

  Only make it worse.

  She closed her eyes. She thought she’d been doing them a favor by walking out of their lives, pushing them to the perimeter of her life. But she’d only made it worse—for all of them.

  I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry.

  Jed was right—there was no room for him when she belonged to fire. But maybe God had given her a way out when He’d saved her, not once, but now three times. And maybe her legacy wasn’t being the strongest, the bravest, but, like Jed said—building the family her father had longed for.

  With Jed, her father’s favorite hotshot.

  Her eyes closed, and for the first time—probably in three years— the buzz of fear always under her skin, in the back of her mind and low in her gut, vanished.

  She didn’t have to be Blazin’ Kate Burns if she didn’t want to be.

  Next to her, Kate heard fabric tearing, then a gasp as Hannah broke free of her shelter.

  “Hannah!” Kate lifted the edge of her own shelter, got a swift and brutal look at their situation. The tree had indeed fallen, not quite on them, but nearby. The burning branches had arched over them, the pocket of earth protecting them from being crushed.

  Hannah was on her knees chopping at the tree with her Pulaski, crying. Cinders and ash rained down over her, singeing her shirt, stirring oxygen into the trunk, swirling the flames to life.

  In her panic, she might just ignite a cauldron of fire right here in their nook.

  In a second, Kate rose to her knees, pushed back the shelter and grabbed Hannah. Kate wound her hand around Hannah’s waist, jerked her to herself, and threw her on the ground. Hannah struggled beneath her, but Kate pressed herself over her, her hand over her arm. “Still! Lie still!”

  Then she hooked her legs around Hannah and grabbed for the edges of the shelter, pulling it back up.

  Hannah struggled under her, nearly hysterical.

  “Breathe, Hannah. Just breathe.” Hannah had lost her helmet, and Kate covered her head with her own. “Listen to me. The worst is over. We lived—and we’re going to keep on living as long as you keep calm. But you have to work with me. We’re going to lie here and wait.”

  Hannah trembled, shaking her head, still fighting her. “They’re not coming! No one is coming—they’re all dead!”

  Hannah’s words had the power to scrape Kate raw, but she swallowed it all down, found her voice, and in it heard the faintest hue of her father. “Listen, Hannah. Whatever happens, we’re going to remember that we are not alone. Never alone. You have me, and I have you, and...” She closed her eyes, and a voice bubbled up, something strong and solid.

  The voice she’d come back to Montana to find.

  “We have God.” She leaned into the memory, could nearly feel her father’s hand on her cheek, his voice in her ear.

  “When I was a little girl, my dad would leave, sometimes for weeks on end to fight fire. He’d leave me with Gilly’s family’s, so I was safe, but I was still always so terrified—I admit it—that he’d never come back. But I was too proud to tell him. I didn’t want him to think I was weak. He still knew. I know he knew, because he would always say the same thing. We’d pray the same four verses together every time he had to leave.”

  She took a breath. “Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever.”

  She could hear him then, the soft, resonant tenor, the smell of him, pine, wood smoke, sometimes the slick scent of his Brut aftershave. His big hand, smoothing back her hair, the color of his own. Green eyes holding hers. “For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies may see it and be put to shame, for you, Lord, have
helped me and comforted me.”

  His kiss, pressed to her cheek. Do not be afraid, Katie. God is with me.

  I’m not trying to break your heart here, but what if you had stuck around, let your dad teach you his tricks?

  But he had passed along his tricks—all of them, from his firefighting knowledge to his unquenchable dedication to his team, to the one thing she really needed—

  Faith. And yes, she might have walked away from it, but there it was, embedded inside her.

  And it was embedded in his protégé, Jed, too.

  “Don’t worry, Hannah. Help is on the way. Because if there is one thing I know about Jed, it’s that he will not give up on us. It’s his most annoying, wonderful trait.” She grabbed at the edge of the shelter as the wind tried to whip it up. “Even if it takes his last breath, he’ll find us, I guarantee it.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Even as she said it, the wind began to stir the shelter, the air pocket gathering heat. No, please. Not again.

  But she kept her voice calm, held onto Hannah. “Because it’s something he learned from my father, the indomitable Jock Burns.”

  If they didn’t move faster, Jed might lose his mind. But he’d already fallen twice as he fought his way up the devastated hiking trail, his footing slick against the slurry-soaked rocks, the spongy, ashy burnout. Retardant coated the scrub trees, the grasses, all the way to the balding, charred top of the ridge.

  His smokejumpers scrambled up behind him along the smoky, snap-crackle-and-popping edge of the fire, dousing it as they went with their water canisters, hoping that the wind didn’t decide to betray them.

  The fire continued to rage along the canyon, but with another drop of retardant along the opposite side, the blaze would die at the river.

  Still no word from Kate on the radio.

  Twenty feet from the top of the ridge, nearly two hundred yards ahead, Jed spotted the carcass of a once-towering black spruce toppled over the groove where he hoped Kate lay in her shelter. “Kate!”