by Jenna Kernan
She heard the crunch of his feet on the scorched earth. Meadow’s legs and arms began to tremble from the effort of keeping the shelter steady against the constant wind. How had he held the shield down all that time? It seemed impossible. Again she realized that Dylan Tehauno had saved her life. She knew he had come back just for her, and, because of that act, everything in her life that was good was a gift from him.
Meadow’s eyes burned and she was surprised she had enough water left in her body to cry. But the tears came, sliding over the bridge of her nose and dropping into the dry sand. Even the tears were thanks to Dylan. The sobs came next. Meadow was so grateful and so undeserving.
How did a person like her repay a man like him? Money? Sex? A new truck? He said he was looking for a job. She could help him with that. Her father employed lots of people. Her brother Phillip, too. If she asked, her dad would give Dylan a job. Especially when he found out what he had done. She needed to call her father. But her phone was in her car. Or it had been.
The crunch of his boots signaled his return.
“Meadow. I’m taking off the shield.”
The foil wrapper lifted away and the hot air rushed past her. She pressed her hands over her mouth to cool the next breath as she rolled to her side looking up at him.
He stood shirtless, his skin smudged with ash and glistening with sweat. Dylan dropped his shirt over her naked body.
“Put that on.”
She drew to her knees, tugging the garment over her shoulders and holding it closed before her. The sand stuck to her skin and poured under her sandals. He offered his hand and, looking around, she rose beside him. The fire now raced far back along the road she had traveled, a line of orange glowing beneath the billowing gray smoke.
They were surrounded by a forest of tree trunks charred black and smoking. How many animals had died in that fire? She shivered at the thought. How many houses in the valley below them were now at risk? She’d driven through a new development that butted against the national forest. She remembered her father complaining about the expensive homes positioned with views of the sunset over the ridge. He’d called them hypocrites because they had objected to the mansion that broke the ridgeline for obstructing their views.
They were likely evacuating now.
Meadow glanced at the trench he had made. There lay the only patch of earth devoid of flammable vegetation. The only place the earth was not black. Her pink lace bra lay in the sand and a diamond on one of her rings twinkled. Then she spotted her GoPro. She stooped to recover it and paused. The camera was intact, but the tripod had not been wholly under the shelter and it had melted to a lump of black plastic. She stared at the evidence of how much hotter it had been outside the shelter than inside. Dylan crouched beside her and offered a wet bandanna, and she washed her face, horrified at the black soot that came away on the red cotton. He rinsed the cloth and used it to wipe off her throat. The simple act of kindness undid her.
She turned to him and fell into his arms, sobbing. He stroked her tangled hair. He whispered to her in a language she could not understand as she clung to him and wept. His hand stroked her back, rubbing up and down over the shirt he had given her. Everything she had and everything she was she owed to him. She lifted her chin to look up at him.
Why hadn’t she seen the kindness in his dark eyes or the strength reflected in his blade of a nose and the strong line of his jaw rough with dark stubble and sand? All she’d seen was a nuisance ruining her shot. His black brows lifted and the corner of his mouth twitched upward. That mouth was so tempting and she was so lost.
Meadow threaded one hand in his thick, short hair and tugged, angling her chin, and rose onto her toes, pressing her mouth to his.
* * *
DYLAN STARTLED AT the unexpected contact and the unprecedented wave of desire that swept over him. Reflexively, his arms contracted, drawing her tight to his chest. Only after the contact of her bare skin to his did he remember she had not yet buttoned his shirt and he had removed his T-shirt to check his back for burns. Her bare breasts molded to the hard planes of his chest, setting off a firestorm inside his body. Her tongue flicked out and he opened his mouth, allowing her to deepen the kiss that soon consumed them both. When her fingers scored his bare back, Dylan’s need overwhelmed him, but the fluttering in his belly and the stirring below that did not quite overtake the whisper of danger.
Bobcat growled a warning.
The overt. Her seeming desire.
The hidden. Her real purpose. Was this a distraction to give her people time to reach them? A way to make him forget his unease and take what she offered?
She had told him she was a party girl. Now he saw her provocative nature. Sex to this woman meant no more than choosing what dessert to eat. Dylan pushed her away, not because of the danger or the hidden agenda but because he did not wish to be the flavor of the month. For him, the intimacy shared by man and woman was sacred.
“We need to go,” he said.
She looked up at him with wide eyes, and a enticing pink mouth opened just enough to tempt him to kiss her again. But he wouldn’t, precisely because he did want to so much. She seemed bewildered. Oh, this one was good. Very, very good. If he did not know better, he would believe the innocence and astonishment he saw in her face.
“Come on. Now.”
He drew her away from him and then let her go. He allowed himself one long look at the swath of bare skin revealed between the edges of his shirt. His gaze stopped on the scrap of pink lace that covered her seemingly hairless sex. Then he met her gaze and saw the power in her eyes. She was used to men looking at her like this, completely comfortable now, as if she had regained her footing and stood on familiar ground. She stared at him with a kind of triumph melded with seduction.
He pointed at his shirt. “Button that.”
Meadow gave a mock salute that revealed the bottom curve of a bare breast. Dylan met her gaze.
“Why did you do that?” he asked, brushing the sand from his chest and tugging on his T-shirt.
“I just wanted to thank you.”
He shoved his bandanna in the back pocket of his jeans. “You don’t thank a man by having sex with him, Meadow.”
“Sometimes I do.”
“I’m not like you, then. I’m not casual about such things.”
“A real Boy Scout,” she said, pink lips curling.
“You should have more pride and respect for yourself.”
He saw his condemnation strike her. Her bottom lip quivered. Was this an act or real emotion? He rubbed his right shoulder, wishing Bobcat could tell him because his instinct was to take her in his arms again. Ridiculous. She was a wealthy, spoiled, lost woman-child and he was not interested.
Dylan dug in the sand, recovering her rings. “How many did you have?”
“Four.” She accepted the offering in cupped palms and slipped the trinkets onto her long fingers.
Meadow looked from her hand to the ground.
“Is that your ax?” She pointed at the metal head that was all that remained of the Pulaski ax after the wood had burned away.
He lifted the ax head and then dropped it back to the sand.
“Fought a lot of fires with that. Like losing an old friend.”
Meadow glanced to the road to the two burned hulls that had been his truck and her car. They were scorched gray and looked old, ancient, as if abandoned years and years ago.
She gasped, pressing one hand to her mouth as she pointed with the other.
“My car!”
“Totaled. But I suspect you have it fully insured.”
She took a step closer. “The glass melted. The seats. Upholstery. Everything.” Meadow gaped at him. “All the paint just... It looks like... Why is it on its side?”
“Gas tank must have been full.”
“I topped it up on Canyon Road before coming out here.” She lifted her digital recorder. All the acrylic nails had popped off her fingers in the heat, leaving small, ragged, natural nails glowing pink on her blackened, dirty fingers. She fiddled with the buttons and the screen illuminated. “It still works!”
She beamed at him.
“We have to go,” he said.
“But you called for help. They might be here soon.”
If they could get through the fire wall and if the ones who came were here to help them, he would stay. But there was too much risk. Rescue might be hours, even days, away, and the ones who had started this fire might reach them first.
“You can stay. I’m walking out.” He turned and headed in the direction of the ridgeline, some two miles away.
“What? Wait up.” She trotted along with him over the smoking ground. “Wow. It’s really hot. I can feel it right through the soles of my sandals.”
He stopped and debated. If he was wrong and she was not involved, they might kill her. If he was right and he brought her along, then she could report back to them everything he said and did.
“What?” she asked, those bright golden-brown eyes seeming as honest as a child’s.
“I think you should stay. Wait for your father. If I see anyone, I’ll send them to you.”
She twisted a diamond ring from her finger and held it out to him. “Take me with you.”
He looked at the tiny circle of silver. “I don’t wear silver.”
“It’s platinum.”
“It’s a bribe.” She was used to buying what she wanted. He could see that. Buying her way out of what she could and letting Daddy clean up the rest. Had Daddy gotten tired of wiping up after her?
“Why not wait here?” she asked.
Tell her the truth, a partial truth or a lie? He looked down at her and lifted a hand to brush the soot from her cheek. The touch of her skin made his insides twitch as the longing rose again.
“Because I think the men who did this are close, and I think they want you or me dead.”
Chapter Six
Meadow gaped, uncharacteristically finding herself rendered speechless. She had been around long enough to spot paranoia when she saw it. The guy said he’d been in Iraq. Maybe he had a screw or two loose.
Play along, she decided.
“What men? And why would they want us dead?”
“I don’t know the answers to those questions. I do know that you and I being here exactly when that explosion went off is something more than coincidence.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
Her savior did not answer. Instead, he gave her a long, uneasy look and turned away.
“Keep the shirt,” he said. Then he lifted his camel pack and shrugged it onto his wide shoulders and started walking. With him went all the water they had.
“Hey, wait.” She trotted to catch him, wishing her sandals were less cute and more practical. Wearing a wedge that showed her slim calves to best advantage seemed unnecessary when her legs were streaked with soot and covered with grit and sand. She caught him and grabbed at his arm, her hand covered with the long sleeve of his shirt. “Do you know how crazy you sound?”
He kept walking toward the road and the twisted remains of a bit of the blackened skeletal metal infrastructure that survived the blast. She let her gaze travel over the place where the eighteen-million-dollar home had been. She had not seen the explosion. The flash had been so bright and the earth had been shaking. He was right. It had been an explosion. What had caused the blast?
He was a firefighter, and even he had admitted that a gas tank could be the cause. But, as she looked at the ridgeline that she had been filming on and off for months, she realized the size of the demolition. It could not have been caused by a small propane tank or reserve tank for gas. She knew it in her heart.
Which meant someone had gone up there with explosives and set charges and pushed some kind of detonator and let the fires and rock spray down on the pine trees in the driest, hottest month of the year.
“Who would do this?”
He looked back. “You believe me now?”
She nodded. “It’s just too big. I need to look at the footage. Maybe I can see something.”
“I’d imagine the FBI will want to see that footage, as well.”
“It’s up on my feed. Anyone could have seen it live. But the entire thing, it’s only recorded on this.” She lifted the camera. “And on my server.”
“Can’t the social media sites recall it?”
“I don’t know.”
He started walking again.
She spotted a phone sticking out of his back pocket and jogged to come even with him again.
“You have a phone,” she said, pointing at his pocket.
“No service,” he said without slowing.
“You think you’ll have service up there?” She pointed to the ridge.
“Maybe. I know Rustkin’s got a well. Only water within ten miles. The fire started there and moved with the wind. Top of the ridge and the far side will be untouched.”
She looked at the climb ahead of them. Meadow already felt dizzy, and the prospect of the hike made her stomach twist. Maybe she should wait for help. A glance back showed the billowing smoke off to the east. How long until anyone could drive out here. The road they were on dead-ended at the mansion that had once occupied the ridge. Emergency and Fire would concentrate on the threatened town of Pine View and the larger community of Valley View, which lay between the fire and Flagstaff. But her father. He’d come for her. He knew where she was.
When she glanced back to Dylan, it was to find him another two hundred feet along the road. The man was quick as a jackrabbit.
She stretched her legs and walked. By the time she drew even with him, her mouth felt like cotton.
“I need some water.”
“No.”
Now that was a word she didn’t hear very often.
“Are you crazy? I’m thirsty.”
“We don’t have much left. We need to make it up there first. Then, if I find the well, you can have a drink.”
She stomped her foot, raising dust and his brow.
He was walking again. Meadow closed her dry mouth and lifted her stubborn chin. If he could make it up that mountain, then so could she.
* * *
SHE WAS TOUGHER than she looked, Dylan gave her that. The hike had to be four miles uphill, and she made it in those wedge sandals without another word of complaint or request for anything. In fact, it appeared that she would not even have taken the time of day from him if he had offered to give it to her.
Perhaps her strength was born of orneriness, but he still gave her credit for making the trek unassisted. He would have bet good money that she was going to start bawling like a branded calf or just stop so he’d have to bring water back to her.
Dylan glanced at the landscape surrounding them. He’d seen such a view before. Too often. The ground was scorched black and stank of charred wood. The fuel here had all been expended, the fire so hot that it had taken the crowns of every tree. The forest was gone, leaving denuded smoking trunks. The pristine view of the mountains, purchased at great expense, had now become bleak and ruined and would remain so for years to come.
Dylan lifted his phone and found a signal. He called Jack first, before his family and before his friend Ray, who was still a newlywed. He’d attended the ceremony in May. He knew now what no one but Ray and Morgan had known then. His new wife was already carrying his child. Seeing Ray happy for once, and settled with a wife and child, had been the deciding factor for Dylan. He wanted that. A wife. Children. And a job that didn’t smell of charred trees and animals.
Jack picked up on the first ring. “Dylan!”
“Yes!”
“Where are you?”
Dylan gave him their position.
“Sit tight. I’m on my way.”
It was over a 120 miles from Turquoise Canyon to Flagstaff and most of it on winding mountain roads.
Dylan told him he had a companion and relayed the name. Silence was his answer. Finally Jack spoke.
“Not good.”
“Did you contact Kenshaw?” asked Dylan, inquiring about their shaman and the leader of Tribal Thunder, the warrior sect of Dylan’s medicine society.
Jack said he had and that Kenshaw had been unable to reach Cheney Williams. “Kenshaw said he was there, right at the epicenter.”
“What is the news saying?” asked Dylan.
“Forest fire. Evacuations. No mention of the explosion yet.”
Dylan told him about the live streaming.
“I should be able to get that feed,” said Jack. “Have to submit a request. If it captured a major crime, they’ll release it.”
Dylan scanned the smoking landscape. He’d call it major.
“Cheney Williams’s death qualifies,” said Jack. “Was the home owner up there?”
“I don’t think so. Cheney said it would just be the two of us and a caretaker.”
“I’ll look into that. You have the caretaker’s name?”
“No. Sorry. Maybe you ought to call Luke Forrest.” Forrest was the field agent in charge when they took Jack’s twin brother, Carter, into federal protection. Forrest was also Black Mountain Apache.
“Maybe. Hey, they’ve already called in our hotshots. Ray’s heading up the guys in your absence. I guess you won’t be crew captain on this one.”
The Turquoise Canyon Hotshots were going on assignment without him. That was what he had wanted, wasn’t it? The reason he’d gone back for training as a fire-safety inspector. So why did his gut ache?
“Yeah.”
“I can’t get to you until the fire is off the road. You got water?”
“Soon.”
