Burnin' For You: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 3)

by Susan May Warren

  Heat emanated off the blaze, even from thirty feet away.

  “What happened?” Reuben asked in her ear. “I think I might have blanked out for a bit there.”

  Which meant his protection of her—him rolling over to throw his body between her and danger—emanated from pure instinct.

  She didn’t know why a shard of disappointment sliced through her. “The house blew up,” she said quietly.

  “And we’re not in it,” he said. He finally lifted his head, rolled onto his back. He found her eyes in the dim light. “You saved my life, again.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “It’s what I do.”

  But she didn’t know what to say when he reached up, touched her cheek. A soft, kind gesture that had her turning away.

  “He cut your cheek,” Reuben said.

  “And he shot you,” she countered.

  Reuben’s voice hardened. “And now that he knows the team is out there…”

  Patrick’s outline had disappeared. “I wonder if Patrick was killed in the explosion.” Despite all he’d done, she couldn’t deny a twinge of sadness.

  “But what about Brownie?”

  She shook her head, glanced out at the flames, now two stories high, curling around the cabin roof. Sparks ignited the night sky and cinders fell into the nearby forest.

  “We need to get out of here,” Reuben said. He pushed himself up, then groaned, leaned forward, holding his head. “The world is still spinning. I think I have a concussion.”

  “You probably do.” She’d dropped his jump pack near the woodpile. “I need to get the pack—stay here.”

  “Be careful.”

  Crouching, she skirted the edge of the forest, keeping an eye out for Brownie against the illumination of the blaze. When she reached the edge of the woodpile, she darted out.

  The pack lay on the ground, protected from the flames by the stump. She grabbed it, shouldered it—

  And that’s when she saw the figure moving around the house, watching the flames. No—not one, but two, the firelight revealing their faces, grim, angry. She crouched behind the stump, her heart in her throat.

  The pair got into the station wagon, leaving the house to burn. Cinders cascaded around her, lit scrub around the house aflame.

  It occurred to her that this blaze could turn into a raging forest fire.

  The car drove away, down the trail, and her heart fell. She had no doubt of their destination.

  She waited until the vehicle disappeared in the woods, then she stumbled back to Reuben. “We gotta go,” she said as she rustled through the pack for a headlamp.

  Reuben was on his hands and knees, his head to the ground.

  “Can you walk?”

  He lifted his head, tried a nod, winced.

  “Okay, I’ll help you.” She fitted on the headlamp then stood and helped him up. He immediately leaned over, breathing hard.

  “Just give me a minute here—”

  She put her hand on his shoulder, aching for him. But this forest was tinder dry, and—

  A bush nearby had trapped flying embers and now flamed to life.

  Reuben looked up, the fire glowing against his eyes. “This entire forest could go up!”

  What she was thinking, exactly.

  She wrapped an arm around his waist. “Let’s go.”

  Funny, she’d forgotten about her knee in the adrenaline of the fire. Now it burned as she put weight on it. And Reuben swayed against her, balancing against trees as they limped away.

  “I might have to crawl to the Garver lookout tower,” he said.

  “No. We’ll get someplace safe—”

  “Pete Creek should be not far from here, to the east.” He stopped, looked up at the stars, the moon now risen in the east. He pointed at it. “Follow the moonlight.”

  Romantic words in a different time and place. Now, simply practical. She kept an eye on the moon, centered herself on it, and picked her way through the forest, leaving behind the crackle and heat of the fire.

  The forest closed in against their wan light from the headlamp. Reuben grunted, moaned as he leaned on her, bracing himself on trees, stumbling now and again.

  And every time he did, her knee threatened to buckle. Tears welled in her eyes as she dragged herself over downed logs and boulders.

  “I’m sorry,” Reuben said after a while.

  “For what?”

  “For not listening to you when you didn’t want to get into the car with Brownie. I should have—”

  “What are you talking about? We needed help—and why wouldn’t we trust Brownie? We didn’t know he’d turn on us, that they were behind the arson. I can’t believe it—the crash. I’m still in shock.”

  “But—if I’d listened—”

  “And what if they hadn’t tried to kill us?” Even now, as she said it, the words sounded insane. Patrick Browning, arsonist? Murderer? She’d known him—well, her entire life, really. She’d grown up with Tom. “We’d have called in for help by now. You just don’t know.”

  Reuben said nothing, his big hand holding onto her shoulder as if glued there.

  She wondered if he might be holding on because he didn’t want to let her go.

  “I do know I wish I’d kept you safe. I never want you to feel scared or helpless again.”

  Her throat thickened with his soft words. Funny, with him around, she felt the opposite of helpless. Triumphant. Bold. Brave.

  She held his hand, her other arm around his waist as they came to a clearing. Bushy black pine and spruce edged the tiny space as if reaching out to urge them on. A breeze lifted, shuddering the poplar, the birch, and stirring into the air the redolence of smoke.

  And water.

  “I smell it—Pete Creek,” she said.

  He pointed to a black dip in the horizon where the trees thinned out. “There.”

  She followed his direction, worked them through the forest, and they bushwhacked their way to the edge of the creek.

  Reuben collapsed at the edge, leaning against a tree, his head back. She studied the cliff, where the edge dropped into darkness.

  A fist formed in her gut.

  Reuben crawled away, and she heard retching in the woods.

  When she found him, he sat holding his head, pain lining his face, his eyes closed. “Just give me a second here.”

  “Let’s find a place to rest.” Her headlamp fell on a giant boulder, a pocket of protection beckoning from an indentation at its base. She grabbed his arm, urging him over to it.

  He groaned but relented. She propped him up on the boulder, dug out water, and handed it to him.

  “Toothpaste,” he said, and she found his brush, his paste, and he cleaned his mouth, spat on the ground away from them.

  “Let me take a look at that wound.”

  She’d tucked gauze pads under his bandanna, now soaked with blood, so she untied it and peeled back the cotton. Still bleeding, but barely.

  “I keep a small collection of bandanna’s in my pack,” he said, offering a smile. “One cannot have too many bandannas.”

  She rummaged through the backpack and unearthed his last fresh bandanna.

  She affixed a fresh pad to his head, made to wrap the fresh bandanna around it but he took it, wet it and cleaned her cheek.

  The gesture curled warmth around her, stilled the trembling inside. “I still can’t believe Patrick was trying to kill our team.”

  “We need to get to the lookout,” Reuben said. “I gotta shake this off.” Only then did he affix the new bandanna over his head.

  “I can’t see the bottom of the gorge.” And she didn’t want to mention how her knee had decided to stop working, swelling against her pant leg.

  She rubbed it, however.

  “You need ice for that,” he said.

  “It’ll be okay. What we need to do is get back to the team.” She closed her eyes. “I hope CJ is holding on. And Jed—he looked pretty bad. I can’t believe we crashed. I can’t help but feel like I
could have landed us better.”

  “You weren’t to blame for that crash—clearly. And you just saved my life—again.”

  She looked away, her eyes pricking at his words.

  She didn’t know what to do when he reached out, put his arm around her, pulled her against himself, as if it might be completely normal.

  He leaned his head back on the rock. She let herself sink against him, staring up at the sky.

  “In different circumstances, this is my favorite part about being a smokejumper,” Reuben said softly. “Sleeping under the stars in a strike camp, the fire out, or mostly out, my body aching, knowing I put everything I had into the day. Doing what I could to fight the fire with everything inside me knowing that I left nothing on the fire line except my sweat.”

  She smiled at that. “I felt that way when I dropped that load of water on you guys. Peace—knowing I did everything I could to save you.”

  His arm tightened around her. “I think I learned it from my father. We’d work hard all day, roping, branding—everything that has to do with roundup—and then at night we’d camp out under the stars, bone tired but satisfied. I loved those days with my dad. I longed to be like him when I graduated. He wanted me to go on and play college ball, but I just wanted to be a rancher. When I walked away from it, I never thought I’d love something as much as I loved ranching until I became a smokejumper.”

  “If you loved it so much, why did you leave?”

  He stilled. Sighed. “I told you how I broke my legs, right? And how Knox stepped in to fill the gap? Well, he also sort of stepped in with my girlfriend.”

  “What—?”

  “I don’t know what happened—it was probably nothing—but it was right after the prom I didn’t go to, and I found Knox and Chelsea making out in the barn and…I’m not proud of what happened next. Pride. Anger. It wasn’t pretty. Knox got the brains, but I got the brawn, and I don’t go down easy.”

  “I know.”

  She didn’t know why she said that, but it eked out a smile from him. It vanished fast, however, as he continued his story. “My other brothers jumped in when they found me beating the stuffing out of Knox, and then my dad intervened. He was furious, and that’s when I woke up and realized that my dad had chosen sides. He’d picked Knox and kicked me off the ranch.”

  “Oh, Reuben. You don’t think he really picked Knox, do you?”

  “It felt like it, but I was pretty angry and wasn’t thinking right. Truth is, it wasn’t as much about Knox as feeling like there wasn’t a place for me anymore.”

  She was quiet, her heart breaking for him, the teenager driving away from the world he wanted to belong in.

  “The worst part is the next time I went back was for Dad’s funeral. He had a heart attack one Saturday while riding fence. Alone. Which, if I had been there, he might not have been.”

  “You don’t know that, Rube.”

  “Maybe not. But it feels that way. My pride cost me my dad. And now it’s too late. Dad is dead, Knox is running the ranch. I can’t go back.”

  She winced at the hurt in his voice, thankful for the padding of night that hid the tears in her eyes.

  “Since then, no matter what I do, I feel like I’m going to screw it up. Or make the wrong decision. Like…” His voice dropped. “Like I did with Jock and the boys.”

  He looked away, closed his eyes as if the memory elicited pain. It probably did.

  “That day on the mountain, I didn’t like how spread out we were. But sometimes it works out that way, and who was I to say anything? Jock was in charge. I just followed orders. But when we got word of the fire out of control, Jock told Conner, me, and Pete where to go—and then ran back for the rest of team. I stood there, Gilly, watching him leave, and for a split second felt like I was supposed to run after him. I even dropped my saw, ready to get him when Pete stopped me. Or maybe just stopped me long enough to second guess myself.” He shook his head. “I still wonder if I should have gone after him.”

  “And what—put him over your shoulder and drag him away? You know Jock—he was like you. He wouldn’t give up.”

  “Bullheaded is the term, I think.”

  “Or just the guy you can depend on.”

  He drew in a long breath, glanced down at her. “But not the guy who makes the right decisions.”

  “And how can you? You can’t see the full picture. You just have to go with your instinct. But...God has an aerial view. He knows where to guide us. We just have to trust Him.”

  “Even when it doesn’t turn out the way we hope—even when people die?”

  She wished she could reach inside Reuben’s heart, put a hand around his grief, work it free. “I know I sound like a preacher’s kid right now, but my dad says that the only way we can have peace with our decisions and choices is if we trust God.”

  “And if we don’t think God is on our side? What then? Because, really, Gilly, why would God help a guy like me?”

  Oh, Rube. She knew what it was like to feel like you weren’t enough, that somehow you were destined to fail despite your best efforts.

  She went quiet then, blinked. “Or a girl like me.”

  “Huh?”

  She took a breath, not sure how to explain the burning to tell him… “I didn’t tell you why I was walking home so late that night I was attacked.”

  His gaze was on her now, so much compassion in his eyes that she had to look away.

  “I was making out with a hotshot from the Jude County base.”

  He said nothing, just steady breathing as he listened. His barrel chest rising and falling as he probably imagined the scenario.

  “It was a stupid summer fling, and I knew I wasn’t behaving like a preacher’s kid should. But he made me feel pretty and told me that he was in love with me…”

  Reuben stiffened, sitting up. Gave her an expression that looked very much like the one she’d seen at Brownie’s when he’d asked her if Brownie was the one who’d attacked her.

  As if he would like, very much, to tunnel back through time and revisit the moment.

  Her voice quickened. “I didn’t let it go all the way, but far enough, and I was feeling pretty guilty. I didn’t let him drive me home like he offered, and then…that’s when it happened.” She looked up at him. “So, you see, I sort of deserved—”

  “Are you kidding me?” The power of Reuben’s voice thundered under her skin, jarred something loose. “You actually think that you deserved to get attacked?”

  Even as he said it, she knew it sounded stupid. “I know. My brain says it doesn’t make sense, but in my heart, I feel it.”

  His countenance softened then. “Oh, Gilly.”

  She lifted a shoulder, but tears filmed her eyes.

  “That’s why you’re always trying to act like you don’t need help, right? Because you’re afraid if you do, God won’t show up, because deep down inside you fear you’re not worthy of help.”

  And see, she knew he could look at her, see through her. She bit her lip, nodded.

  He searched her face. “We’re a pair, aren’t we? It’s a miracle we survived a plane crash and a burning building with God not on our side.”

  She frowned then, his words settling into her bones.

  “God is on our side, Reuben. At least I want to believe that, even if my heart tells me I’m not worth it.”

  He nodded, as if her words might be making sense.

  “My dad always preaches that we have to believe God when He says He loves us and has a good plan for our lives. That’s how we get peace for today and bright hope for tomorrow, like the hymn says. But only if we trust in Him.”

  “Because if we try and fight our own battles, then how do we know God is saving us—or it’s in our own strength?” Reuben said softly.

  She looked at him. “Right.”

  “My dad used to tell us Bible stories, and I remember this one he loved about a battle Jehoshaphat fought. This huge Moabite army is invading Israel, and Jehoshaphat
pleads with God for deliverance, and God says to him, basically, don’t be afraid, because the battle is not yours but God’s. Dad used to say that to me. ‘Reuben, just stand, do your part, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf.’ I remember once being frustrated that I’d missed a tackle and let the runner score. I was trying to anticipate the runner, and he juked me out.”

  “Which means?”

  “He fooled me. Left me on my face in the middle of the field. My dad told me afterward to just get up, don’t panic, and keep playing my position, just like Jehoshaphat.”

  “So did God save Jehoshaphat?”

  “Yep. The Moabites actually ended up killing each other. Israel did nothing to win, and in fact, just went down the battlefield and picked up all the spoils of war. And they hadn’t fought at all.”

  “Now you sound like a preacher’s kid,” Gilly said.

  Reuben leaned back, settled his arm around her.

  Silence fell around them, the smell of smoke drifting in the air or perhaps off their clothes, the sounds of the forest around them, a chirrup, the far-off howl of a wolf.

  She turned to him. “God is on your side, Reuben, and I’ll prove it.”

  He glanced at her. “How?”

  She swallowed, thrumming up the courage to believe the words she’d just spoken. “When we get back, you should ask me to dance with you again at the Hotline.”

  He blinked at her, a half frown, half smile on his face. “Oh, you don’t want to do that.”

  “Try me.”

  It was the texture of her words, the softness of them that startled her.

  Because not only had she just invited Reuben into her life but maybe, at the moment, into her arms.

  And, by the way he was looking at her, he had read her meaning clearly.

  She swallowed, and he searched her face a long moment.

  “I really have to kiss you,” he said softly.

  She nodded, and he brought his hand up, cupped it around her neck, drew her close.

  And then he was kissing her. Sweetly, with enough passion to suggest he might be thirsty for her, but gentle enough not to spook her. He smelled of fire, yes, and sweat, and tasted salty, but she couldn’t help but reach up and finally, finally run her fingers through that tempting thatch of whiskers. He made a sound of approval, and she felt something inside her release.