by Gayle Wilson
For a heartbeat she thought he might do what she’d asked. Instead he turned his head, looking into the woods. In the opposite direction from the cabin in which they had spent all those hours locked in one another’s arms.
She refused to let her gaze follow his, keeping it fixed on his face. His profile, the angles sharpened with fatigue, was all that was visible. And she could never have said what she saw in it that told her something was wrong.
Or maybe it was something about his posture. A subtle straightening of his spine. A tenseness in the line of his shoulders. Something.
She turned her head in the direction he was facing. The shade-dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy of the forest seemed incredibly beautiful. Even as she listened, trying to hear whatever he had heard, it seemed as peaceful as it had when she had looked down on it from above.
“What is it?” she whispered finally, turning back to face him.
The Glock was suddenly in his hand, taken in one smoothly practiced motion from the same kind of holster Edmonds wore at the base of his spine.
“It is Jorgensen?” she prodded.
“Smoke.”
As he spoke the single syllable, he turned his head so that he was facing her. In his eyes was something she had never seen before. An emotion she would never have associated with the Rafe Sinclair she had known so well.
“That son of a bitch,” he said.
What had been in his eyes had disappeared, replaced, perhaps deliberately, by anger. And resolve.
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
“Halfway down the mountain,” she said. She turned her head, looking toward the smoke she could see beginning to waft toward them through the trees. And she could smell it now. Just as Rafe had. “In that direction.”
“Mine’s hidden on the other side,” he said. “There are a couple of things I’d like to take with me from the cabin.”
“We’re leaving?” Without confronting Jorgensen?
“For now,” he said.
He intended to take her down the mountain and to leave her there, she realized. The fire provided him with an excuse.
He had never wanted her here. He still didn’t. She even understood why, although it had never been a deterrent to her determination to come. If Jorgensen got his hands on her, he would use her as a weapon against Rafe. A highly effective one.
If she hadn’t heard what he’d whispered last night, she might not have been so sure of that. Now she was.
The best-laid plans, she thought, remembering the rest of that adage. A lot could happen between here and Rafe’s car.
At least they were together, which was what she had wanted from the beginning. She took the Beretta Edmonds had given her from the pocket of her slacks.
“Okay,” she said, signaling her readiness.
His eyes were on her face. The corners of his mouth moved, almost assuming an upward slant, but he didn’t say anything. Maybe he felt, as she did, that there was nothing else to say. After all, she had already heard all that was important last night.
And she really didn’t need to hear him say it again. He had said it, maybe not to her, but he had said it. If that was all she ever had, it would be enough.
“Keep close,” he said. “Whatever happens, don’t let him separate us.”
He turned, moving confidently toward the clearing. Away from the acrid smoke that billowed from the woods at their backs. The ground was uneven, strewn with small rocks and boulders deposited by the glacier that had formed these mountains. She had to pick her way across them, trying to keep up with his longer stride without risking a broken ankle.
Because she was looking down, she didn’t realize he had stopped so that she almost bumped into him. Surprised, she glanced up to find that he had turned to face her.
“There was never anyone else. Not like you. There never could be,” he said.
Focused on what lay ahead, it took a second or two for her to grasp what he was saying. And more importantly, that, despite the threat that surrounded them, he had taken time to say it because she’d asked him to.
“I know,” she said simply.
She did. What they had shared had been something very special. For both of them. From the beginning, the possibility that any moment they spent together might be their last had made those times infinitely precious. And the passion they shared infinitely powerful.
Neither of them had ever before felt the need to articulate something they both understood. There wasn’t any need now.
He nodded, holding her eyes a few seconds longer. Then he turned again, moving through the familiar terrain with an ease she could not hope to match.
As she followed, eyes once more on the ground, she discovered that although hearing those words had not been necessary, that he had finally said them was. And no matter what happened next, nothing could ever take that away from her.
THE SUMMER had been long and dry, especially for up here. Still, Rafe was shocked at how rapidly the fire had come roaring across the mountain. There were natural firebreaks that would normally have slowed its progress. Driven by a hot wind and the tinder-dry forest, however, the flames crowned in the top of the tall pines and then leaped the barriers nature had created.
There was no time for the kind of caution the possibility of Jorgensen’s presence would normally have demanded. They would be lucky to reach the car ahead of the fire.
Maybe that estimation was the result of his fear, fed by the sound and the smell of the monster that followed them. Without slowing, he shot a glance over his shoulder, trying to estimate how close it really was.
His eyes automatically focused on Elizabeth, who was running only a few yards behind him. Her mouth was open, as was his, trying to draw enough of the smoke-charged air into her lungs to fuel their exertion. And beyond her, closer than he’d imagined, flames licked along the ground where they had been standing only seconds before. He could feel the heat of them.
Wildfire was the term for this kind of fast-moving inferno. He knew in his heart, however, this one wasn’t wild. It had been deliberately set, intended to do exactly what it was doing.
From here, he couldn’t tell how widespread it was. No matter how narrowly it had begun, under these droughtlike conditions it could easily sweep across and then down the mountain, destroying everything in its path.
He had taken comfort last night in the belief that Adler Jorgensen wouldn’t choose some impersonal method of killing him. He hadn’t. He had used the most personal means of coming after them he could have found.
Rafe wondered how the bastard had known about the effects of the Amsterdam bombing. The same way he’s known everything else, he acknowledged bitterly. He had been one step ahead of them all the way.
He still was. Now he intended that they would be only one step ahead of the fire. One step ahead, and then ultimately…
He glanced back again and realized Elizabeth had fallen farther behind. He slowed, giving her a chance to catch up.
As she approached, he could hear air wheezing in and out of her mouth in harsh gasps. The thickness of the air around them was making it difficult to breathe. Despite that, she was moving as fast as she could over the rock-strewn ground. The running shoes she wore weren’t nearly as well suited for this terrain as his worn hiking books.
Actually, they were a disaster waiting to happen. And if she fell, he’d never be able to carry her out of the path of the fire quickly enough. He slowed his pace even more, holding out his hand. His grip might provide some stability, at least enough to keep her from falling if she stumbled.
As her reaching fingers touched his, the fire behind them gave a great whoosh, followed by a sharp crackling as it consumed another tree. The simultaneous assault of that sound and the feel of Elizabeth’s fingers in his combined with the adrenaline already flooding his system to send him spiraling back to the bombing in Amsterdam.
Images he had never been able to force out of his memory invaded his consciousness, obl
iterating the present reality. He was no longer looking back at Elizabeth, but at the distorted face and open mouth of the screaming woman. The skin of the hand he held disintegrated under his touch, peeling away from the slender bones like every nightmare he had ever had.
The next thing he knew someone was screaming his name. He watched a mouth form the word at least twice before he knew whose mouth it was. And before he remembered why she was screaming at him.
He must have stopped running at the exact moment his mind betrayed him. No longer fleeing the real fire. Consumed instead by the sights and sounds of one that had happened six years ago.
Elizabeth was beating on his chest, her fists flailing at him. As soon as he knew what was going on, he reached out, his hands fastening around her upper arms, holding her away from him. He shook her once. Sharply.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s over.”
He raised his eyes to check on the progress of the fire. It was frighteningly nearer, and it seemed to be sucking the oxygen out of the air around them. A terrifyingly malevolent force with which he had too intimate a relationship.
There was no time to try for the cabin or the car, he realized. There was time for only one thing. Even as it occurred to him, he wasn’t sure it would work. Elizabeth’s fit of coughing destroyed that moment of indecision, bringing his eyes back to her face.
“We go down,” he said. “It’s our only chance.”
She nodded, but he wasn’t sure she understood what he was suggesting. Up to this point they had been fleeing across the mountain, running along a fairly gradual slope that would have taken them to the clearing. What he was proposing now was a sharper, much more treacherous descent. It would not only be more physically challenging, but it was without the promise of a car waiting to carry them to safety when they’d exhausted their limited physical strength.
They would have more than a mile to go down before they reached the narrow logging road that provided the only access to his property from this direction. If the fire cut down the mountain rather than across it…
No choice, he decided, his eyes lifting once more to the inferno. Without another word, he grasped her elbow and began to run, dragging her along with him.
After the first few steps she seemed to get her second wind, running almost effortlessly beside him. Whether it was the surge of adrenaline from watching him lose contact with reality or the brief rest the episode provided, something had made a difference.
Because he knew the mountain so well, he was aware that they were not yet into any of the tough spots. The downhill slope would eventually give way to granite outcroppings they would have to pick their way across.
Those very obstacles could also divert the mindless onslaught of the fire. And depending on the amount of rainfall upstream, the creek that meandered through the rocks and crevasses on this side of the mountain might contain enough water to give them protection. Whatever happened…
Whatever happened, he thought again, they had no choice. He put everything else out of his mind, concentrating on guiding Elizabeth down the mountain.
Chapter Seventeen
The creek bed hadn’t been dry as Rafe had feared it might be. The depth of the water wasn’t what he’d hoped for, but by the time they reached it, they could go no farther. Not at the speed with which they had been forced to make that harrowing descent.
Stumbling, sliding, picking their way down steep inclines, they had somehow managed to stay ahead of the flames. And he had fought off the threatening memories of that other fire as they did.
Now they had one chance. One chance at safety. One chance at life. He bounded over the rocks that bordered the stream, Elizabeth behind him.
Throughout the ordeal, she’d made no complaint, but he could tell that her physical strength was at an end. All that kept her on her feet was sheer, stubborn will.
“Get into the water,” he shouted above the noise of the current, giving the instructions as they crossed the last few feet to their destination. “Get down on your hands and knees in the center of it. Find the edge of a rock on the bottom and hold on to it. When I tell you, take a deep breath and lie down flat on your stomach. Put your head under and keep it there until I come get you.”
He didn’t explain that would be when the fire had passed over them. If he were still alive. Those were details it wouldn’t be helpful to put into words.
He skidded to a stop on one of the flat stones beside the water. Elizabeth put her hands on her knees, bending forward at the waist and gasping for breath.
“Now,” he ordered.
She straightened, her face contorted with the effort of breathing. Her eyes found his, saying what she had neither strength nor breath to express.
Then, without looking back, she waded out to the middle of the creek. She followed his directions, dropping to all fours, as he joined her in the water.
The current was stronger than he’d expected and so cold it took his breath. What he had left. And the water didn’t come up to his knees. He waded out a few more feet, feeling his way carefully over the slick rocks that lined the bottom. Once there, he looked back to evaluate the progress of the fire.
Roaring through the pines, it was now louder than the swiftly moving stream. Much closer than it had been when he’d entered the water.
Because they would be able to keep their heads under for less than a minute, they would have to wait until the last possible second. In preparation for that moment, he stooped, reaching into the water with one hand, feeling for the edge of one of the submerged rocks to hold himself down.
He was still watching the leading edge of the blaze sweep toward the rocky slope that led to the stream, knowing that their lives depended on his ability to time its arrival. If he gave the signal too soon, they would run out of air before the fire had passed over them. If he waited too late…
He turned to check on Elizabeth. She was still on her hands and knees, her eyes fastened intently on him. Her face was perfectly calm.
Trusting him to tell her when it was time. Trusting him to keep the flames from engulfing her, blistering the skin on her face and arms. Charring it, just as it had the skin on the arms—
Elizabeth’s features began to change, becoming someone else’s face before his eyes. He fought the flashback, the heat and the sound of the fire were all around him.
One second Elizabeth had been kneeling in the water. In the next, like some mythical shape-shifter, she had become the woman from the embassy, her mouth beginning to open in that terrible, silent scream.
“Rafe!”
That woman had never called his name. She hadn’t known it. In some rational, still-functioning atom of his brain he knew that.
As if the heat from the fire were distorting the air between them, the image he had seen shimmered, trembled, and mercifully settled back into reality.
Which was terrifying enough.
He pulled his gaze from Elizabeth’s face, forcing it to focus on the crimson maw of the conflagration. Willing himself to stay in the present so he could make that split-second decision that would mean life or death for them both.
The force of the heat was palpable now, overpowering, because the blaze had finally reached the rocks. Reached the rocks, he realized with a growing sense of wonder, and was going no farther.
The feeling of unreality left over from the flashback made him doubt what his eyes were telling him. In one of those inexplicable reversals, the flames that had been eddying over the downward slope were beginning to die.
Apparently the fire had burned so intensely it had consumed everything in its path. When it reached the rocky incline that led down to the creek, there was nothing to fuel its combustion. The very dryness it had fed on had ensured there would be nothing growing on this barren slope.
He could still hear the flames whipping through the tops of the trees to the east, but here… Here it had stopped, unable to jump the barrier created by the combination of rocks and crevasses and water to tou
ch into flame the trees on the other side.
As he watched, the fire at the top of the incline died away, leaving a smoldering blackness behind. The smoke and the heat from it still parched the air. He felt as if the hair on his face had been singed, his staring eyes baked.
Yet he was afraid to close them. Afraid that if he did, he would awaken to some other reality. A reality in which he had failed Elizabeth again.
“Rafe?”
Except he had never failed Elizabeth. That had been someone else. Some other time. Some other place.
He swallowed. And heard his name again.
“Rafe?” Elizabeth’s voice. He would have known it anywhere. “It’s stopped.”
Focusing on the smoking, blackened ground above the smoldering rocks, he realized she was right. He allowed his burning eyes to close, giving in to relief. Moisture stung behind the lids, and he wasn’t sure if it was sweat or tears. He reopened them finally and turned to nod. The only answer he was capable of.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
He licked his lips, running his tongue around their cracked and painful dryness, trying to think what they did next. And even as he told her, he wasn’t sure of his motives in making the decision.
“Cabin,” he said.
He still believed the terrorist had set the fire. He just wasn’t sure if it had been intended to kill them. Maybe it had simply been meant to do exactly what it had done. To terrorize them.
“Is that…safe?” Elizabeth asked.
For over a year he had hunted Adler Jorgensen’s brother with a thirst for vengeance that had been with him every waking hour, as well as through those during which he had tossed and turned in anxiety-driven nightmares. He had thought he would never hate another human being with the same intensity he had felt then.
Today, believing that he was about to lose the only woman he had ever loved, he had found he was not so dead to emotion as he had once believed. Not either kind of emotion. The hatred he felt now was no less than that with which he had relentlessly hunted and then gunned down Gunther. And his love for Elizabeth…
