Where There's Smoke: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 1) (25 page)

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!”

With the crackling of smoke and fire, the wind carried his voice downhill.

“Hey, Boss!” Reuben’s voice turned him, and his breath caught on the site of a destroyed, blackened shelter, held in Reuben’s gloved hand. “I found it lying against a snag.”

Below him, he heard Conner stifle a word.

No!
Jed scrabbled up the ridge, nearly on his hands and knees. “Reuben, get that saw up here!”

Jed slipped, slammed his knee against a rock, but found his footing and hit the ridge at a run.

The tree lay blackened, still sizzling, refusing to die under the bloody wash of retardant. It hadn’t fallen directly on the hole; instead it lay just along the lip, the bushy arms arching over the top, as if protecting it from the sparks and embers, the heavy blaze of a rolling fire.

In a way, the tree had acted as a barrier to the greater fireball. He grabbed at the branches, chopped them away, the trunk barring him from climbing over, or under, moving around it. But, he could plainly see the other shelter, crumbled, burned, but intact.

And unmoving.

“Kate! We’re here!” He motioned to Reuben as he laid into the tree with his Pulaski. Branches broke, but not enough for him to launch himself through its bushy grasp.

“Step back, Boss!” Reuben fired up his chainsaw with a growl, and Jed fell back long enough for Rube to divide the trunk in two pieces—then more. Jed didn’t wait as he threw them out of the way and used his Pulaski to push through the final, charred branches.

He leaped down into the enclave.

Oh—his breath wavered, his hands shaking as he reached out to the shelter.
Please—

He peeled it back.

Kate lay halfway on Hannah, her legs locked around her, arm against her neck, her face turned to the ground. Hannah lay beneath her, her trousers charred, her shirt pocked with cinder burns.

“Kate!

Then, as his breath caught, she lifted her head. Eyes watering, her bandanna pulled up over her nose, blackened with smoke, she stared at him.

He was in the hole in a second, reaching for her.

She pushed herself up, her hands shaking. “You—you came. You’re—”

“Here.” He caught her hand. “I’m here.”

His knees threatened to buckle as he reached for her, trying not to cry. “I thought you were dead.” Even as he said it, he scanned her body. She looked intact, if not grimy, her face streaked with dirt and soot.

“I’m okay. I think I’m okay—”

But he couldn’t wait. Just grabbed her up, pulling her to himself, holding on.

His entire body shook, and she crumpled against him, her head buried in his chest.

Shuddering.

And then, because he couldn’t stay in this grave for a second longer, he picked her up in his arms, dropping his Pulaski and carrying her out of the hole. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Conner drop in behind him to attend to Hannah.

And then, it was all Kate as he set her on the ground on the blackened ridge top. He knelt next to her, whipping his bandanna from his neck, wiping her face, her neck. “I tried to call you—”

“I heard you.” She pulled off her gloves, reached up to touch his cheek. “You hummed a song to me.”

“I did more than that, Kate.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “I prayed. I begged. I had nothing but hope and—”

“The tree. It came down, and then the retardant followed.” She nodded, as if piecing it together. “They couldn’t find us, could they?”

“No. The smoke blackened the entire ridge.”

“And the tree—they followed the flames.”

He nodded. Swallowed. “I...when I saw that ridge go up, I thought—oh, Kate.” Yep, he was going to be sick. He turned away, leaned his head to the ground, fighting the urge.

She was beside him, her hand on his back. “I lived—we lived. Shh.”

He managed to pull it together without making a fool of himself—although maybe he was long past that—and turned back to her, his heart still a fist pounding his chest.

She stood there, grime on her face, her eyes bloodshot, her nose runny, her hair in sweaty tangles, and he knew he’d never seen anyone more beautiful. “You. Are, Brilliant.”

“Huh?”

“The crevice—that was brilliant.” He cradled her face in his hands. “You’re brilliant. And terrifying. And I’m so in love with you I don’t care. I want it all.”

Because, yeah, it hit him. That was exactly his Kate. Brilliant. Terrifying. And that made him stretch out his hand to something that might keep him sane—faith. Clearly God loved her, because really, she had a crazy kind of luck.

The kind of crazy—divine—luck that a guy needed if he were to love her. “I love you so much, it consumes me, and I go a little crazy with it, but—it also makes me want to be the guy who shows up in your life, with a Pulaski and, yeah, maybe a prayer. Because loving you requires me to have faith, and that’s a good thing.”

She smiled then, soft, long. “Really?”

“That, or I’ll slowly lose my mind.” He lifted a shoulder.

And right there, in front of the entire team now putting out spot fires and sawing apart the snag, she kissed him. Curled her hand around his neck and pulled his mouth to hers in a kiss that could probably leave blisters.

She smelled of smoke, tasted of sweat, and trembled a little with the lingering fear of the fire, but, as he wrapped his arms around her, he heard her words.

I want you, Jed.

Him. Not fire.

And in his arms, her kiss turned unexpectedly ardent, the residue, perhaps, of too much adrenaline.

Not that he minded. So he pulled her close but slowed them down because, yeah, they had a fire to put out. Or at least bank.

Especially with Reuben, Conner, and the rest of his team looking on.

But really, he didn’t care. Because that’s how it was to love Blazin’ Kate Burns. Risk, not recklessness. And, hand-in-hand, jumping with a cry of faith straight into the fire.