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

  Table of Contents

  Montana Fire Book Three

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Author's Note

  Wild Montana Skies

  Montana Fire: Summer of Fire Trilogy

  Book Three: Burnin’ for You

  He’s loved her for years...

  Smokejumper Reuben Marshall is harboring a deep regret—a split-second decision that cost the life of his crew boss in a fire. It’s a grief that has paralyzed him, kept him from moving forward. It’s mistakes and regrets like this that keep him from pursuing his long-burning interest in Gilly Priest, the team’s pretty, petite pilot. Not only is she not interested in dating a teammate, but she’s also the preacher’s daughter. And while Reuben’s not the chiefest of sinners, he’s no saint. Reuben feels like a buffalo next to her, and worse, can’t seem to string two words together when she’s in his radar. He’ll just have to love her from afar...

  Her dark secret keeps her from trusting...

  Gilly Priest has worked hard to carve out her niche as a female bomber pilot in the dangerous world of firefighting. Sure she’s small, but she’s made up for her stature in courage, grit, and the tenacity to face danger other pilots wouldn’t dare to confront. And yes, she’s noticed handsome Reuben Marshall—who wouldn’t? Dependable and strong, he takes up most of the space in the room. But Gilly’s dark secret won’t allow her close enough to talk to him, let alone let herself fall for him.

  A race to rescue the people they love...

  When their smokejumper plane goes down in the northwestern Montana mountains, wounding their team, Gilly and Reuben are the only ones able to hike out to find help. But when their rescue mission turns out to be a fight for their lives against the terrain, a saboteur, and a forest fire, they discover they’ll have to put aside their fears and learn to trust each other. But will trust lead to igniting something they both long for...and fear? And can they save their team before tragedy strikes—again?

  Montana Fire Book Three

  Burnin’ for You

  by

  Susan May Warren

  Chapter 1

  If they started running now, they just might make the lake before the fire consumed them.

  At least that’s what Reuben Marshall’s gut said when the wind shifted and rustled the seared hairs on the back of his neck, strained and tight from three days of cutting line through a stand of black spruce as thick as night.

  After a week, the fire in the Kootenai National Forest had consumed nearly twelve hundred acres. And as of breakfast this morning, his team of smokejumpers, as well as hotshot and wildland firefighter teams from all over Montana and Idaho, had only nicked it down to sixty percent contained.

  Now the fire turned from a low crackle to a growl behind him, hungry for the forest on the other side of the twenty-foot line that his crew—Pete, CJ, and Hannah—had scratched out of the forest, widening an already cleared service road. CJ and Hannah were swamping for Reuben as he mowed down trees, clearing brush. Between the two of them, they worked like an entire crew, still determined to prove themselves. Pete worked cleanup, digging the line down to the mineral soil.

  Reuben’s eyes watered, his throat charred from eating fire as he angled his saw into the towering spruce—one more tree felled and it would keep the fire from jumping the line or candling from treetop to treetop.

  Chips hit his safety glasses, pinged against his yellow Nomex shirt, his canvas pants. His shoulders burned, his arms one constant vibration.

  In another hour they’d hook up with the other half of their crew—Jed, Conner, Ned, Riley, and Tucker—dragging a line along the lip of forest road that served as their burnout line. They would light a fire of their own to consume all the fuel between the line and the active fire and drive the blaze to Fountain Lake.

  The dragon would lie down and die.

  At least that seemed the ambitious but attainable plan that his crew boss, Jed, had outlined this morning over a breakfast of MRE eggs and protein bars. While listening, Reuben had poured three instant coffee packs into one cup of water and tossed the sludge down in one gulp.

  Deep in his gut, Reuben had expected trouble when the wind quietly kicked up early this morning, rousing the team tucked in their coyote camp—a pocket of preburned space, their safety zone on the bottom of the canyon near a trickle of river. Already blackened, the zone shouldn’t reignite, but it left ashy debris on Reuben, the soot probably turning his dark-brown hair to gray under his orange hard hat. His entire team resembled extras on the Walking Dead.

  He felt like it too—a zombie, barely alive, fatigue a lining under his skin. Ash, sawdust, and the fibers of the forest coated his lips despite his efforts to keep his handkerchief over his mouth.

  They’d worked in the furnace all day, the flame lengths twenty to thirty feet behind them, climbing up aspen and white pine, settling down into the crackling loam of the forest, consuming bushes in a flare of heat. But with the bombers overhead dropping slurry, the fire sizzled and roared, dying slowly.

  He’d watched them—the Russian biplane AN2, which scooped water from the lake, and the Airtractor AT, dropping red slurry from its white belly. And, way overhead the C-130 circled for another pass, a loaner from the National Guard.

  Reuben wondered which one Gilly piloted—a random thought that he shoved away. But not before imagining her, dark auburn hair tied back and cascading out of her baseball cap, aviator glasses over her freckled nose. Petite at just over five feet, the woman had don’t quit written all over her when she climbed into a cockpit.

  But it did him no good to let his thoughts anchor upon a woman he could barely manage to speak to. Not that he had any chance with her anyway.

  Keep his head down, keep working—wasn’t that what his father had always said?

  They all had expected the Fountain Lake fire to fizzle out with their efforts.

  Until the wind shifted. Again.

  And that’s when the fine hairs of Reuben’s neck stood on end, his gut began to roil.

  He finished the cut, released his blade from the trunk of the tree, hollered “Clear!,” then stepped back as the massive tree lurched, crashed into the blazing forest.

  The fire roared, a locomotive heading their direction.

  It seemed Pete, twenty feet behind, hadn’t yet alerted to the shift. Reuben couldn’t account for why his gut always seemed to clench with a second sense that scented danger. The last time he’d felt it, he’d known in his bones that teammates were going to die.

  And they had.

  Not again.

  Reuben did a quick calculation. They’d completed about twenty-four chain lengths in the last six hours, about a quarter mile from the safety zone. They could run back to their strike camp in the burned-out section—a theoretical safe zone.

  However, he’d known forests to reignite, especially loam that had flashed over quickly, hadn’t scorched the land down to the soil. There was plenty of fuel to burn in the so-called safe zone if the fire got serious. Not to mention the air, searing hot in their lungs as it cycloned through the area.

  If they turned and ran another hundred yards along the uncleared forest service road, they’d be over halfway to the lake, less than a half mile away.

  But they’d be running into unburned forest with nowhere to hunker down if the fire overtook them.r />
  Reuben listened for, but couldn’t hear, the other team’s saws.

  Through the charred trees, the sun backdropped the hazy gray of the late afternoon, a thin, blood-red line along the far horizon.

  Jed’s voice crackled over their radios. “Ransom, Brooks. We’re battling some flare-ups here, and the fire just kicked up. How’s your position?”

  Reuben watched Pete toggle his radio, gauging the wind.

  “Must be the lake effect. She’s still sitting down here,” Pete said.

  Reuben frowned, nearly reaching for his own radio. But, despite his instincts, Pete was right. Except for a few flare-ups, the fire behind them seemed to be slow moving.

  Maybe—

  “Right,” Jed said, confirming Pete’s unspoken conclusion that they were safe. “Just don’t turn into heroes. Remember your escape route. To the fire, you’re just more fuel. We’re going to start bugging out to the lake.”

  Which, probably, was what they should be doing, too.

  As if reading his mind, Pete glanced up at Reuben. For a second, memory played in Pete’s eyes.

  Only he, Pete, and Conner had survived being overrun nearly a year ago in a blaze that killed seven of their team, including their jump boss, Jock Burns.

  That had been a case of confusion, conflicting orders, and hotshots and smokejumpers running out of time. Fingers had been pointed, blame assigned.

  The what-ifs still simmered in low conversations through their small town of Ember, Montana. Thankfully, this summer had been—well, mostly—injury free.

  Reuben wanted to keep it that way. But if their safety zone wasn’t completely burned to the ground, it could reignite around them, trap them.

  If they left now, they could probably make the lake. But what if the fire jumped the road, caught them in the middle of a flare-up?

  If Reuben should mutter his suggestion, he could end up getting them all killed. And if he was wrong, God wouldn’t exactly show up to rescue him.

  Reuben couldn’t help shooting a look back at Hannah and CJ, still working, unaware of the radio communication.

  Sparks lifted, spurted out of the forest, across the line, lighting spot fires near the edge of the road. Reuben ran over, stomped one out, threw water from his pack on another.

  Pete joined him. “We’ll head back to the black.”

  Reuben glanced at the route. Clear, for now.

  “Roger,” he said.

  Pete yelled to CJ and Hannah as Reuben shouldered his saw, started jogging along the road to their safety zone. The air swam with billowing dust and smoke. His eyes watered, his nose thick with mucus.

  Why is being a smokejumper so important to you? His brother’s words of disbelief after their father’s funeral smarted in his brain.

  Why indeed? Reuben coughed as he ran, a blast of superheated air sideswiping him, peeling a layer of sweat down his face. Sane people had normal jobs—like ranching or even coaching football. They didn’t bed down in ash, drink coffee as thick as battery acid, smell like gas and oil and soot, and run toward a fire, hoping to find refuge.

  If Reuben lived through this, he’d take a serious look at the answer.

  Behind him, he heard Pete yelling to CJ and Hannah. “We’re not on a scenic hike! Move it!”

  Around them, sparks lit the air, the roar of the fire rumbling in the distance.

  We should be running the other direction. The thought had claws around his throat.

  As if in confirmation, a coal-black cloud rolled down the road, directly from their safety zone, a billow of heat and gas.

  Reuben stopped cold.

  Jed’s voice burst through the radio, choppy, as if he might be running hard. “Pete. The fire’s jumped the road. Head to the black right now.”

  Except the black—their safety zone—was engulfed in smoke, embers, and enough trapped poisonous gases to suffocate them.

  Reuben whirled around and Hannah nearly ran him over. He caught her arm. “Not that way!”

  Pete ran up to him. He still held his Pulaski, his face blackened behind his handkerchief, eyes wide, breathing too hard. “We’re trapped.”

  Reuben stifled a word of frustration.

  He knew it—he should have said something. But again, he’d kept his mouth shut, and people—his people—would die.

  He glanced at Pete who was staring down the road, at the flames behind him. Pete shot a look at Reuben and nodded.

  The past would not repeat itself today.

  Reuben toggled his radio, searched the sky. “Gilly? You up there?”

  Please. He might not be able to talk to her face-to-face in the open room of the Ember Hotline Saloon and Grill, but that wasn’t a matter of life and death.

  “Priest, Marshall. I’m here. Starting my last run right now—”

  “Belay that. We’re making a dash for the lake and we need you to lay down retardant along the forest road. We’re about one click out, but the fire jumped the road a quarter mile in.”

  Static. Then, “Roger that, Rube. I’ll find you. Start running.”

  Pete had taken off with CJ, running along the still-green fire road toward the lake, some five hundred yards away.

  “You miss this, we’re trapped, Gilly.” Reuben started running, still holding his saw.

  More static, and probably he shouldn’t have said that because Hannah, jogging beside him, looked at him, her eyes wide.

  He didn’t want to scare her, but they couldn’t exactly run through a forest engulfed in flame. If Gilly could drop water or retardant on the road, it might settle the fire down enough for them to break through, all the way to the lake.

  The fire chased them, crowning through the trees, sending limbs airborne, felling trees. Sparks swirled in the air, so hot he thought his lungs might burst.

  A black spruce exploded just to his right and with it, a tree arched, thundered to the ground, blocking the road.

  Flames ran up the trunk, out to the shaggy arms, igniting the forest on the other side.

  Hannah screamed, jerked back just in time.

  Pete and CJ had cleared the tree. The flames rippled across it onto the other side of the road, into the forest, a river of fire.

  “We’re trapped!” Hannah screamed.

  Reuben grabbed his backpack of water and began to douse the fire, working his way to the trunk. “C’mon Hannah—let’s kill this thing!”

  She unhooked her line, added water to the flames. The fire died around the middle, the rest of the tree still burning.

  Reuben grabbed his saw, dove into the trunk.

  Sweat beaded down his back, his body straining as he bore down—faster! He could do this—he’d once won a chainsaw competition by sawing through a log the size of a tire in less than a minute.

  The saw chewed through the wood, cleared the bottom.

  He started another cut, a shoulder-width away, from the bottom. “More water, Hannah!” The flames flashed up toward him.

  He turned his face away, let out a yell against the heat. Then hot, blessed water sprinkled his skin as Hannah used the rest of her water to bank the flames.

  The saw churned against a branch. “Use my water!”

  She grabbed his hose, leveled it on the fire biting at the branches, the bark.

  The fire had doubled back along the top, relit the branches around him. He gritted his teeth, standing in the furnace, fighting the saw.

  Don’t get stuck.

  He broke free, the wood parting like butter.

  The stump fell to the ground, an escape through the trunk. Reuben grabbed Hannah and pushed her through, commandeering the hose and dousing the flames with the last of his water.

  Pete and CJ, on the other side, had banked the flames with the last of the water in their canisters.

  Ahead of them, the fire edged the road—beyond, a wall of flame barred their escape.

  Reuben dropped his saw. “We can’t deploy here. We’ll die.”

  He looked up into the sky, saw nothing bu
t gray, hazy smoke.

  He scooped his radio from his belt. “Gilly, where are you?”

  Nothing. He looked at Pete with eyes blurry from smoke and ash. Hannah was working out her shake-and-bake fire shelter—he didn’t have the heart to repeat himself. CJ had run ahead, as if looking for a way out.

  They had a minute—or less—to live.

  “Gilly,” he said into the walkie, not sure if she could hear him. His voice emerged strangely distant, vacant.

  Void of the screaming going on inside his head.

  “If you don’t drop right now, we die.”

  Her first day officially flying bomber planes just might be her last.

  “Tanker Five-Three, and I’m talking to you, Gilly, abort. I say again, abort. Alter course northward and climb. The wind gusts are too strong.”

  The voice came through the radio—their lead plane pilot, Neil “Beck” Beckett—and he sounded just on the edge of furious.

  If she could, Gilly would shut the radio off. Having their lead plane pilot Beck bellowing in her headphones did nothing for her focus as she held her course into the canyon, her flaps extended, aiming directly for the road.

  Nobody died today. Not if she could rescue them.

  Best case scenario, air command grounded her. But if her smokejumpers survived, she’d gladly spend the rest of the summer turning a wrench and gassing tankers at the Ember Fire Base, home of the Jude County Wildland Firefighters.

  Gilly toggled the radio switch. “No go, Lead Four. I’m already in the neighborhood.”

  “You’re going to kill us,” Jared, her copilot, snapped. “Just because you’ve been flying smokejumpers around for years doesn’t mean you can handle a bomber.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Except during the last pass she’d taken, searching for the road Reuben had frantically described, the super-heated wind roiling out of the canyon had nearly flipped the plane. She’d barely missed trees as she pitched the plane up, fighting the washboard turbulence that seemed strong enough to rattle the teeth from her mouth.