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

  Gilly.

  He was shaking.

  “You said your girlfriend was down there?”

  Reuben could barely nod.

  “Need a lift to the road?”

  If she died on this cliff, Reuben would never forgive himself. That much Gilly knew as she dragged herself to the edge.

  The minute she’d woke to the smell of smoke, the fingers of gray drifting through the trees warning her of the advancing flames, she’d pushed herself to her feet.

  Listened hard. She could hear it, the crackle and pop of sparks, the sizzle of bushes alighting, and behind it all, the roar of the wall of flames building speed as they consumed the forest.

  She’d stepped out then and crumpled right there on the forest floor, her face in the dirt. Her cries echoed against the increasing roar.

  She didn’t know fires as well as Reuben or any of the other team members, but it didn’t take an expert to figure out that she needed to move to safety, and fast.

  For a long moment, she considered using the fire shelter, kicking it out, rolling into it. But without gloves, without fire protection, without the ability to hold the shelter down with her legs—and that meant her destroyed knee, too—she hadn’t a chance.

  She’d discarded the shelter and started to army crawl to the cliff, the smoke thick, tufting the air, turning the world to a war zone.

  The roaring had turned to a locomotive thundering behind her. She’d glanced back, saw flames flickering around blackening poplars and birch, turning pine trees to bushy torches a hundred feet in her wake, bright through the smoke.

  She’d gotten up on her feet, duck crawled, then pushed to a stand, moaning as the pain rocketed up her leg. She lunged from one tree to the next, tumbling out, finally, to the cliff’s edge.

  The rope dangled where Reuben had used it to rappel, and she lay on her stomach, looking down.

  Fifty feet, and most of it just air, nothing to grab onto should she lose her grip.

  Worse, she didn’t have a clue where the harness might be. Or gloves. Or—

  The fire hissed in the trees behind her, an earth-shaking explosion as a tree torched. The heat pressed a hand to her back, and she rolled over to see a great cottonwood crowning above her.

  She had a minute. Maybe.

  Die on the cliff or fall to her death.

  Oh, God, those couldn’t be the only two choices! Her heart turned to a fist, fighting to escape her chest.

  The fact that she’d wanted to be a smokejumper seared through her. Laughable. What had possessed her to ever think she could save her team? She was going to turn to ash, right here on the edge of the cliff, a wretched reminder that she was no more cut out to be a smokejumper than she was a baker.

  In fact, if she hadn’t demanded to join Reuben on the hike out, everyone would probably be rescued right now.

  God is on our side, Reuben.

  Her words yesterday seemed caustic and stupid in the face of the inferno some twenty feet away.

  I’m sorry, Reuben.

  This would take him apart—knowing he couldn’t be here to save her. The regret would gnaw at him, consume him whole.

  All because she’d demanded that she had to save everyone instead of realizing—embracing—the truth. She was trying way too hard to prove herself, just like Jared, her bomber copilot had said.

  And now she was in her over her head.

  Reuben’s words reverberated back to her. 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.

  Yeah, well, maybe she wasn’t.

  A broken branch fell near her, blackened, sizzling, and she scooted back along the edge with a scream.

  She needed to get off this cliff.

  She scrabbled for the rope but fire had caught it, and it began to sizzle. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t use it.

  Smoke thickened the air, sooted her eyes, and they watered, blinding her. Her nose ran, and she coughed as she kept scooting along the cliff, her hand running over the rocky edge, dragging herself as the fire licked out from the forest.

  In seconds the inferno would simply explode out over the ravine.

  And burn her alive. Already her skin felt charred, and she turned her face away as she scrabbled backwards along the cliffs edge.

  Just stand, do your part, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf. Right. Well, God, if you ever want to show up—

  Suddenly, Gilly fell back, as if the rock had given way. For a second, she thought she’d scooted right over the edge.

  But no—she whacked her spine, and only then did she realize she’d fallen into a rivulet in the cliff.

  She pushed herself out, rolled over, felt the rock, and discovered not a rivulet, but a crack, about a foot wide, parting the rock wall.

  She could fit into it. And maybe if it went far enough down... She flipped around, backed herself into the space, wedging herself into the opening, searching for footholds. Tongues of flame lapped at her hands, and she clenched her jaw.

  She finally ducked down, scrubbing her back against one side, her good knee against the other side, pushing against her hands as she lowered herself into the cleft of the rock. Moss and roots layered the granite walls, the smell earthy, thick with the heavy breath of trapped moisture.

  Three feet, then five, then ten. She inched down. The crevasse seemed to be widening, but she kept going, working her way into the darkness. She scrabbled for nooks and holds for her hands, her legs. As she descended, the trapped, cool air cleared her eyes, her throat.

  Above her, the fire roared, roasting the forest. Her heart thundered, but she didn’t look up, feeding on the air from the creek bed, feeling the heat as it searched for her.

  Twenty feet down, the crevasse opened up, and she wedged herself back onto a ledge, a lip of six inches, her mouth near the mossy, cool granite.

  Only then did she look up. The fire had turned the sky a ghastly orange, cinders blowing in a tornado of wind, blaze, and fury. Embers blew down the crevasse, and she tucked herself back, letting them blow out to the river below. The water reflected the storm, glistening red and black, deep burnt orange.

  Hell, right here outside her pocket of safety.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, fighting the tremor that started in her gut, moved out to her chest, her breath.

  Then she curled herself against the cool, solid embrace of the rock and wept.

  Chapter 8

  Reuben had sifted through many a charred forest during his years as a firefighter. Usually, however, he did it while garbed up with gloves and armed with his Pulaski and his water canister to douse any remaining pockets of heat.

  And never while crying.

  His eyes ran, his nose thick with mucus, and he wanted to sink down into the ashy moonscape and howl. Let his grief ricochet off the blackened, skeletal remains of once bushy pine, formerly fragrant balsam fir. He kicked the ash at his feet, searching for anything—

  He didn’t know what was worse, the idea of finding Gilly’s charred body or simply hoping she died quickly, the noxious air burning her lungs, suffocating her before the fire could burn her alive.

  Oh, God, no, please.

  Reuben longed for the febrile hope that she’d somehow made it out.

  But he’d seen the fire, the mushroom cloud of black smoke that evidenced a fire frustrated, stunted.

  Angry.

  The kind of fire routed by the ravine and thus settled down to burn hot and thick, fighting its demise.

  The forest still sizzled, smoke a ghoul as it moved in and out of the trees, searching for the unburnt.

  He’d gladly commandeered Rudini’s bike, shouldering it as he fled down the mountain. He hit the path and climbed on, grateful for the thick mountain wheels as he pedaled hard.

  He should have flown off the mountain, broken something, but maybe God had heard his pleading, because Re
uben had managed to muscle the bike over boulders, stay on the path, and find the bend where he’d emerged from the forest.

  From there, he’d dropped the bike and begun to run.

  He didn’t remember much of the three-plus miles through the woods. He landed hard on the soft, loamy earth, turned his ankle a few times, slammed into tree limbs, hurtled boulders, and fell at least once with enough force to knock out his breath.

  It barely slowed him, the smell of resin under fire igniting him.

  He hit the ravine—he guessed it took him maybe an hour, but it felt like an eternity—and the moonscape of forest stopped him cold.

  No one could have lived through the inferno.

  He spied his rope downstream, burned, wrapped around a submerged tree.

  “Gilly!” He’d let his voice echo into the air, closed his eyes, and leaned hard on his knees, listening.

  Just the wind in his ears, the rasping of his breath.

  The howl in his heart.

  He didn’t need a rope to descend—he found the place where he’d climbed up, scrabbled down, finally falling into the river.

  And, just in case she’d done something crazy and flung herself over the edge into the river, he searched the water for her broken body.

  No Gilly.

  Which meant she was still on the cliff.

  His chest turned to fire as he splashed downstream, past his rope. He examined it and realized he’d left the descender at the bottom. Taken off the harness and left it on the opposite shore.

  He’d all but condemned her to die.

  Reuben leaned over and lost it. His stomach emptied, his arms weak, he collapsed into the cool water.

  But—she could be alive up there. The thought pulsed inside him, a fragile hope that had him finding his legs and searching for a place that didn’t have an overhang, where he could ascend.

  He’d never been good at rock climbing, but the primal urge to get up the face pushed him forward, his hands torn and bleeding by the time he reached the top.

  But somewhere in there, he’d started crying.

  He ran toward their camp—easily found it upriver near the camelback ridge of rocks.

  When he’d left her, she’d taken out her fire shelter. He’d hung onto that hope with a fist as he’d careened down the mountain, bulldozed through the forest. Please, Gilly, be under the fire shelter.

  Now that thought glimmered as he kicked up ash and cinder, skirting hot spots glowing in the loam, snags that simmered.

  He reached the boulder.

  He found the silver shelter wadded up, seared, melted around the edges and—empty.

  “No!” He kicked it into the wind, leaned against the rock, and pressed his hands over his face.

  God, she didn’t deserve this.

  And then he didn’t know why he was talking to God, because, please, what did he expect? He knew what God thought of him, and frankly, Reuben had done it again. Made the wrong decision and abandoned someone to die. He couldn’t bear the thought of her alone, terrified.

  Worse, his gut—no, his heart—had practically screamed at him to take her with him. To carry her on his back, even if she hated it. To protect her like he should have.

  He got up, kicking through the debris, not sure what he might be looking for.

  A reason, perhaps, not to despair.

  His foot met a charred bundle, and he squatted, brushing away the ash.

  Their gear pack. Melted down, the plastic clips a hard mass.

  He picked it up, his breath heaving over itself.

  He was going to be sick again. Instead, he turned and with a feral cry, the one building in his chest for the past two hours, he threw the deformed pack with all his strength toward the ravine.

  His moan echoed into the scalded air, past the ravine, into the still green forest, and back, reverberating through him.

  A howl of grief, and he let it shake him, send him back to the boulder.

  He fell against it, his breathing hard, emitting moans he didn’t know how to escape.

  Then he closed his eyes and wept.

  Why couldn’t he have seen this? He should have known the fire would have run with the wind, east—

  He’d left her here to burn to death. Just like he’d let Jock run back into the fire. Just like he’d walked away from his father.

  If he’d been on the ranch, he would have been with the old man, checking fencing with him when he’d had his heart attack. Could have ridden back for help—

  Maybe his father would still be alive.

  God, I screwed up. I screwed up bad. Reuben couldn’t breathe, the fist in his chest a vice.

  Reuben.

  He looked up, the voice so vivid he held his breath, searched for the source. Keep playing your position. His father’s voice—it sounded so real Reuben actually got up.

  See the salvation of the Lord.

  He stilled, rooted, his pulse thundering. Remembering their conversation last night. Now he wanted to lean into the words, believe them.

  “Reuben!”

  He stilled, the voice thin, a barest hint against the wind stirring the scorched earth.

  Gilly?

  “Reuben, I’m here!”

  He whirled around, definitely hearing something now, and he prayed it wasn’t his heart, longing so much to hear her voice, he’d conjured her up.

  “Gilly!” He didn’t see her. Just an ethereal voice lifting from somewhere near the ravine. He started running, hope flashing through him.

  “I’m down here!”

  Down—he didn’t see anything, just blackened trees, a film of ashy white over charred rock. He jumped over still-smoking tree trunks, came out to the edge of the cliff. “I don’t see you!”

  “I’m down here!”

  He followed her voice, scrambling along the edge, looking over the side.

  He nearly fell into the ravine. His foot kicked the far edge, and he tripped, landing on his hands. His leg dropped into the expanse.

  “Don’t fall in!”

  He pulled himself out, backed up, peered down into the crevice. “Gilly?” There wasn’t a hope that he’d fall in—he could barely fit his leg in.

  There, in the darkness, about halfway down. By the looks of it she’d managed to wedge her entire body in this safe cavity in the earth, protected from the blaze.

  He went weak with the sight of her, crouched on a ledge in the recesses of the crack. She looked a little singed, her face blackened, her eyes huge as she stared up at him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked stupidly because he didn’t know what else to say.

  “I think so,” she said. “The fire just—well, I climbed down here just as it blew up over the edge.”

  He swallowed back a rush of emotion that had the power to collapse him, rend from him another unmanly sob.

  But he was just so— “I can’t believe you thought of wedging yourself in this crevice!” He was leaning down now, trying to figure out how to get her out.

  “I didn’t—it just appeared. I thought I was going to die, and suddenly I fell into it.”

  He had no words for the relief that gusted through him. “Let’s get you out, huh? Can you climb?”

  “My knee is…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Rube.”

  “Gilly, shh. No problem. Stay put. I’ll be back.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Then she smiled up at him, such a beautiful smile it took his breath away in a whole new way.

  Joy. Right there in a tiny package that could fit in a slit in the ground.

  Thank you, God.

  Maybe the Almighty would just forget about that…earlier bit.

  Reuben ran down the edge of the cliff to where he’d climbed up earlier and worked his way down to the river.

  Found his rope, the remainder that hadn’t burned. Still a good length—long enough, he supposed, to pull her up.

  He climbed up the cliff and returned to the hole. He sat on the edge and tied a harness into the
end. He lowered it down to Gilly. “Put this around you. I’ll pull you up.”

  She worked the rope around herself.

  “Easy does it—don’t fall.”

  She looked up, as if to snap at him, but instead just nodded.

  Hmm.

  He knew he should be roping in, securing his position, but frankly he could probably pull her up hand over hand. Nevertheless, he wound the rope around his waist, stood up, braced his legs, and began to pull.

  She weighed nothing, or it could be sheer adrenaline, but she called out for him to slow down, to let her work her way up.

  He slowed down, steadied his breath until her head rimmed the edge of the crack. Then in one quick move, he wrapped his arm around her tiny waist and heaved her up and into his embrace.

  And then her arms were around his neck, as she held onto him, burying her face in his shoulder.

  Shaking.

  “Shh, you’re okay. You’re okay.” He said it for himself as much as for her, backing away from the edge, then scooping her into his arms and sitting down. He settled her on his lap, holding her away from him enough to run his hands down her arms. He met her eyes.

  Swallowed.

  She was staring at him, so much vulnerability in her eyes, so much relief and just a hint of hero worship that his breath hiccupped.

  “Rube—”

  But he couldn’t take it, couldn’t listen, couldn’t wait—he leaned in and kissed her. And not a soft, sweet, gentle kiss like before, but a full on, oh-I-nearly-lost-you move that had him tightening his arms around her, reeling at the emotions that suddenly turned him weak. He had his hands tangled in her hair, now dirty and knotted—

  And she was kissing him back. Just as heartily, her hands fisted into his grimy shirt, pulling him closer, as if she couldn’t get enough of him.

  It slowed him down, and the relief shuddered out of him, until he softened his kiss, ending it sweetly, with a gentleness that he hoped showed her just how much he didn’t want to frighten her.

  Even though, yeah, he was suddenly very, very afraid.

  He loved her. The realization washed over him, turned him a little woozy, scooping out his breath. Still, as he leaned back, meeting her eyes, her amazing smile, the truth poured into his bones, his heart.