“Logan, this tree is on fire.”
He shifted his weight to look at her, and Jenny took advantage of his split-second distraction to wriggle away. She ran up the hill, as fast and nimble as a rabbit.
Logan squatted at her feet, ripping at Maya's duct tape with his teeth and hands.
Seconds later he'd removed enough tape to set her free. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her out from beneath the tree, just before a loud crack sounded and it split in half.
“The fire will take care of her,” he said, and even as the fire threatened to overtake Maya, she shivered at the picture his words painted.
He pulled her down the trail; the smoke was so thick she couldn't see farther than her elbow. She tripped and fell to her knees, and the next thing she knew, Logan's arms were around her and he was carrying her through the smoke. She clung to his neck, knowing if she let go and they were separated, she'd be toast. She tried to take a breath, and choked on the thick haze of smoke.
“We're going to get out of this,” he promised her in a low voice, and she believed him, even though all signs pointed to the opposite outcome.
Suddenly, another blaze appeared, a fireball rolling up the hill, straight toward them. Maya heard a squeak of fear emerge from her lips as the blaze illuminated their circle of hell. She tried to get closer to Logan, her heart racing.
“Hold on tight.”
He dropped down and pressed her into an indentation in the rock, pulling his fire-resistant jacket over his head and fanning it out to cover them both completely. It would buy them fifteen seconds, maybe twenty, in a flame front.
Her nose was jammed into his breastbone, and even though she could hardly breathe, even though she'd nearly been massacred by a madwoman with a chainsaw, she felt strangely safe.
Flames rolled over the trail and he said, “Scream,” so she started yelling. It was the only way to keep the fiery gases from scorching her lungs, but she would have screamed anyway, as she felt a sphere of fire roll straight toward them.
She braced for impact, tried to somehow prepare herself to be burned alive, when the fireball rammed into the rock and exploded. She didn't know how long Logan held her as her entire body shook. Of everything that had happened so far, this was by far the scariest. Jenny's bombs and house fires were crazy, but nature was wholly unpredictable.
Logan pulled her against him and she'd never been happier to feel his strong arms circle her body. She scrunched his sweat-soaked shirt in her hands, burrowed her face into the hard wall of his chest.
“Thank you,” she finally said, the words “I love you” still stuck on the tip of her tongue.
God, why couldn't she just say it already? He was the man she'd been waiting for all her life. And yet, in the circle of his arms, she was more scared than she'd ever been.
He cupped her jaw in his hand and covered her mouth with his, sweeping his tongue inside to mate with hers. Without words, his kiss told her how afraid he'd been of losing her, how much he loved her.
“We need to get out of here. Do you think you can walk?” he asked gently.
She nodded, her throat clogged with a full range of emotions: Fear. Love. Confusion.
He helped her to her feet and put an arm around her waist, holding her close as they headed downhill. Five minutes later they were finally able to see the blue sky and breathe in fresh air again. She sucked it into her starving lungs as they picked up their pace on the steep downhill grade. Logan never let go, never let her stumble.
Several minutes later when they were in a much safer spot, he carefully ran his hands over her face, her neck, her shoulders, her wrists.“Damn her for touching you,” he said against her lips.
Maya threaded her hands into his slightly singed hair and kissed him. She'd never get enough of him, would never want to stop kissing him. But this wasn't the time and place for making love.
He held her tightly to him. “When I heard the chain-saw, I thought …”
She pressed a kiss into his shoulder. “She didn't hurt me,” she insisted, knowing how helpless he must have felt, running to save her from a madwoman.
“Why was she after you? What did you ever do to her?”
“She saw us in the bar. And she was jealous. She wanted you, Logan. Badly.”
When Jenny had run away, Maya hadn't wanted him to go after her. She hadn't wanted him to risk his life again, to leave her and, possibly, never come back.
Maya knew that if she gave in to what she wanted— what he clearly wanted too—if she agreed to be with him, this was the same fear she'd face every day, every night he was called away to put out a wildfire. He might end up being the target of an insane arsonist again, and she wouldn't know it until it was too late.
She put her hand on his arm. “Do you think she'll make it out?”
“She better not. This time I'll kill her.”
“No,” Maya said, turning her mouth into Logan's palm. “She isn't worth it.”
His eyes were dark with fury. “She hurt you. She killed Robbie.”
“They're just scratches. I'll heal.” But Robbie wouldn't. And neither would Tony. She had to tell him. “She knew my brother. They dated.”
He pulled her close. “She was obsessed with fire-fighters. I only wish I'd realized she was obsessed with fire too.”
Maya was glad that Logan's shirt was already wet. It made her tears seem smaller.
“She says he dumped her when she got too clingy. She set the fire that killed him and said she was happy when he died. That he deserved it.”
“She's insane, Maya. I'd bring him back for you if I could.”
No one had ever loved her this much, enough to slay all her dragons and dry all her tears.
“When she told me she was going to kill me—” Her voice caught. “I realized I'm finally ready to start living again. It's time for me to accept that he's gone.”
“Stay here, Maya. Stay in Lake Tahoe with me.”
But she wasn't sure she could. Not when she loved Logan too much to lose him. Even after everything they'd been through together, she wasn't sure she could hack it as a hotshot's wife. She felt like she was wading through black smoke, trying to find her way toward the light, to a place where she would take a deep breath and feel whole again.
But she wasn't there yet. And wasn't sure that she ever would be.