I was panting, gasping by the time Jason stopped the truck and pulled me into his arms. He unzipped the heavy jacket and pulled it off me. I was drenched in sweat, and weak with relief. He’d done it. He’d outrun the fire.

“Wind’s to the south and as long as it holds, the fire’ll stay behind us. Goddamn, Ember… I’ve never seen a sight more beautiful…”

He kissed me, cradling me in his arms like a child, but devouring me with the burning passion of man for his woman. I tangled my hands in his hair, and all the fear and desperation inside me turned to hot, liquid need. Adrenaline and desire knocked the air from my lungs. I never felt so alive as I did in his arms, his body hard against mine, his hands sweeping, cupping, possessing me. He pulled back to look down at me, as if only his eyes could reassure him.

“You… the baby…? You’re both all right?” he ran his fingers over me lightly down my neck, my belly.

“We’re fine,” I nodded. “We’re both fine. You got us through…” I put my hand on the side of his face.

“God, Jason… you’re burned…” I sat up, my heart suddenly racing. The side of his face was darkly red, rough… his neck and arm were worse. A line of tiny blisters ran down his skin. Because he was protecting me, I thought, as my breath caught and a hundred old fears came raging back. He saved me, by stripping himself of all his protective clothing. He could have been killed and it would have been my fault…

“It’s not as bad as it looks, Em,” he said easily, taking my face in his strong, warm hands as if he was reading my thoughts. “I’m not that easy to kill, sweetheart. And this isn’t the first fire that’s tried.” He stroked the sides of my mouth with the rough, wide pads of his thumbs and I felt something release inside me. I twisted my hands in the fabric of his shirt and held on. I leaned my forehead into the heat of his chest and shivered.

“But we need to get moving again,” he said. “The crew might not be so lucky. And even once we’ve found them… we still need to find a way to get them all out.”

The valley looked like a scene out of Dante’s Inferno.

Burnt remains were all that were left. Thin plumes of twisting smoke rose from the glowing ashes that covered the valley. The sky was a thick, gray blanket that hovered low in the sky. The sun was nothing but a dirty, yellowed haze in the sky. We passed groves of trees in silence as their crowns still smoldered, the fire kept alive by the relentless wind.

This valley was our home… and yet nothing familiar was left. Tangled, blackened timbers and heaps of brick and rubble marked the places a dozen families had called home.

“It’s unimaginable,” I breathed. “This should have been blanketed in snow… clean and white.” I looked out over the dark and blackened landscape and my heart sank. “So many people lost so much…”

Jason drove on, his huge, capable hands knuckled on the wheel. He let go long enough to tuck me against his side as the truck fought its way over the steep terrain. We were climbing now, up a narrow pass that led to the rim. If the crew was still alive, they’d be waiting on the other side. The tires slipped, and a shower of rocks and debris battered the underside of the truck. He shifted and the engine whined as we fought for traction and the rig bounded and rocked forward. I held his hand in mine, and closed my eyes in a silent prayer. Too much was already gone…

At first, the sound was lost as the truck lurched, cracking and splintering charcoal remains under its tires. But it grew clearer, louder… the unmistakable sound of static coming over the radio…

“Air Seven…” it crackled. “...Jas… .... it’s Frank…”

“Fucking shit!” Jason reached forward and grabbed the radio off the dash. “Frank? Goddammit, Frank…”

“Where the hell you been, Jace? Jesus Christ, when I saw that funnel I thought you’d finally bought it.”

Jason let out a loud, rattling breath and laughed out loud with relief. “Fuck you did,” he shot back. “Where the hell are you?”

“North end of… rim. Winds were too strong to… … smoke too thick…”

Just as the radio crackled and Frank’s voice died away, we reached the summit, the tires tearing the burned earth, scattering rock down the ridge behind us. Suddenly they caught, and the traction launched us forward onto level ground. Jason grabbed binoculars from behind the seatback and handed them to me. “Sweep the horizon,” he ordered. “The crew’s here… somewhere. They have to be…”

My heart was pounding its way out of my chest. I strained through the glass, feeling my temples throb, mouth as dry as cotton. My poor, sweet little Reilly… The ground was burned off, blackened, abandoned… lifeless…

“Something moved…” I said, my gasp breaking the silence. “Goddamn, Jason… somebody, something out there moved.”

He slammed on the brakes and I shoved the binoculars into his hand. He threw the door open and I pointed. “There… Just on the other side of the rocks.”

I watched his face, his strong, beautiful face, as he looked and his chest rose and expanded with a single deep breath. When he looked at me, I knew. He grabbed the radio off the seat.

“Frank,” he yelled. “Get the hell back here. Go west to avoid the wind and come around. The rocks form a horseshoe about a half mile south of the gorge. You fucking meet us there. Frank…?”

“...low on fuel…” his reply came back. “...have to head back over the fire… right through the center of the valley…”

“Then we’ll take our fucking chances,” Jason said. “And we might have a snowball’s chance of getting these men the hell out of here.”

Twenty minutes later, we had the last of the crew onboard and were flying toward home. We were packed in tight, the fire raged on below us, and I could see the strain on Jason’s face. He hadn’t told me what was wrong, but I knew that something was.

“Randy came back for us,” one man shouted over the sound of the blades and the wind. “Once the doc told him Carl was going to make it, he brought the helicopter back and flew out the other half of the crew. No fatalities… all accounted for. We had a couple of injuries, more suffering from smoke inhalation and dehydration. Randy took them first… The rest of us decided to wait it out. But there wasn’t any more water… Thank god you got to us when you did.”

Jason’s arms tightened around me. “Ember,” he said slowly. He took my face in his hands and used his thumbs to wipe grit from my face. “It won’t be much longer… and I need to tell you before you see the truth for yourself…”

I felt my heart flutter inside my chest and for a second, everything around me seemed to swim. The helicopter bucked suddenly and dropped in altitude, leaving my stomach in the air above. I could see his face and the ache in his eyes… and knew what it was costing him to tell me…

“The valley is mostly gone,” he began, stroking my cheeks with his fingers, “the fire swept through fast and hot… It’s reached the southern end by now, Em. The groves.”

“And the cabin…” I gasped, clutching his shoulders. “Our home…”

I tore my eyes away from his and felt his hand, warm on the back of my neck. Out the window, I could see thick, black smoke roiling up from the fire below. Flames were tearing across the grass, swallowing it in its fury. A burst of wind shrieked and we dropped again. I could hear Frank’s voice, loud and stringent, yelling orders from the cockpit. I blinked back the hot tears that blurred my vision and recognized the burning line of trees.

“Goddamn…. it can’t be… It isn’t possible…” Jason said behind me. For a second, he gripped me hard and I could feel his heartbeat, fast and pounding against my back as he tightened my seatbelt and slipped an oxygen mask over my face. The next thing I knew, he was on his feet, reaching for a harness and strapping it on. “Forty feet,” he shouted to Frank. “Drop me down forty goddamn more feet. I’ll cut the rope if I have to, but you’ve gotta get me closer to the ground.”

“And you’ve got to be crazy,” Frank shouted back. “I wouldn’t be this goddamn low except the winds are starting to rotate and it’s fucking with the stick. I think this bitch isn’t finished with us yet.”

“And I’m not finished with her,” Jason shot back. He slid the door open and hot air rushed in, stopping my breath. The tiny hairs on my skin curled and crisped. I watched, disbelieving, unable to blink.

“Give me one minute,” he shouted. “Not a second longer and then you get the hell out of here,” he cried. He wrapped one thick, muscled arm around the rope as I felt us drop lower. He stood, leaning out, his boots balancing on the edge of the doorframe. Words wouldn’t form, but everything inside me was screaming out to make him stop. Flames were swirling behind him on the ground. I leaned forward, fighting against the straps that held me.

“It’s Reilly,” he said simply, with a smile. “And I love you forever…”

The next second, he was gone.