As he made his way up the steep incline, he tried to remember what she’d been wearing.

Khaki pants. Those old hiking boots. And the jacket. The bright green jacket. Shit, he thought. How am I going to find a green jacket in the goddamned Oregon wild?

Still, he kept on. He heard Elijah and Aiden behind him. Occasionally, he looked back to check on them. But he had no doubts that they were just as committed to finding her as he was.

They came upon the first bundle of hikers, and he saw the internal struggle as Aiden began to help them. Every instinct in Aiden told him to keep on, to look for Lily, but he knew he couldn’t.

“I’ll find her,” Cade called to him as he kept climbing the hillside. “I promise.”

By the time he got one-third up the summit, doubts started to creep in.

Maybe she decided to go somewhere else. Maybe she’s sitting in some café in downtown, totally unaware of the fire.

But Cade knew those were hopeful thoughts. He felt her here. And she was still alive.

When the smoke became so thick he couldn’t see more than four feet in front of him, his radio came to life. The ground crew had a solid head count. They thought they had everyone.

“Charles, you copy?” he heard a voice over the radio. He brought his mouth to the speaker, but stopped.

How would they know if he got the message or not?

“Cade.”

He heard her voice, he was sure of it. Even with the fire that raged nearby and the wind that had picked up to carry it, he knew it was her.

“Lily?” he called. “Lily! Where are you?”

He didn’t hear her voice again, but her presence drove him onward. He’d already outrun the fire once, near the head of the trail when it whipped around from the eastern side.

But now it was right on his heels. It shot skyward at the same pace as him.

Cade ran up the trail and nearly tripped at a log that was nestled right at the perimeter.

“Shit,” he said, and leaned down to stop the fall.

His hands rested on something soft—something alive. He pulled down his bandana and saw Lily. She stared up at him like she’d been expecting him.

“I knew you’d come,” she said.

Her voice was weak. Cade felt his heart squeeze. He’d known, all along, that he’d find her.

Lily pushed herself up, and he gripped her under the arms. She held him close, and he wanted more than anything to hug her so tight she’d never slip away again. But there was no time.

“We have to go,” he said, brusque. “Here.”

He pulled the fire shelter out of his pack and pulled her toward a small clearing near the rim of the mountain. She started to choke back her tears as she hunkered down beside him. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “I promise. We just have to wait this out.”

Cade held the shelter over them firmly as the fire raged on top of them. Her small screams blended with the angry fire outside. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if it would be enough. The heat burned into his arms and his hands, through the gear and the shelter, but still he held on.

“Are we going to die?” Lily asked.

He glanced down into her eyes. All he saw was trust.

“No. I won’t let you get hurt,” he said. Cade sensed an even worse rush of fire coming.

He leaned down and kissed her firmly. Lily’s body responded, but he forced her down and covered her with his body. He felt the shelter blanket him, save for one booted foot that jutted out.

Cade gritted his teeth as he felt the searing heat across his ankle. Beneath him, Lily breathed fast and sharp. The ground and rocks that surrounded them had heated up to an almost unbearable degree—and that was through his gear.

He could only imagine how it felt to Lily.

Still, he had to admit that his girl was smart. She’d found a place that was relatively clear and high. Any lower and they’d have been immersed in vegetation. The perfect fodder for a hungry fire.

“Hold on,” he whispered into her ear. “We’re almost there.”

He felt her breathing grow more desperate below him. It wasn’t just the weight of his body or the heat of the ground. The fire had sucked most of the oxygen out of the air.

“Small breaths,” he whispered into her ear.

She breathed more shallow, and sucked in only what she needed. He wished there was something more he could do, but all they could do was wait. Cade heard the tail end of the fire pass over them and continue up the hill. Not far from where they were, it would start to sizzle out.

“Cade,” she whispered.

“Save your breath.”

“In case… in case we… just know that I love you,” she said. Lily turned one cheek to the ground and gazed up at him as best she could.

“I love you, too,” he said.

It was the first time he’d said it to her, and wildly different than when he’d blurted it out to Aiden.

If secrets were heavy, this was the heaviest by far. The most weighted are those you don’t know are on your back. The ones you don’t see coming.

It felt like they were under that shelter a lifetime. But Cade wanted more. No amount of lifetimes with her would be enough.

His radio crackled into their little bubble of salvation and gave him the relative clear.

“Charles, where the hell are you? Do you copy? Goddamnit, Cade.” Elijah’s voice broke into the shelter, and he felt Lily shake with a giggle beneath him.

Cade got to his knees and carefully pulled the shelter off of them.

“I copy,” he said. “I have Lily.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“Is she alright?” Aiden broke into the call. All protocol was gone.

Cade looked at her and raised a brow. She nodded. Dirt was smeared across her face.

“She’s fine,” he said.

“Where are you?”

“Uh… near the summit,” he said. “Rocky terrain, lookout point.”

“You have the coordinates?” Elijah asked.

Cade reached for his gear pack and started to shout their location into the radio.

“Copy, ten-four,” Elijah said.

As he clipped the radio back on, he surveyed the area. The ground was black and smoking. Around them, trees were aflame but the fire had started to die.

“I can’t believe it,” Lily said. “I thought… I thought for sure… God, I’m so stupid. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I left like that—”

“No sorries,” he said, and pulled her close. “We’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

Lily’s lip shook and tears started to run down her cheeks. She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a gasp.

Cade pulled her against him and stroked her hair.

It was so close. So close, and we made it. And who gives a damn about all the drama before?

It seemed so petty, all of it. He couldn’t believe that he’d spend all those weeks, all those years, obsessed with something that didn’t matter at all.

“Lily? I know this probably isn’t how you imagined this…”

“What?”

He’d fantasized about this moment the past few days, but it was all just that—a fantasy. Cade had thought about taking her to the coast, to a little cave in Florence or Haystack Rock in Astoria.

He’d have a gorgeous diamond ring, maybe even her mother’s, and an entire speech prepared that he’d say flawlessly. But now? Now he wasn’t even sure if he could get to one knee.

“Lily, I know we haven’t had the most traditional relationship. But I can’t imagine my life without you. And I don’t want to.”

“Cade?” she asked, her eyes wide with confusion.

“What I’m trying to say—well, ask—is…” Cade pulled himself onto one knee, and ignored the pain that shot through his ankle. “Will you marry me? I mean, I don’t have a ring, not right now. But I’ll get one, and—”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I don’t want anything more than to marry you,” she said.

That bright smile he’d known all his life spread across her face. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“Really?”

“Of course!” She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he kissed her cheek.

“But, Cade?” she asked as she looked up at him.

In the distance, he could hear the helicopter. They were so close, so close to being safe.

“Yeah?”

“There’s, uh… I need to tell you something.”

His heart sank. Not again. Not when they were so close to being happy.

“Don’t worry, it’s not bad. At least I don’t think so,” she said.

“Okay.” He pulled in his breath. “What—”

The helicopter appeared at the cliff. It drowned out her voice. Cade shielded his eyes and looked in the cockpit. Elijah and Aiden grinned down at them as a ladder released. Cade nodded Lily toward the chopper.

“Whatever it is,” he called into her ear as he climbed up behind her, “we’ll work it out. Don’t worry.”

She looked over her shoulder at him and grinned. And he knew it was true. When it came to Lily, nothing was impossible. It had taken him years to figure it out, but now that he knew it, he wasn’t about to let anything get in their way.

Lily climbed into the helicopter and Cade watched her brothers hold her close. Neither of them said anything when Lily slipped her arm through Cade’s and rested her head on his shoulder. As the helicopter descended into the wide open field, Cade squeezed Lily’s hand tightly.

This was it. All I’ve ever wanted, but never knew I needed.