Quinn paced in front of the fireplace in the great room of Lindy’s ranch house. There were no flames crackling behind the glass, but her imagination filled the space with an inferno. Four days straight, dreadful scenarios populated her thoughts. News on the third afternoon propelled her morbid speculations into overdrive.

As if bears and mountain lions weren’t danger enough in the woods, a rattlesnake had bitten one of Barrett’s team members. The man, Harper, was recovering at a hospital. Barrett and the others remained in the danger zone.

“Best to pace in one’s mind,” Sutton suggested, his voice a soft comfort.

“Sorry.” She walked over to the couch and sat down opposite him. Pulling a throw pillow onto her lap, she hugged it.

“Maybe you should learn to crochet,” he added with a tease. “Mama’s made some ugly but useful blankets waiting for news on one or more of us. Can’t help but drop half her stitches when she’s worried.”

“I heard that,” Lindy growled, coming through the swinging doors, carrying a tray loaded down with a coffee pot and sliced treats she had spent the morning baking. She handed Quinn a plate with a chunk of banana bread on it.

“Here, dear. You haven’t been eating enough to worry about spoiling your dinner.”

“They were all safe this morning,” Sutton reminded them.

“Yes, they were.” Picking at the banana bread, Quinn snuck a glance at her watch.

Without Siobhan providing twice daily reports, Quinn was certain she would have gone out of her mind. How did Lindy survive having five sons? Barrett and Sutton had both served overseas in combat zones, both jumped out of planes into danger. At any moment, Emerson could be knocking on a door with a loaded gun or a bomb on the other side of it. Adler and Walker weren’t much safer, especially at the height of their work seasons.

In a sad irony, the woman had lost her daughter coming back from a conference that was half work, half play.

Hearing a truck pull up in the drive, Quinn was the first to put her plate down and cross over to the entry hall.

“Siobhan,” she announced then opened the door as the young woman stepped up onto the porch.

“No news is good news,” Siobhan called out as she entered the house and wrapped her arms around Quinn. “Still a couple more hours before they check in for the night.”

“The other teams?” Lindy asked as Siobhan and Quinn entered the great room.

“Haven’t heard anything beyond the usual. Sprains, one wasp nest encounter, heat exhaustion…”

Siobhan trailed off, her words stalling as her gaze landed on Sutton.

Sutton’s own attention was transfixed by his phone, his face no more mobile than a statue.

“What is it?” Lindy asked, standing up from the couch and walking toward him.

“Nothing, Mama.” He shoved the phone into his jacket pocket, then straightened his sleeve. “Can’t a man check sports scores every now and then?”

“Not in the middle of the day on a Thursday, he can’t,” she huffed, bypassing the couch he sat on to turn on the television tucked in the corner of the room.

“Beef futures?” he drawled.

“Nice try,” Sage said, coming through the dining room doors. “Leah’s eating in the kitchen, so let me know if I need to take her to the playroom.”

The little girl was still in the process of getting past her mother and grandfather’s death. According to Siobhan, the toddler had been an emotional wreck while Barrett was gone during the fire season after Dawn’s death.

Lindy muted the volume as soon as the television turned on. She punched in a channel number by memory. The words Quinn had been dreading the last four days appeared at the bottom of the screen in blocky white letters.

FIREFIGHTER INJURED IN BLAZE WEST OF PIONEER JUNCTION

“I’m taking Leah to the playroom.” Sage nodded at Siobhan, “Text me what’s going on.”

Quinn didn’t need to ask if Pioneer Junction was close to where Barrett and his team were positioned. Siobhan had named the location just that morning. They were up on a series of ridges just outside the town, trying to keep the fire that had started in Kootenai National Forest from reaching any more population centers.

Lindy brought the volume up to a whisper, Quinn already standing by the woman’s side.

A petite, bubbly blonde provided the news update, her tone no different than if she was talking about the annual Elk Festival.

A member of a local smokejumping team was injured this afternoon…Hospital staff report he is in surgery with multiple fractures to his ribcage…Name withheld while authorities contact the man’s family…we go now to a conference with Chief Melpow, who reports that the fire has been contained. Most fire teams are being told they can go home.

Quinn pressed her palm to the wall, the rest of her body swaying.

Next to her, Sutton was busy holding his mother up.

Surgery…fractures to his ribcage…

Quinn didn’t need to ask if such injuries could be deadly. Images of a pierced heart or aorta clouded her vision. The better question was whether such injuries were not always fatal.

“Let’s get them to the couch,” Siobhan suggested, her voice taking on the same calm, professional tone she used at her dispatch job at the sheriff’s office.

She grabbed Quinn’s arm and coaxed her away from the television.

“There’s more than one team out there, Mama,” Sutton reminded Lindy as he settled her onto the couch. “And more than one man on Barrett’s team.”

Quinn clutched at Siobhan’s arm. “Where was that coverage from? Where is their ‘local’?”

“Butte,” Sutton answered. “There are teams from all the west coast states at Kootenai right now. Local could mean anywhere in Montana and just over the border in Idaho.”

Quinn turned a pleading gaze on Siobhan.

“Let me call dispatch,” the young woman scratched out.

“No need, Monkey Butt,” a rough voice called from the entry hall. “It isn’t my team on the news.”

Quinn stared at the hulking black form covered in sooty grime and dirt. Only the towering physique and voice were recognizable as belonging to Barrett.

“Didn’t hear a vehicle,” Sutton said, leaving his mother’s side to take his brother’s heavy duffel and help remove his fire jacket.

“Walked from the main gate. Winston felt a powerful need to get home and his driving showed it.”

Quinn stared, her body immobile. She wanted to run over and throw her arms around him, but the fear that had paralyzed her limbs earlier wouldn’t relinquish its iron grip. She could barely breathe, just stare and blink as Barrett eyed her with a wary gaze.

“That’s a ten-minute walk,” Lindy scolded. “Longer with the state you’re in. A call up to the house…”

“Battery’s dead, Mama.” Approaching the seating area, he stopped at the edge of the carpet.

“Barrett!” Leah squealed, arms out and her torso wiggling against the bear hug Sage had her wrapped in.

“You can squeeze him and kiss him all you want once he’s had a shower,” Sage said, carefully skirting her brother-in-law so he remained out of Leah’s reach. “In the meantime, he’s ready to eat a horse, so let’s go fix him one.”

“Not a real horse,” Leah admonished as Sage carried her toward the kitchen.

Following after Sage, Siobhan stopped just long enough to clear a grimy patch of Barrett’s cheek and plant a kiss.

“I’ll message Walker and Adler, then set the table,” she volunteered. “You should have just about enough time to wash all that stink off you.”

Muscles still frozen, Quinn watched the exchange.

She blinked, tears hitting her cheeks.

“Mama,” Barrett asked. “You’re not going to make me dirty up your rug, are you?”

Quinn’s fingertips bounced against her thighs as Lindy got up from the other couch and grabbed her son by the ears. “You boys, you’ve been going at this too long.”

“We always keep the Devil behind us, Mama.”

She shook her head, but stood on tiptoe and kissed the spot Siobhan had already cleaned. Turning to Sutton, she waved him over, hooked his arm and had him walk her to the kitchen.

“Quinn?” Barrett whispered.

She managed to bring her hand to her mouth, stifling the sob that would have had everyone running back into the room.

“I told dispatch to make sure Siobhan got a message each day and Siobhan knew to relay that message.”

“I got it,” she croaked around the shaky hand still covering her mouth.

They stayed silent. She didn’t know how to tell Barrett that her heart had cleaved in two not knowing if he was the injured man in the news report.

“Can you give me a hand?” he asked at last. “This stuff isn’t easy to get off the walls and I need a fresh change of clothes from my old room.”

With weak knees, she stood up, walked past him and headed down the hall. Stopping by the bathroom nearest his old bedroom, she opened the door all the way, turned on the sink faucet then left for his bedroom.

All of Lindy’s sons kept a room at their mother’s house. Sage and Adler lived there and Walker’s was redecorated to reflect the fact that it was now shared with Ashley when they stayed overnight. But Barrett’s bedroom still looked like it was lived in by a man a decade younger. She opened the closet door, an Army Airborne poster on its front, and pulled out a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Opening the top dresser drawer, she selected a pair of briefs and socks.

Even though they’d been showering in the same house for weeks, she had only seen him in his skivvies the one time when he stood outside his truck stripping down to put on the protective layer that went under the jumpsuit. Quinn hadn’t been blind to the contours of his body that day. She just hadn’t known how much the man would come to mean to her.

Everything, she thought with a rough swallow. Barrett was her whole world.

Returning to the bathroom, she found him in front of the sink, stripped to the waist, his face and hands mostly clean from all the scrubbing he had managed while she grabbed fresh clothes.

“There are some big trash bags under the sink. Can you get me one?”

He stepped out of the way and she pulled out a large black bag and held it open while he put the clothes he had already taken off into the bag.

“Close your eyes,” he teased.

She shook her head. “I’ve already seen you in just your chonies.”

He cocked a brow.

“Underwear,” she clarified. “It’s an L.A. thing. You jumped out of my truck, completely forgot I was there, and began to strip.”

His mouth puckered. “I couldn’t possibly have forgotten you were there.”

It was Quinn’s turn to cock a brow. “So you were intentionally putting on a show?”

“Not really,” he grinned, the light over the vanity reflecting in his eyes. “Just that there’s no place for modesty in a fire emergency.”

“Fine,” she huffed and closed her eyes, her ears feeding her details as she heard the rustle of the bottom half of his suit coming off then the staticky wrinkling of the bag as he shoved the pants inside.

He took the bag away, tossing it behind him if she could trust the room’s sounds. His hands curled along her jaw and tilted her head up.

“Open your eyes,” he ordered.

Obeying, she stared into the verdant gaze, the color so deep she felt like she was looking into a never-ending forest, one she had gotten lost in at first and now wanted to claim as her home.

“I always come back, Quinn.”

Was that a promise? It was hubris if so. Barrett was a risk taker and a brave man. One day, probably to save someone else, he was going to pay a heavy price.

When that day came, Quinn would be dead inside.

“Always, Quinn,” he insisted, his mouth closing in on hers.

Her eyes swept shut as their lips made contact. Her hands landed on his bare waist, trailed lower to find more skin stripped free of its barriers to her touch. Her thumbs stretched to claim the prominence of his hipbones.

He teased her lips open. She wanted to lean into him, but his grip on her head kept her pushed back just a little. She wanted to open her eyes, to soak in the contours of his lean, rugged body, but the kiss was a drug.

His tongue swept in, slow, deliberate, teasing a whimper from her throat.

“Next time,” he murmured, ending the kiss. “Don’t stay on the couch. Every time I had room to stop and think, you were all that was on my mind, Quinn.”

“You were all I thought about, too,” she confessed, meeting his gaze and praying he could see the truth, see the things she was afraid to say for fear he might not truly feel the same.

“Good,” he smiled. “Now close your eyes, turn around and go so I can hop in the shower, eat a little supper and take you home.”

She really, really didn’t want to close her eyes. He planted kisses on each until they were heavy with need all over again. Then he turned her himself, put a hand on each side of her bottom, and propelled her out of the bathroom.

Floating on air down the hall, Quinn headed for the kitchen.