The chilly rain pelted against my face as I leapt out of the truck. Dashing across the highway, I hurried around the car lying on its side in the ditch. The driver’s side was crumpled, and I couldn’t get a good look at the driver. “Hello? Say something if you can hear me,” I called.

Nothing but the sound of the rain drumming on the car answered me.

With my heart pounding out a staccato beat, I scanned the scene. The ground was muddy and slick. If I was going to have any luck checking on the driver and getting whoever it was out, I’d have to climb on top of the vehicle, which happened to be the passenger side at the moment. Oblivious to the rain, I rounded the wrecked car and pulled myself up. The passenger side window was broken, so I carefully knocked the glass loose to the ground and glanced through.

“Hey…”

My words clogged up in my throat, and my heart took off like a rocket. Ella Masters was in a crumpled ball, mostly toward the dashboard. A trickle of blood ran from her forehead down her cheek. I had to force myself to stay focused. This went from a routine rescue to something far too personal the second I laid eyes on her.

“Ella, Ella!”

I tried to keep my voice calm, but I could feel the sense of panic rising inside. When she didn’t reply, I almost did something stupid and started to crawl through the window. A jagged edge of torn metal caught the sleeve of my jacket, nudging me enough to shake free of the panic.

Pausing, I took stock. Reaching through the window, I rested two fingertips against Ella’s wrist where it lay limply on the steering wheel. I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt her pulse. The nightmarish feeling inside subsided marginally. I still needed to get her out, but at least I knew she was alive.

Fumbling in my pocket, I yanked my cellphone out, quickly making a call.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“Hey Maisie, it’s Caleb. Accident out on the highway.”

“Already paging the crew on duty. I’m confirming your location now,” Maisie replied swiftly. “Anything I need to tell them?”

“Just that it’s Ella Masters. You might want to give Cade a heads up if he’s headed this way,” I said, referring to Ella’s older brother who happened to work with me at Willow Brook Fire & Rescue.

“Is she okay?” Maisie asked calmly.

Looking over at Ella’s face, my heart clenched and panic gripped my chest like a vise. Pushing back against it, I swallowed. “She’s got a pulse, but she’s unconscious.” Scanning her over, I absorbed the details. She had a bleeding gash along her hairline and her body was tucked up toward the roof. By some miracle, I didn’t see any other injuries, although I couldn’t see too much. Cool rain was falling through the broken window. Her face was damp and her skin was turning bluish.

“You have my location?” I asked Maisie, the ever-reliable dispatcher for our station.

“Of course. Crew’s about three minutes away. It’s Beck’s team. I’ll give Cade a call to let him know,” she said softly.

“Okay. I’m gonna go. I think I can get her out of the vehicle. Bye.”

“Be…”

I assumed she meant to tell me to be careful, but I didn’t wait to hear it. Worry didn’t even capture what was galloping through my thoughts. My singular focus was to get Ella safely out of here.

Stuffing my phone back in my pocket, I took a steadying breath and then carefully stepped back. With my feet on the back door, I managed to open the other door. Moving carefully, I wedged my hips against the door to hold it open and reached in for Ella.

The moment I curled my hands around both of hers, I nearly lost my balance when she spoke. “Caleb?”

My eyes whipped to her face. Her wide green eyes met mine, hazy and confused. “What happened? Why are you here?”

I was so damn relieved she was conscious, emotion tightened in my chest. “You had an accident. I was driving back from Anchorage and stopped to check on the car. An emergency team is on the way, but I’m trying to see if we can get you out of here first. How do you feel?”

Ella stared at me, and it felt as if I was spinning back in time to the most terrifying night of my life. With a hard mental shake, I forced myself to focus.

“I think I’m okay. I must’ve hit my head,” she murmured as she lifted her hand and brushed at the streak of blood on her cheek.

Blood didn’t usually get to me. At all. But this was Ella. I could hardly stand to think about her being injured.

“Anything else hurt?”

She started to move, and I tightened my grip on her wrist, my heart thudding hard and fast against my ribs. “Wait. First let me know how you feel.”

Her gaze met mine again. If I got through this without having a heart attack, it’d be a damn miracle.

“I think I’m fine. Let me…”

“Ella! Take it slow,” I said abruptly when she started to scramble out from where she was pinned.

“Still bossy, I see,” she said with a wobbly smile.

I had just about gotten a grip on myself. Hell, I was a hotshot firefighter. Assisting someone in a car accident was all in a day’s work for me. Or should’ve been. But this was Ella, and we had history—messy history that included another car accident, one that tore us apart. The moment a tear rolled down her cheek, I was done for.

“Ella, don’t cry,” I managed over the tightness in my throat. “You’re gonna be fine. Move slowly, and we’ll get you out of here.”

As if fate was shining a ray on us, the rain lightened up slightly. The next few minutes were a jumble. I managed to help Ella out of the car, right about the time the emergency crew arrived.

Beck Steele, who I’d known since we were in elementary school, all but shoved me out of the way when he realized who I’d helped out of the car. Beck headed up one of the crews at Willow Brook Fire & Rescue, while I was a foreman on another crew. Ella’s older brother Cade headed up yet another crew. It was a bittersweet reality to work with Ella’s older brother.

All of that spun through my mind while Beck started directing his crew to deal with Ella’s likely totaled car. “You’re damn lucky she was okay to pull out,” he muttered in my ear after she was escorted over to the ambulance to get checked out by the EMT’s.

“Fuck off,” I mumbled. “You’d have done the same damn thing. I checked on her first. As you can see, she was safe to get out of the vehicle.”

Beck rested a hand on his hip, swatting at the rain falling from the sky as if he could make it stop. “I probably would’ve,” he said after a beat. “You know if Maisie called Cade?”

“She said she would. I’ll…”

Beck shook his head sharply. “Don’t call him. Let Maisie take care of it. She’ll be online with the EMT’s to give him the latest update.” Someone called his name. With a quick nod to me, he turned.

Watching him walk away, I spun around and strode to the ambulance. Ella was seated on the back edge. Reaching her side, I paused in front of her. “You okay?”

My heart kicked up a notch just being close to her. It had been five years since I’d seen Ella. She looked up at me through the rain, her green eyes bright in the gray light. I felt as if I was spinning back in time—emotions jostling against each other in the process. I’d loved Ella fiercely once upon a time.

“I think so. Dana said I just need a few stitches, right?” she asked, her gaze swinging to Dana Halloran, one of the EMT’s on the scene.

Dana nodded from where she stood, turning back to Ella, her eyes bouncing between us briefly. She squirted disinfectant on a cotton ball, carefully dabbing at the cut on the side of Ella’s forehead. “That looks like all you’ll need. I’ll just clean this up and we’ll get going. They’ll take care of the stitches at the hospital.”

Ella looked back at me. “See, just a few stitches.”

“I’ll meet you at the hospital,” I said as Dana carefully taped a piece of gauze over the cut.

“You don’t need to do that,” Ella replied.

Dana stepped away and spoke to the ambulance driver. I focused on Ella. “I’ll meet you there,” I repeated.

“Caleb, you don’t have to take care of me. I’m…”

A flash of anger rose inside. I might not have been thinking too clearly, but for God’s sake. Ella had once meant everything to me. Then, everything went to hell.

“Ella, you just had a car accident. Is it absolutely necessary to act like we mean nothing to each other?”