Chapter 10
“Don’t be afraid. I’m here to protect you.” Gilly reached over and touched Reuben’s hand, whitened on the steering wheel.
He released it and wrapped his fingers through hers, letting a low chuckle rumble out of him. “I feel so much better.”
“I thought you would,” she said, grinning as he turned under the arched entrance to the Triple M, located ninety minutes southeast of Ember.
Gorgeous. A long gravel-and-dirt drive curved toward a two-story log lodge in the distance. The lush, rolling open range filled with sage and grass undulated as far as the eye could see, dissected by groves of aspen and ragged, dark-green Douglas fir. The entire landscape butted up to the jagged, snow-tipped mountains along the eastern horizon.
Cutting through the land, the lazy, impossibly blue Geraldine River, bordered occasionally by willows and towering cottonwoods, reflected a cloudless sky.
Truly, Big Sky Country.
Reuben slowed, bumping over a cattle gate, and Gilly spotted a field with freshly cut alfalfa in rows, ready to be raked into stacks or baled.
Black Angus lounged in the grass, their tails swatting the occasional fly. Others roamed the pasture, grazing.
“How big is the ranch?”
“A little over nine thousand acres. We also have a private lake, although my cousin Ned calls it a pond. But he’s a Minnesota lake snob.”
She laughed. Ned, the rookie, had left for home a few days ago, eager to get back to his small town of Big Lake for Labor Day weekend.
“We also have about six miles of excellent trout fishing on the Geraldine River. Which was named, by the way, for my great-great grandmother.”
“Wow.”
“The Triple M was started by my great-great grandfather Marshall when he came over from Scotland back in the late 1800s. He had three sons, so he named it the triple M, probably intending to pass it down to them, in three parts. But the oldest returned to Scotland, and the youngest decided to find his fortune in Alaska, so my grandfather inherited the ranch. He expanded it to five thousand acres, and when my father took over, he bought out two neighboring ranches. We run about three hundred fifty head of cattle.”
“Did your grandfather have any other sons?”
“Oh, yeah—my father wasn’t even the oldest. He was just the one who loved ranching. My grandfather had seven sons. They’ve mostly left Montana—are scattered all over the world and in Minnesota, Colorado, and California. We even have cousins in Maine and Alaska. But only our family stayed in ranching.”
“Wow. But…” She squeezed Reuben’s hand. “It might account for why your father passed the ranch on to Knox. Maybe he thought you wanted something different.”
Reuben glanced over at her. “I’ve been thinking about that. I was pushing pretty hard to play football—mostly because I didn’t want to let him down, but maybe he thought that’s what I wanted, that by letting me go, he was doing me a favor.”
Gilly knew what it took to confess that, baby steps to forgiveness, even acceptance, and she couldn’t help but reach up, touch his face.
He’d clipped the beard down but hadn’t shaved it off, and now she ran her fingers through it gently. The doctors had shaved his hair short in one area at the hospital to add stitches, but Reuben wore a baseball hat today to cover it. Black waves curled out the back. In his dark blue T-shirt and faded jeans, only the cowboy boots gave him away as a rancher.
He caught her hand, pressed his lips against her palm. Released it. “Thanks for coming with me.”
“A chance to buck hay? Are you kidding me?”
His brown eyes were rich with emotion. “I just love you.”
She drew in her breath, her throat thick. Nodded and looked away. And felt the silence drop between them.
Behind that quiet, brooding demeanor was a true romantic, a man unafraid to tell her how he felt, and that surprised her.
Scared her, just a little, at the amazing depth of his love for her. The fact that he said it without reserve, without fear.
And of course she loved him back. How could she not love him—this amazing, handsome, broad-shouldered, indefatigable man who risked his life over and over for her?
Who showed up to protect her for no other reason than he loved her.
He squeezed her hand, then, and she looked at him. Warmth in his expression, so much of it, it stirred the low burn inside her.
But once she admitted her feelings, then there was no taking it back. No turning around, retreating to her tough, not tender, world.
“So, are those cupcakes really homemade?” He indicated the box on her lap.
“Juliet helped, but…yeah.”
He squeezed her hand again.
They drove past a large corral into the circular drive and pulled up to the lodge, a beautiful, two-story, hand-hewn log structure with a towering stone-covered entryway. A long porch out front hosted rocking chairs and a long wooden bench topped with a basket of dried purple lavender and daisies.
The place had charm written all over it.
“My grandfather built this house by hand,” Reuben said, not a little pride in his voice. “My dad added the wing with the new kitchen and great room. He hand stacked the fireplace—trust me—I carried in the stones. Wait until you see the views from the back.”
She was already blown away.
Gilly got out, taken by the smell of the towering ponderosa pine that cradled the house and by the view of the mountains, craggy and bold in the distance.
Not far away, a traditional gambrel roof horse barn, painted a deep green, confirmed what Reuben said about it being a working ranch with traditional horses.
Two pickups sat in the driveway in front of the four-car garage.
The front door opened.
“Reuben!”
Gilly turned to the voice. A woman about sixty years old with her shoulder-length dark-brown hair, deep hazel-green eyes, and a smile that resembled Reuben’s—the kind that could light up her entire face—stood on the porch. She wore a flannel shirt cut off at the shoulders and tied around her waist, a hint of a tank top underneath, and a pair of jeans and cowboy boots.
She held out her arms, and Reuben nearly engulfed her with his embrace, picking her up, swinging her around. She laughed, and he put her down.
“Mom,” he said, kissing her cheek. “You look good.”
“Now that you’re here,” she said, and patted his cheek as if he might be ten and not towering over her by a foot.
He took her hand. “I want you to meet Gilly. My…girlfriend.”
Gilly dumbly held out the cupcake box, which his mother neatly ignored. She wrapped Gilly in a hug. She smelled of chili spices.
“Call me Gerri,” she said, letting go.
Gilly found a smile.
Gerri took the box. “Your sisters are helping me in the kitchen. But the boys are in the barn,” she said to Reuben. “Go tell them it’s time for lunch.”
Gilly might have only imagined Reuben’s slight flinch.
She took his hand, squeezed, meaning her words earlier. “Really, I’ll protect you.”
He gave a slight grin, but held on as he led her off the porch to the barn.
She didn’t know what she expected, especially after his story of the fight. A bunch of hooligans, perhaps, wrestling in the barn or maybe armed with pitchforks.
Instead, they were huddled over the engine of a very ancient, green tractor, the hood open. All four of them. She hadn’t a clue how to guess their ages—they all looked nearly as big as Reuben, the oldest, although two had sandy-brown hair, one with Reuben’s dark features, and the final one, the one crouching in front of the engine, was a dark redhead.
“Did you check the spark plugs?” Reuben asked casually as he walked in.
The redhead looked up, and for a second his expression drained, his shoulders tensing.
Then the look vanished as he got up, wiped his hands on a rag. “Rube. Uh—”
“I can’t believe it!” This from one of the other brothers, the one with the scruff of copper beard. “Mom didn’t say anything!”
“Wyatt,” Ruben said and dropped Gilly’s hand to give him a hug.
“And you brought a friend,” said the darker one, the spittin’ image of Reuben.
“Yeah, and she’s taken, Tate,” Reuben said, meeting his hand. But he grinned.
The other one, with the long tawny brown hair held back with a baseball cap like Reuben’s, came over to her. “Ford Marshall, ma’am.”
He reminded her of the rookies, wide-eyed, eager to please. She shook his hand. “Gilly Priest.”
The redhead holding the rag glanced at Reuben with dark green eyes. If she wasn’t mistaken, she saw a hesitation in them. Then he extended his hand. “Knox.”
“Hey, Knox,” she said, injecting warmth into her tone as she took his hand.
Knox glanced at Reuben, and she ached for them, the rift that had torn them apart. And from Reuben’s expression, he was replaying it, a tiny tick in his eye.
And then, suddenly, the memories seemed to break away, and Reuben smiled. “Bro.”
He reached out and Knox met his hand.
Reuben pulled him in for a one-armed hug.
She could almost feel the brothers exhale as Reuben let him go.
Gilly took a look at the tractor’s engine. “So what seems to be the problem?”
Knox glanced at Reuben, who lifted a shoulder. “She knows what she’s doing.”
And see that’s why she loved…okay, yes. Loved him. Because although he protected her, he also trusted her.
“Engine just seized this morning.”
“And you checked the oil?”
Knox gave her a look, and she grinned.
“Just checking. Let me take a look.” She fiddled with the wires, acquainting herself with the engine. Asked Ford to turn it over, just to check spark and fuel flow. She took the rag from Knox for her fingers, stepped back, and hadn’t even realized how much time had elapsed when she heard Gerri from the door of the barn.
“Seriously? Reuben, you’re a terrible messenger.”
Gerri stood there, looking anything but angry, however, grinning.
And it wasn’t hard to figure out why—all her children back in one place.
“You can fix the tractor after lunch. It’s getting cold.”
Gilly finished wiping her hands as she followed the boys out. Until she noticed Reuben standing near the tack room, as if transfixed.
And then his mother walked up to him. “He left it here for you,” she said.
Gilly hadn’t a clue what Gerri meant until Gilly joined Reuben, looked inside.
Hanging on the wall was an old, battered Pulaski, not unlike the kind Reuben used.
“And I thought you might like to read this.” Gerri pulled out a folded envelope and handed it to Reuben. “I found it in your father’s belongings recently.” She touched his back. “I’ll heat up your bowls when you get in.” Then she headed to the house.
Gilly walked into the tack room, took down the ax. “This was your father’s?”
He nodded, opening the letter. “I used to play with it when I was young. He caught me and was afraid I’d chop my foot off and took it away. Hid it. I haven’t seen it since…”
He was reading the letter, and something in his expression caught her, ran a hand around her throat.
His jaw tightened, his breath turned shaky.
“Rube?”
He looked up at her, and she stared nonplussed at his wet eyes.
“Are you okay?”
He handed her the letter. “It’s from Jock.”
Jock?
“My dad must have written to him after I left, maybe when he heard I’d joined the Jude County team.”
He ran a knuckle under his eye. Turned away and walked over to a stall. One of the horses met him, and he ran his big hands over the muzzle, almost absently.
She looked at the letter. Jock’s tiny, blocked handwriting—she recognized it from so many reports and whiteboard directions.
Simon—
Yeah, he’s here, and he’s fine. Working on the hotshot crew—one of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen. Has shown some interest in joining the smokejumping team, like you suspected. I would guess he’ll try out next year.
Following, apparently, in his father’s footsteps.
He’s everything you said—stubborn, tough. Smart. Good instincts. He’ll make a great leader someday.
I know you didn’t ask, but yeah, I’ll look out for him.
I know you’re wondering if you made the right decision, telling him to go. From my perspective you did. He was born for this. Not surprising—he has it in his genes.
You’re right, you have a lot to be proud of.
Best—
Jock
Gilly folded the letter, slipped it back into the envelope, and walked over to Reuben.
He had his forehead pressed to the soft nose of his horse.
She touched his back, and he drew in a long breath.
“You okay?”
He said nothing for a long time. Then, “I will be. Yeah.”
He turned, reached out, and touched her cheek. His eyes betrayed a hint of red, thick with emotion. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m glad I’m here, too.” She touched his hand, so much love overflowing for this man, who only weeks ago could barely speak to her. Now it seemed with everything he did—from inviting her to his family’s ranch, to taking her in his arms, to even the way he looked at her and spoke to her—old her she was strong and beautiful and cherished.
She took his hand and brought him over to a nearby haystack. Then she climbed on it, raising herself to his eye level.
He smiled at her, meeting her eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Telling you I love you. That when I’m with you, I feel invincible. But also that I know I don’t have to prove it—you already see me like that.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist, tugged her against the hard planes of his body. “Absolutely. But maybe you could let me, every once in a while, protect you anyway? Just for my male ego?”
“We’ll see,” she said and leaned down to kiss him.
A nice long, delicious, off-season kiss, the kind that stirred the slow burn into a fire that caused her pulse to rush, her knees to weaken.
Then, because every time he kissed her he made her believe she could fly, she let him lift her into his arms. Cradle her against his amazing, broad-shouldered, work-toughened body. She flung her arms around his neck, drinking in the sense of the big sky, a smoldering fire, and the open spaces of their tomorrows in his touch.
And in her heart, she swooned.
Their last jump of the season—for sure this time. Because the air already rippled with the scent of winter, and a layer of snow covered the highest, jagged peaks of the northern Rockies.
Reuben waited as Kate indicated with the spotting ribbon where they might land. “See that clearing, off to the right of the river? You have a nice put-down there.”
The wind tugged at her jumpsuit, but she was strapped in to the plane.
Jed had made sure of that. Because this trip wasn’t for Kate. Or Hannah, or Ned, or CJ, or Tuck, Riley, or even Gilly.
This was for Conner. For Pete. For Reuben.
And led by Jed, because it was only right.
Pete ducked out first, his square opening against the scope of blue, the jeweled tones of the western edge of the Kootenai Forest. Just beyond the closest rise of mountains lay Canada, Brownie and Patrick’s destination, as figured out the best the team could from Conner’s patchwork hack into their personal finances. Conner had tracked the fugitives across Montana, starting with a brazen stop for gas and a beer at the Yaak River Tavern, then gas along 508, and a motel stay for a week at Golden Nugget Cabins in southwestern Montana, where the duo had probably planned their escape into Idaho.
Pete had pulled in some favors from his brother Sam’s law enforcement buddies who raided the place. Unfortunately, the pair had escaped, probably due to a tip-off from Patrick’s portable scanner.
Reuben decided they wouldn’t make that mistake again. Next time, they’d sneak in, keep their attack on the down low.
They’d tracked the Brownings into Idaho through a short stopover at Moyie Springs, where the men had withdrawn cash.
After that, the fugitives had dropped off the grid.
Conner had set about using his techie skills and tapped into weather satellites to search forest service roads that traveled north to the border.
It had taken two more weeks, but this morning they’d gotten lucky with the sighting of the men’s red station wagon on a remote forest service road in Idaho about a mile from the Canadian border.
Yeah, they should have possibly alerted local police.
Except this was personal.
Besides, they had Conner, who—before he ever started jumping fires—jumped into war zones and trekked up desert passes to find the bad guys.
It always helped to have a former Green Beret on the team.
And, at this moment, Conner looked very military. No Kevlar jumpsuit for him. He wore a tactical, all-black jumpsuit, a matching helmet, and body armor.
Reuben expected to see him armed with a semiautomatic machine gun, maybe an AK-47, or HK 416. But Conner only carried a very utilitarian Colt M45. Strapped to his leg.
Just in case Patrick still had the shotgun.
Conner also carried a backpack, like the rest of them, probably filled with camping gear. And all the necessities of an overnight—or even week-long—trek into the wilderness.
Because they weren’t coming home without their targets. Not after they’d pieced together the evidence, the clear truth.
Patrick had been out to take down the team since before the season started, tampering with the chutes, his first efforts at retribution.
After Kate’s heroic save of Pete during their first jump of the season, she’d discovered the sabotage, so Patrick had had to turn to something else.
Conner’s drones proved the perfect device. Patrick had been interested in them from the beginning, watching Reuben test them in early spring.
He’d even helped Conner with the avionics of the controller, discovering, no doubt, the frequency. They guessed that was how he figured out how to jam the signal and send a drone crashing, its transponder disabled.
Not unlike how he’d disabled Gilly’s transponder.
Then it was simply a matter of trekking out to the woods, following the trajectory, and picking up the drone. He waited until his targets were all listed on the go-chart in the office, and then sent the drone out with flammables to ignite a fire.
One that would call in the jump team.
Maybe, then, fate would take over.
It seemed, however, he’d gotten tired of waiting.
Or weary of luck turning against him, because the smokejumpers just kept surviving.
Which meant Patrick probably became desperate and turned to sabotaging the plane. Only problem—the wrong jumpers got on board.
But he’d still managed to inflict pain.
Jed was gritting it out to go on this trip, only three weeks after being injured. Thankfully, the metal bar narrowly missed a kidney. But he couldn’t sit still while the rest of the team went in search of justice.
Reuben understood that completely.
CJ had broken his pelvis, dislocated his shoulder, broken three ribs, and nearly died waiting out the night for rescue.
Hannah had kept him from going into shock, and only then did she reveal she was in her third and final year of nurse’s training, the smokejumping gig a long-awaited dream she wasn’t sure she would still pursue. No one blamed her.
They couldn’t guess when and how Brownie got involved, unless it had started when one of Conner’s drones went missing on Brownie’s land, a buffalo pasture near the base. Although, if Patrick’s revenge started at the beginning of the summer, then Brownie’s might have also.
But no one forgot why.
Nearly a year had passed since the fire that took Jock Burns, Tom Browning, and five other firefighters.
And yeah, that kind of grief could drive a man crazy.
So they would bring Brownie and Patrick in for a fair trial. In front of the town of Ember.
Reuben considered that it might not, in reality, be so fair.
Kate tapped Conner’s shoulder, and he flung himself from the plane. His canopy billowed out, a light blue against the vault of the sky.
Jed went next, and Reuben watched him fall, nodding to himself when Jed’s square opened.
Kate put a hand on Reuben’s chest before he could go out the door. “Bring him home,” she said.
He nodded, but looked over his shoulder at the pilot, who had her hair pulled back in a cute ponytail.
She glanced back at him, her blue eyes in his. I love you. Come back.
Or he imagined that’s what she said—mostly because she’d said those very words this weekend as they rode together through the moonlit fields of the Triple M. His second time home in two weeks, this time to attend Ford’s football game, the kid following in his big brother’s footsteps.
Then, later that night, under the cascade of stars, he’d taken Gilly in his arms in the barn and asked her to dance.
Keeping his promise. Knowing, finally, exactly what he wanted, no looking back. This life as a firefighter. Gilly. A tomorrow without regrets.
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
But all of this, of course, after they found justice for the Jude County Smokejumpers.
He leaped out into the blue, the rush of wind galvanizing him, stirring his pulse. He fell, soaring, arms out, counting.
Jump Thousand.
They’d get on the ground, sneak through the woods and, using Conner’s latest high-tech drone, find Patrick and Brownie.
Look Thousand.
He spotted Pete already on the ground below and Conner drifting out over the landing zone.
Reach Thousand.
Reuben’s hand went around to his chute pull, and he wrapped his grip around the pull, the other hand still out for balance.
Wait Thousand.
Wait and take in the view one last moment. Conner landing safely, Jed drifting down in his wake. The view of Gilly soaring off to his right.
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!
Pull.
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