3

“IT’S THAT BAD, HUH?”

Sierra looked up, startled at the voice, and she froze, her spatula holding a cookie.

Ian Shaw stood at the door, bathed in the porch light, dressed in a pair of black jeans and a heather-gray T-shirt that seemed painted onto his body.

Oh, he looked good.

So terribly unfair. Especially since she looked wrung out in her soiled apron, her eyes red and burning from the smoke of today’s fire and not enough sleep.

And yes, she’d seen Ian plenty of times over the past year, but every single time she had to take a breath, brace herself. Tell herself anew that he didn’t belong to her. Never had. But when a girl arranged every aspect of his life, it sort of felt that way.

Walking away from him left a tear in her she still hadn’t figured out how to mend. In a way, her daily prayers for him, the ones where she begged God to intervene in his life, show him he didn’t always have to be in charge and that he could trust God, were her way of balming the wounds.

Prove she could love him from a distance and be just fine, thank you.

“What do you mean?” she said, and managed to keep her voice from hitching.

“PEAK HQ smells like cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Which only means one thing.” He closed the door behind him. “They haven’t found her.”

She turned back to Ian. “You know about—”

“Jess? Yeah. And the crash.” He slid onto the stool. “I was in Texas. I jumped on a plane as soon as I got the news.”

She gave a quick nod, then wanted to grimace.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just . . .” Shoot. “I knew that. I saw your Instagram feed. Dinner with Dex and Noelly?”

She tried to keep her words casual. No problem that a beautiful socialite and cosmetics entrepreneur was crawling all over him. Noelly had posted pictures of them at some restaurant and tagged him on Instagram, and of course, they’d popped up in Sierra’s feed.

“You follow me?” He had the audacity to sound surprised. Well, of course she did. She practically stalked him.

But she shrugged. “I know I should unfollow you—it’s from those days when I tried to keep tabs on the social media about you. I have an old phone—”

“Sierra. It’s going to be okay,” he said, neatly ignoring everything she’d just said. “We’re going to find Jess.”

Oh. He knew her too well, her penchant to bake herself out of panic. And to babble.

She sighed, blinked back the heat in her eyes, stared at the overflow of cookies. “I’ve run out of room on the counter.”

“I see that,” he said quietly.

Sierra grabbed her oven mitts, pulled another tray of gingersnaps from the oven, and set the tray on the counter. Stepped back.

“I count six dozen chocolate chip cookies, another four dozen butterscotch, and sixty-plus gingersnaps. What’s that, about four hours’ worth?”

She glanced at the clock. Sighed. “Yeah. That’s about when Pete left.”

Four agonizing hours since Pete stormed out of the office, since Chet left to check on the firefighters they rescued.

And three since Sam Brooks returned to HQ and asked if his brother Pete had come home, and if he’d done something stupid, like driven into a fire.

“Pete’s here?”

“Yeah. Or not—he took off to meet Ty and Gage and go find Jess. Except no one has heard from them. A tanker pilot headed into the fire saw them on a trail near Saint Mary Lake, but nothing since then.”

Ian caught her eyes, and oh, the man could stop her world with those pretty aqua blues. “The team knows what they’re doing. And Pete isn’t going to give up.”

She couldn’t help but glance at the radar screen. “The fire’s growing.”

“What’s the status on the chopper?”

She sighed and untied the apron. “It’s up at the Ranger Creek campground. Chet got on the phone today and arranged for someone with the forest service chopper to pick it up. They’ll go in after they lift the no-fly zone over the park.”

Ian nodded, his face solemn. It reminded her a little of their briefings when she’d update him about Esme, and their search, and . . .

He probably deserved to know about that update too.

She came around the counter and headed to the map, pointing to where the chopper had gone down, and gave him the same rundown she’d given Pete, updating it with, “Jess climbed up Goat Mountain, here.” She traced along the mountain. “And I sent her down the hiking trail to the Banning ranger cabin, down here.”

She put a green pin in where the cabin sat.

“Pete and the team took a trail from the south, hooking up with Going-to-the-Sun Trail.”

Ian’s mouth tightened. He shook his head. “I should have never given PEAK over to Mercy Falls.”

Sierra stared at him. “What?”

He was pacing now, an old habit that always tied her in knots. “I hate being this far out of the loop. I used to be involved, part of every callout, at least apprised, step-by-step, by Chet. Now I have to find out about a chopper crash by text from Sam.”

Sierra tried not to hear indictment. Because maybe she should have been the one to text him.

Except, no—because he’d fired her. And since then, he hadn’t exactly chased her down, begged her to come back.

Besides, his obsession with finding Esme left no room for anything else. Ian’s life was about Ian, and filling his broken, hollow places by finding Esme. By redeeming himself. Even if he didn’t want to admit it.

He turned to her, his hands shoved into his pockets. In the pooled lamplight of the office, he looked . . . tired. She tamped down the crazy, inappropriate urge to walk over and put her arms around him.

“Not being involved is killing me, Sierra.”

Oh. And she had nothing for that, because it was the most honest he’d been with her since . . . well, since he wept over the loss of Esme.

Maybe even since over a year ago when he’d caught her up into his arms and kissed her like a hungry man, weaving his fingers into her hair, his heart beating under her palms as she pressed them to his chest.

And too quickly, too vividly, she was swept into the memory of kissing him back.

Oh, Ian. Her throat thickened.

“I’m thinking that I should just leave.”

His words yanked her out of the moment. “I signed over PEAK to the Mercy Falls EMS department because I was going to leave it behind and, well, move to Texas. I was going to tell you on our trip to NYC last year, if you remember.”

She remembered him fumbling to talk to her about something after his close encounter with anaphylactic shock in New York City. But that occurred right about the time Deputy Sam called about the discovery of the body of Esme’s boyfriend washing to shore.

Which only ignited Ian’s hope.

His desperate search.

And now her thoughts returned to Esme, and the fact that she was alive. Living a new life in Minneapolis. And Ian deserved to know it.

She might have nodded because he continued.

“I’ve spent the past year in denial.” He walked over to the radar screen. “I’m never going to find her, and if I stick around here, not being in charge of the PEAK team is going to turn me inside out. I need to walk away, Sierra. Not look back. Start over.”

Oh. Uh. Except . . . “Ian—”

“No, Sierra. I know the truth. Esme is alive, but for whatever reason, she doesn’t want me around her.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “And maybe I deserve that.”

“What? Ian—why would you say that?”

“Are you kidding me?” He rounded on her. “I forced her to choose between Dante and, well, my way. She wouldn’t have been out there with Dante if it hadn’t been for me. Whatever she saw, whatever she’s endured, it’s because of me.” He sighed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I get the people I love hurt, or even killed.” He ran a hand behind his neck. “Dex nearly got killed today jumping Crawford Creek with me.”

Sierra stilled. “You didn’t.”

“I did.”

She couldn’t help the slightest of smiles. “Finally.”

He stared at her. And his mouth twitched. “Yeah, well . . . Dex thought it would be a good idea, but—”

“Is he okay?” She hadn’t meant to cross the room, touch his arm. She pulled it away when Ian glanced down at her grip.

“Yeah, he’s fine. A little bruised.” He shook his head. “I tried to talk him out of it, but—”

“Dex is like you. He doesn’t take no for an answer.”

Ian’s mouth opened, but Sierra raised an eyebrow.

“I think, for the first time in my life, that needs to change. I’m not going to find Esme.”

Sierra took in a breath. “Ian, I have to tell you—”

“PEAK HQ, Jess. Come in.” Jess’s voice came over the radio, quick, tremulous.

Sierra picked up the radio. “Jess. PEAK HQ. Go ahead.”

“I can’t stay here. I can see flames on the ridge and they’re growing. I’m evacuating to the lake.”

“The guys are on their way, Jess. Stay there.”

Silence, and Sierra glanced at Ian. He folded his arms over his chest, his mouth a grim line.

“Fine. I’ll wait. But they’d better get here fast, because I don’t think I can outrun this fire.”

Sierra set down the radio. Her hand shook.

“Sierra?”

“I told her to go there, Ian. What if . . . what if—”

“Sit down.” He took her by the shoulders and guided her to a chair. “You did what you thought was best. You were trying to help.”

That was the problem. Too often she tried to help. Tried to fix everything, and . . .

Oh, she just couldn’t tell him about Esme. Not yet. Not when he crouched in front of her, looking at her like he had so many times before, his blue eyes filled with a sweet tenderness that so few people really knew. She’d seen him at his best, and his worst.

Once upon a time, they’d really been friends.

And the way he looked at her right now, maybe . . . maybe they could be again. She nodded, letting the spark heat her through.

She would tell him. Just not tonight, when she needed the Ian she once knew. The Ian who had made her believe that she was smart and capable. A teammate.

“Everything’s going to be okay.” He gave her a smile, and she swallowed before she did something embarrassing, like cry. He could be so sweet when he wanted to be, giving and gentle . . . and the next moment, turn on her, throwing her out of his life.

He pulled up the other chair and sat in it, taking her hand. “I’m staying with you until the entire team is safely home.”

Not now, not like this.

Jess stood on the step of the tiny one-room forest service cabin, watching as the ridge above her glowed with the breath of a dragon.

Cinders, still red hot, swirled in the wind, and even from here, the fire growled, hungry.

For her, maybe.

No, she could not stay put and wait for rescue. She’d learned long ago that she held the reins to her fate, and right now her instincts said run for the creek.

Or rather, Banning Falls. She’d only seen them once—not a terrible drop, but in the pitch of night . . .

But she’d take a few broken bones over sizzling to death.

Sorry, Sierra. She’d call in when she got to safety. Jess grabbed her pack and threw it over her shoulder, hating the burn in her hip, how the pain radiated into her back, down her leg. Behind her the entire forest glowed, the night sky a haze of brilliant orange. The flames lit a path through the forest, a haunted, surreal war zone of smoke and heated ash. She pulled her bandanna over her head and wished for her hard hat.

No, she wished for another chance.

A way home—and not just back to Mercy Falls.

All the way back to New York City, to her mother’s elegant apartment in Manhattan.

Cracking sounded behind her, and she picked up her pace, seeing the dent in the forest ahead where the land fell into the river.

Okay, if she lived through this, she’d stop hiding. She’d call her mother, beg her to listen to her side of the story, and even . . . okay, she’d even call Felipe.

Apologize for destroying their future.

Although, her fiancé had probably moved on, found someone who hadn’t betrayed her entire family.

Still—she’d resurrect the ghost that was Selene Jessica Taggert and make amends.

Starting with Pete, who deserved an explanation.

Jess pushed the brush aside, hearing too freshly his words before he left. Sometimes her memory of their last meeting seemed so vivid she wanted to step back inside, tell herself to reach out, stop him.

Beg him to stay.

“Please,” she’d say. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth about who I was. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you. Please don’t leave.”

Instead, of course, of the words that had come out of her mouth: “I think you should go and chase your dream. It’s a great job opportunity.”

Pete had been leaning against one of the columns of her rebuilt front porch, his hands in his coat pockets, his blond hair pulled back in a man bun. One side of his mouth quirked up, as if trying to agree with her.

His beautiful blue eyes, however, didn’t meet hers.

“I just wanted to stop by and say good-bye.”

He’d looked up at her then, and she nearly stepped across the threshold, nearly took hold of the collar of his shirt, nearly pressed her lips against his.

She should have given him her heart, right there on the snowy porch. Or rather, anything she had left of it.

Instead, she’d folded her arms over her thermal shirt, nodded quickly, and looked away. “Be safe,” she’d said.

And shut the door.

Then she’d stood on the other side of it, her palm against the frame, listening for far too long until the boards finally creaked, his footfalls faded, and the engine of his pickup turned over.

When he pulled away, she sank onto the floor, drew her knees to her chest, buried her head in her lap, and wept.

Because she was an idiot. Afraid of telling him what he probably already knew.

Jess Tagg had two lives and had been deceiving everyone she cared about for three years.

Pushing him away seemed easier than letting him inside to see the mess she’d made of her life.

Running through a fire-infested forest seemed to burn all that away, leaving only the longing for a second chance.

Any chance, even if she had to fight for it.

Please.

Jess emerged from the forest and ran out onto granite to the edge of the river. The water glowed a deep umber some twenty feet below.

She couldn’t make out rocks, but surely they jutted from the surface, lethal, or at the very least, leg-breaking.

The fire turned to a locomotive behind her, the forest a glow just beyond the dark outline of trees.

Jump. She stood at the edge. Just jump.

This was really going to hurt.

“Jess!”

She jerked back from the edge. Turned to look. A tree torched into flame fifty feet away.

Just wishful—probably insanely wishful—thinking.

“Jess! Don’t jump!”

As if he’d materialized right out of the forces of Hades to grab her, a man on a four-wheeler burst from the trail.

He wore a bandanna over his nose and mouth, another over his hair, a sooty blue jacket, gloves, and a pair of forest service pants.

She would have known him anywhere.

“Pete!”

He stopped a few feet away from her, yanked down his handkerchief. “Get on.”

She glanced behind him at the sound of another four-wheeler and spied Ty, wearing a hard hat and his blue PEAK jacket.

“Gage is down at the road, waiting. Let’s go,” Pete said, and in a second she’d slid on behind him. He handed her his handkerchief. “Put this on and hang on. This might freak you out.”

More than having Pete appear, as if she’d conjured him from her thoughts? Hardly.

Except after she tied on the bandanna, she clamped her arms around his solid waist, her thighs tight against his, and tightened her grip.

Because she knew Pete. And if he gave her a warning, it meant—

He gunned it out over the gorge, right into the river.

She screamed, ducked her head. Held on.

They hit, bounced, and she nearly unseated. But the water wasn’t as deep as she’d thought—which Pete probably knew. And whatever giant falls she’d expected turned into steps with the four-wheeler. Of course, the drought that had turned the park into a furnace had already drained the rivers and creeks.

Ty landed behind them, and they sped down the river, splashing through the shallows as the smoke and fire arched above them.

Safe.

Crazily safe, and she began to laugh.

Pete had shown up. Seriously?

“You okay back there?” he shouted.

Oh, he felt good. As if the hard work of saving lives this summer had only made him stronger, more solid.

Dependable.

Except Pete had always been dependable. In a callout. And in their friendship.

She’d been the one to turn on him.

“Yeah,” she said, suddenly painfully aware of her regrets.

And her second chance.

“Just hang on,” Pete said. “I’ll get us out of here.”

As the fire peeled back the night, chasing them down the ravine, she ducked her head and tightened her hold.

No problem.

Ian should have known when he walked into PEAK and the place smelled like a bakery that things had gone south.

Maybe it was the adrenaline of racing back to Mercy Falls. Of seeing the light on at PEAK, of finding Sierra alone.

All the things he’d told himself over the past year about letting her go dissolved and he’d nearly surrendered to the ever-present urge to close the gap between them. Pull her into his arms.

Sierra could still turn him inside out with a look. Petite and perfect, dark hair cut short, those too-perceptive hazel-green eyes. If it hadn’t been for Gage calling in, telling them that they had found Jess, that they’d outrun the fire, and that they were headed home—yeah, he might have let go and wrapped her in his embrace.

Ignored the past, and their arguments, and the pain of losing Esme, and held on to what he’d always wanted.

Still wanted.

Sierra. In his arms. In his life.

At least someone had gotten what they wanted today.

“You gunned it right off the cliff?” Kacey sat on a high-top stool, her auburn hair pulled back.

Pete held court near the table, where he sat on a chair, still grimy from his fight against the elements. Probably a common look for Pete, who’d been a smokejumper for the better part of his adult life. He smelled of ash and smoke, and grinned with white teeth against a blackened face.

Gage smelled no better, although Ty had already showered, and now appeared at the bottom of the stairs with a towel hung around his neck.

Ben King sat behind Kacey, one foot on the rung of her high-top stool.

Ian was surprised to see him home, obviously on a break from his summer festival tour schedule.

“I’ve been fishing up at the Banning cabin a few times over the years, so I knew it wasn’t a terrible drop,” Pete said. “And the creek is really low, so—”

“But the fire. I saw it on the radar.” Sierra was collecting the cookies and depositing them in the jar.

By the time the team trickled in, first Chet, then Kacey, then Gage, Ty, and Pete, with Jess, Sierra had found her footing.

Returned to the capable, put-together woman who knew how to bring the PEAK team home, take care of them.

Rescue the rescuers.

“Yeah, well, I understand fire. I know how it plays, and the wind was shifting even as we drove up the Banning trail. We had time, but not much.”

“When we got to the cabin, it was on fire,” Ty said, scrubbing the towel through his hair. It stood up on end. He draped the towel over the back of a stool and reached for a chocolate chip cookie. “Thanks, Sierra. You’re the best.” He winked then, and Ian fought the strangest urge to back him into a corner.

Ty had spent an inordinate amount of time with Sierra this summer while they’d listened to the call-in leads from the America’s Missing show.

Leads that led to nothing.

More dead ends. Expensive dead ends.

Footfalls sounded on the landing, and Ian looked up to see Jess appear, her hair up in a towel. “Hey,” she said, smiling at everyone.

Her gaze landed on Pete, then slid off.

Interesting. Especially given the last conversation he’d had with Pete this summer in Dawson when Pete had appeared with the Red Cross relief team. He’d been helming the rescue for a group of people trapped in an underground shelter.

“We all have secrets—I should have let her have hers,” Pete had said.

Whatever. Ian could see right through Pete’s casual words to a man fighting his regrets. Recognized the look, actually. Now Ian had a feeling that Pete’s regrets involved a woman with long blonde hair, blue eyes, and the ability to make Pete draw in a quick breath, find his feet, and head for the showers upstairs.

Jess came into the kitchen, and Sierra gave her a long hug.

Closed her eyes.

Without saying good-bye, Ian slipped out the door. He’d started this team, but it didn’t belong to him, not anymore. They’d rescued Jess on their own, without his resources, his oversight.

Without him.

Why he’d jumped on his plane to come here he didn’t know, because right now he could be seated on a porch swing, Noelly nestled in his arms as they watched the moon crest over the Crawford ranch.

He cast a look through the window and saw Sierra grinning, handing Jess a cookie.

Ian turned, descended the stairs, and headed to his truck, the night closing around him as he walked outside the glow of the porch.

He was just shutting the door when he heard his name called out from the porch. Turning, he spied Sierra running out to him. She held a plastic container.

He liked this picture—Sierra running toward him.

“The sugar cookies weren’t just for Sam and Pete,” she said as she held out the container.

He offered a smile, something quick, forcing it past the stab in his chest. “Thank you.”

“No, Ian. Thank you. For staying.” Her face turned solemn. “You were a good friend tonight.” She reached out, touched his arm. Squeezed.

He stood there, nodding dumbly as she turned and ran back to the house.

A good friend. Never had words felt so brutal.

He set the cookies on the bench seat of the truck and slid inside.

The PEAK Rescue compound had once belonged to the parcel he’d purchased from Ruthie King’s family, and it only took Ian moments to turn into the drive of his log home. Although the house sat dark and lonely, light waxed out from the open door of the horse barn.

A pickup and trailer backed up to the fencing of the bullpen.

Ian parked nearby and got out. “Kade?”

He could hear the foreman whistling in the darkness, the buzz of an electric prod and the whinny of a horse carry across the field.

Kade wasn’t really trying to round up Rooster at this time of night?

Ian came over to the fencing. Floodlights from the barn cast out into the field and yes, just on the rise, he could make out his 1,200-pound bull, snorting and angry as Kade herded him toward the chute he’d set up.

Ian said nothing as he watched his foreman work the bull. Kade was so easy on a horse it seemed like he might be a part of the animal. He wore a pair of chaps over jeans, a denim shirt, gloves, and a Stetson over his brown hair. Ian had made the right decision when he’d discovered the kid—not a kid anymore—working the oil fields of Dawson and offered him a job running his ranch.

If anything, Ian had good instincts for finding talent. Like Sierra, who’d been such an amazing assistant he’d let it distract him from what he really wanted.

Kade came into the light and waved to Ian. Shouted at the bull, who now ran toward the trailer.

Ian came through the gate so he could close it when the bull trotted in.

Kade chased the bull in, and Ian slammed the gate shut, secured it.

“Mr. Shaw, I didn’t expect you back. Everything okay?” Kade pulled his mount around.

“Yep. I thought you were still in Dawson.” He climbed into the cab of the truck and pulled the rig forward to clear a path for Kade.

Kade came through, dismounted, and led his horse into the barn. “I meant to be here yesterday, but I had to route down to Helena, then across to Missoula due to the fire in the park. I need to have Rooster to the Triple M by tomorrow.” He took off his gloves. “Are you sure you want to sell him? He’s still got a number of good breeding years in him.”

Ian nodded, didn’t elaborate. “How much did you get for him?”

“Four hundred twenty.”

That left Ian about $9.5 million short of his own personal Rebuild Dawson goal.

Ian walked to the head of the trailer, looked in at Rooster.

The big boy’s dark eyes blinked at him, stoic. Unmoved by his fate.

Probably Ian should have such a response. He drew in a breath and held out his hand to Kade. “Thanks, Kade. You’ve worked hard here. You should know . . . I’m thinking of selling.”

Kade nodded as he pulled off his Stetson. Shifted in the dirt. “I was hoping to talk to you about that. I think I’m headed back to Dawson.”

“For good.”

“Mmmhmm,” Kade said.

Ian offered a grin. “It’s the girl, isn’t it?”

Kade looked away, and a smile slid up one side of his face. “It’s the girl.”

Ian clamped him on the shoulder. “Don’t be a stranger.” He headed back to his truck while Kade stabled his horse.

By the time Kade pulled out, Ian had dragged in his suitcase, toed off his shoes, retrieved a bottled water from the fridge, and stood in his stocking feet, staring out his massive picture window at the horizon. Pinpricks of starlight dotted the dark scope of the sky. To the east, an eerie orange lined the jagged black mountain scape. And in the distance to the north, the faintest ribbon of undulating green and lavender.

The northern lights, drifting from the polar ice fields.

A wild, majestic land that had called to him, back when he longed to start over, fueled by his father’s dreams and not a little residual grief.

He’d come here searching for family. A legacy. A home.

He’d managed to build—then lose—it all. Esme. Sierra. PEAK.

Yes, it was time to concede to the flames of his failure and head back to Texas.