Chapter Thirteen
Isa remembered voices shouting. Nate’s face leaning over hers, an oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth. Being bumped and jostled until her bones felt like they might come apart. Lights and beeping. Pain. Lots of pain. With a gasping breath, she lurched upright. Her eyes focused on a hospital room. Nate lay slumped in the chair beside her bed, asleep.
We’re safe.
Tears flooded her eyes and streamed over her cheeks.
Safe.
She was alive. Nate was alive. And they were safe. She pressed her hands over her face and sobbed, gasping and coughing through her tears.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Nate slid onto the bed beside her. He lifted her hands, kissing away her tears as he straightened the oxygen tube running to her nose
“Nothing’s wrong,” she gasped. “Everything’s right.”
“Damn straight.” He pressed his lips to hers.
“How?” Because she remembered being in that stream as the smoke and the flames surrounded them. She remembered passing out in Nate’s arms, certain that she was dying. I remember telling him I was falling in love with him…
“Firefighters. Smoke jumpers, I think. They were out there on the frontlines trying to contain the fire and stumbled across us in the process.”
“Wow.” She sucked in a breath and blew it out. Her lungs hurt. Actually, her whole body hurt, but she didn’t care. She was alive!
Nate stroked a finger across her face, his expression fierce yet tender. “Damn lucky.”
They’d come so close to not making it out. Way too close…
She coughed. Her throat felt like she’d swallowed knives, and her lungs burned with each breath she took. Nate poured her some ice water from a cart beside the bed, and she took several grateful sips.
“We’re safe,” she whispered as the room swam before her eyes. She was so tired…
Nate set the cup down and lay down beside her. “Rest, sweetheart. Sleep.”
She wanted to hold on to him and never let go. She still had so many questions… But her brain just wouldn’t cooperate. She drifted off to sleep with Nate’s arms wrapped warm and tight around her. She woke to the sound of voices. Familiar voices. Her eyes snapped open.
“Isa!” Her mother grabbed her in a hug. “Oh my goodness, mija.”
“Mami?” She blinked, still not entirely sure she wasn’t dreaming.
“I’ve been so worried.” Her mother’s voice broke, and then they were both sobbing, holding on to each other for dear life.
“I still can’t believe I’m safe.” When she closed her eyes, she expected to see flames, smell smoke. She felt an overwhelming need to run and run and run…
“You’re safe.” Her mother kissed her forehead as tears streamed down her cheeks. “I never gave up hope, even when they started telling us that they didn’t expect to find you alive—”
Isa clung to her mother, sobbing as all the shock and fear of her week in the woods with Nate finally caught up with her. When the flames surrounded them at the end, and she’d realized there was no way out… It was something she’d never forget, something she hoped never to experience again.
“You are a sight for sore eyes.” Her father came into her line of vision, a tired smile on his face. Her sisters Valentina and Andrea stood on either side of him, their eyes red-rimmed.
“We got on the first plane out here as soon as we heard,” Andrea said.
They all huddled around her, crying and hugging, and Isa was afraid to blink for fear she might realize it was all a hallucination and she was still out there in the woods with the wildfire closing in on them…
“Where’s Nate?” she asked, coughing as she wiped away her tears.
“Who?” Her mother’s brow wrinkled.
“Nate…the guy I was with. The pilot.” The man she’d fallen in love with while they fought for their lives.
“I don’t know. Is he here in the hospital too?”
“He was here earlier.” She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember. Had it been this morning? What day was it anyway? She didn’t even know what hospital she was in.
“Well, we haven’t seen him.” Her mother reached behind her to fluff her pillow. “How are you feeling? Can I get you anything?”
She felt like she’d swallowed fire and been run over by a Mack truck. “I’m okay.”
Where’s Nate?
They’d made promises out there in the woods, but the truth was, she didn’t really know if Nate would still be her Nate back here in the real world. Had he left without even saying goodbye?
“Are you hungry?” her mother asked.
Isa shook her head. She’d been hungry for a week, but now she’d lost her appetite.
***
Nate’s first day back in the real world had not gone at all as expected, but with any luck, it was going to end well. Blowing out a breath, he raised his fist and knocked. The door to the hotel room in front of him swung open, and he found himself facing an attractive, middle-aged woman with Isa’s eyes and smile.
“You must be Mrs. Delgado,” he said.
“Yes.” She offered him a warm smile. “And who are you?”
“Nathaniel Peters, ma’am. I’m the pilot who spent the last week stranded with your daughter.”
Mrs. Delgado’s eyes brightened. “Oh, she’s been looking for you all afternoon. Come on in.”
He stepped inside, finding the room filled to bursting with Isa’s family. Isa herself was sitting in bed, looking fresh-faced and ridiculously gorgeous in a pink T-shirt and matching pajama pants, talking to a woman who had to be her sister. As he watched, she turned her head in his direction, and her mouth fell open.
“Nate!” She leaped out of bed and was halfway across the room when her gaze dropped to the dog at his side. “Oh my God, Maya!”
“We made it,” he said as she flung herself into his arms and planted a quick, chaste kiss on his lips—her whole family was watching, after all. “All three of us.”
“I am so happy right now.” She dropped to her knees to hug the dog. “I’ve been so worried about you, Maya, thinking you were still out there in that fire.”
“She made it out before we did,” Nate told her. “Spent last night in the shelter.”
“How did you find her?” Isa stood to face him, smiling, her eyes shining with happy tears.
“I asked around while we were at the hospital, and they called the shelter for me. But by the time I’d gotten her, you’d already been discharged.”
“I was afraid you’d left.” There was something fragile in her smile.
“I promised I wouldn’t.” He looked her straight in the eye. Leaving had crossed his mind, though, and frankly, he was terrified to be here in her hotel room with her family, because what if things were different now that they were back in the real world? Except every time he looked at Isa, he knew they weren’t.
“Is that what I think it is?” Her gaze fell to the big paper bag in his left hand.
“Burgers and fries.”
“With pickles? And mustard?” Her smile grew even wider.
He nodded. “You said it’s what you wanted for your first meal. I wasn’t sure how many people were here, so I brought a dozen.”
“Isa, we love him already,” one of her sisters commented from behind them, and the whole room erupted with laughter.
And so they all gathered on the two double beds, and they ate burgers and fries. They laughed, and they shared stories. He and Isa told her family about their week in the woods, and they in turn embarrassed Isa by sharing childhood stories about her with him.
They were warm and funny and obviously loved her to pieces. He didn’t know how much she’d told her family about their relationship, but they obviously knew something, and they seemed to have welcomed him with open arms.
When all the food had been eaten and stories shared, her mother stood from the bed. “Okay, I know you two need a few minutes alone to catch up, but only a few minutes.” She gave Nate a meaningful look. “She needs her rest, and I’m guessing you do too.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled at her, grateful for the opportunity.
Isa’s family shuffled toward the door.
“We’ll be in the adjoining room,” her father said with another pointed look at Nate.
As soon as the door shut behind them, he grinned. So did she. And then she was in his arms. “I’m so happy, Nate. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and find out we’re still out there in the woods.”
“This is real, sweetheart.” He tightened his arms around her, tipping her face up to kiss her.
“They like you,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of the door her family had just left through.
“Thank goodness for that.”
“Are your parents here too?”
He shook his head. “The trip was too much for my mom, but I talked to her for about an hour on the phone this morning. I’ll go visit them in the next few days.”
“I’m glad. What happens next?” she asked, her eyes searching his.
“I’m flying home in the morning. I have to get things squared away with work. God knows what’s gone on this week without me.”
She nodded. “And then?”
“And then, I thought maybe I could fly down to Anaheim and take you on that date we talked about.”
“Yes,” she whispered against his lips. “Except the flying part.”
“You’ll fly,” he said, kissing her, losing himself in her taste, her warmth, every sweet thing that made Isa so damn special. “Because the Isabel Delgado I fell in love with doesn’t let fear boss her around.”
She inhaled sharply. “Oh! But—”
“Yes, I love you, Isa.” So much that his heart felt full every time he was in the same room with her. “You’ve turned the cynic into a believer.”
“I love you too,” she whispered, her eyes welling with tears. “So much that I’ll even agree to the possibility of flying with you on that date.”
“I like the sound of that. I’d better go now before your parents think we’re getting it on in here.” He winked at her.
Isa blushed adorably. “Okay.”
“Should I leave her with you?” He gestured to Maya, passed out on the floor by the bed in a burger-induced coma.
“Yes.”
He pulled Isa in for another kiss, then he walked toward the door. “I’ll be in touch about our first date.”
“It’s not our first date!” she said laughingly, following him.
“First official date. First of many.”
“Maybe even our last,” Isa said with a sly smile.
“Last?”
“Last first date.” She went up on her tiptoes to give him another kiss. “Because after everything we’ve already survived together, I’m not planning to give you up.”