LITMIR.BIZ

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awake, Maura tucked against his side. Together, they were warmer, but it was still a cool fifty-some degrees in the cave, so he’d slid back into his pants and fire shirt, and had gently eased a sleepy Maura into hers before settling her back against him.

      He wondered, for the hundredth time in an hour, when he had earned the points to be allowed a moment like this. Somebody needed to give him a pinch.

      He’d meant his warning about not being dependable more as a reminder to himself than for her. Still, he couldn’t help but find himself looking toward tomorrow with more enthusiasm than he had a few hours ago.

      She was exactly the kind of woman he’d secretly dreamed of making a life with. A woman who was down-to-earth and not afraid to get her hands dirty. A woman who loved the land and all the glory and heartache that came from giving one’s soul to such a changeable, untamed being.

      For unlike fire, the land was something to imbue with life. And how like this woman that land was. Mysterious, fascinating, captivating. Both strong and gentle, she was somehow capable, as he was not, to open her heart even in the face of terrible pain.

      And that was what he needed most. He needed a woman whose hardy hopefulness set a balance against his own charred and blighted hope.

      Ash gazed down at Maura, at her perfectly serene face. Oh, he had no illusions that she’d be able to inspire new growth in him—not quite. All the hope and love in the world would have a hard time doing that.

      But maybe, just maybe, she would keep his spirit from turning completely to ashes.

      Morning came, but not in the conventional sense of the word.

      Ash opened his eyes to utter darkness, which sent his heart pounding before he remembered where he was and who lay tucked into the crook of his arm.

      The headlamp on his helmet must have gone out in the middle of the night, and once he’d carefully untwined himself from Maura’s sleeping form, he searched around for her helmet. He found it with a minimum of effort and flicked the light on, careful to aim it away from her. She stirred briefly before settling back into her sleep with a soft sigh.

      Creaking to his feet, he shook out the kinks in his back and shoulders, then shivered all over like a dog. Damn, it was cold and damp in this place! He knew that what he would find outside would stand in stark contrast, and dreaded going there.

      Slowly Ash made his way to the front of the cave, listening for any clue as to what he might find. He heard nothing.

      Still, even having worked clean-up crew on half a dozen fires, he wasn’t prepared for the utter devastation he encountered stepping out of the cave.

      The entire landscape was charred black. Burned tree trunks lay scattered on the ground like spilled toothpicks. Smoke hung low over the ground, making it appear as if a ghostly mist shrouded the valley. But there was no mystery or moisture in this fog.

      The worst was the sound—or lack of it. There was none of the usual noises of life in the forest: the call of birds or the scuffle of animals in the brush or even the rustle of leaves in the breeze. There was only the intermittent pop of dying embers.

      He and Maura had come so close to losing their lives.

      She was stirring when he returned, blinking and struggling to sit up as the beam again filled the chamber.

      Ash glanced at his watch. “It’s coming up on 6:00 a.m. I figure we can pack up and try making our way to the riverbed to see where the fire went from there. If it looks unpassable or like we’re just putting ourselves in more danger, we’ll come back here for another night and try our luck tomorrow. But we better make an effort to get back to camp, if at all possible, so we don’t draw firefighters off the fire and maybe into danger trying to find us. If that plan suits you, I mean,” he hastily amended.

      He knew he was being brusque, which had to confuse the hell out of her, but he was deathly afraid of what he would—or wouldn’t—see in her eyes.

      “That sounds like a good approach. What about Smokey?”

      He finally looked at her, and it was in exasperation. “I said we wouldn’t leave him behind, and we won’t. I keep my word.”

      “Of course you do, Ash,” Maura said calmly. She met his gaze steadily, and it took him by surprise to see there all of what he’d glimpsed in her eyes last night, and more.

      Relief came in a tidal wave. He gave a nod. “I’ll fetch him just before we’re ready to leave, then.”

      They packed quickly and efficiently, the way fire-fighters do, and once he’d strapped his pack on, Ash went to retrieve the fawn. He thought he’d have a struggle on his hands, but the little guy barely protested when Ash stooped to lift him in his arms, where the fawn rested his head wearily against Ash’s biceps.

      He hoped to heaven the youngster wasn’t falling ill, too. It’d kill Maura to lose him as well as the doe.

      He spared a glance at the doe’s body. “She’s not in pain anymore, Smoke,” he murmured to the baby deer. He noticed that his throat constricted with a sudden anguish he wouldn’t have let himself experience before last night. “Nothing can hurt her again. At least there’s that comfort.”

      Once outside, he and Maura followed the edge of the slope for a few miles, looking for a way to climb up to a ridge so they could get an idea of where the fire had gone. They soon found a fairly easy grade that at least got them a hundred or so feet above the valley floor. Once there, Ash saw the impact of the fire in full detail.

      The destruction went on as far as the eye could see. Acres and acres, miles and miles of nothing but devastation, as if a nuclear bomb had struck.

      And still the fire burned. A plume of smoke rose over another ridge in the distance.

      The day was already hot and dry. It was going to be another scorcher, in more ways than one.

      He turned to Maura, whose face was white with shock.

      “Oh, Ash!” she cried softly. Her eyes filled with tears.

      He resisted the almost overwhelming urge to take her in his arms and comfort her, first because he already carried an armful of baby deer, and second because he had no appreciation that such comfort would help all that much. Last night had been an escape from the world and all of its pain, he realized. He wouldn’t trade that moment for anything, but it had only been temporary, fleeting. This was reality, and it was here to stay.

      “It looks like the fire headed southwest,” he said without inflection. “We should be good to head to fire camp about four miles up the riverbed, and from there we can get a ride to command in Limestone.”

      She swiped at her eyes, nodding.

      The way was rough, part of it through still-smoldering debris, a dangerous route to take. One didn’t know when a still-standing tree trunk might topple. At one point, they came upon an abandoned fire shelter, and Maura and Ash simply exchanged looks, not speaking. Hopefully the firefighter who’d employed the shelter had survived and was also making his or her way back to camp.

      It took them all of the morning and into the early afternoon to reach fire camp, where they were greeted with hugs and slaps on the back, their return hailed a miracle, for when the wind had shifted and started the fire’s deadly run, not every firefighter had been as lucky as Ash and Maura: two National Park Service firefighters had gotten caught on a slope and died.

      Ash and Maura looked at each other solemnly. Yes, they had come close to dying. But they hadn’t. Whether it’d been sheer luck or destiny, they’d survived.

      They reported to the incident commander, who released them to return to Limestone on the next truck, and from there, home. Hal, Maura’s crew chief, radioed ahead for a veterinarian to be in Limestone for the fawn.

      It was just a little one-horse town, but to Ash, Limestone looked like paradise as the truck came to a stop in front of the mercantile that was being used as a command center for the NIFC. As he and Maura

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