Page 20 of Love Again

The place is too quiet. I miss Laurel and Cory. They are a short hike up the hill behind Weaver’s, but oh-so-far-away.

I’ve put off sleep for as long as I could. I don’t even crawl into bed. My lips are still hot from the kiss at the fire station. I need to sleep somewhere far away from that box of letters.

΅

Luke is on top of me, one hand in my hair, the other cupping my face, my jaw, stroking my lips in between kisses, tracing the O of my mouth with every stroke of his hips. He’s deep inside me, filling me up, bucking, coming over and over, his chest bathed in sweat. He arches up, groans welling from his throat, and his abs spasm as he keeps coming.

It never ends. He shudders, his eyes closed, buries his face in my neck, lifts his hips, and comes again. Like in all my other dreams, I can’t touch him. I try to reach him, try to stroke him. Finally, his eyes open and a hand, my hand, reaches up to touch the base of his throat.

With a terrible wrenching that guts me, he’s gone. I’m alone in blackness. I’m empty. I’m crying.

When I pull myself from the dream, the blanket on the sofa is bunched around my hips. I lie flat across the sofa, exhausted, shivering in my own sweat. I rise. It’s two in the afternoon. I turn on the heater and get a glass of water.

Sleeping far away from the box of letters didn’t help.

It was our fault Max Sheppard died.

No one can fix that.

Chapter Six

Luke

I toss the car keys in the basket by the front door and try to read, but I’m too distracted. Feeling her in my arms again, that small sag and shift in weight, her lips pressing against mine, leaves me agitated.

I know why I kissed her. It’s the only way I can tell her what I need. Talking doesn’t work with Devon. I’ve tried. She’s all about action. All about doing something.

But I may have overreached.

She left as close to tears as I’ve ever seen her. Even when Max was killed, she didn’t shed a tear.

I grew up with Max Sheppard. He was my other brother—my age, with a sense of humor that was quick witted and swift. We met in middle school when I moved to Orono with my mom. We ended up in the same group of friends, but as kids do at that age, we started sorting them into groups: people who’d have our backs and those who wouldn’t.

Max always had my back.

Always.

We left for college together, making sure to be roommates.

We both decided to go into forestry and then fire management, and for the life of me, I can’t even remember how I ended up in the program. Keller’s right: things just happen for me—doors open, luck comes my way, and good things seem to happen.

Except for Annette Farber. She broke my heart my junior year, and I ended up dropping out. Max tried hard to keep me in college, but it was a zero-sum loss. I didn’t have it in me. He finished with honors and left me in a litter of beer bottles and a shitty job in Colorado.

It took me three long years to finish school, and then I went out there too. When I told him about Devon, he said he’d already worked with her. “She’s the one, bro. You’re going to have to man up and win her.”

I’m not sure that I did win her. I’m not sure that Devon can be won. All I know is we fell in love fast and hard, to the point someone got hurt.

It was August, the height of fire season. We were shipped to Montana to help with these terrible grassland fires. Whole homes were going up. A group of people trying to flee were caught in a canyon and burned to death. Luckily, I didn’t have to go there and pry the bodies out. But Max did. He was scheduled that day.

It affected him.

A week later, the same fire, which had raged out of control, wicking its way through canyons and up mountains, spreading like red, flaring fingers everywhere, swept down into a ravine where another ranch house sat. It was a family of five: a mother, a father, two children, and a grandma.

The fire burned unpredictably, and we were caught unprepared both in terms of strategic engagement tactics and emotionally. We fought hard to keep that house from going up. Trees were exploding, with branches and twigs shooting through the air and leaves turning into fireballs. I was on the ground with a hose trained where the flames were spreading.

I can’t remember who said it, but it suddenly became clear there was a person missing—a five-year-old boy. There were three children, not two.

I grabbed another guy from another unit and motioned for him to take the hose, then put it in his hands and took off running toward the house. The second floor wasn’t compromised yet. If the kid was in there, I might have a chance to get him.