Page 47 of Love Again

“I can’t do that anymore.” Stroking her head, I feel a strand of wayward hair and tuck it behind her ear. “I love you, Devon Russo. And that is never, ever, going to change.”

΅

The first time I saw Devon, we were in the middle of a firestorm. I got a call that a smokejumper was spotted on a southern perimeter line and neither team could raise the guy. Either his radio was out or he lost it. The quickest way there was in a truck. I was coming off a twelve-hour siege of battling a fire ravaging over five thousand acres northwest of Denver, and my warden decided I’d had enough.

The pump and roll engines were already deployed, so I took my own truck. It took fifteen minutes to land on the dirt road leading to his location. The last sighting was by a helicopter who saw the smokejumper’s parachute go up in flames as he hit the ground and rolled into a series of sandy rocks. The forest was in flames and encroaching on three sides.

The guy was literally between a rock and a hard place.

Then, I could see him—sandstone boulders in the center of a circular dead end. There was enough room for me to get my truck between the trees and the rocks, but I couldn’t see what was around the corner. If clear, I could run the wide circle and get out. If not, I’d have to back out and do a fast three-point turn.

The metal on the outside of the truck was already hot to the touch. Black smoke belched from the trees that were on fire, and it mixed with colliding, twisting walls of orange flame that buckled and heaved in every direction.

But it was the sound that could terrify. That clawing, raging crackle and roar was like no other.

I laid on the horn and didn’t let up. In another second, the guy on the ground ducked from behind a large rock, saw me, and started for the truck. Spinning the wheel hard, I glanced up.

The tops of trees were starting to explode. The canopy swayed, combusting almost spontaneously, overpowered by updrafts, flames, and the shear greed of fire that consumed absolutely everything in its path.

Bits of branches, needles, and cones battered the top of the truck as the smokejumper darted through the hailstorm of raining fire. The guy was limping and pointing at something—a tree breaking up right where the truck was going to be in about two seconds. I slammed on the brakes. The cabin filled with smoke when I reached over and swung the door wide.

There was a cracking sound, popping, and then a crash as the huge pine landed about twenty feet from the truck. Burning debris pelted the roof and truck bed.

He scrambled inside, embers on his shoulders. Taking one hand, he beat them off and slammed the door.

I couldn’t see to back up—the mix of orange and black twisting and warping my vision.

“Back it up!” came from the mesh helmet.

It was up to muscle memory to get us out of here. I threw the truck in reverse and set the wheel where it was when I began the curved drive into this mess. We both knew the way out was narrow. One foot to the right, and we’d run ground on the rocks, beached like a ship in sand. One foot to the left, and we’d end up with burning tree carcasses under us in the middle of a firestorm in a vehicle full of gasoline. We’d basically become a bomb.

He turned around on the seat, facing backward.

“Ten degrees right!” And then, the hacking coughing began.

I remembered that sixty feet to the right was a clearing where I could turn around.

But when we got to it, it was gone. In flames. I kept the truck in reverse while the guy was hacking and yelling about how many degrees to turn the wheel.

Three minutes of this—driving backward, blind—was a very long time. Both sides of the dirt road were engulfed, and we had no choice.

“Hard left.” He started to really hack then, the kind of cough that’s deep and hurts. I’d been there before. He needed to be treated right now—smoke inhalation could kill you in mere hours or days later.

The truck swung in an arc, tires scrabbling on gravel. “Stop,” he said before another wave of coughing racked his frame. Turning the wheel in the opposite direction, the smoke parted briefly, and the dirt road grew visible in front of me like a mirage. The difference was that I knew it was real.

I gunned it. Fire can take down a tree in seconds. It can travel six miles an hour in its own wind tunnel. I went roaring out of there, the rearview mirror spiking with reflections of flaming orange and yellow lights, trees falling and cascading down, carrying more with them, and the sound, that terrible roaring, growing fainter by the minute.

He was coughing badly, gasping between breaths.

I radioed in, and my warden told me to go directly to the hospital down in Littleton. It was a two-hour drive.

At least. I had to treat the guy.

The truck was so loud on the dirt access road, and we were bouncing around, so I had to yell. “Are you conscious?”

The guy held up a hand and continued coughing. The whole inside of the cabin reeked of acrid smoke. The fire was a good two, then three, four miles behind us, but I didn’t let up on the gas. Rocks and gravel spurted from the tires. I needed to get as much space between us and that orange, ravenous beast as possible.

“I have approval to take you to the hospital. What unit are you with?”