Page 51 of Love Again

For the second time in ten minutes, I felt my heart starting to sink. Maybe this was the end of our conversation. But then she looked at me and gestured, “And you?”

I leaned over the bed, resting a hand on either side of her. “Probably the same reason you did.”

The first time she surprised me was when the helmet came off. The second time she surprised me was when she quickly reached up to put a hand at the base of my neck and pulled me down for the sweetest, purest kiss I’ve ever received.

I would have ravaged her right then and there. I would have found some way to make that hospital bed work. I was suddenly so overcome with her—the sunlight on her skin, her minty breath, her eyes so beautifully green, the blackness of her hair, the darkness of her eyebrows, the hollows of her clavicles. She was so fucking hot in her hospital garb.

I wanted to feel her beneath me.

That was it. I knew I was a goner.

I knew that I would marry her. I think I knew it the moment the helmet came off.

What I didn’t know was that quiver of fear I saw in her eyes had nothing to do with wildfires.

A week later, she told me she knew the moment she saw me—as soon as she climbed in the truck—that we were going to be together.

The fear came from the fact she had never felt that way before. She had never even slept with a man before. She was afraid of losing herself.

The next time I saw her was standing next to that red Corolla.

΅

She shifts her head on my chest. We have ten more minutes before we absolutely have to go meet the fire warden. When she moves, the rebel hair is loose again, and I tuck it into place once more.

“You know why I fell so in love with you so fast?” Her voice is small, and I feel her cheek move as she speaks.

I sigh and kiss the top of her head before she goes on.

“You were so sure of yourself. You stormed that road, flung the door open, drove that truck backward like you just knew what you were doing. You were a machine.”

I shift her head off my chest and start to move to get dressed again.

How can I tell her I’m different now? I’m not sure of much anymore.

The truth is, I don’t trust myself.

All I trust is us.

Chapter Thirteen

Devon

When I woke up in the hospital the day we met, Luke was slumped in a chair, asleep. My throat, raw from coughing, was not nearly as sore as my ribs. I felt as though I had been beaten from the inside with a sharp two-by-four. Any movement proved too much. But none of that really mattered because the man who had saved me was out cold in a plastic chair a few feet from my bed.

I tried to think back to what had happened. My chute, caught in an updraft, left me dangling fifteen feet above the ground, suspended in a tangle of branches. As I drew my knife and twisted in my harness, reaching to cut myself free, the branches caught fire, and I ducked as first one line disintegrated and then the others. In a series of quick releases, gravity did its job. I tucked and rolled away from the trees, falling branches, and flames, and scurried toward some rocks.

There was one strip of land, an access road that wasn’t enveloped yet. Otherwise, I was surrounded by fire. Twisting, burning, roaring fire.

And then this truck barrels in from nowhere, the passenger door flies open, and the driver is batting embers off me when I duck inside.

That trip out, the way Luke drove without looking—through touch, through memory—was surreal.

We’re trained to be calm in the most hellish environments and brutal situations, but I was hacking up a lung. I couldn’t control it. And I was starting to panic.

But this Luke Walker, with his calm voice and steady hands, pulled me gently out of my bunker coat and pants, helped me when I needed help, and never made me feel stupid or weak. His touch was light but firm. Consistent. And when he held my head and oxygen filled my poor lungs, it felt as if he had reached into my chest and cleared them himself.

He cleaned the mask, over and over again, matter-of-factly. And the last part of the drive, after the gasoline stop, I was nearly asleep. I could barely keep my eyes open. He had tucked a utility blanket over my legs and around my waist.