Page 91 of Smoke and Roses

“I love you,” I say again. “I love you, Travis Raines. I love you so much it scares me.”

His eyes are steady on mine. “I love you too,” he says.

Just like that. Plain and quiet, in the back of a fire truck with soot on his face.

He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles.

“And I’m going to say it again properly. In daylight. Where I can see your face. Not in the back of Brush 1 with Rob listening to every damn word.” His eyes crinkle. “I’ve been waiting thirty-six years to say it to anybody. I’m going to do it right.”

From the front seat, Rob clears his throat.

“Didn’t hear a thing.”

“Bullshit,” Travis says.

“Not one word. Radio’s been real loud.”

I laugh, and this time I manage not to cough.

I’d kiss Travis, but I’m wearing the mask, and he’s got enough soot on his face to turn me into a raccoon too.

He puts his arm around me and pulls me against his side. I rest my head on his shoulder, and he keeps one hand wrapped around mine while Rob talks quietly to Caleb over the radio.

Every few minutes, Travis asks how I’m breathing. He watches the smoke outside, checks on Rob, and listens when Caleb gives them an update. He’s still doing his job, even with me tucked against him.

I don’t know how long we sit there.

Long enough for the worst of the shaking in my hands to stop. Long enough for the air inside the cab to feel a little better. Long enough for the smoke outside to thin until I can see the stone house again, standing in the middle of all that black.

Rob looks over his shoulder.

“Visibility’s coming back. Command says the north access is clear enough to move. Medical’s waiting.”

Travis looks down at me. “Ready to get out of here?”

“More than ready.”

He kisses the top of my head.

Rob keeps one hand on the gearshift and waits for Command to clear the road.

And after a while, the roaring stops.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“Brush 1, Command,” Caleb says over my radio. “Wind’s back around to the southwest. Smoke’s clearing off the homestead. Head of the fire’s knocked down at the barns. Weber’s got the right flank. You have a clear route to Engine 1.”

“Copy, Command.”

Lindsey lifts her head off my shoulder. She’s been quiet for the last ten minutes, and although she’s still coughing occasionally, her breathing has settled enough that she’s stopped frightening the hell out of me every time she takes a breath.

“The barn?” she asks.

“Let’s go look.”

Rob puts Brush 1 in gear and starts across the black, taking it slow because the ground is still smoking in places, and we can’t see where the edge of the road drops into the ravine. The smoke is lifting off the meadow, and now I can see the old stone house behind us and the barns to the south.

The stone house is standing exactly where it has for a hundred and forty years, surrounded by black ground and smoking fence posts. Off to the east, the smoke is a brown smear rolling away over the hills toward Powder Mountain.