thunder had passed.
She was alive. Still alive.
She reached out, laid a hand on her shelter. Still hot to the touch, she thought. But she could wait. She could be patient.
And if she lived, he’d damn well better live, too.
“Rowan.”
Tears smarted her already stinging eyes at his voice, rough and ragged. “Still here.”
“How’s it going there?”
“Five-by-five. You?”
“The same. It’s cooling down a little.”
“Don’t get out yet, rook.”
“I know the drill. I’m calling base. Anything you want me to pass on?”
“Have L.B. tell my dad I’m A-OK. I don’t know about Cards. There was blood. They need to look for him. And for Matt.”
She closed her eyes again, let herself drift, passing the next hour thinking of swimming in a moonlit lagoon, drinking straight from a garden hose, making snow angels—naked snow angels, with Gull.
“Cards made it back,” he called out. “They had to medevac him. He lost a lot of blood.”
“He’s alive.”
Alone in her shelter, she allowed herself tears.
When her shelter cooled to the touch, she called to Gull. “Coming out.”
She eased her head out into the smoky air, looked over at Gull. She imagined they both looked like a couple of sweaty, parboiled turtles climbing out of their shells.
“Hello, gorgeous.”
She laughed. It hurt her throat, but she laughed. “Hey, handsome.”
They crawled to each other over the blackened, ash-covered ground. She found his lips with hers, her belly quivering with a wrecked combination of laughter and tears.
“I was going to be so pissed off at you if you died.”
“Glad we avoided that.” He touched her face. “Heck of a ride.”
“Oh, yeah.” She lowered her forehead to his. “He might still be alive.”
“I know. We’d better figure out where we are, then we’ll worry about where he is.”
She took out her compass, checking their bearings as she drank what water she had left in her bottle. “If we head east, we’ll backtrack over some of the area, plus it’s the best course for the camp. We need water.”
“I’ll call it in.”
Though her legs still weren’t steady, Rowan got to her feet to examine the shelters.
“Inner skin’s melted,” she told Gull. “We hit over sixteen hundred degrees. I’d say we topped a good one- eighty inside.”
“My candy bar’s melted, and that’s a crying shame.” He reached for her hand. “Want to take a walk in the woods?”
“Love to.”
They walked through the black with ash still swirling. Training outweighed exhaustion, and had them smothering smoldering spots.
“You came for me.”
Gull glanced up. “Sure I did. You’d have done the same.”
“I would have. But I thought I was dead—not going down easy, but dead all the same. And you came for me. It counts. A lot.”
“Is there a scoreboard? Am I winning?”
“Gull.” She didn’t laugh this time, not when everything she felt rose up in her raw throat. “I need to tell you —” She broke off, grabbed his arm. “I heard something.” She closed her eyes, concentrated. Pointed.
She looked in his eyes again. Toward or away? He nodded, and they moved toward the sound.
They found him, curled behind a huddle of rocks. They’d protected him a little. But not nearly enough.
His eyes, filled with blood, stared up from his ruined face. She thought of her dream of Jim, of his brother. The fire had turned them into mirror images.
He moaned again, tried to speak. His body shook violently as his breath came in rapid pants. Raw, blistered burns scored the left side of his body, the most exposed, where the fire had scorched the protective clothing away.
He’d nearly made it out, Rowan noted. Another fifty yards, and he might’ve been clear. Had he thought he could make it, left his life to fate rather than shake out his shelter?
Gull handed her the radio. “Call it in,” he told her, then crouched. He took one of Matt’s ruined hands carefully in his.
He had that in him, Rowan thought. He had that compassion for a man suffering toward death, even though the man was a murderer.
“Base, this is Swede. We found Matt.”
His eyes tracked to hers when she said his name. Could he still think? she wondered. Could he still reason?
For an instant she saw sorrow in them. Then they fixed as the panting breaths cut off.
“He didn’t make it,” she said, steady as she handed the radio back to Gull.
Steady until she sat on the ground beside a man who’d been a friend, and wept for him.
She wanted to stay and fight, termed it a matter of pride and honor to be in on the kill. She rehydrated, refueled, replaced lost and damaged equipment. Then complained all the way when ordered to copter out.
“We’re not injured,” she pointed out.
“You sound like a frog,” Gull observed as he took his seat in the chopper. “A sexy one, but a frog.”
“So we ate some smoke. So what?”
“You lost most of your eyebrows.”
Stunned, she pressed her fingers above her eyes. “Shit! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s a look. They’ve got it on the run,” he added, scanning down as they lifted off.
“That’s the
“Don’t worry, babe.” He reached over to pat her knee. “There’ll be other fires that try to kill us.”
“Don’t try to smooth it over. L.B.’s letting the cops push us around. What the hell difference does it make when we give them a statement? Matt’s dead.” She turned her face, stared out at the sky. “I guess most of him, the best of him, died last year when Jim did. You held his hand so he didn’t die alone.”
Though Gull said nothing, she clearly felt his discomfort so turned to him again. “That counts a lot, too. You’re really racking them up today.”
“People have a choice when life takes a slice out of them. He made the wrong one. A lot of wrong ones.”
“You didn’t. We didn’t,” Rowan corrected. “Good for us.”
“Don’t cry anymore. It kills me.”
“My eyes are watering, that’s all. From all the smoke.”
He figured it couldn’t hurt for both of them to pretend that was it. But he took her hand. “I want a beer. I want a giant, ice-cold bottle of beer. And shower sex.”
The idea made her smile. “I want eyebrows.”
“Well, you’re not getting mine.” He tipped his head back, closed his eyes.
She watched out the window, the roll of land, the rise of mountain. Home—she was going home. But the meaning had changed, deepened. Time to man up and tell him.
“I need to say some things to you,” she began. “I don’t know how you’re going to feel about it, but it is what it is. So...”
She shifted back, narrowed her eyes.
No point baring her soul to a man who was sound asleep.
