would have ignored her needs, her pain, no matter how busy he’d been. He wasn’t that kind of man.
She raised her hand to her throat. Of course Cade would have come back, and he would have mourned with her, grieved with her, stayed with her, just as he’d helped her over the mountain.
A sense of foreboding slugged through her chest. Oh, God. What had she done?
Her nerves trembling, she snatched up the leash and squeezed through the crack in the rocks, pulling Dusty behind her. Once outside, she stopped and blinked in the startling brightness.
She raised her hand to shade her eyes and glanced around, stunned by the devastation. The fire had decimated the mountain, turning the once-green landscape into blackened wreckage. Smoke still simmered over the scorched earth, wafting and swirling through ashes. Charred trees bent at odd angles, like twisted silhouettes clawing the sky. Here and there, lingering flames crackled through burnt stumps and spewed out dying embers.
She breathed in the acrid stench, coughed, and blinked again. The sunshine seemed too bright in the ruined landscape, too stark. As if it were stripping away her pretenses and exposing the truth, revealing her insecurities and fears.
Her guilt.
Her breathing ragged, she scanned the hillside for Cade. She spotted him several yards away atop a charred knoll, staring down the mountain. His back was straight, his shoulders stiff, warning off any approach.
Or maybe he was grieving for the child he’d never known.
An awful tightness wrenched her throat, and she knew that she had to reach him. “Cade,” she said.
His shoulder jerked as if she’d struck him, and then he slowly turned to face her. His face was tight, his mouth flat, his eyes so distant she shivered. Anxiety climbed up her throat.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have assumed you wouldn’t come back. That wasn’t fair to you. And I should have told you about the baby.”
For several heartbeats, he didn’t speak. His gaze stayed on hers, frank and cold, as if he were weighing her words, measuring her sincerity. Her hopes plummeted even more.
Finally, he tilted his head. “You didn’t want me to come back, did you?”
“What?” Shock tightened her voice. “Of course I wanted you back. How can you even think that?”
He slowly shook his head, his eyes hard. “No, you were looking for an excuse to leave.”
Denials rose in her throat, along with a spurt of panic. “You’re wrong. I felt abandoned without you. I hated being alone.” And she’d dreaded a lifetime spent waiting.
“Then why didn’t you call?”
“I-” A sliver of doubt crept through her mind. Why hadn’t she called him? How had she misjudged his character so badly? Hadn’t she known her husband at all?
Dread piled in as she considered the implications and fought the conclusion sickening her gut. And then suddenly, she couldn’t avoid it any longer. The truth crashed into her mind.
Stricken, she sucked in her breath. “Oh, God. You’re right.” At least in a way. “I wanted you back, but only under my terms.” To fulfill her needs, her insecurities.
But he hadn’t played into that. He’d treated her like a woman, not a child. He’d expected her to cope when he was gone.
And she couldn’t handle that. She’d acted out the needs of her childhood, thrusting him into a role he didn’t deserve. Punishing him for the faults of her father. Ignoring the person he was.
And then when he didn’t play her game, she’d seized the excuse to flee.
And in the process, she’d destroyed something special, something unique, something she’d never find again. She’d taken the gift of this man’s love and tossed it away.
Their eyes stayed locked, and sick dread lurched through her gut. Her heart wrenched with remorse; her face burned with guilt and chagrin. She wanted to weep with the awful realization of how unfairly she’d acted and how badly she’d hurt this man.
She couldn’t excuse what she’d done and had no way left to fix it.
The reverberations of the helicopter broke the tense silence. They grew louder, filling the air with a whomping sound. The dog jerked against the leash, and she tightened her grip to hold him.
Then a shadow crossed overhead, and the ashes swirled by her feet. The helicopter hovered just beyond the cave, then headed for the clearing.
“It’s over,” Cade said, his face devoid of expression. “Let’s go.”
Whether he meant their ordeal or their relationship didn’t matter. Both were finished.
Feeling completely battered inside, she picked up the dog and followed Cade through the ashes to catch their ride.
Chapter 16
“He’s gone?” Jordan gaped at the nurse sitting behind the emergency room desk. “But he can’t be, not with his bad shoulder. A tree crushed him. My God, his head, his ribs, he-”
“Honey, I’m not the doctor. I don’t decide what the patients can do.” The nurse leaned back and crossed her arms over her flowered scrubs.
“I know, but he-” Jordan clamped down hard on her lip, knowing it was pointless to argue. This nurse couldn’t control where Cade spent the night.
But she had to see him, talk to him. She twisted her bandaged hands, her sense of urgency rising. She couldn’t let their trip end this way.
Even if that was what Cade intended.
He obviously didn’t want to see her. He’d ignored her on the flight to Missoula, looking more remote than when their journey had started. And once they’d landed at the hospital, he’d handed the dog over to his smokejumping friend, Trey Campbell, and let the nurses lead him away.
He hadn’t looked back, hadn’t asked to see her again. And now he’d left the hospital without even saying goodbye.
Or had he?
She thought back to those final moments on the mountain, to his hurt over her deception. To the bitterness in his blazing blue eyes. And she realized that he had said goodbye. She just hadn’t wanted to hear it.
But she couldn’t let it end like this. Panic surged and then engulfed her, like a wildfire searing her chest. She needed to find him, plead with him.
Tell him she still loved him.
But arguing with this nurse wouldn’t help. She sucked in a steadying breath. “Look, I’m sorry. I just really need to see him. Could you at least tell me his address? I think he has an apartment nearby.”
“Sorry, we’re not allowed to give out that information.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. He’s my ex-husband. We-”
“There’s a telephone book in the lobby. You’re welcome to look in that.”
“But what if he’s not listed? He might only have a cell phone.”
“Sorry.” The nurse returned her gaze to her computer screen.
Knowing it was futile to argue, Jordan curbed her frustration and stepped back. She could head to the smokejumper base and ask, but they weren’t open at night. And they might refuse to tell her, too.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
Jordan turned. A nurse pushing a gurney paused by the desk, waiting for her to move.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Her face warming, she steadied her crutches and moved aside. She couldn’t take up these people’s time when others had more serious problems.
She’d been lucky on that mountain. Aside from a mildly sprained ankle and a few lost pounds, she’d survived the ordeal intact. And after giving her a tetanus booster, antibiotics and an IV to replace lost fluids, the doctor had allowed her to leave. All she needed now was a hot shower and a few days of rest to bring her body back to normal.
If she could only do the same for her heart.
The nurse wheeled the gurney past, and she caught a glimpse of the young man on it. He looked pale against
