Firewolf

She beamed at him.

“We have to go,” he said.

“But you called for help. They might be here soon.”

If they could get through the fire wall and if the ones who came were here to help them, he would stay. But there was too much risk. Rescue might be hours, even days, away, and the ones who had started this fire might reach them first.

“You can stay. I’m walking out.” He turned and headed in the direction of the ridgeline, some two miles away.

“What? Wait up.” She trotted along with him over the smoking ground. “Wow. It’s really hot. I can feel it right through the soles of my sandals.”

He stopped and debated. If he was wrong and she was not involved, they might kill her. If he was right and he brought her along, then she could report back to them everything he said and did.

“What?” she asked, those bright golden-brown eyes seeming as honest as a child’s.

“I think you should stay. Wait for your father. If I see anyone, I’ll send them to you.”

She twisted a diamond ring from her finger and held it out to him. “Take me with you.”

He looked at the tiny circle of silver. “I don’t wear silver.”

“It’s platinum.”

“It’s a bribe.” She was used to buying what she wanted. He could see that. Buying her way out of what she could and letting Daddy clean up the rest. Had Daddy gotten tired of wiping up after her?

“Why not wait here?” she asked.

Tell her the truth, a partial truth or a lie? He looked down at her and lifted a hand to brush the soot from her cheek. The touch of her skin made his insides twitch as the longing rose again.

“Because I think the men who did this are close, and I think they want you or me dead.”

Chapter Six (#u14c721b8-bff3-5fae-b9ac-a24d6df9f612)

Meadow gaped, uncharacteristically finding herself rendered speechless. She had been around long enough to spot paranoia when she saw it. The guy said he’d been in Iraq. Maybe he had a screw or two loose.

Play along, she decided.

“What men? And why would they want us dead?”

“I don’t know the answers to those questions. I do know that you and I being here exactly when that explosion went off is something more than coincidence.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

Her savior did not answer. Instead, he gave her a long, uneasy look and turned away.

“Keep the shirt,” he said. Then he lifted his camel pack and shrugged it onto his wide shoulders and started walking. With him went all the water they had.

“Hey, wait.” She trotted to catch him, wishing her sandals were less cute and more practical. Wearing a wedge that showed her slim calves to best advantage seemed unnecessary when her legs were streaked with soot and covered with grit and sand. She caught him and grabbed at his arm, her hand covered with the long sleeve of his shirt. “Do you know how crazy you sound?”

He kept walking toward the road and the twisted remains of a bit of the blackened skeletal metal infrastructure that survived the blast. She let her gaze travel over the place where the eighteen-million-dollar home had been. She had not seen the explosion. The flash had been so bright and the earth had been shaking. He was right. It had been an explosion. What had caused the blast?

He was a firefighter, and even he had admitted that a gas tank could be the cause. But, as she looked at the ridgeline that she had been filming on and off for months, she realized the size of the demolition. It could not have been caused by a small propane tank or reserve tank for gas. She knew it in her heart.

Which meant someone had gone up there with explosives and set charges and pushed some kind of detonator and let the fires and rock spray down on the pine trees in the driest, hottest month of the year.

“Who would do this?”

He looked back. “You believe me now?”

She nodded. “It’s just too big. I need to look at the footage. Maybe I can see something.”

“I’d imagine the FBI will want to see that footage, as well.”

“It’s up on my feed. Anyone could have seen it live. But the entire thing, it’s only recorded on this.” She lifted the camera. “And on my server.”

“Can’t the social media sites recall it?”

“I don’t know.”

He started walking again.

She spotted a phone sticking out of his back pocket and jogged to come even with him again.

“You have a phone,” she said, pointing at his pocket.

“No service,” he said without slowing.

“You think you’ll have service up there?” She pointed to the ridge.

“Maybe. I know Rustkin’s got a well. Only water within ten miles. The fire started there and moved with the wind. Top of the ridge and the far side will be untouched.”

She looked at the climb ahead of them. Meadow already felt dizzy, and the prospect of the hike made her stomach twist. Maybe she should wait for help. A glance back showed the billowing smoke off to the east. How long until anyone could drive out here. The road they were on dead-ended at the mansion that had once occupied the ridge. Emergency and Fire would concentrate on the threatened town of Pine View and the larger community of Valley View, which lay between the fire and Flagstaff. But her father. He’d come for her. He knew where she was.

When she glanced back to Dylan, it was to find him another two hundred feet along the road. The man was quick as a jackrabbit.

She stretched her legs and walked. By the time she drew even with him, her mouth felt like cotton.

“I need some water.”

“No.”

Now that was a word she didn’t hear very often.

“Are you crazy? I’m thirsty.”

“We don’t have much left. We need to make it up there first. Then, if I find the well, you can have a drink.”

She stomped her foot, raising dust and his brow.