Getting Married Again

What a joke. You needed equipment to fight fires—reliable equipment that wasn’t salvaged from some war fought fifty or more years ago—and well-trained, well-conditioned men. His Russian team was shaping up, but they had little experience. The men worked sluggishly on the mountainside in the one-hundred-and-ten-degree heat of the fire. They fought without the fire-resistant protective gear that Jackson had taken for granted in the States. As for equipment, in this area of Siberia it included garden-variety shovels, a relic of an airplane that was supposed to be used to drop retardant on the fire—except that after months of fighting wildland fires there was no fire retardant left—and an antique fire truck with only two working gears, reverse and first—not much use in the mountains.

When Jackson had arrived in Russia and realized the limited experience and resources of the men he’d been assigned to, he’d laughed. A smart man would have filed a report with the government agency that sent him over and taken the first plane back to the States.

But then, most smart men didn’t have a freshly signed divorce agreement tucked in their passport.

Jackson had nearly ten years’ experience as a Hot Shot, one of an elite group of government firefighters trained to battle the hottest part of wildland fires. Hell, Jackson figured, he’d be able to teach his ragtag crew a thing or two about fighting forest fires. They had shovels, didn’t they?

So he’d stayed, not yet ready to return home and smile at his Hot Shot buddies and hide the fact that his wife had blindsided him with a divorce, or fess up that he hadn’t been able to sweet-talk his way back into their bed. That last night he spent in Silver Bend, Idaho, he’d told his best friend, Logan McCall, that he wouldn’t have to sleep on Logan’s couch again because his wife, Lexie, had called and wanted to meet him for dinner.

When Jackson met Lexie at that Boise restaurant more than six months ago, he’d been stupidly sure of himself—even after he’d signed the divorce papers and finessed Lexie into a motel room in Boise, convinced they’d rip the papers to shreds come morning. He was so confident they’d reconcile, he’d been thinking about how he’d brag to his buddies about Lexie’s hot temper and how that made making up that much hotter—while she was putting her clothes back on and walking out on him for good.

“This was breakup sex. Nothing more,” Lexie had pronounced, her eyes brimming with tears, the divorce papers clutched in one hand and the motel room door handle gripped in the other. “I didn’t believe those empty promises of yours at dinner. I just had to…” Lexie paused, swallowed, blinked rapidly. “It was breakup sex,” she reaffirmed before disappearing out of his life.

Now, Jackson wondered why Lexie had slept with him that night and why she’d been so upset about it afterwards. He remembered the first time he’d asked her out in high school. He’d given her some smooth line. He couldn’t even remember now what it’d been. She’d laughed at him—after he’d spent weeks working up the nerve to ask her out—and told him he was full of hot air. She’d gone out with him anyway…after he’d asked her out three more times.

There was a joke. Soon, he’d be nothing but hot air, his body incinerated and smoldering. Lexie would cry for him when she found out, because she had a heart that was big enough to mourn an idiot like Jackson, even after she’d kicked him out of her life. It’d be harder on his little girl, Heidi. But Heidi had Lexie, and Lexie would support their daughter and love her no matter what. Heidi could count on Lexie.

According to Lex, Heidi couldn’t count on him.

The idea that his family would go on without him held no comfort. Jackson swayed on the mountainside, suddenly feeling every ounce of the forty-plus pounds of gear he carried, as he realized how dispensable he was to Lexie and Heidi. He’d become just a voice on the other end of the telephone line, a house payment, medical coverage. He wanted his family back. Not that he was in a position to get them back now, caught between two fires halfway around the world. He didn’t even have a way to call them and hear their voices one last time, to tell them how much they meant to him.

He’d been in tough spots before, but he’d always made it out. His Hot Shot crew back home nicknamed him Golden because they could always rely on him to get them out of sticky situations. Now he realized the reason he believed he’d make it was that Lexie had always been waiting for him.

She wasn’t waiting for him anymore.

With his right hand, Jackson reached into his pocket and fingered the small medal Lexie had given him years ago. It was his good luck charm. No. That was wrong. Lexie was his good luck charm. Things just weren’t the same without her in his life.

“Damn it,” Jackson muttered, as the fire above him roared a challenge—fight or die. Time for him to stop moping and realize he needed to battle for the only woman he’d ever loved. He couldn’t die now. Somehow, he’d screwed up his life, but he wouldn’t go like this. He wouldn’t leave Lexie and Heidi without trying to be a good husband and dad one more time. He’d figure out where he went wrong later, after he found a way out of the firestorm closing in on them.

Scowling, Jackson watched his team of trainees futilely attempt to complete the fire line he’d abandoned the moment he’d seen the fire peak the ridge. But with no chopper rescue possible, and no planes to drop a load of water to form an escape route, they were as good as crispy.

They needed a miracle.

Or a man who had to make it back home.

CHAPTER ONE

“WELCOME TO SILVER BEND, Idaho, Population 770.”

“Off by one,” Jackson mumbled to himself from the driver’s seat of his idling truck. Nobody had subtracted him from the sign when Lexie divorced him seven months ago and he’d gone to Russia to join a humanitarian aid party. Facing death there had made him realize he had a lot to live for.

Strike that. He had a lot to do over. Jackson just hoped that he’d be able to figure out where he went wrong, hoped Lexie would give him a second chance.

He recalled Lexie’s face when she’d handed him the divorce papers that last night he’d spent in the States. Her shuttered, pale features so different from those of the vibrant, smiling girl he’d fallen in love with in high school. All those years ago, he’d won her heart and she’d followed Jackson everywhere, from one party to the next. Twelve years later, she didn’t want to do any of the things they used to enjoy together. Toward the end, she wouldn’t even go with him to hang out at the Painted Pony, the restaurant his mother owned. Not for the first time, Jackson wondered when Lex had changed.

How was he going to win her back when she didn’t want anything to do with him?

If he turned left here, on Lone Pine Road, he’d be at his house in minutes. It was Lexie’s now. He hadn’t contested any of her requests. Why would he have? He hadn’t thought she was serious about splitting up.

Since he’d fought his way out of the Russian fire, Jackson had wanted to come home to reclaim his family. As soon as he’d been able, he’d said goodbye to his comrades and hopped on the first plane back. He should just charge up the mountain, fall on his knees, promise her anything and beg her to take his sorry ass back.

Yet, he hesitated.

Trouble was, a severe case of groveling might not be enough for Lex. He needed something meaningful to say, something to sway her. He doubted “I had the crap scared out of me in Siberia and realized I can’t live without you” would cut it.

And that’s what held him back.

Jackson reached for the paper-wrapped bundle sitting on the seat beside him and fingered the handmade wool shawl—a gift for Lexie. Breniv, one of his Siberian fire-fighting trainees, had taken Jackson aside the day before he left for home. They had stood alone on a muggy, empty side street outside of the fire station, the laundry waving from windows high above the street.

“You bring gift for woman?” the burly Russian had asked in his broken English, dark bushy brows drawn low.

Jackson, who had said nothing about Lexie to anyone, had given Breniv a cool look and a curt “No.” One of Jackson’s reasons for hanging around his Russian counterparts rather than the other Americans was to avoid personal conversation, particularly about his marital status—about the plain gold wedding band he still wore.

Breniv ignored Jackson’s off-limits demeanor. “Woman know you love, no?”

“No.” Jackson shook his head and looked out on the sturdy brick buildings along the street, reminded of the ache in his heart.

“Here, we have way of showing love,” Breniv persisted patiently, as if Jackson were a child. “You face death, you show love.”

His words caught Jackson’s attention, because that was exactly how he felt. Life was more fragile to him now. Love more precious. He wanted to be with the ones he loved.

“Yes.” Breniv spoke as if reading Jackson’s thoughts. He pressed a small packet into Jackson’s hands. “Keep woman warm, she love you back.”

Jackson carefully lifted the ends of plain folded paper, revealing a beautiful black shawl with pink roses that was made of the finest wool. Jackson had seen shawls like these in the market, had heard other American firefighters talk about the high prices of the handmade, hand-blocked shawls.

“Breniv, this is too expensive. I can’t accept it.”

But Breniv was already backing away, his expression solemn. “You save life.”

“Not all of them.” He couldn’t accept the gift. Didn’t Breniv realize Jackson had almost killed them all by taking them out to fight a forest fire when they were so ill-equipped? Fighting a fire without benefit of weather reports to predict the impact of strong winds or air support to monitor the progress of two converging fires was foolhardy at best. Fighting a fire without an escape route was plain-ass stupid.

They called Jackson a hero.

He was no hero.

While the flames had roared toward them, he’d made his team shore up two sides of a crevice carved naturally into the mountainside, not an easy task given the hard-packed forest soil. Only as the fire leapt closer did he see the look of terror in Alek’s eyes. It was the young man’s first summer fighting fire. Jackson doubted the rookie had ever seen a fire’s rage mere yards away.

They’d crammed themselves like sardines into the grave they’d made and covered themselves with Jackson’s fire shelter—a one-man tent made of silica, fiberglass and aluminum foil that reflected heat. Everyone jumped in, except Alek. The fire had passed over the men with heat so intense it blistered exposed skin.

Alek had not been so lucky.

By the time the vivid memories of crackling wood, unbearable heat and failure receded, and Jackson returned his attention to the humid street in Russia, Breniv was gone.

Now the shawl sat on the passenger seat next to Jackson as if holding a place for Lexie. The rest of the gifts he’d brought back were tucked into his backpack on the floorboard of his truck.

Who was he kidding? Gifts and groveling weren’t enough to get her back. She wanted the one thing he’d been unable to give her—another child.

Jackson pulled onto the highway and headed into Silver Bend. He needed a beer before he decided what to say to Lex. Since it wasn’t noon yet, a strong cup of coffee would have to do, and if that cup came with a bit of advice from his mom, so much the better. He could use all the help he could get.