Page 71 of Burnin' For You

Reuben shook his hand, nodded to Darcy. “Thanks, man. Reuben Marshall.” He stepped back out onto the balcony, cupped his hand over his eyes.

It seemed the blaze near Pete Creek had doubled since he’d first noticed it, but that might just be his darkest fears alighting inside him. Still, the flames shot above the trees as the fire gathered strength, burning bright orange. Black smoke boiled up from the middle.

“That’s quite a fire.”

Jim held binoculars to his eyes.

Reuben barely refrained from ripping them from his hands. “Do you—could I—?”

Jim handed them over, and Reuben scanned the forest for any sign of Gilly’s roost.

He located Pete Creek, then followed the creek through the trees, down toward the road, back into the forest.

No—oh—

As his eyes traveled downstream, the smoke thickened, a storm of flame washing over the cliff’s edge.

Right where he’d left Gilly.

Reuben’s throat tightened, a fist clamped around his heart. Especially when he spotted his rappel rope dangling down the edge.

As he watched, flames crawled out from the forest, chewing at the rope, running a smoky finger down the nylon.

Then the fire burst out of the forest, candling the trees, consuming brush, trees, moss, loam—

Gilly.

He was shaking.

“You said your girlfriend was down there?”

Reuben could barely nod.

“Need a lift to the road?”

If she died on this cliff, Reuben would never forgive himself. That much Gilly knew as she dragged herself to the edge.

The minute she’d woke to the smell of smoke, the fingers of gray drifting through the trees warning her of the advancing flames, she’d pushed herself to her feet.

Listened hard. She could hear it, the crackle and pop of sparks, the sizzle of bushes alighting, and behind it all, the roar of the wall of flames building speed as they consumed the forest.

She’d stepped out then and crumpled right there on the forest floor, her face in the dirt. Her cries echoed against the increasing roar.

She didn’t know fires as well as Reuben or any of the other team members, but it didn’t take an expert to figure out that she needed to move to safety, and fast.

For a long moment, she considered using the fire shelter, kicking it out, rolling into it. But without gloves, without fire protection, without the ability to hold the shelter down with her legs—and that meant her destroyed knee, too—she hadn’t a chance.

She’d discarded the shelter and started to army crawl to the cliff, the smoke thick, tufting the air, turning the world to a war zone.

The roaring had turned to a locomotive thundering behind her. She’d glanced back, saw flames flickering around blackening poplars and birch, turning pine trees to bushy torches a hundred feet in her wake, bright through the smoke.

She’d gotten up on her feet, duck crawled, then pushed to a stand, moaning as the pain rocketed up her leg. She lunged from one tree to the next, tumbling out, finally, to the cliff’s edge.

The rope dangled where Reuben had used it to rappel, and she lay on her stomach, looking down.

Fifty feet, and most of it just air, nothing to grab onto should she lose her grip.

Worse, she didn’t have a clue where the harness might be. Or gloves. Or—