Page 78 of Burnin' For You

Never did that feel more true than when she’d heard Reuben’s voice, yelling her name.

She’d tried to yell back, but her voice died, stymied by the depth of the crevasse.

For a long, painful stretch of minutes, she thought she’d dreamed his voice.

And then, a feral, raw, gut-wrenching yell had echoed through the air, down through the ravine, and she knew.

The poor man thought she’d perished, the fire turning her to a corpse. And the pain in his howl had made her summon herself and shout his name with everything she had.

Twice.

And when he found her, the look on his face—so much disbelief, so much relief—turned her weak with the strength of it.

Not to mention the way he muscled her free, nearly yanking her into his arms.

And then his embrace—holding her so tightly, his entire body trembled. Or maybe that was her, she didn’t know, but he just kept saying that she was okay. She’d be okay.

Words, she suspected, that were for him, too. Because when he’d looked her over for injury, she read it on his face.

He’d been weeping. Furrows cutting through the grime on his face, so blatant it made her own eyes well up.

This amazing man looked at her then, his heart in his eyes, and it was all she could do to say his name.

Until he kissed her.

And then she had no words for the way he pulled her to himself, claimed her mouth, as if she already belonged to him, or he needed her to. She gripped his shirt, and, for that moment, became his, surrendering, kissing him back, needing him to belong to her, too.

She loved the feel of his hands in her hair, tangled there, and the way his breath shuddered out when he released her, as if she’d stoked a fire in him.

He’d certainly stirred something in her. Longing, and more.

She couldn’t call it love—not yet. Desire. Hope. A well of affection that went deeper than she could look. Because if she peered into it, she just might find that she could lose herself to this man. Could sink into his arms and simply stay there. Safe. Protected.

Loved.

She’d closed her eyes, buried her face in his shoulder.

“Are you okay back there?” He’d found a logging trail, was following it west. “I think we’ll hit the road in about a half mile. And then we’ll start walking toward Yaak. Conner should be able to find us.”

She didn’t want to ask about Patrick or Brownie.

She had no doubt that Reuben had already tumbled them through his mind. And if they got near her—them—well, she might see the other side of Reuben, the one who rode bulls and carried around a chain saw, the one who had let out the feral cry that could shatter her bones.

She loved that she knew both sides of him, the tough sawyer and the generous, kind, sweet man who had cried for her.

Except that same man was her, um,teammate. A guy she had to work with, a man who had to let her do her very dangerous job of bombing fires.

The last thing she needed was him deciding that he didn’t want his—what, girlfriend?—in danger. Yeah, Jed and Kate made it work, but they’d had their own identical set of troubles. Jed, not wanting Kate to die. Kate, being a fantastic smokejumper despite making the choice to go part-time.

This could get complicated, what with Reuben’s off-the-charts overprotective gene.

Except the summer was nearly over, wasn’t it? And then came a long, uneventful winter for them to sort it out.

Until then, Gilly would have to convince him to keep this—whatever it was between them—on a low simmer.

She was about to mention it when they emerged onto the road.

And, as if he knew exactly where they might be, there sat Conner, sitting in the cab of his truck, listening to his handheld ham radio.