used to coddling the women in his life but it felt startlingly refreshing not to have it expected of him, even if he still wanted to tuck her away somewhere, safe and sound, and far away from this fire. “All right. We’re in trouble.”
Her gaze somber but calm, she nodded. “Tell me.”
She could have no idea how amazing it was not to have to be careful with her. She wasn’t fragile; hell, she was stronger than he was. He gestured with his head southward, down the hill toward the direction of town. “That’s where we should be concentrating our efforts. To save the village from the flames.”
“Right. But…”
“But the fire is racing uphill, as it always will, toward the wild, open wilderness. We need to get ahead of it. But we don’t have enough men or resources to divide our efforts.”
Lyndie drew in a shaky, shuddery breath. “Yeah. We’re in trouble—hey.” She cocked her head. “Hear that?”
He did. Running water. Wishing for a little luck had seemed too much to hope for, especially since he had no luck left and hadn’t for some time, but he heard what he heard. “Come on.”
“Coming on.”
Her echoing words had been uttered innocently enough, but for some reason his mind played with them, turning them into something else. Coming on. Coming… He had to be crazy to have any brain power left for sexual thoughts, especially given that he’d not felt anything in that department for a year, but when he looked at her, she looked at him right back.
Unwavering, direct.
He was so not prepared for that. For her.
“The rio, ” she said. “It’s low right now—”
“It’s still music to my ears.” He scrambled through the bush, with her right behind him, until they came to it. It was definitely a river, low-running, yes, but falling north to south from the peak above, running parallel to where they stood, then eventually falling again, down another rocky cliff, to the ranches and town below. “My God…”
“What?”
“A natural firebreak.” He let out a rare smile before adding some of the coordinates on his GPS. “So. We’ve got a river bisecting a canyon, and a hard rock hill above us, both of which are good, very good.” He slipped his unit back into his pocket and wriggled his fingers. “We’re going to cross. Give me your hand.”
“Why?”
“So I can help you.”
She laughed. “I can manage.”
No doubt she could, so he lifted his hands in surrender and let her pick her way unaided over the rocks and branches through the water.
He’d known what he was going to be doing today, and he’d dressed appropriately in boots. Lyndie hadn’t. She’d counted on flying him in, and then leaving again, hence the tennis shoes, which hadn’t been too much of a problem until now, as they began some serious climbing. Another concern he’d had all along…her blouse, the sleeves of which she’d shoved up past her elbows. He’d asked her twice to pull down her sleeves, but she hadn’t. He stopped. “We’re not going on until you pull down your sleeves and put on the gloves Sergio gave you. I have an extra shirt, too—”
She shot him one of her patented quelling looks, one he was quite sure sent everyone in her path shaking in their boots. But he had far too many other things going on to allow her to scare him.
Hell, his very life at the moment was terrifying enough. “Just do it, Lyndie.”
She tipped her head up to the sky, sighed, then looked at him again. “You always so bossy?”
He thought about that. “Yes.”
She studied him for a long time, then lowered her sleeves. “I am, too.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah. So watch it.”
He would. He watched it and her as they continued to hike along the perimeter of the fire, with him occasionally making notes, sometimes coming close enough to the flames to feel the heat of it on their exposed skin, sometimes able to stay so far back it was hard to believe the mountainside was burning at all. They had no trail
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