Flaming Desire - Part 4 (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (6 page)

The man opened his mouth as if to argue, and I stepped forward, talking to the girls in a firm, sharp tone of voice. “I want each of you to form a line. Hang onto the waistline of the pants of the person in front of you. Quickly!”

The girls quickly did as they were told and the boys followed suit. With a few mutters, the adults took the rear, grumbling between themselves as they did so. I glanced at Matt. “You take the lead and I’ll bring up the rear.”

Matt immediately headed down the slope. The girls, then the boys, and then the two adults and myself followed. I quickly grew tired of listening to the mutterings and comments of the two adult men and, losing my patience, finally told them to shut up. Skinny Dude glanced back at me with a dark scowl, but I didn’t care. They were being foolish, thinking that they could outsmart a fire. They had the lives of five teenagers in their hands, and they were willing to risk them to the supposition that the water would save them?

“You have no right to talk to us like that,” Balding Guy shot back. “I’m an experienced camper, and I’m sure that—”

“You may be an experienced camper, Sir,” I said, carefully watching where I placed my feet. “But have you ever been caught in the middle of a wildfire?”

He said nothing, but quickly turned around. Still, I saw him shaking his head in disgust. “You can thank us later,” I said. “Those kids couldn’t have hung on to anything in that fast-moving water for more than a few minutes before being swept downstream.”

The other one, Skinny Dude, turned and quickly glanced at me. Like his friend, I could see the anger in his gaze. To my intense surprise, he paused and gave me a body check. Seriously? “Move on,” I said. “We can’t fall behind.”

“You’re quite bossy,” he muttered. “We weren’t in any danger up there. I think you’re taking us into a way more dangerous situation by dragging us down this valley. I’m an attorney. If anything happens to any one of us, you can count on me suing your pants off.”

I shook my head. “Get moving,” I said. “We can’t get separated.” My heart pounded, but not from the physical exertion. From annoyance. The audacity! It wasn’t as if I was expecting effusive thanks, but this attitude was unexpected. Suddenly, from up ahead, I heard one of the girls cry out. I located her just as she slipped and fell, sliding a short distance down slope. Matt quickly hurried after her.

“See, what did I tell you?” Skinny Dude snapped.

He glared at me.

“This is your fault. I’m going to sue—”

“Shut the hell up,” I snarled, quickly hurrying down the slope after Matt. The girl lay on her back, crying. The others waited at the top of the path, watching. I quickly knelt down beside the girl. Matt followed suit on the other side. “Where do you hurt?”

“My ankle!” she sobbed. “Oh my God, I’ve broken my ankle!”

I glanced at Matt as he helped her into a sitting position, and then carefully examined the girl’s foot. She wasn’t wearing hiking boots or shoes, but a pair of low cut bejeweled tennis shoes with no decent tread on the soles. I shook my head as I lifted up her pant leg, saw no blood, no bones jutting out, and no displacement. I carefully palpated the ankle joint and shook my head. “It’s not broken. You might’ve sprained it or just twisted it.”

She looked at me, eyes wide and filled with tears, her lips trembling. “It’s broken, I just know it is!”

I shook my head. “No, it isn’t. I’m a nurse. So is he. I promise you, it’s not broken.”

She looked from Matt to me, then to Matt again. To my amazement, her expression transformed from panicked to near adoration as she stared at him. What the hell? Was she actually making eyes at Matt? Why, she couldn’t be more than fourteen years old!

“Come on,” I said to Matt. “Let’s get her up on her feet, see if she can put pressure on her foot.”

“I can’t!” she cried, leaning toward Matt. “It hurts… it hurts!” She wrapped her arms around Matt’s shoulders.

If we weren’t in such a circumstance, I might’ve burst out laughing at the expression on Matt’s face. A combination of horror, dismay, and discomfort. He glanced at me over her head, but I merely gave him a look and slightly shrugged my shoulders. “Come on, young lady… what’s your name?” I asked the wailing girl.

“Beth… Bethany,” she managed.

I grasped Bethany firmly under her arms and gently pulled her away from Matt. It took all of my strength, my knees already weak and wobbly, to get her separated from him, but between the two of us, we got her standing. She tentatively placed her left, injured foot down on the ground and then immediately lifted it up, crying again.

“Oh, it hurts! It hurts!”

I looked at Matt over her head, rolled my eyes and then shrugged. “You want to wrap it?”

He shook his head. “No time.” He glanced down at Bethany and spoke to her gently. “Bethany, we’ve got to get you back to the top of the slope. One of the adults will have to give you a piggyback ride the rest of the way.”

She looked up at him with what I could only defined as googly-eyes.

“You mean you can’t carry me?” she asked, her voice a plaintive whine.

I resisted the urge to laugh, but then, I couldn’t really blame her. Matt was one handsome dude. I watched as Matt shook his head, keeping his expression blank. “One of the adults can carry you. I have to keep my hands free to use my tools if necessary.”

With no further ado, Matt and I placed one of the girl’s arms over each of our shoulders and got her back up the slope. To my not so much surprise, I caught her placing her foot down on the ground occasionally, and while it might have been slightly sprained, it wasn’t anything that was in any way dangerous.

At the top of the slope, I glanced at the Balding Guy and Skinny Dude. “Which one of you want to take the first turn giving Bethany here a piggyback ride?”

Skinny Dude frowned. “You can’t fix up a stretcher or anything for her?”

Matt was losing patience. “Bethany, your first piggyback ride is with that guy there,” he said, gesturing to the balding man.

The man nodded, turned around, and crouched down slightly so that Bethany could climb onto his back. Then Matt turned toward Skinny Dude. “In case you didn’t notice, Sir, there’s a big fire heading this way. We can’t waste time to make a stretcher. Besides, she doesn’t need one. If that fire catches up to us, we’re not going to get out of here. We’ve got three more campsites to check on our way down to the bottom of the valley. Now let’s go!”

Without another word, we set out again. The fire continued to shift downwind and down slope, and while it moved a little slower than it would have moving up slope, it was still moving fast.

Matt glanced at me as he pulled his walkie from his waistband. From where I stood, I couldn’t hear him, but he spoke fast. After a moment, he nodded, and then glanced back at me and gave me a thumbs up. I gathered that he had made contact with the base camp, notified them that we had campers, and that some sort of transport would be waiting for us along the way down the valley.

We approached the next campsite about a half-mile from the point where Bethany had slipped down the slope. As Matt and I quickly checked the area, I saw Balding Guy place Bethany gently on the ground. She stood on her own two feet while Skinny Dude moved forward to switch places with him.

It looked like Bethany didn’t really want to piggyback ride anymore, but she couldn’t very well admit that she had faked an injury. I still wasn’t sure that she had faked one, or why she would have done so in the first place—yes, I did. She wanted Matt to carry her. Still, I didn’t want to take any chances. Not because Skinny Dude had threatened to sue me, but because if the girl was injured, Matt nor I wanted to see her injury worsened.

Reluctantly, Bethany climbed onto Skinny Dude’s back, and he pitched slightly forward, mumbling under his breath. In a matter of moments, Matt and I determined that there was no one at this campsite, and hadn’t been for a while.

“Two more to go,” he said, and then set off once again.

He set a quick pace. I felt the breeze against our backs, continued to inhale smoke-filled air. Once in a while, I saw an ember floating on the breeze. Not good. I had no idea whether the Hotshot crew was still upon the slope trying to clear a break in the brush, but if this wind kept up and it swept down between the slopes into this valley, it was likely to push the fire right down the middle.

The next campsite was abandoned as well. We seemed to be making good time, but the complaints regarding our pace increased from not only the group of teens, but the adults as well.

One of the other kids slipped and fell. When the other teens rushed to help him up, I saw the fear in their faces. More than once, I caught each of them looking over their shoulders, watching the fire. They coughed. One started to cry. The adults were no help.

I heard Skinny Dude grumble that Bethany was too heavy. He gasped for breath, grunting heavily with each step. He asked Balding Guy to take her again. Balding Guy turned to him, gave him the evil eye, and then nodded. It seemed as if even he grew annoyed with the other adult.

“How much longer until we get down?” Skinny Dude asked as Bethany slid off his shoulders and waited for Balding Guy to once again crouch down so she could climb onto his back.

“Depends on how fast we can move,” I replied. He gave me a dirty look. My patience was thinning. I wanted to slap him. Jerk.

They were starting to panic. I glanced at Matt, realizing that he sensed the same. He paused the group and then gestured for me to step a short distance away so he could talk to me.

“A helicopter will be waiting at a clearing just outside the next camp. Depending on what they send, it might only be able to take the injured girl. The others are going to have to follow us out of the valley until we can get them into a transport truck.” He glanced over at the increasingly fearful group. Every one of them stared upward at the mountain behind us, watching the flames shoot fifteen, twenty feet into the air at the top of the ridge. It seemed to be standing still, but I knew better.

The living wall of fire would suddenly get what it needed and would surge downward. It wouldn’t move as fast as if it were moving up slope, but faster than we could walk, that was for sure.

“Let’s get going then,” I said, gesturing with my chin. “If the wind picks up, we’re going to be in big trouble.”

Then, as I watched and much to my dismay, the fire headed downhill, as if an invisible hand just shoved it downward. My eyes widened and I steeled myself. So did Matt. We looked at the group of kids and quickly made our way back to the group.

“We have to hurry,” Matt told them grimly. “The fire’s coming this way.” He eyed the two adults. “You keep those kids moving as fast as you can. Got it?”

Balding Guy nodded, his expression determined now. Skinny Dude paled.

“We have a chopper waiting for us at the bottom,” Matt explained, gesturing toward Bethany. “It can take her, maybe some of you, but if it can’t, the rest of us are going to have to go the rest of the way on foot.”

Skinny Dude began to protest. Balding Guy turned to him and snapped. “Shut the hell up, Sam. Let’s just get moving, shall we?”

With that, we once again headed down slope. Bethany started to cry, but Balding Guy tried to soothe her. I heard one of the boys cursing as we all scrambled down the slight incline leading out of the valley. Other than that, the kids moved as quickly as possible while watching where they stepped.

Matt led the way, swiftly and surely. The next campsite we reached was also abandoned, although the detritus of what I assumed had been hunters could be seen near the edges of the camp. A gutted deer, minus its antlers. One of the kids eyed it, gagged and then dry retched, complaining about the smell, but then turned away.

“Go on, Matt,” I called to the front of the line. “I’ll check the perimeter just to make sure!”

He nodded and kept moving, the others following behind. I completed a quick sweep of the camp, looking into the trees, checking for signs of fresh footprints, but saw nothing that indicated anyone had been here in a couple of days. Splotches of blood from the gutting of the deer had dried and congealed. I wrinkled my nose and felt my stomach turn at the sight of the pile of twisted, dried deer intestines and other internal organs dumped into a pile just outside the perimeter of the camp. I shook my head. The hunters must not be very experienced, leaving that pile of deer innards and the carcass so close to camp. Why not just post an invitation to every bear in the area to come and get it?

A gust of wind whipped past my face, bringing with it the strong smell of fire. And heat. I glanced up slope, my eyes widening in alarm. Oh God… I quickly hurried to catch up with the others, past them and hurried to join Matt at the front of the line.

“We’ve got to hurry, Matt,” I hissed. “The fire’s sweeping down the slope. Fast.”

He nodded, and without looking back, took my word for it. He quickened his pace even more. I waited for the others to pass, the kids now looking truly frightened, every expression of bravado wiped from their faces.

They smelled the fire. They felt the heat. They saw the embers floating in the air. As Balding Guy passed me, grunting with effort as he carried Bethany, I saw the sweat on his face, reddened from exertion. He gasped for breath at every step. Right behind him was Skinny Dude. I pulled him aside.