Playing With Fire: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 2) (24 page)

It all conspired to tug a grin up his face. “I didn’t want the day to end.”

“Clearly, judging by the little camping kit you hauled out of your backpack—blanket, your camp stove, cups, and hot cocoa.” She took a sip of coffee, peering at him over the rim, her eyes shiny, inviting him into the memory.

“Occasionally I do think ahead to the ending, or at least let myself consider the what-ifs.”

“I know you do, Conner.”

Her tone dissolved the memory, turned his thoughts back to last night and their argument.
You’re so afraid that God won’t keep His own promises toward you and He’ll let you down that you’ve stopped hoping. Stopped having faith. Stopped believing in happy endings.

“Liza—”

“Listen, I know you’re worried about me, especially after the crazy day yesterday.” She spoke over him, perhaps not even hearing him.

“It was crazy,” he said quietly. The memory of her hand clinging to his—and then that kiss, the one that followed him into his dreams. Yeah, crazy
good
, perhaps.

But perhaps not for her, because she took a breath, then looked at him, her smile falling. “I’ll hike back with Skye today if you still want me to. It’ll be easier for you if you don’t have to worry about me.”

He wanted to cringe, the reality of her words like a slap. He’d said that, hadn’t he?

And now he wanted to change his mind. Because he might always worry about her—and frankly, he preferred to do that with her by his side.

“I think we can find the way back,” she said. “We’ll follow the river to where Shep fell, then climb the mountain from there, and we’ll end up on the Pine Ridge trail. What do you think—ten miles, maybe?”

His brain scrambled to catch up. “Maybe—”

“Then we’ll tell Pete, when he returns where to find you, and by then maybe we can get reinforcements.”

He was nodding but only heard other words suddenly echoing back to him.
When this gig is over, you’re going to walk away, and I’m going to let you.

Wait—

“I know Esther’s out there, Conner. And I believe that you and CJ can find her. She’s a tough girl, resilient, resourceful, and we will find her, even if we have to split up to do it.”

Split up?

She finished her coffee and turned away.

He caught her arm. More reflex than clear thought, but he swallowed, found his voice, and forced it out. “Don’t go.”

She stilled, her beautiful brown eyes holding a question, a tiny frown deepening on her face.

“Don’t go.” This time stronger.

He hesitated and she started to smile. “I...we started this, right?”

The smile fell at his words. “But you don’t need me to finish it—”

“I do.”

He turned her to face him. “I do need you. And yeah, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but—okay, it’s more than just finding Esther.” He turned her to himself, both hands on her arms, wanting her to
hear
him.

“When you called me, it was like I saw a second chance to go back to that moment, that sunset in Sedona, and say the right thing. To fix whatever went wrong between us. I’m not sure I know how, but I
do
know that I’m not ready for you to walk away. Or for you to let
me
walk away.” He took a breath. “I’ve really missed you, Donut Girl.”

The old moniker found its place, stirred from her a real smile.

His heart began to beat again.

Conner let go of her arm, pressed his hand to her cheek, and ran his thumb down it. “I don’t know why, but having you around seems like just what I need to believe that it’ll all work out.”

Liza pressed her hand against his on her cheek. And with the gesture, it seemed his entire chest exploded, a sweet, delicious heat pouring through him. She stood in the center of the morning, the sun turning her eyes a deep, golden brown, and it just engulfed him, turned him to fire.

“I have to kiss you,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Please.”

She set her coffee mug down, then lifted herself to her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his.

Coffee. And the taste of the morning, fresh and alive. She smelled slightly of woods and smoke and river, but it only made him want to sink into her, to hold her. To disappear, just for a moment, into a place where time stopped, where people stayed and to a place where life felt big and whole and bright.

He had his hand cupped around her neck and moved in, his arms around her. Hers slid around his waist as she lifted her head, making a small sound he hoped might be delight.

Desire.

His kiss deepened and he nudged her mouth open, let his tongue taste her, a brush of sensation that lit his chest on fire. His entire body tingled with the sense of her touch, the way she made him feel whole and not at all like a broken guy who couldn’t make—or keep—promises.

Conner wanted to weep with the longing for them to figure out how to put what they could have had back together, for him to have enough faith to believe in an ending that didn’t end in tragedy, in breaking promises. Or both their hearts.

His fingers tangled in her hair, and he pulled away, pressing his forehead to hers, his chest rising and falling with his captured breath. “I love…” Oh. He wanted to say it, felt the word bloom in the center of his chest. Stuck. “…kissing you. Probably too much.”

Liza caught her lip in her teeth, but a smile broke through and she nodded. “You are dangerous to a girl’s heart, Conner Young.”

Oh, but he didn’t want to be.

And still the word lodged there
. You. I love you
—and was trying to figure out how to free it when CJ’s walkie, now hooked to his belt, crackled to life.

“Brooks, Young. Are you there, Conner?”

Liza stepped away from him as he turned, scooped up the radio, his heart still ranging about his chest, unhinged.

“I’m here, Pete.” Conner cleared his throat, tried to find his moorings, glanced at Liza walking away. He could still feel her curves against him, the smell of her hair, the taste—

“Give us your position. Gilly’s going to drop me back in, and I’ll hike to you. Please advise.”

Right. He’d spent the better part of the last hour sitting in front of the campfire—which he’d worked back into a small blaze—figuring out their position.

“Give me a second.” He pulled out the map and guesstimated.

“We’re about eight clicks by air from Shep’s point of extraction, below the next falls.”

Silence over the line. Then, “Gotcha. According to the topo map, there’s a clearing about a half-click to your northeast.” Pete read off coordinates.

Conner found the place on his map. “Roger that.”

“We’ll leave in ten—I’ll meet you there ASAP.”

Conner confirmed, clicked off.

He turned back around, found his compatriots standing by the fire, eyes alight.

“Today we find Esther,” he said. Then he looked at Liza. “And we find her together.”

A white chute opened up against the arch of the blue sky, glazed with a thin layer of clouds, and with it blossomed a thrill of hope inside Liza.

Yes, like Conner said, today they’d find Esther. She’d be okay, they’d get back to camp, and then...

She wouldn’t think about
then
. Just now and watching Pete drop from the sky. Liza stood with her hand tented over her eyes as the plane dipped a wing and banked to circle for another drop.

Behind her, Conner confirmed Pete’s chute opening to the pilot—she recognized Gilly’s name—and requested her to drop the gear pack.

“I think I have to be a smokejumper when I grow up,” Skye said from behind Liza.

“You’re looking at the fun part,” said CJ. “Try dropping into a roaring blaze armed with just an ax and a couple of squirt guns.”

“And a chain saw,” Conner added from a few feet away. About fifty feet wide, the meadow was bordered on all sides by shaggy black pine and stands of aspen. A mountain creek about five feet wide crevassed the middle.

Pete angled his chute perfectly into the drop zone, landed, and rolled. In a slick acrobatic move that reminded Liza of Conner, Pete popped up. He hauled in his parachute, unclipping himself from his harness as Conner watched the metal drone box drop.

CJ and he went to retrieve it.

Pete had pulled off his helmet in favor of a gimme cap shoved into his leg pocket. He’d knotted his golden hair at the nape of his neck and wore a two-day grizzle on his chin. As he shed his jumpsuit, he looked at them and cast a grin that could take most any other girl off her feet. “Hey, ladies.”

“Yeah, I definitely need to get into smokejumping,” Skye said.

CJ and Conner hauled the gear box to the center of the field.

They set it on the ground and opened it. Inside, cushioned in foam lay a long white cylinder attached to a thin, stainless steel rod, about three feet long. A fixed wing lay alongside it, along with a detached tail assembly. And, nestled beside it, an extra battery pack, a black gear bag, a tablet, and a handgun in a holster.

Pete reached for the gun. “With the rangers still hunting the bear...”

“You’re not going to kill it, are you?” Skye asked, her tone identifying exactly where she stood on that idea.

“Not if I don’t have to,” Conner said, taking the gun from Pete. He clipped it to his belt then knelt beside the box and hauled out the drone.

“Is this bigger than your earlier models?” Liza asked, crouching beside him. “It seems from your pictures those drones were smaller.”

“This is big number 5, the mama of the tribe. Fifty-one inches long, this baby has seventy-four inches of wingspan.” He pulled out the tail assembly, fixed it to the rod.

“It has GPS, a 3DR radio, and a mile of range. It can fly at twenty-five miles an hour for nearly forty minutes on one rechargeable lithium battery. I have two batteries plus a recharging pack. And this little camera,”—he pointed to a tiny lens on the bottom of the drone—“can capture up to two hundred fifty acres in one shot. Then it feeds the data back to this device.”

He picked up the tablet. “My software translates the pictures into a 3-D map that we can then stitch together and lay over a topo map to pinpoint Esther’s location. It’ll also take video if we need it.”

“We call it Conner’s girl back at the ranch,” Pete said, reaching out to touch the drone.

“Hands off, Brooks.”

“See?”

Liza laughed.

Conner picked up the drone, moved it over to a bigger space to attach the wings. “I’ve written a program that not only takes pictures but determines weather conditions, measures flame lengths and heat, and predicts fire behavior.” He looked up at Pete, his expression solemn. “My drone might have saved lives.”

Pete’s grin vanished.

Something passed between the two, and even Skye caught it, because she looked at CJ. His mouth tightened into a grim line.

Conner walked back to the box and retrieved the black bag. He opened the zipper and pulled out a pair of oversized goggles. He put them on, then retrieved the remote control.

“I need to take it for a quick test run, make sure the instruments are working. I don’t need a line of sight to fly it—the goggles act as a dashboard and can tell me where I am. But I’ve been having some glitches...” He walked away from them, pulled down the goggles, and started fiddling with the remote control.

“What did he mean about it saving lives?” Skye asked quietly.

“He’s talking about Jock and the guys who were killed last year,” CJ said. He wore a grizzle on his chin this morning—dark blond, a touch of russet red. He, too, wore a baseball cap and had shucked off his yellow shirt for his blue Jude County Smokejumpers tee.

Pete got up, walked away, and stood over Conner, who was making adjustments on the tablet screen. He used his shadow to help to block out the sunlight, offering Conner a better view of the screen.

Liza watched him go, the way he stood, his hands on his hips, his chin taut. And thought about Conner’s comment about friends dying.