Page 5 of Burning Hearts (Chasing Fire: Alaska #1)

FIVE

“It doesn’t matter.” Logan turned away from her so she couldn’t see his wound. Given how it felt, he doubted it was worse than a graze. Then again, she wasn’t exactly wrong that he had been shot. “We need to get out of here.”

She stared at him, all wide eyes and mussed hair. Both arms around that laptop. Was she in shock?

Logan touched her elbow and eased her away from the compound behind them. “Come on. We need to keep moving.”

They’d run a ways from where he’d dived on her. Hopefully Tristan was holding off the gunmen who had been chasing them. Unless they needed him alive for some reason, he was putting himself at risk. To save them.

Probably more like to save his sister. Logan wasn’t sure Tristan cared about him all that much.

But either way, his actions had enabled them to make a run for it to safety.

“Is he going to be okay?”

Logan prayed her brother would be, but that was all he could do. Right now, his priority was getting Jamie to safety. “He knows how to survive if he got this far. And he wanted to take the information you have from the compound. That means you and I don’t get captured and taken back there or it was all for nothing. So, in order to do what Tristan wanted, we have to keep going. We have to get the files away from here.”

But what did Tristan intend to do with them?

For all Logan knew, he was planning to sell information to Brian Howards’ enemies for cash so he could fund whatever he planned to do next.

Hopefully, Jamie would see the logic in handing whatever it was over to the police instead of back to her brother the next time she saw him.

She glanced over her shoulder, but they kept going. Rather than take the same deer trail he had taken to get to the compound, Logan skirted the edge of the trees and chose a roundabout route back to the car. It took longer, and his side stung. He could feel that the blood had soaked his shirt more than before.

Logan didn’t want to stop. He wanted to keep going, get in the car and drive out of here. But pretty soon, blood loss would make his head start to swim.

Then he would be the one in shock. And he didn’t need both of them in more trouble than they already were.

He did a mental inventory of everything he had on his person, which apparently no longer included the radio. Must’ve dropped it.

Jamie glanced back over her shoulder.

Logan dug into the thigh pocket of his cargoes and pulled out a flat, square packet.

“There’s a lot more blood on your shirt than before.” She came toward him and took the packet. “What is this?”

“It’s basically just gauze, but it has this powder stuff on it that stops the bleeding. Mostly they use it in military settings. It could save a life in the moment when something nasty happens.”

“Well, even if your life isn’t in imminent danger, we’re still going to use it on you.” She tore open the packet. “Lift up your shirt.”

Logan grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“This isn’t the time to make light of what’s happening.”

“Sorry.” He winced, and not only because she helped him peel the material of his shirt away from the wound.

“This is a pretty nasty graze.”

“Stings.”

She pressed the gauze against the wound. “It doesn’t cover all of it. You need two.”

“Only got one.” He let out a breath and lowered his shirt, keeping his hand over the gauze now stuck to his wound. She looked up at him, and he saw the worry in her eyes. “I’m sure Tristan is going to be okay.”

“I put a tracking device on him.”

Logan blinked. “You did what?”

“It’s this ring thing. I slipped it into his pocket the first time I saw him. It’s new tech. They’re looking for backers, and my company is going to fund it.”

“What do you mean ‘your company’?” Before, when she talked about work, she’d always said “the company I work for.” But not this time. “Did you start a business? That’s impressive.”

She shook her head. “I still work at the same place.”

Huh. Maybe they were both just miscommunicating. “We should keep walking.”

Jamie looked around. “Where are we even going? I mean, at least those guys have stopped chasing us. But still.”

He touched her back and rubbed a hand between her shoulder blades. “All we can do is keep praying for Tristan.”

She didn’t respond to that.

They set off walking, falling into a comfortable silence. Or more likely, a stalemate. For a while, they found a trail. After that, he had her take a more direct route through the brush where it thinned out, and they were able to pick through the wilds.

Jamie said, “Do you have some kind of GPS that tells you where to go? Because I’m completely lost.”

“There’s a compass in my pack, but I left it with my stuff at your car.” Felt like days ago now that he’d been so surprised to see a vehicle with her stuff in it. So much had happened since then that it really should be dark by now, even with the long Alaska day. And yet it had barely been a few hours.

“So how do you know where we’re going?”

He looked up at the sky. “The position of the sun. The direction we walked and the hill to the right, the one we’re skirting around. I’ll admit, we’re going the long way on purpose so that we don’t run into those guys. They’ll probably expect us to take the trail that’s most direct to get to your car as fast as possible.”

Jamie kept walking ahead of him. “Doesn’t that mean they’ll be waiting at the car when we get there?”

“If they are, then we’ll just have to leave your car and keep walking.” He thought he might have heard her groan but wasn’t sure. Maybe he needed to distract her, but all he had in his head was the need to get her to safety.

Even though he’d decided to walk away from her as soon as she was all right, that didn’t mean he would ever quit caring about what happened to her.

Logan said, “A couple of months ago, before I came up here, we were training before the start of the wildfire season. I got a call from my sister that Bryce had disappeared, that he might’ve been kidnapped. For hours I had no idea if he was all right or even alive. All I knew was that he was gone and no one knew where to find him.”

Jamie glanced at him over her shoulder. “Do you get that twin thing where you can feel each other’s pain?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” he said. “It’s usually not physical. It’s more of an impression of what he’s feeling. Or at least, I know there’s no reason I should be feeling anxious or sad or scared. Or happy.”

“Did you know he was in trouble?”

Logan said, “I had to walk away from the Ember base camp so I could take a minute and just breathe through his anxiety.”

He’d tried to call Bryce but there was no answer. Then he’d tried his sister. His mom. None of his family had known where to find his brother.

He’d even called the Last Chance County Fire Department chief at Bryce’s firehouse, but Macon hadn’t known where to find him either.

“All I could do for him was pray.”

She kept her attention on the path in front of them, picking her way between the trees. The terrain now angled down and to the left, thankfully not sharply. They would be near the car soon enough.

“I had to let go and let God be in control of what happened to Bryce because even if I’d left Montana, I would never have gotten to Last Chance County in time. Even if it made me feel a little bit like I’d been left out—left behind—again.” He shrugged. “But that’s my issue.”

He had friends, and friends of friends, who had access to helicopters and airplanes. Still, by the time he’d considered making that decision, he’d found out Bryce was okay. Bryce had texted him later that day and said he was all right. Bryce had called later and told him all about the governor’s chief of staff and the case Penny—the woman his brother had been hung up on for a while—had been working.

They’d chatted later that night, and his brother had filled him in on everything. Including that he was in love. Maybe everyone just assumed someone else had called him to tell him his twin brother was safe—that he and Penny were both out of danger. But while no one had updated him after Bryce was found, his brother at least had touched base. Connected.

“So you came up to Alaska? You’re even farther away now,” she said. “Why not just work closer to home? That way you can be nearby in case something happens to your family.”

“Turns out I had a reason to be here.” Logan didn’t know if he was ready to rehash the fact that he’d told her he wanted her back. Given he’d changed his mind because they would never agree on the way she bailed out her family constantly, what was the point?

He strode by her on her left side, where the tree line ended. Below them stretched miles of land as far as he could see. Great mountain peaks and snowcapped Denali. So much green below the wide blue sky spotted with clouds. Only a thin trail of smoke obscured the scenery, since the fire was mostly behind them.

“I would have missed this.”

She didn’t have to know he was also talking about her.

* * *

Considering her brother could be in mortal danger, Jamie was trying not to begrudge Tristan the fact he’d come all the way up to Alaska. Given the fact Logan was also here, maybe it wasn’t such a stretch for someone to decide they wanted to spend time in this remote, isolated part of America.

She might not feel the same need to save Logan if he got into trouble as she did with her little brother, but that didn’t mean she would ever quit caring what happened to him. He was simply far more able to take care of himself.

The only thing she had to distract her from the spiral of being frustrated with everyone and their choices was something Logan had said. That he’d prayed for his brother.

Jamie glanced at him, now walking beside her. “So…you pray now?”

She had been the only believer when they’d dated before. Not a dealbreaker for her, although some people certainly thought it should be. Plenty of older ladies at church had frowned at her. As if falling in love with a good man, a hero in the community, was a bad thing.

Maybe that was part of the reason she hadn’t gone in person for a long time.

Logan nodded, still walking with one hand over the bloodied part of his shirt. He hadn’t said anything about the pain he was surely in. As soon as they got back to the car, she could give him some ibuprofen at least.

He said, “After what happened to Andi a couple of years ago, Bryce and I both started talking about faith. Her husband Jude shared about the Bible with us and explained what it means to be a Christian. It just made sense. We went to a service, and we both prayed at the same time.”

Jamie couldn’t remember the day she had given her life to Christ. Some kind of children’s service decades ago, where she’d been told to ask Jesus into her heart.

“That’s amazing.” Because it was. Even if he’d been a good person before, the fact he lived as a Christian now meant he always had someone to rely on. A place to go for strength, wisdom, and true joy.

When was the last time she had any of those things?

He said, “It definitely hasn’t been easy, and I feel like I’m still learning a lot. But there are a few people with the Midnight Sun Wildland Firefighters who also are believers, so we have a little Bible study going on our days off.”

It sounded like a lot of things had changed since they’d broken up. And not all on his side, given she had realized how far away she felt from God.

If she had listened to God or even asked for His opinion before she’d come up here, things might have gone a lot differently. Logan might not have been grazed by a bullet.

Tristan could be dead now, for all she knew.

Tears gathered in her eyes. Jamie blinked them back, trying not to give in to the sting of realizing she was responsible for a lot of what had happened today. “We should pray for Tristan.”

Logan glanced over, nodded. “I’ve been doing that since the last time we saw him. And if he has one of those trackers you mentioned, then maybe you can find him once we get somewhere you can connect to the internet on that laptop.”

She had her own laptop as well, in the duffel in her car. Along with her phone. All she needed to do was call Samuel and admit what’d happened, and he would find Tristan from his computer. But she didn’t exactly want to talk to her number two guy at the company right now when she could barely keep her emotions in check.

“I see your car.”

She looked where he indicated and could see part of the side and the red paint of her rental. Same color as her car at home. Something she’d thought was a good sign, or at least a way to find it easily out here.

Thank You. God certainly could have had a hand in that, and it was past time for Jamie to renew her faith in Him.

“Keys?” He approached the car cautiously.

She didn’t see any gunmen. Couldn’t hear anyone tromping around the woods—except her and Logan. But if someone were hiding and waiting for them to emerge? She and Logan would be shot before they realized what was happening.

Cold washed over her, and she shivered.

Logan stepped closer to her, touching her cheek. “Almost there. You just need to hang on a little longer and we’ll get to safety.”

She nodded, determined to do this herself. She didn’t want to rely on a guy she couldn’t even agree with. Except about faith, apparently. The way she stuck her neck out for her family would always be the thing between them. Even though that was exactly what he did with his family, always showing up for them. Or praying until he knew they were safe when he was too far away to pitch in.

When she did that, it was apparently the wrong thing to do. Because some people had more value. Or they were more deserving of help than others.

At least, as far as he thought.

Jamie slid the backpack from her shoulders and dug out her keys, handing them to him. If he wanted to go over there first, then he could put himself in danger. She hung back, waiting while he beeped the locks and checked around the car.

“We’re good.”

She headed for the car, but he slipped in the front seat before she even reached it. She muttered to herself, “I guess you’re driving.” She pulled open the passenger side door and got in. “Can you get us out of here when you have a bullet wound on your side?”

“I’m good.” He didn’t waste any time, spraying gravel as he made the turn to go down the fire road that would take them to the blacktop asphalt street at the bottom of the hill. “How did you even know where to come?”

“I asked around town and at the Midnight Sun Saloon over a period of weeks, all to find out who he was hanging with. Even though Sheriff Starr had no idea how I could find my brother, there were enough people in town who had seen him. They warned me off though. Told me to leave it be because those guys are dangerous. Finally I tracked down someone who knew about the militia guys he came to town with, and they knew where to find this place. There was a guy who wrote down all the directions and got me where I wanted to go.”

Logan held the wheel with one hand, his jaw tight.

Whether he liked it or not, she had done what she felt she needed to. As long as Tristan got out, then what was the problem? Jamie glanced out the back window. “Maybe we should wait and see if he comes after us.”

She spotted his stuff piled on her back seat. Smokejumper gear.

Logan said, “Gotta get you to safety, and then I need to meet up with my team. Do the job I’m being paid for.”

More likely he needed medical treatment, but she wasn’t going to argue with him right now. Maybe smokejumpers just had a different way of doing things and she wasn’t used to it because she worked from home and called into the office whenever needed.

“Sorry I’m keeping you from your duties.”

He let go some of the tension, enough to reach over and squeeze her knee. “It was important.”

It seemed like he would drop her as soon as it was done, the way he always did. Leave and go somewhere else. He might be different now, but it seemed like their circumstances hadn’t changed.

Never would.

Logan said, “Make sure you talk to the sheriff before you leave town. Tell him everything you know about that compound and the guys we met up here. The sheriff will need both of our stories.”

“Of course I’m going to talk to the sheriff. But I’m not leaving town until I know Tristan is safe. He’s the whole reason I came up here.”

“Sheriff Starr and his people can make sure your brother is okay.” Logan glanced over at her, then continued down the rutted dirt road.

She glanced in the side mirror but couldn’t see anyone following them. Not even Tristan. Had leaving him behind really been the right thing to do? Maybe for them.

Probably not for Tristan.

Logan said, “It’s probably for the best if you just go back to Last Chance County.”