Page 2

Two

Cadee lay flat on the ground behind the fallen spruce tree, practically buried in the forest litter. Underneath Vince.

She could feel his heartbeat pounding.

Like the pound of his heartbeat during their Ember training—her last day. They’d had to run three miles in forty-five minutes carrying 150 pounds. Every training. Every day. But on her last day, she’d finally beaten him, his sweaty hug her reward.

Today, though, was like a switch had flipped in him, some sort of ingrained training.

“What’s going on? You okay?” she whispered.

He shushed her, hard.

A spruce cone poked into her cheek. Deeply. But she lay still, quiet, absorbing the warmth of Vince. He smelled of fresh air. And sweat.

A junco bird in the spruce tree above them rat-a-tatted his song.

Vince rolled off her. Her breath was trying to rupture her lungs, her nerves buzzed. But she dared not move.

For…forever, it felt like.

Maybe actually two minutes. Or five. She kept herself from even looking at her watch.

She peered over Vince’s shoulder. “I see him. There’s a guy on an ATV. Just like the ATV we were running from to get the crew on the plane with Jamie and Tristan.”

Beside her, Vince hissed, “Stay down!”

“Let’s run for real cover.”

“No!” He cut his voice down to a low rumble against her ear. “If we stand up right now, the four-wheeler creeps will mow us down. Stay put.”

“Why are they after us?”

“Maybe the militia put a hit out on all of the smokejumpers.”

“Because…”

“Maybe to get to Jamie Winters, Logan’s friend. She stole an SD card from their camp. I heard them talking. She copied all their financials on it.”

“And because of that, they shot down our plane and are still trying to kill us?”

He blew out a breath, shook his head. “You have no idea what kind of people are out here. Or what they’ll do.”

She stilled. And he did?

Vince peeked his head just above the trunk of the spruce. Then he rose to his knees, swiveling his head. “The ATVs are gone. I think we’re okay now.” He stood up. Held out his hand to help her.

Cadee picked herself up off the ground, knocked the spruce cone stuck to her cheek.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice still low.

“I’m fine.” She brushed the dirt off her knees, her hands. “Are you hit?”

And just like that, an ATV roared into the clearing. Another shot. This time, over Cadee’s head.

“ Run !” he shouted.

She took off toward the river.

Vince right behind her, she zigzagged from one tall spruce tree trunk to another.

Behind them, the ATVs crashed through the undergrowth.

These guys were gaining on them.

Where could they hide? Under the thick growth of salmonberry bushes? She twisted her head, looking for a good growth.

Ahead, the roar of the river rose, and that meant one thing.

“Caves—we can hide in the caves!”

“Right!” Vince shouted.

“This way!” She grabbed at Vince and took a sharp left, up a hill.

A minute later, she and Vince pulled up short at the cliff that looked down into the quarter-mile-wide river, some twenty feet below—rushing white water, foamy, lethal. She scanned down the cliff on their side…there. She pointed at the black void, just below a jutting of rocks. “See that cave?”

Vince looked. “Yep.”

“We’ll pretend we’re jumping into the river. Throw off these guys on the ATVs.”

“Go down a cliff? I’ve got rope.” He started looking into his fire pack.

“But we don’t want to leave the rope hanging where they can tell where we are. You’re a climber. This is a cave my sister and I climbed down to. It’s doable.”

“You what?” He shook his head. “Never mind. Okay.”

“How do we make it look like we jumped?” She glanced over her shoulder. Had they really outrun them, or just forced them to go the long way and bought a few seconds?

“We could tear one of our shirts on the salmonberries and leave it? Maybe add blood?”

“I’m not shedding any blood for this.”

“Yeah, me neither.” He already had his hands in his fire pack, and he pulled out a shirt. He walked over to a salmonberry bush and pushed hard. The twig caught it, ripped it, and he pulled it off.

With a quick grin, she pulled a couple salmonberries off and smeared their red juice on it.

She stuck one in her mouth, then they jogged up to the cliff, and Vince draped his shirt on the baby spruce angling out over the river.

She lowered herself over the cliff, climbed over the ledge, and swung into the cave.

The sound of ATV engines grew louder.

Of course.

Vince came down slowly, testing for the cave opening.

“They’re coming!” she whisper-shouted up at him. She grabbed his legs so he’d feel the cave opening. “Get down here!”

He rolled himself into the darkness of the cave. They scrambled to the back and sat against the wall. As her eyes adjusted, she could see some tree roots poking out of the rough black rock that made up the wall of the cave.

The ATVs—was it four or five?—rumbled above them. Cadee could feel the vibration of the engines, and her nose stung with the smell of their diesel fuel.

“Got this shirt. Looks like blood,” an ATV driver shouted.

Vince looked over at her, nodded, a look of triumph in his eyes. She grinned back, nodded.

And for a second, just a flash, it felt like old times.

“I don’t see them in the river,” a voice called over the engine noise.

“We’ll find them down the river. Let’s go!”

Cadee held her breath as the ATVs drove away through the woodland.

Vince shifted up to a sit. “I’m ready to?—”

She shushed Vince and whispered, “They could be lying in wait for us up there.” But she sat up too, and offered him a fist bump.

He fist-bumped with a grin.

She wondered how long this rapport would last before their arguing started all over again.

Cadee wrapped her arms around her legs. Kind of cool in the cave. She stretched her neck from side to side, prayed silently. Thank You, God, for this hiding place. Lure the ATVs away, keep them away.

She looked up. Vince was staring at her, lips pursed. Praying? he mouthed.

Cadee nodded, remembering when they’d been dating and would join hands in prayer.

But clearly he didn’t pray anymore.

This time, he shrugged and pulled off his backpack. “You’ve been here before, I’m guessing?”

She smiled. “I have. Emma and I would sneak out by this river with sandwiches when Dad was busy at work. A lot. He didn’t know.”

“You rebel.”

“Yeah. Dad was the village’s garbageman. His income was pathetic. And he didn’t know how to handle his little bit of money. But it kept us alive, so Ingriq was our home.”

He reached for his pack.

Vince pulled out his water bottle.

He couldn’t believe Cadee’s crazy plan had worked, but it did seem like the ATV riders thought they’d fallen over the cliff.

“Think they’re gone,” he said. He touched the light on his wristwatch. Good grief. They’d been in the cave for several hours.

He stood and stretched, then walked over to the opening and peeked out. Still light, although the sun had started to fall. Could be close to midnight. And in the distance, the sky fogged with smoke.

They needed to get moving.

He handed her the water bottle. “How far to the village?”

She reached into her leg pocket and tossed him a granola bar, opened one herself. “A couple miles as the crow flies. I know some paths that will cut the distance. You sure the ATVs are gone?”

“No. But they might have followed the river to the bridge. It’s down about five miles, and they might’ve waited for us there.”

“Makes sense. They’ll want to make sure we’re dead, right?”

Vince gave a grim nod. Then he reached for his pack, grimaced.

“You okay?”

He handed over her pack. “Fine.” He walked to the opening of the cave.

It was awkward to look without falling, but with his back to the opening, he attempted to get a glimpse at the layout above them. Cadee had just reached up to the ground above them and started to lift herself up when rocks came tumbling down.

She dropped back into the cave.

“The edge is weak after the rain last night. If I lift you up, you can grab more than just the edge.” At least he’d noticed that, taking a look at it.

“Right.” She picked herself up off the floor of the cave.

He roughed the thick curls of his hair, picked up their packs, and tossed them up over the edge.

She wiped off the seat of her pants and pinched her lips together, looking out of the cave. She turned to him, her cheeks puffing with a breath. “Let’s do it.”

She’d listened to him? Wow.

He bit his tongue to keep from commenting and reached down to lift her up. She scrambled a bit and put both elbows up the edge of the land above them. He let go of her legs, and she pulled herself up. A couple seconds later, her head peeked over the edge, and she reached down both hands to him.

“Don’t be silly. I’ll pull you right over.”

“Fine. Give me the rope. You can use that.”

His rope. He pulled it out of his pack and tossed it up to her. She grabbed it, disappeared a moment, and then it fell down to him.

He used it to climb up the edge. “Good job.”

She eyed him but didn’t comment. So, that might be a win.

She coiled up the rope and added it to her pack, then pointed north, away from the river. “That way.”

“On your six.”

She smiled, and for a second, the sight of it stirred a memory, something sweet and perfect and…

Nope. That had been then. This was now. He pulled out his phone as he followed her through the brush.

He had one bar and tried Jade, but no response.

He tried it again.

Still no response.

“Good grief, Vince. Don’t try every two seconds,” Cadee snapped. “You’ll run down your battery.”

He bit back a response and slid his phone into his pocket.

He stepped over a spruce tree root curved above the ground like a whale breaching in the ocean. “Where are we going?”

“We’re headed to the fireweed field and across it. Emma and I loved the fireweed, but it was too far to walk to without Mom and Dad.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “We did anyway. Not frequently. Sometimes we didn’t tell them school was letting out early, and we came out here together. Found the cave in the cliff. Hmmm…five miles. Now that I’m an adult, I can see why they wouldn’t let us.”

He laughed. “I’d never heard of Ingriq.”

She elbowed him. “Of course not, with a population of one hundred forty-eight. Wait, Jane had a baby last month. One hundred forty-nine.”

“Huh.”

She hoisted herself over the trunk of a fallen spruce high above the ground. He wanted to help her, but he didn’t dare. And she didn’t need it.

He hauled himself over the spruce, behind her. “So, Cadee, I knew you lived in Alaska, but why didn’t you ever tell me about growing up in Ingriq?”

Her silence felt like pressure in his ears. He started to ask again. No. She hadn’t said anything about the village—but then again, he’d never told her he’d been a DEA agent either. They’d met in Montana, their relationship based on who they were at the time—not who they’d been. Or where they’d come from.

Maybe that had been the problem.

She looked over at him, shrugged. “I’ve been away from the village for so long.”

He followed her around the next fallen spruce tree, and she made a sharp left. “Why did you leave the village?”

She shrugged again. “So few people, so few jobs, so much bullying. But mainly, smokejumping.”

“Yes, I get that. Smokejumping was always in my blood too.”

“Is that why you wanted to come to Alaska, to the Midnight Sun crew? To jump with your dad? I always thought you wanted Alaska for adventure.”

“Yes, adventure, but…I miss him too.” He ran his hand around the collar of his shirt. “Yeah.” He pulled out his phone, tried Jade again, still no service. Slid the phone back in his pocket.

As they pushed their way to Ingriq, he spied a wild blueberry bush. He picked a couple, handed one to Cadee.

She grinned and popped it in her mouth.

Why hadn’t she shared about growing up in this remote place back when they’d dated during smokejumping training?

Well, he had only told her about leaving California for adventure in Alaska with Midnight Sun. They had become close by then, and it’d been the truth. But he’d been too concerned with his past.

He’d never explained the full “why” of going to Ember, pursuing wildland firefighting.

To anybody.

Too important to leave the old reputation back in California.

He pulled out his cell and tried to get Jade.

Nothing.

He slid it back in his Nomex pants pocket.

Almost smacked into Cadee because she stopped so quickly.

He stepped beside her. His breath caught as they stood gazing out over a half acre of fireweed, the gentle but tough pink flowers blooming from the pink stems. But only about a third of the way up, since it was June and the youngest flowers at the top had not yet opened. The flowers would bloom all the way to the top by September, the end of summer.

“I’ve never seen a fireweed meadow like this,” he said. They weren’t out of the forest. Spruce surrounded this fireweed.

She nodded. “I know, right?”

“No wonder you and your sister sneaked out here.”

She smiled up at him. And again, the world shifted. Today, parting to uncover a window to the past when they’d had fun dating. Race ya.

Nope. Not now. He reached for his phone, took a picture for his mom, then followed Cadee across the meadow, pushing the flowers gently aside as he walked. He tried to step past, not on, the fireweed, some of it up to his ears. And he was six two. “This is a beautiful place, where you grew up.”

She looked back, nodded. “It is beautiful.”

For the first time in a good nine months, they were simply talking.

He’d been waiting…He ran his hands through his hair. “Cadee…can I ask you something?”

She turned to face him, her smile practically swallowing her face. “Of course.”

“Never mind.” He—he couldn’t right now.

She tilted her head. “Okay. Listen.”

He followed her example, and listened to the quiet of the forest for a long moment. “Listen to what?”