Page 28

Mack nodded, and Kane spotted the pinch of frustration at the edge of his expression.

The kid had met Alexis last year in Montana.

She was the daughter of a buddy of theirs, a firefighter from Last Chance County who’d joined the Ember crew as a hotshot.

One of the smokejumpers here in Alaska, Orion Price, was Alexis’s half brother.

Mack had earned a lot of respect—and it was probably why Charlie let the kid text with his daughter.

Kane said, “Patience is a good thing. Same with not being reckless when the most likely outcome is that someone gets hurt.”

Mack walked beside him to the trailhead, over the uneven, rocky ground normally traversed by four-legged creatures. Not so many two-legged, except them. “Still sucks.”

“But it’s the right thing. She might be eighteen now, but she’s still young.” Kane reached over and squeezed the back of the kid’s neck. “You know where she is when the time is right.”

“Pretty sure it’ll be right as soon as the season is done. If the mission is finished then.”

“I get you.” Kane chuckled. “And I hope the mission is finished as well. Being dead is getting old.”

They caught up to the rest of the hotshots and started the hike to the fire line.

Kane’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It was almost as if thinking about family connections had summoned a text from his cousin in Last Chance County.

Kane would have to wait until less people were around before reading and responding to it, something Ridge knew well enough. His cousin never called. He let Kane call him when he could do it without anyone knowing. Even if it didn’t matter that these people knew he and Ridge were related.

What mattered was that the world kept believing Kane, Hammer, and Saxon were dead.

Juggling all the secrets was becoming tiresome.

Although, his feelings for Sanchez weren’t a secret.

Everyone knew how he felt about her, and most of the people they worked with presumed she felt the same about him.

But the need to maintain focus and not cross any lines meant he worked hard to compartmentalize it all.

She would never be Maria. She would always be Sanchez.

Once he tumbled off that cliff, it would be a long way down. Kane would never get back up.

Kind of like Mack with the young woman he’d fallen for, the timing had to be right.

Still, Kane had never been a fan of “yes but not yet” from the Lord.

Waiting sucked as much as having to search locations one by one, eliminating each in turn. Narrowing down the search for her father. The search for a canister of dangerous toxin their enemy—the man who had betrayed his team—wanted to use to destabilize the US.

Mack jogged up to walk beside his brother, Hammer. Saxon chatted with Raine, the two of them walking beside each other.

Grizz and Mitch were in the lead.

Sanchez stepped off to the side and looked at the sky.

She’d pulled her dark hair back today, and it shone in the morning sun.

High cheekbones. A slender figure but with so much strength packed into it from fighting wildfires that it sometimes seemed like she could withstand anything.

When he’d caught up to her, she joined him at the back of the line.

Like it was no big deal to stop and wait for him. Almost like she wanted to be near him.

Kind of like the way he wanted to be near her.

“So where are we headed today?” He didn’t glance at her. Play it cool and no one gets burned.

“Because you weren’t listening to the briefing, you were talking to Mack?” She motioned to the kid, up ahead, tossing rocks off the trail every twenty feet or so.

Really? The kid was just walking through the backcountry, chucking rocks like this was a stroll?

Kane focused back on Maria—and caught the disgruntled look on her face. He chuckled. “Hit me with the highlights.”

She kept pace with him, her strength clearer in the lines of her muscles now than it had been when they met. She’d always been strong, but the physical nature of this work had brought a lot more of that strength to the surface.

It was enough to make a guy think he had heart problems.

If the woman ever dressed up to go out, he wasn’t sure he’d survive.

“The North Fire is zero-percent contained. It’s headed for a thirty-acre patch of trees that got infested with some bug that ate them all from the inside out.

There’s no moisture and a bunch of dry tinder.

If the fire swallows that, it’ll grow, and the whole place will go up like a barn full of hay. ”

“Is that right?”

She shoved his shoulder. “I can speak backcountry.”

“You were born in San Diego.”

“There are farms there!”

Kane busted up laughing. “Sure, sure.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you’re a regular blue-collar guy from Last Chance County? Because I’ve met more than one of those the past couple of years, and you’re…something different.”

“Is that right?”

“Commendations. Medals. The only reason you don’t have a Purple Heart is because you’re supposedly dead.”

“Mmm. Shame.” He rolled his shoulders, more of a reflex than anything else. “I don’t want recognition over what happened. This is far from done.”

But in his heart and mind, he had to acknowledge it, because he knew better than anyone that ignoring stuff or burying it just meant more trouble later.

Their team had been betrayed.

“You don’t want a medal because you think it was your fault.” She glanced aside at him. “Even though it wasn’t. You guys were there to rescue me. You had no idea?—”

“Neither did you,” Kane said.

“So neither of us is at fault.”

“We’ve been over this.”

Sanchez sighed. “You rescued me, and you were betrayed.”

“Now ask me what we’d have done if we knew going in that it was a trap. So I can tell you we’d have done it anyway. We’d have rescued you even if we knew it would work out like this.”

She shook her head but said nothing.

“And when Hammer realized Mack was at home, living under his father’s thumb—the worst kind of place to be—we picked him up and brought him with us. Because we don’t let people fall through the cracks. Everyone deserves to have someone show up for them. You, me, and Mack.”

He continued, “Now we’re going to do the same with your father. And we’re going to find the people behind the Sons of Revolution militia and finish this. When it’s all done, we’re going to get our lives back.”

“I hope so.” She said it so quietly he almost didn’t hear it.

The line of hotshots slowed, and Mitch stepped off the trail, toward the tree line.

“I guess we’re here.” Kane knew for a fact there was a snowcapped mountain in front of them, but the thick wildfire smoke made it invisible. Enclosed them in a cloud that hung like fog on the horizon and caused a scratch in his throat that he had to cough out.

Saxon walked back to them. “Everything okay?”

Kane and Saxon had been in boot camp together. They’d fought, sweated, and bled together. Now they were dead together. It brought a certain clarity to everything he did. Who had time to beat around the bush when the fate of a country was on the line?

“Everything is fine. What’s with the location?” Kane motioned up the trail and spotted Mack right as he tossed another rock.

He knew Saxon didn’t buy that he was fine, but he didn’t challenge Kane. “Mitch said there’s a cabin through the?—”

An explosion rocked the ground under them. Fire, smoke, and dirt sprayed into the air, caught a tree and sent it skyward in pieces.

All of them ducked into a crouch.

The last one down was Raine, looking around at him and Saxon. “What was that?”

“No one move!” Everything in Kane went cold. “That was a land mine.”