Page 1 of I’ll Be There (Montana Fire #4)

Conner Young needed just one perfect weekend.

One perfect weekend free of drama. No grizzly maulings, no plane crashes, no firestorms, no criminal accusations, and he didn’t think it was too much to ask God for a little sunshine either.

After all, a guy only got married once.

And after everything his fiancée, Liza Beaumont, had gone through this year, she deserved perfect. A crowd of her friends and family showing up to celebrate with her, with them.

If it were up to him, he’d make sure she’d get it.

He flipped his wipers on high, the deluge just short of a biblical flood as it obscured the road. Around him, fog had descended, cutting his vision dangerously tight. He tapped his brakes, took the truck off cruise.

The brake lights of the semi ahead of him cut through the haze of the road, the driver clearly thinking the same thing.

Perfect. Add a few more hours to this trip.

Conner’s hand tightened on the steering wheel as he turned the defrost on high.

Minnesota—just when you thought you’d have a sunny day, the weather turned on you.

Worse, the onslaught of rain created the perfect storm for a hydroplane, and Conner saw in his mind’s eye a bumper-car collision from the mess of cars traveling north for the long Memorial Day weekend.

Good thing Liza had booked their cabins for their wedding weekend at the Evergreen Cabins and Outfitters six months ago.

He would have preferred an elopement to Hawaii or Cancún. Had suggested the getaway too many times over the past few months as Liza changed from one reception venue to the next, trying to accommodate her swelling guest list.

Liza had friends from one end of the country to the other.

His side of the aisle consisted of the three groomsmen sitting in the truck with him, currently grousing about the early morning and woeful lack of breakfast.

“Seriously, Conner, just swing through a McDonald’s,” Jed Ransom said, sitting in the passenger seat. “I’m dyin’ here.”

Conner shot a look in the rearview mirror, where Reuben Marshall sat, arms folded, staring fixedly out at the horizon.

Beside him, Pete Brooks was sound asleep, forehead pressed against his window.

He wore his blond hair pulled back with a bandanna, a copper-gold grizzle on his chin.

Reuben, at least, had showered and trimmed his dark beard, trying to be presentable.

Maybe he should have let the guys sleep longer this morning instead of rousing them before the gray hues of morning collapsed the night. Or maybe cut the trip from Montana into three sections instead of trying to make it in less than forty-eight hours.

“Why didn’t you pick up a donut at the gas station like Pete and Rube?” Conner said, switching into the slow lane, falling in behind the semi.

“I would have if I knew we were on war rations.”

“I can’t stop, Jed. I’m already a day late, thanks to your OCD equipment check.” Conner glanced at Jed, saw his mouth tighten.

“Really? After last summer, you think I’m being irrational?”

“We caught them, Jed. No one is trying to kill us anymore—”

“Except for every fire we jump into this summer.”

Right. Sure, they’d lived through last summer’s sabotage of their chutes, arson, and a deliberate crash of their jump plane, but that didn’t mean that some natural tragedy didn’t wait to ambush them.

Every time they leaped from the open door of their Twin Otter, a hundred-pound jump pack strapped to their back, arrowing down into the mouth of the dragon, they risked coming home in a body bag.

The death of Jock Burns and his crew two summers ago gave that truth legs. And put a fist in Conner’s chest.

Deep down inside, his gut said he shouldn’t be dragging a wife into that world.

Liza hadn’t said it in so many words, but the idea of spending the summer with him in his tiny fifth wheel, parked near the Ember Fire Base in western Montana, waiting for him to come home from his fire deployments...waiting, praying, and watching the mountains flame around her...

Yeah, neither one of them had wanted to dig into what that might look like for a woman who’d already lived through one life-threatening, harrowing event.

Frankly, he’d rather focus on simply holding onto Liza. Making sure her big Yes to his proposal hadn’t been a side effect of the pain pills, her frustration at her recuperation, and the inspiration of the view he’d given her of a glorious Glacier Mountain morning when he’d proposed.

Most of all, the closer the date crept, the more his brain couldn’t seem to sway from the honeymoon.

Thankfully, he had their living arrangements all figured out. Another reason for his epic lateness and heavy foot on the pedal.

He eased up again. But one side of his mouth tipped up, and he started to hum one of Ben King’s new singles sweeping into his brain, lighting a warm simmer through his entire body.

Turn down the lights

Turn up the songs

Come dance with me, baby

Right where you belong

“Stop thinking about the honeymoon,” Jed said. “And focus on the fact you’ll never get to the wedding if you don’t feed us.”

Conner glanced over at him. “What—”

“You’re like a glass house, dude. Sheesh, and I thought I was bad waiting to marry Kate.”

“You drove us crazy. We were ready to ship you off to Vegas.”

“I was ready to marry Kate the day I met her. Seven years is a long time to wait.” Jed fiddled with the ring on his finger, turning it in a circle.

Behind them, Reuben’s mouth tightened into a dark, uncommenting line. Conner glanced at him through the mirror. “Thinking about Gilly?”

“We’re not quite there yet,” Reuben growled.

Conner caught Jed shaking his head. “What’s going on?”

“Gilly has been talking about trying to get more bomber experience and heading to work for the Midnight Sun crew this summer. The terrain is a bit more...edgy. She wants to up her ranking with the NFS,” Jed said.

“Alaska? Are you going with her?” Conner looked at Reuben.

Reuben’s massive sawyer shoulders lifted in a quick shrug. “She thinks I’ll get in the way. Says I’m too overprotective. Whatever.”

No one said anything.

“Thanks, guys.”

Jed grinned. “By the way, have you figured out who your best man is going to be? Someone needs to be in charge of the party.”

An old Suburban with paneled sides and rusty wheel wells edged up next to them in the fast lane, boxed them in.

The semi had slowed, and Conner noticed the traffic packing in, the storm deafening as it razed the truck. He didn’t want to think about their luggage turning into a soggy mess in the back.

Just what Liza needed, the tuxedos bleeding out, ruined.

Around them, the traffic tightened, and Conner touched the brakes.

Next to him, the Suburban sped past, shooting up alongside the semi—

“Look out!” Jed slammed his hand on the dash.

The semi had started to pull out into the fast lane, clearly not seeing the Suburban. The SUV hit the brakes, swerved into Conner’s lane.

Conner did the math in a second—hit the brakes, hydroplane and crash into the SUV going sixty, or—

Jerking the wheel, he sent them over the rumble strips into the roughened pavement on the side of the highway, littered with glass, tire debris, and rutted gravel.

“Geez!” Pete said, bouncing awake as the truck’s passenger wheels hit dirt and slammed them all against their belts. Conner fought the wheel as it shimmied, the squeal of the antilock brakes hiccuping them to a hard stop.

Beside—then behind—them, the Suburban spun a full three-sixty, then launched into the ditch, front first. The nose caught, and the vehicle flipped.

It landed with a spectacular, horrifying crunch, upside down.

The semi kept going, now in the fast line, oblivious.

Conner’s hands viced the wheel, his heart in his mouth.

Jed’s other hand had found its way to the dash, and now he breathed out hard. “Good reflexes.”

“We’d better see if someone’s hurt,” Reuben said, already unbuckling.

Pete, too, unbuckled and opened his door, getting out into the mud of the ditch.

He and Reuben jogged over to the overturned Suburban.

Jed unbuckled. “You okay?”

Conner’s breath released, finally, over a washboard of what-ifs and could-have-beens. “Uh huh.”

Pete was running back to their truck. “We need a knife—the driver’s belt is jammed.” He stuck his head in. “It’s a teenager. He’s pretty scared, but he seems okay.”

“Glove box,” Conner said. Jed opened it and found Conner’s Yarborough and handed it, still sheathed, to Pete. He ran back through the torrent as Conner grabbed his phone.

Not necessary, because he heard sirens peeling from across the highway. And, in a moment, he spied cherries through the fog.

Some other driver, seeing the catastrophe, had called 911.

Conner got out and ran to the wreck, following Jed. Pete and Reuben had already released the driver, catching him and pulling him out of the smashed driver’s window.

No more than seventeen, maybe, he seemed unscathed, just shaking. Until— “My brother!” He shook off Pete’s hands on him and scrambled back to the car.

Reuben stopped him. “We got him.” He fell to his knees and peered into the car. When he sucked in a breath and glanced back at Conner, a hollowness rushed through Conner, scraping him out.

No.

Conner couldn’t place why the ground suddenly rushed up at him, his legs buckling. In a second, he’d collapsed in the drenched grass, the smells of gasoline, mud, and the cry of the siren a knife, separating now from yesterday.

He could almost taste it, the coppery rush of blood in his mouth, the rank odor of rubber burning.

Hear his parents’ screams.

“Conner—?” Jed crouched beside him, put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m fine.” Conner jerked away. “I slipped.” He didn’t look at Jed as he climbed to his feet.

Reuben broke the window as Pete returned from the truck holding a sleeping bag from Conner’s go bag. He draped it over the glass and crawled into the Suburban.

The teenager had collapsed too, a hand to his head as if unable to move.