Page 15 of I’ll Be There (Montana Fire #4)

“I don’t know. The last time I saw Justin, he said he had an important meeting, and that he needed me gone by the time he got back.

He made it sound like he wouldn’t be far behind me, as if he was leaving soon.

That’s why he gave me his phone—so he could find me.

But he never made it.” Her eyes had filled.

“I tried to get him to come with me, but he said his work wasn’t done.

” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “It was never done with him.”

Never done.

And he’d died for it.

“He might have been killed by Kayle, our leader. If he found out that Justin was a plant.”

“Or the person who benefited from SOF’s actions,” Micah said.

Blue nodded.

The phone played a sound, something that indicated it had finally booted up.

“Let’s hear that voicemail,” Conner said, and handed the phone to Blue.

She punched in the code.

The voice that rose haunted Conner through to his core.

Deep, confident, hued by the slightest urgency.

“Blue, babe. I’m going to be late—really late.

Don’t wait for me. Go to the cabin, stay there until I contact you.

” A pause. “If something happens to me, call my brother. He’ll know what to do. I love you, Blue.”

Call my brother. Like a thief, the words reached out and stole the febrile hold he had on his grief.

Conner turned away, cupped a hand over his eyes, hating the sweet familiarity, the way he yearned for it, hungry, almost desperate to see Justin walk into the room, his dark hair rucked up, wearing his cowboy boots, a pair of jeans, a white T-shirt, a crooked smile finding his eyes. Hey, bro.

Micah’s hand landed on his shoulder. “You okay?”

Conner exhaled a shaky breath. Nodded.

“I...just kept waiting,” Blue said. “I guess it was for nothing.”

Conner turned back to her. “Not for nothing. I pulled a cell phone off the guy who shot you—I’m heading back to Deep Haven, and I’ll figure out how to open it. I’ll find out who’s behind this, Blue.” He hesitated. Then, “I promise .”

The words left his mouth, stung the air. But Blue looked at him with so much hope in her eyes, he settled into them, nodded.

His phone vibrated and he dug it out. This number, he recognized.

He declined the call, slid the phone back into his pocket.

“We gotta go,” he said. “But listen. You get better, okay? And when you’re ready, call me.

I have friends in Montana. We can find you a place to live, people to watch over you. ”

His words seemed to break her, and her eyes filled. “Thank you, Conner.”

“Okay then.” Because it felt right, he leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Thank you for being so brave.”

Micah tucked Justin’s phone into her hand, gave her grip a squeeze, then led the way out of the room.

Conner dragged his phone out in the hallway, was just about to dial Liza when Romeo appeared. “Here you go.”

He tossed Conner a blue T-shirt, a black button dress shirt to Micah.

“I don’t want to ask,” Micah said.

“Step back, bro. I raided the lost and found.”

Conner grinned and headed into the bathroom. He whipped off his shirt, put on the new one, and took a second to wash his hands, take a look at the scrape on his arms. Micah did the same. His button-down pulled around the shoulders. Conner hit send on his phone just as they exited.

Liza picked up on the first ring. “Hey! I left you a voice mail.”

“Sorry—I was in the middle of...something. Everything okay?” Just hearing her voice, so free of all the trauma of today, made him ache. Wow, he needed her—just her calm voice, the way she could find him in the chaos of his life, center him. Make him believe everything would be okay.

“So...we have a small hiccup,” she said.

He caught up with the guys, and they headed down the hallway to the elevator. Pete pressed the button.

“We don’t have a marriage license.”

He stopped. “What?”

“I know—my bad. I think I might have told you I’d get it, but I forgot and...well, Grace pulled some strings and Ivy can get one for us, but you have to be here by five o’clock to sign the application, so...please tell me you’re on your way home.”

He glanced at the clock. Just past three, but Thunder Bay was an hour ahead, so...

“I’ll be there as fast as I can. Nothing’s going to keep me from marrying you on Monday.”

He hung up just as the doors opened.

The silence as the guys tromped in around him made him look up. “What?”

“You can’t go back to Deep Haven,” Reuben said quietly.

“Huh?”

“Not until we know that it’s safe. We don’t know who was after Blue, or if they might be after you, too.”

“He’s dead. And no one is after me—”

Reuben looked at him. Pete shook his head. And even Romeo made a face. “Dude—”

“Listen, if I don’t get back there, I don’t get married!”

Micah took a breath. “For once, I agree with the youngsters. You don’t know what trouble Blue is in, and the last thing you want to do is bring it back to Deep Haven. To Liza.”

Conner rounded on him. “Where am I going to go? I need a computer and the internet if I want to crack this phone. We can’t just go to the local library—”

“How about my place?”

Every head swiveled in Seth’s direction. He stood in the corner, near the back, and now lifted a shoulder. “I want to help. Maybe if I hadn’t tackled you, if I’d listened, maybe the shooter wouldn’t have died, and right now you’d have answers.”

“He was going a little crazy, waving a gun around,” Pete said.

Conner shot him a look.

“I have a house outside Deep Haven. It’s not finished, but it does have internet, and there’s plenty of room to lay low while we figure this out. You can tell Liza to bring the papers up to my place. No one would connect us—and I’ll let you use my computer.”

Silence as they traveled down to the first floor.

“Do you want to finish this, or let it go?” Micah asked quietly as the doors opened.

Conner stepped out into the wide, sunny expanse of the foyer. The sunlight gleamed through the windows, blue sky overhead, warmth on his skin.

If something happens to me, call my brother.

He turned to Reuben. “Can you and Pete find Liza, get that marriage license for us to sign? Micah and I will go to his place and see if I can figure out what’s going on.”

He looked at Micah. “It’s time to finish this.”

Please, let this not be a sign of the times to come.

Liza sat in Pastor Dan’s office, the wedding program on her lap, going through the order of service.

Without her groom.

“Do you want to wait?” Dan asked. He sat across from her at his desk, three bookcases of theology books behind him, his laptop closed. He wore a long-sleeved, blue dress shirt rolled up to the elbows, a pair of jeans. Handsome, faithful, wise, and now kind as he leaned back, folded his hands.

“I don’t know.” Liza picked up her phone. She’d texted Conner twice, but he hadn’t answered. And the hands on the clock inched painfully long after three o’clock, nosing closer to four. “I think I forgot, in all the craziness, to tell him. I can’t remember.”

Still, she couldn’t ignore the niggle inside that his lateness served as yet another sign.

Not only did they not have a reception hall, but if he didn’t show up, pronto, they wouldn’t be legally married. Not to mention the fact that the very thought of their life after marriage lit hysterics inside her.

Wow, she still wanted to wince at the recollection of Grace finding her mid-meltdown.

Yeah, the coffee had helped. And, her brief conversation with Conner. He’d sounded preoccupied, but— Nothing’s going to keep me from marrying you on Monday —yeah, that statement had shored up her fraying edges.

They would be fine. Just...

Her phone buzzed with a return text from Conner. Where are you?

She texted back her location, looked up at Dan. “He’ll be here. I think he was just away from cell service as he drove down Highway 61.”

“There are a lot of pockets where cell towers drop coverage,” Dan said. “But I’m running a little short on time—why don’t we go through the hymns. We’ll cover the order of service at the rehearsal tomorrow night. Four o’clock, here, right?”

She nodded. “Then dinner at Pierre’s Pizza—we thought it would be nostalgic.

We had pizza on our first date—although not really a date because we were just walking around the art show downtown.

He was here with his hotshots fighting the fire up north.

He needed a friend—someone away from the fire line—just to decompress. ”

Dan raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure he wasn’t thinking, ‘Hey, let’s just be friends.’”

“What—yes. We were just friends. And then, after a few years of corresponding...”

Dan gave her a smile, shaking his head. “You know, guys don’t need friends. They have them—with the other guys. He was hanging around you because he liked you, Liza. Even if he wouldn’t admit it.”

Oh.

“Tell me about the Jude County Smoke Jumpers. I met the hotshot team when they were here that summer—but I don’t know much about smoke jumpers.”

“They’re the elite firefighters who go deep into a remote location by jumping from an airplane.

They drag in their gear—from axes to water cans to camping equipment—which they lug around on their backs, and they fight the fire with just their brute strength, trying to tame it before it gets out of hand. ”

“Sounds like the military.”

“Conner is a former Green Beret. And a lot of the guys who are smoke jumpers served, so yeah. The camaraderie builds in the same way. Conner’s really committed to his team.”

And with those words, her gut started to churn.

“So...he’s going to continue his work after you’re married?” Dan said, as if he could see through to her soul.

Liza forced a smile. “Why not? Of course. He’s good at it, and he loves it, and...”

Silence.

Dan raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“Just because he’s getting married doesn’t mean he needs to sacrifice something he loves, right?”

Dan nodded, something small, almost acquiescing.

“And you? What about your pottery shop? Is he moving here, or—”