Chapter 17
Smoke and ash pollutedvisibility worse than morning fog. In the distance, fire crackled, shooting red-hot flares through the black cloud engulfing theridge.
Coughing and hacking, Walker controlled his gut fear by rigidly following emergency procedures and hurryingterrified families into cars—until the flaming pine crashed on a pathway near thelodge.
Sam!
Debating protocol, he froze the same way he had when Tess had pulled out agun.
To hell with protocol. He couldn’t let another crazy self-destruct.
Covering his nose with a mask the lodge staff was handing out, Walker crashed into the underbrush. Rivulets of fire crept downthe mountain. Hot ash coated the dusty path and his eyes watered from the thick smoke. Tearing pain in his thigh muscle reminded him of his past mistakes. Fire crept closer, beneath the underbrush, through the bed of pine debris. Even the mulch smoldered. Damn, but the whole place could go up like atorch.
Where wasSam?
There was a whole damned hotel full of people he needed tohelp... Why was he chasing the onecrazy?
He almost forced himself to turn around—when through the smoke, he saw a slender figure racing toward him. Heart pounding, he increased his pace through the heavy smoke. Without apology, he seized Sam by the waist, and flung her over hisshoulder.
She beat his legs with her crazy stick, but he refused to dropher.
“I’m fine! Putme down. You left Harvey back there, you know! He thinks he’s found water.” She wiggled enough that when they reached the parking lot, he had to set her down. She put her hands on her hips and glared athim.
He’d never seen anyone more beautiful andalive.
Walker wanted to strangle her for risking that life fornothing. Her face was coated in sweat and soot, looking the way his felt.He resisted the urge to shove loose strands of hair off her moist cheeks. “You followed an idiot into a burning forest to find water? What the hell do you think they’re carrying in those trucks?” He jabbed his finger toward the tankers on the dirt path to Menendezland.
“If they could pump water from the ground, they wouldn’t have to keep going back for refills! Talk to Harvey.” She swungaround to indicate the man sauntering from the woods, eyeing them askance. “Tell Walker there’s water up there and how to findit.”
Harvey shrugged his broad shoulders. “I needed Sam to find it. As I’ve said before, I’m just a facilitator. You want the aquifer, we climb themountain.”
“You’re crazy if you think either of you is climbing that mountain now,” Walker shouted hisfrustration.
“But if they had digging equipment, they could probably reach the aquifer,” Sam argued. “The snow cover is still heavy higher up. The aquifer will befull.”
“Use your damned brain, Sam! Basic fire equipment works if we don’t have to waste time saving people who have no business up here.” Walker jabbed his finger at the nearly empty parking lot. “Get a ride out of here, now, or Iswear, Sam, I’ll lock you up. Only trained professionals belonghere.”
Before Walker could turn on him, Harvey loped off, shouting “Hoses! This way!” at the staff unreeling the lodge’s equipment. He was pointing at the trickle of fire that had followed them out. At least that task was in hand. Now all he had to do was remove this newly irrationalwoman.
“Harvey and the staff aren’tprofessionals,” sheargued.
“They’re trained volunteers. They know to stay the hell out of the way.” He glanced over her shoulder and shouted at the woman preparing to leave, “Mrs. Kennedy, take Sam down with you, willyou?”
Even knowing Walker was right,Sam fought irrational fury as she swung around to see Carmel climbing into thebackseat of her Escalade. A ride with Mrs. Arrogant ought to be a real barrel of laughs. She debated swatting Walker with her stick just because, but he was already striding off, duty done. Wretched,miserable...
But with Carmen in her gunsight, Sam strode across the lot and opened the door behind the driver. “Official orders,” she declared, sliding in, appalled by her ownabrasiveness.
Dainty, diminutiveJadehad taught her to stand up for herself. “Behave as you mean to go on,” she’d said, shoving a young Sam onto the stage to explain her science experiment. Her mother had showed her how to face up to school bullies, and later, how to deal with driving instructors who wanted more than her money. In their rural community, with hostility toward herdifferentparents rampant,it had been necessary to stand up to the bullies and name callers just tosurvive.
It had been Wolf who had caught her before she could take a swing at a shrew who’d called him a name. Jade would have punched the old biddy. Wolf had taught Sam that some fights weren’t worthpicking.
So she was both her parents’ daughter now—the fighter her mother wanted her to be, and the patientscientist her father hadencouraged.
She missed them desperately, but she was a whole woman today because of them. In Wolf’s memory, she waited politely for Carmen to fire the nextround.
“You called mestep-grandmother,” the lady said under her breath, apparently not wanting the driver to hear. “What do you mean bythat?”
“You’re the one who has lived here for... how long?Thirty years? Have you never talked to Cass?” Sam realized she’d left her purse and backpack in Walker’s car.Damn.
