Playing With Fire: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 2) (31 page)

He knew it—should have said something. But again, he’d kept his mouth shut, and people—
his
people—would die.

He glanced at Pete who was staring down the road, at the flames behind him. He glanced at Reuben and nodded.

The past would not repeat itself today.

Then Reuben toggled his radio, searched the sky. “Gilly? You up there?”

Please.
Because though he might not be able to talk to her face-to-face in the open room of the Hotline Bar and Grill, this was a matter of life and death.

“Gilly, it’s Rube. Please—”

“Priest, Marshall. I’m here. Starting my last run right now—”

“Belay that. We’re making a dash for the lake, and we need you to lay down retardant along the forest road. We’re about one click out, but the fire jumped the road about a quarter mile in.”

Static. Then, “Roger that, Rube. I’ll find you. Start running.”

Pete had taken off with CJ, running along the still green fire road, toward the lake, some five hundred yards away.

“You miss this, we’re trapped, Gilly.” Reuben started running, still holding his saw.

More static, and probably he shouldn’t have said that because Hannah, jogging beside him, looked at him, her eyes wide.

He didn’t want to scare her, but they couldn’t exactly run through a forest engulfed in flame. If Gilly could drop water or retardant on the road, it might settle the fire down enough for them to break through all the way to the lake.

The fire chased them, crowning through the branches, sending limbs airborne, felling trees. Sparks swirled in the air, so hot he thought his lungs might burst.

A black spruce exploded just to his right and with it, a tree arched, thundered to the ground, blocking the road.

Flames ran up the trunk, out to the shaggy arms, igniting the forest on the other side.

Hannah screamed, jerked back just in time.

Pete and CJ had cleared the tree. The flames rippled across it onto the other side of the road, into the forest, a river of fire.

“We’re trapped!” Hannah screamed.

Reuben grabbed his water pump, a backpack of water they wore, and began to douse the fire, working his way to the trunk. “C’mon Hannah—let’s kill this thing!”

She unhooked her line, added water to the flames. The fire died around the middle, the rest of the tree still burning.

He grabbed his saw, dove into the trunk.

Reuben had once won a chainsaw competition—sawing through a log the size of a tire in less than a minute. He’d have to make this faster.

Sweat beaded down his back, his body straining as he bore down.
Faster!
The saw chewed through the wood, cleared the bottom.

He started another cut a shoulder width away, from the bottom. “More water, Hannah!” The flames crawled up toward him.

He turned his face away, let out a yell against the heat. Heated, blessed water sprinkled his skin as Hannah used the rest of the water to bank the flames.

The saw churned against a branch. “Use my supply!”

She grabbed his hose, leveled it on the fire biting at the branches, the bark.

The fire had doubled back, along the top, relit the branches around him. He gritted his teeth, standing in the furnace, fighting the saw.

Don’t get stuck.

He broke free, the wood parting like butter.

The stump fell to the ground, creating an opening through the trunk. Reuben grabbed Hannah and pushed her forward, commandeering the hose and dousing the flames with the last of his water.

Pete and CJ, on the other side, had banked the flames with the last water in their canisters.

Ahead of them, the fire edged the road—beyond, a wall of flame barred their escape.

Reuben dropped his saw. “We can’t deploy here. We’ll die.”

He looked up into the sky, saw nothing but gray, hazy smoke.

He scooped his radio out of his belt. “Gilly, where are you?”

Nothing. He looked at Pete, his eyes blurry from smoke and ash. Hannah was working out her shake and bake, emergency tent, and he didn’t have the heart to repeat himself. CJ had run ahead, as if looking for a way out.

They had a minute, or less, to live.

“Gilly,” he said into the walkie, not sure if she could even hear him. His voice came out strangely distant, vacant. Void of the screaming going on inside his head.

“If you don’t drop right now, we die.”

And don’t miss Susie May’s newest series, Montana Rescue!

Wild Montana Skies

Search and rescue pilot Kacey Fairing is home on leave to Mercy Falls, Montana, twelve years after she joined the military to escape the mistakes of her past. With a job waiting for her as the new lead pilot of Peak Rescue in Glacier National Park, Kacey hopes to reconnect with her now-teenage daughter she sees only between deployments. What she doesn’t realize is that someone else is also back in town.

Ben King has been building his country music career since the day Kacey shut him out of her life. Now all of that’s on hold when his injured father calls him home to help run Peak Rescue until he’s fully recovered. It doesn’t take long, though, to discover his father’s ulterior motives as Kacey Fairing walks into the house and back into his heart.

With Mercy Falls in a state of emergency due to flash floods, Kacey and Ben are forced to work together to save lives. And when their daughter disappears in the wilds of Glacier National Park, Kacey realizes Ben’s betrayal all those years ago might not have been as simple as it seemed.

Preorder now—out in October 2016!

Montana Fire: Summer of Fire Trilogy

Book Two:
Playing with Fire

Published by SDG Publishing

Copyright © 2016 by Susan May Warren

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

Scripture quotations are also taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc®. All rights reserved worldwide.

For more information about Susan May Warren, please access the author’s website at the following address: www.susanmaywarren.com.

Published in the United States of America.