Page 3 of Burnin' For You

Except the black—their safety zone—was engulfed in smoke, embers, and enough trapped poisonous gases to suffocate them.

Reuben whirled around and Hannah nearly ran him over. He caught her arm. “Not that way!”

Pete ran up to him. He still held his Pulaski, his face blackened behind his handkerchief, eyes wide, breathing too hard. “We’re trapped.”

Reuben stifled a word of frustration.

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

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

The past would not repeat itself today.

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

Please.He might not be able to talk to her face-to-face in the open room of the Ember Hotline Saloon and Grill, but that wasn’t a matter of life and death.

“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 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 trees, 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 backpack of water 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.

Reuben grabbed his saw, dove into the trunk.

Sweat beaded down his back, his body straining as he bore down—faster!He could do this—he’d once won a chainsaw competition by sawing through a log the size of a tire in less than a minute.

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 flashed up toward him.

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

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

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