Page 30 of Light My Fire

“Do it,” Tucker said, his breathing hard in her ear, as if he could read her mind.

Right. “Hold on, whatever you do.”

He tightened his hold and she gunned the bike. She fought the bouldered path, arrowing them straight for the edge, praying she had the guts to maintain her speed enough to shoot them over the cliff and clear the rubble at the bottom of the wall.

They shot into the air, and Tucker’s legs tightened around her. She bit back a scream and held on.

The ground slammed up too fast, and when they hit, she would have jerked right off if it hadn’t been for Tucker’s arm flinging around her, grabbing her tight to his body.

They bounced, but she ground down on her hold, kept the bike’s speed steady, and let Tucker center her.

She rode them down the trail, easing into the brake when they hit the meadow. He finally loosened his hold on her as they slowed to a stop.

Sweat slicked down her back despite the cool morning, and she fought to catch her breath.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Tucker said, his words oddly stilling her shaking.

She wanted to turn, to look at him, but feared the emotion he might see in her eyes. So she gunned it over the meadow, loosening her arms to give the bike movement as they bounced over the ground, rough and rutted. The wheels trampled the reindeer moss, the wildflowers, and she cut a path around the occasional spruce jutting from a lonely patch of earth.

The forest loomed ahead of them, rimmed only by the dry river ravine, and Stevie searched it for glimpses of the orange shirts.

She increased her speed, her eyes on the forest—

They hit the log hard in a bone-chilling crunch.

She screamed, Tucker’s body hard against hers as they flew from the bike.

Airborne.

She landed so hard, her breath slammed out of her.

She sprawled, dazed and broken, her body jarred.

Only after a moment did she feel Tucker next to her, his arm around her.

He’d tried to cushion her fall—she got that much as she gulped for breath, wheezing—because she lay half on top of him, half in the grasses.

“Tuck—” Her voice wouldn’t return to her, and she sat up, huffing hard. Her head spun.

She put a hand to it, found a welt growing just above her eye. “Tuck—”

Her vision cleared, her breath full in her lungs.

Tucker lay on his side, unmoving beside her, eyes closed.

“Tucker!” She hit her knees, leaned over him, her fingers pressed to his jugular artery. A heartbeat—Thank you, Almighty God. And breath—she put her face close to his mouth to confirm it.

“Tucker.” Stevie pressed her hands to his face. “Wake up.”

Movement, and in a second his eyes blinked open, widened. She stared at him, and it took a moment, then his breath sucked in, hard.

She touched his chest. “You’re okay. Just got the wind knocked out of you.”

He put his hand over hers on his chest. “You…okay…?” The voice seemed torn from the wreckage inside.

“I think so.” She gripped his hand and helped as he pushed himself to a sitting position.

He shrugged out of his backpack—and sure, that was what had shucked the breath from him, landing crazily on his gear.

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