Page 76 of One Last Stand

Aw.Maybe he’d just walk up to her, get down on one knee, and open up the ring box that he’d finally picked up from Kirchner Jewelers yesterday. A gorgeous one-carat diamond in a white-gold band. The box sat in his console.

The radio played, and of course one of Oaken Fox’s songs came on. He hummed to it, listening to the words.

But then you walked into my life, like a sunrise over fields.

I saw forever in your eyes, and all the past wounds healed.

Now I know, deep in my soul, I’m the luckiest guy alive,

For in your love, darlin’, I’ve found my guiding light.

A little sappy, but maybe it was right.

He turned onto Eagle River road and, in the fading light, thought he spotted smoke, black and rising into the night. A chimney fire, probably—so many people in Alaska burned wood for heat.

He’d taken to lighting his fireplace every time he got home.

He checked his dash clock—they’d be at the restaurant early for their dinner reservations.

It wasn’t until he turned onto her street that he saw the glow. Trees illuminated a blaze.Oh no,one of the houses on the street must have?—

No.

He slammed his foot on the gas, then screeched to a halt in front of Tillie’s house.

Tillie’sburninghouse.

Flames engulfed the garage, the place an inferno, the front of the house still uneaten, smoke clogging the sky, and—he slammed his truck into Park and barreled out of it, sprinting into the yard, his feet plowing through the snowbank, then the caked snow. “Tillie!”

The front door remained closed, and her car sat in the driveway, melting under the heat, the flames from the garage licking out at it.

Please, God,she couldn’t be in there—“Tillie!”

Someone had to have called 911, but he’d left his cell in the car. Now he lunged at the door, put his hand on the handle.

Yanked it back. Hot—which meant the fire was baking the house, ready to explode out if he opened the door.

ButTillie was in there,with Hazel,and—he pulled down his jacket sleeve to cover his hand, pulled the neck up, and?—

“Moose!”

Her shout yanked him back, shuddering through him, and his legs nearly gave way as he turned and spotted Tillie running across the street.

He launched off the porch, stumbling through the snow.

She wore a bathrobe and Uggs, like she’d been getting ready to go out but had gotten derailed, and?—

“Where’s Hazel?” No way would she leave the house without her, but?—

She caught him, her hands on his arms, pulling him away from the fire. “She’s safe—she’s safe—she’s with Roz. Come away from there before the house?—”

He heard it even as she said it, or maybe felt it, the tremor of heat and destruction. Instinct made him grab her and dive toward the snowbank, pull her down with him, his body over hers just as the house exploded, fire and debris raining down over them.

Covering his neck with his hand, he braced his body over hers, the snow cocooning him.

Behind them, the fire raged, an inferno.

“Are you okay?” she said as he rolled away from her.

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