Page 12 of Burning Hearts

Tristan shrugged. “So we get her out of here and somewhere safe.”

At least they were in agreement about that.

Logan moved to see the damage to her satellite phone, but she turned and used the edge of a metal table to break the unit even more. She drew something out with two fingers—a SIM card. She slipped it into her pocket but left the phone on the table.

“Let’s go.” She took the pack and touched her brother’s arm. “Please come with us.”

Tristan’s expression then was a lot like hers. Impassive. Unshakeable. “I can’t. And I don’t have enough information to explain it, but I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about me.”

Logan wanted to roll his eyes. “She came all the way to Alaska to save your hide.”

They both looked at him.

Logan lifted his hands and backed off. He went to the door and peeked out through the crack but didn’t see anyone. Maybe his trip up here had been pointless, same as Jamie’s.

While the siblings whispered to each other behind him, he couldn’t help wondering if this was God’s way of finally getting him to let her go. Without all the hassle of rehashing everything they’d had and dragging all their mess out into the open once again. Added bonus—he hadn’t quit his job to do this, so he could forget the personal disaster he had and just worry about wildfires.

The idea that he’d wasted his time was like a niggle of doubt against what he’d hoped by taking this job. But was it God’s leading or a nudge from elsewhere? Hope for a fresh start without her, or despair and condemnation because she didn’t want him in her life?

Maybe he really had come all this way simply so he could see it with his own eyes, be reminded that Tristan and Jamie would always choose each other—even if it hurt them both. Logan could never compete with the bond the siblings had. It could be that God wanted him to consider that part of his past—the Jamie part—as dead. Like his old life.

After all, what had really changed between them since their last conversation?

Just because he was a new man thanks to Jesus, it didn’t solve any of the issues he and Jamie might’ve had before. She would always be determined to save her family whether they appreciated it or not. He would never be able to convince her to let them go.

They needed to get out of here.

Logan would get her to safety, and then he would go back to his team. Do what he’d come up here to do.

Be a smokejumper.

* * *

Jamie tried to focus on her brother, but anytime Logan was around, it was like all sense of reason went out the window. She could hardly believe he’d shown up here just in time to rescue her, or that he’d hit that guy over the head.

My hero.

Until he wasn’t willing to rescue her anymore because he thought her family wasn’t worth saving. Just her. But how could she live with the fact he was willing to help her and not them? As if she were any more valuable than her brother or her mother, or any more deserving of a future.

What they’d had between them might’ve been great—amazing even. But their problems had no answers, and they’d just gone around and around, unable to reconcile the difference in how they saw things.

She couldn’t get sucked into his orbit. Not again.

Even if he was here and had practically straight up told her he wanted another shot, she needed to try and ignore how handsome he still was even years after she’d met him. The guy was going to age well. In thirty years, he’d be a silver-haired fox, and her heart would probably still flutter around him. All that dark hair, and those smoldering eyes trying to trap her. Which was precisely why she needed to focus on her brother and this situation they were in.

Hello, danger.Like, real danger. Not just hot-guy trouble.

This wasn’t the time to be distracted. She should be persuading Tristan that staying was a terrible idea so they couldgo.

She turned to her brother. “You could spendmonthstrying to work out what they’re doing, T. In the end, you’ll probably wind up getting arrested as an accomplice.”

It wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Her brother was a good guy with a nasty habit of making poor choices—and the criminal record to prove it. None of it had been in the last few years, except for a few rumors she’d heard about something that’d happened in Benson over the winter. But he was apparently determined to break that streak of being a free man living on the right side of the law.

“I know what I’m doing.”

She wanted to believe that. “You should come with us. You don’t get points with the law for having nothing to tell them, and that’s all you’ve got so far.”

Tristan didn’t like hearing that.

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