Page 61 of Combust
He groaned. He’d missed this so fucking much. And then kissed her again, a real kiss this time, hot, urgent, and hungry.
Maggie responded with enthusiasm, and Cade suddenly couldn’t keep his hands off her. His bear demanded that they claim her now, so that she could be theirs forever. He pulled the hem of her shirt out of her work pants, and found the warm, soft skin of her lower back.
And then the first responder app on her phone began to bray at a startling volume.
They both jumped in surprise. Maggie tore herself out of his arms and dug her phone out of her pocket.
“Crap,” she said, swiftly reading the message. “I have to go. Someone reported a burning building a couple of miles from here.”
“I’m coming with you,” Cade said, before his brain could catch up with him and remind him that he hated fires.
Chapter Seventeen - Where There’s Smoke
“Dispatch got a call about a possible fire in a barn,” Maggie told Cade as he buckled up. “Person who reported it said that they could see a lot of smoke from the highway.”
Cade only nodded.
Maggie glanced at him, and saw that he’d gone pale under his dark beard.
She pulled onto the highway, then performed a quick U-turn to head back the way she’d come. “The weird thing is that barn is located on the old Nelson Ranch. No one’s living there right now. Manny Ornelas told me that Mr. Nelson’s grandkids sold the place to someone from Salt Lake City who wants to use it as a vacation property.”
Cade made a scoffing noise. “Man, I’d love to be rich enough to afford an entire ranch forvacationing.”
“You’re telling me,” Maggie agreed, pressing the accelerator and ignoring the posted speed limit.
A barn filled with hay and other flammable materials could go up in minutes. Without a fire engine on hand, the most that she could do was make sure that no one got hurt.
She was currently the only firefighter anywhere close to the Nelson Ranch. Dad, Uncle Ash, and Uncle Dimitri were at least ten to fifteen minutes out, maybe more if they were helping move cattle from one paddock to another.
Downtown Bearpaw Ridge and the firehouse were located another half-hour away…forty-five minutes total,ifyou stuck to the speed limit, which no one ever did when an emergency call came in.
Maggie was a mile away from the Nelson property when she spotted the thick column of dark gray smoke rising into the still air.
Dammit, she thought as she slowed down, looking for the ranch’s driveway.
The fire had established itself. Without water and hoses to fight it, the structure was doomed.
She turned off the highway and bumped down a deeply rutted dirt road, through a set of tall rusted gates that stood open, and past a century-old ranch house badly in need of painting.
The barn was located several hundred yards further up the narrow track. It was a huge old building made of wood and roofed with corrugated metal sheets. Smoke poured out from the owl holes under the eaves, and thin streamers emerged from gaps between the age-shrunken wall boards.
She parked next to a vintage pickup truck equipped with a large flatbed covered in a layer of conifer needles, then scrambled out of her car. She raced around to the back, lifted her rear hatch, and began pulling on her turnouts.
While she dressed with all the speed she could muster, she heard faint calls of “Emily! Emily, where are you?”
She identified two different voices, one male and one female. That meant at least two people inside the barn, plus Emily, whoever—or whatever—she was. For all Maggie knew, Emily could be a pet cat or dog.
Once Maggie had donned her heat-resistant hood, insulated pants and jacket with her name spelled out in reflective tape, Cade assisted her with putting on her mask and the SCBA backpack, and fitting the air lines.
When she was outfitted with all of her PPE, Cade walked around her, giving her a quick inspection. She guessed that he had completed at least one of the firefighting training classes while they’d been apart.
“You ain’t supposed to go in without a partner,” he said, blocking her way. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I know.” She also knew that she couldn’t wait for backup to arrive. Not with people trapped in that barn.
His mouth pressed into a grim line. “I’m comin’ with you.”
Maggie had to give him props for offering, especially since he’d gone greenish pale and his face was beaded with sweat. He looked petrified with terror…and she loved him for his courage in facing something he obviously feared and hated.
