AFTER A LONG NIGHT OF GETTING SWEPT AWAY IN PREPARATION for the morning, tactical meetings for tonight, and calling in all the reinforcements we can get as the fire spreads rapidly toward the town site, I am beat. Battling fires is an emotionally draining job. But it’s ten times more intense when you know a monster like this is barreling toward your home.

    I’m seated in a chair in Dale’s office, where I must’ve dozed off. Shaking off the grogginess of sleep, I check my phone to find a text from Gwen. It appears that it came inst night, but I’m not seeing it until now.

    Gwen: I heard you’re going to help with the fire, and I just wanted you to know I’m heading home. I’ll be here waiting for you.

    I stare at her words, reading the meaning in them. Knowing her implication. She’s not going anywhere—even if I’m being a raging asshole. I smile at the screen, then I’m pulled away by a voice outside that filters in from the side of the building. It’s Dale, and his tone sounds stressed. Immediately on edge, I head out of the office and follow the sound.

    As I step outside, the overwhelming smell of smoke ms into me like a wall. Light creeps over the mountain’s edge, filtering through the dense smoke, creating an eerie, apocalyptic glow over the spring morning.

    He ends a call when I round the corner. I nod at him and he starts right in with the bad news.

    “By all ounts, shit is bad. And the night was rough. They had to draw back several times. Those trees are going up like matchsticks—forty feet in the air.”

    I grimace. There’s nothing like the whoosh and pop of a bone-dry tree being taken over by me to make you feel entirely powerless.

    “I’ll prep and make sure the other guys are ready to go. We’ve got a big tanker now too, yeah?” I ask.

    He checks his watch and nods. “Landing in about thirty minutes.”

    I let out a sigh of relief. We both know that will make an enormous difference. A ne that size can scoop up a hell of a lot of water from theke. It’s truly ideal.

    “Good. I’ll get my shit together,” I say, pping his shoulder before turning to leave.

    With what little time I have left before I hit the skies, I decide to stop off at West’s farm and check in. All I know is that Emmett arrived early this morning, and they’ve already managed to each get one load out to a ranch about forty-five minutes down the road.

    When I pull up, the first thing I see is an exhausted-looking Ford Grant stepping into his Mercedes G-Wagon. He has a small stic box in his hand. I hop out, coffee in hand, squinting to get a better look. I can see a small, gray mouse inside the box.

    When he catches me gawking, he deadpans, “Don’t even fucking ask.”

    I hold my hands up innocently. “I wasn’t going to,” I lie before changing the subject. “Did you just get here?”

    “No,” he grumbles. “I’ve been here all fucking night trying to”—he holds his free hand up in air quotes—“‘evacuate’ Rosie’s stupid mouse.”

    “Rosie’s stupid mouse?”

    Ford res at me.

    “You know what? You’re right. I promised I wouldn’t ask.”

    “Let the record show that I love Rosie enough to spend all night sitting quietly in a shitty little bunkhouse just so I can catch her favorite rodent.”

    Telling him about Sly is on the tip of my tongue, but I decide it’s not the moment for it. “Is West here?”

    “Yeah, your friend Emmett too. They’re down at the barn. Thanks for calling him. That’s made a huge difference for West. Seems like a good dude.”

    I nod at that. “Just doing my part.”

    Ford and I say our goodbyes, and I watch him drive away with a mouse in his Mercedes before I head up to the stables. Just listening to Ford mention Rosie has my brain circling back to Gwen and how we left things between us.

    It’s ufortable and not ideal, but I know my focus is needed on the fire right now. Once that’s dealt with, I can pivot to Gwen and fixing everything that I fucked up yesterday.

    Up at the barn, I find West and Emmett strategizing which horses to put into which rig, how much feed to take with each one, and a dozen other things I never thought about.

    Emmett stands with his hip cocked and his arms crossed, wearing that signature nk expression on his face. Happy, sad, excited—it’s all the same look with this man. Unless, of course, he’s spotted a beautiful woman in the vicinity. Then, the most dazzling TV-worthy smile appears on cue. Where I struggle with talking to women, Emmett does not. That much has be abundantly clear in the times we’ve been out together.

    “I say take it all,” he carries on. “No point in leaving the hay to get burned if it does end up that way.”

    West looks ghostly white, like the prospect of everything burning is gutting to him. Emmett faced this years back, when we first met. In fact, fires are amon urrence in Emerald Lake. So I’m not surprised by the level of detachment he takes in talking about it. For West, though, this is not the norm.

    “Okay, yeah,” West says, his voice edged with nervousness. “Let’s load it up.”

    Emmett gives him a nod before springing into action, which is when they both catch sight of me.

    “You fes both making out okay?” I ask.

    “Yep, got one load out,” West replies with a slight hitch in his voice.

    Emmett swoops in with a reassuring “And now we’re gonna get the rest. It’s not even a question. Everyst horse is getting out safe.”

    West’s Adam’s apple bobs at that. Then he focuses on me. “How’s the fire?”

    I shrug, not wanting to lie to him but not wanting to add any more pressure than he’s clearly already under. “You know, it’s not good. But I haven’t been up in the air, so I can’t say for sure. Once I know, I’ll touch base with you. Is there anything I can do? I need to head to the airstrip soon.”

    Both guys shake their heads just as my phone rings.

    When I see Clyde’s name, I answer immediately.

    His typically creaky voice holds an edge of panic when he says “Bash?” before I’ve even said hello.

    “Clyde, what’s wrong?” I don’t know why I ask it. All I know is that I can tell something is wrong.

    “I can’t find Gwen.”

    My brows furrow. “What do you mean you can’t find Gwen?”

    “Well, you know, I couldn’t sleep, so I woke, figured I’d take a walk down the driveway and see if I could spot the fire over the back rise. That’s when I realized her truck was gone, which I found suspicious because we both went to bed at the same timest night. So then I came back in the house, calling for her, and made my way upstairs. Sorry, I looked in your room.”

    Panic rises in his voice as he lists all the ces he’s searched, and it’s an exact reflection of mine. “Checked her room. Checked the front deck. Checked down by theke where she likes to put her feet in the sand. I checked everywhere. She’s not answering my phone calls, they’re going straight to voicemail, and I don’t think she’s here.”

    My heart drops lower and lower with every sentence until it feels like it might seize up entirely at the prospect of Gwen being missing.

    “But the thing I keeping back to is that her truck’s not here. So she has to be out, right?”

    I scoff, lifting one hand to the back of my neck as a knot of anxiety pulls tight in my chest. I tug at the short ends of my hair as I rack my brain for where she might have gone. “I don’t know, Clyde. I don’t know. Have you talked to Tabby or Rosie or Skr?”

    “No, I don’t have all their numbers. The thing is…” The way he trails off has my stomach falling down to the floor.

    “What’s the thing, Clyde?”

    “The thing is,st night when she came home, I was… Well, you know, I was feeling down about the possibilities of what could happen to my house. In a dark moment, I kind of said something about that all my stuff was there, everything from Maya. Just sort of having a moment about losing all those memories.”

    My heartes back to life but not in a good way. Now it’s thudding painfully in my chest, adrenaline coursing through my veins as I travel down the path he’sid out for me.

    “Wait, you think she went to your ce?”

    He makes a soft keening sound. “Fuck, Bash, I don’t know. But she looked tearful when we went to bed, and she gave me an unusually tight hug. And I don’t know, I just… I’m worried.”

    My stomach turns over on itself. Clyde left her with a hug, and I left her with guess you did warn me you don’t stay in one ce for long.

    Regret pummels me from every direction. Pressure constricting around my skull until I can barely think straight.

    That can’t be how I left things with us. I never even answered her goddamn text.

    But if Clyde is worried, that means I should be very, very worried.

    I spring into action. Years of working under pressure snap me back to reality.

    “Okay, Clyde, please, whatever you do, stay where you are. Because if shees home, you’re the person who needs to tell me. I’m going to start calling around. I’ll stay in touch with you. But I need to go up in the air soon, which means I’ll be out of contact for a while.”

    “Okay, okay,” he says, his voice shaking a bit. “I promise I won’t go anywhere.”

    “I mean it, Clyde. Don’t even go out on the patio to sun your perineum. Just be ready by a phone, okay?”

    “Okay,” he says.

    “And, Clyde, no matter what, while I’m up there, I promise to fly over your ce. I’ll check, okay?”

    “Okay,” he says, voice cracking with emotion. “But, Bash?”

    “Yeah?”

    “Find Gwen first.”

    With that, I hang up. Because if I have to listen to Clyde cry, I might lose it too.

    I call Gwen immediately, almost hurling my coffee onto the gravel when it doesn’t even ring. Straight to voicemail, just like Clyde said.

    Needing to keep focused, I pull up my contact list and start going through everyone who might know Gwen’s whereabouts.

    The first person I check with is Tabitha, because I know she attends Gwen’s yoga sses and they’ve forged something of a friendship.

    She answers her phone, sounding tired, but confirms with a nervous voice that she hasn’t seen or heard from Gwen. The results are much the same when I call Rosie and Skr in turn. All nervous. All tired and all pleading with me to give them an update and promising to do the same if they hear anything.

    Truth be told, I don’t know who else to call. I phone the emergency shelter, but no one with her name has checked in.

    As I turn to join Emmett and West, I hear the crunch of tires pulling up to the barn. It’s Tripp Coleman, driving right toward me.

    He steps out of his car, wearing a sweatsuit, sneakers, and the world’s most dramatic eye roll. “My God, you’re fucking everywhere,” he groans.

    “What are you doing here?” I grumble before realizing he’s the only person I haven’t called that might know where Gwen is.

    “Well, despite the fact that you clearly think I’m a shitty person, I’ve been up watching the news all night, and I figured I might as well help out since I’m here. So I went down to themunity hall, and they sent me here to help load straw bales.”

    I’m shaken. Why was he even still here? I’d expected him to burn straight out of town and never look back.

    He wants a rtionship with you too. Gwen’s words filter in from my memories.

    But all I do is correct him with “Hay bales.”

    “What-the-fuck ever, man. As if it makes a difference. Just let me do my thing.”

    He goes to brush past me, but I grab him by the arm, stopping him in his tracks. He looks down at my hand, like I’ve somehow gravely offended him.

    “Don’t touch me,” he spits, clearly still furious with me for what happened with Gwen.

    “Tripp, for fuck’s sake, can we please put our differences aside for a moment? I need you to tell me honestly if you’ve seen Gwen.”

    “Why would I have seen Gwen? She’s made it clear she only wants to spend time with me if it’s in your presence.”

    My breath hitches as my lungs tighten. My god, I’ve fucked up so badly.

    “She’s missing,” I rasp. “She went to bed at the housest night, and this morning she’s not there. Her truck’s not there either.”

    The look of disgust on his face morphs into one of concern. “You haven’t heard from her at all?”

    “No,” I groan, gripping the back of my neck just for something to do with worried hands. “We had a disagreement, and both took a moment to get some air. And now I don’t know where she is. She’s not answering her phone. Herst text to me said she’d be at home. None of her friends know where she is. I just thought that you might have some idea.”

    The tension in his shoulders loosens, and they drop down subtly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know where she is. I haven’t heard from her since we had a coffee yesterday afternoon.”

    Both my hands rake through my hair as I turn in a circle, looking around myself as if I might be able to see her somewhere near the tree line or find her at the top of the driveway. Like she might pop up and be fine. But instead, the woman who is the love of my life is missing during a major natural disaster.

    It doesn’t feel real.

    I feel a hand mp onto my shoulder from behind and turn to see Emmett with a somber expression on his face. “Dude, go. I got this. You have zero game. If there’s a girl who actually likes you, you need to go find her.”

    I press the heels of my palms into my eyes. Leave it to fucking Emmett to shit-talk me at a moment like this. Strangely, it’sforting. If he went all soft on me, it would only stress me out more.

    Tripp chuckles and it rankles me, but Emmett doesn’t let him get away with it. “What are youughing at, pretty boy? The hay bales are over there. Get to work.” Emmett points toward the barn, effectively dismissing Tripp before turning to follow him.

    And I watch them walk away.

    There’s a part of me that’s surprised Tripp showed up here today. It makes me realize that I don’t know him as well as I thought.

    Maybe Gwen was right.

    And maybe I’ll never get the chance to tell her as much.hr

    From up in the air, I have a clear view of the devastation. And while I usually fly feeling rtively cool, calm, and collected, today my heart is in my throat. My nerves are so raw that, even strapped in, I can barely sit still.

    When I took off from the airstrip, Gwen was still nowhere to be found. I checked again with themunity center, told the other pilots to keep their eyes peeled for her truck, then made my way to the fire service aircraft and got to work.

    Without knowing where she is, there’s nothing I can do, and feeling this out of control is one of my worst nightmares.

    At least if I’m helping, I’m doing something. Because, god, I really need to be doing something so I don’t just copse.

    From this altitude, I can see the damage this fire has wreaked. It stretches over the back side of the sprawling mountain, through the valley, and up over the next. It wraps around the side, encroaching on the main feeder highway in and out of Rose Hill.

    I don’t know exactly how many hectares we’re at now, but in the privacy of my cockpit, I curse under my breath, admitting to myself that this is bigger than I thought. So much worse than I imagined.

    I should be working on an indirect attack to set our firebreak. We have clear orders—a n. Create a buffer zone to slow the spread.

    But for the first time in my life, I don’t give a fuck about being responsible. My focus is single-minded—and it’s not on the job. It’s on Gwen.

    I can’t work without finding her. Hell, I can barely breathe, and it has nothing to do with the ominous nket of smoke. All I can think about is getting a good look at Clyde’s ce to see if she might be there.

    It’s not part of the strategy Dale and I discussed before attacking the mountain.

    But the truth is, I might let it all burn if it means finding her.

    If Gwen is gone, nothing else matters.

    Having checked along the highway, I give in to my instincts and turn my aircraft toward the peak of the mountain, knowing that I won’t have to go far over that side to get a good look at Clyde’s property.

    The engine hums and my seat shakes as I fly low over the burning brush and glowing embers. I see the blue tin roof that adorns Clyde’s small log house, and I sit forward in my seat, pressing the ne faster to catch sight of it as quickly as possible.

    It appears that much of what surrounds Clyde’s home has been burned to a crisp. The earth scorched ck. The trees reduced to ash… but not his house. The yard surrounding it has miraculously held the fire line.

    My limbs feel like lead and I find myself praying for another miracle. Eyes scanning frantically, fingers gripped tight.

    I draw closer, and I see it.

    Her truck.

    Nausea twists in my gut and I have to fight the urge to throw myself from this ne just to get to her. What was she thinking?

    I drop lower, hoping to catch sight of her, wanting to both shake her and hold her tight in equal parts.

    I take one pass over the house, realizing that the opposite side is not as severely burned. It appears the area around the creek off toward the back of his property has been less affected.

    Then I catch sight of her—a sh of silvery-blond hair pulled up in a high ponytail. I turn hard, looping back around to circle the property, and based on the way she holds a hand up to her forehead, I know she sees me.

    Relief and dread hit me all at once. I found her. But she’s closed in. The property is surrounded by mes on all sides.

    Frantically, I search the area, wondering if there’s somewhere I cannd. I want to go down there and pull her out myself, but it’s futile and I know it. It’s too densely forested. There’s nowhere for me to put a ne down here.

    Picking up my radio, I call for backup. I share my coordinates and let the guys know there’s a civilian trapped on an evacuated property.

    Within seconds, I get confirmation that aerial support is on its way.

    I startying out a n for how to have her make an exit from the property. The radio confirms that they’ll be ready to send a rescue vehicle past the blockade and up in that direction. As long as there’s a clear path, they will go in and escort her down.

    As I watch the markers for other nes approaching on the radar, I push away the fear coursing through my veins and all the worst-case scenarios ying through my head.

    If they need a clear path to get her out, I’ll make one myself.