Embracing Today, a firefighter romance: (The Trading Yesterday Series, #3), Kahlen Aymes [essential reading txt] 📗

Leonard died. I sighed feeling love settle over me. Once again, I found myself wondering if it weren’t my uncle working with God that started that fire.

I closed my eyes and offered a silent prayer that Ben, Davis, and everyone else would be protected and the forest fire would soon be contained.

Ben

The fire was raging on all sides of us.

The heat was intense and though my gear protected me, I felt like I was melting inside of it. I hoped Davis and the others had taken shelter in the river as I chopped at the burning trees in front of me that blocked our path. My shoulders were aching as I wielded the ax over and over again.

We’d been out here for hours and dawn was starting to break. I could see the sky above me start to turn purple, and the planes dumping the slurry mixture of water, fire retardant and fertilizer in front of us. Our suits were splattered with the stuff and I wanted to use a gloved hand to wipe it off my visor but resisted. I’d learned in past experience that it would only smear and make it impossible to see.

Marin was on my mind, even though my body was on autopilot. I knew what had to be done. I swung at another tree with everything I had, cracking it under the pressure. It had a pretty thick trunk, but it was weakened; glowing red and black as the fire consumed it, reducing it to glowing embers. The three men with me were doing the same as we carved a path through the burnt forest.

My walkie talkie was clipped to my jacket and I grabbed it. “Any luck finding the guys, Cap?”

“The helicopter found them in the river. Can you get to them? The fire around them is still raging so the copter can’t get low enough to air lift them out. The heat plume will turn flip the bird.”

“Can you tell me how far we are away? The ‘copter is hovering above us right now.” I was yelling into the walkie talkie. The fire was still roaring, and the sound of the helicopter was a hindrance, as well as my hat and gas mask I was wearing.

“You’re getting closer. Looks like about a mile to the northeast.”

Another fucking mile, I thought ruefully. My muscles were already screaming, and I was stronger than some of the other guys with me. We were all exhausted.

Even with four of us hacking away it would take hours and hours. My heart seized for Marin. My mind pictured her crying at my feet while I turned away before I left. I was thankful for my family being there, and hopefully Missy could reason with her. I should have been more empathetic. I was scared shitless when she’d called me from that bathroom stall and I wasn’t able to get to her, but all I could think about were Davis and the others trapped out here in this inferno.

Beads of sweat rolled down my face and forehead beneath my gear and stung my eyes.

“Yeah. Just have the pilot keep an eye on us and let me know if we veer off course.”

“Sure thing, son,” he answered. “You’re doing a great thing.”

“Just doing my job,” I answered. “Is it getting under control?”

“Yeah, it’s about sixty percent. They’re bringing in some crews from Idaho to help. We’ll get it. I’ll be in touch,” Captain Connors replied.

I let go of the walkie talkie and it fell back into position, hanging from the clip at my side. I put my hand in the air and motioned for the others to continue in the direction we were going. “We’re getting close! Keep moving!” I yelled and it was relayed from the man closest to me to the one next to him and so on.

As we continued through the forest, chopping and climbing through what we could, I tried to keep my mind focused on the goal, and allowing only a few minutes here or there to think of Marin. I understood her fear but wished she would have shared the content of her nightmares with me. I’d known something was up the other night in the tent and I chastised myself for not realizing. I was scared that she was still in love with that loser boyfriend, and I was relieved that wasn’t it.

I’d never forget the fear on her face when she begged me not to go but I had to find a way to make her understand that fighting fires was what I loved. Though, in this moment when I was weary and sore, and with hours of work in front of me I told myself that I needed my head examined. It would be crazy, except that when Davis and the others finally came into view, all of them in the water to their waists, it was reiterated that it was saving lives that I found the most rewarding.

The men stranded in the river cheered when they saw us, and I almost fell to my knees in relief. I glanced to my right, then left, and saw that the other three men with me were feeling it, too. We needed to rest a bit before we walked out of here, retracing our steps.

We sat down on the bank of the river as Davis, Jake, Mark and three others waded toward us. Davis’s gloved hand came down on my shoulder. “It’s good to see you, but what took you so fuckin’ long?”

I looked up at him. He probably couldn’t see the smile on my face, but I lifted a hand to place it on the arm of his coat, grateful we were able to find them. “At least we weren’t lounging in a jacuzzi, like you assholes.”

I could hear Davis and the others’ chorus of laughter and then louder cheers followed.

“I owe you a beer,” my friend said.

“Screw that. You owe me a fucking brewery!”

We stood and then the ten of us began