White Heat (24 page)

“Hey! Over here…” Brody, standing near Tom and his waiting Jeep, waved them over. There was no mistaking the tension there, or the desperate plea in his face.

Lyndie looked at Griffin. “He needs you.”

“Yeah.” He looked so torn, Lyndie decided to make it easy for him. She walked to the Jeep.

And she was fine. She was fine with the fact Griffin had tortured himself when it hadn’t been his fault. She was fine with the fact that after this trip, she’d never see him again. She was fine with all of it, and she put the cool, even smile on her face to prove it.

But on the inside, the mourning began.

Tom had grabbed Nina in a big, fat bear hug. When he finally let her go, he turned and nodded to Griffin, who had moved to stand next to his brother. Tom also smiled very kindly at Lyndie, and because she felt so fragile, it had her own frosty smile slipping for a moment. “Thanks for bringing her back to me,” he said.

“Actually, I didn’t even know that’s what I was doing.” She put a hand on Brody’s shoulder. “Brody arranged for all this; the flight, the supplies, everything, so maybe you should be thanking him.”

Tom looked at Brody. “Oh, I’ll get to him.”

Brody stood up a little straighter and offered a weak smile.

“Papa,” Nina warned. “Don’t—”

Tom held up his head at his daughter, silencing her, but he never took his eyes off Brody. “I’ve got a shotgun in my Jeep, boy. And I’m licensed to use it.”

A little pale, Brody nodded.

“Tom.” Griffin took a step forward, but Tom pointed at him, halting him. “I like you, son. I like you a lot, but don’t even think about interrupting me right now when I’m on a roll. I don’t get on a roll very often. Hell, I can’t even remember the last time I had to muster up a good temper, but I’m mustered up at the moment. Mustered up enough to get us a shotgun wedding, right here, right now.”

Despite Tom’s standing nearly in his face, Brody reached for Nina’s hand. “A shotgun wedding…” He shot her a sweet smile. “Sounds good. Assuming you give me enough time to get my parents here.”

“I didn’t ask you,” Tom said. “I’m telling you.”

“Yes, but seeing as we’re all adults, I’m pretending you did. In any case, the joke is on you, because nothing,
nothing,
would make my life more complete than to be married to your daughter. I was going to ask her this weekend anyway.”

Nina gasped, covering her mouth with her hands, her sparkling eyes on Brody.

He smiled softly at her. “It would put meaning to my life to be a part of yours.” He brought her fingers to his mouth, watching her with warm eyes over their joined hands. “Maybe I came here to save my brother, but instead, I saved myself. This place saved me.
You
saved me,” he said to her, his eyes brilliant and suspiciously shiny.

“Oh, Brody.
Te quiero.
I love you.” Nina threw her arms around his neck. “I love you so much.”

“Is that a yes, you’ll marry me? You’ll be my wife, my friend, my lover…for the rest of our lives?”

Nina’s smile was slow and beautiful. “Yes,
querido.
Yes, to all of it.” Then she planted a long kiss on him.

After a moment, Brody pulled back, holding her face as if they were all alone. “I love it here,” he said. “Your family is here.” He never so much as glanced at Tom, who looked as if a good wind could blow him over. “I know you want to get out and see the world. And I look forward to that, too, but I can also see spending time, lots of time, right here.”

Nina looked around her, at the magnificent mountains, at the beauty and serenity unrivaled to just about anywhere else in the world, and then at Tom, and slowly nodded. “Maybe we could come here after college, during the summers. Do some extra teaching.”

“I’d like that,” Brody said.

Tom just kept staring at them as if they’d lost their minds. “You mean…you
want
to get married?”

“Yes,” Nina said, her wet eyes still on Brody’s. “Oh, most definitely yes. Let’s call your parents.”

Brody swung her around, while the two of them shared another extremely private kiss.

Tom looked so utterly flabbergasted, Lyndie took pity on him, and slung her arm around his shoulders. “Poor baby. You didn’t expect them to
want
to get hitched, did you?”

“Shit.”

Smiling, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Well, you’ve done it now, Papa. You’re going to have to be happy for them.”

“Shit,”
he repeated brilliantly.

Lyndie herself couldn’t quite understand why Nina felt she needed the little scrap of paper that would proclaim her another man’s wife, but if Nina wanted it that badly, then she should have it. “It’s going to be okay, Tom. They’re good together.”

Nina danced in a circle and grinned. “We’ll do it here, soon as we can get Brody’s parents here.” She turned to Lyndie, and kissed both her cheeks. “And you, you’ll be my maid of honor.”

“Now, wait a minute—”

“You’ll have to smile, though.” Nina cocked a brow. “You do have a smile, right?”

“I don’t think—”

“Good,” Nina said. “Stick with that. No thinking. Just doing.” She clapped her hands. “And we have lots of doing. Let’s go get started!”

Lyndie got into the Jeep with Nina, watching Griffin hug Brody before they got in as well, the two of their sun-kissed heads close together, their faces creased in matching smiles. Two brothers so alike, and yet so different. Brody’s smile came easily, carefree. His eyes held nothing but love and joy.

Griffin…his smile didn’t quite meet his eyes, because swimming there was still so much emotion that it took her breath. She knew this because he turned right then and looked at her, as if maybe he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

She knew the feeling. It pissed her off.

They wound their way toward San Puebla, over the railroad tracks, the rickety bridge, down the centuries-old road. Tom drove, with Griffin next to him. Lyndie was in the backseat with the two lovebirds, both of them chomping at the bit.

She had no idea why they had to get married right now, right this very moment. She’d have much preferred to see Tom let his daughter have the life she wanted. Then she’d have given out the cargo of supplies Brody had provided and gone back to the States. Brody and Nina could live in sinful bliss as long as they wanted, with no promise, or burden, of the actual marriage.

Something she’d hoped to do herself. Instead, she held Lucifer’s carrying case, who was extremely unhappy in her lap with the wind whipping around them. Unhappiness she understood, as it had rooted within her as well.

Historically, when she was unhappy, she made sure she was alone to lick her wounds, and she had plenty to lick. But there would be no alone time for her now.

It didn’t help that she had a perfect view of the man who’d caused her wounds. Griffin’s broad shoulders stretched the material of his T-shirt, his fawn colored hair blowing wild around his head. Then suddenly he stiffened, and when she saw why, she did, too.

A long, narrow plume of smoke rose over the closest peak in front of them.

A
flare-up. The last thing on earth Griffin wanted to deal with.

Nope, scratch that. The
last
thing he wanted to deal with was the woman standing behind him, arms crossed, face unreadable, eyes filled with misery as she tapped her foot and pretended not to give a shit that he’d broken her heart.

Something he’d never intended to do.

He stood on a rock outcropping, with the river rushing at his feet and the blackened mountainside behind him. About a quarter of a mile below was where they’d left the Jeep, after leaving Tom and Nina off in town to get together whatever crew and tools they could.

Brody had remained at the top of the trail to wait for help to arrive.

Not Lyndie. There was no waiting anywhere for Lyndie. The stubborn woman had insisted on staying with him.

To the bitter end.

They easily found the fire, at the base of the canyon where the blow up had occurred the week before. He figured the embers had been smoldering for days, hidden from view by the rock and fresh vegetation lining the river. The last crew might have called it quits too early, or hadn’t checked all the northern perimeters first. Or maybe there’d been lightning.

“Not too bad yet,” Lyndie said. “Right?”

He estimated twenty acres. “Not if we get right on it.”

“You’ve got the river as one firebreak,” she said. “And the burned hillside behind it as another.” She smiled at his raised brow. “I learned a lot in the past few weeks.”

“Probably more than you ever wanted to.”

Her smile faded, her eyes filled with such sadness. “Yeah.”

Ah, hell. “Lyndie—”

“Just…fix this,” she said. “Get this fire taken care of once and for all, and we’ll go and smile for Brody and Nina, and then we can get the hell out of Dodge. Okay?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel and walked away, down the river, back toward the direction Brody had gone.

“No, not okay,” he said, but no one answered.

In two hours they had fifteen men along the back side of the flare-up, standing along a trail that they intended to use as a firebreak. They had their backs to a wall of weary, thirsty conifers, ripe for exploding if they didn’t stop the fire. Far above them was sheer rock, far below the already burned acreage…but in between was a nightmare playing out that couldn’t be stopped.

Griffin wore the same clothes he’d flown here in, which were the jeans and T-shirt he’d pulled on this morning after finding Lyndie had left him alone in her bed. Tom had come up with gloves for him, and a long-sleeve button-up to protect his arms.

It had to be nearly a hundred degrees, with no humidity. The air crackled. As always, the fire created its own weather, and Griffin had never in his life seen a flare-up get so hot so fast. As the afternoon turned to early evening, and then dusk, even the trees and growth with roots in the river were bursting into flame, shooting fire straight up into the sky, where balls of it seemed to leap from treetop to treetop. A crown fire fueled by wind, and now it didn’t even need the ground vegetation to spur it on.

Looking around, he knew. This thing had become bigger than them. The narrow, low running river wasn’t going to provide protection, not with the flames as hot as they were.

Which left them unexpectedly trapped. They couldn’t go down, the vicious walls of flame held them off. The 35 mph gusts shoved the fire ahead of them as well, reducing the angle between the flames and the fuel on the ground, resulting in an overwhelming inferno. It raced ahead of them, up the hill, blocking their road out.

Griffin’s mind raced with their options, which were few, when suddenly a two-hundred-foot pine tree fell, crashing down, shuddering the ground around them like an earthquake.

“Griffin?” Lyndie gripped his arm, pale despite the scorching heat.

It was automatic to reach for her. “Scared?”

“Nah.” She looked around her, at the trees above them crackling with the dry air and flames, at the way they were becoming circled in. The hot air whipped her hair around her face and she tightened her hand on his.

With an earsplitting crack, a tree just to their right exploded.

Lyndie jerked. “Okay, I’m officially scared now.”

The flames were licking at their heels, and he knew it would be only a matter of time before it leapt over the river to where they stood. It’d happened so damn fast he still couldn’t believe it. “The burned area to the east,” he told Lyndie.

She shouted the directions over the bruising wind and crackling fire. “Let’s go.
Vamanos
!”

In a single-file line, they made their way along the river back to the already blackened area that had burned last week. They couldn’t go any farther south, or any other direction for that matter, the flames had trapped them in. On a hillside about fifty acres wide, they sat surrounded by flames and watched. There was nothing else to do.

Caught between the rock hillside and the already burned out area, the fire turned on itself, and raged. The sun fell out of the sky, leaving them in the dark except for the fire itself, an eerie, out of body experience for anyone who hadn’t experienced such a thing before. Dark, dark sky, leaping flames into the sky, all around them.

Through Lyndie’s translation, Griffin did the best he could to ease everyone’s mind, and not for the first time, marveled at how she held up. For an hour they sat there, and then another hour, and then finally, the firestorm was over.

They’d lost forty more acres but not a single soul, and Griffin thought maybe he could lie down and sleep for three weeks. They staggered off the mountain and into the village, everyone going their own separate and exhausted ways.

Griffin found himself in the kitchen of the inn, being fed by Rosa, along with several of the men she had also insisted on feeding. Eventually they went off, leaving him alone.

He didn’t want to be alone. Hearing a low murmur of voices, he opened the back door and found Brody and Nina in each other’s arms beneath the dark, dark night. “Sorry,” he said, and went back inside. He headed into the large living room and found Rosa standing behind Tom’s chair, massaging the man’s shoulders, her mouth teasing his ear as she whispered something that had Tom looking like a mighty happy man.

Turning to head back into the kitchen, Griffin nearly tripped over a sleeping Tallulah and…Lucifer? Curled up together like they’d come from the same litter.

Damn, he’d never felt more alone in his life. It’d been a long time since he’d had someone in his life to kiss, to massage, to sleep with, someone who could just touch him and make his world seem like a better place.

Too long.

He climbed the stairs, then let himself into Lyndie’s room, which was dark. Shutting the door, he moved to the bed, which had a very still lump in the center of it. “Lyndie.”

The lump didn’t move. She was exhausted, and so was he, but this couldn’t wait, not even for one more night. “I’ve got to get this out,” he said softly, and sat on the edge of the mattress.

She still didn’t move.

“God, I’ve screwed up,” he murmured. “So many, many times.” He sighed. “No one knows better than I that life is too damn short, cruel even, but Lyndie, I can’t keep living on the outside looking in just because I might get hurt.”

Nothing from the lump.

“Yeah, I know you know this. I know you tried to tell me, so many times. I was such a cocky ass, hiding behind fancy words, telling you I could easily risk again, and teach you to do so as well.”

She slept on.

He shook his head. “But I know the truth now. It’s okay to fail. Just as it’s okay to try again. To live, I mean.” He wished she would wake up and look at him with those green eyes. “I can’t forget what happened in Idaho, but…I can go on.” He drew a deep breath. “Somehow, some way, being here, I’ve learned that at least, and that my heart is still strong and willing. I’m sorry it took me so long to see it, Lyndie, but there’s no going back now. I love you.”

A soft gasp came not from the lump on the bed, but behind him, and he whipped around. There, at the window, stood the small, petite silhouette of a woman. He turned back to the bed, yanking off the covers to reveal…her pillow. “I thought you were sleeping.”

The silhouette straightened. “I’m not.”

He stepped toward her at the exact moment she took one step toward him. They collided, and he used the excuse to slide his arms around her warm, curvy body. “You fit against me like you were made for me,” he whispered.

She hesitated for a moment, and then slipped her arms around his neck. “Would you have said those things to me if you’d known I was awake?”

“Yes.”

“Could you say them again?”

“How about I finish first?” Cupping her face, he tilted it up to his. He still couldn’t see, so he reached out and flipped on a light, looking deeply into her blinking eyes. “I’ve felt homeless this past year, and I hated that. I’m not meant to be homeless, Lyndie. I want a place where I belong, and I want it with you. So now I figure all I have to do is convince you that you want that too, when you’ve never yearned for stability before.”

She took a shuddering breath. “You might be shocked to know what I’ve yearned for lately.” She lifted her hands to cover his. “I don’t enjoy being on my own as much as I thought. I found that I like having someone worry about me, care about me. Want me.” She shot him a wet smile. “The way you do all those things takes my breath, Griffin.”

He stared at her. “I love you so much. I didn’t think I could, and I sure as hell fought it, but I don’t know why. You make me want to be a better man, you make me smile, you make me whole.” He held her tight. “I love you with everything I have. I hope to hell that’s enough because I don’t want to be without you. For the first time in a year, I want stability, I want love. I want a home.”

She pulled back enough just to look into his eyes. “I love you, so much it terrifies me. And I want a home, too.”

“Where?” he whispered.

“Anywhere. As long as it’s with you.”