Never Too Hot (25 page)

THANK GOD, Ginger thought as she worked quickly on the final touches of her painting. She might be as emotionally confused as she’d ever been, but at least she hadn’t lost her mojo. All she wanted was to focus on her art instead of all the crazy things Connor had said to her out on the beach.

I love you.

What if I want to marry you because I can’t imagine a life without you?

Didn’t he know she’d already written him off? That he couldn’t just up and do an about-face about everything and expect her not to question him?

She put down her paintbrush. She was lying to herself. She wasn’t in the zone at all. How could she be when her entire future was hanging in the balance? When Connor was waiting for her answer?

Her first big art show was in less than a week, a show she’d been eagerly anticipating for months. By God, she needed to make the most of it. With or without the man she loved by her side.

She was reaching for her paintbrush again when she noticed the smell of smoke wafting by. Strange. Why would someone have lit a campfire in the middle of a sunny day?

And then, in a flash, it hit her. She wasn’t smelling a campfire: something was on fire.

Her hand immediately went to her stomach. Working to remain calm, she slipped her feet into tennis shoes before running out on the beach to try to figure out what was burning.

Her hand went to her mouth when she stood at the water’s edge and looked up. The trees behind Poplar Cove were smoking and every few seconds a new orange burst of flames popped up over the roofline.

Her first thought, her only thought, was about Connor. About how upset he’d be if the cabin burned. He’d poured his heart into renovating it, but more than that, his summer home had been such a happy place for him as a child, and held the best of his memories inside its log walls.

She couldn’t let it burn.

She ran toward the house, searching for a hose and a ladder, even though she knew what Connor would tell her if he were here. “Get away from the building. Get as far away from the fire as you can and stay safe.”

And she would. But first she needed to do what she could to save his family’s cabin.

She’d just propped the ladder up against the side wall, just turned on the hose full blast, when Josh came running across the beach, obviously drawn by the smoke.

“Go back home and call 911,” she yelled. “Call your mother. And call Connor and his father.”

The boy’s eyes were wide with fear as he yelled, “Okay,” and ran back to his house to make the calls.

It was the strangest thing, but even though the fire was close enough that she could feel its heat, she wasn’t afraid of getting on the roof while lugging a heavy hose. Not when she had such a clear purpose.

I need to save Poplar Cove. For Connor.

She didn’t know how long she’d been up there, but it was quickly getting hotter and smokier as the fire made its way down the mountain to the cabin, jumping trees one after the other like tinder.

The Adirondacks were known for their flash rainstorms, for the huge amount of water that could, abruptly, fall from the sky with no warning for fifteen minutes and then disappear just as quickly. But since the storm that had tipped over Connor’s sailboat it had been hot and dry, with temperatures almost in the triple digits.

Oh, how she wished one of those storms would decide to roll in right now to give them all a good dousing. But when she looked up at the sky, behind the layer of smoke and ash all she could see were blue skies, not a cloud in sight.

She didn’t have to be a firefighter to know that it was the perfect day for a wildfire.

Moving as quickly as she could, she wet down the entire roof. She hadn’t yet heard sirens, and didn’t have any idea how far away the volunteer firefighters were. She’d stay as long as she could, but make sure to get down before she was in any real danger.

When she heard yelling, she looked down to see Andrew climbing the ladder up to the roof. She was on the back edge of the building, so close to the trees she could practically grab one and jump on.

“Ginger!” Andrew’s face was a picture of panic. “You need to get off the roof. Now!”

She opened her mouth to answer him, to tell him that she was still okay, when she felt a sharp, unexpected whoosh of wind at her back.

But the breeze had never been this hot, this thick. The fire had moved faster, come closer than she’d calculated.

“Drop the hose and run,” Andrew yelled over the crackle of flames and she was just about to drop the hose when she saw a thick spark of flames jump over her head. It looked like one of those small firecrackers the kids were playing with on the beach July Fourth.

Despite her efforts to keep the roof wet, the sparks caught and lit on the wooden tiles, a wall of flames separating her from Andrew or any way to get down.

As the flames danced before her, she could only think one thing: She was going to die without ever finishing her conversation with Connor.

She’d thought she’d had plenty of time to think things over, to chew on everything he’d said, to weigh both sides.

She’d thought she deserved at least a handful of hours to be mad, to make him suffer the way he’d made her suffer.

But the fire had come on so fast.

And now she thought, as she started coughing and couldn’t seem to stop, it looked like she might be all out of time.

Unless Connor found a way to her before the flames did.

Yes, Connor understood that Ginger had needed time, but that didn’t mean he’d agreed to sit back and wait.

All his life, he’d gone for what he wanted. Made it happen.

He didn’t plan on losing Ginger. Not now that he’d finally pulled his head out of his ass and realized his life wouldn’t be worth a damn without her.

Isabel was one of her closest friends. He needed her on his side.

Not long after Ginger left him on the beach, he was walking into the diner for the first time since learning of his father’s relationship with Isabel. She was making coffee behind the counter when she looked up and saw him.

“Connor.”

“Ginger’s pregnant,” he said, not bothering with small talk. “I love her. She doesn’t believe me. Help me find a way to convince her.”

Isabel didn’t look nearly as stunned as she should have.

“She took the test at my house.”

Ah, that’s why she was walking back down the beach that morning.

“I know she loves me.”

“Yes,” Isabel said. “She does.”

“She’s being stubborn.”

“You hurt her.”

“I know. And I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to her.”

“You’re really going to have to grovel.”

“Trust me, it’s going to be groveling like no one has ever seen before.”

Isabel finally smiled. And for the first moment since Ginger had walked away from him, he felt like maybe everything might work out after all.

And then the phone rang just as someone said, “There’s a fire. Across the lake.”

Connor ran outside, looked up at the sky and had to blink a couple of times to clear his vision. Smoke was still billowing up out of the trees on the other side of the lake.

Right at the spot where his great-grandparents’ cabin sat.

He was half in his car when he realized Isabel was opening the passenger-side door. “I’m coming with you.”

He pulled out of the parking lot in a flurry of dust under his tires. The speed limit was forty-five on the road around the lake, but his speedometer continued to climb. Sixty. Sixty-five. Seventy. Seventy-five. And still, Connor tried to drive faster, because the closer they got to Poplar Cove, the worse the situation looked.

Please, he silently prayed, I need to know Ginger’s safe. Please let her be safe.

In all his years of fighting fire, he’d never prayed harder, never wished for the safety of someone more.

Ginger meant everything to him. Everything. And if, by some horrible chance, she got caught in the fire …

No, he couldn’t let himself think it.

If he did, he’d be lost. Completely lost.

“They’re out there, fighting it,” was the only thing Isabel said during their drive, the terror of her words filling up the car, making it impossible for Connor to reply, to soothe her fears.

Finally pulling up beside the cabin, he jumped out of the car. Ginger.

Where the hell was Ginger?

His eyes scanned the property quickly, just as he would in any other fire, only this time it was taking everything in him to keep the panic at bay. To try to keep from losing it.

He couldn’t see her.

Where the fuck was she?

Someone grabbed his arm, but it wasn’t Ginger so he didn’t break his stride, didn’t turn his focus from his search for her.

“Connor, she’s up there. On the roof. She’s trapped by the flames. And she’s already inhaled so much smoke.”

Finally, it registered that his father was speaking. “I tried to get her off,” his father was saying, but Connor was already halfway up a ladder propped up against the side of the cabin.

He didn’t have any turnouts and was wearing tennis shoes that would melt almost instantly if he came face-to-face with fire, but none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was getting Ginger off the roof as quickly as possible.

Seconds later he was on the roof, looking straight into flames. And then, as the afternoon breeze came in, good and strong, moving the smoke and flames away for a split second, he saw her.

Ginger was standing in the back corner of the roof, holding a hose, still wielding it to try to fight the flames despite the fact that she was in mortal danger.

Too high off the ground to jump and with fire coming at her from both sides, Connor knew that anyone else would have been screaming. Crying. Begging for help.

But even through the flickering flames, he could see her focus, her determination to save his family’s cabin.

Amazing. She was amazing.

In his turnouts, maybe he could have run through the flames to her. But if he tried that in his shorts and tennis shoes, they’d both die up here. He had to find a way to her, and fast, since the flames were growing hotter, the smoke thicker with every second that passed.

He knew he should be running, looking, finding, but suddenly his feet wouldn’t move.

Jesus, he was frozen.

A chilling wave of panic moved through his cells one by one, further paralyzing him, making it hard for him to breathe, to think. His chest clenched as the possibility that all was lost became more and more real.

And then, he heard a voice calling out his name. Ginger’s voice. Followed by the horrible sound of her coughing out the smoke she was inhaling.

Smoke and flames clouded his vision, but just hearing her voice, hearing her yell for him to go, to get off the roof, to save himself—it broke the deadly spell that had tried to wrap itself around him.

An unexpected smile moved across his lips. Never in his life had he thought to love someone as much as he loved her.

He would save her. And himself.

Because they deserved a life together.

All fear leaving him, he went to a place of pure instinct and muscle memory, a place where everything he’d learned from his decade of experience fighting deadly fires came into play. Quickly scanning their surroundings again, he decided his best option was to make a running jump for the large poplar tree directly beside the house. It was the same tree that had dropped the widow maker on them. But now, he gave thanks for it.

Gauging the distance between the gutter and the tree, he pushed aside any voices or thoughts that wouldn’t get him where he needed to go and jumped.

As he landed, the bark bit into his palms, the skin on his bare knees, hard enough that he could feel the warm trickle of blood down his shin. Holding focus, he climbed up one limb and then over to the next, again and again, until he was as close to Ginger as he could get.

“Time to get off the roof now, sweetheart.”

Leaping from the limb he was on, he landed on the roof again, only this time, he could feel the heat of the tiles beneath the soles of his shoes.

She ran to him, threw her arms around him. “I knew you’d come.”

That her faith in him could be so unwavering when he’d failed so many times before moved him more than anything ever had. She started coughing again and it took every last bit of control to keep his voice easy.

“And I knew you’d be up here with a hose,” he said, pushing the teasing words past the lump in his throat in the hopes of keeping her calm. “I’m going to need you to hold on to me and not let go.”

“Okay,” she scratched out, coughing even as she climbed onto his back, her arms and legs tight around his neck and waist.

Her soft warmth against his back made him feel invincible, as if there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.

How, he wondered even as he ran across the roof, had he not seen it before? Firefighting. Not firefighting. Who cared? It was all just details.