CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
GWEN
After a long and anxiety-inducing night spent with no cell phone connection and an out-of-control wildfire blocking my escape, I take a break from berating myself for being so impulsive and emotionally charged to gaze at the aircraft above me.
Hope courses through me. Like jumping into cool water on a hot day. It soothes, it refreshes, it makes tears leap to my eyes.
“Bash,” I murmur, holding a hand to my forehead and watching the plane with a provincial logo flying low overhead.
The relief I feel at the sight of what I just know is him is monumental and unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.
After loading up my truck with every remotely sentimental thing I could find, I spent the entire night adjusting sprinklers and hoses around Clyde’s property in a desperate attempt to save his home.
I figured the trees were basically kindling after the dry spring, but the grass was just as dehydrated. Until I got to soaking it.
At some point, I discovered that if I had to make my escape, I could leave down the creek on foot and it would take me in the opposite direction of the fire.
It would be risky, though. Phone service is out and I have no idea where I’m going and all that would have to change is the direction of the wind…
then I’d have a monster of a wildfire pursuing me.
When I attempted driving back down the road that leads here, I found the fire was encroaching on both sides. I realized that if I hit a dead end or a downed tree, I could be stuck in a much more compromising position than I already was.
Ultimately, after weighing my options, I employed the method for if you get separated from your parent in the grocery store.
Stay where you are.
So I sat in my truck, tried to meditate, and failed. I thought about Bash, about our dispute and the tense note we left things on. It made me realize how inconsequential all of that felt in the face of something this terrifying.
I don’t want to say those disagreements don’t matter. It’s just that they feel a lot less important when you’re faced with the possibility of dying and leaving the man you love behind.
I don’t take back what I told him, but I spent many hours wishing that I hadn’t walked out. That I’d pulled up a stool and waited him out.
That I’d been brave enough to stay, that I hadn’t given in to my instinct to run.
He takes another low swoop over, and I watch with butterflies in my chest and tears on my cheeks.
Soon, two more planes join him, slightly different in design and size. A voice crackles from a speaker in one, telling me to get in my vehicle.
I wave up at the airplane, showing my agreement, and jog toward my truck. Within minutes, the planes zip over and liquid splatters across the roof. Droplets from it streak down my windshield. I drop my head against the headrest and shame-spiral, feeling guilty for all the resources I’m taking up.
All because I’m a big old bleeding heart with an impulsive streak.
But what’s done is done, and I’m not about to turn away rescue when the universe plunks it in my lap.
Time blurs as I sit in my truck. I alternate between closing my eyes, trying to dissociate to ease my fear, and looking out to see if anything’s changed.
Eventually, the roar of the planes recedes and everything grows quiet, leaving only the crackle of the nearby fire. Movement at the end of the driveway draws my attention, and a compact fire rescue vehicle careens onto the property.
It stops right beside me, and a female police officer climbs out, along with a man dressed similarly to Bash—only his shirt reads Alberta Wildfire .
He rounds the front of the vehicle and jogs toward me as I roll down the window. “Gwen?” he asks.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I say, trying not to give in to the welling tears in my eyes. There’s an embroidered patch over his heart that spells out Eaton and I focus on that instead.
“So glad we found you.” He smiles, and it might be the most reassuring smile in the world. Something about him screams confident and capable , and it eases the knot in my chest.
He reaches a hand toward me. “Hi. I’m Beau. Here to help you out. What do you say we get the hell off this mountain?”
I shake his hand through the open window, grateful. “Sounds like a really, really great plan. You are officially my hero.”
“Ah, I don’t know if I would take it that far. I just got in from out of province to help out, walked into the station to hear a fella up in one of those planes losing his goddamn mind on the radio over finding you. Figured I could make a detour on my way to the front lines.”
I wince. “Sorry. Is he being a nightmare?”
The man grins. “Nah. I’d be the same over my girl too.”
I blink at him, too stunned to know how to respond, but he forges ahead, unconcerned by silence. “Are you good to follow us down, or do you want me to hop in with you?”
“Oh, no. I’m okay to follow you down.”
“The guys in the air cleared the road, so we should be good to go. It was fine coming up, but we’ll want to get down before anything changes.”
I nod quickly, reaching for the keys and starting my engine. “Let’s go, then.”
When the road shifts from gravel and winding to smooth and paved, I heave out a sigh of relief.
With the red truck before me and the fire behind me, exhaustion hits me hard and fast.
Up ahead, I spot the blockade—that wasn’t there last night—and two cop cars stretching across the road, lights flashing.
Just beyond it, I see a black truck that I’d recognize anywhere.
Relief courses through me at the sight of the man who comes into focus as I draw nearer. Bash, standing with his hands linked behind his head, his body coiled with tension as he stares straight ahead like he’s trying to will me into existence.
The second he sees my truck, he goes from pacing on the spot to gunning for me.
Bash pushes his way past the cars and weaves past the barricades the second we slow. My eyes sting as I watch him run to me. Strong, stoic, and fucking frantic.
The minute I’m close enough to the barricade, I throw my truck in park and open the door, leaving the engine running as I step out onto the asphalt.
Within seconds, he’s there. In the flesh. Right in front of me.
Reaching for me. Yanking me into his arms as I wrap my own around his neck. He crushes me against him so tight, it takes my breath away. I don’t even mind. It’s the perfect reminder that I’m alive.
I breathe him in. And while the air smells like smoke, he smells like him.
He smells like the forest, like trees and amber and gasoline and home.
“I’m so sorry,” I cry as he buries his face in my neck.
He says nothing, but I feel his head shake as he holds me in a vise grip.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” I chant, not knowing what else to tell him.
He still says nothing, but I feel wetness on my neck, a warm trickle rolling down the slope toward my shoulder.
A punch to the gut.
I squeeze him back tighter, pressing myself closer, rubbing my cheek against him. Wishing I could somehow merge myself with him right here and now, undo the hurt and fear I caused.
“Bash. I wasn’t… I’m just…” I pull back, wanting to find the right thing to say to him but not knowing where to start.
Tears have clumped his lashes together, and they trickle down his roughly hewn cheeks and freshly shaven jaw.
He looks me over with watery eyes, tracing me as though he’s checking for any injury. His hands follow too, fluttering over my arms and across my shoulders. Like he needs proof.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I say. “I’m sorry, but I’m good. I promise.”
God, watching him look so distraught is breaking my heart, and I need to explain myself. “I didn’t know. There was no blockade in place when I went up last night. I thought I was?—”
“Gwen.” The way he says my name stops me in my tracks. It’s a plea on his lips, full of so much emotion. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I was out of line, overtired, and not myself. I should never have let that all get in my head. I’m just terrified of fucking this all up.”
I meet his dark, imploring eyes. He grips my shoulders and gives me a gentle shake, as though checking to see if I’m truly standing before him.
His head shakes and his gaze drinks me in.
“You’re a fucking wild card. Unpredictable and never what I expect.
You scare the hell out of me every damn day.
But today more than any of them. Because I thought I lost you.
” His voice cracks. So does my heart. “And I love you, and I hadn’t even gotten the chance to tell you. ”
My heart thuds and my tears finally fall.
He loves me.
There’s nothing showy about it. It’s not some big declaration, it’s not poetic or flowery, but with him it doesn’t need to be. Everything with him is dressed down. Beautiful in its simplicity.
He swallows and blinks rapidly, trying and failing to hide his emotion. Another gentle shake. “Never scare me like that again. Never .”
Tears tumble over my cheeks as I nod quickly. “I love you too. I do. I have for a long time. And I promise I won’t ever scare you like that again. I promise.”
I’m finally saying the words that have been trapped inside me for I don’t know how long.
Words I’ve mulled over but never spent much time analyzing.
Maybe because it just seemed too…obvious.
Like, of course I’m in love with him. And of course he’s in love with me.
Why else would we be risking it all for a shot at making this thing work?
He sighs in relief and then he’s back to squeezing me. And just beyond him, I see Tripp. Watching from the passenger seat of Bash’s truck, looking pale as a ghost. He makes no move to get out of the vehicle, but he gives me a subtle salute with his hand.