Page 28 of The Smokejumper's Lady
“But can you just tell me if he’s okay?” My voice cracks. “Please. His name is Ryan Lewis. He’s part of Unit 347. He jumped in hours ago—”
“I’m really sorry.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone in my hand, numb. My heart is beating way too fast, but it’s not doing anything useful, just slamming against my ribs like it’s trying to outrun the panic tightening around my chest.
I lower the phone slowly and say, “I’m going.”
Dad’s head snaps up from where he’s been standing by the window. “Going where?”
“To the fire. To the site. To the base camp…wherever he is.”
“Absolutely not,” he says, like it’s final. Like his word is law and I’m still ten years old with scraped knees and a bedtime. “I don’t want to see you stepping foot near that inferno.”
“Then don’t watch,” I shoot back, surprising even myself with the steel in my voice.
“You don’t understand how dangerous it is out there, Clea.”
“I understand enough,” I snap. “I understand that he’s out there risking his life and I’m sitting here doing nothing. And I can’t do that. I won’t.”
Dad opens his mouth again, but this time, Mom steps in. “Let her go.”
We both blink at her.
“What?” Dad says, dumbfounded. “You’re seriously telling me…”
“She’s not a kid anymore,” Mom says softly. “And if someone I cared about was in danger like that, I’d want to be close. She deserves that choice.”
My chest tightens. I meet her gaze, and for the first time, I see her…not just as my mother, but as a woman. Someone who has probably felt all the same things I’m feeling now. Love. Fear. Helplessness. Fire in the blood.
She pulls her car keys out of her purse and places them gently into my palm. “Take my car. It’s got a full tank.”
I blink through the tears threatening to spill. “Thank you.”
She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and smiles, small and sad. “Just…be careful, okay?”
“I will.”
I wrap my arms around her, and she hugs me back like it’s the most natural thing in the world. For a second, we’re not at odds. We’re just two women…two hearts…trying to hold on to something before it slips away.
“Maybe we can…talk more,” I whisper. “After this.”
“I’d like that,” she says.
I pull away, nod once, then grab my bag and head for the door without looking at my dad.
It’s a short drive to the site of the fire, but it feels like eternity. The road leading up to the fire base is chaos—crawling with news vans, police cars, hotshot crews, and civilians. I park a good half mile away and start running the second my feet hit dirt.
The smoke is thick even from here, curling high into the sky like a monster refusing to die. The fire looks like it’s been beatenback, blackened trees and scorched earth but the air still abuzz with panic. People are barking orders into radios. Reporters are scrambling for footage. Every siren in the county is screaming in the distance.
Where is he?
I scan every face. Search every helmet, every soot-streaked uniform, but I don’t see any sign of Ryan.
Panic kicks in like a second heartbeat, pounding in my chest and my throat and behind my eyes.
Where is he, where is he, where is he—?
