Page 3 of Sequoia Flames

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“Got it!” I hang up the phone and sigh when I hear crackling off to my right.

Campfires. Why don’t people ever watch their campsites better than this?

With an annoyed huff, I follow the darkened trail into the woods and growl under my breath.

This is not where you build a campfire when it’s hotter than hell! The risks of it getting out of control with no break line or anything like that are exponentially higher.

Stepping along the path, my eyes narrow and then widen. I can see a flicker of red and yellow through the trees and my heart trips out of control.

“Ohhh. Fuck,” I snarl under my breath. I don’t have my uniform or equipment. I don’t have any water beyond three water bottles and unless I’m crazy, I’m about to discover one of my worst possible nightmares brought to life.

Wildfire.

THREE

VERITY

“Shit,shit, shit! What the hell am I supposed to do now? I can’t stop this!”

The campfire I was expecting to warn someone about is actually already picking up steam in the heat of the day and I don’t have any help up here at all.

I tried to find my way around this obstacle but it’s spreading fast and I don’t know exactly where I’m going thanks to all the damn smoke around me.

Jumping, I scream when a hand grasps my arm. “Shit!” I yell and pull hard.

My eyes drift up and up and up. The biggest guy I’ve ever seen in my life is staring at me with the coldest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Like chips of arctic ice.

“What the hell are you doing up here?” He eyes the flames around us and growls, “”What have you done?”

“Me!” I snarl. “I didn’t do a damn thing! I just showed up here a few minutes ago to see if I could help whoever did this! I thought it was just somebody’s campfire.” Waving my hands around, I groan. “I had no idea that it was already this bad.”

“And it is. You need to get out of here.”

“What about these campers? Where are they?”

“If they have any sense at all, they’re already gone.” He points around us at the kicked-up area we’re standing in and the lack of tents and everything else. “If you look around, actually open your eyes, you’ll see that there’s no stuff here. It’s obvious that they’ve cleared out and they left their damn fire burning.”

Huffing, I glare at him. But now that I look around, I can see there is nothing around us.

“Fine. But we can’t leave this thing burning.”

“I need to get you out of here and report this to my boss. We don’t have any time to talk about this. Come on…”. He grabs my arms and his full lips tighten when I rip myself away from him and move around the campsite.

“There has to be water around here somewhere. We can’t leave like this. This is how wildfires start!”

He moves in front of me, so fast and effortlessly that my mouth hangs open. “Listen! We don’t have time for this! This isalreadya wildfire. We need to go!”

Growling, I stomp around him and squeal when he paces up behind me and my head whooshes when he grabs me and throws me over his big, muscular shoulder.

“Ooof! Let me go!” His shoulder is hard as a rock when he shifts and I wish I didn’t wonder where else he might be hard.

“We do not have time for this bullshit!”

He stomps off and I huff, pushing off of his ass with my hand to keep from smacking my face into him. My skin heats up and my fingers tingle.

His ass is a work of art. Tight, muscular and perfectly-defined. I’ve never seen any man that looks this good in real life.

Of course his attitude sucks rocks!