Page 211 of Her Reluctant Hero
Gabe dropped to the floor beside Peyton with a grunt. “I didn’t really believe you when you said you were good with kids.”
Together they watched Carrie enfolded by her friends, by Josie. He was still trying to work out what the kid had been thinking by crawling into the tunnel. Even at such a young age, the female mind was unfathomable.
“I know you didn’t.” Her voice was higher than normal, tighter, and he didn’t think it was completely from her scare in the tunnel.
He blew out a breath. “I’m trying to pay you a compliment here.”
She folded her legs up and rested her arms on them, turned her head toward him. “I lied.”
Gabe felt a smile tugging at his mouth. As apologies went, it wasn’t much, but at least she didn’t play with words the way most reporters did.
“I figured.”
She lifted her head. They were close enough that he could feel the surprise running through her. “Then why did you let me come?”
A question he’d been asking himself regularly. He pushed to his feet. Yeah, he was avoiding the question, so what?
“When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”
Gabe edged back through the passageway they’d entered, bending lower as the ceiling angled down. He had hoped to find an easier way out of the cave, but all the passages were too narrow for him to squeeze through. After a demonstration of Peyton’s claustrophobia, well, that had to be a consideration. The way they’d come in was the quickest exit, the shortest tunnel. Still, sliding kids down a nearly vertical hole was one thing. Pushing them out was another.
He got himself out by digging his elbows and knees into the sides of the tunnel. Cautiously, he placed his gloved hand on the outside of the entry and tested the ground for heat. It was hot, but bearable. He pulled himself out the rest of the way, squinting against the brightness of the overcast sky after the darkness of the cave, and looked around.
He’d seen the moonscapes before, the desolation a fast-burning fire left behind. So why did the grayness of the scene before him have him bending double, bracing his hands on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath?
Because the people he’d been responsible for this time hadn’t been Hot Shots, trained to understand fire behavior and how to stay safe in a blowup. This time two inexperienced women and five children had been his responsibility. He could have lost them all.
No. He didn’t think like that, didn’t allow himself to. He whipped out Peyton’s phone. Thank God she had one of those good services with reception even out here. He made the call.
Gabe lay on his stomach and shouted down the hole. “Michaels!”
No answer. He swore, then remembered how sound carried in the cave and how young some of the ears were down there. He coughed some of the smoke out of his lungs and shouted again.
Her face popped into his field of vision, pale against the darkness of the cave. “What?”
“Bring the campers over. Time to go. Helicopter’s on the way and we gotta go fast. We still have some hot spots out here that could flare up.”
He couldn’t see her hands, but he’d bet they were on her hips as she considered the exit. “How are we going to get them out this way? It’s almost straight up.”
“What did I tell you about questioning orders?” he asked, exasperated with her endless desire to understand the whys and hows. “You pass ’em up, I’ll pull ’em out.”
She looked doubtful, like she was about to ask another question, then turned and walked away.
She reappeared a few moments later, bowed under the weight of the counselor. The passage was too narrow for one woman, so both crouched low, Peyton’s arm under Josie’s shoulders to support her, their faces nearly pressed together, Peyton’s grim, the counselor’s pale with pain.
Then Peyton disappeared and Josie started rising toward him. The lack of light in the cave gave her ascension a surreal aspect and Gabe took a moment longer than usual to react. Josie started clawing at the rocky walls before Gabe reached down and pulled her out.
Only then did he see she’d been straddling Peyton’s shoulders. He snorted in appreciation and got soot up his nose. He was still laughing and choking when he reached down to lift out the first child.
The helicopter’s rotors beat above the fire-created clouds, but after relief, Gabe’s first thought was of the soot it would stir up, blinding his campers.
There was still the danger of a blowup; embers glowed at the bases of trees and snags, but he couldn’t urge Peyton along without transmitting his fear to the children and the counselor.
Arms trembling from fatigue, he pulled up the last child, then climbed to his feet with effort. He ushered them all together in a huddle to shield them from blowing soot as they moved to intercept the landing chopper. The dust swirled up beneath the rotors and Gabe sheltered the kids with his body, hustling them into the bird before turning to run back to the cave.
Peyton’s panicked shrieks pierced through the noise of the rotors. She was alone in the cave and terrified.
He hadn’t forgotten her, but his first responsibility had to be evacuating the campers. Still, in her fear she wouldn’t see it that way.
