Page 278 of Her Reluctant Hero
Chapter Fifteen
Peyton’s heart sank as she washed adrift in the smoke, abandoned. She hadn’t really considered he’d leave her behind, not after jumping out of an airplane, but if he couldn’t save both of them, he should save himself. Her muscles screamed with relief when she slowed down. She wouldn’t be able to get going again.
She was going to die on this mountain. It was over. She couldn’t fight anymore. It wouldn’t be so bad, right? Just one breath of superheated air and it would be over. No more pain, no more loneliness.
No more Gabe. She squeezed her eyes shut and vowed not to think about what might have been.
Gabe reappeared through the smoke and shoved his fire shelter at her. Hope flared as she shook out the thin rectangle of foil-looking fabric. Then he reached into his pack and pulled out a fusee. Holding her eyes with his, he lit the flare.
She jolted backwards. Was he insane? All they needed up here was another fire. When he bent to light the grass in front of them, she thought he’d gone over the edge. The dry grass blackened and curled as the flames devoured it greedily. Now they were surrounded by fire—no escape. Was this some crazy suicide? Was he determined to die in flames?
He turned away to watch his infant fire race uphill, growing larger, faster. Then he kicked at the ash left behind, took the shelter from her and placed it in the burned out area, holding the flap open.
“Peyton,” he said to draw her attention. “Did you train on this?”
She nodded blindly, vaguely recalling that the shelters looked like burritos, and sat on the floor of the shelter. Her whole body sore, she rolled onto her stomach, clutching at the slippery fabric beneath her. It would all be over soon and she might not feel anything again. As she stretched out, understanding began to dawn in her fatigued mind. He’d created a burned-out area for them in the hopes the fire would go around them, unable to find fuel where they lay.
He looked down at her, stretched on the silver fabric because she trusted him to save her life. He prayed he didn’t fail her. He rolled into the fire shelter with her and covered her body with his, buried his face in her shoulder, and secured the fire shelter around them. He couldn’t allow smoke to creep in, or flames that might ignite their hair or skin, or the superheated gases that would sear their lungs.
Beneath him, Peyton whimpered and shuddered. Gabe prayed this would work. The shelter wouldn’t stand up to direct flame, but his little fire should have created enough of a break so the fire would separate and go around them, chasing the dry grass and brush feeding it.
Peyton was panicking, tremors racing through her body. He feared she might get up and try to run. So he would keep her with him. It would be unbearably hot inside the tiny tent the firefighters called a “Shake and Bake”, but they would survive. If he didn’t, please God, let his body give Peyton enough protection to keep her alive.
The roar of the fire was tremendous, so loud Peyton could barely hear Gabe’s breath rushing in her ear, his heart pounding, or her own. The heat made it feel like her flesh was melting from her bones. The air was so dry it hurt to breathe, and sweat drenched her whole body.
She couldn’t stand it. The fire was right over them and the shelter acted like an oven, holding the heat in. The weight of Gabe’s body only increased the temperature of her own. Her heart pounded against her ribs and her nerves were making it impossible to stay still. The waiting to die, waiting for the fire to overtake them, was devastating, and she couldn’t nurture the smallest grain of hope she’d live through this. She’d never be a mother, never be a wife again, a lover. They would die together in this shelter, a terrible thought when they’d only begun to find what life was again.
Every nerve in her body screamed for her to run. She had to get out of here, now. She was suffocating. She started kicking and clawing, trying to get free of this tinfoil roasting them alive.
“No.” Gabe shifted his weight, pinning her arms and legs. “Peyton, hold still.”
“I can’t breathe!” she cried. He was crushing her into the hard, hot ground and she was going to die, choked to death because her lungs wouldn’t expand.
“Just a little longer,” he soothed, his hands steady on her wrists as he held them. “Trust me. Trust me.”
Whimpering, she snorted in soot and dirt, trying not to cough. The soles of her feet burned— were her boots melting?
Gabe’s body tensed over hers and he was seized by a fit of coughing. He tried to muffle it against her shoulder but couldn’t. His dry racking cough pierced through the sound of the fire.
But when Gabe’s cough subsided, the fire no longer sounded like it was on top of them.
“Wait, wait,” Gabe urged. Could that be hope in his voice? Had he been as scared as she was, or had he always known he could get them out?
They lay there, face down, for what may have been hours, too tired, too scared to talk, to do anything but lie there and breathe and thank God they were alive. Only when she no longer heard the fire did her pulse stop racing. She was impatient to get out of the shelter, get to her feet, but silently Gabe held her still.
Finally he slid his hand through the opening of the shelter, felt the ground outside. Apparently satisfied, he pulled the shelter over his head and sat up.
The air still shimmered with heat and every breath Peyton took seared her nose and throat, burned in her chest. She wiped dirt and soot from her eyes. She winced as she lifted her arms above her head. Her skin felt tight, like she had a bad sunburn. No telling how bad it was, with her body covered with soot.
“Where are the others?” She perused the remaining forest, the stripped trees, the blackened ground, the cracked rocks.
The grass where Peyton had been standing when the fire came up.
There was no sign of any other shelters through the clearing smoke. Had the others been ahead of them or behind them? How could they have outrun the fire?
He stood slowly, stiffly, and reached to help her to her feet. “I don’t know.”
“We have to find them.”
