Soon, a nurse moved beside her, murmuring something about another dose of Vicodin. Before Dianna could find out if Sam was really there, or merely a hallucination of her deepest desires, a cool rush of liquid settled into her veins and she fell back into painless oblivion.

CHAPTER TWO

SAM MACKENZIE stood on a peak in the Sierra Nevadas and surveyed the rolling mountains for smoke and flames. He was covered head to toe in a thick layer of ash and dirt from digging fire lines and knocking his chain saw through endless mounds of dry brush for the past twenty-four hours.

Being a hotshot meant little to no sleep for days on end, a hundred and fifty pounds on your back while you ran miles to reach the fires nothing else could. It meant shoving nasty-tasting, high-calorie food that a dog would refuse into your mouth at regular intervals. And it meant the unpredictability of fire herself, capable of grinding up and destroying even the toughest men.

But saving lives and homes and old-growth forests made it all worth it. Not to mention the undeniable rush he got from kicking a wildfire’s ass.

He’d never wanted to be anything but a hotshot. He still didn’t.

His radio crackled and Logan Cain, his squad boss, checked in. “You up for a helicopter ride? Looks like we’ve got a handle on this fire, but I need you to scan it from the air to make sure.”

“Give me thirty to get out into the open for pickup,” he said, giving Logan his coordinates before signing off.

Quickly packing up his tools, he threw his heavy bag over his shoulders and headed back up the deer trail he and his four-man crew had taken down the mountain a day earlier.

“You did good work, boys,” he told them as they finished up their breakfast.

After a series of wildfires this week, he figured they were all looking forward to a six-pack of beer and a day of lazy fishing on the lake to recharge their batteries before the next call.

“You all can head on back to the anchor point. I’m going up with Joe in the chopper for a quick scan. Once we’ve got the all clear you can take showers at the station and get some rest.”

The rookie of the bunch smiled at him, his white teeth breaking apart the black mask of ash and soot covering his face.

“Dude, you forgot what comes between the shower and rest.” Zach looked around at the other guys, his eyebrows moving up and down omically. “Getting some ass.”

Sam laughed. Zach was right. Used to be, he couldn’t wait to get off the mountain and go home to the warm, soft body waiting for him in bed. A lifetime ago, when he was a rookie just like Zach, and was young and stupid enough to think he’d found “the one.”

Joe, the helitack pilot, was waiting for him when he crested the hill. As soon as Sam climbed into the helicopter, the rotors started whirring and they lifted into the air.

After working together on wildfires for the past six years, they didn’t bother with small talk. Flying slowly over the dry landscape, Sam carefully surveyed the mountains for any telltale signs of new fires. The lookout towers that ringed the region were useful, but they didn’t catch everything. Especially in the densely forested valleys.

About to give the all clear, Sam saw a flicker of smoke emerge from behind the next ridge.

“Let’s head west.”

Joe shot him a concerned glance. “You see something?”

“A smoke column is rising up, just past that redwood grove.”

Joe kicked the helicopter’s blades up a notch and they soon spotted a fire blazing at the base of the hill beside a stream. Thank God they’d gone in to take one last look.

After radioing the fire’s coordinates, Logan said, “I’m sending a support crew up the fire road. ETA is thirty minutes.” He paused and Sam knew what was coming, the same thing his squad boss had been telling them since last summer. “Don’t go in if it’s too dangerous.”

The previous summer’s wildfire in Desolation Wilderness had turned from a routine job to a disaster in a matter of moments. The two of them, along with Sam’s younger brother, Connor, had gotten caught in a blowup. Although Logan and Sam had emerged unscathed from their run up the mountain to safety, the wildfire had chewed Connor up and spit him out, and he’d ended up with serious burns on his arms, hands, and chest.

This was the first year in almost a decade that Sam had run these trails without his brother beside him. Every day, Sam missed Connor’s company out in the forests. They were all adrenaline junkies—even the hot-shots who denied it—but Connor had always been more reckless than most.

In the past few years, Sam had felt that he wasn’t all that far behind his brother on the recklessness scale. Without a wife or kids to go back to at the end of a fire, he had no reason not to go all the way to the edge. Especially if the chances he took meant saving a life.

So even though this was a potentially deadly situation, Sam couldn’t turn back.

“I’m heading in on foot to verify whether the area is populated,” Sam informed Logan before shoving the radio back into his turnouts.

He was going in with his Pulaski, an ax-hoe combination, his chain saw, his “shake and bake” emergency fire tent, and his first-aid supplies. Hopefully, he’d need only the first two to cut a fire line through the brush and light a backfire. But until he knew what awaited him down below, he’d make damn certain he was prepared for a worst-case scenario.

“Drop me in, Joe.”

A strong breeze shoved the helicopter a half-dozen feet closer to the mountain and Joe shot Sam a concerned glance. “The winds are really picking up. You sure you don’t want to wait for backup?”

The breeze blew the flames away for a split second, just long enough for Sam to see a structure.

“There’s a cabin down below. I have to check it out.”

“I don’t know if this is such a great idea,” Joe said as he maneuvered the helicopter so that it hovered directly over a flat part of the roof, just out of reach of the highest flames. “I can’t get any closer. It’s going to be a long way down.”

Sam looked out the bubble-front window to assess the risk. By rough calculations, he figured that the distance was a little less than ten feet. One measly story. No problem.

“It’s close enough.”

Sam pulled the emergency ladder out from beneath his seat, then opened the passenger door and latched the ladder onto the metal rim. Carefully climbing out of the hovering helicopter, he was halfway down the ladder when Joe shifted position so that the distance from the ladder to the roof closed in from ten feet to eight.