As the flames danced before her, she could only think one thing: She was going to die without ever finishing her conversation with Connor.
She'd thought she'd had plenty of time to think things over, to chew on everything he'd said, to weigh both sides.
She'd thought she deserved at least a handful of hours to be mad, to make him suffer the way he'd made her suffer.
But the fire had come on so fast.
And now she thought, as she started coughing and couldn't seem to stop, it looked like she might be all out of time.
Unless Connor found a way to her before the flames did.
Yes, Connor understood that Ginger had needed time, but that didn't mean he'd agreed to sit back and wait.
All his life, he'd gone for what he wanted. Made it happen.
He didn't plan on losing Ginger. Not now that he'd finally pulled his head out of his ass and realized his life wouldn't be worth a damn without her.
Isabel was one of her closest friends. He needed her on his side.
Not long after Ginger left him on the beach, he was walking into the diner for the first time since learning of his father's relationship with Isabel. She was making coffee behind the counter when she looked up and saw him.
“Connor.”
“Ginger's pregnant,” he said, not bothering with small talk. “I love her. She doesn't believe me. Help me find a way to convince her.”
Isabel didn't look nearly as stunned as she should have.
“She took the test at my house.”
Ah, that's why she was walking back down the beach that morning.
“I know she loves me.”
“Yes,” Isabel said. “She does.”
“She's being stubborn.”
“You hurt her.”
“I know. And I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to her.”
“You're really going to have to grovel.”
“Trust me, it's going to be groveling like no one has ever seen before.”
Isabel finally smiled. And for the first moment since Ginger had walked away from him, he felt like maybe everything might work out after all.
And then the phone rang just as someone said, “There's a fire. Across the lake.”
Connor ran outside, looked up at the sky and had to blink a couple of times to clear his vision. Smoke was still billowing up out of the trees on the other side of the lake.
Right at the spot where his great-grandparents' cabin sat.
He was half in his car when he realized Isabel was opening the passenger-side door. “I'm coming with you.”
He pulled out of the parking lot in a flurry of dust under his tires. The speed limit was forty-five on the road around the lake, but his speedometer continued to climb. Sixty. Sixty-five. Seventy. Seventy-five. And still, Connor tried to drive faster, because the closer they got to Poplar Cove, the worse the situation looked.Please, he silently prayed, I need to know Ginger's safe. Please let her be safe.
In all his years of fighting fire, he'd never prayed harder, never wished for the safety of someone more.
Ginger meant everything to him. Everything. And if, by some horrible chance, she got caught in the fire…
No, he couldn't let himself think it.
If he did, he'd be lost. Completely lost.
“They're out there, fighting it,” was the only thing Isabel said during their drive, the terror of her words filling up the car, making it impossible for Connor to reply, to soothe her fears.
Finally pulling up beside the cabin, he jumped out of the car. Ginger.
Where the hell was Ginger?
His eyes scanned the property quickly, just as he would in any other fire, only this time it was taking everything in him to keep the panic at bay. To try to keep from losing it.
He couldn't see her.
Where the f**k was she?
Someone grabbed his arm, but it wasn't Ginger so he didn't break his stride, didn't turn his focus from his search for her.
“Connor, she's up there. On the roof. She's trapped by the flames. And she's already inhaled so much smoke.”
Finally, it registered that his father was speaking. “I tried to get her off,” his father was saying, but Connor was already halfway up a ladder propped up against the side of the cabin.
He didn't have any turnouts and was wearing tennis shoes that would melt almost instantly if he came face-to-face with fire, but none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was getting Ginger off the roof as quickly as possible.
Seconds later he was on the roof, looking straight into flames. And then, as the afternoon breeze came in, good and strong, moving the smoke and flames away for a split second, he saw her.
Ginger was standing in the back corner of the roof, holding a hose, still wielding it to try to fight the flames despite the fact that she was in mortal danger.
Too high off the ground to jump and with fire coming at her from both sides, Connor knew that anyone else would have been screaming. Crying. Begging for help.
But even through the flickering flames, he could see her focus, her determination to save his family's cabin.
Amazing. She was amazing.
In his turnouts, maybe he could have run through the flames to her. But if he tried that in his shorts and tennis shoes, they'd both die up here. He had to find a way to her, and fast, since the flames were growing hotter, the smoke thicker with every second that passed.
He knew he should be running, looking, finding, but suddenly his feet wouldn't move.
Jesus, he was frozen.
A chilling wave of panic moved through his cells one by one, further paralyzing him, making it hard for him to breathe, to think. His chest clenched as the possibility that all was lost became more and more real.
And then, he heard a voice calling out his name. Ginger's voice. Followed by the horrible sound of her coughing out the smoke she was inhaling.
Smoke and flames clouded his vision, but just hearing her voice, hearing her yell for him to go, to get off the roof, to save himself — it broke the deadly spell that had tried to wrap itself around him.
An unexpected smile moved across his lips. Never in his life had he thought to love someone as much as he loved her.
He would save her. And himself.
Because they deserved a life together.
All fear leaving him, he went to a place of pure instinct and muscle memory, a place where everything he'd learned from his decade of experience fighting deadly fires came into play. Quickly scanning their surroundings again, he decided his best option was to make a running jump for the large poplar tree directly beside the house.