The Rancher's Daughter
He felt like a twenty-four-carat louse. “It’s for the best, you know,” he said tersely. “She never did have a chance.”
“I guess.” Her head bent and she said nothing for a long moment. “And the fawn?”
“He seems to be doing fine, but he’s not budging from her side.” He paused, then added, “We won’t leave him here. We’ll get him out with us somehow.”
She lifted her chin, and the watery smile she treated him to was so grateful it had him regretting his momentary weakness.
“So, you ready for me to turn out the light?” he said.
At her nod, Ash switched off his headlamp. Maura gave a soft gasp of surprise, and even he was momentarily taken aback. The darkness was absolute and enveloping. It was difficult to ignore it. Difficult to keep it at bay.
He distracted himself by experimenting with a more comfortable way to rest his head than on his helmet, and finally settled on using his bent arm. Either way, however, was about as conducive to sleep as trying to bunk in a herd of stampeding cattle. The space blanket had the flexibility of sheet metal and it crackled every time he breathed, but there wasn’t any other choice for warmth.
He’d known it was chilly in the cave, but lying still without cover other than his clothes and the space blanket, and with the overwhelming darkness, it was like being shut up in a meat locker.
And nightmarishly reminiscent of another time in his life, when the darkness had been as complete, almost in danger of permeating his skin, like being submerged in a vat of blackest ink, until he became the darkness itself.
Ash shuddered. With effort, he concentrated on the sounds of the cave—the trickle of water, the soft whir of bat wings, the faint but ominous crackle and pop of the dying fire…a muffled sniff, and then another.
“Maura?” Ash said. “Are you okay?”
“Y-yes,” came the muffled answer. There was no sound for a prolonged moment—and then a sob that sounded as if it had come bursting out of her like a cork from a bottle.
He fumbled for his headlamp and flicked it back on. Blinking to get his eyes adjusted, he was able to make out Maura huddled on her space blanket with her back to him.
“Maura, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I’m not going to tell you and have you call me powder puff and make some pithy comment about how real firefighters don’t cry about the loss of wildlife and forest. After all, it’s just p-part of the job, right? A part of life. No need to get all maudlin and teary-eyed.”
“I wouldn’t say those things,” he denied rather sourly. “I mean, I know you’ve got a low opinion of me—one I haven’t taken a lot of pains to discourage—but I’m not a complete hard-ass.”
“And I am not a powder puff! Just because I believe in things turning out for the best and that I can have an impact on them, doesn’t make me a lightweight or a Pollyanna or whatever you choose to call me.”
She gave a flounce, but the effect was lost in a cellophane-like crinkling. “Maybe you believe I shouldn’t have even tried to save that poor animal, or tried to ease her pain or her little one’s fears. Just leave them alone and let nature take its course! Maybe you should have done that when you came up on me struggling to get out of the fire!”
“I don’t believe that, and I wouldn’t have let you get burnt to a crisp,” Ash protested. But he could see he wouldn’t change her mind that way. And he wanted to change her mind, he realized.
He took a deep breath, doubting what he was doing even as he was about to do it. “Just like I wouldn’t let you lie over there crying without any comfort. So come here.”
And without asking, he reached an arm around her waist to scoop her against him and hold her soft, small body against his.
Miracle of miracles, she turned into him as she sobbed against his shoulder. And miracle of miracles, it felt damned good—oh, not that it was good she was in such distress. But that he had even a prayer, simply by providing that shoulder, of easing her sorrow and pain.
It was a feeling he’d never experienced before. And he liked it a lot.
“What makes you think other firefighters aren’t as torn up inside at the destruction they’re witness to?” he asked once the storm of weeping seemed to abate.
“Oh, I don’t think that about other firefighters.” She sniffled. “Just you.”
“I see.” He hadn’t exactly been a font of compassion, had he? “Well, actually, I fight fires because I have to. Like you, I can’t sit by and watch this land go up in smoke. I…I love it too much.”
“I knew that you did.” Her voice wasn’t triumphant, just quietly matter-of-fact. “Then why do you try to make people believe different?”
“I don’t try to make people believe different,” he said in echo of her own assertion. “Just you.”
He was certainly treading on dangerous ground, now. But he didn’t have to tell her how he’d gotten into volunteering to fight fires—that, indeed, he’d had a need to help out, but he’d also had a need to get out. Get out of the four walls that confined him, if only for a little while.
But that time—and those reasons—seemed of little significance at the moment. What counted was now, with Maura in his arms. Needing him in a way he hadn’t let himself be needed in a decade.
She actually snuggled against him, and his arm tightened almost reflexively to bring her closer still. She was so small, so delicately built, he found himself marveling at the determination it must have taken for her to pass the physical test to qualify to be a firefighter. He had no doubt that she would achieve her dream of running a ranch for kids who needed a guiding hand. No doubt that somehow, some way, she would save that one soul that would make any amount of pain or disappointment worth it to her.
How he himself could have used that kind of support! His life might have turned out much differently…?.
“You know, I’ve kind of nourished a small dream myself,” Ash said. He could barely believe he was speaking these words aloud—he’d mulled them over in his mind, certainly, millions of times—and yet he couldn’t have stopped himself even if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels. “A dream of owning a spread, too.”
“You have?” He couldn’t see her face, but her tone was encouraging.
“Yeah. In the past five years I’ve worked on a bunch of ranches from here to the Canadian border. That’s how I got ranching in my blood. I’m foreman of a ranch right now—temporary foreman, that is, although it could turn into something long-term. Working in the role every day, knowing the herd better and better, along with every section they’re grazing… It’s only made me hunger for a place of my own, where I can look out across a herd and know every one of those cows is mine—mine to tend and raise up—and that the land they’re standing on is well taken care of.”
“It sounds like the ranch I want to have for disadvantaged children.” Maura shifted to look up at him, and the movement brushed her breast against his ribs. He had to concentrate with all his might to temper his physical response. “I want them to learn about the land, how to think of the world beyond themselves.”
He didn’t want to put a damper on her enthusiasm, especially when it seemed he might have been able to turn her attitude about him a notch toward the positive, but he felt compelled to be honest with her. “It may be hard to do that, though, when their world is filled to the brim with worries about survival—where the next meal’s coming from, how they’ll stay warm at night. How they can ever feel safe and secure.”
He touched two fingers to her lips, forestalling her protest. “I’m not tryin’ to discourage you from following your dream, Maura. It’s just that some kids struggle with a lot of problems that have to be addressed before they can even begin to think of others.”
I know that from experience, he thought but didn’t say. That definitely was a subject for a whole different time.
Yet Maura must have gleaned enough information from his advice to guess. Gently she pulled his hand away. “It must be a terrible, terrible thing to feel there’s no one in the world you can count on. And I know that I don’t have that kind of experience to help me relate to kids like that, Ash.”
She lifted her arm and, in a move that shocked him with its intimacy and power, she placed her palm on the side of his face, her thumb caressing his cheekbone. “But I do know what it is like to feel safe…as safe as I feel in your arms right now, as if nothing can hurt me as long as I’m here. It’s a wonderful feeling to give someone, too, even if you haven’t felt it yourself.”
It floored him—that she felt safe with him. Secure. Despite everything.
“You don’t even know me, Maura,” Ash felt duty bound to warn her. “You don’t know.”
“Oh, I think I do. What I don’t understand is why you want people to believe the worst about you. Because I won’t. I won’t believe you’re not a hopeful person, too. You wouldn’t have dreams if you weren’t hopeful.”
Ash couldn’t speak. The air in the cave was filled with emotion, ripe with desire. Even in the indirect light from his headlamp, her eyes were the clearest, purest blue, the expression in them heartbreakingly untouched. He would have given anything, anything to assure her she was right. And at that moment he almost felt he could assure her that he’d make his dream come true. Make her dream come true.
He didn’t know how he might make it happen for her, make it happen for them both. But it just might be possible—if they did it together.
“I can’t say as I completely buy your reasoning, but you make a pretty convincing argument, powder puff,” he said roughly.
She frowned engagingly. Adorably. Her lower lip pouted, and he knew just what he wanted to do with it. With her.
“Apparently I haven’t convinced you how singularly unappealing I find that nickname to be,” she said in that oh-so-proper manner he’d witnessed earlier that evening. He wondered where she’d picked it up, being as how she was as elemental as the fire outside.
“Really,” Ash drawled. “’Cause I find it—and you—smack dab the opposite.”
And he lowered his head to take her mouth with his.
Chapter Three
His kiss was wild, dangerous, incendiary.
Maura’s first instinct was to pull back, push him away. She barely knew this man, had only learned his name a few hours ago; not to mention the fact that, even if he had saved her life, he exuded the kind of danger that could ruin it, too. He’d said as much. Had warned her.
But that was the Maura Kingsley who had always dealt with her father’s protectiveness by going the extra mile to be responsible, to show she could handle independence by overachieving everything she endeavored.
Yet the woman who was responding to the slow, sweet suction of Ash’s mouth on hers with a low moan, who inched her fingers up the hard planes of his chest as she’d been dying to do since the moment he’d removed his shirt—well, this was another Maura entirely. Oh, yes, he had a dark side. In her ignorance of such places in the soul, it frightened her. But the depth of emotion that lived in those places also fascinated her. And she wanted to know what it felt like to walk on the wild side with this man, if only for a little while.
He seemed perfectly willing to take her there as his mouth went on a slow, sensuous exploration of her jaw and throat and ear. Maura clutched Ash’s shoulders in what was becoming a familiar sensation with him—pain-pleasure, danger-refuge, downfall-salvation. And when his head dipped lower, chin nuzzling aside the placket of her shirt so that his hot breath branded the tender skin of her breast, Maura reflexively arched her back, urging him on.
Yet he hesitated. “I want you, Maura,” he rasped against her throat. “Heaven knows I want you. But…”
“But what?” she asked, tugging his head upward with her fingers in his hair so that she could look into his eyes, wanting to know, needing to know what tormented him, and not just about tonight.
His gaze was torn, verging on the remote, cool gray that made her feel so alone and the dangerously smoldering ashes that seemed only an instant from spontaneous combustion.
“But who knows what will happen after we leave here,” he said. “I know it seems right at the moment—damn, it feels right—but I…I wouldn’t be completely honest with you if I didn’t tell you that I don’t have the best record when it comes to things like…like being dependable—”
“Only in risking your own life to save another’s, you mean,” she interrupted stalwartly.
“I mean it, Maura. I’ve messed up royally in the past…and it’s hurt the people I care about.”
“You wouldn’t be here fighting fires, though, if you didn’t believe there was a chance at redemption,” she said. She couldn’t let him feel so bereft of hope—about the world, about people, about himself.
His gaze was still divided. “All I’m saying is, I’ve taken risks before that ended in disaster, and I won’t have you involved in the fallout.”
“You took a risk saving me that did work out, and I will never forget it, Ash.” She pressed her palm against his cheek in emphasis, and he covered it with his own.
“Never?” he asked raggedly.
“Never,” she whispered, tugging him close to seal her promise with a kiss that immediately turned to searing passion, like being in the center of the fire.
“Make love to me, Ash,” Maura begged, and he did as she asked, undressing her slowly. Even though the air was chilly on her skin, he immediately warmed her body with his.
“You’re beautiful, Maura,” he murmured. His fingertips grazed her belly on their way upward along her rib cage and circling back to brush one knuckle across her nipple. Maura’s gasp of pleasure was swallowed by his mouth on hers as he continued caressing first one breast and then the other, until she thought she would die.
She plucked at the buttons of his shirt, wanting him as naked as she, and he obliged with a disrobing that was feverish, made only more so by the soft kisses she delighted in placing across the hard planes of his chest, along the line of his jaw, throughout the sprinkling of hair leading to his navel. His hands and mouth on her were as thrilling, with the brush of his palm over her hip, the trail of his tongue over her nipple, the brush of his fingers up the inside of her thigh to touch her intimately.
“Please, Ash,” she found herself pleading, half out of her mind. “Please.”
He poised himself over her, and there was an agonizing moment of hesitation when Maura thought he might change his mind. And then he was suddenly, gloriously filling her, his groan of satisfaction echoing hers.
They moved as one, in perfect complement, in perfect understanding, and the sensation was like no other she’d ever experienced. It was as if he was giving her something quite rare, quite precious. More than her giving him her trust, he was bestowing his on her.
And as completion came to them both, she vowed she would never betray that trust. Never.
She felt as if she’d been waiting all her life for this moment, for this man, and she hadn’t even known it until now. He was as elemental as the fire that had nearly devoured them; as the life-giving water used to abate the fiercest of thirsts; as the earth within which the two of them now lay, sheltered and secure.
And she slept the sleep of the trustful.
Ash lay wide awake, Maura tucked against his side. Together, they were warmer, but it was still a cool fifty-some degrees in the cave, so he’d slid back into his pants and fire shirt, and had gently eased a sleepy Maura into hers before settling her back against him.
He wondered, for the hundredth time in an hour, when he had earned the points to be allowed a moment like this. Somebody needed to give him a pinch.
He’d meant his warning about not being dependable more as a reminder to himself than for her. Still, he couldn’t help but find himself looking toward tomorrow with more enthusiasm than he had a few hours ago.
She was exactly the kind of woman he’d secretly dreamed of making a life with. A woman who was down-to-earth and not afraid to get her hands dirty. A woman who loved the land and all the glory and heartache that came from giving one’s soul to such a changeable, untamed being.
For unlike fire, the land was something to imbue with life. And how like this woman that land was. Mysterious, fascinating, captivating. Both strong and gentle, she was somehow capable, as he was not, to open her heart even in the face of terrible pain.
And that was what he needed most. He needed a woman whose hardy hopefulness set a balance against his own charred and blighted hope.
Ash gazed down at Maura, at her perfectly serene face. Oh, he had no illusions that she’d be able to inspire new growth in him—not quite. All the hope and love in the world would have a hard time doing that.
But maybe, just maybe, she would keep his spirit from turning completely to ashes.
Morning came, but not in the conventional sense of the word.
Ash opened his eyes to utter darkness, which sent his heart pounding before he remembered where he was and who lay tucked into the crook of his arm.
The headlamp on his helmet must have gone out in the middle of the night, and once he’d carefully untwined himself from Maura’s sleeping form, he searched around for her helmet. He found it with a minimum of effort and flicked the light on, careful to aim it away from her. She stirred briefly before settling back into her sleep with a soft sigh.
Creaking to his feet, he shook out the kinks in his back and shoulders, then shivered all over like a dog. Damn, it was cold and damp in this place! He knew that what he would find outside would stand in stark contrast, and dreaded going there.
Slowly Ash made his way to the front of the cave, listening for any clue as to what he might find. He heard nothing.
Still, even having worked clean-up crew on half a dozen fires, he wasn’t prepared for the utter devastation he encountered stepping out of the cave.
The entire landscape was charred black. Burned tree trunks lay scattered on the ground like spilled toothpicks. Smoke hung low over the ground, making it appear as if a ghostly mist shrouded the valley. But there was no mystery or moisture in this fog.
The worst was the sound—or lack of it. There was none of the usual noises of life in the forest: the call of birds or the scuffle of animals in the brush or even the rustle of leaves in the breeze. There was only the intermittent pop of dying embers.
He and Maura had come so close to losing their lives.
She was stirring when he returned, blinking and struggling to sit up as the beam again filled the chamber.
Ash glanced at his watch. “It’s coming up on 6:00 a.m. I figure we can pack up and try making our way to the riverbed to see where the fire went from there. If it looks unpassable or like we’re just putting ourselves in more danger, we’ll come back here for another night and try our luck tomorrow. But we better make an effort to get back to camp, if at all possible, so we don’t draw firefighters off the fire and maybe into danger trying to find us. If that plan suits you, I mean,” he hastily amended.
He knew he was being brusque, which had to confuse the hell out of her, but he was deathly afraid of what he would—or wouldn’t—see in her eyes.
“That sounds like a good approach. What about Smokey?”
He finally looked at her, and it was in exasperation. “I said we wouldn’t leave him behind, and we won’t. I keep my word.”
“Of course you do, Ash,” Maura said calmly. She met his gaze steadily, and it took him by surprise to see there all of what he’d glimpsed in her eyes last night, and more.
Relief came in a tidal wave. He gave a nod. “I’ll fetch him just before we’re ready to leave, then.”
They packed quickly and efficiently, the way fire-fighters do, and once he’d strapped his pack on, Ash went to retrieve the fawn. He thought he’d have a struggle on his hands, but the little guy barely protested when Ash stooped to lift him in his arms, where the fawn rested his head wearily against Ash’s biceps.
He hoped to heaven the youngster wasn’t falling ill, too. It’d kill Maura to lose him as well as the doe.
He spared a glance at the doe’s body. “She’s not in pain anymore, Smoke,” he murmured to the baby deer. He noticed that his throat constricted with a sudden anguish he wouldn’t have let himself experience before last night. “Nothing can hurt her again. At least there’s that comfort.”
Once outside, he and Maura followed the edge of the slope for a few miles, looking for a way to climb up to a ridge so they could get an idea of where the fire had gone. They soon found a fairly easy grade that at least got them a hundred or so feet above the valley floor. Once there, Ash saw the impact of the fire in full detail.
The destruction went on as far as the eye could see. Acres and acres, miles and miles of nothing but devastation, as if a nuclear bomb had struck.
And still the fire burned. A plume of smoke rose over another ridge in the distance.
The day was already hot and dry. It was going to be another scorcher, in more ways than one.
He turned to Maura, whose face was white with shock.
“Oh, Ash!” she cried softly. Her eyes filled with tears.
He resisted the almost overwhelming urge to take her in his arms and comfort her, first because he already carried an armful of baby deer, and second because he had no appreciation that such comfort would help all that much. Last night had been an escape from the world and all of its pain, he realized. He wouldn’t trade that moment for anything, but it had only been temporary, fleeting. This was reality, and it was here to stay.
“It looks like the fire headed southwest,” he said without inflection. “We should be good to head to fire camp about four miles up the riverbed, and from there we can get a ride to command in Limestone.”
She swiped at her eyes, nodding.
The way was rough, part of it through still-smoldering debris, a dangerous route to take. One didn’t know when a still-standing tree trunk might topple. At one point, they came upon an abandoned fire shelter, and Maura and Ash simply exchanged looks, not speaking. Hopefully the firefighter who’d employed the shelter had survived and was also making his or her way back to camp.
It took them all of the morning and into the early afternoon to reach fire camp, where they were greeted with hugs and slaps on the back, their return hailed a miracle, for when the wind had shifted and started the fire’s deadly run, not every firefighter had been as lucky as Ash and Maura: two National Park Service firefighters had gotten caught on a slope and died.
Ash and Maura looked at each other solemnly. Yes, they had come close to dying. But they hadn’t. Whether it’d been sheer luck or destiny, they’d survived.
They reported to the incident commander, who released them to return to Limestone on the next truck, and from there, home. Hal, Maura’s crew chief, radioed ahead for a veterinarian to be in Limestone for the fawn.
It was just a little one-horse town, but to Ash, Limestone looked like paradise as the truck came to a stop in front of the mercantile that was being used as a command center for the NIFC. As he and Maura stepped onto the street, Ash found himself blurting out, “Maura, wait.”
“Yes, Ash?”
Glancing around, he pulled her aside with his free arm. With the other he was still holding on to Smokey, who’d nearly panicked earlier when Ash had tried to put him down.
He found a spot behind the truck for privacy, and she stood before him, looking up at him expectantly. He wanted badly to make good on that expectancy.
“Look, before we go our separate ways, I wanted you to know that last night meant something to me. What that something is, I still haven’t figured out yet.” He actually found he could give a short laugh. “But I hope you’ll give me your address—you know, I just realized I don’t have a clue what part of Montana you’re from—and once I take care of some old business, get my life in order, I’d like to look you up in a few months or so. I mean, if you want me to.”