Colorado Wildfire
HE CAME BACK A DIFFERENT MANThe last time Sheriff Samantha Calloway saw her husband was hours before he’d been pulled under by rapids. It wasn’t until Wade came to her rescue during a mountain ambush that she knew he was alive. His return was a painful reminder of time lost, which had left their daughter fatherless. For a year he’d worked to expose law enforcement corruption… and now cartel assassins were gunning for his family. Before, Samantha trusted no one more than Wade. If they could finish his assignment together, perhaps they’d find a fresh start. And his presence by her side sure made it hard to resist falling into old habits…
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She kissed him again. “Where were you?”
“It’s complicated.”
She pulled her head back and stared into his light brown eyes. After a year and twenty-one days, after letting her think he was dead, he needed a much better explanation. “Tell me about it.”
She wasn’t letting him run away after giving her a whisper of sweet talk and “it’s complicated.” She needed a hell of a lot more than that. She slid down his body and planted her boots on the ground. “Sit down, Wade.”
“I already told you. I can’t—”
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
He frowned. “What?”
The hard way, it was. She stalked around him until she had the uphill position. From there, it was easy to shove his shoulder and hook his legs out from under him. As soon as his butt hit the dirt, she was on him. After taking away his rifle, she flipped him onto his belly and cuffed his hands behind his back.
“Wade Calloway, you’re under arrest.”
CASSIE MILES, a USA TODAY bestselling author, lives in Colorado. After raising two daughters and cooking tons of macaroni and cheese for her family, Cassie is trying to be more adventurous in her culinary efforts. She’s discovered that almost anything tastes better with wine. When she’s not plotting Mills & Boon Intrigue books, Cassie likes to hang out at the Denver Botanical Gardens near her high-rise home.
To the most excellent uncles, Charlie and C.J. Climp.
And, as always, to Rick.
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Sheriff Samantha Calloway hadn’t cried this much since her husband went missing and was presumed dead. She swabbed the moisture from her cheeks with the back of her hand. These tears didn’t come from sorrow. Smoke had got into her eyes.
She parked her white SUV with the sheriff’s logo at a deserted intersection, climbed out and rested her elbows on the front fender to steady her binoculars. Beyond a wide field that was green with the new growth of early spring, she could see the approaching wildfire.
Though the crimson flames were far away, barely visible behind a distant ridge, smoke consumed the landscape. A stinging haze draped the spires of pine and spruce at the edge of Swain County in the high Rocky Mountains.
When she licked her lips, she tasted ash on her tongue. Her pale blue eyes continued to ooze with tears.
Caleb Schmidt, a deputy who had been with the sheriff’s department for thirty years, one year longer than Sam had been alive, had followed her to this location. He got out of his vehicle and strutted toward her. A short, wiry man, Caleb thrust out his chest and swung his arms when he walked. Maybe he thought the posture made him look bigger. He pulled the dark blue bandana down from his mouth and squinted at her through his thick glasses.
“It’s time,” he said in a voice of doom, “time to start emergency evacuation procedures.”
“Not yet.”
“Doggone it, Sheriff, we gotta hustle and—”
“I’ve been in contact with the proper officials,” she interrupted. “Fire Marshal Hobbs will tell me in plenty of time if we need to evacuate.”
Caleb scoffed. Before he could say anything more, she stretched out her long arm and tugged on his bandana. “Where’s your smoke mask?”
“Where’s yours?” he retorted.
This morning when she’d started out, she had two boxes full of disposable ventilator masks that she’d gone to the trouble of ordering even though they weren’t in her meager budget. Before noon, she’d given them all away without saving one for herself. Her late husband, Wade, would have pointed to her behavior as an example of her too-too-responsible attitude. And, she admitted to herself, Wade would have been right. Sam knew she couldn’t take care of others if she didn’t take care of herself first, but the other way around felt more natural.
“The wind’s picking up,” Caleb muttered. “The fire’s on the move. I hear it’s already burned two thousand acres. I’m advising you to reconsider.”
“If I had reason to believe it might reach town, I wouldn’t hesitate to get everybody out.” Her five-year-old daughter was smack-dab in the middle of Woodridge at the sheriff’s office in the two-story, red stone Swain County Courthouse, where the dispatch/911 operators were keeping an eye on her. Sam’s regular babysitter had an asthmatic toddler and had driven down to Denver to get away from this awful smoke.
“We gotta be smart, gotta move fast.” Caleb would not give up; he was a feisty little pug with a bone. “It ain’t going to be easy to get some of these old coots to leave their houses.”
He was right about that. A mandated evacuation of Woodridge would be a nightmare. Her county was the smallest in the state in terms of acreage and population. They didn’t have a ski resort or a condo development or fertile land for farming. The entire sheriff’s department consisted of twelve people, including Sam.
