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.”
Colorado Wildfire
Cassie Miles
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.
Contents
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