www.millsandboon.co.uk

      JODI O’DONNELL

      grew up one of fourteen children in small-town Iowa. As a result, she loves to explore in her writing how family relationships influence who and why we love as we do.

      A USA TODAY bestselling author, Jodi has also been a finalist for Romance Writers of America’s RITA^® Award and is a past winner of RWA’s Golden Heart Award. She lives in Iowa with her two dogs, Rio and Leia.

      For Carol and Cindy, for keeping me laughing

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter One

      “It’s a blowup! Run!”

      The shout was like a shotgun blast in Maura Kingsley’s ears. She didn’t even hesitate. Without turning to see who’d issued the order—she knew, anyway, that it was Hal Chatsworth, the boss of her crew of firefighters—Maura took off in a sprint across the pine-studded steppe and away from the forest fire that the national media had recently dubbed the worst in Montana’s history.

      Her ax-hoe-hybrid Pulaski clutched in her right hand, she dashed through the bone-dry forest duff, dodging ponderosa pines that were as drought-stressed as Maura had ever seen in her three years with the Forest Service. She was aware of her crewmates, as well as others who’d been on the burnout detail, running toward the good black in the riverbed that Hal had designated a safety zone at the beginning of the shift, should the winds change direction.

      There was no predicting when a fire might achieve the critical mass it needed to reinforce itself with its own heat and instantly incinerating flames, creating the vicious vortex called a firestorm. The only way to fight that kind of fire was to get out of its way.

      The problem was, Maura realized as a crackling branch fell to earth in front of her, the fire was crowning above their heads, leaping from treetop to treetop at a pace faster than the firefighters were running. Embers rained down on her like the sparks of a firecracker as she picked up her pace.

      Good heavens, but it was moving fast. Too fast for her to outrun.

      She could feel its heat, like the draft from a blast furnace, on her back. Gasping for breath as she ran, she clutched the pouch on her belt as if it were a talisman. It contained the collapsible fiberglass and aluminum fire shelter that would be her only chance of survival should she truly become overcome by the flames licking at the heels of her lug-soled boots. It was a firefighter’s worst nightmare, getting caught in a burnover, where the white-hot heat of a raging wildfire could reach over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

      Not for the first time in her life Maura prayed for a little height and longer legs as she felt herself falling behind the others. Her goggles obscuring her peripheral vision, she turned her head from side to side, trying to get an idea of what her options might be. To her right was only more sparsely treed forest, to her left the craggy limestone face of a rock mountain. Neither left her much to choose from. In fact, she’d be in ten times worse trouble heading for the mountainside if the flames chose to follow her. A fire moved faster up a slope because the uphill fuels became preheated.

      She’d have to do something, though, and quick. The wind whipped around her, scaring up more sparks. She could almost taste more than smell the acrid, black smoke. It burned in her throat like a draft of home-stilled whiskey, and as she ran, she tugged the protective mask around her neck over her mouth and nose.

      It was the noise, however, that started panic rising in her chest. Even from half a mile away, a forest fire sounded like a tornado, jumbo jet and fifty-car pileup all rolled into one. This close, it was the very incarnation of chaos and destruction. She had a wild thought that, like surviving a deadly battle, one couldn’t completely understand the sound of a forest fire without experiencing it firsthand.

      If she survived, for abruptly she was not in front of the fire. It was around her, ahead of her, above her.

      And the realization hit Maura in an avalanche: She was not going to make it out.

      Her life fast-forwarded past her mind’s eye: her childhood growing up on a ranch, good times with her family—her three older brothers who alternately teased her unmercifully and pampered her unstintingly. Her mother, so regal and refined. Carolyn Kingsley was like a rose growing out of wild and rugged Montana grassland, and Maura had always been puzzled by the difference between mother and daughter, for she herself was of that land as much as it was of her.

      Like her father, Stratton. Headstrong, loving, imperious, tender. She’d spent her life trying to thwart his protectiveness.

      There was no way he could protect her now.

      Around her, trees were literally exploding where they were rooted. The sound was like so many dying screams for mercy.

      With a choking cry, Maura made the agonizing decision to pull out her fire shelter and take refuge under it. Survival using the shelter was not a certainty. One breath of superheated air would kill her, if she didn’t die of sheer terror before the fire passed over her. But it was her only hope.

      Then, just as she slowed, her heart like a melon in her throat, Maura felt herself swept forward from behind.

      “Come on,” a masculine voice rasped into her ear. “There’s got to be cover along that mountain slope that’ll be safer than out in the open under nothin’ but a flimsy tent.”

      She hadn’t the presence of mind—or desire—to argue as the man, a fellow firefighter, although she didn’t know exactly who, cut to the