“We deal with this,” he reminds me, positioning the hose so it’s pointed at the flames licking through the kindling of the tangled branches above us. “And she deals with that. Remember?”
I nod without a reply, heaving the water tank around so I can move it along with Dylan’s hose. I have to keep my head in the game right now. I came here to deal with a fire, not to get drawn in to the memories of everything that might have happened between us in the past. I focus my eyes ahead, my hands sweating within the gloves as I struggle to keep my grip tight.Inside the house, every now and then, I’m sure I can make out the sound of voices, and I find myself looking back to see what’s going on there, trying to figure out if I can see movement inside the windows or if it’s all just my imagination.
Dylan moves methodically through the trees, taking out the snatches of fire one at a time until we’ve driven it a little further down the hill. The water is starting to run low, even with Dylan’s conservative use, and we’ll have to get another tank up here to really get it under control—though, by the time we come back, I can only hope that the real fire department has sent a few tankers out here to help manage this chaos before it spins any further out of control.
“Dylan! Carlisle!”
I turn to see Angelie rushing toward us, lifting one gloved hand in the air as she approaches the fence. Behind her, an older man who has to be her father has his arm around a woman who I recognize from the earlier evacuation. It looks as though Angelie’s mother is being coaxed out without her consent, but at least they’ve managed to force her out of the house.
“Any damage to the building?” I ask as Angelie draws up at the gate again, out of breath. She’s still carrying one of the extinguishers, dangling it from her hand like it’s getting too heavy to carry.
“The front door had singed a bit, but I managed to put it out,” she replies with a note of pride to her voice.
“I’m not leaving this place to burn!” her mother exclaims, an edge to her voice that tells me she isn’t going to make this easy for us.
“We’re not asking you to,” Dylan steps in to assure her, putting an arm around her shoulders and steering her toward the van. “We just need everyone out of here so we don’t have to worry about getting pulled away from fighting the fires…”
She seems to soften slightly at the sound of those words—Dylan has always had that effect on people, especially women, the stark ability to cut through whatever hand-wringing stress they’re dealing with and convince them to do what needs to be done.
“There’s a van just through the woods,” he continues. “Angelie brought us here—she thought you would have come back to the house and she didn’t want you getting caught by the fire.”
“You really thought to come and check on us?” her father asks, sounding a little surprised. Angelie glances at him over the top of her coat as we make our way back toward the van, like she can barely believe that he would ask something like that.
“Of course I did,” she replies. “I wasn’t going to leave you here. I knew Mom would never just let the evacuation take her away from this place, not with how much history is wrapped up in it.”
“And you’d be right,” her mother cuts in. “I won’t be away from here for more than a few days, you understand? And if there’s even a singe on this place?—”
“Mom, they’re not the ones who started the fire,” Angelie tells her, her voice slightly sharp, as though she’s not going to take any more of her attitude. Finally, her mother seals her lips, her mouth set in a hard line, but at least she has stopped complaining.
“Good job getting them out of there,” I mutter to Angelie.
I can smell that distinct scent of burned, soaked wood, a sign that our job has been done at least for now.
“Thanks for letting me come,” she replies, her voice a little shy. “I know how it sounds, but they would never have come if it hadn’t been for me.”
“Guess I know where you get your stubbornness from, then,” I shoot back.
Over the top of the oversized collar of the jacket, she gives me a slight smile. “Guess you do.”
For just a moment, everything else seems to fall away around us. As she looks back at me, I could swear that we’re the only two people in that forest, despite the fact that her parents’ grumbling still rises above the sound of our footsteps, along with Dylan doing his best to soothe them before they work themselves into too much of a state. It might have been years since I last saw Angelie, but at this moment, I could convince myself that we haven’t skipped a single day together in all that time.
9
ANGELIE
I hoveroutside Carlisle’s bedroom door, the air still outside, the forest quiet around us. The quads are asleep in the makeshift beds Joe and Callum managed to put together for them, and I’m fresh out of a shower. I should really be looking at curling up for the night and getting some sleep.
So why is it that, instead, my heart feels as though it’s going to pound its way right out of my chest?
I lift my hand and stand with it just a few inches away from the dark wood of the door. I know that he likely just wants to rest, given that Joe is on first watch downstairs to make sure none of the fires draw too close to the town without them knowing about it, but there’s so much I want to say to him, and I don’t think I’ll be able to lay my head down till I do.
My parents have been taken back to the motel where the rest of the town is being held for the time being. There are only a few hundred of us, so it hasn’t been too difficult to get everyone settled, at least from what I overheard the guys talking about earlier. I know I’m damn lucky that they let me come with them to help my parents, because my mom would have dug her heelsin and insisted on staying no matter what the stakes might have been. Carlisle is right—it’s where I get my stubborn side from, though I don’t exactly appreciate having that pointed out to me.
Or maybe I don’t really care as much as I thought I would, because I’ve been turning over and over in my mind that little glance we shared before we got back into the van. Doesn’t seem to matter how many times I test it out in my memory, it makes my heart fizz and the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, all things I should know better than to entertain.
My hair drips down my back as I turn over in my head what I’m going to say to him.
Thank you?That seems like the right place to start.
