The twins’ sleepy faces peer from the back seat of Jesse’s truck, their silhouettes outlined by the dash light. Eliza clutches a stuffed horse. Caleb has his favorite blanket bunched under his chin.
“Miss Abilene!” Eliza calls when she sees me. “You’re coming too?”
“Yes, I am,” I say, managing a smile. “We’re going on a little adventure.”
“In the middle of the night,” Caleb says, awed.
“Best adventures start that way,” Jesse says, kissing the tops of their heads before straightening.
Marshall opens the trunk of his truck and sets my things inside.
“You ride with us,” he tells me. “Wyatt will be in the back seat with you. Jesse’s following in his truck with the kids.”
“Is it safe to drive?” I ask, squinting through the haze.
“It’s getting worse, but roads are still clear,” Wyatt says. “Cabin’s north, away from the worst of it. Less smoke that way.”
I nod.
My hands shake as I climb into the truck, the seat too big and too strange under me. Wyatt gets in beside me, my duffel bag wedged between us as a lumpy buffer.
Marshall climbs in the driver’s seat, his presence filling the cab. The door shuts with a solid thunk, cutting out some of the wind noise but none of the fear.
All I hear is my own pulse in my ears.
Then Marshall turns the key, and the engine rumbles to life.
Jesse flashes his headlights behind us.
As we pull away, I twist in my seat to look at my house.
It stands there, small and stubborn, porch light still on, wind chimes clinking wildly in the smoky air.
“Be safe,” I whisper.
Whether I’m talking to the house or the girl who used to live in that life, I’m not sure.
Wyatt must see it on my face. His hand finds mine on the seat between us and curls around it.
“I know it’s hard,” he says quietly.
“I feel like I’m abandoning them,” I say. “The house. The land.”
“You’re not abandoning anyone,” he says. “You did everything you could. The rest is up to the fire crews andthe wind. But you being here alive? That matters more than anything inside four walls.”
Marshall nods once, eyes fixed on the road. “Your grandmother built you for survival, not for going down with a building.”
That hits harder than anything.
I squeeze Wyatt’s hand. He squeezes back.
We drive.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Marshall
Tuesday
