Paradise Peak (New Americana 5)

“We’ll take Margaret’s car,” Red said, heading toward a car parked on the other side of the lodge. “Hannah, you and Travis take the truck.” The wind whipped hard, breaking his next words. “It’ll handle better on . . .

road and we’ll need both in case . . . blow a tire or something worse happens. Follow us.”

“I can’t,” Hannah said, jogging over to the truck. “Cell service is down, and I can’t get through to Liz and Ben. I need to make sure they know what’s coming their way.”

Margaret stopped midstride and shouted against a gust of wind, “No! You follow us.”

“I can’t.” Hannah opened the driver’s side door of the truck and threw her bag on the bench seat. “Ben promised me he’d let me know if something changed and I didn’t hear a thing from him when the fire changed course and headed our way. He may not know it’s crowning, and with the power out, he won’t have any more warning than we did.” She stabbed a hand at the orange glow in the sky above the mountain, behind Travis’s cabin. Small flames licked along a short segment of the tree line. “You see where the wind’s carried it. Liz and Ben are below the fire and Ben will be looking in the other direction. It’ll rain down on ’em before they see it coming. They might need help getting out.”

“It’s too dangerous to drive that way.” Red dropped the bags, strode over to Hannah, and gripped her shoulders. “As fast as the fire’s moving, you won’t make it there first.”

“But I have to try. Gloria and Vernon are on that side of the mountain. Our other neighbors . . . You’d do the same if Margaret and I weren’t here.” She shook her head. “I gave him my word. I can’t leave without at least trying. We’ll take the shortcut, then meet you at the bottom of the mountain. I won’t take more chances than I have to.”

Red stared down at her, then nodded and hugged her hard. “Travis!”

He met Red’s eyes over the hood of the truck.

“You take care of my girl,” Red shouted. “Don’t leave her side.”

Travis nodded, and Red walked back toward the car by the lodge. Margaret stopped Red with a hand on his chest.

“You can’t let her go.” Fear entered Margaret’s eyes as she looked over Red’s shoulder at Hannah. “She’ll get hurt or—”

Red grabbed Margaret’s arms and eased her back, propelling her toward her car. “She knows what she’s doing, and Travis is with her. She’ll be okay.”

“But she—”

“We gotta go, Margaret.” Red hustled her further back.

Travis’s chest tightened at the stricken expression on Margaret’s face. She’d already lost Niki—he’d done that to her. To lose Hannah, too . . .

Travis pressed his hands on the hood of the truck and leaned forward, calling out to Margaret, “I’ll bring her back safe. I promise.”

Margaret braced herself against Red, stalling his steps, and locked eyes with Travis. “You swear?”

Travis stared back, his jaw clenching at the vulnerability in Margaret’s expression. Terror snaked through him at the thought of failing her. And of failing Hannah.

“I swear.”

* * *

Hannah hit the gas and a spray of gravel pelted the underside of Red’s truck. When she reached the end of the ranch’s driveway, she hung a left onto a crude dirt road and floored it. Heavy wind rocked the truck and whirled thick clouds of smoke among the trees, blanketing the sun and intensifying the orange glow around them.

She adjusted the rearview mirror, straining for a glimpse of Margaret’s car, then returned her attention to the road. “Are they out?”

Travis shifted on the seat beside her and looked out the back windshield. “Yeah. They just hit the main road, headed toward town.”

“How do things look that way?”

“’Bout the same,” he said. “Smoke, orange tint. I can’t see them anymore.”

Hannah bit her lip, her hands tightening on the steering wheel.

He faced forward again, and she sensed his eyes on her. “You good?”

“Yes. I’m good.”

The dirt road narrowed. She moved to the center of it, the truck bouncing wildly over knotted roots and potholes.