Paradise Peak (New Americana 5)

“Of someone,” she countered, her eyebrows raising. “When I said he was going to make a move, you thought I was talking about someone making a move on me, didn’t you?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Maybe.”

“Maybe, as in yes.” She watched the road for a moment, then asked, “Whom did you think I was talking about?”

Travis was tempted to evade the question, but noticing the earnest curiosity on her face, he cleared his throat. “Carl.”

Hannah’s lips twitched.

He sat up in his seat. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Aren’t you going to”—he spread his hands—“I don’t know, say something?”

“About Carl?”

He bit back a growl of frustration. “Yes.”

“No. There’s nothing to say because I don’t think of him.” She glanced at Travis, her smile growing, then refocused on the road. “I’m too busy thinking about you.”

The conviction in her soft voice drained the tension from his limbs. He lifted his hand and sifted her tousled hair through his fingers, the warmth of her smooth neck making his palm tingle and his body hum.

“That’s a coincidence,” he said softly, “because I can’t get you out of my head either.”

Or my heart. Travis pulled in a sharp breath, his fingers pausing in the bright strands of her hair as the realization set in. Somewhere, in the midst of working together, evading the fire, and searching for Red and Margaret, he had fallen in love with Hannah. And if, once he told her the truth, she couldn’t forgive him—couldn’t find a way to love him despite his past—he had no idea how he’d move on without her.

A gasp, full of dismay, escaped Hannah. “Oh, no.”

“What?” Travis followed the direction of her gaze to the right side of the road as the truck climbed a steep incline.

There, a large wooden sign, once bearing the words “Paradise Peak,” had been charred to a blackened slab; the top half of it had broken off and dangled at a precarious angle toward the ground. The tree line, once towering and thick, had been decimated by the fire. Flames had blazed through all the leaves, leaving behind black, twiglike branches that looked as though a stiff breeze could knock them to the ground.

“Everything’s gone,” Hannah whispered in a strangled voice.

Travis leaned forward, braced his hands on the dash, and studied the landscape more closely as the truck ascended the mountain. The mountain range, full of high peaks that had touched a blue, misty sky, had darkened to midnight black, and a thick, gray shroud had been draped over them, imbuing the air with an eerie, graveyard quality.

The truck’s engine groaned when they reached the peak of the mountain, and the sun returned full force. Its thick rays sliced through the gray, smoky air and lit up the broken walls and charred remains of buildings and businesses lining the main road through downtown. Even Glory Be, once a welcoming structure, had been reduced to rubble.

Debris littered the land where homes once stood, and the burned wreckage of cars and trucks slumped amid it. A child’s bicycle, its color stripped and covered with ash and soot, lay abandoned in a driveway. Metal porch railings had bent and warped into misshapen angles among the crumbling ruins of homes.

Stomach dropping, Travis swiveled in his seat and peered at Margaret’s car, which followed close behind them. Red, driving, looked from one side of the road to the other, a mixture of shock and horror visible in his expression. Margaret sat in the passenger seat and stared out her window at the damage, her hands clasped tightly over her mouth.

“We’ll think posi

tive.” Hannah’s voice, a thin whisper, filled the cab. “This could be the worst of it.”

Travis turned back around and stared at the road, hoping what she said was true. Hoping she, Red, and Margaret would at least have one habitable structure still standing when they reached the ranch.

Up ahead, by the left side of the road, a policeman stood outside his patrol car, waving his arms and directing them to stop. Hannah braked slowly, then rolled down her window as the officer approached.

“Where you folks headed?” he asked, leaning closer to the cab.

“Paradise Peak Ranch.” Hannah motioned toward the road ahead. “Our place is just up the road, down a ways on the other side of the mountain.”

The officer nodded. “Road’s open that way but drive carefully. Trees still fall on occasion.”

“Power came back on in Crystal Rock yesterday,” Travis said. “Has it been restored here?”