Paradise Peak (New Americana 5)

Reaching over her, he drew the seat belt around her, secured it with a click, then tugged it tight. “Do you want to turn back?”

Hannah dragged the back of her hand across her sweaty face, the pungent smell of smoke wafting up from her clothes, hair, and skin. “I . . .”

Flames flickered along the pines in front of them. Wood crackled and red embers sprayed upward on a gust of wind. They twirled left, right, and left again, then settled gracefully in the top of a cedar tree beside the road as if performing a bizarre dance.

“Hannah. If you want, we can turn back, but we’ve got to go in one direction or the other, and we gotta go now.”

The heat in the cab intensified, and her breaths came quicker now. Oh, Lord, how she wanted to turn around.

Instead, she closed her eyes and thought of Gloria, joyfully prattling on as she had shown Travis around the shop this morning. She thought of Ben, his arms around Liz as they’d stood by the paddock fence at Misty Ridge Stables, both of them smiling and in love. And she thought of Zeke—

“No.” Squeezing her eyes shut tighter, she swallowed hard and steadied her voice. “They may need help. We keep going.”

“Hannah.” A big hand closed around her knee and squeezed. “Look at me.”

She opened her eyes and focused on Travis’s face. His lean cheeks were flushed, there was a black smudge on his forehead and a tight set to his mouth, but his dark eyes were clear and his gaze steady.

“After we reach Ben and Liz, I’ll get you back down this mountain,” he rasped. “But you’ve got to stay focused and tell me which way to go. And you’ve got to trust my judgment if we run into trouble.” He leaned closer, his gaze intense upon her face. “Do you trust me?”

Hannah stared back at him, her chest still humming with the pressure of his protective hand against her. She touched the tender spot with her fingertips, a sense of calm unfurling within her. “Yes.”

CHAPTER 7

Travis threw the truck in reverse, hit the gas, and backed up. His fin

gers glided easily over the wide steering wheel, but the feel of it and the pedal beneath his boot felt forbidden. It’d been over twenty years since he’d sat behind the wheel of a vehicle, and he shouldn’t be driving one now.

Memories of metal crunching, shattering glass, and flashes of red and blue lights returned with a vengeance and constricted his chest. He shook his head and blinked hard to regain his focus.

Hannah. He glanced at her seated in the passenger seat, her blue eyes on him, her expression anxious. He’d promised Margaret he’d bring her back safely.

“Brace yourself on the dash.” Travis eyed the pine tree lying across the road as flames licked up the long branches. “We’re going around it, but this side of the truck’s going to run over a limb or two.”

“Be careful,” Hannah said. “There’s a drop off the embankment.”

Nodding, he shifted gears again, then eased the truck forward, picking up enough speed as they approached to mount the thinnest limbs.

Wood cracked and flames hissed as the truck crunched over the branches, bounced along the rough embankment, then swerved back onto the dirt road.

“Red was right,” Travis said, relief washing over him. “He said this truck had some miles on it, but that it was a tough one.”

Hannah removed her hands from the dashboard and relaxed back in her seat. “Yeah. Can’t say I’ve been overly fond of this truck, but I’m grateful for it right now.”

Nodding, Travis slowed as they rounded a sharp curve. The flames that had licked along the ground beside the road disappeared in the rearview mirror and the new stretch of road was clear, though orange light still glowed behind distant trees and embers whipped along on the wind.

“How much further to Ben’s?” he asked. “Things look better this way.”

“We’re almost there. Gloria and Vernon’s cabin is just ahead, and Ben’s place is . . .” As she spoke, they emerged from another sharp curve to find huge flames engulfing a house several feet ahead on the right side of the road. “Oh, no.”

Travis had spoken too soon. Cringing, he stared at the burning house.

“Watch out!” Hannah gripped his arm.

Travis hit the brakes just as headlights emerged through the thick smoke covering the road. The truck jerked to a stop in front of a parked sedan. One person stood beside it, outside the open passenger’s side door, and another stood several feet away on the right side of the road beside another adult and a child who sat on the ground.

Travis gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Is that Liz and Zeke?”

The passenger door slammed as Hannah ran in front of the truck toward the figures sitting on the ground, the truck’s headlights casting a garish glow over her back.