Hot as Sin (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #2)(54)
Author: Bella Andre

She shook her head. “I really want to get to the main trail the police said she was spotted on before we stop.”

Stepping carefully, she continued to move forward, making sure to keep one hand on the rock wall beside her at all times to feel more stable.

Thank God Sam was less than a foot behind her. She knew, without a doubt, that he’d be there to catch her if she started to fall.

She’d never been comfortable with how much she needed him. But this search for April had broken through what was left of her foolish pride. She’d had no choice but to accept his offer of help in the hospital. Three days later, her previous independence seemed less impressive and more lonesome.

She finally had something real to hold on to. She had Sam’s love.

He loved her.

Just thinking the sweet words took her breath away.

Ten years after the first time they met, considering all the different ways their lives could have turned out, instead of having found love and creating families with new people, they’d rediscovered each other.

It was a second chance, after all.

And it was nothing short of a miracle.

Dianna wasn’t blind to the fact that they still had a lot of decisions before them. Where to live, how to manage their very different careers. But she felt confident that they’d figure it all out. And that they’d truly transcended their past.

If only she felt as confident about finding April.

Please, she silently prayed, I need to find April today, up here in these mountains.

Her plea had barely floated up into the universe when she rounded a corner and stopped dead in her tracks.

The narrow path they’d been following had been swept away. The mudslide looked fresh, probably having occurred during the previous night’s storm.

“The trail’s gone, Sam,” she said in a hollow voice. Unable to keep from spiraling off, she said, “What if other sections are washed out and the police can’t get up here either?”

In lieu of answering, Sam unclipped his backpack and pulled out several rock-climbing bolts.

“I’m going to climb up and over to see how far it is until the trail picks back up.” Before he went, he lifted her chin with one finger. “Don’t you dare worry; this is just a minor bump in the road.”

She forced a small smile, trying desperately to keep the faith.

After putting his pack back on, Sam got to work quickly screwing the bolts into the rock beside them, using them as hand- and footholds to climb up and over the rock. Too soon, he disappeared from view.

For three days, he’d only left her side once, when the cabin had been on fire at the campgrounds. After ten years of being alone, sixty seconds without him had her heart pounding, especially when her brain rewound to the conversation they’d had just before heading out here: “What if some deranged fan of yours thinks this is the perfect way to finally meet you, way up in the Rockies with no one else around?”

She couldn’t understand why anyone would want to go to that sort of trouble over her. But still, she found herself looking at the forest with wary eyes, until even the sound of the birds and the leaves rustling in the breeze fell on suspicious ears.

God, how she hated standing on the trail helplessly waiting for Sam to come back.

That’s when it hit her—she didn’t need to wait. She knew how to climb up the rock, and had left most—if not all—of her fear of heights behind her on that first rock face with Sam two days ago.

She was just reaching for the first set of bolts when she heard voices.

But who could Sam be talking to way up here on an unmarked trail in the middle of nowhere?

Her first thought was that the police had already come. But even from a distance what she was hearing didn’t seem like a friendly conversation.

Oh God, she thought with increasing alarm, had Sam been right? Was the anonymous tip to the police a trap?

She knew what he would tell her; he’d insist on her turning around, going back to the Farm, calling the police, and waiting somewhere safe for his return. But there was no way she could leave him to fend for himself.

Sam had saved her so many times. Now it was her turn to save him.

Reaching for the bolts, she pulled herself up off the trail. Her heart immediately started racing, her palms began to sweat, and her legs trembled like crazy. But even though her body was still doubting she could do this, her heart knew differently.

Sam had taught her how not to be afraid.

Taking a slow, deep breath to calm herself, she put all of her focus on the goal of getting up and over the rock, refusing to leave even a smidge of room for fear to creep back in.

As she climbed, the grunts and curses from the other side of the trail grew louder, more intense. Moving as quickly as she could over the rock without slipping, she finally got high enough to see down over the other side to the trail.

Her breath caught as a stranger pointed a gun at Sam. But instead of backing off, Sam threw himself against the man, knocking him hard into the rock beside the trail. It occurred to her that something about the man’s face was vaguely familiar, but she didn’t have time to try to place it, not when she needed to find some way to stop Sam from being shot.

As she clamored across the rock faster than she would have ever thought she could, Sam looked up.

“Dianna, get the hell out of here!” he shouted, momentarily distracted by seeing her.

And then, as if in slow motion, the man gave an unholy roar and shoved Sam with all his might.

Her mouth opened and she thought she screamed as Sam’s boots slipped on the slick trail and his heavy pack pulled him backward off the edge, sending him flying through the thin mountain air.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SHOCK PARALYZED her, making her fingers slip off the cold metal bolts. She was sliding down the rock, but instead of hitting the trail and falling off the edge to her death, she was caught by the man who’d pushed Sam. No!

Hands clamped down over her windpipe and she gasped for air. She needed to find a way to get away from this man and go get help for Sam.

If he was still alive after his fall. If she could even find him.

As she struggled to fight her way out of the man’s strong grip, her mind, her heart, and her body were all revolting at the thought of Sam dying.

From the first moment she’d met him, he’d been larger than life. After all the risks he’d taken in his life as a hotshot, after all the fires he’d outrun, she refused to believe that Sam could die like this.

He had to be alive. She’d know if he were dead, wouldn’t she?

Or was that just a lie she had to tell herself so that she could keep going without him? Especially when after ten years of stubbornly denying their love for each other, she’d known in her gut that they were on the verge of a new start.