Every Last Look by Christa Wick

Granted, standing in the middle of a deserted road with an axe in each hand probably wasn’t the best way to get a car to stop for me. But stop, she did. Well, sort of. Okay, so she was just avoiding a rollover into the same ditch I’d broken down in when she braked long enough for me to hop in her truck bed.

Still, it’s fate.

Not just because I need a ride asap to join the other smokejumpers in my crew already gearing up at the airstrip to fight a massive forest fire heading toward my family ranch, but more so because this is going to be a helluva story we’ll be telling our grandkids one day.

Just as soon as I can get the skittish thing to trust that I’m nothing like whatever it is she’s been running from.

Previously published as Barrett Cole, completely rewritten in first person POV and revised throughout with newly added content, a different extended ending, and a touch more steam.