Following the four-inch tire tracks up the dirt road on foot, he continued to light flares every half mile until he was down to his final one. Praying that someone on the local hotshot crew would read his smoke signal, he held one last flare in reserve.

Sam continued to make his way up the trail, his legs and lungs burning, sweat soaking his clothes, praying all the while that Dianna was still alive.

Stay strong, sweetheart, he silently pleaded. I’m coming to get you.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

WIND WHIPPED across Dianna’s eyes, making them water as she held on to the handlebars for dear life.

The man was driving way too fast, the trees a blur beside them as he sped up the bumpy road. She kept sliding, first to one side, then the next, as she overcorrected. She squeezed her eyes shut against the trail dirt flying up from under the wheels, but she couldn’t block out the image of Sam falling off the trail. It would haunt her forever.

Her captor pressed close against her, and even though he’d told her that he was disgusted by the thought of touching her, she could feel his hard-on pressing into her rear every time they hit a rough patch.

What if he changed his mind about raping her?

What if he’d already raped April?

Bile rose to her throat again, and along with the motion sickness she was feeling, she nearly spewed all over the handlebars.

You’re going to see April soon and then you’re going to figure out how to get away from him.

This mantra was all she had to cling to.

Her heart squeezed and she momentarily lost her breath as she thought about Sam being pushed off the trail. These past three days with Sam had been more than she could have ever hoped for. But they weren’t enough.

She wanted a lifetime.

As the dirt bike wound up the trail, Dianna’s hands quickly went numb and her legs and rear soon followed. She wasn’t sure if it had been thirty minutes or two hours by the time he abruptly hit the brakes.

Her chest flew into the handlebars and she grimaced in pain as the man got off the bike, walking away without undoing the locks that held her captive on the dirt bike.

Dianna clenched and unclenched her hands to bring life back to her numb limbs until tingles started shooting up both of her arms. Blinking fast to clear the wet dirt from her eyes, she looked around at where he’d taken her. They were parked beside a barn on its last legs at the end of a long row of ratty old trailers. Surrounded by the metal boxes, it was almost like being a kid again, except for one big difference.

No matter how bad life in the trailer park with her mother had been, she’d never feared for her life.

“April!” she screamed just in case her sister was close by, but there was no answer.

And then the man reappeared, pushing April forward with his gun.

Although Dianna was overjoyed that her sister was still alive, she gasped at the state she was in. Her face was a mess of blood and bruises, her wrists were bound together with tape, and she looked horribly weak, like she might drop unconscious to the ground at any second.

“You found me,” April said through wobbling lips.

Before Dianna could tell her sister how much she loved her, that she would have moved heaven and earth to find her, the man lifted up the gun and laid the barrel against April’s skull.

“I didn’t get to say good-bye to my brother,” he said, his hands and voice shaking with rage. “You’re not going to get the chance either.”

Dianna frantically pulled at her chains, but there was no way she could get off the bike and save her sister.

Right before he pulled the trigger, April’s gaze was steady, utterly unflinching, and Dianna read all of the love she and her sister had never been able to share with each other in her sister’s beautiful hazel eyes.

———

Sam had been running too many miles, too fast without any water. His legs were starting to go and his chest was burning. With a stiff breeze sending the small fires he’d lit crawling up the mountain’s mounds of dead brush, he was afraid this was about to turn into his worst-case scenario.

With no other option but to keep moving forward, Sam pushed through another tenth of a mile, his muscles and tendons screaming with every footfall. Minutes dragged by as he continued to put one foot in front of the other.

Hotshots were often called superheroes. But Sam had been doing the job long enough to know that they weren’t. They were just average men who sometimes did extraordinary things. And like any other man on the verge of dehydration, he needed water.

Or he’d die.

And then, suddenly, he heard the sharp whirring of helicopter blades breaking through the silence of the forest. Using the last of his strength, Sam clambered up the tall edge of the cliff to try to make himself seen in the nearest clearing.

But the helicopter flew right past him.

All out of options, he lit his last flare and dropped it on the dry grasses a few feet away.

The seconds ticked by, the fire grew hotter, but Sam held his ground. And then, finally, the helicopter headed straight for him, his friend, Will, manning the controls.

With the open space too tight to land the aircraft, Will dropped the ladder and hovered above the spreading flames. Sam jumped up and grabbed hold of a step, commanding his weakening body to get the f**k up into the helicopter without blacking out.

Will was on his radio giving the Rocky Mountain hotshots the coordinates for the fires when Sam finally crawled inside. Usually, when wildfires were caught this early, it was only a matter of a couple of bucket drops to put them out. Sam hoped it would be the case this time, too.

And yet, even if the local authorities threw him in jail for arson, he wouldn’t change what he’d done. Not when using the flares had been his only chance to get back to Dianna.

Will’s eyebrows moved up toward his hairline when he put down his radio and saw the wrecked state of Sam’s face, arms, and clothes that were soaked with sweat, dirt, and blood.

“Drink this,” he said, handing Sam water.

As he drained the bottle, Will said, “I got a call from some guy at the commune. He said you and Dianna were heading off on this trail to look for her sister and asked me if I was planning to fly over this area today. What the f**k is happening?”

“Long story,” Sam said, knowing he needed to conserve his energy. “Dianna’s in trouble. Big trouble. We’ve got to find her. I’ve been following tracks from a dirt bike. How low can you fly?”