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out her next few words “...probably think I’m the biggest bitch in the county, the way I’ve acted toward you since I came back.”
    “What way’s that?” he asked, playing the Clueless Male card. Pretending that it hadn’t cut him to the bone.
    “Never mind,” she said, fending off Misty’s attempt to lick her cheek. “I just want you to know how much I appreciate what you’re doing for me. Especially since—”
    “Not just for you,” he interrupted, doing his best to compete with the gale. “Your dad’s been—he’s a great guy. A great man. When I first brought up the idea of fixing up the old bunkhouse in exchange for cheaper rent, I was only looking to save some money toward a new truck. I never banked on him insisting on lending me a hand—or turning into one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”
    A lump formed in his throat, but there was no way he was admitting that in truth Deke felt like a father to him—the father he’d never had, since his real dad had turned his back on the family when he was too young to remember the selfish SOB, or mourn him when he’d died a few years later. Jake might know wilderness firefighting, but he didn’t know much about construction. It was Deke who’d steered him away from a guest cabin whose mushy floorboards belied a weak foundation, Deke who’d taught him that when it came to a home, a business or a family, a rock-solid footing was the only place a man could put his trust.
    “And I never really thought I liked kids that much,” he went on, remembering how the idea that Liane had had children with another man—children that might have been his—had stung, “but Cody cracks me up with all his stories, and Kenzie’s the cutest little thing. She looks just like you, you know. It’s the eyes.”
    “I keep telling them they shouldn’t bother you so much.” Her voice shook with emotion. “I know you need peace and quiet for your work.”
    “They don’t bother—well, yeah, they do sometimes,” he said, thinking of times when he’d been in the midst of some complex, tedious translation and one or the other of them rapped at his door, then raced away to hide around the corner, their giggles giving them away each time. Though his deadlines were often tight, he sometimes took a break on the porch and shared some of the caramel brownies they always seemed to know their mother had sent over. “To tell you the truth, if they ever really did quit bugging me, I’d miss the hell out of them.”
    As the shaggy gray dog curled up beside her, Jake looked away, embarrassed by the surge of affection he felt for her family—and the lengths to which he would be willing to go to reunite them. Because they loved each other, their bond forming a closed circle he couldn’t help but want to protect, even though he stood on the outside.
    Clearing his throat, he pulled out the radio and raised it. “Be right back.”
    Between the howling of the wind and the crackling of lightning, he knew his odds of getting a message through on the handheld were slim. Still, he tried repeatedly, attempting to time his calls for Deke Mason and his requests for assistance between the flashes and the interference they created.
    As the storm diminished for the moment, he once again heard a male voice intermittently breaking through the static. Though Jake didn’t recognize the speaker, he couldn’t miss the panic in his clipped words. Listening carefully, he made out something about a pair of hikers in distress and being boxed in by flames....
    The image took him back to the night his own men had become trapped while following his orders. The night when the blaze had abruptly shifted and raced the wrong way, running downhill and against the wind, in defiance of the known laws of fire behavior.
    Memory spiraled in on him, followed by the shock and horror he’d felt hearing their calls on the radio, the panicked need to get to them and lead them out to safety.
    His rational mind had