Page 104 of Tracking Safety

He was still chasing that thought when Hamilton began barking downstairs.

It wasn’t his usual bark. This was sharp, frantic, and climbing.

A second later Good Boy joined him.

Luke was on his feet before he’d decided to move.

An odor hit him at the top of the stairs.

Smoke.

The scent was faint but unmistakable.

He didn’t think the smell came from upstairs. The dogs were facing the back door. He’d check there first.

He took the stairs two at a time and yanked open the back door.

His stomach dropped.

Orange light flickered at the back of the property. The tree line behind the cottages had caught, and the fire was already climbing. A ragged wall spread along the dry underbrush, throwing sparks up into the black sky.

They hadn’t had much rain this season. The whole back acreage was tinder, and the cottages sat right in the path of it.

“Fire!” he bellowed into the house before running up the stairs to wake everyone.

CHAPTER 43

Luke was halfway across the yard when Caleb caught up. Max came behind with a phone to his ear, already calling it in.

Up the slope, past the tree line, the fire glowed. It had a front edge now—a low, moving line of orange working through the timber on the ridge, throwing light across the underside of the smoke. Far enough off that the cottages still stood dark and whole. Close enough that Luke could smell it, that the wind carried the first dry breath of heat down to him across the open ground.

If that wind held, the fire would come down the slope and find the dead grass at the edge of the property. The cottages sat closest to the tree line. The house stood right behind them.

Behind him the kennel woke all at once, a wall of barking and bodies hurling at the chain-link, rising even over the distant roar.

“Max—get the dogs out! Then soak down the grass between the trees and the cottages. We hold it there.”

Luke didn’t watch him go. Instead, he grabbed the water hose.

He and Caleb worked the line where the grass met the gravel. The water soaked the ground the fire wanted. It beat out the embers that made it across.

Luke’s lungs felt raw. Sweat ran into his eyes and stung worse than the smoke.

Behind him, toward the front of the house, his mother’s voice cut clean through all of it. “In the car—now. Cora, hold your brother’s hand. Naomi, get Grace in her seat. We’re going down to the gate where it’s clear.”

Luke risked a look back.

Headlights flared at the front of the house. Small shapes moved toward them through the smoke—his mother with a hand on each child, Naomi curled around the baby, Hamilton and Good Body circling their heels.

The whole frightened knot of them was pulling away from the fire, toward the open drive and the gate.

His chest loosened a fraction. The kids were getting out. That was the thing that mattered.

And Jenna was with them. Of course, she was. She’d have gone straight to the children, the way she always did.

He turned back to the flames, took the hose from Caleb, and put his whole body into the fight.

Jenna had the back door of the SUV open and Jonah halfway into his booster when she turned for Freya. The dog wasn’t there.