Page 129 of Falling for the Playboy Pilot

45

DALTON

The scene in front of me was straight out of hell. Main Street was a war zone. Buildings on both sides were either fully engulfed or smoking ruins. The asphalt was littered with debris. Chunks of burning wood, twisted metal, and ash so thick it looked like gray snow. The air shimmered with heat waves that made everything look distorted, like I was looking through water.

Wind blew ash into my eyes. I had pulled my shirt off and covered the lower half of my face, but it did nothing to stop the smoke. The closer I got to town, the more worried I got. I didn’t think anyone could survive.

I called out her name over and over in the hopes she had run away from the fire. I wanted to believe she was sitting under the shade of a tree just waiting for me to get to her.

But she didn’t know I was coming. Laser told me there was still no contact.

I refused to believe she was gone. I couldn’t explain it, but I was certain there was some connection between us. Like I would feel it if she was no longer sharing this earth with me. She was out there and I just had to get her.

And there she was.

For a moment, I thought I’d imagined her. The smoke was playing tricks on my eyes, making shadows dance and shift. Maybe my oxygen-starved brain had conjured up what I most desperately wanted to see. I wasn’t entirely sure I was seeing what I thought I was. There was something covering most of her face. But my body would recognize her anywhere. She pulled the cloth from her face. It was definitely her. I saw her smile and felt my heart soar with relief.

The sight of her crumpling in that doorway hit me like a physical blow. One second she was standing there in her soot-stained flight suit, swaying but upright, and the next she was gone. Disappeared into the smoke-filled darkness of the diner like she’d never existed at all.

“No, no, no,” I muttered, urging Honeycrisp forward. The mare’s hooves clattered against the asphalt as we closed the distance. The wall of flame crept down Main Street like a living thing, consuming everything in its path. The heat was so intense I could feel it through my flight suit.

I didn’t have long to get to her.

I slid off Honeycrisp before she’d fully stopped, my boots hitting the pavement hard. Pain shot through my ribs but I ignored it. The second horse danced nervously as I tied both sets of reins to a parking meter.

“Janna!” I shouted, pushing through the door.

I nearly tripped over her and Pickle. She was crumpled in the doorway of Martha’s Diner in that oversized flight suit, her blonde hair dark with soot and sweat. She looked so small. So fragile. Nothing like the fierce, sassy woman who’d told me I might as well bury myself next to my friend because I was already halfway in the ground.

She’d been so right about that. I had been half-dead, a walking ghost going through the motions of living without actually being alive. But seeing her there, unconscious and vulnerable, something roared to life in my chest. Something primal and desperate and absolutely fucking terrified.

I couldn’t lose her. Not like this. Not when I’d been too much of a coward to tell her how I felt. Not when the last words between us had been cruel and cutting and full of pain. I was not going to live with another loss.

I abso-fucking-lutely refused. And in my mind, that was enough.

The diner was filled with choking black smoke. I dropped to my knees beside Janna’s limp body, my pulse hammering so loud it drowned out the screaming fire. Her face was too pale, her lips tinged blue.

No. No, no, no.

I ripped the spare oxygen mask from my pack and pressed it to her face, my hands shaking. “Stay with me, dammit.” My voice was raw from emotion and smoke inhalation. “Princess, I’ve got you. I’m here. You better not fucking leave me. Get your ass up and fight!”

Nothing.

The heat was unbearable, sweat pouring down my temples, but I barely felt it. All I saw was Janna with a stupid smile on her face. Why in the fuck was she smiling?

“Breathe!”

The command tore from somewhere low in my belly. I was certain the people back at the field would have heard it. It came from deep in my soul, filled with pain and fear.

A cough. A shuddering gasp behind the mask. Her chest heaved, and her eyes fluttered open, dazed but alive. For a second, she just stared up at me like she wasn’t sure I was real. Relief hit me like a kick to the ribs, so fierce it stole my breath.

“Holy shit, Janna.”

“Dalton,” she rasped. “Is that really you?” Tears slid from her bloodshot eyes.

I could’ve kissed her. Could’ve shaken her. Instead, I secured the mask over her face and growled, “It’s me. Just breathe. You’ve inhaled a lot of smoke.”

She nodded weakly but that was enough.