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Chapter Thirty
XAN
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I slam my phone downon the counter and Tabby startles at the stove.
“Goddammit, Briggs,” I yell at the phone and then scoop it back up and call again.
My jaw hurts from clenching it so hard and my footsteps are heavy on the tiled floor. My siblings are all here. They’re all tense, watching me with wary eyes like they always do when shit goes down. Usually it’s shit with Jason.
Now it’s me. It’s me and Briggs.
Maybe Pris is right. Maybe we ruin each other. Maybe it’s hopeless. Maybe we’re too fucked up together that we have to stay apart.
Her voicemail picks up again. “You can’t take her from me.”
The fear in my voice is evident. The sound of my heart breaking like a roaring flame.
“Briggs, please talk to me. Let me help you.” I switch gears and try to stamp out the anger that tangles with all the rest. “Call me back or I’m coming out there.”
I hang up and slump into the chair. The phone rings and I answer it before the first ring ends.
“Briggs?”
“No, Nelson,” the dispatcher for Wildland Fire sounds confused at the urgency in my voice. “You’ve been cleared to come back to work and just in time, man. Rage-er up by Cascade meadows. Someone started a brush fire and it’s heading south toward the Langland Range.”
Fuck. Briggs lives at the base of the Langland Range.
“I’m on my way,” I say and hang up. Jet raises a brow as I turn to him and I know he heard Nelson’s voice through my phone. “Can you go warn them?”
“Of course, man. Go.”
As I walk through the door, I think about the last few months. This is what I wanted.
Back on the crew, back in the bush, back doing what I do best.
Except now I’ve got something else. Something stronger. Something I’m better at.
It’s them I want to go to.
