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So, I sit on his stool and watch him cook. His big scarred hands are skilled at chopping garlic. He moves around his tiny kitchen without wasting a single step. When the sauce is cooking, he tastes it off a wooden spoon, frowns and adds salt.

I think, there isn’t a right moment. There’s just the one where you open your mouth.

“Travis,” I say.

He looks up from the stove.

I open my mouth. I’m going to say it. I’m really going to say it. Right here, with garlic in the air and the wind howling outside and boxed wine on my breath.

He sets a plate of spaghetti in front of me, and leans across the counter and cradles my face so gently I forget every word in the English language.

“Eat,” he says.

Later, his bed is warm, and the wind is rattling the windows, and he’s moving slowly and deeply inside me, with his hands laced through my fingers above my head.

He doesn’t hurry. He never hurries. He watches my face like he’s figuring me out. Every time I start to close my eyes he says, “Look at me, honey.”

It’s barely more than a rasp and I obey every time.

I love the way he looks in the dark. Adore the sweat at his temple. Crave his mouth.

Heat whips through me and I never look away as I hit my peak. He follows immediately, growling as he does.

We didn’t use a condom. We talked about it weeks ago, his tests and my pill, and we decided we were done with them. Neither one of us says a thing about it now.

After, he pulls the quilt up over both of us and tucks me against his chest and runs his hand up and down my spine until I’m almost asleep.

“Travis,” I mumble.

“Mm.”

I love you, I think. I love you, I love you.

“I—” I say.

His breathing is slow and even under my cheek. His hand has stopped on my back. Travis Raines, who doesn’t sleep, is out cold.

I keep the words. One more day won’t hurt them.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Things are not looking good.

“This wind,” Rob says tightly. “Gusts to forty-seven at the Powder Mountain sensor. Humidity’s six.”

Shit.

Caleb writes it on the whiteboard. Saturday, 0700. The number six looks wrong up there. Like a typo.

“Third red flag in two weeks,” Caleb says. “And this one’s worse. A hell of a lot worse. Wind’s shifting southwest by afternoon and getting stronger. Rocky Mountain Power is talking about a public safety shutoff, but they haven’t pulled the trigger.”

He caps the marker. “Same rules as last time. Nobody goes home. Brush truck stays hot. Engine 1 is first out on anything in the valley.”

Nobody jokes this time. Not even Novak.

I go outside at 0730 and call Lindsey. She picks up on the first ring.

“I know,” she says. “Gas tank full. Phone on me. Van pointed out of the driveway. I already did it. Marlene told me at five.”