Chapter 28 #2
Brody and Nina got on board then, and in a few minutes they were in the air, flying toward Mexico, toward the village where it had all begun. Fitting, then, Lyndie thought, keeping her chin high, her eyes clear, that this was where it would all end.
Because after this, she was done. With Griffin, she’d put it all out there in a way she never had before. She’d fallen, and fallen hard, and in the process, she’d also gotten burned, but it was done and she couldn’t change it.
The day was a glorious one, and she concentrated on that, on the pure joy of flying, on the unmistakable love flowing between Nina and Brody, and for long moments at a time, it was enough.
They came to the Barranca del Cobre and the Sierra Tarahumara. Such incredible beauty. The canyons, the peaks, the immense, remote wilderness of it all.
And then they came to the burned acreage. The smoke had cleared, and they all pressed close to the window, looking down in somber silence at the loss. Blackened landscape. Ghostlike shadows that once used to be trees. Five destroyed ranches.
And then San Robledo, still intact. Safe, because of their efforts.
That lifted their spirits back up. Brody jokingly carried Nina off the plane. Lyndie sat up front figuring Griffin would follow them, but instead he held back.
Well, she didn’t plan to wait for him. She jumped down ahead of him and would have walked away if he hadn’t grabbed her hand.
Her back still to him, she stilled. “I really have to—”
“The fire in Idaho.”
She closed her eyes at the rough angst in his voice. She knew, she understood what it cost him to want to talk about it, but damn it, she couldn’t help it if she wished things could have been different—
“You’ve asked me about it, and I’ve shut you out. I shut you out even when I wouldn’t let you do the same—”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“It matters,” he said grimly. “It matters a lot. I want to tell you about it. I want you to know it all. Please…let me tell you.”
“Why?” She made herself look at him. “Why now?”
“Because I need to.”
Everything within her softened, and she sighed, reaching for his hand.
“I wasn’t the supervisor for the crew that was lost.” He stared at their joined hands. “I should have been, I wanted to be, but there was a scheduling mess up, and sometimes, especially within the fire community, there’s no arguing with the powers that be.”
“I know what happened wasn’t your fault.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his eyes. “We’d been there for three weeks. Out in the middle of nowhere, with tents and army rations. We were exhausted. Beyond exhausted.”
“Sounds like a nightmare.”
“It was. I was supervising a crew on the other side of a firebreak from Greg and the others. My gut told me the weather was changing, my weather kit confirmed it. But when I radioed headquarters, they told us to hold our positions. They…demanded it.”
She couldn’t imagine the conditions he’d faced. “Why?”
“Because we’d been out there too long already.
By all reports, we were close to containment and they were feeling federal pressure to wrap it up.
” He let out a long breath. “So I followed directions like a blind soldier, despite my screaming instincts. And the cold front blew in, the winds whipped through the canyons and caught us with no way out.”
Lyndie’s heart wrenched at the misery on his face. “You couldn’t have done anything differently. Not with the pressures you were all under.”
“If the scheduling switch hadn’t happened, if the weather report about the cold front had made its way down the line, if I’d listened to myself, if we hadn’t all been so exhausted—” He lifted a shoulder.
“Lots of what-ifs, but I’m tired of thinking about them, dreaming about them.
Mistakes were made, people died. It was…
a tragedy, a terrible tragedy. But I’m learning to live with it.
Even, apparently, learning to talk about it.
” He offered her the saddest, most heart-wrenching smile she’d ever seen. “I just wanted you to know.”
“Hey! Over here…” Brody, standing near Tom and his waiting Jeep, waved them over. There was no mistaking the tension there, or the desperate plea in his face.
Lyndie looked at Griffin. “He needs you.”
“Yeah.” He looked so torn, Lyndie decided to make it easy for him. She walked to the Jeep.
And she was fine. She was fine with the fact Griffin had tortured himself when it hadn’t been his fault. She was fine with the fact that after this trip, she’d never see him again. She was fine with all of it, and she put the cool, even smile on her face to prove it.
But on the inside, the mourning began.
Tom had grabbed Nina in a big, fat bear hug.
When he finally let her go, he turned and nodded to Griffin, who had moved to stand next to his brother.
Tom also smiled kindly at Lyndie, and because she felt so fragile, it had her own frosty smile slipping for a moment.
“Thanks for bringing her back to me,” he said.
“Actually, I didn’t even know that’s what I was doing.” She put a hand on Brody’s shoulder. “Brody arranged for all this; the flight, the supplies, everything, so maybe you should be thanking him.”
Tom looked at Brody. “Oh, I’ll get to him.”
Brody stood a little straighter and offered a weak smile.
“Papa,” Nina warned. “Don’t—”
Tom held up his head at his daughter, silencing her, but he never took his eyes off Brody. “I’ve got a shotgun in my Jeep, boy. And I’m licensed to use it.”
A little pale, Brody nodded.
“Tom.” Griffin took a step forward, but Tom pointed at him, halting him.
“I like you, son. I like you a lot, but don’t even think about interrupting me right now when I’m on a roll.
I don’t get on a roll very often. Hell, I can’t even remember the last time I had to muster up a good temper, but I’m mustered up at the moment.
Mustered up enough to get us a shotgun wedding, right here, right now. ”
Despite Tom’s standing nearly in his face, Brody reached for Nina’s hand. “A shotgun wedding…” He shot her a sweet smile. “Sounds good. Assuming you give me enough time to get my parents here.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Tom said. “I’m telling you.”
“Yes, but seeing as we’re all adults, I’m pretending you did. In any case, the joke is on you, because nothing, nothing, would make my life more complete than to be married to your daughter. I was going to ask her this weekend anyway.”
Nina gasped, covering her mouth with her hands, her sparkling eyes on Brody.
He smiled softly at her. “It would put meaning to my life to be a part of yours.” He brought her fingers to his mouth, watching her with warm eyes over their joined hands.
“Maybe I came here to save my brother, but instead, I saved myself. This place saved me. You saved me,” he said to her, his eyes brilliant and suspiciously shiny.
“Oh, Brody. Te quiero. I love you.” Nina threw her arms around his neck. “I love you so much.”
“Is that a yes, you’ll marry me? You’ll be my wife, my friend, my lover…for the rest of our lives?”
Nina’s smile was slow and beautiful. “Yes, querido. Yes, to all of it.” Then she planted a long kiss on him.
After a moment, Brody pulled back, holding her face as if they were all alone.
“I love it here,” he said. “Your family is here.” He never so much as glanced at Tom, who looked as if a good wind could blow him over.
“I know you want to get out and see the world. And I look forward to that, too, but I can also see spending time, lots of time, right here.”
Nina looked around her, at the magnificent mountains, at the beauty and serenity unrivaled to just about anywhere else in the world, and then at Tom, and slowly nodded. “Maybe we could come here after college, during the summers. Do some extra teaching.”
“I’d like that,” Brody said.
Tom kept staring at them as if they’d lost their minds. “You mean…you want to get married?”
“Yes,” Nina said, her wet eyes still on Brody’s. “Oh, most definitely yes. Let’s call your parents.”
Brody swung her around, while the two of them shared another extremely private kiss.
Tom looked so utterly flabbergasted, Lyndie took pity on him, and slung her arm around his shoulders. “Poor baby. You didn’t expect them to want to get hitched, did you?”
“Shit.”
Smiling, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Well, you’ve done it now, Papa. You’re going to have to be happy for them.”
“Shit,” he repeated brilliantly.
Lyndie herself couldn’t quite understand why Nina felt she needed the little scrap of paper that would proclaim her another man’s wife, but if Nina wanted it that badly, then she should have it. “It’s going to be okay, Tom. They’re good together.”
Nina danced in a circle and grinned. “We’ll do it here, soon as we can get Brody’s parents here.” She turned to Lyndie and kissed both her cheeks. “And you, you’ll be my maid of honor.”
“Now, wait a minute—”
“You’ll have to smile, though.” Nina cocked a brow. “You do have a smile, right?”
“I don’t think—”
“Good,” Nina said. “Stick with that. No thinking. Just doing.” She clapped her hands. “And we have lots of doing. Let’s go get started!”
Lyndie got into the Jeep with Nina, watching Griffin hug Brody before they got in as well, the two of their sun-kissed heads close together, their faces creased in matching smiles.
Two brothers so alike, and yet so different.
Brody’s smile came easily, carefree. His eyes held nothing but love and joy.
Griffin…his smile didn’t quite meet his eyes, because swimming there was still so much emotion that it took her breath. She knew this because he turned right then and looked at her, as if maybe he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
She knew the feeling. It pissed her off.
They wound their way toward San Robledo, over the railroad tracks, the rickety bridge, down the centuries-old road. Tom drove, with Griffin next to him. Lyndie was in the backseat with the two lovebirds, both of them chomping at the bit.
She had no idea why they had to get married right now, right this moment.
She’d have much preferred to see Tom let his daughter have the life she wanted.
Then she’d have given out the cargo of supplies Brody had provided and gone back to the States.
Brody and Nina could live in sinful bliss as long as they wanted, with no promise, or burden, of the actual marriage.
Something Lyndie had hoped to do herself. Instead, she held Lucifer’s carrying case, and he was extremely unhappy in her lap with the wind whipping around them. Unhappiness she understood, as it had rooted within her as well.
Historically, when she was unhappy, she made sure she was alone to lick her wounds, and she had plenty to lick. But there would be no alone time for her now.
It didn’t help that she had a perfect view of the man who’d caused her wounds. Griffin’s broad shoulders stretched the material of his T-shirt, his fawn-colored hair blowing wild around his head. Then suddenly he stiffened, and when she saw why, she did, too.
A long, narrow plume of smoke rose over the closest peak in front of them.