Hearts on Fire

Read the first pages

From Chapter 1

Every Sunday since John died, Everett has checked in on his best friend's widow.

“Battery giving you trouble again?” I stood next to her and leaned over the engine of John’s pride and joy. He’d rebuilt the vintage Bronco from a chassis we found in a scrapyard, but Dove didn’t have the patience for it like he had.

“I don’t know what it is this time. I keep thinking I should just get rid of it.” She clamped her hands to her hips and looked up at me, her gray eyes flashing with annoyance.

Dove was what John used to call a modern-day hippie. She’d been born and raised at the base of the Rocky Mountains. Grew up running barefoot through the creeks and chaining herself to trees so they wouldn’t be cut down. She didn’t shy away from much when it came to loving the land, but keeping up with the house, the vehicles, and the acreage they bought right after they got married was wearing on her.

“You know he’d be okay with you selling it.” I was surprised she hadn’t already, since she always complained about what a gas guzzler it was.

She tilted her head back and looked up at the bright blue Colorado sky. The forecast predicted a storm heading our way that would dump a few inches of snow, but for now the temperature hovered in the mid-forties and there wasn’t a single cloud in the late March sky.

“Every time I get rid of something of his, I feel like I’m letting go of another piece of him.” Her jaw clenched tight, and she lowered her head to look me straight in the eye. “Maybe you should take it.”

My heart squeezed tight at the pain in her voice, and I shook my head. “I’ve got to have something reliable to respond to calls. The way things have been going, sometimes I’m the only one who can get to the station.”

She looked away at the reference to my position as a volunteer firefighter. “Have you given any more thought to stepping down?”

“Dove.” I put a hand on her shoulder. We’d talked about it before. Countless numbers of times. She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t quit. I’d tried to explain but couldn’t make her understand.

“I know.” She turned toward me. The sadness in her eyes almost knocked me to my knees. She didn’t deserve the hand she’d been dealt. None of us did. It had been four and a half years and folks around here were still reeling from the fire that had swept through Crystal Canyon and taken fourteen of our own.

Find out what happens next tonight.