Fanning Flames Read online

  Fanning Flames

  Cindy Caldwell

  Copyright © 2018 by Cindy Caldwell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  I seldom do dedications, because so many people contribute to the work I do. But this one is special. A reader sent me an idea, and it was like a lightbulb went off. Thank you, Janet Lambert, for sharing the idea that Travis had a long lost sister…Enjoy the result. You did this, and I’m very grateful!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by Cindy Caldwell

  Chapter 1

  The plane taking Lindsey Montgomery to Idaho had circled the airport for almost an hour before it was able to land amidst the smoke of the wildfires surrounding the area. She’d taken some pictures as they flew over the mountaintops that were in flames—mostly to calm her nerves and distract her from the worry that had set in since the plane had left Chicago.

  It had been a big decision to even come. In the months since she’d found out she had a brother—a twin, no less, and one she didn’t remember at all—she’d been all over the map emotionally. One day, all she wanted to do was contact him and see how he was, get to know him, apologize, although for what, she wasn’t quite sure. They’d been babies when their parents died, so it wasn’t like they’d had any choice in the matter.

  On other days, she wanted to run away with the Red Cross and do another stint in a foreign country where she knew no one. She’d been traveling and serving as a nurse in other lands since she’d left school, and the anonymity suited her. Although she’d been adopted by and grown up in a military family and was grateful to her adoptive parents, somewhere deep inside she’d never felt attached, no real sense of family.

  When her mother—the woman she’d known as her mother—gave her the small, wooden box with papers and effects from her real parents, and the picture of her brother, something clicked. Something so deep and so inexplicably familiar when she looked into the young boy’s eyes that she couldn’t forget, although she’d spent months trying. Somewhere deep inside, she did remember him.

  It hadn’t taken her long to find out that he was a successful race car driver, recently retired. It had, though, taken a very long time for her to convince herself that she had no choice but to seek him out. She couldn’t forget about him now no matter how hard she’d tried.

  As the plane slowly descended, she stared at his name on the screen of her phone—Travis Montgomery—attached to a phone number she’d found but never had the courage to call. She’d told herself over and over that she couldn’t just show up, she needed to call him first, but she hadn’t been able to. And time was running short for that, as it was just a few hours’ drive from the airport to where he lived. River’s End Ranch.

  She got her rental car and set her maps on the seat. As much as she’d traveled, she got lost fairly often and had learned that a good paper map beat the map on her phone any day. In some of the countries she’d worked, there wasn’t any cell service anyway, so she smoothed out the map on the seat beside her, sure she could find her way.

  As the miles ticked by, the knot in her stomach grew. She couldn’t even count the number of times she reached for her phone to call her brother and then slowly set it back down.

  Before she knew it, the gates of the guest ranch came into view. She’d been so distracted, she hadn’t even looked at the scenery. She’d spent the entire time playing over different scenarios in her head as to how this might go—and, unfortunately, not all of them ended with smiles and hugs. What if he didn’t want to see her? What on earth was she thinking, traveling this far not knowing what would happen?

  As she pulled into the ranch, her stomach rumbled. She tried to remember the last time she’d eaten, but couldn’t. The smell of French fries wafted into the car, and it seemed to have a life of its own as it pulled up to the diner—Kelsey’s Kafe.

  It couldn’t hurt to take a moment and eat something—maybe it would give her time to gather her thoughts, plan her next step. She’d better think of something—and fast.

  The heavenly aroma of coffee met her as she opened the door and walked inside, her eyes adjusting to the different light. Plate glass windows looked out over a beautiful lake and soaring mountains on each side. The sky was darkened a little by what looked like smoke—maybe from the fire she’d seen by the airport—but it was mostly clear blue.

  A woman with blonde hair and striking blue eyes—and looking like she was going to have a baby any second, literally—gestured toward the seats and tables beyond the cash register.

  “Seat yourself,” she said with a smile. “Someone will bring over a menu. Coffee?”

  Lindsey nodded gratefully and headed over to a booth against the windows. She slid in and leaned back, closing her eyes for a moment.

  When she opened them, an older lady was walking by her table. She stopped short—so quickly that the older gentleman following her ran into her.

  “What now, Jaclyn?” he said as he took a step back after steadying himself.

  “I’m not sure,” the lady said as she stared in Lindsey’s direction with a frown. “I hadn’t heard anything until now.”

  The older man shook his head but smiled as he looked from the older woman to Lindsey and then back again.

  “I’ll get the check and leave you to it.”

  As he walked away, the older lady slid onto the opposite side of the booth. Lindsey raised her eyebrows and she scooted up a little taller in her seat.

  “Hello,” she said as the woman looked her over.

  “Hello.” The woman tucked a tuft of gray hair back into her bun and pulled her purple shawl around her more closely before extending her hand. “I’m Jaclyn.”

  Lindsey shook the woman’s hand and replied, “Nice to meet you. I’m Lindsey.”

  Jaclyn leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “I haven’t seen you around here. What brings you to River’s End Ranch?”

  Lindsey’s hand instinctively reached into her pocket, her fingers closing around the dog-eared picture of her brother. She’d never been particularly chatty, her lonely childhood teaching her to keep things close to her vest, and she wasn’t going to change that now. At least not by choice.

  “I’m just visiting. It’s a lovely place. I just happened upon it.” Her heart pulled at the lie—but she still didn’t have a plan and didn’t want to tip her hand.

  “Hm,” Jaclyn said, leaning back against the booth. “My personal feeling is that nothing is by chance, my dear. I may not know right at this moment what pulled you here, but I will.”

  Lindsey looked away as the woman’s eyes bore into her own. She seemed friendly enough, and not malicious, but it was starting to make her a little uncomfortable.

  With a
sigh of relief, she turned over her coffee cup and let the waitress fill it.

  “Jaclyn, what are you doing? We don’t know this young lady,” the waitress said.

  “Not yet,” Jaclyn said as she stood and nodded at Lindsey. “But we will. I’m certain you will enjoy your stay, young lady. Welcome to the ranch.”

  The waitress smiled as Jaclyn walked toward the door, which the older man held open for her. He was still shaking his head, and as the door closed behind them and they walked down the porch stairs, the waitress laughed.

  “Uh-oh. Seems our resident matchmaker has her sights on you.”

  Lindsey shook her head slowly and couldn’t help but smile. Matchmaker? Only if matchmaking had something to do with re-uniting her with her brother. Anything else was the furthest thing from her mind.

  The woman from the cash register—Kelsi, her name tag read—came over and set a menu down on the table, resting her hand on her hip. She cocked her head as she, too, looked Lindsey over.

  “You look kind of familiar. Have we met?”

  Lindsey’s cheeks flushed. If Kelsi knew Travis, she might look familiar to her. Lindsey had noticed some resemblance when she’d looked him up. There were loads of pictures of him on the internet, either in the winner’s circle or during training in his racing career.

  “No, I’m sure we haven’t met,” she said as she lowered her head. The last thing she needed was for Travis to find out about her from someone else.

  By the time she’d eaten her lunch—the special really had been fantastic, just as the waitress had recommended—she still hadn’t come up with a plan. At least she’d reserved a room. Well, a cabin, really. The Copper Cabin. They’d said it was usually for larger groups but it was all they had open at this time of year, and they’d offered her a discount. She didn’t think she’d be there long enough to take advantage of the gourmet kitchen she’d seen in the pictures, but she’d gladly taken it before she chickened out altogether.

  “Where do I check in?” she asked Kelsi as she paid her bill at the cash register.

  The pretty blonde leaned over the counter and pointed in the direction of a large log building with a wrap-around porch and stained glass windows way up high.

  “Over there. They’ll take good care of you,” she said as she handed Lindsey her change.

  “Thanks.” Lindsay placed a tip on the table, and she looked up to see Kelsi staring at her, her arms crossed.

  “Are you sure we haven’t met?” Kelsi asked one more time as Lindsey opened the door to leave.

  She looked away quickly as she said, “No, I’m sure. Thanks for the great lunch,” and got to her rental car as quickly as she could.

  Chapter 2

  Alex Bauer summoned every ounce of patience he could find as he answered his cell phone that had been ringing constantly since he’d left to drive to the ranch.

  After waiting a while to get a word in, he said, “I'll be fine, Mom. Yes, I promise I’ll be careful.”

  He looked around the outbuilding he’d just pulled up to that housed the Search and Rescue gear and equipment—their command center, really. What had started as a volunteer effort led by Dani had turned into something a little bigger with all the fires they’d had this summer and last. As his mother continued to worry, he looked up at the smoke in the sky to the west from the fire that they’d been monitoring for almost a week now. His trained nose could smell it before he could even see it, and he hoped that today wouldn’t be the day that it got bad enough that they were needed to help out—but of course he was ready and willing if that time came. For now, the fire wasn’t threatening the ranch and they had plenty of people to cover it. He and Dani were tasked with spotting and covering parts north and east while others focused on the current forest fire. It hadn’t come close yet, and he was still holding out hope that it wouldn’t.

  He ended his call with his mother and shook his head. He was pushing thirty, had been in fire service for almost a decade, left home years ago—but she still worried. He guessed that’s the way it went. His sisters were the same way, so he’d tried to give up being annoyed long ago—but only with occasional success.

  Alex quickly sifted through the reports that had been sent over about the status of the fires in their surrounding area. He shook his head as he looked at the satellite images and reports from the folks on the front lines. It seemed like the entire western United States was on fire. Where they were, the fires had been contained to deeply wooded areas and in the past couple of months, they’d only had a few fire-related rescues. But quite a few of the firefighters in the area had been sent to help out best they could.

  They’d sent a good portion of their crew to help in California, keeping just a skeleton group around and their fingers crossed that they would come through this fire season unscathed.

  So on the days when he came in and found all was relatively calm, he set to work asking if any of the crews working active fires needed any help, either with logistics or in any other way. While he wasn’t on scene, he’d found things he could do from far away, and it made him happy.

  He took one more look at the monitors and stretched. He wasn’t quite hungry for lunch yet, but a coffee sounded good. He should probably go check in on Dani at the Main House anyway. They hadn’t touched base yet today as there wasn’t a whole lot going on. At least not yet, and he hoped it stayed that way. Their regular rescues, quite a few in the summer with novices out in places they shouldn’t be, mostly, had slowed down over the past few weeks as summer waned and the leaves began to turn colors.

  He headed out of their headquarters toward the saloon. Sadie actually had the best ice cream and coffee in northern Idaho and not a stitch of what you’d find in a normal saloon, and he went almost every day. When he’d been transferred out to River’s End Ranch in the off-site command center, he hadn’t known much about the ranch. He was happily surprised that it was almost like a little town on its own, and he’d enjoyed working there and getting to know folks.

  “Hey, Alex.” Sadie looked up and smiled as Alex came through the door.

  “Hi, Sadie,” he replied, nodding when she asked if he wanted his usual.

  “How is it going over the mountain with the fires?” Sadie asked, and they both looked out the windows at the far-away smoke on the horizon.

  “They’re thinking they have it almost totally contained,” he said, taking the coffee she offered and handing her money. “Unless it heats back up again or the wind picks up, I think we’re all going to get lucky on this.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” she said, glancing nervously out the window again. “I sure wouldn’t want anything to come this way. Those people who lost their homes—how awful.”

  “Yeah, awful. We’re pretty happy that there was no loss of life, though. We only had to do a couple rescues for people who got caught when the wind changed.”

  “I heard that. You guys did a great job,” Sadie said, returning his money. “This one’s on me. Thank you.”

  Alex’s eyebrows rose, but he nodded in thanks and graciously accepted. “That’s very nice of you, Sadie.”

  She waved as he left, and he felt that familiar sense of being helpful that he got when things went well. He loved his job, and didn’t care who knew it.

  As he opened the door, a young woman was entering, and he stood back and held the door open for her. Their eyes met, and she smiled slightly. She looked a little anxious to him, so he gave her an extra big smile back. She thanked him and headed over to the counter, asking Sadie if they had ground coffee by the pound.

  He paused for a moment and watched her as she spoke. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but he couldn’t pin it. Her sandy, light brown hair was long and hung in big waves over her shoulders. Her hazel eyes looked sad as well as anxious, and he hoped that things would be looking up for her.

  He took one last look in Sadie’s direction before he headed out, waving and telling her to have a great day.

  As he wa
lked down the boardwalk, a gust of wind rushed past him, jiggling his ball cap. He stopped in his tracks and looked over toward the mountains on the west side of the lake, where the fire was. He’d done this long enough to know that any wind at all could change the personality of a fire on a dime, and his stomach clenched.

  It didn’t look like things had changed much, the smoke in the air wafting slowly. It definitely wasn’t getting heavier, but he was anxious to let Dani know what was happening.

  He continued on toward the Main House and hopped up the steps, happy that there were no more wind gusts on the way.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light in the lobby and the restaurant, he heard a familiar voice that he hadn’t expected.

  “What do you mean, she looks familiar?” Dani said into her cell phone.

  She was usually in her office in the back of the restaurant, so Alex was surprised to see her pacing in front of the fireplace in the restaurant lobby.

  “Oh? No, that’s not possible. And no, he’s not here. He’s covering a race in Georgia. Won’t be back until Monday night. In fact, he should be on TV right about now.”

  Dani looked over at Alex and pointed to the TV in the bar next to the restaurant. As she continued her conversation, he went over and flipped it on to the racing channel, which they all watched quite a bit since Travis decided to take a role in announcing the races. He wasn’t gone too often, and it was fun to watch, even if you didn’t like racing.

  Sure enough, he was on. His sandy brown hair was covered in a cap as he stood out in the center with a microphone, interviewing one of the drivers of the impending race.