1
Smoke rose from the charred wreckage of Kayla’s dreams. It curled upward like the tentacles of some sinister monster from hell, threatening to drag her into its dark and fiery underworld. She was suffocating.
Orange clouds and eerie limited visibility lingered in the aftermath of the deadly forest fire that had swept the surrounding mountains. It only added to her inability to draw a deep breath. Not that there was much left to see beyond the ominous haze.
It was gone. Every last bit of her naturist resort—the cabins, the home she’d shared with her husband for fourteen years, the lodge. Even the trees and animals that had infused them with serenity and tranquility to observe.
Their future.
All of it had gone up in the blaze that had decimated thousands of acres in a matter of hours.
Smoke and flames. So. Many. Flames.
“Thank God the resort was closed and we were in Middletown at Ollie, Van, and Kyra’s wedding. This would have been so much worse if there was anyone here. Guests. Us.” Her husband Dave’s voice was even deeper and raspier than usual, whether from the thick char poisoning the air or his emotions, she couldn’t tell.
Kayla blamed her watering eyes on the soot and not the blackness settling in her heart as it had on everything around them. How could they possibly come back from this?
Along with her agony, anger began to smolder in her core. They’d worked so hard all these years. And for what? For it to be stolen from them overnight, destroyed before they’d even known it was in jeopardy.
She blinked, then blinked again. But nothing changed.
This was a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from.
Behind them, Neil, James and Devon stepped closer, as if their presence could somehow shield them from the horror of what they were seeing and the things they were not. How could her entire life’s work disappear with hardly a trace? The dense wall of smoke made it impossible to spot the lake in the distance, the panoramic views obliterated as surely as everything else on the mountainside.
It was probably for the best. If she could scan the horizon and it was only more of this unrelenting scorched earth that greeted her, Kayla would likely be driven to her knees. How could this have happened? It seemed like a movie or the apocalypse.
It certainly didn’t seem real.
She wandered over the gravel that had been their driveway, which now only led to a vague outline of a square on the ground. The ashes of her home were interrupted by a single stone pillar, crumbled a bit on top, which had been the mammoth hearth at the heart of their home. Melted blobs of steel marked the place where the kitchen had stood.
Memories smashed into her one after the other. The Powertools crew get-togethers. Special meals they’d cooked and shared. And the times they’d made love on the plush rugs right there, in front of that fireplace.
Kayla shuddered. She’d never be able to see flames, controlled or not, in the same cozy way again.
Some things had been ruined forever.
The trick was going to be figuring out what damage was irreparable and what she could fix. Or maybe she was kidding herself. This was too much. Too impossible to come back from.
She sank onto the bench that had been part of their fireplace and dropped her face into her hands. She had to block out the devastation, at least for a second, or she was going to suffocate. It became harder to breathe when her body began to hitch and sobs burst from her chest.
“I’m here.” Dave plunked down beside her and gathered her to his side. He surrounded her in his massive arms, though for once in their lives, he couldn’t protect her. Not from this.
She held as much of him as she could, clinging to his warmth and strength like a baby koala. His love was like this hearth, her rock, unwavering and indestructible, even in the face of so much adversity.
Of course they argued, like every couple, but never for long, and they always made up afterward. Hugging him tight enough that she could detect his familiar scent through the wall of smoke finally made her be able to draw in a shaky breath and then another, her tears eventually drying up enough that she could focus on the world around her again.
Devon, Neil, and James stood guard, each of them looking worried as hell as they took in Kayla and the utter wreckage strewn across