Where There's Smoke: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 1) by Susan May Warren Page B

turned, lifted into a shriek.
    Conner started toward the tent, but Jed grabbed his arm. “I got this.”
    Because deep in his gut, he knew the source of that scream; had heard it before. He crossed the camp in seconds, then landed on his knees at the edge of her tent.
    Kate shook in her sleeping bag, crying out. “No!”
    For a second, he couldn’t move.
    He had no idea that—well, that she hadn’t really escaped the flames that day, either.
    Then he climbed into the tent, found her arms, and pulled her up to himself. “Kate! Shh—it’s me. It’s Jed. It’s just a dream—”
    She drew in a long breath, recoiling. Her eyes opened, fixing on him. Not really, however, seeing him. Then her mouth opened, as if in another scream. Short of letting her wake up the entire camp, he didn’t know what else to do.
    So he kissed her. Just wrapped his hand around her neck and brought his mouth down on hers, hard. The shock of it had her stiffening in his arms.
    “Shh,” he said against her lips, then kissed her again.
    His first kiss was hard, a reflex more than tenderness.
    The second contained emotion, a spur of need, or desperation.
    What started as a reflex slowly morphed into a release of everything churning inside him for the past week when she showed up beautiful and frustrating and the flesh-and-bone realization of everything he couldn’t dare hope for.
    A needy, thirsty, devouring kiss.
    She still hadn’t exactly kissed him back, despite her mouth softening to receive his, but she seemed to relax, her hands reaching up to curl around his arms, as if holding on.
    Then, slowly, the desperation turned to something deeper.
    Better. He softened his kiss, moving his hands to cradle her face, his thumbs caressing her cheeks.
    He trembled, the smell of her—smoky, sweet—enveloping him. She let out a sigh, and he became aware—too aware—of every inch of her as she slid her arms around his waist and pulled him closer.
    Oh—he could nearly taste his heart in his throat, the urge to step too far over the line, the heat of desire quickening inside him.
    He put his hands on her shoulders, intending to draw back when, suddenly, she tightened her grip on him and started kissing him back.
    It began with the softest, sweet sound of surrender in the back of her throat, then emerged in something urgent, alive, her mouth opening to him, an offering that just about unraveled him when he tasted her tongue, the coffee on it, and behind it, her own latent yearnings.
    And everything he’d banked since dragging her out of Grizzly’s those many years ago fanned to flame.
    Kate.
    He wrapped his arms around her, feeling the soft skin at the waist of her shirt, aware somewhere in the back of his brain of a sound, the warnings blaring. The sleeping bag had fallen to her waist, she wore just a T-shirt, and it raked to life the inferno growing inside him. The kind that, if he didn’t take a breath, would make him press her back into the soft folds of the sleeping bag, stretch out alongside her, and finally dive into all the feelings he’d been running from for seven torturous years.
    Her hands had smoothed against his back, lighting a fire under her touch.
    I’m trusting her to you, Jed.
    And shoot, apparently the spirit of Jock still hovered between them.
    “Stop.” He pulled away from her, breathing hard, swallowing, his heart lodged in his ribs. “Please—”
    He took a breath, raised his head.
    Awake now, she met his gaze, her own eyes wide, her hair disheveled, her lips moist, half open, as if in shock.
    They breathed together, just staring.
    “You started it,” she said quietly.
    “You were...crying out in your sleep.”
    She raised an eyebrow at him. “Was I?”
    He nodded, possibly too briskly, his heartbeat still betraying him. “So I—”
    “Kissed me.”
    “Woke you up.”
    “Oh.” She ran her tongue over her lips, as if remembering. “Is this how you wake up Pete or Rube when they’re dreaming?”
    He gave her