Free Rain of Fire by Linda Jacobs Page B

that seemed to match his can’t-take-it-seriously attitude. His lashes were long for a man’s, dark whispers against his cheek.
    Kyle turned away so he wouldn’t notice her looking too long. A steep embankment whizzed by.
    Without warning, a sudden flash of motion caught her eye. Headed straight for the passenger door, a huge boulder rolled and bounced down the road cut. She had no time to think or speak before the rock smashed into the pavement scant inches behind the Chevy, blasting apart with a crack that shot shrapnel against the rear bumper.
    Nick swerved. “Holy shit!”
    Kyle looked back in time to see the largest broken chunks bound over the edge and disappear into the gorge.
    The Chevy fishtailed and came back under Nick’s control. He put his arm around Kyle’s shoulders and drove one-armed while her fingers clutched his shirt.
    “Hey, hey,” he soothed. “We cheated death.” But rather than stop to look at his car for damage, he accelerated. “I’m getting out of this canyon. That rockfall might have been caused by an earth tremor.”
    Kyle felt as though a hand reached inside her chest and clenched off her breath. She’d been doing all right with field camp, steering clear of other students’ weekend excursions to Yellowstone and Earthquake Lake. Another ten miles of steep-walled gorge unfolded interminably as she pressed her head against Nick’s shoulder and willed the boulders above to remain in place.
    Finally, moonlight revealed the mountains receding and being replaced by the blessed broad flats along the Palisades Reservoir. Once in the open she felt better and became aware the drive would be over soon. With Nick’s arm around her, it was easy to want more.
    The final half-mile was on the 4-H camp’s dirt road. The Chevy drifted a bit on the curves, gravel pinging the undercarriage.
    Nick pulled up in front of the barracks and stopped with a jerk. “The eagle has landed.”
    They separated, he toward the men’s head, an ancient railroad car in the woods, while Kyle went down the hill to the ladies’. The cinderblock box was a damp attraction for mosquitoes.
    In the mirror above the sink, her eyes looked enormous in a face pale despite her summer tan. Raising her hand, she touched the places where her hair was tousled from Nick’s shoulder. She carried a brush in her daypack but didn’t want to smooth it. Rather, she wished Nick’s hands would muss it further …
    A moan escaped her. Midnight had passed on her evening with Nick and she’d come home from the ball.
    Wrinkling her nose at the faint insecticide smell of a No-Pest Strip someone had hung in the shower, she abandoned its protection and started her solitary walk back up the hill. Although the moon was still high, casting double shadows where pole lights illuminated the camp, she used her flashlight. The barracks windows were dark, everyone stocking up on sleep before a 5 AM call. Kyle had rigged a battery-powered light above her bunk, not too bright to disturb her two roommates. To be on the safe side, she changed the AA batteries every other day.
    As she reached for the handle to open the barracks door, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning, she saw Nick balanced in a handstand on the split log fence.
    “You’re still up,” she said.
    Deftly, he lowered his feet to the ground and faced her. His hand came up to fend off her flashlight beam. “You should have known I would wait for you.”
    He came closer. Jeans and a flannel shirt fit him in a way that seemed to accentuate his body. He wasn’t tall or broad-shouldered, but he walked toward her with a catlike tread.
    “Douse the light,” he said.
    Without thinking, she snapped it off.
    Nick caught her wrists and slid his warm hands inside her sleeves.
    “We had a shock tonight,” he murmured. “And I couldn’t quite see us bunking with the guys and gals.”
    He didn’t kiss her, just pulled her against him. This couldn’t happen, because she