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 the mountaintop.
Kayla concentrated on filling her lungs again without choking, then separated herself from Dave, pushing to her feet. She wiped her shaking palms on her jeans and said, “I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way to bring it back. To put it right. To make it again like it was before.”
“Kayla, we’re in this together,” Dave reminded her, standing too and resting his hands on her shoulders, squeezing lightly.
“Whatever you need, we’re here for you,” Devon echoed. Neil and James nodded their agreement.
While their immediate and steadfast support should have reassured her, instead it only caused some of her uneasiness to creep back in like the insidious smoke that wafted all around, filling every breath with a reminder of what had happened, and the hurdles she was going to face. “That’s what I’m afraid of. I don’t want to drag you all with me on some impossible mission when you have opportunities to do more, make something new for yourselves instead.”
For nearly two decades, the Powertools construction crew—made up of Dave, Devon, James, Neil, and two of their best friends, Joe and Mike—had worked together day in and day out, building their own business from the ground up. Recently, Joe had taken a chance a few states away to help his cousin expand Hot Rods, the guy’s classic car restoration garage, and the living quarters for its mechanics. They also happened to be in a poly relationship not so different from the one Kayla and Dave shared with the crew.
One thing had led to another, and soon their foreman, Mike, had also been approached with a new business opportunity, overseeing the construction of a tattoo shop and tourism destination that could become the Midwestern version of Gatlinburg if he played his cards right. Each member of the crew could step up and run their own crew if they wanted, expanding their empire and transitioning into work that paid better without taxing their bodies as much as they got older. There was enough work, and they were skilled as hell.
Would it be selfish of her to take four of their team members and keep them for herself?
Dave was first to cut her off and keep her from going farther down that road paved with guilt and self-doubt. “Hey, you remember after my accident, I felt the same way? Like I was a burden or some shit? And what did you tell me over and over?”
He used his grip on her shoulders and turned her so that she had to look at him instead of the embers, which used to be her vision come to life. A place where they and others had been so damn happy. But it hadn’t always been that way.
Kayla thought back to the dark times Dave was talking about, which seemed much less scary now that they’d passed and she and Dave had put their troubles years behind them. “That if you gave up I’d never forgive you.”
“Right. And what else?”
“That you could get back what you’d lost, even if it didn’t look quite the same. That we would work on it together and get a little stronger every day. That life would be worth living again.” Kayla got a little annoyed at herself even as she said it, because she remembered how scared she’d been then for him and worried she might be making him equally as afraid now.