As the threat of eruption grows, former cop Cullen Landry refuses to leave his cabin in the evacuation area, which is why he's the only one left who can help Kit escape the crumpled cab of her truck. He doesn't want to get tangled up in the mystery of the beautiful woman with an abandoned infant, but when he sees the bullet hole in the windshield and the bloody handprint on the interior, he realizes that he's in this thing, like it or not.
When two armed men with ill intent approach, the race is on to stay alive, discover the truth, and find the baby's missing mother--all while a deadly mountain rains fire from above.
Powerless to the pain lancing her temples, she did not resist as he checked her pupils and
pulse and smoothed a bandage across her brow.
“Cut up here near the hairline. Just a little one. Not deep. Probably won’t scar.”
“Who are you?”
He offered her a bottle of water from his back pocket. “Drink some.”
“Stop helping me,” she snapped. “Answer my question. Please.”
“You’re bossy.” His voice was teasing, but there was ten- sion in his mouth, his muscled shoulders.
Other thoughts were distracting him. Her too.
“Who? Are? You?” She clapped her hand on her skull as if a knife were cleaving her temples.
“Be still. No sense adding to your pain. Name’s Cul- len.” He looked toward the direction of
the road. Another rumble blasted through the haze.
“Cullen who?”
He scrubbed a palm through his crew-cut hair the hue of a tarnished penny. “Cullen Landry.
Should I call you Kit?”
She blinked, stomach tight. “How do you know my name?”
He pointed to the stuffed bear nestled next to the ruined radio, the name Kit embroidered on a
heart held in its paw. “Not rocket science. Figured that’s you, right? Short for anything?”
Her face went hot at his mention of her teddy bear. “I . . .”
A gust of wind blew a wisp of ash through her ruptured windshield.
“Last name Garrido like on the side of the truck?” he said.
She allowed a small nod.
“All right then, Ms. Kit, we can get to know each other better later, but the sun’s setting, and
right now we got other problems.”
“The volcano,” she said absently.
“That’s way up there on the list. This road’s been red- zoned.”
“Red? When I left, emergency services said yellow every- where except the northern side
of the mountain.” When I left . . . which was when, exactly?
“There’s been a lateral eruption on the flank. Earth- quake swarms, the mountain’s
continuing to bulge out, it all adds up to a mega eruption.”
She studied him, swallowing another wave of nausea.
His chin was stubbled, face tanned.
He shifted. “To save time, can you tell me if anyone knows you’re here?”
“I probably talked to my office guy before I left.” For where?
“Probably?”
Her brain felt dazed, like a bird that hit the window glass midflight. “I don’t remember
exactly.” It pained her to say so.
Dana Mentink, Fire Mountain
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