She looked a lot better than Shelly Atkins.

The sheriff’s reddened flesh had already started to blister by the time the EMTs had arrived, her arms and legs swelling up grotesquely. Shelly had had the foresight to tie her shirt around her face. Her shoulders and arms, however…

Mac had only read of such things. Never seen them firsthand. The smell alone roiled the stomach, made him want to turn and retch. Mitchell had turned green immediately. But the deputy had held his own.

As they scrambled with the first-aid kit. As they tried to cover the most severe burns with pathetically few patches of sterile gauze. As Shelly went into shock from the pain and stress, right about the same time Mac had realized Kimberly had stopped breathing.

He had never been so happy to see an emergency vehicle in his life. Grateful to the point of humbleness. Desperate to the point of tears leaking from the corners of his eyes as he tried to report what happened, what Kimberly needed, what Shelly needed, until the EMTs simply shouldered him and Mitchell aside and went to work with ten times the competence and ten times the gear, and Mac and Mitchell stood there, dazed and confused, as they tried to tell each other it would be all right.

Kimberly disappeared into the ambulance just as the chopper arrived for Shelly. Mac and Mitchell helped load the sheriff into the chopper. Then it was gone and Kimberly was gone and they were both reporting in the best they could.

All in all, it probably took twenty minutes. The longest twenty minutes of Mac’s life. And he didn’t even get to go with Kimberly. He wasn’t family. Just the man who loved her.

Which left him standing outside the battered surveillance vehicle, thinking of the ring. He wished she was wearing it now, maybe on a chain around her neck. If not for her, then for him, so he could see it, and know that she had said yes and told him that she loved him. That they had been happy, right before this.

He finally climbed into the van. Mitchell got in behind him. With nothing left to do, Mac crawled into the driver’s seat, started putting the vehicle into gear.

And Mitchell said, “Holy shit! Look at this!”