The Long Way Round

The Long Way Round

A Road-Epic, Slow-Burn Romance

After a late-summer wildfire, radio meteorologist Mira Kline is assigned to ride a county relief route—live hits from gym shelters, fairgrounds PODs, and backroad drop sites. Her driver is Rowan Ashbrook, a smokejumper on light duty whose steadiness makes chaos feel solvable. Mile by mile, pallet by pallet, their forced-proximity truce turns into something gentler as Rowan keeps a promise: one true "Ash Story" for every leg of the drive—first jumps and hard landings, quiet rescues, the teammate he still carries.

When a Red Flag week ignites new starts, Rowan is called back to the line and Mira becomes the voice holding Cinder Bend together—translating weather into calm, grief into community. Their parallel routes—his on the ridges, hers on the air—braid the same vow: do the next right thing, and leave people steadier than you found them.

Containment brings Rowan home to the very gym that became a town. Under café lights strung where pallets once stood, the long way around becomes the shortest path to HEA.

For fans of Emily Henry's sincerity, Katherine Center's big-hearted resilience, and the quiet heroism of disaster-response romances.

 After wildfire, a relief route becomes slow-burn love.