Wildfire at Dawn (10 page)

Laura had to sit with that one a moment. She watched the Stellar finish its bath, then inspect her for a long moment before flitting off into the woods. Now only the sounds of the trickling water filled the air.

She’d never had that effect on any guy. She actually was, what had Tim called it,
a catch-and-release type.
At least that’s how men had always treated her. That’s all Grayson Masterson had wanted. A diversion, a conquest, and no more.

“You really did. I’ve known him for four years. I think you’ve already set a longevity record and certainly maxed out his confusion meter.”

Laura swallowed hard. Did she want him badly enough to fight for him? If she was being honest, that wasn’t even a question.

“Any suggestions?” she couldn’t bring herself to look up as the latest bit of bark reached the end of the pool, was sucked downstream, and instantly shot out of sight.

“Only one that I can think of.”

Jeannie’s silence forced Laura to look up at her. She had a slow, goofy smile on her face.

“What?”

“Do nothing different at all.”

“That’s advice?” Laura couldn’t do that. The risk of losing such an amazing man was too great. She had to… What?

“That’s advice,” Jeannie nodded to herself. “Maybe the best advice I’ve ever given.”

“Is this one of those set-them-free-and-if-they-love-you-they’ll-come back lessons?”

“Nope. At least I didn’t mean it to be.” Jeannie’s smile had grown huge. “He’s used to women getting clingy or pissed off. He has pre-built, field-tested methods of dealing with every form of woman who thinks there is more there than was promised. I bet he doesn’t have a single tool in his entire personal arsenal to deal with a woman who simply loves him for who he is. Especially not how to get rid of her when deep down he doesn’t want to.”

Laura studied Jeannie’s grinning face, watched the water, looked for the jay, and then looked back to Jeannie’s grin. Then she started to laugh. If being herself had snared the man’s attention and now totally confounded him, what in the world would he do with a woman who was learning how to stay herself?

It was a hell of a gamble.

Jeannie’s laugh matched her own. Which didn’t go hysterical. Instead, it was truly funny. For once she was confusing the hell out of a man instead of the other way around.

She reached out to hug Jeannie and the woman hugged her back.

Now she hoped to god it worked.

That’s when an eerie sound rose to fill the woods.

# # #

“Fire!” Akbar shouted as he rolled to the foot of his bunk before swinging out his feet. Two-Tall jumped to the floor right beside him.

The fire siren roared up into its howling whine until everyone in the whole complex was up and preparing for action. As the two of them dragged on their long cotton underwear, stuffed feet into unlaced boots, and grabbed jumpsuits, he could hear other sets of feet hitting floorboards all down the hall. All around them, smokies were gearing up to fight fire. Fifteen minutes from first call to takeoff was the goal, and MHA hadn’t been late once all summer.

He and Two-Tall were the first into the hall. No need to pound on doors. Krista stumbled out in front of him, sports bra still showing as she tried to get dressed, walk, and drag along her jumpsuit. She careened into a wall. Two-Tall tickled her ribs as they slipped past. Krista squirmed and cursed, too snarled up and asleep to retaliate.

The smokies were among the first to gather in the area below the control tower. Though the ground crew and pilots weren’t far behind. Betsy, the camp cook, and her assistant started working the crowd with a pitcher of coffee, a stack of to-go cups, and a basket of bagels.

That’s when Akbar saw her, exactly as he’d pictured her at their very first meeting.

Laura came running out of the woods two paces ahead of Jeannie. He long auburn hair streaming out behind her. Her long legs making her sprint look smooth and effortless. The morning sunlight caught her hair as she moved out of the trees’ shadows and struck her as if she’d been lit by fire.

Damn woman glowed with an impossible magic. No. This was Laura Judith Jenson. She glowed like she’d been beamed down to the planet from some vastly superior and more brilliant world.

He was stunned speechless as he watched her. She spotted him and trotted to a smooth stop right in front of him. She was beyond beautiful. She was—

“Good morning, lover,” her tone soft and private. Then she kissed him. Kissed him until his whole crew was hooting and hollering at them. She pulled back enough to speak. “Go kick some fire butt for me!”

Then she flashed one of those killer smiles at him, winked at Jeannie for reasons passing understanding, and trotted away toward the parking lot as Mark climbed the stairs to launch them at the latest fire, wherever it was.

He watched her go until she was out of sight, then whispered to himself.

“I am so screwed.”

“You got that right, brother.” Tim slapped a meaty hand down on his shoulder. And for the first time, Akbar actually went down to his knees under the blow. Tim dragged him back up to his feet by the harness of his jumpsuit.

Chapter 7

Laura wanted to abandon
the plan dozens of times over the next few weeks. At first she didn’t because she couldn’t think of a better one. Also, she didn’t like the image of herself as a desperate woman. So, she maintained her vigil as: welcoming lover, morning run companion, and someone who simply liked Johnny without judgment. She laughed at Johnny’s jokes—at least the funny ones, shared his silences, and did her best not to buy into his own personal turmoil.

She’d expected to go through her own cycle of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, but it didn’t come up for her. The more she was around Johnny, the more herself she became. Tim had been right, she wasn’t the catch-and-release type; she was the constant-and-steady type. Once Johnny had proven to her that she was worthy of his on-going attentions, she—ridiculous as it sounded—become worthy of them. At least she hoped so.

If she thought too hard about it all, it stopped making sense. But if she unfocused her brain as if she were in that dreamy state that occurred deep into a long, lazy trail ride, all of the pieces slid together for her. She loved Johnny, pretty desperately. He loved her, but he was having a hard time accepting that.

Jeannie’s plan was right. Just keep loving him and work at being her truest self. Then, hopefully, if they were indeed meant for each other, he’d arrive at that same conclusion.

It hurt her to watch his struggles, but she couldn’t think of how to step in and ease them without getting too invasive. And whatever was going on, he wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. When she pushed, he merely looked sad and worried; she didn’t want to do that to him.

There were times she had to close her own pain off until he went to another fire, or even back to MHA for the day. She didn’t let it show, or didn’t think that she did. But once he was gone, she’d sometimes curl up around his pillow and cry for his anguish.

Even though Johnny might be going quietly nuts, he kept coming back to her arms. He wanted to be with her no matter how he fought against it. And for now that’s what counted.

When he had a free day he’d join her up at the Lodge, equally content to be hiking the hills or watching the birds. He proved himself as able to learn horsemanship as to learn walking on crampons.

There was one holdout though. No matter what bribe he offered, Mister Ed still had little use for him. At first she’d felt bad for Johnny and tried to bridge whatever the gap might be. But then she began to be amused by his growing perplexity. It obviously rankled deeply that he couldn’t win over the horse.

“Maybe he thinks you smell like a forest fire and that scares him,” Laura had tried easing another awkward rejection. Awkward on Johnny’s part; she had to fight to not laugh as he leaned on the corral fence at the Lodge and glared at the horse.

“No. This is guy stuff. He thinks I’m after his woman.”

“Are you?” she couldn’t help teasing, doing her best to not let the serious question behind the tease show through.

“Was Paris hot for Helen?”

“What?” sometimes his references were too obscure, though she got the feeling that she caught more than most.

“Paris, the cocky ass Prince who sacrificed his entire city so that he could bed that fair but faithless minx Helen of Troy.”

“So…” Laura liked the way that sounded, “you’d sacrifice a city for me?”

“Sure. As long as you don’t make it too big a one.”

“Cheapskate!” She stuck her tongue out at him.

“Nope, just lazy,” he’d lounged back against the fence and looked at her in a way that made her very sorry she had a hike scheduled to start in a few minutes. “How about Hood River? I could sacrifice the town of Hood River for you.”

“Oh, we’re down to mere towns now? You promised me a city. Besides, you’d never lay waste to the Doghouse Inn.”

“True. True. How about Spokane? No one would miss it, I mean not really. It’s in a whole other state for crying out loud.”

“Deal!” They shook on it. They’d parted with a kiss that was as sweet as ever and had her practically skipping like a schoolgirl on her way to the Lodge to meet the guests.

When she’d glanced back from the last turn that would hide the corral, he still stood there, studying the horse rather than watching her.

Yep, she was stuck in his craw but good and he still didn’t see it. At some point soon he was going to either choke on it, or spit her out as too much trouble.

She decided that it was time to put a mark on her calendar. One more week and she would have spent a month being tolerant of the man who so wanted to be with her, but couldn’t stop looking for a reason to run away.

That would be enough. If he didn’t have his act together by then, she’d be the one to break the relationship silence. Because except for this one tiny flaw, Johnny was daily becoming more and more the man of her dreams.

Chapter 8

Out on the trail,
Laura dismissed the first hint of the fire when she tasted it on the wind. Johnny often missed a spot during his shower, or wore his jump boots out to the cabin. He smelled like many things that were wonderful, but one of them that lurked about him as often as not was wood smoke.

Mister Ed rolled easily along the Skyline Trail, six tourists close behind on this easy section. It was fully melted out and was going to make a great two-day ride. The Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, commonly called the PCT, ran from the Mexican border to Canada along some of the harshest wilderness that the Sierra Nevadas and the Cascades could hand out.

The PCT climbed from river to snowline and back down to river time and again in brutal elevation changes. She’d always meant to hike or ride its length. So far she’d covered all of the Oregon portion and most of Washington. California beckoned. Maybe she’d been unconsciously waiting for the right companion.

At Mount Hood the PCT followed the Skyline Trail that skirted the late summer snowline from above Timberline Lodge. It passed along the southern and western glaciers before wandering off towards the Columbia Gorge and the Bridge of the Gods. By adding in a loop with some great views on the first day, it made for a long afternoon’s ride to reach the primitive shelter at Paradise Park which was actually only a few lazy hours’ ride away. It allowed for a straight shot back after breakfast gave them time for a shower before lunch.

Sometimes Laura would extend the ride over to Burnt Lake or a sweet little meadow she’d found on Slide Mountain, but that took more skilled riders. Not this crowd. This time she had two sets of newlyweds, all four of them game, but none of them up for anything trickier than an easy trot. The group was rounded out by a mother-daughter team who were celebrating their mutual graduation from college; mom had gone back to school for teaching marine science when her daughter had started in pre-med. They rode well enough, but were simply having too good a time together for the destination to be of any real importance, as long as they were doing it together.

Laura spent a while daydreaming about children. About her children. She’d like a girl. Not that there’d be any pressure, but she was an only child. If there was going to be a fourth generation of the matrilineal line of Jenson trail guides, it was going to be up to her.

She couldn’t resist the smile. There was a sure way to blow all of Johnny’s gaskets. “Hi honey. So how many kids do you want to have? Let’s not wait.”

“Poof!” she said it softly, the sound of Johnny’s brain exploding like a dandelion gone to seed moments before a hurricane hit. Yes, one thing at a time. First she had to wait for Johnny to—

Mister Ed slowed to a halt and dropped his ears back.

Laura didn’t try to force him ahead; he was a very trail-wise horse. She scanned the trail ahead for rattlesnakes. Very rare at this altitude in this area, but she looked. Bear were more likely, but she could hear no telltale crash and thump through the twenty- and thirty-foot firs that grew in the area; bears rarely moved quietly. The world was very quiet.

Mister Ed’s reaction was wrong for elk or deer; he was as likely to want to go play with them as anything else.

Then she caught that hint of wood smoke again. The lightest of afternoon breezes was cool against her sun-warmed face, slipping down off the glaciers in gentle wafts of ice-scented air. But there was…

The rest of the group had come to a stop behind her. She turned slowly in her saddle scanning farther afield for the cause.

Smoke. A little thread of it. The fire was either small… No, she saw heat ripples to the south and the west. It was hot. So hot that there was little ash yet. The breeze shifted for a moment and she caught it again. Wood smoke.

Mister Ed snorted.

Laura pulled out her radio. All she could pull in was static. She couldn’t reach the Lodge because there was now half a mountain between them. No rangers responded to her call either. Not even the ski patrol that would be high up on Palmer. They’d come too far around the mountain’s curve.

Maybe they’d come far enough.

Johnny had given her MHA’s direct frequency.

The voice that answered was harsh and rippling with static and squelch cutouts. She adjusted her own squelch setting and tried again.

“This is Laura Jenson. We have a fire on the west side of Mount Hood. It is around the five thousand foot level and climbing toward Zigzag Canyon.”

She thought the crackling voice said something about ten minutes. Laura tucked away her radio and turned back to the group.

“Okay folks. I’m sorry to do this to you, but… Can you see the smoke starting down there below us?”

They all turned to look the direction she was indicating. The fire had found enough fuel that the smoke was now starting to show clearly.

“It’s unlikely that it will develop into anything and I’ve already called it in. But for our own safety, I’m going to abort today’s ride. What we’ll do is turn around and head back toward the Lodge. The wildland firefighters are based just ten minutes away. They’re on their way to check out the smoke and will let us know if we should continue back to the Lodge, or if we can turn around again and continue our ride. So we may be doubling back and forth a bit, but better safe than sorry, right?”

Everyone agreed. It took a little doing as they were in a relatively narrow portion of the trail, but they got their horses turned around. Once they were all set, she led them back into the long vertical slice of a canyon that the ice and water had carved down the face of the mountain. The fire she could see was traveling along the ridge they had just departed, and she didn’t want to be anywhere near that.

The other horses in the group finally caught the occasional wind shifts of a sudden warm updraft laced with firesmoke from downslope. Ears went back, nerves went up.

She started teaching the group an old Brewer and Shipley song based on a Native American chant. It leant itself to a multi-part harmony that was easy even for the untrained. The song distracted the tourists and at the same time calmed their mounts.

Now if it would only distract her. They’d descended back into the trees and wouldn’t re-emerge for over a mile. She didn’t like riding blind with a fire so near.

# # #

Akbar was hunched over a breakfast of a tall stack of Betsy’s killer blueberry pancakes, ham, and two eggs over easy. It was about what the other smokies who’d struggled out of their bunks were eating. Most of them were up and about except for the real sluggards who could sleep twelve hours at a stretch with little motivation. It was actually early afternoon lunch time, but Betsy was great about shifting meals to match when people woke up.

The picnic tables that were MHA’s main gathering area were comfortable from the warming of the morning sun, but shielded from the midday heat by the kitchen and equipment buildings to the south. In the afternoon, the tall Doug firs to the west would offer sun-dappled shade. It was a good place to be.

They’d just come off two days on a fire, a small but intense blaze in northern California. They’d trapped it between a lake and a community that had actually maintained their urban-forest interface. They’d lost a couple of garden sheds, but no homes. A job well done and the local engine company had taken over yesterday shortly before dark.

Now they were up and relaxed. Ox was teasing Chas about not benching his own body weight when he did workouts; the fact that he could do more reps of a hundred pounds than Ox could was casually waved aside as meaningless. Krista and Tim were trying to get together a volleyball game for after breakfast, lunch, or whatever this was.

Akbar was enjoying the scene. He wished Laura was here. It was one of those good moments. The crew was rested, sitting easy. There’d been no injuries all season worse than Chas’ sprained ankle and wrist. No bad burns at all. And they’d been able to respond to almost eighty percent of the fires they were called on—only a twenty percent “unable to be filled” rate. There were never enough resources and it wasn’t at all unusual to be requested to a fire when the team was already deeply involved in another one. But only missing twenty percent meant they were kicking ass this season, in 2012 the UTF was over forty-five percent.

He looked around to assess the team. MHA kept a dozen of them year-round, which was very unusual. With most outfits, he’d have been lucky to keep Tim, Krista, and Ox full-time. But even his newest seasonal firefighter had five years on the line and two years jumping smoke. MHA’s salaries and up-to-date equipment attracted the very best. Damn good crew.

Rumor had it that they’d be jumping Australia for a couple months this winter, which could be a nice change. Part of the price to keep them full-time, they’d have to travel to where the fires were. Maybe Laura could fly in for part of that and they could dive the Great Barrier Reef together or something like that.

Yeah, right. Long range plans with a woman. He could feel himself screwing up no matter how he was fighting against his own worst nature. Someday soon the most amazing woman he’d ever met would lower the boom on his sorry head. He’d deserve it too. He was clueless how to really do this and he knew it.

He forced himself to keep eating, he desperately needed the calories after two days on the fire line, but he wasn’t enjoying it any longer. Why did things go sour every time he thought of her?

Like that stupid horse of hers. Every time he saw Mister Ed, he imagined how Laura looked riding him; that easy, confidant sway of a truly skilled rider. She made many things look easy, but her work with the horse was flawless. But no matter what good thoughts he tried to raise each time he looked at Mister Ed, the horse knew he didn’t have his shit together.

A sharp whoosh and buzz overhead had most of the smokies glancing upward. Steve’s drone launched and shot by overhead, then turned sharply south. Most returned to their breakfast, barely breaking their conversation.

Akbar glanced around. No Steve of course, he’d be at the drone’s controls in his truck parked by the launcher. Might be a fire, might be a Search-and-Rescue, might be an equipment test.

No Carly at any of the tables either. Was she keeping her fiancé company or was she with him because there might be a fire?

No Henderson.

Akbar rose to his feet, took his tray to the wash bins. He rolled the remains of two pancakes around the ham and eggs like a massive and sloppy burrito. He trapped it between English muffins for a handhold, and headed over to Steve’s control trailer. He did his best to appear casual to not alarm the others just in case it was nothing.

Around the backside of the bunkhouse where Steve kept his drone’s service truck and launch trailer parked, they were all clustered together: Steve in the truck at his controls, Carly, Mark, TJ, and Emily grouped at the tailgate. They were waiting…waiting for the drone to get where it was going.

Akbar sidled up to the group, “What’s happening?” He knew that if he asked, “What’s up?” someone was bound to gaze uncertainly overhead and reply, “Blue sky.” One of the many legacies he’d managed to instill in the MHA lexicon of humor. He took a big bite of his pancake burrito and managed not to wear any of the egg that was dripping out the back end and onto the grass.

Henderson answered him. “We got a badly broken radio report of a fire up on Mount Hood. Southwest we think. Rangers haven’t reported anything yet. Steve’s sending a drone to check it out.”

Akbar felt his blood run a little cold. “Southwest?”

“Maybe she said west. It was hard to tell.”

“She?” That cold chill turned into a deep freeze. Laura was leading a group ride today. They were supposed to overnight near the timberline on the West side. “Was it Laura?”

“Laura?” Henderson searched around a bit. “Oh, is that the lady who gave you the smacker of a kiss on the line the other day?”

“That’s her.”

Henderson shrugged. “You don’t introduce me to a beautiful woman, I’m not going to recognize her voice. It was almost all static anyway. She sounded calm.”

“Yeah, she’s good at that,” Akbar thought about it. Laura always sounded calm, even the few times he’d caught her red-eyed and choked up—something she’d never explained. And he’d been dumb enough to not ask about it the second time after the way she refused to explain it the first time. His policy was not to question crying women, ever. But for Laura he should have. Next time he would.

He chucked the rest of his meal in a handy garbage can and tried to settle in to wait. At ninety miles an hour, it took the drone over ten minutes to swing around Mount Hood’s flank.

“We definitely have a fire,” Steve announced.

“Where’s Laura?”

“I don’t even know where the fire is yet. Give me a minute.” Steve kept one of his monitors twisted to the side so that they could see it as they crowded around the tailgate. The sides of Mount Hood were practically corrugated by long ridges running from peak to valley all around its slopes.

The smoke was spreading along either side of a long canyon that separated two long ridges. That was good. It meant there’d be water they could pump right from the stream running down the center of the canyon.

“You’ve got to find Laura,” he told Steve.

Steve tapped quickly at some keys, “There, I’ve configured the drone as a relay.” He handed a microphone to Henderson, but Akbar grabbed it without bothering to ask or apologize.

“Laura, this is Johnny.” He ignored the surprised looks the others aimed his way. “Can you hear me, over?”

# # #

“Hey Johnny Akbar the Great.” Laura was so happy to hear his voice. She could definitely taste the smoke on the air now, though the sky that she could see straight above was still clear of smoke. But it wasn’t all that much blue through the narrow slice of trees.

“Where are you, Laura?”

“Almost directly below Paradise Park, down in Zigzag Canyon. At the moment we’re heading back for the Lodge. We’re fine. We’re watering the horses at the stream along the Pacific Crest Trail.”
Watering them to keep them calm,
she didn’t add because she didn’t want her group of tourists to hear that. The horses were getting twitchy and the cool spring water serve as only a momentary distraction. She wasn’t sure if they could get out of this canyon without the horses bolting and their riders were definitely not skilled enough to deal with that.