Summer of Fire (17 page)

“You’re one hell of a pilot,” she went on.

When he was happy, he didn’t look nearly as gaunt. The bruise on his cheek had faded from purple to a rainbow of yellows and greens.

Deering cracked his glass against hers again. “You were pretty spectacular out there yourself. Karrabotsos was disappointed you were just here for the season. Said West Yellowstone could use somebody like you.”

The praise felt good. She’d waited at the hospital until Hudson came out of surgery. His prognosis for a full recovery had lifted her spirits so high, she felt she’d been drinking champagne for hours instead of starting her first.

In the dim light of a miner’s lamp above their table, the evening slipped away. A little more wine. Good red meat, the kind the body craved after hard work.

Deering speared a thick bite of sirloin. “There aren’t many women in fire.”

“More every day,” she told him. “There were gals in the volunteer departments in the Houston suburbs back in the seventies, but HFD took a little longer.”

“You ask me, it’s a nice change.”

After three days of Sergeant Ron Travis having no use for a woman firefighter, it was refreshing to have the pilot watch her with admiring eyes. Deering wasn’t exactly good-looking, but his taut intensity attracted. He talked with his slim-fingered hands, one of which bore a fresh scar.

“What’d you do there?” She reached and touched a finger to the spot.

“Oh, that? A little skin cancer.” He was cavalier, but maybe a bit worried. “The doctor said I shouldn’t have any more trouble if I stay out of the sun.” His mouth twisted in a way that said his cockpit was always sunny.

The sunscreen lecture that Clare gave Devon on her way to the pool rose to her lips. She bit it back and forced her eyes away from those expressive hands. He didn’t need her advice, and it felt too intimate to start taking care of him. She’d done everything for Jay and look where that had gotten her.

When they came outside, Clare saw lights in Fire Command. She wondered if Garrett Anderson was still at his post and if he’d taken time for a decent meal.

Deering stood close, but he wasn’t invading her space. “You don’t want to drive back into the park tonight. Come sleep in Demetrios’s third bedroom.” Although his tone was innocent, his alert eyes betrayed an interest in getting her under the same roof.

Going with him wasn’t something she’d do in Houston, but the psychologist had encouraged her to embrace the summer; the way a child swallowed whole a trip to camp.

Part of her wanted to go along a darkened street with Deering’s arm slung around her shoulders. With all that had happened today, and that wonderful heavy meal that Deering had refused to go dutch on, she needed a soft pillow and some shut-eye. As good as she felt about Hudson’s rescue, she might even be able to sleep without nightmares.

Deering brushed back her bangs, a light touch that could turn to something else.

Warning lights and sirens said he was getting too close too fast. On her way back to bunk with Sherry, she thought it was one more reason to hate Jay Chance for making her wary of men.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

August 10

Five days later, Clare dug line on the Red Fire. South of Grant Village, she and a group of soldiers worked the edge of Heart Lake in the shadow of steep-sided Factory Hill. One of her guidebooks said the early explorers had named it because the hot springs’ steam looked like a New England manufacturing town.

The meditative effect of work and a breeze off blue water gave her time to reflect on turning down Deering’s offer that might have led to ham and eggs together in the morning. In the days since, she’d had time to regret rabbiting on him and to wonder if she’d see him again this summer.

Since Hudson had broken his leg, Clare had visited him twice in the West Yellowstone hospital. With a plaster cast from hip to ankle, he had chafed at being sidelined.

It was interesting the way different people reacted to adversity. When Deering had told her in the Bear Pit that he needed to get back in the air, she’d known he was one of those who climbed right back on the horse that threw him.

She envied his ability to shrug off trouble. Her lack of confidence after Frank’s death was just beginning to be replaced by a renewed sense of purpose. Participating in Hudson’s rescue had been a real boost.

This afternoon’s training involved soldiers she’d been working with for several days. Watching a parade of faces that changed from incomprehension to confidence was another factor in easing her anxiety.

There was one problem, though. Sergeant Ron Travis, instead of moving on with the first group of soldiers, had been assigned to work with her for the duration.

With a check of her watch, Clare called for the end of the day. Conversation broke out as they hiked the half-mile back to their truck. Pulaskis and shovels were tossed into a pile.

Clare massaged her aching back, but she was getting stronger every day. It felt good to lift without effort and to keep up with the young male soldiers. It did irk that Sergeant Travis relegated himself to the role of supervisor, for all hands were needed. Just because they were training didn’t mean their fire lines were without value.

As she wiped sweat from her forehead, she reflected that her dislike for him went deeper than that. The code of the firefighter was to do the work. If somebody asked for your axe, you did what needed to be done rather than pass it off. A person without equipment was worse than useless. Travis’s Pulaski, issued eight days ago, rested behind the troop carrier’s front seat.

He lounged on the open tailgate of the truck, looking cool despite the afternoon’s heat. A bottled water in his hand made her want to snatch it and pour it over her sweating head.

“A good day’s work,” she said, loudly enough for the troops to hear. Although she started training with a tough-guy attitude, she thought it important to add praise as their ability increased.

Travis did not second her.

As the soldiers loaded their equipment, Clare spotted a pickup coming up the rutted trail with Javier Fuentes at the wheel. Since she’d taken on instructing soldiers, she no longer worked with the other volunteers from Houston.

A short distance from the troop carrier, she and Javier swapped stories while she downed the lukewarm bottled water she’d gotten from the truck. “How’d a cold Coke go?” Javier produced one from a cooler and she savored the effervescent explosion in her smoke-ravaged throat.

Javier’s eyes grew serious. “How’re you doing?” he asked in a way she thought referred to Frank’s death.

“Getting by. You?”

He flashed a smile born of youthful resilience and testosterone. “This is something else up here.” After a drag on his own Coke, Javier went on. “You know, if he’d lived, Frank would have come with us. Hell, he’d have fought fires till they forced him into retirement.”

From the corner of her eye, Clare noted Travis listening. “Lose somebody in a fire, Chance?”

Javier jumped in. “Big apartment complex in Houston, wood shingle roof fully involved.” His hands pantomimed leaping flames. “She was right in the middle of it when the ceiling came down and killed the other guy on the hose.” He must have thought he was doing her a favor, pointing out her bravery.

Travis shifted his eyes to Clare. “So if we get in a pinch, I can’t count on you?”

Javier’s bronzed young face frowned. “No, man, see she was lucky to get out . . .”

The soldiers were scheduled to drop her at her cabin, but Clare cut in and asked Javier, “How ‘bout a lift to Old Faithful?”

Clare seethed in the passenger seat as Javier drove. Coming to Yellowstone had not been the escape she had imagined.

Javier turned down the radio feature on the September match of
Stars and Stripes
vs. New Zealand’s entry for the America’s Cup. “Sorry about that back there.”

“Not your fault.”

They approached the turnoff for West Thumb. “Pit stop?”

“Never pass up an opportunity,” Clare agreed.

When Javier turned into the parking lot, afternoon light had turned the water midnight blue and the wind whipped whitecaps. Her throat constricted at the memory of the day they had rushed to the beach, looking for survivors.

She hadn’t seen Steve since she’d turned down his dinner invitation. At the time, he’d been hung-over and she’d thought it the right decision. On the other hand, he’d been perfectly clear and very knowledgeable about the history of her Nez Perce ancestors.

Clare opened the passenger door and started toward the restrooms.

“What’s going on?” Javier pointed offshore where a sturdy vessel with a prominent pilothouse and broad deck rode at anchor. The workboat was the type Clare was used to seeing in the Gulf of Mexico, hauling equipment for the oil industry.

Following Javier down the walk, she was nearly run down by Chris Deering. He brushed past her with a purposeful stride.

“There you are.” Deering shook hands with an Asian woman wearing a red suit and matching pumps. Her wedge of sculpted black hair rippled in the breeze until she looped it gracefully behind her ear.

A twinge shot through Clare, aware of her own dirty hair and filthy yellow shirt. Soot streaked her arms.

“Call me Suzanne,” the woman offered in a flat Midwestern accent.

Deering’s eyes lighted as he saw Clare. “You’re just in time to watch my helicopter rise from the deep. Turns out she’s only in eighty feet of water.”

A surge of gladness at his smile put her off balance. She shaded her eyes and looked out over the water at the workboat.

“They’ve got divers down now, placing flotation,” Deering explained, including both women by looking from one to the other. “Clare Chance, Suzanne Ho of First Assurance Aviation Underwriters.”

“Let’s go and watch.” Deering put a guiding hand beneath Clare’s elbow. “Can you stay?”

Javier joined them.

They went down the curving boardwalk past mud pots. Most were stagnant matte circles of drying, cracked clay, but one spattered thick glots. Where bleached earth marked prior spring activity, a lone buffalo with a dusty coat posed next to a dead pine.

Suzanne Ho tapped along on high heels, ignoring the springs and wildlife. “So, Mr. Deering, you say you lost control after you flew through a cloud of smoke.”

“The air turbulence was murder.” Deering pointed to where the fire had burned down to the lake. Stark skeletons of trees and their ash created a colorless landscape.

Clare stopped. She was struck again by the memory of blistering heat beside the chill lake, of kneeling beside Steve’s motionless form. Hot and cold . . . life and death, while she waited to learn which card he had drawn. “That’s where I found Dr. Haywood.”

Suzanne frowned.

“Look!” Deering said quickly.

The surface of the lake boiled. Rotors emerged, followed by a dark blue fuselage. Last to surface was a pair of pontoon-like floatation devices that the divers had attached and inflated from an air compressor.

“It’s not that far from shore,” Clare said.

“It looked like forever.” The edge on Deering’s tone said he’d wondered if he were going to make it. “When I was out there swimming by myself.”

She’d seen him rescued and wondered how Steve had made it to shore. “What about . . .? “ A sharp look from Deering stopped her.

“What about Dr. Haywood?” Suzanne Ho finished.

Small waves slapped below the boardwalk. Deering didn’t say anything for a long moment. Such a silent beat that Clare suspected he hadn’t mentioned Steve to the insurance company. “What about Haywood?” he finally asked.

“You never spoke of a passenger. Yet, when I was getting your treatment records from Lake Hospital, the doctor told me. Apparently, Haywood checked himself out within a few hours of the accident.”

“Yeah, to get stinking drunk,” Deering gritted. “I was trying to keep this simple, but you want to know about Steve Haywood, I’ll tell you. He lost his wife and baby in a plane crash and turned into a hopeless alcoholic who hates to fly.”

Clare gasped. She knew Steve had a problem, she’d seen him drunk and with hands atremble after a bender, but Deering’s words pelted like ice chunks. Steve’s family dead? Deering hadn’t said whether Steve was also on the plane, but his fear of flying made it sound as though he had been.

Suzanne listened with a serious look on her narrow face.

“When Steve got aboard that day, he was scared as hell,” Deering went on. “We started to go down and he jumped without a life jacket.”

Clare listened open-mouthed. Despite his problems, Steve must have had a strong will to live if he’d made it to shore without flotation.

Javier stood at a discreet distance, his big hands shoved in his pockets.

“I’ll need to interview him,” Suzanne said in a tone that Clare thought carefully neutral.

“You’ll have to hike up Mount Washburn, then.” Deering looked pointedly at Suzanne’s dress suit and heels. Clare couldn’t see Ms. Ho undertaking the expedition.

“Haywood’s on the mountain to dry out,” Deering finished.