Wildfire on the Skagit (Firehawks Book 9) (8 page)

“Occupational hazard. You want to recognize bear poop when you see it. Or wolf. We don’t get wolves around here, but I’ve certainly jumped fires with them close by. They won’t attack a human unless they’re panicked; fire does that to them though, especially if they have young in a threatened den.”

“Cool!” And then Meaghan rose to her feet so that she landed between Evan and Mallory. Was the redhead the one who would be causing him trouble? Had she used the excuse of deer scat to horn in on a misperception of why Mallory had slowed down to be with him?

Then she looped an arm through Mallory’s. “C’mon, Mal. Let’s hunt up more poop for him to tell us about,” and led her ahead into the gap between him and the main group. But they weren’t looking at the trail. He got the impression that Mallory wasn’t looking at much of anything as Meaghan guided her around ruts and over fallen branches.

Another shift in what he was seeing. Meaghan had known Mallory was having a hard time with something, so she was being a friend, trying to make it easier. Of course. A fellow student would know the whole story.

Watching them together, taking care of each other, reminded him of wildfire teams and Special Forces ODAs…and not at all of Evan James Greene.

Because the one time it really truly mattered, he had totally failed.

# # #

Krista had pushed them steadily through the afternoon with only short breaks. It took four hours to reach the clearing she’d chosen for camp. It would have been an easy hike for any of these girls with the shape they were in…if they hadn’t been loaded with twenty-five pounds apiece. She wanted them to hurt a little, but not too much.

“Great! Now, drop your packs and grab gloves and your Pulaski. Tina, stop using your sunglasses to keep your hair in place and pull them down.”

She soon had them organized in the center of the clearing and was giving them techniques for cutting a line and how to use the hoe side of the Pulaski to cut through and peel back sod. Once that was peeled back, she showed them how to judge organic and inorganic layers.

“Clear me a circle. Mineral soils only for a six-foot diameter circle. Then peel back the top layer of organics for another four feet all around. Go.”

That was when she noticed that Evan wasn’t there. He was standing at the entry to the clearing, still wearing his full pack. She knew that look now; didn’t know the root of it, but couldn’t miss it. It hung like a personal shroud of darkness, looming over his head.

Krista double checked that the girls and the two chaperones were doing okay. And they were; chatting together, figuring out how to work closely together to achieve a common end.

She strode over to Evan, half afraid he would bolt and run back to camp.

He offered her a nod of recognition, but there was none of the heat coming off him like there had been all morning.

She simply scooped his arm in one of hers, spun him about, and walked him right back into the woods. She didn’t stop until they were around the first curve in the trail and couldn’t be seen or easily overheard.

“Evan.”

“Yeah?” He didn’t even know he was in some kind of weird space, but his eyes weren’t focusing on her.

“If I were to shout
fire,
would you be okay?”

“Sure, I’d—” then he shook himself like a wet dog and rubbed a hand over his face. “Oh crap! I’m sorry, Krista. Yeah, I’m fine. Didn’t even know I’d—”

He didn’t finish, but she knew he’d gone back to the dark place down inside him. That he’d gone there despite the supercharge of the young women’s excitement practically making the air around them vibrate worried her.

“Straight up, Evan. Do I need to send you back?”

That brought his attention into sharp focus. “No, Krista. Sorry. I’ll be fine.”

“My girls are safe around you?”

“I swear. The only person not safe around me is me.”

“I’ve got about three minutes before they’ll be getting themselves into trouble.” Hopefully they’d be following last year’s pattern and not the year before’s. “Convince me.”

“They,” she watched him swallow hard. “They remind me too much of the past.”

“This isn’t Afghanistan, Evan.”

“I understand that. This also isn’t emergency leave from Afghanistan to arrive too late at my little sister’s hospital bedside.”

“Oh god, Evan, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry,” Krista hugged him despite the awkwardness of the heavy pack he still wore.

He remained stiff, burying his face against her shoulder for one long moment before standing back from her embrace.

“How did she die?” Krista barely managed a whisper.

Evan closed his eyes and faced off into the woods as if wishing he could transport himself somewhere…anywhere else. His voice when it finally came out was hoarse, dark.

“She went out into the woods and put .30-30 slug into her brain from my Winchester 94 deer rifle. She missed, partly. Some kids found her. I buried the damn gun with her; the only two things I ever loved.” Then he opened his eyes and looked back at her, the pain pulled back behind a wall so deep that she couldn’t believe he’d let her see behind it. “I think Mallory needs to talk to me. I can’t leave until I know for sure that she’s okay. I
have
to stay.”

Krista didn’t know what to do with such a good man. She could feel the heat of tears burning behind her eyes. She cried easily enough, usually from laughter at a good joke well played. This was different. His pain ripped at her gut. Unable to bear it, she pulled him into her arms again and held the injured boy who’d become a man. A man who would face his own deepest pain to help a girl he’d only met hours before.

In that moment, the world shifted beneath Krista’s feet, the forest floor bucking and heaving against any hint of balance she’d previously known. She didn’t know what the feeling was, but it rocked through her until there was no place in the world more steady than holding Evan Greene close.

Krista finally managed to step back, could hear the rising voices behind her that meant she needed to return soon, but couldn’t quite make herself let go of him completely—unsure she’d be able to walk if she did. Afraid he might disappear like a wraith if she looked away for even a moment.

“Just give me a minute, Krista. Then I’ll roll into camp just fine.”

She nodded again, not trusting herself to speak. She kissed him hard. Not with the fire’s heat that she’d been so looking forward to, but with everything her heart was feeling. He kissed her back then sent her on her way with a slap on the butt that was endearing rather than making her want to flatten him.

Krista waited until she was halfway around the curve, out of sight from both Evan and the campsite. There she stopped a moment to wipe at her eyes and have a good sniffle.

This better not be what she thought it was, but she more than half suspected she was head-over-heels gone on the quiet soldier. No time to think about it now. She wiped her eyes again to little effect.

Enough!

Happy face!

She slid her sunglasses into place and trotted around the curve and back into camp. The girls were just starting to mill around, wondering what to do next.

“Hey, now that’s a great spot for a fire. Only one problem.”

“What?” “C’mon, we did great, didn’t we?”

“The problem,” Krista announced over their complaints, “is that we have a great firepit…and no firewood. I think that it’s time we learned what the axe side of your Pulaski is for. Let’s go chop some wood.”

As she got the girls organized to head into the woods, she glanced back at the trail. She was half afraid that Evan wouldn’t be able to face his demons and might just have turned around and headed back to camp, or worse, be gone permanently before she returned.

Instead he stood there, once again at the threshold of shadow a single step from the sunny clearing. Thumbs hooked in pack straps, sunglasses in place, he looked every inch the amazing smokejumper, top soldier, and gorgeous man.

As she moved about the clearing, she could feel his eyes tracking her. And it was one of the best feelings of her life.

Chapter 8

It was evening and
the last of the girls were out of the woods.

He did a running headcount that was so instinctive to his training that it wasn’t conscious, it simply clicked over to “all accounted for” when the last girl had walked in with Krista. He noticed that the chaperones Mac and Zelda were lingering for a moment back in the shadows as a single outline.

Made him think of getting close to Krista, preferably when he wasn’t on the verge of barfing up some memory.

She’d treated him okay despite his revelation. He’d never told that to anyone, not even his Green Beret buddies when he’d returned after a five-day emergency leave that had been two days of travel, one of visiting the morgue and dealing with Francine’s possessions, and two of arrangements for a funeral only he attended. He hadn’t told his parents when or where, because even if they were sober enough to hold their tongues they would have been unwilling to “be associated with such a thing.” And he knew Francine wouldn’t have wanted them there. They’d disowned him when he went military instead of some professorship, like it had served them so well.

They’d disowned Francine years before that.

If she had any friends, they hadn’t surfaced.

The evning was a minute-to-minute battle; constant vigilance that he didn’t let it overwhelm him again. The merry teasing of the girls made it easier. Mallory was joining in as well and Meaghan was staying close by her side.

But for that, Francine. If you’d had even one friend so staunch, maybe…

He shrugged it off for the hundredth time today.

Sorry, sis,
he thought for perhaps the thousandth.

He’d been her only friend, her only shield. And he’d left.

“Are we really gonna eat these things?” Callie was holding up the plastic pouch of an MRE like it was a dead fish.

The sun had passed beyond the treetops and behind the massive peak of Mt. Hood. So even though it was still early in the evening, the clearing was heavily shadowed and the crackling fire offered more comfort than light.

“I was kinda hungry, but now…”

“Wimp!” Evan chided her. “What flavor did you get?”

“Damn straight I’m a wimp,” she replied with a spunk that was easy to admire. “I got Southwest Beef and Black Beans. Why don’t you go hunt us up some raw elk with your bare hands?”

“Hey, that’s one of the better menus: spiced apple pieces, turkey nuggets. Yum!”

“You’re weird,” she wasn’t buying it.

“Would you like some powdered hot chocolate with that?”

“Some what?” Callie looked at him cross-eyed.

“The Rook,” Krista said as she poked at the fire a bit, “has this thing for hot chocolate mix, with the marshmallows.”

More cries of “Wimp!” and “Aww, what a cute little boy!” sounded around the fire. It was music to his ears, because it meant he hadn’t scared off the girls or slipped once again into some dark place without being aware of it.

Then he thought about it and got Mallory in his peripheral vision but kept talking to the effervescent Callie.

“No candy in that MRE menu, so you’re safe.”

Callie looked at him like he was completely brain dead.

“Seriously. Girls,” he raised his voice and put on his command voice. “Do
not
eat the candy if your MRE has one. Seriously bad luck.”

His tease got the expected round of disbelief and scoffing, then Evan lowered his voice.

“Superstition or not, there isn’t a Special Forces soldier out in the field will eat the candy out of an MRE. They used to be in most of the twenty-four menus, but the Army figured it out eventually, only eight of them still have any.”

He didn’t often talk about what he’d been before. Like never.

Then he let his gaze focus on Mallory on the other side of the crackling fire. And he spoke to her while not appearing to stay focused on her.

“I spent six years in Afghanistan as a Special Forces Green Beret. I never ate a candy nor did any of the men in the ODA I commanded when they ultimately made me a captain. Five more years as a smokejumper, I still don’t eat it.”

They were all looking at him in some form of surprise. A soft buzz circled the fire quickly.

Krista was looking at him wide-eyed, whether at his past or that he’d revealed it, he couldn’t tell.

At the moment he only cared about one girl’s response.
I know things. I can help,
he’d practically shouted at Mallory.

Of the entire circle, she was the only one looking at him dead seriously. Slowly, as if it hurt her, she nodded once.

He returned the nod just enough for her alone to see, then turned back to the group.

“So seriously, don’t be eating the candy. Though I can really recommend the powdered hot chocolate if you got a Mexican menu.”

That got the laugh he was looking for.

# # #

Evan had his knife and his own MRE out, Pork Sausage with Cream Gravy. Crap! He thought they’d discontinued that one. Then he saw that it had last year’s date on it. Well within the three-year shelf life, but
ick!
Powdered chocolate wasn’t going to be any help here. Even doing a half swap with someone else for ingredients to add wouldn’t make it more than barely palatable.

“Hang on a minute on those MREs,” Krista called out.

He could see that Krista was listening for something. He knew her every movement well enough now that the slightest tilt of her head was a major giveaway.

He heard it before she did, but not by much; Krista was just that damned good in the woods.

Horse. Horses. Four or five by the sound of them. Coming toward the opposite side of the clearing from their own approach.

A string of horses wandered into camp. The first, a big tan gelding, was ridden by a long brunette in jeans and Western style shirt. She had a cowboy hat propped on her head. Behind her she led a string of horses.

“Hi, Laura,” Krista called out. “Hey there, Mister Ed,” she addressed the horse.

Evan waited half a moment to see if the horse answered and then shook his head to clear it.

Several of the girls scrambled to their feet and headed over to greet the horses.

Laura? This had to be Akbar’s wife. The wilderness guide.

Damn, but they’d be an odd-looking couple. She was definitely taller and as slender as the lead smokejumper was broad shouldered. No way to see into anyone else’s relationship.

Whatever she was like, he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt if she’d brought real food.

“C’mon, Rook,” Krista’s voice called from somewhere among the milling women and horses. “Time to lend a hand. Last horse is yours.”

Laura, astride the lead horse, warned him in a smooth voice, “Careful, Mister Ed isn’t real partial to men.”

“How did he take to Akbar?” Evan patted the horse’s nose and only received a baleful look in return.

“Not well,” she offered a merry giggle that didn’t sound as silly on her as it should have.

He moved on down the line.

The second horse was carrying several large coolers. The one behind it had a heavy set of saddlebags filled with, he squeezed one, and guessed apples and oranges and other treats. The last horse, a beautiful gray mare who nuzzled his pocket—causing him to double back and steal an apple for her from the proceeding horse—was burdened with chainsaws, fuel, and rappelling equipment.

He laughed to himself. Krista was really running these girls through their paces. He unburdened the poor mare as fast as he could.

# # #

Krista woke the next morning to the bright roar of a chainsaw muffled by the surrounding trees.

She was terribly disoriented for a moment.

No matter where she turned, she couldn’t see fire or smell smoke.

Nor could she see her lover. She’d been having this dream, of a handsome and naked Evan sleeping alongside her, his head on her shoulder, somehow convincing her she was beautiful and special. But the dream was fading rapidly and even the reality of Evan sleeping in just the next sleeping bag over was gone.

He wasn’t there.

Two dozen empty sleeping bags were ranged around her.

Smokejumper camp. Right.

She’d really been enjoying that dream, which must be the reason she hadn’t heard Evan and the girls getting up.

Now she was blinking like an idiot in the post-dawn brightness.

Barely post-dawn.

Laura was gone, too.

But her horses were still tethered at the edge of the clearing.

Where were…her brain finally snapped to.

After feasting on hotdogs and hamburgers, potato chips and S’mores, their campfire had gone long into the night. They’d burned up the stock of wood except for one lone log, both ends rough-cut by high school girls wielding Pulaskis, that sat lonely by the blackened fire pit.

Her man was off with a chainsaw so that they could cook breakfast. It made her feel all warm and—

Then she heard the shift in tone. No longer just sawing away, it was the rapid shift back and forth of someone guiding a tree fall with the final angle of cut.

Krista scrabbled into her boots, stuffed the laces into the boot tops and sprinted off toward the sounds.

Just as she reached them, she saw it go.

The tree was a foot across, fifty feet high, gray and barkless with death. None of its branches bore the least sign of green, most of the small branches were gone. A long-dead snag that hadn’t fallen.

It crackled and smashed through the higher branches of its neighbors and then, inexorably, accelerated until it crashed into the duff with a heavy boom that she could feel as much through her boot heels as her ears.

She’d arrived behind Evan, Laura had the girls standing well to the side of a fallen tree, at the safest angle and outside the possible fall zone. Each wore their hardhat and safety glasses.

And Evan stood close beside the trunk, holding the idling saw as it ticked over slowly. His pants were covered in sawdust, but in a tight t-shirt, he made an amazing picture. Manly man doing manly things; she could practically see the girls swooning.

Hell, she was practically swooning herself. How could the real man fully clothed be even more stunning than the naked one in her dream?

“Don’t try this at home.” He finally choked off the saw and the silence was deafening. “It takes a lot of practice to drop a simple tree like this one safely. One like that,” he pointed with the blade of the saw up at a multiple snag—two leaners against a third, very old tree—“is called a widowmaker for a reason. I’d leave something like that piece of nasty to someone really skilled…like Krista.” And he turned around to aim that radiant smile at her.

There was no way he could have heard her approach, but he knew she would be there. Had probably known that’s where she’d end up before he even yanked the saw’s starter cord.

The girls all looked at her in awe. The ones who’d been standing back at a safe distance moved closer, and the rest of them who’d rushed in from the campsite joined them.

Krista walked up beside Evan and barely resisted kissing the living daylights out of him right then and there. Instead she punched his arm hard enough to make him stagger—teach him to scare the crap out of her.

“Actually,” she eyed the snag while the girls laughed, “on a fire, that snag is the kind of mess we hope burns up before we have to deal with it. That one is seriously dangerous. As a matter of fact, I don’t want anyone walking over there. It may have been that way for weeks or years and it could stand another decade—or another minute. There’s no way to tell.”

“Well, we need some firewood if we want breakfast,” Evan called out. “So, who wants to learn how to run a saw?”

Every hand in the group shot up.

He pointed his blade at Meaghan…rather than Mallory. Not what Krista had expected, but she was guessing that Evan probably knew best.

Some instinct had made Krista grab her hardhat and glasses, so she laced her boots and picked up the second saw that Evan had set off to the side. She waved Mallory forward and began using her as a live model for how to start and safely operate a saw.

Laura soon organized another group to split the cut sections into firewood with their Pulaskis—not the best log splitting tools, but they did the job easily enough on this old wood. It wasn’t long before they had enough wood for a dozen campfires and it took multiple trips back to camp for everyone to transport the logs. As the last group headed off with heavy armloads, she snagged Evan.

She planned on kissing him for being so wonderful.

Instead, he grabbed her and shoved her back against a stout Doug fir on the side facing away from the girls. He drove against her: lips, hands, hips.

In seconds he had her moaning with a desperate need for more. She had a leg, then two around his hips to keep him close, her arms locked around his neck.

He kept her pinned against the rough bark, one hand scooped low to keep her from sliding downward, the other pressed so hard into her breast it would have hurt if it hadn’t felt so incredibly good.

Some impossible eternity later, that was probably seconds but felt far longer, he backed off a half inch.

His breath was as short and ragged as hers and her heart hammered louder than a full-on wildfire.

“Good morning,” his voice was hoarse with need. He nuzzled her lips a moment longer and then nipped her ever so lightly on the nose.

“Uh, hi!” she managed. “Can I ask a favor?”

“Name it,” his dark eyes so close didn’t let her think before she spoke.

“Can we arrange it so that you wake me up that way every morning?”

“What? A chainsaw 101 class?” Another kiss deep enough to keep her body humming.

“No,” a breathy whisper—what was happening to her? “I mean this.”

“Sure. Always glad to do whatever the Master Sergeant commands.” Then he stroked his hands down her once, tracing every curve from neck to thigh and coaxing her to unlock her legs from around his waist.

She felt disconnected from her limbs, lightheaded and dizzy.

“Very glad to,” he made it a final murmur against her lips. “Now I better make sure they know how to start a fire without burning down the forest.” He headed back to camp whistling.