Chasing Fire Read online

  “We got pork roasting to go with the rosemary potatoes, butter beans and carrots. Veggies get three-cheese ravioli. Gonna put a big-ass Mediterranean salad together. Pound cake and blueberry crumble for dessert.”

  “Sign me up.”

  Rowan opened the refrigerator and took out a soda as Marg went back to her potatoes.

  “How are you doing, Dolly?”

  “I’m fine, and you?” She said it primly, chin in the air now.

  “Good enough. Maybe you could take a quick break, catch a little air with me?”

  “We’re busy. Lynn—”

  “Better get her skinny ass back in here right quick,” Marg interrupted. “You go on out, and if you see her, send her in.”

  “I need to dry these greens,” Dolly began, but shrunk—as all did—under Marg’s steely stare. “Okay, fine.” She tossed aside her cloth, headed for the door.

  Rowan exchanged a look with Marg, then followed.

  “I saw a picture of your baby,” Rowan began. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Jim’s baby.”

  “She’s beautiful,” Rowan repeated.

  “She’s a gift from God.” Dolly folded her arms as she walked. “I need this job to provide for her. I hope you’re Christian enough not to do anything that gets me fired.”

  “I don’t think about it being Christian or otherwise, Dolly. I think about it as being human. I never had a problem with you, and I’m not looking to have one now.”

  “I’ll cook for you just like I cook for the rest. I hope you’ll show me the respect of staying clear of me and I’ll do the same. Reverend Latterly says I have to forgive you to get right with the Lord, but I don’t.”

  “Forgive me for what?”

  “You’re the reason my baby’s going to grow up without her daddy.”

  Rowan said nothing for a moment. “Maybe you need to believe that to get through, and I find I don’t give a shit either way.”

  “I expect that from you.”

  “Then I’m happy not to disappoint you. You can claim to have tripped over God or to’ve been born again, I don’t care about that either. But you’ve got a baby, and you need work. You’re good at the work. What you’re going to have to suck up, Dolly, is to keep the work, you have to deal with me. When I feel like coming into the kitchen, I will, whether you’re around or not. I’m not going to live my life around your stipulations or misplaced grudges.”

  She held up a hand before Dolly could speak. “One more thing. You got away with coming at me once. You won’t get away with it again. New baby or not, I’ll put you down. Other than that, we won’t have a problem.”

  “You’re a heartless whore, and one day you’ll pay for all you’ve done. It should’ve been you instead of Jim that day. It should’ve been you, screaming your way to the ground.”

  She ran back to the kitchen.

  “Well,” Rowan mumbled, “that went well.”

  6

  Rowan slept poorly, and put the blame squarely on Dolly. She’d checked the radar, the logs, the maps before turning in. Fires sparked near Denali in Alaska and in the Marble Mountains of Northern California. She’d considered—half hoped—she’d be called up and spend part of her night on a transport plane. But no siren sounded, no knock banged on her door.

  Instead, she’d dreamed of Jim for the second night in a row. She woke irritated and itchy, and annoyed with her own subconscious for being so easily manipulated.

  Done with it, she promised herself, and decided to start her day with a good, hard run to blow the mood away.

  As her muscles warmed toward the first quarter mile, Gull fell into step beside her.

  She flicked him a glance. “Is this going to be a habit?”

  “I was running first yesterday,” he reminded her. “I like putting in a few miles first thing. Wakes me up.”

  He’d gotten a look at her, too, and decided she looked a little pissed off, a little shadowed around the eyes. “Are you going for time or distance?”

  “I’m just going for the run.”

  “We’ll call it distance then. I like having an agenda.”

  “So I’ve noticed. I think three.”

  He snorted. “You’ve got more than that. Five.”

  “Four,” she said just to keep him from getting his way. “And don’t talk to me. I like being in my head when I run.”

  Obligingly he tapped the MP3 playing on his arm and ran to his music.

  They kept the pace steady for the first mile. She was aware of him beside her, of the sound of their feet slapping the track in unison. And found she didn’t mind it. She could speculate on what music he ran to, what agenda he’d laid out for the rest of his day. How that might tumble apart if they caught a fire.

  They were both first stick on the jump list.

  When they crossed the second mile she heard the sound of an engine above, and saw one of her father’s planes glide across the wide blue canvas of sky. Flying lesson, she determined—business was good. She wondered if her father or one of his three pilots sat as instructor, then saw the right wing tip down twice, followed by a single dip on the left.

  Her dad.

  Face lifted, she shot up her arm, fingers stretched high in her signal back.

  The simple contact had the dregs of annoyance that the run and Gull’s companionship hadn’t quite washed away breaking apart.

  Then her running companion picked up the pace. She increased hers to match, knowing he pushed her, tested her. Then again, life without competition was barely living as far as she was concerned. The building burn in her quads and her hamstrings scorched away even those shattered dregs.

  Her stride lengthened at mile three. Her arms pumped, her lungs labored. The bold sun the forecasters had promised would spike the temperatures toward eighty by afternoon skinned her in a thin layer of sweat.

  She felt alive, challenged, happy.

  Then Gull glanced her way, sent her a wink. And left her in his dust.

  He had some kind of extra gear, she thought once he kicked in. That’s all there was to it. And when he hit it, he was just fucking gone.

  She dug for her own kick, found she had a little juice yet. Not enough to catch him—not unless she strapped herself to a rocket—but enough not to embarrass herself.

  The last half-mile push left her a little light-headed, had her breath whooping as she simply rolled onto the grass beside the track.

  “You’ll cramp up. Come on, Ro, you know better than that.”

  He was winded—not gasping for air as she was, but winded, and she found a little satisfaction in that.

  “Minute,” she managed, but he grabbed her hands, pulled her to her feet.

  “Walk it off, Ro.”

  She walked her heart rate down to reasonable, squeezed a stream from the water bottle she’d brought out with her into her mouth.

  Watching him, she stood on one leg, stretched her quads by lifting the other behind her. He’d worked up a sweat, and it looked damn good on him. “It’s like you’ve got an engine in those Nikes.”

  “You motor along pretty good yourself. And now you’re not pissed off or depressed anymore. Was that your father doing the flyover?”

  “Yeah. Why do you say I was pissed off and depressed?”

  “It was all over your face. I’ve been making a study of your face, and that’s how I tagged the mood.”

  “I’m going to hit the gym.”

  “Better stretch out those hamstrings first.”

  Irritation crawled up her back like a beetle. “What are you, the track coach?”

  “No point getting pissed at me because I noticed you were pissed.”

  “Maybe not, but you’re right here.” Still, she dropped down into a hamstring stretch.

  “From what I’ve heard, you’ve got cause to be.”

  She lifted her head, aimed that icy blue stare.

  “Let me sum up.” He opened the kit bag he’d tossed on the edge of the track, took out some wate
r. “Matt’s brother and the blond cook spent a good portion of last season tangling the sheets. Historically, said cook tangled many other sheets with dexterity and aplomb.”

  “Aplomb.”

  “It’s a polite way of saying she banged often, well and without too much discrimination.”

  “That also sounded polite.”

  “I was raised well. In addition, Jim also tended to be generous with his attentions.”

  “Get you.”

  “However,” Gull continued, “during the tangling and banging, the cook decided she was in love with Jim—that I got from Lynn, who got it from the blonde—and the blonde broke the hearts of many by focusing her dexterity exclusively on Jim, and closed her ears and eyes to the fact he didn’t exactly reciprocate.”

  “You could write a book.”

  “The thought’s crossed. Toward the end of this long, hot summer, the cook gets pregnant, which, rumor has it, since she avoided this eventuality previously, may have been on purpose.”

  “Probably.” It was one of the things she’d already considered, and one of the things that depressed her.

  “Sad,” he said, and left it at that. “The cook claims she told Jim, who greeted the news with joy and exaltation. Though I didn’t know him, that strikes me as sketchy. Plans to marry were immediately launched, which strikes sketchier yet. Then more sadly yet, Jim’s killed during a jump which the ensuing investigation determines was his error—but the cook blamed his jump partner, which would be you, and tried to stab you with a kitchen knife.”

  “She didn’t exactly try to stab me.” The hell of it was, Rowan thought, she couldn’t figure out why she kept defending the lunatic Dolly on that score. “Or didn’t have time to because Marg yanked the knife away from her almost as soon as she’d picked it up.”

  “Points for Marg.” He watched her face as he spoke, cat eyes steady and patient. “Grief takes a lot of forms, and a lot of those are twisted and ugly. But blaming you, or anyone on that load, for Jim’s accident is just stupid. Continuing to is mean and stupid, and self-defeating.”

  She didn’t want to talk about this. Why was she? She couldn’t seem to help it, she realized, with him watching her intently, speaking so calmly.

  “How do you know she still blames me?”

  The sunlight picked out the gold in his brown hair as he drank down more water. “To wind it up, the cook takes off, and finds religion—or so she claims and maybe even believes. Not enough grace and faith to tell the father’s grieving family about the baby, until she comes back to base looking for work. So I call bullshit on the God factor.”

  “Okay.” Maybe she couldn’t help it because he’d laid it out flat, and in exactly the way she saw it. “Wow.”

  “Not quite finished. You seek out the cook, engage her in private conversation. Though, of course, privacy is slim pickings around here. During the not-so-private conversation, the cook becomes very steamed, does a lot of snarling and pointing, then storms off. Which leads me to conclude finding religion didn’t include finding forgiveness, charity or good sense.”

  “How did you get all this? And I do mean all.”

  “I’m a good listener. If you care, the general consensus on base is she had Jim’s kid—and Matt’s niece—so she should get some support. In fact, Cards is taking donations for a college fund in Jim’s name.”

  “Yeah,” Rowan replied. “He’d think of that. He’s just built that way.”

  “The consensus continues that if she gives you grief or talks trash about you, she gets one warning. Second time, we meet with L.B., lay it out and she goes. You’ve got no say in it.”

  “I—”

  “None.” The single syllable remained calm, and absolutely final. “Everybody pretty much wants her to keep her job. And nobody’s going to let her keep it if she causes trouble. So if you don’t agree with that, you’re outvoted. You might as well stop being pissed off and depressed because it’s not going to do you any good.”

  “I guess I don’t agree because it’s me. If it was somebody else, I’d be right there.”

  “I get that.”

  “Leaving out a lot of stuff I’m not in the mood to talk about, my mother died when I was twelve.”

  “That’s hard.”

  “They weren’t together, and... that’s the lot of stuff I’m not in the mood to talk about. My father raised me, with his parents taking a lot of the weight during the season when he was still jumping. What I’m saying is, I know it’s not easy to be a single parent, even with help and support. I’m willing to cut her some slack.”

  “She’s getting slack already, Rowan. She’s working in the kitchen. It’ll be up to her if she stays.”

  They’d walked back while they talked. Now he gestured toward the gym. “Feel like lifting?”

  “Yeah. Can I use this?” She tapped his MP3 player. “I want to check out your playlist.”

  “Working out without the tunes is a sacrifice.” He pulled it off, handed it to her. “Consider that when you’re lining up the reasons to sleep with me.”

  “I’ll put it at the top of the list.”

  “Nice. So... what did it bump down?”

  She laughed and walked inside ahead of him.

  Once she finished her daily PT, cleaned up, she hiked to the cookhouse to fuel up on carbs.

  In the dining hall, Stovic chowed down on bacon and eggs and biscuits while Cards ragged on him for being a malingerer between forkfuls of pancakes. Gull had beaten her there and was already building a stack of his own from the breakfast buffet.

  Rowan grabbed a plate. She flopped a pancake onto it, laid two slices of bacon over that, added another pancake, two more slices of bacon. She covered that with a third pancake over which she dumped a hefty spoonful of berries.

  “What do you call that?” Gull asked her.

  “Mine.” She carried it to the table, dropped into a chair. “What’s the word, Cards?”

  “Plumbago.”

  “That’s a good one. Sounds like a geriatric condition, but it’s a flower, right?”

  “Shrub. Half point for you.”

  “The flower on the shrub, or plant, is also called plumbago,” Gull pointed out.

  Cards considered. “I guess that’s true. Full point.”

  “Yippee.” Rowan dumped syrup over her bacon pancakes. “How’s the leg, Chainsaw?”

  “Stitches itch.” He glanced over as Dobie wandered in, grinned. “But at least it’s not my face.”

  “At least I didn’t do it to myself,” Dobie tossed back, and studied the offerings. “If I hadn’t lost that bet, I’d’ve joined up just for the breakfasts.” To prove it, he took a sample of everything.

  “Your eye looks better,” Rowan told him.

  He could open both now, and she recognized the symphonic bruising as healing.

  “How are the ribs?”

  “Colorful, but they don’t ache much. L.B.’s got me doing a shitload of sit-down work.” He pulled out a bottle of Tabasco, pumped it over his eggs. “I asked if I could have some time today. I figured I’d walk on down, check out your daddy’s operation. Watch some of those pay-to-jump types come down.”

  “You should. A lot of people make a picnic of it. Marg would pack you up something.”

  “Maybe I’ll go with you.”

  Dobie wagged an impaled sausage at Stovic. “You’ve got that gimp leg.”

  “The walk’ll take my mind off the itch.”

  It probably would, Rowan thought, but just in case. “I’ll give you the number for the desk. If you can’t make it, they’ll send somebody to get you.”

  Marg stepped in, scanned the table as she walked over and set a tall glass of juice in front of Rowan. “Are you all going to be wandering in and out of here all morning, and lingering at my table half the day? What you need is a fire.”

  “Can’t argue with that.” Rowan picked up the glass, sampled. “Carrots, because there are always carrots, celery, I think, some oranges—and I�
��m pretty sure mango.”

  “Good for you. Now drink it all.”

  “Marg, you’re looking more beautiful than ever this morning.”

  Marg cast a beady eye on Dobie. “What do you want, rookie?”

  “I heard tell you might could put together a bag lunch if me and my fellow inmate here mosey on down to Rowan’s daddy’s place to watch the show.”

  “I might could. You tell Lucas, if you see him, it’s past time he came in to pay a call on me.”

  “I’ll sure do that.”

  * * *

  As he had a short window before a tandem jump, Lucas made a point of walking out when he got word a couple of the rookies from the base were on the grounds.

  A lot of tourists and locals came by to watch the planes and the jumpers, with plenty of them hooking the trip to his place with a tour of the smoke jumpers’ base. He figured it was good for business.

  He’d started with one plane, a part-time pilot and instructor, with his mother handling the phones. When they rang. His pop ran dispatch, helped with the books. Of course in those days, he’d only been able to give the half-assed business his attention off-season, or when he was off the jump list.

  But he’d needed to build something for his daughter, something solid.

  And he had. He took pride in that, in his fleet of planes, his full-time staff of twenty-five. He had the satisfaction of knowing one day, when she was ready, Rowan could stand on what he’d built and have that solidity under her.

  Still there were days he watched a plane rise into the sky from the base, knew the men and women on it were flying to fire, that he missed it like a limb.

  He knew, now, what it was to be on the ground and know someone he loved more than anything in the world and beyond was about to risk her life. He wondered how his parents, his daughter, even the wife he’d had so briefly had ever stood that constant mix of fear and resignation.

  But today, so far, the sirens stayed silent.

  He stopped a moment to watch one of the students—a sixty-three-year-old banker from town free-fall from the Otter. Applause broke out in the audience of watchers when the chute deployed.