Wildfire at Dawn (9 page)

“If Akbar screws this up, I’m gonna kill him. You’re great!” Then she flashed an impish smile and headed toward her chopper as she ate her pizza.

Too stunned to respond, Laura could only watch her go.

Well if that didn’t beat all.

# # #

After they finished with the trees, a fire had been started in her brick-lined fire pit. Cold pizza was inhaled and a cooler of beer had been recovered from one of the trucks. Almost no one had more than one, though, in case they were called in the morning.

They’d sat for hours, talking about fires and, perhaps inevitably, women. Krista, a broad-shouldered Nordic blond and apparently Johnny’s other main assistant, sat across the fire beside Two-Tall, razzing the men about all of things they didn’t understand about women. She was as brash and salty as many of the guys—funny, but a little out there for Laura. She wished Jeannie had stayed; she would have liked to get to know the woman better.

She was walking back in the dark from moving her truck out of the way, when she spotted Tim and Johnny standing close by the cabin’s front porch outlined in the light of the open front door. They were an odd couple, but there’d been no denying how perfectly they worked together. On the job, the two men rarely had to speak, but their communication was obviously crystal clear nonetheless.

“Damn, man, I just don’t know.” Tim’s deep voice carried easily across the still night air.

Laura braced herself. She’d been so happy. Despite the unexpected beginning to the evening—and the intense scrutiny—she’d enjoyed herself. Johnny’s team was close-knit and would walk through fire for him. She laughed a little at the metaphor. They actually did that one literally, all the time.

But now Tim was about to pass judgment on her. She wanted to cry out in protest to stop him from shattering one of the best things to happen to her in far too long a time. Johnny had come to mean so much to her, but she couldn’t speak. Instead she was forced to stand in the darkness and listen to her fate.

“I don’t get it,” Tim thumped a big hand down on Johnny’s shoulder with a blow that would have staggered a lesser man. “How does a little shit like you land such an amazing lady?”

Laura almost strangled on her next breath she was so surprised.

“You do
not
toss this one over, man. You do
not
screw this up or I will personally beat the living shit out of you. We clear?”

“Hey,” Johnny protested. “I thought you were
my
friend. You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I am, man,” Tim shook him back and forth by the shoulder. “That’s why I’m warning you. Laura isn’t normal fare. She ain’t no catch-and-release. She’s a keeper. You remember that or you’re toast.”

She slid into a deeper shadow as Tim passed by, waited until he started up his own truck and was the last to leave. Then she sidled up beside Johnny who appeared very quiet.

“Thank you for tonight. Both the safety,” she nodded toward the trees, “and for introducing me to your friends.”

He’d nodded, but said little. After he’d showered, he came to bed, curled up against her shoulder, and slipped into sleep. The poor man must be exhausted.

Laura lay flat on her back staring up at the heavy beams of her darkened bedroom. Moonlight spilled in through the window open to the warm night. The scent of fresh cut pine hung thick on the still air. They’d dead-limbed every tree for almost two hundred feet into the woods to all sides of the cabin as well as clearing the forest floor of any windfall that hadn’t already turned into more mulch than fuel. Anything thicker than three inches they’d chopped up into woodstove lengths and stacked under the cabin’s eave. In an afternoon, she had at least half a winter’s worth of wood put up.

She stared at the ceiling and hung onto the man sleeping curled against her shoulder.

Tim had dubbed her “a keeper.” Is that what she was? No one else she’d ever been with had thought so. She’d learned her independence early, because that was all she had to hold onto. Men were drawn to her looks, but that was all. She’d found her peace in the deep woods. Alone with Mister Ed or leading a group, it didn’t matter. She’d often imagined someone there beside her, but never found him.

One of the best things that had happened to her in a long time.
Yes, that had been her own thought. He actually might be the best thing ever to happen, certainly the best male thing. Well, she’d never pictured a smokejumper with an easy laugh, a bravura manner, and such incredible self-confidence. She also hadn’t pictured a man that so many people thought so highly of.

She wanted to laugh. Would have if she hadn’t been afraid of waking the man lying so soundly asleep on her shoulder. Instead she kissed him gently on the top of his head.

Of all crazy things, she’d gone and fallen in love with a man named Akbar the Great.

# # #

Akbar heard the porch deck boards creak as Laura came out the cabin’s front door.

“Johnny?” Laura had taken to calling him that almost from the beginning; he hadn’t argued and now was coming to like it. Only his mother ever called him that but he hadn’t told Laura, because…well, because it was just too weird if he thought about it. His dad always used Akbar or Akbar the Akbar with a bit of a laugh,
Great the Great.
His big sister usually called him Dipwad; the nickname had been mutual in both directions since before he could remember. There was a little worry in Laura’s tone.

“Right here, Space Ace.”

It was only an hour or so before dawn. Yesterday’s heat had continued to hang on through the night, comfortable now without being oppressive. Laura was wrapped in a light blanket which was more than he wore.

“What are you thinking about so intently out here in the dark?” She slid into his lap and rested her cheek on his hair as his arms slid around her incredible form and held her close. The better he got to know her, the more amazing she felt, which was totally backwards. First nights were supposed to be the best and then the long slow burnout as the initial heat wore off.

Their first night of making love had turned out to only be an invitation, an introduction to the wonders of Laura Jenson’s physical form. For a month, the heat had kept building, driven and fanned by the woman within.

“I’m thinking about what an incredible body you have.”

She made a fake gagging sound, “Besides, if you were thinking that, you’d still be in bed with me.”

Well, he’d known she was smart from the first moment he’d spotted her. Paybacks were such hell. Yeah, paybacks like a beautiful woman who welcomes him into her life as if he’d always belonged there.

“I’m thinking…” he nuzzled her neck and cupped her breast through the thin blanket, “…that I was an idiot and should drag you right back to bed.”

“Answer the question, Fire Boy, or get that hand off my breast.”

He removed his hand, then slid it down between her legs to cup her behind through the cloth, his wrist riding tight against her.

“Okay,” her breathing was distinctly heavier. “Maybe I should have phrased that differently.”

Akbar tipped his head and kissed her. Kissing Laura Jenson made him feel so alive and powerful it was hard to credit. It was the exact same feeling as waking on that ridgeline to see that they’d defeated the blaze and ten thousand acres of forest lay safe before him. Knowing that somehow, inexplicably, he was a part of something so amazing.

She brushed those slender, strong fingers along his face and then pulled back enough to speak, but her fingers continued to caress his cheek. “What are you avoiding?”

He tried to shrug it off, but stopped halfway through with a sigh, “Damned if I know, Laura.”

She pulled his head against her shoulder and rested her cheek once more on his hair. “Describe it for me.”

“It feels…” he growled at his own helplessness then forged ahead anyway. “If feels as if I’m watching a fire, but I’m missing something. Some key element. And if I don’t find it, it’s going to do a slopover across the control line and I’ll have a blowup with a whole new world of hurt on my hands.”

“And this doesn’t have anything to do with Tim threatening to be my champion if you screw this up?”

“You heard that?” He wished she hadn’t heard that. It was embarrassing. As if Tim could see the “something” that he couldn’t. And he hadn’t been the only one. Krista had pulled him aside and threatened him in that gentle way of hers, something about “taking a Pulaski to his nuts.” Jeannie, even Jeannie, had sent him a text message saying she liked Laura and, while she was too good for someone like Akbar, Jeannie would still let him be her friend as long as he didn’t screw up the relationship.

“Yes, I heard that,” Laura’s chest hummed against his ear. “I don’t think he gets how far that deep voice of his carries.”

Akbar sighed. “Yeah, I used to think the same thing. Tim doesn’t miss that kind of thing. He must have known you were nearby.”

“So, I’m guessing he’s not the only one who has thrown you over for me and that’s freaking you out.”

“No,” Akbar ground it out. “That’s not what’s freaking me out. I don’t think.” Pissing him off a bit? Yeah. Confusing the daylights out of him? Way. But what was freaking him out was that he wanted to shout to Laura how much he… What? How easily he could see himself still being with Laura beyond a season…or even two…or more?

A shiver ran up his spine despite the warm embrace and temperate dawn.

He couldn’t believe
that
was in there trying to get out. Having thought it, he knew what his friends had each said was true. But there was no way he was ready to deal with a “keeper.” He needed to tread very carefully here, this slope was filled with hotspots dying to reignite.

Akbar held Laura tighter for a moment, breathed her in for strength. “I’ve never been here before,” he could admit that much without getting specific. “So let me sit with it for a minute and try not to run screaming into the woods.”

“Don’t do that,” her bright laugh danced around him and made him feel lightheaded.

“Why?”

“Because you’re naked, Fire Boy. And no, you can’t have my blanket if you’re going to go dragging it through the woods.”

“Not even a corner of it?” Using his teeth, he slid it off her shoulder and nibbled on her bare skin.

“No.” But she didn’t try to tug the blanket back up.

“How about this little bit here?” he moved aside a flap with his nose and tipped her back to nuzzle the breast now glowing in the moonlight.

“Absolutely not!” Her breath was accelerating, going a bit gaspy. She gathered the blanket into her grasp and pulled it over her, around the back of his head.

Slowly, fold by fold, he maneuvered and shifted her in his lap until the blanket was around them rather than between them. And then, because the nearest protection was all the way in the bedroom, he made love to her with his mouth and his hands. He did it slowly, carefully, and very thoroughly, dragging out the exquisite mutual torture until the sunrise forced him to leave this woman and this place where he could imagine a lifetime.

Chapter 6

“What’s with you, Akbar?”
Two-Tall was scraping the soil line to clear it of burnable fuel. The MHA Hoodies were working the line up in the Northern Cascades, just south of the Canadian border in northern nowhere Washington. They were working along the border cut through the heart of the Okanagan Forest, trying to fire proof it so that the approaching wildfire wasn’t among the day’s exports.

The border here lay down in the trees offering only narrow views to the east and west. They didn’t have permission to do any felling where they normally would have on the far side of break. Americans cutting down Canadian timber was frowned on by the authorities, so they were preparing as well as they could to hold the line at the border. The terrain here was high, relatively flat, and almost wholly inaccessible by conventional equipment. So the smokies were on it.

Akbar kept his rhythm going. Nothing was showing, he was sure of that. He was right in sync with the rest of the crew. Ganged up in a line like this, they could clean a thirty-foot wide swath at the equivalent of a slow walk.

Krista set the line and used the wide flat blade of her Pulaski to drag three feet of loose surface crap, from left to right, past where she stood. Then she’d step forward and drag the next blade-width down the line. The team followed behind her stagger step, each moving the initial detritus another two to three feet away from the fire and then scraping their own section clear with a second stroke. By the time the pile reached Akbar and Tim at the end of the line, the bulk could be pretty substantial, but that’s why they were the tail end of the line—the heavy lifters heaving everything as far as they could from the fire break’s edge.

Tim, reading Akbar’s silence as an excuse to continue his harangue did just that. “You been weird ever since we cleared Laura’s woods a couple weeks back. You still good with her?”

“Yeah, we’re still good.” And they were. Mostly. Wanting to tell the woman he wanted to spend his life with her had shocked the hell out of him. He could feel the “L” word looming somewhere on the horizon like a single wisp of smoke promising imminent disaster. The “L” word was one reserved for mothers and sisters, like “Love you, Dipwad.” It wasn’t meant for women he was seeing.

Seeing.

He’d smack himself for that one if both of his hands weren’t busy. “Seeing” is what you did with windsurfer babes. “Dating” is what you did in high school, except he hadn’t. A couple of one-time movie dates with other Chess Club or Physics Club members didn’t count as even that. He and Laura were…

And that’s where he got stuck in his head every time.

Tim was on a roll, though keeping his voice low enough so only Akbar could hear it. He wasn’t talking about the fire trying to burn a new passage from northern Washington into Canada, so Akbar did the best he could to tune him out. Last thing he needed to do was talk to Tim about his love life.

Damn it! There was that word again.

He clipped his boot with the edge of his Pulaski, putting a slice in the leather. Just that much sooner he’d be replacing these boots. Damn it to hell! He liked these boots.

Tim clunked him in the helmet with the butt of his axe. Akbar had moved too far forward, not waiting for his turn to move the scrap out of the fire break. He’d broken the rhythm of the line. The ripple went up the line with missed steps, awkward moves. The pace broke.

Krista, proving she was a smart leader, called a five-minute break by shouting, “Drink up. Fuel up.”

Everyone sat where they were and dug into their personal gear bag for energy bars and water. Ox pulled out an MRE and began eating it cold. The high smoke was mostly blowing south, but the fire was flowing north following a gentle breeze and a generous fuel supply. The blue sky above the border cut belied the fire that was approaching from the south, but for the moment, it was peaceful and pretty. The choppers were fighting the battle well to the south and only rarely passed over their present position. He half expected Laura and her train of horses to show up out of the trees and flash one of those smiles at him.

But he’d seen less and less of that smile all week. Tim wasn’t the only one sensing something was wrong. Akbar wished he knew what it was, he really did. He needed something he could reach out and fix. But he couldn’t find it. He’d long since run out of places to look.

# # #

“Hi Jeannie.”

“Hey Laura,” the chopper pilot looked genuinely pleased to see her which she’d take as a good sign. “Akbar’s still sacked out. That last fire was a long, hard slog for those guys.”

“I figured.” It was only Laura’s second trip to the MHA airfield. Johnny had toured her around once, on a quiet day when almost no one was about. It was a lot livelier today even if the smokies were asleep. On the far side of the field, five helicopters stood in a line. There were two small ones, one of which was Jeannie’s MD500, two mid-sized ones looking gawky with a long two-blade rotor, and the one big Firehawk. Service crews had the covers off the second one in the line.

“Something wrong?”

Jeannie followed her gaze, “No, Denise is doing periodic maintenance. She seems to think that us pilots actually using any of her precious aircraft is a sacrilege and that we’re not to be trusted. She gives each bird a serious once-over after every fire. Can’t complain because she always gets us in the air with no downtime.”

Sure enough, Laura could see one of the team break off and move up to the next chopper. He had a tablet computer and was working his way down an electronic checklist as he moved about the chopper.

The two jump planes, parked beyond the choppers, had a cargo team going over chainsaws, sharpening axes, and testing the portable pumps using water from a fifty-five gallon drum perched on a forklift. A pair of small twin-engine planes sat at the end of the row, the Air Commander’s plane and the lead plane to guide in the big air tankers.

“Chutes will be over in the loft repacking all of their parachutes. He has a couple riggers who go over every canopy and line each time. Can’t even remember the last time someone had to pull a reserve chute. He jumped for twenty years before taking over the loft, so he’s pretty rabid about perfection, too.”

“Seems like you all are.”

“That’s what makes it work. We’re lean here, a lot of cross-training, but for every ten pair of boots on the ground, we have two more here. And for every blade in the sky, we have three pairs of boots on the ground. Takes a lot to keep us running.”

“What about—”

“You figured,” Jeannie cut her off, “that Akbar was out cold, so I’m guessing you came to see me. You didn’t come here to talk to me about firefighting.”

Laura wanted to argue, but couldn’t find any real point to it. Without her noticing, Jeannie had led her down the length of the field. Away from the bunkhouse where Johnny was sure to be sound asleep, they’d gotten back late last night—his
Sleep
text had come in after eleven. They wandered past the kitchen building and its friendly cluster of picnic tables where the crews obviously spent a lot of time.

At the far end of the field, they followed the course of a small stream that splashed and gurgled its way into the trees. About a hundred yards in, the stream slowed for a moment to form a wide pool. It was quiet here. No sense of the bustle going on beyond the trees.

“I don’t really know you,” Laura finally broke the easy silence as they sat on a fallen tree trunk and watched the water flow by, “but you were nice to me that day when they cleared my trees. I don’t know why, Jeannie, but I feel I can trust you. Maybe because of how much Johnny likes you.”

“There’s nothing between—”

“I know that or I wouldn’t have come here. That’s not what this is about.”

Jeannie nodded for her to continue.

Laura had practiced this in her head while working up the courage to come here. She didn’t know Jeannie. They’d sat back-to-back at the Doghouse but hadn’t spoken. Jeannie had hovered overhead for almost fifteen minutes while Johnny rescued Grayson Masterson, but Johnny had done all of the radio work.

Their whole acquaintance consisted of barely speaking during a the crew’s scrutiny into her viability as the love interest of the much beloved Akbar the Great.

“You’re talking yourself out of asking your question, aren’t you?”

She glanced over at Jeannie then offered a sigh and smile. “Yes. How did you know?”

“Do it myself all the time. Takes one to know one.” Then Jeannie bumped her shoulder against Laura’s. “Just ask. Right now before you actually succeed.”

“What’s wrong?” Laura gasped out a breath, then laughed. “Who ever thought two words could be so hard to say. Not quite how I rehearsed it.”

“You’re asking me for top secret disclosures about a good friend of mine?”

“I guess. Sounds kinda stupid, doesn’t it?”

“Well,” Jeannie pried up a bit of bark from the log they were perched on and winged it into the pool.

A Stellar jay so proud in his blue feathered coat had settled on the far side of the stream to take a drink. He now squawked and flapped off in a huff, stopping briefly in a nearby tree to complain bitterly before finally departing.

“I wish I could help.”

“But you can’t because he’s your friend,” Laura tried to mask her disappointment, but knew she didn’t succeed well. “I understand.”

“I can’t,” Jeannie poked her in the arm making her look up, “because I haven’t a clue. Johnny has something stuck in his craw, we can all see it. He’s even got Tim worried, which is hard to do. He’s pretty unflappable.”

“What’s stuck in there?”

“My best guess,” Jeannie smiled kindly, “is you.”

“Oh great. And what am I supposed to do about that?”

Jeannie shook her head and they went back to pitching bits of dead tree into the stream.

# # #

“Hey, Tim?” Akbar lay wide awake on his bunk.

“Huh?” Two-Tall grunted from the upper bunk.

“You awake?”

“No!”

“Sorry. Go back to sleep.” Akbar considered kicking the mattress above him to wake Tim the rest of the way up.

“Oh man,” Tim groaned. “Now is when you gotta to talk? Not on the line? Not on the flight back? What is it, three in the morning?”

“More like eight-thirty,” though the blackout curtains kept the room dark. Nothing to see except the vague outlines of a standing dresser and a small bookcase they’d managed to wedge into the corner of the small space. They were both voracious and eclectic readers, which had been their bond from the first day.

“And you’ve been awake since… Shit.” There was no real heat behind the sleepy curse. “Well, I’m awake now. Hit me with it.”

Akbar didn’t know how to start. It was all a jumble in his head no matter how much he thought about it.

“You ever gotten serious, Tim? About a girl?”

“Sure,” Tim managed around a yawn. “You’ve seen Steve’s classic Firebird. That girl is so cherry. I could get really serious about driving her.”

“Crap, Tim! I’m talking about—”

“Laura, I know. Your sense of humor has gone to hell since you started with her, you know that don’t you?”

He didn’t.

“In answer to your stupid-ass question, what does my level of serious have to do with anything to a man already standing in the middle of the flame?”

“What do you mean?”

The bunk shifted as Tim rolled over. He could see the vague outline of Tim’s head as he looked down at Akbar over the edge.

“You left serious behind a while ago, buddy.” It was the kindest tone he’d ever heard from Tim. “Sooner you admit to that shit, the happier you’ll be.”

“I don’t—”

“Crap, Akbar! How did she fall for you rather than me? Can you tell me that one?”

“Must be my good looks and superior character!” His sense of humor damn well wasn’t dead and he could give back as good as he got.

“Idiot! She fell for
you,
thickhead. Not because of any of that normal crap. Not because you’re a smokie. Not that you’re crew boss and not because you’re actually a funny guy when you’re not being quite so dumb. It’s
you
she wants. Now what you need to do is figure out how to be yourself around her and let the rest of us sleep in peace.” Tim flopped back onto his bunk. By the way the bed moved, he was digging back in to go back to sleep.

Himself? He was supposed to be himself?

He squinted up at the square-pattern of springs across the bottom of the mattress above him, but he couldn’t see it.

Be himself?

Who the hell was that?

# # #

“But he’s drifting away,” Laura indicated the latest bit of moss-coated bark Jeannie had tossed on the pool. This time the Stellar jay ignored them entirely as it started bathing on the far side of the pool with head dips and wing flutters in the clear shallow water.

The big of moss clung to its tiny boat as it slowly bobbed its way toward the pool’s outlet where the stream would soon whisk it away. “I don’t know how to pull him back from wherever he’s going.”

“I’m not so sure you can pull someone like Akbar back once he’s headed down a road.”

“Wow!” Laura felt the tightness in her throat and chest but refused to give in to it. “That cheers me up no end.”

“Okay,” Jeannie admitted, “that didn’t come out quite the way I intended.”

“Duh!”

“Let me try again. No…” Jeannie worried at her lower lip for a moment and Laura felt better for seeing that.

“No,” she started again. “I going to stick with that statement. Once he’s headed down
a
road—not as in
the
road, like he’s gone—then… I didn’t mean that. He’s…” she squinted her eyes at the pool as she searched for the right words.

So Laura squinted as well. “He’s looking for what’s stuck in his craw, but he doesn’t know what it is?”

“Right,” Jeannie turned to her with a bright smile. “Until he saw you, his life made sense. Ah, especially the women in his life made sense. He—” She cut herself off.

“It’s okay. Remember, I first met Johnny and Tim at the Doghouse.”

“Yeah, they are pretty sweet when they think they’re being subtle. But I’ll tell you what, Laura. Whatever you did to him those ten minutes or so he was at your table, wasn’t like any version of Akbar I’ve ever seen before. You changed him, right there. That fast.”