Authors: Anne Marsh
Burning Up (16 page)
His Pulaski broke the earth's crusty surface and turned over rich, black soil. When he and the other men were finished, nothing would burn through the line here. Strong could keep right on going, reinventing itself as a tourist destination or whatever crazy scheme his Nonna had come up with this week. He wouldn't, he reminded himself, be here to see that makeover project through to its conclusion.
He'd spent longer in other places, strange places, during the five-odd fire seasons since he'd left his military days behind him. But leaving was always part of the drill, and Strong was just another tour of duty when you got down to it. Sure, he'd managed all right so farâhell, things had gone better than all right. Lily was a delicious challenge, and she sure made Strong a whole lot more interesting than other places. He'd make his two months, no problem.
“We know who spotted this sleeper's smoke?” Rio loped up to him, looking like he'd just rolled out of bed and not spent the day cutting line up on that ridge with the rest of the team. His hair was ruffled as if he'd shoved a hand through it.
Data points
âthat's what Rio called their fires, plotting their sources of origin in his laptop. Jack didn't know what Rio did with all those numbers, but he sure as shit enjoyed collecting them.
Data points
âthat's what Rio called their fires, plotting their sources of origin in his laptop. Jack didn't know what Rio did with all those numbers, but he sure as shit enjoyed collecting them.
Lifting a shoulder, he swiped his forehead on the soot-streaked cotton. “Flagger called it.” Man was about to get a grilling worthy of the IRS. Poor bastard wouldn't know what hit him when Rio got his hands on him.
Usually, spotting secondary fires was monotonous but important work. You sent a handful of guys to flag a route into a recent flare-up, taking a compass reading and then picking an object in their sight line. Once they had that lock, they made for it, checking over their shoulders for the last flag. Flag the new site. Rinse and repeat. The work wasn't glamorous, but they'd find those sleeper fires fast, before they had a chance to grow into something bigger. Only other way to find them was to put a plane up and just keep on flying until you saw smoke.
The access road that would take them to the ridge above the fire was rutted and muddy. Worse yet, the way was blocked by fallen trees the team would have to clear. The team was already breaking up the fallen trees with hand axes and firing up the chain saw. Evan was on lead; he might prefer jumping, but that man knew the chain saw better than any of them and could make it sing in his hands as it chewed through old wood.
Mentally Jack marked snags. He'd send a team back later to clean up the hazardous trees on the side of the roadâif they needed to use the fire road again, it would be clear. In one spot, the bole of a collapsed tree blocked the road and had the team limbing the fallen tree with a chain saw.
“Town like this,” Jack muttered, “there shouldn't be all that much to burn.”
“Just Ma's.” Rio flashed him a grin, his face streaked with soot and sweat. “Lose her place, and you can kiss your pool table good-bye for the rest of the summer.”
“Not to mention any hope of a cold beer,” Evan grumbled.
Rio's good-natured curse was lost in a series of catcalls from a group of local firefighters. “You going to get your ass in gear, flyboy?” one of the ground crew called. “Because we're putting this fire out single-handedly over here.”
Grinning fiercely through the mask of soot and ash and sweat painting his face, Evan headed toward the new flare-up, driving his Pulaski into the ground. Some of the boys here would be in it for the money, the chance to score big and get out, spend big and play the rest of the year. Build up a nice nest egg that bought a man some freedom to live a little. Most men couldn't do that with nine-to-five and a desk. Plus, this thrill of danger was the closest a man came to the battlefield without re-enlisting.
On the other side of the access road was a slice of canyonâand a little development of ritzy homes. Most of them were summer places kept by the superwealthy who sometimes came up to Strong to play in the mountains. Fortunately, the houses were mostly empty right now. Jack's mind ran the logistics while his hands kept right on shoveling. A few of those houses would belong to locals. That meant people living there. People who weren't going to like an order to evac.
He hotfooted it up to the ridge. The fire hadn't climbed to the top yet, and another team was back-digging like mad, churning up the dirt to stop the fire's slow creep.
Clearing the top of the ridge, he got his first eyeful of what lay on the other side.
Hell.
A few of the homeowners had done the prudent thing and cleared back the brush. House nearest the ridge, however, was just the prettiest little disaster-in-waiting he'd laid eyes on recently. Mother Nature had decorated the roof with a thick layer of dry pine needles, and then the happy homeowner had made matters worse by planting a real nice border of flowering shrubs around the place. Maybe if the damned plants had gotten their daily dose of water, it wouldn't have been so bad, but those bushes had dried up to a handful of brown twigs just begging to spark.
A few of the homeowners had done the prudent thing and cleared back the brush. House nearest the ridge, however, was just the prettiest little disaster-in-waiting he'd laid eyes on recently. Mother Nature had decorated the roof with a thick layer of dry pine needles, and then the happy homeowner had made matters worse by planting a real nice border of flowering shrubs around the place. Maybe if the damned plants had gotten their daily dose of water, it wouldn't have been so bad, but those bushes had dried up to a handful of brown twigs just begging to spark.
One hundred percent pure tinder. The few sprinklers belatedly wheezing and spitting water onto the front lawn weren't going to help much, either. Man of the house had now hauled himself up onto the rooftop, vigorously wielding a bright green garden hose. The anemic stream of water wet the roof and rained down on the dust-dry yard. The bright yellow plastic slide tucked up against the side of the house meant children inside.
This wasn't going to end well. “We need to evac the residents.”
Rio nodded, doing a 180 on his work boot. “I'll get the sheriff on the radio.”
There wasn't time for that. “They need to leave. Now.” There was a minivan parked in the driveway. He figured they could toss a few essentials inside and hightail it down to the town. If they were lucky, they'd come back to a house.
Hell.
He hated working on the ground. He needed to be up in the air, where he could see the big picture and get right to the heart of the fire.
Hell.
He hated working on the ground. He needed to be up in the air, where he could see the big picture and get right to the heart of the fire.
Ben already had his feet moving. “I'll go down there. Let them know what's up.”
“You think they're going to listen to you?” Ben didn't have an evac order. No way he could force the homeowners to pick up and go.
“They will,” Ben said grimly. “Folks around here still remember the last fire to hop that ridgeline. There's a reason these homes don't have more than twenty years on them. I'll just point out the similarities and let them know there's plenty of room for them down in Strong.”
Jack nodded as Ben scrambled down the slope. If Ben said he could do it, he'd give the older man the benefit of the doubt.
There was one other house, higher up and perched smack on the edge of the canyon. Probably had one hell of a view. Searching his memory, he came up with a name. That mansion-in-training was the Haverley place. Old man Haverley had made piles of money building some Silicon Valley company from the ground up. He'd retired early, then come on up here to sit and stare at the mountains. Jack had gone to school with the grandson.
Wildfire didn't respect your bank account any. “Haverley at home?”
Rio shot him a surprised look. “Old man Haverley? He dropped dead maybe three years back. We all thought he'd go on forever, but we were wrong. His grandson has the place now. Edward.”
Eddie Haverley had inherited himself a real nice place. He'd also clearly taken Fire Prevention 101, because he'd done all the right things to get that mansion ready for the dry season. The front yard was a nice piece of xeriscapingâall white gravel and drought-resistant plants. Brush was cleared and the trees cut right back around the edge of the property. The slope was clear, and there were well-positioned stone walls and a swimming pool, all ready to cut off a fire's advance. Hell, even the trendy fire pit was ringed with slate. Downright professional. His eyes narrowed. That preparation could just be money talking, as Eddie Haverley clearly could afford to hire the best.
Or not.
Was fire season a little more personal for Eddie? Down below, people started hurrying out of the other house. A dog barked, and the minivan roared to life.
“You think they'll come back to a house?”
Fire was always impossible to predict. The wind could shift or the fire find a hidden source of fuel. All it took was one good dry patch.
“Let's get a plane up,” he decided. “I want a load of retardant dumped here. Here. And here.” He jabbed a thumb into the map.
“Not going to be cheap,” Rio warned. “You want to burn the cash for two homes? That one”âhe jerked a thumb at Haverley's placeâ“is sitting pretty sweet. He'll probably ride out these flames with just a little scorching.”
Jack followed the pointing finger, looking down at the home tucked at the bottom of the slope. He should let them take their chances. It was just one house. The fire line should give the structure a fighting chance, and Ben had cleared out the owners. Even as he watched, Ben began trudging back on up the slope as the minivan disappeared down the road.
Those folks would be heartbroken if they couldn't come back home.
Hell.
He'd be lucky to make it home tonight himself.
He'd be lucky to make it home tonight himself.
Chapter Fifteen
L
ily should have been planning the next steps for her farm. She'd thought about hosting a pick-your-own lavender weekend, despite the crazy-making potential of inviting hundreds of people to tramp around her fields. Opening her farm up to the public wasn't something she was ready to do yet. Even though she knew it wasn't fair to blame Jack Donovan for the fire tearing up the nearby ridge, she wasn't feeling fair. No, what she was feeling was downright mean.
ily should have been planning the next steps for her farm. She'd thought about hosting a pick-your-own lavender weekend, despite the crazy-making potential of inviting hundreds of people to tramp around her fields. Opening her farm up to the public wasn't something she was ready to do yet. Even though she knew it wasn't fair to blame Jack Donovan for the fire tearing up the nearby ridge, she wasn't feeling fair. No, what she was feeling was downright mean.
When she looked north, she saw the smoke, a thick gray-black column rising up into the sky. That fire was damned big, and Jack was out there.
Happy to be out there.
Well, she was happy to be where she was, too. Drying lavender took about a week, and today she'd taken the first step, hanging the fresh-cut stems with paper clips to wire lines strung up inside the drying shed, where the warm darkness cocooned the flowers and kept the color from fading. Another year, and she'd add roses and hydrangeas, see if she couldn't expand her line some. Only the dark blues and purples dried well. She'd planted Hidcote and Dutch lavenders, Royal Velvet and Provence. Scent clung fiercely to those stalks and to every inch of her skin. A dozen showers weren't enough to wash away the thick, rich aroma, and she wouldn't have had it any other way.
She'd just dropped the latest load of lavender at her shipper, and those flowers would be in Seattle florist shops by morning. Now her arms felt empty without their usual load. She needed something to keep her mind off the man battling on the ridge. He could be getting himself killed up there.
While she was strolling down Strong's main street, pretending there was nothing wrong. No one missing.
“Shipment's off?” Nonna called from her front porch.
Lily didn't want to stop and talk, but there was nothing casual about Nonna's question, and she had too much respect for the older woman to simply drop her a handful of words and keep on going. Plus, Uncle Ben would kick her ass two ways to Sunday if she took that approach. “Sure is.”
Those dark eyes examined her face. “So you've got a little extra time on your hands.”
Like hell she did. She cursed again, because just she'd borrowed Jack's favorite set of cusswords. What she had was a working lavender farmâthere
was
no free time in that job description. “If I keep at it,” she said, avoiding the question because she wasn't stupid enough to walk
straight
into Nonna's little trap, “I'll clear just enough to make things right with the bank this month.”
was
no free time in that job description. “If I keep at it,” she said, avoiding the question because she wasn't stupid enough to walk
straight
into Nonna's little trap, “I'll clear just enough to make things right with the bank this month.”
Nonna took a ladylike sip from the iced glass set by her elbow. “So you have some time.” The rocker creaked as Nonna got up and poured another glass of lemonade. “Sit with me.”
Reluctantly Lily took the offered lemonade, perching on the edge of the porch. This was a command performance.
“You need to slow down some,” Nonna said. “Take a few minutes. Ben checked in a little while ago. Our boys won't be back for a while yet. They've got that fire on the run now, but there's still work up there for them to do.”
She decided to give in with good grace. Jack Donovan wasn't hers, would never belong to just one woman. She'd share him with Nonnaâand likely with at least a dozen more.
“Uncle Ben is used to fighting fires,” she said cautiously.
Nonna just smiled, which meant Lily wasn't putting one over on the older woman. Not today. “But we both know I'm not worried about him, don't we?”
She threw caution to the wind. “I don't want to talk about Jack.”
Nonna smiled. “Jack's never been an easy one. He's worth the effort, though, Lily. If you make that effort, I don't think you'll regret it.”
She didn't need Jack. Well, maybe for sexâbecause sex with Jack Donovan had exceeded every fantasy she'd dreamed up on her ownâbut she wasn't stupid enough to confuse sex with anything else. That morning he couldn't wait to get the hell out of her bed, out of her house. To go fight a fire that could kill him. She stared at Nonna and wondered if she knew what her son was up to, if she worried herself sick whenever her boys rode out of town to chase a fire.
“It gets easier,” Nonna said quietly. “And harder, too. Jack's real good at what he does, Lily. He doesn't take chances he doesn't need to take. The job he's doing is an important one.”
“I know that.” She did, too. She just wanted to be
as
important to him, and that needy part of her made her angry. She knew Strong needed him, but she needed him, too. Wanted him to need her, as well. If he thought he was sleeping with her tonight, he could damn well think again. He'd be lucky if she let him stay on the porch. “He's a damned hero. I know that.”
as
important to him, and that needy part of her made her angry. She knew Strong needed him, but she needed him, too. Wanted him to need her, as well. If he thought he was sleeping with her tonight, he could damn well think again. He'd be lucky if she let him stay on the porch. “He's a damned hero. I know that.”
“Strong needs a man like that on its side.” Nonna sighed. “But you've got your reasons to dislike fires, haven't you? What happened back in San Francisco isn't something easily forgotten. If you want to talk about it, I'm here. Or, if you want to forget it ever happened, that's your choice, too.” Nonna's eyes promised sympathy. Warmth. A shoulder to cry on if she needed it. As if the older woman understood exactly what it meant to come home one day and realize that home wasn't a safe place.
“I want to forget.” She swallowed. “I do. I'm tired of being afraid, of looking over my shoulder. I don't know if I can stop, though.” Those memories of the flames were right there, waiting for her, when she closed her eyes. “Strong was supposed to be safe. How do I know this fire is just another summer fire? How do I know
he
didn't set it? And that, this time, he won't take everything I care about away?”
he
didn't set it? And that, this time, he won't take everything I care about away?”
“We don't know.” Lily didn't miss Nonna's deliberate choice of pronouns. “It seems pretty clear to me that this town needs saving in more ways than one.” Ice cubes clinked, hitting the sides of the glass as Nonna thought over what she'd said. “Fire season is never kind, but jobs went away a long time ago. Strong needs all the help it can get.”
It was true enough that many of the people she'd grown up with, gone to school with, were flat-out gone now. You wanted an education or a choice in jobs, you left. It was as simple as that. Some of them, though, well, some of them came on back, didn't they?
She had.
“We've got ourselves an ice cream place, a few antiques shops,” Nonna continued comfortably. “Couple of places where visitors can lay their heads. The winery. But what else are folks going to do around here? We need more places like your farm, Lily. That farm of yours, it's going to bring in money and visitors.”
“You're saying lavender is sexy?”
Nonna snorted. “Guess I am.”
Nonna looked at Lily, took another sip of lemonade, and made up her mind. “He's a good man.” Lily just froze, and that was all the confirmation Nonna needed. She hadn't missed the interest in Lily's eyes, not ten years ago and not now. She'd give Lily what she could. Not too much, because it was Jack's story, after all, but she was his mother, damn it, and that gave her some license to interfere. Just a little.
“You're talking about Jack.” Lily gave a little half laugh that wouldn't convince anyone. She was fighting her feelings, just like Jack was. Lily had always been cautious. She wasn't outright denying the attraction, though, and that was good. Just maybe Jack wouldn't be so alone after this summer ended. “Why?”
“Why wouldn't I?” She headed on into her kitchen, leaving Lily no choice but to follow her or risk outright rudeness. She loved the vintage tile. Jack had done the whole kitchen over for her right before the boys finished high school, bringing the Craftsman home back to its former glory. Even then her boy had been good with his hands. She'd thought, for just a little while, that he'd choose a different path than the military, but there was no arguing that the service had made a man out of her boy. “You were always watching Jack, even when the two of you were too young to know what you were getting yourselves into.” If she wasn't mistaken, that was chagrin she saw on Lily's face. “He's my son, Lily. Of course I saw what the two of you were getting up to. I had my hopes, too.”
“What did you think was going to happen between us?” Challenge replaced chagrin. What Lily's voice didn't make clear, the stubborn set of her chin did. Jack wasn't going to have an easy summer of it, but that wasn't a bad thing. If he wanted this woman standing here in her kitchen, he'd have to fight for her.
Jack had always loved a good fight.
She started pulling sandwich fixings from the large refrigerator. “I've lived a pretty good life of my own. I've been kissed a time or two. Done my share of whispering and talking and hand-holding.” There was amusement in her voice when she thought of those memories. And a touch of sadness. Sometimes it seemed as if she only talked in the past tense, about people and places long gone. Memories were good, but there was no holding on to them. They were over and done with. “I think I had a pretty good idea of what you kids got up to down at the swimming hole.
“Maybe.” A smile creased Lily's face, lighting up those beautiful eyes of hers. “We got up to plenty of mischief, Nonna, but that was all. We weren't too outrageous.”
“Did you want to be?” She added mustard to the first stack of ham sandwiches. Rio would want his plain, so she laid out more bread.
Lily, bless her, grabbed the plastic wrap and started in on the sandwiches. “It wouldn't have mattered, Nonna. Jack was never going to be any less than a gentleman.” The mental picture she got, thinking of Jack as a gentleman, had her snorting. Jack was a fighter and a protector. Raw. Hard. Lily had seen sides of Jack he wouldn't share with a mother. He was no gentleman. Jack had never held back a day in his life. Except maybe that one.
“He kissed you.” The knife sawed effortlessly through the thick bread. “Back in the day,” she clarified, because she had a pretty good idea what had happened since Jack's return to Strong.
“Yes.” Lily's voice was cool, but Nonna didn't miss the hint of nostalgia. “He was damn good at it,” she admitted, laughter coloring her voice. “I'd be lying if I said he wasn't. I wasn't his first.”
“But do you want to be his last?” Nonna started loading up the cooler. Not too heavy, she decided, or she and Lily would never get the blasted thing into Lily's car to take to the boys.
“Jack's not the settling-down type.”
“Not the settling type, that's for certain. I ever tell you how he came to me?” Lily's mute shake of her head was carefully nonchalant, but there was no missing the interest in her eyes or the way those capable hands stilled on the sandwiches. She had Lily hooked.
“Jack,” she continued, “well, he was always first out of a room, first to end a conversation. Not to be rude, you understand, and not because he didn't care, but because he needed to be the one who ended it. He'd already had too many people walk out on him, and he was only ten. He was all wiry muscles and scrapes, just plunging in and letting me know, even then, that he'd be staying put just as long as he felt like it and not a minute longer. He made me realize that the dreams I'd had about being a foster parent were just that. Dreams. He made me work for his trust every day. He'd already been in three, maybe four different houses by then. He figured mine would be just another stop on the road.” She shook her head. “Turns out, I'm even more stubborn than he is. That had to have been a shock for him, but, somehow, we all survived.”
“What were his birth parents like?”
“Not much for hanging around, so Jack didn't get a chance to know them, but you'd understand all about that.” Lily's mother had left her with her uncle and hit the road, never to return. “You had Ben, though. Jackâwell, he didn't have anyone at first.”
“When did he meet Evan and Rio?”
“They're quite a trio, aren't they?” She treasured those memories of raising a pack of wild boys. She'd been like Wendy with the Lost Boys, even though she'd never been the sweet and nurturing type. She'd given them all of herself, and that, it turned out, had been just enough. They were every inch her sons. “They met as runaways, down on the beach. Accidental doesn't mean they weren't family, though. You couldn't separate those boys. Caseworker made it clear she wasn't responsible if I tried. Previous foster mom only wanted to keep one. The lot of them took right off.”
“They ran away?” It wasn't hard to imagine what couldâand wouldâhappen to a ten-year-old boy out on his own. Nothing good. Nothing she wanted to imagine happening to Jack.
“Tried.” Nonna shut the lid on the cooler and started pulling cold cans of soda out of the fridge. “Course, being not quite ten, those boys didn't get all that far. They'd made their point, though.”
“You took all three.”
“Of course I did. They were a package dealâthe boys had made that clear. Folks around here thought I was just plain crazy. Maybe I was, but I wouldn't have traded those boys for anything. There I was, looking forty closer in the eye than I liked, and I had this big house. Together, we made it a home. Three years after they came to me, the state of California finally let me make it legal and adopt them. Since then we've had our ups and our downs, but we've got each other's backs, and no one lies to anyone in this house. They've never let me down.”
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