Expectant Father (5 page)

“This fire’s going to be a tough one. I’ll need your help keeping the team’s spirits up, including tonight,” Golden clarified, with a glance back at the Fire Behavior Analyst. “Don’t get distracted.”

“She’s hardly my type,” Spider said too quickly, unable to resist looking back, too. Pregnant and bossy. Not his style at all.

With long fingers, Becca twisted and tucked stray golden
strands of hair behind her ears, and blinked heavily at Victoria as if she were fighting off fatigue.

“Oh, man,” Spider said under his breath as the images flooded his brain. He’d met her in Vegas—a tall, blond goddess who’d seduced him while he was at a firefighting convention the day after New Year’s. He’d been nursing one in a string of too many beers, trying unsuccessfully to forget what his father had just told him—about a half brother and a half sister he hadn’t known existed, two children Randy Rodas had fathered while married to Spider’s mom.

Becca Thomas had worn this amazing, flimsy white dress that had clung to her curves and exposed most of her creamy skin and long legs. She’d walked over to him, sizing him up, taking his measure and finding him wanting…her.

Spider wasn’t normally picky about a woman’s intellect, as long as her features caught his attention. But his nameless goddess was no slouch in the brains department and had a face that was proud with high cheekbones and bright blue eyes. The sex had been great. The conversation had been great.

And come morning, she’d disappeared without so much as a “thanks, it’s been fun.” Not that he was complaining. Earth-shattering sex and no complications was primo. He just wasn’t used to being the one who woke up alone.

No wonder he hadn’t recognized Becca at first. Her body was plumped up from the pregnancy, from her ankles to her cheeks. But the hair was the same, her gestures were the same and her sharp wit was the same. Only she looked about ready to give birth, too far along to be carrying something he’d left behind. She had to have been pregnant before they’d met. An older woman like her didn’t just get pregnant unless they were married.

Spider squinted at Becca, angry now. She hadn’t mentioned
she was married in Vegas. Spider didn’t screw around with married women. That was just wrong. Unlike his father, he considered marriage as something sacred, to be honored. If Spider even spotted a glimmer of a ring on a woman’s finger, it was a no-go.

Becca Thomas had used him for her own purposes, whatever those might be, and had made him into a filthy, stinkin’ cheater.

“S
IRUS REVIEWED HOW THIS FIRE
made a large, hot run this afternoon,” Becca spoke into the portable microphone outside the Incident Command tent as she began her part in the evening-shift briefing.

Blanketed in thick smoke, the sun was receding behind the towering Flathead mountain ridges. It would still bathe them in soft light for another hour, but already the air was cooling. Once the teams were briefed, the crews on the evening shift were heading up to the drop point. Often the winds lessened or died down at night, so some of the best suppression efforts on the ground were possible when the sun went down. Those crews on R & R tended to come over to listen to the brief, to hear the latest on the fire, which was why the group was larger than the number of men and women going out to fight the fire this evening.

Aiden stood at the back of the crowd, probably waiting to talk with her. She tried not to let his stare intimidate her. He was probably still irritated at her snappy comeback in Victoria’s defense.

Becca’s head pounded beneath her stitches. It didn’t matter that Fire Camp Aiden was cold and cocky, vastly different from the Aiden that had charmed her in Las Vegas. As long as Aiden didn’t remember her, he could glower as much as he liked.

“I’m here to tell you that we can expect to see the fire make even more runs.” Becca hated delivering bad news, especially when this fire seemed so low in priority to NIFC that the resources they needed to contain the fire weren’t readily available.

“The winds are predicted to continue to come from the north, hot and dry, which means we’ll have to be vigilant on the south slopes where the fuels are drier still. As you’ve probably heard, these winds kick up without much warning as the temperature rises in the afternoon. I know I don’t need to tell you to set a lookout, but—” she paused to pat her belly “—you’ll forgive me if I sound a little maternal toward you all. Please be careful.”

As she’d hoped, that elicited chuckles from the group.

“Now, as for the conditions you’re likely to encounter out there tonight…” Becca proceeded to go over the possible scenarios the crews were going to be working in that night, as well as trigger points—the geographical limit where a fire became unsafe for the manpower assigned and a retreat was ordered.

She could remember when she’d first started as a Fire Behavior Analyst. She’d been too earnest, all monotone urgency. The fire crews hadn’t paid much attention to her at all. It had scared her to death. If she couldn’t get through to them, their risk of injury increased. Now, after fifteen years of fire prediction, Becca knew how to keep their attention.

When the briefing ended, Becca asked Sirus to walk with her back through the sea of tents to the Fire Behavior tent, hoping to talk to him more about an idea she had to contain the fire—an idea the IC team hadn’t been receptive to—as well as a more personal issue.

Energetic crews were loading into trucks and heading up
the mountain. Becca had to give it to the firefighters. They couldn’t wait to get out there and risk their lives. They thrived on the kind of danger she tried to help them avoid.

And, even though she knew so few of them personally, she knew them in spirit. Firefighters with mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, spouses and lovers at home in their air-conditioned houses, hoping for their safe return. Becca hoped she was doing her part to see they made it home unscathed.

“Have you worked a lot in Montana?” she asked Sirus.

“Some,” he admitted. “But not in the fall. NIFC usually has me shifting to special projects by then. Desk work.” This last was said with the distaste of a man who loved the outdoors. “Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering what you knew about the weather here this time of year. Some of the locals have been saying the wind shifts when the temperature cools off. With the steepness of these ridges, we could be putting a lot of people at risk if we aren’t careful. Perhaps we should pull back. You know, build a line in a place where we know we can stop it.” This was her first experience working for Sirus. She’d served on special committees with him in the past and had learned the value of Sirus’s opinion. He knew how to work the politics and the crews without losing the respect and liking of either side of the fire line, and he cut right to the chase—no hidden agendas.

He slanted a dark glance her way. “Do you have solid information about the weather that Carl or I don’t have?”

Ignoring the implied warning, Becca pressed on. She desperately wanted Sirus to see the logic of her thinking. “Historical weather patterns can be tremendously helpful—”

“I know you want to change tactics on this fire, Becca, but you’re one voice of several that I have to listen to as I decide what we’ll do. Don’t push me,” he snapped. After a moment,
Sirus sighed and when he spoke again, his words were calmer. “Sorry. Lack of sleep tends to give me a short fuse. Look, if they send us more support for the fire, or if you can get Carl on your side, I’m more likely to reconsider that idea of yours. It’s just too soon to change tactics.”

Their current strategy was to fight the fire close to the flame. Becca believed pulling back and preparing for it was a safer strategy, and gave them a better chance to contain the fire with the resources they had to fight it.

It was going to take a good bit of convincing to get Carl to believe in her theory. Perhaps her hopes were better placed on NIFC. “Do you think NIFC will change their minds about this fire?”

“And give us more support?” Sirus shook his head. “Most additional resources are going to that huge fire in Washington. Fires are burning all across the western states, most are closer to the urban interface, threatening homes and small towns. There’s nothing here but a national forest in one of the least populous states in the union. What do you think our chances are of getting more support?”

“Pretty slim.” Becca’s belly seemed weighted down by the news. “It’s depressing. Even though it’s only been a few days, it’s at the end of the season on a tough fire. You can feel the hopelessness in everyone, from the firefighters to the support staff here in camp.”

Sirus frowned. Glancing around, Becca was relieved to find they were alone, despite the fact that crews strode with purpose past them in both directions. It was probably the best opportunity she’d get to speak to Sirus about more personal matters. He was on the hiring committee for the Boise job, which was one of the reasons she’d accepted the Flathead fire assignment.

“Speaking of chances,” Becca began, “what do you think my chances are for that Fire Behavior management position in Boise?” She barely made it out of the way of a rowdy crew carrying shovels and Pulaskis, striding toward the parking lot and their transport to the DP.

At the door to the Fire Behavior tent, Becca looked up at Sirus, who still hadn’t answered her question. His expression wasn’t encouraging. Her hopes suddenly sank to her toes.

“They’re not going to give it to me, are they?” Becca managed to say.

“I’m sorry,” Sirus said, looking steadily into her eyes. She admired his directness, even as she dreaded his take on the situation. “You have everything they’re looking for—education, experience, and years with NIFC. And you’ve earned a lot of respect for your creative, if sometimes conservative, fire strategies.”

Ignoring the label that she was too conservative—who could be too conservative when lives were at stake?— Becca waited for the
but.

She glanced down at her belly. It had to be because she was pregnant. Some good old boy who had a friend on the interviewing committee and who let the simulation program do his work for him was going to get the job. It really was a man’s world.

Still, she had to ask, “Why?”

He didn’t hesitate. “It’s your management skills.”

“My…my what?” Becca couldn’t believe her ears. “How could they say that? Every one of my direct reports has gone on to do well.”

The expression on Sirus’s face was solemn. “Many of your direct reports have gone on to do well in other fields.”

Becca’s equilibrium shifted, although her instability had nothing to do with the baby. What did you say in a situation
like this? Defend yourself? Or crawl in some hole and lick your wounds?

“They weren’t suited to the work.” Becca lifted her chin, hugging her clipboard so tightly that the baby tried to elbow it aside. She loosened her grip while she tried to make Sirus see things from her perspective. “Most of these people—let’s face it, they send kids out here most of the time—don’t know what they want to be when they grow up.” Julia came to mind, bright, but with a mindset closed to less high-tech methods of information gathering.

Becca glanced around, but her assistant was nowhere in sight. “Too many see it as a step up in pay grade rather than a calling. They seem surprised when they realize the day doesn’t begin at eight and end at five, or that they can’t just bring a printout to a meeting and read from it.”

Sirus regarded her silently for a moment before looking away. “You know how things are around here. We have to deal with body count and open slots. If NIFC gets someone in the position, they’d rather not have them looking to move or quit after their first season.”

“You’re saying that I scare these people out of the job?” She refused to believe that. She tried so hard to help her direct reports improve on their weaknesses, to weed out the ones she felt weren’t suited to the work, and this was the thanks she got?

He touched her shoulder ever so briefly—a condolence gesture. “What you’ve told me makes a lot of sense and gives me a new perspective, but—”

“That’s the way they see it back in Boise.” She bit her lip looking anywhere but at him. What was she going to do? “I’m pregnant,” she let slip lamely, her nose stinging with the desire to cry. That’s all she needed, a breakdown in front of her boss.

“There are other positions in Boise that need good people,” Sirus suggested gently. “I’m sure they’d love to have you somewhere.”

“Somewhere not in my field.” Someplace she wouldn’t as directly watch over the safety of firefighters.

NIFC didn’t like the way she managed. They considered that her weakness.

Because they sent her people like Julia and had never seen her manage top-notch employees.

The baby shifted and Becca took a step back to regain her balance. How was she going to support herself and the baby? And the little house on the outskirts of Boise was definitely out of reach. All of her plans…

“Have they…” She could barely bring herself to ask. “Have they made a final decision?”

“No, but when I was in Boise last week, that was where they were leaning.”

“So, there’s still a chance,” Becca whispered.

Sirus made a face. “It’s pretty slim. You’d have to prove that you can effectively manage.” He gestured to her tent, presumably where Julia was. “And that’s all you’ve got to work with.”

Sirus was right. Becca wasn’t getting that job.

“I’
D LIKE A WORD WITH YOU
.”
Stepping into her path, Aiden gripped Becca’s arm when she came out of the Fire Behavior tent nearly an hour later. Without waiting for her assent, he pulled her away from the main camp and into the shadows of the night.

Panic shivered through Becca’s system, making her knees like jelly.

He knew.
What was she going to do?

Her throat closed up. She placed one hand over her belly, over the baby who she’d hoped wouldn’t have to suffer an emotional tug-of-war. This close to him, she could smell the soap he’d used. It reminded her of his body pressed against hers, all hard planes and wiry muscle.

When he didn’t say anything, Becca fought back her panic. They were beyond the parking area now, beyond where anyone else was. The portable lamps mounted on twenty-foot poles cast light beyond the camp’s borders into the woods. Maybe he didn’t know.

Then why was he dragging her away?

“If you want to talk about the fire today, I’ll need my notepad.” The pounding from the cut in her temple that had finally receded to a dull ache resurfaced with a vengeance.

“You’re not going to want to take notes on anything I have
to say.” Aiden kept on marching as they entered the edge of the forest. He wore a fresh pair of fire-resistant, forest-green Nomex pants and a Nomex yellow button-down shirt, while she was still in her sweaty, smelly shorts and bloodstained T-shirt, covered only with a worn, red fleece vest.

They moved past pungent, fresh bear scat. Becca shivered, her gaze alternately darting from the ground, looking for bear tracks, and into the shadows, looking for bear. Grizzlies were common in this part of the country and had discovered base camp early, testing the patience and locks of the caterers. There was no food allowed in tents or base-camp packs on this fire, but that regulation hadn’t kept the bears away.

“If you’ve got to talk to me, just say it here.” She struggled to keep her voice even. Between the bear and Aiden, she was trembling.

With a sound of disgust, Aiden released Becca and stepped away. “I’ve been trying for the past two hours to figure out why you did it.”

Still panting for breath, Becca struggled to formulate an answer. Going to bed with Aiden, a stranger, to get pregnant had seemed logical at the time, but now? Staring into his dark, angry eyes, it seemed incredibly foolish.

He circled her. “You must have thought I was stupid. Did I look like an easy mark? That older woman, younger man thing?”

Mutely, Becca shook her head. He’d been perfect up until the point she’d discovered he was a Hot Shot. His team logo—a tree centered on an orange flame—had been permanently etched in Becca’s mind when she’d seen it on a T-shirt on his bathroom floor.

Becca continued to watch him, flooded with feelings of
shame, but she would not share this baby with a stranger. She would not stand by and let some man treat her child like a piece of property to be divided, as was happening with her nephew. Nor would she sink to fighting over her child, making them an emotional wreck.

“Why’d you do it? Why’d you make me into a
cheater?
” He leaned in closer. “Did you have a little spat with your husband? Was he cheating on
you?
You didn’t even tell me to give me a choice.”

“Hu-husband?”

“Did you know you were pregnant when we slept together?” He was pacing around her. “You must have known because you said you had the birth control covered. I don’t sleep around with married women, lady, especially a pregnant one. You’ve made me something I
so
did not want to be. Man, this sucks.”

Never much good at lying, Becca’s mouth was still hanging open when Aiden halted his tirade.

“Well?” he prompted.

“You thought I was married?”

He scowled. “Not then. But when I saw you here—pregnant as a house—what was I supposed to think?”

“Uh…” It finally registered in Becca’s tired, stressed-out brain. He thought she’d been cheating on her husband. He didn’t know she didn’t have a husband. He didn’t suspect the baby was his.

A nervous, relieved laugh escaped before she could stop herself.

“Wait a minute.” He peered at her in the gathering darkness. Then he snatched up her left hand. “You’re not wearing a ring.”

Becca pulled her fingers back. “I’m not married.” It was
too late for that. While she’d been focusing on her career, her friends and siblings had been getting married, and having babies. She’d just played a little catch-up and skipped a step or two—dating, engagement, marriage. At thirty-eight, she couldn’t wait for Mr. Right.

“But if you’re not married, whose baby is that?” He pointed at the baby nestled in her belly as if it were repugnant to him.

“It’s mine.” Not Aiden’s. She wrapped her arms around her belly as if she could prevent him taking the baby from her.

Under the orange, fire-lit sky, Becca watched the wheels turn in Aiden’s mind.

“Tell me that baby isn’t mine,” he demanded slowly in a voice shaking with anger.

“This baby is
mine,
” Becca repeated, staunchly walking the line between lying to him and admitting the truth.

“That’s not an answer.” Despite his youth, he was annoyingly smart.

Becca stepped sideways, toward the makeshift parking area. “It shouldn’t matter to you who the biological father
was.
I’m raising this baby alone.”

He shifted his stance, but kept his dark gaze on her. “Every baby needs a father.”

“Not this baby.” Becca lifted her chin. From what she knew of Aiden—his sleeping around, his wild behavior—she suspected he didn’t really want to know if his sperm had helped create the little one inside her. If she told him, it would only weigh on his conscience, if not now, then later, when he got older. And she didn’t want to open her door one day ten years from now to find Aiden demanding things like visitation and partial custody.

Instead of being relieved as she’d thought he’d be, Aiden grabbed her by the shoulders, tugging her forward until her face was near his. “Who fathered
your
baby?”

“None of your business. And even if it was, I wouldn’t want anything from you.” Becca’s knees crumpled and she would have fallen if Aiden hadn’t turned his grip from cruel to supportive.

“Too late.” His voice crackled with anger. “You took something from me in Vegas—a choice. And now I have a different choice to make, don’t I?”

S
PIDER SANK AGAINST
a sturdy spruce as he watched Becca walk back to camp. She moved slowly across the uneven ground as if she were afraid to fall.

Damn her.

Oh, she hadn’t come out and admitted the baby was his. In fact, she’d gone out of her way to give him an out, to let him think what he wanted, as if he were the kind of guy who wouldn’t step up when something like this happened.

He’d decided long ago that he’d never have kids. His father, a career Hot Shot, had been the worst excuse for a dad ever known to man.

His mother, perhaps recognizing too late that Randy Rodas was poor parenting material and that she was no better, had left Spider with his grandmother one fire season and never been seen or heard from since. At first, Randy sometimes made it home for a brief visit around Christmas, leaving as quickly and unexpectedly as he’d come. And then there’d been nothing but a card with a twenty-dollar bill to validate that Spider had a dad. It was the revelation that his father had been spending his holidays and winters with his other families—other kids that he obviously loved more—that had sent Spider into a tailspin in Vegas.

He’d have to do the right thing, whatever that was. Only the right thing looked pretty damn unpleasant at the moment.
He could just see coming to Becca’s house to pick up the kid on a Sunday. She’d be cold, looking down that finely chiseled nose of hers as if he weren’t good enough for her or their kid. And the kid would look at him as if he were a stranger.

Double damn.

The one time he’d trusted a woman with birth control—an older woman who should have known better—he’d fathered a child. If his dad was any indication, he’d make a horrible father.

History had a sick way of repeating itself.

“T
HAT WENT WELL
,” Becca mumbled to herself as she sank onto her cot. At least Aiden hadn’t demanded parental rights. He was too busy recovering from the double whammy discovery that he wasn’t an adulterer and that he
might
be responsible for Becca’s pregnancy.

“What went well?” Julia lifted her head out of her sleeping bag and opened puffy eyes.

“The day. Don’t you think?” Becca covered quickly, inwardly ruing the fact that she had to share a small tent on this assignment. At this stage of her pregnancy, she was uncomfortable all night long, tossing and turning. With Julia in the cot next to her, Becca’s burps, stomach gurgles and worse had to be controlled or embarrassingly revealed.

After her confrontation with Aiden, Becca’s stomach had twisted into knots. Add the baby bouncing on top of that and she wasn’t going to be the quietest roommate in camp tonight.

“Do you really think the fire’s going to jump the highway?” Julia asked in a voice less sleepy than her eyes indicated.

It was comments like this that gave away Julia’s love of their work, that gave Becca hope for Julia’s goals and her own.

“If the winds shift the way they usually do this time of year
and we don’t get more help, yes.” There’d be no stopping the fire’s rampage down the mountainside and through a narrow valley a few miles east of their camp.

“I think you’re wrong,” Julia said, then added, “But you’re never wrong.” There was a trace of bitterness in Julia’s voice that nearly smothered Becca’s hope for the Boise job completely.

So, her assistant disagreed with Becca’s assessment. Julia had rarely hiked these woods, rarely got her hands dirty in the field, touching the dry earth, snapping the spruce and pine needles, filling her nose with the parched air, seeing in her mind’s eye how ready it was to burn or fight for life.

If Becca’s assistant spent half as much time studying the maps of the area, local history and weather updates as she did on her makeup, she’d do fine. She had the credentials for the work. She had the interest. She just lacked the drive. And for that, Becca would push Julia until she reached her potential.

The fire business was tough. You either knuckled down or stepped down. People’s lives were at stake. The firefighters and people who lived in the area were all at risk. There was little room for error.

At the memory of her parents standing at her brother’s grave, familiar frustration churned in Becca’s belly. Her mother had never been the same after Jason had died while fighting a wildland fire. Becca hadn’t even decided on an area of study in college until he’d been killed. His death had inspired her to try and save others.

“I’d rather be wrong and prevent someone’s death, than ignore the signs. A man can’t outrun a ninety-mile-an-hour, eighty-foot wall of flame on a flat course, much less a seventy-five-percent grade.” The frustration of the Boise job being just out of reach combined with the shattering revelation of Aiden recognizing her pushed Becca over the edge. “Or
maybe you like to gamble your ego against the life of someone you know,” she snapped, immediately regretting her harsh words, but reluctant to take them back.

Without a word, Julia rolled over, leaving Becca with the sour feeling of her assistant’s resentment.

Well, Becca couldn’t please everyone. Least of all Aiden. But she wouldn’t give up—not on this fire, not on Julia, and not on her plans for a safe, independent future.

Aiden had been angry over the idea that she’d made him into something he wasn’t. Becca hated to admit it was a bit of a relief to know he was a choosy womanizer.

She’d left him at the edge of the forest without giving him a chance to say that he wanted nothing to do with her baby. From what she knew of him, he wouldn’t relish his role as a father. He was young, far younger than she was. Not just in years, because he had to be about thirty, but in the way he behaved.

Running down the mountain in his boxers. Becca scoffed. High-school hijinx, that’s what it was.

Aiden Rodas a father?

No, Becca comforted herself as she struggled to unlace her boots, leaning around her belly. Aiden wasn’t ready to be a father. He was a typical, carefree bachelor, predictable in his desire to remain responsibility free. He’d accept her wish to raise the baby on her own, and she’d continue with her plans.

At least, she hoped that’s how it all happened.

“H
EY, SON
.” R
OADHOUSE FELL
into step with Aiden at the edge of camp, dodging a man carrying two chainsaws. Darkness didn’t bring much calm to base camp. There were still people everywhere.

“Don’t call me that.” Aiden scowled, almost making Roadhouse regret that he’d even attempted to talk to his son.

“Won’t,” Roadhouse mumbled, but he kept his legs moving in step with Aiden’s, ignoring the ache in his knees.

“If it’s money you want, I don’t have anything larger than a ten on me.” Aiden walked faster.

Roadhouse wished he could turn back the clock, wished that he’d never asked Aiden for money years ago.

“I don’t need any money. I was just wondering…” What happened to you today? But Roadhouse couldn’t ask that. Aiden would bite his head off if he tried to get too personal. Instead, he said, “Heard you saw a bit of action today.”

“Too much,” Aiden replied almost under his breath, making Roadhouse wonder what was wrong. Hot Shots lived to fight fires. They never complained about seeing too much action. No. Something wasn’t right.

The crew Roadhouse served on had been lucky enough to battle the fire up close these past few shifts. If more Hot Shot crews were assigned to the Flathead fire, the non-DoF crews were going to be assigned mop-up work—cold trailing burned-over areas to make sure it didn’t flare to life again.

A fire could dance through the treetops and leave the forest floor relatively unscathed, or race along the ground, singeing the lower tree branches. In either case, a tree root or trunk could smolder for days before deciding to give the fire a second chance at life. Mop up was tedious, boring, necessary work, but seemed to be in Roadhouse’s future.