Where There's Smoke: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 1) (4 page)

“It’s just the adrenaline rush,” Kate said, digging into her bag for a comb and finding none.

“I’m not judging you. Frankly, I’d probably be in the fetal position right now, so you get points for standing. But if you feel like buying out all the Ben and Jerry’s at the local convenience store, I’m your wingman.” She got up, tugged off her hat, and unzipped her jumpsuit. “By the way, I think Pete wants a date. He’s singing your praises out there, saying you were just looking for an excuse to get your hands on him.”

Kate rolled her eyes, and Gilly laughed.

“Fear not, I told him that you know better than to fall for a smokejumper. Well, at least now, right?” She winked, pulling a towel from a stash in her locker. “I conveniently left out your wild high school years.”

“What wild high school years?”

“Just because you were in love with only
one
hotshot didn’t mean it wasn’t wild,” Gilly said. “Just you trying to get Jed’s attention had my dad pacing the floor. Poor man paid the price for being your dad’s best friend—it wasn’t fair that Jock left him in charge of you whenever he had to leave town.”

Kate finger-combed her hair out then pulled it back into a rough braid. “I wasn’t trying to get Jed’s attention.”

“Lie to yourself if you want, but I know Jed Ransom’s been on your radar since he landed on your doorstep when you were fifteen.”

Gilly threw the towel over her shoulder. “Now comes the fun—you get to work with him. Boy howdy, I can’t wait to see round two.”

“He tried to fire me.” Kate tugged on her T-shirt.

“What? He can’t fire you. You’re the jump trainer—”

“He’s the supervisor. He
can
fire me, at least from the training crew. Apparently he thinks I’m a bad influence.”

Gilly raised an eyebrow. “And…?”

“Stop. I’m the only one around here who’s jumped into every terrain in North America. I’ve logged more jumps than Reuben, Conner, and Pete combined—and Jed hasn’t even jumped since...”

Oh. Maybe Gilly didn’t know about that, because she was staring at Kate with her eyes wide, all ears, so to speak.

“Miles knows I’m the most qualified. Jed can teach them fire tactics, sure, but I’m here to make sure they survive the fall. Or I was. Now I guess I’ll throw my duffel bag back into Dad’s truck and...I dunno. See if Missoula has any openings.” Because she couldn’t rightly return to Boise and the Inter-Departmental Fire Agency, could she? Not after her resounding exit, her declaration that Blazin’ Kate Burns was
back,
jumping fire.

Of all her stupid moments, perhaps that was second only to today’s.

“Besides, I’m over Jed Ransom. I promise.”

Gilly took a breath, sat on the bench, holding her shampoo. “Whatever. But you’re not going to let him run you off, are you? This is your hometown. You are Jock Burns’s daughter. And frankly, this town needs you.” Her voice turned somber. “There are a lot of people really hurting—we all are. We’re a family here, and to lose seven of us—sure, three of the guys were from out of town, but you grew up with Nutter Turnquist. And Tommy Browning. And remember Bo Renner? He played running back for the Ember Flames.”

Kate knew the names, of course, but hadn’t spent any time putting faces to them. She sank onto the bench.

“Jock had charisma,” Gilly said. “He inspired people and made them believe that what we did mattered. Suddenly people are asking themselves, why we are risking our lives for a chunk of land and property?”

“It’s not about land and property—”

“It’s about people. Exactly. And the fact that if we let fire blaze, suddenly neighborhoods get destroyed, and yes, people get killed. And that’s what Jock would say. But now people aren’t sure—and they’re afraid. There’s talk about shutting down the smokejumper team.”

The team her father started so many years ago.

The team he had refused to let her be a part of.

The team that just might help her find her courage again.

“I told Jed that by the end of the summer I’d prove to him he needs me.”

Gilly stood up. “Good. Because he needs you
now,
Kate. Always has, since the day he walked onto the Ember base. He just can’t find the guts to admit it.”

Which was why her walking away was for the best. Especially with him looking even more devastating than he had seven years ago. Blue eyes, dark hair cut short, slightly curly, the smattering of dark whiskers across his square chin. If possible, his shoulders seemed even more sculpted—all those years swinging a Pulaski—his waist lean and solid, his legs strong under those green Nomex pants. Sheesh, no wonder she’d harbored a decade-long crush on him—the man exuded an aura of strength that made her want to hold on.

But he’d burned her once—she didn’t plan on diving back into the flames.

Gilly headed to the shower, and Kate finished dressing, grabbing a Jude County Wildland Firefighters hat for her wet head. She headed out of the bathroom and followed the laughter to the lounge.

Pete lay on the donated green sofa, tossing a football in the air. Reuben sat in an overstuffed chair, reaching for a slice of pizza. A couple of younger fellas—probably recruits—played a game on the Xbox, something with guns and fire and aliens.

The one wearing a cowboy hat, his blond hair curly out the back, glanced at her and nodded, using his manners. “Ma’am.”

Oh for crying out loud. “Call me Kate.”

“CJ St. John.” He held out his hand, and she met his grip, found it chapped and worn from hard work.

Pete cocked his head toward the open door to the ready room. “Shh. We’re listening to Conner and the boss have it out.”

Sure enough, she heard voices.

Loud, angry voices. Pete sat up, took his feet off the sofa, patting the cushion.

Instead she held out her hands and he tossed her the football. She caught it. Rolled it in her grip.

“I have twenty-four recruits out there all hoping to land a spot on a team that the Forest Service isn’t sure they want to continue. You know what will happen to this program if we have even one serious injury this summer?” Jed, his voice tight, dark.

“It’s not if a jumper gets hurt—it’s
when
.” Conner’s quiet, brutal addition.

She winced, knowing Conner’s words had to hurt.

Silence.

She glanced at Pete, who shrugged, then Reuben, his mouth set in a grim line. It was true, however—smokejumping was listed among the twenty-five most dangerous jobs in the world. If jumpers didn’t crash into trees, they could get blown into the fire, get injured by equipment, crushed by a falling snag, and, in the worst of scenarios, find themselves trapped by fire.

Finally, “Jumpers get hurt—that’s to be expected. But we can’t lose another life to fire.”

Almost on reflex Kate’s gaze went to the pictures of the seven, each memorialized in frames on the wall. Her dad’s visage—clean shaven, wearing his Forest Service uniform—grinned out at her, and she looked away before her throat tightened.

But nothing braced her for Jed’s next words. “Kate is as reckless as they come. You’ve heard the stories—”

“I have.” This from Pete. “They’re pretty amazing. I heard you outran a bear!”

Every gaze landed on her.

“It was a cub,” she muttered under the heated voices in the next room.

“Sure, she takes risks, but she’s got a reputation for knowing how a fire behaves,” Conner was saying. “And for reacting fast. Pete’s not the first jumper she’s saved out of the sky—”

“I’m a little brokenhearted,” Pete said frowning at her. “Already stepping out on me?”

“What can I say?” Kate said, but Jed’s words overran her, left her shaken.

“Believe me, I know every single one of Kate’s exploits.”

He did? She swallowed, felt the blood drain from her face.

But her eyes closed against his next words.

“Taking risks doesn’t have to include being reckless. And Blazin’ Kate is the poster child for reckless. She’s going to get people hurt trying to prove she’s just as good as her father.”

And that was her cue. “I’m outta here.”

“He doesn’t mean it—” Pete started, but she held up her hand.

“Oh, yes he does.” She tossed him the ball.

Pete was on his feet, wearing a pained expression. “Kate—”

She couldn’t take the way he was looking at her, Jed’s words adding pity to his expression. So, “Before you get ambitious, Pete, I don’t date smokejumpers.”

A second, a beat, and then he rebounded, saving her. “There you go, breaking my heart again.” He even put his hands over his chest.

She grinned and shook her head against the laughter of the team. But Jed’s words burned inside her.

She’s going to get people hurt.

Not this time.

Jed should have known that Conner, former Green Beret and the team’s communication expert, would track him down, attempt to talk him out of the rash decision to fire the team’s new trainer.

He just hadn’t expected it to happen in the middle of Overhead, around listening ears.

“Jed, take a beat here. Think about this.”

Conner didn’t do anything rash. Ever. And, frankly, neither did Jed.

Unless, of course, Kate Burns walked into his airspace. Which was exactly why he’d had to fire her from the training crew. And why he didn’t even want her jumping.

He cut his voice to low. “Trust me on this—Kate is trouble.”

“You can’t just fire her—”

“Yes, I can,” Jed had said, not stopping to have it out with Conner. Not when he couldn’t catch a full breath. “I can’t believe the entire town of Ember applauded her. Do they have any idea what that does to morale? Now every recruit will be dreaming of becoming a daredevil in the sky.”

He turned then and headed for the smokejumper wing, located right across the hall from the Jude County Wildland Firefighters offices.

“She’s Jock Burns’s daughter!”

“I know. Believe me,
I know
.”

Their fight echoed in his head as he passed the locker room.
Not on my watch. Somebody has to keep you from fulfilling your death wish. Like father, like daughter.

He shouldn’t have said that—his hurt, his grief emerging in accusation.

He glanced at Conner, who’d dropped his gear on the floor of the locker room, scrambling behind him.

“This is Jock’s fault,” Jed said. “He always fed her stories of his crazy jumps and conveniently forgot the parts where he nearly got skewered by a tree or torched by some falling snag or some errant breeze that set him down in the middle of an inferno. She grew up thinking he was invincible.”

Jed stood for a moment in the middle of the ready room, tasting the rampage of his heart in his throat. Buffalo, moose, and elk heads peered over the expanse, and at the front of the room chairs scattered a loose semicircle in front of a white board, the roster list, a call-out activity board, and eight-by-tens of every Jock Burns Jude County smokejumping crew since the man began the team some twenty years ago.

Talk about legacy.

“You can’t fire her for saving Pete’s life.”

“And I’m not firing her for saving Pete’s life. I’m firing her because...” He shook his head. “Because this town has had enough death.”

He couldn’t be here.

Jed took a breath and headed past the rigging area, the four long parachute-folding tables near the back of the room, past the Singer sewing machines and a utility table cluttered with irons, tape, rolls of cord, and material, straight for the three-story tower where they hung the parachutes. He didn’t know why, exactly, standing amid the silky clouds calmed him, but he found himself pacing through the folds of white, creamy fabric.

Putting himself back together.

No one but Kate Burns could push him past himself, ignite a side to him he wanted to extinguish.

He let the silk slide through his hands.

He shook his head. “I’ve been fighting fires since I was seventeen, and I can’t remember being this rattled.”

Oh. He didn’t exactly mean to say that out loud, and now glanced behind him, hoping he hadn’t.

Conner was looking at him, his expression enigmatic.

“I’ve never lost a firefighter,” Jed said.

“I know,” Conner said quietly. “That’s why they chose you to take Jock’s place.”

Jed let go of the silk. “They called Jock Mr. Bad Decision, Good Outcome. Did you know that?”

Conner made a noise of agreement behind him.

“I don’t have that kind of luck.”

Jed closed his eyes, listening to the hammer of his heart, finally slowing, then took a breath and brushed past Conner, heading for the roster board at the front of the room. Just outside, in the lounge, Jed heard laughter, smelled pizza—someone had reheated yesterday’s lunch.

He wanted to join them, but how could he, with the weight of their futures in his hands?

Jed stared at the board, first at his slim roster of veterans, then at the twenty-four pictures of every single recruit, along with their names and states of origin tacked on the wall. “I know their names. Their hometowns. How long they’ve been hotshots. I have a pretty good idea of whether they’ll make it or not. But more importantly, I have to keep them alive. Just like Jock did.”

He walked over to one of the pictures, a crew shot taken nine years ago. He recognized himself, young, bright-eyed, wearing his gear, two weeks of grizzle on his chin, grinning as if he owned the world.