Where There's Smoke: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 1) (6 page)

“I jumped before he did. About a quarter mile down, as I came into the canyon, a wind shear rushed up and practically threw me over the ridge into the fire. I stalled, then managed to refill. I somehow steered away from the fire, but I messed up—I overcorrected and came down a good three miles from the drop zone. In a small clearing surrounded by pine.”

“I put down and rolled—a clean landing, but when I came up, I heard someone shouting. Jed—snagged in a tree.”

“He came after you.”

“Yeah. He thought I was in trouble, off course, and decided to follow me. But then he came down hard into the trees and his leg got caught on a limb. Not a compound, but a fracture all the same. He was able to let down, but he could barely walk. We called for a pickup, but we were short a chopper, and the jumpers couldn’t cross the ridge. We were cut off. And right in the path of the fire.”

“No one can read a fire like Jed.” This from Pete. She hadn’t seen him sidle up next to her, his head on his hand, leaning into the story. Reuben, too, stood nearby, now holding a pool cue, chalking it over and over.

She wasn’t sure, then, how much of this story she should tell and shot a glance at Jed. He simply stared at the mirror behind the bar, as if reliving the story with her. Except, in the crowded bar, he couldn’t exactly hear her, right?

“We got trapped. And I...” She shook her head. “Anyway, Jed grabbed me and threw me to the ground, shook out my shelter over me. I was climbing in when I realized—with his fractured leg there was no way he could keep his shelter secure. So I climbed in with him, helped him hold his shelter down.”

“You rode through a fire—in the same shelter?” Gilly asked, her voice betraying exactly how Kate felt about it.

Kate nodded.

“You saved his life.”

She shook her head, ran her finger down the moisture on the side of the glass. “Nope. The thing was, I was pretty freaked out. And I’m not sure if I wouldn’t have simply gotten up to run if he wasn’t holding me down. He saved
my
life.”

The team fell quiet, Pete glancing to Jed. Gilly played with the edge of her napkin.

And there was no need to tell them the rest, because maybe they got it. You didn’t go through something like that with someone and not emerge bonded.

“No wonder he freaked out when you came after me,” Pete said quietly. “The guy is in love with you.”

Kate stared at him, her mouth open. “What—how—did you hear him? He practically took off my head.”

“I know,” Pete said, grinning.

“Trust me. He’s not in love with me.”

“A girl saves my backside, I love her a little bit,” Pete said. “Or a lot.”

“Don’t go dropping to your knees, Brooks.”

Shouting from the front of the saloon diverted Pete’s response. She turned and spotted Gary, the buffalo, rising from the table. His chair toppled over, hit the floor with a bang. He shouted again, more clearly. “Ransom, who do you think you are?”

Jed didn’t move.

Gary bullied his way past a couple of rookies who stood in his path, pressing their hands to his chest. “I’m talking to you, Ransom!”

Jed just kept staring straight ahead.

Next to Kate, Pete put down his drink.

Reuben pocketed the chalk, his grip curling around the pool cue.

Two men had the sawyer by the arms, but he pushed one away, and the man landed hard on the wood floor. Chairs squealed back, voices shouted, but Gary kept going.

Kate found her feet, her heart lodged in her ribs as the bar fell into a hush.

Even in a crowded bar, with his recruits and veterans huddled over in private gripe sessions about their new boss, Jed knew Kate had been talking.

About him.

He’d noticed her sitting on a stool in the back of the bar the minute he walked in. She always possessed a sort of magnetic ability to arrest his attention, stop his heartbeat for a moment, and his gaze found her even now as she nursed—of course—a chocolate malt, her dark red hair loose around her shoulders, framing her beautiful face, those gray-green eyes, her curves outlined in a blue Jude County Wildland Firefighters T-shirt.

He couldn’t make out her words, but he read her story in the way she kept glancing at him and using her hands. And he braced himself for the moment when she’d get to the part where he’d lost it, nearly came unglued as the Porcupine River fire tried to deep-fry them. Or maybe the part afterwards, when his wounds caused him to go into shock.

Hopefully, however, she’d pulled back from revealing that moment in the hospital when he’d turned into a coward.

“I’m talking to you, Ransom!”

Jed hadn’t even heard the man until the bar quieted, until the voice, slurred and bitter, saturated the room.

He didn’t move. Just watched in the mirror as Gary approached him. Oh, he’d made a wise decision when he cut Big Gare from the squad.

Now, he had two choices, and he contemplated them in a long, protracted second as Gary’s sweaty mitt landed on his shoulder. Turn fast and sink his fist into Gary’s face, send him sprawling and remind him exactly who was in charge. Or...Jed could do what Jock had taught him.

Take a breath. Think. Find the contingencies, keep his feet under him.

The first choice spoke to the restless, angry energy prowling around inside him for a week now. And especially today when he was down to twelve of his twenty-four recruits.
Twelve
. This season’s rookie class might be decimated before the season even began.

Tackling Gary and letting his anger, his frustration loose on the man would only sabotage morale. With last year’s tragedy looming over the fire base, his crew needed to trust him. Which meant he needed to earn their respect.

Jed took a breath and slid off the stool.

Gary appeared ready to take off his head, his eyes glassy, his words sloppy, so Jed kept it simple.

“Step back, Gary. This isn’t going to help.”

Around the room, recruits and veterans bounced to their feet—in whose corner he didn’t want to guess. He glanced past Gary, saw the booth of rookie smokejumper recruits—CJ St. John, Tucker Newman, and Ned Marshall—spilling out. CJ adjusted his cowboy hat while Tucker assessed the situation with what seemed like practiced eyes.

Out of his peripheral vision, Jed spotted Kate, stanchioned by Pete and Reuben, working her way down the bar.

Stay outta this, Kate.
But that thought was pure reflex as Gary’s mouth tipped in a drunken smile.

It almost wasn’t fair. Because Jed had grown up with a brother five years older, bigger and faster, who thought Jed should learn how to take care of himself should their uncle ever, finally, kick them out. And Abe wasn’t one to pull his punches.

Gary’s beefy fist came at him what felt like in slow motion, and Jed moved so fast he almost had to wait for the man to fly past him. He stepped aside and let Gary’s momentum do the work. Gary slammed hard into the bar, bounced back and, aided by his copious refills of the special on tap, stepped back, woozy.

Jed grabbed his shirt. “Are you finished?”

Apparently not, because Gary swung again. Jed ducked and reluctantly grabbed his shoulder, loaded a punch into his gut that had Gary doubling over.

Jed directed him to collapse in a chair as the man turned green. “Sit there. Sober up. Go home.”

The bar remained quiet, and even Kate stopped walking his direction. He looked up at the expressions of his audience, more than a few wide-eyed.

CJ nodded to him, touching the brim of his hat. Tucker gave him a half grin and slid back into his booth.

A couple of the recruits he’d cut came over, eyed him, and picked up Gary, disoriented and grousing, but the fight blown out of him.

Only then did Jed feel the adrenaline sluice through him. It turned him edgy, his stomach clenching. As the crowd turned back to their dinners, he braced a hand on the bar. He might have worked harder this week than he thought, running alongside the recruits, leading them in PT, showing them the proper tuck and roll for a landing, then staying up late to read weather reports and check in with Conner, who was working with the veterans, helping with the refresher course.

He sank onto the stool, closed his eyes against the spin in the room.

“Can we get this to go?”

Kate. He looked up to find her standing next to him, holding out his curly fries to the bartender. Up close she smelled good, her hair soft around her shoulders.

“I’m not—”

“Yes you are.”

Hungry, was what he was going to say, but maybe it didn’t matter, because whatever he said, she was going to argue.

And suddenly he didn’t have the energy to fight with her, at least not tonight.

“Did you drive?” she said, apparently looking for his keys.

“They’re in the bike.”

She took the box of curly fries. “Add it to my tab, Patrice.”

He thought the bartender looked familiar but could barely make out the likeness behind the midnight-black dyed hair and gauged ears. And she might have lost about thirty pounds.

Aged a few years past high school.

“Are you Bo Renner’s sister?” he asked as Kate got him up.

“Yes,” Kate answered for her. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

He cut his words off then, seeing how Patrice looked at him, grief in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, not sure Patrice even heard him as he let Kate lead him to the door.

Dust settled over the town of Ember, a simmering orange just rimming the mountains to the west, and a cool, piney breeze picked up, tempering the heat of the day.

“I can smell rain,” Kate said. She still had a steadying, bossy grip on his arm, and he let it stay.

Just for now.

“It hasn’t rained yet this season,” he said. In fact, the tinder was so dry the Forest Service had already outlawed campfires in the park.

“It might be too high up, but we’re definitely in for a thunderstorm.”

“Which means lightning,” he said as he followed her to his bike. “You always did have Jock’s weather instincts.”

Oh, he didn’t know why he said that—maybe a peace offering.

She didn’t look at him in reproach or assent, just picked up the helmet. Handed it to him.

He expected her to leave him then, having prodded him out of the bar. Instead she took the key and opened the seat box. “Don’t you keep a second helmet in here?”

Before he could answer, she found it and pried it out. She put the box of curly fries inside, then snapped on the helmet and turned to him. “You’re on the back.”

She—huh? But she didn’t wait for him, just threw her leg over the seat and leveraged the bike off the kickstand. Then, “Getting on?”

“I can get the bike home, Kate.”

“I know. But you’re tired and drank half your beer, and frankly, that fight in there is my fault. Besides, you know I’ve always wanted to ride your bike.”

And for a second, everything dropped away—their fight from a week ago, seven years of tangled emotions, even the searing regret of the mistakes that nearly took their lives. Just Kate, smiling at him as if there might be hope for a fragile friendship.

Huh. He stood there a moment, debating, wondering just how many of his recruits might be watching.

“C’mon, Jed. This isn’t a fire. You can trust me to get you home.” And, for a second, hurt shone in her eyes behind the soft smile.

“I know,” he said. He sat behind her, settling his hands on her hips. “When did you learn how to ride a bike?”

“Rudy taught me.”

One of the rookie jumpers who’d lasted through the Alaska summer, sticking around after Jed had walked away—or rather, limped away on crutches, back to the lower forty-eight.

She took off down the single road that cut through Ember. Stopping at the only light in town, she flicked on the radio. Ember’s KFire filled the air with a Boston tune—oldies night.

It’s more than a feeling...

Oh, that wasn’t fair. His heartbeat slowed with the easiness of letting her drive, moving in tune with her as she turned left, toward the fire base.

He couldn’t help the longing to move his hands up, touch her shoulders, her arms. To draw her back against himself.

Wow, this was a bad idea. The sense of her under his hands roused the memories, and he was powerless to fight them.

I...dream of a girl I used to know...I closed my eyes and she slipped away...

“This song was playing that night I showed up in Alaska. I still remember it.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him, her visor up. “I remember that. We were still putting the station together for the season—the place was a mess. There were guys sewing chutes, and I was working on inventory. I couldn’t believe it when you walked in.”

What are you doing here?

The surprise in her voice, the wide-eyed, masked expression—sometimes the guilt could still rise from the dead to choke him.

“I just remember you smelled like something that lived under a Dumpster,” she said.

“Oh, that’s real nice, Kate. I
had
been on the road for five days.”

“You looked like it, too—greasy hair, unshaven. And I admit, for a minute there, I thought Dad had sent you.”

He swallowed hard, her words a knife, but thankfully she looked back and gunned the bike.