Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
HAILEY
T he hike to the river’s edge is brutal, with the wind whipping the heat in a northwest current. Thick black smoke gusts around us, leaving a layer of soot and ash on our sweat-drenched clothing. We’re a dismal shade of charcoal. I don’t even want to think about the sorry condition my eyesight and hair would be in had I not borrowed the protective eyewear and neck shield from the smokejumper base.
We stick together, hugging a single file line down the rocky slope as the flames continue to hiss and smolder around us. I’m right behind Reed but have to take two steps to every one of his to keep up. He reaches back, closing his gloved hand around mine as we shuffle down the side of the dusty hill.
At the bottom, a patch of river rock leads to the water. The wind slices against the current, rippling in tight divots across the surface. The heavy weight of my pack and the blunt force of the wind nearly knock me sideways.
The next gust chops Reed’s words of “I can carry that for you” into fragments before they ever reach my ears.
I turn down his offer and instantly regret it, my eyes bulging at the insurmountable climb ahead. What a waste to have to hike down just to trek out again. But this time, the crew is digging lines as we go.
Reed says something else, but all I can I make out is “follow Dean.”
Only, Dean’s legs are just as long as his, and I can’t reach the same rocks and ledges his boots find. So, I slip and slide, one time landing both palms on a sharp rock. It takes me cutting my hand to consider that maybe I made a mistake in coming with them.
What will I do next? Stub a toe? Break a knee?
“Hayes, your glove is on fire!” Dean screams, knocking it from my hand and stamping on it with his boots.
Yep. I’m a safety risk.
“Let me help.”
It’s been four painfully long hours since I made the mistake of getting a little too close to the flames, and no one believes me when I tell them I’M FINE. Not Dean, not Reed, and certainly not my dad, who responds to my pleading in typical fatherly fashion: “You can’t perform first aid if you’re injured or exhausted.”
“I’ll keep it light,” I insist.
He lifts a tool with a steel-clawed end and lets the handle fall toward my chest. I miss it, and it plows into the ground.
“Pick it up,” he says.
I do.
“Now slam it into that pile of brush right there.” He points to a bunch of spiny plants.
I teeter backward a bit with the heavy end over my shoulder and, likewise, fall forward with the sharp teeth. I grin when it breaks the dirt’s surface and nets half a dozen branches. Maybe too many branches, I think to myself, when one snags as I pull it toward me and it rips the tool from my hands.
“Do that a hundred more times and tell me if it feels light to you.”
Okay, he’s got a point. I’m in no shape for this.
“I can’t just sit here all day and do nothing,” I say. “I promise I won’t overdo it.”
He chuckles as if that’s not possible but helps me pick up the dropped tool anyway.
“Okay. Go for it. We need all the help we can get if we’re going to sleep in the black tonight.”
I start to seriously doubt my dad’s sanity. I don’t know why I hadn’t considered our sleeping arrangement. I sure as hell will guarantee there are no flames nearby if I’m expected to be dreaming for any length of time out here. I get to work, clawing and pulling.
The crew is an unstoppable machine that only breaks for a fifteen-minute standing lunch. My admiration for their endurance is riding at an all-time high. My arms are noodles by the time dinner rolls around, and just the thought that I’ll be sleeping on this rock-hard ground makes me want to cry into my poor excuse of a square pillow.
“Did anyone see the ass on that helicopter pilot?” Murphy asks as he pumps his eyebrows up and down. He situates his tent in the semi-circle we’ve formed.
“Dude, I sat in the seat behind her, and that ripe peach was my perpendicular horizon.” Evans whistles.
I smirk. “Is this what you guys do out here? Talk about girls? You’re one pillow fight away from a thirteen-year-old’s slumber party.”
Jackson winks at me. “Join us! It’ll be fun! That reminds me”—he turns to the guys—“remember the time I tried to set Hart up with my aunt May on R&R?” Jackson says.
With those dusky blue eyes, his aunt had to have been pretty.
When they’re all loud laughter, my dad says, “Dial it back. There are female ears present now.”
I blush. “I don’t mind.”
“See, Hart? I bet Hailey would like to play this game,” Dean says.
Now that I’m out here in the woods with him every day, I won’t be able to dodge talking to Dean forever like I’d hoped. But for now, I avoid returning his smile by zeroing in on my dad’s reaction.
“Absolutely not,” he barks.
“What game?” I ask, my curiosity getting the best of me.
“Oh, come on, Supt. It’ll be fun! You can tell her all about how she?—”
“Not funny, McCafferty,” my dad says, and I hear this rumbly sound follow it.
Is he… laughing ?
I look over at him, and his shoulders bounce.
He is laughing.
I’m sure I’ve heard my dad laugh at some point. But for the life of me, I don’t remember it. It’s the most lighthearted sound.
I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to understand it. In this light, with these guys… He belongs here. I may not know this version of him that they do, but I want to. And I think this game might be the way to do that.
“I want to hear it!” I burst out.
Mostly because I can’t believe my dad dated someone. When did he have the time?
With an eyeroll, he begrudgingly lets Jackson continue.
“So, Aunt May was here for the winter carnival last year. It’s this big event the town hosts where businesses have elaborate sculptures carved out of ice and enter them into a competition. She’s a huge fantasy fan. And when she saw a sculpture of a dragon, she asked Hart to take her picture riding it. But he couldn’t figure out how to get the camera open.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Ramirez says, and the whole crew laughs along with him.
I glance at my dad and he’s touching his mustache in nervous strokes, but he’s still smiling.
“She was sitting on that thing for a good three minutes until he finally got the shot,” he continues. “And when she stood up… she ripped the crotch clean out of her pants.”
“No!” I gasp.
My dad’s cheeks blanch. It’s endearing.
“He had to fashion his coat into a diaper to get her out of there.”
He looks at me then, and we share the first smile we have in a long time.
I like this game. Done Me Dirty, they call it. I’ve been on a lot of awful dates in my life, so it’s not hard to come up with one. Maybe slightly more embarrassing with my father and a guy who I’m crushing on present. But if I want them to be vulnerable with me, I need to be vulnerable back. One dirty dating story for another.
“I’ll go next,” I offer.