Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
AUTUMN
Five twenty-eight AM. Two minutes early. Coffee in both hands because I found the common area kitchen last night while reviewing incident reports until my eyes burned.
Nash Deveraux is already at the table.
Of course he is.
He's got a mug that says WHISPER VALE VFD in faded letters, a stack of fuel moisture reports, and reading glasses he puts on without acknowledging they exist. The glasses soften his face in a way that irritates me because nothing about this man should look soft.
He's six feet of authority in a department t-shirt, forearms thick enough to make the sleeves work, burn scar running the length of his left arm like a road map of every bad day he survived.
Dark skin, close-cropped black hair, jaw built for giving orders. His eyes are warm brown until he's in command mode, then they go flat and hard. Right now they're somewhere in between because he's looking at me standing in his doorway holding two mugs of coffee.
"You're early."
"You said you don't wait. Figured I'd beat you here." Setting one mug in front of him, I take the chair across the table. "Black, right? You've got three mugs in the kitchen, no creamer, no sugar. Wasn't hard to deduce."
He picks up the mug. Drinks without thanking me. Fair enough.
"Northeast corridor." He spreads a topo map across the table, one corner weighted with his radio. "You wanted a fuel load assessment. Here's what you're looking at."
For the next hour, we argue.
He knows this terrain. Every ridge, every drainage, every access road that washes out in October rains. His knowledge is bone-deep, earned from a decade of hotshot work before he took over this volunteer crew and turned them into something functional.
The problem is he's running a reactive operation in a district that needs proactive management.
"You've got no prescribed burn schedule," I tell him, pulling up GIS data on my tablet.
"This fuel load on the north ridge hasn't been addressed in six years.
One lightning strike in the wrong drainage, and you're looking at a crown fire that jumps to the saddle before you can get a truck up the access road. "
"I know what a crown fire looks like."
The scar on his forearm catches the overhead light. He doesn't move it. Doesn't hide it.
"Then you know prevention is cheaper than suppression."
Those brown eyes hold mine across the table. Reading glasses still on. His jaw does this thing where the muscle tightens once before he speaks, and I've known him less than twenty-four hours but I've already learned to watch for it.
"Three days on the north ridge," he says. "You want to assess fuel loads, I'll take you up. We'll camp the patrol route. But my territory, my protocols."
"Your protocols are why I'm here."
The jaw tightens again. "Five AM departure. Bring your own gear. I'm not carrying your pack."
"Wouldn't dream of asking."
Bobby Garcia appears in the doorway with a donut and a grin. "Morning, kids. We playing nice?"
"Bobby." Nash stands, rolls the topo map. "Get Torres and Remón on the radio. I want a status check on the east ridge burn scar before Autumn and I head into the backcountry Wednesday."
Bobby's eyebrows shoot up at the first name. He glances at me. Back at Nash. The grin widens.
"Wednesday," Bobby confirms. "You two need a chaperone?"
"Get out, Bobby."
Bobby salutes with his donut, winks at me, and disappears. His phone is out before he clears the hallway.
Nash grabs his radio, his reports, and his mug. Stops at the door. "Windshield survey of the district today. Grab your tablet. Truck leaves in twenty."
Then he's gone, boots heavy on the concrete floor, and I'm sitting at the table staring at the spot where his reading glasses sat. He forgot them. They're folded next to his radio charger, one temple slightly bent.
My phone buzzes.
Owen:
you settle in ok?
Me:
Station apartment. Thin walls. Grumpy fire chief. Single digit humidity. Living the dream.
Owen:
grumpy fire chief hot at least?
I stare at the text for three full seconds.
Me:
irrelevant
Owen:
so yes
My brother, ladies and gentlemen. Twenty-seven years old, lives in Sacramento now, calls me every other Tuesday to ask when I'm gonna stop moving. The answer is always the same. When the job says stop.
Six districts in six years. Three western states.
Reno, Boise, Flagstaff, Redding, Hawthorne, and now Whisper Vale.
Each assignment is a season, sometimes two.
Then the rotation notice comes, I pack a duffel, and I drive to the next town that needs someone to tell them their fire prevention program is inadequate.
The duffel is in the apartment. Everything I own fits inside it plus one backpack. No furniture. No kitchen supplies beyond a travel mug. Emergency contact on my state paperwork: Owen Blake.
This is fine. This is the job. Fix the district, file the report, move on.
The windshield survey takes three hours. Nash drives, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his thigh. His truck smells like wood smoke. Not overwhelming, just embedded. In the seats, in his jacket behind the bench, in the air itself.
We cover the east ridge burn scar first. Forty acres of charred timber with regrowth at the edges, the blackened campfire ring still visible eight months later. He pulls over, and we hike in to mark fuel loads on my GIS map.
"Tourist from Reno," he says, standing in the middle of the burn scar. Wind pushes his shirt against his chest. "Left the fire going after a weekend camping trip. Called it contained. Wasn't."
"How long before you got the call?"
"Fourteen hours on that fire line. Two minor burns on my guys. Remón lost his eyebrows." He looks at the charred stumps. "Saved every structure on the ridge. But the forest doesn't care about structures."
Something in his voice pulls at me. The weight of it. Carrying his people's injuries like they happened to him. Every fire chief I've worked with has the same gravity, but Nash wears it closer to the skin.
"My house burned when I was twelve." The words come out before I decide to say them.
His head turns. Those brown eyes on me, full attention, no reading glasses to soften them.
"Northern California. September. Stranger tossed a cigarette on a dry day.
Owen and I grabbed what we could. Stuffed animals, mostly.
My dad's fire gear was at the station. We watched it go from the neighbor's driveway. "
He doesn't say he's sorry. Doesn't give me the sympathetic head tilt I've gotten a hundred times. He looks at the burn scar around us, then back at me.
"That's why you do this."
"It is."
Something passes between us. Recognition. The quiet understanding of two people who know what fire takes, measured in acres or bedrooms or years you don't get back.
Nash turns toward the truck. "Let's finish the survey."
We drive the rest of the district in near silence, comfortable rather than tense.
He points out problem areas without being asked.
Structures with zero clearance on the wildland urban interface.
A cluster of vacation rentals with propane tanks sitting against exterior walls.
An elderly couple's property where dead brush piles reach the roofline.
"Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez," he says. "I've offered to clear that brush three times. She says the birds nest in it."
"The birds can nest somewhere else when the property burns."
"Tell that to Mrs. Hernandez. She's eighty-four and meaner than me."
A laugh escapes before I can catch it. His eyes slide to me. The corner of his mouth moves. Not a smile. A twitch. An almost.
By the time we get back to the station, it's past seven. The sun is low, the mountains going copper, and Bobby's truck is gone. The station is quiet.
"I'm gonna review my notes upstairs," I tell him. "I'll have the preliminary assessment on your desk by morning."
"My desk is the kitchen table."
"Then I'll have it on your kitchen table by morning."
He nods once. Turns toward the engine bay. Then stops. "Blake."
"Yeah?"
"The lock on your apartment." He pulls a screwdriver from the workbench without looking. "I said I'd fix it."
Before I can answer, he's heading for the exterior staircase. Taking the steps two at a time.
"You don't have to do that tonight."
"It's a security issue."
Following him up, I dig the key out of my pocket. He takes it, opens the door on the first try because apparently the lock only fights me, then crouches in front of the mechanism with the screwdriver.
The apartment is small. One bedroom, kitchenette, bathroom. My duffel is open on the bed. Tablet on the counter. Nothing else. He glances at the duffel, then back at the lock.
"You travel light."
"Seasonal assignment. No point unpacking."
The screwdriver turns something inside the mechanism. He adjusts the strike plate, tests the door twice. Smooth both times. "Should hold now. Lift and turn is gone."
Standing, he's close. The apartment is tight enough that he's within arm's reach, filling the doorframe with his shoulders, and I catch the wood smoke embedded in his shirt.
My eyes trace the burn scar from his wrist to where it disappears under his sleeve.
Raised, textured tissue, the skin a shade lighter than the rest of him.
His gaze drops. Not to my chest. To my hands. They're gripping the doorframe on either side, knuckles white, and I didn't realize I was bracing until he noticed.
"Blake."
"Yeah." My voice is steadier than my pulse.
He's looking at my mouth. Quick. Then my eyes. Then my mouth again. The muscle in his jaw works. His hand is still on the doorframe near mine, fingers close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating off his skin without touching it.
Everything in my body is leaning toward this man. Every nerve ending cataloging the space between us, how little of it exists, how easy it would be to close it.
His eyes come back to mine. Dark. Focused. The same look he had on the fire line in that burn scar, when he was reading terrain. Only now he's reading me.
"Briefing's at five-thirty." His voice is lower than it was downstairs. Rougher.
"You mentioned that."
One more second. His fingers flex on the doorframe. Then he steps back. Drops his hand.
"Lock's fixed." He turns, takes the stairs without looking back.
The screwdriver is still on my kitchen counter.
Through the thin wall, I hear his boots hit the engine bay floor. The workbench drawer opens. Closes. His radio clicks once, testing the frequency, then silence.
My phone buzzes.
Owen:
so is the grumpy fire chief actually hot or were you just being cagey
I set the phone face down on the counter next to the screwdriver.
This is a seasonal assignment. Fix the district. File the report. Move on.
The screwdriver smells like wood smoke.