CHAPTER 5 #2
We walk to the perimeter wall and she crosses her arms on its edge, gazing past other rooftops to Elliot Bay. “For the record,” she says, glancing at me, “you don’t get to just say no to me.”
“For the record,” I reply, “I just did.”
She huffs a quiet laugh and rolls her shoulders. My fingers itch to touch her, give her a massage as I would often do when she was stressed. The wind catches her hair and sweeps it across her cheek and I’m mesmerized as she tucks it behind her ear without looking at me.
Silence settles, but it isn’t uncomfortable.
“So,” she says finally, glancing sideways at me. “Did you ever have any luck finding the safe girl?”
“The safe girl?”
“The one who doesn’t run toward explosions.”
I study the skyline before answering. “I dated safe. An accountant. An elementary school teacher. A nurse who liked yoga retreats and weekend farmers’ markets.”
“That sounds incredibly stable.”
“It was.” I let out a slow breath. “I kept waiting for uncomplicated to feel like peace.”
“And?”
“It felt like absence.”
She doesn’t look at me at first, but I see the shift in her shoulders. “And Josie… you two seem… close.”
I glance at her. There’s no way I heard jealousy within that question. “Nah… we’re just teammates and friends.” I almost laugh when I see her shoulders relax. “What about you? Any reckless smoke jumpers sweep you off your feet?”
She shakes her head faintly. “Like you, I dated. Another reporter for a while. A legislative aide who thought my job was ‘cute.’”
I wince on her behalf. “Let me guess… that went over well.”
“It did not.” She looks back at the skyline. “But… he never asked me to be less.”
There it is. The wound we never quite sutured.
I prepare to defend myself with the same old arguments, but Tessa turns to face me fully, head cocked in curiosity. “You were still smoke jumping when we broke up. Why did you quit?”
Change of subject… probably for the best. I rest my hand on the ledge and stare at the lights as memory pushes forward. “There were some lightning strikes in Eastern Washington. Late summer. Dry conditions.”
“Typical season,” she murmurs.
“Yeah… typical. Except then it wasn’t. The wind turned volatile.
We had jumped in to contain what looked manageable before it could spread toward a residential corridor.
” She doesn’t interrupt, merely listens with the same awe and respect she always gave me for my career.
“Anyway… we established a line along the ridge, but the wind shifted harder than predicted. It crowned fast—faster than it should have.” Her eyes soften as she knows this isn’t going well.
“We had two guys on the eastern flank. Good men. Experienced. I made the call to reposition and pull back from the ridge before it jumped again. I sent them right instead of left.”
Her hand stills on the stone. “I’m sure a good judgment call with the information you had.”
There she is… protecting my conscience like she always did. “The fire crowned again,” I continue. “Came over the ridge and dropped embers in the draw behind them. They were cut off before they could reach secondary containment. We found them the next morning.”
The city noise feels distant. Tessa places a reassuring hand on my arm.
“I don’t regret the call,” I say, glancing down at where she’s touching me. “It was correct based on the data we had. But correct doesn’t mean painless.”
She turns toward me fully now, eyes softer than I’ve seen in years, but her hand falls away. “I’m sorry… I know that must have been tough.”
I lift a shoulder. “I stayed another season, but it never felt right after that. I had a buddy tell me about Jameson and it seemed the right direction to take.”
“Your life has changed so much,” she murmurs. “Are you happy?”
The wind pushes her hair across her face again.
This time I reach out without thinking and brush it gently away.
My hand lingers a fraction longer than necessary and she doesn’t step back.
“I’m content,” I allow myself to admit. “And I’ll be a lot more settled if we can get you through this safely. ”
“It will be fine once I publish,” she says confidently, but I’m not so sure.
“You don’t do it alone.” Her eyes search mine, measuring tone more than words. “This isn’t an ultimatum,” I add. “It’s partnership. Speaking of which, I have something for you.”
I reach into my pocket and pull out the bracelet that one of our tech wizards finagled for me today. Tessa sees it and lifts an eyebrow. “That’s my bracelet,” she says dryly.
It is indeed. I’d pilfered it off the dresser in the guest room. It’s one of those charm bracelets that also has rounded beads and baubles, made of unpolished sterling silver.
I hand it to her. “Our guys slipped a tracker into one of the beads. He had to hollow it out a bit, so sorry about that… I’ll buy you a new one.”
Tessa’s eyes flare wide with surprise, then appreciation. “That’s incredible,” she says, turning the bracelet over. “I can’t tell they did anything to it.”
“Put it on and keep it on.”
Tessa hands it back to me, lifting her wrist in a silent request that I help her. I maneuver the clasp easily, securing it in place.
“Partnership,” she says, turning her wrist left and right to admire it. “But you don’t get to lecture me on the dangers. I’m nothing but a job, okay?”
I think it’s cute that she thinks she can dictate my feelings and in that, nothing’s changed. I bend slightly, my face nearing hers, and I’m satisfied when her eyes drop to my mouth for a brief glance before lifting again. “You could never be just a job, Tess. We both know that.”
She inhales softly, nostrils flaring and her eyes heating. Her chin lifts, head tilts. “Did you ever think about calling me?” she asks softly.
“Every damn day for a while,” I admit. “And then only about every other day after that.”
Those blue eyes light up and she chuckles. “Same.”
“But eventually, I moved on,” I say, and as expected the light in those beautiful orbs dims a bit. “You moved on too.”
“Yeah,” she says softly, like a pained admission, turning toward the wall and layering her arms on it again. “I did.”
We stand there longer than we should, cold seeping through our clothes, neither of us moving away.
Finally, she draws in a breath, and we are back to business. “Okay,” she says. “Next step is financial tracing and metadata analysis. I’ll reach out to an old contact in the state insurance office and see if they’ll talk off the record.”
“And I’ll have Josie start building deeper profiles on RainVest’s executive board,” I say. “If there’s a weak link, we’ll find it.”
She nods, professional again—but closer now. Aligned instead of opposed. For the first time since she walked back into my life, the tension between us doesn’t feel like unfinished business.
It feels like it could be a new beginning.
And that unsettles me more than any fire ever has.