Chapter 10
Deanna
The next morning Deanna stood outside her tent, surveying the controlled chaos of crews rotating in and out.
Five days into the Copper Creek Fire, the acrid smell of smoke had become as routine as her morning coffee.
The school’s football field now served as a helicopter landing zone.
Classrooms doubled as planning rooms, and the gymnasium housed sleeping quarters for handline crews.
To the west of the ICC, the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness unfurled stands of lodgepole pine and Douglas fir, obscured by a gray haze.
The fire had grown to eight thousand acres, creeping down the eastern slopes toward the rural subdivisions dotting the valley.
Word was the IC had requested firefighters from across the region.
Deanna couldn’t get Colton’s kiss out of her mind. She’d never been that intoxicated by a kiss and had whimpered like a lovesick puppy when he explored her mouth with his tongue. She’d melted into his kiss when his hand fisted in her hair, tugging her closer.
What scared her most wasn’t the actual kiss.
It was what it had stripped away. Every kiss before Colton had been a calculation.
Who’d notice, who would talk, what she’d win by it.
Last night, she only wanted him. Wanted his mouth on hers because he was kind and generous with a magnetic personality and so, so hot.
She wasn’t sure she knew how to do this. Her phone buzzed with a text from Colton: Busy day. See you tonight?
Deanna smiled at the screen and responded: Think I can pencil you in.
She pocketed the phone before her giddy grin could take root, and the day swallowed her whole with the morning briefing, gear inspections, and a weather update that promised nothing good.
Fire camp had a way of shrinking hours into minutes, and she was grateful for it.
Work kept her hands busy and her head out of Colton’s truck.
Time for a breather, so she perched herself on a picnic table on the Command Center lawn. With a clipboard on her lap, she reviewed the next day’s jump schedule.
She half-noticed two transport vans kicking up dust as they rolled into the parking lot, headlights burning through the smoke that hung like a dirty sheet over the base camp. Deanna’s head snapped up when a familiar group climbed out of the vehicles.
The logo on their fire packs made her stomach drop: Alaska Fire Service. There was no mistaking the Aurora Interagency Hotshot Crew.
Westlake’s hotshot crew order, the Aurora Crew, must have drawn the assignment as the next available crew. Deanna had heard they’d been working fires in the Northern Rockies this summer.
Tara Waters O’Connor stepped out first, the crew boss of one of the best hotshot crews in wildland fire.
Auburn hair hung in a long braid past her shoulders.
She moved with the authority of a woman who’d earned every bit of her reputation.
She scrutinized the camp like a general surveying her battlefield, then reached into the van for her pack.
The rest of the crew members spilled out of the two vans. One rocked as Tupa, the refrigerator-sized Samoan, jumped out.
Kenzie Quinn followed, the Australian crew member who worked on a firefighter exchange. Next, Cohen Tremblay climbed out, ball cap low over his eyes.
Deanna drew a quick breath upon seeing him.
Cohen was even more good-looking than she remembered.
Behind him, Raynie Atwood exited the van.
Deanna had heard she and Cohen had gotten married, so it was Raynie Tremblay now.
Two years ago, she’d crumpled in a Talkeetna hangar doorway, tears tracking down her cheeks all because of Deanna. She pushed away the unpleasant memory.
Ryan O’Connor, an Alaskan smokejumper, climbed out last, clapping Tanner Westlake on the shoulder as they headed toward the Command Center.
Ryan must have drawn an assignment to Rooster’s jump shack and flown to Missoula with his Alaska Smokejumper squad.
He probably rode in the Aurora Crew van to Anaconda since he was Tara’s husband.
They were wildland fire’s happily-ever-after couple.
They all had reasons to despise Deanna, and her fingers gripped the clipboard so hard the metal clip bit into her palm.
“Hey, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Deanna jumped, turning to find Colton behind her. Soot streaked his jawline. His flight suit hung unzipped halfway down his chest. Even like that, especially like that, he wrecked every good intention she’d sworn to keep. She scolded herself for loving it.
“I’m fine. Just ghosts from my past,” she said dismissively. “I also didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Did I keep you out too late on our not-a-first-date?” He tracked her gaze to where the Aurora Hotshots congregated. “You know this Alaska crew?”
She bit back a grimace. “You could say that. We’ve crossed paths.”
He glanced at them, then back at her. “I’m sensing it didn’t go well?”
She dropped her gaze, pretending to study her clipboard. “Water under the bridge.”
Colton eyed her intently. “Anything I should know?”
She waved it away with an indifferent shrug, as if it were nothing. “Not really. Doesn’t matter anymore.” Her fingers plucked a loose thread from her sleeve.
“Can’t stay long. Fire’s kickin’ up again.
” Colton motioned toward a distant ridgeline where flames licked above the tree line like the devil tasting the air.
“Someone screwed around with the water truck’s gas tanks last night.
More sugar.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Westlake thinks it might be local kids up to mischief, so he has people watching all motorized equipment.”
“This base will have more security than firefighters,” she said, shaking her head.
The Aurora Hotshots moved toward their assigned camp section, closer to her and Kylie’s tent than she wanted. Deanna’s window of avoidance shrank by the second. “I should get back. I’m next on the jump list.”
“How about dinner tonight?” he asked.
She loved the casual way Colton suggested it, like they were a regular dating couple. Maybe they were on their way to being one.
“That sounds terrific.” The words escaped before she could reel them back.
“We’ll grab dinner with Ace and Kylie,” said Colton. “He finally worked up the courage to ask her out, and apparently, she said yes.”
“That’s wonderful.” Deanna hadn’t been on a double date in years. If ever. The truth was, she’d rather be alone with Colton.
He squeezed her hand, his thumb brushing her knuckles. “Eight o’clock at the Smelter Grill on Main? The one with the elk’s head over the bar? I’ll swing by and get you.”
“No, I’ll meet you there.” The last thing she wanted was for the Aurora Hotshots to see her getting into Colton’s pickup. Their tongues would wag for decades. She gave herself a virtual eyeroll.
Paranoid much?
She removed her hand from his and stepped back. “See you at the Smelter Grill.”
“Hey, Brooks. You know you can talk to me about whatever’s botherin’ you, right? Even if it’s about them.” He jerked his head toward the Aurora Crew, unloading their gear.
She paused, the sordid, ugly truth stacked behind her teeth like a logjam. One tug and it would break loose in a torrent. But not with the Aurora Crew here now, and not with Colton about to fly into a wall of fire and her about to jump one.
“Thanks for the sympathetic ear.” Her fingers twisted the birthstone ring her father had given her years ago. “You’re a true gentleman, Sky King.”
“Shh, don’t ruin my reputation. Stay safe today.” Colton winked, then strode toward the Command Center, past a school marquee: Go, Copperheads! Beat Butte High School! Last spring’s pep rally, frozen in time.
Deanna’s radio came alive with Rooster, the jump boss. “Brooks, we need you as the JIC for a jump, ASAP.”
“On my way.” She hustled toward the crew rig as other jumpers tossed their gear in the back and piled in.
The afternoon jump went smoothly, the lightning start on the north-facing slope extinguished within hours. McPhee gave her a nod when they’d called it contained. Coming from McPhee, that equaled a standing ovation.
“Thanks, McPhee.” Deanna owned it, allowing herself a moment of satisfaction that her crew had made it out in one piece.
As the helicopter lifted off and banked toward base, she glimpsed the Aurora Crew working a section of the main fire below, with Tara directing them.
A cluster of vehicles ringed the motor pool where Westlake had posted guards on every water truck and engine. One sabotaged tank had nearly cost them a subdivision, and had forced two tankers to the ground. Whoever slipped sugar into that fuel knew the camp’s rhythm.
Someone moved through this base like they belonged here.
The thought chilled her more than the altitude. She let out a shaky breath and tightened her harness as the mountains slid past, the fire below burning on, fed by a hand she couldn’t see.